I find it funny that this is a meme-y kinda thing to say, but also ninjas used to literally disguise themselves as boulders akin to how sam and frodo hide from the orcs. so, you, you really couldn’t xD
One night, Jacob notices a shadowy figure climbing into his closet. He follows it, discovering a secret door in the back of his closet that leads down into the air conditioning tunnels beneath the dorm. There, he discovers… the secret lair… Of Ninja Rick! He’s been using the school WiFi system to secretly generate and submit thousands of entries to the Publisher’s Clearing House sweepstakes. He expects to win roughly 40% of the prizes.
I’m honestly not surprised. I mean, the student code for Trinity College states that students are required to wear dueling swords at all times (this rule isn’t enforced and has generally been forgotten about) so I wouldn’t be surprised that Texas, the stereotypical gunslinger state would let students bring guns to campus. I also wouldn’t be surprised if a Texas college really subscribed to the “Good Guy with a gun” myth and actually required each student and faculty member to have a gun on them at all times.
…
Man but my country has really weird places in it.
Fresh baked bread with olive oil to the side and baked to perfection in a brick oven overlooking the watery shores of the Italian countryside in mid-summer, where a young student has traveled on an exchange student program to enjoy the sights of Venice before it, and all of its treasures, are either swallowed by the ocean or moved onto the coast, as with Ramses’ temple and the Aswan Dam, where innocuous short men in purple helmets take pictures and concoct evil plans like tipping over the Leaning Tower and resurrecting Fascist Italy in the ensuing crisis.
Walky is not going to class wearing his pjs, right?
Okay, I WAS going to say that those were the perfect chairs for a not-technically-a-cube cube fort. But now I’ve decided that they need mirrors on the interiors of the side walls, for infinite self-reflection.
Amber, you fool! In pushing the cube chairs together, you have made yourself and Ethan far more interesting to passerbyers than you would have ever been otherwise! YOUR GENIUS HAS DOOMED US ALL!
…. well, okay, not me. Or the rest of the comments section. Or like 90% of the cast. But you and Ethan definitely.
There’s a Star Trek novel, First Frontier, where some sapient raptors (long story) travel back in time to prevent the KT extinction of Earth’s dinosaurs. (The new timeline doesn’t work out like they’d imagined, for several reasons, but like I said, long story.) One of their number ends up turning coat and teaming up with our heroes of the good ship Enterprise to set things right. At one point, she confides to Kirk – who has been humping through the jungle like the rest for a few days now, and getting rather ripe – that “you smell good.” That is, he smells like food – a hot meal that her instincts would really like to tear the guts out of and start chowing down on. Jim is unsettled but understanding of this, and reflects to himself that humans would probably have similar problems interacting with aliens that smelled of fresh-baked bread.
So, kind of funny to see both that and our own resident raptor-girl turn up here, in one strip.
(I’ve been known to joke that in the (second) pilot and Kirk’s first appearance, where the gravestone that Gary Mitchell conjures for him gives his middle initial as “R” because they hadn’t decided on Tiberius yet, it stands for “rishathra.)
Well duh. Picard is too much of a negotiator and proper gentleman. Kirk is a boisterous bruiser without the the drinking, who solves problems by either a) ripping his shirt b) beating the crap out of someone c) phasing the crap out of someone or d) having sex with a hot alien space lady.
…
Picard for life!!!
So Amber and Walky both had the same idea about closing themselves in with the chairs and shutting the world out, with all its badness. They really are kinda well-matched in that ‘we are so broken’ way lol. Not that I encourage that. But I’d love to see them hang out more.
I also love that Walky notices himself that he fucked up, without anyone having to tell him. Sound the character development klaxon!
Amber is a lot more than introverted. But I agree that I used the wrong word, mental illness doesn’t mean you’re broken, neccesarily (though it does feel like that to me a lot of the time, that my depressed brain is broken).
In any case, I meant it more in a way that they’re both hiding from the world because there are a lot of issues waiting for them out there. Very different issues. But they both def have stuff to work on (Amber at least should get therapy, for one thing) and I just meant it’s interesting that they both have the exact same thought about shutting themselves in.
No, I get that. Trust me, I do… And you were fine. You weren’t referring specifically to Amber’s mental illness. I just brought it up because I was, and that’s an awful connection to make explicitly.
It is a little strange, at least that Becky didn’t come with Dina. She wasn’t going to hang out with Dina because Dina had a quiz in biology. Is Dina skipping class to ask Amber about Becky staying there? But not bringing Becky along?
Panel 2: Oh Walky, you are breaking my heart. But yeah, that’s what he’s up against. If the bad grades are in his hand then they are real and it’s not just that he’s got a lot of his sense of self in the idea that he doesn’t get bad grades, it’s that second half he talks about here.
That fear of failing, of doing poorly, of being labeled and considered a “bad student”. And we’ve gone over a lot of the reasons why. The way his parents have treated his sister as “the bad one” and fearing a similar treatment from them, the racial stereotypes he faces as a black man that are always waiting to cluck their teeth together and say no wonder, the fact that failure feels awful especially when you haven’t had practice picking up the pieces and starting fresh.
And that sense of self is also a huge part. He has put a lot of his identity into being the smart-brained smart-mouth who doesn’t need to try. He’s, with Dorothy’s help, shedding the “doesn’t need to try”, but I guarantee a large part of him is feeling that that should somehow diminish him, especially when he doesn’t have that external validation yet to feel like he’s succeeding.
Panels 3-5: Oh, Walky, you beautiful man, you! Yes, you do need to go back and face things and see that the worst in your head is not actually your full reality. That stumbling is okay and is a part of learning.
And yeah, as you note, it’s not just about you anymore. Dorothy is supporting and cheering you on and you can choose to ignore that, but that’s going to be far more hassle to face than just sucking it up and tackling the class head-on.
And well, Walky is willing to do a lot of self-destructive things to himself, but he’s also got a strong sense of empathy and doing right by people. So he was always going to make this decision and I’m glad he is even though it is hard and scary.
Panel 6: Well, it doesn’t seem like Dina’s coming after him and I don’t think I saw her with the group in the Rapture panel, so it’s unlikely she even heard that or saw the distress it caused Becky. I’m glad. I think Becky will easily shake it off, but Dina would probably gain another reason to dislike the “fake dinosaur citing” guy more and that would lead to inter-group conflict.
I’m afraid that the lesson Walky took from his study session with Dorothy wasn’t “Studying is part of learning, which is what it really means to be smart”, but rather “Dorothy is so awesome that she wants to be with me even when I’m a stupid looser who needs to study.”
But he STILL mans up and goes to class. That’s admirable.
Panel 6: I don’t know, maybe she thought it was funny. After all, a joke is accomplished by understanding a person enough to select for them an appropriate lie.
…. okay, maybe that wasn’t an appropriate lie. But does Dina know that?
I’m happy that Walky made this decision. Although it does feel that the only reason he didn’t have this moment of self-reflection, admittance, and commitment when he first received Dorothy’s text this morning was because fucking Mike distracted him. So Mike is probably partially responsible for Walky’s “Rapture” stunt and any distress it caused Becky and Joyce. So in short, yay for Walky’s slow and struggling character growth and fuck Mike.
Also, I know for a fact that being “the smart guy who doesn’t have to try to get good grades” can be a major part of someone’s identity. I was also a “smart brained smart-mouth” minus the smart mouth because of social anxiety similiar to Amber’s (I’m basically a weird hybrid of Amber, Danny, and Walky’s issues with a lovely sprinkling of asperbergers on top), so the second and third year of college destroyed most of my self-indentity. Unlike Walky, I didn’t have anyone at school who I could share my issues with and get help as a result. I had no study skills, no way to focus, and I also finally got my mental issues diagnosed at this time. So I needed an extra year to graduate, which is still a little embarrassing to admit. And although I didn’t have too deal with any stereotypes about my race (I’m white with a small bit of First Nation People’s on both sides) but I did look and sound like a complete redneck, so everyone assumed I was some sort of dumb, inbred, racist, white trash country bumpkin. Partly my own fault because I didn’t shave despite not being able to grow more facial hair than Joe Dirt, and because I tended to ratty jeans and what I later found out was a trucker hat but still, not fun having that stereotype or being greeted as “Bob Bubba” by some asshole once a week.
First, stop trying to get me so damned interested in how Amber smells. Second, every bread you listed there originated using the sourdough method and the first three only moved to using a brewers yeast derived yeast strain instead during the last century and a quarter give or take and plenty of people still use the traditional sour dough starter for them instead so they shouldn’t be presumed to have a radically distinct smell anyway.
One: Fresh Sourdough bread and fresh rye (especially fresh Swedish Rye) are delicious smelling, and I will fight you for insulting their honor.
Two: You forgot about fresh from the oven Italian bread and French bread. Those two are bread royalty!!
…I can relate to Walky so much right now. What he’s going through is almost exactly like what I went through each time I went to college (flunked out twice. Still wanna try and get my degree though).
People started calling me by part of my last name when I was a kid. It makes a word and was meant as a put down. The added various suffixes, usually body parts, to add to the insult. No trauma, that is what kids do.
Eventually, it stuck and even complimentary prefixes were added to my abbreviated name, when I did well at sporting events.
These days, when people call me solely by my full last name, no first name or title, it sounds aggressive and derogatory, regardless of the other (usually blameless) person’s intent.
Funny how that happens. I wonder how Walky feels about being called Walkerton, or how Billie feels when people she barely know call her Jennifer. I guess Amber isn’t the only one with an identity attached to a name they weren’t born with.
Getting called by one’s full name – first, middle and last – is a traditional indication that you done fuuuuuucked up, especially when it’s by a parent. And there’s a whole trope (which I, mercifully, will not link) that being called by one’s “proper” name, first or last, rather than a nick/customary/”use” name, is a sign that something is very serious (though not necessarily their fault) and one needs to pay attention.
There is another one. Families where everyone has a first name starting with the same letter or sound. In my family it was the hard C/K sound. Three of us meant that our parents got confused when calling us. We responded to Ke,Kir,Cra,Ca being cycled through until they got to our name. You knew you were in trouble when they called you by your first name correctly the first time.
This is an odd view to me, as I’m used to being called by my surname by coworkers, which came about on a few different occasions because of multiple of the people I worked with at one time having the same personal name as me (as many of four of us at one time before) so to distinguish we started each getting called by last names.
I should mention that I work in food service where constant loud vocal communication back and forth, typically starting with a name, is kinda a thing. This is extended by the fact that the spot I work in the kitchen is just about the most called to.
I was generally referred to by my last name because it’s pretty unique sounding or just my first initial “Jay”. Mainly because everyone kept misprouncing my name as “Jaime” when it’s “Jamie”. I’ve also been called James, Jim, or Jimmy, mainly because I always tell people “My name is Jamie, but so long as you say a name that starts with a ‘J’ I will probably respond to it.”
Dina’s reasoning is probably:
His name is David Walkerton. Normally, college students call each other their first names, but nobody’s calling him David. So calling him David is obviously wrong for some reason.
His friends call him Walky, but that sounds like a nickname for friends, and I’m just an aquaintance. So I will try whether it’s okay to call him Walkerton.
So I actually went back and checked all the strips with Walky and Dina, and she’s addressed him by name twice. Once as “Walky” when everyone was meeting Ethan (whereupon he sorely disappointed her by saying that dinosaurs shouldn’t have feathers ’cause it was cool) and once as “fake dinosaur boy”, after the time he ran through their room claiming to be Indominus Rex. So I’m curious what it means for her to call her Walkerton. That she’s actively upset with him about his dinosaur-related misdemeanors and possibly the Rapture strategy? That she’s cooled down from “fake dinosaur boy” but isn’t prepared to be on friendly terms with him again yet? That she just didn’t know his full name before (I’m surprised she knows it now, frankly) and feels it’s more appropriate for her to use? Or that Willis isn’t tracking name usage from a couple of strips over four years? 🙂
i would say more like a fresh pot of coffee the way the others keep popping up would not be surprised if wally sister and ambers one ex pop up to join the fray too.
It never fails to amuse me how liberals fall for a grifter whose main gimmick is bilking taxpayer money and who regularly screws workers at his aerospace firm.
He doesn’t get results – he bilks the taxpayer with schemes to game the cali carbon credit system, then uses it to pay for fucking rocket fueled ego trips that will get folks killed before the law jumps on him, and solarcity is a fucking joke, while leaving a trail of poisoned townships behind him*
It’s not going to be useless techie fuckwits that are going to save us; it’s going to be flaming government money, going to flaming proven companies, not fuckwits who got rich by creating what amounts to a criminally unregulated bank and who gets in bed, along with a former co-worker*, with fucking Trump.
It never fails to amuse me how people think we can still afford to care, but here’s the thing: you lot elected Trump and he put Exxon in charge of the EPA, so now I’ll gladly let ANYONE bilk your tax money if it reduces the growing changes of environmental collapse.
Love how showing up in class as a failure is his nightmare and not that he is actually in his underwear. Good thing he doesn’t favor something much briefer, since what he has can kinda pass.
Also love that he would skip out again, but then he would disappoint Dorothy. That over-rides his fears.
Everyone keeps thinking that Walky’s in his underwear, but I’m pretty sure those are the shorts he was wearing on his way back to his room from the shower. Which begs the question, why is he wearing jeans over shorts? Is it already cold enough to start wearing pant layers?
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it’s like the changing of the guard, but it happens every strip
and it always switches the angst
But the angst always wants to build a fort.
let’s be honest, dina would shown up eventually regardless of subject
This is gonna turn into the stateroom scene of A Night at the Opera pretty soon.
Willis will be putting characters we’ve completely forgotten about in there with them. As soon as Guns hops in, we know he’s finally run out.
Ninja Rick was there all along!
Ninja Rick is hiding underneath the chairs!
You can never confirm the absence of ninjas. Only their direct presence.
I find it funny that this is a meme-y kinda thing to say, but also ninjas used to literally disguise themselves as boulders akin to how sam and frodo hide from the orcs. so, you, you really couldn’t xD
One night, Jacob notices a shadowy figure climbing into his closet. He follows it, discovering a secret door in the back of his closet that leads down into the air conditioning tunnels beneath the dorm. There, he discovers… the secret lair… Of Ninja Rick! He’s been using the school WiFi system to secretly generate and submit thousands of entries to the Publisher’s Clearing House sweepstakes. He expects to win roughly 40% of the prizes.
Bonus points for the Real Genius reference. 😀
You can’t have Guns on campus. Except in Texas.
Wait. Seriously?
I’m honestly not surprised. I mean, the student code for Trinity College states that students are required to wear dueling swords at all times (this rule isn’t enforced and has generally been forgotten about) so I wouldn’t be surprised that Texas, the stereotypical gunslinger state would let students bring guns to campus. I also wouldn’t be surprised if a Texas college really subscribed to the “Good Guy with a gun” myth and actually required each student and faculty member to have a gun on them at all times.
…
Man but my country has really weird places in it.
Can I just point out how fortunate it is that Willis characters started wearing shirts under their sweaters sometime in the past twenty years?
waiting for Walky Wang to flop out
That’s when Walky started wearing shorts under his pajama pants.
Watch out Dina, he’s got the feels! They’re contagious!
Dina exudes an anti-angst aura.
She earned it, after the last continuity.
It was a New Game+ perk. Totally worth it.
“What is that cologne you’re wearing?”
“I dunno…I got it at Flowers Bakery Thrift Store, though.”
*plays Average White Band’s “Cut The Cake” on the hacked Muzak*
Well, Ethan does, if anything. But for wonderbread smell it’s Danny.
I love Dina calling him Walkerton and it is perfect
Fuck I’m my deadname (but not my real deadname) on phone gravatar still
If you go into your cookies and/or settings you should be able to completely obvliviate that autofill from all possible timelines
It stuck after I typed in Ansel, thankfully
Thank goodness.
*Appropriate gesture of support* Lingering dead names are the worst.
Thank
FIX’D FROM A BOAT
*happy smile*
Thank you very many times, it is a relief.
That was a genuinely really nice thing to do! I appreciate that you care about your readers enough to do things like that 🙂
(How many times has On a Boat been sung so far?)
WOOOO
*Gives star sticker*
Has anyone told you lately how awesome you are?
Danny must have left his white bread smell all over the both of them.
Dina and Walky. One day they will have their final battle, and if the campus survives there will be a pizza party afterwards.
Everyone wants to make a fort with those chairs, because it would be an awesome fort.
Maybe its a yeast infection?
Bread was the sliced bread before sliced bread after all.
That’s like saying bread was toast before toasters.
Shortly after baked bread was invented, it probably was the toast of the town.
Sorry, Walky, but even the Tiny House folks would tell you a cube made out of four of those chairs is too small to live in.
Not if you invent a shrink ray!
You’d be surprised what you can live in.
Fresh baked bread with olive oil to the side and baked to perfection in a brick oven overlooking the watery shores of the Italian countryside in mid-summer, where a young student has traveled on an exchange student program to enjoy the sights of Venice before it, and all of its treasures, are either swallowed by the ocean or moved onto the coast, as with Ramses’ temple and the Aswan Dam, where innocuous short men in purple helmets take pictures and concoct evil plans like tipping over the Leaning Tower and resurrecting Fascist Italy in the ensuing crisis.
Walky is not going to class wearing his pjs, right?
Of course not. That’s a day t-shirt he wore under his nicer shirt, and his undies.
Ah, true. I imagine Mike will probably make a comment on it when Walky shows up?
And wow, this is becoming the cube fort of self-reflection.
Probably, because Mike.
Okay, I WAS going to say that those were the perfect chairs for a not-technically-a-cube cube fort. But now I’ve decided that they need mirrors on the interiors of the side walls, for infinite self-reflection.
Amber, you fool! In pushing the cube chairs together, you have made yourself and Ethan far more interesting to passerbyers than you would have ever been otherwise! YOUR GENIUS HAS DOOMED US ALL!
…. well, okay, not me. Or the rest of the comments section. Or like 90% of the cast. But you and Ethan definitely.
Certainly not Mike, who is currently too mean to die.
The chair fort possesses an inexorable attraction to a certain type of mind.
I see the comments section isn’t the only one who wants to turn those chairs into a chair fort.
No, silly Amber. Dina is a carnivore.
I thought Dina exclusively ate children’s breakfast cereals.
No that’s Riley.
P sure that’s Dina.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/06-strange-beerfellows/cereal/
<a href="http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-4/01-the-only-dope-for-me-is-you/wonders/"Pretty sure that's a trait they have in common.
D’ohht!
This is like time card punching with the Looney Tunes sheepdog and the coyote.
“Mornin’, Ralph.”
“Mornin’, Sam.”
Right, those are their names. I almost said Sam and Wile E.
….Wait, he’s not, just with a different name?
Nope! Ralph the Wolf shares a creator and character design with Wile E., but is a different individual (and species).
Ahhhhh.
……They suck at drawing wolves, huh?
Well, what differences exactly between wolves and coyotes do you expect to come out in WB’s anthropomorphized character designs?
Apparently, it’s Ralph E Wolf.
Making a fort to avoid everyone turns out to be a bad idea.
Cause forts attract everyone’s attention
Its impossible to ignore a furniture fort.
So instead of security through obscurity, go for security through impenetrability.
You must make it so high and wide that even attempting to get past it means risking one’s life.
Go completely Hindu Kush on them.
….
*flees for dear punning life*
(Hindu Cushion?)
Thank goodness! I was worried for a minute there but he did the right thing. 🙂
Also, I want those chairs to hide in for like a week. Moving is exhausting! On the plus side I love my new place ^_^
Looks like chasing after Walkerton was the best she could do.
Baracading herself in the cube-chair fort with the drama bomb is the best she could do.
Baracading? Beracading? Baricading? Barricading? There we go, spell check liked that one.
She was after Amber, not Walkerton.
You know if you right-click on the underlined word, it’ll give you the correct spelling (or its best guess at what you’re trying to spell)?
Unless you’re on an Apple or a tablet or phone (or an Apple phone), and then I dunno, you’re hosed or something.
I see what you did there.
“here’s the baton”
What’s the context for this? Other than your avitar I mean.
I think it’s supposed to be a reference to relay races in track and field.
No baton is worth reaching into that.
I would definitely go for a woman who smelled like fresh-baked bread. Anyone make a perfume like that?
You could date a baker!
There’s a Star Trek novel, First Frontier, where some sapient raptors (long story) travel back in time to prevent the KT extinction of Earth’s dinosaurs. (The new timeline doesn’t work out like they’d imagined, for several reasons, but like I said, long story.) One of their number ends up turning coat and teaming up with our heroes of the good ship Enterprise to set things right. At one point, she confides to Kirk – who has been humping through the jungle like the rest for a few days now, and getting rather ripe – that “you smell good.” That is, he smells like food – a hot meal that her instincts would really like to tear the guts out of and start chowing down on. Jim is unsettled but understanding of this, and reflects to himself that humans would probably have similar problems interacting with aliens that smelled of fresh-baked bread.
So, kind of funny to see both that and our own resident raptor-girl turn up here, in one strip.
……. of all the Star Trek captains we could imagine humping through an away mission, it had to be Kirk.
Boldly coming!
(I’ve been known to joke that in the (second) pilot and Kirk’s first appearance, where the gravestone that Gary Mitchell conjures for him gives his middle initial as “R” because they hadn’t decided on Tiberius yet, it stands for “rishathra.)
Well duh. Picard is too much of a negotiator and proper gentleman. Kirk is a boisterous bruiser without the the drinking, who solves problems by either a) ripping his shirt b) beating the crap out of someone c) phasing the crap out of someone or d) having sex with a hot alien space lady.
…
Picard for life!!!
Kirk even had the movie where the Macguffins hump back.
+1 for using “sapient” instead of “sentient”.
Umm, you should taste her buns!
So are those Walky’s boxers? Cause he could totally get away with just walking around in those as shorts.
He got away by stripping down to those shorts.
So Amber and Walky both had the same idea about closing themselves in with the chairs and shutting the world out, with all its badness. They really are kinda well-matched in that ‘we are so broken’ way lol. Not that I encourage that. But I’d love to see them hang out more.
I also love that Walky notices himself that he fucked up, without anyone having to tell him. Sound the character development klaxon!
Being introverted is hardly “broken”
Being introverted to the point of having trouble functioning in life is getting close to the mark, though.
No, it isn’t. But, while I’m loathe to refer to neurodivergent people as “broken”, severe anxiety is a pretty big fuckin’ hole in Amber’s armor.
Amber is a lot more than introverted. But I agree that I used the wrong word, mental illness doesn’t mean you’re broken, neccesarily (though it does feel like that to me a lot of the time, that my depressed brain is broken).
In any case, I meant it more in a way that they’re both hiding from the world because there are a lot of issues waiting for them out there. Very different issues. But they both def have stuff to work on (Amber at least should get therapy, for one thing) and I just meant it’s interesting that they both have the exact same thought about shutting themselves in.
That I can agree with entirely
No, I get that. Trust me, I do… And you were fine. You weren’t referring specifically to Amber’s mental illness. I just brought it up because I was, and that’s an awful connection to make explicitly.
I’m guessing Dina is here to ask if Becky can stay in their room.
It does not seem she’s coming after Walky, so that does feel like the most likely reason she would need to talk to Ethan/Amber.
Especially given that she meant to ask Amber about Becky staying with them.
That does feel like a subtle clue, yeah.
But how would she know Amber’s here?
She could smell her of course.
Yes. Fresh. Baked. Bread.
To be fair Ethan has a nice warm loaf, and Ambers got some nice buns
Amber, panel 1: “Hey, that was my joke!”
….. I’m trying to decide whether or not Walky + responsibility is a worky combination.
Pushing the chairs together creates a curiosity box. If there were any cats around, they’d be swarmed.
Cats aren’t curious about the same things humans are.
…. they ARE, however, perversely attracted to the laps of those who want to be left alone.
Cats’ attraction to boxes is a well known phenomenon.
Plus, they LOVE boxes. And inaccessible places.
Strange then that Becky has not shown up. She’s such a cat.
It is a little strange, at least that Becky didn’t come with Dina. She wasn’t going to hang out with Dina because Dina had a quiz in biology. Is Dina skipping class to ask Amber about Becky staying there? But not bringing Becky along?
Maybe it’s a surprise?
ethan smells like chick fil a
And shame.
No, I think that’s Walky.,
Comic Reactions:
Panel 1:
Amber: … no. No, I’ve never had that thought…
Panel 2: Oh Walky, you are breaking my heart. But yeah, that’s what he’s up against. If the bad grades are in his hand then they are real and it’s not just that he’s got a lot of his sense of self in the idea that he doesn’t get bad grades, it’s that second half he talks about here.
That fear of failing, of doing poorly, of being labeled and considered a “bad student”. And we’ve gone over a lot of the reasons why. The way his parents have treated his sister as “the bad one” and fearing a similar treatment from them, the racial stereotypes he faces as a black man that are always waiting to cluck their teeth together and say no wonder, the fact that failure feels awful especially when you haven’t had practice picking up the pieces and starting fresh.
And that sense of self is also a huge part. He has put a lot of his identity into being the smart-brained smart-mouth who doesn’t need to try. He’s, with Dorothy’s help, shedding the “doesn’t need to try”, but I guarantee a large part of him is feeling that that should somehow diminish him, especially when he doesn’t have that external validation yet to feel like he’s succeeding.
Panels 3-5: Oh, Walky, you beautiful man, you! Yes, you do need to go back and face things and see that the worst in your head is not actually your full reality. That stumbling is okay and is a part of learning.
And yeah, as you note, it’s not just about you anymore. Dorothy is supporting and cheering you on and you can choose to ignore that, but that’s going to be far more hassle to face than just sucking it up and tackling the class head-on.
And well, Walky is willing to do a lot of self-destructive things to himself, but he’s also got a strong sense of empathy and doing right by people. So he was always going to make this decision and I’m glad he is even though it is hard and scary.
Panel 6: Well, it doesn’t seem like Dina’s coming after him and I don’t think I saw her with the group in the Rapture panel, so it’s unlikely she even heard that or saw the distress it caused Becky. I’m glad. I think Becky will easily shake it off, but Dina would probably gain another reason to dislike the “fake dinosaur citing” guy more and that would lead to inter-group conflict.
I’m afraid that the lesson Walky took from his study session with Dorothy wasn’t “Studying is part of learning, which is what it really means to be smart”, but rather “Dorothy is so awesome that she wants to be with me even when I’m a stupid looser who needs to study.”
But he STILL mans up and goes to class. That’s admirable.
Panel 6: I don’t know, maybe she thought it was funny. After all, a joke is accomplished by understanding a person enough to select for them an appropriate lie.
…. okay, maybe that wasn’t an appropriate lie. But does Dina know that?
I’m happy that Walky made this decision. Although it does feel that the only reason he didn’t have this moment of self-reflection, admittance, and commitment when he first received Dorothy’s text this morning was because fucking Mike distracted him. So Mike is probably partially responsible for Walky’s “Rapture” stunt and any distress it caused Becky and Joyce. So in short, yay for Walky’s slow and struggling character growth and fuck Mike.
Also, I know for a fact that being “the smart guy who doesn’t have to try to get good grades” can be a major part of someone’s identity. I was also a “smart brained smart-mouth” minus the smart mouth because of social anxiety similiar to Amber’s (I’m basically a weird hybrid of Amber, Danny, and Walky’s issues with a lovely sprinkling of asperbergers on top), so the second and third year of college destroyed most of my self-indentity. Unlike Walky, I didn’t have anyone at school who I could share my issues with and get help as a result. I had no study skills, no way to focus, and I also finally got my mental issues diagnosed at this time. So I needed an extra year to graduate, which is still a little embarrassing to admit. And although I didn’t have too deal with any stereotypes about my race (I’m white with a small bit of First Nation People’s on both sides) but I did look and sound like a complete redneck, so everyone assumed I was some sort of dumb, inbred, racist, white trash country bumpkin. Partly my own fault because I didn’t shave despite not being able to grow more facial hair than Joe Dirt, and because I tended to ratty jeans and what I later found out was a trucker hat but still, not fun having that stereotype or being greeted as “Bob Bubba” by some asshole once a week.
When I feel like this, I just like to imagine my own death and how nice it’s going to be to not have to worry all the damn time.
If they *did* smell like fresh-baked bread, you best believe I’d be in that chair fort sniffing about.
And the raptors have breached the fence.
Face it, Amber. You and Ethan are destined to spend this morning being mute audiences to other characters solving their own existential problems!
Anber hasnt seen Walkys abs
Maybe she doesn’t like caramel.
Well, I have a new headcanon: Amber does smell like godamned fresh baked bread :3
fresh baked marble rye!
The more, the merrier.
You made a chair fort. People are interested. Or at least checking to see if people are having sex in there.
Waaaait.
Wait wait wait wait wait.
I think we gotta ask, what kind of bread does this smell like?
I mean, challah? Awesome. Dinner rolls? Great. Cinnamon bread? Awesome.
But what if she smells like sourdough, rye, or pumpernickel?
First, stop trying to get me so damned interested in how Amber smells. Second, every bread you listed there originated using the sourdough method and the first three only moved to using a brewers yeast derived yeast strain instead during the last century and a quarter give or take and plenty of people still use the traditional sour dough starter for them instead so they shouldn’t be presumed to have a radically distinct smell anyway.
Who’s presuming? I know they smell different based on experience.
One: Fresh Sourdough bread and fresh rye (especially fresh Swedish Rye) are delicious smelling, and I will fight you for insulting their honor.
Two: You forgot about fresh from the oven Italian bread and French bread. Those two are bread royalty!!
Yes. Yes you do smell like fresh baked bread.
…I can relate to Walky so much right now. What he’s going through is almost exactly like what I went through each time I went to college (flunked out twice. Still wanna try and get my degree though).
I’m proud of you Walky.
Don’t underestimate Dina’s tracking skills. She absorbed them from Velociraptors!
*sees last panel* dammit willis! now you’re just playin’….
No, Dina has a legitimate question for Amber.
“Why did you spend last night awake muttering about ‘damn Danny’ and ‘why can’t things be simple’? You severely disrupted my sleep patterns.”
Is it just me or is Wally’s head a little too far turned in the last panel?
Wait, seriously? No one’s made a joke about the Amber/Character of choice (usually Danny)/Ethan sandwich yet?
I am very disappointed in this comments section. Deeply, deeply disappointed.
well, you know the saying. If you want something, you’re best served by oneself.
People started calling me by part of my last name when I was a kid. It makes a word and was meant as a put down. The added various suffixes, usually body parts, to add to the insult. No trauma, that is what kids do.
Eventually, it stuck and even complimentary prefixes were added to my abbreviated name, when I did well at sporting events.
These days, when people call me solely by my full last name, no first name or title, it sounds aggressive and derogatory, regardless of the other (usually blameless) person’s intent.
Funny how that happens. I wonder how Walky feels about being called Walkerton, or how Billie feels when people she barely know call her Jennifer. I guess Amber isn’t the only one with an identity attached to a name they weren’t born with.
Getting called by one’s full name – first, middle and last – is a traditional indication that you done fuuuuuucked up, especially when it’s by a parent. And there’s a whole trope (which I, mercifully, will not link) that being called by one’s “proper” name, first or last, rather than a nick/customary/”use” name, is a sign that something is very serious (though not necessarily their fault) and one needs to pay attention.
There is another one. Families where everyone has a first name starting with the same letter or sound. In my family it was the hard C/K sound. Three of us meant that our parents got confused when calling us. We responded to Ke,Kir,Cra,Ca being cycled through until they got to our name. You knew you were in trouble when they called you by your first name correctly the first time.
This is an odd view to me, as I’m used to being called by my surname by coworkers, which came about on a few different occasions because of multiple of the people I worked with at one time having the same personal name as me (as many of four of us at one time before) so to distinguish we started each getting called by last names.
I should mention that I work in food service where constant loud vocal communication back and forth, typically starting with a name, is kinda a thing. This is extended by the fact that the spot I work in the kitchen is just about the most called to.
I was generally referred to by my last name because it’s pretty unique sounding or just my first initial “Jay”. Mainly because everyone kept misprouncing my name as “Jaime” when it’s “Jamie”. I’ve also been called James, Jim, or Jimmy, mainly because I always tell people “My name is Jamie, but so long as you say a name that starts with a ‘J’ I will probably respond to it.”
Maybe you do, Amber.
OR
Maybe it’s because you pushed two chairs together to make a hiding nook!
Amber, God does not damn fresh baked bread. Therefore there is no way to smell like goddamned fresh baked bread.
Dina’s reasoning is probably:
His name is David Walkerton. Normally, college students call each other their first names, but nobody’s calling him David. So calling him David is obviously wrong for some reason.
His friends call him Walky, but that sounds like a nickname for friends, and I’m just an aquaintance. So I will try whether it’s okay to call him Walkerton.
Sal calls him David! Also ‘my idiot brother’, ‘my slacker lil bro’, etc.
So I actually went back and checked all the strips with Walky and Dina, and she’s addressed him by name twice. Once as “Walky” when everyone was meeting Ethan (whereupon he sorely disappointed her by saying that dinosaurs shouldn’t have feathers ’cause it was cool) and once as “fake dinosaur boy”, after the time he ran through their room claiming to be Indominus Rex. So I’m curious what it means for her to call her Walkerton. That she’s actively upset with him about his dinosaur-related misdemeanors and possibly the Rapture strategy? That she’s cooled down from “fake dinosaur boy” but isn’t prepared to be on friendly terms with him again yet? That she just didn’t know his full name before (I’m surprised she knows it now, frankly) and feels it’s more appropriate for her to use? Or that Willis isn’t tracking name usage from a couple of strips over four years? 🙂
Wrex.
i would say more like a fresh pot of coffee the way the others keep popping up would not be surprised if wally sister and ambers one ex pop up to join the fray too.
Completely unrelated:
http://www.afr.com/brand/chanticleer/can-elon-musk-and-mike-cannonbrookes-solve-the-energy-crisis-20170310-guvni6
Is the offer a publicity stunt on Musk’s part? Maybe, but since he’ll most likely follow through anyway, does it matter?
Wooo, environment!
It never fails to amuse me how liberals fall for a grifter whose main gimmick is bilking taxpayer money and who regularly screws workers at his aerospace firm.
Love the head-up-the-arse comment. It suits you.
All tech innovators are arseholes from Tesla to Edison to the sainted Jobs. Almost as if it’s part of the job description.
If it gets results and delivers, I’m all for giving Musk the money. Do you have any alternatives for combating Climate Change?
He doesn’t get results – he bilks the taxpayer with schemes to game the cali carbon credit system, then uses it to pay for fucking rocket fueled ego trips that will get folks killed before the law jumps on him, and solarcity is a fucking joke, while leaving a trail of poisoned townships behind him*
It’s not going to be useless techie fuckwits that are going to save us; it’s going to be flaming government money, going to flaming proven companies, not fuckwits who got rich by creating what amounts to a criminally unregulated bank and who gets in bed, along with a former co-worker*, with fucking Trump.
Also, lol at minimizing the sexism allegations:https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/feb/28/tesla-female-engineer-lawsuit-harassment-discrimination
* Yeah, he and Thiel worked together once upon a time at paypal – folks never seem to remember this fact, but it explains a lot about the man.
Also, lol at anyone who wants to ride on rockets built under these conditions: http://imgur.com/a/qr1QA
It never fails to amuse me how people think we can still afford to care, but here’s the thing: you lot elected Trump and he put Exxon in charge of the EPA, so now I’ll gladly let ANYONE bilk your tax money if it reduces the growing changes of environmental collapse.
I’m not a repub or libertarian, you oaf.
Like, srsly, do any of those give a flying fuck about unions or women beyond lip service?
And before some hilarious joker come along, I ain’t some pepe freak or fash.
It depends how big his battery farm really is.
Batteries of some form are the way forward as part of the whole scenario, not sure, yet, if they’re Musk’s batteries.
Love how showing up in class as a failure is his nightmare and not that he is actually in his underwear. Good thing he doesn’t favor something much briefer, since what he has can kinda pass.
Also love that he would skip out again, but then he would disappoint Dorothy. That over-rides his fears.
Everyone keeps thinking that Walky’s in his underwear, but I’m pretty sure those are the shorts he was wearing on his way back to his room from the shower. Which begs the question, why is he wearing jeans over shorts? Is it already cold enough to start wearing pant layers?
Boxer shorts = underwear.
Brown boxers. Just what is he hiding?
They used to be white. He really hasn’t changed them in long time.