I was gonna comment that he’d get washed in a fight with anyone tougher than a raccoon, but actually as a Bartender he’s probably picked up a few tricks for dealing with rowdy drunks
Nono
Well, rowdy drunk college students, at least.
Azhrei Vep
Also, don’t underestimate raccoons. They’re tougher than a LOT of humans.
Having a date with someone is a pretty good reason to have their number. It’s good protocol to let them know if you will be late or have to cancel, and you can get in touch if you need directions or something. Weird that they had each other’s numbers and were still exchanging info through Billie beforehand, though. Maybe they swapped numbers during the date.
I dunno. But they can’t sell inferior products with pretty pictures forever.
Proxiehunter
They’ll have to get rid of the pretty pictures soon.
Wagstaff
And why is that?
Clif
Because they can’t sell inferior products with pretty pictures forever.
Wagstaff
Getting rid of pretty pictures isn’t gonna correct crappy code. I mean Androids are very reliable and their commercials are very enjoyable as well!
Bicycle Bill
Trouble is, once you’ve become an Apple user you’ve become part of a cult like the Moonies or MAGA or something like that. How else can you logically explain the way they have been able to sell the same phone – just add an additional camera or a bigger screen from time to time – to the same people since day one?
They have their own weird connector/charger that is completely incompatible with anything else, you still can’t add additional memory by inserting an SD card, and you NEVER could easily replace the battery. And their operating system – like the old, now-nonexistent Blackberries – is used by one and only one company on the entire freakin’ planet.
Clif
The point is, they can’t sell inferior products with pretty pictures forever and they certainly aren’t going to stop selling inferior products, and so logically their only choice is to drop the pretty pictures.
milu
oh no! this is turning into another battle in the age-old war between the Snarks and the Nerds!
Nerds! they think people could be a bit more serious about some things!!!
Snarks! they actually take their jokes very seriously!!!!
Nerds! they will stubbornly take you at your word and say “actually” a lot!!!!!
Snarks! they’ll keep amping up the silliness in retaliation!!!!!! …but if you see one of them explain a joke it means you have them on their knees.
score one for Nerds!
Clif
How do you score sparky needs?
Asking for a friend.
Clif
Snarky nerds, snarky nerds, snarky nerds.
Hmm. Three times and automangle finally gets it right. I guess third time really is a charm.
Clears throat. How do you score snarky nerds?
milu
Snarky nerds are traitors to both causes and are to be strenuously shunned. I guess
I find Ruth oddly adorable in general, really. Partially because I keep really, really hoping things will go well for her for once, and partially because… I just do, I guess?
I’m just hoping this isn’t the last time Ruth and Daisy interact with each other, because bad first date aside I think they have potential. Even if Ruth/Jennifer remains my OTP for now
Truck-kun was not kind to me, I came back to the same body as before with lots of damage to it…? Truck-kun on the other hand was isekaied to another world unknown to us. Lucky Truck-kun.??
Sunny
I think there’s at least one story where they summon the truck to defeat the demon lord with it.
Clif
Did Willis survive?
Oh wait, that was porn lord.
Jhon
Defeating a porn lord with integrity and no regrets?
There’s a fanfic waiting here…
Roborat
I ran across a manga where it is about the people who drive the truck and pick the people to isekai.
RassilonTDavros
Personally, I don’t particularly want Asher to die– but while Blaine’s death was probably a good thing overall, the fact of the matter is that Asher is willing to have people killed to protect his secrets, and is therefore inherently untrustworthy. I definitely don’t like him and Jennifer together for that reason.
RassilonTDavros
Now Clint dying, on the other hand, I am all for. Hit that bongo with all the trucks in the universe.
Thag Simmons
I mean the person whose death he was complicit in was a homicidal mob stooge.
That’s a murder that ain’t gonna weigh heavy on your heart
NotThatDrew
Yeah, I’m with Rass on this one. It’s less a matter of who he had killed and more the fact that he’s untrustworthy and can have even high profile individuals killed with no trace linking back to him
Thag Simmons
Asher is untrustworthy, that much is true
My point (which i don’t think I conveyed well) was that I think giving the order to have a abusive narcissistic murderer killed is fairly easy to justify to yourself
I don’t know if being willing to kill Blaine would translate to a willingness to kill people who aren’t irredeemable bastards
Clif
I keep holding out hope that all the characters are dead and that the entirety of Dumbing of Age is a hallucination playing out in the mind of the dying Head Alien.
RassilonTDavros
@Clif
“You have no idea how alone you are, Dexter.”
WanderingLynx
This, and also about Clint. Clint deserves to get No Regret’d by a semi.
Now, we know three things about Asher:
1- He screwed over Sal when they were little to protect his secrets
2- He let Walky hit him for it because it’s not like getting a punch from a wimp is actually a punishment befitting of the crime
3- He’s willing to kill to protect his secrets, AND use the mafia resources he’s so quick to point out he doesn’t want, to achieve this.
Like………. Look, yeah, he was a little shit when the Convenience Store (attempted) Robbery happened (like 12? 13? can’t remember atm); but it’s not like we’ve been given much to think he’s Actually Changed like he claims. The fact Blaine was the definition of petty, violent evil means a lot of us cheered for his death but the means?
Like. Uhm. Asher had zero trouble on doing the alarm pulling to screw over Blaine’s daughter, a person he could’ve fairly deduced was traumatized and who had been described to him as worse than shy. Throwing Amber (and her friends!) under the bus wasn’t a problem to him until Blaine went about it with the subtlety of an enraged mob, pardon the pun. Hell, knowing how high-profile was Toedad’s first kidnapping attempt (for Bloomington at least), do we know for sure he had no problem also throwing Becky under the bus?
So no. No trust from me for that boy.
C.T. Phipps
He informed on Sal just because he thought it would be funny. Not to protect anything.
You know, because he was a kid.
Thag Simmons
No, he openly admits to it also being a way of distracting the cops.
Thag Simmons
I think that’s a little too harsh. Guy is clearly sincerely remorseful, and wants to be a better person outside of his family’s influence
He’s still shifty as hell, but he’s a complicated character and that makes him interesting
Max
“I want to be a better person” and “Kill him” don’t really blend well together.
Thag Simmons
I didn’t say he was succeeding. Complicated character, not a morally upstanding one
BBCC
Eh, if Asher did get Blaine killed (as opposed to just being informed afterwards), it just makes me wanna buy him cookies and beer.
King Daniel
(Not to mention that since it the Mob we’re talking about, them finding out he stole gramps’ money to pay for college could very easily – and literally – cost him his life.)
BBCC
^ That. Asher will end up dead in a ditch if anyone finds out what happened with that money. That said…..Blaine was on the NEWS. There was no way that Blaine was walking out of that hospital. If Asher did ANYTHING, it was maybe SPEED UP THE TIME TABLE. Blaine was in deep enough to know cops on the mob’s take by name in a city he doesn’t live in. He was dead as soon as he got caught in such a public way. If nothing else, the mob’s cops had plenty of incentive to kill him to cover their own asses in case he got loose lips. There wasn’t a way out for Blaine, so that plus fiction means I don’t really care if Asher was involved in Blaine’s death. Especially because said phone call probably went something like this
Asher: You guys need to take out Blaine O’Malley.
Relative, probably Gramps: Well, DUH, kid. He got caught on at least state wide tv. He’ll be dealt with within 24 hours. We’ll put you on the notification list.
Asher: Thank you.
Regalli
Agreed and seconded. Dude ended up in the news, knew the boss’s grandkid and out-of-his-city cops on sight (and Asher knew him on sight, too, so it wasn’t a matter of Facebook creeping or something, he genuinely was involved enough to recognize people,) and also critically? Was a FINANCIAL mob stooge, meaning that even if he didn’t flip to save his own ass – and he most likely would have, if he’d been smart enough to realize he’d become a liability to his employers more than ten seconds before it happened – he was still a discovery risk when someone in the investigation started wondering about how much money this whole scheme cost, particularly bailing Ross out. (Dude was a complete stranger whose bond was set very high, and it sounded like the church wasn’t even close to meeting it. Even assuming Blaine was intending for Ross to take the fall, that means he spent hundreds if not thousands of dollars on someone who may not have been malleable enough to even be as useful as Ross WAS.) Sure, one of the mob’s dirty cops could have tried to steer investigation away from that… but honestly, why bother? It’s easier, faster, and less risky to just kill Blaine, and he’s already demonstrated such utter failure to be discreet and cover his own ass that they’d probably have some questions about what he’s good for as a money launderer, too. (Used his own card for the scooters and his own name for the bail. Either got a rental for the kidnapping lair – probably also his own name given the other failures, likewise for the motel – or used a house his own company was renovating, inviting scrutiny. And as we know, a PRETEEN figured out he was a money launderer after being in his kitchen for like, an hour or two. So they wouldn’t have been wrong!)
Blaine was a dead man the moment he started putting this plan in action. At most, Asher gave advance notice that a stooge who knew too much was planning something unspeakably stupid, so they could have Lester ready to deal with it rather than arrange something once he was in jail or the like. (From what Asher was told in that meeting and what he actually did, he probably didn’t know exactly HOW stupid, but Blaine was trying to start a grudge match with the local curiosity CAMPUS SUPERHERO. Who the police were already looking into. This plan drawing too much attention was pretty much a given even from that.) No way anyone was going to act just on the boss’s 18-year-old grandson’s orders, especially when that grandson’s on the outs for trying to leave. (Gramps is already ‘disappointed,’ recall, without knowing about the stolen money.) No way Gramps didn’t give that order himself the moment he saw the name ‘Blaine O’Malley’ on a sitting member of Congress’s official Twitter, which was probably all over the morning news, for trying to kidnap his daughter and the very publicly-hired campaign manager of said sitting member of Congress.
184 thoughts on “Nood”
Ana Chronistic
Vite Ramen has me trained to think she got an unsolicited noodle pic
NotThatDrew
I would honestly be thrilled to receive a noodle pic, just so I could joke about the sick noods I received
Demoted Oblivious
Here is an unsolicited noodles pic featuring three glory holes. [WARNING: SFW]
Because I always wanted to share one.
milu
aka “2humans1cup”
I am Nothing
Wheatspin.
Delicious Taffy
WHEATSPIN!!!! You can’t just be that funny!
BBCC
Jason is a good bartender.
RassilonTDavros
He’s almost starting to rival his original universe counterpart in the competence department.
Thag Simmons
I was gonna comment that he’d get washed in a fight with anyone tougher than a raccoon, but actually as a Bartender he’s probably picked up a few tricks for dealing with rowdy drunks
Nono
Well, rowdy drunk college students, at least.
Azhrei Vep
Also, don’t underestimate raccoons. They’re tougher than a LOT of humans.
Clif
And smarter.
Kyrik Michalowski
Indeed, he knows when to cut his patrons off and is even decent enough to let one hide behind the bar.
Keulen
He’s much better at being a bartender than he ever was as a TA.
Yumi
Well. I guess they have each other’s phone numbers.
Kravis
On ficticious universes people who have absolutely no freakin’ reason or business having someone else’s number ALWAYS have those people’s number.
Amias
Having a date with someone is a pretty good reason to have their number. It’s good protocol to let them know if you will be late or have to cancel, and you can get in touch if you need directions or something. Weird that they had each other’s numbers and were still exchanging info through Billie beforehand, though. Maybe they swapped numbers during the date.
Wagstaff
It looks like a few of you were half right!
Clif
Well, in my defense, I thought I was joking.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-11/04-hompk/leftyou/#comment-1548586
Clif
On reflection, what do you mean ‘half right?’
milu
even a joke clock winds up unwittingly right sometimes!
Clif
Wanders off to Google joke clock.
milu
Oooh, what does google say??
Fist_of_Life
The first one that I saw appeared to be right all the time by virtue of all the numbers being replaced by “now.”
Jhon
Is it Now yet?
Clif
Well, it was,
NotThatDrew
I just wanna address how oddly adorable Ruth peeking through her the bar is
NotThatDrew
Dafuq?
How did my phone change “over the bar” to “through her the bar”? Did Apple jack up autocorrect somehow?
Wagstaff
I dunno. But they can’t sell inferior products with pretty pictures forever.
Proxiehunter
They’ll have to get rid of the pretty pictures soon.
Wagstaff
And why is that?
Clif
Because they can’t sell inferior products with pretty pictures forever.
Wagstaff
Getting rid of pretty pictures isn’t gonna correct crappy code. I mean Androids are very reliable and their commercials are very enjoyable as well!
Bicycle Bill
Trouble is, once you’ve become an Apple user you’ve become part of a cult like the Moonies or MAGA or something like that. How else can you logically explain the way they have been able to sell the same phone – just add an additional camera or a bigger screen from time to time – to the same people since day one?
They have their own weird connector/charger that is completely incompatible with anything else, you still can’t add additional memory by inserting an SD card, and you NEVER could easily replace the battery. And their operating system – like the old, now-nonexistent Blackberries – is used by one and only one company on the entire freakin’ planet.
Clif
The point is, they can’t sell inferior products with pretty pictures forever and they certainly aren’t going to stop selling inferior products, and so logically their only choice is to drop the pretty pictures.
milu
oh no! this is turning into another battle in the age-old war between the Snarks and the Nerds!
Nerds! they think people could be a bit more serious about some things!!!
Snarks! they actually take their jokes very seriously!!!!
Nerds! they will stubbornly take you at your word and say “actually” a lot!!!!!
Snarks! they’ll keep amping up the silliness in retaliation!!!!!! …but if you see one of them explain a joke it means you have them on their knees.
score one for Nerds!
Clif
How do you score sparky needs?
Asking for a friend.
Clif
Snarky nerds, snarky nerds, snarky nerds.
Hmm. Three times and automangle finally gets it right. I guess third time really is a charm.
Clears throat. How do you score snarky nerds?
milu
Snarky nerds are traitors to both causes and are to be strenuously shunned. I guess
Clif
Seems fair.
Jhon
Snarky nerds have transcended mere labels.
Carla's #2 Fan
At least the post went through! Most of mine don’t. They just sit indefinitely awaiting approval. I have no idea why! But I got what you meant!
Needfuldoer
Apple devices sure can wreck a nice beach well, can’t they.
zee
My eyes got locked onto “apple jack” in that sentence and was trying to figure out how my little pony related to this
RassilonTDavros
I find Ruth oddly adorable in general, really. Partially because I keep really, really hoping things will go well for her for once, and partially because… I just do, I guess?
I’m just hoping this isn’t the last time Ruth and Daisy interact with each other, because bad first date aside I think they have potential. Even if Ruth/Jennifer remains my OTP for now
Kyrik Michalowski
I too hope that Ruth and Billie/Jennifer get back together. So if that means that Asher has to get hit by a truck, I won’t be too broken uo over it.
NotThatDrew
I’d be okay with them not getting back together as long as Asher is still hit by a truck
Kyrik Michalowski
Hear that Truck-kun? We’re all waiting on your next visit.
Opus the Poet
Truck-kun was not kind to me, I came back to the same body as before with lots of damage to it…? Truck-kun on the other hand was isekaied to another world unknown to us. Lucky Truck-kun.??
Sunny
I think there’s at least one story where they summon the truck to defeat the demon lord with it.
Clif
Did Willis survive?
Oh wait, that was porn lord.
Jhon
Defeating a porn lord with integrity and no regrets?
There’s a fanfic waiting here…
Roborat
I ran across a manga where it is about the people who drive the truck and pick the people to isekai.
RassilonTDavros
Personally, I don’t particularly want Asher to die– but while Blaine’s death was probably a good thing overall, the fact of the matter is that Asher is willing to have people killed to protect his secrets, and is therefore inherently untrustworthy. I definitely don’t like him and Jennifer together for that reason.
RassilonTDavros
Now Clint dying, on the other hand, I am all for. Hit that bongo with all the trucks in the universe.
Thag Simmons
I mean the person whose death he was complicit in was a homicidal mob stooge.
That’s a murder that ain’t gonna weigh heavy on your heart
NotThatDrew
Yeah, I’m with Rass on this one. It’s less a matter of who he had killed and more the fact that he’s untrustworthy and can have even high profile individuals killed with no trace linking back to him
Thag Simmons
Asher is untrustworthy, that much is true
My point (which i don’t think I conveyed well) was that I think giving the order to have a abusive narcissistic murderer killed is fairly easy to justify to yourself
I don’t know if being willing to kill Blaine would translate to a willingness to kill people who aren’t irredeemable bastards
Clif
I keep holding out hope that all the characters are dead and that the entirety of Dumbing of Age is a hallucination playing out in the mind of the dying Head Alien.
RassilonTDavros
@Clif
“You have no idea how alone you are, Dexter.”
WanderingLynx
This, and also about Clint. Clint deserves to get No Regret’d by a semi.
Now, we know three things about Asher:
1- He screwed over Sal when they were little to protect his secrets
2- He let Walky hit him for it because it’s not like getting a punch from a wimp is actually a punishment befitting of the crime
3- He’s willing to kill to protect his secrets, AND use the mafia resources he’s so quick to point out he doesn’t want, to achieve this.
Like………. Look, yeah, he was a little shit when the Convenience Store (attempted) Robbery happened (like 12? 13? can’t remember atm); but it’s not like we’ve been given much to think he’s Actually Changed like he claims. The fact Blaine was the definition of petty, violent evil means a lot of us cheered for his death but the means?
Like. Uhm. Asher had zero trouble on doing the alarm pulling to screw over Blaine’s daughter, a person he could’ve fairly deduced was traumatized and who had been described to him as worse than shy. Throwing Amber (and her friends!) under the bus wasn’t a problem to him until Blaine went about it with the subtlety of an enraged mob, pardon the pun. Hell, knowing how high-profile was Toedad’s first kidnapping attempt (for Bloomington at least), do we know for sure he had no problem also throwing Becky under the bus?
So no. No trust from me for that boy.
C.T. Phipps
He informed on Sal just because he thought it would be funny. Not to protect anything.
You know, because he was a kid.
Thag Simmons
No, he openly admits to it also being a way of distracting the cops.
Thag Simmons
I think that’s a little too harsh. Guy is clearly sincerely remorseful, and wants to be a better person outside of his family’s influence
He’s still shifty as hell, but he’s a complicated character and that makes him interesting
Max
“I want to be a better person” and “Kill him” don’t really blend well together.
Thag Simmons
I didn’t say he was succeeding. Complicated character, not a morally upstanding one
BBCC
Eh, if Asher did get Blaine killed (as opposed to just being informed afterwards), it just makes me wanna buy him cookies and beer.
King Daniel
(Not to mention that since it the Mob we’re talking about, them finding out he stole gramps’ money to pay for college could very easily – and literally – cost him his life.)
BBCC
^ That. Asher will end up dead in a ditch if anyone finds out what happened with that money. That said…..Blaine was on the NEWS. There was no way that Blaine was walking out of that hospital. If Asher did ANYTHING, it was maybe SPEED UP THE TIME TABLE. Blaine was in deep enough to know cops on the mob’s take by name in a city he doesn’t live in. He was dead as soon as he got caught in such a public way. If nothing else, the mob’s cops had plenty of incentive to kill him to cover their own asses in case he got loose lips. There wasn’t a way out for Blaine, so that plus fiction means I don’t really care if Asher was involved in Blaine’s death. Especially because said phone call probably went something like this
Asher: You guys need to take out Blaine O’Malley.
Relative, probably Gramps: Well, DUH, kid. He got caught on at least state wide tv. He’ll be dealt with within 24 hours. We’ll put you on the notification list.
Asher: Thank you.
Regalli
Agreed and seconded. Dude ended up in the news, knew the boss’s grandkid and out-of-his-city cops on sight (and Asher knew him on sight, too, so it wasn’t a matter of Facebook creeping or something, he genuinely was involved enough to recognize people,) and also critically? Was a FINANCIAL mob stooge, meaning that even if he didn’t flip to save his own ass – and he most likely would have, if he’d been smart enough to realize he’d become a liability to his employers more than ten seconds before it happened – he was still a discovery risk when someone in the investigation started wondering about how much money this whole scheme cost, particularly bailing Ross out. (Dude was a complete stranger whose bond was set very high, and it sounded like the church wasn’t even close to meeting it. Even assuming Blaine was intending for Ross to take the fall, that means he spent hundreds if not thousands of dollars on someone who may not have been malleable enough to even be as useful as Ross WAS.) Sure, one of the mob’s dirty cops could have tried to steer investigation away from that… but honestly, why bother? It’s easier, faster, and less risky to just kill Blaine, and he’s already demonstrated such utter failure to be discreet and cover his own ass that they’d probably have some questions about what he’s good for as a money launderer, too. (Used his own card for the scooters and his own name for the bail. Either got a rental for the kidnapping lair – probably also his own name given the other failures, likewise for the motel – or used a house his own company was renovating, inviting scrutiny. And as we know, a PRETEEN figured out he was a money launderer after being in his kitchen for like, an hour or two. So they wouldn’t have been wrong!)
Blaine was a dead man the moment he started putting this plan in action. At most, Asher gave advance notice that a stooge who knew too much was planning something unspeakably stupid, so they could have Lester ready to deal with it rather than arrange something once he was in jail or the like. (From what Asher was told in that meeting and what he actually did, he probably didn’t know exactly HOW stupid, but Blaine was trying to start a grudge match with the local curiosity CAMPUS SUPERHERO. Who the police were already looking into. This plan drawing too much attention was pretty much a given even from that.) No way anyone was going to act just on the boss’s 18-year-old grandson’s orders, especially when that grandson’s on the outs for trying to leave. (Gramps is already ‘disappointed,’ recall, without knowing about the stolen money.) No way Gramps didn’t give that order himself the moment he saw the name ‘Blaine O’Malley’ on a sitting member of Congress’s official Twitter, which was probably all over the morning news, for trying to kidnap his daughter and the very publicly-hired campaign manager of said sitting member of Congress.
David
That’s a low bar to cross.
Suet
That’s a Level 3 boozle.
Just give Daisy her consolation prize.
Wagstaff
Ah… memory impairment, the free prize at the bottom of every whiskey bottle!
milu
yes why else does anyone drink but for the sweet bliss of not remembering a single goddamn thing the next day? LeoDiCaprioToasting.gif