Well, it’s not like we can hear her tone compared to sarah and being in the room, but i feel like the last strip of saying “oh i have to take these for the rest of my life possibly/until menopause” isn’t exactly positive thinking if not a snarky way of her coping/self deprecating(?) even if she didn’t complain as much after downing the bottle compared to last time
Meh? Not sure how it’s negative. It’s just a neutral fact, when you have a reproductive disorder you DO have to take bc for the rest of your life until menopause, unless there’s some sort of permanent surgical solution (rare) or you get an IUD, which i doubt Joyce ever would.
Sometimes you have to take medication forever for a chronic condition. Oh well, it’s not a big deal. Especially with something as relatively unintrusive on your life as bc pills. Speaking from experience
There’s a permanent solution to Joyce’s problem, a hysterectomy with removal of ovaries. But as that makes her permanently sterile (and causes other hormonal problems) and Joyce is just 18 I think other methods will get tried first and surgery will be a last ditch effort to save Joyce’s life. Right now she’s just miserable a few days to a week a month, but if she gets anemic or suicidal, well we would have to see. Source, one of my ex girlfriends had severe menstrual cramps that were not reduced much by BC in her 20s, and had the procedure.
S.R.
That actually won’t fix endometriosis, if that’s what she’s dealing with. It helps with cramps (of course), but endometriosis is adhesions outside the uterus.
S.R.
And I don’t know why you’d remove the ovaries if the goal is to stop cramps and/or bleeding. Can’t cramp and/or bleed with no uterus.
(Well. Can’t cramp as much. There are people born without uteruses who get menstrual cramps because, for one reason or another, they have the right hormone balance to trigger it.)
Ok so. Everyone is always complimenting Willis about their choice of outfits. Well let me be the first person ever to say, they’re fine but they generally skew bland.
Like, some of these students should be a bit flamboyant and/or eccentric and/or just gorgeously clueless about fashion yet addicted to Vinted. They’re 20, like how are at least some of them not wildly experimenting with leather pants, asymmetrical sequined crop tops, 90’s nostalgia baggy camo sweatshirts, ugly designer sneakers, attempting to rock a trenchcoat and fedora (and failing, of course failing), embarrassingly unflattering flea-market frames without lenses, whatever k-pop and anime are doing these days fashion-wise, i dont follow, trying for princess, trying for manic pixie dream girl, trying for rugged-but-sexy Lara Croftian gear, trying for “i’m into death and 19th-century opium-eating poets, No i’m not cosplaying as Wednesday Addams why does everyone keep thinking that ugh” (is secretely in love with Wednesday Addams), trying for boyish but hating it when people think you’re a boy, trying for boyish and being thrilled when people think you’re a boy, 1920’s-girl’s-school-teacher-butch, pantsuits!? Where are the pantsuits, pantsuits were everywhere a couple years ago, and of course, we all knew one, absolute deranged neon-coloured eyesore. etc etc for ever in 20 open tabs of pinterest infinite scroll.
But anyway. The outfits are fine.
Fay
You underestimate the blandness of Indiana. Also these people are college students and don’t have a lot of extra money to spend on clothes, and are also all kind of “normies”. Even then, Carla, Sal, Malaya, and Booster all have somewhat more interesting wardrobes.
Also, there’s the obvious reason that this is a comic and Willis doesn’t want to have to draw a bunch of super complicated or unique outfits 200 times per storyline.
All good points, except for the money argument – you (i guess?) underestimate the lengths to which teenagers will go to look cool, they will pester their parents, learn sewing, borrow clothes from richer friends, shoplift, spend hours in thrift stores, some will even get a summer job!!!
elfroyalty
i’m ngl i have been to or lived near colleges and college students in a bunch of places before and the only college i have ever seen where i see tons of kids wearing a bunch of out-there fashion is yale, and i think a contributing factor to why there is more diverse fashion in yale is because it’s just more accessible and also generally the student body of yale is a little wealthier, and i think the surrounding area is much more population-dense than at IU.
i think also aside from saving willis unnecessary labor (could you imagine picking and drawing a new lolita coord every storyline? one BTSSB JSK would kill me instantly, and i love a poofy skirt) a lot of the popular trends of the now would date this comic in a way that willis has expressed not wanting to, especially considering how quickly fashion trends move nowadays thanks to things like tiktok. because of the buffer, by the time a chapter starts running the style a character was wearing would already feel dated, y’know?
Needfuldoer
My tastes generally skew bland, so…
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
BBCC
This was definitely not my experience with university fashion. The individual items sure, but not so much not so much the aesthetics. It might depend where you are. And pant suits ARE everywhere but are also, mostly, the domain of the business majors, who had to wear “business clothes”.
If it helps I’m pretty sure Sal’s worn leather pants before. It’s just that Sal can pull off anything – like when she put on Joyce’s shirt. XD.
ah, not pant suits then. (quick googly google) jumpsuits! i meant jumpsuits.
Yumi
Yeah, on the day to day of college fashion in the Midwest, your description is not it, in my experience. There are occasional people who wear clothes that make you go, “That sure is an outfit!” on the regular, but in my experience that’s, like, maybe 1 in 60? So in a large campus, yes, that is ultimately many people, but that doesn’t mean that every group is going to feature many of them.
From your list, what I have experienced more than in this comic is pretty much “glasses without lenses.” There are also far more graphic t-shirts (that often included pop culture things) and sweatpants.
Now, when people were going out, sure, there were some shakeups and fun choices. On the day to day, though, I feel like these characters put slightly more into their outfits than what was average in my experience.
BOOSTER SHOT
That’s not what college in Indiana in the 2010s was like for me or my sister.
“Deducing that her roomie was acting odd based on the way she acted, Sarah Holmes deduced that her roomie had had a goold old wank, which she had long ago deduced needed to happen asap. The roomie said, “Curse you and your matchless deducing skills, Sarah Holmes! My foolproof plan to not be detected has failed because of you”, the end”
i imagine the next strip will either be sarah ‘encouraging’ her to do it more, or joyce going back to being a ‘bundle of nerves’ and semi-offended like “stop thinking about me doing/that/’ or so ?
https://imgur.com/a/JnTOmmX
Earlier on twitter Willis was messing around with Joyce’s outfit so I took his drawing and drew my own Joyce outfit on her. I think it fits!
156 thoughts on “Coolsville”
shadowcell
Dumbing of Age Book 13: No One Says “Coolsville”!
Yumi
Dumbing of Age Book 13: You’ve Finally Masturbated, Haven’t You.
Ana Chronistic
Sarah’s calibrating her sensors
(inb4: at midnight we were in the express lanes where an accident had blocked all lanes and for some reason ONLY DoA wouldn’t load on my phone)
ValdVin
“There’s nobtruth to the rumor that I call my dominant hand Other Other Jacob. “
Lysbeth
Dumbing of Age Book 13: No WAY, Daddy-O!
Doctor_Who
Masturbation turned Joyce into a beatnik!
…There’s probably a Chick Tract warning about exactly that.
Wack'd
She’s finally become a hippie or a drifter, or maybe a hifter or a drippie.
Stephen Bierce
“To find water, follow a drip.”–Hawkeye on M*A*S*H
Rose by Any Other Name
Hifter made me think Grifter, and I just imagined Joyce grifting people into believing that she did not in fact masturbate.
Taffy
See, “Grifter” just made me think about Joyce in a red bandana mask and combat boots, holding two pistols.
Council
Time out. Taffy, you are missing out on that amazing Joyce face on panel 3
Surely you are shocked enough by this blunder that you will take the amazing Joyce face on panel 5
Taffy
No? I definitely saw them. What?
milu
you’ve been wearing the same avatar for days! is i think what the person meant.
zee
I mean that’s basically those nofap gurus isn’t it?
Furie
Considering what she did, drippie might be a little on the nose.
Opus the Poet
Take my imaginary upvote.
DarkoNeko
. . . That’s your first assumption ?
rather than, like “you finally aren’t suffering atrociously from menstrual cramps anymore ?”
James
Sarah has known not-suffering-cramps Joyce, this is a distinct and worryingly new flavor of relaxed.
TerribleTransit
She was already aware of Joyce very conspicuously and enthusiastically “doing laundry” the previous day. It’s not hard to put two and two together.
anon
Well, it’s not like we can hear her tone compared to sarah and being in the room, but i feel like the last strip of saying “oh i have to take these for the rest of my life possibly/until menopause” isn’t exactly positive thinking if not a snarky way of her coping/self deprecating(?) even if she didn’t complain as much after downing the bottle compared to last time
zee
Meh? Not sure how it’s negative. It’s just a neutral fact, when you have a reproductive disorder you DO have to take bc for the rest of your life until menopause, unless there’s some sort of permanent surgical solution (rare) or you get an IUD, which i doubt Joyce ever would.
Sometimes you have to take medication forever for a chronic condition. Oh well, it’s not a big deal. Especially with something as relatively unintrusive on your life as bc pills. Speaking from experience
Opus the Poet
There’s a permanent solution to Joyce’s problem, a hysterectomy with removal of ovaries. But as that makes her permanently sterile (and causes other hormonal problems) and Joyce is just 18 I think other methods will get tried first and surgery will be a last ditch effort to save Joyce’s life. Right now she’s just miserable a few days to a week a month, but if she gets anemic or suicidal, well we would have to see. Source, one of my ex girlfriends had severe menstrual cramps that were not reduced much by BC in her 20s, and had the procedure.
S.R.
That actually won’t fix endometriosis, if that’s what she’s dealing with. It helps with cramps (of course), but endometriosis is adhesions outside the uterus.
S.R.
And I don’t know why you’d remove the ovaries if the goal is to stop cramps and/or bleeding. Can’t cramp and/or bleed with no uterus.
(Well. Can’t cramp as much. There are people born without uteruses who get menstrual cramps because, for one reason or another, they have the right hormone balance to trigger it.)
Mturtle7
To be fair to Sarah, it’s very clear that her FIRST assumption was that Joyce was in love! Masturbation was merely her SECOND assumption.
Vukodlak
Joyce is especially chill, given her default state is rigid.
DailyBrad
I figured it’d play out just like this.
Also, goddamn, Joyce looks cute in that salmon button-down.
Thag Simmons
This comic consistently has great outfits
DailyBrad
Yeah, Willis does great picking outfits out.
milu
Ok so. Everyone is always complimenting Willis about their choice of outfits. Well let me be the first person ever to say, they’re fine but they generally skew bland.
Like, some of these students should be a bit flamboyant and/or eccentric and/or just gorgeously clueless about fashion yet addicted to Vinted. They’re 20, like how are at least some of them not wildly experimenting with leather pants, asymmetrical sequined crop tops, 90’s nostalgia baggy camo sweatshirts, ugly designer sneakers, attempting to rock a trenchcoat and fedora (and failing, of course failing), embarrassingly unflattering flea-market frames without lenses, whatever k-pop and anime are doing these days fashion-wise, i dont follow, trying for princess, trying for manic pixie dream girl, trying for rugged-but-sexy Lara Croftian gear, trying for “i’m into death and 19th-century opium-eating poets, No i’m not cosplaying as Wednesday Addams why does everyone keep thinking that ugh” (is secretely in love with Wednesday Addams), trying for boyish but hating it when people think you’re a boy, trying for boyish and being thrilled when people think you’re a boy, 1920’s-girl’s-school-teacher-butch, pantsuits!? Where are the pantsuits, pantsuits were everywhere a couple years ago, and of course, we all knew one, absolute deranged neon-coloured eyesore. etc etc for ever in 20 open tabs of pinterest infinite scroll.
But anyway. The outfits are fine.
Fay
You underestimate the blandness of Indiana. Also these people are college students and don’t have a lot of extra money to spend on clothes, and are also all kind of “normies”. Even then, Carla, Sal, Malaya, and Booster all have somewhat more interesting wardrobes.
Also, there’s the obvious reason that this is a comic and Willis doesn’t want to have to draw a bunch of super complicated or unique outfits 200 times per storyline.
milu
All good points, except for the money argument – you (i guess?) underestimate the lengths to which teenagers will go to look cool, they will pester their parents, learn sewing, borrow clothes from richer friends, shoplift, spend hours in thrift stores, some will even get a summer job!!!
elfroyalty
i’m ngl i have been to or lived near colleges and college students in a bunch of places before and the only college i have ever seen where i see tons of kids wearing a bunch of out-there fashion is yale, and i think a contributing factor to why there is more diverse fashion in yale is because it’s just more accessible and also generally the student body of yale is a little wealthier, and i think the surrounding area is much more population-dense than at IU.
i think also aside from saving willis unnecessary labor (could you imagine picking and drawing a new lolita coord every storyline? one BTSSB JSK would kill me instantly, and i love a poofy skirt) a lot of the popular trends of the now would date this comic in a way that willis has expressed not wanting to, especially considering how quickly fashion trends move nowadays thanks to things like tiktok. because of the buffer, by the time a chapter starts running the style a character was wearing would already feel dated, y’know?
Needfuldoer
My tastes generally skew bland, so…
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
BBCC
This was definitely not my experience with university fashion. The individual items sure, but not so much not so much the aesthetics. It might depend where you are. And pant suits ARE everywhere but are also, mostly, the domain of the business majors, who had to wear “business clothes”.
If it helps I’m pretty sure Sal’s worn leather pants before. It’s just that Sal can pull off anything – like when she put on Joyce’s shirt. XD.
milu
ah, not pant suits then. (quick googly google) jumpsuits! i meant jumpsuits.
Yumi
Yeah, on the day to day of college fashion in the Midwest, your description is not it, in my experience. There are occasional people who wear clothes that make you go, “That sure is an outfit!” on the regular, but in my experience that’s, like, maybe 1 in 60? So in a large campus, yes, that is ultimately many people, but that doesn’t mean that every group is going to feature many of them.
From your list, what I have experienced more than in this comic is pretty much “glasses without lenses.” There are also far more graphic t-shirts (that often included pop culture things) and sweatpants.
Now, when people were going out, sure, there were some shakeups and fun choices. On the day to day, though, I feel like these characters put slightly more into their outfits than what was average in my experience.
BOOSTER SHOT
That’s not what college in Indiana in the 2010s was like for me or my sister.
milu
@all: i appreciate your input!
i guess i 1), didn’t go to college for very long 2) did so in france, not the US 3) apparently have always gravitated towards flashy freaks =)
Twig
Looks more coral to me? But yeah
DailyBrad
Coral may be a touch more accurate, true. Salmon would maybe be a touch more peach-y looking.
Needfuldoer
Damn right she does.
Thag Simmons
Sarah Holmes and the Enigma of the Laidback Roomie
milu
“Deducing that her roomie was acting odd based on the way she acted, Sarah Holmes deduced that her roomie had had a goold old wank, which she had long ago deduced needed to happen asap. The roomie said, “Curse you and your matchless deducing skills, Sarah Holmes! My foolproof plan to not be detected has failed because of you”, the end”
Mturtle7
Using my own flawless skills of deduction, I must conclude that you, @milu, are secretly Ryan North. https://qwantz.com/index.php?comic=2914
milu
either that or???
Sirksome
The “daddy-o” overplayed her hand.
Yotomoe
Oh you’re Coolsville? Well I think Coolsville sucks.
Doctor_Who
You’ve made a powerful enemy of Scoob and the gang.
a/snow/mous/e
Ruh-roh.
AbacusWizard
I needed a new heel for my shoe, so I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Coolsville in those days.
CianM1301
Did you tie an onion to your belt? It was the style at the time, after all.
Keulen
They didn’t have any white onions because of the war. All you could get was those big yellow ones.
80-watt Hamster
Eh, the yellow are better anyway.
BlackScarabFilmZ
The power of the press strikes again!
Greg
Excellent Joyce face and posing in panel 3
AGV
It took her a hot minute but she did catch up
Yotomoe
Oh it was a really hot minute, alright.
Needfuldoer
Your clothes will shrink less if you run the dryer on low.
Dana
Lying, yes. Lying convincingly, hell no.
anon
I mean it depends on what ur technical definition of it, considering a shaking washing machine isn’t rly that strong of a force
tho it’d be hilarious if just yelling at someone ‘you are very convinced’ actually worked
Clif
The power of positive thinking.
Schpoonman
Like the Orc Rogue with a bloated charisma stat who “sneaks” via intimidation checks.
milu
immediately braining every person who sees you is technically sneaking!
…or is it :questioning-emoji-except-it’s-an-orc:
saltchocolate
Sarah, let her have her afterglow!
anon
i imagine the next strip will either be sarah ‘encouraging’ her to do it more, or joyce going back to being a ‘bundle of nerves’ and semi-offended like “stop thinking about me doing/that/’ or so ?
The Wellerman
oops my keyboard slipped
https://twitter.com/NGtheWelllerman/status/1627174612126797825
Screwball
Chug chug chug chug chug chug…
Yotomoe
https://imgur.com/a/JnTOmmX
Earlier on twitter Willis was messing around with Joyce’s outfit so I took his drawing and drew my own Joyce outfit on her. I think it fits!
The Wellerman
NGL, this is enough to make gay little me melt ?
Splendid edit!
Kyrik Michalowski