147

Renaissance
Posted on July 14, 2018 by David M Willis

147 thoughts on “Renaissance”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    *waits for some Rando to jump in their mentions*

    *one named @Billie_B97*

    1. Ana Chronistic

      well, you missed the deadline, alt-text, unless it’s happening RIGHT HELLA NOW

      1. Black Bumblebee

        It’s THERE

        1. das-g

          For the sake of posterity, “there” is here.

        2. Ana Chronistic

          OH YEAH the dang “Tweets AND REPLIES” tab, I forgot Twitter is stupid

    2. Remmington Steele

      @Dotty_studies: “Hi you two. How’s it going?”

      1. Ana Chronistic

        not to well actually, but https://twitter.com/DorothyKeener

  2. Durandal_1707

    So, we’re not gonna get to see Jacob tell Raidah to go back to Oakland then?

    1. King Daniel

      …Oakland?

      1. shadowcell

        there are many names for hell.

        1. 0kami

          As an Oakland, CA resident, this is spot on.

        2. woobie

          My ex looooved Oakland! Even though she lived on the 3100 block of International.

        3. All-Purpose Guru

          Ew.

      2. Tom T.

        Oakland County, Michigan. Right up the road.

        1. King Daniel

          I’m confused as to how a six-hour drive could possibly be “right up the road”.

        2. DSL

          That’s how it is here in the Midwest. Either a five-minute drive across town is a trip to the ends of the earth, or a six-hour drive which may or may not involve a state line is a day-trip. Nothing in between.

        3. autogatos

          In California you can drive forever and never leave the state, and always be stuck in traffic…

          hot…on fire….stuck forever….wait am I living in Actual Hell?

        4. woobie

          You are still being taxed, therefore still in Life.

        5. Yumi

          At first I was excited by this, but then I was like, “Wait no keep her away from here please.”

    2. BBCC

      Is this a reference to something? ‘Cause Raidah’s from Bloomington according to PDF canon (which also says, to nobody’s surprise, she likes competition).

      1. Durandal_1707

        Hint: Think sports teams

  3. BBCC

    I love watching Walky and Billie talk. And him and Amber.

  4. Yumi

    I love the Walky-Amber friendship, but I worry that it’s going to develop into a one-sided romance, and someone (Amber) is going to get their heart broken.

    1. jeffepp

      They’ve been dating for several days. Even before Dorothy called things on hold. If Walky had called it off with Dorothy first, as he was planing on doing, he wouldn’t be moping as much as he is. I think. But, she did it to him, and now he’s going through the rebound bit.

      1. Zee

        Wait, what???? Where did you get that they’re dating????? They haven’t done a single romantic thing, they just hang out on the roof then Amber offered to hack walkys grades. They’re not dating dude, they’re just depression buddies for now

        1. cbwroses

          They’re not dating, but I’m hoping the S.S. Garbage Skowl takes off.

        2. Chris B

          True, but recall that is exactly the same fmaneuver Matthew Broderick uses on Ally Sheedy’s character to start flirting in “War Games”(1983).

          It may not be relationship material, but I could see Walky and Amber more clearly than Walky and Dorothy, just as I could see more Joe and Joyce rather than Jacob and Joyce.

        3. Dean

          If Amber hacks a military computer and almost starts a nuclear war with Russia, we’ll know one way or the other.

    2. Blackbird

      I just wonder if Amber dating all of Dorothy’s exes would give one or both of them a complex.

      1. cbwroses

        Who? Amber and Dorothy or Danny and Walky.
        I think Danny and Walky would have to have a conversation first before they could develop complexes.

        Well, Walky would. Danny could probably develop a complex over cornflakes.

  5. Passchendaele

    hey, better than the self-esteem dark ages

    1. Marsh Maryrose

      My personal favorite is the self-esteem bronze age.

      1. King Daniel

        Is the self-esteem atomic age good or bad?

        1. Marsh Maryrose

          Depends on where the hands on the Doomsday Clock are.

        2. Marsh Maryrose

          It took me like 12 hours to realize that should have been the Self-Esteem Doomsday Clock.

        3. Passchendaele

          yep, it was! up until self-esteemnobyl. ;-;

  6. Stephen Bierce

    *plays R.E.M.’s “Fall On Me” on the hacked Muzak*

  7. Van Jealous

    The OTHER Jennifer Billingsley…..
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_Billingsley

    1. David M Willis

      billie’s last name is billingsworth

      1. Van Jealous

        I’ve only been reading this friggin comic since it’s inception (10 or 11 weeks ago in “Willis Comic Time” – or WCT – that’s 8 years to you and me). You’d think I’d know her friggin’ last name by now….sheesh! :-). Back You David Wills….(whoops that’ts “The Weatherman” from the group “Negativland”…see, I did it againQ). 180-G.

    2. King Daniel

      This is Billingsworth.

      1. King Daniel

        dang, ninja’d by willis

        1. DSL

          What’s a billings worth?

        2. Remmington Steele

          5 dollars an hour.

        3. cbwroses

          That’s a lot more than a nickel.

        4. Remmington Steele

          Worth every dime.

        5. thejeff

          I thought she paid only in 20s.

  8. Kernanator

    They also started dying their hair black and wearing fake glasses.

    1. Yumi

      A lot of them already have glasses.

      1. newllend(henryvolt)

        Isnt Billie wearing glasses a secret though? Feels like a weird thing to hide when it would have been something that helped her fit in.

        1. Schpoonman

          Billie doesn’t want to fit in, she wants to be elevated above her peers.

        2. Eldritch Gentleman

          Rather than join them, she wants them to start climbing her pedestal

        3. Bronze Knight

          No, she wants them to try and climb her pedestal, but fail completely without her having to do anything.

        4. woobie

          She needs to be like Jayne and leave before they discover the Truth. They are still at the statue-on-pedestal building stage.

    2. Marsh Maryrose

      Over at Forest, they don’t know she wears glasses. Not only that, if they did know, it would make Billie “vulnerable an’ possibly mundane!”

      Now I’m wondering what happens when, inevitably, she encounters one of the Forest crew somewhere else on campus when she is wearing glasses.

      1. King Daniel

        Lucy already encountered glasses-Billie at Galasso’s. Lucy didn’t remark on it.

        1. Marsh Maryrose

          True, and I missed that. I was thinking in particularly of her three…followers? Nash and Rose and Beatrice.

          I was trying to think of a good collective term for those three earlier. “Three stans” seems way too much to me. “Three worshippers” also fails by going maybe too far. Something cuter, more adorkable, seems called for.

        2. Marisa Mockery

          Fangirls.

        3. JessWitt

          The Forest chorus?

        4. Yumi

          Now I need them to start a sorority just to be the Greek Forest Chorus.

        5. Mr D phone posting

          Going by YGO abridged: her 3 Steves.

  9. Kyrik Michalowski

    On the one hand, more interaction between Walky and Amber is great. On the other I want to know how that bomb from yesterday exploded, so damn you Willis. Appealing my to my inner conflicts with your cliffhangers.

  10. Ivy

    Wait, isn’t Billie still with Ruth? Why is she acting like the Breakup Guru?

    1. timemonkey

      She was head cheerleader alpha bongo during highschool. Guessing she went through a lot of boys during her time. And that one girl.

      1. Marsh Maryrose

        She didn’t even realize Alice had broken up with her until that incident in the cafeteria a couple of months ago (strip time).

        And then there’s this

        “My life hasn’t really been so much ‘date’-y as it has been ‘touchy smoochy under the bleachers at half-time’-y.”

        So her Breakup Guru act seems pretty much just her head-cheerleader-problem-solver instincts kicking in.

        1. King Daniel

          The cafeteria incident wasn’t even a couple of months ago – it’s been an elapsed total of a month-and-a-half, give or take a bit, since the beginning of the comic…so it’s been about one month since Billie ran into Alice, tops.

        2. Kit

          Oh wow. I didn’t realize how little time had passed.

          So how long have Jacob and Raidah been dating, then?

        3. King Daniel

          Jacob and Raidah briefly came to Joyce’s party for their second date in “The Butterflies Fly Away” – which was the first time we, the audience learned they were dating – so they’ve been together for upwards of two weeks by this point.

          For comparison, Dorothy and Walky were together for about six weeks.

        4. BBCC

          Yep, The Butterflies Won’t Fly Away was roughly September 25th. It’s currently roughly October 13th. That was their second date and it’s since been about two and a half weeks.

        5. Schpoonman

          Wait. Are you serious?

        6. King Daniel

          Yep. Time passes at a rate of one chapter = one day, and there have been 36 chapters to date (including the current one). So that’s 36 days, or just over five weeks. Throw in an extra week or two to account for timeskips (none of which, on their own, have been more than five-ish days), and we get about one month and half of another – we’re currently in mid-October.

        7. BBCC

          Per Walkypedia’s timeline, it’s roughly October 13th (I say roughly because days of the week on the calendar probably don’t match the year).

          https://walkypedia.wikia.com/wiki/Dumbing_of_Age_Timeline

        8. JessWitt

          Sure hope there’s a Halloween party chapter.

        9. BBCC

          It’s also gotta be around midterm time. I’m wondering when they’ll pop up?

        10. King Daniel

          Assuming there are no time-skips before then, that’s still a good eighteen chapters from now.

        11. EnerPrime

          Willis better be prepared to spend a few years drawing Halloween decorations into the background everywhere.

        12. BBCC

          The time between The Whiteboard Dingdong Bandit (when Alice and Billie met up) and now is exactly three weeks.

        13. King Daniel

          Three weeks…so I overestimated how long it’d been since then by one week.

        14. BBCC

          Also, for reference – Walky and Dorothy lasted exactly five weeks. They got together September 5th and broke up on Oct 12th.

        15. King Daniel

          My “six-week” comment was taken from Dorothy’s own post-breakup conversation with Ruth. Seems even the actual characters aren’t immune to overestimation of elapsed comic time.

        16. BBCC

          She might be counting from the first day of classes, when he first threw the toy at her head. That was roughly six weeks.

        17. Remmington Steele

          *plays Rock’n’Roll Suicide very, very, very slowly*

          Is DoA travelling at the speed of light? While we trumble along in Real Time.

        18. ScarvesandCelery

          It would be very in character for Billie to try and “solve” Walky’s problems with something she’s never actually been through herself (in fairness, some of the advice she’s given Walky is pretty solid)

        19. thejeff

          Except for the whole “hate her” part. I suspect she got her experience counseling her various cheerleaders through mostly nasty breakups.

  11. Reltzik

    *sigh*

    Walky, don’t you know that it’s rude to be having a twitter-chat on your cell phone when you should instead be paying attention to the person you’re having an actual sit-down at-a-table meal with who needs you to pay attention to her while she talks about herself?

    1. WarDragon

      I doubt Billie noticed.

      1. BenRG

        Exactly. Billie is alone with her favourite thing: A voice, any voice, singing her praises.

    2. CJ

      Walky even tweeted while doing premarital hanky-panky if I read his twitter right…

  12. Defensor

    Sigh. I’m much more interested in Joyce vs Raidah because I know it’s going to give Sarah exactly what she wanted.

    1. newllend(henryvolt)

      Got work that out Slowly.

    2. Steve C

      Maybe not exactly. I can see Jacob telling Raidah that he’s seem a side of her that he doesn’t like and then turning around and telling Joyce that he doesn’t “like” like her, but still wants to be friends.

      1. Steve C

        …”seen” a side of her…

        1. Clif

          And then asking Dorothy what she’s doing Friday night.

      2. thejeff

        Well, since the main part Sarah wants is Raidah not “winning”, that’ll do.

      3. Zee

        Well at this point he’s still pretty oblivious to her feelings but yeah

    3. cbwroses

      We’ve yet to see Jacob have any negative reaction to what’s going on.
      So he’s either oblivious or he’s good at holding it in.
      Neither option supports him suddenly throwing Raidah to the side as the former wouldn’t notice anything wrong and the latter would wait for them to be alone before saying anything (like when they left Joyce’s party).

      I’m guessing the most to be expected (providing the back and forth doesn’t become SIGNIFICANTLY worse) is him talking to Raidah privately about her behavior and being a bit upset.

      1. Defensor

        For Sarah, winning is breaking up Jacob and Raidah.

        1. cbwroses

          Yes. I know. I’m saying this particular lunch won’t end in that. It will take more than what we’ve been seeing the last week or so.

  13. newllend(henryvolt)

    Hmm caught in between my 2 favorites.

  14. Keulen

    Yeah, fuck self-esteem! Who needs that?

  15. Deadjolras

    So who’s gonna slide into whose DMs?

  16. Inahc

    so… they’re having this conversation publicly on twitter?

    and, I assume amber quietly snuck away without sal seeing her then?

    1. drs

      Twitter has Direct Messages between users.

      1. Inahc

        they didn’t look like that last time I used twitter, though.

        1. King Daniel

          Plus, Willis mentions writing up these messages between them for-real in the hovertext – both are real Twitter accounts he runs, you can look them up.

        2. 3-I

          And these tweets are literally on them right now. DAMN YOU WILLIS

      2. Yumi

        But each message doesn’t start with @username when DMing.

        1. Clif

          Alternate universe Twitter.

        2. Belegcam

          Or Ye Olde Twittre (from just a few years ago).

          “Yes, children, gather around and I’ll tell you of how people @ed each other to have casual conversations on Twitter.”

          “What, their tweets were meant for only one person and not for thousands of followers to like and retweet? Sounds fake.”

          “Darn you whippersnappers!”

  17. abysswatcher1993

    I like Walky’s nickname on Twitter. Also, all that praising is going to make Billie lose humbleness points. Does she even remember Ruth?

  18. Wright

    Walky”s Twitter name is “It’s Walky”?

    That is both adorable and so meta.

    1. JessWitt

      I wonder what Amber’s handle means exactly.

      1. King Daniel

        If I recall correctly, it’s a carryover from Shortpacked!, where her “current” IRC-chat handle was “PositivAmb”; in flashbacks to her younger, closer-to-Dumbing of Age-aged self, her IRC-chat handle was “NegativAmb”.

        1. JessWitt

          Aha! Thanks for the info.

  19. Bagge

    You know… fleeing as it is, brief as it is, potentially destructive as it is… I’m really glad that Billie has a brief spot of happiness.

    Also, Walky and Amber continue to be adorable. Seems like not only Amber “likes having the other around”

  20. BenRG

    The really sad part of this is that Billie is so happy talking about herself (surely her favourite subject) that she’s completely unaware of the fact that Walky is texting Amber and paying no attention to her!

    So… is the Walky/Amber ship on?

  21. Adam Black

    I’m confused

    Did Amber expect him ( implying here ) that Walky was supposed to hunt down Amazigirl ?

    1. Sam

      No, she didn’t expect him to hunt her down on social media at all. Her implication is ‘wait what, you hunted ME of all people down on Twitter???’ because what is self-esteem and being liked.

  22. Wolfbeckett

    I’m honestly kind of impressed that Walky knows how to spell Renaissance.

    1. BBCC

      Walky’s very school smart, honestly. He’s just recently hit a wall due to his lack of study skills.

    2. CJ

      Why? It’s a word he can have picked up easily.
      Walky is not stupid. On the contrary. He remembers stuff so easily he never needed to put in work to get through high school. What’s taking him down now is that he encounters the need to put in work (and maybe hear a different explanation) for the first time in his remembered life about 10 years later than most other people.
      And this shattered his self-image of “Walky, the genius”.

      1. StClair

        What they said.
        It’s a really nasty spot/trap to find oneself in.

  23. stoodmuffin

    That’s. Not what I would call what Billie is going through. Sounds more like denial/

  24. Yugnat

    Next, on Walky’s quest for every girl Danny has dated.

    1. Reltzik

      And THAT is why Danny/Sal will never be a thing in this universe.

      1. J

        This will have me laughing in fits for days. Thank you.

  25. Delicious Taffy

    But are they putting their ponytails in their bras? Isn’t that how you stuff Abra?

  26. Emily

    So what’s the ETA on Billie ruining her life because she lets her ego get out of control?

    1. Eldritch Gentleman

      [takes out an atomic stopwatch]

    2. Arianod

      Don’t blink.

      1. Schpoonman

        She is fast, faster than you would believe.

    3. BBCC

      Depends. What’s the ETA on Ruth visiting her new dorm?

    4. StClair

      On this timescale, we’ll be able to watch it happen in fine detail.

  27. ShinyNeen

    Oh, neat, Amber uses the same handle for twitter that she used for the chat program she used in Shortpacked! (IRC?). That’s probably come up before, but it’s my first time noticing that. I like little consistency touches like that.

  28. wakeangel2001

    stuffing their bras, seriously? Is her quad full of a bunch of 14 year old prodigys or something?

    1. King Daniel

      I think you need to look up the definition of “prodigy”.

      1. Ainara

        I think “prodigies” as in, you’d need to be a prodigy to be a 14-year-old college student

      2. thejeff

        If they were actually 14 and in college, they’d qualify – even if they still behaved immaturely.

  29. Shiro

    Willis, I think we both already know the answer to that question (it’s definitely)

  30. Oz

    The weirdest thing on this page is how Walky and Amber put their real names on their twitters. I know professionals who do that, but teenagers? No way. Walky?? No way in hell.

    1. cbwroses

      Walky is a nickname. His real name is David Walkerton. So technically, despite being referred to as Walky by everyone except his immediate family, he’s not using his real name.

      1. Yumi

        No, but their display names. His literally says “David Walkerton.”

        1. BBCC

          Maybe he has his mom on Twitter.

  31. ReFlex76

    Amber and Dorothy have a passing resemblance.

    Dorothy and Danny used to date, then Danny dated (sort of) Amber.

    Now Walky, who used to date Dorothy is talking to Amber.

    Hmmm.

  32. Kosh1999

    I keep seeing people shipping Walky with Amber. I find this unlikely but if it does happen I cannot possibly be the only one to realize that at some point in any relationship between those two, platonic or romantic, there is going to be this phrase. “Amber, this is my sister, Sal, Sal, this is Amber.” And as far as we have seen, Amber still has fear issues with Sal. So only Willis knows how that conversation would pan out.

    1. BBCC

      Bonus points if by that time, Danny’s dating Sal.

      (I have no idea if that’s happening but it’d make that conversation even more awkward).

  33. Firestk

    I’m a bit lost. Did genius hacker Amber O’malley not know she could be found on twitter?

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