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Ste Jormur @stejormur.bsky.social ⋅ 8h
🥹
(I'm the butt of the joke in @damnyouwillis.bsky.social's #DumbingOfAge comic on 3/25/25)
Full strip: www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/b...
Pat Brosseau @droog811.bsky.social ⋅ 1d
StarWars @StarWars.activitypub.awakari.com.ap.brid.gy ⋅ 3d
DiscussingFilm @discussingfilm.bsky.social ⋅ 3d
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She got outta her dreams!
[points to ↓ to continue the next line]
…And into her car!
Beep beep, yeah!
Objects in the rear view mirror …
Hopefully objects in your rear do _not_ view mirrors. :O
And into a tree
what the WOAH since when did Alice look like THIS? ^^
…I’m confused, because as far as I can tell this is pretty much how Dumbiverse Alice has always looked, more or less? Apart from the gray lipstick, anyway. Most of the changes are really just down to Willis’ art style changing over the last decade.
The art style shift has been kind to her.
The gray lipstick looks good though
Slightly longer head hair. Thus hotter (as is the case with Asher [her brother] and Ethan [not her brother]).
Alice is Asher’s sister?! TIL
Well, probably not. Some speculatin’ goin’ on about it. Mostly due to similar noses and hair color.
Her last name is Chen and his last name is Park, so they probably are not siblings
My siblings and I all have different surnames. Well, we will once I’ve got the money for The Change, anyway. That’s still 3 between 5 people, though.
Ayy same! Except my older sibling did the change. They figured someone might as well match the last name of our mom if they were changing their first and middle name. I’ve got my dad’s last name and my little sister has her’s. Half sister by blood, full sister by spirit.
Is it? i thought it was purp at first. tho i suppose it is gray-ish. which is an underrated color but i imagine, tho while you can prolly get any color these days it’d proll ybe advertised as ‘silver’ liptstick or some ‘flowery/poetic’ name so the ycan avoid using ‘grey’ the same way you dont’ get ‘beige’ lpistick versus nudel ol
Forget Alice, “Billie” just instantly transformed right before our eyes! Digging the new hairstyle!
That’s her “problem solver” hairdo. I take it as endemic of her shifting back to Billie.
Endemic???
Diagnostic?
Emblematic?
Indicative?
You mean the old hairstyle (modulo currently being too short to fluff out or do a ponytail). Nor is she dressing all-fancy-growed-up. Jennifer looks very Billie today.
No, I mean _new_ hairstyle. I mean, I get the symbolism, but the shortness in the back and the messiness in the front makes it look different from her old hairstyle, and it looks very appealing to me.
But will the tag change back?
Jennifer only becomes Billie if she succumbs to the dark substance and transforms like Doctor Connors and the Lizard.
the dark substance is the lipstick right?
Whose lipstick?
Alice’s lipstick, if Willis answers prayers.
No, it’s the ponytail that does it.
it is you.
wow, it’s been a while since I last been awake for new page release~
Oh, there you are, Peter! I mean Billie!
Oh man it’s been a while
Only like 10.5 years…
Wowee
I really cannot bring myself to care about Jennifer
She has emerged through shadow and fire reborn!
BACK TO THE SHADOW, BILLIE!
YOU SHALL NOT PASS!
I’ll make a note in the log.
You can’t fool me, that’s just a younger Dora from QC.
Or a genderbent Marten.
It *would* explain Dora’s atrocious issues when it comes to relationships…
We do know Faye goes to this school…
Might be “did go to this school”. Her father committed suicide in her freshman year. She dropped out. Might have already happened. If not already, then Spring Break or Summer?
I think the timeline would put Dumbiverse!Faye past the point where her father killed himself in QContent
Time _line_? Oh, no, no. Ain’t no linear about it. We’re into wibbly wobbly stuff.
that’s WILD to think about
This just fits in with my theory that there’s nothing special about this floor. Everyone at IU goes through ridiculous amounts of drama.
If that’s Faye’s dad, you can see why she fell for Marten.
We all know where this is gonna go…
Alice is Amazigirl!
She shows up snooping around just where one of the reporters investigating her is. Coincidence?!
Coincidence?? I think not!!
Will we finally get Billie back?
/goes to make popcorn
She’s got the scrunchie in… we’re halfway there!!
I hope alice snaps her out of this
“That name no longer has any meaning for me.”
“It is your true name, you have only forgotten it!”
Out of what?
This is who she is.
She’s fucking hallucinating. She’s seeing things that aren’t there, like Dorothy’s name on a newspaper (Dorothy died trying to injure Blaine) or Lucy dating Jacob (Lucy is gay), all of this is fake.
You make a convincing case.
This is the most Taffy take of all time.
I thought I’d peaked with “Jennifer is Mike”.
I kinda thought that scrunchie Jen always wears on her wrist was a sobriety reminder. I wonder what her putting her hair up with it means. Besides her bangs getting out of hand.
*Billie* typically kept her hair in a ponytail, so…..
It means she’s about to Solve Problems. And make some more in doing to.
It is the Scrunchie That Was Broken, but now it has been reforged, so that the one true Heir to the Prom may wield it
I didn’t even realize she was wearing it in the previous strip (thought it came out of a pocket.
*checks older strips*
It magically disappeared, when she knocked on (Amazi-)Sals door.
She was wearing it on her way there as well as when leaving.
Since art mistakes are impossible, she must have absentmindedly shifted it to her left wrist while her hands were behind her back before she knocked, and shifted it back afterward. I wonder what deep insight into her personality this subtle body language is meant to convey to the reader?
This behavior indicates that Billie is great at handjobs but hates giving them.
She’s had that scrunchie on her wrist since her first appearance post time skip.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-11/02-look-straight-ahead/spending/
The only time it’s not seen is when she wears long sleeves and you can easily assume it’s still there. I always quietly wondered why she wears it till it clicked to me that it’s probably a kind of sobriety memento or something.
ALICE! AAAAAAAAAAAAA, sorry, I’ve been rather invested in her for years, so the flashback story was good, but god, this is even better.
It’s almost as if some overreaching narrative, concocted no doubt by some fiendish tormentor entity, were inexorably driving these two to interact!
Willis, sitting over his drawing tablet like Bugs at the end of Duck Amuck: “ain’t I a stinker?”
WELL SHIT, that dream flashback was timely.
Flashback, foreshadow!
This isn’t the most important thing but that lipstick looks real good on Alice.
heh, I knew I wouldn’t be the only one who would notice that detail, and yes, the purple matches the black
The shade is called “smoke show”.
It really does
Hey, what’s the worst possible rebound Jennifer could have, besides Ruth?
… okay probably Leslie.
But this is a close third!
I’d be pissed if Alice allowed that.
I”m really hoping Alice’s time with the Ents has given her wisdom yes.
GholaHalleck with the underrated best comment of the evening.
Faz is great
Okay I forgot he’s like 13 in this universe. But that makes it even worse!
Faz is 16 by now and carries a printout of the relevant law to assure you it’s okay to have sex with him.
That’s alright then, it’ll just be a relationship so terrible people will take it as a cry for help. Maybe get both of them committed. That might help them, come to think of it.
such a normal boy
Of course. Faz has charts to prove it.
This chart shows that Faz has a normal number of spontaneous erections for boy his age.
A definitive right answer!
For an extremely contextual value of right.
YES!!! I was hoping to see Alice again! I really want them to reconcile!
…I mean, this is Dumbing of Age, I’m not gonna get my hopes up, but anything’s possible, right?
I’m not-so-secretly hoping Alice rips her to shreds for her self destructive behavior and general ego riddled nonsense.
Already happened once, why not a second time
Or, Alice having got her emotions out in the open at their last encounter, they could have a more sober (and sobering) talk about All That and What Happened After, and sort of re-start their acquaintance. Hm, I guess that is reconciling. But maybe to something less intense.
My money is on Jennifer trying to quickly end the conversation and run away from the feelings because she no longer has any way through a conversation with Alice specifically other than ‘be strong and introspective’ ‘self deprication’ or ‘flight’ and she’s constantly chosen ‘flight’ when given the option
Alice was the one who chose “flight” last time.
“Billie? Yes, that is what they used to call me. Billie the Gray. I, am Jennifer the White, and I come back to you now, at the turn of the tide.”
Aww someone else already made the reference
(Yay someone else already made the reference and I don’t have to look up the exact wording :P)
But can she convince Alice that she has become the cheerleader she should have been?
“You made us all run away so you could get that balrog’s xp all to yourself!”
Is that a DM of the Rings reference in 2025 AD?
Pleased, I am, that someone else recalls the ancient lore of DM of the Rings.
From 2006, by Shamus Young (sadly, RIP).
Aw I didn’t know that the author had passed away
DM of the Rings was I think the first webcomic I got into (either first or second, I can’t remember if I went from that to Darths & Droids or the other way around).
… Oh, wait, is Alice related to Asher?
Something about her character design here reminds me of him, and I just realized that they went to the same school as well.
As far as I remember, there was never any interaction between the two, but they have a similar design.
Oh boy, something tells me that if they are related it could unleash more chaos.
He WAS the one who opened the door for them at the Prom though…
That just seems like an odd co-winky-dink to me.
Her last name is Chen, so that’s probably unlikely. He’s Korean, she’s probably Chinese or perhaps Taiwanese or Singaporean.
Asher is mixed, right? And I think Alice is too… so they could possibly be related on their non-Asian side?
I don’t recall any mention that Asher is mixed.
I can’t find it now, but for some reason I swear there was a line that both Jennifer and Asher had being mixed race in common.
I think it’s the hair and noses, similar shapes.
Alice got a “Roman” nose from somewhere, but Asher’s looks to me more like it was broken.
The combination of being generally Asian-looking with that nose is rare, so, yeah, probably.
Damn. Alice is looking good
Yeah, this aesthetic is REALLY agreeing with her, truth be told.
A thousand percent this. She’s quickly becoming a favorite character for me.
craziest thing about the post-flashback Alice reveal is that the little bit of hope i had for a Dana return has grown x1000000 stronger
Given how evil Willis is, I wouldn’t be surprised if Sarah missed some horrifying context to why Dana going back to her dad was a bad thing despite or because of her depression.
I have to wonder about that, and if she did return, if she’d side with Raidah or if she’d think Sarah did the right thing.
thats like at least a good chunk as to why i would be super interested in a Dana return, even though realistically i know it’s no big loss if Dana never comes back.
feels a bit scandalous to say nice things about Raidah considering how much ppl hate her but IMO i honestly think she was genuinely friends with Dana and like. wouldn’t be so actively nasty to sarah & co. about what happened if it was just some clout chasing shit.
Regardless on if Dana would side w/. Sarah or Raidah there’s just a lot of really good potential character drama there !!!
Raidah chasing clout is no weirder than Sarah being here to get an education so she can become a lawyer.
… why is getting an education to be a lawyer weird, exactly?
I’m confused at that response because it implies you think my point is it’s weird versus establishing how not weird Raidah is.
Raidah is weird because she thinks human relationships are completely transactional and has no concept of people caring about each other, to the point she can’t imagine Sarah trying to get Dana help for unselfish reasons.
oh lol rip your comment was NOT there when i posted my second follow up
really didn’t mean to undercut your point by posting the exact opposite opinion. totes fair that you have a different takeaway though
That’s a fine opinion, she would be more interesting if you were right, but it seems like wishful thinking to me. Though it could just be me who has no interest in giving the benefit of doubt to mercenary types Like Raidah (or Linda or Blaine).
that’s more than fair lol, i just always feel like giving Raidah the benefit of the doubt bc unlike Linda or Blaine, Raidah’s also just a dumb college kid going through her own dumbing of age. in a cast that has more than it’s fair share of lovable jerks, she’s kinda a fun foil bc she doesn’t have the narrative benefits of being a main cast character, while also not being a full caricature like Mary is
idk if that’s weird feels pretty normal to me.
Normal, as in, lots of people are like that, not normal, as in, healthy and positive human behavior
I see no reason to normalize it even if a lot of people do it. Maybe a better word would be common.
Ah, then you and I disagree on whether that level of clout chasing is normal behavior. Easily explained, thanks.
ive seen enough people doubt Raidah’s ability to form genuine connections + relationships, or at least unable to form relationships that aren’t just opportunities for her to raise her social status, that i mostly put that sentence there as a means of disagreement. i just think Raidah’s a lot more interesting if she’s a major asshole that can still be hurt and wronged by people she cares about vs. just being a major asshole who’s relationships are all just soley machiavellian bids to make powerful connections
As much as I like it being left ambiguous, it is tempting to imagine Dana coming back. There’s other options besides one side being right or wrong. They could have both been wrong, a mix of right and wrong between them, or Dana could just say she doesn’t know even now what would’ve been right or what she wanted.
Gravatar choice for that statement is _interesting_ gravatar choice.
Honestly she might have words for both of them
Most interesting possibility is if she sides with Raidah, blaming Sarah, but context reveals she’s actually wrong and getting sent home did help her.
Simple validation for Sarah would be too easy, better to leave it ambiguous, but at the same time some revelation that she got sent back to abuse or something would just break her completely.
she would feel imense guilt for sure but would hopefully realize it was still the best option she had to work with at the time. I think Sarah’s stronger then that.
I feel like love triangle hijinks may be on the horizon.
That would require Walkie to breakup with Dorothy again… well, OK, that’s going to happen anyway for DoJoJoe.
But, will Alice make a good Katchoo? Because Jen-a-Billie has been totally Francine.
None of these words are in the Bible.
Well, but, will a, good, has, and been all occur in the Bible.
Prove it.
I think the bible was mostly written in Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic so probably not
I doubt King James knew Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic, so there.
Will has been good but, well…
Gesundheit.
Interesting.
But who’s Tambi?
Sal perhaps? She has the fighting skills down, but that would make Walky Bambi. And Danny Casey.
Katchoo, as in Katina Choovanski?!
That…is a name I have not heard (or read) in a long time. A _long_ time.
Seems there are couple of fans around.
Man, Ruth is going to be very jealous if Billie is back because of another woman.
yeah
and it’ll be hilarious xD
Billie’s not back, that’s just the name Alice knows her by and it’s too fraught a relationship to open by insisting on the name change.
…and the Toxic-yuri-ometre continues to climb to greater, more dangerous levels of potential.
At this stage, it’s more like a Geiger counter.
That yelling seal, with the overhead caption getting more and more A’s as the clicks intensify.
It was I.
Ship ahoy!
Oooh, let’s see if we get some development from this!
ough why do they both have to look cute. alright lets go
So betting on them getting together, then Alicee realizing that Billifer is actually toxic, knocking her fully off her pedestal, and her realizing that she needs to hard core change her ways, not just superficially
I think she has that realization a long time ago.
Alice’s last appearance was her calling Billie “poison” and a “drama hurricane”, so she’s already realized that
Oh wow I have poor short term memory with the side characters
“I’m gonna go give Daisy a piece of my mind and a piece of my ass!”
“Left or right cheek?”
thank fuck i’m not the only one whose mind went there.
The mention of ever-horny Daisy and Jennifer tying up her ponytail, ready for business…….
I think Its Billie that needs to be protected from Alice.
…. I know I gonna regret this but, why?
You’re incapable of coherently explaining why, so I won’t ask that, but what do you think Alice might do to Billie?
Billie is dead, my friend. You can call her…Jennifer!
*Batman theme music plays*
Yes, Billie, short for Billiam.
Otherwise, her name is Plain Ugly To Me
It’s my headcanon that Alice has taken up cocaine as a hobby. She also makes little string dolls of people she sees around campus.
Aww, that’s nice. It’s good to have hobbies.
Scrunchie Check: It looks like the same shape as the one Billie wore to prom. Not sure if it’s the same colour, and maybe it’s a different style, but it’s significant enough that I noticed.
If I had infinite time I would go back through the tags and track Scrunchie’s appearances.
Yeah, I thought about that when I saw it on her wrist yesterday. And then I thought of the, “wait, she’s not wearing a scrunchie to prom, right?” reaction, and thought, “Huh, I guess she did, in fact, wear a scrunchie to prom.”
So I made a post but it’s stuck in the moderation queue, I assume because of the buttload of links. Reposting without links:
TLDR: she has been wearing it on right wrist since the time skip (Look Straight Ahead: Spending), but when she wears jackets with full length sleeves the jacket conceals it (Joementum: Charlie & Switch).
However! She wore a scrunchie on the day she met the Walkertons (Don’t Stop Billie-ving: Butt butt bus). Also sometimes she wears it on her left hand (Don’t Stop Billie-ving: Billie). I’m not going back through the entire comic so unless so unless someone else happens to remember, I don’t think she wore it in first semester?
Alice!! <3 !
Flashing back to Meet the Robinsons™, here.
(Which is weird, because I usually only get the bit with the T-Rex from that movie. Just needed the right trigger, I suppose.)
Whoa Alice looks hot!!
She looks like a bassist who also does backup vocals in a girl-rock band.
Yee! ^^
Oh shit, tomorrow’s Valentines’ Day…
Oh, no!
How very convenient!
alice is so pretty
I like the blue lipstick.
Is that a JoJo’s reference?
It requires more Dramatic Posing!
Well if nothing else maybe bumping into Alice will make her realize she’s regressed to her toxic ways and not burn her bridges with Daisy. or maybe she’ll just double down hard to predict.
Billie looks so cute with the lil messy ponytail
Another depressed bisexual girl with medium length hair. Alice needs a pair of glasses to complete the look or this will never go anywhere.
I’ve got my fingers crossed for lesbian and not depressed, but we’ll see how it goes!
One of my favorite artistic choices of DoA is the use of sound effects that are *exactly* the action taking place at the moment. “Collide”, in this instance. Another would be the time that Becky got dressed in an instant, following getting “naked for science”.
If anyone here remembers Don Martin from MAD magazine, his collision sound effect would be something like, ” Klonkfsshh!”
maybe a CLONK-A-BONK!
Holy flashbacks, Amazi-Girl!
“Sudden Alice!”
“Sudden Billie!”
——-
“Hey, you got your Alice on my Billie!”
“And you got your Billie on my Alice!”
——-
Well, one can hope.
Does Alice work for the newspaper too? If so, it would be funny if she’s been there a long time and Jennifer only just now noticed.
to be fair, jennifer storms in and storms out
I don’t think she’s likely to be afforded a desk
“Jennifer, meet Alice, my assistant editor. She’s been here all year.”
I’m kinda rooting for these two crazy kids
Jennifer looks so cute omg
Drop it like its hot, drop it like its hot. No seriously drop it the sheer amount of combustion will set the school on fire with how much of a flaming pile of drama this would be unless Jennifer somehow ‘finally get’s character growth’.
Would be hot though.
Interesting, for everyone else, Ms. Billingsworth has demanded that she be called Jennifer, but not Alice. She lets Alice call her Billie. Not even Walkie is allowed that. It looks like Jennifer/Billie has some unresolved feelings, for Alice. Maybe this is the start of something positive for her. Even if she never reconnects with Alice (I kind of do, seeing Ruth is with Jason), she’ll come to terms with being Bi/Pan. Stepping out of the closet would be healthy for her.
she had a minor idenity crisis when introducing herself to Tony so I think it’s largely that she’s been feeling very conflicted about her new identity as to why she doesn’t correct when someone important from the past addresses her as Billie.
Maybe just that it’s not worth correcting her when you don’t expect to exchange more than a dozen words.
I think she’s having second thoughts about her transformation. That may not be the only thing going on, though.
She’s Billie when she has her hair in a ponytail. Which is why we see her looking in that direction. Others have surmised she keeps the scrunchy with her to remind herself to stay sober.
“There is no Billie…on Zuul.”
Of course not. She’s a Netflix exclusive!
*otherworldly Dio voice*
You thought it was Jennifer, BUT IT WAS I, BILLIE!!
Gotta love how Billie/Jennifer is wearing the ol’ navy and gold in this one!
The reasonable thing for Billie to do here, given the tenor of her last conversation with Alice and how it ended, is say ‘oh, no, not ominous, it’s just that I’m going by Jennifer now. You couldn’t have known, and I was Billie the whole time you knew me, so it’s okay. Anyway, nice seeing you! Bye!’ And then beat feet.
Alice was very clear about wanting nothing to do with Billie, after all, and hopefully Jennifer remembers both that and the reason why. (Not the crash, but the ‘it’s no big deal, jeez!’ aftermath.)
Which undoubtedly will be exactly what she will do, as Jennifer is well known for making sound, reasonable decisions in her life, especially when it comes to her friends and potential romantic partners.
Our girl’s got this one!
The comic is not actually named Smarting of Age.
It’s Smarting of Jennifer, so what you said will 100% happen
*Whoof*. No correction, no ‘actually I go by Jennifer now’… this aint one of her People Who Were Around While She Was Doing Bad But She’s Doing NORMAL Now.
Poor Jennifer.
I think this is supposed to be an awkward look for Billie, but she looks super cute!