111

Coldcalls
Posted on June 9, 2019 by David M Willis

111 thoughts on “Coldcalls”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    “She KILLS you with KINDNESS”

    “…I don’t KILL with it!”

    1. BrokenEye, the True False Prophet

      “She MODERATELY WOUNDS you with KINDNESS”

    2. TheFlamingonator

      She MILDLY INCONVENIENCES you with KINDNESS

    3. Dean

      She carefully grinds the kindness to a point and inflicts a debilitating but non-fatal wound.

      1. HeySo

        “Nudging my life with her good intentions
        Guiding my life with her words
        Killing me softly with her kindness
        Killing me softly with her kindness
        Supporting my whole life with her words
        Killing me softly with her kindness”

        Hmm, sure, I can see it. Totally kills the flow, and yet it still definitely seems like something Danny’d play on his Ukele.

        1. Chris Phoenix

          WHERE IS THE LIKE BUTTON!?!?!

        2. Bryan Langley

          I know, right?! I keep looking for it automatically!

  2. Doctor_Who

    Billie, don’t wear yellow with your hair down and glasses off, or people will realize you were Frieda all along!

    It’s the same reason Clark Kent doesn’t show up to work with a spitcurl and a tight blue shirt. Jeez Billie, you’re a journalist, they cover how to Clark Kent on like day one!

    1. King Daniel

      …I totally thought she was Frieda at first seeing today’s strip.

      1. Marsh Maryrose

        I thought she was Meredith at first. Frieda is a much closer match, if I’d remembered Frieda.

        1. LookingIn

          I legitimately thought it was Mary…

          yes, I do need my eyes checked.

        2. Lone Duck

          The constant wearing of Dragon Yellow ensures you know its Billie.

        3. He Who Abides

          She couldn’t be Mary. I don’t want to gut her.

    2. DailyBrad

      No, she’s April O’Neil, of course!

      1. Wizard

        Every once in a while, the netz make me feel better. It was actually kind of nice to know I wasn’t the only one wondering what April was wearing under that jumpsuit.

  3. Darkoneko

    Hahaha, as expected. It’s a good experience for Dorothy’s goal, too.

    1. Darkoneko

      On second read, I’m gonna disagree tho. Her jealousy metabolize into more productivity/more work.

  4. William Leonard Reese Jr.

    . . .Dorothy is just doing her absolute best huh?

  5. ValdVin

    Dorothy the kingmaker-maker?

    Hmm…

    1. HeatherJean

      Dorothy is actually managing the campaign of Robin’s campaign manager. It will either be good training for her own political hopes, or crush them entirely.

  6. Hazel

    Becky and Dorothy are…SUPER TEAM

  7. BBCC

    That’s well and good Dorothy, but if Robin pulls a Trump and wins, I am going to enter this comic and make a really annoying scream in your ear until she leaves office.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      If Robin wins, I’m going to have a birth of cactuses out of my asshole.

      1. Zaxares

        Make sure you get it on video. It’ll be SOMEBODY’S fetish and you can make some sweet, sweet bank off of it. 😉

    2. DailyBrad

      If Robin wins, she will have entirely new constituents. Given she seemingly just does whatever they tell her to do, might not be so bad.

      1. BBCC

        She does whatever the men of the party tell her to do so they don’t crush her – she’s still running as a member of the GOP. I’m not confident.

        1. C.T Phipps

          Well the GOP dumped her so she doesn’t have to do anything for them.

        2. Ferret

          The GOP dumped her but she’s still technically running on their ticket, and there’ll be a big R next to her name any time she’s shown on tv. The Republicans might just try to weasel her back into the fold for two years then dump her for a fresh, hot new primary candidate.

        3. thejeff

          Does she? I mean, they dumped her from the party and she fired the advisors who were going to try to spin her way back into their good graces.
          I don’t know. I can’t even speculate what might happen if she wins, because I can’t even imagine how she would get there.

        4. BBCC

          That’s what Robin said she did and I see no reason not to believe her. Dumped form the party or no, it’s too late to remove the R beside her name from the ballot.

        5. segnosaur

          She may still technically be running as a republican, but if she should happen to get elected, she wouldn’t have to stay a republican. There have been several congress-critters who have changed parties mid-term…

        6. BBCC

          Yes, but Robin’s strategy for surviving in Washington is ingratiating herself to the men of the party. Robin’s still running as a Republican and once she wins, she doesn’t have the obligations to move either.

      2. Jamie

        That’s… not how a constituency works… Danica Roem gets it.

    3. vlademir1

      Pretty sure a normal speaking voice would work if the relative time differential stayed in effect. Even a deep bass voice would be a high frequency sound and the highest frequency human voices (ie children) would fall in the range where only a teenager or child could hear them under that condition.

  8. Delicious Taffy

    Don’t be too impressed. Dorothy here takes her hatred toward fascism and aims it at helping rehome kids whose parents ate their siblings.

  9. Deathjavu

    The more I think about Billie’s “insult”, the more it sounds like actually really high praise.

  10. Pablo360

    You know… when the corner of Becky’s mouth changes color through her hair, that only makes it more obvious that her eye doesn’t.

  11. Stephen Bierce

    *plays Club Nouveau’s “Jealousy” on the hacked Muzak again.

  12. Bagge

    Heh, Billie is perceptive when she wants to be.

    But I kinda agree with Dorothy – that is a not-bad way to handle jealousy

  13. Sporky

    I mean, was it a put-down? I kind of thought it was more of an observation.

    1. JetstreamGW

      She’s basically rolling her eyes at it.

    2. sun tzu

      It would be high praise if Billie was capable of praising others.

    3. C.T Phipps

      It means Dorothy lacks the ability to express emotions properly.

      Like spite and hate!

    4. Kat

      It is an insult in the same vein as Sal calling Danny “Wonderbread.” You are so good, you don’t know how to be normal terrible human like everyone else. Only problem is that Billie’s idea of normal levels of human terrible is debatably much lower than most, given her own opinions of her self worth. Also, she’s sober in this scene. Who knew that still happened?

  14. Dana

    You can tell it’s a put-down because Billie said it.

  15. DailyBrad

    I’m surprised Billie’s still working for the paper, but I guess that just because she’s been a lush, doesn’t necessarily mean she’s neglecting her commitments. I guess outside that time she wouldn’t get out of Walky’s bed.

    1. ǝ snow ʍousɐ

      Or maybe Billie just writes about her life as a bisexual alcoholic now, and Jill is just okay with that. *shrugs*

      1. Nono

        You mean Daisy?

    2. CJ

      Well Dorothy isn’t writing for the student’s paper right now, so someone has to work there?

    3. drs

      I thought being a lush was part of the journalistic tradition.

    4. thejeff

      Billie has mostly been shown as a pretty functional alcoholic. She drinks a lot, but not always to the point of incapacity and even when she does overdo it, it’s usually the evening and she’s up and about the next day.
      The joys of being 18. 🙂

      At this point, it doesn’t seem like being alcoholic is really interfering in her daily life – other than the past DUI and screwing up her relationship with Ruth.

  16. Mr. Random

    Because Billie’s saying that you’re an incredibly insecure person underneath all the selflessness.

    1. Schpoonman

      She’s just terrible, isn’t she?

      B-Dubs, not Dorothy.

    2. Sam

      Dorothy channeling her negative emotions into doing nice things isn’t really a put down though. That’s basically like going ‘look at this dork using her energy constructively instead of lashing out or acting destructively like a *normal* person’. Like. That is. Not an insult. It is a good thing to find ways to channel your energy into different outlets instead of acting out.

      1. Nono

        It’s the ‘put-down’ in that Dorothy is also tired of everyone treating her like she’s perfect that even her coping mechanisms are healthy.

    3. Fart Captor

      Being insecure in itself isn’t something that should count against a person though?

      Being kind is a pretty admirable way to cope with insecurity, and kindness that also makes YOU feel better is still kindness

  17. Schpoonman

    Aw, B-Dubs looks really nice with her hair down. This interview is gonna be plagued with her being almost completely unable to read her tablet, though, and I look forward to Becky giving her shit over it.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      She’s gonna have to use font size 108. She’ll have to scroll constantly just to get through a sentence.

    2. Needfuldoer

      If she’s nearsighted, no problem.

      If she’s farsighted or has astigmatism, she’ll have to use the Reading Squints. (A derivative of the Safety Squints you use for power tools.)

      1. Delicious Taffy

        We can squint if we want to

        1. Lingo

          If your friends don’t squint, then they’re no friends of mine!

        2. thejeff

          If we don’t, nobody will.

  18. Jupiterror

    Billie has a new look

  19. abysswatcher1993

    Another option is to go full Cheney and take over Robin’s candidacy so Becky can be the mastermind of all of Robin’s plans. Of course, unlike Cheney Becky would be more human and don’t shoot anyone on their face… unless that person that is shoot down is Toedad or Blaine.

    1. ProfessorDetective

      She wouldn’t shoot anyone on their face… in cold blood. I assume she has basic firearms training, given her father’s… proclivities.

      1. thejeff

        I’d assume she doesn’t. Women don’t need that kind of thing.

  20. Marsh Maryrose

    I’m confused. Becky came to Read Hall spontaneously. So how could Dorothy have gotten word to Billie in time for Billie to have rushed over from Forest?

    Yes, I know about this newfangled thing called “text.” Still seems like a really quick reaction by both Dorothy and Billie.

    1. TheKelliestKelly

      Dina and Amber share a half bath with Dorothy and Sierra. Perhaps Dorothy heard her gift Dina the dinosaur plushie and contacted Billie before or as Becky started canvassing.

      1. Marsh Maryrose

        This is a plausible explanation and I withdraw my pettifogging timeline concerns.

        Mind you, I still lack an explanation for how Billie was showered and dressed on a Sunday morning before Lucy headed off to church.

        1. TheKelliestKelly

          Ooh, that is out of character for Billie. Maybe it’s been awhile? Based on Joyce’s musings, I don’t think “church time” is over yet but a sizable chunk of church time has passed

        2. Xenocide

          Maybe she isn’t showered, she didn’t decide against glasses so much as forgot them in her haste, and her hair is down because it was quicker to just leave it than to put it up?

    2. Meagan

      The sliding timescale worked in her favor (somehow)

    3. Meagan

      Oh also, Dorothy could have asked Billie sometime in the period since Becky told Dorothy about her new job. And then Billie said yes lemme know next time Becky is around, and so Dorothy texted her when she heard Becky in the dorm.

  21. Marsh Maryrose

    And I still want to know how Billie functions without glasses if she normally needs them.

    1. TheKelliestKelly

      Depends on how bad her myopia is. I started wearing glasses in either the 4th or 3rd grade. It would be a few years before I needed to wear them all the time (though I probably started doing so before I strictly needed to). At a certain point, your eye sight kinda plateaus for a while. Billie may be at the point where she needs her glasses to drive, they’d help see in class beyond the first row, but she can be out and about without them.

      Alternatively, Billie is far sighted. I’m not far sighted and have no idea how much of an impediment that is.

      Also, Billie is real damn stubborn and real damn proud. She def fo sho would take a ride on the struggle bus to maintain the image of cool cheerleader, alpha bongo she regained in Forest Hall

      1. CJ

        If you are farsighted, you need glasses for reading and can navigate perfectly without them. As Billie usually wears her glasses outside, it’s unlikely.
        Maybe Billie has contacts?
        I wonder about her look though, to many changes to be incidental.

    2. Keulen

      I’m assuming she can see some things ok without her glasses on. Most people who wear glasses aren’t blind without them.

      1. ischemgeek

        I am without mine but I have moderate myopia in one eye and severe myopia in the other. I literally can’t see clearly more than 2 inches past my nose without my glasses.

        1. Marisa Mockery

          Me too! People think I’m exaggerating until I prove it, but I swear I’m two numbers away from being legally blind….

    3. Xenocide

      She could be wearing contacts? I imagine she would have used them while cheerleading rather than have her glasses fall off when doing acrobatic things.

    4. BenRG

      *coughcontactlensescough*

    5. Needfuldoer

      I’m nearsighted and can navigate around just fine without my glasses. At least in my case, distant objects doesn’t look like they have a soft, foggy gaussian blur. That’s just a shortcut the media uses. It looks more like those old novelty “x-ray specs”, where thin lines disappear and there are multiple ‘ghost’ images surrounding everything. I wouldn’t go driving without them, but I’m not bumping into everything just walking around.

      Reading is a different matter. With a little effort I can read 12 point text around arm’s length. Hold your arm straight out, palm up, and put a book in the crook of your elbow. There it’s effortless. Closer is no problem, either. Further away? Forget it. I stood DoA book 5 up across the room, about 10 feet away, and it’s just a pink and beige rectangle.

  22. TheKelliestKelly

    Two observations for panel-three-Billie

    O1: B-Dubs could be a separate nickname based on her actual last name that is Billingsworth, thus rendering Billie’s critique invalid.

    O2: If Billie knew Faye Whitaker from Questionable Content (who also exists in this universe), she would be on the fifth iteration of her nickname by now

    1. thejeff

      It’ll be interesting to see if Becky drops using the nickname since Billie objected. She’s got a thing about nicknaming people, but I don’t think we’ve seen anyone reject one before.
      It’ll likely be subtle though – just her not using it again. Or maybe come up with another one.

  23. Wolfbeckett

    Boom, roasted.

  24. Abbefaria

    If your trying to kill her with kindness your forgetting she grew up around Joyce…

  25. Axel

    dotty being actually into the career is going to push Becky toward being successful isn’t she

    1. Meagan

      Maybe then Dorothy will realize that what she really excels at is like, social work, and she can stay out of the limelight

      1. Eldritch Gentleman

        That’s the thought I just had. She is just too nice and sincere for a harsh-decisions position like Potus. Helping people out on a more local and personal level would probably suit her better.

        1. Fart Captor

          The idea that being kind or gentle makes one unsuited for leadership and “harsh decisions” is incredibly flawed, backwards, and just plain fucked up.

          The ability to make “harsh decisions” without a great deal of hesitation is something that *may* be important for a military commander in the heat of battle, but it’s fucking dangerous anywhere else. The supposed need to make “harsh decisions” for the greater good are how all kinds of nasty shit gets justified, like kidnapping immigrant children, bombing populated areas, or invading entire countries because they might have WMDs.

          I’d much prefer leaders who were likely to wrestle at length with such choices, and more likely to refuse to take such actions at all.

        2. Chris Phoenix

          “Harsh decisions” is a loaded phrase. How about: POTUS, and anyone anywhere near that level, has to deal with real-life “trolley problems” on an hourly basis. Inaction kills people; action kills different people.

          Even the CEO of a large corporation – every day they have to make a decision that will destroy at least one innocent person’s career.

          Could Dorothy handle doing that, hour after hour, day after day?

        3. Fart Captor

          ?

        4. Fart Captor

          Also worth noting is that Dorothy has had to make hard decisions, and didn’t just make the choice that was immediately the kindest or gentlest. The decision to tell Joyce they’d found Ryan was pretty damn hard and required her to weigh hurting her friend against letting a rapist continue prey on women but I guess that wasn’t “harsh” enough? Does that not count because she had to think about it? Because she sought out advice?

          Why tf is her strong desire to avoid causing unnecessary pain seen as a weakness in a leader?

  26. BenRG

    It kinda tells you a lot about Billie that she regards ‘can’t help be kind’ as a personal flaw!

    1. Schpoonman

      Ruth deserves better.

  27. Eve

    Wasn’t Dorothy trying to be a writer for the paper herself? Why doesn’t she do this? Or wait, was the paper one of the things she dropped because her grades were going down…

    1. Rabid Rabbit

      She dropped writing about Amazi-Girl, so possibly she dropped the paper overall. But also, by managing the campaign manager, she gets experience, as well as possibly extending Becky’s career into a post-DeSanto future where Becky will remember how much help she got from Dorothy, therefore giving the latter something to leverage — whether it’s helping Becky in the next step of her political management career, or earning Becky’s gratitude so that she’ll be helping her next.

      Dorothy sees the potential to train her own campaign manager, is what I’m saying, and is ethical enough to not double-up on that by also being the one to create her in the press.

  28. Piotr W

    “Secure a footprint in the narrative”. Wow, Dorothy operates on a really high conceptual level…

    1. BarerMender

      Or possibly she gets her ideas from the buzzword jungle.

  29. Liquid Len

    Y’know Billie, you can have more than one nickname!

  30. TemperaryObsessor

    The way I see it Dorothy reacting in the way most likely to benefit herself in the long run. Resentment isn’t going to do her any good especially since this is the world being fairer than it usually is. She could try something stupid to try to get Becky’s job, but she does not like her employer and it would most likely not get her the job anyways. But helping your friend who got the job you want but for the wrong employer, get in a position where they can get a similar or better job for another employer gives you someone on the inside who thinks your pretty good.

    1. Charlotte

      Actually, I think Billie is closer to the mark: Dorothy is just genuinely nice and helpful.

      1. HMH

        It’s both. They’re not mutually exclusive. She wants to get ahead, and isn’t morally comfortable with cheating her way up the ranks, so her only other viable strategy is to be so utterly perfect that nobody could reasonably be put off by her, at any time, in any way. Always being nice, and making an ally of anybody and everybody who wouldn’t be a liability to her goals, is actually the best strategy for achieving what she wants to achieve. But most of the time, the resultant actions are also indistinguishable from what a morally good person would do, because that strategy ultimately boils down “be the most unbelievably good person you can be at all times.”

        And, as Vonnegut wrote, “we are who we pretend to be.”

        1. TemperaryObsessor

          I didn’t really think Dorothy was thinking what I was saying just that she’s not acting dum.

  31. tirachokko

    It’s a put down if you’re hurt by it Dorothy

  32. C.T Phipps

    Because you’re dishonest Dott.

    You should be free and open with your anger!

    1. HMH

      I mean, when it comes to her aspirations, basically anything and everything Dorothy could ever feel, or any actions that those feelings might encourage, are fundamental liabilities that she couldn’t reasonably allow herself. Because the way politics works in this day and age requires such a level of unassailable, consistent perfection to which it isn’t realistic to hold a person over such a long period of time.

      Which is likely why the unscrupulously shitty are so becoming overwhelmingly successful in the endeavor. Them being unfazed by their dirty laundry being aired to the masses is their greatest strength. So it’s no surprise that there are more of them, than there are the utterly morally perfect unicorns that we progressives would expect our elected officials to be. There are only so many people like Dorothy on Earth, but there are a lot of sociopathic grifters that can trick us for just long enough to establish themselves with some money and power, and they aren’t gonna step down when we find evidence of their monstrousness.

      1. thejeff

        Especially for women.
        She’s commented on this before, with regard to her sexual urges.

    2. Fart Captor

      Choosing to be kind instead of being shitty isn’t dishonest. Emotions – especially our most immediate, impulsive ones – aren’t truth, and it isn’t dishonest or deceptive to decide to pick and choose which of our feelings we validate.

      She’s not letting petty emotional response drive her to be petty towards someone who doesn’t deserve that, because that’s not who she wants to be.

      1. TemperaryObsessor

        Yea there is a difference between being honest and a;ways saying the first thing that comes to mind.

  33. HMH

    Dorothy’s face as she actually considers this for the first time is just perfect.

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