The second of this month’s two bonus strips is now up on Patreon! The subject of this strip was up to me, rather than being vote-driven, so I chose Dorothy listening to music while on her morning jog. See the rest of the strip over on the Dumbing of Age Patreon!
Loading ...
“GOT TOO MUCH TO DO–I’LL DIE WHEN I’M DEAD”
is that how it goes
“People die when they are killed!”
Hair dyes when it is coloured.
And Hebrew dies when it’s enough
(Dai (די) is Hebrew for “enough”)
And Japanese die (大 – dai), when they are big.
My dice die if I only have one of them to roll (singular of dice being one die).
I remember tie-dying. (It was far out, man!)
That’s as opposed to what happens in textile mills in Southeast Asia, which is Thai-dying.
Dammit. Dyeing, not dying.
You probably had it right the first time.
Nope.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dye
Dammit, I HATE it when I mess up stupidly easy stuff like that.
I’m sure he was just making a statement on the poor working conditions of the sweatshop laborers in the developing world. :-p
“If you’re killed, you’ve lost a very important part of your life.”
As do eggs.
and that is how it should be.
I GET THAT REFERENCE. I APPRECIATE IT. HA HA. Aaaah fate….
“You load sixteen tons, what do you get,
Another day older and deeper in debt.
Satan don’t you call me, ‘cuz I cain’t go,
I owe my soul to the company store…”
The lyric is “St. Peter, don’t you call me” IIRC
Sometimes it’s just the little things that keep us going. Like the unending flow of time…
Yeah a little rough, but it is Them. And they talk. Gotta help.
All I took from today’s strip is that they’re adorable together and that Billie should wear her hair down more often, it looks cute like that. :3
Aaaaah it’s simultaneously adorable and horrifying.
I don’t know what these feelings are!
Adorifying try adorifying.
Perfect. Now that there’s a name for it, nothing can go wrong! 😀
…right?
“not sure if want”?
Adorifying (med. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious)
It is adorifying how they wake up side by side
It is adorifying how they talk of suicide
It is adorifying how they always have to hide
Adorable and horrifying, it’s adorifying
Ruth and Billie used to fight and scream and butt their head
When Billie asked her “what the fuck” Ruth kissed her hard instead,
They fought and drank and hurt themselves and ended up in bed.
Their ‘ship is fascinating for us in the comments thread.
It is adorifying with their mutual devotion
It is adorifying with destruction in slow motion
It is adorifying how we have all this emotion*
Adorable and horrifying, it’s adorifying
*) FEELS
You win. Have all the Internets. That is glorious.
Today I got both a cookie and an internet. Hooray, hooray, oh glorious day.
Fun that you liked it – I had a spot of creativity and decided to use it on something constructive 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxAKFlpdcfc
Best laugh all week! You are awesome. Great work.
One more song for the DoA album. And reading this Willis? Maybe that should be a stretch goal on the next Patreon. I dunno.
It’s adorrifying, a word I am almost 100% certain actually came from one of the old comment threads on this site.
A quick Google check indicates that someone added this word to the Urban Dictionary back in February of this year.
Aww
Sort of.
Ya know, I was beginning to forget what part of this relationship I found adorable, but this comic pretty much just takes that question and punches me in the face with it.
In the FAAAAAAAACCCCEEEE!
Sorry, force of habit.
FAAAACE
Makes a man take things over
FAAAACE
Keeps him loose, hard to swallow
Awwwwwww?
You know damn well Billie’s just gonna text her during class. I mean she’s like…18. That’s ALL THEY DO.
Sadly, this is true.
R U DRUNK YET?
NO
HOW BOUT NOW?
NO! STFY!
U MISTYPED DOES THAT MEAN UR DRUNK
…YES. SAVE U SOME?
OK THX
Look, here is what we will do; for every word you type in text speak, we will take a shot of Gin, Moonshine, and juice mixed together, OK?
I’m sorry. If it helps, I hate myself a little for typing that.
It is already too late, I have the alcohol right here; so now its time to die of alcohol poisoning. First shot is on the house…..
Rollin down the street, smokin indo…
so fuckin accurate
so fuckin accurate
I DIDNT MISTYP I WAS SAYIN SHUT THE FUDGE YUP
also on the way to and from class
and in the bathroom
and pretty much anywhere
This is true. One of my professors last semester actually threatened to kick out anyone she caught using their cell phone.
She wasn’t very popular with the class.
That’s a warning 90% of my professors have laid down, on day 1 and explicitly printed in the syllabus. Most of them relax the restriction about halfway through the semester, since by then the problem individuals are mostly gone so the phonery’s probably important, but it still seems to be the default around here.
I work in a call centre with pretty heavy security restrictions; if they catch you on the call floor with an electronic device you will be instantly fired.
Every now and again someone forgets to shut off their cell phone before they start taking calls, and an incoming text alert will go off somewhere. Heads will pop up all over like meercats hearing a hawk.
So the lunchroom is pretty much 100% texting, 100% of the time.
You’re not allowed to die Ruth, I shall make sure of that; I’ll place a curse of eternal life upon you! What? If Thanos can do it to deadpool then I can do it to Ruth!
Ruth: Who wants to live forever,
Who dares to love forever,
When love must die?!?!?!
Love is eternal as long as….. *insert some melodramatic speech that makes everyone wants to kill themselves, sponsored by Disney.*
“That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons, even Death may die.”
–Oh no wait you said “love”. Sorry. My bad.
But touch my tears with your lips,
Touch my world with your fingertips…
Someone has already cursed Clark Wing with eternal Ruth.
You deserve a Cookie!
I GOT A COOKIE!!!
Regrettably, my gluttony has ensured that I cannot contribute to the cookie tribute. Have some peppermint bark.
Very good, Fischer. You win a cookie.
So “have a cookie” ISN’T a tribute to tiny text files? Man, you classic movies, always contributing SO much to culture. You disgust me.
Pantheon is confused…. is this strip a heartseeker? Or a Skyfall?…. too many conflicting feelings. PANTHEON MUST FIGHT THE FEELS!….. WITH VIOLENCE!
Fight the feels with BAKED GOODS
fight the feels with PEANUT BUTTER SANDWICHES
Have you considered taking a course in “Mastery of your Emotions?” It’s lead by Spock.
They really put the diss in dysfunctional.
If that’s the case, would Amber and Danny put the “code” in “codependency”?
It’s comments like this that make me wish DoA’s comments had a like button.
I’m quite sure that Willis’s customers would say that Danny puts the “buy” in “bisexual.”
And Mike puts the “nickle” in “doing your mom”.
Deanatay, do you mean…. pump ‘er?
LOLGASM
Hurrah for not being able to commit suicide by alcohol poisoning in under an hour! Except that you can do exactly that, if you chug a distilled liquor.
While it’s probably innocuous enough to order alcohol in different drinks, getting your hands on distilled ethyl alcohol will probably be a bit more noticable.
Never drink ethanol from a chemistry lab’s stores. A chem professor once told me that all lab ethanol has a small amount of methanol in it to prevent just that – because methanol will kill you dead.
****Never, ever drink ethanol from chemistry lab stores. ****
Kinda true. It’s not added to prevent theft – simply because they don’t want to kill stupid ethanol thieves dead. However, sometimes it’s added for tax reasons. The tax is lower on non-consumable ethanol. Also, the production of high percentage ethanol usually means methanol gets mixed in and it’s extremely hard and expensive to remove.
There is also no guarantee that no one has contaminated the bottle with who-knows-what in an earlier lab.Also, in some horrible cases people have taken the wrong bottle and ended up with pure methanol instead.
****Never, ever drink ethanol from chemistry lab stores. ****
That way, if someone mistakenly drinks it, they’ll die. That’ll teach ’em!
…
Yep, this logic is sound.
Basic rule of thumb we always taught freshmen and -women: “Don’t worry about alcohol poisoning: if you can get a fifth of distilled spirits down before it comes back up, then you’ll develop alcohol poisoning, but that’s pretty much it. Focus on how easy it is to kill yourself with any kind of alcohol by driving intoxicated.”
Aw they’re adorable!
… And… incredibly disturbing in how they casually they discuss Ruth’s suicidal tendencies… hm.
So, okay, Ruth has a lotta Suicidal Tendencies. Sometimes people just really like skater punk and crossover thrash.
…And all she wanted was a Pepsi. Just one Pepsi.
No it’s okay, you know she’ll figure it out, just leave her alone she’ll figure it out.
You know she’ll just work by herself.
Of course, the more you talk about suicidal tendencies, the less likely you are to go through with them–or so the theories go. Ruth’s bottling her bad thoughts less by letting them out to Billie. Billie has a project and a partner in self destruction. Could it be healthier? Sure. For now, it can work.
More importantly, I’m seeing this as a potential gateway to actual therapy.
Because I’m a filthy optimist. 😛
One can dream!
Waitaminute…optimistic Sokka is always suspiciously wrong in the end…
Yep. We’re doomed.
That’s a very dangerous misconception. Any mention of suicidal thoughts is a red flag. More than one mention is a potential medical emergency. (As in, yes, 911 here in the States.)
I’ll be perfectly honest, I think casually discussing suicidal tendencies is probably one of the better parts of this relationship, right now. Having someone to talk about that stuff with, and to keep an eye on you just in case, can be the single most helpful thing you can have.
Absolutely. The less of a taboo it is, the more honest you become with your thoughts about it, and the easier it is to deal. Works for me most of the time.
The bottle is lonely.
Those two are super cute together, and I love how they manage to both be kinda messed up and practical at the same time. Ruth is better at it but of course she’s had more practice, she’s not a freshman any more.
I thought it would take a while for the comic to build to the same level of interest after the intense drama of the next chapter, but no, happy to say I was wrong. *breaks out the popcorn*
*the drama of the previous chapter (two beers with dinner on a weeknight: not the greatest idea)
TIME TRAVELING SPOILERS! We heard it here first – there will be intense drama next chapter.
I didn’t need time travel to tell me that.
Wow! Willis gets upset if the Patreons spoil tomorrow’s strip. I wonder what he’s going to do about you spoiling the twist in the next chapter.
God dammit Ruth!
Damn you, Willis!
NOOO I MUST KNOW HOW IT ENDS!!! *Goes diving after it with blind devotion, only realizing as the ground rushed towards me that it’s on the internet and I could view it from any computer*
Now no one will have to torture themselves anymore.
Blasphemy! The only one who can create world peace is Congresswoman Robin DeSanto. Well, temporarily.
Lesbians for all and to all a great night!
There was a story a while back with the premise that an idealistic inventor is trying to end war by inventing a device that can make any metal – in this case, specifically targeted at weapons – rapidly rust away to uselessness. He manages to get an interview with a general, who doubts that such a thing (if it existed) would really bring about peace; people would use clubs, or fists, and if you somehow took all of that away, they’d just fill the air so full of hate that the birds would fall out of it stone dead.
The twist, of course, is that he’s already invented the thing; and after he (sadly) leaves, the general finds his gun has dissolved in its holster. He ends up breaking off a table leg and chasing after the inventor, proving his own point.
Yeah, because the world was really peaceful before electronics.
“Yeah, because the world was really peaceful before metalsmithing”
FTFY
“yeah, because the world was really peaceful before sticks” FTFY
“yeah, because the world was really peaceful before rocks” FTFY…
…you tl;dr’ed the synopsis of that story in the post above, didn’t you? 🙂
Do they really think they are in love? That’s a little soon.
I refuse to believe that you’ve never grown up and had a hopeless crush on someone during elementary/middle/high school / college. Besides, a whole subplot of the story from the start had sexual tension brewing between them, letting time for love to develop.
Sorry friend, I’m having a little trouble understanding that first part. What do you refuse to believe?
I refuse to believe you’re having trouble understanding that first part. 😀
apt avatar is apt 😀
Well, if twenty is grown up enough for you (I’m of full age and can drink all kinds of alcohol and stuff since over two years now. I don’t really do this though.), I totally did that. Two girls I might have crushed a little on and even that’s debatable (I have a heart of stone or something. Maybe I should see a doctor about that.) and definitely nothig hopeless.
Tell that to my fiance. We started telling each other that we loved each other a few weeks after we started dating. Almost a year later and I’ve never loved anyone more in my life.
That’s actually really sweet. I hope you have a great wedding and an even better marriage. I know you won’t need my hope for that, but there it is anyway.
…it was about a month in when I declared my love for my gf. Then a couple of months later, I proposed to her (with the understanding that the wedding might be a few years off)
…then about six months later, I actually met her IRL for the first time. 😉
Now it’s fifteen years and nine months since our wedding, and we’re still happy and together and nauseatingly in love with each other 🙂
…of course, YMMV…
bud, are you asking that because of the “love you, too” ruth dropped? dorky didnt take a bullet so that you could dismiss its lesson on how that word only has the weight you give it 😀
Nah but in all seriousness, give it a couple of weeks (years). They’ll come around.
glad to know that if i typo a c out of my e-mail, my gravatar is jacob 😛
Geez, man, the unhealthiness of this relationship just…asdfhapogaje;pofj
Ruth is making eye contact with Billie in panel two. She’s a stronger person than I.
She’s stronger than all of us.
I was all like Good God Damn Willis I’m trying to read here.
Is the bottle half-empty or half-full? Trick question- It’s full. Of air. Ruth drank all the alcohol in it.
This comment is a rollercoaster ride to feels town.
Wait, is this the first time the L word has come up between them? No, not lesbian. Or lesbians.
I believe it is–but remember, it’s all about the drama here. And that L-bomb came laced with weapons grade sass, so there’s that.
Aren’t they in lesbians with each other?
The L word.
This soon?
If you’ve never sarcastically responded to a friendly threat/insult with “Love you, too” well… I feel for you. ;P
I kinda don’t get why people are acting like she said “I love you.” She said “love you too” sarcastically which is a common reply to something callous or sarcastic.
*someone* didn’t have trouble saying the Love word. Though Walky probably would approve of this humorous ironic take.
It’s A Dead Ruth’s Party/Who can ask for more?
Wasn’t that song from Clear and Present Danger?
I got a total ‘Springer’ from the original Transformers Movie vibe from Ruth’s last line about being too busy to die.
(I pulled up the actual clip, it’s not as close as I had remembered but I’m still going to pretend damn it!)
I’m impressed by Billie – she’s so devoted to take care of Ruth. I wonder if this is a role she had in previous relationships as well or if it’s new. I just hope they are strong enough to make it last – it’s a terrible burden to both keep up a relationship and be on suicide watch. It doesn’t help that they have to keep the relationship secret.
Head cheerleader. Problem-solver. Super dysfunctional relationship haver.
And yet they both seem to be doing better now that they’ve found each other. Can’t fault Billie for going along with this, then.
Not yet, anyway.
Not faulting, no, but being super worried for.
I can fault them for not seeking actual counseling. (I can continue to fault them until they do)
Grante Maxime, you have me wondering if that Momastery person reads this comic— or has lived it.
Laura H.: No clue, but it would be neat if she ever showed up here. And kind of trippy. o_0
Let’s hear again what her last partner had to say about it!
…I take it as a Hell No.
D’aaaaw these two.
Just noticed Ruth is left-handed.
Cool.
That was brought up during the whole ‘whiteboard ding-dong bandit’ event – AG had the dubious deduction to rule the RA out for doing them since she’s a SP and wouldn’t draw an object like that pointing right. Except I’m left-handed, and I know I would (and have).
That, and she’s shown drawing something on her right palm as she’s preparing a rebuttal to Mary’s trouble-making complaints.
That, however, got drowned out by the “wait a minute… That’s the wrong cheek!” thread.
That sounds better in context.
Mary just turned the other cheek. Probably the only time she’d ever taken that verse to heart.
Less out of the intent the verse had, and more out of cutting her losses 😉
Speaking of whiteboards and ding-dongs…..
As one who has wrestled with that demon suicide, Ruth’s attitude of “I have to much shit to do to die today,” is sometimes the only thing keeping you going on a really bad day. Then again, she also has the promise of a steady stream of hanky-panky, so she’s got that going for her, which is nice.
DANGIT, I thought I got the gravatar stuff sorted out! (Oh well, I *do* like and empathize with Sarah, so it could be worse)
Anyways, that’s totally true – for some life is simply an attempt to clear the ‘to-do’ list for something they want to do…but the list is neverending…
Billie looks a lot like Robin in that fourth panel. Also, super cute.
Batman would fiercely disagree with you!
Um… I know I should probably be commenting on the plot developments or something, but all I can think looking at that comic is “wow, no-glasses Billie looks weirdly like me.” I, like, JUST got that haircut last week. Also, it’s been a long time since we’ve seen no-glasses Billie (or since I’ve noticed anyway).
Ah! No glasses and hair down. I think that’s what’s doing it. …. Huh. I have my hair up.. just like Billie usually wears it. How have I never noticed this before? Also, I’d make a joke about Willis spying on me, but considering the buffer, he drew this LONG before I had this hairdo.
Okay, screw it. It seems it is my destiny to have a Billie gravatar. Fine. Signed up and pic loaded. …. I may look for other no-glasses hair-down Billies since I don’t think the current one is really capturing it.
Nice gravatar though. Have fun archive binging the Billie tag
Just finished. Unless I want the shower pic when she’s figuring out Ruth, there aren’t many that capture the hair style I’m looking for. Well, there might be more farther back, but Billie’s model has changed a bit over the years and I really like the current way Willis draws her, so going back more than two years is kinda not worth it.
Relationship goals
Nothing says lovin’ like alcoholic underindulgence.
“If you ever drink yourself to death without me, I’ll be super pissed.”
It’s funny because pissed means drunk in Canadian.
And also in Britain, too.
Soooo, how many adorable faces can Billie make in a single strip?
Apparently the answer is three. Which rhymes with squee. Fitting.
I’m not sure what the big deal here is. How is it unethical for Ruth to have a relationship with Billie? Ruth can’t be that much older than Billie. I don’t see a power imbalance. What am I missing?
Ruth is Billie’s R.A. which means she’s basically her dorm’s supervisor. She has the ability to write people citations for dorm misconduct and generally is there to be a mentor. So it’s unethical the way a boss-worker relationship is unethical- that is to say, super dependent on circumstance, but is generally percieved as leading to problems and different places have different rules about it.
I’m not convinced that it’s actually unethical, in the way that Jason banging Sal is, but it is against IU rules for an RA to date one of her own residents.
the only thing is that Ruth is her RA, so technically she has a certain amount of authority over Billie. so its a bit of a power imbalance there. But besides that there isnt really anything.
Speaking as someone who was an RA in a freshman dorm once, I could see where it could cause a lot of problems. Even if the resident and the RA are mature enough to not let it interfere with the RA’s ability to do her job, there could be a lot of tension the perception of favoritism, which is a huge can of worms when you’re dealing with a lot of 18 year olds who are away from mommy and daddy for the first time.
Also, the RAs, in turn, have supervisors who would have a really hard time determining if the RA is playing favorites or not if a dispute comes up.
And honestly, even for the most mature of individuals, it would be almost impossible to not have bias towards your significant other if a dispute came up and it’s really not fair to the other individual if the mediator (the RA) is in a romantic relationship with the other party in the dispute.
Oops. That should have been “there could be a lot of tension AND the perception of favoritism.”
My college experience was that most of the RAs didn’t do their jobs anyway, and were biased towards their friends even if they weren’t banging them (one of the floors I lived on, the RA’s wannabee-frat-rat buddies were the primary source of obnoxious hallway shenanigans, so complaints accomplished nothing), so I don’t really see that it would make all that much difference.
(I was basically okay with this state of affairs, because part of the job they weren’t doing was enforcing rules that I usually preferred not to have enforced, like the one about how often I could stay in my girlfriend’s room after hours. I solved the favoritism problem by hanging out on floors where my friends were RA. (I got one of my friends to write himself up for underage drinking one night. He turned the form in to the RD and everything.))
Billie is looking like a completely different person today…
No glasses
I legit went “Awww” at the end of today’s strip. I’m glad my idea of a healthy relationship is healthy.
Death Flag. Calling it right now.
For some reason todays strip reminds me of a sitcom episode,it just needed a “duh duh duh” for the third panel and a laugh track for the last panel
Wow; sitcom humour has gotten this dark and cynical? I might have to turn the TV on again…
She’s got better things to do tonight than die.
Too much shit to do to die today
at a minute or two to two,
A thing distincly hard to say,
But an easier thing to do.
For they’ll beat a tattoo at two today
A rat-tat-tat tattoo for you
And the dragon will come when he hears the drum
There’s nothing for you to do but stay
And the dragon will do for you.
I still hope they break up and strongly dislike Ruth but I hope she gets the help she needs and find happiness.
Ruth is an unrepentant abusive bully… she needs help with that too.
Billie is the help. P.S. Billie wanted to be just like Ruth just Ruth out bullies the Billie
I can really see how Billie got that Prom Queen or whatever in high school, what with her hair down and un-bespectacled eyes.
And, um, other attributes.
Most notably popularity.
Its the hands, right? What she does with them in the penultimate panel? That is some seriously complicated shit right there how her hands are drawn. (and i totally
don’tmean that in multiple ways 😉In the background, is that a dartboard with the symbol of the Ottawa Senators?
I wonder if it ever appeared before in the comic…
Oh yeah, turns out it appeared (and was noticed by commenters) here: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/04-the-whiteboard-dong-bandit/pick-2/
Got to love continuity.
I’d say that Willis either has a great memory, copious notes, or reference sketches of the various repeatedly-show rooms from various angles, or some combination thereof.
He keeps background images in exactly the way he builds clothing studies. He periodically posts one of the backgrounds.
At first, I thought Mary confronted Ruth for a second there
She’ll still be alive? Well, under the circumstances, I guess that is a triumph.
baby steps…when helping someone fight off the demon of depression, sometimes any tiny compromise is a victory…
…even making your granddaughter hate and fear you so that she won’t just waste away from apathy and grief(?)
Odd, does that last comment by Billie just imply a verbal contract for an alcohol induced murder suicide pact? O.o
At least she’s willing to see Ruth through the rough times, hopefully. (And I feel there will be some rough times ahead, especially with a Mary-cane brewing in the wings.)
The technical term is “sexy lesbian suicide pact”.
Yeah, not just ‘imply’, but “sexy lesbian suicide pact” is actually stated.
…dangit let’s try this again
Okay, this has been nagging at me – “‘sides, I got too much shit to do to die today“. Does that feel like foreshadowing of something notable, or just the usual ‘college daily itinerary’?
Billie: “If you’re going to drink yourself to death, I want to be hammered enough that watching you choke to death on your own bile is hilarious to me!”
Ruth: “Okay, we’ve now crossed the line past where this was cute.”