I believe this is what Philip Sandifer termed a narrative collapse–when an in-universe threat is such that its success threatens to completely eliminate any potential for a story continue.
Since we know the comic lasts at least three more months, this will presumably be averted somehow.
My first thought regarding that was “You mean there won’t be Dina in that triceratops costume?” This was eventually followed by “You mean there won’t be everyone else in the comic?”
Not even Ruth could deprive Dina of her femurs. (the rest of the floor is not so lucky) Dina DOES “walk the dinosaur”, and also gets a bad (good?) case of Butts Disease. Decades later, she is still talked about in hushed tones by awed Freshmen.
She’s had 18 years of controls. She doesn’t need to test a different hypothesis until this one (‘do I enjoy kissing this girl who’s expressed interest in me?’) is determined to have failed.
Actually, that should be phrased as a statement. The hypothesis is ‘I enjoy kissing this girl’…’do I…’ is the question the hypothesis is answering if it’s correct.
Well, Dina is, if anything, a dedicated scientist. Or at the very least dedicated to the scientific method. She would be remiss if she didn’t explore this new development further.
…I could totally see Willis making fake images of future comics if he decided to end it. I don’t think he will since part of ending Shortpacked! was to focus on DoA, but still.
People don’t get expelled for one infraction. I got caught smoking pot and bringing hard liquor into my dorm 5 times and I never saw more than a letter of warning and a semester on probation.
Definitely depends on the school. Our RAs tell us to keep the door open when we drink and go 20 ft away from the building when we smoke weed. Other schools will expel you for being gay.
That would be such a twist if Dina’s into it, but Becky dumps her because she just can’t let go of her upbringing. You know, the non-anti-gay parts at least.
“sexual experimentaion is a process best repeated to support the hypothesis of possibly being lesbian when asked what sexuality i am”~ possible dina quote 2015 :3
Actually. . . that might save everyone involved here. Both Ruth and Joyce’s party will have equal dirt on the other, resulting in a no-expulsion truce of Mutually Assured Destruction.
Ruthie’s gonna see Billie in the party and drag her outside to tell her off for getting the others drunk (because really, that is pretty obvious), and then their ensuing shouting match will lead to the two of them dragging each other off back to Ruthie’s room – or Billie’s – for lots of sexy goings-on. 😉 Meanwhile, everyone else just quickly and quietly packs up and goes back to their own rooms before Ruthie comes back again.
And Becky goes with Dina to continue testing her hypothesis. “Oh yeah, talk scientifically to me, baby!” :3
Depends on your priors and on the sensitivity of the test you need, not to mention the null hypothesis you’re trying to rule out. For instance, since biromantic asexuals are fairly rare, and she wants to rule that out, she’d need a very large sample to get enough data to draw a statistically valid conclusion.
And, of course, if she enjoys the testing procedure, she will need more evidence still, since sampling bias could be suppressing the effect of desire….no, I mean, desired effect.
Bets that Raidah tipped her off about this “unauthorized party” (that she bet Billie was getting unlawfully drunk at, and encouraging others to do the same) because she wants to get Sarah expelled due to still wrongly blaming her over the roommate incident?
Didn’t know that the RA had keys to every dorm. Makes sense though.
Truuuue. But Joyce’s party guest list was small and and once the alcohol was starting to be distributed, I would have figured someone (Dorothy probably) would have locked the door.
It does seem rather strange to give Dorm keys to RAs. (I know they’ve stated that fact before in the comic; I just think its weird.)
I do know that there is a need for keys to be available for emergencies. (Student locks themselves out, medical emergency, etc.) However, RAs are still just students themselves, and there might be too much temptation to abuse that power. It would be better to keep them at some central location (like maybe with campus security). Yea, it would be more inconvenient, but less chance of having a nosey RA violating a student’s privacy just because they want.
I can understand the feeling, but RAs have the keys just for the rooms on their floor. And literally, no RA would ever be allowed to behave in the way Ruth does. She would have lost her job looooonggg ago. RAs cannot just key into kids dorms for no reason, even if many of them are congregated in one room. That happens all friggen day in a college dorm. Ruth’s behavior is not just tyrannical, it’s just plain not how RAs actually behave. I also don’t think they can be in trouble JUST for being drunk in a dorm room unless the actual contraband is found. If no contraband is found and all they are is a little bit buzzed, it would require calling campus police and having some sort of evidence to back up the drinking on a dry campus. Which there isn’t.
I think the hardest thing for me to suspend my disbelief over is the fact that Ruth is still an RA. RAs are students, too. Even strict ones aren’t busting into your room LOOKING to get you in trouble when you aren’t actually doing something that is dangerous to you, others or embarrassing for your floor.
I wholeheartedly agree that Ruth should not have her job after the way she’s acted. But I’ve seen a lot of RAs keep their jobs when they shouldn’t.
Having alcohol in the room is enough to get them busted, unless it is under a bed or otherwise not immediately visible. If there is suspicion of alcohol, the drinks can be investigated, and the people can be asked to empty their pockets and whatnot. The general rule where I went was that if you came in drunk, then all you had to do was be able to walk past the front desk. If you had to crawl or kept falling down, then it was game over.
The master keys are typically kept downstairs with the mail-room and other things that need to be kept safe. And if I remember correctly, the RA has to ask a hall director for the master key first.
They have a lot of cameras in that area to prevent fraud, and there’s usually paperwork involved if something has to be reported. A party is something that would be reported, and everyone there would be asked to fill out a sheet saying exactly what occurred. (I experienced this when a group of us was reported for sitting in the main area of the floor by the elevators, and we were apparently too loud.)
What I’m used to is the RA knocking a few times and saying “RA” loudly and clearly enough for the people inside to hear them. If they’re ignored after a few times of that, then they either come back later or, if the situation is serious enough (such as a loud party), then they’ll say, “RA, keying in” and open the door. They usually come prepared with the master key in situations like this. But if they get ignored when there are clearly people in there, they can run downstairs to go get it and come back.
If they need back-up, then they can call other RAs (whoever’s on call), the hall director, and/or the police/other relevant authority figures.
If the situation is serious enough, it probably wouldn’t be wrong to barge in, but it’s better to knock first. Ruth is not covering her butt very well, but most of them are afraid enough of her that they most likely won’t alert anyone of the protocol breach, even if they have to talk to the police or something.
My brain got upset when the Becky/Dina interaction stopped at panel three and immediately started writing fanfiction to compensate. I got as far as Becky shyly saying “So uh… would you mind if you did some more of that experimenting… on me?” and Dina smiling a little before I had to hit fast forward to the lemon part. aw yea
I’m sure Dina insists on being very thorough so as to gather proper data. Then she’ll have to repeat the experiment several times under different conditions and compare.
the fun thing about the internet is that you can’t necessarily tell where the people who make up your community are from. but if you read fanfics avidly, then you will encounter the word ‘lemon’ quite a bit. and i have seen it used by (i think) american users, and it definitely was later than the 90s because i wasn’t online back then
I was actually refering to the song ‘Lemon Tree’ that Bagge quoted. Which I wasn’t aware anyone outside Germany (where I live) even knew, that’s why I asked 😉
And I’m aware of lemon being used in fanfic, that was what my original comment was about. I’ve not seen it used in this decade for definite though. Not since the 00s, I’d say.
I never heard it at all. Then I went to Urban Dictionary and saw it came from “Cream Lemon,” the anime, and I had several photobooks from the series. So I knew it after all, only I didn’t realize it. If my brain is bifrucating, how would I know it?
You are such a bastard Willis. You make this amazing comic where I am nearly always enthralled with what’s happening and I never know how things are going to go. WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME SO HAPPY THIS FEELS WEIRD.
Well, its not like any option is really a good option when people treat you like a child.
If you are silent nothing changes, if you try to be composed about it people can dismiss you as not truly upset, if you shout in frustration and anger people can say you are overreacting childishly.
About the only action that gets you treated like an adult is to get a semi-automatic gun and several high capacity magazines and shoot someplace up. Not that you don’t get treated kindly as an adult when this happens, but you do get charged as an adult…
I don’t think that what she said and being somewhat angry equates to acting out childishly. She’s understandably somewhat angry. She’s speaking forcefully and somewhat angrily, but she’s not havin a tantrum or screaming. Anger can be justified, and it’s not immature or childish to show it occasionally.
What’s childish about her response? I think it’s actually fairly mature. She’s standing up for herself and in the process dropping important information on these people that they clearly need (i.e. don’t infantilize neurodivergents).
If you’re referring to the spontaneous kiss, Becky already indicated in the previous page that she would be open to it.
Seriously. I cannot count how many times people have treated me like I was incompetent because I was autistic, and that includes people in my family (I love my brother but I swear to god if he says he’s “effectively the older sibling” one more time I will shriek at him) and medical professionals. (We are not seeing those endocrinologists again for many, many reasons, not least of which ignoring my concerns that my diet CANNOT be improved without professional help and then focusing on my mom while I’m overwhelmed and crying and telling her “I can’t imagine how hard this must be for you.” What asshats.)
The disability and neurodiversity communities are routinely desexualized as a form of infantilization. Dina asserting that yes, she is interested in trying things after Becky’s saying she was interested in her while everyone else is saying Dina’s too childish to return those feelings seems perfectly reasonable to me.
EXACTLY! Thank you! The first sentence of your second paragraph especially hit the nail on the head for me.
This is actually why I don’t tell people I’m autistic, unless I really know and trust them. People already treat me like I’m a lot younger because I’m “off” behaviorally, along with being really short and scrawny (a lot like Dina, actually; I’m even Japanese, haha).
I’ve learned that if I actually tell people I’m autistic, it’s usually met with a lot of comments along the lines of, “But you don’t even SEEM r*tarded!” or “It’s SO AMAZING that you ACTUALLY HAVE A JOB!” Like…ugh. Shut up.
Perhaps you have not met many adults? Acting out childishly is pretty par for the course. Granted, working retail and customer service has colored my view of humanity.
Unless Billie slipped away before Ruth’s arrival there is not much she can do that will not implicate her secret girlfriend other than be scary and intimidating.
Scared freshmen. Sarah, on the other hand, seems like the sort of person who would register a complaint about Ruth immediately. Maybe Sarah thinks the drama would distract from her studying, and maybe wouldn’t get Ruth fired anyway.
Plot convenience, in real life Ruth would have been out the door the minute she laid hands on someone. She and Amber would be in jail. Dorothy would realize good grades have nothing to do with being president and so on and so forth.
It can be a little hard to swallow sometimes but that’s why its fiction.
Like Mike beating the shit out of Joe in the pizzeria in the strip’s opening weeks. Joe would have either defended himself, beat the shit out of Mike, or the business owner would have called the cops. Author fiat, as Majere says below.
Going to Harvard is actually not a bad step on “become a president” path. Last I checked, harvard cared about your grades if you weren’t from a dynasty.
Author fiat. In reality Ruth wouldn’t have lasted 2 weeks as an RA because she’s a massive liability in pretty much every conceivable way and the administration would have been bombarded with complaints from students who find her behaviour more irritating and disruptive than intimidating.
Ok Ruth before you even get mad it let me just tell you it was your side kick and Eye candy that spiked punch, and if memory serves your the one who told her she should go.
…didn’t they retranslate Balrog’s battlecry to “Oh Yeah” like the Kool-Aid man, to match his tendency to smash through walls and such? That’d mean the sole time he ever used “Huzzah” was over a decade ago in the fan-translation of the 2004 release.
I don’t know what dorms you were in, but the lighting in the rooms were generally pretty shitty. I had to get a floor lamp just to make it passable. Hallways are required to be well lit for safety reasons, too.
i too was thinking that becky was too quick to be happy about the ‘experiment’ comment. she clearly is not familiar with the concepts of ‘double-blind study’ or ‘sample size’
😍 dina my beautiful nd dinosaur
im giving up on all my other fandoms. you’re the only character i care about. maybe becky too bcus the ship is great. but. DINA DINA DINA
Pretty stupid of Ruth to come in, really, since she knows Billie’s at the party. Either they’re doing nothing wrong, and coming in is pointless, or they are doing something wrong, and Ruth now has to find a convincing excuse to not write up Billie and her friends.
Maybe that’s the point? To make some sort of stupid power demonstration to Billie or make sure Billie doesn’t have fun without her. They don’t have to healthiest of relationships
I have to agree. Ruth is determined to self-destruction. All that remains to be seen is if Billie is caught in the blast radius and how bad the damage is.
Willis says that no-one is dying, so my absolute worst-case scenario – Ruth and Billie killing each other (as part of said pre-existing lesbian suicide pact) isn’t going to happen. However, Ruth being fired and leaving the strip on the way to destitution and lifelong misery, is possible.
May Joyce end up pulling Billie back from the brink?
She’ll probably be unnecessarily harsh in a flat-footed attempt to cover up their relationship. Dorothy then appeals to the College Board of Administrators because of unfair harshness and Ruth and Billie are exposed by the resulting investigation. As you can see, Ruth and Billie are in something close to a no-win scenario.
Whom will Dina bag when she wants to experiment with a boy for a control? Danny, Ethan, and Jacob would knock her back. Walky would only co-operate with Dorothy’s permission. Joe would put out, I suppose, though I don’t suppose that Science is his turn-on. But I have this horrid thought: Mike.
Unless a lot of time was spent there, I’d say it doesn’t really count as doing the pairing again, which I think Willis is mostly avoiding because he would find it less interesting than exploring new pairings rather than because the old ones all like sucked or anything :|a
Sal/Jason only fucked a couple times, they’re not a couple here. And Walky/Dorothy was both brief and in the past so it’s not a retread of what we’ve already seen.
that’d be terrible methodology. choosing some random dude to smooch, in order to test the hypothesis that she likes girls? and what, exactly, is she supposed to do with the results? like, yeah, IF there was a massive preference for Becky, then Dina probably is into Becky and thus into girls – unless there’s something incredibly terrible about the dude, like, say… ‘being Mike’. but literally any other result is gonna be inconclusive. Way prefers kissing the dude? doesn’t preclude her being into girls, just not THAT girl. no preference? could be into both of them or neither of them.
not to mention yr extremely non-random sampling method, shamelessly detailed here no less. smh. #overlyhonestmethods shouldn’t be yr role model!
This has been such a big party. I’m trying to remember who’s there and who’s left already.
Left already: Sal, Roz, Jacob, Raidah
Present and sober: Sarah, Joyce, Becky, Amber, Dina (and Ruth)
Present and drunk: Billie, Walky, Dorothy, Danny, Ethan
So lots of drama potential here if this party is busted by Ruth!:
Becky risks getting thrown out, which would upset Joyce;
Sarah will get upset about losing her scholarship again, plus she’s already upset at Joyce because of that mean thing Joyce said;
Dorothy will get upset again about screwing up her chances with Yale, and maybe act out towards Walky about it;
Ruth may have to get Billie in trouble, which will screw up their relationship;
and there’s still a tiny chance Danny and Ethan will drunkenly make out, upsetting Amber.
Walky probably won’t give a shit, and Dina will probably think it was the best night ever.
I’m sure that, depending on how Dave wants to play it, this could be interesting. Especially if Becky gets thrown out on the streets by Ruth. We might see a softer side of Sal… or her vicious side.
“Walkerton, you can’t keep this vagrant in your room!”
“I wouldn’t have to if you weren’t keeping Billie in your room! Do you want to go to Administration about this or shall I?”
Ruth threatens to bust the party and write up the people who are drinking.
Billie takes her aside and reminds her of the day of the fire alarm.
Ruth transforms into Sgt. Schultz from ‘Hogan’s Heroes’: “I see nothing, I hear nothing, I know nothing!”
She’s been pretty good about asserting herself on things she cares about prior to this. Tearing Joyce a new one for science denial, for ex. Good omen for the Becky/Dina ship, I’d say.
well, dina is owning. the first half of this strip was so nice that i figured you had somehow found out that it was my birthday. the second half made me think that maybe it’s also joyce’s birthday.
let’s recap:
1. dina stands up for herself very coherently with a zinger at the end
2. joyce expresses remorse, only to be interrupted by
3. a fleeting glimpse of fun-having drunk dorothy
4. becky gets swept off her feet by the dashing scientist that is dina
5. we see a perfect ‘what could possibly go wrong now’ flag, and finally
6. we see the ghost of misery present enter to squash dorathy’s presidential aspirations, joyce’s innocent reputation, sarah’s efforts to be a serious, diligent student, becky’s life, billie’s…uh…nope, i got nothing…and everyone else’s college record.
did i miss anything?
but ya, this can only play out a few different ways, right?
they all try to cover and somehow succeed (come on, dorothy!),
they start failing and sarah directs blame to billie (friend count => 0),
they get found out and ruth ruins them all (somehow, billie is spared?),
or they have to immediately deal with the fact that the person responsible for all of the illegal activity is the the one planted to scout it out, thereby making it all kinda billie/ruth’s fault (and billie has to fess up to either ruth or everyone else, at which point the fallout levels measure off the geiger counter)
dina is badass, and everything else is complicated. thank you, i accept this birthday gift, willis.
willis thank you for dina, i dont know if i can be very coherent right now but having this sort of storyline with dina who is autistic is really important to me? im still parsing the time before i figured stuff out about my brain but i definitely have some weird baggage about being naive and not-a-dating-prospect in college, so.
Seriously, it is just so nice to see a character like me taking charge of her romantic and sexual identity and saying that she is in fact an adult. (I didn’t date in college – hello debilitating anxiety disorder combined with queerness! – and have such worries about eventually joining the dating pool when I feel together enough for it, and it’s something of a relief to remember that there are people like me and they can have fulfilling romantic relationships with people they’re attracted to.)
Oh darn, looks the Becky x Dina ship has sunk. Too bad (and thank god).
Results:
– Becky is sent home
– Walky, Dorothy are both cited for underage drinking
– Joyce and Sarah are cited for hosting an underage drinking party
– Billie (most likely snuck out) gets off scott free.
– Dina and Amber have done nothing wrong, so they’re fine.
They’re just making predictions. Their Dina/Becky one seems a bit ??? at the moment, but other than that, nothing they’ve guessed seems any more “pessimistic” than what’s reasonable to assume. Why shouldn’t they be reading?
Who smuggled the booze into the party, Ruth? Why, it’s your secret lover and substance/self-abuse co-dependent, Billie! No-one would be drunk, if not for her!
This should be a delicious crisis and dilemma! Will anyone narc on Billie, or will they take their lumps in the name of friendship? If it’s the latter, how will Billie react? Will she be willing to let Ruth punish everyone because of her own actions? If it’s the former, will Ruth have the courage to punish Billie?
I think that Billie and Ruth’ relationship is about to enter a potentially fatal crisis. Let alone what Joyce’s family will think about her hosting a debauched bachanal in her room!
Ruth why are you even there, you knew this party was happening. Unless she got bored and just wanted to pick up Billie with some excuse of “you need to escort your hot drunk ass out of here before I beat you with your own spine” etcetc.
Here’s hoping that drunk Billie is good at keeping secrets, Becky can’t be kicked out after scoring some experimental makeouts! (Still hoping these two become/stay a thing haha)
Because it’s time for her to bully a bunch of kids she thinks aren’t doing naything wrong because she has low self esteem and needs to feel powerful. Now, it’s going to be even worse because Billie got almost the whole room drunk so there’s actually something she should report.
Weeeeell, it might be good therapy for Billie’s actions to have consequences. It might help Billie. It obviously doesn’t help Ruth, who is borderline suicidal, but that is just an aspect of her knowing the consequences of her actions while not changing them/wanting to change them/knowing how to change them.
We neurodivergent people learn quickly that you can’t predict what does and doesn’t help other people. It is only neurotypical peeps who think they can normally guess it right, and, uh, people who have studied people.
If everyone – or anyone really – gets busted because of this I am going to be so pissed at Ruth and Billie. I don’t think this was a deliberate set-up, but it’s still crappy and unfair.
Ruth knows that Billie is drinking again. Ruth is drinking again. This happened back near the end of Book 4. Last chapter had Billie buy some really hard liquor, only to find out that Ruth also bought some really hard liquor as well.
Ah, fuck. I already see how this gonna go down. Ruth gets pissed at the drunkness. It comes out that it was BILLIE who caused that. Trying to defend herself, Billie let’s slip about Becky’s situation. Drama hurricane ensues.
It doesn’t? I got it as “competent enough to make my own decisions and be responsible for my own actions” pretty much… Though as I’m phrasing this on the go, I might also skip over a few things. Wasn’t hard for me to understand, anyway. 🙂
That sort of jumble /muddling happens to me a lot in unplanned conversation. In my experience, when your word use is usually very precise, all the words you know are rather specific (as opposed to the generalizing expressions most people seem to use) so when improvising like she does here, it happens that you get a word that’s too specific for the context.
“I have the competence to judge/choose my own actions” may be another good translation for you. (Since the others were acting as though Dina lacked that competence.)
Sorry; “too specific for the context” should rather have been “right semantic word pool, not combined entirely right” or something to that effect.
Sorry if that got even more confusing – I just think it’s interesting and wanted to try to show you why it doesn’t appear as strange to me, in case you would find that interesting too. ^^;
while it may be hard for me to explain the chain of thought to you, I recognized her phrasing patterns here as something I might do in that situation. = to me, it makes her a very believable character.
Becky and another girl make out in front of Joyce. Joyce apologizes for being rude. Just in case we doubted the sincerity of Joyce accepting Becky’s sexuality
I didn’t catch that until you said it; well spotted. 🙂 Joyce has grown so much in lots of ways since the start of the comic, I’ve really joyed seeing her work to re-evaluate her views to things. (I can relate)
you know, I’ve honestly tried really hard to like Joyce. Her “innocence” doesn’t forgive the ignorance and it’s not endearing; she’s still at a point where her ignorance is like a bull in a china shop; knocking over expensive vases labeled Cultural Sensitivity and Intersectionality while whispering “black people” like it’s a bad word. I know she’s supposed to be an image of real life’s White Sheltered Christian Girl – maybe it just hits too close to home, because I can feel the frustration as I see her progress.
She’s written hella well and everything and everyone feels like a real person. Just, man, personal faves and unfaves, I guess.
Billie’s combination of narcing out a party before it even happens and then supplying everyone with alcohol is really something. I bet even Ruth will have to call her on that one.
Ruth will scare all the freshmen, give them incentive to not do this again and then walk away. Reporting this wouldn’t improve her record or achieve anything. Catching them breaking the rules accomplishes her mission.
It truly isn’t that big a deal or even that uncommon for college kids to drink, even in the freshman dorms. But it isn’t encouraged, hence Ruth appears. She’ll break the party up and probably discover Becky. That will require some action on her part, mainly getting her connected to help.
You act like Ruth would be able to tell that Becky shouldn’t be there. She can just leave into Sal and Billie’s room and then come back once she’s gone.
*knock KNOCK*
HEY GUYS!
H-Hey Ruth!
WHAT’RE YOU DOING?
What are we doing?
WHAT’RE YOU DOING?
Partying.
PARTYING?
Partying.
WITHOUT ME?
……Yes.
…You just lost your femur privileges.
Wait, wha-
I guess I’m still disappointed in Dorothy, Joyce and Sarah from yesterday’s strip. Joyce at least apologized, but Dorothy’s just cheering like a loon like she wasn’t directly compliant in pissing her off and Sarah is being even more dismissive.
I’m so sick of that argument. So what if Dorothy knocked a few back? so did everyone else in that room and they weren’t talking shit to Dina. She and Sarah still need to own up for treating Dina like a child (and for that matter, Sarah is somehow acting even worse than she was yesterday).
They were rude, sure. But aside from Amber none of them are really friends with her so I doubt they’ll really care enough to apologise. Well, Dorothy might if she sobers up and thinks about it, but she might not even remember. Sarah just kind of casually insults everyone around her so it’s neither surprising nor likely to change.
At a ‘dry’ campus like the one in the comics, would any student actually be expelled for having alcohol and/or being intoxicated? (Especially on a first offense.) Or would there be more of a ‘3 strikes’ policy? Perhaps a required “counselling” session? I know getting expelled is a possibility, just not sure if it would actually happen.
I could also point out that Ruth, were she to enforce the rules, would also be subject to scrutiny, not necessarily for her own drinking (which I assume she keeps hidden) but for violating student’s rights. (Remember, multiple students in the room were NOT drinking, and despite Ruth’s claim of “this counts as knocking”, I’m sure Sarah and Amber would probably be willing to lodge a complaint if pushed.
Hey, Daniel the Human here. Screwball might not be able to post for a few days. I’ve been on holiday, which means he has no internet access. I let him online today temporarily, he got as far as Dina kissing Becky before being that shurprised, shocked & several other things he just shut down. If he still hasn’t moved in a few days time I’ll send 240 Volts through him, that worked before, till then, I’m enjoying the quiet & the comic…
Good for Dina in panel 1, standing up for herself. I wish I had that much spine at that age. I’m sixteen years older than Dina now, and still working on growing a spine. Progress is quite slow.
Getting back to the topic of Dina, she is one to approach matters scientifically. Becky doesn’t seem to have objections to being her guinea pig at this juncture.
Yikes on that last panel. Since that’s where Willis left things, I suspect that tomorrow, we’ll be seeing what Sal’s up to. Or maybe he’ll give us a glimpse of Jacob and Raidah’s date. Maybe in July, we’ll see the fallout of Ruth’s grand entrance.
Any girl experiment sexually in college, but it takes someone really special to recognize the importance of having a empirically sound experimental methodology
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then everyone was expelledCOMIC’S OVER
new comic: LAWsome SCHOOL
There are other characters to focus on! We’ve still got Joe, Mike, Roz, Mary…
Yeah OK they all kill each other in three days, comic over.
So the comic still runs for five years.
At least through September 17th.
We just have a Sal comic, with her crew and those other not in trouble characters you mentioned (plus Jacob)
Or it becomes the Carla and Sal show.
…
…
well maybe not but it’s really cool in my head.
I believe this is what Philip Sandifer termed a narrative collapse–when an in-universe threat is such that its success threatens to completely eliminate any potential for a story continue.
Since we know the comic lasts at least three more months, this will presumably be averted somehow.
For all we know, the comic ends tomorrow and the strips then and Sept 17 are just about butts disease! (it could happen! DW *is* an evil genius)
My first thought regarding that was “You mean there won’t be Dina in that triceratops costume?” This was eventually followed by “You mean there won’t be everyone else in the comic?”
Not even Ruth could deprive Dina of her femurs. (the rest of the floor is not so lucky) Dina DOES “walk the dinosaur”, and also gets a bad (good?) case of Butts Disease. Decades later, she is still talked about in hushed tones by awed Freshmen.
Now I kinda wanna see Dina use Ruth as a ‘control subject’. 😀
She’s had 18 years of controls. She doesn’t need to test a different hypothesis until this one (‘do I enjoy kissing this girl who’s expressed interest in me?’) is determined to have failed.
Actually, that should be phrased as a statement. The hypothesis is ‘I enjoy kissing this girl’…’do I…’ is the question the hypothesis is answering if it’s correct.
Well, Dina is, if anything, a dedicated scientist. Or at the very least dedicated to the scientific method. She would be remiss if she didn’t explore this new development further.
From this point on, the comic is about Buttrocket.
Ninja Butrocket, no latte is safe!
Darth Willis, yeeeesss…
Considering the booze came from Billie reporting them would be like shooting herself in the leg.
I think it was that angry evil girl that reported them. The one that wasn’t invited. Whasshername.
Mary?
considering Ruth’s per-established self destructive streak that’s not exactly reassuring.
the bigger concern than the alcohol though is the fact that there is a homeless person squatting there illegally.
Prove it.
…I could totally see Willis making fake images of future comics if he decided to end it. I don’t think he will since part of ending Shortpacked! was to focus on DoA, but still.
I am reminded of Larry Niven’s “Down in Flames”, though he never went ahead with it.
🙁
Okay, giving you points for the reference there. I’ve been on a Known Space kick recently.
Niven was pretty much my main intro to sci-fi as a kid!
Frankly, given where the Ringworld stories went in the end, I think I’d rather have had “Down In Flames”.
Probably due to Ruth dragging Billie off for “Punishment”.
Kinky.
People don’t get expelled for one infraction. I got caught smoking pot and bringing hard liquor into my dorm 5 times and I never saw more than a letter of warning and a semester on probation.
I’d assume it depends on the college on what it takes to expel someone.
Definitely depends on the school. Our RAs tell us to keep the door open when we drink and go 20 ft away from the building when we smoke weed. Other schools will expel you for being gay.
Joyce might get expelled over letting Becky stay there, but how does Dina get expelled?
oh no
please let her like chicks
the ship must go on
Please let Becky like scientists!
She wants to make crazy science with Dina.
sexy science?
That would be such a twist if Dina’s into it, but Becky dumps her because she just can’t let go of her upbringing. You know, the non-anti-gay parts at least.
She’s turned on by repeatedly testing hypotheses, so I think we’re ok.
‘Talky nerdy to me, baby…’
Repeated kissing is an excellent method of performing science.
So THAT’S what you kids are calling it these days!
What did you think we meant by ‘experimenting’?
“sexual experimentaion is a process best repeated to support the hypothesis of possibly being lesbian when asked what sexuality i am”~ possible dina quote 2015 :3
No need to be nervous. It’s just a simple test of stimulus and response.
Becky is *blinded* by science – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-FIMvSp01C8
I was afraid that no one else would mention this. (My fault for searching for “She Blinded”)
I was literally going to sleep and thinking I wouldn’t wait up for the update, when I suddenly remembered what happened in the last strip.
You tell them, Dina !
Now if Billie suddenly kisses Ruth out of the blue, that would be both hilarous (for the moment) and horrifying (for their future).
Billie’ll have enough self-control to avoid that kinda thing.
Right?
Right???
Oh no.
That’s wildly inappropriate unless you scream “FOR SCIENCE!” right before doing it.
I’m pretty sure you can excuse just about any behavior by saying “FOR SCIENCE!” before doing it.
It’s like the intellectual version of “Hey y’all, watch this!”
As an actual real-life scientist, I am going to test this hypothesis. Especially after a lot of alcohol consumption.
FOR SCIENCE, of course.
“thats real science”~ dr membrane from invader zim
this quote best fit this reply :3 you’re welcome
Actually. . . that might save everyone involved here. Both Ruth and Joyce’s party will have equal dirt on the other, resulting in a no-expulsion truce of Mutually Assured Destruction.
… except the one person you really don’t want to trust in a mutually assured destruction scenario IS Ruth.
Heck she’ll just go with her own assured destruction.
As a character in a… vaguely similar situation, else-fic, once said:
“You want to do this [terribly ill-advised and self-destructive thing]? Fine. Let’s all go together. I’ll drive.“
Time to place bets on who will be kick out first.
Billie? Yeah, Billie.
Billie has proof that Ruth’s been drinking though. Ruth trying to kick out Billie will result in Billie trying to kick out Ruth.
Would they really believe her though?
I mean, I would imagine trying to bring down the person who got you kicked out in the first place is a common thing.
Ruthie’s gonna see Billie in the party and drag her outside to tell her off for getting the others drunk (because really, that is pretty obvious), and then their ensuing shouting match will lead to the two of them dragging each other off back to Ruthie’s room – or Billie’s – for lots of sexy goings-on. 😉 Meanwhile, everyone else just quickly and quietly packs up and goes back to their own rooms before Ruthie comes back again.
And Becky goes with Dina to continue testing her hypothesis. “Oh yeah, talk scientifically to me, baby!” :3
Billie’s room is right next door, so I doubt they’ll go there.
I completely forgot about the anime door
(Rocks fall, everyone dies)
i ended a performance project for school that way once.
Where did the rocks come from?
Several people called the third panel’s response yesterday. Props!
YEAH DINA
Also, Ruth should’ve waited, they were gonna test their hypothesis repeatedly! Dangit Ruth!
A statistically valid sample would be, oh, about thirty.
Might as well make it 60 just to be on the safe side.
And round up to the nearest hundred, it will look better on the graphs.
surely, surely, if you have 60, you should round it up to 69. or am i wrong?
That’s precisely why I said 60. I figured somebody’d make the 69 joke sooner or later so I decided to make it easier for them ~_~
Depends on your priors and on the sensitivity of the test you need, not to mention the null hypothesis you’re trying to rule out. For instance, since biromantic asexuals are fairly rare, and she wants to rule that out, she’d need a very large sample to get enough data to draw a statistically valid conclusion.
And, of course, if she enjoys the testing procedure, she will need more evidence still, since sampling bias could be suppressing the
effect of desire….no, I mean, desired effect.And it hits the fan in a messy blast.
I swear, someone should just go around the halls with an ipod constantly playing a dramatic cord.
Instead you had Mike doing that with a real instrument. Until it got confiscated.
Aw yeah, Dina, seduce her with science.
Okay, I’m getting onboard the ship, at least temporarily.
Blind her with science. Fail her in biology.
Confuse her with physics and then test their chemistry.
Demonstrate the double slit experiment!
Whoaaaa
Are there grants available for experimenting with your sexuality?
if there is, then this comic is a living, breathing dissertation!
…there’s a Fun Home joke in there somewhere but I’m too tired to think of it.
You heard her: repeated testing
GO GO GO!
wow no time to settle down here. nonstop drama.
Whenever girls kiss, Ruth will appear. It’s as much a curse as a blessing.
Thank you, Dina for being uncertain. And uh-oh – Ruthless!@
Bets that Raidah tipped her off about this “unauthorized party” (that she bet Billie was getting unlawfully drunk at, and encouraging others to do the same) because she wants to get Sarah expelled due to still wrongly blaming her over the roommate incident?
No, I think she’s more interested in enjoying her evening with Jacob.
My bet’s on either Mary, or Ruth just wanting to check on Billie.
But it was Ruth who convinced Billie to go.
So now is when Ruth reveals she’s in a relationship with Billie and everything will go well… probably.
That middle panel is just about as perfect as it can be.
Well shit
Was the door already ajar? Otherwise, how could Ruth have gotten in?
RAs have the keys to every dorm.
Plus it’s kinda strange to lock the door when you’re hosting a party.
Didn’t know that the RA had keys to every dorm. Makes sense though.
Truuuue. But Joyce’s party guest list was small and and once the alcohol was starting to be distributed, I would have figured someone (Dorothy probably) would have locked the door.
But yeah. Question answered.
If you suspect that, say, someone is trying to suicide, you sometimes really need to be in a room.
Much more often freshers wake you up at some ungodly hour having locked their keys in their rooms while the office was closed.
Depends on what kind of party.
When has the door ever been locked?
It does seem rather strange to give Dorm keys to RAs. (I know they’ve stated that fact before in the comic; I just think its weird.)
I do know that there is a need for keys to be available for emergencies. (Student locks themselves out, medical emergency, etc.) However, RAs are still just students themselves, and there might be too much temptation to abuse that power. It would be better to keep them at some central location (like maybe with campus security). Yea, it would be more inconvenient, but less chance of having a nosey RA violating a student’s privacy just because they want.
I can understand the feeling, but RAs have the keys just for the rooms on their floor. And literally, no RA would ever be allowed to behave in the way Ruth does. She would have lost her job looooonggg ago. RAs cannot just key into kids dorms for no reason, even if many of them are congregated in one room. That happens all friggen day in a college dorm. Ruth’s behavior is not just tyrannical, it’s just plain not how RAs actually behave. I also don’t think they can be in trouble JUST for being drunk in a dorm room unless the actual contraband is found. If no contraband is found and all they are is a little bit buzzed, it would require calling campus police and having some sort of evidence to back up the drinking on a dry campus. Which there isn’t.
I think the hardest thing for me to suspend my disbelief over is the fact that Ruth is still an RA. RAs are students, too. Even strict ones aren’t busting into your room LOOKING to get you in trouble when you aren’t actually doing something that is dangerous to you, others or embarrassing for your floor.
I wholeheartedly agree that Ruth should not have her job after the way she’s acted. But I’ve seen a lot of RAs keep their jobs when they shouldn’t.
Having alcohol in the room is enough to get them busted, unless it is under a bed or otherwise not immediately visible. If there is suspicion of alcohol, the drinks can be investigated, and the people can be asked to empty their pockets and whatnot. The general rule where I went was that if you came in drunk, then all you had to do was be able to walk past the front desk. If you had to crawl or kept falling down, then it was game over.
The master keys are typically kept downstairs with the mail-room and other things that need to be kept safe. And if I remember correctly, the RA has to ask a hall director for the master key first.
They have a lot of cameras in that area to prevent fraud, and there’s usually paperwork involved if something has to be reported. A party is something that would be reported, and everyone there would be asked to fill out a sheet saying exactly what occurred. (I experienced this when a group of us was reported for sitting in the main area of the floor by the elevators, and we were apparently too loud.)
What I’m used to is the RA knocking a few times and saying “RA” loudly and clearly enough for the people inside to hear them. If they’re ignored after a few times of that, then they either come back later or, if the situation is serious enough (such as a loud party), then they’ll say, “RA, keying in” and open the door. They usually come prepared with the master key in situations like this. But if they get ignored when there are clearly people in there, they can run downstairs to go get it and come back.
If they need back-up, then they can call other RAs (whoever’s on call), the hall director, and/or the police/other relevant authority figures.
If the situation is serious enough, it probably wouldn’t be wrong to barge in, but it’s better to knock first. Ruth is not covering her butt very well, but most of them are afraid enough of her that they most likely won’t alert anyone of the protocol breach, even if they have to talk to the police or something.
Yes, Dina. Stand up for yourself. Spread your wings. Dina…soar.
I, uh…I’m gonna see my way out.
…nooo
an internet for you {*}
Well, something might eventually be spread….
Dorothy’s Huzzah: And now I want to see the gang at a Renaissance Festival.
Thats it, Dorothy is officialy The Best Girlfriend Ever
give dina time
She wasn’t already?
… is it sad that I didn’t find her use of “huzzah” even remotely odd since I use it in just such a way myself?
Me too!
Why would it be sad? Rather ’tis glorious!
Ah crap.
Oh crap, y’all are in soooo much trouble. Can’t wait xD
*record that had been playing Exile’s “Kiss You All Over” has its stylus shoved across the vinyl*
My brain got upset when the Becky/Dina interaction stopped at panel three and immediately started writing fanfiction to compensate. I got as far as Becky shyly saying “So uh… would you mind if you did some more of that experimenting… on me?” and Dina smiling a little before I had to hit fast forward to the lemon part. aw yea
I’m sure Dina insists on being very thorough so as to gather proper data. Then she’ll have to repeat the experiment several times under different conditions and compare.
I haven’t heard the word lemon used in this context in SO MANY YEARS, wow, I feel old lol.
Wow yeah, I haven’t heard that term since… I wanna say the late 90s, but maybe it was the early 2000s.
” But all that I can see is a yellow lemon tree”
Hahaha was that a hit anywhere other than Western Europe? It was everywhere over here in the 90s, but I always wonder if it crossed the pond xD
the fun thing about the internet is that you can’t necessarily tell where the people who make up your community are from. but if you read fanfics avidly, then you will encounter the word ‘lemon’ quite a bit. and i have seen it used by (i think) american users, and it definitely was later than the 90s because i wasn’t online back then
I was actually refering to the song ‘Lemon Tree’ that Bagge quoted. Which I wasn’t aware anyone outside Germany (where I live) even knew, that’s why I asked 😉
And I’m aware of lemon being used in fanfic, that was what my original comment was about. I’ve not seen it used in this decade for definite though. Not since the 00s, I’d say.
I’m pretty sure I’ve heard that one before – the rhythm feels familiar.
But this is the Lemon Tree I’m most familiar with.
Man, The Things They Carried ruined that song forever for me.
I still like it, but its context is forever warped…
I never heard it at all. Then I went to Urban Dictionary and saw it came from “Cream Lemon,” the anime, and I had several photobooks from the series. So I knew it after all, only I didn’t realize it. If my brain is bifrucating, how would I know it?
Yeah, I remember it being a thing at least into 2006-2007, since I remember it from the Kingdom Hearts fandom and I only joined that after 2.
Those damned lemon-stealing whores took them all.
HAHAHAHA that video is so whacked
the great thing about the internet is, all those stories are still floating around on badly formatted sites that haven’t been updated since 2004
I’ve run into it in the last year or two on Fanficnet, and not in the anime sections either.
NO! MY FEMURS! I NEED THOSE TO LIVE!
You are such a bastard Willis. You make this amazing comic where I am nearly always enthralled with what’s happening and I never know how things are going to go. WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME SO HAPPY THIS FEELS WEIRD.
Yayyy Willis happy comics yayyy
Oh, don’t worry. Knowing Willis, this happiness WILL end. And it will end SPECTACULARLY. Beware. For the depression tsunami is coming.
Dun dun daaaaaa!
“Becky, I need to make out with you repeatedly. For science.”
Things are going to be interesting when Dina replicates the study with larger sample sizes.
Prospective cohort study….
Mastermind Ruth just sent Billie over there and waited, watching the clock, estimating how long it would take her to get everyone drunk.
That’s a theory. Could be interesting.
Maybe Ruth just came by to retrieve Billie?
And here comes the Ruth Bomb.
So to prove you’re not a child you…act out childishly?
Seems legit.
It’s what everyone else does.
Let’s all just…not act. Sit quietly. We are adults.
Well that’s mature.
Maturity suuure is anticlimatic and boring.
Yep.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/05-media-rumble/adult/
Well, to be fair, she’s kinda new to this social interaction thing.
Aren’t all freshmen tho?
Haaa yeah…
Well, its not like any option is really a good option when people treat you like a child.
If you are silent nothing changes, if you try to be composed about it people can dismiss you as not truly upset, if you shout in frustration and anger people can say you are overreacting childishly.
About the only action that gets you treated like an adult is to get a semi-automatic gun and several high capacity magazines and shoot someplace up. Not that you don’t get treated kindly as an adult when this happens, but you do get charged as an adult…
I don’t think that what she said and being somewhat angry equates to acting out childishly. She’s understandably somewhat angry. She’s speaking forcefully and somewhat angrily, but she’s not havin a tantrum or screaming. Anger can be justified, and it’s not immature or childish to show it occasionally.
Well, she is as much of an adult as any of them are. It just happens that, whatever the law might say, 18 is still totally a big kid.
What’s childish about her response? I think it’s actually fairly mature. She’s standing up for herself and in the process dropping important information on these people that they clearly need (i.e. don’t infantilize neurodivergents).
If you’re referring to the spontaneous kiss, Becky already indicated in the previous page that she would be open to it.
Seriously. I cannot count how many times people have treated me like I was incompetent because I was autistic, and that includes people in my family (I love my brother but I swear to god if he says he’s “effectively the older sibling” one more time I will shriek at him) and medical professionals. (We are not seeing those endocrinologists again for many, many reasons, not least of which ignoring my concerns that my diet CANNOT be improved without professional help and then focusing on my mom while I’m overwhelmed and crying and telling her “I can’t imagine how hard this must be for you.” What asshats.)
The disability and neurodiversity communities are routinely desexualized as a form of infantilization. Dina asserting that yes, she is interested in trying things after Becky’s saying she was interested in her while everyone else is saying Dina’s too childish to return those feelings seems perfectly reasonable to me.
EXACTLY! Thank you! The first sentence of your second paragraph especially hit the nail on the head for me.
This is actually why I don’t tell people I’m autistic, unless I really know and trust them. People already treat me like I’m a lot younger because I’m “off” behaviorally, along with being really short and scrawny (a lot like Dina, actually; I’m even Japanese, haha).
I’ve learned that if I actually tell people I’m autistic, it’s usually met with a lot of comments along the lines of, “But you don’t even SEEM r*tarded!” or “It’s SO AMAZING that you ACTUALLY HAVE A JOB!” Like…ugh. Shut up.
If this is childish the word has no meaning.
Perhaps you have not met many adults? Acting out childishly is pretty par for the course. Granted, working retail and customer service has colored my view of humanity.
Acting childishly sometimes is what makes you an adult. When children do it, it is acting age-appropriately and doesn’t need an adverb.
Childish would be name-calling and nonsensical retorts in this situation. Maybe stomping her foot and having a temper tantrum.
Or do you honestly believe that adults never get pissed off?
Unless Billie slipped away before Ruth’s arrival there is not much she can do that will not implicate her secret girlfriend other than be scary and intimidating.
“I HEARD THERE WAS BOOZE. TIME TO PAY THE BOOZE TAX, WHICH MEANS GIVE IT ALL TO ME, OR I REPORT ALL OF YOU SADSACKS.”
Sure and we’ll report all the threats.
That’s presuming they’re not already scared shitless BECAUSE of the threats.
I do wonder why no one has bothered to report her behaviour
Scared freshmen. Sarah, on the other hand, seems like the sort of person who would register a complaint about Ruth immediately. Maybe Sarah thinks the drama would distract from her studying, and maybe wouldn’t get Ruth fired anyway.
Plot convenience, in real life Ruth would have been out the door the minute she laid hands on someone. She and Amber would be in jail. Dorothy would realize good grades have nothing to do with being president and so on and so forth.
It can be a little hard to swallow sometimes but that’s why its fiction.
Yeah true
Like Mike beating the shit out of Joe in the pizzeria in the strip’s opening weeks. Joe would have either defended himself, beat the shit out of Mike, or the business owner would have called the cops. Author fiat, as Majere says below.
Dorothy needs the good grades to get into the school she actually wants.
Going to Harvard is actually not a bad step on “become a president” path. Last I checked, harvard cared about your grades if you weren’t from a dynasty.
Author fiat. In reality Ruth wouldn’t have lasted 2 weeks as an RA because she’s a massive liability in pretty much every conceivable way and the administration would have been bombarded with complaints from students who find her behaviour more irritating and disruptive than intimidating.
“Author fiat” is not a term I’ve ever heard. And now I can’t stop picturing it as an author riding around in a Fiat doing donuts.
Wild hypocrite appears
Use Call Bluff
Wild hypocrite ran away.
no, no. ‘call bluff’ is a logic type attack. it has no effect on a ruth
Yes, Becky, it is. Hotter than a Madras curry.
That’s too hot!
hot damn
There it is
Ok Ruth before you even get mad it let me just tell you it was your side kick and Eye candy that spiked punch, and if memory serves your the one who told her she should go.
guys barely have time to call down and now they will be shitting bricks…
Well played, Willis. Distract us all from the impending doom with promises of more Dina/Becky makeouts.
ctrl + f and no “Cave Story” mention? Aww.
…huzzah!
(by the time this comment posts, that may change)
…didn’t they retranslate Balrog’s battlecry to “Oh Yeah” like the Kool-Aid man, to match his tendency to smash through walls and such? That’d mean the sole time he ever used “Huzzah” was over a decade ago in the fan-translation of the 2004 release.
He still says “Huzzah!” in our hearts.
It was first, so getting people to move on is difficult.
Kinda like how Transformers apparently consists almost entirely of G1.
“I kissed a girl and repetitive testing will be necessary to determine veracity of the hypothesis of whether I liked it.”
…here, you deserve this birthday cake that i just got. that was too awesome.
From the Rejected Song Titles pile.
First drafts are the hardest to get through.
Drinking, Under Age.
The Willis giveth. The Willis taketh away
Amen
Blessed (and frequently cursed) be the name of the Willis.
“Oh hush, like you never say bizarre stuff, like how there’s some magic dude in the sky always watching and judging everyone.”
I’m really sorry, it was just too good of a set-up.
GOD DAMMIT, YOU TRAITOROUS BONGO.
This is supposed to be a comment regarding Billie.
I think Billie will be the knee that saves the day. She knows Beckys circumstances and has some cloat with Ruthless
‘Knee’? What’s that mean, she’s going to knee Ruth in the gut?
Typo. Autocorrect is my Achilles heel
Yes. Yes she will.
Yes, she will “knee” Ruth in the “gut”.
At least they are drunk so it will hurt less when their femurs are removed.
No, see, Ruth is well-aware of how to sober people up, then she’ll remove the femurs when it’ll hurt.
Billie’s in trouble.
So… is Ruth here to take away all of Billie’s friends so that she only has her?
I fuckin’ hope not.
Wow, when Dina “experiments in college”, she does so literally.
Good job backlighting Ruth. I’m pretty sure the room is brighter than the hallway, but who cares.
I wonder if test-tubes will be involved… 😀
Please, please say we’re talking plastic and not glass…
test-fallopian tubes?
Ruth darkens whatever room she enters.
I don’t know what dorms you were in, but the lighting in the rooms were generally pretty shitty. I had to get a floor lamp just to make it passable. Hallways are required to be well lit for safety reasons, too.
“Literally” is not so uncommon. To do so systematically is remarkable.
Even rarer to be statistically rigorous in doing so (sounds way hotter than it really is, unless statistical tests really turn you on).
The Lesbian Hypothesis; Dina is gonna test it, I wonder if it will qualify her for a government grant…
Will “test it” replace “hit it”?
“What do you think of Dina?”
“I’d test it.”
I like that.
This would be the most funny moment for Sal to come inside again through the window I suppose XD
Oh-oh — methinks the organic fertilizer is about to impact with the oscillating air circulatory device.
I called it! And it didn’t even take one day. Because there’s Ruthless!
If Dina can find a large enough sample of guys and gals, she can calculate where exactly on the Kinsey Scale she lies.
+1
It is college, right?
i too was thinking that becky was too quick to be happy about the ‘experiment’ comment. she clearly is not familiar with the concepts of ‘double-blind study’ or ‘sample size’
You’re clearly not familiar with the concept of ‘testing a specific hypothesis’.
+1111111111
I worry that Dina’s experiments may yield negative results, but that is a less pressing issue than the sudden appearance of Ruth.
Oh good, and here I was thinking the situation was too tame.
CHEEZIT IT’S THE COPS
Worse, the cops generally don’t remove the femurs of college kids!
They do, only the non-white ones tho.
Its the fuzz. The gum shoes. The flat foots. The boys in blue. The coppers. The donut jockies. The 5-0. The Po Po.
Did I miss any?
CHEEZIT IT’S THE WALKING THESAURUS
La vache, the bulls, the gendarmes, the bombers, the demons, Mister Plod, the Old Bill, the bobbies, the Peelers, the coppertops….
Sorry, that’s “la vaches”. And I forgot “redcaps” and “provos”, “shore patrol” and MPs”.
Guards and pigs…
Yes, calling Dina “cranky” is clearly the best way to show you don’t approve of infantilizing her. Good call, Sarah.
Yes, this!
Sarah seems to be more bothered by Dina’s crankiness than by Joyce’s comments, though.
Goddammit, Sarah.
“I’m respecting your privacy by knocking, but asserting my authority as your RA by coming in anyways!”
DINKLEBERG
God damnit Willis!
😍 dina my beautiful nd dinosaur
im giving up on all my other fandoms. you’re the only character i care about. maybe becky too bcus the ship is great. but. DINA DINA DINA
Now we have confirmation that Dina is the smoothest one in that room.
all she needed to do was put on some shades as she delivered that last line
“Hypotheses need to be repeatedly tested to demonstrate veracity,” Yeah, that’s the kind of dirty talk I like! I am so on board this ship.
Please talk more science to me
Oh shit.
Pretty stupid of Ruth to come in, really, since she knows Billie’s at the party. Either they’re doing nothing wrong, and coming in is pointless, or they are doing something wrong, and Ruth now has to find a convincing excuse to not write up Billie and her friends.
Maybe that’s the point? To make some sort of stupid power demonstration to Billie or make sure Billie doesn’t have fun without her. They don’t have to healthiest of relationships
Maybe even just another attempt at ‘See, we totally hate each other!’ diversion?
I have to agree. Ruth is determined to self-destruction. All that remains to be seen is if Billie is caught in the blast radius and how bad the damage is.
Willis says that no-one is dying, so my absolute worst-case scenario – Ruth and Billie killing each other (as part of said pre-existing lesbian suicide pact) isn’t going to happen. However, Ruth being fired and leaving the strip on the way to destitution and lifelong misery, is possible.
May Joyce end up pulling Billie back from the brink?
Assaulting students that are supposed to be under your care is also pretty fucking stupid. Ruth is really good at stupid.
Love Dina.
Becky going up in my list of likables.
Everybody grab you femurs….Ruthless arrives.
So very close to Love Hina.
Ruth was bound to show up eventually.
Today’s Frivolesque: You should SEE it! 3_3
Oh, I was wondering where the traffic was coming from.
^_^
I hope she doesn’t lay the smackdown too much in reference to the alcohol, since she KNOWS it was Billie that brought it.
She’ll probably be unnecessarily harsh in a flat-footed attempt to cover up their relationship. Dorothy then appeals to the College Board of Administrators because of unfair harshness and Ruth and Billie are exposed by the resulting investigation. As you can see, Ruth and Billie are in something close to a no-win scenario.
Ruth joins the party, gets drunk with Billie
Well Becky seems to have moved on from Joyce so thats good
Whom will Dina bag when she wants to experiment with a boy for a control? Danny, Ethan, and Jacob would knock her back. Walky would only co-operate with Dorothy’s permission. Joe would put out, I suppose, though I don’t suppose that Science is his turn-on. But I have this horrid thought: Mike.
Dina and Mike won’t happen if only because they have been an item in other Willis comics. Maybe someone whom we haven’t seen yet, like Ninja Rick.
Sal/Jason have happened, Walky/Dorothy are happening.
Just because a pairing was a thing in another comic doesn’t mean it can’t happen again.
Where was Walky/Dorothy a thing? Walky/Joyce was the big couple in the other universe.
Willie basically said he was avoiding repeating pairings, and has kind of indicated that Sal/Jason won’t last, IIRC.
In an alternate universe in Joyce and Walky!.
Unless a lot of time was spent there, I’d say it doesn’t really count as doing the pairing again, which I think Willis is mostly avoiding because he would find it less interesting than exploring new pairings rather than because the old ones all like sucked or anything :|a
Sal/Jason only fucked a couple times, they’re not a couple here. And Walky/Dorothy was both brief and in the past so it’s not a retread of what we’ve already seen.
Ninja Rick won’t appear because he was based off a real person.
Which saddens all of us who want to see Ninja Rick the guidance counselor.
So you’re saying there is totally a Ninja Rick out in the real world who killed a person for realsies with a katana?
Based on a real..?
That’s the most disturbing thing I’ve read in weeks.
Wouldn’t men actually be a second variable group for Dina, though? I figured her control group would be “the concept of dinosaurs.”
that’d be terrible methodology. choosing some random dude to smooch, in order to test the hypothesis that she likes girls? and what, exactly, is she supposed to do with the results? like, yeah, IF there was a massive preference for Becky, then Dina probably is into Becky and thus into girls – unless there’s something incredibly terrible about the dude, like, say… ‘being Mike’. but literally any other result is gonna be inconclusive. Way prefers kissing the dude? doesn’t preclude her being into girls, just not THAT girl. no preference? could be into both of them or neither of them.
not to mention yr extremely non-random sampling method, shamelessly detailed here no less. smh. #overlyhonestmethods shouldn’t be yr role model!
also, she’s flirting.
See, Becky? SCIENCE will get you laid, where the Bible couldn’t!
(Or, if not laid, the at least properly smooched)
I want that on a t-shirt
This has been such a big party. I’m trying to remember who’s there and who’s left already.
Left already: Sal, Roz, Jacob, Raidah
Present and sober: Sarah, Joyce, Becky, Amber, Dina (and Ruth)
Present and drunk: Billie, Walky, Dorothy, Danny, Ethan
So lots of drama potential here if this party is busted by Ruth!:
Becky risks getting thrown out, which would upset Joyce;
Sarah will get upset about losing her scholarship again, plus she’s already upset at Joyce because of that mean thing Joyce said;
Dorothy will get upset again about screwing up her chances with Yale, and maybe act out towards Walky about it;
Ruth may have to get Billie in trouble, which will screw up their relationship;
and there’s still a tiny chance Danny and Ethan will drunkenly make out, upsetting Amber.
Walky probably won’t give a shit, and Dina will probably think it was the best night ever.
And Sal’s not even back yet.
I’m sure that, depending on how Dave wants to play it, this could be interesting. Especially if Becky gets thrown out on the streets by Ruth. We might see a softer side of Sal… or her vicious side.
“Walkerton, you can’t keep this vagrant in your room!”
“I wouldn’t have to if you weren’t keeping Billie in your room! Do you want to go to Administration about this or shall I?”
I didn’t think she intended to come back, but yeah, it’s possible…and Amber is still there at the moment.
How does Sarah lose her scholarship in this senario? She neither invited anyone, nor supplied the alcohol.
She is letting someone live in her room against the rules.
Ruth threatens to bust the party and write up the people who are drinking.
Billie takes her aside and reminds her of the day of the fire alarm.
Ruth transforms into Sgt. Schultz from ‘Hogan’s Heroes’: “I see nothing, I hear nothing, I know nothing!”
Well, that spawned the inevitable mental image of Ruth cosplaying in German uniform.
Hmm. Yes.
Come to think of it, Seras Victoria’s uniform might look good on Billie.
The Whiteboard Dingdong Bandit had a good run, but I think this has cemented itself as my new favorite storyline.
I so want Dina to borrow a line from a different webcomic:
“Boy that triggered a lot of my dopamine receptors! Thanks for helping me trick my body into believing it fulfilled its genetic imperative!”
Except it could be interpreted as being insulting (if it doesn’t occur to you that straight people are also quite fond of doing the exact same trick).
It’s Dina, I doubt she would know to make that distinction.
I cant for the life of me remember the context of that quote or who it was to only that Hannelore is hilarious.
http://questionablecontent.net./view.php?comic=1109
ohnorobot is your friend.
I can see how being initialized all the time would be annoying. It’s important to be taken seriously.
‘Initialized’?
they meant ‘infantilized’
“infantilized”
I blame tiny keyboards and large robot fingers.
I assume Megs meant “infantilized”.
Now it’s a wonder why Ruth is there, exactly.
It’s not like they were making a lot of noise or anything
So… Fetching Billie ? 😀
there’s something that hasn’t been said before. ruth is fetching
I am incredibly happy for Dina right now, being assertive is hard
She’s been pretty good about asserting herself on things she cares about prior to this. Tearing Joyce a new one for science denial, for ex. Good omen for the Becky/Dina ship, I’d say.
well, dina is owning. the first half of this strip was so nice that i figured you had somehow found out that it was my birthday. the second half made me think that maybe it’s also joyce’s birthday.
let’s recap:
1. dina stands up for herself very coherently with a zinger at the end
2. joyce expresses remorse, only to be interrupted by
3. a fleeting glimpse of fun-having drunk dorothy
4. becky gets swept off her feet by the dashing scientist that is dina
5. we see a perfect ‘what could possibly go wrong now’ flag, and finally
6. we see the ghost of misery present enter to squash dorathy’s presidential aspirations, joyce’s innocent reputation, sarah’s efforts to be a serious, diligent student, becky’s life, billie’s…uh…nope, i got nothing…and everyone else’s college record.
did i miss anything?
but ya, this can only play out a few different ways, right?
they all try to cover and somehow succeed (come on, dorothy!),
they start failing and sarah directs blame to billie (friend count => 0),
they get found out and ruth ruins them all (somehow, billie is spared?),
or they have to immediately deal with the fact that the person responsible for all of the illegal activity is the the one planted to scout it out, thereby making it all kinda billie/ruth’s fault (and billie has to fess up to either ruth or everyone else, at which point the fallout levels measure off the geiger counter)
dina is badass, and everything else is complicated. thank you, i accept this birthday gift, willis.
willis thank you for dina, i dont know if i can be very coherent right now but having this sort of storyline with dina who is autistic is really important to me? im still parsing the time before i figured stuff out about my brain but i definitely have some weird baggage about being naive and not-a-dating-prospect in college, so.
dina is my favorite
Seriously, it is just so nice to see a character like me taking charge of her romantic and sexual identity and saying that she is in fact an adult. (I didn’t date in college – hello debilitating anxiety disorder combined with queerness! – and have such worries about eventually joining the dating pool when I feel together enough for it, and it’s something of a relief to remember that there are people like me and they can have fulfilling romantic relationships with people they’re attracted to.)
Oh darn, looks the Becky x Dina ship has sunk. Too bad (and thank god).
Results:
– Becky is sent home
– Walky, Dorothy are both cited for underage drinking
– Joyce and Sarah are cited for hosting an underage drinking party
– Billie (most likely snuck out) gets off scott free.
– Dina and Amber have done nothing wrong, so they’re fine.
Nothing in this strip indicates any sinking. Indeed the clear canon evidence for it being a possibility is greater than it was with the last strip.
Also, if you hate everyone that much/are that pessimistic about everything, why are you reading?
They’re just making predictions. Their Dina/Becky one seems a bit ??? at the moment, but other than that, nothing they’ve guessed seems any more “pessimistic” than what’s reasonable to assume. Why shouldn’t they be reading?
I just reads to me like they are hoping all that horrible stuff happens. Maybe I just missed the tone though.
The ship hasn’t sunk. It just had to be sent back to port for further adjustments.
Ruth reporting people for drinking of all things ? yeah, right.
Who smuggled the booze into the party, Ruth? Why, it’s your secret lover and substance/self-abuse co-dependent, Billie! No-one would be drunk, if not for her!
This should be a delicious crisis and dilemma! Will anyone narc on Billie, or will they take their lumps in the name of friendship? If it’s the latter, how will Billie react? Will she be willing to let Ruth punish everyone because of her own actions? If it’s the former, will Ruth have the courage to punish Billie?
I think that Billie and Ruth’ relationship is about to enter a potentially fatal crisis. Let alone what Joyce’s family will think about her hosting a debauched bachanal in her room!
So weird. Our RAs never busted anyone for anything.
They probably didn’t have Ruth’s crisis-level self-worth issues!
They didn’t have Ruth’s compulsive need to be a pain in everyone’s ass and basically do the opposite of her job.
Of course not, in the real world the paperwork for serious violations is a royal pain in the ass.
Ruth is here to lay down the law!
What’s missing is the thunderstorm and a flash of lightning.
More like, she ended up being bored, all alone in her room.
Shit just got real.
Next strip: Deal me the apples card. I’m here to experience this ” fun” I’ve been hearing about. This is no trap by the way
Ruth why are you even there, you knew this party was happening. Unless she got bored and just wanted to pick up Billie with some excuse of “you need to escort your
hotdrunk ass out of here before I beat you with your own spine” etcetc.Here’s hoping that drunk Billie is good at keeping secrets, Becky can’t be kicked out after scoring some experimental makeouts! (Still hoping these two become/stay a thing haha)
Jealousy of Billie possibly hooking up with another guy maybe?
Being kicked out after scoring experimental makeouts is not a new experience to Becky
It’s not one she would like to repeat, either.
Yeah, the data is in on that one.
Because it’s time for her to bully a bunch of kids she thinks aren’t doing naything wrong because she has low self esteem and needs to feel powerful. Now, it’s going to be even worse because Billie got almost the whole room drunk so there’s actually something she should report.
Weeeeell, it might be good therapy for Billie’s actions to have consequences. It might help Billie. It obviously doesn’t help Ruth, who is borderline suicidal, but that is just an aspect of her knowing the consequences of her actions while not changing them/wanting to change them/knowing how to change them.
We neurodivergent people learn quickly that you can’t predict what does and doesn’t help other people. It is only neurotypical peeps who think they can normally guess it right, and, uh, people who have studied people.
Ruth you’re not supposed to *see* knocking.
She’s clearly breaking the 4th Wall there by addressing the audience – we “see” the word balloons.
So… did anyone else hear the Imperial Death March in their heads when Ruth showed up in the last panel?
For me, it was the Shin-Ra Corporation theme from Final Fantasy VII
Joyce: “Oh no, everyone’s drunk!”
Dorothy: “Chill, we’ll all sober up in a few minutes.”
Walky: *continues drinking*
If everyone – or anyone really – gets busted because of this I am going to be so pissed at Ruth and Billie. I don’t think this was a deliberate set-up, but it’s still crappy and unfair.
I think they’ll all be absolved and only Billie will be in trouble. She did supply the alcohol.
This wasn’t a set up, especially since Ruth seemed to believe that Billie has also stopped drinking.
No, that was last time they hooked up. This time they’re drinking themselves to death together.
Ruth knows that Billie is drinking again. Ruth is drinking again. This happened back near the end of Book 4. Last chapter had Billie buy some really hard liquor, only to find out that Ruth also bought some really hard liquor as well.
Hmmm. It seems a re-reading of the Ruth comics and perhaps DOA itself is in order.
It’s always in order, it’s a good read.
Oh, shut the fuck up Sarah…you are as much a reason for Dina being “cranky” as Joyce and Dorothy were!!!
Yeah, and I’m disappointed in her because I know she knows better.
Ah, fuck. I already see how this gonna go down. Ruth gets pissed at the drunkness. It comes out that it was BILLIE who caused that. Trying to defend herself, Billie let’s slip about Becky’s situation. Drama hurricane ensues.
She needs a couple of storm clouds and lightning bolts trailing her …
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaa
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Okay this is me being nitpicky but… “competent for my own actions”? that sentence ah doesnt… make sense
She perhaps got two thoughts muddled together, which happens to some of us sometimes even when we aren’t drunk.
It doesn’t? I got it as “competent enough to make my own decisions and be responsible for my own actions” pretty much… Though as I’m phrasing this on the go, I might also skip over a few things. Wasn’t hard for me to understand, anyway. 🙂
That sort of jumble /muddling happens to me a lot in unplanned conversation. In my experience, when your word use is usually very precise, all the words you know are rather specific (as opposed to the generalizing expressions most people seem to use) so when improvising like she does here, it happens that you get a word that’s too specific for the context.
“I have the competence to judge/choose my own actions” may be another good translation for you. (Since the others were acting as though Dina lacked that competence.)
Sorry; “too specific for the context” should rather have been “right semantic word pool, not combined entirely right” or something to that effect.
Sorry if that got even more confusing – I just think it’s interesting and wanted to try to show you why it doesn’t appear as strange to me, in case you would find that interesting too. ^^;
while it may be hard for me to explain the chain of thought to you, I recognized her phrasing patterns here as something I might do in that situation. = to me, it makes her a very believable character.
could be muddled, could also be ‘i’m competent (enough) for my actions’
Ruth is mad because there was a party with booze and she wasn’t invited.
There’s very little Ruth can actually do here without sending Billie down the river.
Panel three is best panel.
BEST PANEL.
Becky and another girl make out in front of Joyce. Joyce apologizes for being rude. Just in case we doubted the sincerity of Joyce accepting Becky’s sexuality
Good point.
I didn’t catch that until you said it; well spotted. 🙂 Joyce has grown so much in lots of ways since the start of the comic, I’ve really joyed seeing her work to re-evaluate her views to things. (I can relate)
For some reason I can’t help hearing the Darth Vadar theme playing in the last panel; either that or Jaws…
It wont be the Teddy Bears Picnic that’s for sure: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZANKFxrcKU
you know, I’ve honestly tried really hard to like Joyce. Her “innocence” doesn’t forgive the ignorance and it’s not endearing; she’s still at a point where her ignorance is like a bull in a china shop; knocking over expensive vases labeled Cultural Sensitivity and Intersectionality while whispering “black people” like it’s a bad word. I know she’s supposed to be an image of real life’s White Sheltered Christian Girl – maybe it just hits too close to home, because I can feel the frustration as I see her progress.
She’s written hella well and everything and everyone feels like a real person. Just, man, personal faves and unfaves, I guess.
Billie’s combination of narcing out a party before it even happens and then supplying everyone with alcohol is really something. I bet even Ruth will have to call her on that one.
She’s the one who knocks.
I thought Dina/Becky was a cute idea from the fanart, and now I’m really feeling it. Wherever it goes, I want more of them interacting. <3
Also it will be really interesting to see what Ruth (and everyone else) will do with this.
Ruth will scare all the freshmen, give them incentive to not do this again and then walk away. Reporting this wouldn’t improve her record or achieve anything. Catching them breaking the rules accomplishes her mission.
It truly isn’t that big a deal or even that uncommon for college kids to drink, even in the freshman dorms. But it isn’t encouraged, hence Ruth appears. She’ll break the party up and probably discover Becky. That will require some action on her part, mainly getting her connected to help.
You act like Ruth would be able to tell that Becky shouldn’t be there. She can just leave into Sal and Billie’s room and then come back once she’s gone.
*knock KNOCK*
HEY GUYS!
H-Hey Ruth!
WHAT’RE YOU DOING?
What are we doing?
WHAT’RE YOU DOING?
Partying.
PARTYING?
Partying.
WITHOUT ME?
……Yes.
…You just lost your femur privileges.
Wait, wha-
Even tho this is regarding Ruth and the others…i still read that in the DBZ Abridged voices. lol
Ruth is Vegeta
Shouldn’t it be “to determine veracity?” After all, she’s not sure.
I get the feeling Billie gonna do something stupid and deals will be made.
She’s the one who knocks.
Damnit. Someone beat me to it.
I guess I’m still disappointed in Dorothy, Joyce and Sarah from yesterday’s strip. Joyce at least apologized, but Dorothy’s just cheering like a loon like she wasn’t directly compliant in pissing her off and Sarah is being even more dismissive.
Dorothy’s drunk, don’t expect rational thought or behaviour.
I’m so sick of that argument. So what if Dorothy knocked a few back? so did everyone else in that room and they weren’t talking shit to Dina. She and Sarah still need to own up for treating Dina like a child (and for that matter, Sarah is somehow acting even worse than she was yesterday).
They were rude, sure. But aside from Amber none of them are really friends with her so I doubt they’ll really care enough to apologise. Well, Dorothy might if she sobers up and thinks about it, but she might not even remember. Sarah just kind of casually insults everyone around her so it’s neither surprising nor likely to change.
Just out of curiosity…
At a ‘dry’ campus like the one in the comics, would any student actually be expelled for having alcohol and/or being intoxicated? (Especially on a first offense.) Or would there be more of a ‘3 strikes’ policy? Perhaps a required “counselling” session? I know getting expelled is a possibility, just not sure if it would actually happen.
I could also point out that Ruth, were she to enforce the rules, would also be subject to scrutiny, not necessarily for her own drinking (which I assume she keeps hidden) but for violating student’s rights. (Remember, multiple students in the room were NOT drinking, and despite Ruth’s claim of “this counts as knocking”, I’m sure Sarah and Amber would probably be willing to lodge a complaint if pushed.
“Knock knock, motherfucker!”
Hey, Daniel the Human here. Screwball might not be able to post for a few days. I’ve been on holiday, which means he has no internet access. I let him online today temporarily, he got as far as Dina kissing Becky before being that shurprised, shocked & several other things he just shut down. If he still hasn’t moved in a few days time I’ll send 240 Volts through him, that worked before, till then, I’m enjoying the quiet & the comic…
okay becky and dina
i can ship it
OMGTHEY’RESOCUTE
Drunk me and drunk Dorothy are suspiciously similar.
This was not the right time to be Ruth
NO IT’S HILARIOUS
Knock Knock
Who’s There?
Interrupting RA
Interrupting RA whhhARRGH! My Femurs!
BA-DUM TSSSS
There will be repeated testing of hypotheses and violent extraction of femurs.
Dina practically said more in the first panel than she has in the rest of the comic.
Middle panel is Anime, like whoa.
Every time Ruth appears on panel I hate her a little more.
Remember that time on Shortpacked when Galasso fired everyone? They had to secretly keep him prisoner for a bit?
Because right now I am all in favour of that plotline being resurrected.
Uh oh, could this lead to Dorothy having a blotch on her record for being underage and drunk? Say goodbye to those ivy league schools! :p
I like the decorated door. It seems to say “TA DA! Here’s Ruth!”
Good for Dina in panel 1, standing up for herself. I wish I had that much spine at that age. I’m sixteen years older than Dina now, and still working on growing a spine. Progress is quite slow.
Getting back to the topic of Dina, she is one to approach matters scientifically. Becky doesn’t seem to have objections to being her guinea pig at this juncture.
Yikes on that last panel. Since that’s where Willis left things, I suspect that tomorrow, we’ll be seeing what Sal’s up to. Or maybe he’ll give us a glimpse of Jacob and Raidah’s date. Maybe in July, we’ll see the fallout of Ruth’s grand entrance.
Yay.
Ruth’s here.
Now the scene is saved because Ruth–the undisputedly best character in the comic, with all the best scenes, lines, and actions–is here.
To save. The day.
Yaaaaaaaaaaay.
Finally somebody gets it.
Wait I thought Malaya was the best
Dina to Yelp translation:
“7/10. Would make out again, for science.”
7??? hell naw, saying ‘we need to smooch a lot more for rigorous testing’ is blatant flirting
I foresee a sobbing Ruth with Billie consoling her, and everyone else standing around dumbfounded. Because Ruth.
KNOCK KNOCK MOTHERFUCKER
Ruth has no idea how to be nice with people.
Dina really wants to be at this party. Feelings are swelling up for her budding relationship with Becky.
I wonder where Dina’s parents figure into Dina’s life. At this point it seems like maybe they were too hands-off.
BeckyxDina? I support this super-cute ship if Dina does find the hypothesis to be supported by the evidence. owo
Also, I forgot to mention that I love how Dina goes off on those treating her like less than an adult. Good going!
Any girl experiment sexually in college, but it takes someone really special to recognize the importance of having a empirically sound experimental methodology