Take a think for a minute, please. Joyce is… Well, Joyce. I don’t recall her ever acting the way she has these past few weeks. I have a feeling that the behavioral changes are in part – if not entirely – due to the physical and psychological trauma of almost getting raped; while rape in itself is an unspeakable crime which should be punishable by death by flogging, keep in mind that Joyce is… Again, Joyce; that naive little Christian girl who, in my mind, would be much more affected by the event. I say this on complete assumption and have probably already made an ass out of myself; I obviously have no room to talk, having never come close to being raped, but I’m submitting my opinion nonetheless. Back to my point, I have no doubt that Joyce would change and act somewhat with her friends, but I feel that it is happening far too quickly, violently, and angrily to be normal. The fact is, the psychological impact is still gnawing at her mind, and I think Sarah might’ve picked up on it as well.
While everyone else was amused and shocked that Joyce was making innuendos and such, I was just loosing more and more hope that my suspicions were incorrect. Though, it’s still Dave’s call, so all this I’m typing is could just be the ridiculous ramblings of an old redneck. Only time will tell. I hope I’m wrong.
Because I read this comment, I reread the comic from the beginning. She’s reaching out more, and getting more distressed when no one hangs out with her. She needs someone to talk to about this, soon. She’s breaking.
There are several other things that I noticed but can’t remember.
Lol to the intensity of your comment, here.
I’m interested to see how this “Joyce is a ticking time bomb” theorty pans out. Will she snap and kill EVERYONE? Will she suddenly hate tacos? Will she make out with Mike?
I’m not quite sure how her breakdown would–well, break down.
Joyce could make a bomb out of Mike’s tacos which he uses to kill everyone! Run for your lives!!
Seriously though (out of character here) I think we are worrying a bit much. Strangely enough, of the ways Joyce could have been exposed to “adult topics” this is less severe than it could have been. She could have been strapped down hard and forced to watch porn for hours until she wanted to destroy her brain or kill herself. The events at the party were horrible, but she is doing a decent job of being an adult, moving on and making connections within her social group for support and friendship. There will be ramifications, echoes if you will, of this event, but I don’t think they will lead to some climactic violent meltdown where people die or anything. So, you know, progress.
How else is Raidah gonna come out on top, here? Facts? Generations of proven ethical patterns and whose call fits them better? Dragging Dana back into this and expecting her to take sides? Taking advantage of Sarah’s victim mentality and inability to stick up for herself in a non-Byronic manner is basically it.
Well, from personal experience (with both firsthand and secondhand experience with depression/self-medicating/drug use/alcoholism), a healthy, well-adjusted person rarely overuses any substances, and if they use substances it’s only recreationally. A person suffering will self-medicate which often makes depression symptoms worse.
There is a difference between self controlled recreational use, as she was before her mom died, and self medication. I’ve seen a couple studies linking cannabis to those prone to major depressive episodes, and suggesting, if only weakly correlated, that in such a use case it typically acts as a feedback loop or reliance on the drug and preventing a person from going through the steps to deal with the underlying causes of that depression, typically allowing one’s depressive state to spiral out of control. From Sarah’s story, that seems likely what happened with Dana, especially since the death of a close immediate family member can easily cause a significant depressive episode, even for those not prone to them.
If you’re somebody who picks up a videogame and your life immediately goes to shit then you probably just can’t be trusted to game responsibly. If you’re a healthy albeit somewhat excessive gamer who after your boyfriend discovers he’s gay during an intimate moment after prom, starts gaming to the exclusion of your social life, making appointments with your guild that interfere with your real life commitments and don’t leave you with enough time to sleep or take care of other basic physical and mental health concerns, well then videogames probably aren’t actually the problem. Probably you’ve got some shit surrounding that recent breakup that needs to be dealt with.
Dana was in a depressive cycle that was only getting worse day by day. Pot happened to be her vice and it became a part of that cycle, but the depression was the real issue. My two cents on that.
The bass player from my old band who went from recreational use, to heavy use, to dealing, to being a homeless bum where I since lost track of him. And don’t think I’m preaching out against the “demon weed” either, any addictive substance is dangerous. To claim otherwise is to demonstrate complete ignorance.
TRUTH that be. Also add to the list Mr Jack Daniels and the Captain Morgan. Alcohol and cigarettes and prescription medication are far worse in enabling self destruction but it is all self destruction nonetheless.
Coors and Budweiser is just for drowning yourself in ….[lame joke I know]
I don’t recall mentioning trouble with the law being a factor. Addictive behavior ruins lives regardless of the legality of the substance being abused was the point I was making. Believing that because it’s nigh impossible to die from a pot overdose means there is no danger at all in smoking it is naive.
If someone wants to destroy themselves in the privacy of their own home using drugs, alcohols, or even cigarettes, that’s entirely their choice. However, no one has the right to inflict harm on others. This means not exposing others to second-hand smoke and not getting behind the wheel of a motorized vehicle while under the influence of anything.
And don’t try telling me that people don’t do pot and get behind the wheel. Several years ago, one of my classmates who offered to drive me home from class did (obviously, I wasn’t aware at the time that they were high), and I thought I was going to die with how they were driving. There is no excuse for it, ever.
People can destroy themselves if they like, but they have no right to take anyone else with them.
You could also watch Cops, World’s Dumbest, and every other show that occasionally show DUI or DWI arrests. Many are alcohol-related, but there are also those with people who are under the influence.
Are you honestly trying to say that only people who drink alcohol ever commit DUI?
And for your anecdotes, I have plenty to counter it. In fact, almost every single person I know who has tried marijuana (and several who still use) are all well educated, at the very least at the BA/BS level, many at the Masters level, and some on the PhD level. The predisposition for fucking up one’s life exists with or without the weed. Safe and recreational drug use is possible, provided you do your proper research and take the necessary precautions.
To simply make a blanket comment that “Pot IS dangerous” is weak at best, and is really a meaningless statement. It’s not for everyone, but there are plenty of intelligent and productive members of society who use responsibly.
And I know smokers who never got lung cancer. So what? Does that invalidate the fact that smoking can cause cancer?
If someone wants to smoke, or drink, or do illegal drugs, I personally don’t care. It’s their choice. But blindly ignoring potential consequences is just idiotic. Me? I used to “smoke” (was in a band as I mentioned, I think it’s practically a prerequisite) but gave it up years ago, (about the time the band split and the bass player had “graduated” to dealing). I can’t really say I miss it and I’ve also moved into a different career that involves random drug testing. And I drink. I enjoy getting a good buzz on now and then. But I acknowledge the risk. Certainly many people I know can do as I do and drink in moderation, but some can’t. So yes, addictive substances like pot and alcohol are dangerous. And in my experience, you can’t make the choice to behave responsibly if you refuse to acknowledge there is any risk in the first place.
Considering I never made a statement about education or intelligence, I’ll just skip this part entirely.
Anyway, it’s true that pot can probably be used safely… same for alcohol and cigarettes. It’s also true that many people can’t seem to manage that, become addicted, and make bad choices. To, in your own words, make a ‘blanket statement’ that ‘All pot users are responsible’ is equally weak and meaningless.
People abuse substances, and cause harm to themselves and other people. I put pot in the same category as I do other substances, including legal ones like the aforementioned cigarettes and alcohol. People become addicted, they can’t handle the substance, and they harm themselves. I suppose that’s their right, it’s their body, but it’s not their right to harm others.
Any psychoactive substance has the potential to be be abused…better yet ANYTHING has the potential to be abused. Cannabis has the capacity to make someone psychologically dependent (NOT physically). The majority of misconstrued “facts” perpetuated by the media during this time of marijuana prohibition have been brought to light as being nothing but slanderous lies. So do not say that “pot is dangerous”, because that is far too strong and broad a statement to make given all the evidence out there to the contrary.
Nice straw man, LastOutlaw. That is not what Ms Danger was saying at all. Then again, I never said that I “refused to acknowledge any risk,” so the straw man argument is apparently your thing.
Your band’s experience is not evidence, by the way. No anecdote is, even if the root cause of your bass player’s problems was weed, which I am highly skeptical of anyway.
Somehow there are an awful lot of people who lead productive and well-adjusted lives as marijuana users (this is certainly not limited to only the people I know personally). Since the common denominator with those who screw up their lives is weed, consider perhaps that something else is afoot here.
Pot is dangerous, just like a car is dangerous, or a bicycle is dangerous. Without proper use, lots of things are dangerous. Heck, a microwave is dangerous if you stick metal in it. I think the point here is that misuse of anything is a bad idea. Pot can be easily misused like alcohol, and it takes someone responsible to recognize that and choose when smoking it is a bad idea. (granted I would say it is a bad idea anytime, living in the US, considering it is currently illegal).
Wow, some of you people are really hard and loose with your use of the word “addictive”.
It is impossible to form a physical dependency on cannabis. That is what “addictive” means, and that is why crystal meth, nicotine, and cocaine are addictive.
Now just because something isn’t addictive doesn’t mean it can’t be habit-forming, and harmful to your life in excess. This can include chocolate, video games, sex, the internet, fast food, and yes, cannabis. It is completely possible – easy, even – to enjoy these things responsibly and in moderation, because there is no physical hook that makes you NEED MORE. If you binge on chocolate and get fat, you are not a victim of chocolate. You are simply weak-willed.
Anecdotal horror stories like the bassist above are the exception and not the rule. Don’t go around inaccurately calling weed addictive just because you had one bad experience. “Hate the player, not the game.”
We mixed the cream cheese with sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, and freshley chopped basil, stuffed the mixture into gutted jalapenos, then wrapped the whole thing with bacon, then baked the suckers. But eventually we used the leftover stuffing as dip.
I’ll put the recipe up next Wednesday.
I think she was already on some of the hard stuff by the time she called in the cavalry. And yeah, having been through depression and trauma I’d be glad if a friend were looking out for me like Sarah
Its when you start using it as a crutch is when you need to get worried. I have had to keep an eye on my brother for a while now 2 of his friends from school and his ex-girlfriend have committed suicide in the past year, and I have seen his intake of Marijuana increase significantly.
Depression and drug abuse can often lead to death from suicide or overdose.
The latter is maybe not a risk factor in cases of marijuana abuse, but the former … well, paranoid-schizophrenic personality disturbances are not exactly unknown as a side effect of doing way too much pot… couple that with depression and bereavement…
On the last point its actually the other way around …. it is not a root cause as some suggest but does have a strong enhancement effect [is that the right word?] that brings any such issues forward and exacerbates them.
It is like alcohol in that way, some people are bad drunks to very nasty drunks, the underlying flaws were always there but the “drug” alcohol / canabis, removes the safeties, so to say.
Good on you Sarah. One of the few with a real concern about people, and for sure, as no good deed goes undone, she’s paying for it. Maybe though, she gave Billie something to think about…besides herself.
Not really; that was Sarah dismissing Billie’s theory, not her accepting it as worthy of consideration.
Plus, Sarah had already accepted the plan to leave the drugging/rape attempt unreported: you don’t see her calling the cops, do you? She’s just justifiably not leaping to Billie’s conclusion that everything is hunky-dory.
Really best case scenario Joyce is doing fine and there’s still a rapist living down the street with a grudge against her. Not like there’s actually a point where Joyce is so incredibly fine that suggesting they report the rapist becomes an indefensible action.
Joyce may be fine, or she might not. We’ll have to wait and see. I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if she’s traumatized from the drugging, assault and attempted rape, however.
And regardless of all that, it really doesn’t change the fact that contacting the police would have been the correct course of action and Sarah is getting shit for being a decent person.
Yeah, whatever Joyce may feel about the attempted rape, being the decent person she is I have to BELIEVE that some part of her is aware that she let a rapist go free to try and attack someone else because SHE didn’t want to deal with the bad thing that almost happened to her.
Yes, Joyce is the victim, but Joyce is also a good person and she missed her opportunity to try and stop a very bad person. I believe that this would eat at her.
Sarah was right, but Sarah was also right not to force her if she couldn’t do it. Joyce gets to live with those consequences, now.
You’re a bongoy…Ms. Billingsworth
A drunk, hypocritical skank
you smell like the jocks of football players
drenched in all the booze you drank
Ms. Billingsworth!
If I were to describe your body type in the most accurate fassion I’d liken it to….the width of Propane TAAAAAAANK
I dunno. You’re may be short, but it at least scans to the right rhythm for the song. Sorry, but when I do a song parody, you can actually sing the words to the original music. If I had the spare time to do this right, I would write out the entire song, post it somewhere then post a link here. Sadly, I have more valuable use of my time. Such as sleeping.
I prefer Aizat’s because I think it’s a bit immature to attack a person strictly on the basis of appearance or sexual activities, especially when their severe personality deficiencies are so much riper.
And I feel like, when it comes to women, the former two are the most common targets, no matter why we’re actually unhappy with them. As though these are the only things that matter about them.
And when you are drunk you forget that I am in charge.
*sigh* I had friends in high school who would quote that scene from Willow ALL the TIME. Now, if I had seen the movie in full at that time, I had forgotten large portions of it, but thanks to them, I will never be getting those lines out of my head. Not with with the MiB/Martian mind-eraser thingy.
I dunno… I’m not finding Sarah as sympathetic as a lot of folks seem to. I’ve met the sort before – they talk big about compassion and difficult decisions, yet somehow, their solutions always seem to be calculated less to help and more simply to remove drama-prone people from their lives. Whether anyone actually ends up being helped is a secondary consideration, for all their protestations to the contrary.
Well, see, there’s the thing: if you really *are* just concerned about yourself, you don’t get to make a big show of affected compassion, then play the martyr card when folks disapprove of you screwing others over for your own benefit.
And if she had actually screwed anyone over, that might not be a completely moot point. She quite probably saved Dana’s life when none of her other “friends” gave a damn, and saved Joyce from, at the very least, getting raped. And as somebody else mentioned a day or two ago, Sarah wanted to call the police about the attempted rape. It was Joyce that first mentioned her parents at all.
You’re addressing a completely different point than the one I was responding to there. My reply was with reference to the argument that Sarah’s actions would have been justified even if she *had* been looking out for number one because she was under no obligation to care. Context matters, y’know.
Even if she was just looking out for number one, the point remains that she has not screwed anyone over. “Affected concern” or not, her actions regarding Dana and Joyce have caused no harm and have actually done quite a bit of good.
Indeed she was. Saving her from getting raped is a pretty good sign of that. I mean, if one or two things had gone wrong the rapist might have attacked her too. Sarah put her neck on the line there. Her suggestion to call the police was also sound and reasonable. And yet now she’s getting shit for it like she got shit for getting help for her roommate who was locked in a downward spiral of self destruction.
Damn. Sometimes it really sucks to be the good guy.
I didn’t say she wasn’t. Bear in mind, however, that there’s two kinds of “helping”; the one that actually tries to address the problem, and the one that endeavours simply to make the problem go as far away from oneself as possible.
A suggestion to call the police when you’ve just taken a bat to a rapist on a friend’s behalf IS looking out for others. ONLY.
Because there is very clear evidence and lots of witnesses you just assaulted someone, and if the evidence doesn’t sufficiently prove that he meant to rape your friend, you are well and truly screwed.
Sarah put EVERYTHING on the line, first to save Joyce, and then to try and get the rapist put away.
Sarah is the ONLY one who acted morally then. Joyce acted understandably, but not morally.
And this is something that was pointed out at the time, in-strip, by Sal, so it’s not like Sarah hadn’t considered it. And she wanted to call the cops anyway, insisting that Joyce not use this as a reason not to do it.
Seriously, point me to one thing Sarah does in that storyline that’s done for her personal comfort. Every last bit of it is either putting herself out to do the right thing, or listening to Joyce and respecting her wishes even when Sarah disagrees with her.
I’d argue BOTH Sarah and Raidah are that type. Sarah simply is a much more tragic case because she has a deal more than a mouth to feed to offer society and any potential future friends and family she might have provided she doesn’t lose it with this Freudian Excuse-fest Raidah keeps dragging her into. I come from a family with more Sarahs and Raidahs than I’d prefer, and I can tell you Prokoptez. Has. A. Point.
Calling the cops on a rapist is not a calculated attempt to remove a roommate. Remember, she had no reason at the time to think that doing the right thing (if you, you know, dislike rapists roaming free) might cause her roommate to be removed from college at all, because that’s not normal.
As a WoC in college I don’t care either way, she made the right call. College is a big deal, if she needs to keep up her grades in order to stay in school fuck it, call the cops. Dana needed help, Sarah needed to be able to study, win win to call her parents. At least she’s (pretty) positive that Dana isn’t getting worse.
Yeah, ’cause they have some right to impose their drama on you…
If ditching a distraction was all Sarah was after, it seems to me she had several quicker and simpler options. Instead, she made multiple attempts to get Dana some help. Considering she had no reason to owe Dana jack, it seems to me that Sarah genuinely went above and beyond here.
Sarah didn’t have to be friends with Raidah & Crew-she took a shot for semi-selfish reasons. She didn’t have to tolerate her roomie’s smoking even for a week before her mom died-it would’ve been simplicity itself to see that she was caught, anonymously. She took the option least likely to harm her roommate, instead of other more sure and thorough ones. She didn’t have to go to that party, but that she didn’t want to be quite so unwelcoming towards Joyce, and she didn’t have to concern herself with her well being and then actually defend it when no one else was.
Your analysis is bunk. It doesn’t match up with the facts. If Sarah were the sort you describe, her actions would’ve been quite different. I’ll take a single Sarah over a dozen Billies or Raidah’s any day of the week and twice on Sundays, whether to be friends with or coworkers or what have you.
Didn’t have to take Raidah & Crew’s shit about the outcome of Dana’s breakdown for so long either, but she did.
Didn’t have to throw Raidah a mulligan with all that narc talk, staying away from calling her on her denial, demanding proof of her accusations, or anything that actually related to what prompted Sarah’s actions, but she did, anyway.
Didn’t have to isolate herself from getting to know anyone else outside Raidah & Co, especially when they wouldn’t stop giving her a hard time about it. Not only did she do that, but waited until she was sucked into her next roommate’s social circle, just like before.
Also coping with being bullied by Raidah and Co. when no one’s around by pretending it’s not a thing, similar to Danah coping with her mom’s death, sans the pot, isn’t a good sign either.
Praising her for all the good shes done for Danah and now Joyce doesn’t do anything for her growing instability. Nor will continued success in selling both herself and others her career first / mistanthrope / looking out for number one persona. Simply being ‘due’ for the break she gave Danah and Joyce isn’t enough to make it come, especially she still has yet to have made a friend who can actually return her reliability.
Billie better get a reality check and fast. Jesus.
Also, Sarah didn’t force Joyce to call her parents. She actually respected her decision to not tell anyone else. On top of that, Sarah’s first choice with Dana was getting her friends involved to nip it in the bud as painlessly as possible. The call to Dana’s dad was a last choice.
Exactly. She did nothing wrong, but since others can’t see the whole picture and just the harm, she’s having a hell of a time convincing herself of that.
Um, yes it is. A display of anger is panel one of today’s strip, violence is throwing things around, even if they aren’t aimed at anyone. Imagine, for instance, that she was in an office, and started trashing the place because she got angry. That would be a violent act, but it wouldn’t be assault. DAm I making my point here?
On top of that, the only who people would care about Billie’s inquiry bsides her and Sarah are, you guessed it, Raidah, Charlotte and Chan.
Everyone else’ll just see a potential youtube video of the “epic beard man” variety at best. Sarah might see everyone agreeing she’s a “monster” who “hates people.”
…Interesting. I hadn’t considered that she (Sarah) might see Billie’s comparison as valid.
While her stance sounds reasonable, there is also danger. ‘hardest decision’: believable. ‘willing to do it again’: possibility of decreased internal resistance to taking a familiar path, even when there’s less brutal necessity. Particularly applicable if there are few (further) personal consequences.
Keeping the acknowledged validity of the comparison in mind, it’s tempting to go back and see how hard she seemed to be thinking about the suggestion in Joyce’s case, or whether she went straight to it automatically and without thought.
I just went back and read the aftermath of the rape attempt. Sarah initially suggested calling the cops, Joyce slurrily said no, and Sarah immediately switched to supporting her decision, at least for the evening. Then Sarah slept next to Joyce to make sure she didn’t stop breathing. In the morning Sarah explained the evening’s events to Joyce (who had blacked them out), but continued to state only that it was up to Joyce what should be done. Yes, she was pissed at Sal for convincing Joyce to choose to do nothing, but at no point was she ever shown so much as arguing that Joyce should risk her parents finding out and removing her from school.
I was frankly astonished to read this; I, like the rest of the fanbase (and Billie) had forgotten that Sarah was 100% on Joyce’s side the entire time and didn’t even argue that Joyce should leave. Billie’s account of the events is completely false, and her comparison is absurd. It’s truly a testament to how beaten down Sarah is by the abuse she’s suffered that she accepts statement of guilt that don’t even apply to her.
For the record, Dorothy persisted in supporting the ‘call the cops’, position, possibly freeing Sarah from having to actively support that position herself. And Billie advocated doing nothing right from the start, and had such a hangover the next day she was barely coherent. It’s unsurprising that she didn’t remember the actual events.
Just read that myself. Pretty crazy. The entire proceeding is basically everybody else telling Joyce what she needs to do while Sarah says “All of y’alls don’t matter and needs to shut up. We’re going with what Joyce says she wants.” I mean there was Dorothy saying we needed to go to the hospital and we had to call the cops. There was Billie acting like the expert of rapist psychology saying we needed to do nothing otherwise we’d just be giving him what he wants. There was Sal talking about how you’ve gotta fuck the system or it’ll fuck you, take the law into your own hands, don’t let the coppers touch your shit because they’ll only make more problems. In the midst of all this Sarah keeps cutting in saying that Joyce shouldn’t worry about any of them, that Joyce just needs to say what she wants and it will be done. Guess that was almost a year ago that it got published so it makes sense that we’re a little foggy on the events, and Billie obviously was drunk and hungover during that night and morning respectively, but damn. This should just be a crystal clear memory from last week for Sarah. Really does say a lot how easily and quickly she got pulled into Billie’s pace and premise.
This is what we get for relying on an unreliable narrator or an extremely biased/incompetent reporter. What better reason do you need to watch Fox News more critically?
But I personally feel ashamed that I let myself get sucked into that trap. We have no one to blame but ourselves. Oh, and Jennifer.
Yeah, I’m genuinely surprised that this was Sarah’s response. Having rechecked the storyline after Thursday’s strip, I was expecting something along the line of “I didn’t want to call her parents, I wanted to call the cops, because, oh right, she was almost raped. But she said she didn’t want to, so I didn’t. So what the hell are you giving me shit for?” Instead she’s accepting Billie’s framing. Poor Sarah.
Between already being emotionally raw from the confrontation with Raidah and recounting the events around Dana for Joyce, and Billie blatantly provoking a confrontation, I’d bet that Sara isn’t in a state of mind conducive to formulating a cogent argument.
I’m surprised to see so many people coming to Sarah’s defense. I was all for her raging out on the creep that was trying to rape Joyce, but now she just looks like a psycho. The girl’s got serious anger issues.
Sarah has anger issues. She’s also been pretty much completely right about everything she’s said or done so far, with the exception of slugging Radiah. In everything Billie is chiding her for, she was completely, unambiguously doing the right thing.
Also, Billie is not entirely unspoiled on the violence front either. Who rose to Ruth’s bait, again?
Not saying that she shouldn’t have intervened when she came upon the Joyce situation, but she came with a bat. When she had no real knowledge that anything nasty was going on. She went there expecting things to be violent when she had no real reason to. She may have Joyce’s best interest at heart but she’s clearly not the picture of mental health herself.
“I’m surprised to see so many people coming to Sarah’s defense”
Well, I’m surprised to see people still criticizing her.
Punching Raidah was unjustified. So was ostracizing and bullying Sarah for doing something about a situation that no one else did anything to fix.
Overturning her lunch tray and not cleaning up the mess (assuming she’s not just now going to fetch a mop) is kind of douchey. So is throwing false accusations at someone you barely know over something you only have second hand knowledge of.
Sarah doesn’t have anger issues, she’s just unwilling to back down on anything she feels is right (Almost like she thinks her opinions are the result of rational assessments of the situation or some silly hysterical woman shit like that) and she is more emotionally stable and physically intimidating than most of the major college douchebags are used to dealing with, meaning that they all see her and anyone around here as a giant threat that they then try to goad and goad and rape and goad because of their own personal insecurities.
And she doesn’t actually rise to the bait most of the time.
Bear in mind that it wasn’t raidah goading Sarah that was what made Sarah punch raidah, it was Raidah and her friends attacking Dinah (that whole calling her a retard thing? you’re calling the punching of someone who insulted dinah wrong?) AND THEN giving sarah shit over doing the right thing in a tough situation as though they have the right to judge sarah.
And in this case Billie is being fucking useless as always but being pretentious with it – it’s not like Sarah has her own fucking high stress life to lead in between dealing with everyone else’s problems oh no, no sarah is just traipsing through fields of daisies constantly calling everyone’s mom just for the fun of it or whatever billie believes. Remember that Billie is literally only giving sarah shit because she’s annoying that she couldn’t become one of Raidah’s minions – that’s the entirety of billie motivation here, she doesn’t genuinely give a shit about joyce, she doesn’t genuinely care what Sarah did with her roommate, she’s just being petty because her pathetic high-school clique fetish got thwarted.
On the other hand, the whole “dressing up as “amazigirl” and wandering around campus fighting crime” thing isn’t the most stable thing Sarah does…
I really don’t think that Sarah punched Radiah over Dina. If she were going to have done that, the obvious time to do it would have been when they were actually doing the insulting, and her facial expression immediately before the punch showed that she was shocked to see the Radiah crowd descending on her new ‘little sister’ to get their claws into her and turn her against Sarah too.
So yeah, the punch was a purely emotional reaction to the situation that Radiah had created for her. You have a point that she’s obviously keeping her cool more often than she’s losing it, but on the other hand she just smacked a tray and started shouting in Billie’s face. She may not be a raging maniac, but she’s certainly at the end of her frayed tether.
That’s not the argument made here. todd is asking if Sarah’s action did any good at all, to which I can only say… I hope so. Since her father (mom’s dead, remember) knows about her problem, he’s probably monitoring her actions carefully and maybe even getting her in a detox program or counseling. Dana might be dead despite all attempts to fix her, but at least people would’ve been trying to help her instead of the shallow and apathetic actions of Radiah and co.
Exactly. In this entire Dana argument, no ones actually said anything about the present Dana. Isn’t that weird? Just because their not in college, doesn’t mean they are beyond contact.
It could mean she doesn’t want to contact any of them. It’s not at all unusual for people to distance themselves from people they associate with an unpleasant period in their life, especially if they correctly perceive that those people could have helped them but didn’t. And if she also doesn’t want to contact Sarah because she”s ashamed to admit she needed that help, well, there you go.
That’s a good theory, but somethings missing…that follow through is never addresed. When one explains a backstory, questions about the present are always going to the most obvious follow through, by both Radiah or Sarah. Reread all of Sarah and Radiah’s conversations. It seems both are trapped in the past, and from the moment Dana was taken home, she was ‘gone’ to them. It makes no sense. Not even an off handed comment of ‘we don’t know how she is.’ If Radiah’s entire hatred with Sareh is based on an event that she decided to stay ignorant of the ending, like detox or suicide, then her hatred is as holey as swiss cheese. Not to mention their concern as a friend.
1) Nope. Soap (the TV drama that named the genre) was a BIT before my time.
2) This storyline isn’t over yet. Oh, no, not by a long shot. This arc, though, is concluded.
The TV drama didn’t name the genre; the genre got its nickname from the fact that, since it was targeted at stay-at-home housewives, all its commercials were for domestic things like cleaning products. The aforementioned TV series was doubtlessly named after already-old-by-then nickname.
1) Dude, no. The comic’s atmosphere doesn’t allow for that joke, and it’s far too soon. You’ve got to learn how to read the air. No.
2) I am impressed by your name-Gravatar matching. Are you on the randomly assigned icons, or did you upload a Ruth gravatar to stay her forever?
Sorry, Sarah, but “might be in a coffin if not for me” doesn’t cut it. Nowhere in your story did you even suggest that Dana was going to OD, switch to harder stuff (which would kill her eventually), or just plain kill herself. You know what else might’ve happened? She might’ve pulled out of it. She might’ve dropped out on her own. She might’ve been eaten by a pack of cloned/resurrected velociraptors. But we’ll never know for sure. So pulling out might-haves? Weak, at best.
You know what else is missing from the story? What the heck is up with Dana now. Is she happy? Sad? Getting better? Is she still using? If so, is she using less? More? We have no flipping idea.
And what’s her enrollment status? Did her dad pick her up after she flunked out? Did she drop out with no way to re-enroll? Did she transfer? IME, parents can’t initiate withdrawing from a university, it’s gota be the student. And I can’t imagine they wouldn’t take her back unless there’s something more going on.
You know what bugs me? That Dana’s mom died and all her friends are acting like leaving the university was the worst thing ever. WTF?
Maybe it’s because I’m 35 and on the other side of university and stuff, but I just can’t wrap my head around how calling Dana’s dad was a bad thing. I just can’t. So she left the college. Big whoop. Can’t they stay in touch via facebook? Tumblr? Can’t they visit?
The only way Sarah is even a little bit in the wrong is if Dana’s dad is a total jerk and is making her life more miserable than it was just after her mom died. Otherwise, they’re blowing it way, way, out of proportion.
She broke up with her boyfriend, was pretending to be much better-adjusted than she was around friends, and was clearly not improving AT ALL after several months and not getting the help that she probably needed. Sure, sometimes you can “bounce back”, but after a parent dies? It’s significantly less likely. She wasn’t dealing with her grief in a healthy way.
Yes, someone being concerned about self-harm when someone is spiraling downwards into a mire of depression and drug abuse (along with the basically certain academic disaster)…completely unreasonable. Just a ‘maybe’.
Again, one Sarah over a dozen Billies any day. When someone is doing that, you don’t just stand by and hope they pull out of it because you don’t want to get involved (and let’s not kid ourselves, THAT is the motive for the ‘wait it out’ non-plan). You try and help.
Another thing people seem to forget: it wasn’t Sarah who decided to pull Dana from school, it was her father, either together with Dana or on his own.
Anyone else here got two brain cells to rub together?
Let me spell it out for you. Outside of that big rescue at the party, Sarah has done nothing for Joyce. They hardly even talk to each other. So how is Sarah supposed to notice if Joyce is okay or not? Apparently, the only way she would, would be Joyce’s behavior affecting her academic performance.
In short, this is a wake up call for Sarah. Pay more attention to the ones around you.
Um, they’re *roommates*. Sarah is probably in a decent position to notice if Joyce starts crying herself to sleep or something. Plus it’s not like Joyce and Sarah have exactly been avoiding each other in the meantime.
Yes, they’re roommates. But there’s a difference between noticing something’s amiss and doing something about it. Although it is a fact that we haven’t heard or seen anything concerning Joyce’s behavior, other than not being very willing to go out on weekends.
So the question is: Has Sarah not noticed, or is she not nothering to do anything?
Has Sarah not noticed what? Joyce is, at the moment, not exhibiting any troubling symptoms. (Yet, anyway.)
You’re having to make things up for Sarah to ignore. This does not make me impressed by your implication that there is something wrong with the brain cells of people who don’t leap to your conclusions.
Well, Joyce is exhibiting symptoms, but none that can be tied backto the attempted rape. Joyce has got her own set of problems without addin THIS onto them.
Making up sutff? Go back a few strips and you’ll notice Joyce staring at her hand! Sure it may not look like much, but it’s a sign. And like I said, just because something isn’t noticeable doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem.
Sarah has not done something about Joyce, simply because she’s not being affected. Now she is the one being neglectful.
Everyone’s all “Billie’s a bongo that’s bullying Sarah”, no one stops to even wonder why she’s acting that way. You only need to look back and think a little. That’s why I’m say most people here are idiots.
Er. Your argument is that Joyce is suffering emotional damage that Sarah has failed to notice and Billie is trying to call it to her attention by…saying that Joyce is okay? You sure about that one?
Billie: You wanted to call Joyce’s parents when she was assaulted, just like you called Dana’s! You hate people!
Sarah: Dana was in serious trouble! It was a hard call to make but I was willing to do it for Joyce!
Billie: Yeah, well, Joyce is not fine at all!
Sarah: We’d better hope you’re right!
So Sarah is completely tone-deaf, I guess. Or really does hate people. And if Billie is all upset that Sarah is blind to Joyce’s emotional trauma, why isn’t she bringing that up instead of focusing on Sarah’s (entirely made-up) desire to call Joyce’s parents? Does Billie strike you as being unwilling to say what she means?
First of all, don’t go all pretentious by starting your posts with “this is what you read”.
Secondly, you’re oversimplifying. Billie’s not just pointing out that Joyce isn’t all right, but that Sarah isn’t taking notice. How many times do I have to repeat it?
You can keep saying it, but we’re all going to continue to think you’re flat wrong in your interpretation of Billie’s intents. And her expression is the same as in the previous panel’s: she’s quietly defensive after having had Sarah shout in her face.
I didn’t call anyone an idiot, Willis. I called you out on one your few, VERY few moments of bad writing, and encouraged you to be better in the future, which knowing how good you are, you would. Yet my post got deleted anyway.
Its not like one can pretend everyone’s post from people that are smart will be positive, and all the negative ones are trolls or idiots.
You started this thread of comments off with “Anyone else here got two brain cells to rub together?” That was you calling everyone an idiot.
And I think the writing here’s fine. (Continuing to keep in mind that Billie’s not being sarcastic.) Arguably the only dodgy part of the writing is that Sarah should really be able to remember better responses here, since for her it was only a week ago, but the substantial abuse she’s suffered could explain that.
Supposing she has no way of knowing if Joyce is okay or not. How does this in any way even relate to the accusations regarding her suggestion that they report the rapist, a suggestion they made while Joyce was fading out of consciousness under the effects of an unknown drug directly after the altercation with her assailant.
Would anybody be equipped to know that Joyce was going to be okay at that point in the process? At the very least she certainly wasn’t fine when Sarah made the suggestion. There’s no definition of fine that could have described Joyce at that moment.
I’d say that Big Rescue counts for a fair amount, really. She wouldn’t have realised there may be a need to turn up to the party, or where it was, if she wasn’t paying attention…
No, that’s not the only thing she’s done, but by all means, continue to underplay that rescue because she’s ‘mean’.
She pointed out to Joyce that she was ill-prepared for that party, and she was. She pointed out that Billie is kind of not a good friend (or person)c and she isn’t. She reached out to Dana’s friends when she saw (you know, as roommate who spends many hours in close contact) that she was in trouble.
You know, after trawling back through the archives, I honestly don’t know what the hell Billie is on about. Dorothy was the one who made the suggestion about the hospital, and was adamant about it in the face of Joyce’s concerns. Sarah was not. So… yeah. I’m not really sure what Billie’s deal is here.
Billie was drunk and/or hungover at the time of the events in question. In other words, she really doesn’t have a leg to stand on in her line of argument. She’s filling in blanks here and getting them wrong.
So she should just shut the hell up then. Sadly, I doubt she’s going to do this. Billie desires to be popular with the sophomores so that she can be popular in general, so she’ll likely have a bias toward Raidah and company. And Raidah, as we already know, does not like Sarah and has no issue at all with being argumentative and insulting to her.
Thanks for the link. I hadn’t read that storyline and reading the comments here (plus the comic above where Sarah doesn’t correct Billie) I got the impression that Sarah really did want to call Joyce’s parents. But no one suggested that. Dorothy suggested hospital, and Sarah wanted to call the cops, but both were shot down by Joyce and they both abided by that decision.
I’m doubly confused why anyone would think Sarah doesn’t care about anyone but herself.
I hasd an aquaintance in college who’s farher was a pastor. An when his older sister was at a college party she was raped after she got drunk. Afterwards her parents just tried to help her feel safe and if she was out at a party and didn’t feel safe her dad would drive 2 hours to pick her up no matter what time it was and she would spend a few days with her family where she could feel safe and know that she was around people that cared. So I definitely can agree with Sarah’s point of veiw
I wonder if Billie, Raidah, and co. are going to realize that if they all go together and discuss a story, they could get Sarah kicked out pretty easily. Sure, it would be “wrong,” but if you think you’re doing the right thing, people can get away with anything! At the very least al you have to do is say, “I feel threatened,” and BAM! Mandatory counselor visits or she’s out.
I have a feeling that if it came down to Sarah’s word against that of Billie and Company that Sarah probably comes out on top. Completely groundless statement. Just seems to me like Sarah probably keeps in pretty good standing with the authority figure and Raidah and the gang probably have a bit of a reputation. We already know that Billie came to this school with a warning note.
They could probably make life quite inconvenient for Sarah but I don’t think I’d jump to the conclusion that they’d be able to actually get her booted. Some counsilor visits, maybe force her to get that anger in check for fear of anything actually happening, but probably she’d come out the other end of all of it smelling like roses as far as the faculty is concerned.
The Billie’s and Raidah’s of the world command the mobs. The student body. The will of the people. Powerful in their own right but authority is not a tool they tend to be able to access effectively. The same stuff that makes them popular with their peers has a tendency to make them unpopular with the faculty and vice versa for Sarah and her kind.
Well, they could probably nail down the accusation of Sarah punching Radiah in the face if they tried. There were several witnesses after all. That would be enough to get Sarah on the wrong end of some faculty attention, at least.
That’s like Vegas. Whatever happens off campus stays off campus. As long as its nothing criminal. So Sarah punching Raidah at the mall has no basis for her getting in trouble with the school.
Punching someone in the face is assault, which I’m fairly sure could be construed as criminal, unless the laws regarding assault are wildly different in Indiana.
but if you think you’re doing the right thing, people can get away with anything!
Let me get this straight: Are you seriously intending to imply that telling an uncomfortable truth to get someone you care about help, is morally equivalent to doing so to harm someone you dislike?
That’d be nice. There’s like a million things that could have Dana, and it would be nice to which one(s) happened to her. She could very well have transferred, or be working on transferring. She could be working in her father’s office. She could be working retail.
She could be in drug rehab. Hard to tell.
If she were real, I’d want her family to love and support her through this obviously tough time.
She didn’t call her dad because Dana was smoking too much weed, she called Dana’s dad because she was in a downward spiral of depression and grief and wasn’t opening up to anyone about it.
Another person thinks Sarah meant that Dana would be dead from her drug use.
I’m fairly certain that the drug use wasn’t the problem but a symptom of the problem that Sarah worried would one day prove lethal to her friend – namely, depression sparked by her mother’s death and exacerbated by social withdrawal and steadily increasing drug use.
I would suggest that Sarah was worried Dana was going to kill herself – and not by smoking tons of weed. Probably a more conventional method like hanging or jumping or slit-wrists-in-the-shower.
Ooh. The comment sections of this story arc demonstrate quite handily that there are many people in this world who fail at reading comprehension and critical thinking. Willis, is this whole comic just an experiment, designed to provide raw data from which you can refine your thesis paper?
She said she might have saved Dana’s life, not that she did save Joyce’s.
And I’m pretty sure her concern here is for Joyce’s psychological health, not just the binary state of whether she’s alive or dead – considering she watched her last roommate spiral into depression (while hiding it from her friends). I imagine she’d want to avoid that instead of waiting for it to happen again.
I despise Sarah with every goddamn fiber of my being. But she absolutely did the right thing in regads to Dana, and she adjusted herself to do what she felt was right by Joyce regarding the attempted rape. She may have handled some of it in some really shitty ways, but she ultimately did good. I’m surprised people are still suggesting she might have been in the wrong with what she did.
Sarah’s nowhere near as smart or mature as she thinks she is, but she’s only 19 or 20 at the most. She’ll get better. She ultimately made the right decisions in the clutch.
Okay, she’s justified in her misery and people HAVE been treating her horribly. There is NO doubt about that. I’m just pissed with her because she’s decided to turn to isolation and being miserable rather than fight through that. It’s like… she says she doesn’t want drama in her life and tries to cut that out as much as she can. She tries to be above that. But she lets that bullshit dictate her rather than actually rise above it. I bristle when she puts down other people’s drama antics, like girls liking boys/boys liking girls, whatever. But she lets people like Raidah rule her outlook.
She’s smart, but only half as smart as she says she is. It’s like the proper form for throwing a punch, swinging a golf club, or swinging a baseball bat. She knows how to wind up (don’t wind up for punches, though, just fyi), knows how to connect, but does not know how to follow through. The follow through is crucial. She knows what a person should do, will do it, but then peters out there towards the end and lets the other people get to her. Instead, give ’em the middle finger, say “fuck y’all,” and continue being happy, knowing that you saved your friend’s life and are a FAR better friend than the others. Who gives a flying fuck what the others think? You’re in the right so don’t let ’em get to you.
She doesn’t do that last part. Instead, she’s miserable and drags others down. Or it’s like pulling goddamn teeth to get her to do anything. A completely stupid person like Billie is far less annoying to me than a half-smart person like Sarah. But, like I said, she’s still very young. The smartest 19 or 20 year old still has a LOT to learn, no matter how much they think they know. So she’ll get better. Hell, this strip actually is proof of that! She does point out to Billie that if it weren’t for Sarah, Dana could be in a coffin right now! Hell YEAH! THAT’S the follow through she needs! Needs improvement, but it’s a start! College is about growing in many ways, after all.
After typing all that, though, I guess this really says more about me. Namely, that I roll my eyes at college-age students and wouldn’t choose to hang out with them rather than this saying anything about Sarah since she’s just in a bad place in her life right now. That life is showing signs of improving with her actions, though. We’re all allowed bad times in our life. Perhaps I’m being too hard on her. I have faith she’ll ultimately come to a much better place.
I just don’t enjoy seeing her journey and hate who she is on the way. 😛
That is a very solid character study. I am curious what will happen with her character as the story progresses. She feels like she is on the verge of a change.
In my experience, people who make such use of hyperbole and then also trumpet their own accurate judgment ought to be to regarded with some skepticism.
Well, I gotta get across how much I hate Sarah, don’t I? I ain’t got a baseball bat to smack people with, so I gots to use words!
Anyway, I’d like to point out the “perhaps” bit of my post came out after my character analysis of Sarah and initial hyperbole. It was after I got my reasons for hating Sarah in written form, was able to read over them, realize my reasons said things about me, and then decided to lighten up and soften my my views on the kid.
I don’t think my views are invalid since Sarah has been a miserable person to be around, but the thread certainly has been therapeutic and I feel a lot less animosity towards her since Dr. Z simply asked me “Why?” So props to Dr. Z. I guess he really is a doctor!
Sarah will still piss me off whenever she’s dismissive of others when they engage in “drama” that is just simple, natural human interaction, but it’ll make me burn with the fury of, say… 700 suns rather than a thousand. 😉
Well, I gotta get across how much I hate Sarah, don’t I? I ain’t got a baseball bat to smack people with, so I gots to use words!
Anyway, I’d like to point out the “perhaps” bit of my post came out after my character analysis of Sarah and initial hyperbole. It was after I got my reasons for hating Sarah in written form, was able to read over them, realize my reasons said things about me, took into account Sarah’s actions in this strip versus previous, and then decided to lighten up and soften my my views on the kid.
I don’t think my views are invalid since Sarah has been a miserable person to be around, but the thread certainly has been therapeutic and I feel a lot less animosity towards her since Dr. Z simply asked me “Why?” So props to Dr. Z. I guess he really is a doctor!
Sarah will still piss me off whenever she’s dismissive of others when they engage in “drama” that is just simple, natural human interaction, but it’ll make me burn with the fury of, say… 700 suns rather than a thousand. 😉
It isn’t a hard and fast rule. Most colleges have a division between dorms that allow freshmen and those that don’t. Typically the second a person can get out of the freshmen dorms they do, but I knew seniors that had freshmen dormmates because they stayed. In Sarah’s case she obviously does not want to be around her classmates, so she would decide to stay in the freshmen dorms.
Sarah could have studied all she wanted in a library (even though most are not 24 hours), but the dormroom is supposed to be where she lives. Where she dresses, sleeps, and etc. No matter how well you know the material, not getting sleep will destroy your ability to focus in class or on tests.
1. Sometimes it’s just a matter of who’s free. Especially if they didn’t have an even number of freshman girls or something. The college doesn’t seem to have a dorm specifically set aside for freshmen.
2. She was worrying about Dana spiraling into some serious clinical depression and unable to sleep in her own dorm because it smelled and her roommate was coming in at 2 AM high and she couldn’t tell a counselor about this because that would get Dana expelled and none of their friends believed her.
Your icon is appropriate, that’s EXACTLY the kind of question a stoner would ask after the issue had been thoroughly discussed in several different comment threads.
Yeah, that came out a bit meaner than I intended. Sorry Ravencrowe. Still, imagine that question being asked in a stereotypical stoner voice, and try not to smirk in amusement.
Blegh, Billie continues to be a thoroughly mediocre, self-involved human being. *Considering* telling Joyce’s parents that she avoided being raped and DIDN’T avoid being drugged only via the handiness of a baseball bat is not even slightly unreasonable. Informing Dana’s father that his daughter, her roommate and even perhaps friend, was utterly mired in depression and drug abuse with no signs of improvement and no reason to hope it would improve was thoroughly reasonable, particularly since her friends were content to leave her be.
She didn’t get sent to prison, she didn’t get beaten up, she didn’t get reported to the college, her mother died and she went home with her father. Anyone who finds something objectionable in that needs help getting their heads out of their asses.
Perhaps if Billie had ever faced even the slightest degree of serious adversity in her life beyond an emotionally distant father, perhaps if her chief accomplishment in life to this point wasn’t being a (for high school) cute, popular rich kid cheerleader she too wouldn’t need the same cranial posterior removal help.
Oh, yes. Didn’t help anyone when she prevented Joyce from being raped at a party she (correctly) predicted Joyce was I’ll prepared for. Didn’t help anyone when she broke into her roommate’s downward spiral of drug addiction and misery and self destruction (or does anyone imagine her grades were still good). Doesn’t help anyone when she minds her own business as a daily routine.
How strange to think that professional intervention could actually _help_ a suicidally depressed stoner. Or that calling the police might help an attempted rape victim. I’m not sure where her respecting said victim’s choice to not call the police after all fits in, but it couldn’t possibly have helped.
To be fair, Joyce is rolling with the punches pretty well. Dana was FUBAR. Still, calling the police would be standard operating procedure for that situation, if Joyce didn’t have caricature overprotective parents, so you can’t fault anyone for at least bringing it up as an option.
Not sure why Sarah has turned into everybody’s whipping boy, though.
Billie is a bit on the immature side. Calling Dana’s parents took courage and shows that Sarah cares more about doing what is right, even if it isn’t popular.
I know that this is a cartoon, but I have seen similar situations.
Well, I was proven wrong by the author himself. Billie did not use sarcasm when she made that reply, so I’m left on a blank as to what her reason to provoke Sarah is.
Still, there must be a reason behind this; and I’m not going to take the lazy answer of “she’s just a bongo”.
Best guess is that she’s busily transforming reality inside her head to suit her preferences. Fathers are distant people with no capacity for emotional support, so contacting Dana’s was obviously a callous act of cruelty. And Billie vaguely remembers that Sarah mentioned calling somebody the night of the assault, and it must have been Joyce’s parents because she said she didn’t want them to know. So clearly Sarah has an MO of getting her roommates shipped off and must be confronted about it! (And bear in mind that Sarah has never made it any secret that she doesn’t care for Billie; while Billie’s accusations in this bit are wrong to the point of being hallucinatory, she doesn’t have any particular reason to like Sarah and is probably getting some satisfaction out of challenging her on a perceived moral transgression.)
The fact that Billie’s father acts distant towards her doesn’t mean that she believes all fathers are like that. Your statement has no logic. In fact, I’m certain that at this point in the story Billie knows that Joyce’s parents are quite the opposite of distant, as in highly protective.
The fact that Billie’s father is distant and her relationship with him is fucked up doesn’t all by itself mean that she thinks this is true of other people. But you wanted a reason why she’s provoking Sarah that’s more involved than her just being a bongo, and a huge emotional sore spot with regards to parents and a tendency to believe that they aren’t helpful when you need them is a really obvious potential motivation.
Also, if you’re looking for a character who operates completely rationally and makes no false assumptions about things, you want…well, probably a character from some other webcomic entirely, but specifically Billie is really not that person.
The only backup you have for your claim is Billie saying that her father is emotionally stunted. That’s one line. Only one. There may be a chance you’re right, but it’s a big statement with too little to support it.
Revising my previous comment, I have to admit that the behavior of Joyce’s parents isn’t the healthiest either. Still, that doesn’t prove anything either.
Also, Billie acting as though college is an extension of high-school, that doesn’t mean she’s an irrational person. She wants to be a popular girl on campus; as inmature as that behavior can be, there’s some logic behind it. And there’s no need to explain her animosity against Ruth.
Sarah has done nothing to Billie, other than having a low opinion on her. That’s no reason to attack. What Billie does here is dismiss Sarah as someone who doesn’t care about popularity.
We could say that Sarah threatened to have Joyce taken away, one of Billie’s few friends, but that’s still very little.
If you want two dimensional characters who can be summed up in one line, then I suggest you go read another comic.
There is also Billie’s behavior-her determined committment to popularity/social climbing, her stated opinion that the way to make someone feel better is to give them money, and her stated opinion that her background as a cute cheerleader from a wealthy family is so very important. Concluding some themes from her relationship with her father from that is hardly a huge leap.
She’s a self-involved, short-sighted entitled bongo who thinks people want to be like her or should want to, and is flattered that Joyce seems to and challenged by Sarah’s scornful rejection of her as a model?
None of that, btw, is particularly damning character judgment. Mostly it comes down to an unconscious, selfish ignorance, which while bad isn’t the end of the world. Also, it’s interesting that for you Sarah is telling lies about herself to herself and others…but Billie ‘must have a reason’.
Yes, because we’ve seen so much to indicate that committed self interest isn’t the priority.
When the hell did I say Sarah is telling lies about herself? Point out a specific example.
My guess is that Sarah is possibly overlooking any warning signs in Joyce’s behavior, simply because there’s no interference in her studies. That is not telling lies!
You’ve said more than once that Sarah acted only to remove distractions and irritants from her own life. I just re-read your comments. Also let me point out the hypocrisy of criticizing someone else for pretentiousness when you’ve stated your own belief that most people here are idiots, heh.
Good question. First, as you’ve already pointed out, Billie prioritizes popularity. More specifically, she prioritizes making friends.
Second, people generally extrapolate from how they are, to how everyone should be. It’s likely that Billie thinks everyone should prioritize friend making. Take a look at her shopping trip with Joyce: Billie wanted to buy joyce cloths that would help her make friends.
Third, Sarah does not prioritize making friends. But, and this is important, she does like people. In her story, she did have friends and do things like go to the movies. A person who didn’t like people would have declined to go to the movies with them.
It’s like ice cream. I enjoy ice cream, but I don’t have it every day because I have other things I want to spend my money on. So while I like it, it’s low priority.
Billie, doesn’t understand that. To her, people who don’t prioritize making friends must not like people. Because if they liked people, they’d be out there making friends. She’s confusing the two. Which she would because she’s young and probably hasn’t had a chance to consider an alternative point of view.
Now consider this: because Billie prioritizes making friends, she wants to hold onto them. Normally, this equals doing the right thing for all your friends. Normally. But sometimes, the needs of one person conflict the larger groups desires. So what’s good for one person, isn’t what the rest of the group wants.
Sarah is more willing to do the right thing for a single person, even if it ostracizes her from the group because making, and holding on to, friends is low priority.
Billie, right now, is incapable of understanding that decision, particularly one that sends a friend away. Not only did Sarah willingly do something that made her unpopular, but she separated a friend from her other friends. The only explanation Billie can come-up with for this behavior is that Sarah doesn’t like people. Because anyone who likes people wouldn’t have done that.
But why confront Sarah with this flaw you ask? Because Billie likes to point out other people’s flaws. It makes her feel smarter the others. She feels like if she points out people’s flaws to them, she can help them change. For Billie, it’s not about getting Sarah to fly into a range, it’s about improving Sarah.
If Sarah flys into a rage as a result of pointing out the truth, well, Billie figures they just can’t handle the truth. A rational person would ask Billie for help about how they can improve themselves.
See? This is a solid argument. It describes the character beyond a trait and gives a guess that can be backed up with examples.
Billie does in fact see herself as a voice of wisdom; and she has boasted her self-appointed duty to guide others. Also, we have seen her pointing out flaws in Joyce, Sal and especially Walky.
It can also be pointed out that she is quick to jump to conclusions, and even quicker to act upon them
there must be a reason behind this; and I’m not going to take the lazy answer of “she’s just a bongo”.
How about this then: She’s an alcoholic who doesn’t want to admit that she has a problem, and she’s worried that Sarah thinks she does. So of COURSE she wants to throw doubt on Sarah’s judgement in general. If she can convince herself that Sarah was wrong about Dina, she won’t have to listen if Sarah ever points out her own addiction.
While Billie would use something damning against Sarah, like she tried to do with Ruth, not liking people doesn’t hold much weight against alcoholism.
Billie isn’t the brightest person in the cast and is often impulsive, but she’s smart enough to know what’s truly incriminating.
This may be the comic where I realize undergrads are stupid, self-centered, and petty, so I shouldn’t truly care about what they think or do, especially in a fictional realm.
As someone who lives in a college town, there is a mantra that I and many others that work in my Retail establishment repeat to ourselves over and over and over again:
Perhaps I should elaborate for the freshmen and others that may not understand–
During the summer, my town is a bit of a tourist destination, but once summer ends and school starts, you can definitely tell. Not just because of our back to school promotions. The day that the dorms open, sometimes a little earlier, the college kids come back.
The freshmen wander around in groups–girls all laughing loudly and giggling like high schoolers. The guys trying to act all macho. They’re loud, shout to their buddies when they find something they find neat, and are generally annoying (to me sometimes).
The older students come in, usually in pairs or singly, but rarely in groups. They have been here the last year so they know where everything is. Add to that they already know exactly what they need (as opposed to the freshman “Do I need this? or this? Ooooh, maybe this! Hey, look at this!”).
All in all, I’d prefer the Sophomores+. But that’s just me.
Feel free to not read the comic. But, if watching the action of somewhat stupid people bothers you, you have my pity, because it seems like something close to 90% of popular entertainment (and 99% of comedy) is centered on people being idiots nowadays.
Okay, this may be the only comment on this page not related to the actual content of the comic, but it appears as if Willis forgot to color in the straps of Billie’s shirt. Just thought I’d point it out. ; w ;
Did she think that Dana was going to commit suicide? That’s the only logical conclusion I can derive from that first comment about her ending up in a coffin. Because if she’s inferring that Dana was going to die from smoking too much cannabis, she is gravely misinformed and mistaken. Just saying.
Well yeah, Sarah was meaning Dana’s possible suicide. It was probably implied from her downward spiral and severe depression that Sarah had the thought process that “Dana is only getting worse, to the point she may kill her self in her depression. I have to do something.”
Oh, hell no. The only way the consequences of weed can be worse than the consequences of being pulled out of school is if you’re caught with it, and since not even Raidah knew how low she’d sunk, that wasn’t going to happen. Sarah called Dana’s father out of her own self-interest, an understandable self-interest, but if she’s going to extol how much she was helping Dana, she should do it to her face when she finds her at a reception desk five years from now.
The consequences of serious depression, on the other hand, can very easily be worse than the consequences of being pulled out of school.
Raidah was apparently not in that hallway. Bear in mind Sarah was the one covering to keep Dana from getting in trouble.
And seriously, if your roommate is coming home at 2 AM regularly like Sarah said in her second comic, then things could definitely have ended up going REALLY REALLY BAD.
If it was self-interest, it would’ve been simple as I said to get Dana removed without ever having her own role come to light. She called a family member AFTER turning to her other ‘friends’ to try and help her roommate, and he either alone or together with Dana decided to pull her from college. Not the end of the world.
Do you really imagine she couldn’t get back in? After a death in the family? Because, unless she had done or not done something else, that’s all it looks like to the college: student left school after death of a parent.
Why couldn’t Dana go back to college after getting therapy for her depression and excessive pot use? She wasn’t kicked out. Why do you assume she would never go back and would end up in a crappy job?
She had a rich and presumably well-connected dad– he would see that she got in somewhere good after she got well.
Also if she’d kept on the way she was going, she might have flunked out of college anyway, and then it would have been harder for her to get back into a good school. And it might have been more damaging to Dana psychologically, since she was already in a fragile state.
Whatever Sarah’s motives were (and they may well have been mixed) I just don’t buy that what she did ruined Dana’s life.
I can’t believe people are actually still villifying Sarah for having informed a parent that their daughter was a) using drugs and b) in a spiral of depression.
Frankly, the only criticism I have of Sarah is waiting as long as she did.
(If Dana had my parents pulling her out of school and leaving her with one of them would be about the worst possible thing you could do, but the wonderful thing about fiction is that not everyone is you, innit.)
The more I read this comic, the more I can’t help but think 99% of these problems could be solved with a good therapist doing weekly sessions with the entire cast. I could probably even write up most of what those problems and personality flaws are and how they could best be addressed.
Then I remember that if that actually happened, the comic would have no tension and would be incredibly boring to read.
OK I’ve not had internet for the last two weeks and I’ve been back tracking through the comic and this is possibly one of the the best two strips in any internet comic… anywhere.
What I really like is Billies almost cold calculating sincerity, it’s like she’s dropped her gaurd down for a few minutes and we see the real Billie ready to give a ‘heart to heart’ and ‘fix’ Sarah.
Of course there’s nothing wrong with Sarahs decision it’s misanthropic, yes but valid. Its Billie who has the problem that needs fixing but given her personality probably never wil be.
Suicide, not marijuana. Extremely depressed people sometimes kill themselves, see, and since Sarah’s not a moron, we’re going to assume that she’s aware that you can’t OD on pot – leaving us with one possible conclusion: that she feared Dana would commit (or attempt) suicide.
for anyone else reading comments way later, also there’s the whole thing that she was probably at the point of stopping all self care (from grooming to eating), especially if she was smoking all the time to escape (even if not due to addiction), and that makes a fast road to suicide or otherwise death (it’s really easy to wander into the road at that point)
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Having none of your sass today Billie.
dat sass
Sassed right in Sarah’s FAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!
With her penis?
Well, that’s not being overly defensive or anything…
Being harrassed about it by her former “friends” for a year might have something to do with that.
Yeah, you can only take so much before you snap, especially when it’s coming from someone you only tolerate for the sake of your roommate.
Take a think for a minute, please. Joyce is… Well, Joyce. I don’t recall her ever acting the way she has these past few weeks. I have a feeling that the behavioral changes are in part – if not entirely – due to the physical and psychological trauma of almost getting raped; while rape in itself is an unspeakable crime which should be punishable by death by flogging, keep in mind that Joyce is… Again, Joyce; that naive little Christian girl who, in my mind, would be much more affected by the event. I say this on complete assumption and have probably already made an ass out of myself; I obviously have no room to talk, having never come close to being raped, but I’m submitting my opinion nonetheless. Back to my point, I have no doubt that Joyce would change and act somewhat with her friends, but I feel that it is happening far too quickly, violently, and angrily to be normal. The fact is, the psychological impact is still gnawing at her mind, and I think Sarah might’ve picked up on it as well.
While everyone else was amused and shocked that Joyce was making innuendos and such, I was just loosing more and more hope that my suspicions were incorrect. Though, it’s still Dave’s call, so all this I’m typing is could just be the ridiculous ramblings of an old redneck. Only time will tell. I hope I’m wrong.
Because I read this comment, I reread the comic from the beginning. She’s reaching out more, and getting more distressed when no one hangs out with her. She needs someone to talk to about this, soon. She’s breaking.
There are several other things that I noticed but can’t remember.
Lol to the intensity of your comment, here.
I’m interested to see how this “Joyce is a ticking time bomb” theorty pans out. Will she snap and kill EVERYONE? Will she suddenly hate tacos? Will she make out with Mike?
I’m not quite sure how her breakdown would–well, break down.
I
Joyce could make a bomb out of Mike’s tacos which he uses to kill everyone! Run for your lives!!
Seriously though (out of character here) I think we are worrying a bit much. Strangely enough, of the ways Joyce could have been exposed to “adult topics” this is less severe than it could have been. She could have been strapped down hard and forced to watch porn for hours until she wanted to destroy her brain or kill herself. The events at the party were horrible, but she is doing a decent job of being an adult, moving on and making connections within her social group for support and friendship. There will be ramifications, echoes if you will, of this event, but I don’t think they will lead to some climactic violent meltdown where people die or anything. So, you know, progress.
Have I said that I love the dramatical effect that your gravater gives to everything you says?
*gravatar
Hmm… You might be onto something here.
How else is Raidah gonna come out on top, here? Facts? Generations of proven ethical patterns and whose call fits them better? Dragging Dana back into this and expecting her to take sides? Taking advantage of Sarah’s victim mentality and inability to stick up for herself in a non-Byronic manner is basically it.
I will say one thing for Billie, she’s a hell of a lot braver than I would be with Sarah yelling at me. I’d be crapping my pants.
Who’s to say she’s not. The camera is from the waist up.
Or wetting them.
Well she did stand up to Ruth
That’s not food on the table there….
Of course not. It’s coffee.
Brave or Fool?
Was Sarah expecting Dana to move onto harder stuff?
Depression could lead to crystal meth. Or suicide. I should know. The suicide part, not the crystal meth.
Yup, that’s my best friend in real life. Except add cocaine.
But pot specifically only led us to eating 3 pounds of cream cheese, bacon, and jalopenos.
Pot was a symptom though, not the disease.
A distinction I’d hoped would be stated. But Dana was also smoking before her mom died.
Yes but she was smoking heavier after. She wanted to forget which would likely lead to alcohol and other self destructive behavior and who knows what.
Well, from personal experience (with both firsthand and secondhand experience with depression/self-medicating/drug use/alcoholism), a healthy, well-adjusted person rarely overuses any substances, and if they use substances it’s only recreationally. A person suffering will self-medicate which often makes depression symptoms worse.
There is a difference between self controlled recreational use, as she was before her mom died, and self medication. I’ve seen a couple studies linking cannabis to those prone to major depressive episodes, and suggesting, if only weakly correlated, that in such a use case it typically acts as a feedback loop or reliance on the drug and preventing a person from going through the steps to deal with the underlying causes of that depression, typically allowing one’s depressive state to spiral out of control. From Sarah’s story, that seems likely what happened with Dana, especially since the death of a close immediate family member can easily cause a significant depressive episode, even for those not prone to them.
If you’re somebody who picks up a videogame and your life immediately goes to shit then you probably just can’t be trusted to game responsibly. If you’re a healthy albeit somewhat excessive gamer who after your boyfriend discovers he’s gay during an intimate moment after prom, starts gaming to the exclusion of your social life, making appointments with your guild that interfere with your real life commitments and don’t leave you with enough time to sleep or take care of other basic physical and mental health concerns, well then videogames probably aren’t actually the problem. Probably you’ve got some shit surrounding that recent breakup that needs to be dealt with.
Dana was in a depressive cycle that was only getting worse day by day. Pot happened to be her vice and it became a part of that cycle, but the depression was the real issue. My two cents on that.
Keep telling yourself that.
Pot IS dangerous.
Any evidence for that claim?
The bass player from my old band who went from recreational use, to heavy use, to dealing, to being a homeless bum where I since lost track of him. And don’t think I’m preaching out against the “demon weed” either, any addictive substance is dangerous. To claim otherwise is to demonstrate complete ignorance.
TRUTH that be. Also add to the list Mr Jack Daniels and the Captain Morgan. Alcohol and cigarettes and prescription medication are far worse in enabling self destruction but it is all self destruction nonetheless.
Coors and Budweiser is just for drowning yourself in ….[lame joke I know]
All that trouble with the law over a need to recreate without really doing anything?
That legal stigma ain’t good for anyone’s social prospects.
I don’t recall mentioning trouble with the law being a factor. Addictive behavior ruins lives regardless of the legality of the substance being abused was the point I was making. Believing that because it’s nigh impossible to die from a pot overdose means there is no danger at all in smoking it is naive.
If someone wants to destroy themselves in the privacy of their own home using drugs, alcohols, or even cigarettes, that’s entirely their choice. However, no one has the right to inflict harm on others. This means not exposing others to second-hand smoke and not getting behind the wheel of a motorized vehicle while under the influence of anything.
And don’t try telling me that people don’t do pot and get behind the wheel. Several years ago, one of my classmates who offered to drive me home from class did (obviously, I wasn’t aware at the time that they were high), and I thought I was going to die with how they were driving. There is no excuse for it, ever.
People can destroy themselves if they like, but they have no right to take anyone else with them.
You could also watch Cops, World’s Dumbest, and every other show that occasionally show DUI or DWI arrests. Many are alcohol-related, but there are also those with people who are under the influence.
Are you honestly trying to say that only people who drink alcohol ever commit DUI?
And a quick Google search turns up:
http://news.yahoo.com/more-drivers-arrested-drug-dui-arizona-2011-maricopa-080302029.html
http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20566291,00.html
http://www.nbc15.com/home/headlines/Reedsburg-Woman-Arrested-for-DUI-and-Possession-of-Marijuana-165156496.html
http://hightimes.com/news/mmiller/7563
http://www.willitsnews.com/marijuananews/ci_21205408/dui-checkpoint-saturday-eureka-nets-marijuana-arrests
http://www.washingtondui.com/seattle-marijuana-dui-lawyer/wa-drug-dui-attorney
http://banning-beaumont.patch.com/articles/driver-arrested-on-suspicion-of-medical-marijuana-dui-during-chp-checkpoint
Take your pick. Sorry, marijuana DUI is a thing that exists, whether you like it or not.
Okaaaay, so… the comment my last two posts were replying to has mysteriously disappeared. Like Sal, through windows.
And for your anecdotes, I have plenty to counter it. In fact, almost every single person I know who has tried marijuana (and several who still use) are all well educated, at the very least at the BA/BS level, many at the Masters level, and some on the PhD level. The predisposition for fucking up one’s life exists with or without the weed. Safe and recreational drug use is possible, provided you do your proper research and take the necessary precautions.
To simply make a blanket comment that “Pot IS dangerous” is weak at best, and is really a meaningless statement. It’s not for everyone, but there are plenty of intelligent and productive members of society who use responsibly.
And I know smokers who never got lung cancer. So what? Does that invalidate the fact that smoking can cause cancer?
If someone wants to smoke, or drink, or do illegal drugs, I personally don’t care. It’s their choice. But blindly ignoring potential consequences is just idiotic. Me? I used to “smoke” (was in a band as I mentioned, I think it’s practically a prerequisite) but gave it up years ago, (about the time the band split and the bass player had “graduated” to dealing). I can’t really say I miss it and I’ve also moved into a different career that involves random drug testing. And I drink. I enjoy getting a good buzz on now and then. But I acknowledge the risk. Certainly many people I know can do as I do and drink in moderation, but some can’t. So yes, addictive substances like pot and alcohol are dangerous. And in my experience, you can’t make the choice to behave responsibly if you refuse to acknowledge there is any risk in the first place.
Considering I never made a statement about education or intelligence, I’ll just skip this part entirely.
Anyway, it’s true that pot can probably be used safely… same for alcohol and cigarettes. It’s also true that many people can’t seem to manage that, become addicted, and make bad choices. To, in your own words, make a ‘blanket statement’ that ‘All pot users are responsible’ is equally weak and meaningless.
People abuse substances, and cause harm to themselves and other people. I put pot in the same category as I do other substances, including legal ones like the aforementioned cigarettes and alcohol. People become addicted, they can’t handle the substance, and they harm themselves. I suppose that’s their right, it’s their body, but it’s not their right to harm others.
Any psychoactive substance has the potential to be be abused…better yet ANYTHING has the potential to be abused. Cannabis has the capacity to make someone psychologically dependent (NOT physically). The majority of misconstrued “facts” perpetuated by the media during this time of marijuana prohibition have been brought to light as being nothing but slanderous lies. So do not say that “pot is dangerous”, because that is far too strong and broad a statement to make given all the evidence out there to the contrary.
You’re absolutely right, there is nothing dangerous at all about addiction.
Nice straw man, LastOutlaw. That is not what Ms Danger was saying at all. Then again, I never said that I “refused to acknowledge any risk,” so the straw man argument is apparently your thing.
Your band’s experience is not evidence, by the way. No anecdote is, even if the root cause of your bass player’s problems was weed, which I am highly skeptical of anyway.
Somehow there are an awful lot of people who lead productive and well-adjusted lives as marijuana users (this is certainly not limited to only the people I know personally). Since the common denominator with those who screw up their lives is weed, consider perhaps that something else is afoot here.
Pot is dangerous, just like a car is dangerous, or a bicycle is dangerous. Without proper use, lots of things are dangerous. Heck, a microwave is dangerous if you stick metal in it. I think the point here is that misuse of anything is a bad idea. Pot can be easily misused like alcohol, and it takes someone responsible to recognize that and choose when smoking it is a bad idea. (granted I would say it is a bad idea anytime, living in the US, considering it is currently illegal).
Wow, some of you people are really hard and loose with your use of the word “addictive”.
It is impossible to form a physical dependency on cannabis. That is what “addictive” means, and that is why crystal meth, nicotine, and cocaine are addictive.
Now just because something isn’t addictive doesn’t mean it can’t be habit-forming, and harmful to your life in excess. This can include chocolate, video games, sex, the internet, fast food, and yes, cannabis. It is completely possible – easy, even – to enjoy these things responsibly and in moderation, because there is no physical hook that makes you NEED MORE. If you binge on chocolate and get fat, you are not a victim of chocolate. You are simply weak-willed.
Anecdotal horror stories like the bassist above are the exception and not the rule. Don’t go around inaccurately calling weed addictive just because you had one bad experience. “Hate the player, not the game.”
You can’t overdose on marijuana and it’s way less harmful than alcohol. You people who think it’s so dangerous are incredibly ignorant.
“But pot specifically only led us to eating 3 pounds of cream cheese, bacon, and jalopenos.”
Is it wrong that that actually sounds good? Not the quantity, but those together?
If you put them all together you probably actually would have a pretty nice food-thing. Maybe some kind of topping or chip-dip?
Of course not. Anything plus bacon sounds good.
It’d be like jalapeño poppers with bacon mixed into the standard cream cheese stuffing. How could that NOT be delicious?
We mixed the cream cheese with sun-dried tomatoes, garlic, and freshley chopped basil, stuffed the mixture into gutted jalapenos, then wrapped the whole thing with bacon, then baked the suckers. But eventually we used the leftover stuffing as dip.
I’ll put the recipe up next Wednesday.
*drools*
A depressive cycle that’s spiraling out of control really just has a tendency to encourage self-destructive behavior in general.
I think she was already on some of the hard stuff by the time she called in the cavalry. And yeah, having been through depression and trauma I’d be glad if a friend were looking out for me like Sarah
Its when you start using it as a crutch is when you need to get worried. I have had to keep an eye on my brother for a while now 2 of his friends from school and his ex-girlfriend have committed suicide in the past year, and I have seen his intake of Marijuana increase significantly.
Oh jeez, that’s rough. Is he seeing a therapist? He probably should. (not to give unsolicited advice, just that it’s helped me)
Depression and drug abuse can often lead to death from suicide or overdose.
The latter is maybe not a risk factor in cases of marijuana abuse, but the former … well, paranoid-schizophrenic personality disturbances are not exactly unknown as a side effect of doing way too much pot… couple that with depression and bereavement…
On the last point its actually the other way around …. it is not a root cause as some suggest but does have a strong enhancement effect [is that the right word?] that brings any such issues forward and exacerbates them.
It is like alcohol in that way, some people are bad drunks to very nasty drunks, the underlying flaws were always there but the “drug” alcohol / canabis, removes the safeties, so to say.
You can’t overdose on weed unless it’s laced with something else. -_-
It isn’t a “gateway drug” either. That’s a serious misconception.
Pot doesn’t cause schizophrenic personality disturbances (however, if you’re already schizophrenic, pot can certainly exacerbate your condition).
Good on you Sarah. One of the few with a real concern about people, and for sure, as no good deed goes undone, she’s paying for it. Maybe though, she gave Billie something to think about…besides herself.
I think the saying you’re fishing for is “No good deed goes unpunished”
No act of charity goes unresented?
Thats my new creed
I hope they are better than the old Creed, that band sucked.
There you go with the arrogance again. Higher isn’t bad and I don’t care who doesn’t like the song.
Wait.. it doesn’t? I released the nuns from the shark tank in my basement for nothing?!
Elan’s shocked face only makes that statement better. Even more so than that undead mage from Looking For Group would.
He’s undead?! I thought he was a friendly albino from up the coast who likes baby animals and flying kites.
Sarah’s theme song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4I8pneJkxBY
She’s a witch!! May we burn her? She turned Joyce into a newt but she got better… well… not really… She has got a BAT!
And that something was that Sarah is hardcore
If you read more carefully, you’ll see that Billie is the one who gave Sarah something to think about.
Not really; that was Sarah dismissing Billie’s theory, not her accepting it as worthy of consideration.
Plus, Sarah had already accepted the plan to leave the drugging/rape attempt unreported: you don’t see her calling the cops, do you? She’s just justifiably not leaping to Billie’s conclusion that everything is hunky-dory.
Really best case scenario Joyce is doing fine and there’s still a rapist living down the street with a grudge against her. Not like there’s actually a point where Joyce is so incredibly fine that suggesting they report the rapist becomes an indefensible action.
I’m pretty certain Billie was using sarcasm there.
I doubt it, because that would mean she was conceding the argument to Sarah. Plus Sarah did not respond as though she’d heard sarcasm.
Billie, your standards of okay is really, really not helping.
Her standard of okay is drunk.
Joyce hasn’t been in a horrible downward spiral since the party.
Joyce may be fine, or she might not. We’ll have to wait and see. I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if she’s traumatized from the drugging, assault and attempted rape, however.
And regardless of all that, it really doesn’t change the fact that contacting the police would have been the correct course of action and Sarah is getting shit for being a decent person.
Yeah, whatever Joyce may feel about the attempted rape, being the decent person she is I have to BELIEVE that some part of her is aware that she let a rapist go free to try and attack someone else because SHE didn’t want to deal with the bad thing that almost happened to her.
Yes, Joyce is the victim, but Joyce is also a good person and she missed her opportunity to try and stop a very bad person. I believe that this would eat at her.
Sarah was right, but Sarah was also right not to force her if she couldn’t do it. Joyce gets to live with those consequences, now.
You’re a bongo, Billie. A terrible, terrible person.
You’re a mean one, Ms. Billingsworth. You’re really are a heel.
You’re a bongoy…Ms. Billingsworth
A drunk, hypocritical skank
you smell like the jocks of football players
drenched in all the booze you drank
Ms. Billingsworth!
If I were to describe your body type in the most accurate fassion I’d liken it to….the width of Propane TAAAAAAANK
Huh, great minds think alike. Except yours are a lot better than mine.
I dunno. You’re may be short, but it at least scans to the right rhythm for the song. Sorry, but when I do a song parody, you can actually sing the words to the original music. If I had the spare time to do this right, I would write out the entire song, post it somewhere then post a link here. Sadly, I have more valuable use of my time. Such as sleeping.
<:c I-I kept meter and rhyme scheme in mind, as well as rhythm….I wish I could sing it for you…
I prefer Aizat’s because I think it’s a bit immature to attack a person strictly on the basis of appearance or sexual activities, especially when their severe personality deficiencies are so much riper.
And I feel like, when it comes to women, the former two are the most common targets, no matter why we’re actually unhappy with them. As though these are the only things that matter about them.
This made me laugh so hard that my ribs hurt and my eyes are watering. Why? Because I heard the actual singer’s voice (^_^)
Same here.
I hear everything in that voice. Seriously, that was an awesome voice.
Boris Karloff makes everything more awesome. 😀
The singer was actually Thurl Ravenscrof, the voice
of Tony the Tiger. Karloff read the speaking narration.
She isn’t that bad…
Man, Joyce was not OK before she ever got to college. And still isn’t, fully. But I am enjoying watching the journey!
I’m also imagining Sarah’s going off panel to pick up her lunch and finish eating it. “I’m sorry, cake. Let’s never fight again.”
Sarah SMASH!
…And no apology from Billie? I have found myself feeling sorry for her at times in the past. This just isn’t one of those times.
Billie has never apologized for anything in her life. (That’s your cue to link counterexamples. I expect the list to be short.)
Billie doesn’t strike me as the sort who apologizes for *anything*.
I’m just surprised she remains so calm in the face of Sarah’s explosion.
She is a cheerleader. Nerves of steel.
At least she did it thinking and caring about them. That counts, right?
Billy you are drunk.
In other news, water is wet.
In OTHER other news, Joe likes sex
In other news, Joyce is christian.
In other news, Walky likes McNuggets.
In other news, hey! Look at Walky’s penis!
It’s made of caramel!
In other news, Sal isn’t Amazi-Girl.
What?!? She’s not?
Billie’s always drunk.
Yeah, like Ultimate Tony Stark.
why did I read Tony Shark?
Frosted Flakes is going a new direction?
And when you are drunk you forget that I am in charge.
*sigh* I had friends in high school who would quote that scene from Willow ALL the TIME. Now, if I had seen the movie in full at that time, I had forgotten large portions of it, but thanks to them, I will never be getting those lines out of my head. Not with with the MiB/Martian mind-eraser thingy.
Guys, guys, let’s be serious about this. She is gonna get swakked SO HARD.
That every alternate version and descendant of Billie is going to feel it.
What, seriously? That joke is, like, SO 24 hours old. Get with the times, man! Pshaw.
Dude. The swak is so hard, it’s ascended the realm of space and time. IT WILL NEVER GET OLD.
Billie, your standard of okay involves being drunk 24/7.
And we all know how that turned out for King of the Trisolians.
Oh god that poor cake, look at it, cut down in it’s prime…
This is truly the real tragedy of this storyline.
I’ve seen worse fate for a pastry. Ever heard of the Hay Bacon Pie?
I dunno… I’m not finding Sarah as sympathetic as a lot of folks seem to. I’ve met the sort before – they talk big about compassion and difficult decisions, yet somehow, their solutions always seem to be calculated less to help and more simply to remove drama-prone people from their lives. Whether anyone actually ends up being helped is a secondary consideration, for all their protestations to the contrary.
As it should be. Everyone should be more concerned about themselves than some person that they only know casually.
Well, see, there’s the thing: if you really *are* just concerned about yourself, you don’t get to make a big show of affected compassion, then play the martyr card when folks disapprove of you screwing others over for your own benefit.
And if she had actually screwed anyone over, that might not be a completely moot point. She quite probably saved Dana’s life when none of her other “friends” gave a damn, and saved Joyce from, at the very least, getting raped. And as somebody else mentioned a day or two ago, Sarah wanted to call the police about the attempted rape. It was Joyce that first mentioned her parents at all.
You’re addressing a completely different point than the one I was responding to there. My reply was with reference to the argument that Sarah’s actions would have been justified even if she *had* been looking out for number one because she was under no obligation to care. Context matters, y’know.
Even if she was just looking out for number one, the point remains that she has not screwed anyone over. “Affected concern” or not, her actions regarding Dana and Joyce have caused no harm and have actually done quite a bit of good.
…Except she was trying to help Joyce.
Indeed she was. Saving her from getting raped is a pretty good sign of that. I mean, if one or two things had gone wrong the rapist might have attacked her too. Sarah put her neck on the line there. Her suggestion to call the police was also sound and reasonable. And yet now she’s getting shit for it like she got shit for getting help for her roommate who was locked in a downward spiral of self destruction.
Damn. Sometimes it really sucks to be the good guy.
I didn’t say she wasn’t. Bear in mind, however, that there’s two kinds of “helping”; the one that actually tries to address the problem, and the one that endeavours simply to make the problem go as far away from oneself as possible.
Yes, and where I see Sarah as doing the former, you see her as doing the latter.
A suggestion to call the police when you’ve just taken a bat to a rapist on a friend’s behalf IS looking out for others. ONLY.
Because there is very clear evidence and lots of witnesses you just assaulted someone, and if the evidence doesn’t sufficiently prove that he meant to rape your friend, you are well and truly screwed.
Sarah put EVERYTHING on the line, first to save Joyce, and then to try and get the rapist put away.
Sarah is the ONLY one who acted morally then. Joyce acted understandably, but not morally.
And this is something that was pointed out at the time, in-strip, by Sal, so it’s not like Sarah hadn’t considered it. And she wanted to call the cops anyway, insisting that Joyce not use this as a reason not to do it.
Seriously, point me to one thing Sarah does in that storyline that’s done for her personal comfort. Every last bit of it is either putting herself out to do the right thing, or listening to Joyce and respecting her wishes even when Sarah disagrees with her.
And she would have been doing the latter if she had done what so many commenters suggested and merely tried for a room transfer.
I’d argue BOTH Sarah and Raidah are that type. Sarah simply is a much more tragic case because she has a deal more than a mouth to feed to offer society and any potential future friends and family she might have provided she doesn’t lose it with this Freudian Excuse-fest Raidah keeps dragging her into. I come from a family with more Sarahs and Raidahs than I’d prefer, and I can tell you Prokoptez. Has. A. Point.
Calling the cops on a rapist is not a calculated attempt to remove a roommate. Remember, she had no reason at the time to think that doing the right thing (if you, you know, dislike rapists roaming free) might cause her roommate to be removed from college at all, because that’s not normal.
As a WoC in college I don’t care either way, she made the right call. College is a big deal, if she needs to keep up her grades in order to stay in school fuck it, call the cops. Dana needed help, Sarah needed to be able to study, win win to call her parents. At least she’s (pretty) positive that Dana isn’t getting worse.
Yeah, ’cause they have some right to impose their drama on you…
If ditching a distraction was all Sarah was after, it seems to me she had several quicker and simpler options. Instead, she made multiple attempts to get Dana some help. Considering she had no reason to owe Dana jack, it seems to me that Sarah genuinely went above and beyond here.
More like convince herself she’s removing difficult people from her life, when she’s actually enabling them to take her down even more.
Sarah didn’t have to be friends with Raidah & Crew-she took a shot for semi-selfish reasons. She didn’t have to tolerate her roomie’s smoking even for a week before her mom died-it would’ve been simplicity itself to see that she was caught, anonymously. She took the option least likely to harm her roommate, instead of other more sure and thorough ones. She didn’t have to go to that party, but that she didn’t want to be quite so unwelcoming towards Joyce, and she didn’t have to concern herself with her well being and then actually defend it when no one else was.
Your analysis is bunk. It doesn’t match up with the facts. If Sarah were the sort you describe, her actions would’ve been quite different. I’ll take a single Sarah over a dozen Billies or Raidah’s any day of the week and twice on Sundays, whether to be friends with or coworkers or what have you.
Didn’t have to take Raidah & Crew’s shit about the outcome of Dana’s breakdown for so long either, but she did.
Didn’t have to throw Raidah a mulligan with all that narc talk, staying away from calling her on her denial, demanding proof of her accusations, or anything that actually related to what prompted Sarah’s actions, but she did, anyway.
Didn’t have to isolate herself from getting to know anyone else outside Raidah & Co, especially when they wouldn’t stop giving her a hard time about it. Not only did she do that, but waited until she was sucked into her next roommate’s social circle, just like before.
Also coping with being bullied by Raidah and Co. when no one’s around by pretending it’s not a thing, similar to Danah coping with her mom’s death, sans the pot, isn’t a good sign either.
Praising her for all the good shes done for Danah and now Joyce doesn’t do anything for her growing instability. Nor will continued success in selling both herself and others her career first / mistanthrope / looking out for number one persona. Simply being ‘due’ for the break she gave Danah and Joyce isn’t enough to make it come, especially she still has yet to have made a friend who can actually return her reliability.
Was something removed from a post somewhere?
Billie better get a reality check and fast. Jesus.
Also, Sarah didn’t force Joyce to call her parents. She actually respected her decision to not tell anyone else. On top of that, Sarah’s first choice with Dana was getting her friends involved to nip it in the bud as painlessly as possible. The call to Dana’s dad was a last choice.
Exactly. She did nothing wrong, but since others can’t see the whole picture and just the harm, she’s having a hell of a time convincing herself of that.
I’m pleased that Sarah managed to avoid resorting to violence this time.
(Pretty certain that smashing a tray, plate and cutlery through the air counts, though certainly better than infliction of injury.)
No, that is a display of anger. It isn’t violence. There was no assault on Billie’s person.
Yes it’s frowned upon at other schools we know of.
Indeed. 🙂
Um, yes it is. A display of anger is panel one of today’s strip, violence is throwing things around, even if they aren’t aimed at anyone. Imagine, for instance, that she was in an office, and started trashing the place because she got angry. That would be a violent act, but it wouldn’t be assault. DAm I making my point here?
On top of that, the only who people would care about Billie’s inquiry bsides her and Sarah are, you guessed it, Raidah, Charlotte and Chan.
Everyone else’ll just see a potential youtube video of the “epic beard man” variety at best. Sarah might see everyone agreeing she’s a “monster” who “hates people.”
Can’t help her current situation.
Violence implied is still violence.
a.k.a. intimidation is violence
…Interesting. I hadn’t considered that she (Sarah) might see Billie’s comparison as valid.
While her stance sounds reasonable, there is also danger. ‘hardest decision’: believable. ‘willing to do it again’: possibility of decreased internal resistance to taking a familiar path, even when there’s less brutal necessity. Particularly applicable if there are few (further) personal consequences.
Keeping the acknowledged validity of the comparison in mind, it’s tempting to go back and see how hard she seemed to be thinking about the suggestion in Joyce’s case, or whether she went straight to it automatically and without thought.
I just went back and read the aftermath of the rape attempt. Sarah initially suggested calling the cops, Joyce slurrily said no, and Sarah immediately switched to supporting her decision, at least for the evening. Then Sarah slept next to Joyce to make sure she didn’t stop breathing. In the morning Sarah explained the evening’s events to Joyce (who had blacked them out), but continued to state only that it was up to Joyce what should be done. Yes, she was pissed at Sal for convincing Joyce to choose to do nothing, but at no point was she ever shown so much as arguing that Joyce should risk her parents finding out and removing her from school.
I was frankly astonished to read this; I, like the rest of the fanbase (and Billie) had forgotten that Sarah was 100% on Joyce’s side the entire time and didn’t even argue that Joyce should leave. Billie’s account of the events is completely false, and her comparison is absurd. It’s truly a testament to how beaten down Sarah is by the abuse she’s suffered that she accepts statement of guilt that don’t even apply to her.
For the record, Dorothy persisted in supporting the ‘call the cops’, position, possibly freeing Sarah from having to actively support that position herself. And Billie advocated doing nothing right from the start, and had such a hangover the next day she was barely coherent. It’s unsurprising that she didn’t remember the actual events.
Just read that myself. Pretty crazy. The entire proceeding is basically everybody else telling Joyce what she needs to do while Sarah says “All of y’alls don’t matter and needs to shut up. We’re going with what Joyce says she wants.” I mean there was Dorothy saying we needed to go to the hospital and we had to call the cops. There was Billie acting like the expert of rapist psychology saying we needed to do nothing otherwise we’d just be giving him what he wants. There was Sal talking about how you’ve gotta fuck the system or it’ll fuck you, take the law into your own hands, don’t let the coppers touch your shit because they’ll only make more problems. In the midst of all this Sarah keeps cutting in saying that Joyce shouldn’t worry about any of them, that Joyce just needs to say what she wants and it will be done. Guess that was almost a year ago that it got published so it makes sense that we’re a little foggy on the events, and Billie obviously was drunk and hungover during that night and morning respectively, but damn. This should just be a crystal clear memory from last week for Sarah. Really does say a lot how easily and quickly she got pulled into Billie’s pace and premise.
This is what we get for relying on an unreliable narrator or an extremely biased/incompetent reporter. What better reason do you need to watch Fox News more critically?
But I personally feel ashamed that I let myself get sucked into that trap. We have no one to blame but ourselves. Oh, and Jennifer.
Well, Begbert2 wins this page. Can’t argue with canon.
Yeah, I’m genuinely surprised that this was Sarah’s response. Having rechecked the storyline after Thursday’s strip, I was expecting something along the line of “I didn’t want to call her parents, I wanted to call the cops, because, oh right, she was almost raped. But she said she didn’t want to, so I didn’t. So what the hell are you giving me shit for?” Instead she’s accepting Billie’s framing. Poor Sarah.
Between already being emotionally raw from the confrontation with Raidah and recounting the events around Dana for Joyce, and Billie blatantly provoking a confrontation, I’d bet that Sara isn’t in a state of mind conducive to formulating a cogent argument.
I’m surprised to see so many people coming to Sarah’s defense. I was all for her raging out on the creep that was trying to rape Joyce, but now she just looks like a psycho. The girl’s got serious anger issues.
Considering how much shit she’d been getting for calling Dana’s parents from Dana’s friends, Billy probably kind of pushed her over the edge.
Also, are you really surprised that Sarah has anger issues?
Sarah has anger issues. She’s also been pretty much completely right about everything she’s said or done so far, with the exception of slugging Radiah. In everything Billie is chiding her for, she was completely, unambiguously doing the right thing.
Also, Billie is not entirely unspoiled on the violence front either. Who rose to Ruth’s bait, again?
Not saying that she shouldn’t have intervened when she came upon the Joyce situation, but she came with a bat. When she had no real knowledge that anything nasty was going on. She went there expecting things to be violent when she had no real reason to. She may have Joyce’s best interest at heart but she’s clearly not the picture of mental health herself.
So does Batman.
“Batman.” I see what you did there.
“I’m surprised to see so many people coming to Sarah’s defense”
Well, I’m surprised to see people still criticizing her.
Punching Raidah was unjustified. So was ostracizing and bullying Sarah for doing something about a situation that no one else did anything to fix.
Overturning her lunch tray and not cleaning up the mess (assuming she’s not just now going to fetch a mop) is kind of douchey. So is throwing false accusations at someone you barely know over something you only have second hand knowledge of.
Sarah doesn’t have anger issues, she’s just unwilling to back down on anything she feels is right (Almost like she thinks her opinions are the result of rational assessments of the situation or some silly hysterical woman shit like that) and she is more emotionally stable and physically intimidating than most of the major college douchebags are used to dealing with, meaning that they all see her and anyone around here as a giant threat that they then try to goad and goad and rape and goad because of their own personal insecurities.
And she doesn’t actually rise to the bait most of the time.
Bear in mind that it wasn’t raidah goading Sarah that was what made Sarah punch raidah, it was Raidah and her friends attacking Dinah (that whole calling her a retard thing? you’re calling the punching of someone who insulted dinah wrong?) AND THEN giving sarah shit over doing the right thing in a tough situation as though they have the right to judge sarah.
And in this case Billie is being fucking useless as always but being pretentious with it – it’s not like Sarah has her own fucking high stress life to lead in between dealing with everyone else’s problems oh no, no sarah is just traipsing through fields of daisies constantly calling everyone’s mom just for the fun of it or whatever billie believes. Remember that Billie is literally only giving sarah shit because she’s annoying that she couldn’t become one of Raidah’s minions – that’s the entirety of billie motivation here, she doesn’t genuinely give a shit about joyce, she doesn’t genuinely care what Sarah did with her roommate, she’s just being petty because her pathetic high-school clique fetish got thwarted.
On the other hand, the whole “dressing up as “amazigirl” and wandering around campus fighting crime” thing isn’t the most stable thing Sarah does…
I really don’t think that Sarah punched Radiah over Dina. If she were going to have done that, the obvious time to do it would have been when they were actually doing the insulting, and her facial expression immediately before the punch showed that she was shocked to see the Radiah crowd descending on her new ‘little sister’ to get their claws into her and turn her against Sarah too.
So yeah, the punch was a purely emotional reaction to the situation that Radiah had created for her. You have a point that she’s obviously keeping her cool more often than she’s losing it, but on the other hand she just smacked a tray and started shouting in Billie’s face. She may not be a raging maniac, but she’s certainly at the end of her frayed tether.
Did Billie not recognize the part in Sarah’s story that “she seems pretty okay to me” was the casual assessment all of Dana’s friends made, too?
I think that was the point she was trying to make.
And a good person continues to get punished for doing good things. Hooray! Dammit, Billie.
So how does Sarah know if Dana’s actually dead or not?
Have any of them bothered trying to check up on her at home? Or do they just know that she was pulled out of school one day and never seen again?
She said that Dana “might” be dead if Sarah hadn’t done what she did. She didn’t say that she was dead.
That’s not the argument made here. todd is asking if Sarah’s action did any good at all, to which I can only say… I hope so. Since her father (mom’s dead, remember) knows about her problem, he’s probably monitoring her actions carefully and maybe even getting her in a detox program or counseling. Dana might be dead despite all attempts to fix her, but at least people would’ve been trying to help her instead of the shallow and apathetic actions of Radiah and co.
Exactly. In this entire Dana argument, no ones actually said anything about the present Dana. Isn’t that weird? Just because their not in college, doesn’t mean they are beyond contact.
It could mean she doesn’t want to contact any of them. It’s not at all unusual for people to distance themselves from people they associate with an unpleasant period in their life, especially if they correctly perceive that those people could have helped them but didn’t. And if she also doesn’t want to contact Sarah because she”s ashamed to admit she needed that help, well, there you go.
That’s a good theory, but somethings missing…that follow through is never addresed. When one explains a backstory, questions about the present are always going to the most obvious follow through, by both Radiah or Sarah. Reread all of Sarah and Radiah’s conversations. It seems both are trapped in the past, and from the moment Dana was taken home, she was ‘gone’ to them. It makes no sense. Not even an off handed comment of ‘we don’t know how she is.’ If Radiah’s entire hatred with Sareh is based on an event that she decided to stay ignorant of the ending, like detox or suicide, then her hatred is as holey as swiss cheese. Not to mention their concern as a friend.
I thought this was a soap opera where story lines just kind of overlap and go on forever.
Hey, remember Soap?
I put it on every mornin’ in the shower.
Man, you use soap? I thought magical cleaning faeries were what made people clean.
Interesting. That explains oh so many things.
Like Gamer/Con Funk.
I sum up my day with the same narration
1) Nope. Soap (the TV drama that named the genre) was a BIT before my time.
2) This storyline isn’t over yet. Oh, no, not by a long shot. This arc, though, is concluded.
The TV drama didn’t name the genre; the genre got its nickname from the fact that, since it was targeted at stay-at-home housewives, all its commercials were for domestic things like cleaning products. The aforementioned TV series was doubtlessly named after already-old-by-then nickname.
And knowing is half the battle!
Yes. It was awesome. WAY ahead of its’ time.
I agree, I loved that show. Billy Crystal was excellent in it. And those bits with the puppet were hysterical.
You two should just make out and get it over with.
1) Dude, no. The comic’s atmosphere doesn’t allow for that joke, and it’s far too soon. You’ve got to learn how to read the air. No.
2) I am impressed by your name-Gravatar matching. Are you on the randomly assigned icons, or did you upload a Ruth gravatar to stay her forever?
Sorry, Sarah, but “might be in a coffin if not for me” doesn’t cut it. Nowhere in your story did you even suggest that Dana was going to OD, switch to harder stuff (which would kill her eventually), or just plain kill herself. You know what else might’ve happened? She might’ve pulled out of it. She might’ve dropped out on her own. She might’ve been eaten by a pack of cloned/resurrected velociraptors. But we’ll never know for sure. So pulling out might-haves? Weak, at best.
You know what else is missing from the story? What the heck is up with Dana now. Is she happy? Sad? Getting better? Is she still using? If so, is she using less? More? We have no flipping idea.
And what’s her enrollment status? Did her dad pick her up after she flunked out? Did she drop out with no way to re-enroll? Did she transfer? IME, parents can’t initiate withdrawing from a university, it’s gota be the student. And I can’t imagine they wouldn’t take her back unless there’s something more going on.
You know what bugs me? That Dana’s mom died and all her friends are acting like leaving the university was the worst thing ever. WTF?
Maybe it’s because I’m 35 and on the other side of university and stuff, but I just can’t wrap my head around how calling Dana’s dad was a bad thing. I just can’t. So she left the college. Big whoop. Can’t they stay in touch via facebook? Tumblr? Can’t they visit?
The only way Sarah is even a little bit in the wrong is if Dana’s dad is a total jerk and is making her life more miserable than it was just after her mom died. Otherwise, they’re blowing it way, way, out of proportion.
She broke up with her boyfriend, was pretending to be much better-adjusted than she was around friends, and was clearly not improving AT ALL after several months and not getting the help that she probably needed. Sure, sometimes you can “bounce back”, but after a parent dies? It’s significantly less likely. She wasn’t dealing with her grief in a healthy way.
Yes, someone being concerned about self-harm when someone is spiraling downwards into a mire of depression and drug abuse (along with the basically certain academic disaster)…completely unreasonable. Just a ‘maybe’.
Again, one Sarah over a dozen Billies any day. When someone is doing that, you don’t just stand by and hope they pull out of it because you don’t want to get involved (and let’s not kid ourselves, THAT is the motive for the ‘wait it out’ non-plan). You try and help.
Another thing people seem to forget: it wasn’t Sarah who decided to pull Dana from school, it was her father, either together with Dana or on his own.
Anyone else here got two brain cells to rub together?
Let me spell it out for you. Outside of that big rescue at the party, Sarah has done nothing for Joyce. They hardly even talk to each other. So how is Sarah supposed to notice if Joyce is okay or not? Apparently, the only way she would, would be Joyce’s behavior affecting her academic performance.
In short, this is a wake up call for Sarah. Pay more attention to the ones around you.
Um, they’re *roommates*. Sarah is probably in a decent position to notice if Joyce starts crying herself to sleep or something. Plus it’s not like Joyce and Sarah have exactly been avoiding each other in the meantime.
Yes, they’re roommates. But there’s a difference between noticing something’s amiss and doing something about it. Although it is a fact that we haven’t heard or seen anything concerning Joyce’s behavior, other than not being very willing to go out on weekends.
So the question is: Has Sarah not noticed, or is she not nothering to do anything?
Has Sarah not noticed what? Joyce is, at the moment, not exhibiting any troubling symptoms. (Yet, anyway.)
You’re having to make things up for Sarah to ignore. This does not make me impressed by your implication that there is something wrong with the brain cells of people who don’t leap to your conclusions.
Well, Joyce is exhibiting symptoms, but none that can be tied backto the attempted rape. Joyce has got her own set of problems without addin THIS onto them.
Making up sutff? Go back a few strips and you’ll notice Joyce staring at her hand! Sure it may not look like much, but it’s a sign. And like I said, just because something isn’t noticeable doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem.
Sarah has not done something about Joyce, simply because she’s not being affected. Now she is the one being neglectful.
Everyone’s all “Billie’s a bongo that’s bullying Sarah”, no one stops to even wonder why she’s acting that way. You only need to look back and think a little. That’s why I’m say most people here are idiots.
Er. Your argument is that Joyce is suffering emotional damage that Sarah has failed to notice and Billie is trying to call it to her attention by…saying that Joyce is okay? You sure about that one?
Pay attention to Billie’s expression and her wording. That was a sarcastic comment.
Your version of this conversation:
Billie: You wanted to call Joyce’s parents when she was assaulted, just like you called Dana’s! You hate people!
Sarah: Dana was in serious trouble! It was a hard call to make but I was willing to do it for Joyce!
Billie: Yeah, well, Joyce is not fine at all!
Sarah: We’d better hope you’re right!
So Sarah is completely tone-deaf, I guess. Or really does hate people. And if Billie is all upset that Sarah is blind to Joyce’s emotional trauma, why isn’t she bringing that up instead of focusing on Sarah’s (entirely made-up) desire to call Joyce’s parents? Does Billie strike you as being unwilling to say what she means?
First of all, don’t go all pretentious by starting your posts with “this is what you read”.
Secondly, you’re oversimplifying. Billie’s not just pointing out that Joyce isn’t all right, but that Sarah isn’t taking notice. How many times do I have to repeat it?
You can keep saying it, but we’re all going to continue to think you’re flat wrong in your interpretation of Billie’s intents. And her expression is the same as in the previous panel’s: she’s quietly defensive after having had Sarah shout in her face.
She was not being sarcastic. Also, do not call other commenters idiots. Further posts like that will be deleted.
I didn’t call anyone an idiot, Willis. I called you out on one your few, VERY few moments of bad writing, and encouraged you to be better in the future, which knowing how good you are, you would. Yet my post got deleted anyway.
Its not like one can pretend everyone’s post from people that are smart will be positive, and all the negative ones are trolls or idiots.
You started this thread of comments off with “Anyone else here got two brain cells to rub together?” That was you calling everyone an idiot.
And I think the writing here’s fine. (Continuing to keep in mind that Billie’s not being sarcastic.) Arguably the only dodgy part of the writing is that Sarah should really be able to remember better responses here, since for her it was only a week ago, but the substantial abuse she’s suffered could explain that.
Addendum: I’m an idiot. You’re not Leon.
Supposing she has no way of knowing if Joyce is okay or not. How does this in any way even relate to the accusations regarding her suggestion that they report the rapist, a suggestion they made while Joyce was fading out of consciousness under the effects of an unknown drug directly after the altercation with her assailant.
Would anybody be equipped to know that Joyce was going to be okay at that point in the process? At the very least she certainly wasn’t fine when Sarah made the suggestion. There’s no definition of fine that could have described Joyce at that moment.
I’d say that Big Rescue counts for a fair amount, really. She wouldn’t have realised there may be a need to turn up to the party, or where it was, if she wasn’t paying attention…
True. But let’s not forget what Joyce pointed out, that small, everyday gestures can amount to more than a grand rate one.
No, that’s not the only thing she’s done, but by all means, continue to underplay that rescue because she’s ‘mean’.
She pointed out to Joyce that she was ill-prepared for that party, and she was. She pointed out that Billie is kind of not a good friend (or person)c and she isn’t. She reached out to Dana’s friends when she saw (you know, as roommate who spends many hours in close contact) that she was in trouble.
Love her or hate her props to Billie for standing her ground there.
I know, right? I’d be scared shitless!
Or shirtless.
or shortless.
You know, after trawling back through the archives, I honestly don’t know what the hell Billie is on about. Dorothy was the one who made the suggestion about the hospital, and was adamant about it in the face of Joyce’s concerns. Sarah was not. So… yeah. I’m not really sure what Billie’s deal is here.
Link to appropriate comic: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/hospital/
Billie was drunk and/or hungover at the time of the events in question. In other words, she really doesn’t have a leg to stand on in her line of argument. She’s filling in blanks here and getting them wrong.
So she should just shut the hell up then. Sadly, I doubt she’s going to do this. Billie desires to be popular with the sophomores so that she can be popular in general, so she’ll likely have a bias toward Raidah and company. And Raidah, as we already know, does not like Sarah and has no issue at all with being argumentative and insulting to her.
Thanks for the link. I hadn’t read that storyline and reading the comments here (plus the comic above where Sarah doesn’t correct Billie) I got the impression that Sarah really did want to call Joyce’s parents. But no one suggested that. Dorothy suggested hospital, and Sarah wanted to call the cops, but both were shot down by Joyce and they both abided by that decision.
I’m doubly confused why anyone would think Sarah doesn’t care about anyone but herself.
I hasd an aquaintance in college who’s farher was a pastor. An when his older sister was at a college party she was raped after she got drunk. Afterwards her parents just tried to help her feel safe and if she was out at a party and didn’t feel safe her dad would drive 2 hours to pick her up no matter what time it was and she would spend a few days with her family where she could feel safe and know that she was around people that cared. So I definitely can agree with Sarah’s point of veiw
Koffing!
Weezing!
I wonder if Billie, Raidah, and co. are going to realize that if they all go together and discuss a story, they could get Sarah kicked out pretty easily. Sure, it would be “wrong,” but if you think you’re doing the right thing, people can get away with anything! At the very least al you have to do is say, “I feel threatened,” and BAM! Mandatory counselor visits or she’s out.
I have a feeling that if it came down to Sarah’s word against that of Billie and Company that Sarah probably comes out on top. Completely groundless statement. Just seems to me like Sarah probably keeps in pretty good standing with the authority figure and Raidah and the gang probably have a bit of a reputation. We already know that Billie came to this school with a warning note.
They could probably make life quite inconvenient for Sarah but I don’t think I’d jump to the conclusion that they’d be able to actually get her booted. Some counsilor visits, maybe force her to get that anger in check for fear of anything actually happening, but probably she’d come out the other end of all of it smelling like roses as far as the faculty is concerned.
The Billie’s and Raidah’s of the world command the mobs. The student body. The will of the people. Powerful in their own right but authority is not a tool they tend to be able to access effectively. The same stuff that makes them popular with their peers has a tendency to make them unpopular with the faculty and vice versa for Sarah and her kind.
Well, they could probably nail down the accusation of Sarah punching Radiah in the face if they tried. There were several witnesses after all. That would be enough to get Sarah on the wrong end of some faculty attention, at least.
That’s like Vegas. Whatever happens off campus stays off campus. As long as its nothing criminal. So Sarah punching Raidah at the mall has no basis for her getting in trouble with the school.
Punching someone in the face is assault, which I’m fairly sure could be construed as criminal, unless the laws regarding assault are wildly different in Indiana.
but if you think you’re doing the right thing, people can get away with anything!
Let me get this straight: Are you seriously intending to imply that telling an uncomfortable truth to get someone you care about help, is morally equivalent to doing so to harm someone you dislike?
Billy, FYI: Raidah and the like are not really the sort of person you want to model yourself on, ‘kay?
Again I really hope Dana shows up and with hindsight thanks Sarah for what she did.
That’d be nice. There’s like a million things that could have Dana, and it would be nice to which one(s) happened to her. She could very well have transferred, or be working on transferring. She could be working in her father’s office. She could be working retail.
She could be in drug rehab. Hard to tell.
If she were real, I’d want her family to love and support her through this obviously tough time.
Man, I hate thinking of all the scores of friends that died in college cause they were smoking so much weed.
Oh wait….that was none. None scores.
Suicide however…
She didn’t call her dad because Dana was smoking too much weed, she called Dana’s dad because she was in a downward spiral of depression and grief and wasn’t opening up to anyone about it.
Another person thinks Sarah meant that Dana would be dead from her drug use.
I’m fairly certain that the drug use wasn’t the problem but a symptom of the problem that Sarah worried would one day prove lethal to her friend – namely, depression sparked by her mother’s death and exacerbated by social withdrawal and steadily increasing drug use.
I would suggest that Sarah was worried Dana was going to kill herself – and not by smoking tons of weed. Probably a more conventional method like hanging or jumping or slit-wrists-in-the-shower.
Ooh. The comment sections of this story arc demonstrate quite handily that there are many people in this world who fail at reading comprehension and critical thinking. Willis, is this whole comic just an experiment, designed to provide raw data from which you can refine your thesis paper?
Billie’s pathos just took a nose dive.
all I know is that as a parent, Id’ be FOREVER GRATEFUL for Sarah’s phone call if my kid was a Dana or a Joyce.
THIS!
Thank you! For that matter, I’d be grateful to the girl who took a bat to any guy who laid a finger on one of my daughters.
Oh my yes. I don’t have kids, but if I found out someone had done that for, say, my sister, I’d owe them a debt of gratitude.
Sarah saved Joyce’s life? So did her bat get the drugs out of Joyce, or was that guy not only a creep, but also a serial killer?
She said she might have saved Dana’s life, not that she did save Joyce’s.
And I’m pretty sure her concern here is for Joyce’s psychological health, not just the binary state of whether she’s alive or dead – considering she watched her last roommate spiral into depression (while hiding it from her friends). I imagine she’d want to avoid that instead of waiting for it to happen again.
To be fair to name, she did say that she saved Joyce’s life:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/05-saturdays-all-right-for-slighting/bat-2/
And to be fair to Sarah, she very well could have:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/bat/
Move back home with the parrents {OR} death????
Hmm…
PUNCH HER!
I despise Sarah with every goddamn fiber of my being. But she absolutely did the right thing in regads to Dana, and she adjusted herself to do what she felt was right by Joyce regarding the attempted rape. She may have handled some of it in some really shitty ways, but she ultimately did good. I’m surprised people are still suggesting she might have been in the wrong with what she did.
Sarah’s nowhere near as smart or mature as she thinks she is, but she’s only 19 or 20 at the most. She’ll get better. She ultimately made the right decisions in the clutch.
Why do you despise her?
Because she’s miserable all the time.
Okay, she’s justified in her misery and people HAVE been treating her horribly. There is NO doubt about that. I’m just pissed with her because she’s decided to turn to isolation and being miserable rather than fight through that. It’s like… she says she doesn’t want drama in her life and tries to cut that out as much as she can. She tries to be above that. But she lets that bullshit dictate her rather than actually rise above it. I bristle when she puts down other people’s drama antics, like girls liking boys/boys liking girls, whatever. But she lets people like Raidah rule her outlook.
She’s smart, but only half as smart as she says she is. It’s like the proper form for throwing a punch, swinging a golf club, or swinging a baseball bat. She knows how to wind up (don’t wind up for punches, though, just fyi), knows how to connect, but does not know how to follow through. The follow through is crucial. She knows what a person should do, will do it, but then peters out there towards the end and lets the other people get to her. Instead, give ’em the middle finger, say “fuck y’all,” and continue being happy, knowing that you saved your friend’s life and are a FAR better friend than the others. Who gives a flying fuck what the others think? You’re in the right so don’t let ’em get to you.
She doesn’t do that last part. Instead, she’s miserable and drags others down. Or it’s like pulling goddamn teeth to get her to do anything. A completely stupid person like Billie is far less annoying to me than a half-smart person like Sarah. But, like I said, she’s still very young. The smartest 19 or 20 year old still has a LOT to learn, no matter how much they think they know. So she’ll get better. Hell, this strip actually is proof of that! She does point out to Billie that if it weren’t for Sarah, Dana could be in a coffin right now! Hell YEAH! THAT’S the follow through she needs! Needs improvement, but it’s a start! College is about growing in many ways, after all.
After typing all that, though, I guess this really says more about me. Namely, that I roll my eyes at college-age students and wouldn’t choose to hang out with them rather than this saying anything about Sarah since she’s just in a bad place in her life right now. That life is showing signs of improving with her actions, though. We’re all allowed bad times in our life. Perhaps I’m being too hard on her. I have faith she’ll ultimately come to a much better place.
I just don’t enjoy seeing her journey and hate who she is on the way. 😛
An excellent reply. Thank you.
That is a very solid character study. I am curious what will happen with her character as the story progresses. She feels like she is on the verge of a change.
‘Perhaps’ you’re being too hard on her? Hate her with just a few too many fibers of your being?
Eh, perhaps. Maybe. Just a smidge.
::hate burning with fire of a thousand suns::
A tad.
Hey, if you’re going to hate something, don’t do it halfway.
(‘What did you just put on that hot dog? You maniac! You used ketchup! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!’)
In my experience, people who make such use of hyperbole and then also trumpet their own accurate judgment ought to be to regarded with some skepticism.
Well, I gotta get across how much I hate Sarah, don’t I? I ain’t got a baseball bat to smack people with, so I gots to use words!
Anyway, I’d like to point out the “perhaps” bit of my post came out after my character analysis of Sarah and initial hyperbole. It was after I got my reasons for hating Sarah in written form, was able to read over them, realize my reasons said things about me, and then decided to lighten up and soften my my views on the kid.
I don’t think my views are invalid since Sarah has been a miserable person to be around, but the thread certainly has been therapeutic and I feel a lot less animosity towards her since Dr. Z simply asked me “Why?” So props to Dr. Z. I guess he really is a doctor!
Sarah will still piss me off whenever she’s dismissive of others when they engage in “drama” that is just simple, natural human interaction, but it’ll make me burn with the fury of, say… 700 suns rather than a thousand. 😉
Well, I gotta get across how much I hate Sarah, don’t I? I ain’t got a baseball bat to smack people with, so I gots to use words!
Anyway, I’d like to point out the “perhaps” bit of my post came out after my character analysis of Sarah and initial hyperbole. It was after I got my reasons for hating Sarah in written form, was able to read over them, realize my reasons said things about me, took into account Sarah’s actions in this strip versus previous, and then decided to lighten up and soften my my views on the kid.
I don’t think my views are invalid since Sarah has been a miserable person to be around, but the thread certainly has been therapeutic and I feel a lot less animosity towards her since Dr. Z simply asked me “Why?” So props to Dr. Z. I guess he really is a doctor!
Sarah will still piss me off whenever she’s dismissive of others when they engage in “drama” that is just simple, natural human interaction, but it’ll make me burn with the fury of, say… 700 suns rather than a thousand. 😉
Sarah doesn’t even *speak* much to people until they speak to her. Unless that is somehow offensive.
There are 2 things I don’t understand that have been bothering me for a wihle.
1. Why was Joyce (a freshman) given a sophomore roommate? All the colleges I know room freshmen together.
2. How did Dana’s habit effect Sarah’s grades so badly? Couldn’t she have just studied in the library?
It isn’t a hard and fast rule. Most colleges have a division between dorms that allow freshmen and those that don’t. Typically the second a person can get out of the freshmen dorms they do, but I knew seniors that had freshmen dormmates because they stayed. In Sarah’s case she obviously does not want to be around her classmates, so she would decide to stay in the freshmen dorms.
Sarah could have studied all she wanted in a library (even though most are not 24 hours), but the dormroom is supposed to be where she lives. Where she dresses, sleeps, and etc. No matter how well you know the material, not getting sleep will destroy your ability to focus in class or on tests.
1. Sometimes it’s just a matter of who’s free. Especially if they didn’t have an even number of freshman girls or something. The college doesn’t seem to have a dorm specifically set aside for freshmen.
2. She was worrying about Dana spiraling into some serious clinical depression and unable to sleep in her own dorm because it smelled and her roommate was coming in at 2 AM high and she couldn’t tell a counselor about this because that would get Dana expelled and none of their friends believed her.
Your icon is appropriate, that’s EXACTLY the kind of question a stoner would ask after the issue had been thoroughly discussed in several different comment threads.
YIPE, Crichton – sounds like someone’s pads are getting a little blotchy? Not everyone has read every comment thread on this site, yo………….
Yeah, that came out a bit meaner than I intended. Sorry Ravencrowe. Still, imagine that question being asked in a stereotypical stoner voice, and try not to smirk in amusement.
Blegh, Billie continues to be a thoroughly mediocre, self-involved human being. *Considering* telling Joyce’s parents that she avoided being raped and DIDN’T avoid being drugged only via the handiness of a baseball bat is not even slightly unreasonable. Informing Dana’s father that his daughter, her roommate and even perhaps friend, was utterly mired in depression and drug abuse with no signs of improvement and no reason to hope it would improve was thoroughly reasonable, particularly since her friends were content to leave her be.
She didn’t get sent to prison, she didn’t get beaten up, she didn’t get reported to the college, her mother died and she went home with her father. Anyone who finds something objectionable in that needs help getting their heads out of their asses.
Perhaps if Billie had ever faced even the slightest degree of serious adversity in her life beyond an emotionally distant father, perhaps if her chief accomplishment in life to this point wasn’t being a (for high school) cute, popular rich kid cheerleader she too wouldn’t need the same cranial posterior removal help.
It is kind of strange that Sarah thinks she is helping people. I guess she has to cover up her behavior with some kinda lie.
…cover up her behavior of helping people? ’cause that’s what she’s been trying to do.
(Minus punching Raidah in the face)
It helped me a lot. I don’t hate Raidah as much now there’s a dent in her.
Ogres are like onions.
Oh, yes. Didn’t help anyone when she prevented Joyce from being raped at a party she (correctly) predicted Joyce was I’ll prepared for. Didn’t help anyone when she broke into her roommate’s downward spiral of drug addiction and misery and self destruction (or does anyone imagine her grades were still good). Doesn’t help anyone when she minds her own business as a daily routine.
How strange to think that professional intervention could actually _help_ a suicidally depressed stoner. Or that calling the police might help an attempted rape victim. I’m not sure where her respecting said victim’s choice to not call the police after all fits in, but it couldn’t possibly have helped.
“It is kind of strange that Sarah thinks she is helping people.”
…You are just trolling, right?
To be fair, Joyce is rolling with the punches pretty well. Dana was FUBAR. Still, calling the police would be standard operating procedure for that situation, if Joyce didn’t have caricature overprotective parents, so you can’t fault anyone for at least bringing it up as an option.
Not sure why Sarah has turned into everybody’s whipping boy, though.
Billie is a bit on the immature side. Calling Dana’s parents took courage and shows that Sarah cares more about doing what is right, even if it isn’t popular.
I know that this is a cartoon, but I have seen similar situations.
Man, I wish I had Sarah as a friend.
Yeah, I don’t really have much sympathy for Billie here. She’s the one who threw Sarah under the bus here:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-2/01-pajama-jeans/assault/
And though technically she was correct, she also was the one advocating not doing anything.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/police/
I really feel for Sarah. As misanthropic as she might be, I remember this strip: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/06-yesterday-was-thursday/sisters-2/
Yeah, Sarah’s the fucking (wo)man: she may be a misanthrope but she does something. Even if it’s hard.
I’d want Sarah at my back
Wow, Billie is kind of a dick to throw this in Sara’s face
Damn, Billie’s got balls of steel.
Well, I was proven wrong by the author himself. Billie did not use sarcasm when she made that reply, so I’m left on a blank as to what her reason to provoke Sarah is.
Still, there must be a reason behind this; and I’m not going to take the lazy answer of “she’s just a bongo”.
She said what she said because she doesn’t, nor does she plan to unless crammed down her throat, know the details of the attack. Also, she’s a bongo.
Best guess is that she’s busily transforming reality inside her head to suit her preferences. Fathers are distant people with no capacity for emotional support, so contacting Dana’s was obviously a callous act of cruelty. And Billie vaguely remembers that Sarah mentioned calling somebody the night of the assault, and it must have been Joyce’s parents because she said she didn’t want them to know. So clearly Sarah has an MO of getting her roommates shipped off and must be confronted about it! (And bear in mind that Sarah has never made it any secret that she doesn’t care for Billie; while Billie’s accusations in this bit are wrong to the point of being hallucinatory, she doesn’t have any particular reason to like Sarah and is probably getting some satisfaction out of challenging her on a perceived moral transgression.)
The fact that Billie’s father acts distant towards her doesn’t mean that she believes all fathers are like that. Your statement has no logic. In fact, I’m certain that at this point in the story Billie knows that Joyce’s parents are quite the opposite of distant, as in highly protective.
The fact that Billie’s father is distant and her relationship with him is fucked up doesn’t all by itself mean that she thinks this is true of other people. But you wanted a reason why she’s provoking Sarah that’s more involved than her just being a bongo, and a huge emotional sore spot with regards to parents and a tendency to believe that they aren’t helpful when you need them is a really obvious potential motivation.
Also, if you’re looking for a character who operates completely rationally and makes no false assumptions about things, you want…well, probably a character from some other webcomic entirely, but specifically Billie is really not that person.
The only backup you have for your claim is Billie saying that her father is emotionally stunted. That’s one line. Only one. There may be a chance you’re right, but it’s a big statement with too little to support it.
Revising my previous comment, I have to admit that the behavior of Joyce’s parents isn’t the healthiest either. Still, that doesn’t prove anything either.
Also, Billie acting as though college is an extension of high-school, that doesn’t mean she’s an irrational person. She wants to be a popular girl on campus; as inmature as that behavior can be, there’s some logic behind it. And there’s no need to explain her animosity against Ruth.
Sarah has done nothing to Billie, other than having a low opinion on her. That’s no reason to attack. What Billie does here is dismiss Sarah as someone who doesn’t care about popularity.
We could say that Sarah threatened to have Joyce taken away, one of Billie’s few friends, but that’s still very little.
If you want two dimensional characters who can be summed up in one line, then I suggest you go read another comic.
There is also Billie’s behavior-her determined committment to popularity/social climbing, her stated opinion that the way to make someone feel better is to give them money, and her stated opinion that her background as a cute cheerleader from a wealthy family is so very important. Concluding some themes from her relationship with her father from that is hardly a huge leap.
She’s a self-involved, short-sighted entitled bongo who thinks people want to be like her or should want to, and is flattered that Joyce seems to and challenged by Sarah’s scornful rejection of her as a model?
None of that, btw, is particularly damning character judgment. Mostly it comes down to an unconscious, selfish ignorance, which while bad isn’t the end of the world. Also, it’s interesting that for you Sarah is telling lies about herself to herself and others…but Billie ‘must have a reason’.
Yes, because we’ve seen so much to indicate that committed self interest isn’t the priority.
When the hell did I say Sarah is telling lies about herself? Point out a specific example.
My guess is that Sarah is possibly overlooking any warning signs in Joyce’s behavior, simply because there’s no interference in her studies. That is not telling lies!
You’ve said more than once that Sarah acted only to remove distractions and irritants from her own life. I just re-read your comments. Also let me point out the hypocrisy of criticizing someone else for pretentiousness when you’ve stated your own belief that most people here are idiots, heh.
Good question. First, as you’ve already pointed out, Billie prioritizes popularity. More specifically, she prioritizes making friends.
Second, people generally extrapolate from how they are, to how everyone should be. It’s likely that Billie thinks everyone should prioritize friend making. Take a look at her shopping trip with Joyce: Billie wanted to buy joyce cloths that would help her make friends.
Third, Sarah does not prioritize making friends. But, and this is important, she does like people. In her story, she did have friends and do things like go to the movies. A person who didn’t like people would have declined to go to the movies with them.
It’s like ice cream. I enjoy ice cream, but I don’t have it every day because I have other things I want to spend my money on. So while I like it, it’s low priority.
Billie, doesn’t understand that. To her, people who don’t prioritize making friends must not like people. Because if they liked people, they’d be out there making friends. She’s confusing the two. Which she would because she’s young and probably hasn’t had a chance to consider an alternative point of view.
Now consider this: because Billie prioritizes making friends, she wants to hold onto them. Normally, this equals doing the right thing for all your friends. Normally. But sometimes, the needs of one person conflict the larger groups desires. So what’s good for one person, isn’t what the rest of the group wants.
Sarah is more willing to do the right thing for a single person, even if it ostracizes her from the group because making, and holding on to, friends is low priority.
Billie, right now, is incapable of understanding that decision, particularly one that sends a friend away. Not only did Sarah willingly do something that made her unpopular, but she separated a friend from her other friends. The only explanation Billie can come-up with for this behavior is that Sarah doesn’t like people. Because anyone who likes people wouldn’t have done that.
But why confront Sarah with this flaw you ask? Because Billie likes to point out other people’s flaws. It makes her feel smarter the others. She feels like if she points out people’s flaws to them, she can help them change. For Billie, it’s not about getting Sarah to fly into a range, it’s about improving Sarah.
If Sarah flys into a rage as a result of pointing out the truth, well, Billie figures they just can’t handle the truth. A rational person would ask Billie for help about how they can improve themselves.
See? This is a solid argument. It describes the character beyond a trait and gives a guess that can be backed up with examples.
Billie does in fact see herself as a voice of wisdom; and she has boasted her self-appointed duty to guide others. Also, we have seen her pointing out flaws in Joyce, Sal and especially Walky.
It can also be pointed out that she is quick to jump to conclusions, and even quicker to act upon them
there must be a reason behind this; and I’m not going to take the lazy answer of “she’s just a bongo”.
How about this then: She’s an alcoholic who doesn’t want to admit that she has a problem, and she’s worried that Sarah thinks she does. So of COURSE she wants to throw doubt on Sarah’s judgement in general. If she can convince herself that Sarah was wrong about Dina, she won’t have to listen if Sarah ever points out her own addiction.
While Billie would use something damning against Sarah, like she tried to do with Ruth, not liking people doesn’t hold much weight against alcoholism.
Billie isn’t the brightest person in the cast and is often impulsive, but she’s smart enough to know what’s truly incriminating.
I dunno, she thinks that Sal’s actions have truly incriminated Sal as being Amazi-Girl. I’m not sure there’s a lot to support her judgement as all.
billy is right, sarah is not a good person.
Mind elaborating?
There are no good people. All people are evil.
If there are no good people, then there can be no evil people. Only people people.
This may be the comic where I realize undergrads are stupid, self-centered, and petty, so I shouldn’t truly care about what they think or do, especially in a fictional realm.
As someone who lives in a college town, there is a mantra that I and many others that work in my Retail establishment repeat to ourselves over and over and over again:
“Damn Freshmen!”
Perhaps I should elaborate for the freshmen and others that may not understand–
During the summer, my town is a bit of a tourist destination, but once summer ends and school starts, you can definitely tell. Not just because of our back to school promotions. The day that the dorms open, sometimes a little earlier, the college kids come back.
The freshmen wander around in groups–girls all laughing loudly and giggling like high schoolers. The guys trying to act all macho. They’re loud, shout to their buddies when they find something they find neat, and are generally annoying (to me sometimes).
The older students come in, usually in pairs or singly, but rarely in groups. They have been here the last year so they know where everything is. Add to that they already know exactly what they need (as opposed to the freshman “Do I need this? or this? Ooooh, maybe this! Hey, look at this!”).
All in all, I’d prefer the Sophomores+. But that’s just me.
Hey, don’t steal my fake name.
Feel free to not read the comic. But, if watching the action of somewhat stupid people bothers you, you have my pity, because it seems like something close to 90% of popular entertainment (and 99% of comedy) is centered on people being idiots nowadays.
Okay, this may be the only comment on this page not related to the actual content of the comic, but it appears as if Willis forgot to color in the straps of Billie’s shirt. Just thought I’d point it out. ; w ;
Or not, I guess that’s just how the shirt looks. Ignore me. orz
Did she think that Dana was going to commit suicide? That’s the only logical conclusion I can derive from that first comment about her ending up in a coffin. Because if she’s inferring that Dana was going to die from smoking too much cannabis, she is gravely misinformed and mistaken. Just saying.
Well yeah, Sarah was meaning Dana’s possible suicide. It was probably implied from her downward spiral and severe depression that Sarah had the thought process that “Dana is only getting worse, to the point she may kill her self in her depression. I have to do something.”
That is what I got out of it, dont cha know?
“Did she think that Dana was going to commit suicide?”
Yes. Yes, she did.
Oh, hell no. The only way the consequences of weed can be worse than the consequences of being pulled out of school is if you’re caught with it, and since not even Raidah knew how low she’d sunk, that wasn’t going to happen. Sarah called Dana’s father out of her own self-interest, an understandable self-interest, but if she’s going to extol how much she was helping Dana, she should do it to her face when she finds her at a reception desk five years from now.
The consequences of serious depression, on the other hand, can very easily be worse than the consequences of being pulled out of school.
Raidah was apparently not in that hallway. Bear in mind Sarah was the one covering to keep Dana from getting in trouble.
And seriously, if your roommate is coming home at 2 AM regularly like Sarah said in her second comic, then things could definitely have ended up going REALLY REALLY BAD.
Exactly what are these consequences of being pulled out of school that people keep talking about anyway?
Well, your friends will become all lonely and stuff. Possibly starting up sustained campaigns of harassment and things like that.
If it was self-interest, it would’ve been simple as I said to get Dana removed without ever having her own role come to light. She called a family member AFTER turning to her other ‘friends’ to try and help her roommate, and he either alone or together with Dana decided to pull her from college. Not the end of the world.
Do you really imagine she couldn’t get back in? After a death in the family? Because, unless she had done or not done something else, that’s all it looks like to the college: student left school after death of a parent.
Why couldn’t Dana go back to college after getting therapy for her depression and excessive pot use? She wasn’t kicked out. Why do you assume she would never go back and would end up in a crappy job?
She had a rich and presumably well-connected dad– he would see that she got in somewhere good after she got well.
Also if she’d kept on the way she was going, she might have flunked out of college anyway, and then it would have been harder for her to get back into a good school. And it might have been more damaging to Dana psychologically, since she was already in a fragile state.
Whatever Sarah’s motives were (and they may well have been mixed) I just don’t buy that what she did ruined Dana’s life.
You’ve obviously never seen the results of serious depression, like serious drug abuse, self-deprecation, and, in the worst case scenario SUICIDE!!
If you seriously believe that there’s nothing wrong with smoking weed in college…nvm, that’s a whole other argument.
I can’t believe people are actually still villifying Sarah for having informed a parent that their daughter was a) using drugs and b) in a spiral of depression.
Frankly, the only criticism I have of Sarah is waiting as long as she did.
You people are crazy.
In our current society we like to villainize our parents.
Sad.
To be fair, a lot of parents are people that don’t require exaggeration to paint as a villain.
Thank you!
(If Dana had my parents pulling her out of school and leaving her with one of them would be about the worst possible thing you could do, but the wonderful thing about fiction is that not everyone is you, innit.)
Agreed.
The more I read this comic, the more I can’t help but think 99% of these problems could be solved with a good therapist doing weekly sessions with the entire cast. I could probably even write up most of what those problems and personality flaws are and how they could best be addressed.
Then I remember that if that actually happened, the comic would have no tension and would be incredibly boring to read.
Yeah, but then again, that’s true of most stories. The remaining 1% could be solved by people talking things out.
Well, Billie’s officially a bongo. Probably did it so she could be popular
is it in bad taste if I read the strip title like the pokemon KOFFIN!
Sarah’s pose in the last panel is the perfect “angry walking away” position.
Joyce seems okay to yo–
Oh you mean post-incident. Okay.
OK I’ve not had internet for the last two weeks and I’ve been back tracking through the comic and this is possibly one of the the best two strips in any internet comic… anywhere.
What I really like is Billies almost cold calculating sincerity, it’s like she’s dropped her gaurd down for a few minutes and we see the real Billie ready to give a ‘heart to heart’ and ‘fix’ Sarah.
Of course there’s nothing wrong with Sarahs decision it’s misanthropic, yes but valid. Its Billie who has the problem that needs fixing but given her personality probably never wil be.
But she’s not Okay…
You can’t die from marijuana! It’s pretty impossible to overdoes…ffs do a little research!
Suicide, not marijuana. Extremely depressed people sometimes kill themselves, see, and since Sarah’s not a moron, we’re going to assume that she’s aware that you can’t OD on pot – leaving us with one possible conclusion: that she feared Dana would commit (or attempt) suicide.
for anyone else reading comments way later, also there’s the whole thing that she was probably at the point of stopping all self care (from grooming to eating), especially if she was smoking all the time to escape (even if not due to addiction), and that makes a fast road to suicide or otherwise death (it’s really easy to wander into the road at that point)