I know a lot of people get drunk by 18, but a lot of people don’t. Mike doesn’t engage in other vices like smoking or obsessive video games… he’s got his preferred vice and he’s sticking to it.
We’ve seen no sign that he has any awareness that he’s a nice-drunk, or even that this is the case in this universe.
…you know, that WOULD be a way to use Mike in an interesting story.
I’m not a fan of him. I think he is an artefact from the other comics where he filled an interesting part in the narrative. Here, he is just an asshole in a cast full of much more interesting assholes. He COULD be put in an interesting spot as an antagonist – because lord knows that men like him exist in real life – but transforming a protagonist to an antagonist is a really tricky thing to do, especially since a lot of people like him*.
But his attitude to drinking could be a genuinely interesting story that would be about HIM and not his effect on other people. How would he react to finding out he becomes nice when drunk? How would he react to how other people react to it? Would he detest it or welcome it? Would he swear of alcohol forever after the first time or would he experiment with it? Would he be bothered by the alcohol soaked frat-culture?
A lot of people have complicated relationships to alcohol, and Mikes reverse Jekyll/Hyde syndrom would be an interesting mirror in which to watch it (much like Becky’s hat-fetish is a fun mirror in which to watch physical attraction).
*) If you like Mike – please do! More power to you. My opinions do not in any way have to dictate yours.
I always thought his “drunken-niceness” was a part of his alien power, kind of a counterbalance, I guess. I don’t know if Mike in this universe even drinks. He certainly has no reason to, as of yet.
See, Mike-with-Alien-Powers, I could tolerate because at heart, it was a story about people defending the entire planet. And, you know, you grade on a curve because some cool stuff’s on this planet and if someone’s saving it you make allowances.
Willis has already put in underaged drinking, so I wouldn’t be shocked to see it here. Drunk Mike might be a neat gag sometime later. Maybe Mike tries it as a way to talk to Amber without saying something mean? Personally I really like Mike as a heroic douchebag, but I agree that can’t really work here unless he teams up with AG or something. In the old universe even before he had a character arc he had funny moments, but in DOA he mostly just causes trouble. I don’t think he causes nearly enough trouble to make an interesting antagonist though unless he screws over worse villains as some sort of ploy.
An antagonist does not necessarily have to be unlikable by the audience to be a good antagonist. Not once in the original trilogy did I dislike Vader, he never gave off any dislikable vibes for me, and I absolutely LOVE his character. While Luke as the protagonist, is pretty damn unlikable until the finale of Jedi for me.
I dunno. I’d lay at least 50/50 odds that they’d quickly respect “I’m an introvert, please let me people in small doses.” And also an independent 50/50 that Billie’s getting special treatment because she’s the designated awesome.
To my mind (as a Brit, where the expectation is generally that you get your own room at university) the whole idea of room mates seems horrifically geared up towards introverts…
Seriously – my first term I was in a house share with 5 other girls. They commented on my eating habits enough that I would actually walk the 30 mins to university to eat food alone rather than eat at home sometimes (as the sole veggie living in a household where everybody else thought a meal WAS a meat and two veg I didn’t blend in… I had the same girl tell me on two consecutive days that I never ate and it was a wonder I wasn’t fading away, and that I was always picking on food and it was a wonder I wasn’t the size of a bus). Even with a door you can close to shut out everybody else they can still be horrible for your mental health, if they won’t respect your boundaries… It was in some ways a relief to overhear one of them on the phone to her mum saying she “dreaded” having to talk to me because that was the point it was obvious to me that the problem was them rather than me (if somebody has never been anything other than polite, friendly, etc., towards you and you dread talking to them because of the degree to which you have “othered” them – THEY ARE NOT THE PROBLEM)…
Space, privacy, quiet time, etc are all SO important. (Not living with judgemental pod-people is also a good idea.)
I see nothing that suggests the odds are that good. This exchange – and the fact that ‘ok, we’ll come over’ isn’t just a threat, but a fait acomplis – suggests otherwise.
you want this, don’t you Billie? the ego in you is swelling. take the sharp cheddar. eat it. it is freely given. take it and Rose’s offer of friendship. give into the friendship. with each passing moment in that dorm you will become friendlier.
i am actually wondering. are her dormmates the intrusive kind of friendly? or the would respect any boundaries that you established friendly? then again, I don’t think Billie is the best at establishing her own boundaries just yet.
The other day people tried to get me to have another drink until I snapped at them to back off. They then looked surprised at my “over-reaction”. I feel her dormmates are like that. They’ll pressure you in a friendly way and when you get angry they’ll be surprised but respect your boundaries. So they won’t force you to do something but they will also pressure you unknowingly.
It seems like the intrusive type of friendly given their response to “hey not feeling a party” is to barge into the room essentially bringing the party to her.
Kinda like how teen wolf fandom loves to turn Scott into a bad guy, even though he’s probably one of the sweetest, kindest and gentlest characters on the show.
It’s as if the genuinely nicer a character is, the more fandom seems desperate to want them to be the bad guy.
In private life, society and nations, disconnectedness defines danger. People who are disconnected from those around them often end up hurting themselves and others. Groups that cut themselves off from society end up hurting themselves and others. Nations that cut themselves off end up hurting themselves and others.
Billie could use a little connectedness, something beyond the follie-aux-deux that is Billie-Ruth.
Plus sharp cheddar is the best cheese. Once had my jaw wired for six weeks and sharp cheddar melting in my mouth was the highlight of my day.
I would find it funny if Billie (and us, the audience) keep waiting for the other shoe to drop and the horrible underside to be revealed… and there isn’t one. Just people driving themselves batty waiting for the catch.
They’re super nice and this is awesome of them to be so welcoming, but yeah I’m siding with my fellow introverts on this one. Gimme time and space to process stuff if it’s been hectic.
Also give the lady some alone time to text her girlfriend, will ya?
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Billie, typing furiously: “THERE IS NO ONE IN THIS WHOLE DORM WHOM I CAN JUSTIFY PUNCHING”
Give her a week with Lucy.
just missing the one fanning with a palm leaf
…. Billie DOES like a leaf fan.
Well played. (Unlike a Leafs game.)
*insert obligatory OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHH!*
What is it with the internet and puns today? This is the third webcomic I check today and in all of them the comments were just loaded with wordplay.
Whadda ya mean, ‘today’?
One of us! One of us!
Nice!
And the grapes. I thought there would be grapes.
Mmm, sharp cheddar
No crackers? What is this, the gulag?
“Sorry, all we got is this bacon and a microwave to melt the cheese onto it.”
… Add in avocados and nachos and you got a deal.
Billie the babysitter
This is getting weird.
It’s almost like we’re facing the strange!
As someone who always suspects ulterior motives, I agree
Are you saying you expect the Spanish inquisition?
NOOOO-one expec.. oh bugger!
Better come in again.
Rather than no one expecting the Spanish Inquisition, it seems in this case Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.
Well Cardcaptors did tell us to expect the unexpected…
Would Syaoran lie to us?
I’m beginning to sense that the theme in this storyline is “no one leaves well enough alone”
…. THIS storyline?
Billie’s gonna have to learn to deal with people who like her.
Or possibly start singing:
“This must be just like living in paradise/
And I don’t wanna go ho-o-o-ome!”
Gotta love Diamond Dave…especially when he’s got Steve Vai to back him up.
…wait, “ball pit and caramel pool”? I thought that was exclusively Dorothy’s turf?
…..
….. okay, that was a good one.
What in the name of Dina, is a “ballpit”?
Think:
Someplace approximating a huge enclosed with netting, inflatable swimming pool with high sides.
Now fill it with (roughly) baseball sized hollow plastic balls…
Then leap into it !
Ballpit!!
Or a little kiddie pool in the middle of a giant warehouse.
Y’know, a ballpit can mean a lot of things.
Ah, yes. Always accompanied by the vague smell of urine.
They have them at Chuck E Cheese.
And some McDonalds.
ooh sharp cheddar! the good stuff!
“To Serve Mankind”
(Spoiler: It’s a cookbook!)
In other old spoilers: the Eloi were very well fed by the Morlocks.
BRIBERY: SUCCESSFUL
Rose and Nash gain +2 charisma
Because bribery gets you charisma?
….
*reflects on how people like generous people*
….. okay, it checks out.
Good taste in cheese gives you charisma.
Bribery with good cheese gives you even more charisma
It gives some people gas.
So, what… roll for Charisma DC 9? Maybe 12 tops?
“We phrased it as a question, but it’s actually not optional.”
The McAwesome’s of dorms?
Seems like it. I wonder if Mike goes there to get drunk.
…. has Mike ever BEEN drunk?
I know a lot of people get drunk by 18, but a lot of people don’t. Mike doesn’t engage in other vices like smoking or obsessive video games… he’s got his preferred vice and he’s sticking to it.
We’ve seen no sign that he has any awareness that he’s a nice-drunk, or even that this is the case in this universe.
…you know, that WOULD be a way to use Mike in an interesting story.
I’m not a fan of him. I think he is an artefact from the other comics where he filled an interesting part in the narrative. Here, he is just an asshole in a cast full of much more interesting assholes. He COULD be put in an interesting spot as an antagonist – because lord knows that men like him exist in real life – but transforming a protagonist to an antagonist is a really tricky thing to do, especially since a lot of people like him*.
But his attitude to drinking could be a genuinely interesting story that would be about HIM and not his effect on other people. How would he react to finding out he becomes nice when drunk? How would he react to how other people react to it? Would he detest it or welcome it? Would he swear of alcohol forever after the first time or would he experiment with it? Would he be bothered by the alcohol soaked frat-culture?
A lot of people have complicated relationships to alcohol, and Mikes reverse Jekyll/Hyde syndrom would be an interesting mirror in which to watch it (much like Becky’s hat-fetish is a fun mirror in which to watch physical attraction).
*) If you like Mike – please do! More power to you. My opinions do not in any way have to dictate yours.
I always thought his “drunken-niceness” was a part of his alien power, kind of a counterbalance, I guess. I don’t know if Mike in this universe even drinks. He certainly has no reason to, as of yet.
See, Mike-with-Alien-Powers, I could tolerate because at heart, it was a story about people defending the entire planet. And, you know, you grade on a curve because some cool stuff’s on this planet and if someone’s saving it you make allowances.
This Mike’s just some schmuck.
Willis has already put in underaged drinking, so I wouldn’t be shocked to see it here. Drunk Mike might be a neat gag sometime later. Maybe Mike tries it as a way to talk to Amber without saying something mean? Personally I really like Mike as a heroic douchebag, but I agree that can’t really work here unless he teams up with AG or something. In the old universe even before he had a character arc he had funny moments, but in DOA he mostly just causes trouble. I don’t think he causes nearly enough trouble to make an interesting antagonist though unless he screws over worse villains as some sort of ploy.
An antagonist does not necessarily have to be unlikable by the audience to be a good antagonist. Not once in the original trilogy did I dislike Vader, he never gave off any dislikable vibes for me, and I absolutely LOVE his character. While Luke as the protagonist, is pretty damn unlikable until the finale of Jedi for me.
How does one earn extra time in the ballpit?
Because of the discussion about Rose on Tumblr…
…Is she steady with a dude named Larry?
So is Rose secretly related to Amber in this continuity too, or is it just an unusual resemblance?
Amber is Blaine’s only biological child in DoA. Are they more distant relatives? Anything’s possible, but I think it’s unlikely.
And a waterslide, and Mike is nice.
I’m starting to think it would suck to be an introvert in this dorm.
Suck, blow and bite.
I dunno. I’d lay at least 50/50 odds that they’d quickly respect “I’m an introvert, please let me people in small doses.” And also an independent 50/50 that Billie’s getting special treatment because she’s the designated awesome.
Do Lucy and Nash even understand the concept of “introvert?”
I don’t think most people do. Certainly not the Head Cheerleader who made a failed attempt to be social-queen of her last dorm when she moved in…
To my mind (as a Brit, where the expectation is generally that you get your own room at university) the whole idea of room mates seems horrifically geared up towards introverts…
Seriously – my first term I was in a house share with 5 other girls. They commented on my eating habits enough that I would actually walk the 30 mins to university to eat food alone rather than eat at home sometimes (as the sole veggie living in a household where everybody else thought a meal WAS a meat and two veg I didn’t blend in… I had the same girl tell me on two consecutive days that I never ate and it was a wonder I wasn’t fading away, and that I was always picking on food and it was a wonder I wasn’t the size of a bus). Even with a door you can close to shut out everybody else they can still be horrible for your mental health, if they won’t respect your boundaries… It was in some ways a relief to overhear one of them on the phone to her mum saying she “dreaded” having to talk to me because that was the point it was obvious to me that the problem was them rather than me (if somebody has never been anything other than polite, friendly, etc., towards you and you dread talking to them because of the degree to which you have “othered” them – THEY ARE NOT THE PROBLEM)…
Space, privacy, quiet time, etc are all SO important. (Not living with judgemental pod-people is also a good idea.)
Yahbut, if everyone gets their own room, how does the university MAKE MONEY?
[/sarcasm, of course]
By charging them more for rooms, of course.
The more appropriate question would be how do the students afford it?
The answer of course is “Socialism!”
I thought the answer was that they couldn’t, but the ever-burgeoning practice of lifetime debt peonage lets everyone pretend that they can.
Just like they respected Billie’s first two “no thanks” in this comic? Billie might be OK with it but they’re not psychic they should’ve backed off.
I see nothing that suggests the odds are that good. This exchange – and the fact that ‘ok, we’ll come over’ isn’t just a threat, but a fait acomplis – suggests otherwise.
Maaaan now I REALLY want some sharp cheddar slices… damn you, Willis.
“Well if there is CHEDDAR…”
Sadly, the cheddar is a lie…
You’re not telling me it’s Colby?
Okay, so Billie can be bribed by an offer of someone sitting her bed and repeatedly cutting cheese?
…. notgonnakinkjudge notgonnakinkjudge notgonna…
please. not a ballpit.
Ball pits are the best
“So this one time at Cheer Camp…”
If you ask Billie for stories, you have to be prepared for some saucy ones.
“We also have peeled grapes.”
What sort of monster would peel your grapes for you? That’s the fun part
But the skin is where all the vitamins are! You need to eat that as well.
And the flavour. Peeled grapes are just for pretending to have a bowl of eye-balls at Halloween
And peeling them is soooooo tedious. The payoff is so not worth the work.
The dark side of the friendly folk of Forest Hall: They don’t believe in ‘personal time’!
Yup. I can see that get VERY old very quick.
“Bound-a-what?”
“Boundaries.”
“No… no, never heard of it.”
Ball pits are just low-resolution sandboxes!
*Gets dragged off by orderlies*
You all know it’s true!
Yeah but the physics collision also doesn’t let them get in your underwear/swimsuit so that’s good
Well, they could, but you would have to work at it.
…my God, Needfuldoer is right.
IT’S ALL A SCAM, YOU PEOPLE. EVERYTHING I THOUGHT I KNEW WAS A LIE!!!
So it’s the indie gaming of pouring something into a pit and jumping into it? What does that make pools? Or a snake pit?
“What’s this? A minute of your life for yourself? NOT ON MY WATCH!”
BTW…
I’m assuming everyone has seen the “It’s Walky!” Kickstarter by now?
Almost reached it’s target in, what, 3 days?
I’ve asked Willis if he’ll also be making the “Roomies” books available as PDF’s because (as he acknowledges) postage to the UK is crippling…
Got an email back saying he thinks that possible and needs to look for the files! So… keep an eye open! 🙂
Is Rose left-handed?
Is that a threat ?
“Come to the party or the party comes to you.” — That can certainly be a threat if interpreted in that way!
you want this, don’t you Billie? the ego in you is swelling. take the sharp cheddar. eat it. it is freely given. take it and Rose’s offer of friendship. give into the friendship. with each passing moment in that dorm you will become friendlier.
i am actually wondering. are her dormmates the intrusive kind of friendly? or the would respect any boundaries that you established friendly? then again, I don’t think Billie is the best at establishing her own boundaries just yet.
The other day people tried to get me to have another drink until I snapped at them to back off. They then looked surprised at my “over-reaction”. I feel her dormmates are like that. They’ll pressure you in a friendly way and when you get angry they’ll be surprised but respect your boundaries. So they won’t force you to do something but they will also pressure you unknowingly.
It seems like the intrusive type of friendly given their response to “hey not feeling a party” is to barge into the room essentially bringing the party to her.
I wonder if this fanbase is familiar with the Ron the Death Eater trope. Seems like a lot of them like writing that type of fanfiction.
Kinda like how teen wolf fandom loves to turn Scott into a bad guy, even though he’s probably one of the sweetest, kindest and gentlest characters on the show.
It’s as if the genuinely nicer a character is, the more fandom seems desperate to want them to be the bad guy.
The question on everybody’s minds: Who hurt these fandoms?
In private life, society and nations, disconnectedness defines danger. People who are disconnected from those around them often end up hurting themselves and others. Groups that cut themselves off from society end up hurting themselves and others. Nations that cut themselves off end up hurting themselves and others.
Billie could use a little connectedness, something beyond the follie-aux-deux that is Billie-Ruth.
Plus sharp cheddar is the best cheese. Once had my jaw wired for six weeks and sharp cheddar melting in my mouth was the highlight of my day.
I would find it funny if Billie (and us, the audience) keep waiting for the other shoe to drop and the horrible underside to be revealed… and there isn’t one. Just people driving themselves batty waiting for the catch.
Nothing is annoying quite like friendly people being friendly when you just want some peace and quiet.
As Malaya knows only too well
Yeah, as an introvert who needs very specific downtime to maintain mental health, this would be my personal hell.
I can see why Malaya wanted out.
They’re super nice and this is awesome of them to be so welcoming, but yeah I’m siding with my fellow introverts on this one. Gimme time and space to process stuff if it’s been hectic.
Also give the lady some alone time to text her girlfriend, will ya?
Look out!
She has a knife!