One of the saddest things in modern wrestling (that doesn’t involve the lack of a union or anything one of the legions of trash people in the industry are doing) is how the indie scene turned Petey Williams’ devastating finisher into just another a spot.
That seems to happen to every move, sooner or later. What starts out as one wrestler’s irresistible finisher gets copied and adapted and eventually becomes just another standard move. It does seem to happen a lot faster these days, though. And as wrestlers constantly push the envelope in search of something unique, it’s sadly likely that some people are going to get badly injured.
Headcanon: Walky’s nickname comes from and incident when they were kids and she accidentally called him “Baka”, and then had to swiftly backtrack and claim she said something else.
Works on two levels, since she also denies being a nerd, so she should have no knowledge of anime terms.
That’s not really an excuse though. I wouldn’t appreciate my friends volunteering information about my relationships to people I’ve never even met. Especially considering the nature of their relationship when it started revealing that someone could even form a bad impression on them. This is a small thing ultimately but still kind a jerk thing to do.
I’m not gonna start another rant thread on Walky again. *It’s happened too many times*. But just because it happened publicly doesn’t somehow make it okay to share. I know gossip happens but that doesn’t mean it’s right. It’s very public knowledge that Joyce glassed a guy that drugged her at a party. Would you share that with someone she’s never met before? It’s not Walky’s story to tell.
But I do like Regalli’s theory below that Walky’s probably still bitter at Ruth over the relationship and was making a passive aggressive dig at her expense. Very on brand for him.
Yeah I am, but I can say good things about him if I have to. I did like and was pretty impressed when he punched Asher. I also respect the fact he’s done a lot of work to improve his relationship with Sal which was probably the one thing I hated about him the most. I have a brother myself and even though I don’t like him that much I’ve had his back since we were kids and he’s had mine. That whole Leland thing still really upsets me thinking about it. And the whole “He was a kid” thing doesn’t fly with me since I’ve been in similar situations at that age.
As for Leland, I put the blame for that squarely on the teacher. Walky was pretty blatant about just going along to avoid the threatened violence. If she couldn’t hear the obvious threat and read Walky’s reaction, she wasn’t going to listen to anything.
Yea chool clearly knew who they wanted to blame and anyone going against their decisions would be punished or at least have no real protection when the kids worked it out.
Yeah, Walky was not subtle there in saying ‘I am being threatened,’ and Leland was not subtle in his threatening given the teacher was right there. The school had no intention of punishing the white boy with a promising future over Marcie, and even if he had hurt Sal or Walky as actual students, I doubt much would have come of it without Linda pushing. (And I can only say for certain she’d push for Walky.)
By which I mean, ‘even in a situation where Leland attacked Sal, unprovoked, cut and dry harm to her for no reason, I’m not confident Linda would stand up for her. In any other situation I feel safe to say she wouldn’t.’
It’s actually nowhere near as public knowledge. Basically everyone on this floor saw the body slam and knows about the dating and it’s safe to assume it quickly spread to the adjoining boys floor as well. None of this is anything Walky was told in confidence or something like that. Booster would likely be the only one on the floor who didn’t know the backstory.
The glassing was known to the witnesses and few others at least for a long time. Most of the witnesses at the party, other than our cast, had no idea who Joyce was. Rumor reached Roz, who was at the party but didn’t see it, only as some kind of fight. Beyond that Joyce wanted it kept quiet and everyone respected that. Even Walky. At least until later events with Ryan, but I don’t think even then Joyce’s full connection came out publicly. She had to tell Joe about it: he knew about the stabbing, but not the connection to her.
Okay I really have to ask what this “Billie might be dead” narrative is. That was never once setup or even hinted at. I can believe Billie broke up with Ruth or even dropped out for rehab or something but she’s not dead. Killing off a character as significant as Billie without setting it up first would be a really terrible thing to do to readers invested in her story. She’s a more important character than Mike was and that dude got a whole story arch surrounding his death and some of the characters are still mourning him. Billie can’t be dead.
Sirksome, it’s a joke. Mike died off-screen during the time skip and so now every character that we haven’t seen since is assumed to have similarly died over the time skip. Some of us have fun with crack theories. In the case of Billie and Ethan, we have the additional fact that their accustomed silhouettes didn’t seem to appear in the shaded cast photo and for Billie we have the additional fact that Dorothy said “we lost Billie.”
But now that Willis (presumably) killed off a character that way, we get to assume that’s also true of everyone that we’ve ever seen in the comic that hasn’t yet appeared since the time skip. Joyce’s mom died of being supplexed by Ruth. In fact we haven’t seen Amber at the meeting and so she obviously died from the shock of meeting Booster, who you don’t realize looks exactly like Mike except for the glasses.
Oh. I didn’t get the joke cause people have been commenting on this “Billie is dead” theory since that first strip with Becky, Dorothy, and Ruth. Where Dot was all “We also lost Billie” Which is a bit cryptic of a statement maybe, but not enough for me to assume she’s dead.
I dont know the ruth bille relationship was kind of toxic to me. I honestly dont think the whole forcibly kiss someone without there consent suicide pack and blackmail would have been considered okay today in fact I’d go as far to say if ruth was a guy no one would be okay with it. I mean the relationship did get better but I never seemed like something that would last forever. In fact in the walkyverse ruth sort of helped raise billie so it was always kind of fucked up.
Surprise that she didn’t have to track him down and threaten to rip his femurs out to get him to attend the meeting? She doesn’t know him very well yet.
… So, good to see Walky almost certainly DOES still resent Ruth for the dating Billie with side order of co-dependent mutual depressive spiral, and is choosing to express this via passive aggressive digs at her to the newbie.
Probably not how I’d choose to do that, but on the other hand, he has had months and Billie probably wouldn’t have appreciated direct digs. So, *shrugs* You’re all disasters, children.
The Ruthless Violence Show definitely is the best one on campus tonight, though. Fair enough, Booster.
He’s so jokey all the time, it’s hard for me to tell when his digs have a deeper meaning. I had forgotten about how upset he was when he learned that they were dating.
That one single “neat” in the face of Ruth’s almost desperate assertion that she could be a better person is probably my single favourite Walky moment. It is unflinchingly brutal.
Walky’s had a lot of… I don’t want to say *assumptions* that he secretly deep down cares a whole lot but doesn’t put effort into it, but it doesn’t come up as much as I’d like it to.
So that refusal to humour Ruth and punching Asher, that’s the Walky I want to see. Doing what he can to defend the people he loves.
Though Walky reveals he really does understand in the first panel of the next strip. You really need to read the two together to understand where he’s coming from.
To be fair, leaving that hanging without the followup context makes it sound particularly savage. But if viewed with the context of the next strip, is diffused by Walky’s apparent distress over his own failings as a brother. He incorrectly supposed that her meds gave Ruth a clean slate.
I just described that scene to a friend of mine the other day. He had like, no context so I described Billie and Ruth’s relationship in the minimal detail necessary to get to that scene.
Ruth is still not my favorite ever. But I do respect that scene.
Ruth rocketed up the scoreboard because she feels like she’s made a genuine effort to get her shit together in such a way that it’s started to pay off after a long period of suffering. Bad shit happened to her and she stumbled in the dark dealing with it, but now there’s a sense that she’s started to stabilize.
I don’t know why people think Walky is still mad at Ruth just because of this strip. Walky spilled everyone’s dirty laundry to Booster and I don’t think he hates all of them. He’s just got loose lips.
I wonder how Booster imagined that turning out. Ruth gives them a power bomb then leaves a note on their body with her number on it and a message saying “Call me xoxo”
Apparently Ruth’s threatening people if they don’t show up to floor meetings last semester was so effective that she now gets her entire floor to show up plus extra people without even saying the threats anymore. Or maybe you can get more people to show up when you don’t threaten them. Nah, that can’t be right.
Now I don’t know if I was hallucinating the absence of her name or if it was there the whole time. Or if Willis is intentionally trolling me which, to be fair, is fair.
‘Everybody’ made me wonder whether that includes the single-roomers from the end of the hallway, Meredith’s roommate and yet unknown double room (assuming all double rooms come with a shared half-bath there has to be one more)
The more I see Walky and Lucy together the more I think they’re a cute couple. I even think Lucy’s the right kind of gentle, supportive personality who’d make a perfect match for Walky (who has talent, but just needs encouragement and the occasional kick in the backside to get moving).
Wouldn’t be great if now Amber invokes Mike’s ghost and Ruth and/or Walky invoke Billie’s ghost? Ghost party! Bring your femurs! But that should have been Halloween’s strip, so nope.
Joyce seems to be in high tension at the moment I don’t know if it’s the way Becky has been needling her or if it’s the thought of being pressed up tight against Dorothy!
Meanwhile, I feel sad for Lucy that Ruth has noticed that she is following Walky around like a little lost puppy before Walky has himself! Of course, I might be doing Walky an injustice. Maybe he has noticed and just doesn’t care.
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does Ruth have to give femurs back if extra people show up
Definitely. But she’s allowed to redistribute them as she sees fit.
Ever notice how Sierra and Rachel are super tall?
Extra femurs. Not sure how they earned them.
Well, she was gonna, but now it would be predictable so she has to do something else.
Luckily, everyone from her homeland is trained in The Canadian Destroyer.
One of the saddest things in modern wrestling (that doesn’t involve the lack of a union or anything one of the legions of trash people in the industry are doing) is how the indie scene turned Petey Williams’ devastating finisher into just another a spot.
You know, Booster is actually giving me hope that Billie will show up.
Even though I know she really died over the time skip.
That seems to happen to every move, sooner or later. What starts out as one wrestler’s irresistible finisher gets copied and adapted and eventually becomes just another standard move. It does seem to happen a lot faster these days, though. And as wrestlers constantly push the envelope in search of something unique, it’s sadly likely that some people are going to get badly injured.
Walky really reveals way too much of other people’s personal information.
I mean, to be fair, Billie’s like one of his best friends. Even if she’s a tsundere jackass about it
Headcanon: Walky’s nickname comes from and incident when they were kids and she accidentally called him “Baka”, and then had to swiftly backtrack and claim she said something else.
Works on two levels, since she also denies being a nerd, so she should have no knowledge of anime terms.
That’s not really an excuse though. I wouldn’t appreciate my friends volunteering information about my relationships to people I’ve never even met. Especially considering the nature of their relationship when it started revealing that someone could even form a bad impression on them. This is a small thing ultimately but still kind a jerk thing to do.
Walky thinks of her as his sister. It’s generally accepted that you’re allowed to be a jerk to your siblings.
Id say prolly his best friend.
Pretty sure he even referred to her as a sister.
I think Wally just really doesn’t like ruth and thinks shes bad for billie but the only way he can express it is by being his snarky self
That one has already bee ln revealed to everyone on the hall, it was a whole public thing
I’m not gonna start another rant thread on Walky again. *It’s happened too many times*. But just because it happened publicly doesn’t somehow make it okay to share. I know gossip happens but that doesn’t mean it’s right. It’s very public knowledge that Joyce glassed a guy that drugged her at a party. Would you share that with someone she’s never met before? It’s not Walky’s story to tell.
But I do like Regalli’s theory below that Walky’s probably still bitter at Ruth over the relationship and was making a passive aggressive dig at her expense. Very on brand for him.
No offense but you kind of seem anti Wally no matter what he does. I mean hes not my favorite or anything but jeez
Sirksome definitely seems to hate Walky, and I can’t figure out why since he doesn’t seem all that bad to me.
Yeah I am, but I can say good things about him if I have to. I did like and was pretty impressed when he punched Asher. I also respect the fact he’s done a lot of work to improve his relationship with Sal which was probably the one thing I hated about him the most. I have a brother myself and even though I don’t like him that much I’ve had his back since we were kids and he’s had mine. That whole Leland thing still really upsets me thinking about it. And the whole “He was a kid” thing doesn’t fly with me since I’ve been in similar situations at that age.
As for Leland, I put the blame for that squarely on the teacher. Walky was pretty blatant about just going along to avoid the threatened violence. If she couldn’t hear the obvious threat and read Walky’s reaction, she wasn’t going to listen to anything.
Yea chool clearly knew who they wanted to blame and anyone going against their decisions would be punished or at least have no real protection when the kids worked it out.
dude your average is gonna make me cry, that’s not fair
*avatar, gdi
Yeah, Walky was not subtle there in saying ‘I am being threatened,’ and Leland was not subtle in his threatening given the teacher was right there. The school had no intention of punishing the white boy with a promising future over Marcie, and even if he had hurt Sal or Walky as actual students, I doubt much would have come of it without Linda pushing. (And I can only say for certain she’d push for Walky.)
By which I mean, ‘even in a situation where Leland attacked Sal, unprovoked, cut and dry harm to her for no reason, I’m not confident Linda would stand up for her. In any other situation I feel safe to say she wouldn’t.’
But if Walky started “causing trouble” would Linda still stand up for him. Or does his protection depend on letting these things go.
It’s actually nowhere near as public knowledge. Basically everyone on this floor saw the body slam and knows about the dating and it’s safe to assume it quickly spread to the adjoining boys floor as well. None of this is anything Walky was told in confidence or something like that. Booster would likely be the only one on the floor who didn’t know the backstory.
The glassing was known to the witnesses and few others at least for a long time. Most of the witnesses at the party, other than our cast, had no idea who Joyce was. Rumor reached Roz, who was at the party but didn’t see it, only as some kind of fight. Beyond that Joyce wanted it kept quiet and everyone respected that. Even Walky. At least until later events with Ryan, but I don’t think even then Joyce’s full connection came out publicly. She had to tell Joe about it: he knew about the stabbing, but not the connection to her.
Well, he knows that that’s the way you get people to,trust you, right?
If Billie is dead, Walky may blame Ruth.
Okay I really have to ask what this “Billie might be dead” narrative is. That was never once setup or even hinted at. I can believe Billie broke up with Ruth or even dropped out for rehab or something but she’s not dead. Killing off a character as significant as Billie without setting it up first would be a really terrible thing to do to readers invested in her story. She’s a more important character than Mike was and that dude got a whole story arch surrounding his death and some of the characters are still mourning him. Billie can’t be dead.
I think the narrative goes, ” Once upon a time, Billie died.”
All your points and reasoning about it are correct.
Sirksome, it’s a joke. Mike died off-screen during the time skip and so now every character that we haven’t seen since is assumed to have similarly died over the time skip. Some of us have fun with crack theories. In the case of Billie and Ethan, we have the additional fact that their accustomed silhouettes didn’t seem to appear in the shaded cast photo and for Billie we have the additional fact that Dorothy said “we lost Billie.”
But now that Willis (presumably) killed off a character that way, we get to assume that’s also true of everyone that we’ve ever seen in the comic that hasn’t yet appeared since the time skip. Joyce’s mom died of being supplexed by Ruth. In fact we haven’t seen Amber at the meeting and so she obviously died from the shock of meeting Booster, who you don’t realize looks exactly like Mike except for the glasses.
All clear?
There’s still one silhouette in the cast picture that could easily be Billie
Oh. I didn’t get the joke cause people have been commenting on this “Billie is dead” theory since that first strip with Becky, Dorothy, and Ruth. Where Dot was all “We also lost Billie” Which is a bit cryptic of a statement maybe, but not enough for me to assume she’s dead.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-11/01-this-bright-millennium/polycule/
oh nooo I hope this doesn’t imply a Billie/Ruth breakup…
I’m afraid it does, another comic earlier already implied as much
I thought Walky was just joking, it didn’t occur to me that he was hinting at Ruth being single.
Wait, the way everybody was talking so far this storyline, I thought Billie was just dead.
Insufficient data! But Walky’s joke doesn’t really work if Ruth is known to be currently seeing Billie.
On the contrary, if she’s still seeing Billie it would make the joke funny instead of mean.
It’s too bad that Billie died over the time skip.
Hmmm, that is a point. Walky’s dislike of Ruth might justify the meanness to him in this case, though.
… You mean just dead but still actively dating Ruth?
You know what? That works for me.
Weekend At Billie’s
I dont know the ruth bille relationship was kind of toxic to me. I honestly dont think the whole forcibly kiss someone without there consent suicide pack and blackmail would have been considered okay today in fact I’d go as far to say if ruth was a guy no one would be okay with it. I mean the relationship did get better but I never seemed like something that would last forever. In fact in the walkyverse ruth sort of helped raise billie so it was always kind of fucked up.
Arguing it was fucked up because another dimension Ruth was a parental figure is … like arguing real-world physics should apply to Amazi-Girl.
Y’all are reading _way_ too much into casual word play.
Shhh!
What’s that supposed to mean? Huh? Are thems fightin’ words?
Not sure quite what’s going on with Ruth’s expression in the last panel.
Surprise that she didn’t have to track him down and threaten to rip his femurs out to get him to attend the meeting? She doesn’t know him very well yet.
… So, good to see Walky almost certainly DOES still resent Ruth for the dating Billie with side order of co-dependent mutual depressive spiral, and is choosing to express this via passive aggressive digs at her to the newbie.
Probably not how I’d choose to do that, but on the other hand, he has had months and Billie probably wouldn’t have appreciated direct digs. So, *shrugs* You’re all disasters, children.
The Ruthless Violence Show definitely is the best one on campus tonight, though. Fair enough, Booster.
He’s so jokey all the time, it’s hard for me to tell when his digs have a deeper meaning. I had forgotten about how upset he was when he learned that they were dating.
That one single “neat” in the face of Ruth’s almost desperate assertion that she could be a better person is probably my single favourite Walky moment. It is unflinchingly brutal.
Oh god, your description was so delicious I had to go back and find it
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-9-comic/03-sometimes-the-sky-was-so-far-away/worser/
So good.
Walky’s had a lot of… I don’t want to say *assumptions* that he secretly deep down cares a whole lot but doesn’t put effort into it, but it doesn’t come up as much as I’d like it to.
So that refusal to humour Ruth and punching Asher, that’s the Walky I want to see. Doing what he can to defend the people he loves.
Seriously, that one’s impressive.
There’s nothing quite like wrecking someone with one word.
Though Walky reveals he really does understand in the first panel of the next strip. You really need to read the two together to understand where he’s coming from.
To be fair, leaving that hanging without the followup context makes it sound particularly savage. But if viewed with the context of the next strip, is diffused by Walky’s apparent distress over his own failings as a brother. He incorrectly supposed that her meds gave Ruth a clean slate.
Ruth and Billie have been drama hurricanes but despite myself I’m kinda sad that they might have broken up.
I used to hate Ruth and now she’s basically my favourite ever since that one strip where she told Billie to stop trying to get her to drink.
I just described that scene to a friend of mine the other day. He had like, no context so I described Billie and Ruth’s relationship in the minimal detail necessary to get to that scene.
Ruth is still not my favorite ever. But I do respect that scene.
Ruth rocketed up the scoreboard because she feels like she’s made a genuine effort to get her shit together in such a way that it’s started to pay off after a long period of suffering. Bad shit happened to her and she stumbled in the dark dealing with it, but now there’s a sense that she’s started to stabilize.
I kinda hope Ruth and Billie haven’t broken up, and I’m not gonna assume they have unless it’s confirmed in a later strip.
Same.
soon we find out that billie has transferred to yale, earning her the title of “dead to me” by dottie
Ooooh, that would be funny.
And as Dorothy stews in rage and resentment, we see the origin of the next campus supervillain.
Alright, so I guess Walky’s losing his femurs today
Stalker!Lucy….
She’s can’t help but follow Walky, it’s the best way to get a good look at his butt!!!
In fairness, his butt is particularly round. There are citations.
*plays Chuck Berry’s “School Days” on the hacked Muzak*
Fuck you, Tall Rachel.
Um. What?
Well, it’s nice to know Walky’s still on the Ruth haterade train. Understandable.
And oh, Booster, you’re gonna like it here. Maybe. We’ll see.
I’m waiting for the Booster/Mary meet.
They already have. The meeting was as brief as it was unpleasant.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-11/01-this-bright-millennium/operating-2/
I know it’s being pretty heavily implied but I’m honestly hoping Billie got transferred elsewhere and she and Ruth are still dating long distance…
But I’m also just a disaster lesbian and I was really hoping they’d get better together :'(
Now I’m imagining what a Disaster Lesbian comic would be like.
There are a *lot* to choose from
Just realized I was Lucy in college.
Like, not the friendly and cheerful part. But the following an oblivious love interest part.
We’ve all been Lucy at one point or another.
The gang’s all here? Don’t we still have one mystery silhouette?
Billie lives in Lucy’s dorm now so she wouldn’t have shown up here.
I didn’t think it was Billie, that’s why I said “mystery”.
I don’t know why people think Walky is still mad at Ruth just because of this strip. Walky spilled everyone’s dirty laundry to Booster and I don’t think he hates all of them. He’s just got loose lips.
zero brain-to-mouth filter.
Yet figured he’d do a better job introducing Mike’s replacement to Amber than Joyce did…
I wonder how Booster imagined that turning out. Ruth gives them a power bomb then leaves a note on their body with her number on it and a message saying “Call me xoxo”
I love how Joyce and Becky behaved exactly like Dorothy predicted. I can’t help imagining a lite smile as she calls herself predictable.
Ruth, you don’t get to threaten someone into attending and still be surprised they showed up.
She threatened them last time and still had to drag some people in.
I like Booster. They are by no means an acceptable substitute for Mike, but I quite like them as an individual.
The glasses and change in mannerisms fooled you too. Mike is just that good.
Apparently Ruth’s threatening people if they don’t show up to floor meetings last semester was so effective that she now gets her entire floor to show up plus extra people without even saying the threats anymore. Or maybe you can get more people to show up when you don’t threaten them. Nah, that can’t be right.
Wait, I forgot she actually did threaten Walky and Booster earlier.
Unexpected, but not unwelcome
wow I love booster
Everyone loves Booster. They know how to read a room.
Ruth says it looks like everybody is here, and yet I don’t see Amber’s name listed.
Maybe she’s the one Ruth bodyslams and then dates.
Amber is tagged now. Maybe it was just a correction.
She’s that brown blob of hair behind Becky.
Now I don’t know if I was hallucinating the absence of her name or if it was there the whole time. Or if Willis is intentionally trolling me which, to be fair, is fair.
She was in the tags pretty early – I spotted her and checked to be sure before I went to bed for the night.
‘Everybody’ made me wonder whether that includes the single-roomers from the end of the hallway, Meredith’s roommate and yet unknown double room (assuming all double rooms come with a shared half-bath there has to be one more)
The more I see Walky and Lucy together the more I think they’re a cute couple. I even think Lucy’s the right kind of gentle, supportive personality who’d make a perfect match for Walky (who has talent, but just needs encouragement and the occasional kick in the backside to get moving).
Since Lucy is so smitten, i doubt she presently has the judgement to be that person. However, you do paint a lovely future.
Walky said what now
Ruth is a celeb! So popular!
Wouldn’t be great if now Amber invokes Mike’s ghost and Ruth and/or Walky invoke Billie’s ghost? Ghost party! Bring your femurs! But that should have been Halloween’s strip, so nope.
Does Joyce leave room for Atheist Jesus, or is her arm touching Dorothy’s as they sit?
this is beautiful
Joyce seems to be in high tension at the moment I don’t know if it’s the way Becky has been needling her or if it’s the thought of being pressed up tight against Dorothy!
Meanwhile, I feel sad for Lucy that Ruth has noticed that she is following Walky around like a little lost puppy before Walky has himself! Of course, I might be doing Walky an injustice. Maybe he has noticed and just doesn’t care.
I was so taken with Dina’s flirtatious Rarr that I didn’t think about Joyce’s face.
So, Lucy is (in a friendly way) stalking Walky nonstop?
Sal, showed up? What alternate universe version of Sal is this?
Or is she just so tired of last semester’s drama that she honestly wants to avoid creating more?
Are there any self-destructive, closet lesbians, left, for Ruth to bod slam, on her floor? I have a feeling that they are few, and far between.
Body-slamming someone and then asking if they wanna fuck sounds like something a frostbitten, wild, and very powerful canadian would do.
Assuming she isn’t still dating Billie in secret….
And assuming they aren’t into threesomes, of course.
Did she say they broke up?
They could have long distance
Except… Billie isn’t there anymore
Terrible Hunting for a Carnotaurus
She’s not hunting, clearly. She’s engaged in a courtship ritual
Happy Halloween everybody!