Discussion (338) ¬
[ Comments RSS ]
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 1h
NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! 🤯
www.theguardian.com/science/2025...
Patrick Willems @patrickhwillems.bsky.social ⋅ 1m
Loading ...
️𝓝𝓪𝓷𝓲 
“not if you break them all with that grip of yours, DAAAAAAANG”
Your bones need to be subtle if you are trying to pass Ruth’s door without drawing agro. She has special femur senses.
I believe the word you were looking for is supple.
Supple bones?
Supple bones are far harder to break after all.
Hey, Plaz, who is your current avatar? And the last one, come to think of it?
That’s Yoko Littner, from Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. She’s a sort of telekinetic demon with the power to use these invisible super-sharp arm things called “vectors”.
*twitchtwitch*
Yeah, sorry. I tend to over-explain stuff in a weirdly reductive way. The in-show term for her is actually “Bankai”.
I think you mean Elfen Lied. Higurashi was a favorite anime of mine a decade ago.
I don’t remember any elves.
Is Ruth’s middle name “Shaq”?
And the answer is “noooooope”
I think Becky’s one of the subtlest people in the whole damn strip :p
I was about to say “the answer is obviously no” and then I saw the alt text. I mean, the point still stands, haha
Billie, don’t be an asshole.
She’s under no obligation to be nice to her ex who dumped her. If Ruth wanted Billie, she shouldn’t have thrown her away.
Billie threw Ruth away by choosing alcohol over even attempting to get better or even show ant restraint.
Apparently, trying to change someone and giving ultimatums is not great relationship advice.
Ditto abandoning everything about your relationship prior to.
You know, having to read you repeat the same nonsense over and over again gets really tiring.
Every time someone does that, I’m reminded of that time Somebody insisted a certain character was holding a certain object, despite loads of evidence to the contrary. And I have to wonder if Some Of You ain’t tryin’ to replicate that event.
What would you have him change his gravatar to?
I’m sure I wouldn’t know.
Honestly it just reminds me of the ‘Dorothy is a hypocrite because she dumped Danny to focus on work only to hook up with Walky, what a bongo!’ argument from years back only this time instead of a bunch of people doing it it’s just one person trying to yell over everyone.
Yes, that’s exactly what I’m doing versus commenting on what I perceive.
That was sarcasm by the way.
If you had just said it once you’d just be stating your opinion, instead you went through and posted it whenever someone said something contrary to what you believed.
Exactly! Billie’s the one who stormed off; not Ruth.
Ruth wants what’s best for Billie’s health but it was clearly an ultimatum. That makes her the dumpee not the dumped.
It’s the same if someone said that I had to give up my career to be with someone.
Unless your career is inherently unhealthy, then this is a false equivalence.
“get better or I’ll leave you” still is an ultimatum. One that aims at the other improving their life, but still. It’s a try to force someone to do something they don’t want to do. If they’d want to, they would have done so already.
Except Ruth didn’t say that. The closest Ruth came to saying that is (strongly) implying that Billie should be going to therapy and not drinking. There’s a big difference between “Billie, you’re not going to therapy (and that’s bad),” and “Billie, go to therapy or we’re through.”
^ This, and the fact that even if both are ultimatums, one of the ones offered is a lot more controlling and out of line than the other.
It’s the one about the career.
The therapy wasn’t Ruth’s idea, either. Billie was assigned it after Ruth was hospitalized.
“just.. Just plainly say ‘I’ll stop drinking'” Ruth, this strip from probably yesterday:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-9-comic/02-but-the-sun-still-shines/nonpromise/
Giving the context, I’d call it an ultimatum. She already said she can’t handle being confronted with Billies drinking and now, she’s requesting her to stop. And frankly, I’m proud of her for that.
That’s out of context though, she was asking Billie to make a real promise to stop drinking instead of something that sounds like a promise, but gives her a loophole. That’s not the same as an ultimatum, she’s asking Billie to not lie to manipulate her into thinking she’ll stop drinking.
She’s asking her to stop squirreling around and to actually do something. It’s implied and not explicitly said but the subtext of “I won’t watch you get worse, I can’t handle that, change something” is there. Especially if you put it into context of the argument before, about inviting Ruth for breakfast (dinner? Not sure, something to eat though) to places where Billie can and will drink.
I disagree with that interpretation. I see no evidence that Ruth was making any such demands.
The previous conversation was basically Ruth telling Billy that Ruth can’t drink and needed Billie not to sabotage her.
Ruth was also telling Billie that relationships always would take some work.
Ruth neither explicitly said Billie needed to quit too nor explicitly said Billie could drink. I actually think it might be because Ruth wasn’t sure yet.
I’d say they both dumped each other. In a way. They both have lines they wouldn’t cross for a relationship and they both found out that their relationship would require crossing them.
It’s easier to relate to Ruth because her red lines are healthy and Billies aren’t. It can be difficult to respect the right to be self-destructive. Still, they both decided that they don’t want to do what their relationship would have required them to do, which makes it kind of mutual.
Agreed 100%
Being an (alcohol) addict is a career now?
If you ask my mom’s husband, it is.
I believe it’s called ‘journalism’.
Nope. Its asking her to change.
Ruth is absolutely right to and coming from a family of alcoholics where two died because of it, I have no sympathy for Billie. But I’ve also been on the other end of people asking me to change and people gaslighting that I was wrong for not doing so.
So I am also glad to see Billie standing up for herself.
It’s not gaslighting, she literally is wrong for not changing her destructive personality. Billie is tangibly making people’s lives worse, just by being the way she is.
Gaslighting is when the perpetrator presents lies as truth and truth as lies in order to distort the victim’s ability to trust their perception of objective reality.
If Billie were NOT an alcoholic, what Ruth has been doing would certainly be gaslighting, but she is. Ruth knows it. Billie knows it. We the reader have known it since the 3rd strip of the comic: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/01-move-in-day/reputation/
It is objective fact that Bilie drinks to excess in ways that endanger both herself and others. It is also objective fact that Billie has talked up about quitting drinking repeatedly and repeatedly failed to follow through. It is generally true that one shouldn’t mix antidepressants with alcohol; technically we only have Ruth’s word on whether there are specific interactions with Integrivact, as it is a fictional drug, but it is likely enough.
Long story short, presenting harsh truths as truth is not gaslighting.
(note: this only applies to Billie and Ruth’s situation. I do not know the details of your RL situation, but assuming you were not a danger to yourself or others, someone trying to change you against your will and make you feel bad over it is a shitty thing to do. Fuck that person/those people.)
I wouldn’t say Billie has talked up about quitting drinking. She blatantly lied about it once to get Ruth to stop when they were first connecting. That’s it, I think, before her refusal to commit to it in the last day or so.
If your only reason for being an asshole is that you’re not “obligated” not to be, then you don’t have a good reason.
The reason being Ruth dumped her.
That’s not a good reason to actively and deliberately be an asshole.
^This. No one ever has the right to be an asshole. Someone else being shitty doesn’t make it okay to do it back, not that I think Ruth was shitty, being an asshole, doing something wrong, or dumping Billie, I think Ruth was being a reasonable human being and setting a boundary, ie make me a real promise or don’t promise me.
The idea that someone being an asshole to you means it’s okay to be one back in a different way, is like saying someone is rude to you so you have the right to shit on their carpet. That’s not how civilized society works. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
Sometimes it’s necessary though.
Sometimes being an asshole back is the only way to handle it – either to get the first asshole to stop or just to get through it yourself.
That said, I don’t think it’s necessary here, though I’m not sure how much of an asshole Billie’s being here. It might well fall into “I just can’t face her now without breaking down.”
I disagree, you always have another choice than being an asshole. You can be assertive and draw hard boundaries without being nasty about it. Assertive doesn’t equal aggressive. You don’t have to stoop to their level to make them leave you alone, you just have to communicate that you will not tolerate it and then not tolerate it, ie leave, ignore them completely, call the police, ect whatever is necessary for the situation.
I have to disagree. Your rule is based on a premise of objective good, it does not acknowledge what other people think of your actions. If the person being shitty to you takes your ‘assertiveness’ as weakness and you know they do, then it IS weakness. Your refusal to ‘sink’ to their level is a refusal to communicate in the way they understand. And your policy of ‘not putting up with it’ by running from or ignoring problems is a weakness. It marks you as a safe target or ‘not a threat’.
It’s the sort of advice schools give the bullied so they will shut up. It DOES NOT WORK in my experience. It didn’t work at all for my mom, ever, which was hard to watch.
Just ask yourself what the utility of spite is, or google it. It’s interesting at the least.
Since you want to go by personal experience, I grew up in an extremely abusive home, which I couldn’t escape, and was bullied mercilessly because I put up with the bullying. Once I started standing up for myself, got out of that home, and defended myself, including physically if necessary, I have not been bullied since. When I said be assertive, I said “whatever is necessary for the situation” meaning if you have to call the police, do that, if you have to fight them off physically, do that, but don’t be a petty jerk who kicks people when they’re down because now you’ve become what you hate.
I don’t in any way believe in objective good, I’ve seen some awful, evil shit, I know people can be monstrously bad, but I also believe generally good people don’t have to act like generally bad people in order to stop bad people, they have to not put up with them in any way period. Assertiveness very much means set a boundary, enforce it by whatever reasonable means are necessary in the situation and never back down. I don’t know how you read what I wrote and got run away from or ignore the problem? I said “leave(as in stop associating with that person at all), ignore them completely (as in the person not the problem), call the police etc, whatever is necessary for the situation.
Let me give you a real life example, a guy comes up to me and gets in my face and grabs me, I tell him to get his hands off of me or I WILL defend myself, if he lets go and backs down I deescalate, if not I use physical force to defend myself until I can get away safely and then I call the cops. No where in here was I required to be an asshole, just a strong willed and assertive person.
I can see how I was projecting. Mom sent to a shrink to see why I wasn’t a good person because feeling hate, even hating someone who hits me all the time at school, means I’m broken. ‘Leave’ was an explicit directive to back down. You left out standing your ground in the first post.
Also you must have a lot of faith in law enforcement if ‘go to the police’ is on that list. I’ve never had much luck with that sort of thing and their hands are tied until after a crime happens.
Ah okay. Well, leave, means very different things to us both then, but that’s okay. No I don’t really have much faith in law enforcement, given the ways they’ve failed me in the past, but it’s an option because it’s better to involve them yourself and give them your side of things first, before someone else gets involved later and tries to blame you for defending yourself .
Man, you are clearly a transplant from Berensteauoyin universe.
I hate that I know exactly how this would be pronounced.
(Bare-en-STEW-OI-in)
It’s “Bar-un-STEEN”.
BARN-shtin
FAN-shaw. Or maybe CHUM-ley. Or BEECH-um or MING-us or dee-YELL. (If it’s British, that is.)
ba-DUM-tish
I’m Galloycester Birdemptash, Minister of Aural Punctuation and Agricultural Filmography.
I went back and re-read the previous strips just to be sure, and AFAIK there’s been no dumping? They’re in the middle of a fight that hasn’t been resolved yet, and that’s not great, but no actual breakup has been initiated. So I don’t get where everyone else is coming from this (except for the fact that yes, Billie’s being an asshole about it).
Oh, great. Now I’ll have Paper Lace stuck in my head all day.
To answer your question, I would like to use a quote from Becky in the most covert and subtle point of her life.
“HEY EVERYBODY! I’M A LESBIAN!”
That is all.
I think Becky’s capable of being subtle, and it probably helped her survive. However, it’s not her natural inclination and certainly not what she’d choose.
Hmm. That makes sense. It’s not that she’s nuked all her subtle bones from orbit (just to be sure), but more that she’d like to.
She ABSOLUTELY can be subtle. See for example her first day with Joyce – chill as a bean despite being on the run, in love and scared shitless. Or when she tried to push Joyce and “Jake” together. Or when she very sneakily stole access to Robin’s twitter account.
It’s just that she doesn’t WANT to be subtle when she doesn’t have to. It’s an informed choice.
I’d even argue taht she sometimes weaponizes her frontal lack of subtility.
You know, like recognizing that Billie’s acting mean and sort of calling her out on it, adding “don’t cry” to reaaaaally highlight the pettiness of it, all the while pretending she has no idea what’s going on. She is a lesbian love sleuth, after all.
She is the anti-Mike.
Absolutely! Hiding concern and her true agenda behind her “wacky Becky” routine is one of her standard tactics. A great example is her hacking Robins phone while joking about hacking her phone
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/03-the-thing-i-was-before/digitalage/
Yup, you’ll note that she didn’t nuke that closet until everyone she cared about already knew. How much of her openness about it is not wanting to get close to anyone and risk being rejected for it?
She spent far too long being subtle. She’s got to make up for lost time!
Hey, improvement from Billie’s last interview!
You mean the one where she was prepared to sleep with Danny to get a scoop on Amazigirl?I’m not seeing the improvement.
…she’s not trying to sleep with Becky?
Not yet, anyway.
Maybe not in your fanfic.
Maaaaaaybeeeee
AntJ obviously meant she ditched the old-fashioned tape recorder and will be using her phone like a normal 18 yo.
18-year-olds are completely alien in thought and form.
She’s using a laptop (or large tablet – it’s hard to tell, both from the ‘the two things are converging on each other in the real world’ element, and ‘Willis characters have cartoony proportions’ element).
No, the one where she skipped actually doing the interview and potentially getting a scoop because she wanted to get laid and Danny was the first boy to pay attention to her in ages.
No, I do not think the girl who loudly announced her lesbian tendencies is very subtle at all.
And we love her for it
When Becky said “old-fashioned recording tape thingy” I thought “reel-to-reel”.
Like the ones we had at my college radio station, an unspecified number of years ago.
I’m surprised Billie wasn’t already completely sure about that.
See, my instinctive response to someone putting their hand over my mouth like that is to immediate start blowing raspberries into their hand to make loud fart sounds until they remove it, but I guess Becky’s a little classier than that
At my schools, you’d lick the person’s hand to gross them out. Even if the was a high chance of getting caught doing a shenanigan.
So Fart Captor will fart their captor?
If it was a bully, I was a biter. If it was a friend roughhousing, I was a tickler.
I was more of a berserker rage kid, myself.
If Becky had a Subtle Bone, it’d be the size of a T-Rex leg, protrude out of her back in a way that made her wack everyone with it by accident, and for some reason make a loud “honk” noise whenever anyone looked at it. She’d need an operation to have it removed, and keep it on her wall, and tell everyone stories about the lovely apartment centerpiece she’d picked up as part of her adventures.
You’re being a bongo, billie
And yes I actually did type bongo on purpose I know how this works by now.
I think she’s being classy for not flipping Ruth off while she walks by.
Then you’re wrong, since Billie is the guilty party here, not Ruth.
How do you figure? Ruth changed everything about herself and expected Billie to do the same.
asking your significant other to stop doing something that causes you physical and mental harm isn’t unreasonable or something to get flipped off and otherwise treated shittily for. It’s fine for Billie to say she can’t or doesn’t want to comply and leave, but that doesn’t make Ruth somehow guilty of anything
I’m not saying it’s wrong. But plenty of people have had partners who try to change them and it’s right to be glad you got out of that.
Sure, if you completely ignore any and all context.
That context being ‘Billie is an alcoholic damaging herself and others around her’. Trying to get someone you care about who is in a toxic behaviour spiral and with serious mental health problems to get help is not the same as a controlling partner trying to forcibly change them.
Ruth is an alcoholic dealing with suicidal depression who got treatment and is recovering, and who, in response to Billie repeatedly trying to get her to fall off the wagon, demanded she stop and – as Billie is also a suicidal depressed alcoholic – urged her to get treatment.
There’s nothing harmful or controlling in that. Nor did Ruth “change everything about herself”. They’re both more than just fucking booze and a suicide pact
^this exactly
There’s a whole lot in controlling in that. She’s trying to control Billies dysfunctional behaviour. While the intention is good, it’s still controlling. And Billie most likely will find it harmful. She feels being forced into something she really doesn’t want to do. She wants to be self-destructive. That is a bad decision but it is her decision.
Ruth came out of a depression and gave up on alcohol. I was never addicted but I was depressed. Getting out of that was enough to change who I am, for the better. I’ve watched a friend giving up alcohol and he wasn’t the same person he was before. As in, he’s now completely different. Combining those two will most likely turn Ruth in a completely new person. Watching this can be frightening if you don’t welcome the change (and Billie doesn’t).
That could be a problem in the long run, though it’s not at all clear. Far as we can tell, the part Billie doesn’t like is the not drinking. And a slightly subtler level of “If Ruth gets better, she shouldn’t be with me because I’m poison.”
But on the most fundamental level, this is not controlling on Ruth’s part, this is self-care. It is not safe for her to be dating an alcoholic, because she is an alcoholic. She’d rather Billie change than leave her, but she can’t stay with Billie as she is. Billie is trying to kill her – even though Billie doesn’t accept that.
Asking someone to change a harmful behavior is called setting a healthy boundary. Asking someone to change who they are is controlling and abusive. They are not the same thing. Ruth asked Billie to change an unhealthy behavior, not who Billie is. Addict is a disease label, not an identity.
Is it really abusive if “who they are” is harmful to everyone around them?
I think you misunderstood what I meant by, “who they are”. I mean their personality traits, their identity. Billie has a disease called alcoholism, it isn’t who she is and her behavior as an addict is not indicative of her actual personality. Basically, Rith asking Billie to stop trying to get her to drink or even to stop being self destructive and work on herself would not abusive. If Ruth was asking her to start being more feminine and wear lots of makeup and dresses, that would be abusive.
It’s not unreasonable. It’s not even unreasonable to make said improvement a condition for the relationship. Especially not if it endangers yourself.
I’d say it was mutual. I’m proud of Ruth for deciding to end an unhealthy relationship and I’m sad that Billie values alcohol higher than her own wellbeing. It’s easier to agree with Ruth because she wants to improve things, but Billie also has a right to be the person she wants to be. Even if it is a toxic person.
Takes two to tango, honestly. I’d like the two to talk it out, but there’s no “good guy” in the relationship or this fight.
Had Ruth opened up to Billie before her boiling over point, shouting at her in public, that’d be one thing, but last time the two talked, Ruth blew up on her. I don’t know if I can really blame Billie for not wanting to stop and talk to her when she’s got Becky in tow. If the two will talk, it’ll probably be privately.
Are you forgetting when they talked in Ruth’s room, or do you count that as Ruth “blowing up”?
I did forget about that conversation, yeah. Whoops.
Ruth blew up at Billie for repeatedly trying to get her to drink, when she’d VERY recently been in the hospital for reasons directly tied to why she quick drinking.
I love Billie but she had no right to be angry about Ruth not taking that shit well. She KNEW Ruth quit drinking. She knew WHY. It was fucked up that any more needed to be said.
What does she owe Ruth right now, really?
I’d like them to talk, but Ruth isn’t entitled to it if Billie doesn’t want to talk right now.
Why does it need to be about who’s “owed” or “entitled to” anything?
It doesn’t need to be, I am just saying that of all the stuff Billie’s done that’s questionable, not wanting to talk to Ruth right now is like the least of her problematic behavior.
Jesus. Remind me not to come to this comment thread for relationship advice.
It’s usually either “Break up immediately” or “Just communicate with them like a person, stupid.” To be fair, that pretty much covers the big questions.
That’s pretty much the exact extent of my relationship advice. I don’t know why people ask me.
Actually, I’m pretty sure you’ve given me that exact advice on my last two Relationship Meltdowns.
So, y’know. Thanks for helping set me straight.
To be fair, those two tools will usually solve the problem.
I’m struggling to think of any other good options, honestly.
“Set boundaries”? That could fall under “communicate with them,” though. I guess if the person you’re talking to is the one being ugh, there’s “respect their boundaries” and “apologize.”
There are a few others I can think of including:
1) Listen to the other person (sometimes people talk but don’t listen themselves).
2) Apologise without guilt-tripping (no adding self-deprecation, this is a common mistake in a bad mindset but it doesn’t help the other person).
3) Take a break if you are getting so angry you are struggling to not lash out and come back to the conversation later.
But these are more situational than break up or communicate.
I would file all of those under communication, so for me personal, that’s more like a variations on one of those.
Yeah, they fall into the Communicate category for me. But then again, I’d file “Break up” into the same folder. After all, refusing to see someone is a very clear form of communication too.
*…everything’s communication guys! It’s like, whoa, man!*
Personally I consider these separate because:
1) is about trying to accept the communication of someone else rather than expressing something yourself.
2) is about being aware of how you communicate something.
3) is about awareness and control of emotions.
Like, they are linked. But it is like how listening isn’t the same skill as talking.
My read on it is that Billie’s sure they broke up while Ruth thinks they had a bad fight about something important.
You know, if you break up with someone, have the decency to say so (if possible in neutral words though that’s too much to ask in some situations).
I watched several couples having a bad breakup because the one leaving though and acted like they were through but hadn’t said so and the other was still struggling to keep the boat afloat.
For well-known reasons, Becky equates subtlety with suppression. Now that she’s free from the suppression, she considers herself free from subtlety too.
Eventually, she might learn that the two things are not the same, and that it’s possible to be subtle for other reasons.
She CAN be subtle if it is for a good cause.
i.e. LÖÖÖÖÖÖÖÖVE
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-8/01-face-the-strange/perfect/
Becky knows there are moments to be subtle. She doesn’t consider this one of them because she isn’t even aware Billie and Ruth had a fight so this just looks like Billie being a bongo for no reason.
BILLIE! NO! COME ON!
Ruth didn’t break her.
You think you got the best of me
Think you had the last laugh
Bet you think that everything good is gone
Think you left me broken down
Think that I’d come running back
Baby you don’t know me, ’cause you’re dead wrong
What doesn’t kill you makes you STRONGER
Don’t quote Kelly Clarkson to me, let alone that list of cliches compiled together in a song people call a “hit”.
Beckie’s subtle bone was removed when she was 6.
More like when she was 18
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/justbecky/
Becky is a romaaaaantic
*plays “Walk Like A Man” on the hacked Muzak*
Not my favorite version, but it will do nicely.
*requests “Walk on By” next, followed by “Walk of Life”*
Requests Del Shannon’s Walk Away.
I wonder if Ruth completely missed that telling Billie that she had to change or not be with her was dumping her. In any case, I’m glad Billie took a stand and is walking proud. Because you know, you should never change for a partner unless it’s because you have a horrific addicition that will kill you or others. Oh wait….
But seriously, good for Billie. Don’t let your ex get you down.
That is not a thing that happened in the comic published on this website.
Except for the part where Billie got dumped by Ruth for her alcoholism.
Look, I get it. You actively dislike the ship. I can respect that. I felt the same way about Walky/Amber. But pushing an alternate-facts telling of Billie and Ruth’s argument isn’t going to make the ship go away any faster. Canon does not go based on comment-section consensus.
Tell that to Ryan.
Ryan just had a great murder app on his phone
You missed an opportunity to say “killer app” and now I can never get into Heaven.
Oh NO, I can’t believe I missed such a great pun
I will tell him that. Let me just dial his number on my knife here.
Except that never actually happened. They had an argument that ended with Billie storming out.
Which is not sufficiently unusual in their relationship to expect either of them to assume it’s over.
Maybe not the one you’ve been reading. I’d tell you where to find the alternate dialogue version, but that would be snitchin’.
Damn straight. Read the actual words the characters speak, people!
That is not a thing Ruth said. That isn’t even close to a thing that Ruth said. Ruth didn’t say any break up words or indicate she wanted to break up with Billie. If anything Billie may have broken up with her without actually saying so since she is the one that stormed off.
Neither actually ended the relationship as far as we know. They probably are in this weird “have we ended or not” – place. Still, Ruth made “improve yourself” a condition for their relationship. That’s not actually “stop drinking or I’ll leave you” but it is implied.
I don’t really get why ending an unhealthy relationship is a bad thing though. I think it’s something to be proud of.
I am aware but I wouldn’t say it is implied that she would leave her so much as Ruth was getting annoyed by Billie lying to her face. Ruth doesn’t want a ‘nonpromise’ of stopping drinking. And she doesn’t want a lie of ‘everything is fine’ when Billie was willing to die. She didn’t even actually make that a condition either, she asked Billie to stop bringing up drinking around her and Billie herself brought up that she wasn’t any more in their next conversation. And Ruth was annoyed by it because the way Billie said it was a way that didn’t really hold any accountability. Ruth would actually like honesty in her relationship at least.
Yeah, dive back into that bottle! Anybody who tells you that’s unhealthy is just trying to hold you back from your full potential!
Never go Full Potato.
Yeah, you must be reading a very different comic from everyone else here. *shakes head*
Oh, Billie. Honey.
Becky, you’re a peach.
Unbent, unbowed, unbroken
Rock on, Billie
See, that’s a lot more badass when you spend the comment section deliberately ignoring all context.
Like, I don’t agree with CT’s take, but I think you’re going to far in calling him a “piece of shit.”
Yeah, they post weird (sometimes awful, imo) takes but I think most of us have done that at some point, including me. That doesn’t make him a full on piece of shit.
Fine, I’ll back off. Looks like Willis is gonna take care of the problem anyway.
I never understood why trying to hurt someone by pretending not to care is something to be proud of.
This, too.
Why do you ask, Billie? Do you want to borrow one?
(The joke is that Billie is also not subtle very often)
Billie, you are an ass and I feel so bad for Ruth right now. Right now is when she could really use your love and support, you know when her meds are kicking in and she’s having progress. Why is Ruth still invested in this relationship?
Yeah, funny how being dumped doesn’t make you inclined to care about another person’s feelings.
Ruth stomped on Billie’s face and expected her to take it.
She broke up a toxic relationship and I wish Billie the best from now on.
You’re really going hard on this really weird take.
I admit to never being a fan of Ruth/Billie because of the way it began.
I think both of them need to be apart for them to get better.
i’m not really a fan of you not reading this strip very well and then flooding the entire comments section with your weird gospel
can’t you constrain being a weirdo to like one or two posts, instead of submerging the entire page with people having to yell at you
You got it.
They’re not. Even broken up. Oh my god.
In case anyone’s forgotten a couple of strips, Billie does in fact have on ‘a old-fashioned recording tape thingers.
Which makes her comment about it now extra funny
Well she HAD one. Then someone asked why she didn’t just use her cell phone like everyone else these days, and in my 100% certified headcanon she threw it out in embarrassment.
Aaaaand that was linked just there. Derp.
Aww, you mean there’s not going to be a moment where someone finds it poorly concealed somewhere in her room and she denies ever owning it?
She may not have it anymore, true. She held onto it long enough afterward for AG to listen to what happened with Danny, but she’s moved since then, and if it didn’t get thrown out sooner, I could see it not making the move.
Also, remember when Billie though Sal was AG?
What are you trying to imply Yumi, don’t tell me you believe these whitewashing idiots who just won’t admit the obvious truth. Short nerd can’t be AG, luscious-chocolat-river-tucked-down-the-jumpsuit is.
I was never clear on why Billy is mad at Ruth
To summarize: Ruth had the gall to tell her “hey, stop asking me to drink with you because alcohol is actually really bad for my health (and maybe cut back a little yourself, since it’s also bad for you)” and Billie interpreted that as Ruth believing she’s better than Billie.
I don’t think it helped matters that Ruth didn’t *tell* her that, she shouted it at her after bottling it until it boiled over, so it put Billie on the defensive.
Granted, it still likely would have gone badly sooner or later, but that kinda put it in fast forward.
The last time they talked was later in the day, they weren’t in public but in the privacy of Ruth’s room and, instead of actually addressing this conflict, Billie attempted to ignore it.
you know, I totally forgot that conversation. you’re right.
It’s cool. The only reason I remember the stuff that happens in this comic is because I check the character tags from time to time, like my own version of “Previously on Dumbing of Age…”
Do you listen to Boston while you recap?
Ruth told her that she couldn’t drink, drink around her, or mention drinking. Also that she had to give up drinking if she wanted to stay together and go to therapy.
Her ultimatum backfired.
That is not at all what Ruth said.
I remember when people said that Ruth didn’t mean for Billie to quit drinking and two comics later, said she expected Billie to quit drinking.
Billie is the one that brought up her not drinking, though. Ruth just followed her lead. http://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-9-comic/02-but-the-sun-still-shines/nonpromise/
That argument started in the morning. Right after they got up, Billie tried to get Ruth to go to a restaurant that serves “amazing” mimosas, so hitting the booze for breakfast. Ruth later told Billie to stop pressuring her to drink. Billie suggested her ride on the wagon only needs to be temporary until Ruth’s meds “fix her”, Ruth again told her that’s not how they work and she can’t drink again if she wants them to be effective (which she clearly does). Billie then stormed off, blowing off their lunch date (the restaurant for which she only picked because they “sometimes forget to card”).
This argument is partly Ruth’s fault for only putting her foot down after it started to boil over, but it’s mostly on Billie for not listening to Ruth and swimming in denial about the problems Ruth is working to overcome.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-9-comic/02-but-the-sun-still-shines/bones/
Billie is in denial about how serious her alcoholism problem is and got mad about Ruth not being willing to accept her non-commital promise that she could essentially go back on at any time about not drinking and for wanting Billie to actually work on her issues instead of staying stuck in the same old self-destruction pit.
She’s mad because Ruth keeps spelling her name with a Y. Ruth is also on record referring to Billie as “Mr. Cranston” and pestering her about some sort of coin.
B-Dubs doesn’t deserve to be a Power Ranger.
Ruth daring to grow healthier and putting in the work to be better despite the pain indirectly holds a mirror of accountability up to Billie by showing Billie what she could do if she were braver.
Billie hates seeing that mirror and resents Ruth for not continuing to enable her self destruction, which to be fair was their original suicide pact agreement. (Terrible, unhealthy agreements may be abandoned though.)
Recognizing any of this forces Billie to stare her own demons in the face, which she doesn’t have the grit to do, so she is doubling down on the toxic narrative that Ruth is an abandoner who betrayed her and just doesn’t know how to loosen up and have a good time, since she totally doesn’t have that much of a problem really. Honest.
It’s annoying and painful to watch, but that’s great since it makes her a complex and interesting fictional character. Wanting to yell at the screen to Billie that she’s being a bit of a shit, again, is emotional investment in the characters. Billie’s plane is on fire and losing altitude, will she manage to pull up in time? STAYED TUNED FOLKS!
Nope, all her bones are neon-colored and jangle as she walks.
I love our neon skeleton Becky.
*Cue 30 minutes lecture from Dina why Becky’s bones are not neon-colored and why those colors wouldn’t be preserved in the fossil record anyway*
“I’ve got bones that jingle, jangle, jingle,
As I go striding merrily along.”
Jingle-jangle!
Without glasses, and without her hair tied back to trick my dumb brain into thinking she has short hair like her Walkyverse counterpart, I have to keep reminding myself that’s Billie and not Meredith.
Nearly nine years in and I still get confused that she doesn’t have short hair.
Becky is very subtle! But she’s too subtle about it for people to notice.
Exactly!
And when she’s not subtle she is VERY not-subtle.
How many Becky-positive comments do I post until I get upgraded to a Becky avatar?* Seriously she has snuck into my faves, I love reading about her character (even when she participates in dumbing).
*I know that’s not how it works
There can’t be enough Becky-gravatars.
Being overwhelmingly non-subtle most of the time makes it much easier for people to miss when you are. It’s very effective.
It’s like when Goku uses the Kamehameha bursts to make Freeza look a certain way, then comes up from the other direction and starts wailing on him.
Yes.
Exactly that thing you said.
Which I obviously know all about.
I’m glad we can bond over our shared encyclopedic knowledge of Dragon Ball fights.
I of course knew that, I just wanted to know if you knew that.
“Go, my children.”
no, she doesn’t XD
Alright, Billie is going on my obligatory “Fuck you” list.
Fuck you, Billie. And fuck any person that defends her. She was going to kill Ruth with her drinking and complete refusal to acknowledge her problem.
Billie isn’t just going to ignore Ruth. She’s going to forget she ever met her.
That’ll show her.
You know, until she dies horribly in an accident.
Word of God. Nobody good dies in DoA.
So we can expect Billie to be admitted to the ICU and then hospice ward for liver failure shortly, alright.
holy crap dude can you chill
willis has literally come out in the comments section to ask you to chill and yet here you freakin are
you seem to be projecting real freaking hard on this one but here’s an idea for you, you can do what billie should be looking into doing: getting help.
seriously. this can’t possibly be healthy behaviour.
you’re on the comments going crazy trying to defend a misinterpretation of the facts, which has at this point been confirmed by WOG to be the wrong way to read the strip.
nobody is agreeing with you, in fact, most people are starting to find it annoying and yet, here you are. hours after still trying to start a fight.
stop man, get some help.
Actually, that time stamp means the comment was posted half an hour after the strip itself was.
Still an awful, probably objective wrong take, but before Willis descended.
i meant to reply on the Cholma thread but this person has commented literally everywhere with the same general idea. My bad.
I know Willis wanted to put Ruth and Billie together in the DoA-verse since they never really had a chance in the Walkyverse… but I really don’t want them to stay together, not unless Billie suddenly starts pulling her shit together. Billie isn’t gonna change until she accepts that she has a problem, and until then she’s dangerous to Ruth’s own recovery.
Plus she’s being a total jerk regardless. Ruth deserves better.
The fact that Becky started saying “Ruth, don’t cry!” makes me incredibly sad. Don’t cry, Ruth!
So this is a weird clash of narrative directions. Ruth has never, of her own accord, asked Billie to stop drinking. What she *has* done of her own accord is ask (and then shout at) Billie not to bring up drinking around her because she needs to stay alcohol-free for her meds.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-9-comic/02-but-the-sun-still-shines/blunts/
Billie, of her own accord, took seems to have taken this to mean she needs to quit alcohol to be with Ruth. While this may be helpful, it has by no means been requested by Ruth at this time. But Billie takes a road of halfways that doesn’t get her to commit to anything. All Ruth has asked is that she not bring up drinking around her. Billie later tells Ruth that Billie may have quit drinking, can quit drinking, but refuses to say that she will. And it’s at this point that Ruth brings up the therapy sessions.
…so in the end I’m at a loss. Was there some off-screen point where Billie agreed to go to therapy sessions? Is Ruth delusional in thinking Billie ever agreed to go? When did “don’t ask me to drink or talk about drinking in front of me” morph into “you must quit drinking?”
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-9-comic/02-but-the-sun-still-shines/nonpromise/
After they got taken to the hospital, Billie got signed up for therapy. Since they didn’t keep her in the hospital, she never actually went. It’s been mentioned a couple of times.
Ah yes! I remember that now. Thank you! So it turned into expectation to quit after Billie signed up for therapy.
I’m not sure it ever turned into “expectation to quit”, except in Billie’s mind. There was an “expectation to go to therapy”.
Ruth just wanted her stop bringing it up. Billie took that to mean she needed to stop, and when she talked about that to Ruth she wouldn’t actually commit to it.
Yeah, I don’t think “Shut up about it, already” is a demand to stop drinking.
It’s more than not committing to quit. Ruth actually only asked her to stop lying about it. Can you say “xxx” (and mean it) is something you ask people who promise and not deliver, in a last ditch attempt to get through to them that they are lying to themselves.
That is an interpretation of Ruth’s dialogue I hadn’t considered. Ruth wanting Billie to commit to a straight answer sounds a lot more like her than Ruth demanding that Billie stop drinking.
Could be. I’d read it as Billie bringing up stopping and Ruth challenging her to commit to it, if she was going to play around with it.
Billie, by being one of my favorite characters, is pretty good and getting me to ask myself what’s wrong with me.
You can enjoy asshole characters without having something wrong with you. Otherwise, how would people sell comic books?
I know! I know! You draw females with ridiculously large breasts and no apparent internal organs, place them in unnatural, spine shattering poses, and put pouches on everything.
I really am growing to hate Billie.
Ruth is getting better, so her response is to try to assert dominance?
Billie’s gonna start T-posing outside Ruth’s window like some sort of extremely online Slender Man.
More like Billie isn’t ready to admit she has a problem and would rather act defensive and lash out at anyone who dares show concern or suggest her life is not going perfect including Ruth because how dare she suggest she actually attend therapy. Which is understandable to an extent but this attitude is also very unlikeable.
…
Okay, does anyone (besides Willis) actually know whether these two have broken up? Or are they just having another fight?
Unless Billie herself decided they were broken up by her storming off, no one actually said they were broken up or breaking up so I have just taken it as them having a big fight right now. Neither at least have said they have broken up in clear terms yet.
Couples only break up if they involve Danny, Ethan, Walky or Dorothy.
There’s been no explicit break-up talk by either party, so no one besides Willis knows.
My read is that Billie is acting like she’s already moved on, and Ruth had no idea but she’s starting to catch on. But no one in their right mind would take relationship advice from me, so caveat lector.
This made me wonder if I have any subtle bones in my body. Most don’t seem like it but a few that seem to qualify. Ironically, I think one of the most subtle might be the one called the Hammer.
It helps you listen, so maybe a lot of characters here don’t have them.
The tables have turned, Billie: now Becky is gonna interview you regarding your relationship status.
Becky is operating on a level so far above everyone else, perspective has stopped obeying the laws of physics.
I guess this is the comments equivalent of a subtweet.
There are some people it’s just not worth getting into an argument with. You’re probably not going to change their mind, they’re probably not going to change anyone else’s mind, they might be annoying but they’re not ban-worthy…
Life is short. It’s just a comic strip. There are times to stand up, but this is probably not one of them. From the FAQ:
“3) Please be nice to other people! You don’t have to agree with them, but don’t call them, like, morons, y’know?”
I get now that I’m channeling Roz’s worst tendencies after chewing her out most of the last week for those exact habits. I’ll try to take a deep breath and be more like Dorothy instead.
I once shattered Rule 3, and I’ve always regretted it. Deep breaths are good, and learning how to employ them at the right time has kept me from at least a few further regrets.
Be like Dorothy, yes. Date a hot caramel slob.
I’m a recovering slob myself, can I date hot caramel that helps me be more organized?
You can date any hot caramel you want, if you believe in yourself.
Sadly, I have become the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. Hot caramel is probably out of my league at this point.
Caramel and marshmallow? Hell, add some chocolate ice cream and you’re on the way to a delicious polyamorous dessert.
Whatever Billie does, hoping that Ruth comes out better for her own decisions (I mean the decisions Ruth makes. We all want her to be happy I think)
I think Ruth will manage, her support system has grown lately so it’s not completely dependant on Billie anymore.
That is a striking Faaaaace in the final panel by Billie.
Possibly of interest to readers of this comic:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/06/magazine/mike-gravel-teens-twitter-presidential-campaign.html
Life imitates DoA!
For those who don’t have an NYT subscription, 88-year-old Mike Gravel is letting two 18-year-olds run his presidential campaign. He told them, “Don’t tweet anything I wouldn’t say.”
Their goal is not to win but just to get him on the debate stage.
Wow. That’s insane. I’m interested in seeing how this develops.
(Also, is this behind a paywall for Americans? Because I can just click and read the whole thing.)
I think you can just read it. The NYT allows folks a limited number of articles for free, so do it in private browsing, or erase the cookies after you read it, if you want to get rid of that counter.
Better yet, just don’t read the New York Times and have better quality of life.
Oh, yep. I belong to the FTFNYT club myself (the F’s are as NSFW as you think). But if someone asks, I’ll share what I know.
The NYT has some great reporters and, hard as it is to remember, they do also have a few great opinion writers. Unfortunately, the damage that is done by their many really shitty opinion writers, and their really shitty editors and (ultimately) their shitty publisher, is much worse than any good done by the other folks.
Their plan was to squeak in at 19th or 20th out of 20, giving the candidate a spot on the debate stage. Problem is: as of yesterday, there are already 20 candidates who have qualified, and at least three more who are in front of Gravel. So most likely this whole thing ends next Wednesday, the cutoff date.
Most US papers have what I call a “peekwall” — you can read 3-5 articles per month free, but after that you have to either subscribe, or resort to less ethical means. (An alternative to the peekwall is the nagwall, which will remind you every time you visit that you really should subscribe.)
“What decade do you think this is”, asked the girl carrying a friggin’ netbook. (Remember those?)
Any computer without a disc drive is a waste of resources.
An increasingly large (albeit increasingly scary) part of my digital life lives on Google Drive. Other than podcasts I download onto my phone because I’m driving across the desert in places where streaming doesn’t work, I don’t think I have anything stored locally anymore.
So it depends on your needs and your confidence in your ability to access the cloud. (But don’t forget that disc drives can fail, too.)
The cloud confuses and alarms me, and I don’t understand why people trust it. I can see and touch a Scatman John CD, and it doesn’t stop existing when I leave Wi-Fi range.
I don’t trust “the cloud” either. Just replace that phrase with “someone else’s datacenter”. Plus you either pay to use it, or your data is mined for advertising.
Instead, I put a Synology server together. It’s running a music server, Plex, and file shares. It gets backed up to a couple external drives, which are different brands and one always lives off-site. My phone has a 120 gig card and there’s a 120 gig flash drive full of music plugged into the car stereo. Digital storage is cheap!
I also don’t use any digital assistants, don’t have a FitBit, and have no “smart home” Internet of Things devices either. No wiretaps for me, thanks. It’s bad enough the book of faces is always listening.
You only have one off-site? That’s like wearing a belt with no suspenders!
I do try to minimize my cloud exposure surface. But I live in earthquake country, and if my off-sites live in a storage unit nearby, the upcoming Hayward shaker could render them as inaccessible as my local backups. Same thing if I lived in fire country, tornado country, flood country, etc. Cloud storage doesn’t automatically mitigate that, but it improves the odds.
And honestly, it’s not like my data is particularly worth mining. If I had the book of faces, I’d be much more worried about it injecting poison directly into my brain, something it apparently does with great regularity.
Good catch. Yesterday I just assumed it was a tablet of some kind, tonight I guess I just wasn’t paying attention.
Surface? Chromebook? Some other mini-laptop? Anyway, they are all still around in 2019, if not as heavily marketed anymore.
My partner bought one, thinking it would be fine. Turns out, they’re worthless unless you travel a lot and don’t want your real computer getting stolen abroad.
Chromeboxes have their place. They make great clip players for set dressing, they’re good for digital signage, and like you said they’re practically disposable. For the money though, I’d buy an off lease corporate laptop instead. Same price point, but it’s a real computer.
I bought a Lenovo x100e back when netbooks were a thing, because I wanted an ultrabook but didn’t have the money. It was… adequate for running Team Fortress 2 on low, but the thing ran hotter than hell. Still more powerful than its Atom powered contemporaries!
“Practically disposable” is one of the worst selling points I can think of for an expensive electronic device. Yeah, you can just huck this bad boy into the trash when you’re done with it.
Well, when the RAM and storage are both soldered to the motherboard, and the battery is glued inside the chassis, what else can you call it?
*Gives Apple the side eye*
I could call it a hammer, in a pinch. Or it might make a good coaster for my drink.
I’d call that “functionally no different than any laptop almost anyone is likely to buy nowadays.”
By the time you’re thinking about upgrading RAM and/or storage, your chipset and CPU and I/O are so out of date that you almost might as well start fresh.
Eehhh, I’m not sure about that anymore. It seems like we’re not seeing the explosive growth of the late 90s through late 2000s anymore. Sandy Bridge still gets the job done, Haswell may as well be brand new, and AMD finally hit a good price/performance/power balance with Ryzen. Most of the recent big strides have been in efficiency.
It’s still nice to be able to swap in a new storage drive if the one you have dies, or just plain add more storage and memory. (Or if the machine dies, you can pull the drive and rescue data that missed the backups.) I bought a business Dell laptop with DIMM and PCIe SSD slots just for those reasons.
I agree with you on the under-the-hood stuff. But my three-year-old business Dell laptop has no type C connectors, which was not a problem when I bought it but has become an issue since.
Anyway, wouldn’t it be nicer not to have to worry about a drive dying? And routine memory bloat seems to have diminished as well. I haven’t replaced/installed a hard drive and/or RAM at home in…literally I don’t know when.
The drives soldered to the motherboards are the exact same kind of flash chips that a standalone SSD uses. I’d rather be able to replace them if they die, or if it turns out I didn’t buy enough space from the get-go. (Looking at you again, Macbook Air.)
Nowadays you’re probably better off for that with a tablet with a Bluetooth keyboard.
(Though they are worse to repair than most other stuff. *Glares at apple*
I’m pretty sure Becky doesn’t do subtle, if this strip is any indication.
Of course not. Don’t ask questions you already know the answer to Billie.
That’s how journalism works. Well, video game journalism, anyway.
That’s lawyers. Journalists ask questions that need answers.
Video game journalists regurgitate press releases, release clickbait-y sponsored reviews, and make videos whose thumbnails are just them looking at products, mouth agape in shock and surprise. (Or is that just Kotaku and Linus Tech Tips?)
Hey, Kotaku’s Jason Schreier (if that’s how he’s spelled) produces good, long articles about the shittyness of the games’ industry.
…I don’t really watch Linus anymore so I can’t defend him…
Every time I see or hear that guy’s name, I just think Paul Schrier and Jason Narvy got married and Jason took Paul’s last name.
At least Becky has empathy, you insensible bongo! Someone give Ruth a hug!
Perhaps Ruth is wondering if Becky is Billie’s new crush.
Dina’s one of her charges…I’d be very surprised if she hasn’t seen her and Becky together.
I’m sure Ruth knows to knock first.
Carla can find someone to do that. For a fiver. Or stock options.
Might just be headcanon, but I like to think the “Don’t cry Ruth, that was just a power walk” was sung to the tune of “Don’t cry for me, Argentina”, even though the words don’t match up. Might just be sleep deprived though.
Don’t cry for Billie, Ruth and Dina!
The truth is she’s going to interview
Me about my wild days
My mad existence
As Robin’s campaign manager
Her online presence
It almost works? You do need to add in a few extra quick syllables where there should be breaks though.
You people and your songs
One of these days, we’ll rope in Rachel Bloom, and we will never look back.
I think she’s busy stealing pets, but maybe she’s over that.
I am jealous of your skill. I tried to work off Delicious Taffy’s “Billie don’t be an asshole” using Paper Lace’s “Billy Don’t be a Hero”. But I failed miserably, I couldn’t come up with anything remotely clever and witty.
Aargh anybody else worry Ruth is going to think Billie’s replaced her with another red-headed lesbian, and fall off the wagon spectacularly?
Or she assumes that Billie’s solely trying to make her think that and get jealous and get REALLY pissy with all of their friends?
Y’know, unless she goes to ask Dina if she knows what’s going on, or Dorothy mentions it or something…
Aw, Ruth…
Billies gonna get duuuuuuumped. Like, God damn.
She’s gonna get walked to the edge of the map and hulfed into the void.
the comment section is very adamant about Billie being an ASSHOLE, HOW DARE, while one person goes to the opposite extreme that Ruth is not justified in wishing Billie would quit alcohol…
wish you guys weren’t so damn moralizing. why don’t we read it in the context of the character? Billie is only ignoring Ruth, because their discussion or fight hit home.
This is by far not the worst Billie would or could do if she actually wanted to be an asshole. Of course she wants to think it’s a power move to gain control, that’s what their fight was about. If you hate her for it because Ruth is looking sad, that’s very short-sighted.
Billie is an addict, and the process to quitting will be ugly and contradictory for a while. It’s an interesting contrast to Ruth being so determined to quit. So don’t hate on Billie just for being a realistic addict.
Counterpoint: she’s still being an asshole, even if what she’s doing is not as awful as what she could be doing. Ghosting your SO after an argument is shitty. Ignoring someone who is dear to you, who laid down healthy boundaries (NOT a power move!), who is going through rehab and trying to bounce back from suicidal depression, is undeniably shitty.
Plenty of real life addicts are also assholes. It’s okay to point out when people are being assholes and to dislike or be turned off by their behavior. Billie’s an addict and recovering from it will be hard if she makes the choice to recover from it, but it doesn’t excuse her from hurting people.
Hm, “She could behave way worse!” does not strike me as a good argument against Billie being an asshole.
I find Billie’s whole behaviour since she moved shitty and assholish, and I don’t think that’s excused by her addiction — most of it has nothing to do with the addiction (apart from concerning the same person).
Billie is self-absorbed, judgemental, egoistical and a bully, and she’s been embarrassed of being with Ruth the whole way. She had been on the road to improving, thanks to Ruth and some other realisations about her life, but since moving to the new wing, she’s regressed right back.
And lately, every new scene with Billie in it has just been hitting this home.
(This doesn’t mean that she isn’t a compelling character in a story, of course — I think she is. But in real life, I’d make sure to stay the hell away from people like Billie.)
Huh. So you’re saying there might be some downside to hanging around with a drama hurricane?
See, when that happened I thought Billie had gained some self-awareness and was on the way to improving — especially in the sense that she might have recognised that she needed a change.
Having an understandable reason for being an asshole does not excuse being an asshole.
Billie might not be doing the worst thing she could be possibly doing, but she’s still a flobbering dinkworm at the moment.
The last few years I’ve been trying to coach my language away from any and all slurs, and it’s left me with a perpetual desire to transform into a Super Saiyan and blow up the planet.
Wait, did I say a slur?
Oh, no, sorry. Just that you used what seemed like nonsense words instead of vulgar language to describe Billie and it reminded me of my own struggles.
Decisions are quite magnified when they happen at a rate of 1/day, so of course we overemphasize each one.
It’s a testament to the quality of the comic that we can read this far into it and still not all agree, bring in real world patterns into these arguments to describe the characters, etc.
I will never stop moralizing, but yes I do sympathize with Billie. She’s being shitty but I get where it’s coming from
…but she’s still being really shitty, and I can also sympathize with people who aren’t willing to spare the patience for her to get her act together
About as many subtle bones as you have empathic ones, Billie!
Read today’s comic and wondered WTF was going on…
I’m glad Alanari posted that link above…
I seem to have missed a week’s worth of strips and have NO idea why!!!
Ugh, Billie.
Seriously, Ruth deserves better. I think she’s better off without Billie.
But then we can’t call them R&B anymore.
Oh, wow, Billie, you’re REALLY aiming for the number one spot of top trash relationship material, aren’t you?
You still have a long ways to go to beat Blaine, but that’s not really a bar that should be set.
Wait…I think I missed something.
Wow Billie. Worst Girlfriend Award material.
Thought they broke up
I’d say “not dating her” is a pretty solid reason for not being a good girlfriend. Can’t be a good partner if you’re not dating.
Me to the next man I see: “you’re such a bad boyfriend, you never take me on dates!”
So there is a relationship specialist named Dr. John Gottman. One of the concepts he uses is when couples make nice overtures to each other, he calls these “bids”. A bid answered kindly and returned is called “turning towards”. With 40 years of research, he has correlated the percentage couples “turning towards” very highly with their overall success. Bids make a sort of currency of happiness and trust, as partners pass them back and forth making each other happier.
A “bid” made when the relationship is under stress gains the special classification of “rescue attempt”. It’s like an olive branch. Slapping down a partner’s rescue attempts correlates very highly with relationship destruction.
Ruth is 100% offering a rescue attempt bid to Billie by putting on a happy face and greeting her. Billie is seeing this as an opportunity to finally put uppity Ruth in her place for daring to establish boundaries against going to places where she’ll be tempted to drink alcohol. Billie slaps down the bid and shows she will NOT turn towards, as vengeance for Ruth’s previous refusal to go drinking with Billie as Billie suggested.
What I really like is how Becky instinctively sees and catches Ruth’s bid and “turns towards” Ruth in proxy just by being there (and a decent human being). And how quickly that unravels Billie’s plan. “No. No! Don’t acknowledge her! You’re, uh, bad and unsophisticated if you do!” She’s basically trying to neg Becky into compliance with her revenge. I doubt Becky is willing to become complicit in this, especially what she’s been through and her core decency and resiliency as a person.
The using physical pressure/bullying on Becky to physically silence her is pretty aggressive really isn’t very good either, even though it kind of reads as comic (in a comic strip). IRL people BEST not be putting their hands over my mouth, or really on my person at all uninvited for that matter.
But what if I really, really, want to ?
Tough shit, basically.
The only thing I’ll say is that we don’t know why Billie is rejecting that bid. We can theorize and you might be right, but even what she says here might not really be what’s going on.
The language you’re quoting from this Gottman person is kinda gross, to me. It turns a relationship into a constant transaction, and that sort of thinking almost immediately devolves into Nice Guy territory.
Living for that tape recorder throwback.
I wonder if Willis ever forgets what happened in previous storylines of his comic. Does he reread it often, or draw flowcharts or something?
He reads it from his own personal future, then re-draws it slightly to avoid overlapping the timelines. It’s the biggest art con of all time, and also a victimless crime, because you can’t steal your own creation. How else do you think he could know what happens ahead of time?
Hey, just a h/t for your avatar. It’s custom, right? I mean, I can imagine Billie saying that but I don’t think she ever actually did.
I Fronkensteen’d a few different strips to make this grav. The text is actually from Ruth, but I copied the “stop” and “-ing”, popped them on either side of “drink”, and then took a separate speech bubble from one of the transparent panels so the text would fit. Then I slapped that on top of a transparent Billie face, added Red Panel color, and added a border to conceal the rough edges.
Partly it was done in response to Yumi’s question near the top, as a one-off gag. The grand majority of my Gravatars are custom made in the same way, usually to illustrate an idea I can’t articulate.
Good stuff. I rip’n’paste avatars myself but you take it to the next level.
Ugh. Billieeeee. >.<
In unrelated news, there is a new Shortpacked! today.
Yikes, this comments section. Anyway, I love the callback, and I super love Billie’s expression in the last panel.