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Knowing Willis and his “Chronic Butt-itis” [or as you may better know it, “Butts Syndrome”], that seems all-too-likely as the actual title. I’m not saying it should be. I’m just saying it likely will be.
I mean, what’s a day of DoA without a Damn You Willis and a butt-related eyeroll?
[I meant that figuratively. Please stop rolling your eyes while face-planting someone’s ass. I mean, at least stop it in public. Besides, I hear that’s how you get pink-eye. Or is it stink-eye? Anyway; To put it in the phrasing of Jennifer: “Promise me you won’t. It’ll fuck with my anti-eyeinbuttcrescents.”]
If only I had the choice. But when you breed with the crazy, you have to choose between being a present parent or being at peace. I choose (well try to) responsibility.
“Arguing with idiots is like playing chess with a pigeon… No matter how good you are, the bird is going to shit on the board and strut around like it won anyway.”
–Earliest atrribution, S. D. Weitzenhoffer
The best I’ve achieved is to just breathe and be. Put a smile on my face (for the endorphins it gives me) and wait for it to end. I’ve failed a lot.
Is it?
I think I may have had a terrible revelation.
Jennifer… is sober Billie. Or rather Billie named the person she became when sober “Jennifer.”
Which may imply that Jennifer has attached all of her budding bisexual identity to her “Billie” personality, hence the idea that she’s “over” it. That is not healthy.
Future strips may prove me wrong, but that’s my current theory.
And when Becky said Jennifer still had the hots for Ruth, Jennifer said “that was just some weird phase I was going through.” You can read that as being specifically about Ruth, and not about girls in general, but it seems pretty clear to me that she doesn’t want to be bi.
I will admit, the same woman who said ‘bisexuality only exists in porn’ immediately figuring out ‘they’ and then busting out ‘agender’ and ‘gender boundaries’ is interesting.
Somewhere in the time gap she clearly got an education in this stuff.
Except they/them pronouns don’t imply agender. Nonbinary people can identify as *many* different gender identities, only one of which is “agender”. The choices aren’t “boy”, “girl”, or “none” — it’s a spectrum. Which implies to me that Jennifer doesn’t know nearly as much about these things as she thinks she does.
Also I’m kind of pissed off now because that floor meeting seemed to really bother Ruth and I hope she’s not backsliding. Don’t prove a horrible person like Rachel right, Ruth!
Ruth has always been a horrible person, with a brother for morality pet. What, was subjecting her charges to physical and psychological abuse not enough of a hint for you?
Roz is kind of performatively woke but I’d like to see her mature and develop that into a more sincere effort to do good.
Rachel we don’t know enough about yet, but the mechanical story purpose of a character who won’t let a fan favourite get a pass for her abuse is pretty fucking groovy, ngl.
This is my problem with Rachel. Roz at least has shown some other sides of her personality and some development. Rachel on the other hand only shows up to do one thing, badger Ruth for her previous actions. That’s the only thing she’s done besides once yelling at Joe for being creepily objectified by him. I wish she’d do something else so I can sympathize with her more. Otherwise she’s just become the bully Ruth used to be.
Ruth was a horrible person. Maybe she even still is, but at least she’s trying to change which is more than Rachel is doing. Mostly because Rachel’s a side character.
Yeah that’s basically the rub of why Rachel’s so unsympathetic to us so far despite being Completely Right; she’s a bit character who yells at Ruth.
We’ve gotten a flashback indicating shared history and Booster pulling out of her that she feels guilty for not stepping up beforehand. Where we gonna from here?
Completely right is a lot farther than I’d go and I’m usually a Rachel defender.
That rant of hers: “redemption is not real” “You will always be the thing you were before”.
Her anger is understandable. She’s not required to forgive Ruth. But she’s also not Completely Right.
Roz is literally the only one of the cast that volunteers her time for no personal gain (like the condom thing), and when she got an inkling of what Ryan had done to Joyce she approached her and, with exactly zero prying, queestions, accusations or recriminations, offered her information on helpful resources, even though her only interactio with Joyce had involved Joyce calling her “a hellbound slut.” If it’s performative you’re after, look at Dorothy and her volunteering at the soup kitchen because it’ll look good on her resume.
I think you’re confusing “performatively woke” with “incapable of ever doing anything with an altruistic motive.”
Both things you mentioned were in, what, Year 2 of the comic? We’re on Year 11 now and since her big freakout on Joyce she’s acted a lot more like a glad handling sleaze who huffs her own farts and parades her sister’s outing to her dorm to curry their favour, and lately only ever seems to say anything so Becky can shut her down.
Roz isn’t a bad person, she’s not malicious, she’s not the Liberal Equivalent of Mary, she’s a kid who believes in the right thing, so she decides that makes her right to act how she sees it.
Lifehack: if you’re trying ot convince me of your position,then “Becky agrees with me” should not only not be one of your first arguments, it shouldn’t be one of your arguments at all. With the exceptions of something related to her specific life experience (e.g., how difficult it is to acquire the required documentation for basically everything while growing under a super-cintrolling parent) or something I find so self-evident you don’t need to defend it to me at all (e.g., LGBT+ folk deserve the same rghts as non-), Becky’s opinion has actual negative value.
You saying that Roz is wrong becuse Becky shuts her down is the equivalent of you saying that science is wrong and fundies are right because Joyce had a countter for everything Dina said as they walked into Biology class.
(as an aside, one of us misread the situation with Roz upon Robin getting outed – I feel like if it had been an attempt to garner favour, she wouldn’t have had categorically and dismissively denied being the one who’d done it)
How about nuance? We can acknowledge Ruth’s problems and emphasize with her struggles at the same time, without writing her off as a terrible person. Just like most of the rest of these characters.
And I’ve no idea what you by Howard as a morality pet.
We can also acknowledge that the story has shown us that Ruth continues to threaten people, suggesting that Ruth isn’t a bully BECAUSE she has depression, but in fact a bully AND has depression. Depression is an illness, not Mirror-Universe Santa Claus, it happens to bad people too.
I won’t argue Ruth *has* done those things, and thus forgiveness is in the eye of the beholder, but I will say she does not anymore. Her return to Big Bad Ruthless is transparently performative and instantly defanged by the slightest resistance as shown by Becky and Dorothy, the only person she’s gone Ruthless at.
There is maybe a question about the appropriateness of calling back to Ruth at her worst for a joke, but for now she is very clearly not who she was at the start of the comic.
Ruth’s also friendly enough with Becky she was going to take Gender Studies with her, so there’s that too. Joking about Ruthless with someone she’s friendly with and joking with, say, Rachel, are not the same thing.
It just ocurred to me while re-reading your comment that you might have meant it in a way I feel the need to correct: being a alcoholic isn’t what makes Ruth a terrible person. Neither would backsliding be. These aren’t personality flaws. They’re character flaws in the sense that the character isn’t perfect, not in the sense of the character having a flawed, er, character.
My theory is, Booster is somebody with an all-consuming need to be the center of attention:
1.-Their show at the meeting served no other purpose besides becoming the center of attention, and trying to convince everybody that they are SOOOO SMART!
2.-Nobody could analyze people the way they did just by looking at them; they have obviously been cyber-stalking the students, gathering information about them, a task ridiculously easy nowadays, with everybody uploading everything the do, say or think to the net. They did that in order to become able to play the role of the genius psychoanalyst detective.
3.-Taking into account 2 and 3, I think they chose this college after reading all the news about Amazi-girl, Robin and Roz shenanigans and about the shootings and kidnappings and drama… they want to insert themselves into that drama-filled community in order to reach all of America!.
Booster would probably be more annoying in-universe, simply because their analyses tend to force people to confront the things people don’t want to confront about themselves.
In all seriousness, though, I cannot wait to see them meet Jennifer. It probably won’t go well, or at least not initially, but I want to see it happen anyway.
I mean i’m hoping i misunderstood somehow!! But if you told me “to be fair, you need to be a certain level of drunk to get over Milu’s personality” i would be seriously offended. It sounds just about as mean to me as if you’d said the same thing with “face” instead of “personality”. Does this make sense? Did I get you awfully wrong?
Yeah, I’m not exactly sure why I got such an icky feeling from OP’s comment. Some jokes are not funny to some people for reasons of their own, maybe this is one of those for me.
Their relationship was toxic, but apparently since it was a Mutually Agreed Destruction sorta thing, it escalated into nuclear one way or another either right before the end or after it. The geiger counter is to navigate the scorched, salted (salty?) ground that was left.
Geiger counters measure radioactive decay right? Isnt radioactivity toxic? Is that the wrong word for it? Cos that being my understanding means gauging environmental toxicity based on a radioactivity reading is sensible.
However– now that I’m committed to overthinking this– I think I agree that radioactivity is a bad metaphor for hostility, because its this regular, mineral, slow sort of process. Again, as I understand it. Radioactivity feels acausal and uncaring, not well suited to describing the sparks flying in a highly charged interaction. (My own metaphor is a bit confused, nyeh).
Toxic means a chemical that causes undesirable effects by chemical action. Toxic chemicals can remain so indefinitely.
Ionizing radiation from radioactive isotopes of chemical elements can cause chemical changes that can make existing chemicals toxic. But the danger necessarily decrease over time. Though the time involved may be very long, of course.
[Clipping some stuff going on about common misconceptions about radioactivity.]
Of course, when you are using metaphors, being sloppy about categories and distinctions, and/or being technically incorrect is pretty much inherent to the concept.
And as a metaphor, a radioactive environment could be considered a good metaphor for the sort of emotional or social situation that slowly grinds away at at well being, but not causing any clear and obvious damage at a particular moment.
Yeah, if Ruth isn’t being serious then this is probably one of the worst things she’s ever done.
My guess is that maaaybe she’s trying to get Jennifer to understand how she feels watching the latter being so obviously not-okay and being rebuffed every time she tries to help, but even if that’s her motive then it’s still really manipulative.
They had a suicide pact or whatever it was, they enabled each other’s bad habits through their entire relationship, and unless im misremembering, Billie, while telling Ruth she needed to stop, was continuing her bad habits, being a total hypocrite.
Ruth seems to be doing her best to handle her bad habits and I don’t remember seeing her participating in any since the break ended, even being a lot less violent, while Billie, or I guess Jennifer now, has seemed to take the whole “it was just a phase, none of that was done in my right mind and it was Ruth’s fault” route which is very unhealthy. Now she looks Ruth in the eye and tells her to not do something. Ruth is right in saying that Jennifer has no right to say that anymore, they arnt dating and as far as I can tell Jennifer has been ignoring the fact that Ruth Exists up until now, if I was Ruth I would have slapped Jennifer for saying that shit after all that has happened.
Not to say that Jennifer isn’t right in what she is saying, and Ruth should totally not drink while on medication, but Jennifer doesn’t have any right telling Ruth what she can or cant do with her life.
Plus, she said exactly the same thing about drinking on a date when she turned 21 to Booster, so it’s not like she just came up with it to mess with Jennifer.
That said, medication aside, Ruth should not drink because she’s an alcoholic. Even though I don’t see this as a particularly thing to say to Jennifer, it’s really scary in terms of Ruth’s current mental state.
I’m surprised that Jennifer still cares enough about Ruth to want her not to ruin it with alcohol. On the one hand her caring and her comment about the breakup make me wonder, was Ruth the one who broke up with Jennifer?
Also while it is true that Jennifer really has no authority to tell Ruth what to do, I worry about this.
She cares a LOT about people, and always has. It’s just that she hates herself, so she she pushes people away to “for their own good” and keeps trying to act like she doesn’t care
I think that’s probably one reason why her personality reboots never stick. If her past doesn’t just break out of the box she stuffed it in, she’s cracking the lid to check in on it.
As badly as their relationship ended, she still saw Ruth nearly die from her alcoholism, and I imagine even Jennifer knows that Ruth dying after all that would make those memories even more traumatic for her. She knows that if Ruth drinks, death is a likely possibility, and that it would cause her a shit-ton of emotional hurt.
She also knows that if Ruth dies then Howard, who is a child and a total innocent in all of this mess, will not only have nobody to defend him from his psychotic grandfather’s abuse but will become the sole target. Whatever she thinks about Ruth herself, she probably doesn’t want that to happen.
On a more cynical(?) level, there’s the fact that Jennifer has always seen herself as a “problem solver,” and the mess that is Ruth’s life was probably the biggest problem she ever tried to solve. Ruth dying would also be a massive blow to Jennifer’s self-worth.
In conclusion: even though she kinda sorta hates Ruth’s guts right now, I think Jennifer’s still got plenty of reasons to want her not dead.
There’s also the possibility that Ruth is bringing this topic up to make Jennifer uncomfortable, “Now you won’t hang out with me so I’m going to drink and possibly OD and die :(” could be anything from a childish “I’m saying the thing I know will make you feel bad because I’m mad at you” to a controlling “I’m low-key threatening to kill myself to neg you”.
I’m pretty sure Ruth isn’t, like, trying to weaponize her own suicide attempt for abusive reasons, if I had to make a prediction it’s probably “just” self-loathing awkwardly loudly, but it’s increasingly obvious that this was a really bad breakup and there’s probably a story behind it.
Nah, I think it’s just throwing Jennifer’s words back in her face, after Ruth’s earlier attempts to earnestly reach out were rebuffed. I’m not even sure Ruth actually intends to drink. She’s just in spite mode right now.
She said the same thing to Booster and it worried me then. Repeated, it’s starting to look like something she’s actually planning on.
Why she’s waiting until she’s 21, when she was perfectly capable of getting booze all along, I don’t know. Maybe she’s set up some rule in her head where it was bad before because it wasn’t legal, but now that it will be it’ll be fine.
Well, it is a thing with depression and other mental illnesses and disorders. Getting really raw and unfiltered about this stuff comes naturally eventually, especially if you’re with someone who knows it in and out and you don’t have to bother hiding behind the niceties.
Moving on from funny comment: I wonder if Jennifer is overreacting? Like Ruth could just be making a joke about needing to be drunk to deal with Booster and she instantly goes to relapse. Honestly, if that was becoming common in their relationship I would imagine that would not help them get along. It would be hard to deal with someone who translates everything you say as a warning sign even if it is from a place of love.
She’s not. All she’s doing is making Ruth confirm she wasn’t serious, which is an entirely reasonable thing to do when an addict “jokes” about relapsing and you aren’t 100% sure that they’re kidding
And given Ruth’s angry reaction, it seems pretty clear that she was in fact thinking about really doing it
I’m personally taking from my experience with depression/suicdal thoughts so it might not match to addiction.
For example if I say something like “I’d rather kill myself than eat salad” its not a cry for help, I’m just saying salad sucks. When people get concerned about it I tend to be short and irratatied as I am making a joke. I should be allowed to do that without everyone assuming the worse
In the reverse, it is reflexive for friends of suicide victims/ friends who have suicidal ideation to need to verify those types of jokes because those casual side comments CAN be the initial cry for help. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard “just hit me with a frying pan already” as an off-hand comment for having dealt with a very bad day, but when it comes up with one individual, things are most often sliding. Not always, but often enough it is disconcerting every time. I’ve had two friends be successful, two end up living after major ER intervention, and at least 5 who are on the ideation side whenever their meds fuck up. Hearing that comment, I would check on it because it isn’t a joke TO ME. If they saw you at your worse, it might still be upsetting FOR THEM. It might have nothing to do with what they believe your progress level to be, they just need that reassurance.
You’ve moved on and are trying to make light for your own healing and are using a common turn of phrase. I get how it’s irritating, but also have some empathy for your audience who you are probably making concerned and realize they could very well act the same to ANYONE making that comment due to their own experiences and hurt. You are allowed to make that joke. No one is stopping you. But friends are also allowed to voice a concern or be uncomfortable with it.
Ruth nearly drank herself to death a couple of months ago, triggered by her not being able to date Jennifer anymore. In this scene, Ruth is trying to reconnect with Jennifer who doesn’t reciprocate, and then Ruth jumps to jokes about relapsing. It’s a *tremendously* loaded topic, especially in the context of the conversation
I don’t think this is what happened? Ruth forced a kiss onto Billie while they were still antagonists and that made her spiral into a binge, and then much later when Mary was blackmailing them and forcing them to keep their relationship on the down low Ruth slipped into a more severe depression, culminating in Carla outing their situation to the dorm and faculty.
So “Ruth nearly drinking herself to death because Jennifer rejected her” and “Ruth having a really bad reaction to not being able to date her anymore after they’ve already started” are both true, just not at the same time.
I think what’s really the matter is that she’s fine with other people being agender, but isn’t fine with herself being bi. Because she’s “normal,” don’t you know?
Someone else versus herself. It’s not that she isn’t ok with LGBT people in general, instead she is having an ontological crisis about her own sexual identity, about who she is. She always thought of herself as “straight”, but now maybe she’s not and that deep uncertainty about herself can be very scary. It’s much easier to just paper over the problem by performing straight rather than confronting the fear and accepting she isn’t who she thought she was.
Yeah, it’s kind of hard for me to buy honestly. I think Willis isn’t comfortable with the main cast being casually transphobic, which I can understand, but it ends up feeling artificial when more than one person in the cast didn’t even know bisexuality existed last semester. (Jennifer ofc, and Danny said, “Is there even a WORD for that? […] I think I’d have heard about it before,” when talking with Dorothy about his attraction to men.)
I’m a bi dude, for example, and while I was initially (and wrongly) extremely hardcore nettled about Danny going “is there even a word for that” regarding his sexuality, I also don’t feel too much, like, resentment if I need to explain it to someone, and I think that’s because, broadly speaking, people are aware of the sexuality spectrum nowadays. If I fail to explain it to them, oh well, it’s just this one person.
But like, how do you depict as sympathetic a character who expresses casual transphobic rhetoric? I think acknowledging the reality that gender identity has only become more wildly understood in the last decade or so is true (you know where I first even heard the term “transgender” in a positive context? Friggin’ Linkara) can work, but at the same time writing a series wherein perfectly nice and sympathetic characters express actively harmful and ignorant viewpoints, then go off to be perfectly nice and sympathetic otherwise… how do you square that?
Maybe Jeph Jacques was right. If you want to have a character JAQing off about trans rights hit them in the face with a rocket in the shape of a butt.
Note that both characters who expressed those doubts were actually bi themselves. Danny accepted it easily enough. Jennifer still has her issues – but they aren’t directly related to the concept existing.
I think Becky said something similar very early, but home schooled fundie. What do you expect?
I dunno, the phrasing “agender or something” sorta implies to me that she knows that one word, but doesn’t actually know much about different genders. Like, nonbinary people can identify anywhere on or off the gender spectrum; agender is only one of the possible gender identities that they/them pronouns could imply.
She probably just doesn’t care enough about other people’s identities to be transphobic? That, and what other people have brought up about not making your characters cross that line (aside from the ones that we’re supposed to dislike, like Mary). And I can totally buy that she feels less comfortable about her *own* identity than about other people’s. Iirc she’s never spoken negatively about other people being bi either.
You don’t need any kind of authorization or moral high ground to try to discourage an addict from giving up and relapsing
It is the right thing to do and it’s kinda weird to get mad at her for it because she did something you disliked earlier. You’re allowed to keep being mad at her for the bad things she’s done w/o convincing yourself it’s somehow bad that she’s trying to do a good thing now
What she CAN’T do because of that is get judgemental about it. THEN she wouldn’t have a leg to stand on, but that’s not what she’s doing. She’s simply asking Ruth not to do it. I don’t care if Jennifer was still covered in blood from murdering an entire bus full of children, telling and addict not to drink so she doesn’t fall back into depression and possibly suicide would STILL BE THE RIGHT THING TO DO
Yes. There is no contradiction between Jennifer saying Ruth was a phase or blaming her for their breakup or whatever, and her reacting with alarm at Ruth’s talk of self-destructive behaviour and relapse. Its not on the same level.
I don’t think Ruth is *intentionally* “blackmailing her emotionally”, in the sense that this is part of a 15-step plan to cajole Jennifer back into a relationship, it might just be talking freely without really thinking about it in those terms, but it’s still kind of juggling a nuclear bomb.
I don’t even like suggesting that *unintentional* emotional blackmail is a thing. Like, it can legitimately suck to be around someone who’s acting like Ruth is right now, but “desperately needing help and support and being a mess” is not itself a moral failing
Old grooves maybe? Beaten track? I have all of the sympathy for Ruth here, relate relate relate <3
otoh I can also understand someone not having the mental energy to cope with a self-destructive person esp one you care about. (Caring about someone and not wanting to be around them anymore are not mutually exclusive states of mind.)
This all being said, calling psychological abuse in this situation is unfair I think. There is every indication that Ruth is still likely to harm herself. This does not look like an act she's putting on to guilt Jennifer. If you're drowning you can't be blamed for grabbing onto whoever is within reach.
And again, this is not to say Jennifer could or should or has some sort of moral obligation to help Ruth. Sometimes there is no obvious right thing to do, and sometimes there is no one to blame. Life is messy like that
Like. Yesterday she basically just said hi, and here she’s just being a depressed addict? She’s not hanging the blame for that on Jennifer or anything manipulative. She’s just messed up. At “worst” it’s a cry for help
I… I really hope Ruth’s not seriously thinking about drinking again.
Like, even if she’s just saying it to annoy Jennifer that’s still not great, and maybe kinda emotionally manipulative, but I’m that’s probably less bad than Ruth backsliding into where she was before or having an allergic reaction.
Not great, but I’d say less emotionally manipulative and more like lashing out at an ex who was objectifying her as her “Get My Job Back” sex-ticket out loud yesterday. That had to hurt A LOT.
Yup. Ruth’s been the one reaching out, even after Becky did her best to set them against each other, and yesterday’s bit of selfishness was the last straw that she’s reacting to now.
She deserves some pushback, sure, but worrying if your ex is going to go off the deep end and seriously harm themselves potentially is really brutal and not really a good punishment for someone.
It’s not, and if Ruth were thinking more clearly, hadn’t had her every effort rebuffed, and then what happened yesterday, she might consider that. But right now she’s all out of fucks.
Yeah I gotta say that Ruth is the one dating up here. I mean, Jennifer is also petty and bullying. Not to mention the fact that she loves to use people and then drop them the second they’re inconvenient, lashes out at everyone & blames others for her mistakes or normal setbacks… Those are just some of the negative character traits Jennifer has that my not-awake-self can think of. Ruth has plenty of her own negative traits, including being a shitty edgelord RA, but when Jennifer decides she wants to ‘be better’ she winds up hurting everyone around her intentionally so she can think she’s making ‘progress’. Ruth at least tries to avoid splash damage.
Ruth actively subjected the people that was her job to care for to physical, verbal, and psychologucal violence. She destroyed their property. She threw them under the bus.
I’m not a Jennifer fan, but she hasn’t gone out of her way to make the people around her feel miserable and threatened.
She doesn’t have to be *the* best person, to deserve better than this thing Jennifer is doing of rebuffing kindness, expecting serious favours which is essentially pimping her out, and then demanding she make promises to her.
Like, you don’t have to be the better of the two as a whole, to still deserve better than this.
We really read this comic through completely different filters sometimes.
Jennifer’s idea with Daisy was rude and stupid, but it started with “you need to get laid”, which led her to think of Daisy who also needs get laid. It would have benefits for Jennifer, but it was also intended as a good thing for Ruth, not a favor she’d be doing for Jennifer. It’s all messed up and wrong, but it’s not “pimping her out” in any meaningful sense.
And omitting that the promise is essentially “don’t kill yourself” really doesn’t help either.
keulan, I madly agree that Ruth deserves better. Ruth is on the mend, and is feeling joy (to the extent that her meds allow that), and they are both hurting, but I think that until we know what’s up with the Billie-Jennifer switch up, I’m not gonna hate on Jennifer, I’m gonna wait it out.
Gotta say, I think they really love each other, but Ruth is sliding up, and Jennifer is at the most optimistic burying her problems – maintaining a holding pattern, or sliding down, – – – just more slowly now.
As someone who has struggled with both the meds and the alcohol together…it wouldn’t have been idle threats especially when talking to an ex….and the alcohol would have been sooo bad…took a long time to fix that one especially when I didn’t WANT to fix it… So many enablers (I do not blame them, but it did make it seem more normal) at school.
Oof. I feel you so, so much :’D Yeah, it’s one hell of a combo that takes a long time to fix and this sort of joke is a bit like “I’M TOTALLY JOKING AHAHA OR AM I?” Even if it’s only to antagonize Jennifer at first, now the thought is going to be stuck in Ruth’s head for a while.
You, you did that, didn’t you? Ruthiffer, let-us-face, Carlaroll,… cheeezus, how to pick? For fun lettuceface, for serious; Ruthiffer, that they are trying to come to grips with their Real selves is so awesome, I-heart-this, so bad.
Okay dude this has been on my mind for weeks now but uh, weird question
Do you run an art account under the username “Yotaku”?
The art style of your pfp is a lot like an old art friend of mine and you have the same name
Interesting development, hmm. It makes me that much more curious what happened between them. Beginning to think maybe Ruth went off the wagon in a big way and that’s why it ended or otherwise crossed a line. Then again, it’s hard to tell just yet.
I kind of have a working theory. I do think it’s alcohol related just because Jennifer had hidden booze she never got rid of. I think it was found by one or both of them and caused friction that led to a breakup.
She’s known Walky for years; even if she finds him annoying enough that she doesn’t want to deal with him (if that’s all it is – I can think of other reasons she might want to be away from from him, both good and bad) she’d have to be pretty cold to not care about him when she hears about a potential problem. Besides, it’s not just him that it could be an issue for; it could cause problems for Booster as well, and by extension, Ruth.
As for Ruth… Needing time away from something that caused a great deal of emotional turmoil doesn’t mean you don’t care, either. It just means you need time to process what happened, and interpret your feelings in a way more productive than lashing out at others (in Jennifer’s case). If they can stick to “safe” topics like this, it’s not a surprise that they can have a decent conversation – just not regular interaction that would force them to confront the topic they’re both staying away from.
But remember Jennifer’s own long term issues. In the past when she’s pushed people away – especially Ruth, it’s been because she thinks of herself as poison and wants to stay away so she doesn’t destroy them.
I smell a retcon regarding Walky’s feelings on gender. This is the guy who thought it was unmanly to own more than one pair of shoes, but not to go down on another dude for free pizza.
I used to headcanon him as possibly bi. He reminds me a lot of the gay chicken I used to pull that, in hindsight, turned out to be me trying to suss out how my friends and family would react if I liked guys.
On the other hand, I presume anyone who’s not in the main cast is living a a healthy, well-adjusted life as opposed to whatever is going with everyone other than Dorothy/Dina/Sarah.
Hate to break this to you but Dorothy/Dina/Sarah are not living well adjusted lives. All of them have went through at least one life threatening situation. Two of them multiple. Besides that they all have their own mental hang ups. Hell we’re in a story arc right now where Sarah has to justify feeling good by pretending she’s a happiness vampire.
Now imaging a Danny x Walky situation. After both dudes dated Dorothy and Amber they find comfort and companionship in each other! It would work! I would even look back my unjustifiable hate for Walky to ship it!
Technically Danny dated Amazi-Girl, and only Walky dated Amber. Danny just thought that Walky kept stealing his exes because he never realized that Amazi-Girl was a full-on alter and not just a costume Amber wore to fight crime. Walky seemed to be the first one to actually figure out how deep the divide went.
And yes, I could totally see Danny and Walky being a thing. It’d probably piss Linda off, which is always nice.
It’s now established canon that Walkyverse Danny found out he was bi when he met Walky for the first time, confused him for Sal, but still found him hot.
I actually want Danny/Sal but I can’t bring myself to justify it as a romance.
… I was thinking of Danny/Booster before but honestly this would be like, really good? I don’t know why I feel instinctively it’d work, so please throw me a bone here :’D
ProTip: sexuality and gender are different things. Walky being comfortable joking about blowing someone for pizza does not at ALL suggest that he’s comfortable talking about gender. He’s gotten *slightly* better over the last semester thanks to Dorothy and Leslie, but he is incredibly insecure in his masculinity
But having his own gender hangups doesn’t mean he needs to have any problem with non-binary people.
And while he’s insecure in his masculinity, he’s never seemed particularly toxic about it. I don’t recall him being aggressive when it’s threatened, which is the usual problem.
I’d been holding out hope that Jennifer wasn’t drinking again, but given that her ONLY objection is the interaction with antidepressants and nothing about, y’know, both of them being alcoholics, that hope’s just out the window, isn’t it?
Yeah, she probably figured “Ruth, you shouldn’t drink because it messes with your antidepressents” might stand a slightly better chance of not going badly than “Ruth, you shouldn’t drink because, like me, you’re an alcoholic.”
Oh, this is terrible. OK SO LISTEN, as… Someone who used to sorta be a little bit like Ruth back in like 2009-2010, toxic relationship included (though in my case, my girlfriend actually never cared beyond wanting to control me, lol) – This is my personal idea of the chain of events:
– Jennifer had stashes of booze around, Ruth drank them out of spite
– Antidepressants and booze mixed are a horrible way to be both a lightweight and manic-euphoric, while getting thrown INTO THE GROUND the next day (it fucks with the Serotonin/Dopamine balance, basically like writing a check you can’t cash for both.)
– Both of them relapse, because goddammit getting clean is FUCKING HARD and it’s only been a couple of months since the Lesbian Suicide Pact? Ruth was this close to killing herself and got hospitalized over it and all but let’s not forget that Jennifer was willing to follow her to the grave. I seldom see that discussed.
– Ruth does the breaking up in a moment of clarity, because they enable each other: Jennifer, “head cheerleader, problem solver” actually sorta thrives on her being a problem to solve and also has major issues of her own. Jen immediately goes “NO, YOU’RE NOT BREAKING WITH ME, I’M BREAKING UP WITH YOU.”
I don’t know whether Jennifer is trying for sure to clean up her act, but they were sort of a known quantity considering the drama of past semester, and she’s doing her utmost to distance herself from it. Except that Jennifer is no better than Billie: It’s the same as when she was willing to wear no glasses after moving dorms, taken to the extreme. Going to therapy isn’t the same as being sober and I can so see her trying to negotiate doing the first as a reason to not “need” to do the other. She’s normal, y’all! Not a “noted alcoholic”, and def not bisexual, and what are you talking about she doesn’t know any of these people.
Meanwhile … Her remark of yesterday, thinking of pimping out Ruth as if she was a bargain chip so Daisy “gave her back her beat” (that she never really had), hurt Ruth so deeply she’s now deliberately antagonizing Jennifer by stating she’d do all of the things she’s not supposed to do including being over her enough she’d date someone else. (How dare! Right?)
PS: I kinda want to see Ruth and Booster? I mean. That’d be an interesting arc for both of them, if only because they’d want to help genuinely with whatever toolkit they have, meanwhile Ruth would have to set Actual Boundaries to not feel psychoanalyzed all the time.
Exactly. I get the impression that he’s not a bigot per se, but he does (or did) have the essentialist point of a view of a child (raised by conservative Christians) when it comes to normative gender binaries.
Maybe. Though as Ruth said, he didn’t show any problems with Booster and that’s the first exposure we’ve seen him have to gender identities.
He’s got his weird ideas about masculinity, but he’s also been casually open to at least joking about gay stuff – blowing someone for pizza, finding Jacob hot, etc.
I suspect his thing about manliness is more tied to him not being particularly “manly” in a traditional stereotypical sense and thus feeling the need to grasp for supposedly manly things to reassure himself that he’s sufficiently manly than any essentialist Christian view.
Silence thy frivolous peckering, O mighty commentariat! The A-word hath been spoken! My power grows by exponents and multitudes! So speaketh Taffy, firstborn of Their line!
Hey, also, that stuff Ruth is saying is a little worrisome. She probably better go ahead and check that medicine bottle real fast, huh.
Right? (First part) I wonder if Booster really does identify as agender and Jennifer got it in one. There are many flavors of nonbinary, so that’d be kinda funny, and, hey, agender power!
My head hurts from the fact that Ruth is seriously considering Booster’s offer of a date (if that’s what they call it). Also the fact that I’m bracing for a very sad birthday for Ruth.
Something tells me that Ruth’s date with Booster is going to be a dramatic thing one way or another. Either a disaster or a marathon ‘session’ that ends up with Ruth crying her eyes out on Booster’s shoulders as the combination of meds and alcohol make it impossible for her to hold in her long list of trauma.
I miss Mike. His nasty remarks were clever and always aimed at cutting out some festering sore (except for the disgusting “your mom” shit). These two are just incompatible nasty.
I really hope Ruth doesn’t start dating Booster, and that she doesn’t start drinking again. Also, after Jennifer’s shitty behavior in the last few strips she kinda deserves to have that line thrown back in her face.
The Virgin Roomies Danny: Gets his friend killed saving him from his own mistake and almost cheats on his girlfriend.
The Chad DoA Danny: Dopey kid taking life’s hits like a champ, endlessly supportive to his loved ones, never got rid of the hair, found out he was bisexual and got to go on a journey of self discovery that bisexual characters just flagrantly aren’t allowed to have.
I have to say, I’m actually curious about what Ruth did (or what Jennifer THINKS she did) to make these two break up, considering they were the more solid couple before the timeskip.
That feels off, because they had ALREADY had that dynamic (right after Ruth started her meds), and they were solid for quite a period after. “Doing the same thing again, but with more disastrous results” doesn’t feel like it merits the taunting WIllis is obviously putting us through, narratively speaking.
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hey why don’t I interact with MY exes more often heyoo
“Drug interactions of unusual size”? I don’t think they exist.
Side effects may include dizziness, fatigue, hilarity, or tracheal meercats colonies.
Whelp Ana’s dead. Killed by a DIOUS in a swamp.
So timely, just watched TPB the other night.
DoA Book 10: You Don’t Get To Tell Me What To Do Anymore!
DOA11: Why’s Everyone Trying to Sniff Up My Ass This Semester?
And after not seeing Sal’s face for a while, it suddenly comes up in grav roulette. Does that mean I win?
Knowing Willis and his “Chronic Butt-itis” [or as you may better know it, “Butts Syndrome”], that seems all-too-likely as the actual title. I’m not saying it should be. I’m just saying it likely will be.
I mean, what’s a day of DoA without a Damn You Willis and a butt-related eyeroll?
[I meant that figuratively. Please stop rolling your eyes while face-planting someone’s ass. I mean, at least stop it in public. Besides, I hear that’s how you get pink-eye. Or is it stink-eye? Anyway; To put it in the phrasing of Jennifer: “Promise me you won’t. It’ll fuck with my anti-eyeinbuttcrescents.”]
If only I had the choice. But when you breed with the crazy, you have to choose between being a present parent or being at peace. I choose (well try to) responsibility.
“Arguing with idiots is like playing chess with a pigeon… No matter how good you are, the bird is going to shit on the board and strut around like it won anyway.”
–Earliest atrribution, S. D. Weitzenhoffer
The best I’ve achieved is to just breathe and be. Put a smile on my face (for the endorphins it gives me) and wait for it to end. I’ve failed a lot.
Well, this is progress, I think
Is it?
I think I may have had a terrible revelation.
Jennifer… is sober Billie. Or rather Billie named the person she became when sober “Jennifer.”
Which may imply that Jennifer has attached all of her budding bisexual identity to her “Billie” personality, hence the idea that she’s “over” it. That is not healthy.
Future strips may prove me wrong, but that’s my current theory.
Has ‘Jennifer’ denied being bisexual? Just because she’s currently dating a guy doesn’t mean anything.
She hasn’t denied it but she did put extra emphasis on “boyfriend” when she was talking about being in a healthy relationship.
And when Becky said Jennifer still had the hots for Ruth, Jennifer said “that was just some weird phase I was going through.” You can read that as being specifically about Ruth, and not about girls in general, but it seems pretty clear to me that she doesn’t want to be bi.
Jennifer said that “bisexuality is a thing” and that she wasn’t ready to make that acknowledgement about herself.
…pretty sure she actually said “bisexuality is only a thing in porn,” unless you know of a more recent strip?
fitting grav is fitting
She called dating Ruth a phase a few strips ago.
It may not have been in regards to her bisexuality but it’s not great phrasing.
That, what Nono said, is what I was referring to.
(Also Zor, but I neglected to read that far before posting).
I got the sense that she said that at least partially to hurt Ruth, though.
She’s flat-out referred to their relationship as “just a phase she was going through,” so I wouldn’t be surprised if that were the case
Rose, I like your theory.
Thanks!
The Billie you used to know is dead.
Long live Jennifer.
I will admit, the same woman who said ‘bisexuality only exists in porn’ immediately figuring out ‘they’ and then busting out ‘agender’ and ‘gender boundaries’ is interesting.
Somewhere in the time gap she clearly got an education in this stuff.
Except they/them pronouns don’t imply agender. Nonbinary people can identify as *many* different gender identities, only one of which is “agender”. The choices aren’t “boy”, “girl”, or “none” — it’s a spectrum. Which implies to me that Jennifer doesn’t know nearly as much about these things as she thinks she does.
Hrrmmm. Now I’m not sure who is responsible for the breakup? Lets just say both and move on.
Also I’m kind of pissed off now because that floor meeting seemed to really bother Ruth and I hope she’s not backsliding. Don’t prove a horrible person like Rachel right, Ruth!
Ruth has always been a horrible person, with a brother for morality pet. What, was subjecting her charges to physical and psychological abuse not enough of a hint for you?
We’re biased towards protagonists. That’s why Rachel is a compelling addition to the cast and Ruth’s dynamic.
Rachel and Roz are two of the best people in the comic, and everybody has failed to convince me otherwise.
Roz is kind of performatively woke but I’d like to see her mature and develop that into a more sincere effort to do good.
Rachel we don’t know enough about yet, but the mechanical story purpose of a character who won’t let a fan favourite get a pass for her abuse is pretty fucking groovy, ngl.
This is my problem with Rachel. Roz at least has shown some other sides of her personality and some development. Rachel on the other hand only shows up to do one thing, badger Ruth for her previous actions. That’s the only thing she’s done besides once yelling at Joe for being creepily objectified by him. I wish she’d do something else so I can sympathize with her more. Otherwise she’s just become the bully Ruth used to be.
Ruth was a horrible person. Maybe she even still is, but at least she’s trying to change which is more than Rachel is doing. Mostly because Rachel’s a side character.
Yeah that’s basically the rub of why Rachel’s so unsympathetic to us so far despite being Completely Right; she’s a bit character who yells at Ruth.
We’ve gotten a flashback indicating shared history and Booster pulling out of her that she feels guilty for not stepping up beforehand. Where we gonna from here?
Completely right is a lot farther than I’d go and I’m usually a Rachel defender.
That rant of hers: “redemption is not real” “You will always be the thing you were before”.
Her anger is understandable. She’s not required to forgive Ruth. But she’s also not Completely Right.
Roz is literally the only one of the cast that volunteers her time for no personal gain (like the condom thing), and when she got an inkling of what Ryan had done to Joyce she approached her and, with exactly zero prying, queestions, accusations or recriminations, offered her information on helpful resources, even though her only interactio with Joyce had involved Joyce calling her “a hellbound slut.” If it’s performative you’re after, look at Dorothy and her volunteering at the soup kitchen because it’ll look good on her resume.
I think you’re confusing “performatively woke” with “incapable of ever doing anything with an altruistic motive.”
Both things you mentioned were in, what, Year 2 of the comic? We’re on Year 11 now and since her big freakout on Joyce she’s acted a lot more like a glad handling sleaze who huffs her own farts and parades her sister’s outing to her dorm to curry their favour, and lately only ever seems to say anything so Becky can shut her down.
Roz isn’t a bad person, she’s not malicious, she’s not the Liberal Equivalent of Mary, she’s a kid who believes in the right thing, so she decides that makes her right to act how she sees it.
Lifehack: if you’re trying ot convince me of your position,then “Becky agrees with me” should not only not be one of your first arguments, it shouldn’t be one of your arguments at all. With the exceptions of something related to her specific life experience (e.g., how difficult it is to acquire the required documentation for basically everything while growing under a super-cintrolling parent) or something I find so self-evident you don’t need to defend it to me at all (e.g., LGBT+ folk deserve the same rghts as non-), Becky’s opinion has actual negative value.
You saying that Roz is wrong becuse Becky shuts her down is the equivalent of you saying that science is wrong and fundies are right because Joyce had a countter for everything Dina said as they walked into Biology class.
(as an aside, one of us misread the situation with Roz upon Robin getting outed – I feel like if it had been an attempt to garner favour, she wouldn’t have had categorically and dismissively denied being the one who’d done it)
How about nuance? We can acknowledge Ruth’s problems and emphasize with her struggles at the same time, without writing her off as a terrible person. Just like most of the rest of these characters.
And I’ve no idea what you by Howard as a morality pet.
We can also acknowledge that the story has shown us that Ruth continues to threaten people, suggesting that Ruth isn’t a bully BECAUSE she has depression, but in fact a bully AND has depression. Depression is an illness, not Mirror-Universe Santa Claus, it happens to bad people too.
I won’t argue Ruth *has* done those things, and thus forgiveness is in the eye of the beholder, but I will say she does not anymore. Her return to Big Bad Ruthless is transparently performative and instantly defanged by the slightest resistance as shown by Becky and Dorothy, the only person she’s gone Ruthless at.
There is maybe a question about the appropriateness of calling back to Ruth at her worst for a joke, but for now she is very clearly not who she was at the start of the comic.
Ruth’s also friendly enough with Becky she was going to take Gender Studies with her, so there’s that too. Joking about Ruthless with someone she’s friendly with and joking with, say, Rachel, are not the same thing.
Backsliding tends to happen with addiction though, it’s not like recovery is a linear path. I just hope she’s going to be okay
It just ocurred to me while re-reading your comment that you might have meant it in a way I feel the need to correct: being a alcoholic isn’t what makes Ruth a terrible person. Neither would backsliding be. These aren’t personality flaws. They’re character flaws in the sense that the character isn’t perfect, not in the sense of the character having a flawed, er, character.
Ruth puts undue pressure on Jennifer to be her rock.
Jennifer is an alcoholic.
So yes, terrible couple.
The co-dependency is strong in these two.
Happy almost birthday Ruth.
It’s because they think you are attractive and want to date you, Ruth.
She has to see past her own self-loathing first before she can acknowledge that, though.
That’d make what Booster was doing negging.
Please I’m not even a Booster fan but I don’t want them to fall that far.
Honestly, I have no idea what Booster’s deal is, so I will withhold opinions since we know more.
But from Ruth’s point of view she might as well entertain the possibility. Then what she does with it is up to her.
Sentence 1: Same.
And Ruth just snagged Jennifer’s need to be needed.
My theory is, Booster is somebody with an all-consuming need to be the center of attention:
1.-Their show at the meeting served no other purpose besides becoming the center of attention, and trying to convince everybody that they are SOOOO SMART!
2.-Nobody could analyze people the way they did just by looking at them; they have obviously been cyber-stalking the students, gathering information about them, a task ridiculously easy nowadays, with everybody uploading everything the do, say or think to the net. They did that in order to become able to play the role of the genius psychoanalyst detective.
3.-Taking into account 2 and 3, I think they chose this college after reading all the news about Amazi-girl, Robin and Roz shenanigans and about the shootings and kidnappings and drama… they want to insert themselves into that drama-filled community in order to reach all of America!.
“I’m gonna care but not to your face”
Look, to be fair, you need to be a certain level of drunk to get over Booster’s personality
(no hate, I actually like them, but I know others find them terrible)
Booster would probably be more annoying in-universe, simply because their analyses tend to force people to confront the things people don’t want to confront about themselves.
In all seriousness, though, I cannot wait to see them meet Jennifer. It probably won’t go well, or at least not initially, but I want to see it happen anyway.
Oooooh i cannot wait for that to happen
@wiki: oh no, that’s a kinda gross and unnecessary thing to say =/
@milu Sorry? I am not sure what part you are referring to?
I mean i’m hoping i misunderstood somehow!! But if you told me “to be fair, you need to be a certain level of drunk to get over Milu’s personality” i would be seriously offended. It sounds just about as mean to me as if you’d said the same thing with “face” instead of “personality”. Does this make sense? Did I get you awfully wrong?
But in this case it’s a joke about a fictional character, so I really don’t think it’s that bad.
Yeah, I’m not exactly sure why I got such an icky feeling from OP’s comment. Some jokes are not funny to some people for reasons of their own, maybe this is one of those for me.
Wow, One needs a Geiger Counter to gauge this level of toxic frenemy-ship.
Be sure to get a log scale one, less likely to burn out or fade away.
Geiger counters don’t measure toxicity. Scientificallh accurate metaphors are important
Their relationship was toxic, but apparently since it was a Mutually Agreed Destruction sorta thing, it escalated into nuclear one way or another either right before the end or after it. The geiger counter is to navigate the scorched, salted (salty?) ground that was left.
Geiger counters measure radioactive decay right? Isnt radioactivity toxic? Is that the wrong word for it? Cos that being my understanding means gauging environmental toxicity based on a radioactivity reading is sensible.
However– now that I’m committed to overthinking this– I think I agree that radioactivity is a bad metaphor for hostility, because its this regular, mineral, slow sort of process. Again, as I understand it. Radioactivity feels acausal and uncaring, not well suited to describing the sparks flying in a highly charged interaction. (My own metaphor is a bit confused, nyeh).
(Sorry for being a metaphor nerd Octopus Ink, actualy ty for your comment lol, love your pseudonym btw, peace)
Looking it up Radiation might be considered a sort of Toxin. And I misspelled scientifically….
May have jumped the gun here
[Dons physicist hat]
Not really.
Toxic means a chemical that causes undesirable effects by chemical action. Toxic chemicals can remain so indefinitely.
Ionizing radiation from radioactive isotopes of chemical elements can cause chemical changes that can make existing chemicals toxic. But the danger necessarily decrease over time. Though the time involved may be very long, of course.
[Clipping some stuff going on about common misconceptions about radioactivity.]
Of course, when you are using metaphors, being sloppy about categories and distinctions, and/or being technically incorrect is pretty much inherent to the concept.
And as a metaphor, a radioactive environment could be considered a good metaphor for the sort of emotional or social situation that slowly grinds away at at well being, but not causing any clear and obvious damage at a particular moment.
nah, it’s only 3.6 R.
not great, but not terrible either. no need to evacuate the dorms
Stop. I looked right into it. I looked right into the shower floor!
You didn’t. You didn’t, because it’s not possible!
Jennifer: I don’t want to see you kill yourself. That doesn’t mean I’m romantically interested.
Ruth: Date me to save me from death!
Yeah, if Ruth isn’t being serious then this is probably one of the worst things she’s ever done.
My guess is that maaaybe she’s trying to get Jennifer to understand how she feels watching the latter being so obviously not-okay and being rebuffed every time she tries to help, but even if that’s her motive then it’s still really manipulative.
They had a suicide pact or whatever it was, they enabled each other’s bad habits through their entire relationship, and unless im misremembering, Billie, while telling Ruth she needed to stop, was continuing her bad habits, being a total hypocrite.
Ruth seems to be doing her best to handle her bad habits and I don’t remember seeing her participating in any since the break ended, even being a lot less violent, while Billie, or I guess Jennifer now, has seemed to take the whole “it was just a phase, none of that was done in my right mind and it was Ruth’s fault” route which is very unhealthy. Now she looks Ruth in the eye and tells her to not do something. Ruth is right in saying that Jennifer has no right to say that anymore, they arnt dating and as far as I can tell Jennifer has been ignoring the fact that Ruth Exists up until now, if I was Ruth I would have slapped Jennifer for saying that shit after all that has happened.
Not to say that Jennifer isn’t right in what she is saying, and Ruth should totally not drink while on medication, but Jennifer doesn’t have any right telling Ruth what she can or cant do with her life.
THIIIIS. I have NO CLUE of what C.T Phipps is reading, but that’s not what happened here.
Plus, she said exactly the same thing about drinking on a date when she turned 21 to Booster, so it’s not like she just came up with it to mess with Jennifer.
That said, medication aside, Ruth should not drink because she’s an alcoholic. Even though I don’t see this as a particularly thing to say to Jennifer, it’s really scary in terms of Ruth’s current mental state.
That’s a theme with phipps takes on billie/ruth strips. Willis had to personally call him out once
I don’t think that’s what Ruth is doing? Note the quotation marks in the last panel, she’s repeating something that presumably Jen said to her
Jennifer said this just a few strips ago, so this exactly!
Yeah no offense or anything, like it’s just a comic, nbd, but I have no idea where these character readings of yours have been comic from.
Ah, mutually agreed destruction.
“That label can’t stop me because I can’t read!”
Basically Ruth.
time to go on a bender
she’s gonna do it out of spite.
Ruth, NO.
Seconded.
Wonder if this was part of Becky’s plan too.
You can’t say I don’t give a fuck about you and then continue giving a fuck about me. It’s really confusing.
Exactly.
Confusing? Yes. Par for the course? Also yes.
Confusing? Controlling?
Little of both?
I’m surprised that Jennifer still cares enough about Ruth to want her not to ruin it with alcohol. On the one hand her caring and her comment about the breakup make me wonder, was Ruth the one who broke up with Jennifer?
Also while it is true that Jennifer really has no authority to tell Ruth what to do, I worry about this.
You can break up with someone and still care about them, it’s not that foreign a concept.
Understandable but I wasn’t expecting it out of Jennifer.
I think Ruth is very manipulative of Jennifer’s own self-loathing.
She cares a LOT about people, and always has. It’s just that she hates herself, so she she pushes people away to “for their own good” and keeps trying to act like she doesn’t care
“Act” being the keyword here.
I think that’s probably one reason why her personality reboots never stick. If her past doesn’t just break out of the box she stuffed it in, she’s cracking the lid to check in on it.
Yup. That’s Jennifer in a nutshell. That’s their relationship in a nutshell too.
As badly as their relationship ended, she still saw Ruth nearly die from her alcoholism, and I imagine even Jennifer knows that Ruth dying after all that would make those memories even more traumatic for her. She knows that if Ruth drinks, death is a likely possibility, and that it would cause her a shit-ton of emotional hurt.
She also knows that if Ruth dies then Howard, who is a child and a total innocent in all of this mess, will not only have nobody to defend him from his psychotic grandfather’s abuse but will become the sole target. Whatever she thinks about Ruth herself, she probably doesn’t want that to happen.
On a more cynical(?) level, there’s the fact that Jennifer has always seen herself as a “problem solver,” and the mess that is Ruth’s life was probably the biggest problem she ever tried to solve. Ruth dying would also be a massive blow to Jennifer’s self-worth.
In conclusion: even though she kinda sorta hates Ruth’s guts right now, I think Jennifer’s still got plenty of reasons to want her not dead.
Because she loves her?
Yep.
There’s also the possibility that Ruth is bringing this topic up to make Jennifer uncomfortable, “Now you won’t hang out with me so I’m going to drink and possibly OD and die :(” could be anything from a childish “I’m saying the thing I know will make you feel bad because I’m mad at you” to a controlling “I’m low-key threatening to kill myself to neg you”.
I’m pretty sure Ruth isn’t, like, trying to weaponize her own suicide attempt for abusive reasons, if I had to make a prediction it’s probably “just” self-loathing awkwardly loudly, but it’s increasingly obvious that this was a really bad breakup and there’s probably a story behind it.
It seems like blackmail.
“Well we’re broken up so I can drink all I want.”
Nah, I think it’s just throwing Jennifer’s words back in her face, after Ruth’s earlier attempts to earnestly reach out were rebuffed. I’m not even sure Ruth actually intends to drink. She’s just in spite mode right now.
She said the same thing to Booster and it worried me then. Repeated, it’s starting to look like something she’s actually planning on.
Why she’s waiting until she’s 21, when she was perfectly capable of getting booze all along, I don’t know. Maybe she’s set up some rule in her head where it was bad before because it wasn’t legal, but now that it will be it’ll be fine.
This is the vibe I’m getting.
Well, it is a thing with depression and other mental illnesses and disorders. Getting really raw and unfiltered about this stuff comes naturally eventually, especially if you’re with someone who knows it in and out and you don’t have to bother hiding behind the niceties.
Because shes totally not over ruth
Moving on from funny comment: I wonder if Jennifer is overreacting? Like Ruth could just be making a joke about needing to be drunk to deal with Booster and she instantly goes to relapse. Honestly, if that was becoming common in their relationship I would imagine that would not help them get along. It would be hard to deal with someone who translates everything you say as a warning sign even if it is from a place of love.
She’s not. All she’s doing is making Ruth confirm she wasn’t serious, which is an entirely reasonable thing to do when an addict “jokes” about relapsing and you aren’t 100% sure that they’re kidding
And given Ruth’s angry reaction, it seems pretty clear that she was in fact thinking about really doing it
I’m personally taking from my experience with depression/suicdal thoughts so it might not match to addiction.
For example if I say something like “I’d rather kill myself than eat salad” its not a cry for help, I’m just saying salad sucks. When people get concerned about it I tend to be short and irratatied as I am making a joke. I should be allowed to do that without everyone assuming the worse
In the reverse, it is reflexive for friends of suicide victims/ friends who have suicidal ideation to need to verify those types of jokes because those casual side comments CAN be the initial cry for help. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard “just hit me with a frying pan already” as an off-hand comment for having dealt with a very bad day, but when it comes up with one individual, things are most often sliding. Not always, but often enough it is disconcerting every time. I’ve had two friends be successful, two end up living after major ER intervention, and at least 5 who are on the ideation side whenever their meds fuck up. Hearing that comment, I would check on it because it isn’t a joke TO ME. If they saw you at your worse, it might still be upsetting FOR THEM. It might have nothing to do with what they believe your progress level to be, they just need that reassurance.
You’ve moved on and are trying to make light for your own healing and are using a common turn of phrase. I get how it’s irritating, but also have some empathy for your audience who you are probably making concerned and realize they could very well act the same to ANYONE making that comment due to their own experiences and hurt. You are allowed to make that joke. No one is stopping you. But friends are also allowed to voice a concern or be uncomfortable with it.
Ruth nearly drank herself to death a couple of months ago, triggered by her not being able to date Jennifer anymore. In this scene, Ruth is trying to reconnect with Jennifer who doesn’t reciprocate, and then Ruth jumps to jokes about relapsing. It’s a *tremendously* loaded topic, especially in the context of the conversation
Referring to the episode that led up to Sir intervening to keep her in her job?
I don’t think this is what happened? Ruth forced a kiss onto Billie while they were still antagonists and that made her spiral into a binge, and then much later when Mary was blackmailing them and forcing them to keep their relationship on the down low Ruth slipped into a more severe depression, culminating in Carla outing their situation to the dorm and faculty.
So “Ruth nearly drinking herself to death because Jennifer rejected her” and “Ruth having a really bad reaction to not being able to date her anymore after they’ve already started” are both true, just not at the same time.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-9-comic/04-vote-for-robin/stringbean/“>this one at Galasso’s where she had a bad reaction to alcohol and her meds. She was drinking again, so she could be with Jennifer who wouldn’t stop.
Meanwhile, Jennifer was pushing Ruth away because Ruth was getting better and Jennifer was poison and would ruin her.
Also how is Billie better about people being agender than being bisexual?
“it’s different when it’s me” I assume.
I think what’s really the matter is that she’s fine with other people being agender, but isn’t fine with herself being bi. Because she’s “normal,” don’t you know?
Someone else versus herself. It’s not that she isn’t ok with LGBT people in general, instead she is having an ontological crisis about her own sexual identity, about who she is. She always thought of herself as “straight”, but now maybe she’s not and that deep uncertainty about herself can be very scary. It’s much easier to just paper over the problem by performing straight rather than confronting the fear and accepting she isn’t who she thought she was.
She said she understands bisexuality exists but thinks its a political or bigger statement than it is.
She isn’t comfortable admitting it.
Last I recall she thought it was only in porn. I am very tired so might be forgetting something. Did that change?
Yeah, as I linked above Jennifer’s “bisexual = porn” comment comes from a 2017 strip – I don’t remember anything more recent from her either.
Okay Phipps, man, imma need you to link me the comic you’re reading because it’s clearly not this one
Yeah, it’s kind of hard for me to buy honestly. I think Willis isn’t comfortable with the main cast being casually transphobic, which I can understand, but it ends up feeling artificial when more than one person in the cast didn’t even know bisexuality existed last semester. (Jennifer ofc, and Danny said, “Is there even a WORD for that? […] I think I’d have heard about it before,” when talking with Dorothy about his attraction to men.)
It’s a difficult line to walk.
I’m a bi dude, for example, and while I was initially (and wrongly) extremely hardcore nettled about Danny going “is there even a word for that” regarding his sexuality, I also don’t feel too much, like, resentment if I need to explain it to someone, and I think that’s because, broadly speaking, people are aware of the sexuality spectrum nowadays. If I fail to explain it to them, oh well, it’s just this one person.
But like, how do you depict as sympathetic a character who expresses casual transphobic rhetoric? I think acknowledging the reality that gender identity has only become more wildly understood in the last decade or so is true (you know where I first even heard the term “transgender” in a positive context? Friggin’ Linkara) can work, but at the same time writing a series wherein perfectly nice and sympathetic characters express actively harmful and ignorant viewpoints, then go off to be perfectly nice and sympathetic otherwise… how do you square that?
Maybe Jeph Jacques was right. If you want to have a character JAQing off about trans rights hit them in the face with a rocket in the shape of a butt.
Note that both characters who expressed those doubts were actually bi themselves. Danny accepted it easily enough. Jennifer still has her issues – but they aren’t directly related to the concept existing.
I think Becky said something similar very early, but home schooled fundie. What do you expect?
She said something similar to danny and later said “turns out liking both is a thing. It’s definitely not me but whatever”
I dunno, the phrasing “agender or something” sorta implies to me that she knows that one word, but doesn’t actually know much about different genders. Like, nonbinary people can identify anywhere on or off the gender spectrum; agender is only one of the possible gender identities that they/them pronouns could imply.
She probably just doesn’t care enough about other people’s identities to be transphobic? That, and what other people have brought up about not making your characters cross that line (aside from the ones that we’re supposed to dislike, like Mary). And I can totally buy that she feels less comfortable about her *own* identity than about other people’s. Iirc she’s never spoken negatively about other people being bi either.
*watches the Muzak traverse a Hotfix installation*
*Cranks up Hard Habit to Break by Chicago on his phone*
Now now, there’s more ways than alcohol to get inebriated.
Is weed a big no-no with meds?
Drumming, for instance.
You can still care about someone after the breakup, but after Billie’s comments she really has no right to tell her
You don’t need any kind of authorization or moral high ground to try to discourage an addict from giving up and relapsing
It is the right thing to do and it’s kinda weird to get mad at her for it because she did something you disliked earlier. You’re allowed to keep being mad at her for the bad things she’s done w/o convincing yourself it’s somehow bad that she’s trying to do a good thing now
You do if a major problem in your relationship was your partner trying to go sober and you encouraging her to drink.
I think if there’s any hidden barb here, it’s referencing THAT
Nope. That’s stupid. It’s the right thing to do.
What she CAN’T do because of that is get judgemental about it. THEN she wouldn’t have a leg to stand on, but that’s not what she’s doing. She’s simply asking Ruth not to do it. I don’t care if Jennifer was still covered in blood from murdering an entire bus full of children, telling and addict not to drink so she doesn’t fall back into depression and possibly suicide would STILL BE THE RIGHT THING TO DO
Yes. There is no contradiction between Jennifer saying Ruth was a phase or blaming her for their breakup or whatever, and her reacting with alarm at Ruth’s talk of self-destructive behaviour and relapse. Its not on the same level.
Ruth is blackmailing her emotionally. Its kind of sick.
She was trying to be friendly? Where tf is this coming from
I don’t think Ruth is *intentionally* “blackmailing her emotionally”, in the sense that this is part of a 15-step plan to cajole Jennifer back into a relationship, it might just be talking freely without really thinking about it in those terms, but it’s still kind of juggling a nuclear bomb.
I don’t even like suggesting that *unintentional* emotional blackmail is a thing. Like, it can legitimately suck to be around someone who’s acting like Ruth is right now, but “desperately needing help and support and being a mess” is not itself a moral failing
Old grooves maybe? Beaten track? I have all of the sympathy for Ruth here, relate relate relate <3
otoh I can also understand someone not having the mental energy to cope with a self-destructive person esp one you care about. (Caring about someone and not wanting to be around them anymore are not mutually exclusive states of mind.)
This all being said, calling psychological abuse in this situation is unfair I think. There is every indication that Ruth is still likely to harm herself. This does not look like an act she's putting on to guilt Jennifer. If you're drowning you can't be blamed for grabbing onto whoever is within reach.
And again, this is not to say Jennifer could or should or has some sort of moral obligation to help Ruth. Sometimes there is no obvious right thing to do, and sometimes there is no one to blame. Life is messy like that
(Not sure why I’m replying under yr comment Fart but hard agree if that wasn’t clear)
Like. Yesterday she basically just said hi, and here she’s just being a depressed addict? She’s not hanging the blame for that on Jennifer or anything manipulative. She’s just messed up. At “worst” it’s a cry for help
alternatively she’s just kind of a mess right now
I… I really hope Ruth’s not seriously thinking about drinking again.
Like, even if she’s just saying it to annoy Jennifer that’s still not great, and maybe kinda emotionally manipulative, but I’m that’s probably less bad than Ruth backsliding into where she was before or having an allergic reaction.
Not great, but I’d say less emotionally manipulative and more like lashing out at an ex who was objectifying her as her “Get My Job Back” sex-ticket out loud yesterday. That had to hurt A LOT.
Yup. Ruth’s been the one reaching out, even after Becky did her best to set them against each other, and yesterday’s bit of selfishness was the last straw that she’s reacting to now.
I think she is. She said it earlier to Booster, so it’s not just aimed at Jennifer. Doesn’t look good for Ruth.
I’m very much hoping Ruth is just saying it to spite Jennifer (who totally deserves it).
She deserves some pushback, sure, but worrying if your ex is going to go off the deep end and seriously harm themselves potentially is really brutal and not really a good punishment for someone.
It’s not, and if Ruth were thinking more clearly, hadn’t had her every effort rebuffed, and then what happened yesterday, she might consider that. But right now she’s all out of fucks.
I mean she said the same thing to booster after they asked her out soooo
THEY STILL WANNA FUCK
THEY GONNA GET BACK TOGETHER
Oh please no. This is all kinds of bad.
I kinda hope they get back together, but at the same time I really think Ruth deserves better than Jennifer.
Really? You think JENNIFER is the one who’s dating up in that relationship, and not the petty, violent, bullying, tyrant? REALLY?
Yeah I gotta say that Ruth is the one dating up here. I mean, Jennifer is also petty and bullying. Not to mention the fact that she loves to use people and then drop them the second they’re inconvenient, lashes out at everyone & blames others for her mistakes or normal setbacks… Those are just some of the negative character traits Jennifer has that my not-awake-self can think of. Ruth has plenty of her own negative traits, including being a shitty edgelord RA, but when Jennifer decides she wants to ‘be better’ she winds up hurting everyone around her intentionally so she can think she’s making ‘progress’. Ruth at least tries to avoid splash damage.
Ruth actively subjected the people that was her job to care for to physical, verbal, and psychologucal violence. She destroyed their property. She threw them under the bus.
I’m not a Jennifer fan, but she hasn’t gone out of her way to make the people around her feel miserable and threatened.
She doesn’t have to be *the* best person, to deserve better than this thing Jennifer is doing of rebuffing kindness, expecting serious favours which is essentially pimping her out, and then demanding she make promises to her.
Like, you don’t have to be the better of the two as a whole, to still deserve better than this.
We really read this comic through completely different filters sometimes.
Jennifer’s idea with Daisy was rude and stupid, but it started with “you need to get laid”, which led her to think of Daisy who also needs get laid. It would have benefits for Jennifer, but it was also intended as a good thing for Ruth, not a favor she’d be doing for Jennifer. It’s all messed up and wrong, but it’s not “pimping her out” in any meaningful sense.
And omitting that the promise is essentially “don’t kill yourself” really doesn’t help either.
keulan, I madly agree that Ruth deserves better. Ruth is on the mend, and is feeling joy (to the extent that her meds allow that), and they are both hurting, but I think that until we know what’s up with the Billie-Jennifer switch up, I’m not gonna hate on Jennifer, I’m gonna wait it out.
Gotta say, I think they really love each other, but Ruth is sliding up, and Jennifer is at the most optimistic burying her problems – maintaining a holding pattern, or sliding down, – – – just more slowly now.
As someone who has struggled with both the meds and the alcohol together…it wouldn’t have been idle threats especially when talking to an ex….and the alcohol would have been sooo bad…took a long time to fix that one especially when I didn’t WANT to fix it… So many enablers (I do not blame them, but it did make it seem more normal) at school.
Oof. I feel you so, so much :’D Yeah, it’s one hell of a combo that takes a long time to fix and this sort of joke is a bit like “I’M TOTALLY JOKING AHAHA OR AM I?” Even if it’s only to antagonize Jennifer at first, now the thought is going to be stuck in Ruth’s head for a while.
best relationship in the whole damn strip. fight me.
Awful in universe. Amazing out of it.
Better than Carla’s relationship with rollerskating? Or Fuckface’s with Lettuce??
Lettuce, mmm.
You, you did that, didn’t you? Ruthiffer, let-us-face, Carlaroll,… cheeezus, how to pick? For fun lettuceface, for serious; Ruthiffer, that they are trying to come to grips with their Real selves is so awesome, I-heart-this, so bad.
Well neither of those are dynamic relationships, Ruth/Jen is a constantly evolving trainwreck
This particular strip with no other characters? Sure, due to a complete lack of other options.
When Becky and Dina exist?
Even people who want becky’s head on a pike love that ship
Can confirm.
Okay dude this has been on my mind for weeks now but uh, weird question
Do you run an art account under the username “Yotaku”?
The art style of your pfp is a lot like an old art friend of mine and you have the same name
I do not, but I did commission this avatar from Yotomoe, who still comments here every once in a while.
Aight thanks man, that’s that curiosity put to rest
Interesting development, hmm. It makes me that much more curious what happened between them. Beginning to think maybe Ruth went off the wagon in a big way and that’s why it ended or otherwise crossed a line. Then again, it’s hard to tell just yet.
I kind of have a working theory. I do think it’s alcohol related just because Jennifer had hidden booze she never got rid of. I think it was found by one or both of them and caused friction that led to a breakup.
Yeah. Meeee toooo.
Jennifer: tries to ignore and push away Walky and Ruth
Also Jennifer: concerned about Ruth’s wellbeing and Walky’s coping.
Eh, it makes sense to me.
She’s known Walky for years; even if she finds him annoying enough that she doesn’t want to deal with him (if that’s all it is – I can think of other reasons she might want to be away from from him, both good and bad) she’d have to be pretty cold to not care about him when she hears about a potential problem. Besides, it’s not just him that it could be an issue for; it could cause problems for Booster as well, and by extension, Ruth.
As for Ruth… Needing time away from something that caused a great deal of emotional turmoil doesn’t mean you don’t care, either. It just means you need time to process what happened, and interpret your feelings in a way more productive than lashing out at others (in Jennifer’s case). If they can stick to “safe” topics like this, it’s not a surprise that they can have a decent conversation – just not regular interaction that would force them to confront the topic they’re both staying away from.
But remember Jennifer’s own long term issues. In the past when she’s pushed people away – especially Ruth, it’s been because she thinks of herself as poison and wants to stay away so she doesn’t destroy them.
Okay, so they both care about the other despite their history together.
I smell a retcon regarding Walky’s feelings on gender. This is the guy who thought it was unmanly to own more than one pair of shoes, but not to go down on another dude for free pizza.
I really think we need another bi dude in the cast. Walky would be a good choice.
“I’m not bi. I just am comfortable going down on dudes! What?”
Is… is that not how that works?
It is not.
I used to headcanon him as possibly bi. He reminds me a lot of the gay chicken I used to pull that, in hindsight, turned out to be me trying to suss out how my friends and family would react if I liked guys.
On one hand, I’d like to see more Drew.
On the other hand, I presume anyone who’s not in the main cast is living a a healthy, well-adjusted life as opposed to whatever is going with everyone other than Dorothy/Dina/Sarah.
Hate to break this to you but Dorothy/Dina/Sarah are not living well adjusted lives. All of them have went through at least one life threatening situation. Two of them multiple. Besides that they all have their own mental hang ups. Hell we’re in a story arc right now where Sarah has to justify feeling good by pretending she’s a happiness vampire.
Well, relatively well-adjusted as compared to Amber/Joyce/Becky/Walky, really.
I don’t know if I’d call autistic traits a “mental hangup”. That’s the only stand-out quality I can think of for Dina.
I would love BiWalky! And hey, he didn’t even know he liked girls until a few months ago, so who knows what else he might discover about himself.
I don’t think it will actually happen, but I think it would fit very well into his story.
Hmm… Jennifer avatar makes this comment feel very weird, I’m going to reroll.
Now imaging a Danny x Walky situation. After both dudes dated Dorothy and Amber they find comfort and companionship in each other! It would work! I would even look back my unjustifiable hate for Walky to ship it!
Considering how Danny reacted to Walky and Amber’s . . . whatever happened there, I doubt it’ll happen.
Technically Danny dated Amazi-Girl, and only Walky dated Amber. Danny just thought that Walky kept stealing his exes because he never realized that Amazi-Girl was a full-on alter and not just a costume Amber wore to fight crime. Walky seemed to be the first one to actually figure out how deep the divide went.
And yes, I could totally see Danny and Walky being a thing. It’d probably piss Linda off, which is always nice.
Ugh. I actually hate that aspect of it. I still don’t get it but it was really unfair to Danny.
Given Danny’s track record, he’d inevitably end up tripping into racism and colorism while trying to avoid either.
It’s now established canon that Walkyverse Danny found out he was bi when he met Walky for the first time, confused him for Sal, but still found him hot.
I actually want Danny/Sal but I can’t bring myself to justify it as a romance.
Here’s a link to Willis’ commentary that Spencer’s referring to.
… I was thinking of Danny/Booster before but honestly this would be like, really good? I don’t know why I feel instinctively it’d work, so please throw me a bone here :’D
Do we know if Booster is into dudes? So far they’ve only hit on ladies right?
The answer to that is the same answer to a lot of questions about Booster right now…a somewhat ambiguous maybe!
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-11/02-look-straight-ahead/atlength/
They kind of hit on Joe here, but whether this was sincere or just giving Joe a taste of his own medicine, or both…who knows?
In my opinion they both have a good heart but tend to say the wrong thing sometimes. I could see it working well.
ProTip: sexuality and gender are different things. Walky being comfortable joking about blowing someone for pizza does not at ALL suggest that he’s comfortable talking about gender. He’s gotten *slightly* better over the last semester thanks to Dorothy and Leslie, but he is incredibly insecure in his masculinity
But having his own gender hangups doesn’t mean he needs to have any problem with non-binary people.
And while he’s insecure in his masculinity, he’s never seemed particularly toxic about it. I don’t recall him being aggressive when it’s threatened, which is the usual problem.
me doth thinks you hypocriticize too much…
I’d been holding out hope that Jennifer wasn’t drinking again, but given that her ONLY objection is the interaction with antidepressants and nothing about, y’know, both of them being alcoholics, that hope’s just out the window, isn’t it?
Well she’s talking to Ruth about drinking. Not about herself.
Yeah, she probably figured “Ruth, you shouldn’t drink because it messes with your antidepressents” might stand a slightly better chance of not going badly than “Ruth, you shouldn’t drink because, like me, you’re an alcoholic.”
Oh, this is terrible. OK SO LISTEN, as… Someone who used to sorta be a little bit like Ruth back in like 2009-2010, toxic relationship included (though in my case, my girlfriend actually never cared beyond wanting to control me, lol) – This is my personal idea of the chain of events:
– Jennifer had stashes of booze around, Ruth drank them out of spite
– Antidepressants and booze mixed are a horrible way to be both a lightweight and manic-euphoric, while getting thrown INTO THE GROUND the next day (it fucks with the Serotonin/Dopamine balance, basically like writing a check you can’t cash for both.)
– Both of them relapse, because goddammit getting clean is FUCKING HARD and it’s only been a couple of months since the Lesbian Suicide Pact? Ruth was this close to killing herself and got hospitalized over it and all but let’s not forget that Jennifer was willing to follow her to the grave. I seldom see that discussed.
– Ruth does the breaking up in a moment of clarity, because they enable each other: Jennifer, “head cheerleader, problem solver” actually sorta thrives on her being a problem to solve and also has major issues of her own. Jen immediately goes “NO, YOU’RE NOT BREAKING WITH ME, I’M BREAKING UP WITH YOU.”
I don’t know whether Jennifer is trying for sure to clean up her act, but they were sort of a known quantity considering the drama of past semester, and she’s doing her utmost to distance herself from it. Except that Jennifer is no better than Billie: It’s the same as when she was willing to wear no glasses after moving dorms, taken to the extreme. Going to therapy isn’t the same as being sober and I can so see her trying to negotiate doing the first as a reason to not “need” to do the other. She’s normal, y’all! Not a “noted alcoholic”, and def not bisexual, and what are you talking about she doesn’t know any of these people.
Meanwhile … Her remark of yesterday, thinking of pimping out Ruth as if she was a bargain chip so Daisy “gave her back her beat” (that she never really had), hurt Ruth so deeply she’s now deliberately antagonizing Jennifer by stating she’d do all of the things she’s not supposed to do including being over her enough she’d date someone else. (How dare! Right?)
PS: I kinda want to see Ruth and Booster? I mean. That’d be an interesting arc for both of them, if only because they’d want to help genuinely with whatever toolkit they have, meanwhile Ruth would have to set Actual Boundaries to not feel psychoanalyzed all the time.
… Pls GravRoulette gimme something better ;;
Like Sal, you mean?
I think your chain of events is unlikely, but who knows.
When was Walky a baby about gender boundaries?
We’ll, he’s a baby for everything. Maybe Jen is more concerned about him not knowing to respect boundaries rather than being bigoted re: gender.
“Real men don’t own more than one pair of shoes” comes to mind.
Exactly. I get the impression that he’s not a bigot per se, but he does (or did) have the essentialist point of a view of a child (raised by conservative Christians) when it comes to normative gender binaries.
Maybe. Though as Ruth said, he didn’t show any problems with Booster and that’s the first exposure we’ve seen him have to gender identities.
He’s got his weird ideas about masculinity, but he’s also been casually open to at least joking about gay stuff – blowing someone for pizza, finding Jacob hot, etc.
I suspect his thing about manliness is more tied to him not being particularly “manly” in a traditional stereotypical sense and thus feeling the need to grasp for supposedly manly things to reassure himself that he’s sufficiently manly than any essentialist Christian view.
“come buy these girls pants for me”
Remember the Shoes plotline
Silence thy frivolous peckering, O mighty commentariat! The A-word hath been spoken! My power grows by exponents and multitudes! So speaketh Taffy, firstborn of Their line!
Hey, also, that stuff Ruth is saying is a little worrisome. She probably better go ahead and check that medicine bottle real fast, huh.
Right? (First part) I wonder if Booster really does identify as agender and Jennifer got it in one. There are many flavors of nonbinary, so that’d be kinda funny, and, hey, agender power!
My head hurts from the fact that Ruth is seriously considering Booster’s offer of a date (if that’s what they call it). Also the fact that I’m bracing for a very sad birthday for Ruth.
Something tells me that Ruth’s date with Booster is going to be a dramatic thing one way or another. Either a disaster or a marathon ‘session’ that ends up with Ruth crying her eyes out on Booster’s shoulders as the combination of meds and alcohol make it impossible for her to hold in her long list of trauma.
I like that scenario
It could be cathartic for Ruth while helping Rooster realizar that they need to be more thoughtful
If it involves Ruth drinking, it’s not a good scenario. Cathartic or not.
I miss Mike. His nasty remarks were clever and always aimed at cutting out some festering sore (except for the disgusting “your mom” shit). These two are just incompatible nasty.
At a point where you are wishing for something better, you don’t have to settle for Mike.
Intending to be a net positive by way of being a raging a-hole is an improvement over raging a-holes measured in microns.
Mike was a viscous, abusive asshole and not one of his “cutting remarks” accomplished anything positive
Hahahahaha god you’re both so terrible
Just the worst
None of this is news but god damn
I really hope Ruth doesn’t start dating Booster, and that she doesn’t start drinking again. Also, after Jennifer’s shitty behavior in the last few strips she kinda deserves to have that line thrown back in her face.
Ruth, you can’t bite your lip and make it stick out at the same time!
Well, actually you can, but you’ll end up with a twisted lip and I don’t think that’s what you’re doing here.
Booster seems like they’d be healthy and supportive in a relationship. Also, caught myself gendering them.
How can we be sure Jennifer is not Danny in disguise? She’s dannying it up like a pro.
It will never stop being weird to me that Danny and Billie are a thing in the other universe.
So were Danny and Sal.
The other universe was largely written before the author came to understand the tragic extent of Danny’s failings
The Virgin Roomies Danny: Gets his friend killed saving him from his own mistake and almost cheats on his girlfriend.
The Chad DoA Danny: Dopey kid taking life’s hits like a champ, endlessly supportive to his loved ones, never got rid of the hair, found out he was bisexual and got to go on a journey of self discovery that bisexual characters just flagrantly aren’t allowed to have.
(nothing personal, but I hate this meme, not least because I still associate “Chad” with douchebros like Ryan.)
i mean, i get the good sentiment, but you don’t get to say “promise me” after you said the last few pages~
I think I could see Ruth and Booster together. No idea if it would be good or bad, but I could see them as a couple
I have to say, I’m actually curious about what Ruth did (or what Jennifer THINKS she did) to make these two break up, considering they were the more solid couple before the timeskip.
Probably a twist but frankly I think it’s because Ruth wanted to stop drinking and Jennifer didn’t.
It’s a pattern. One gets better and the other starts relapsing.
That feels off, because they had ALREADY had that dynamic (right after Ruth started her meds), and they were solid for quite a period after. “Doing the same thing again, but with more disastrous results” doesn’t feel like it merits the taunting WIllis is obviously putting us through, narratively speaking.
Interesting dynamic. Ruth is trying to make worry Jennifer as a revenge or not? Probably she is trying.
Ooooorr, she’s a depressed alcoholic with almost nobody she can turn to for emotional support and is struggling with her addiction
Honestly, I’ve always sided with Billie/Jennifer in the conflicts with ruth.
Yeah we all noticed
I ship Booster and Ruth so hard! I would LOVE to see them go on a date. Good or bad, that would be entertaining as hell.
hey fucking goddamn it ruth what the hell is this.
This label can’t stop me because I can’t read.
I thought you weren’t friends with Walky and didn’t care about him, Jennifer.
Ah man it’s almost like they’re not over each other at all.