High five is at least 80s, more likely before. This is not too old, not too young. This is didn’t think about it (and down low, but more of a too old so he didn’t think of that at all).
Ruthless was the RA …. and had an alcohol problem. Dorothy is bucking to become the RA …. and is developing an alcohol problem.
I’m starting to see a pattern. These college freshmen can drive you to drink.
How exactly is having a drink with someone who really, really needed to vent… an “alcohol problem”?
The absolutist view of even a drink or two on the weekend is an “alcohol problem”, that even one drink is too many, is part of what CREATES problems. “Well, I’ve failed and had a sip, I’m a sinner, might as well go all the way to black out town.”
(This rant brought to you by Monday morning and the onset of a terrible head cold…)
Correct me if I’m wrong, but none of these students are over 21. We’re talking underage drinking here; and yes, I would call that an indication of a potential problem with alcohol.
Literally the only people I knew in college who didn’t drink underage were those who weren’t underage anymore, and one who had a medical condition that meant she couldn’t have alcohol.
I think the high five is there to establish that Grace is Roz’s friend, and therefore glaring automatically at her competition. It’s a bit childish, but it tracks.
That + the realisation you just said something stupid and completely not in your “style” to take off the awkwardness of the realisation itself, which led to increased “oh no”-feelings on your part (the general “you” or rather here Dorothy’s)
Dorothy: “Wait, Grace! I can high-five, too! I can even do it correctly! You know, when the five is actually high up in the air? What do you say, Grace? Grace??”
Is, is that a reference to something? I feel like it’s a reference to something but for the life of me I can’t figure it out. I wanna say, Will Smith, Fresh Prince of Bel Air season 1, but I at the same time I’m pretty sure that’s a wrong answer. Stupid brain, work better! I shouldn’t be this foggy after 16 oz of kumis dammit!
If her idea of what it means to be “cool” comes from TV sitcom reruns, she’s probably beyond hope. What’s next, is she going to buy a leather jacket, say “eyyy” all the time, and fix things by punching them?
One: I’m not entirely sure that it’s from the Fresh Prince, although it sounds like it could be.
Two: Fonzy at least new how to accessorize. The Greaser look is still pretty cool if you shorten up the hair a bit.
Three: Now I’m picturing Dorothy dressed like a Greaser…damn but I think she could pull it off.
In Shortpacked, this was how Robin became a senator (Cadbury Creme Eggs rather than booze). Will Dorothy keep drinking and wake up hung over as Robins replacement republican senator?
Thank god I don’t have “Resident Evil 7 movie” vertigo anymore, the first abrupt change to Galasso’s threw me off so much in addition to the vertigo that I had to sit and think super hard. But I think seeing it like John said where the sudden shifts are reminiscent of being under the influence/hungover/feeling low and having time slip through your fingers with only small memories of what has happened.
Have they even really had any interactions before this? I don’t understand why everyone thinks everyone has to be so bloody chipper all the time and super-sweet to everyone they meet even if they’re having a bad day or never even met that person before. Or just don’t like super fake people like Dorothy trying to butter them up for ulterior motives.
She seems to treat social interaction as a learned skill, and something she has to approach deliberately. That doesn’t make her fake.
Not everyone can just be effortlessly social.
Besides, if anyone is fake, it’s Roz. She has more natural social talent, but she’s also far far more conscious and intentional and manipulative in how she uses that talent (see, the entire RA “election” arc).
I don’t think she’s cold, but she did noticeably start interacting and charting her floor mates far more when she was ‘up for election’. Grace probably noticed that Dorothy never really bothered with this stuff before. Meanwhile, Roz has more day to day casual small talk social skills so it might be harder to notice. Plus we don’t know much about Roz’s relationships outside the main cast – we know Dorothy isn’t particularly social outside her group, but we don’t know about Roz.
This isn’t the right way to put this, but Dorothy is faking, or exaggerating, her concern for her dorm. She’s talking to Grace here because she thinks she has to and tht she’s falling behind Roz, rather than out of genuine social interaction. She’s pushing herself to talk more to the people in her dorm because she thinks it’s what makes her a good RA rather than out of genuine desire to speak with them. If Dorothy wasn’t trying to be the RA, she wouldn’t be talking to them, at least not to this extent.
Roz is effortlessly social. She casually mingles with someone for half a breath and steps out to do to the same to someone else because that’s genuinely how she interacts with people. She’s not trying to turn herself into something she’s not, like Dorothy is, to appeal to these people who don’t have any sway in appointing her RA, this is the real her.
Roz is kind of a horrible asshole who I want to smack with a comically oversized salmon, but she’s legit.
@Spencer: I somewhat disagree. Dorothy, at her most basic core, genuinely cares about people. She’s artificially going out of her way to EXPRESS that care, partially because of the RA thing, but I think more now because it bothers her that she’s finding out that people misunderstand that about her.
Roz, by contrast, has a default state of making superficial connections to be liked and popular, and she’s quite good at it, but she really doesn’t seem to give a damn about anyone besides herself, except to the extent that they can validate her. Obviously Roz is not nearly as much of a POV character as Dorothy is, so maybe she does have close friends lurking somewhere, but I think it’s telling that Roz has the most confrontational relationships with people that circumstances make her spend more than a few minutes at a time with (her sisters, her roommate, her classmates (when asked to partner up in Gender Studies, she goes with someone she can’t even remember the name of)). The one time we see Roz do something for someone else that isn’t for making herself look awesome (giving Joyce the number of a therapist), it was done out of guilt, and then only -extremely- reluctantly.
So yeah, Dorothy has slathered on some poorly applied make-up to try to highlight things that other people aren’t seeing, vs Roz who has a well-worn mask good enough to fool most people. Which of those two qualifies as ‘fake’? I say Roz.
I’m not saying Dorothy is unempathetic, I’m saying her recent attempt at being Super Personable Dorothy is a gigantic failure. This isn’t her. She’s treating people and their problems like checkboxes to be checked off. It’s, fundamentally, dishonest and manipulative.
Roz shot up the asshole rankings when she proudly showed off her sister’s outing and expected all the little queer sheep to fall in line for the super ally, but she’s not dishonest. Roz using her classroom as a stage to launch into a tirade at the evil fundie is the same Roz who deduced that something had happened to Joyce and quietly tried to offer her support. She’s a selfish, self aggrandizing jerkass who’s enamored with the smell of her own farts, but the Roz she’s putting on display to her dorm is the real Roz, and that can’t be said about Dorothy.
Post tree has run out of branches, so I’ll respond here.
I was going to go into a lot of detail, but Tan sums it up nicely.
Roz may be “effortlessly social”, but that doesn’t make her the “less fake” one. Plenty of people who are innately, effortless social use that talent to hide their true intentions and manipulate people.
Consider this, as an extreme version of how we’ve seen Roz behave:
“Psychopaths display different traits depending on their disorder, but common signs include superficial charm, a grandiose notion of self-worth, the need for stimulation and impulsiveness, pathological lying, the ability to manipulate others and a lack of remorse and empathy.”
She seems to get along with Riley fine. She doesn’t like ROBIN. And for similar reasons she doesn’t like Mary – both of them are bigoted assholes who’d jump at the chance to strip her reproductive freedom from her and strip her of her agency. Her not getting along with her classmates is a valid point about her being confrontational, but Robin and Mary are dickbags. It’s not unreasonable for her to not like them.
Roz is faking. She’s jut more practiced at it. We’ve seen how she is when she’s not in politician mode, and she’s not naturally nice and social.
More importantly, her conversations with Dorothy have revealed exactly how she’s being manipulative. We already know she faked the whole “reluctant politician” shtick. We already know she’s got people thinking it was their idea for her to “run” when she clearly wanted it.
Dorothy may not be naturally social, but she does naturally care about others. We know that Roz, being an asshole, doesn’t. Even her activism was always predicated on her–she wants to be free to have sex with who she wants. And she wants to tear her sister down.
The interactions she’s doing are the fake interactions and not the real ones, where you talk to people and get to know them.
Sure, Roz is also trying to get Dorothy to be fake, and that is stupid. She’s not going to get good enough at it to win, so she might as well stick to her strengths, and just work on making sure everyone knows she really cares.
But Roz is still Fakey McFakerson. Hell, the fact that she does this on her own is part of why I dislike her.
Roz did not “deduce that something had happened to Joyce and quietly tried to offer her support”. That is simply not what happened. Roz had it literally shouted in her face that something happened to Joyce, before class. Roz then sat through the entirety of that class, WENT TO LEAVE (http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/03-the-first-step-towards-recovery/caramel-2/ she does look torn about it, but nonetheless she’s out the door way ahead of Joyce), and then SIX STRIPS LATER came back, shoved a business card in Joyce’s hand (while not bothering to remember Joyce’s name), and got the hell out of there as fast as possible. Like I said, that was reluctantly easing a guilty conscience.
What in the world does Roz have to have a guilty conscience for? All she knows is that the fundie girl who keeps calling her a hellbound slut might have had something bad happen to her, so she offered a resource.
Jeez, I thought for sure I was on the Roz hatetrain now but you guys take it to a whole new level.
Roz made going to that party and bringing a friend one of her requirements for Dorothy to interview her. Joyce was that friend and would not have been at that party otherwise. Roz knows this.
Roz began a conversation by saying that party wasn’t so bad to Dorothy when it was actually way worse than Dorothy and Joyce thought it would be, rubbing it in. Roz knows this.
She can’t reasonably know that she basically dismissed Joyces desire to not be raped as “someones always gotta make a scene” so I guess not that.
Roz knows that something really bad happened to Joyce at the party she pressured to Joyce’s friend to take a friend to. She might not know Joyce was almost raped but she suspects, and she at least knows Dorothy takes it seriously.
Okay A. it wasn’t Roz’s fault B. her giving that card to Joyce wasn’t out of guilt, it was because holy shit this girl might have undergone some horrible traumatic incident and need help. That’s not guilt that’s holding yourself to a basic standard of human decency.
I don’t actually blame her for what happened. My point is most people under those circumstances, even if they couldn’t reasonably know anything bad would happen and did nothing wrong, would feel guilty.
@Temperaryobsessor: How the hell does inviting Dorothy to the party (she didn’t say anything about bringing a friend, Joyce offered to come as moral support) make her responsible for what happened?
Because you know who IS responsible? Ryan. Ryan is 100% fucking responsible.
There is absolutely no reason to assume that Roz had any idea some sleazy shit like Ryan would be there, OR that Roz would just magically know what happened to Joyce. They were almost complete strangers at that point. Roz even had to ask Joyce her name when she gave her the card.
Roz did tell Dorothy to bring a friend (presumably for safety reasons) but you’re still right that putting this on Roz is 150% bullshit.
And since people still don’t believe that Roz does not know the details about the party – Word of Willis via the books is that if she DID know what happened, she’d throw herself out a window for that ‘making a scene’ comment.
To be clear, I did not at any point mean that what happened to Joyce was Roz’s fault, and I don’t think anyone has said it is. That responsibility lies solely and utterly on Ryan.
That being said, I stand by my assertion that guilt was Roz’s primary motivating factor. People are entirely capable of feeling guilt about something that isn’t their fault, and without knowing the details. Something bad happened to Joyce in a situation she wouldn’t be in if not for me? I would feel bad about it and want to do something to make it up to her. Doesn’t mean I’m to blame, just means I have some basic empathy.
(sidenote: Roz had ample opportunity to learn Joyce’s name, up to and including having it yelled at her in the same breath as telling her that party had put Joyce through horrible crap, in fact knew her name -at- the party, and did not bother to use her name when Joyce supplied it (Roz didn’t ask for it). That seems more like willful failure to remember Joyce’s name to keep an emotional distance)
Looked through the ‘Grace’ tag to get a handle on her. She is an observant and perhaps even sardonic cookie. I can see her not appreciating someone deciding to act like her friend all of a sudden.
I mean, does Dorothy even have a page of her notebook devoted to Grace? I think not!
I can somewhat relate to this. Back when I could still speak fluent Spanish all of my Spanish slang was what was current in Southern Spain about 1972. The problem was I was trying to use it in N. Central TX in 2000 with Mexicans and Guatemalans. I sounded like a British Mod at a hip hop concert.
Poor Dorothy! You really aren’t cut out to be a woman of the people are you? Just to make things worse, you’re just drunk enough to start making bad judgement calls.
Want my advice? Stick to your strength: Be a methodical, level-headed source of advice; don’t try to be a ‘buddy’.
Uh-oh… The preview panel for this one was posted on November 7th. If the RA position follows real-world politics that means Mary gets the job, and spends all her time blaming Roz for everyone’s problems while trying to get the receptionist deported.
I just realized, w’re all ignoring panel one’s biggest question: who are Joyce’s lab partners? So far we only know about her gender studies and math class. Is it a chemistry lab, a physics lab, a biology lab? Will we see new characters? Will Sayyid be involved, thus giving him more opportunities to show up in the comic aside from Galassoe’s Pizza (and subs)?
Come to think of it, what ‘lab’? I know that ‘lab’ is educational shorthand for any practical portion of a course but, AFAIK, she’s only doing basic starter courses right now.
If she’s taking a chemistry or physics course there’s probably a lab section. I probably wouldn’t have failed Chem 110 if all it had been was the lab section.
Joyce has other classes and IU has a science requirement iirc. Probably going there. If I had to guess what her science was, I’d say Physics or Chem. Definitely not biology – if she hears about evolution, she still breaks out in hives.
I resembled Dorothy in terms of homework ethics/priorities. I was very shocked and hurt when I was told most considered me cold and unrelateable. I remember the feeling well.
We see maybe another side of Dorothy here. She’s a very confident and smart and attractive person, and we’ve seen that side of her.
But being as smart as Dorothy is and innately analytical and academically driven to boot, usually comes with some cost in social smooth that we’ve seen in the “RA unelection arc”.
I’m actually kind of shocked. Did Dorothy really never ponder she’d have to do a lot of glad-handing and personal interaction to become President? I mean, it’s about getting people to like you not training. You don’t study to be President, you NETWORK.
Dubya actually has the qualifications which Dorothy is pursuing, which kind of says they’re not as good as she thinks she is. Well, that and Dorothy isn’t in oil or baseball.
I wasn’t talking about “Dubya”. I was talking about “HW”.
George HW Bush.
Herbert Walker.
Who had served as a Naval aviator in WW2, been a business executive multiple times, a part time professor, a US Representative, the Ambassador to the UN, Envoy to China, Director of the CIA, chairman of the RNC, and Vice President of the US.
ON PAPER, at the start of his time in office, George HW Bush had the most impressive resume of any POTUS going back decades.
A bit of good news to go with the bad. The ACLU announced that it received 6 times its average YEARLY donations, in a single weekend, in response to The Cheeto’s executive order banning refugees and immigrants from select countries.
Several social media firms spoke out against the move… one has to wonder how far a sitting POTUS would have to go to get his Twitter account banned.
Also, a bit of a rant that I found this weekend, that sums a few things up quite nicely.
Folks have also started a phone call campaign to contact their reps to start impeachment proceedings as soon as possible, especially if their reps are GOP.
Y’know, in case any of y’all are interested in doing that.
This is hard for Dorothy, because she is doing a good piece of actually being a RA. She had a heart to heart with Billie, just when Billie needed some company. She is working through how to talk to Joyce about Ryan in a solid process, facing up to something she doesn’t want to do but will.
That is very true. She does good job an RA, and even more importantly, she does it despite being out of her depth, out of her comfort zone and feeling increasingly like shit.
The very reason why she is tipsy enough to make a fool of herself – and no doubt have a horrible headache forming – is that she stepped out of her normally so tidy world to comfort Billie.
Okay, I know Dorothy’s struggle is important, and that “Even if you’re the best option, even if you’ve worked 10x as hard as your competitors, sometimes you still lose,” can be a life lesson of variable importance, but what the hell are she and Walky doing in that Slipshine side panel?
Tried clicking on the slipshine panel to go check out the new comic, but I keep getting
“There seems to be an error in processing your request. The information below will help in determining the cause of the error. If you are sure you have done everything correctly and this error persists, please contact clientsupport@ccbill.com for further assistance.
Okay, catch up time! Damn you midterms and classes for dictating my sleep schedule!
Panel One: Damn it! Joyce is off with her lab partners. So much for telling her about Ryan expediently. And now Dorothy probably won’t be sloshed when she tells her – good for delivery, really bad for nerves. Sorry, Dorothy.
This also makes me wonder what science Joyce is taking. I’m leaning towards physics, as it involves the most math and math is her favourite subject. It also wouldn’t smack her with evolution quite as much as biology or astrology will.
Panel Two: Again, Dorothy is getting a lot of wide pan panels lately. Really good at emphasizing how lonely and small she’s feeling, especially when it regards this secret. Poor baby.
Panel Three: Huh. Interesting. Apparently Grace is very much in agreement with Roz on this one. Screw Robin and get her voter base turned down. Most younger folks I’ve known have been very ‘never ever ever out people ever ever ever’ and it’s mostly been older folks who are more okay with it when it regards heterosexist cissexist LGBT+ politicians. So this is interesting to see what someone outside the main cast (whom will presumably react to this) thinks.
Or maybe Grace and Roz were just already friends. We don’t know their lives.
Panel Four: Awwww, Dorothy is such an eager little puppy. She wants so badly to be liked and she means well.
Panel Five: Buuuuuuuuut Grace also notices that Dorothy has never really tried reaching out to folks like this until she wanted to be RA. Roz is pretty good at making her socializing seem natural in a way Dorothy isn’t good at. Again, assuming she wasn’t already friends with these people which is entirely possible. Roz is very social and she’s not in the main cast – for all we know she’s already endeared herself to her floor mates outside the main cast pre running for RA.
Although most people at least would respond. As Mandy would say – Grace, rude.
Panel Six: oooooh, yeah, that was a yikes face. Poor Dorothy. This day is hammering her over and over with her fears of reliability. This is going to stick around for a while.
Panel Seven: *SNORTS* Dorothy what even are you doing? What are the words coming out of your mouth right now? Are you a 70s show? How old are you? XP
But no, this is also kinda a punch in the chest. Poor Dorothy is desperate to be relatable and real, but social skills are her weakness and that’s hitting her right now.
Panel Eight:Awwwww, honey, no. Dorothy looks like she’s gonna cry here. Poor Dorothy. She doesn’t deserve that. And yeah, it’s hitting how hard she’ll have to work on this part of her dreams if she’s going to get it and how unlikely it is that she’ll ever achieve those without these social skills and it’s a painful realization. Poor girl’s afraid she’s hitting a wall.
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Don’t worry, Dotty, you can totes lose the popular vote but win the electoral college!
“OH HELL NO I DON’T WANT A GOP-STYLE WIN”
well ok, you’ll have neither b/c it’s not an election anyway so don’t even worry when Lucy gets the job
“wait who’s Lucy”
someone who doesn’t even live there, don’t worry about it
“WHY CAN’T I WORRY I’M A PERFECTIONIST”
…good point, worry away
“ZOMGOMGOMG”
Wait, I thought Lucy does live there? Isn’t she Malaya’s roommate?
They aren’t on the same floor / dorm
They are in another building.
Thank you anonymsly, but Malaya is in another building
With your icon right under willis’ it looks like a little matchy game where you mix up the bodies and heads of different characters.
that works a lot with butts. Kind of a bonus of his comments (or her comments as the case may be).
Or zher.
Your princess is in another castle
I’M RELATABLE, DARN YOU
FO’ RIZZLE!
Wait, that’s how Robin talks. And SHE managed to get elected, so maybe Dorothy’s onto something.
Dorothy’s the cool candidate; she’s drunk!
She’s all kinds of crazy fly.
I understood that reference!
I just can’t get the hang of this young-person talk, dang flabbit!
sometimes it is good to try something new but sometimes it is also good to just embrace who you are.
I object!
That’s not a high-five, that’s down-low.
Agreed, Willis is no longer, how you say, “hip to the jive, Yo.”
Too old to understand these kids today and their crazy rock and roll music.
High five is at least 80s, more likely before. This is not too old, not too young. This is didn’t think about it (and down low, but more of a too old so he didn’t think of that at all).
70s definitely, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were 60s-era clips of athletes high-fiving.
But is he “jiggy with it?”
Does he grok ye jive, me hearties?
10-4!
Verily, forsooth!
“Down with the street”, as it were.
I’m sure he used to be “with it”, but then they changed what “it” was.
and it’ll happen to youuuuu.
How do you do, fellow kids?
Roz is that awesome, even her low-fives sound like high-fives.
I wondered how they made a ‘high-five’ sound come out of a ‘low-five’!
Dang, Dorothy is just ping-ponging all over in her drunken state. The poor girl. She needs more alcohol.
Either less or more. Either way, she is not at the optimal amount.
Ruthless was the RA …. and had an alcohol problem. Dorothy is bucking to become the RA …. and is developing an alcohol problem.
I’m starting to see a pattern. These college freshmen can drive you to drink.
No, it’s just that “alcohol problem” is a hidden requirement to become RA.
I don’t know if getting drunk once in an effort to empathize with a friend should be described as “developing an alcohol problem.”
Source: Have watched folks develop alcohol problems
Billie drinks to drive you.
At least until they took her license away.
How exactly is having a drink with someone who really, really needed to vent… an “alcohol problem”?
The absolutist view of even a drink or two on the weekend is an “alcohol problem”, that even one drink is too many, is part of what CREATES problems. “Well, I’ve failed and had a sip, I’m a sinner, might as well go all the way to black out town.”
(This rant brought to you by Monday morning and the onset of a terrible head cold…)
Know what I’ve heard is good for those? Bourbon. You better get yourself an ‘alcohol problem’ stat.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but none of these students are over 21. We’re talking underage drinking here; and yes, I would call that an indication of a potential problem with alcohol.
I know a number of people who drank underage and none of them developed drinking problems.
Especially since this is college we’re talking about, it hardly indicates a drinking problem. Otherwise, I should know a LOT more alcoholics.
Literally the only people I knew in college who didn’t drink underage were those who weren’t underage anymore, and one who had a medical condition that meant she couldn’t have alcohol.
I think that’s a different kind of “problem”
DOROTHY YES
Well Dorothy’s day is just flipping from bad to worse.
She got a glare from just saying hi?
Maybe Grace can see the drunkenness bubbles, and doesn’t approve.
Nah, that’s just Grace’s face. She seems to have a serious case of resting grump face.
Even when she smiles, she often has sort of a frown.
Even when she smiles, she often has sort of a frown.
EDIT: But apparently she only ever smiled once, after sex with Mandy. http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/03-answers-in-hennessy/endupgay/
Mandy makes her happy.
Everyone else is meh at best.
Mandy DEFINITELY makes her happy. Re: slipshine.
I think the high five is there to establish that Grace is Roz’s friend, and therefore glaring automatically at her competition. It’s a bit childish, but it tracks.
oh, the realization youre not as liked as you thought… ive been there…. its…well
That + the realisation you just said something stupid and completely not in your “style” to take off the awkwardness of the realisation itself, which led to increased “oh no”-feelings on your part (the general “you” or rather here Dorothy’s)
Grace and Roz are friendly acquaintances, which are my favorite kind of BFFs
At least she didn’t say “whaaaazuuuup”.
Dear god, it just occurred to me that these characters would have just been being BORN when those commercials first aired (18 years ago).
Damn you floating timeline! Stop making me feel old!
Real life’s floating timeline? Does it to me too.
why is she still trying to appeal to her floormates who have no say in the RA selection process
To prove she has what it takes to be RA. Not that Ruth ever displayed that particular skill.
“You’re showing promise, Ms. Keener, but I’m afraid you don’t beat, harass and threaten your peers enough.”
To paraphrase Machiavelli, fear and love are both acceptable, as one as one avoids outright hatred.
Dorothy’s big problem is she never stopped to consider popularity and ability to relate to people as a requirement to be a politician.
Dorothy: “Wait, Grace! I can high-five, too! I can even do it correctly! You know, when the five is actually high up in the air? What do you say, Grace? Grace??”
“Don’t try to confuse me with your ‘Knowing the difference between high and low’, NERD!
Nooooo honey baby, don’t try to be smooth while tipsy. Just…sit down in your room, read a book, have some water. Wait for it to pass.
Clearly not a happy drunk.
Grace, that’s mean. At least say hi.
Uh oh.
Oh man, that is SO me back at college. I tried to run for elected positions too, with the same amount of cringy result.
And RA isn’t even an elected position.
Is, is that a reference to something? I feel like it’s a reference to something but for the life of me I can’t figure it out. I wanna say, Will Smith, Fresh Prince of Bel Air season 1, but I at the same time I’m pretty sure that’s a wrong answer. Stupid brain, work better! I shouldn’t be this foggy after 16 oz of kumis dammit!
If her idea of what it means to be “cool” comes from TV sitcom reruns, she’s probably beyond hope. What’s next, is she going to buy a leather jacket, say “eyyy” all the time, and fix things by punching them?
One: I’m not entirely sure that it’s from the Fresh Prince, although it sounds like it could be.
Two: Fonzy at least new how to accessorize. The Greaser look is still pretty cool if you shorten up the hair a bit.
Three: Now I’m picturing Dorothy dressed like a Greaser…damn but I think she could pull it off.
You can cut the awkwardness with a knife, it’s that thick.
The finger guns, they do nothing!
I made a caption
Just last strip we were suddenly at Galasso’s, and suddenly we’re back at the dorms.
The strip is simulating the memory gaps Dorothy’s experiencing after drinking too much of Billie’s jet fuel.
In Shortpacked, this was how Robin became a senator (Cadbury Creme Eggs rather than booze). Will Dorothy keep drinking and wake up hung over as Robins replacement republican senator?
I too thought it was different pacing for us to jump from one scene straight to another while following the same character.
Thank god I don’t have “Resident Evil 7 movie” vertigo anymore, the first abrupt change to Galasso’s threw me off so much in addition to the vertigo that I had to sit and think super hard. But I think seeing it like John said where the sudden shifts are reminiscent of being under the influence/hungover/feeling low and having time slip through your fingers with only small memories of what has happened.
*seeing it that way helps it make more sense, good complete thought process me, great going
Dorothy just can’t manage to connect with grace.
pfft!
According to “http://www.dumbingofage.com/tag/grace+dorothy/”, this is the first time they’ve interacted in comic.
Okay what’s with the fucking glare?
Probably nothing personal – it’s just Grace’s face. Her neutral expression seems fairly sardonic.
I was wondering about that too…
It might just be “the way her face is”, but she didn’t even say hello or nod or in any way acknowledge Dorothy.
Have they even really had any interactions before this? I don’t understand why everyone thinks everyone has to be so bloody chipper all the time and super-sweet to everyone they meet even if they’re having a bad day or never even met that person before. Or just don’t like super fake people like Dorothy trying to butter them up for ulterior motives.
The bizarro “Dorothy is fake and cold” thing continues. Oh well.
They’ve lived on the same floor of the same dorm for a couple of months, they should at least be on “hey”… “hey”… ground.
Dorothy’s not cold, but she is a little fake.
She seems to treat social interaction as a learned skill, and something she has to approach deliberately. That doesn’t make her fake.
Not everyone can just be effortlessly social.
Besides, if anyone is fake, it’s Roz. She has more natural social talent, but she’s also far far more conscious and intentional and manipulative in how she uses that talent (see, the entire RA “election” arc).
I don’t think she’s cold, but she did noticeably start interacting and charting her floor mates far more when she was ‘up for election’. Grace probably noticed that Dorothy never really bothered with this stuff before. Meanwhile, Roz has more day to day casual small talk social skills so it might be harder to notice. Plus we don’t know much about Roz’s relationships outside the main cast – we know Dorothy isn’t particularly social outside her group, but we don’t know about Roz.
I disagree, especially on Roz.
This isn’t the right way to put this, but Dorothy is faking, or exaggerating, her concern for her dorm. She’s talking to Grace here because she thinks she has to and tht she’s falling behind Roz, rather than out of genuine social interaction. She’s pushing herself to talk more to the people in her dorm because she thinks it’s what makes her a good RA rather than out of genuine desire to speak with them. If Dorothy wasn’t trying to be the RA, she wouldn’t be talking to them, at least not to this extent.
Roz is effortlessly social. She casually mingles with someone for half a breath and steps out to do to the same to someone else because that’s genuinely how she interacts with people. She’s not trying to turn herself into something she’s not, like Dorothy is, to appeal to these people who don’t have any sway in appointing her RA, this is the real her.
Roz is kind of a horrible asshole who I want to smack with a comically oversized salmon, but she’s legit.
@Spencer: I somewhat disagree. Dorothy, at her most basic core, genuinely cares about people. She’s artificially going out of her way to EXPRESS that care, partially because of the RA thing, but I think more now because it bothers her that she’s finding out that people misunderstand that about her.
Roz, by contrast, has a default state of making superficial connections to be liked and popular, and she’s quite good at it, but she really doesn’t seem to give a damn about anyone besides herself, except to the extent that they can validate her. Obviously Roz is not nearly as much of a POV character as Dorothy is, so maybe she does have close friends lurking somewhere, but I think it’s telling that Roz has the most confrontational relationships with people that circumstances make her spend more than a few minutes at a time with (her sisters, her roommate, her classmates (when asked to partner up in Gender Studies, she goes with someone she can’t even remember the name of)). The one time we see Roz do something for someone else that isn’t for making herself look awesome (giving Joyce the number of a therapist), it was done out of guilt, and then only -extremely- reluctantly.
So yeah, Dorothy has slathered on some poorly applied make-up to try to highlight things that other people aren’t seeing, vs Roz who has a well-worn mask good enough to fool most people. Which of those two qualifies as ‘fake’? I say Roz.
I’m not saying Dorothy is unempathetic, I’m saying her recent attempt at being Super Personable Dorothy is a gigantic failure. This isn’t her. She’s treating people and their problems like checkboxes to be checked off. It’s, fundamentally, dishonest and manipulative.
Roz shot up the asshole rankings when she proudly showed off her sister’s outing and expected all the little queer sheep to fall in line for the super ally, but she’s not dishonest. Roz using her classroom as a stage to launch into a tirade at the evil fundie is the same Roz who deduced that something had happened to Joyce and quietly tried to offer her support. She’s a selfish, self aggrandizing jerkass who’s enamored with the smell of her own farts, but the Roz she’s putting on display to her dorm is the real Roz, and that can’t be said about Dorothy.
Post tree has run out of branches, so I’ll respond here.
I was going to go into a lot of detail, but Tan sums it up nicely.
Roz may be “effortlessly social”, but that doesn’t make her the “less fake” one. Plenty of people who are innately, effortless social use that talent to hide their true intentions and manipulate people.
Consider this, as an extreme version of how we’ve seen Roz behave:
“Psychopaths display different traits depending on their disorder, but common signs include superficial charm, a grandiose notion of self-worth, the need for stimulation and impulsiveness, pathological lying, the ability to manipulate others and a lack of remorse and empathy.”
She seems to get along with Riley fine. She doesn’t like ROBIN. And for similar reasons she doesn’t like Mary – both of them are bigoted assholes who’d jump at the chance to strip her reproductive freedom from her and strip her of her agency. Her not getting along with her classmates is a valid point about her being confrontational, but Robin and Mary are dickbags. It’s not unreasonable for her to not like them.
Roz is faking. She’s jut more practiced at it. We’ve seen how she is when she’s not in politician mode, and she’s not naturally nice and social.
More importantly, her conversations with Dorothy have revealed exactly how she’s being manipulative. We already know she faked the whole “reluctant politician” shtick. We already know she’s got people thinking it was their idea for her to “run” when she clearly wanted it.
Dorothy may not be naturally social, but she does naturally care about others. We know that Roz, being an asshole, doesn’t. Even her activism was always predicated on her–she wants to be free to have sex with who she wants. And she wants to tear her sister down.
The interactions she’s doing are the fake interactions and not the real ones, where you talk to people and get to know them.
Sure, Roz is also trying to get Dorothy to be fake, and that is stupid. She’s not going to get good enough at it to win, so she might as well stick to her strengths, and just work on making sure everyone knows she really cares.
But Roz is still Fakey McFakerson. Hell, the fact that she does this on her own is part of why I dislike her.
Roz did not “deduce that something had happened to Joyce and quietly tried to offer her support”. That is simply not what happened. Roz had it literally shouted in her face that something happened to Joyce, before class. Roz then sat through the entirety of that class, WENT TO LEAVE (http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/03-the-first-step-towards-recovery/caramel-2/ she does look torn about it, but nonetheless she’s out the door way ahead of Joyce), and then SIX STRIPS LATER came back, shoved a business card in Joyce’s hand (while not bothering to remember Joyce’s name), and got the hell out of there as fast as possible. Like I said, that was reluctantly easing a guilty conscience.
What in the world does Roz have to have a guilty conscience for? All she knows is that the fundie girl who keeps calling her a hellbound slut might have had something bad happen to her, so she offered a resource.
Jeez, I thought for sure I was on the Roz hatetrain now but you guys take it to a whole new level.
Roz made going to that party and bringing a friend one of her requirements for Dorothy to interview her. Joyce was that friend and would not have been at that party otherwise. Roz knows this.
Roz began a conversation by saying that party wasn’t so bad to Dorothy when it was actually way worse than Dorothy and Joyce thought it would be, rubbing it in. Roz knows this.
She can’t reasonably know that she basically dismissed Joyces desire to not be raped as “someones always gotta make a scene” so I guess not that.
Roz knows that something really bad happened to Joyce at the party she pressured to Joyce’s friend to take a friend to. She might not know Joyce was almost raped but she suspects, and she at least knows Dorothy takes it seriously.
Okay A. it wasn’t Roz’s fault B. her giving that card to Joyce wasn’t out of guilt, it was because holy shit this girl might have undergone some horrible traumatic incident and need help. That’s not guilt that’s holding yourself to a basic standard of human decency.
I don’t actually blame her for what happened. My point is most people under those circumstances, even if they couldn’t reasonably know anything bad would happen and did nothing wrong, would feel guilty.
@Temperaryobsessor: How the hell does inviting Dorothy to the party (she didn’t say anything about bringing a friend, Joyce offered to come as moral support) make her responsible for what happened?
Because you know who IS responsible? Ryan. Ryan is 100% fucking responsible.
There is absolutely no reason to assume that Roz had any idea some sleazy shit like Ryan would be there, OR that Roz would just magically know what happened to Joyce. They were almost complete strangers at that point. Roz even had to ask Joyce her name when she gave her the card.
Roz did tell Dorothy to bring a friend (presumably for safety reasons) but you’re still right that putting this on Roz is 150% bullshit.
And since people still don’t believe that Roz does not know the details about the party – Word of Willis via the books is that if she DID know what happened, she’d throw herself out a window for that ‘making a scene’ comment.
To be clear, I did not at any point mean that what happened to Joyce was Roz’s fault, and I don’t think anyone has said it is. That responsibility lies solely and utterly on Ryan.
That being said, I stand by my assertion that guilt was Roz’s primary motivating factor. People are entirely capable of feeling guilt about something that isn’t their fault, and without knowing the details. Something bad happened to Joyce in a situation she wouldn’t be in if not for me? I would feel bad about it and want to do something to make it up to her. Doesn’t mean I’m to blame, just means I have some basic empathy.
(sidenote: Roz had ample opportunity to learn Joyce’s name, up to and including having it yelled at her in the same breath as telling her that party had put Joyce through horrible crap, in fact knew her name -at- the party, and did not bother to use her name when Joyce supplied it (Roz didn’t ask for it). That seems more like willful failure to remember Joyce’s name to keep an emotional distance)
Looked through the ‘Grace’ tag to get a handle on her. She is an observant and perhaps even sardonic cookie. I can see her not appreciating someone deciding to act like her friend all of a sudden.
I mean, does Dorothy even have a page of her notebook devoted to Grace? I think not!
She probably has a ‘Grace and Mandy’ page.
I can somewhat relate to this. Back when I could still speak fluent Spanish all of my Spanish slang was what was current in Southern Spain about 1972. The problem was I was trying to use it in N. Central TX in 2000 with Mexicans and Guatemalans. I sounded like a British Mod at a hip hop concert.
Smooooth
omg i love the alt-tag.
Let this be a lesson to us all. Don’t drink and politics. ROBIN can pull it off, but most of us can’t.
Robin doesn’t drink and politics.
She drinks and sexes.
She SUGARS and politics.
Poor Dorothy! You really aren’t cut out to be a woman of the people are you? Just to make things worse, you’re just drunk enough to start making bad judgement calls.
Want my advice? Stick to your strength: Be a methodical, level-headed source of advice; don’t try to be a ‘buddy’.
Uah, trying to be one of the girls when she doesn’t have a clue really.
Bad move Dorothy. Feels awful and makes people distrust you more.
I remember how small you feel when you try like this and are ignored like this.
For the love of, just keep Ruth as the darn RA.
And Dorothy needs more jet fule…
Ruth is objectively terrible at this job in every capacity even before the alcohol abuse.
Uh-oh… The preview panel for this one was posted on November 7th. If the RA position follows real-world politics that means Mary gets the job, and spends all her time blaming Roz for everyone’s problems while trying to get the receptionist deported.
No. No. No. Nnnnooooo!!! A thousand times no!!!!
I just realized, w’re all ignoring panel one’s biggest question: who are Joyce’s lab partners? So far we only know about her gender studies and math class. Is it a chemistry lab, a physics lab, a biology lab? Will we see new characters? Will Sayyid be involved, thus giving him more opportunities to show up in the comic aside from Galassoe’s Pizza (and subs)?
Could it be… That Joyce is becoming a scientist like Becky O_O ?
Come to think of it, what ‘lab’? I know that ‘lab’ is educational shorthand for any practical portion of a course but, AFAIK, she’s only doing basic starter courses right now.
She did master basic starter curses!
If she’s taking a chemistry or physics course there’s probably a lab section. I probably wouldn’t have failed Chem 110 if all it had been was the lab section.
OMG I didn’t realise, until I saw your comment! And just as BenRG pointed out – what lab?
I’m also still unsure or rather can’t remember, what her major even is…was it ever mentioned – and am I just stupid for not remembering?
Education, if I remember. To better homeschool her children.
Joyce is majoring in Elementary Education.
Not that hard to cheak the Cast. 😛
Yeap.
And just about any elementary education curriculum is going to include some basic science requirements.
Joyce has other classes and IU has a science requirement iirc. Probably going there. If I had to guess what her science was, I’d say Physics or Chem. Definitely not biology – if she hears about evolution, she still breaks out in hives.
I resembled Dorothy in terms of homework ethics/priorities. I was very shocked and hurt when I was told most considered me cold and unrelateable. I remember the feeling well.
We see maybe another side of Dorothy here. She’s a very confident and smart and attractive person, and we’ve seen that side of her.
But being as smart as Dorothy is and innately analytical and academically driven to boot, usually comes with some cost in social smooth that we’ve seen in the “RA unelection arc”.
I’m actually kind of shocked. Did Dorothy really never ponder she’d have to do a lot of glad-handing and personal interaction to become President? I mean, it’s about getting people to like you not training. You don’t study to be President, you NETWORK.
Sadly, it’s nothing but a popularity contest.
And if we look at “most qualified”, then George HW Bush had by far the best resume going into office of the last 8 people to hold the office.
( Well, 7 people and 1 proto-fascist demagogue cheeto. )
How the heck is Dubya more qualified than Obama?
Check the initials again.
Dubya actually has the qualifications which Dorothy is pursuing, which kind of says they’re not as good as she thinks she is. Well, that and Dorothy isn’t in oil or baseball.
They are! As she thinks THEY are. GOD, a typo! A typo from a professional writer! THE WORLD IS RUINED!
I wasn’t talking about “Dubya”. I was talking about “HW”.
George HW Bush.
Herbert Walker.
Who had served as a Naval aviator in WW2, been a business executive multiple times, a part time professor, a US Representative, the Ambassador to the UN, Envoy to China, Director of the CIA, chairman of the RNC, and Vice President of the US.
ON PAPER, at the start of his time in office, George HW Bush had the most impressive resume of any POTUS going back decades.
Oh you and your pesky facts
I got that, I was saying that Dubya graduated from Yale.
I replied to the wrong post.
Pfft. What kind of crappy writing is this?
That is clearly a LOW five.
(Off topic.)
A bit of good news to go with the bad. The ACLU announced that it received 6 times its average YEARLY donations, in a single weekend, in response to The Cheeto’s executive order banning refugees and immigrants from select countries.
Several social media firms spoke out against the move… one has to wonder how far a sitting POTUS would have to go to get his Twitter account banned.
Also, a bit of a rant that I found this weekend, that sums a few things up quite nicely.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JaC1-U8LIY0
Folks have also started a phone call campaign to contact their reps to start impeachment proceedings as soon as possible, especially if their reps are GOP.
Y’know, in case any of y’all are interested in doing that.
A sign of resistance.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/01/scientists-march-on-washington-national-parks-twitter-war-climate-science-donald-trump/
Perhaps The Cheeto will end up hoisted on his own social media petard.
“When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.” — Thomas Jefferson
Speaking of backlash in social media:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/01/29/deleteuber-s-creator-resist-trump-or-pay-a-price.html
I hate to be THAT guy but, that’s a low-five!
(earlier was a lie. I LOVE to be THAT guy)
Ow, that last panel hit me right in the heart. 🙁 🙁 🙁
This is hard for Dorothy, because she is doing a good piece of actually being a RA. She had a heart to heart with Billie, just when Billie needed some company. She is working through how to talk to Joyce about Ryan in a solid process, facing up to something she doesn’t want to do but will.
That is very true. She does good job an RA, and even more importantly, she does it despite being out of her depth, out of her comfort zone and feeling increasingly like shit.
The very reason why she is tipsy enough to make a fool of herself – and no doubt have a horrible headache forming – is that she stepped out of her normally so tidy world to comfort Billie.
Dorothy is doing good!
Exactly. Dorothy will not be a perfect RA, but she’d definitely make a good one.
Okay, I know Dorothy’s struggle is important, and that “Even if you’re the best option, even if you’ve worked 10x as hard as your competitors, sometimes you still lose,” can be a life lesson of variable importance, but what the hell are she and Walky doing in that Slipshine side panel?
Something perfectly wholesome, I’m sure.
From the looks of things? Walky’s being pegged like he’s a naughty piece of lumber up against the most furious carpenter in human history.
Whatever it is, I wish I could see it! Wish Willis sold these outside of Slipshine, and now it looks like Slipshine is suspended? >_>
Slipshine commissioned him for it. He didn’t make it and then sell it – it was a thing that was prepaid for.
I think that’s just the link from this page, I can log on to Slipshine directly as usual.
Looks like shirts vs. skins dorm-room football.
“Hut, hut, HUT!”
Dorothy is providing a fantastic counterexample to the idea that drinking makes you cool.
I think its more that she’s providing a sterling example of why drinking doesn’t make Dorothy cool
Is it wrong I kind of like Sad Dorothy?
“…homeslice!”
Tried clicking on the slipshine panel to go check out the new comic, but I keep getting
“There seems to be an error in processing your request. The information below will help in determining the cause of the error. If you are sure you have done everything correctly and this error persists, please contact clientsupport@ccbill.com for further assistance.
Partner account 2397147 has been suspended”
Just a heads up.
Try again, I just had an old URL on there. It’s swapped out now.
Okay, catch up time! Damn you midterms and classes for dictating my sleep schedule!
Panel One: Damn it! Joyce is off with her lab partners. So much for telling her about Ryan expediently. And now Dorothy probably won’t be sloshed when she tells her – good for delivery, really bad for nerves. Sorry, Dorothy.
This also makes me wonder what science Joyce is taking. I’m leaning towards physics, as it involves the most math and math is her favourite subject. It also wouldn’t smack her with evolution quite as much as biology or astrology will.
Panel Two: Again, Dorothy is getting a lot of wide pan panels lately. Really good at emphasizing how lonely and small she’s feeling, especially when it regards this secret. Poor baby.
Panel Three: Huh. Interesting. Apparently Grace is very much in agreement with Roz on this one. Screw Robin and get her voter base turned down. Most younger folks I’ve known have been very ‘never ever ever out people ever ever ever’ and it’s mostly been older folks who are more okay with it when it regards heterosexist cissexist LGBT+ politicians. So this is interesting to see what someone outside the main cast (whom will presumably react to this) thinks.
Or maybe Grace and Roz were just already friends. We don’t know their lives.
Panel Four: Awwww, Dorothy is such an eager little puppy. She wants so badly to be liked and she means well.
Panel Five: Buuuuuuuuut Grace also notices that Dorothy has never really tried reaching out to folks like this until she wanted to be RA. Roz is pretty good at making her socializing seem natural in a way Dorothy isn’t good at. Again, assuming she wasn’t already friends with these people which is entirely possible. Roz is very social and she’s not in the main cast – for all we know she’s already endeared herself to her floor mates outside the main cast pre running for RA.
Although most people at least would respond. As Mandy would say – Grace, rude.
Panel Six: oooooh, yeah, that was a yikes face. Poor Dorothy. This day is hammering her over and over with her fears of reliability. This is going to stick around for a while.
Panel Seven: *SNORTS* Dorothy what even are you doing? What are the words coming out of your mouth right now? Are you a 70s show? How old are you? XP
But no, this is also kinda a punch in the chest. Poor Dorothy is desperate to be relatable and real, but social skills are her weakness and that’s hitting her right now.
Panel Eight:Awwwww, honey, no. Dorothy looks like she’s gonna cry here. Poor Dorothy. She doesn’t deserve that. And yeah, it’s hitting how hard she’ll have to work on this part of her dreams if she’s going to get it and how unlikely it is that she’ll ever achieve those without these social skills and it’s a painful realization. Poor girl’s afraid she’s hitting a wall.