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Self-destructing
Posted on April 27, 2021 by David M Willis
It's the final 24 hours of the Dumbing of Age Book 10 Kickstarter! Let's go over the stats for the last time:  This book will collect "Year Ten," spanning the four storylines that start on August 18, 2019, and complete on September 9, 2020. This includes new commentary, behind-the-scenes artwork, and new character designs into an 236-page tome with luxurious glossy paper all bound up into a sturdy presentation.  Our biggest book yet!  And there will be a foreword by Seanan McGuire!  There's twelve new character magnets -- one you get for free if you pledge for a book, and eleven more you can add in various ways!  
The book is titled Renounce Magical Thinking and Embrace Empirical Evidence, and it's the culmination of a full decade of Dumbing of Age stories!  This is the big one!  With kidnappings and van chases!  The last one before Walky is hot!

209 thoughts on “Self-destructing”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    I feel like that’s not how a Summon is supposed to work but what do I know, apparently

    1. Regalli

      … You know, Amber would look pretty cute in Garnet’s orange jumpsuit thing.

      1. NotThatDrew

        This just makes the fact I started replaying FF IX hilarious coincidental

        1. Doctor_Who

          Oh, it’s a Final Fantasy reference.

          I was trying to figure out the connection to Steven Universe.

        2. Regalli

          Yeah, realized after I posted that the most iconic pop culture Garnet is probably the Crystal Gem. I’d briefly considered bringing up Yuna before, which would have been less confusing, but Garnet’s look is the least of a stretch from Amber’s actual style compared to the other Summoners of the series.

          https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Garnet_Til_Alexandros_XVII

          But seriously, we’ve seen Amber in overalls enough times, the orange jumpsuit/overalls/corset thing could work for her.

        3. cbwroses

          Oh, you’re talking about Dagger. It’s been so many years, I forgot her original name.

        4. Delicious Taffy

          I forgot she had a codename. I named her Garnet because it’s funnier if she has no code name but they keep acting like it.

        5. Fetch85

          Heh, I’m not the only one who did this.

          It was most fun in Chrono Trigger. Named Frog Glenn. Named Marle Nadia. Named Robo R66Y.

        6. Diane

          But did you name Magus Janus? I did the same with Glenn and Nadia, but it was flip for Robo if I’d give him his normal name

        7. HeySo

          @Diane I did Janus and Glenn, but not the other two. :taps chin:

        8. Fetch85

          I did do Magus as Janus, yes. Also a name for Ayla that was just an expletive because I was out of ideas…. it made pre-teenage me laugh, and adult me embarrassed.

        9. Emperor Norton II

          I named Garnet her birthname on most replays, which is possible to find out in Disc 4.

        10. Rex Vivat

          And thus I discover I’m not alone.

        11. Sarpiedon

          Oh…now I get it!

      2. Lumino

        Hot Take:

        I always thought Eiko’s summoning through playing her flute was cooler than Garnet just waving her staff around.

        1. StClair

          Rydia or GTFO.

        2. Delicious Taffy

          Gotta go with Squall, tbh.

        3. Common sense

          Yay i am going with squall too.

          thought i have the slight feeling that they are only counting characters that are (or in yunas case were) summoners only. ^^”

        4. Regalli

          I mean if we’re talking overall, Terra Branford for life. But yeah, the topic was summoning.

        5. Delicious Taffy

          If we’re talking dedicated-only Summoners, that’s a very small pool of like five characters. I’d have thought more carefully if I’d realised.

        6. He Who Abides

          *goes to Google to try and find fan-art of Eiko summoning the Dragonzord.

        7. Delicious Taffy

          That’s a thematically appropriate idea, right there.

        8. He Who Abides

          Sadly, it doesn’t exist ?

      3. Spencer

        Garnet’s a good character but also I never use her, because she’s kind of useless at the start and by the time you can put any time into her and acquire skills you’ve got Eiko, who’s also a White Mage but better and you don’t need Garnet’s summons at any point anyway since like five of the party members can hit the damage cap whenever they feel like it.

        Then she goes mute for a while and it’d be really dramatic if I remembered she existed.

      4. Sarpiedon

        I get it!

    2. Spencer

      It is in Yakuza: Like a Dragon.

      The summons in that game involve Ichiban (that’s the hero) calling up a friend to beat the hell out of whoever is in front of him, only Ichiban is a lunatic so he envisions it as a summon spell where his ally Naruto Runs down a building and starts kicking lightning knives at his enemies.

      1. HeySo

        …I clearly need to finish my way up through the Yakuza series quicker, so I can get to that game sooner. o.O;

        1. Spencer

          Yakuza: Like a Dragon is the funniest joke ever played on the RPG genre.

          None of it is actually happening, Ichiban just loves Dragon Quest so much he imagines his pitched street battles with dangerous criminals as turn based combat where he and his friends have special moves and a Job class system that are literally real life jobs.

    3. Ana Chronistic

      Half-surprised no one mentioned Sora, Materia, or Magicite

  2. Doctor_Who

    You know how you can tell how far away a lightning strike was by counting the seconds until the thunder?

    I wonder what distance six HOMPKs indicates. For all we know Dina heard that in the next county.

    1. Wizard

      Depends on how far Mary managed to run, I suppose.

    2. Jhon

      I can hear the Doppler effect…

    3. thejeff

      Well, we see how far Dina moves in the space of that last “hompk”, so maybe we can extrapolate?

  3. Sirksome

    Aw! For a second I thought Amber had made some progress….or maybe this is progress for her?…I-I’m not sure what I think about this.

    1. Doctor_Who

      She made her will save against Walky’s hair, and was able to resist long enough to summon her dinosaur familiar for assistance.

    2. NotThatDrew

      I mean, in some ways the guess this is better than just running off with no real explanation

      1. NotThatDrew

        I*
        Not sure why my phone thought I was going for “the” before “guess”

    3. Demoted Oblivious

      There is only one phrase to describe Amber’s handling of this:
      “Clever girl.”

  4. Kyrik Michalowski

    Amber why must you hurt Dina this way? What happens next is entirely on you.

  5. Proto_Eevee

    Hey… I thought this comic was supposed to be realistic…

    1. BBCC

      Realistic ISH. Mostly realistic, but rule of cool or rule of funny is sometimes allowed to take precedent.

      1. Mydnyt

        Like Joyce’s unexplained but clearly illustrated ability to teleport

        1. Proto_Eevee

          Or like non-religious teens resisting their own hormones.

        2. Mariah Hardnett

          I cant tell if you think its non religous teens having sex in unrealistic. In my experience teens arent as sex crazed as people think. Gen z especially i feel like they are having less sex than most recent generations (though to be fair thats mostly because of the pandemic)

        3. Proto_Eevee

          I was just kidding, but most of my fellow teens are pretty open about how much they have sex, or masturbate, and stuff like that.

        4. Delicious Taffy

          So what you’re saying is, teens these days still compulsively lie about how much sex they’re totally definitely having I swear you guys. The more things change, etc.

        5. Proto_Eevee

          I was referring to how little sex they are having, and the how much they decide to let out the horny they old fashioned way.

        6. Proto_Eevee

          Damn, I forgot to close the italics

        7. Demoted Oblivious

          Perhaps, but given that your point still carried weight of validity and refutation, and considering that you (your gen) were bring patronizingly talked down to, it wasn’t wrong to italicize your whole point.

        8. thejeff

          I don’t know. By college even back in my day, while I’m sure there was still some boasting it was mostly among the party boy types. The Joes would be talking about a lot of sex they weren’t having, but the couples would mostly be having sex, but not talking a lot about it publicly. Couples that weren’t, but someone was boasting about it tended not to last. 🙂

        9. Delicious Taffy

          @Demoted Oblivious:
          That wasn’t meant to come across as patronising, I honestly thought that was what they meant. Misinterpreting what someone says and responding based on that isn’t the same thing as talking down to them, and Proto_Eevee’s clarification was actually appreciated.

        10. Demoted Oblivious

          @Delicious Taffy. Fair enough. Sorry as well. It read to me that way and I didn’t take the time to look for a more generous reading. mea culpa

        11. Nono

          You mean like how Sarah is very candid about how she masturbates?

          Or that Ruth basically told point blank to Joyce that just about everyone who’s not ace does it?

          Or how Dorothy basically jumped Walky after they took a break?

        12. HeySo

          It was mostly the religious kids that were horndogs, in my experience, actually.. Certainly always the ones getting knocked up the most. But, y’know, bible belt. I guess if you’re pushing against the expectations as far as overbearing religious indoctrination, you’re probably also a bit more likely to put more thought into things like acting on your hormones.

          Oh, don’t get me wrong, some Christian kids did wait on sex… ..by which I mean, they rushed into marriage, because that was the only way they could stroke out those hormones all legit-like. Gods, the pressure girls were under to marry in the parts of NE Texas I grew up in was pretty crazy, since marriage was still very much associated with a woman being succesful. Well, marriage to the right sorts- so only people who were also Christian or who had knocked you up. Yeah, I found that to be a weird workaround to parental disapproval, as well. Also, chance of backfiring, since the parents sometimes instead went the “you’re not our real child, get out of this house!” route with teen pregnancies, same as with non-Christian or trans or homosexual kids. :S

    2. Thag Simmons

      All the superhero shenanigans beg to differ.

      1. Mordecai

        Amazi-Girl ziplining on a power line with a pair of hedge clippers onto a truck was one of my favorite moments in the comic.

      2. Keulen

        That and the fact that Joyce apparently can teleport.

        1. thejeff

          As explicitly called out.

  6. NotThatDrew

    Almost as good as the Bat Signal

  7. BBCC

    JESUS, Amber, don’t self-destruct your living situation while you’re at it! Both as in your roommate relationship and …y’know, living.

    1. UrsulaDavina

      Also her phone is probably broken when Amber chooses to self destruction she doesn’t half ass it.

      1. Doctor_Who

        It’s Amber. You know she had backup phones. Like Mark Beaks!

        1. tim gueguen

          Cue scene of Amber opening her secret dorm closet, revealing multiple sets of Amazi-girl uniforms and equipment beside multiple cell phones.

        2. He Who Abides

          Unpopular hot take, but I found Mark Beaks entertaining.

    2. Regalli

      You know, for all the ways Amber’s self-destructive tendencies could get her killed, ‘mauled by a human velociraptor’ was previously VERY low on my list.

      1. Kyrik Michalowski

        It certainly wasn’t in the top five or the top ten. Top twenty, maybe.

        1. HeySo

          “#23: Get mauled to death by a Utahraptor and/or other Predacon-associable creature.”

          Well, it’s kinda on there. Problem is that the four velociraptors the Transformers wiki list, are all stated to be Maximals. :/

          How about this one, instead?

          “#4: Die trying to get away from a boy I have romantic and/or sexual feelings for, who also has a habit of wearing capes and is known to affect the role of a superhero and/or supervillain.”

          Yep, that Amber’s got her lists down pretty thoroughly..

        2. Leorale

          Never assume a lady does not have dinos at her disposal.

      2. milu

        oh i don’t think Dina’s a velociraptor, those were tiny. sh’s more like a deinonychus maybe

        1. Demoted Oblivious

          The best part of that picture is the raptors eye-balling the human outline as food.

        2. milu

          ahaha yeah totally. except the deinonychus who’s like, “ugh the big guys got there first, i guess i won’t be snacking on this conveniently hairless animal today”

        3. Demoted Oblivious

          Also: Dinanychus XD

  8. Yotomoe

    THEY HATED HER BECAUSE SHE TOLD THE TRUTH

    1. Wagstaff

      Now, they were actually closer to today’s birds then reptiles, although to what degree they were actually like birds is a matter of academic debate.

      1. Demoted Oblivious

        Theropods were. Sauropods are another matter, as are the (unfortunately named) ornithischians.

        1. Demoted Oblivious

          Theropods are? Or would be? As in they weren’t related to birds before birds existed, but they were after birds evolved but before the theropods died out? Since birds likely would have just _been_ theropods by classification until the rest died out and it became useful to distinguish them. Really wish Dina could weigh in on this, but she’s busy elsewhere.

        2. milu

          so, birds are theropods. the fact that some theropods predate the apparition of birds is not really material. a (“natural”) group is defined as common ancestor + all descendents.

          about the other thing, i’m a bit more fuzzy, isn’t it a bit weird to say that “dinosaurs are closer to today’s birds than to reptiles” (and let’s quickly redefine reptiles as pseudosuchians (“crocodile-line” archosaurs), because reptiles is not a proper taxon)— like, surely early dinosaurs had more DNA in common with early pseudosuchians than with modern birds, being that they’d diverged only a few million years previously, while modern birds are like 250mya down the line? it’s like asking if people are “closer” to their cousins than to their great-great-great-grandchildren. i mean, sure, but i have a feeling that asking who’s “closer” to who must have a technical meaning in cladistics that i’m not aware of.

          but one notion that i find unambiguous and more helpful is that of “most recent common ancestor”. So for instance Wikipedia gives one definition of dinosaurs as the MRCA of triceratops and modern birds, and all its descent. that’s nice and refreshing in that it clearly excludes all the other archosaurs, like pseudosuchians and pterosaurs. who’s closer to who doesn’t enter into the definition.

        3. milu

          the more i think about it, the more i feel like when talking taxonomy and using this “closeness” metric we’re always comparing organisms with their contemporaries, not their ultimate descendants, because that leads to unhelpful and unproductive distinctions, like what could it tell us to figure out which dinosaur in the dinosaur lineage started sharing more traits (or DNA or whatever) with modern birds than with the ancestor they share with modern crocodiles? also, that’s completely undecidable.

          so when we say dinosaurs are the archosaurs that are “closer to birds than to (say) crocodiles” that’s just shorthand for “closer to whatever ancestor of modern birds was around at the time”

        4. Demoted Oblivious

          Can someone send milu a Dina-hat? And yeah, MRCA is definitely a more useful branch denominator. (though I was always under the impression thats what paleontologists meant by closeness). In my previous post I was struggling more with the grammar. Like, do you refer in present tense to a dead thing being related to a modern thing, or given that when it was alive the descendant didn’t exist yet that it would come to be related. Then as always I fell into a tangent.

          And also, Clif (i think) shared a Sci-Am article that said the point I made about Theropods and Ornithischians might be completely wrong.

        5. milu

          “(though I was always under the impression thats what paleontologists meant by closeness)”
          Yeah absolutely.
          “A is closer to B than C” really means “A and B share a more recent common ancestor than A and C”.

          i guess the way you phrased it threw me for a loop, but i’m good now =)
          can’t find Clif’s article, or comment for that matter, guess you didn’t mean in today’s comments? tbh i’m not sure what you were trying to say about theropods vs ornithischians and sauropods

        6. Demoted Oblivious

          I am at a complete loss now as to how I got to the sci-am story. Maybe a link from the smithsonian article or something. Here’s the story though:
          https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/laelaps/shaking-the-dinosaur-family-tree/

        7. milu

          ooh right, that whole thing! i’ve read about it before, but tbh i don’t know enough about the dinosaur family tree to really get het up one way or another. i mean, i get that it’s a huge reshuffle, we are talking about top-level branching-off points within dinosauria being moved around but er… still, i’ll read the article! thanks! after all it’s been a couple years now that i first got properly into paleontology so maybe now i’m better equipped to get excited about the ornithoscelida situation =P

        8. milu

          …regardless, i should point out that, per my painstakingly produced definition of what it means to say that dinosaurs are closer to birds than to other reptiles, well, all dinosaurs are closer to birds than to other reptiles.

          that’s been known and accepted since at least the 70’s, and this recent development didn’t bear on that

  9. Tan

    She died as she lived.

    On the internet.

  10. UrsulaDavina

    That phone won’t be catching Pidgeys any more.

  11. Wagstaff

    Ah. Chekhov’s gun. Pay close attention to this mechanism, as it may become important in the future.

    Think along the lines of what happens when you say “SHAZAM!” in the movie of the same name.

  12. Stephen Bierce

    *plays the Used Dinosaur Dealer jingle from Donny & Marie on the hacked Muzak*

    1. Bicycle Bill

      In a rare experience, Google has let me down. Couldn’t find any reference to this.

      1. Demoted Oblivious

        I haven’t found it on youtube, yet. But there is a Floriday Today article, /HORRIBLY/ OCR’d that talks about it. Apparently Farrah Fawcet did a bit on the show as the titular used-dino sales-person.

        Search parameters: “Used Dinosaur Dealer” jingle
        the quoted portion makes google search for that exact string, instead of treating it as separate words.

        1. Stephen Bierce

          And they used dinosaur demo footage from Land of the Lost for the dinosaurs.

  13. Fart Captor

    THE NOISE I JUST MADE

    This is the cutest and most hilarious way to exit a conversation anyone has ever devised

    1. JBento

      Was it “hompk”?

  14. Dean

    Instant escape from any awkward conversation! “Why no, Countess, I haven’t seen your diamonds…. GOD PUT DINOSAUR FOSSILS IN THE EARTH TO TRICK US!” “Hompk!!!”

    1. Bicycle Bill

      I’ve been around and read a lot over the years, and seem to remember a sci-fi short story where the twist ending was that it was aliens, not God, who created the earth and buried dinosaur fossils and other artifacts to create the illusion of evolution, etc — but I’ll be damned if I can find any reference to it now.

      Although I suppose it could be a combination of things such as Douglas Adams’ “Hitch-hikers’ Guide” where the Magratheans constructed Earth to specs created by the supercomputer ‘Deep Thought’, von Daniken’s “Ancient Astronauts, and various other short stories that I recall bits and pieces of.  Now add the Mandela Effect, shake well and — this is what you come up with.

      1. DaveM

        Strata by (pre discworld) Terry Pratchett mayhaps?

      2. Geneseepaws

        Jack Chalker’s “Well of Souls”?

  15. John Seiler

    Amber: I’m blasting off again….

  16. electriccombines

    Dina is absolutely KILLING IT this chapter. I love her so much it’s unbearable.

  17. Disastroid

    Dinosaurs were just big dogs

    1. Lingo

      They seem more like Tiggers, actually.

      1. Needfuldoer

        The wonderful thing about Dinas
        is Dinas are wonderful things

        *Gets gagged and hauled off to a gulag with trademarked mouse ears before the intellectual property violation can continue*

        1. Demoted Oblivious

          While technically parts of this could be a violation in and of themselves, by substituting Dinas, it may become parody, and we’ll only know if you finish it _and_ get sued, taken to court, and have a judge rule.

          That aside, from a moral standpoint, I think you are safely beyond any reasonable definition of infringement. All but one of the authors of the song are dead, and the survivor has been paid or collected royalties for more than 50 years.

      2. Lingo

        Or possibly Hobbes-es, though not as sneaky.

  18. James

    How good is her hearing?

  19. Kyrik Michalowski

    Wait a minute, I just thought about it, and what if this is Amber’s way of letting Dina know she needs help?

    1. Chris

      Play “The Isle” and repeatedly hit the 1 key…of course, if you’re on the Teutonic servers, you’ll get banned, or eaten, but either way, it’ll be a glorious 2 minutes….

      1. Chris

        ugh, this was supposed to be a reply to General Tekno, below…

    2. Nono

      I know it’s played up for laughs here, but it would also be a very crappy way of doing it. ‘Trigger someone’s hot button topic to get their attention’ is…. not great.

  20. jupiterror

    fast travel

  21. General Tekno

    I’m wondering when “Untitled Dina Game” is going to get announced at this point.

    1. Wizard

      Press space bar to HOMPK.

    2. Regalli

      Next year’s stretch goals, maybe.

    3. Chris

      Play “The Isle” and repeatedly hit the 1 key…of course, if you’re on the Teutonic servers, you’ll get banned, or eaten, but either way, it’ll be a glorious 2 minutes….

  22. Grimey

    Hmm…So maybe Amber doesn’t hate Walky so much as she hates what she and Walky become “together”. Maybe similarly to Billie and Ruth it’s the whole idea that “maybe we shouldn’t be together in the name of being a dumpster fire of toxicity.”

  23. Kella

    Hmmmm any other plurals out there interpret this as a. a switch with a protector taking over and b. that “we” and “us” did not refer to Amber and Walky?

    1. evandrofisico

      Yes, it seems a lot like a protector alter taking over and it seems Amber/AG are finally communicating full time, down to pronouns.

  24. Delicious Taffy

    Walky being “hot”, him and Amber doing the Frustrated Tension Dance, and Dina making loud noises at people, all in one strip? Is there something in the water at this dorm?

  25. Tricia

    I’m increasingly getting the feeling that I’d hate to be around Dina if she were real. She’s kinda walking a very fine line between “quirky” and “obnoxious”.

    1. Marisa Mockery

      Most of the cast does :/

    2. Delicious Taffy

      She’s been doing this for like half a morning.

    3. Needfuldoer

      Not to insinuate anything, but if Dina’s somewhere on the Autism spectrum she might be oblivious to (or unconcerned with) the way her actions are affecting others’ perception of her. She just wants to be a dinosaur this morning and that makes sense to her, so why would anyone else think that’s odd?

      I’ve seen things like this in neurodivergent kids who have issues with social situations. When “no don’t do that it’s weird” isn’t a reflex, teaching “no, people will think that’s weird” as a deliberate thought process can help take its place.

      1. Spencer

        Part of it is that and part of it is that it’s a comic and she needs to do funny visual gags, like how she aggressively honked at Mary so hard she face faulted to death.

        It *does* kinda take me out a bit sometimes, to be honest, but pretty much every strip where Dina acts like this is purely comedy oriented so it’s never really been an issue.

    4. Demoted Oblivious

      I would love to have a friend like Dina. Sweet, protective, supportive, reliable, and hillarious in a weaponizable form.

  26. NinjaNick

    Dina’s got great hops (and HOMPKs!)

  27. Sirksome

    Walky’s response here makes me wonder if he’s aware of what terms he’s on with Amber here. He seems pretty oblivious to how tenuous their relationship apparently is to her at least.

    1. cbwroses

      I think he’s aware of that, at least that she feels it needs to be that way, just not the why.

      1. Nono

        Also, Walky is, as established, extremely bad at adhering to boundaries even if he knows they exist.

  28. Yotomoe

    https://imgur.com/a/vjsADfK
    Ok so I’m easing my way into more Walky shipping stuff and thought I’d let you know what my top 3 Walky ships are.
    #3 Joyce: I’m an old head and Joyce and Walky being a THING is just ingrained in my soul. I dunno even in DOA I’ve always liked their specific breed of bickering. Plus they both like Dexter and MM. My dream relationship is finding a girl who likes the same cartoons as me. Also I imagine Joyce being the incredibly affectionate type <3
    #2 Lucy: Honestly Lucy's just cute. She's not necessarily my favorite character since she hasn't had a lot of business, but fuck it. She's put in the work, she should get some loving, even if Walky doesn't deserve her. Let her indulge a bit.
    #3 Amber: I ship amber and walky so hard it's ridiculous. Like…firstly I just…really like amber. She's cute, smart and above all else super physically agile. But also her relationship with Walky is really cute? I'm a sucker for "Let's just burn this shit down" type relationships. Like "I suck, you suck but we can suck together" is my WHOLE aesthetic. (Yes I DO love scott pilgrim, how did you guess?) I feel like she's the character who drew the most out of Walky as a person and I feel like even if they think they're both trash being with each other makes them stink a little less. Also yes they're both super hot <3
    Jennifer: I'm just super into her. I should draw her more <3.

    1. Sirksome

      Really like the reasoning and I do think Amber and Walky are the preferred pairing for those two. I however cannot support Joyce and Walky. They’re just too terrible to each other. I understand that they hooked up in some other universe but here they bicker too much and I think it could get toxic real quick especially since they both hold a flame for Dorothy.

      Also I just want Lucy to have nice things. Please give Lucy the nice things she deserves. Maybe that’s Walky? Maybe that’s being Walky’s side piece in a no jealousy haremesque love trapezoid with him and Amber and someone else probably.

      1. Yotomoe

        They bicker a lot sure but I dunno it always comes off to me the same way kids who have a crush on each other bicker. That’s just me though.

        1. thejeff

          Either crush or sibling bickering.
          There’s clearly affection underneath it.

      2. Demoted Oblivious

        Forget a love trapezoid. I want this to go full-graph where every vertex is joined to every edge and it all gets a slipshine.
        Walky-Joyce
        Walky-Lucy
        Walky-Amber
        Walky-Billie
        Joyce-Lucy
        Joyce-Amber
        Joyce-Jennifer
        Lucy-Amber
        Lucy-Jennifer
        Amber-Jennifer

        Unless we use a bi-directional (pun intended) graph in which case duplicate the list above in reverse cow-girl left-right order, to distinguish the tops vs bottoms in each pairing.

        1. Demoted Oblivious

          *where every vertex is joined by an edge. Sorry for the terminology abuse.

        2. Eskeboi

          This might just be the horniest nerdiest thing I’ve ever read. Bravo??

        3. milu

          lol totally agree =D
          now do a DnD alignement chart for the various ships =P

        4. Yotomoe

          If we’re going THAT route then I just absolutely HAVE to squeeze dorothy in there so Joyce can have her cake and eat it too.

    2. cbwroses

      I plus 1 this sentiment.

    3. cbwroses

      Also, I’d like to see a one night or even multi night stand with Jennifer and Walky.
      Yes, yes, non blood related sibling and all that; I just want them to ride the bike around the block once or twice before they never ride it ever again, probably never talk about it, and may or may not acknowledge bikes even exist when around each other.

      1. Yotomoe

        GOD. I’d make a whole slipshine of that if I had the skill or time or patience or permission.

        1. Demoted Oblivious

          You definitely have the skill.

    4. Thag Simmons

      so uhh, who’s #1?

      I see two threes and a two

      1. Yotomoe

        My bad I meant to put amber as #1. When you’re writing numbers and you’re on #2 you can forget if you were counting up or down. 😛

    5. Eskeboi

      I approve all ships mentioned above for rightful passage on the seas. With special consideration for Fleet status if the harem application goes through. Good luck admiral yotomoe *salute*
      Dope art btw need more

    6. Newllend(henryvolt)

      The Amber × Walky pairing will always be “the thing I didn’t know I wanted till I got it” ship.

    7. Jhon

      Draw Lucy as NightGirl.
      Please!

  29. Icalasari

    Dina has unlocked the Hompk Jump

    1. Bagge

      It’s super effective

  30. Bagge

    I’m calling it, when the dust settles, amber will be proven right. The only proportional response to Hot Walky is to immediately self destruct any and all interaction with her. When the dust settles, she and only she will remain, staring at her phone, while the campus is in flames, people are screaming and running everywhere and everyone lost their hat.

    1. Sirksome

      There are a few people immune to the hot Walky. You’re gravatar Becky is one of them. Those people will inherit the earth when the inevitable Walky Wars purge the rest of humanity. It will be a better world then.

      1. Demoted Oblivious

        I would imagine if not _immune_ Dina at least has a *VERY* high resistance given her aceness, and her current preference for sapphic companionship.

    2. thejeff

      And we know that any plan where you lose your hat is a bad plan.

      1. Bagge

        Hyu getz it!

  31. brumagem

    With Ethan fridged, Danny a support character, and Mike dead, most of the time I’m just reading DOA out of habit nowadays.
    But then there are occasional gems like this that make me smile.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      Ethan is dead??

      1. Sombrero

        No, he is in the fridge, preserving himself for the time resurrection technology is advanced enough to bring back Mike.

    2. BBCC

      Ethan is almost certainly coming back. It might be some time though.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        Yeah, he’s just on a bus as far as we know. Fridging is for deadfolk.

        1. RowenMorland

          Maybe he got in the fridge from Crystal Skull and flew out of town.

        2. Delicious Taffy

          What do fridges have to do with crystal skulls and why would they fly?

        3. Demoted Oblivious

          Ask Jr., Indianna was the dogs name.

        4. Fist_of_Life

          eh, maiming could also be considered a form of fridging, so long as it is the impetus for the main character to seek revenge for said maiming. I would only consider it fridging if the maimed character is barely a part of the story from the event on though.

        5. BBCC

          Fridging is also specifically for female characters in the context of furthering a man’s story arc. It’s about a specific gender issue in comic books, but it can be applied in other media. It’s not just ‘character has horrible thing happen for the sake of another’s story arc’.

    3. Thag Simmons

      Mike got the fridge, Ethan is merely absent

      1. BBCC

        Mike wasn’t fridged. He just died.

    4. Spencer

      Danny’s a main character.

      I didn’t convince myself Danny is a main character did I?

      As for Ethan don’t worry, he’ll be back. I’m trying not to read intent into your post but seeing others like it revolving around these three characters believe me when I say I get it.

    5. brumagem

      I grossly misunderstood the slang meaning of “fridging” a character, but still.

  32. Dark

    This is a very good two panel comic, yep.

  33. JessWitt

    Dina’s hompk is more versatile than I expected.

  34. Reltzik

    So is DINA going to be immune to Sudden Hotness?

    I mean, I’d GUESS she is, but nothing about this makes sense to begin with, so what do I know?

    1. cbwroses

      As someone who recognizes the reality of science and understands how to apply it, Dina will objectively recognize Walky’s increased attractiveness quotient while not being subjectively affected.

      She might also tilt her head to the side like a dinosaur descendant while doing so.

    2. Wagstaff

      If I’m not mistaken, she said that “gender didn’t matter to her” when first coming out about her love of Becky to Joyce.

      Perhaps this is actually a setup for her to experience another peripheral euphoria rush, like that one just after science class?

    3. 0phidiophile

      Basically, yes. In much the same way that she was able to identify Amber as Amazigirl when no one else could because everyone else had been conditioned to believe that Amazigirl could never be a near-sighted, computer nerd shut-in with poor social skills, Dana will note that everyone is acting differently around Walky, and conclude that it is because Walky is observably different, but she herself will not understand why that would trigger a change in behavior, because she herself hasn’t been conditioned to respond that way.

      1. thejeff

        Either that or she was standing behind the door one day when Amber changed.

        1. Demoted Oblivious

          Naw, it was straight up talked about between Amber and Dina. Dina sees through illusions.

        2. thejeff

          Was it? I don’t remember that. A comment when it was first revealed that Dina know about “It was supposed to be a secret?”

        3. Demoted Oblivious

          Yay! You made me go surfing through Dina comics to find it. Here’s their first words on the subject:
          Amber: “Sometimes you need the right context clues to make an obvious connection.”
          Dina: “Is that why nobody points out that you’re you when you wear that cape and run around campus?”

          So i suppose Dina could have been behind a door, it was during the same period where she was particularly adept at that, but it also followed the same arc where Dina and Amber were discussing Dina being ‘weird’ after the shopping mall and Dina focusing on facial cues and such. The next day is the reference you gave about Dina not realizing it was supposed to be a secret. I read it initially along the lines of Dina, not being able to read facial cues, also couldn’t be deceived by them. Now I can see how it could have just been door hiding (or even Amber just assuming she was asleep). Still though, it feels to me like Dina simply sees through magical thinking.

  35. cbwroses

    I’m guessing she feels like she’s bad to be around, even for other garbage people?
    That she’s the common denominator in the people’s lives when they’re temporarily or permanently ruined?

  36. Lingo

    TIL dinosaurs were basically Tiggers.

    1. Demoted Oblivious

      Flintstones substantiates that perspective.

      1. Lingo

        Good point!

  37. Needfuldoer

    Amber needed a quick escape and called a HOMPKer. (The ride sharing platform for aspiring paleontologists.)

  38. Nayann Martinelli

    That’s one way to have the last word, I guess.

  39. 0phidiophile

    Another masked vigilante stalks the campus.

  40. foducool

    *triggered* lmao

  41. Eldritchy

    Damn now I want to see Dina in an Inquisitor getup yelling “Heresy Detected!”

    1. Zaxares

      … Dang, that just gave me some R34 ideas for her and Becky. XD

      1. Eldritchy

        Time to “interrogate” the cute heretic.

  42. FacelessDeviant

    “Before we self-destruct US”.

    If they can’t even have a conversation, then what “them” is there to preserve?

    1. deathjavu

      Exactly… Seems their”is” had already been thoroughly destructed.

      1. deathjavu

        “us”

    2. Demoted Oblivious

      Amber using the plural/internal they/them/we/us vs. the plural-external (aka multi-body). Dina didn’t waste Walky, just mkAmber-Girl.

  43. Keulen

    Dina has ridiculously good hearing, at least when someone’s spouting nonsense about dinosaurs. Or she just happened to be nearby I guess.

  44. Sombrero

    Is this the origin story of Sal & Danny’s R&B hit “Hompky Tonk Lizard”?

    1. Geneseepaws

      Well reading that comment wasted a LOT of coffee. Congrats, take all the votes.

  45. Rabisch

    Amber prefer to be killed by a feral and ferocious dinosaur rather than face her love for Walky? What the hell is happened between them at Halloween????? Sigh. Walky was so happy to see her smile again… so sweet♡.

    1. Demoted Oblivious

      Loving Walky doesn’t seem to be her problem. Being loved BY Walky (or anybody) is her problem. Amber knows she is unloveable, even if her mom tried to get her out, the damage was done. Amber hates herself. She’s wrong, but she can’t be convinced of that by external input.

  46. darkoneko

    -speechless-

  47. Amos Batista

    DoA characters ordered by decrescent level of HASONW (Horniness After See Old New Walky):

    – Sarah
    – Joyce
    – Asma
    – Jennifer
    – Lucy
    – Amber
    – Dorothy
    – Asher

  48. ValdVin

    Three very on-brand Amber panels in a row (starting yesterday): One eyebrow raised, one half-smile she’s trying to deny, and in between, a half-lipbite? Am I seeing that right?

    1. Geneseepaws

      Sorry I cannot agree. Definitely not correct. No,nope, uh-uh, ok— fine, yes you got it. That is how it reads to me.

  49. hof1991

    Amber uses the DOA equivalent of Jimmy Olsen’s watch. She used to be able to ghost people like Batman does but I don’t think we’re going to see a lot of Amazi-Girl. She needs major help and Pokemon isn’t going to do it. But I do like the hijinks. I think DYW needs time to recover from the evil dads arc.

  50. Hydrohead

    This was an interest piece on my local news last night.
    https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/new-study-finds-that-t-rex-walked-at-slow-pace-of-3-miles-per-hour-180977572/

    1. Demoted Oblivious

      Fasinating, with a great animation. That does a great job of explaining Rex’s walk, but also cites some sources that explain this isn’t a top speed, just the walking speed.

      As another example: I can run with a backpack on. It’s inefficient due to the pack bouncing, but I can do it.

      1. Demoted Oblivious

        But I still only walk at around 1-1.5 m/s. (3.7-5 km/h)

    2. Demoted Oblivious

      Further on this with respect to humans. Our hairlessness is an advantage in hunting. Because we sweat, we can litterally run other animals to death. We don’t need to catch up to them, we just need to force them to keep moving. Our ability to shed heat allows us to have one of the highest net endurance of all land animals.

  51. Chris

    I have to admit, this is the first DoA comic to make me actually LOL in a long time…

  52. Pat

    LOL, put your phone away first, Amber

  53. Billifer Jenningsworth

    Amber: Ah, my Uber is here.

  54. JA

    I thought I laughed at Dina attacking Mary, but this takes the cake.

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