Discussion (186) ¬
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Kendra, regular version @kendrawcandraw.bsky.social ⋅ 1d
Kevin Buist @kevinbuist.com ⋅ 2d
Ferric Fang @fangferric.bsky.social ⋅ 3d
Paul Lê @paulle.bsky.social ⋅ 3d
Rolling Stone @rollingstone.com ⋅ 3d
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…HMM
That is a “wait, what?” hmm, by the way.
Not a ‘sexy Ruth’ hmm?
Think this is about that agreement thing?
Agreement thing?
The roommate agreement. The one she’s gone to cruel and unusual lengths to get from Billie and Sal. Come to think of it, whoever called her might be why she resorted to blackmail if Undrave is right about why they called.
That was my first thought.
I thught it was her father.
Yeah that’s what I thought. But the roommate agreement thing also makes since. Although usually ADs aren’t that crazy about getting their RAs to turn in the forms. I think the ADs don’t even usually see them.
HAH! Take THAT! AND THAT! AND THIS while I’m at it! She is DONE!
Ohhh, after reading some of the other comments, I feel I may have jumped the gun a little bit.
Personally, I find the lack of empathy admirable!
But jumping the gun is fun. Just gotta make sure it doesn’t go off while you’re in front of it.
Also, because my first thought was of Mortal Kombat:
FINISH HER!
Anonymous Wins!
Uh, yeah, this is hardly a moment of fist pumping victory. Aside from not even knowing what happened, nobody actually ‘defeated’ her.
Well sure, not yet, but Billie is seconds away from jumping out and laughing at her. That’s about the level of sympathy Billie’s been showing to everyone.
Billie’s been a little depressed and frustrated lately, but I don’t think she’s ready for suicide yet.
Her father?
Could be seeing that some people refer to their own father as “Sir”.
I was wondering the same thing.
A less than loving relationship between her and her father (or none at all) would both explain “Sir” and the assertive/dominant personality she has..
I don’t think it would have to be a less than loving relationship for her to use “sir”. I call my dad “sir” all the time, it’s just a matter of being respectful
Not saying that (if it is her father) it’s not a less than loving relationship– her body language portrays that well enough.
Depends on where she’s from. ‘Round my parts, ‘sir’ isn’t an address to a person of authority or seniority, it’s an address to someone who’s male. You call your father ‘sir’ as a matter of course. Little brother, too, if he asked you a question.
I third this suspicion.
that was my guess, it sounds like a Military father.
I fourth this theory.
way late, but thought… What if it’s not like, military or anything like that? What if he works for the collage, like, he’s her supervisor? I could see a little cold-hearted dad either belittling her choice to be an RA, or even deciding she’s worthless and should be kept there.
Ruth, I am disappoint.
“Father, I harbor perverse sexual lust for another female”
Amazi-Girl?
If that isn’t the receiving end of a “You’re Fired” phone call, I don’t know what is. She still deserves worse, though.
It could also be a receiving end of a dickhead dad call.
That’s my bet. While she’s done a number of things that could get an RA fired (if not arrested), to the best of our knowledge no one has reported them.
Besides, getting fired usually involves a trip to the boss’s office.
Still scared of her father because she never lost all respect for him after walking in on him having an affair, huh?
Yeah, I’d say that about covers her current personality.
That would be my guess, too. In the prime reality, she only caught him because Walky had an episode while she was babysitting him, and she ran to Dad for help. Since there are no science-fiction elements in this world, that episode probably never happened. Also, since she and Billie apparently don’t know each other, Billie’s mother probably wasn’t there to have an affair with him…though that doesn’t mean he didn’t cheat with someone else.
Ruth has a completely new backstory in Dumbing of Age. There is nothing in the old material that can enlighten folks as to what she’s dealing with here.
Interesting. I must admit that, as I’ve been reading, I’ve been trying to figure out the specific differences, the points where the “timelines” diverge (other than, y’know, the whole lack of sci-fi elements). Looks like that’s pointless now.
Neither of Ruth’s parents factor into her life at all. (And you should probably check out the discussion on the front page blog.)
Well, then, this makes it lean more towards her boss, maybe.
But who reported her, and for what? Billie hasn’t been taken seriously, really. Maybe somebody else reported the fistfight?
Nah. None of that.
I think that it’s M. Bison chastising her for not promoting Psycho-Power enough on campus.
Duly noted, though I had assumed some amount of that what with the age differences and other things.
Poor Ruth? Emotions conflicting! Gah!
Oh…..now I feel sad……..
Someone gets beat.
What? Another dimension to the character?
WILLIS, I WANTED WACKY SHENANIGANS! DAMN YOU AND YOUR ATTEMPTS TO MAKE THIS COMIC ACTUALLY WORTH SOMETHING!
Billie just saw Ruth at her weakest.
Billie is a deadwoman if Ruth catches her now.
And tomorrow, they meet their new RA, Alan, Accommodation Expert.
I doubt it.
No, it will be Ninja Rick! Ninjas have *honor*
Maybe in this universe he will be Pirate Rick.
You’re not thinking outsiide of the box.
Elizabethan Rick!
Ninjas DO NOT have honour. They cheat for starters.
Man, Peppermint Patty is such a bongo.
Yeah, but I totally lost all sympathy for “Ruth” when she re-established contact in the first place. I mean, she’d dyed her hair, changed her name, and moved away! What will it take before she gets some therapy and gets out of this co-dependent relationship? (And by therapy, I don’t mean advice from Lucy Van Pelt. She barely scraped through AP Psych and everyone knows it.)
…Wow. I spent way too much time typing that up.
yes you did, but it was worth it.
My mind… it is blown o.o
Does that make Danny Charlie Brown?
Then, who’s Snoopy?
There is no right way to answer that question without making myself look bad.
Welcome to the internet. No one cares if you look bad. Now who the hell is Snoopy?
I would hazard a guess and say Dina, so who would Woodstock be?
i was going to say walky is snoopy, but on second thought i’ll go with pigpen.
Walky as Pigpen? I can see that.
So who is Marcie?
Snoopy is the dog from Peanuts comics
(Just in case you didn’t know)
Rorschach.
Joyce could be Linus with her plush toys serving as her blankeys.
That was my first thought too.
Good grief.
So would Mike, Sal, and Amber duke it out for Lucy?
And as long as were doing this, Ethan should be Shroedinger.
Oh yes, the oft-overlooked Peanuts character who murdered cats with radiation for SCIENCE.
After reading the strip literally my first reaction was to CTRL+F this.
Quick, Billie. Jump out of the closet, point, and laugh, before you lose the moment.
Best last moments of life, ever.
No, those go to the guy who got the cheesecake. Dammit, he knew what was going to happen, but he ate it anyways.
But that would certainly be a close second.
It would totally have to be a Nelson Muntz laugh for full effect.
Y’know what, you can’t be expecting much sympathy from me.
(next comic: Her family has disowned her, cancelled her tuition, and she is now homeless)
Ah…
Aw…
Wait… emotional depth? NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
DRAMA TAG… PULLED!
It was pulled before this comic even started!
You forgot the second tag-puller in the grassy knoll.
Yeah, when there’s a serious comic just five strips in (http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/01-move-in-day/forget/), I don’t think you can make claims of drama tags being pulled. This is just the tone’s status quo.
Forebooooooooooode
Is there a melodrama tag, then? Was it pulled right before Danny did his hackneyed head turn in “Ruined”?
No, they’re froshmen, the melodrama button is stuck like the play button on a remote and has been since they entered high school. The point of college is to hit the remote against the wall until it starts working again.
No, I agree. Your college enemy sneaking into your room, then hide under my bed, just the right time to hear a phone call that reveals a side to your tough facade that you kept a secret, is the kind of sitcom situation that qualifies as dramatization. In addition, all of the previous scenes have been pretty light. This is the first time a dark secret was revealed about any of the characters. Hence it is my uneducated opinion that the “drama tag pulled” classification is correct.
While I feel bad for whatever just happened to here that took the wind out of her sails so abruptly, it still doesn’t change my opinion about her overall behavior towards everyone.
This, pretty much. If she ever wants to redeem herself, my opinion might change, but she’s a bully who uses what power she has to get away with assault and theft. Her sucky childhood does not justify taking it out on someone else.
I like how you can’t just view charcaters as ALL GOOD or ALL BAD, but with pluses and minuses.
There’s always degrees, but there’s also a certain line you don’t cross. Ruth has been abusing her power, assaulting people, stealing, destroying personal property, and generally doing as much as she can to hurt people she’s supposed to protect. She may have had a terrible childhood. She may have a terrible life. She may be an abuse victim. Despite that, she is still a bully and a monster, and needs to be punished for it. There may be reasons for what she’s done, but there is no excuse.
Yeah, it’s not all or nothing. Just because I feel sympathetic for whatever’s going on now (bad relationship with her father/) doesn’t mean that I don’t still condemn her term as Tin Tyrant of the Dorm.
Sympathy for an antagonist. Good writing… good writing.
And let the theories commence.
Um… I always have sympathy for the antagonists; I’ll be more impressed when I have sympathy for the hero.
Do we even have a hero in this strip?
This specific strip? not really.
DoA overall?
Amazi-girl. Obviously.
I don’t know what to say about this, I lack the basic information needed to even know what is going on.
Yeah, it could be finding out something about why she is the way she is, which might get her some empathy but does not excuse her…
or it could be “So all of your residents are accusing you of crimes, several of them are now in mental institutions, and the rest are begging to be moved out. We’ve had to call a SWAT team.”
Her dad’s a jerk so she’s a jerk? It fits and if she ever shows a desire to stop being a jerk (or at least be a jerk at something that deserves it), I’ll be on the “redeem her” bandwagon. For now though, big whoop you wanna cry about it?
Well…that was unexpected. I do hope that this is where we see why DOA Ruth is the way she is; she’s been one-dimensional for far too long.
Wait, so is the Ruth in this continuity gay?
Was she not in the Walkyverse?
We can only hope, BassBone. We can only hope.
Dude, it’s a Willis Comic. Everyone will have at least one homosexual encounter before this strip hits a year.
a year in our time or a year in comic time? because i think we’ll all be dead before a year passes in the comic.
Ruth…
I’ve decided. I’m always gonna have faith in Ruth…I know deep down she’s a good person.
And everything that she had done made sense. The Ruthless persona is just a mask to cover up her problems and insecurities. Deep down, she’s as vulnerable as tortoise without a shell.
Yes, you’re absolutely right!
…and she still wants to help those deserving (Dorothy turned to her and she showed her genuine compassion ^^) through her insecurities…heh, I can relate to Ruth the most of all the DoA characters!
I get pissed at her a lot, but I still like her.
Plus, I really just don’t like Billie (like her as a character, but would never want to associate with her), and the enmity between Ruth and Billie makes me like Ruth even more… even when she goes too far.
I’m hoping ad certain Billie will grow into someone tolerable, but now yeah I dislike her ^^;
I don’t like what Ruth does to her, evens he dun deserve it, but doing bad things to one person dun make you a bad person.
Cause you know because YOU are insecure that suddenly makes everything else you do okay! Like..stealing property, Physically assaulting people, submiting people to ‘Random” drug searches just cause they pissed you off.
Oh yes if YOU are being mistreated you don’t gain SYMPATHY for anyone No! You act like a huge bongo to everyone because you feel justified in your narcissistic behavior 8D
I’m no psychologist but some people willing to kill because they are insecure.
And that makes it okay!
I’m not saying you have to agree with me, I see what you’re saying and I too disapprove greatly of Ruths actions, even if it is towards Billie. And I’m not saying abusing her power is in any way acceptable or respectable, but again, we’ve only ever seen Ruth interact with Billie more than once, everyone else has only spoken to her once. I don’t want to judge her based on how she treats ONE person…its inexcusable, but I’m sure its a Billie exclusive treatment… And to be honest I CAN see where she’s coming from if that really IS her dad on the other end of the conversation.
I’m also pretty sure she could tell it was Billies voice and was only going to confront HER ^^;
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/01-move-in-day/agreements/
Billie may get a special level of felonies perpetrated against her, but Ruth treats everyone like that.
Maybe…maybe she…was just being assertive?? v.v
I just realized: if that is Ruth’s dad, yesterday’s ringtone became about a hundred times more ominous.
Had to beat me to it, didn’t you? What are the bets that that’s a personalized ringtone too, so she probably knew it was him.
I just looked at the strip before this and this one again, it looks like she was caught off guard when she answered. She was angry for someone calling her on her cellphone, and then the next she turned apologetic. Either way, MM is right lol
i don’t know. if it was a personalized ringtone, ruth might have an idea of what the call would be about. it wouldn’t make sense for her to go from annoyed to upset if, say, she was getting a call from someone that is expected to chew her out.
Not necessarily. She was already pissed off enough to go for “random drug searches,” so she had some annoyance-inertia going on. I imagine she wanted to go blow off some steam (aka terrorize someone), not be interrupted by someone who she knew was going to make her feel even worse about herself.
What if…what if its Galasso at the other end of the line?!
What if it’s Professor Doc?
Quite frankly, I don’t see Galasso firing someone unless they just don’t show up for work or if they directly disobey him.
Galasso does not fire employees on the phone. He fires employes with bazooka hamsters.
That was actually my first thought…
Always liked Ruth… hope she can get out of this universe virtually unscathed.
Also has Howard made an appearance yet or is he MIA at the moment?
well crap surfed on my new 3DS and put in the wrong email address for my gravatar…
whoops :p
either way i hope Ruth is ok.
I don’t want to spoil anything for the people who haven’t read Roomies!…
But yeah IAWTC
So, in other news, doesn’t this remind you of a widescreen comic strip? :O
And now the plot thickens let’s just see how far she can fall before she reaches the bottom of oblivion. Hahahahaha!
We all know what Billie is thinking: “Well…shit.”
She’s actually thinking “Mopey Nerrrrd!”
No, that’s her second thought.
wow well uh. Damn
DON’T FALL FOR IT BILLIE!!! IT’S A TRAP!!
How… How is the door blocking off the speech bubble? Is it a very strictly soundproof type of wood?
I was going to comment on that – it immediately struck me as a very interesting stylistic choice, maintaining the delineation of the closet doors while simultaneously hinting at the slight sonic distancing a pair of mostly-closed wooden doors provides, all while not actually obstructing any of the words too much for us to ‘hear’ them.
That is, I *was* going to comment on it – except you beat me to it. You horrible horrible person you.
Yeah, Douche! We all wanted to be the first one to comment on it but NOOO, you couldn’t allow that. Selfish british prick.
I am obviously an inherently bad person…
But I did read all the other comments to make sure that nobody else commented on it! That counts right? It makes me good again, right?
Oh God nothing can make me clean again! Forgive me my Masters, I did not mean any impudence and – Waitaminute, I don’t feel bad at all!
Nice try, but it won’t work this time!
*French accent* Also, your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries!
*runs away*
*fires cow out of catapult at Atcote* -Now- you’re supposed to run. =D
We British can read the warning signs – we know when we’re about to have livestock flung at us.
Surprisingly often, at that.
i maybe in a drug induced haze, but i dont give a crack about the redhead, hse reeps what she has sown
Yeah yeah this strip is OBVIOUSLY supposed to tug at my heart strings and think “Oh Gee maybe Ruth isn’t so bad!”
However it didn’t work because I flat out hate people that bully people just cause their life is shit…DX
I gather that you have some experience with handling people with that attitude.
More than I would like… People who bash your face in or treat you like crap because people do it to them, It doesn’t fix anything it just makes more problems.
as well as people that constantly rack up overdue fees at the library!
that is what the call is about, right?
In my estimation, it’s supposed to tug at Billie’s heartstrings–and we’ll see whether or not it actually does. What it does to your heartstrings, on the other hand, is entirely up to you.
As for me: I’m curious who it is on the other line (probably Dad?), but I don’t think this excuses Ruth’s draconian approach to her RA duties.
Empathy doesn’t consider whether a person is a saint or a monster. It’s about feeling for another’s pain or joy, with no regard to personal feelings about the individual.
Who could this mysterious “Sir” be? Her boss? Her thesis supervisor? A Knight?
Your last suggestion is awesome.
Yeah, those damn paladins. You pull one mattress tag, and you’re branded for life.
This happens to me in every strip I read and I NEVER see it coming. “Oh man I hate that character they’re so mea– ……….. Shit.”
No way to know if that was her standard ring tone or not, but if it was personalized, it being her father’s would make sense since it is a kind of disturbing lullabye…
LoL, I know people like Ruth, who are the worst type of bullies, the kind that try to use their issues as a crutch.
I don’t feel bad at all.
One of these days, one of them’s liable to break that crutch on your skull, and it will be an awesome thing to behold.
This is not to say you’ll deserve it. You may want to stand clear of the poetic swinging range anyway, just in case.
Looks like someone is having “daddy issues”.
Interesting bubble representation. Is that an already existing idiom or is this a new trend that you are setting Mr. Willis.
…
What? I’m supposed to feel sorry for her now? She’s a bully and a ****. She deserves her bit of misery.
“Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.” J.R.R. Tolkien
Let’s not quibble over the degree of torment either, nor the matter of seniority between egg or chicken.
Aww, poor Ruthe.
Well, I guess I sort of called something like this happening a while back…
D: I still don’t like it, though.
At this point I’m thinking Billie will jump out of the closet, grap her uniform and make a run for it, and then come back to see why the hell Ruth isn’t chasing her.
I would seriouly love that more than anything else in this world.
Orrrrrrrrrrr it’s a trap, and she’s screwed.
She’s already holding her uniform in her hands as she’s hiding in the closet. All she has to do is wait for Ruth to go away.
I wanna give Ruth a hug.
I want to give her more, but yes, her current “Sad Ruth is Sad” moment is very hug-inspiring.
oh and on a side note When was Billie replaced by Dorothy from the banner at the top?
No! No Freudian excuse! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
I don’t accept Freudian excuses, I might accept Jungian excuse thou.
Hmm. I wonder how many of the unsympathetic people on this thread have only read this comic, and how many of the sympathetic ones have read “Roomies”?
If this is the only strip you’ve read, then Ruth is just yet another bully with a Freudian Excuse. But if you’ve arrived here from the prime reality, you’re probably saying “Ah ha! So this is why this Ruth is different than the Ruth we knew!”
Mmm…no, I’m not sure I agree, since I don’t see this Ruth and that Ruth as the same person. Same with anyone else; we’re not seeing the same ol’ Bean around here, for example.
That said, I do feel sorry for this Ruth, and it’s not because I see this moment as an explanation for her behaviour. All that matters is she’s hurting. If it was as a result of her actions, such as when Billie punched her in the face, fair enough. Far from ideal, but, “What did you expect to happen?” applies. Fairer still would be getting her RA status revoked, though I wonder if Ruth would be the only person to suffer as a result of that decision.
Whatever’s crushing her soul at the moment, however, is more likely to do Billie ill than good if Billie can’t show consideration for her nemesis’ suffering. There are certainly ways to hurt Ruth with this knowledge, but the results would likely wind up with both sides losing, based on what we’ve seen.
Billie is several different kinds of insensitive, but she’s not brain-dead. Ruth has proven both willing and able to visit violence upon her for much less. I don’t see Billie even trying to use this unless they were on the edge of a no-holds-barred throwdown anyway.
Besides, what knowledge does she really have? That Ruth has an authority figure who’s disappointed in her, and that it makes her really unhappy? That’s pretty common in your early twenties. If Billie wants something useful, she’s gonna have to dig deeper.
Digging deeper does seem in line with the major she’s pursuing, even though she hasn’t shown much talent for it thus far.
This Ruth ain’t that Ruth. Any similarities between them are presumed to be purely coincidental and irrelevant.
I read the prior comic and am not sympathetic, by the way. I might *get* sympathetic, but at the moment we’ve been given the uninformative half of a phone call and her sitting down. I need more than that to go on.
Ruth from Roomies! is still fundamentally Ruth here, I think. The other characters certainly bear uncanny personality similarities to their counterparts; why not Ruth? The thing is, Roomies! gave Ruth an opportunity to do something that would redeem her of almost anything. Without the last few strips she was in, Ruth wasn’t anyone worthy of respect in that strip either.
There’s a lot of talk about maybe the dude on the other end is Ruth’s father.
But what if… it’s her GRANDfather? Like, what if her grandparents took her in because maybe her parents died or went to the loony bin or turned into stone, and then maybe her grandmother also died/solidified and her granddad is a jerk?
…I’ve only had four cups of coffee, I promise.
Ruth, you were warned about introducing yourself to men of wealth and taste…
Wow! Ruth at her weakest! I have to see the next one and what happens!
Galasso?
nope, FAZ!
*twitch*
just read back through some of the old Joyce and Walky/Roomies/It’s Walky stuff… and I have to say I genuinely feel bad for Ruth. Yeah shes a b-word but it’s just to cover for her insecurities. Like how people spend hrs putting on clothes and make up to try and hide how ugly they feel inside.
I wonder if this at all tied into her walking in on her Dad having an affair?
That was the old Ruth, who had a Freudian excuse. *This* Ruth just hates people for no reason at all. And the phone call there? From Sir Ian McKellan, obviously. (She’s not sad or anything either; she’s just looking down at her phone to text in a hit on him.)
Ooo… somebody’s getting character developement!!
Aside: Word o’ Willis states that DOA has little to with Roomies/It’sWalky/Joyce and Walky/ Shortpacked Continuitity. As far as we know, Ruth’s dad never had an affair and she’s responding to constant pressure to be the best or some other shiny new trauma. Either way, there’s most likely more to her personality than standard bongo flacks.
This being said; chicken mcnuggets?
Character development?
WHAT HATH SCIENCE WROUGHT?
Neat effect, how the speech bubble is eclipsed on either side by the doors.
Wait a sec…
was that a…
….
…was that a soul?
IT’S HEAD ALIEN
Shit gets real more suddenly than in Steven Universe.
I this this is where I fell for the comic. And I don’t even like Ruth.