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Our class
Posted on April 25, 2023 by David M Willis

The Dumbing of Age Book 12 Kickstarter ends today! It’s the final day of the Dumbing of Age Book 12 Kickstarter!  Her Hugs Are Traps will collect “Year Twelve,” spanning the five storylines that start on August 27, 2021, and complete on August 21, 2022. This includes new commentary, behind-the-scenes artwork, and new character designs into a 224-page tome with luxurious glossy paper all bound up into a sturdy, full-color presentation.   There’s 24 new Patreon bonus strips collected!  There’s a foreword by Steve Horton!  All pledges for physical goods get a free Walky character magnet!  And there's 11 more character magnets you can choose from.
All the unlocked magnets can be seen in the spread above!  There’s just 24 hours left in this campaign, so be sure to make your final selections!  We cross the finish line Tuesday (tonight!) at 11:45pm Eastern. Pledge today, because there is no tomorrow!

131 thoughts on “Our class”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    Then it turns out Cheetos is who she was waiting for

    1. Needfuldoer

      It ain’t easy bein’ ADHD-PI cheesy.

  2. Dara

    Or maybe instead of Seahorses they’ll be tagged Cheetos?

    1. a/snow/mous/e

      C. Horse but the C stands for Cheetos

      1. Needfuldoer

        “C is for Cheetos, that’s good enough for me.”

  3. Sirksome

    I hope they’re flaming hot Cheetos.

    1. Alongcameaspider

      A long time ago they had a Habanero flavored cheetos at the grocery store near me that was really good

      No I’m not still mad they got rid of it why do you ask

      1. Someguy

        My mom loves those

      2. Angel

        i imagine most ppl would be told to check online but amazon boycotting and pricey shipping aside, i wonder if some grocery stores would accommodate you if you asked them to restock/order it lol

      3. Chris (the other one)

        At my work there is a rack of those things. It’s been there for months now and no one buys them.

    2. Angel

      depending on how busy th e campus is it’d proll ybe gone by now. def would’ve been in highschool if someone forgot an unopened bag somewhere (maybe not these days post covid but yeah lots of teens would be tempted by free snacks)

    3. zee

      They better be Cheeto puffs. Only type that actually tastes good

      1. Jim

        I dunno I prefer the crunchy type to the puffs…

  4. shadowcell

    Boosther is good people

  5. NGPZ

    Even more signs of neurodivergence, possibly ADHD! Oh I am so happy!!! ?

    *plays “Hanezeve Caradhina” from Made in Abyss OST*

    1. Bryy

      Booster’s sister is fucking speaking to me.

      1. NGPZ

        ???

    2. TerribleTransit

      Top signs a Dumbing of Age character is neurodivergent:

      1. The character appears in a strip.

  6. Slartibeast Button, BIA

    Maybe she is just unstuck in time, about 20 seconds behind everyone else?

  7. not someone else

    Somebody is having a really bad ADHD Brain day. Tbh, personal experience, this is when you find a place to sit down, force yourself through the ten executive function steps to send an “I’m sick” email to all your classes, and then go back to bed/video games/something simple, straightforward, and unlikely to end up with you floating off in the middle of crossing a sidewalk.

    1. not someone else

      Crosswalk.

      But hell, sidewalk’d do it.

      1. Leorale

        One time I was on a sidewalk and attempted to walk to the moon.
        No, I wasn’t high. Though I sure got that question a lot.
        Just ADHD.
        It was a very pretty moon.

        1. NGPZ

          Why that sounds just lovely! ???

          Unironically I actually take a certain strain of cannabis for my ADHD LOL XD

        2. pope suburban

          I get it, though. Sometimes, the moon looks so close, like it’s actually a distant landmark that you can walk to. Like, yeah, that’s neat, let’s go over and get a closer look.

  8. DailyBrad

    Auditory processing can be a real pain.

    1. a/snow/mous/e

      that’s for sure

    2. RassilonTDavros

      Agreed.

    3. not someone else

      *ten seconds later*

      What?

  9. RassilonTDavros

    You know, it’s just occurred to me that there is exactly one other character who has a canonical name, but is never tagged by it in either of her two appearances. I’m calling it now, this is post-timeskip Bloodrose.

    (please do not take this comment seriously)

    1. BarerMender

      I think she must live down at the end of the hall where no goes.

      1. BarerMender

        *no one goes*

      2. Thag Simmons

        Don’t they dorm in McNutt?

        1. Decidedly Orthogonal

          Better than nutting in McDorm

    2. HueSatLight

      If Bloodrose is Meredith’s goth roommate, it’s weird that she just walked by with Howard sitting in her room. Bloodrose could have been Agatha’s roommate (the only person who left other than Jennifer), which is why she’s be in a different dorm now. But it’d still be strange that nobody said anything if Bloodrose were Booster’s twin.

      Oh, don’t take that comment seriously. [puts away binder labeled BLOODROSE]

  10. Proto_Eevee

    How many times can a character be featured before they get tagged? The world may mever know

    1. True Survivor

      Depends if Willis is feeling “it”. Get it?

      1. Amós Batista

        that means Willis will put her again, only after 8 months?!
        Because, you know, buffer size

    2. a/snow/mous/e

      i’m gonna call her Tagatha for the irony

      1. True Survivor

        Oooo, that’s a good idea.

    3. AbacusWizard

      Ooh ooh I know this one! The answer is “blowing in the wind.”

    4. Alongcameaspider

      I hope he puts off naming her for as long as possible

  11. Yotomoe

    God I swear the Indiana canvas is running at 300 ping. That was like…10 full seconds of input delay on my response. I keep telling them to run the campus off of an Ethernet cable and not the wifi.

    1. NGPZ

      Fighting game stuff? ?

      1. Yotomoe

        You got it 😛 Though it can be applicable to any competitive online game like shooters or RTS, having good connection is very important in fighting games.

        1. zee

          Or just discord honestly ?

    2. True Survivor

      Oh cool. You’re at Indiana? Is it strange seeing place you know drawn here in Dumbing of Age?

      1. Yotomoe

        oh I apologize. I was making a joke 😛

        1. True Survivor

          Ohhhh. I get it now. Sorry, I misinterpreted that.

      2. Angel

        at the very least statistically i’m sure someone is lol.

        tho it would be amusing if someone rich enough to buy bonus copies and go to ‘accidentally’ leave some of the books here and there for ppl to discover it XD that’d be one amusing marketing tactic

  12. foducool

    bitten by a radioactive sloth, she became… Super Slow

  13. BBCC

    Oooh, Cheetos!

  14. Ty34er

    Damn you Willis

  15. TrueVCU

    Ok this is like, neurodivergent level 50

    1. Jason

      It really isn’t. This is one of the milder things I have to deal with, when it happens.

      Unfortunately with neurodivergency people tend to judge it on what they can see, rather than what the people with it experience.

      1. vulcanodon

        I see comments elsewhere on this thread that ‘the joke is getting old’ but experiencing it gets old and stays old. Today I had to tell my students I misread the semester calendar in a way that affects the class (I can’t read spreadsheets either). And this is not the first time and I’ve been living with it all my life, misreading stuff and unable to handle certain kinds of information . I’d love to be done with the joke.

  16. AbacusWizard

    The extra funny thing for me here is that at my university there is a cat named Cheeto. He hangs out on the front porch of the physics building and has become something of an unofficial mascot of the department.

  17. Suet

    POV: Joyce, while stuck on the ceiling

    Do I sense… a thousand-yard stare? *adds in a ton of beat panels, much to the chagrin of Cheetos*

  18. All-Purpose Guru

    It’s like she’s underclocked by about 30%.

    1. Needfuldoer

      She’s probably thermal throttling. Need to undervolt or upgrade to a 360 AIO.

  19. Chaucer59

    She looks a bit like Booster. Another set of twins?

    1. Taffy

      Seems unlikely. Booster never mentioned a sibling and this character looks nothing like them.

      1. Leorale

        Booster did mention a sibling, a twin sister. I think to Walky.

        1. Taffy

          No.

        2. shanunu

          Booster told the whole floor that they have a sister
          Booster also spoke to Walky about a sister separately

        3. Taffy

          Stop taking my blatant bullshitting seriously T_T

        4. milu

          I love it ?

        5. BBCC

          It made me laugh, if it helps.

        6. Daibhid C

          “Irony” means “a bit like iron”, right?

        7. Mark

          Like, “the water around here tastes irony.”

    2. Needfuldoer

      It’s Booster wearing a seaweed wig. They just flip back and forth between both roles fast enough for persistence of vision to kick in.

      And we thought Joyce was the only character who can teleport.

    3. Jason

      This is the first time I’ve seen someone mention the similarities but when she first popped up for a good long several seconds (and in my admittedly sickness-addled mind) I actually thought she was Booster and was doing what they did on first meeting Carla- she demands attention, they don’t oblige.

      1. Yumi

        It definitely has been mentioned a lot in the comments, including that first one– you’re not alone! I remember my first bleary-eyed thought when I saw the comic that morning was, “Huh, Booster looks good today.”

  20. AGV

    I SWEAR to cod that one of may coworkers is EXACTLY like this, no exaggeration

    I know she’s neurodivergent because most of us are, but I don’t know her diagnosis, which I imagine is something along the lines of a very exacerbated ADHD

    1. Leorale

      Could be ADHD-inattentive, AuDHD, or anything plus auditory processing difficulties. What field is it, I’m glad there are lots of neurodivergent roles.

  21. Just an Armadillo

    Ah, so we’re just dealing with a max-level airhead here.

    1. Angel

      well, hopefully no one who notices that’s a stranger takes it as an opportunity to pickpocket them

  22. BOOSTER SHOT

    adhd but its in a metal font and on a t-shirt

    1. PB

      There’s another way to write it?

      1. Needfuldoer

        AD?HD

        For those about to rock… Did you know NASA thought about sending Big Bird up on the Space Shuttle?

  23. Opus the Poet

    Pictures of the Little 500 at IU Bloomington the real school this work of fiction is set in.
    https://bloomingtonian.com/2023/04/23/gallery-2023-mens-little-500-race-at-indiana-university/
    The Cutters won again.

  24. PB

    I have had so many days like this that it is physically painful and also a relief to read this.

    1. Angel

      be good to have a platonic partner or friend to hold hands with lol, i’ m always zoning out , i pay attention when walking past across walk (tho i have a cane so ppltend to slow down when they see it) but hanging out with a friend if you hold their hand and have them leave it’s easier to walk and talk or so versus accidentally bumping into something while looking at them

  25. Clif

    Good point , alt text.

    Mike is a ghost. Ergo, she must be Mike.

    1. Amós Batista

      she’s too nice to be replacement Mike

  26. Enaluxeme

    I thought Booster used they/them, not she/her.

    If she’s a she, why is she in the boy dorm? Carla is in the girl dorm.

    1. Angel

      that’s not booster. we don’t know if his sister(?) also identifies as nb or female( tho willis’ patreon strip calls her a ‘her’ for now)

      1. Jason

        Also if it was Booster (which it isn’t, but IF) it would imply presentation fluidity rather than a femme identity. Which would potentially still make the boy dorm the closest to an appropriate place.

        Also is it confirmed to be Booster’s sister? I theorised as such purely on confusing her for them and it was more an internal joke.

        1. TerribleTransit

          It’s not explicitly confirmed (yet — I’m certain it will be when Booster manages to deliver the Nintendo successfully) but it’s an easy call to make. The characters look alike, which would be poor character design if they weren’t related even if Willis didn’t specifically design families with cohesive visual cues, which he absolutely does. Additionally, conservation of characters and Chekhov’s Family Tree demand that, having been mentioned in text recently, it’s far more likely that this is Booster’s sister rather than a random person unrelated to the cast. There’s always an outside chance her appearance is a massive red herring, but that would really only be a joke at the expense of the readership without narrative purpose, which isn’t typically Willis’ modus operandi.

          tl;dr it’s not confirmed but it definitely is.

      2. BBCC

        Booster has used the term sister, yes.

  27. Hazel

    I love you, Boosister.

  28. Angel

    maybe she already has a partner, if not a platonic friend that has to (gently) drag her by the hand to places

  29. Amelie Wikström

    One guy I knew had a rule that he needed eight seconds of quiet to process anything said to him, if you wanted a response. I’m jealous that he could put a precise and consistent number to it. Maybe this one would be jealous of how small the number is.

    1. Angel

      if only things had subtitles

      tho other than bad grammar or being rly bad at communicating, depending i’d rather geti t in text or note for mversus verbal communication XD

      1. Liliet

        I know right??? IRL subtitles pls

      2. Needfuldoer

        Another closed captioning connoisseur!

  30. Keulen

    Ok, I’m definitely getting some neurodivergent vibes from Booster’s twin here.

  31. DarkoNeko

    how did she even survive school until now

    1. Liliet

      From my experience? Mostly dark sorcery.

      1. Amós Batista

        OK, I’m curious…

        1. Liliet

          Trick #1 is get a familiar (a friend who likes to hang out with you and is better capable of keeping track of time)

        2. Liliet

          (And space)

    2. NGPZ

      Just barely.

      It. Never. Gets. Any. Easier.

  32. Liliet

    How did you get this accurate footage of me IRL

  33. Amós Batista

    She’s like me: a colossal daydreamer.
    I already love her.

  34. thumb

    Booster’s reason for their major and their whole attitude regarding getting people’s deal?

  35. Yumi

    Deeply love that to whatever extent she registered Becky, it just jogged her memory of Cheetos.

    1. Chaucer59

      Maybe Becky’s hair color planted the notion. (Ooh, look: an orange color seldom seen in nature…oh! My Cheetos!)

      1. Autogatos

        This is extremely relatable and an accurate description of the ADHD experience.

  36. Rognik

    This girl needs more RAM. She’s lagging way too much.

  37. Plaaaa

    She actually is supposed to attend the class before yours, Becky, but doesn’t notice her class has ended and a new one began.

  38. AlaninDC

    Hi, I’m Becky. I’m in your class — I’m the lesbian with two right arms.

  39. Sarah

    I don’t want to be mean but like… how did she make it to college? I hope she doesn’t miss class at this rate

    1. Dday

      If she’s anything like me, probably cause she was good at writing and taking tests. I literally had teachers that were openly resentful about giving me good grades cause I was so terrible about handing in homework.
      Being like this can cause a lot of anger and incredulousness in others, it was bewildering (and embittering) to many that someone could be smart and still need special accommodations.

    2. Autogatos

      What Dday said, and also: having a parent who loves to micromanage.

      I didn’t even properly realize how bad I was at life until I moved away from home and had to be responsible for remembering to do things, making phone calls, scheduling things, getting places, etc. myself because when I was living at home, my mom just took charge of everything and constantly reminded me about whatever I still had to take care of myself so I wouldn’t forget. It’s probably one of the reasons it took so long for my ADHD to be diagnosed.

      It’s possible either Booster or one (or both) of their parents does a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to managing her life/keeping her focused. I imagine having a twin, if the twin is particularly organized, would be extra helpful since often twins have a pretty close bond. Booster could’ve spent a lot of time covering for her.

  40. vulcanodon

    I find this character strangely relatable

    1. yak

      I’m like this any time I’m high

  41. MoreWLessG

    So is it just gonna be the same joke every time with this new character? I get that this happens to folks and it’s cool to see even more inclusion… But like, we get it: This person doesn’t process info the same and it makes her seem either rude or slow to other people. Do we really need essentially the same comic 3 days in a row?

    1. Sam

      It is called establishing a pattern. Also people thought she was deaf previously, so it has now established she can hear people, and she is changing locations, where she may encounter other people.

    2. HoopsieDaisy

      I know this comic isn’t known for its rapid plot development, but this recent patch feels like a speed bump wrapped in sandpaper when it comes to getting things moving.
      But some people seem to love these strips about spacing out. Better hope the seahorse thing comes back to save the day somehow.

  42. eskimolos

    I feel seen in these strips more than I ever have

  43. Rabisch

    This is incredibly sad.

    1. Amós Batista

      I can’t deny there’s hardships. I’ve comented about my daydreaming thing yesterday; also, she make me remember my brother, about delay.

      Sometimes is hard and it looks sad for who is seen at distance.

      In a way or another, it’s good a lot of people here is seeing some features of her in themselves.

  44. Tan

    The way to avoid this is to spend your every waking moment when alone mentally practicing for hypothetical likely (or unlikely) conversations so that you have ready replies. And then screw it up anyway, but in silghtly different ways than you otherwise would have

    1. Needfuldoer

      Otherwise known as the Amber approach.

  45. Perdellian

    Don’t mind me, just quietly dissociating in the hall…

  46. Caro

    ok wait what if cheetos is a pet.

    1. Thomas

      This.

  47. Mr. Random

    Okay, but really.
    What’s her name?

  48. bcb

    Ana Chronistic is LATE FOR CLASS?
    Guess class isn’t the comment section.

  49. Dal Niente

    The most enormous ADHD:PI mood.

  50. CODDE117

    Oh I can feel the ADHD

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