Dumbing of Age

Boy, I'm sure glad we're ignoring the two interesting plots that just got cliffhung, so we can watch Willis stuff Joe full of straw and throw him at Rachel.

Wouldn't want to accidentally advance a plot or anything...

Other urls found in this thread:

itswalky.tumblr.com/post/41628618307/):
twitter.com/repdesanto
twitter.com/AnonBabble

So what is this, the fifth story arc going on concurrently? We've got Ryan stalking the campus, we've got Robin doing her thing, we have Leslie doing her thing with Joyce and Becky, I suppose whatever's going on with Dorothy counts as a thing, and now this thing with Joe and Rachel. Anything else I missed?

Anyways, the fact that Rachel is being given something to do outside of acting as a Greek chorus adds to the veracity of that one guy a while back who claimed that Willis said that Rachel was supposed to be a larger character in the Dumbiverse and is only now getting something to do.

Also, I can't tell if Joe is leaning on the wall with his arm or if he's doing the anime thing where he puts one hand behind his head.

Also, looks like we're due to stick with Rachel for the rest of the week, barring any unfortunate happenstances such as a jump cut that snaps our necks. Pic Related is dated to 27 May.

This is not natural-sounding dialogue. This is the witty retorts of a Tumblr post detailing "the time a creepy guy hit on me".

Seriously, look at Rachel's dialogue in the fifth panel. How convoluted is that? Who TALKS like that, especially if they're annoyed and trying to brush someone off? Wouldn't saying "Yes, I REALLY need to know how much you want to fuck me right now" flow much better and work as a punchier joke, or is Willis actually aiming for the tone of a goddamn Goofus and Gallant strip here?

If I have enough story arcs going on no one will notice they are all complete dog shit.

>Boy, I'm sure glad we're ignoring the two interesting plots that just got cliffhung
>interesting plots
>interesting
What comic have you been reading? It sure isn't DoA.

>Anything else I missed?
chubby lesbian is being moved

canadian lesbian uncovered amazigirls hiding place in the middle of the common area

game of thrones is on his way to watch game of thrones

It's all relative

Actually I'm surprised she didn't immediately fire back with "fuck off; I'm a lesbian".

I guess Willis made a nearly microscopic step forward?

>canadian lesbian
BI-ERASURE!

...

pretty sure rachels straight

90% sure she'll turn out to be a pansexual non-woman femme-gender as soon as Willis needs to pander though.

she can fuck a guy and prove me wrong anytime she wants

It's been a while since we've seen Dina.
I found an interesting tumblr post about writing autistic people. I'm on mobile so I'll just paste a bit that seemed interesting. I'll link the source later.
things to look for and avoid in an autistic character:
>symptoms only manifesting as “nonverbal and rocking”
>super smart / living calculator
>super dumb / doesn’t understand anything
>all the symptoms you can come up with for them are “awkward” and “has special interest(s)” (please do more research)
>trains, technology, and/or math as special interests
>acting like a child
>getting treated like a baby
>unreasonably cruel and uncaring about others’ reactions to them being cruel
>if they’re comparable to sheldon from the big bang theory, start over
>animal comparisons
>a lack of feelings
>please no stories about what it’s like to be autistic told by allistics
the right way to write an autistic person:
>lots of symptoms, including secondary ones not included on a general diagnosis requirement list
>having a good amount of general knowledge and actually talking about it (i cannot believe that i have to say this)
>talking about things outside of special interests (again.... come on..........) (special interests are usually the default things our brains go to when theres no stimulation or we want to entertain ourselves -- it isn’t literally all we think or talk about ever. if a conversation has no connections to a special interest, reconsider having your autistic character bring it up in a context that is not an introduction.)
>explicitly expressed to be capable of attraction and romantic feelings -- if your character is an adult, add sexual feelings to this point
>capable of general functioning, just with a disability that makes it more difficult -- not a walking disability (....sigh)
>a wide amount of feelings and emotional turmoil (but perhaps only being able to express it in limited ways)
>we’re people
>just people whose brains are wired differently

aside from danny becky and dina im pretty sure all the gay/bi characters were gay/bi in the original too though

At first the rule was that character sexuality is exactly the same as it was the Walkyverse.

That seems to have rapidly slid into that they can prefer whatever zany sexuality label they want....as long as they are still kinda okay with the opposite gender, in theory.

hey, she fucked ciaran, probably
whoever that is

Rating aside, it's pretty creepy that he's hanging out there.

Also, reminder that in It's Walky, Joe wanted a proper relationship after catching feelings about Joyce and got way into chatting online with someone about engineering. He found out her name was Rachel and had a crisis because he thought she was this unattractive SEMME agent (*gasp*)! And then I think Robin (who wasn't a wacky asshole) nagged him about being a shallow asshole and he desperately sent a message to the person when SEMME was shutting down.

But it turned out the Rachel wasn't the ugly girl, it was this super hot one, who worked at the grocery store but was an amazing engineer! The lesson being... follow your mind and your heart and you'll still get a hottie. And then Willis killed her off, but felt so guilty about that, that she came back in Shortpacked! in a scene that made Leslie sploosh all over her panties (while giving another alternate universe Amber all sorts of tingles).

Willis still refers to hot Rachel as Rachel and the frumpy one as Other Rachel (the characters in strip do as well), and OR isn't getting a bigger participation like Rachel.

So, at least we all know that despite whatever other social justice stuff he's pushing, he still values attractiveness over everything else. Just like mainstream society!

So... Dina should mention dinosaurs as a non sequitur more and point out how much she doesn't understand social interactions?

She does hit a lot of those avoidance points.

>She (Billie) could use a thing to do

Well GEE! NO SHIT WILLIS!

>Also, I can't tell if Joe is leaning on the wall with his arm or if he's doing the anime thing where he puts one hand behind his head.
Actually I thought that's what he was doing until just now. Now I'm not so sure

>>Hoe DARE you give me a compliment?!?

Willis's work is starting to bore me, in the "This isn't even worth effort criticizing" sense.

So basically 'write autistics as high functioning.' Because apparently they all are, yep.

This is the filler arc.
Sooner or later, something's BOUND to happen.

To be fair, Dina must be on the higher end if she's gotten to college.

Yeah, but for a second it looked like Willis was going somewhere with Robin. The moment his prior filler started to look like it was taking a turn for the dramatically stupid, we get hit with this.

She only hits two to any extent.

It's creepy as hell. Which is an issue itself because Joe is supposed to at least somewhat charming.

>creepy

the comic might be making a joke but compliments are really only creepy when they come from unattractive people.

Whether or not a compliment is creepy depends far more on what you say and how you say it. Joe sounds like a guy who has no idea how to talk to women.

I'm sure there's a way that we can make it about Joe's parents.

>I grew up without a mother figure
>My father is a womanizing charlatan
>And that's why I hit on every girl I meet and eventually have sex with them
>
>Because of my dad

>*Roz's panties splooshing quietly in the background*

It's like Sup Forums's main complaint of Sugar being a bad leader letting her boarders doing whatever they want except all these personalities are just Willis

>Joe recently got called out for this and seemed actually taken aback by the impact it had on those he cares about
>does it again immediately to a complete stranger
That doesn't make any sense, WILLIS!

Obviously Joe doesn't care about Rachel. Let's face it, she's basically background filler; it's like flirting with a fire extinguisher.

Normal conversation
>Joe: hey you're and eleven out of ten
>Racheal: Dude, fuck off. I'm not an object. *walks away*
Willy World
>Joe: hey you're and eleven out of 10
>racheal: [insert soapbox converstaion]

God that blurb In panel 5. It's like Willis just ripped that from some random tumblr fags sjw rant about being hit on or something. Clearly that's how people talk in the real world right?

>She only hits two to any extent.

Well I take her dino interest as taking the place of stuff like math and tech, but it is science
>super smart / living calculator
She's definitely a living encyclopedia of dinosaurs
>all the symptoms you can come up with for them are "awkward" and "has special interest (s)"
This is literally why she would be considered autistic
>Trains, technology, and/or math as special interests
Ok not substituting here, so she avoids this one
>acting like a child / getting treated like a baby
She doesn't act childlike although she could pass for looking childlike. but she does get babied. People around her are pretty uncomfortable with her expressing sexual thoughts and swearing.
>animal comparisons
This seems like a specific reference that I don't get, but she is constantly referencing dinosaurs. Comparing her size to them, acting like them, asking others about them.


>please no stories about what it’s like to be autistic told by allistics
I don't agree with concept 100%, but I do think Willis' cowardice at getting a diagnosis is shitty so I'll give it to random tumblr poster.

GirlAnon here with a grammar note again.

Rachel starts her sentence with "I" and ends with "her." The stuff in the middle is clarification, so the end of her sentence (the predicate) should match the subject ("I").

Two grammar issues in a row? Really, Willis? If you want to sound smart, try harder.

WHERE'S BECKY???

>We just fucked, how dare you say it was good you disgusting male

And why does she look just like Ruth "got through rehab in a day” Lessick

Out of the twelve things listed, Dina only matches number 4 and 7 directly, and 7 is a plot point that is show to be a flaw of the other characters. She doesn't show anything that would indicate she's more intelligent than normal, just very well-read about dinosaurs.

Two days, and Joe and Rachel haven't interacted in this universe yet.

And because Willis is lazy.

Exactly. Well, not really. It's worse than Sugar letting inmates run the asylum; as you said, all of this is from Willis himself. Willis is the asylum head, the inmates, AND the asylum all in one.

Somebody said that Willis is going to start giving Rachel a larger role.

Helping Leslie as a rebound while Joyce pretends not to be able to hear a thing.

>Somebody said that Willis is going to start giving Rachel a larger role.

I made that post from something I found on Willis tumblr, although I thought the age of the post suggested it might not be happening any time soon.

"I found that yeah she's supposed to have a bigger piece. Literally from 4 years ago (itswalky.tumblr.com/post/41628618307/):
>I have always had a story for her, though I wanted to make sure I established who the main characters are in DoA first and spent some quality time with them, since there’s a lot of ‘em. But I think it might be time to shine more light on her, like I did with Raidah. Let’s just say Rachel’s been just outside the panels in a certain few strips in a certain classroom.

Now Rachel is traditionally a science student, she bonded with Joe over engineering in the last universe.So that would suggest either math (with Sal, Billie, Walky, Joyce and Mike) or comp sci (with Danny and Amber). However, I'm pretty sure she's supposed to be a second year along with Carla (pic related), so that would rule out those 1st year classes and suggest the nondescript law major class that Sarah and Jacob are taking. Or maybe that she went back to the gender class for a distribution requirement? Although It'd be way weird if she was never referred to in a class with Joyce.

Although, considering how long ago this was talked about I might die of old age before it actually happens."

Looks like it's happening now? I'm still not sure what class she's supposed be hiding in.

She could be re-taking a first year class or have skipped one her freshman year. I'm leaning towards either Danny and Amber's Comp Sci class or an expanded role for Carla as well.

I forget where he said it, but he implied recently that he had been intentionally not showing the entire Gender Studies classroom.

Odds are very high she's there. Especially considering the Joe angle.

>he implied recently that he had been intentionally not showing the entire Gender Studies classroom.
If he ever did imply it, then he didn't need to go that far.
Every shot in the Gender Studies class since last year has essentially been limited to either Leslie's desk or the desks of Dorothy, Walky, Joyce, Joe, or Roz.

Yeah, but that reeks of "new character has been here this whole time." Earlier in the strip he drew more of the class and even recently he's shown other students, albeit as low-detail shapes, so he's gonna be asspulling it if he uses the Gender Studies class.

If you consider the Joe angle then he could stick her in the unnamed class with Sarah and Jacob, linking her to Joe through Jacob.

This strip happens while Roz is teaching the gender studies class, so it's probably not that.

Joe's history of sexual conquests says otherwise. He was banging a teacher at one point

I want Mike. That is all.

>Helping Leslie as a rebound while Joyce pretends not to be able to hear a thing

i kind of rly would like to see that now...

Although I guess she could've skipped.

I do find it really weird she'd be in a class with Joyce without her ever running up and trying to make friends ("OMGoodness, we're wingmates and classmates!" 8D), and also that she'd be in class with Joe, but never get hit on until now.

TA and she's a total slut. She, along with Roz, are his only sexual partners since the strip started.

>Oh...Joyce...you're still here. I'm, uh, sorry about all the noises we've been making, I know I can get a little loud and your friend is kind of a moaner. My wifi password is "Dworkin" if you get bored and there is soda and juice in the fridge.

>It's creepy as hell. Which is an issue itself because Joe is supposed to at least somewhat charming.

It looks like Joe is just dong what he normally does. He's probably the most Alpha male in the comic aside from Galasso and maybe Joe's own dad

why would she spell out the whole phrase instead of saying just POS

The first thing he says to a stranger is "Do you have HBO?". Seriously. No one talks like this. No one acts like this. This "Game of Thrones: shit is literally ALL his character consists of.

This is mind-bogglingly stupid. Not even Ned FUCKING Flanders is this obsessive about religion, and he is the poster boy for one note characterization. I just... I just can't fathom how Willis can possibly write so badly and half-assed

Because this is the same Willis that word-filters "bitch" to "bongo" in his site comments. The same one that said "hanky panky" instead of sex for years. This is the Willis that is closing in on 40 years old and still uses words like "poopy", "buttstuff", and "peen" without a hint of irony.

What I'm saying is he sucks at profanity.

This dialogue kills me inside.

He's a bad writer.

I, a human being in the middle of shitposting on Sup Forums, think that this dialogue is utterly and completely natural and normal and is definitely how other people that are also human beings talk and speak.

I'm also human and I'm going to ignore what you said despite past evidence suggesting that I am more than just a sex-hungry blockhead in favor of implying that you and I should have sex.

His arms been broken and nailed to the side of his head. This was going to be his dramatic death scene, but then rachel sperged out so he has to explain the context.

why would you feel awkward about swearing in front of a teenager to begin with? wait, maybe it's because Howard is actually meant to come off as retarded. it's the only thing that makes sense to me

The only thing I can think of is that Howard was originally supposed something like 12 and Willis didn't want to introduce Clint yet because it'd overlap with Blaine appearing.

>trains, technology, and/or math as special interests
Autists love them trains, though

I'm a robot and I feel that the only cure is to destroy all humans.

It's a very confused bit.

In the standard version, she wants to tell off Ruth but feels bad being as explicit/negative in front of their innocent younger sibling.

>Rachel: Ruth, you're being a real bi- wait is that your kid brother?
>Ruth: Yeah, this is Howard, I have to watch him for a bit.
>Howie: Hiya! She's being a real what?
>Rachel: ... a real, erm, busybody!

Not a funny example, but that's the basic structure. Howie is clearly interested and engaged in what Rachel is saying about his sister, Rachel feels bad and tempers her speech with a word .

In the strip, Howie doesn't give a shit about their conversation, so why would Rachel direct her insult for Ruth at him? Why does she still use as hard an insult (but not hard enough to work as a punchline), but think that spelling it out would help? And then Willis has Ruth just say he can spell, instead of having Howie react to it, either with the correct or incorrect interpretation of her spelling. It's somehow way worse as both a joke and a interaction between people.

Anyway, hail patreanon full of grace, deliver us from not having updates.

What's weird is that it more implies that RUTH is the one that can't spell. Rachel is explicitly talking to Howard, but she's spelling out what she wants to say.

When you're taking your cat to the vet, you say to your significant other or whoever that you're going to the V-E-T. You don't spell it out to the cat, because you don't want to warn them that they're going to be taken out.

You spell things out when you're overheard, not when you're talking to someone directly.

Rachel is implying that Ruth can't spell. And yet Ruth doesn't realize this. Which means Ruth is just as stupid as Rachel thinks.

Tonight just reminds me of how I actually kinda liked Robin in the Walkyverse, and how much Willis has ruined everything he's touched since then.

I guess it's nighttime now, so that's something. Maybe Amber finally went back to her goddamn room by now.

I only read this shit for Robin and I'm not really sure if that plot is interesting. I'm too far in because of the Walky-verse, I can't stop now. God save me.

did we really need to cut away for two strips just so robin could tweet? (and i guess so the punchline can arbitrarily be at night, but theres other ways to make that joke)

>my lesbian
I thought that was just a Shortpacked thing. Is she actually doing it for real now?
And for the love of God, how is Robin still not wearing pants?

And wouldn't the local news have opted to follow Robin all the way to her HQ, if not already have operations set up? How did they even find out where Leslie lived, anyways? For all we know, they didn't actually know who Leslie was. The only way they'd have found her is if somebody up and followed Robin in the middle of the night.

Also, what are those little drops between her feet on the pavement? Is that what I think it is?

Also, Panel 2 is not how humans talk, much less how they talk to themselves.

Also,
>that flood a' weird pro-LGBT policy proposal Tweets I don't remember typin'
You have a deletion function.
Hell, I know it's a Trump analogy, but most if not every political candidate has at least one intern whose job is to handle social media.

Bad news: You get Robin at her least tolerable, and none of the plots are interesting.

>You have a deletion function.
shes intentionally not deleting them so she can turn over a new leaf

If I had to guess, Willis figured that Dorothy and Walky coming back to their dorm before nightfall was important enough to show.

Meanwhile, Leslie is still chilling at home with Joyce and Becky, Ruth is still grumping around the dorm lobby, Amber and Sal are still playing Mario Kart in said lobby, and I dunno what Ethan and Mike are doing but I bet it's something gay as fuck. Shit, remember when Willis was actually doing something with Ethan and Mike? Y'know, two months ago?

>Leslie tries to convince Robin of the issues with her policies with a heartfelt confession.
>Nice tits, but, no dice, rug muncher!

>~!*:･ﾟBeckyﾟ･:*!~ steals her account and tweeted a bunch of surely retarded sounding nonsense
>I'll let it rock

Fuck off.

I get that, but I mean that she still could have deleted them.

Also, the Tweets in question, assuming that twitter.com/repdesanto is meant to reflect the Dumbiverse reality, are barely about LGBT policy. Guess who the Tweets ARE about, though.

>Yo guess who's a sweet-ass lesbian, everybody! BECKY MACINTYRE.
>She's TOTES rad and has the best dinosaur girlfriend ever. She makes her heart go RARRR.
>anyway everyone should acknowledge that becky macintire is BEST LESBIAN, as evidenced by everything about her, fo' rizzle
>I know I've probably said some wrong and ignorant things about gay folks, but I DISAGREE NOW, for defs!!! LGBTQ 5EVAH!!!!!!
>An' I hope you all can find it in your heart to forgive me once I def totes change my behavior to reflect this evolution, for realsies
>this is defs totes FOR REALSIES senator robin desanto, on her phone

Thank you, that was bugging the fuck out of me too.
Hope you're doing better.

>drops between her feet

Those are her shadow. She's actually only made up of a rock and some pebbles.

>Literally stands in the same spot for hours with no pants on

Well then....

>I'm gonna prosecute that scarred creep

Robin has literally no power to do this.

>Robin has literally no power to do this
What? She'll just slip an arrest order into her Cancer Ban bill when no one's looking. That's how bills work, right? It'll be easy.

>I'm going to prosecute someone whose name I don't even know

I thought Robin was mostly okay in Shortpacked, but I fucking hated the "my lesbian" schtick and it's even worse here when applied to the far more annoying Robin in DoA.

>That isn't even that person's name...
>FUCK OFF, YOU'RE FIRED, I DON'T EVEN WANT TO HEAR THE END OF THAT SENTENCE!

You would think that if a US Congresswoman was running around with no pants and abruptly reversing her position on issues after after being abandoned by her party, it would be pretty big news.