Man, I hope this turns into a “HE’S A CHICKEN! A GIANT CHICKEN!” scenario, with nobody else seeing the lizard (or at least pretending not to to mess with Mary).
Iguana Fuckface, whaddyawann’ in this place? You don’t care what you’re gonna showcase. You worn like a hat so they won’t notice that — but you’re not a hat, you’re iguana Fuckface.
You just know Carla would somehow get everyone on the floor to wear head lizards (don’t ask where she got them – girl is resourceful). Or maybe convince Mary that she’s the one with a head lizard.
Also if Clint could pay off ResLife once I’m pretty sure he’ll do it again. He’s got an investment to protect, after all, and ‘the RA is engaged in an inappropriate relationship, is an underage alcoholic on a dry campus, and by the way is SUICIDAL and COMPLETELY INCAPABLE OF PERFORMING DUTIES’ apparently wasn’t enough to override him throwing money at things and them letting him. Can’t imagine a simple contraband pet will be compared to that.
(Chloe apparently never gave a shit about whether or not her RAs threatened violence against people, and honestly the list of reasons why Ruth is unqualified as RA is so long I forget that part. Chloe is not good at her job!)
It’s unclear what Chloe actually knew about the threats of violence. You’d expect someone to have reported them while Ruth was hospitalized (maybe Rachel, if not Mary?), but we didn’t see that happen.
Technically “slapped a Sharpie dick onto someone’s face”, which frankly I’d have a hard time taking seriously. You’d actually be more likely to get the Sharpie dick to transfer with a firm touch, not a slap.
Slap might leave a red mark or a bruise, but that’s not what she said.
I’d argue that the key part in that sentence is ‘slapped’. Even if you have a hard time taking it seriously, that should probably have clued her in Ruth was hitting her residents.
Mary is a blackmailer. She’s going to threaten to narc, as a way of coercing potential blackmailees. But if she actually did narc, she’d lose her perceived hold over her target.
She doesn’t know Fuckface belongs to Malaya, so she may try to exert leverage over Joyce or Dorothy, neither of whom would be quick to throw Malaya under the bus out of a sense of decency.
Someone mentioned on the last page that iguanas have very sharp claws, and can be…disinclined toward being moved from a place once they’ve settled in comfortably.
Yep. Though apparently that has nothing on their ability to keep biting you once they decide they want to do that.
Keeping an iguana illegally in a dorm you must share with a random person who has no idea what they’re getting into or how to handle it is really not a good idea. Don’t try this at home, kids.
However, this isn’t exactly common knowledge. So, this might be less “knowing how to deal with an iguana” and more “not thinking of it”.
I mean, honestly, would you put a completely foreign animal on your head, not knowing its personality or what might frighten it or how tame it is, but knowing fully well it might literally rip your face apart? And then carry it in new environments?
I mean, it’s all hypothetical anyway. If this was real, fuckface would most likely be dead or in a really bad condition. Too cold, too dry.
Fuckface knows sal. That’s hardly transferable. And letting a feral animal climb on your head without the owner being present is not exactly a good idea.
I don’t remember anyone misting him or him being in his tank, like, ever. He was outside his tank today morning, so he either was left outside his tank when malaya left or slept outside it.
If the room even remotely had appropriate living conditions for an iguana, probably no one would enter it willingly. And while his heat lamp seems to be movable, it’ll warm up the air locally, thus decreasing the relative air humidity even further (warm air holds more water).
It is a comic, so it works but if he were real, he’d be in trouble. (and he’d grow way too fast to be kept secret pretty long, but that’s another story).
Next strip, Mary gets her throat ripped out by an angry lizard. Everyone lives happily ever after, except for Ruth’s grandfather, Toedad, and Blaine. Even Faz gets to live happily ever after as a willing slave on the hidden island of the Amazons.(No, not the one Wonder Woman comes from, a different hidden island of Amazons.)
The same way that Ultracar did in Shortpacked! – She objected to the iguana being probably dirty, was told it’s actually very clean, and then was enchanted by the iguana-on-head-magic.
Heh, nice job, Dorothy. Instead of admitting guilt she jumps into a barrage of distractions, starting with trying to draw attention to her clothing and ending with insulting Mary, all the time trying to steer the conversation from the topic they really want to avoid.
I mean, Joyce and Dorothy are spot on here. And oh how I love the characters taking pot shots at Mary.
But yeah, lizard on head is kinda hard to miss and its only a matter of time before the iguana’s out of the bag.
Although the image of Mary trying to blackmail Malaya is one I will savour for years because ohhhh that’d go so wrong. Gee, it sure is tragic Mary disappeared around midterms.
Malaya is not exactly a ninja here. She has a tendency to call people on their bs, but she’s not violent so far. Or has a tendency to become brutal.
This basically is teenage drama. That’s all. The probability of anyone disappearing is low. It usually ends with a lot of tears and a lot of people being hurt and that’s it. I don’t expect this to be any different if Mary chooses to make a drama out of it.
I also don’t expect a 18-or-something-year-old to commit a whole lot of crimes over an animal (and probably end up in jail because of it). More likely that fuckface will end up back at malayas parents.
I get the sense that at least three or four people in the dorm wouldn’t even care if Mary got murdered, and those that would care would only do so out of a general distaste for murder and the general discomfort that comes with someone you know dying. Give it another few months of this particular political climate and I expect that number to jump again.
(Roz might even throw a party. As miserable as sharing a room with Mary must have been previously, sharing it now that she’s having long makeout/Judging The Sinners And Celebrating Their Eternal Suffering In Hell sessions must be actively torturous.)
I mean, I can tell what this is leading up to – Mary’s been largely defanged since the Ruth secret got out and everyone shunned her, and there’s already been setup for her resenting Malaya in particular. Time to bring her back into a more significant antagonist role. But seriously, I fully believe Malaya could deal with this before Ruth gets involved, and that a significant portion of the dorm will side with Malaya over Mary until and unless serious violence comes into play. Carla will prank for this iguana. Carla will SO prank the bigot for this iguana.
And hell while my first instinct is that Mary’s primed to return as a villain, we have Mike actively mid-scheme, new information that seriously ups Linda’s threat level, and fucking BLAINE back in the playing field, plus general lurking Carol and Clint on the backburners, an obviously-foreshadowed confrontation with Raidah for a student antagonist, and high drama potential with Richard. And that’s only counting the conflicts including antagonists who we actually know about and are in unambiguously antagonistic roles, there are other subplots without those that are equally fertile drama fields. Mary could actually be written out entirely for YEARS and not be needed.
Yeah, all my jokes about increasingly horrible fates for Mary aside, I don’t think Malaya will prove as vulnerable to blackmail. Ruth was suicidal and having a hard time motivating herself to stay alive, never mind fight back (and Mary’s blackmail made her actually decide to lie down and wait to die so, y’know, FUCK MARY). Malaya cares about Fuckface, but she doesn’t have the same mental illness, so far as we can tell, and we DO know Malaya will always fight back at a challenge so this will be very interesting. I think Mary’s definitely making a comeback as an antagonist, but she might be up against someone more motivated to fight.
Malaya also isn’t Carla, who knows her trans status is going to get her fucked over by the powers that be in a contest between her and the Good Christian Girl (TM), so she does basically harmless and hoisted-by-your-own-petard thing.
I mean, Malaya isn’t white, so she’s probably ALSO screwed by the PTB v Mary, but Malaya doesn’t care. Her brain started reading up on the Fight or Flight response, but lost interest half-way through.
Of course at this point, Mary wouldn’t know of any connection to Malaya. If she was going to try anything it would be blackmailing Joyce.
They should just go into Joyce’s room and bring Fuckface back to Malaya’s through the half-bath. Then, if anyone comes to check, there’s no iguana to be found.
These two are either awesome friends or in denial of being gay for each other. I can seriously make a conspiracy theory chart showing the evidence that Joyce and Dorothy would be perfect for each other, and it wouldn’t include antisemtic content. Conspiracy theorists sometimes attack Jewish people.
The characters have mentioned that Joyce gets her idea of female friendships from Becky, who carried a torch for Joyce all through their childhoods. So, uh, Joyce gives a lot of false positives. But nah, Joyce isn’t a Friend Of Dorothy, they’re just great pals!
Looking back at that, is it only Joyce who has no clue what “Friend of Dorothy” means? Both Amazi-Girl and Sierra seem to have some snark going with it.
“False positives” is like in a medical test, where it looks like you’re testing positive for something, but, you aren’t actually positive for it. I meant that Joyce accidentally sends out false signals that she’s into women, such as wearing plaid vests.
“Friend Of Dorothy” is old slang for gay. (Because Judy Garland, who played Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, was an ally.) People would ask or say that they were a Friend Of Dorothy so that only people who knew that phrase would know what they meant.
I was making a pun that Joyce is Dorothy’s friend, but that she isn’t gay.
I mean abysswatcher’s post. I actually GOT all of yours, though if I’m being honest, being neither American nor gay, I only got the Friend of Dorothy part because someone brought it up in the comment section of a MUUUUUUCH earlier strip.
A lot of reptiles (iguanas are among them) are actually pretty filthy and can carry salmonella and spread it to basically everything they touch which is part of why proper handling of them is so important even if you ignore the whole “the have sharp claws and strong jaws” thing. Like, it’s one of the reasons Malaya having this animal secretly in a heavily populated building is really shitty of her. Never mind the fact that her college dorm is in no way equipped to properly house an iguana and this environment cannot be good for him.
This makes lots of assumptions. That Malaya doesn’t bathe her pet, Doesn’t have a heat lamp and a terrerium for her pet to hang out and eat. We know some of those assumptions are wrong. Because they can be filthy doesn’t mean this one is filthy. Some Iguanas, certainly not all, appear to be fairly social and curious and riding around on Joyce’s head for a few hours isn’t going to kill it. Yeah, the air in the dorm is probably too chill for its long term comfort but In its room it knows where to go for a warm nap, No Malaya is not the poster child for responsibility but there is no need to make worse case scenario assumptions when the evidence is against it.
Where exactly is she bathing her pet? Because if the answer is “The communal washrooms” then that’s fucked. A large tropical lizard like an iguana has pretty specific needs that simply cannot be met in a college dorm room. There is not space for a properly sized enclosure and a water source large enough for soaking and a proper number of heat lamps to provide full body coverage and that’s not even taking into account the complete inability to control humidity (good luck maintaining 65-75% humidity in an Indiana dorm room). That terrarium is a goddamn goldfish bowl that is barely as long as the animal she’s putting in it. Iguanas are not casual pets, they are exotic reptiles and their needs reflect that.
Oh shove off with this argument. If Willis is going to flip flop back and forth over the line between realistic issues with realistic consequences and wacky hijinks then you’re going to have to live with the dissonance that creates when it comes to what people take seriously and what they don’t. I’m supposed to take Amber’s DID seriously but OH not the actual consequences of play-acting superhero now I’m taking things TOO seriously.
Yes, actually I think that’s pretty much the case. I think that’s pretty much the intent.
Amazi-Girl isn’t just “play-acting superhero”. She’s really a (low-end) superhero. She gets the advantage of various superhero tropes – the secret identity actually working, the abilities needed for the cool action scenes, etc. She also has DID, PTSD and other issues which are played relatively straight.
I get that sometimes the dissonance is jarring. But that’s the way the comic is written. If that’s a flaw for you, not sure what to say.
I find the dissonance a relief at times 🙂 it’s nice to take a break from the serious stuff for some wacky hijinks. So long as they’re not the kind that remind me of problems (like amazi-girl now).
still, the “Don’t try this at home, kids” message is a valid one. A while ago someone linked to an article on iguana care that made them sound pretty damn dangerous.
This response is kind of dickish in light of the fact that there’s a lot of relatively minor things in the comic that get over-analyzed to hell (like entire relationship dynamics based off a single panel of dialogue), but expressing concern and criticizing Malaya’s care for her pet? Oh, no, that’s too far. The fun police have arrived.
Like, it’s really not that unreasonable to think that there could be serious, realistic consequences. That’s kind of a recurring thing throughout this comic- wacky shenanigans or scenarios that come back with a vengeance. Billie’s entire alcoholic plotline was played for laughs when it was first introduced, and then when the car accident came up, it became a lot more serious.
I suppose and I did go a bit over the top, but I really doubt we’re going into animal abuse, dying pets or Joyce getting mauled by the dangerous animal on her head.
What we tend to get is cartoon physics with emotional realism, which is somewhat different than the shifts some expect. Amazi-Girl is the biggest example: There’s all kinds of serious stuff going on there, but it’s all going on with the backdrop of her being a super-hero. That’s not suddenly going to drop in favor of realistic consequences to fights – to her, Sal or the mooks they beat up. In a dramatic moment she might lose control and hurt someone (Blaine, Ryan), but we’re not going to get the revelation that she’s been unintentionally, unknowingly crippling the petty crooks she’s stopped. Because super-hero tropes allow for those kinds of fist fights, without the realistic consequences.
Sure she got hurt in the car chase and could have died if the cavalry hadn’t arrived at the last minute, but that’s a perfectly common trope for the big dramatic finale. And she bounced right back from it in a couple days. Physically at least. Like superheroes do.
Or the wacky “prank war” between Mary and Carla – escalated into transphobia, blackmail and all that. Not into Carla breaking her skull when the skates seized up.
Things get serious and have consequences, that’s absolutely true. But different kinds of consequences.
And the consequences here don’t have to be that Fuckface dies because of inadequate care, but if he’s discovered, Malaya gets told off for the subpar conditions he’s been put in and he gets taken away to an exotic animal vet? Put up for adoption with someone that actually has the space and means to take care of him?
Something I could very well see happening in comic is them deciding to move him into Carla’s room, because she doesn’t have to share the space with a roommate. That would let them be able to get a bigger tank and better set up going for him than whatever they have in Malaya and Sal’s room at the moment.
Even if it never comes up in comic, it’s not bad to point out that in real life this is not a good situation for any pet, but most especially an exotic one, because as much as we like to rely upon the common sense of other people and the ability to do research, sometimes people just look at things and go “Oh, that’s okay then”. When it comes to animals, people vastly underestimate the amount of care and maintenance that they need and that’s how we get stressed out fish in 2-gallon fishbowls.
Back when I was in university, there actually was an iguana in the dorm. It wasn’t kept secret, and it was still relatively small, but it was there. Things like humidity and water were provided by spritzing, and carrying water back and forth from the washroom to fill its container.
I have no idea how close or far from ideal it was, mind, just that someone was successfully keeping an iguana that way. Of course people can keep goldfish in goldfish bowls too, for a few years, even though we now know they really shouldn’t.
Seriously, this gag isn’t even funny it’s just bizarre and stupid. It’s impossible enough to distract people from a dog being within a hundred feet of them let alone an exotic animal they’ve likely never interacted with before.
There is a famous experiment where people are trying to keep track of the number of passes in a basketball game and never notice when a gorilla wanders onto the court. Change blindness is completely a thing. People not noticing what they aren’t focused on is completely plausible. That said, every one on the floor except Mary and Ruth may already know about the iguana. Dorothy certainly did.
This isn’t that. There’s nothing they’ve been specifically directed to focus on Dorothy is just wearing a marginally loud shirt which is way easier to overlook than an iguana.
I like Becky, Dina, Sal, Danny, Lucy, Joyce when she’s not actively doing something gross, Dorothy, Roz. Also various minor characters. I just think these “shenanigans” are dumb and not funny.
Mary has a true talent for evil. It’s a shame that her skills are not put to better use. She’d rather pick on the already downtrodden, than accomplish anything meaningful.
Yeah, generally speaking that’s one of the things that comes with a talent for evil. It’s harder to blackmail someone with no shame, especially when the alternative is already so incredibly vulnerable before you do anything.
I hate Mary very much. Actually after the last few days I think seeing her get CARLA’d would be therapeutic, I should go read that bit again. *Shuffles off to the archives for cold, swift, and ridiculous revenge.*
Mary’s attempts at gaining advantage and hurting people constantly end up blowing up in her face or coming back to bite her later. She’s just a petty spiteful bully.
Achromatopsia, where everything is only bright or dark with no hues, is something that does happen but is very rare. But people often assume that’s how all color blindness works, like in jokes about dogs only seeing gray, so I’m not surprised that’s the type Joyce would know about.
Also, I will take my ‘called it!’ tokens that returning Fuckface would include an encounter with Mary because Murphy’s Law is near and dear to Willis’s heart.
‘Called it!’ tokens may be redeemed for self-esteem, bragging rights, one free obnoxiously self-serving comment, 30 seconds of immunity to crying during the next tragic plot event, or one of those pump-action toy guns that breaks after like 30 minutes of use.
‘Called it!’ tokens have no cash value. Only redeemable in participating comments sections. Conditions subject to change.
I’ve got this feeling that Mary stood there in panels 2-4 just listening to Joyce and Dorothy’s conversation, paralysed by this increasing worry that maybe they’d both gone completely loopy and were about to do something violent.
Loopy, you say? 😀 now I’m thinking of DoA timeloop fic…
.. actually that might just be tedious. Watching teenagers learn important life lessons over and over doesn’t sound like something that could be exploited in any useful or fun way… It’d mostly just be boredom and pranks. … Wait, is *Mike* a looper? Is that why he’s always so pissed off at everyone? 😉
Any form or write? What? While form can either, write is normally a verb, not a noun. I am unclear on what you are trying to say. Wrought in context has an almost biblical feel that is very appropriate to Loki’s meaning. Yes, English is very weird.
I can see Ruth refusing to take any action because there is no clear campus rule against performance art in the corridors. There is no way she can believe that Dorothy and Joyce are actually doing something like this non-ironically.
They can search Joyce and Dorothy’s rooms all they want and will find no evidence of harboring an Iguana. What’s the downside to Mary narcing? Malaya and Mary collide? The popcorn franchise should be lucrative.
Geeze, Mary, she’s just practicing to make sure this part of her Steve Irwin Halloween costume isn’t too heavy to wear around without wrecking her neck. You actually thought it was real? They’ll have to give your compliments to Malaya on her paper mache work.
This is just me but I’ve got the feeling that this is heading towards Joyce and Dorothy doing something that Dorothy is able to interpret as very simple and innocent but leaves Joyce conflicted about her own feelings towards her friend and maybe questioning her sexuality.
You know, not that I don’t enjoy the way the timeline runs in-strip, but out here, in real time, I’m in my mid 40’s, and might possibly be dead before we get to see the Sal vs. Amber convenience store hostage thing get resolved between them.
Where are all these claims of rationality for Mary coming from? In the last panel she literally says, “It’s a lizard. On your head.” What kind of rational person would assume that if you had a lizard on your head, you would need to be told.
Man, I hope this turns into a “HE’S A CHICKEN! A GIANT CHICKEN!” scenario, with nobody else seeing the lizard (or at least pretending not to to mess with Mary).
You wear a disguise to look like human… hats… but you’re not head…gear… you’re a lizard… Fuck…face…?
This doesn’t roll off the tongue very well.
Iguana Fuckface, whaddyawann’ in this place? You don’t care what you’re gonna showcase. You worn like a hat so they won’t notice that — but you’re not a hat, you’re iguana Fuckface.
This is genius.
Why can’t I like, heart, or upvote comments?!?
That option is not implemented due to the critical level of [censored] that would abuse such a system.
Also it would give the DYW just another headache.
**applauds**
Bravo.
Yeah, alright.
A Chicken Boo reference? Bravo!
An entire sequence of characters dunking on Mary like this? Yes, please yes.
You just know Carla would somehow get everyone on the floor to wear head lizards (don’t ask where she got them – girl is resourceful). Or maybe convince Mary that she’s the one with a head lizard.
Get your weird thing to wear on your head here – http://www.cheesehead.com/
somehow just thought of “I’M TELLING!“
mary needs to eat at least two more puppies to be capable of whimsy
Puppies are just SO high in calories, though.
That’s why you go for toy breed puppies. Just as evil, but they’re so small there are less calories.
Or Tea-cup varieties, for those like Mary, but just want a mid-morning snack.
i’m pretty sure toy breed puppies are themselves more evil, so it may be LESS evil to eat them
or Mary can detect the presence of other cold-blooded creatures
zing, as the kids say
She’s an anime artist – I imagine her vision is based on yaoi.
Oh come on now, be nice, not all manga is yaoi, just most of it.
The rest is yuri
… I’m actually amused by Mary.
What sorcery is this?
I’m surprised she delivered the punchline so seriously.
The people who take themselves most seriously can always be counted upon to deliver the punchline at their own expense.
Mary got me to laugh.
Send help.
So
It has come to this
You.
Me.
Here.
Jinx. Sort of. We didn’t actually phrase it the same way, but… Yeah. What the hell?
I mean, she’s not wrong…
Wooooow.
In which, nobody really cares about Mary
That is not a surprise. People only care about awful people when they cause destruction.
Shh, don’t encourage her!
…..He climbed up there on his own.
You’re not coming off as a real person, you see.
good news is, if someone tells malaya, we can solve the mary problem
Malaya will know if Mary raises a fuss. So return him to his room and let Malaya handle it.
Yeah, Mary trying to blackmail Malaya with a threat to report Fuckface would be interesting.
“Mary? Yeah, haven’t seen her in awhile. Strange.”
There’s a weird muffled scream from the trash chute lately.
Must be backed up again.
*sets a stack of Elton John records to random on the hacked Muzak*
Of course Mary’s gonna Narc
Probably, but she also is the person Ruth is least likely to listen to. That, and since she’s getting laid now, Mary might just not care very much.
Ruth wants to be fired anyway, why should she care?
Well there’s the matter of Ruth’s brother being okay while she’s in college…
Also if Clint could pay off ResLife once I’m pretty sure he’ll do it again. He’s got an investment to protect, after all, and ‘the RA is engaged in an inappropriate relationship, is an underage alcoholic on a dry campus, and by the way is SUICIDAL and COMPLETELY INCAPABLE OF PERFORMING DUTIES’ apparently wasn’t enough to override him throwing money at things and them letting him. Can’t imagine a simple contraband pet will be compared to that.
(Chloe apparently never gave a shit about whether or not her RAs threatened violence against people, and honestly the list of reasons why Ruth is unqualified as RA is so long I forget that part. Chloe is not good at her job!)
It’s unclear what Chloe actually knew about the threats of violence. You’d expect someone to have reported them while Ruth was hospitalized (maybe Rachel, if not Mary?), but we didn’t see that happen.
Ruth herself told Cloe she slapped one of her charges hard enough to leave a mark.
Technically “slapped a Sharpie dick onto someone’s face”, which frankly I’d have a hard time taking seriously. You’d actually be more likely to get the Sharpie dick to transfer with a firm touch, not a slap.
Slap might leave a red mark or a bruise, but that’s not what she said.
I’d argue that the key part in that sentence is ‘slapped’. Even if you have a hard time taking it seriously, that should probably have clued her in Ruth was hitting her residents.
Mary is a blackmailer. She’s going to threaten to narc, as a way of coercing potential blackmailees. But if she actually did narc, she’d lose her perceived hold over her target.
Case in point, she apparently never revealed Becky to Chloe, even after Ruth was found.
Somehow I don’t think blackmailing Malaya would go well.
She doesn’t know Fuckface belongs to Malaya, so she may try to exert leverage over Joyce or Dorothy, neither of whom would be quick to throw Malaya under the bus out of a sense of decency.
I think this is the most relaxed we’ve ever seen Dorothy.
I think this is the most rational we’ve ever seen Mary.
Awwww, she’s having fun
Unfortunately, Mary’s vision is based not on movement but on leverage.
She’s an anime artist, her vision is based on yaoi.
That’s my joke for today, and I’m stickin’ to it.
Just say he fell out of the vents, it’s not any weirder than the truth.
Now you know it’s a heist (reverse heist, whatever). Lookit that banter!
Suddenly we’re having a Duck Man episode? “What lizard?”
I don’t see what this has to do with inappropriately nicknamed fell9ws living under bridges.
Did Joyce and Dorothy ever consider, I don’t know…taking the lizard off of Joyce’s head? That feels like it should be the first step.
Take it OFF?
Off her HEAD?
Doesn’t seem likely
To late. That lizard has now fused with Joyce’s head and is now puppeteering her body.
Don’t be ridiculous, if it was a proper fusion then it’d be a mixture of both personalities in there.
Where do you think Joyce’s understanding of the joke came from?
It’s less “fusion”, more “Pixar’s Ratatouille“.
PACIFIC RIM INTENSIFES
Someone mentioned on the last page that iguanas have very sharp claws, and can be…disinclined toward being moved from a place once they’ve settled in comfortably.
Yep. Though apparently that has nothing on their ability to keep biting you once they decide they want to do that.
Keeping an iguana illegally in a dorm you must share with a random person who has no idea what they’re getting into or how to handle it is really not a good idea. Don’t try this at home, kids.
However, this isn’t exactly common knowledge. So, this might be less “knowing how to deal with an iguana” and more “not thinking of it”.
I mean, honestly, would you put a completely foreign animal on your head, not knowing its personality or what might frighten it or how tame it is, but knowing fully well it might literally rip your face apart? And then carry it in new environments?
I mean, it’s all hypothetical anyway. If this was real, fuckface would most likely be dead or in a really bad condition. Too cold, too dry.
Well, Sal seemed to be treating him as harmless and Joyce didn’t exactly put Fuckface on her head. He climbed there on his own.
Dry is probably a good point, but there is a heat lamp and probably heated rocks in his tank. And all these nice warm mammals to sit on.
And he gets misted from time to time, even by Sal
Fuckface knows sal. That’s hardly transferable. And letting a feral animal climb on your head without the owner being present is not exactly a good idea.
I don’t remember anyone misting him or him being in his tank, like, ever. He was outside his tank today morning, so he either was left outside his tank when malaya left or slept outside it.
If the room even remotely had appropriate living conditions for an iguana, probably no one would enter it willingly. And while his heat lamp seems to be movable, it’ll warm up the air locally, thus decreasing the relative air humidity even further (warm air holds more water).
It is a comic, so it works but if he were real, he’d be in trouble. (and he’d grow way too fast to be kept secret pretty long, but that’s another story).
We see him getting misted in patreon strips.
I L-O-V-E Joyce and Dorothy getting into shenanigans. Cute banter!
It’s the beeeeeeeest
I love how they’re both not answering Mary’s question and insulting her instead.
Everyone except Mary looks so cute.
Next strip, Mary gets her throat ripped out by an angry lizard. Everyone lives happily ever after, except for Ruth’s grandfather, Toedad, and Blaine. Even Faz gets to live happily ever after as a willing slave on the hidden island of the Amazons.(No, not the one Wonder Woman comes from, a different hidden island of Amazons.)
How is Joyce the germophobe tolerating a lizard on her head, anyway?
A girl got to have some glaring contradictions in her life.
I got that reference!
+1!
+2.
Hannalore approves!
The same way that Ultracar did in Shortpacked! – She objected to the iguana being probably dirty, was told it’s actually very clean, and then was enchanted by the iguana-on-head-magic.
Heh, nice job, Dorothy. Instead of admitting guilt she jumps into a barrage of distractions, starting with trying to draw attention to her clothing and ending with insulting Mary, all the time trying to steer the conversation from the topic they really want to avoid.
You are not half bad at it, Dorothy, but you are no alpha bongo
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/04-of-mike-and-men/honour/
She’s practicing how to be a politician.
JUst deny there is a Lizard;
Ask Mary if she is possessed by Demons
And we can make this Mary’s theme song. (also fitting since we’re close to halloween)
I mean, Joyce and Dorothy are spot on here. And oh how I love the characters taking pot shots at Mary.
But yeah, lizard on head is kinda hard to miss and its only a matter of time before the iguana’s out of the bag.
Although the image of Mary trying to blackmail Malaya is one I will savour for years because ohhhh that’d go so wrong. Gee, it sure is tragic Mary disappeared around midterms.
Malaya does care about fuckface and Mary really dislikes her. So, this actually could go really bad for Malaya.
So far, Mary doesn’t know to whom he belongs though.
Mary really disliking her and Malaya caring about Fuckface are exactly why Mary disappeared.
We’re not entirely sure what happened, we think she switched to a different art school.
Malaya is not exactly a ninja here. She has a tendency to call people on their bs, but she’s not violent so far. Or has a tendency to become brutal.
This basically is teenage drama. That’s all. The probability of anyone disappearing is low. It usually ends with a lot of tears and a lot of people being hurt and that’s it. I don’t expect this to be any different if Mary chooses to make a drama out of it.
I also don’t expect a 18-or-something-year-old to commit a whole lot of crimes over an animal (and probably end up in jail because of it). More likely that fuckface will end up back at malayas parents.
Malaya isn’t smart or careful enough to make someone disappear. Case in point: she tried to hide a 4 foot iguana in her dorm room.
Are there other types of iguanas? I mean, most animals on earth have 4 feet.
I feel the need to clarify I am in fact joking. I don’t think Mary’s actually going to disappear.
I get the sense that at least three or four people in the dorm wouldn’t even care if Mary got murdered, and those that would care would only do so out of a general distaste for murder and the general discomfort that comes with someone you know dying. Give it another few months of this particular political climate and I expect that number to jump again.
(Roz might even throw a party. As miserable as sharing a room with Mary must have been previously, sharing it now that she’s having long makeout/Judging The Sinners And Celebrating Their Eternal Suffering In Hell sessions must be actively torturous.)
I mean, I can tell what this is leading up to – Mary’s been largely defanged since the Ruth secret got out and everyone shunned her, and there’s already been setup for her resenting Malaya in particular. Time to bring her back into a more significant antagonist role. But seriously, I fully believe Malaya could deal with this before Ruth gets involved, and that a significant portion of the dorm will side with Malaya over Mary until and unless serious violence comes into play. Carla will prank for this iguana. Carla will SO prank the bigot for this iguana.
Hey, nobody said anything about murder! It’s just nobody knows where she is.
(She woke up in the Amazon and had to get a long ride home. She’s too steamed to return to IU for a while after that).
… Carla has the money. Carla has the inclination. Carla has the hatred of Mary and affinity for Malaya. Carla has the lawyers.
Excellent callback. And hey, if Mary happened to not be available in a month for voting, even better! Everyone wins!
And hell while my first instinct is that Mary’s primed to return as a villain, we have Mike actively mid-scheme, new information that seriously ups Linda’s threat level, and fucking BLAINE back in the playing field, plus general lurking Carol and Clint on the backburners, an obviously-foreshadowed confrontation with Raidah for a student antagonist, and high drama potential with Richard. And that’s only counting the conflicts including antagonists who we actually know about and are in unambiguously antagonistic roles, there are other subplots without those that are equally fertile drama fields. Mary could actually be written out entirely for YEARS and not be needed.
Oh I’m sure she’s going to at least make a play for attacking Malaya.
What I remain unconvinced of is the idea she’ll leave with her teeth intact.
I would consider that the prelude to Mary leaving for the foreseeable future.
Yeah, all my jokes about increasingly horrible fates for Mary aside, I don’t think Malaya will prove as vulnerable to blackmail. Ruth was suicidal and having a hard time motivating herself to stay alive, never mind fight back (and Mary’s blackmail made her actually decide to lie down and wait to die so, y’know, FUCK MARY). Malaya cares about Fuckface, but she doesn’t have the same mental illness, so far as we can tell, and we DO know Malaya will always fight back at a challenge so this will be very interesting. I think Mary’s definitely making a comeback as an antagonist, but she might be up against someone more motivated to fight.
Malaya also isn’t Carla, who knows her trans status is going to get her fucked over by the powers that be in a contest between her and the Good Christian Girl (TM), so she does basically harmless and hoisted-by-your-own-petard thing.
I mean, Malaya isn’t white, so she’s probably ALSO screwed by the PTB v Mary, but Malaya doesn’t care. Her brain started reading up on the Fight or Flight response, but lost interest half-way through.
Of course at this point, Mary wouldn’t know of any connection to Malaya. If she was going to try anything it would be blackmailing Joyce.
They should just go into Joyce’s room and bring Fuckface back to Malaya’s through the half-bath. Then, if anyone comes to check, there’s no iguana to be found.
That is also true. It’d be interesting to see Mary vs Joyce.
Dorthy Fuckface and Joyce should consider becoming a comedy trio and take this show on the road!
These two are either awesome friends or in denial of being gay for each other. I can seriously make a conspiracy theory chart showing the evidence that Joyce and Dorothy would be perfect for each other, and it wouldn’t include antisemtic content. Conspiracy theorists sometimes attack Jewish people.
The characters have mentioned that Joyce gets her idea of female friendships from Becky, who carried a torch for Joyce all through their childhoods. So, uh, Joyce gives a lot of false positives. But nah, Joyce isn’t a Friend Of Dorothy, they’re just great pals!
I thought Joyce was the biggest Friend of Dorothy.
Looking back at that, is it only Joyce who has no clue what “Friend of Dorothy” means? Both Amazi-Girl and Sierra seem to have some snark going with it.
True. Though I suspect at this time Sierra still gos with the denial theory. It’s pre-Becky, isn’t it?
“People sharing a joke on Joyce’s expense over her head” is not an entirely unknown phenomena in this comic
Gal pals. Gals who are pals.
And strangely, they still have to watch Steven Universe and hold hands.
I suppose Hymmel has to do.
Half of your comment makes sense. The other half confuses me.
“False positives” is like in a medical test, where it looks like you’re testing positive for something, but, you aren’t actually positive for it. I meant that Joyce accidentally sends out false signals that she’s into women, such as wearing plaid vests.
“Friend Of Dorothy” is old slang for gay. (Because Judy Garland, who played Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, was an ally.) People would ask or say that they were a Friend Of Dorothy so that only people who knew that phrase would know what they meant.
I was making a pun that Joyce is Dorothy’s friend, but that she isn’t gay.
That… took a weird turn at the end there.
Yeah, it was after my bedtime. Oh well!
I mean abysswatcher’s post. I actually GOT all of yours, though if I’m being honest, being neither American nor gay, I only got the Friend of Dorothy part because someone brought it up in the comment section of a MUUUUUUCH earlier strip.
Oh, yes. I ignored the bit about antisemitic conspiracy theories, and instead wrote overwrought puns. No regrets.
“well of course he’s on my head, he’s too big to fit on my shoulder!”
I am both appalled and intrigued by Mary’s reference to Fuckface as a “filthy” animal.
Inquiring minds want to know: does Mary think of all animals as “filthy,” or only those which do not chew the cud and part the hoof?
And now I have the scene from Pulp Fiction running in my head.
A lot of reptiles (iguanas are among them) are actually pretty filthy and can carry salmonella and spread it to basically everything they touch which is part of why proper handling of them is so important even if you ignore the whole “the have sharp claws and strong jaws” thing. Like, it’s one of the reasons Malaya having this animal secretly in a heavily populated building is really shitty of her. Never mind the fact that her college dorm is in no way equipped to properly house an iguana and this environment cannot be good for him.
This makes lots of assumptions. That Malaya doesn’t bathe her pet, Doesn’t have a heat lamp and a terrerium for her pet to hang out and eat. We know some of those assumptions are wrong. Because they can be filthy doesn’t mean this one is filthy. Some Iguanas, certainly not all, appear to be fairly social and curious and riding around on Joyce’s head for a few hours isn’t going to kill it. Yeah, the air in the dorm is probably too chill for its long term comfort but In its room it knows where to go for a warm nap, No Malaya is not the poster child for responsibility but there is no need to make worse case scenario assumptions when the evidence is against it.
Where exactly is she bathing her pet? Because if the answer is “The communal washrooms” then that’s fucked. A large tropical lizard like an iguana has pretty specific needs that simply cannot be met in a college dorm room. There is not space for a properly sized enclosure and a water source large enough for soaking and a proper number of heat lamps to provide full body coverage and that’s not even taking into account the complete inability to control humidity (good luck maintaining 65-75% humidity in an Indiana dorm room). That terrarium is a goddamn goldfish bowl that is barely as long as the animal she’s putting in it. Iguanas are not casual pets, they are exotic reptiles and their needs reflect that.
Oh my god, this comic isn’t completely realistic. I’m shocked! Shocked.
Can’t wait for the next superhero fight, by the way.
Oh shove off with this argument. If Willis is going to flip flop back and forth over the line between realistic issues with realistic consequences and wacky hijinks then you’re going to have to live with the dissonance that creates when it comes to what people take seriously and what they don’t. I’m supposed to take Amber’s DID seriously but OH not the actual consequences of play-acting superhero now I’m taking things TOO seriously.
Yes, actually I think that’s pretty much the case. I think that’s pretty much the intent.
Amazi-Girl isn’t just “play-acting superhero”. She’s really a (low-end) superhero. She gets the advantage of various superhero tropes – the secret identity actually working, the abilities needed for the cool action scenes, etc. She also has DID, PTSD and other issues which are played relatively straight.
I get that sometimes the dissonance is jarring. But that’s the way the comic is written. If that’s a flaw for you, not sure what to say.
I find the dissonance a relief at times 🙂 it’s nice to take a break from the serious stuff for some wacky hijinks. So long as they’re not the kind that remind me of problems (like amazi-girl now).
still, the “Don’t try this at home, kids” message is a valid one. A while ago someone linked to an article on iguana care that made them sound pretty damn dangerous.
This response is kind of dickish in light of the fact that there’s a lot of relatively minor things in the comic that get over-analyzed to hell (like entire relationship dynamics based off a single panel of dialogue), but expressing concern and criticizing Malaya’s care for her pet? Oh, no, that’s too far. The fun police have arrived.
Like, it’s really not that unreasonable to think that there could be serious, realistic consequences. That’s kind of a recurring thing throughout this comic- wacky shenanigans or scenarios that come back with a vengeance. Billie’s entire alcoholic plotline was played for laughs when it was first introduced, and then when the car accident came up, it became a lot more serious.
I suppose and I did go a bit over the top, but I really doubt we’re going into animal abuse, dying pets or Joyce getting mauled by the dangerous animal on her head.
What we tend to get is cartoon physics with emotional realism, which is somewhat different than the shifts some expect. Amazi-Girl is the biggest example: There’s all kinds of serious stuff going on there, but it’s all going on with the backdrop of her being a super-hero. That’s not suddenly going to drop in favor of realistic consequences to fights – to her, Sal or the mooks they beat up. In a dramatic moment she might lose control and hurt someone (Blaine, Ryan), but we’re not going to get the revelation that she’s been unintentionally, unknowingly crippling the petty crooks she’s stopped. Because super-hero tropes allow for those kinds of fist fights, without the realistic consequences.
Sure she got hurt in the car chase and could have died if the cavalry hadn’t arrived at the last minute, but that’s a perfectly common trope for the big dramatic finale. And she bounced right back from it in a couple days. Physically at least. Like superheroes do.
Or the wacky “prank war” between Mary and Carla – escalated into transphobia, blackmail and all that. Not into Carla breaking her skull when the skates seized up.
Things get serious and have consequences, that’s absolutely true. But different kinds of consequences.
And the consequences here don’t have to be that Fuckface dies because of inadequate care, but if he’s discovered, Malaya gets told off for the subpar conditions he’s been put in and he gets taken away to an exotic animal vet? Put up for adoption with someone that actually has the space and means to take care of him?
Something I could very well see happening in comic is them deciding to move him into Carla’s room, because she doesn’t have to share the space with a roommate. That would let them be able to get a bigger tank and better set up going for him than whatever they have in Malaya and Sal’s room at the moment.
Even if it never comes up in comic, it’s not bad to point out that in real life this is not a good situation for any pet, but most especially an exotic one, because as much as we like to rely upon the common sense of other people and the ability to do research, sometimes people just look at things and go “Oh, that’s okay then”. When it comes to animals, people vastly underestimate the amount of care and maintenance that they need and that’s how we get stressed out fish in 2-gallon fishbowls.
Back when I was in university, there actually was an iguana in the dorm. It wasn’t kept secret, and it was still relatively small, but it was there. Things like humidity and water were provided by spritzing, and carrying water back and forth from the washroom to fill its container.
I have no idea how close or far from ideal it was, mind, just that someone was successfully keeping an iguana that way. Of course people can keep goldfish in goldfish bowls too, for a few years, even though we now know they really shouldn’t.
Mary had a little iguana.
Its skin was green as grass.
And everywhere that Mary went /
A stick was in her ass.
She found it in the school one day
Atop of Joyce’s head.
It made the students dream and sigh
and wish that she were dead.
To have a lizard in the school
Is not allowed by rule
It made both Joyce and Dotty smile
But Mary’s smile was crule
She thought a wicked thought
“I will expose this dreary critter,
It’s not allowed, it’ll be thrown out,
And I can brag on twitter.”
To catch a sinner in the sin:
‘s what Mary like the most
Not to help or offer guide
But for an ego boast
Who will save little Fuckface now
From this crule fate of woe
Does God give hail to lizard pray’rs
We won’t know ’til tomorrow
Or maybe Mary’s just not high, or an idiot, or completely indifferent like most of the background characters
Seriously, this gag isn’t even funny it’s just bizarre and stupid. It’s impossible enough to distract people from a dog being within a hundred feet of them let alone an exotic animal they’ve likely never interacted with before.
There is a famous experiment where people are trying to keep track of the number of passes in a basketball game and never notice when a gorilla wanders onto the court. Change blindness is completely a thing. People not noticing what they aren’t focused on is completely plausible. That said, every one on the floor except Mary and Ruth may already know about the iguana. Dorothy certainly did.
this experiment – https://youtu.be/vJG698U2Mvo
Thank you.
This isn’t that. There’s nothing they’ve been specifically directed to focus on Dorothy is just wearing a marginally loud shirt which is way easier to overlook than an iguana.
Mary only care because she’s a busy body, everyone else has no real reason to care.
I like how.. she honestly did not know how to react to their banter
Yeah it’s weird, she doesn’t even look insulted.
No … she looks oddly reflective. It’s worrying… she can’t possibly have character growth, can she?
She’s probably too busy being baffled by how idiotic this entire situation is.
I’m baffled why you read this comic. Are there any characters at all you just enjoy or any part of it that just entertains you?
I like Becky, Dina, Sal, Danny, Lucy, Joyce when she’s not actively doing something gross, Dorothy, Roz. Also various minor characters. I just think these “shenanigans” are dumb and not funny.
That’s why this is called Dumbing of Age, not Funny of Age.
Panel 4, in which Dorothy is the audience.
Mary has a true talent for evil. It’s a shame that her skills are not put to better use. She’d rather pick on the already downtrodden, than accomplish anything meaningful.
Yeah, generally speaking that’s one of the things that comes with a talent for evil. It’s harder to blackmail someone with no shame, especially when the alternative is already so incredibly vulnerable before you do anything.
I hate Mary very much. Actually after the last few days I think seeing her get CARLA’d would be therapeutic, I should go read that bit again. *Shuffles off to the archives for cold, swift, and ridiculous revenge.*
Mary’s attempts at gaining advantage and hurting people constantly end up blowing up in her face or coming back to bite her later. She’s just a petty spiteful bully.
alt alt-text: Mary was a bitch the whole time!
+1
Why aren’t they worried that Mary will tattle to Ruth oh wait nevermind I get it.
Should have worn the hat over the iguana.
I predict Mary is gonna be the girl who cried iguana and no one will believe her.
That’s not how color blindness works.
Achromatopsia, where everything is only bright or dark with no hues, is something that does happen but is very rare. But people often assume that’s how all color blindness works, like in jokes about dogs only seeing gray, so I’m not surprised that’s the type Joyce would know about.
And this is why we don’t steal pets, Joyce.
Also, I will take my ‘called it!’ tokens that returning Fuckface would include an encounter with Mary because Murphy’s Law is near and dear to Willis’s heart.
*Clink*
‘Called it!’ tokens may be redeemed for self-esteem, bragging rights, one free obnoxiously self-serving comment, 30 seconds of immunity to crying during the next tragic plot event, or one of those pump-action toy guns that breaks after like 30 minutes of use.
‘Called it!’ tokens have no cash value. Only redeemable in participating comments sections. Conditions subject to change.
Oooh, tiny toys! Can I save them up for one of those squooshy ball animals?
… I knew I was forgetting something. Yeah. Those start aaaaat… 75,000 tokens. Happy saving!
OH MAN THE MOST ZING
Hmm, ‘to anyone who sees in shades of grays’… does Mary only see 50?
I’ve got this feeling that Mary stood there in panels 2-4 just listening to Joyce and Dorothy’s conversation, paralysed by this increasing worry that maybe they’d both gone completely loopy and were about to do something violent.
Loopy, you say? 😀 now I’m thinking of DoA timeloop fic…
.. actually that might just be tedious. Watching teenagers learn important life lessons over and over doesn’t sound like something that could be exploited in any useful or fun way… It’d mostly just be boredom and pranks. … Wait, is *Mike* a looper? Is that why he’s always so pissed off at everyone? 😉
I think this may be the best two person exchange Willis has wrote for this comic.
I think using “wrought” is appropriate here.
???????
¿no?
Written.
English is a weird language.
Wrought – worked into shape by artistry or effort. An archaic form of worked. It’s a false friend of any form or write.
Any form or write? What? While form can either, write is normally a verb, not a noun. I am unclear on what you are trying to say. Wrought in context has an almost biblical feel that is very appropriate to Loki’s meaning. Yes, English is very weird.
Form can be either. Sigh.
I think they meant “It’s a false friend of any form of write”, using “form” to mean “tense/aspect”.
Oh, it’s Fuckface!
…and Malaya’s iguana.
(come on, y’all thinking it)
I wasn’t thinking it, but now I am.
….Quick! Tell Mary it’s a social experiment on public perception…. Maybe she’ll buy that.
You’re not wrong, Mary.
You’re just an arsehole.
: /
No big fan of Mary, like most – but she seems a bit down, here.
Perhaps the (sometimes defensive) antagonism (ribbing, in this case) that she probably gets a lot of, does indeed get to her.
Wait, how long has Mary not been wearing her wrist cuffs?
Maybe she’s had sex with her bf (Peter?) so doesn’t think that they are appropriate anymore.
What do wrist cuffs have to do with (not) having sex?
They may have been abstinence/chastity vow symbols. I know they’re popular amongst evangelical girls in some universities in the US.
Hadn’t heard of that.
She’s been seen without them before though. Well before Peter showed up.
Shot down the theory she was hiding scars under them.
Even if she did she wouldn’t admit it.
OH MY GOD THESE DORKS SHOULD BE MARRIED ALREADY.
They are
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/kd/
I can see Ruth refusing to take any action because there is no clear campus rule against performance art in the corridors. There is no way she can believe that Dorothy and Joyce are actually doing something like this non-ironically.
Maybe instead of colour blind she is fashion sense blind and Dotty’s outfits seems perfectly reasonable to hell?
They better watch out, Mary would totally narc on them, even without the awesome zings.
They can search Joyce and Dorothy’s rooms all they want and will find no evidence of harboring an Iguana. What’s the downside to Mary narcing? Malaya and Mary collide? The popcorn franchise should be lucrative.
Geeze, Mary, she’s just practicing to make sure this part of her Steve Irwin Halloween costume isn’t too heavy to wear around without wrecking her neck. You actually thought it was real? They’ll have to give your compliments to Malaya on her paper mache work.
She’s a great artist, you know.
Heh, nice burn
Man, I wish someone would make a Dorothy-Joyce buddy comedy series or a movie. I would watch the heck out of it.
And today I woke up to a comic in which Mary is the reasonable person. Who broke the universe this time?
I lvoet his arc
I love this. The punchline got me good
This is just me but I’ve got the feeling that this is heading towards Joyce and Dorothy doing something that Dorothy is able to interpret as very simple and innocent but leaves Joyce conflicted about her own feelings towards her friend and maybe questioning her sexuality.
By the power of Christ she can see through your hellish deception!!!
You know, not that I don’t enjoy the way the timeline runs in-strip, but out here, in real time, I’m in my mid 40’s, and might possibly be dead before we get to see the Sal vs. Amber convenience store hostage thing get resolved between them.
Dumbing of Age, Book 710: The Gang Takes Their Finals
No matter what answer they give her, it’s going to bounce around in her head all day as she tries to rationalize it
“You see nothing unusual. Proceed without comment.”
I can’t believe this strip has been up for several hours but no one’s made the obvious joke yet.
“Hey, what’s with that filthy animal?”
“Oh, her? She enrolled this semester.”
On your head
On your hea-ea-ad
Li-izard
Lii-izard
♫ When the reptile faces exile, we must be mistaken ♫
this may be the first and last time Mary is the rational one in a scenario
Where are all these claims of rationality for Mary coming from? In the last panel she literally says, “It’s a lizard. On your head.” What kind of rational person would assume that if you had a lizard on your head, you would need to be told.
She’s not telling them Joyce has an iguana on her head, she’s saying “How could a stupid shirt make me fail to notice you have a lizard on your head.”
What kind of rational person would believe you’re walking down the dorm hallway with a lizard on your head anyway? Makes no sense.
Behold! Mary at her most likeable.
I love this