The Dumbing of Age Book 10 Kickstarter, for the 236-paged Renounce Magical Thinking and Embrace Empirical Evidence, has just passed $48k! When it reaches $50K, we unlock the tenth magnet, HOSTAGE SARAH! She’s new art. Hot dang.
18 days to go!
The Dumbing of Age Book 10 Kickstarter, for the 236-paged Renounce Magical Thinking and Embrace Empirical Evidence, has just passed $48k! When it reaches $50K, we unlock the tenth magnet, HOSTAGE SARAH! She’s new art. Hot dang.
18 days to go!
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not even a realtor and tryna lock someone into a bad purchase before they catch on??
that reminds me I should check GameStonks lolololol
(I don’t actually own or short any, just massive curiosity)
Diamond Hands!
Apes Together Strong
Keulen, please explain your comment…
It’s a line from Rise of the Planet of the Apes that was used during the r/wallstreetbets GameStop stock short to refer to the unwashed masses of casual day traders holding their stocks to drive the value sky-high, and get one over on the professional short sellers who drove it down in the first place.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ArqEUAgKUZI
Before the Gamestop thing it was also a recurring meme on reddit that was sometimes (way too often) used for racist crap, cuz it’s reddit.
Ugh. Fuckin’ racist assholes have to appropriate everything into a dogwhistle…
Well the original planer of the apes series was about the racist metaphor that black people would take over the world so racists using that phrase is not very surprising. (A lot of movies from the 20th century used apes, especially Gorillas as a racist metaphor to black people such as king Kong )
Good choice.
In the long run the market will be rational. In the short run the market can be irrational longer than you can afford.
Prices can’t rocket up forever. It’s only a matter of time until this new speculative bubble we’re in goes *pffbblt* and things come back to reality.
The trick is to not be the one left holding the bag when the music stops.
But for real estate (or the dating analogy here) the trick is just to get in early, before the price goes up. At least if you’re buying to live in, not to flip. If you buy your house when the price is low, you’re not left holding the bag when the bubble pops.
Yeah, I bought about three years ago and my only regret is not buying sooner. For maybe 10% more than I paid for a townhouse, I could’ve gotten a single-family with a garage in the same town a year earlier.
Clock’s ticking Lucy!…And also Jennifer since it appears Walky’s newfound hotness transcends gender. Walky bout to get all the d and p he can handle!
Even
BillieJennifer has noticed.I’m not say he was definitely going to steal Asher from her if that interaction had lasted longer than an instant but I’m also not saying it’s a complete impossibility. Asher did initiate that interaction!
Billie Jenn(ifer) is not his lover.
She’s just a girl who says that he is the one.
But the kid is not his son.
Even Yunru noticed.
Even Speedwagon
is afraidnoticed!eh maybe Asher’s flirting with him, but people viewed as hot also tend to get more respect and non-sexual attention as well. (at least hot dudes do, i feel like being a hot chick comes with more blowback).
Although it does need to be pointed out that FIT HOT GUYS HAVE PROBLEMS TOO
GREAT NOW I’M GONNA BE IMAGINING ASHER, JOE, AND WALKY SINGING THAT NUMBER
Walky definitely going “Give us back our shirts, you MONSTERS!”
Is that Billie giving advice to Lucy? Because either way the metaphor goes over my head.
She’s saying she needs to get with Walky before he realizes that he’s attractive and interesting for confusing reasons now.
His value has gone up, but he has not realized it, so she can jump in there right now without having to try harder.
I see, thank you for explaining. Now that I get it, that’s not the worst advice Jennifer could be giving.
It underestimates Walky’s ability to be oblivious.
Thanks, I was trying to figure out what Jennifer meant in the last panel.
It roughly translates to “get that dick before someone else does”
Yes. The advice is “lock down Walky as bf* before he realizes he is now hot enough to be a catch**”.
*sign a lease
**before he realizes the property value is up
She’s saying you gotta cash in on that caramel cock before demand suddenly skyrockets.
While we are at explaining, would someone please be so kind and explain to me what Joyce meant several panel ago when she said that it’s bullcrap that it’s only now that Walky is hot enough for Dorothy? Because I must admit I was pretty confused by that.
She meant that it’s “bullcrap” (probably to be read as “too bad”) Walky is only in Dorothy’s league now that they’re broken up and wasn’t while they were together.
she stans Dorothy pretty hard and never thought Walky was worth her.
there’s a bit when Walky sort of breaks up with Dorothy (for bad reasons, can’t remember precisely) and Joyce gets way mad at him and forces him to go apologize and make up with Dorothy, and once he’s done so she says to Dorothy (in Walky’s presence i think? lol) “good! now you can break up with him”.
the issue wasn’t that they were broken up, see, that was good actually. but Walky dumping Dorothy?! hell no
Walky broke up with Dorothy over wearing pajama jeans in public. Which Dorothy said no to but in fact had no say over. It was actually a moment I agreed with Walky because you get to be presentable and comfy, there is nothing wrong with that in my eyes. Just people being too caught up in norms to respect that pajama trousers are in fact still trousers you could choose to wear in public if that is what you want to do. I have and not a single person remarked on it. My dad didn’t even notice and we left the house together and were in a car together for 40+ minutes. He was allowed to make this a dealbreaker if he wanted to.
Joyce decided that was a stupid reason and made them get back together though because she thought Walky didn’t even deserve Dorothy and therefore was an idiot for doing so.
OTOH, you’re also allowed to not date people who do things you don’t like, so it’s not entirely wrong for Dorothy either. Relationships require negotiations and compromise, not ultimatums and edicts.
My take on that scene, in addition to the bits with Joyce, is that it was highlighting Dorothy’s expectations of romance, set by dating Danny for so long, and how she needed to adjust. Danny (at least at the start of the comic) would have backed down if challenged like that. Walky didn’t. Dorothy didn’t expect that.
iirc, dorothy basically stated she had that conclusion herself.
“Huh. I actually like this analysis.” sie said mildly.
[mildly as in without a strong sense of surprise but also think mild weather]
Thanks!
Chop chop, Lucy, clock is ticking.
People Find Walky Hot is the most bizarre storyline since Amazi-Girl Rides Again or Mary is Happy or The Whiteboard Ding-Dong Bandit.
Good I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks so. Except this weirds me out way more than any of those other stories.
I’m getting flashbacks to the “Ethan as Prophet” arc, m’self.
I maintain that is the greatest story of Shortpacked! Sadly, it didn’t end with them singing “Always look on the Bright Side of Life” while he was duct taped to the store sign.
The Booster works in mysterious ways.
That squiggly bubble in panel 3 makes me think Billie is rethinking her boyfriend choices.
In panel 4 you mean? She’s just glancing at Walky and realizing his hotness.
Correct. Evee, that needn’t mean Jennifer is rethinking her boyfriend choices – she is a professional ogler, and is capable of considering someone hot without being personally attracted to them.
Also, it’s her ‘brother’, so there’ll always be that mitigating ‘EW’ factor.
like you know when gay dudes say “I’m gay, not blind.”?
Glad Walky is finally getting some positive attention, he’s been the butt of too many jokes so far for my taste, it feels a little mean. This is refreshing.
He’s obviously had it rough since Mike died. It’s nice to see him have nice things even if he doesn’t realize it yet.
Y’know how if your roommate dies you pass all your classes? What they don’t tell you is that you also get all of their residual sexual energy.
I disagree on the grounds he seeks negative attention as a means to avoid growing up. As he matures, he will attain greater hotness.
It’s amazing how we can have meaningful conversations on a topic people would normally boil down to ‘If you stopped acting like a moron, you’d be more attractive’.
Jennifer is helping.
Helpful advice right there
Listen to Jennifer, she’s an alpha bongo.
Seems charming.
*plays The Mary Jane Girls’ “In My House” on the P.A. speakers*
Guys I am just ONE ounce of laziness too lazy to draw all the girls dogpiling on Walky. Just really fucking lay it on thick. Just go full harem protagonist. But that sounds like a ltota work.
*removes three oz. of laziness from Yoto’s pantry*
*puts two oz. of laziness back in Yoto’s pantry to maximize cliffhanger drama*
*am too lazy to transport laziness to or from Yoto’s pantry
*sitting in the pantry eating the actual food, so the total weight goes down anyway but the laziness stays*
If you do draw that, I’ll be kinda bummed that cartoon porn doesn’t really do it for me. You do good work.
It’s better than me. REAL life porn doesn’t do it for me. Don’t know why. Actual humans just don’t get me hot but cartoons do.
I want Walky to realize what he has but in a weird spin, be kind of…Unaffected by it. In the sense that he acknowledges people must think he’s attractive but he himself doesn’t feel like his self-worth has changed and him dealing with that.
Asher just likes the
stockWalk(y)Prediction:
Tomorrow (i.e., in a few weeks), he wakes up, his hair’s grown another millimeter or two, and just like that, he is no longer Hot.
No, it’s not logical or plausible. It’s comedy.
I think this is the new status quo now actually. It probably won’t be acknowledged to this extent again since this is a storyline about him being hot now, but I think moving forward it will just be a thing. I mean it already kind of was. He was hot before the time skip and it wasn’t just his hair. Dorothy noticed and his butt being exceptional to most sexualities is canon.
Honestly, that’s totally how growing out short hair works. Looks awful! Looks ok! Looks awful! Looks amazing! Looks awful!
Amen. The attention you have to pay keeping shorter hair presentable is a big part of why I prefer to grow it out.
Long hair needs more love and care, sure, but that’s dependent entirely on you giving it. No amount of dedication will make a bad length of hair work.
She’s not wrong, Lucy, make your move.
She’s just standing around with something to prove, she’s gotta get on the floor and bust a move.
Nice Young MC callback there.
I mean hey, If you want it. You got it!
I expect someone to draw Lucy in yellow…(and something rhymes with Yellow, I forget–don’t get old, kids) now.
mellow?
omg i whooshed so hard!! sorry VV. don’t comment drunk kids
She’s made 4500000 moves, he’s not interested
If Walky’s hair really grew that fast, his hair would’ve been down to his shoulders by the end of Season 1 😛
this was supposed to be a reply to StClair above
Is this a call back to Walky telling Jennifer that her real estate bubbles burst, way back in year one?
It’s the same metaphor, anyway.
Billie: Bisexual Love Sleuth
Jennifer: Now 100% Absolutely Totally Unwaveringly Straight Love Sleuth
Jennifer’s post-timeskip denial over her sexuality just… hurts to read. Even if she and Ruth really are done forever, the way she dismisses everything that happened between them and all of the ways they changed each other’s lives as “just a phase” is horrible. Jennifer never knows what to do with her past, and her attempts to move beyond it usually just end up being “acting like it never happened,” until it all comes crashing down again. I really hope she’ll break out of that one day.
(Also Asher offed a guy for knowing too much and is just as fundamentally untrustworthy as Carol, but that’s less relevant to how Jennifer is currently acting and more relevant to “how is her life going to come crashing down this time.”)
It’s bisexual in the same sense that Joyce is a Lesbian Love Detective – if she was picking up Asher’s interest in Walky.
She might as well do her try now… if he doesn’t want her she can at least crash right now and be done with it, if he does… well that might be another future crash but those are other matters
I do wonder how Walky’s sudden increase in hotness will effect his past relationships. For instance just yesterday Amber seemed completely done with him and annoyed by his mere presence. I wonder if that will changed now that he’s magically hotter only a day later. Will Dorothy try to slide back in for some exes just having fun activity?
It seems to be basic to the construction of this arc that Walky’s new charisma affects *everyone*, so encounters with Amber and Dorothy have potential for entertainment.
Yeah, Joyce was the last bastion to this not becoming a harem anime. If even she thinks Walky’s hot, it’s over; everyone will.
I actually think someone like Becky or Dina would be the last bastion into harem anime. I’m really interested in seeing their reactions to new hot Walky.
Good point!
everyone except Sal. And my exes do kinda feel like siblings in that way, so
Wow… that’s not bad advice. And it’s well-intentioned. And it’s not advising anything twisty or backhanded.
…I’m missing something, aren’t I?
Well, they are roommates, and this isn’t the first time Jennifer’s given Lucy advice on hooking up with Walky (in fact, a prior such occasion was actually how the idea first crossed Lucy’s mind to begin with).
i mean it kind of seems like realistic advice, but also, it feels sort of ugly to me to compare dating and real estate?
Like, maybe you want someone to date you because that’s right, I am a MFing god/dess. what’s that? you wish to touch my body? mmmm i dunnoooo *sigh* ok fine i guess you may lick my toe then— not because they think you are the best they can score with their current
credithotness ratings.Lucy, please remember that:
1) Jennifer gives bad advice.
2) Jennifer is advising you to invest in a real estate bubble on the grounds that it’s a real estate bubble.
The trick is if you know it’s a bubble get out before it busts.
IOW don’t “let it ride”.
If your only looking for one house then it’s fine. It’s only a problem if you plan to resell the property later for profit.
No, Jennifer is advising that if you’re gonna rent, you sign the rental agreement before the landlord realizes he can charge three times the price.
The whole metaphor is on Billie’s assumption that Walky can do better than Lucy now, so she needs to close the deal. Billie’s on the same rating game that Joe was on, it’s just less obvious. I’m curious if Billie actually connects with Asher, or if it just seemed like a move up in popularity.
Maybe popularity is how she connects with people.
She’s all about posturing her way to the top of the social ladder, no matter how many friends she steps on to get there.
Is it really? Jennifer knows that Lucy has feelings for Walky; to me, the only thing Jennifer is doing, is giving Lucy a shove in a direction she already wants to go in. Jennifer wants Lucy to get past her hesitancy.
Yeah, she just can’t help but put it in terms she’s familiar with as a real estate speculator.
Is this because Walky stood up to Asher a few months ago?
Not likely. Asher didn’t acknowledge him in the previous version of this scene – when we saw him and Jennifer for the first time after the timeskip. And it seems new to both her and Walky who likely would have had chances to see them interact before then.
Jennifer’s right, Lucy. In the words of the poets, “save a
horsesilicone approximation, ride acowboyWalky.”There is some authentic and vintage Billie there! I wonder if Lucy will take Jennifer’s advice and how Walky will react?
Lucy should probably follow Jennifer’s advice, and also realize that she needs to be a lot more direct since Walky has been really oblivious to her hints so far.
JOYCE: “Did it work?”
LUCY (semi-entranced): “Yeeesss…”
JOYCE: “Okay.” (Sucks in a deep breath) “Sal, I need to talk to you about something!”
Personally, I think that Joyce/Dorothy is more interesting but there is a huge wall of denial there whilst I think it is more likely that Joyce would acknowledge and act on her crush on Sal first. It’s something that she’d have to get out of the way, one way or another.
Alas for Joyce in your hypothetical situation, we’ve Word of Willis that Sal is very straight.
Jennifer is a true friend, at least with Lucy. She’s giving her a great advice.
Nah, Ms. Billingsworth is proving that you don’t need to be someone’s friend to commit an act of friendship.
God forgive me to disrespect those who passed away, but I’m suspect Mike’s death did some kind of good for Walky.
I think that Mike would have been the first to say that he was a bad person who hurt people. The mystery was always his true motive for doing so.
I think the lesson of Mike in DOA was that Mike THOUGHT he was a warrior therapist but discovered, in a moment of Darth Vader-esque last minute revulsion, that he made Amber into a monster.
That his advice and example was terrible.
Mike didn’t think he was a bad person. He thought he was helping, that he was toughening Amber to the point where she’d take her dad down and make Ethan realize he needs to be open with himself, until it hit him right in the face that he’s a stupid asshole who ruined everyone’s lives by insisting he knew better than them.
You can be, and think you are, a bad person and still do things that are useful and valuable (or, more typically, that you’re a good person even though you do things that aren’t). One might think that the one would offset the other, but not if one is committed to that self-image.
Remember the quote: “Not one is righteous, not one.” Mike would probably be the first to assert that what he does/did did NOT make him, in any way, a good/not a bad person.
Apparently he did think he wasn’t a bad person – or at least not as bad as he realized he was when confronted by the similarity between his justifications for abusing Amber and Blaine’s.
And while someone can do useful and valuable things while being a bad person, I’m not sure what of Mike’s falls into that category. Maybe sex with Ethan turned out well for Ethan?
Mike did not think he was a bad person. He knew people hated him. He knew they thought he was a bad person. But he thought in his edgelord arrogant way that he was doing the right thing. That punching people enough emotionally gave them the strength to punch back eventually. He had good intentions. He thought if you punched people a little now they’d be ready to punch anyone else they had to later, so what ‘evils’ he did accept he did, were justified in his own mind, for their ultimate protection.
And he only realised that he had been doing the exact same thing as Blaine claimed to (I say claimed as his actions vs words obviously conflicted a lot), to a milder degree (I say milder because he lacked a position of authority and did not actually physically abuse people). And then he threw himself and Blaine off a building. He may have thought he was a bad person in that moment, but before that, he didn’t.
You’d be surprised how much peoples’ passing can improve lives. Regardless of how you felt about them. It’s cruel.
Of course, realizing your life has been improved by their death is often pretty distressing on its own. Now you get to feel guilty for feeling relieved about them being dead.
That is the case with Blaine. It certainly wasn’t the case with Mike as its left Amber emotionally destroyed.
Amber, no. Likewise not Ethan. Even though he was bad for them, with the possible exception of sleeping with Ethan – and even then, Ethan seems to be using casual flings as a way to accept his sexuality while not having to actually deal with the parental bullshit he’d get if he did get serious with someone, so I can see it being a necessary step for him while not stable longterm – dying was the worst possible way he could leave their lives. Especially dying to save AG. They were already second-guessing his motives for doing it, even his last ‘best friends’ would play into the ‘but one time I’ll say yes just to keep hope alive’ thing he said to Ethan when they were kids, and at the same time there’s just enough hope that he was sincere to invoke not speaking ill of the dead and making it so much harder to unpack the ways he DID traumatize them. I may have found it shitty of Danny to say so outside Mike’s hospital room, but he was right that it’s better Mike is out of their lives. The problem is THIS gives him a rent-free spot in their heads.
However, it did noticeably relieve a LOT of pressure on Walky, who was apparently pretty on edge in his own living space because his roommate was always looking for an opportunity to fuck with him. Mike DYING is still going to have some negative impacts on Walky, because holy fuck his roommate was MURDERED by the guys who kidnapped him almost immediately afterwards, not to mention Walky caring about Amber who was seriously hurt by it… buuut it’s also not nice, uncomplicated grief. Which is a weird feeling to have for anyone, but made all the messier when the deceased is another teenager who you knew for about two months but your mutual friend who knew him far longer and was treated far worse IS grieving. What right does Walky have to feel relieved by this? (The right as Mike’s roommate to not worry about the dude recording him crying, or going to ridiculous extents to make him do so, or the general degree of psychological fuckery that leaves Walky still questioning if this isn’t maybe another prank months down the line, but I digress.)
Yes, Walky has been devastated by Mike’s death. May even be traumatized by it.
In short, the world is worse for Mike’s loss.
As most people not Blaine.
Is this that “This is my popular phase” thing I’ve been hearing about?
Damn, Walky out here like he’s in an Axe body spray commercial
That’s not nice, Jennifer!
Have you met her? She’s not nice.
Jennifer knows what’s up.
Next Slipshine strip, Lucy hands in her V-card, via Walky.
“Lucy makes a move”
Willis, please, for the love of all that is holy, make the next slipshine “Lucy Signs A Lease”
Just so long as we get “Please Don’t Leave Your Hat On” when Dina and Becky finally get it on.
Its interesting to see the way sex/gender influences how people talk about these kind of things.
how so?
Any day now I’m waiting on what’s happening to Walky to happen to me. Yep. Aaaaannny day now….
Right, only sal and amber know about him
Asher seems pretty chill with Walky too, so maybe things are looking up?
“Girl you need to get it in like a last minute assignment.”
“Gotta take it like a trip to the Bahamas.”
“Bang it like a gong, girl.”
“Hurry up and fuck him.”
Lucy might have missed the boat on that, she might already have been friend zoned by Walky.
There might never have been a boat to catch at all.
Oh, I think a fair few people are trying to ship it…
So…Billie’s telling Lucy to sleep with Walky before he realizes he’s somehow ‘hot’ now?
Yes