Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for December 08, 2015

Piro who?

“Infraction report”? Does this strip want us to find all its cast despicable? (I thought that was Funky Winkerbean’s turf.)

I know it’s been a long, long time since I was in college, so maybe things are very different now. I just can’t remember any of the RAs writing up ‘infraction reports’. And I’m not sure what good it would do to ‘write up’ Gunther anyway, since he’s not a dorm resident.

Bernice’s face in the second panel looks like one of my bosses who loves to ‘write everyone up’ in time for their annual evaluations. Very ‘dislikable’…

How many scarves does this homeless guy have? Does he leave them all over the place, in all his crash pads?

GUILTY!

This just gets more and more annoying. Who would want to attend a college where, if you have a guest in your room after 10 PM, both you and your guest get written up by the RA? -I mean, at a strict religious college, that could be understandable. But Moony U. isn’t like that. For one thing, strict religious colleges don’t tend to have men and women living on the same floor:-I realize that this is part of a setup to reveal Bernice’s hypocrisy in allowing Piro to sleep in her room, but it’s not a good thing for readers’ reactions to the strip to be “College does not work that way!” day in and day out.

Oh, Bernice.

No visitors after 10, and violators get written up? What is this, Oral Roberts U?

Dez – Help Berneice with a little soul searching. Bern can be rigid – but not usually a hyppocrite. Bern – Your dreams are telling you something…

This is not a comment, just a question to be answered later: Will Bernice’s power trip behavior eventually come to Luann’s attention, and if so (given that we already had Luann seeing a little of this side of Bernice with the “I got an A on my final, so I’m right” business in the Prudence story arc) will it cause a rift between them?Because if so, we may be seeing the beginning of a process to write Bernice out of the strip just as Delta, Rosa, and for all practical purposes Crystal and Knute were.

If Bernice and Gunth do get together, one wonders that after they set rules if they will ever have kids……

We seem to have moved from a completely pointless and illogical arc about Pru, Quill and Luann to an equally pointless and illogical arc involving Bernice, Gunther, Piro and Tiffany. I realize this is only a comic strip, but the Luanniverse is becoming more and more surreal, and not in a good way.

Suspension of disbelief is all very well, but this is disbelief being hung by the neck until dead.

I’ve taken to leaving the strip alone for a stretch of days, then reading a bunch of them at once, rather than checking each day. I don’t expect I’ll stay with it much longer. Too much “sawdust in the oatmeal”, as my great-uncle Frank used to say.

Many, many years ago, my first job featured a boss who had some of the same qualities as Bernice, include demanding strict obedience to rules that she ignored whenever she wanted. She was also a big fan of “writing up” people for the most piddly BS. In my case, I got it one time when she trotted out one of her pat phrases, “I’m not here to be liked”, and without thinking, I said “Because if you were here to be liked, you’re not doing a good job of it”.

I know Dez isn’t written this way, but a more manipulative roommate would hold that scarf over Bernice like the Sword of Damocles

They always say: Point a finger at someone, and three (on your own hand) always point back at you…. – But Bernice must be pointing with both hands… and her feet… – Perhaps she also feels that if one standard is good enough…that a double standard is even better?

One thing about rules is you have to know them if you’re going to be breaking them. Since Gunther doesn’t board there, he might be unaware of the ‘curfew’ that Bern is trying to reinforce (props to argythree for pointing that out).

But by the same token, Tiffany doesn’t care about rules much, so I can see her not telling Gunther about them.

However I think she cares just enough about him (plausible) to not get him in trouble by association. She seems like an attention-starved drama queen who demands the center of attention; I think that’s been pretty obvious in recent panels.

Bernice is thinking…."what really happened that night??“Out Of My Dreams And Into Your Arms I long to fly……”

“The Telltale Scarf”“Right, Miranda?”“Silent On The Muffler….” “Tippet…Tippet Good” (♪)“Evidence And Hardheaded”“A Muffler, A Millstone”“Accuse And Deny”“Ascot, What You Can Do For Your Dorm…”“Rotten To The Corroboration”“A Rule…And Unusual Punishment”“A Prisoner Of Your Own Advice”“A Yield, Slow And Stop On Every Corner…”“Her Cheatin’ Heart” (♫)“She Doth Protest Too Much”or“See You Later, Allegat-or”

Does anyone at this college ever study?

Is Dez aware that she has caught out the very Busy Bee in her own hypocrisy? Perhaps; though it really doesn’t matter as long as we know it.

Bernice is going to have to repent her overly strict and self-righteous handling of RA duties, or else!

Back in Aug/Sept, Bern also said she’d try not to control everything and to relax. I guess she forgot that lesson.

Besides (and on the topic of rules): "They’re more like guidelines anyway. -Elizabeth Swann; Pirates of the Caribbean

Congratulations, Team Evans, Tiffany is the most likable of all the old crew. Clearly what you wanted to happen! Hee hee!

Cheese & Rice Bernice. Unclench your buttocks already.

What a drag Bernice is. In real life she would have very, very few friends, unless of course they were back stabbing hypocrites like her.

Caught. We all are no perfect. How is Bernice going to explain this?

Is seems that team Evans could effect pretty much the same end without the curfew and write up. Isn’t the end for Bernice to be embarrassed by her hypocrisy (and latent desires)? The first time Gunther was in Tiff’s room late wasn’t it about midnight or so? Didn’t seem to be any rule then—just embarrassment at the (false) implication of romance and the (real) implication of attraction—“a moment”.

Gotcha Bernie you hypocrite!

If you want to know how to write a college strip, go read Dumbing of Age. Seriously.

Infraction reports are real, but they’re usually for something like 20 18yos in a room full of alcohol bottles. They also tend to have massive negative consequences. You might get them for playing music that can be heard two floors away after 10pm/11pm and point blank refusing to turn it off, but that’s still about it.

Usually on a campus guests are only even an issue if they stay the entire night, more than a certain number of times, not some magic 10pm rule. Maybe in the 40’s?

OH GOOD GRIEF! Now Bernice do an Infaction Report on you & Piro.

BUSTED!

If she takes her job that seriously she should be inquiring if Piro is a student or just a bum. That might be a better use of her time.

Busted. Now be SURE to Turn YOURSELF In for Punishment and Self-Criticism. After All, Its the “Hip Neo-Communist Thing” to do.

And Speaking of Gunther, WHAT did YOU do with Him?

He was LAST Seen Darkening YOUR Door….,

OHHHHH Caught…time to come clean.

This is getting a bit ridiculous. As someone in college, currently living in the dorms, very few colleges (mostly some religious colleges) have a curfew time for guests. Also, Bernice is turning into the RA that everyone hates that just tries finding the littlest thing wrong to write you up for it. It seems Bernice is having a power trip right now. Sad to see.

As long as the dorm was not visibly on fire, for the most part my RA gave a rat’s you-know-what about what we were up to.

5For me, this arc is quite interesting, but I feel a bit like I am a ball in a pinball machine. I feel a bit battered around, and it does not feel as linear as is usual for each week’s arc. To me, Bernice is becoming more and more like the sort of character portrayed by Cindy Williams in “Laverne & Shirley”. Her Shirley character was always a know-it-all, busy body sort. And, if that is the way Bernice is becoming, it fits in well with historically successful comedic characters. I still hope that when we get to learn more about Piro, that he ends up being simply a quirky fellow who is not burdened down with a lot of emotional baggage.

So at Moony, RA’s regularly patrol the dorms to enforce thick books of rules prohibiting open windows etc, and any students who have guests in their rooms after 10:00 PM will be written up in an “infraction report”. Seriously, does Team Evans really think this is a believable depiction of a college? Or have they deliberately created a fantasy depiction of college life, because they believe their aging readership would be more nearly comfortable about the collegiate setting if it is portrayed as an environment of rigid (and petty) discipline? Or have they simply thrown out all pretense of plausibility, so that they can set up a contrived plot?

Get a life Bernice!!!!

I assume this was meant for laughs, but clearly nobody finds it funny. I don’t know why the authors would want to do this to Bernice, who had been one of my favorite characters.

what kind of dorm has a no visitors after 10 rule? Its not like this is the 50s !!

Her hypocrisy is becoming super annoying. Now she’s going to give them official infractions for doing something she did? Wow.

To me, it’s not important how realistic (in today’s world) it is to have a 10pm cutoff for visitors or “write-ups” for infractions. That is just the “suspension of disbelief” necessary for most drama. (Think Macbeth?) More serious is to be short on psychological realism, like Bernice’s over-the-top attacks on Pru. I like it when the Evans follow the rule of Heraclitus: “Your character is your fate.”

Bern + Piro!!!! <3

Bernice will grow up to be on the HOA board and go through the neighborhood looking for minor violations. Everyone hates that person.

Busted!

Meanwhile the plot is lurking in Tiffany’s room. Maybe just another night’s sleep for Piro. However it’s going to be a major trauma for Bern if she sees Piro leaving in the morning. Bern can’t report that – and both jealousy and desire will be gnawing on her. And if Tiffany seems kinda quiet and shy – not her usual self – the plot thickens…

I have seen comments that say Luann should pay rent to her parents—-though I don’t know why, since she’s probably not even 21, and she’s their daughter. The readership must really be aging if that’s what they think is appropriate. Do they resent young people or what? Anyway, it looks like Bernice is being unlikable for most everyone.

Remember, underneath those clothes, they’re all naked.

Oh what a tangled web we weave. Fess up Bernice, it’s bad karma to lie especially to your spiritual roommate.

B.U.S.T.E.D. B!

-The Christmas list was in bad taste

Not that I am interested in getting into the whole Christmas list thing (since this isn’t my holy day), but I do feel I want to point one thing out. We don’t know what was on that list, or what it cost.

These story lines have changed tracks more times than a railroad roundhouse. Emerging from the confusion is what could be a fascinating romance between Tiffany and Gunther……the cheerleader air head and the nervous nerd. Both characters need someone, so why not each other? Friends, confidants, and warm, fuzzy security blankets.

Anyone who has taught college in the last 10 years knows that loan debt is a terrible albatross around students’ necks. The last thing students like Luann need is to pay rent to mom and dad.

Bernice’s smug look of self-satisfaction as she types up her “infraction report” to invoke punishment on her fellow students, including two who supposedly have been her friends for many years, shows why “snitches get stitches”.

This turned out differently from what I thought. I look forward to Bernice getting an attitude adjustment. But I also like that Piro left something behind suggesting that Bernice will have more interactions with him…. or she’ll be secretly happy to have something of his and will have cause to see him again. I don’t want to see this arc turn into a Tiff-Piro thing.

I can’t help thinking that Dez was already aware that Piro stayed the night, and that he left his scarf there…

… and somehow Piro’s scarf stayed wedged in the sofa cushions for a month and a half before anyone noticed?

Uncle Al!

Yes, quite likely Des and Piro passed each other as he was leaving Bernice’s room and Des was returning from her overnight “rave”. Des didn’t say anything about it at the time (or since then) because she felt it wasn’t her business, but this contemptible “infraction report” has inspired Des to take action by “discovering” some evidence of an as-yet unreported infraction committed by the report writer herself.

I am not in college now (I graduated a while back), but I wonder if you would tell us what college you are attending where that curfew applies, because that might help us judge how realistic this storyline is.

She can say that, but Des likely saw Piro on the couch when she came into the room the next morning, so she knows the truth.

SPOILER ALERT

Increasingly looks like a new character will be added to this ’toon. A shrink. One is apparently needed stat…

“Don’t mistake my kindness for weakness.”*BS – THANKS! I heard a judge say that in court one day after granting a stay to a defendant. I had to idea he was quoting a mobster!