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The Witch Door
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“Checkmate!”
“Actually, I can still move here.”
“G – fine, CHECKMATE!”
“No, can still move here.”
“Gaah, fine, NOW CHECKMATE!!”
*silently takes her queen*
“GAAAAAH!!”
Indeed. I didn’t catch the self-sabotage angle until now either, but I think Ruth has a point. I’m pretty sure there were ways Billie could’ve said ‘I’ve done things I’m not proud of, and being a cheerleader encouraged them’ that could’ve worked WITHOUT going straight to ‘here’s my completely unprocessed trauma!’
But, standard jokes about this not being Smarting of Age. But also, Billie is REALLY GOOD at hiding her depressive and self-destructive symptoms under a happy veneer where they’re ALMOST socially acceptable and the worse stuff is probably just a whim, right? She’s fine. (It’s impressive except in how it’s awful.) That said, I think this was more impulse than calculated – she can do the reflexive self-loathing/sabotage thing depressingly well, and I’m pretty sure we haven’t seen much of Billie admitting vulnerability compared to ‘I’m Head Bongo Cheerleader’ or more hyperbolic ‘I am Garbage’ sort of stuff. Add in her clearly NOT having processed it at all (even ‘holy shit I almost killed myself and my friend’) and I could see this slipping out. But we’ll see. Like I said, Billie’s really good at masking and part of that IS consistently choosing self-destruction, conscious or not.
Masking all her unprocessed trauma behind the “alpha bongo head cheerleader” front has been her coping mechanism since the comic started. Getting ostracised from the college version of her high school social group dinged the mask, but I think this is one of the first times we’ve really seen it slip around others.
I think this was her taking it off, flinging it onto the ground then dancing on it. But while it might have come from a place of self-destructiveness, not being worshipped by the creepy ones seems like a good thing and better for her mental health overall?
Yeah. Making a person into a weird idol is gross. If this was about pushing away those types of people even if it was always what she wanted…. self destruction seems to be coming with a healthy dose of more aware of meaningful interactions now.
Okay but. When those relationships were built on a misconception, especially one that was partially based in a period of Billie’s life that was pretty toxic and that she’s trying to heal from, isn’t taking them apart kind of a step forward? Maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree here but it feels like this is a good sign for Billie’s self-awareness, that she’s realizing this dynamic isn’t a good thing for her.
That’s the thing. Everything that Billie was saying about how she was just a regular person who wears galaxies, loves her girlfriend, and even used to be a nerd, was being met with cries of “Awwww!” and more worshipful stuff. It’s almost as if she had to add the worst thing she ever did in order to get them to stop.
Yea, this is how I felt reading this, too. Relationships built on idolization eventually fail, anyway, because the idolizer eventually realizes their idol doesn’t actually exist. I can’t say I blame Billie for wanting to head it off rather than wait for the image to fall apart. Hell, she’s probably had experience with the latter based on her past.
oh no, the pod people don’t get to act like BILLIE made this awkward after they have been acting like borderline stalker weirdos since they met her. gah!
For We know which one’s your room,
And Lucy tells us what you do;
… are you snacking down at the Y? with someone who loves you?
Tell Us how to win your Love, for we Really have not a clue.
But let us start by worsh-shipping you.
I agree in principle, although I think Billie’s execution and her motives are what leaves much to be desired. Is she trying to be more honest with herself and others, or did their worship finally lose steam and she wanted to cut ties with them all before they got TOO close and ‘discovered’ her true nature for themselves on terms that weren’t her’s? For me, if this means those girls will stop acting like pod people, I’m for it.
I dunno, both theories look like solid gold to me.
Back in the old days, car tires had tubes, and a flat tire was just swap-out the tube situation. …which meant you needed tire irons. Lotta things you can do with a tire iron. Or a bat. … Real handy. Lotta things you can hit with a bat.
Honestly the only person I liked from the Forest Quad gang was Nash, but even if Billie sort of erupted, I totally understand her frustration. Having people idealize you as though you’re infallible and goddess-like is fucking garbage. I would have been really upset too. I’m also really hoping that Lucy does more of her straight talking – I really like her dynamic with Ruth and her refusal to let Billie be a dick. And above all PLEASE BILLS, GO TO THERAPY.
It’s refreshing to see Ruth being the voice of reason when being confronted with self destructive behaviour. I mean, yes, they idealised her, but that could have been corrected in a less wrecking-ball-ish way.
On the one hand, being placed on a pedestal can be annoying certainly, but on the oyher hand Billie did not handle it the right way in trying to end it. And it wasn’t really fair when it was supposed to be about introducing Ruth.
I think she DID indicate in the last couple in-strip days that she’s finally going to start going. (Trying to catch up with and be a reasonable partner for Ruth, mainly. The sexy lesbian suicide pact really has come quite a way from its awful beginnings if it’s inspiring Billie to try.)
I think it probably did start out as her wanting to introduce them to Ruth before quickly turning into getting them to stop with their creepy fan worship/idolization they had of Billie. I’d say that’s not a bad thing either.
The two were always linked though, since part of the early fan worship was her description of Ruth as a sexual conquest, not a romantic relationship (however screwed up.)
Originally she was hiding the truth about Ruth from this floor to keep the creepy fan worship. Sabotaging that is a good thing, right?
BoJack Horseman just ended, Billie. No need for another self sabotaging jerk, Billie. We already have Walky, Amber, Joyce… I know the title is dumbing of age, but it seems pretty scary that many of these characters are actively trying to ruin their own oportunities of being good, moral and happy people. If this is a recreation of Willis’ college years, then I feel bad about him.
I’m pretty sure Joyce will start course-correcting soon enough (not entirely, but some.) But based off what he’s said in the Walkyverse reruns and the ‘Joyce is autobiographical’ stuff, I suspect he gave a lot of them kernels of himself, yeah. Anxiety and depression can SERIOUSLY fuck you up, and speaking from experience being away from home and accountability is a way for them to get worse fast. Add in gifted kid burnout/a possible undiagnosed learning disability or the process of going from fundamentalist to however Joyce ends up and it’s… not difficult, for things like that to escalate.
If it makes you feel better, this is pretty realistic for college kids apparently. Really high rates of stress and mental illness! Lots of twice exceptional kids (gifted and in some way needing accommodations – learning and developmental disabilities, mental illness, whatever) fly under the radar until college or later because we’re ‘smart’ and just need to apply ourselves! (It is hell.)
Sure, she sabotaged some relationships, but in the process, she also strengthened her relationship with the one person in this dorm who actually saw her as a human being, so on balance, I’d call this a win!
Exactly! And she has abruptly grown out of her preference to be worshipped rather than befriended. This is not a bad choice, unpleasant as the immediate social reaction may be.
If I remember correctly, Ruth doesn’t know what Billie told the pod-people and encouraged them to assume about their relationship. Breaking that news to Ruth would have been awkward too.
This was kind of both constructive and destructive as these were toxic relationships that maintained her ego so she could pretend she was fine so they needed to be reshaped and also kind of burned down a lot of their respect for her at the same time which is more destructive but does make their view of her more honest and truthful to who she is.
I suspect that Ruth and Lucy will have a conversation now in which Ruth will surprise herself by being in agreement with Lucy: Billie needs help and it’s the sort of help that hugs really aren’t sufficient to provide.
Is it just me wondering how much of this is having Sal’s Mom and Dad as a surrogate putting her up on a pedestal for being the Nice Half-Asian Girl they wished their daughter was?
Walky strikes me as a mess, like a knotted shoelace.
Sal strikes me as a mess, like a vinyl garden hose that’s tangled up.
Amber strikes me as if she were a messed-up tangled ball of yarn the cat has played with.
And Billie? Billie is what’s left of twemty miles of telephone cable after an Oklahoma tornado. Or something like that.
Okay, so the girls in this dorm now strike me as kind of assholes. First they creepily worship Billie (and start ignoring poor Lucy over that), then Billie tries to open up to them and show them she is a real person, including that she makes mistakes… like basically every person in the world. I admit that she said it quite grumpily, like she does. But that they would then turn away from her when she tried to show them that she is just human, over the one mistake she made years ago… Well, that’s just harsh.
The man once known as Mike sweeps up in a low rent bar and the last patrons stagger out. We watches as a sleezy dude drops something in a woman’s drink. His eyes narrow.
Yeah, like many in these comments, I’d feel “Billie is sabotaging her relationship with her dormmates” more if that relationship had ever been presented as anything other than creepy, unhealthy and built on … not even lies, because Billie never actually lied to them, but bizarre self-deception on their part.
I’m kind of baffled by the fact that everyone seems to be forgetting that Billie encouraged them kissing her **** . I don’t think this is a particularly healthy or exciting development for her. I think she intentionally built a fan club but didn’t like the emptiness that went with having to maintain a false image and destroyed it. I don’t think the destruction of that is necessarily a bad thing, but I don’t think the way Billie went about this is particularly insightful or healing. And poor Ruth, who was so genuinely excited to seem accepted and valued but then discovered that Billie is still too self-absorbed to be able to sustain that kind of selfless, giving attention and love.
Optimus Prime broke down and cried on the set of "Transformers" (2007) due to the extensive use of green screen filming. He reportedly said, "This is not why I became an actor."
“I’m just going to say it, shame on any of us who throws a trans child under the bus for thinking they’re going to get elected. That child deserves our support. Don’t worry about the pollsters calling it distractions, because we need to be the party of human dignity.”
Minnesota Star Tribune@startribune.com ⋅ 2d
Gov. Tim Walz is doubling down on trans rights — and criticizing members of his party who are retreating — at a time when the issue has become a political lightning rod nationally and back home in Minnesota.
they managed to get the arms and thighs to be different grays, which I wasn't sure they'd be able to do, the way the mold's set up
though maybe they're just producing a lot of extra thighs and/or arms in the wrong colors and throwing those away, i dunno
Minnesota Star Tribune @startribune.com ⋅ 2d
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 2d
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⚧️Coming Out
Hailey Piper 
I SAID CHECKMATE, ATHEISTS
Don’t mind me. I just came to check if Mike was back.
“One of these years, I think” – V’s spouse
Plot twist: Mike wound up in the OOTS verse.
He and Belkar will get along well.
“If we can hit that bullseye, the rest of the dominoes will fall like a house of cards. Checkmate.”
“Hooray, I keek a touchdown!”
Is this American sportsball?
I once briefly ran a sci-fi tabletop RPG where Zap was the captain of the ship and all the PCs were members of his crew.
“Checkmate!”
“Actually, I can still move here.”
“G – fine, CHECKMATE!”
“No, can still move here.”
“Gaah, fine, NOW CHECKMATE!!”
*silently takes her queen*
“GAAAAAH!!”
Master Fisto would be so disappointed
“Checkmate. Next faaaaaaaaace, er, game”
You’ll always have Lucy, Billie.
Seriously, after the Kit Fisto thing, girl’s gonna sew herself to you.
Or be like spongebob tied to squidward through some abnormal biological link.
Goddammit, I thought it was about coming clean.
Billie’s first therapy session can’t be soon enough.
Indeed. I didn’t catch the self-sabotage angle until now either, but I think Ruth has a point. I’m pretty sure there were ways Billie could’ve said ‘I’ve done things I’m not proud of, and being a cheerleader encouraged them’ that could’ve worked WITHOUT going straight to ‘here’s my completely unprocessed trauma!’
But, standard jokes about this not being Smarting of Age. But also, Billie is REALLY GOOD at hiding her depressive and self-destructive symptoms under a happy veneer where they’re ALMOST socially acceptable and the worse stuff is probably just a whim, right? She’s fine. (It’s impressive except in how it’s awful.) That said, I think this was more impulse than calculated – she can do the reflexive self-loathing/sabotage thing depressingly well, and I’m pretty sure we haven’t seen much of Billie admitting vulnerability compared to ‘I’m Head Bongo Cheerleader’ or more hyperbolic ‘I am Garbage’ sort of stuff. Add in her clearly NOT having processed it at all (even ‘holy shit I almost killed myself and my friend’) and I could see this slipping out. But we’ll see. Like I said, Billie’s really good at masking and part of that IS consistently choosing self-destruction, conscious or not.
Masking all her unprocessed trauma behind the “alpha bongo head cheerleader” front has been her coping mechanism since the comic started. Getting ostracised from the college version of her high school social group dinged the mask, but I think this is one of the first times we’ve really seen it slip around others.
I think this was her taking it off, flinging it onto the ground then dancing on it. But while it might have come from a place of self-destructiveness, not being worshipped by the creepy ones seems like a good thing and better for her mental health overall?
Yeah. Making a person into a weird idol is gross. If this was about pushing away those types of people even if it was always what she wanted…. self destruction seems to be coming with a healthy dose of more aware of meaningful interactions now.
To be fair, Ruth, I think it STARTED as introducing you to them and just… kinda… spiraled.
Also, they weren’t the best new relationships to begin with.
Yes, even though this went to far and isn’t coming from a good place, at least they’ll stop with the bizarre worship stuff. Ugh.
In fact, they were horrible: bad now, and headed for disaster.
it was the closest thing to an in person parasocial relationship ive ever seen
I think it wa as the awwwwws. Femur crushing girlfriend was supposed to be the nerd equivalent of vampire garlic.
Okay but. When those relationships were built on a misconception, especially one that was partially based in a period of Billie’s life that was pretty toxic and that she’s trying to heal from, isn’t taking them apart kind of a step forward? Maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree here but it feels like this is a good sign for Billie’s self-awareness, that she’s realizing this dynamic isn’t a good thing for her.
That’s the thing. Everything that Billie was saying about how she was just a regular person who wears galaxies, loves her girlfriend, and even used to be a nerd, was being met with cries of “Awwww!” and more worshipful stuff. It’s almost as if she had to add the worst thing she ever did in order to get them to stop.
Wears “glasses”, not “galaxies”.
Galaxies are very fashionable
The Galaxy Is on Orion’s Belt
OMG, it’s full of stars!
Who can blame them for worshipping someone who just casually wears star-spangled galaxies?
Well, this is spiraling out of control.
Yea, this is how I felt reading this, too. Relationships built on idolization eventually fail, anyway, because the idolizer eventually realizes their idol doesn’t actually exist. I can’t say I blame Billie for wanting to head it off rather than wait for the image to fall apart. Hell, she’s probably had experience with the latter based on her past.
Maybe once they get over the shock they’ll treat her as a regular, though deeply flawed person, rather than some kind of princess or goddess.
Although if memory serves, Billie kinda nurtured this whole thing at the start, even though she’s (rightly) trying to stop it now.
Yuuuuuup.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-8/01-face-the-strange/salacious/
She did. That’s why it’s important that she’s trying to stop it.
oh no, the pod people don’t get to act like BILLIE made this awkward after they have been acting like borderline stalker weirdos since they met her. gah!
For We know which one’s your room,
And Lucy tells us what you do;
… are you snacking down at the Y? with someone who loves you?
Tell Us how to win your Love, for we Really have not a clue.
But let us start by worsh-shipping you.
Now Lucy and Billie can be Former Popular People together!
Lucy was never really popular though.
She mentioned before that she briefly felt “popular” here in the dorm, until Billie came along.
Fine but they can still be Kit Fisto fanfic BFFs thought.
They could be Kit Fisto Companions. And sell chickens on the side.
Aaaaand called it. Knew this wasn’t coming from a healthy place. People don’t change so quickly
Dunno if it was from a healthy place or not, but some things ya got to nuke from orbit.
It’s the only way to be sure.
I agree in principle, although I think Billie’s execution and her motives are what leaves much to be desired. Is she trying to be more honest with herself and others, or did their worship finally lose steam and she wanted to cut ties with them all before they got TOO close and ‘discovered’ her true nature for themselves on terms that weren’t her’s? For me, if this means those girls will stop acting like pod people, I’m for it.
AW GEEZ THIS WAS MEANT AS A REPLY TO SHIRO.
I DANNED IT UP
Hey there. We pod people have feelings too.
And then in tomorrow’s campus newspaper…
Campus Vigilante Wanted for Murder
But they aren’t dead! Mike is holding then in durance in a dry well.
My tin-foil-hat theory is better than your tin-foil-hat theory.
I dunno, both theories look like solid gold to me.
Back in the old days, car tires had tubes, and a flat tire was just swap-out the tube situation. …which meant you needed tire irons. Lotta things you can do with a tire iron. Or a bat. … Real handy. Lotta things you can hit with a bat.
Nothing like a nice tire iron. When I got my driving license, the first thing I bought was a big new tire iron for my car. I’ve had it ever since.
Honestly the only person I liked from the Forest Quad gang was Nash, but even if Billie sort of erupted, I totally understand her frustration. Having people idealize you as though you’re infallible and goddess-like is fucking garbage. I would have been really upset too. I’m also really hoping that Lucy does more of her straight talking – I really like her dynamic with Ruth and her refusal to let Billie be a dick. And above all PLEASE BILLS, GO TO THERAPY.
It’s refreshing to see Ruth being the voice of reason when being confronted with self destructive behaviour. I mean, yes, they idealised her, but that could have been corrected in a less wrecking-ball-ish way.
On the one hand, being placed on a pedestal can be annoying certainly, but on the oyher hand Billie did not handle it the right way in trying to end it. And it wasn’t really fair when it was supposed to be about introducing Ruth.
Is Billie scheduled for therapy? She needs it.
She has therapy she should be attending but hasn’t attended at all.
I think she DID indicate in the last couple in-strip days that she’s finally going to start going. (Trying to catch up with and be a reasonable partner for Ruth, mainly. The sexy lesbian suicide pact really has come quite a way from its awful beginnings if it’s inspiring Billie to try.)
She really, really needs to start going.
Hey, Billie started out trying to be gentle with her neighbors. Losing one’s temper with the confines of idol worship is pretty reasonable, actually
I think it probably did start out as her wanting to introduce them to Ruth before quickly turning into getting them to stop with their creepy fan worship/idolization they had of Billie. I’d say that’s not a bad thing either.
The two were always linked though, since part of the early fan worship was her description of Ruth as a sexual conquest, not a romantic relationship (however screwed up.)
Originally she was hiding the truth about Ruth from this floor to keep the creepy fan worship. Sabotaging that is a good thing, right?
BoJack Horseman just ended, Billie. No need for another self sabotaging jerk, Billie. We already have Walky, Amber, Joyce… I know the title is dumbing of age, but it seems pretty scary that many of these characters are actively trying to ruin their own oportunities of being good, moral and happy people. If this is a recreation of Willis’ college years, then I feel bad about him.
I’m sure Willis has learned a lot from other people’s college experiences.
I’m pretty sure Joyce will start course-correcting soon enough (not entirely, but some.) But based off what he’s said in the Walkyverse reruns and the ‘Joyce is autobiographical’ stuff, I suspect he gave a lot of them kernels of himself, yeah. Anxiety and depression can SERIOUSLY fuck you up, and speaking from experience being away from home and accountability is a way for them to get worse fast. Add in gifted kid burnout/a possible undiagnosed learning disability or the process of going from fundamentalist to however Joyce ends up and it’s… not difficult, for things like that to escalate.
If it makes you feel better, this is pretty realistic for college kids apparently. Really high rates of stress and mental illness! Lots of twice exceptional kids (gifted and in some way needing accommodations – learning and developmental disabilities, mental illness, whatever) fly under the radar until college or later because we’re ‘smart’ and just need to apply ourselves! (It is hell.)
Things are rarely binary, so this kinda works out as as both a healthy and unhealthy thing in the end.
Stopping drinking wasn’t the start and end of it.
Now we’re looking at the Why behind the drinking.
Sure, she sabotaged some relationships, but in the process, she also strengthened her relationship with the one person in this dorm who actually saw her as a human being, so on balance, I’d call this a win!
Exactly! And she has abruptly grown out of her preference to be worshipped rather than befriended. This is not a bad choice, unpleasant as the immediate social reaction may be.
I hope this makes you happy, Lucy
Yes, because Lucy wanted this to happen. It was all part of her devious plan!
If I remember correctly, Ruth doesn’t know what Billie told the pod-people and encouraged them to assume about their relationship. Breaking that news to Ruth would have been awkward too.
This was kind of both constructive and destructive as these were toxic relationships that maintained her ego so she could pretend she was fine so they needed to be reshaped and also kind of burned down a lot of their respect for her at the same time which is more destructive but does make their view of her more honest and truthful to who she is.
I suspect that Ruth and Lucy will have a conversation now in which Ruth will surprise herself by being in agreement with Lucy: Billie needs help and it’s the sort of help that hugs really aren’t sufficient to provide.
Does this mean checkmate is the new face? Funny how long ago that strip was and yet it’s only been a few months in-comic.
Checkmate, faaaaaaaaaace.
Genuinely asking: Has it been even three months?
Nope! We haven’t even hit two months yet, as Halloween is yet to come.
Is it just me wondering how much of this is having Sal’s Mom and Dad as a surrogate putting her up on a pedestal for being the Nice Half-Asian Girl they wished their daughter was?
Maybe some. Probably more her own parent’s absence.
I’M FEELING SO HAPPY NOW — Billie
GOOD DAY, MADAM!
I SAID GOOD DAY
Good day, sunshine?
Walky strikes me as a mess, like a knotted shoelace.
Sal strikes me as a mess, like a vinyl garden hose that’s tangled up.
Amber strikes me as if she were a messed-up tangled ball of yarn the cat has played with.
And Billie? Billie is what’s left of twemty miles of telephone cable after an Oklahoma tornado. Or something like that.
Showing my age, but I imagine it as the cassette that got eaten by the car stereo, thrown out the window, with miles of tape dangling out.
Mikemate.
…
I said CheckMike!
MikeCheck!
Test 1… test 2…
…. okay, this Mike is dented. WHO DROPPED THE MIKE?
I think Billie has do the right thing. Everyone was always around her in ecstasy and she was losing herself. It’s good to say everyone to go away.
I SAID GOOD DAY, SIR!!!!!!
Okay, so the girls in this dorm now strike me as kind of assholes. First they creepily worship Billie (and start ignoring poor Lucy over that), then Billie tries to open up to them and show them she is a real person, including that she makes mistakes… like basically every person in the world. I admit that she said it quite grumpily, like she does. But that they would then turn away from her when she tried to show them that she is just human, over the one mistake she made years ago… Well, that’s just harsh.
*Less than a year ago, actually. And they’ve had all of 30 seconds to process it.
Comic time!
In another new city, Pittsburgh to be precise,
The man once known as Mike sweeps up in a low rent bar and the last patrons stagger out. We watches as a sleezy dude drops something in a woman’s drink. His eyes narrow.
Yeah, like many in these comments, I’d feel “Billie is sabotaging her relationship with her dormmates” more if that relationship had ever been presented as anything other than creepy, unhealthy and built on … not even lies, because Billie never actually lied to them, but bizarre self-deception on their part.
Honestly, if I were Billie I wouldn’t want to be friends with most of the people in this dorm anyway. They kind of suck.
I’m kind of baffled by the fact that everyone seems to be forgetting that Billie encouraged them kissing her **** . I don’t think this is a particularly healthy or exciting development for her. I think she intentionally built a fan club but didn’t like the emptiness that went with having to maintain a false image and destroyed it. I don’t think the destruction of that is necessarily a bad thing, but I don’t think the way Billie went about this is particularly insightful or healing. And poor Ruth, who was so genuinely excited to seem accepted and valued but then discovered that Billie is still too self-absorbed to be able to sustain that kind of selfless, giving attention and love.