A festival of broken people, blood flows in the center ring. Come one and come all, to the greatest show in all of Paris.
Three Panel Soul
Matt Boyd, Ian McConville
It's a pretty rigid format but we keep the content loose, you know?
Angel's Orchard
Harry Bogosian
After the events in Demon's Mirror, Gerda has accepted her role as a Demon Hunter, and Cezar has traveled back to the Demon City. Demons have existed alongside humans for millennia, so things begin to return to normal. But an impossibly powerful Relic has been taken by one of the Demon Masters, and a silent war enters its final stages.
Blindsprings
Kadi Fedoruk
Tamaura, wrested into a world 300 years in the future, must find a way to save the magic fading from her country.
ARISE, YE SKELETON KING
Brian Clevinger, Escher Cattle, Lee Black
A troupe of wandering "adventurers" down to their last silver "acquire" a map only to find the real treasure was the fiend they dug up along the way.
Heroes of Thantopolis
Izzy Strontium Hall
A living boy fights to save the City of the Dead.
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
Namesake
Isa, Meg
There's ghosts at your heels and fairy tale worlds ahead. What do you do? Jump down the rabbit hole!
Little Tiny Things
Clover
What are the little things that move us? The simple joys that warm our bodies and hearts? The micro life of insects that influence our world more than we think? The tiny steps we make everyday to have a happier tomorrow?
Not Drunk Enough
Tess Stone
Logan Ibarra is possibly the unluckiest repairman in the world. A late night job should not have landed him in the middle of a mad scientist's squabble, but he soon finds himself surrounded by monsters and further madness with little tools to get out.
Empowered
Adam Warren
A sexy superhero comedy (except when it isn't) about the never-ending struggles of a plucky but very unlucky young superheroine.
Sakana
Mad Rupert
Our heroes must navigate a hazardous dating scene, overcome personal anxieties, and wrangle unruly seafood in order to find love, peace of mind, and a paycheck.
The Golden Boar
Magnolia Porter Siddell
A young woman joins a group of summoners who call forth Guardian Beasts to protect their isolated magical island. Unfortunately, her Guardian Beast is nothing like she'd imagined, and he's about to change her life, and everything she thought she knew about herself...
Ozzie the Vampire
Eric Lide
Ozzie and her best friend Kimmy are your average everyday normal art students – except one is an immortal vampire with superpowers and the other possesses a magic talking grimoire. Also they have to save their town from a demonic invasion.
Novae
KaiJu
A historical romance with a touch magic and a dash of astronomy. It chronicles the romantic adventures of Sulvain, a sweet tempered necromancer and Raziol, a passionate 17th century astronomer.
Nerf Now!!
Josué Pereira
A cute webcomic about fanservice, video games, and... love. Mostly video games, though.
Nigh Heaven & Hell
Scotty
Heather Vodihn is on a simple mission: find her father. However she becomes entangled with two strangers with mysterious powers being stalked by a group with bizarre demands. Heather must learn to trust her new traveling companions, even if she is untrustworthy herself.
Sister Claire
Yamino
In the troubled aftermath of a great war between Witches and her fellow Nuns, novice Sister Claire just wants a purpose.
Barbarous
Ananth Hirsh, Yuko Ota
A crummy wizard and an anxious monster have to get over themselves and bring order to an apartment building full of misfits.
Stand Still, Stay Silent
Minna Sundberg
A few generations after the end of the world, a small, poorly financed research crew is sent out to rediscover whatever is left of the forbidden old world in the south.
Darkling Bright
Chris Hazelton
Kieran Bright is a college student home for the summer and roped into an online reunion with his old neighborhood friends in the most recent update of their favorite childhood MMORPG.
At least, he was, and that was the idea...
Join Kieran and his friends as they are pulled into another reality that may or may not be real and are forced to confront their own identities, the nature of simulated universes and reality itself.
Dumbing of Age
David M Willis
Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
Peritale
Mari Costa
A fairy godmother with no magic tries her best to successfully fulfill a Fairytale and win the respect of her peers.
Guilded Age
T Campbell, John Waltrip, Florence Machina
Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
Lies Within
Lacey
Lysander's aimless and carefree life is turned upside down when he accidentally discovers that the cute boy next door, Simon, is a literal monster
The Weave
Rennie Kingsley
A young woman pursued by bad luck is witness to the murder of the Fairy Queen of Summer. Can she get to the bottom of this mystery?
Sleepless Domain
Mary Cagle (Cube Watermelon)
In a world where magical girls and their battles are commonplace, loss has become all too common as well.
The Messenger
indui
In a ruin-abound town cursed with bad luck, Kai and Kalla--a young boy and a fledgling dragonbird spirit--take on a quest in hopes the reward will solve all of their problems.
Augustine
Winter Jay Kiakas, Windy
August and her ragtag group are just like everyone else, simply surviving in the treacherous Crater... When they stumble into what may be an artifact of the ancient past, their lives are thrown into a much bigger loop as they trifle with bounty hunters, monsters and gods.
Monster's Garden
Ash G.
Champion pit fighter Kilo Monster was content to spend the rest of his days tending to his quiet garden alone... until he met a curious robot girl and her human family.
Saint for Rent
Ru Xu
Saint Halliday runs an inn for Time Travelers. Unfortunately, he seems to attract other supernatural "guests," too.
Edison Rex
Chris Roberson
The adventures of the world’s greatest villain who, after defeating his superheroic nemesis, decides that he’s the only one left to defend the world.
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Yeah, Mike Quigley is one of the most impressive current Representatives in regards to poking fun at power while making an amazingly solid point in the process.
“ruth” is an old word for mercy, which is where the word “ruthless” comes from. So “ruthful” or “ruthfull” = merciful, though it hasn’t been in regular usage for quite a while.
More precisely, reuthe actually meant ‘pity or compassion for others’, thus someone who was ruthless lacked pity or compassion for others, while someone who was ruthful was filled with such sentiments.
Later utilizations of ruthful turned the term into something which evoked ruthe in others- that is, something which was ruthful was deserving of pity [I believe the compassion bit drops off here, so it’s a straightforwardly negative utilization].
Thus, the final definition of the word ended up being “the feeling, showing, or arousing of pity or sorrow”. Given the context of today’s comic, I’d assume it’s the derogatory usage which is intended, hence Ruth’s reaction in the last panel.
I honestly don’t understand how social media DOESN’T already fall under presidential record. I mean, the whole point of it is to record the president’s communications. Social media, by definition, is a communication channel.
I hope Ruth goes through the character development where she realizes that physical violence, brutal put downs, and outright killing her charges ala Amazi-Girl doesn’t mean she’s like Clint. No, it just means she enjoys hurting people and that is okay. She can be happy and non-depressed by crushing the souls of those under her as a proper RA.
Be like the Queen of Blades, Ruth. It is your destiny to command the Zerg through hate as well as love.
For the record, I liked it alright. Wasn’t particularly wowed, but there were some really good scenes, especially the climax. The supporting characters were much more tolerable than I expected, and whenever I thought to myself “Okay, they’ve done X, now here comes Y, initiating eye-roll,” they didn’t do it. Pretty solid, and I’d probably watch it a couple more times, or at least stick around if it’s on and I’m not already busy with something else. For those who care about such, I’d give it a 7.5/10.
Also for the record: If you want to like the movie, don’t read the book first (yes, there’s a book, a whole series in fact!). They stray very far from the plot. Very far indeed.
My brother mentioned that while we were watching it. I already dislike the dumb names everyone has, but they don’t say them too much in the movie. I don’t think I could tolerate them in written form.
I’m pretty sure even if I’d read the book first, I’d have preferred the movie. The book is…passable, and actually has one bit of semi-accurate ‘Viking’ culture that the movie didn’t (Hiccup’s ‘heroic hair’), but it’s really very…thin, and I don’t mean physically (though it is that, too).
Damn, I was about to make a comment about Spyro, but I’m pretty sure he’s asexual, at least in his classic version. Not so sure about the Elijah Wood version, though.
I thought of that as well, but in the theme park in Ripto’s Rage!, he can go through a Tunnel of Love ride with Elora, and he basically ignores her in favor of looking around. There’s also his comment in the third game, of “It’s a sad sight, Sparx. Another noble warrior falls victim to the plague of love. Just look away.”, as well as his complete disinterest when Elora’s pretty blatantly flirty with him.
Is all of this speculation and meaning we are attaching to the character long after the fact, or was there a secret aro/ace agenda the programmers adhered to from the start?
It may simply be a product of the time, since there were a lot of Young Male Protagonists™ with absolutely no interest in any sort of romance, around then. Some of the dialogue, particularly from Elora, makes it seem like they wrote the plot out in a standard way, with a romance between the protagonist and primary female support character, and then just sorta replaced his romantic lines with “Ew, no. Look, I’ve got things to do.”
Not that this is a bad thing. I actually really like the “Spyro is aro ace” interpretation, since that means there’s at least one prominent video game protagonist people of that variety can relate to.
Also, if memory serves (SPOILER ALERT) Spyro and Cinder become an item at the end of Dawn of the Dragon on the Wii. Think they’re both too young for sexual relations to come into it though. Depends on when dragons mature sexually in that mythos.
that’s ridiculous, why use your own femurs when you can get a couple of perfectly serviceable femurs from Ryan, the sun-bleached blood-drained corpse still lying on the steps outside
My headcanon is that literally never once before this did Ruth say “please” as an RA because it didn’t occur to her. Mostly because it makes the second panel even more endearingly pathetic.
Maybe it wasn’t necessary to have your spirit completely crushed to realize that you don’t have to threaten people to get what you want, but here we are.
I think you’re right. And I think part of the reason is saying please never worked with “sir” grampus, because “sir” grampus say that as simply the price of what he was owed. So for Ruth, saying please and appealing to basic humanity was a futile effort that triggered too much related to her abuse.
And quoting from the usage notes of the longer version:
It is unlikely that this 15-syllable contrivance is ever used purely for its meaning. The term sesquipedalophobia is recognized in formal writing, while the four-syllable phrase fear of long words is certainly worth considering.
I believe the full word is hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia. You know, because your word just wasn’t long enough. That person really hated people that had a fear of long words, didn’t they?
I was actually already aware that the phobia of long words was itself a long word. Most phobia names are long to start with because phobia already has 6 letters and the shortest addition in front of it is four letters e.g. acrophobia (the irrational fear of heights) though.
There is also the question of whether someone can actually ever naturally develop a fear of long words in the first place. An array of fears can be caused by trauma/bad memories e.g. the fears of colours so it would be technically possible I guess but what weird circumstances would make you fear long words in GENERAL rather than just a specific one? Would you have to be in a room filled with long words on all the walls? These are the real questions.
Beating someone to death with their own skull still has more of an intimidation factor, I’d say. Not to mention the impossibility factor you’d have to surpass to do such a feat.
Okay, I am so here for both Ruth’s new hair AND her recent character development.
(It came at a painfully relatable cost, but I have faith she and Billie will keep finding a way to make a mess of trauma into something positive. Maybe slowly, yes, but. Eventually. ;~;)
Hey, sometimes the comments are happily lacking people being Wrong On The Internet, and so I’m left with no choice to quietly make my little jokey-jokes.
But now that you’re back, I’m sure that situation will be remedied in no time! (kidding, of course)
It’s supposed to be the antonym for “Ruthless”. So, instead of “having or showing no pity or compassion for others”, it becomes “having or showing too much pity or compassion for others”.
Not the best word people have come up with, but it exists.
“Ruth” is an archaic synonym for “mercy”; so “ruthful” is “merciful”. I’m not sure why “ruthless” stuck around while “ruthful”, and, for that matter, “ruth” itself, fell out of fashion, but it did.
Off Topic: You asked me about a 19th century book a few days ago and I sadly didn’t notice until much later, so I’ll just leave the answer here. The name of the book is Foraadt (or Betrayed in english) by Amalie Skram, a Norwegian author who also wrote a novel revealing the appaling conditions in danish institutions for mental illness at the time.
‘Pity’ is the word more commonly used in defining ‘ruth’, but ‘pitiful’ has experienced a semantic drift that makes it the wrong word. Being ruthful is feeling pity, not being subject to pity yourself.
I’d actually go with sympathetic over merciful, as a more accurate synonym.
Also, ruthful has actually been utilized both to indicate expression of or evocation of sympathy, so it can mean either (see my post at the top of the page for more on that). Oyste is likely correct in their assumption, especially given the flow of the comic (where none of merciful, sympathetic, or full-of-pity-for-outside-elements would make any sense as a mean nickname for Ruth :P).
listen if u keep inviting vampires in and then dusting them INSIDE THE DORM, you know who has to clean up the mess? maintenance!! and they are quite done with that business Thank You Very Much
There is a sort of freedom in rock bottom. I wonder if Ruth will recognize it or if her desire to do right by the position as she sees it will outweigh that.
The two aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. Even if Ruth doesn’t flat-out lie to Chloe in the hopes of getting fired, there are times when “doing the right thing” and “pissing off your boss” can go hand-in-hand. Like the Becky situation, for example (although we really don’t know how Chloe would have reacted had she found out; personally I think she would have just swept it under the rug along with everything else).
Of course, given all the horrible crap Ruth has done (and that has happened to her) that Chloe has either ignored or failed to notice, it’s hard to imagine that the last straw would be something morally-justifiable-but-technically-against-the-rules.
OK, the second L is made up, but “ruthful” is a word. And it has in fact several meanings. It can of course mean “compassionate”, but also not just “sorrowful” but “causing or apt to cause sorrow or pity”, as well as “feeling remorse or self-reproach”.
If there is one word to describe Ruth right now…. This is the one. Everything it can mean is applied to current Ruth.
Subtext:
“Okay, I won’t make this harder on you. But you know… I liked it when you were assertive, before. When you had agency. You need to reclaim that.”
I think it’s more “its much easier to maintain my image as an anti-authority rebel who doesn’t care what anyone thinks if I’m only caving into authority under threat of femur-removal, rather than because I’ve been asked nicely”
Yup, that’s exactly what I’m seeing. She’s a reflexive anti-authoritarian and she liked when Ruth was just the faceless physical presence of fun-killing authority trying to catch her out. It made it all a fun little cat-and-mouse.
But now she’s being appealed to by Ruth the person and all the context that comes with that and it ruins the game and she’s worried it’ll hurt her rep to be seen being more swayed by that than the sort of ham-fisted authority that is much more invigorating for her to fight against.
I’ve realized that you know that Willis is an excellent writer, when you worry about characters despite death being a non issue.
Also I’ve realized that Mary is my favorite villain because unlike Blaine, Ross and Clint she doesn’t have any actual power. Mary actually has to plan and fight on the same level as the protagonists. She also isn’t a complete idiot and seems to make sure to keep her evil right within the line of legality (in comparison to someone like Ross). Plus we get to see more of Mary’s personality, and I really hope we get to see some glimps of her back story one of these days.
I’m confused about how Mary has any sway as a villain, not only because like you said, she has no power, but it’s also been established twice that physical violence can be inflicted on her without any consequences.
The banality of evil. The small little digs, the wielding of social power and dynamics, finding little things she can latch onto and exploit, making it just an impossible situation to rest for a second, because she’s always there hammering on the little microaggressions until you literally break. And she’ll specifically target perceived weak points and is fully willing to push someone to death to “get rid of them”.
It’s the sort of villain most of us deal with everyday. That just makes life that little bit less enjoyable for having to suffer through them and watch yourself not to fall afoul of.
She keeps herself just within the boundaries of policy so that no one can retaliate. She knows how to do exactly as much as she can get away with and much more when nobody is looking. She knows how to find any piece of leverage she can get her hands on to stop anyone from taking action when she crosses a line. Perhaps worst of all, she targets people who are already isolated; the mean spirited RA and the obnoxious loner, who are already the most vulnerable and the least likely to find sympathy from their peers.
When everything went pear-shaped for Mary after Ruth and Billie were outed, Mary was counting on no one being willing to stand up for Carla, least of all Billie, so she could continue to torment someone. She seemed genuinely shocked that everyone on her floor hated her so goddamned much that they would have stuck up for just about anyone rather than let her torment anyone else.
Now she seems to have leverage again, even if we don’t immediately see how. And every day, Billie, Ruth and Carla are going to leave their rooms knowing that they’re going to see Mary. And she’s going to say something hateful. She’s going to do it with a smile on her face. And they can’t do anything to stop her. Just knowing that makes it so much harder to face the day. And every day it gets a little bit harder as she wears down their stability. Soon enough they feel trapped. They simply do not have the emotional fortitude to face her “polite” suggestion that Carla would be more comfortable showering in the men’s wing. But not showing up at the showers before class let’s Mary know that she’s getting to them and if she sees that then she’s going to be so much worse tomorrow.
Yeah. When I was a kid being bullied, especially in Grade Four, there wasn’t any zero tolerance policies on bullying. It was just something that happened, “kids being kids,” and the “fix” for it was for the victim to stop being such a damned target. Stand up for yourself! Jeez! What is wrong with you that you’re making and allowing these perfectly normal and acceptable kids to call you names and throw things at you and shove you around?! Fix yourself, loser! If you’re being picked on it’s your own damned fault for being so pick-on-able.
Why aren’t you just getting along with that kid? Here, let’s put your desks right beside each other (like, touching) so you can learn to get along with him.
*heavy sigh*
(at least the desk thing didn’t last long.)
See, the problem with “Just ignore them,” is that the issue is not “So-and-so said a particular combination of words that I didn’t want to hear.” The issue is “So-and-so is deliberately and with intent going out of their way to actively find ways to cause me distress, and then acting on it.”
Whether that distress is physical, emotional, psychological, doesn’t really matter. It’s not “Waah, someone said something in passing, peripherally, and I didn’t like it.” It’s “This person is wilfully and maliciously trying to hurt me!”
Just ignoring that does not, in fact, make the problem go away, nor does it make it easier to bear. All it does, in fact, is dismiss the complaint and tell the victim that their complaint does not actually matter. Which, especially if one is young or otherwise marginalized, is very hard to not internalize as “You don’t actually matter.”
Because it’s causing you distress, right? Because they are looking for ways to hurt you. Because dealing with that shit constantly is exhausting and emotionally devastating and not acceptable and has life-long repercussions.
But hey, just ignore it, right? Because it is ignorable (at least, to everyone else, so obviously you’re just an over-sensitive snowflake), which means it doesn’t really matter, which means that you don’t really matter.
Fuck that shit. Fuck Mary, and everyone like her, and everyone who makes excuses for her and for how she isn’t actually terrible and all her reasons for treating Carla like shit are perfectly justifiable and, like, barely any one thing she’s done has actually been all that bad, right, so the total effect of all those micro-aggressions (and thank goodness for that word) also cannot possibly be bad and it’s all Carla’s fault for skating in the hallways in the first place and, you know, for daring to exist.
Fuck ALL of that shit.
–And thank you guys for letting me rant here for a bit. I am still pissed off at it all, because it is still affecting my life. I had wanted to be a scientist, damn it; I was going to be a roboticist. Get an engineering degree. Instead, I went to a shit school that didn’t teach me shit for Grade Five (but at least was a private school with a zero-tolerance policy towards bullying–not that that stopped the pastor from paddling you if you didn’t do your homework too many times) and then Grade Six was back in public school but an experimental class that also didn’t teach us shit but at least was fun and also had a zero-tolerance policy (plus no paddling) and by Grade Seven I’d missed too much math, barely scraped by but didn’t actually comprehend how to manipulate fractions, had a shit Math teacher in Grade Eight and finally failed Math then; but by then the damage was done and I’d missed too much of the foundational stuff and was shit with algebra (although I’m great with geometry, since thankfully I have an innate grasp of it), and thus couldn’t take Calculus.
So I never got my engineering degree, and instead am qualified to work most any minimum wage job that doesn’t require me to work face-to-face with angry customers, since, guess what, I don’t deal with aggression and bullying well. You know. When my depression is under control.
So, you know, unemployed.
And it all started with that one little FUCK in Grade Four. He wasn’t the first to casually pick on me; but he was the first to systematically target me, hard, and the adults around me did not see fit to stop him, even with my mum complaining about him to the school (hence why the desk thing didn’t last long).
Because I was just sooooo pick-on-able. I just needed to change myself so he wouldn’t have any reason to pick on me anymore.
All of this, also *massive supportive hug* for going through all that. The way we make it way too easy for kids to slip through the cracks is completely fucked.
There’s a kernel of truth in the “just ignore it” argument. Sometimes such bullies are looking for the reaction and if you don’t give them what they want they’ll leave you alone. Of course, not showing reaction is harder than they make it sound and even if it works it doesn’t solve the real problem since the bully just goes to look for a more entertaining target.
And then there are the cases where they are already fixated on you and trying to ignore them just makes them push harder.
So it really is horrible advice, but there was just enough behind it that it sounded plausible.
For some, not showing a reaction is just as entertaining. Even if they don’t take it as a challenge, they may decide to try and test how much you’ll ignore. I once ignored a bully for 35 minutes of a 40 minute bus ride, before finally snapping and pounding the crap out of him. This kid was smaller than me. His friends weren’t even egging him on, just watching from a few rows back. Nevertheless, letting me mind my own business and listen to my walkman would’ve been so boring.
When it’s a kid who can’t fight back, or who is marginalized and can’t get away with fighting back? No. “Just ignore them” goes beyond being garbage advice into being harmful.
Unless it’s “just ignore them, I’ll handle this”, and followed up with real action, it’s inexcusable.
“Horrible advice” as I said. Goes wrong in many, maybe even most cases, but that it might work occasionally makes it seem plausible.
As is the other common “fight back and they’ll respect you and stop” advice. Again, sometimes works. Sometimes just gets you pounded into the ground harder. And these days, quite likely to get you in more trouble than than the bully gets into.
Ugh, that is some absolute bullshit you had to deal with. It’s disgusting how frequently the response to bullying is to try and “fix” the kid being bullied, rather than do anything meaningful about the bullies themselves.
Mary takes advantage of the fact that decent people aren’t generally violent, that both Carla and Ruth have VERY limited interactions with others and aren’t well-liked either so they don’t really have friends nearby to stand up for them at most times. Only Billie has ever stood up for them, so she is also taking advantage of the fact that most people want to stay clear and won’t do anything to actually stop her EVEN IF THEY ALSO CLEARLY HATE HER.
The fact Carla and Ruth aren’t very well-liked also helps her in another way: other people are very unlikely to build them back up which makes it easier to continuously knock them further down. The others might not let her get Carla and Ruth to kill themselves but they’re also not going to be there reminding Carla and Ruth that Mary is an asshole and deconstructing what Mary said so that they aren’t damaged by it.
Mary honestly doesn’t have to have inherent power – she just has to take advantage of circumstances and emotions to create her own and if she weren’t so petty, she could be so much more devastatingly destructive with it.
But even despite that, she has still been wearing Roz thin without even targeting her in particular even though Roz goes to parties fairly often so is likely not even regularly near her more than she has to be. Her small little niggling comments and pokes and prods still have their impact. They still bring dread to the people she targets. They still wear away at them and their will to fight her.
And this is how people like Mary work, they don’t need to have inherent power to wear you down to nothing then say you got what you deserved. It is like someone throwing pebbles at your window where all the cracks are, making them bigger and bigger and then when your window shatters they say ‘it wasn’t my fault, you deserved it for having a cracked window to start with!’
Even though no one else was throwing pebbles or thought it was appropriate to.
Though Mary was lucky (or more likely careful) not to pull that on Carla when Sal was around. Sal likes Carla and does not have much of an aversion to violence. Nor, far as we know, does Mary have any blackmail material on Sal.
Generally I think that is more just Mary being lucky that Sal is hardly ever just hanging around during the day. I don’t think she even knows Carla gets along with Sal.
Except Mary would have little trouble figuring out how to retaliate against the “angry black girl with a criminal record” for committing violence against her.
It’s not even a given that she would need to know about the criminal record for that to blow up on Sal.
Only if she weren’t petty. Mary’s greatest weakness is that she is so petty that she never goes to people with authority about things when they are actually in her favour and then she can’t go to them afterwards because she has done worse.
Pretty much. If she gave a rat’s ass about going to the proper authorities, she’d have gone to Chloe or campus security to get Carla to stop skating, not laid down or set glue or hurled transphobia at her, and then using blackmail to get a free reign.
It’s not about going to the authorities. It’s about using the threat to gain power. So it comes down to how easily Sal is blackmailed. I suspect Mary’s face won’t like the answer.
Mmhmm, and it’s part of the systematicness of harassment. Find people already marginalized, especially those struggling with mental health or those with marginalized identities like being trans, harass them nearly to death, driving a wedge between them and support and then openly harassing anyone who comes to help and make an example out of them, so most people learn to stay out of it out of fear of safety and leave the abuser to torment their victim in peace.
It’s basically the tactics perfected by the hate movement that ruined gaming before they morphed into the hate movement that ruined our country. Make an example out of the first responders to dissuade the second and third responders and then harass relentlessly anyone who doesn’t fall in line with the fictional narrative or bigoted viewpoint.
It’s what makes Mary so terrifying as a villain and makes her current targeting of Billie through the means of hurting Ruth so important and intense.
Like, getting in the radar of a relentless bully is exhausting and emotionally destructive and even more so when you start pulling away from everyone to try and protect them from the ancillary fallout.
It’s actually kind of fascinating: I find Mary infuriating and want to see more of her in the comic at the same time. As a personality she pretty much seems irredeemable to me, but from a character and plot point of view she could go into interesting directions.
I figured that not explaining whaat I meant would make my comment make no sence. there was a Canadian wrestler at one time that was known as “ruthless aggression” and then at some point it was noticed that he was missing some of is front teeth, so some mocked him as “toothless aggression”. Chris Benoit was his name.
Panels 1-2: Ruth is doing better than could be expected after that hellish day and being trapped in a constant nightmarish job that is a symbol of “sir” grampus’s control over her, but the heavy eyes and drooped head also betray how much everything is weighing on her and how badly she just wants to give up.
And Carla? Oh, I love Carla.
The first panel is totally just a graduate school demonstration of the “make me” school of bratty kid resistance that’s always so “fun” to deal with as a teacher and I like that because well, Carla can be a jerk. She can keep pushing where it’s really not really on and look for fights where someone is trying to de-escalate (see also her dragging Dorothy over her attempt at staying neutral in the Ultra Car debate with Walky)*.
*And well, that can become a thing for young trans women sometimes. All the world wants to fight you and asks to justify your existence in public, so for a certain personality type, you end up swinging back with all your force and going fuck you to the world back and being that kind of on-edge fighter ready to scrap. Like, I can think of at least 5 trans kids back in my college mentoring days that Carla is exactly like on this score, where they were ready for any scrap with authority because authority had kicked them one too many times while they were down and out.
And the second? Reveals that that assholery is partially a front, a very thin mask over a deep ocean of empathy. When Ruth is “authority lady” telling her not to do a thing she wants to do, she’s ready to scrap. But when Ruth stoops down and shows a bit of how tired and drained she is and begs Carla to knock it off?
Carla’s face shows exactly how much that hits home and impacts. An earnest appeal to her good nature and empathy is powerful, because she really does care about people and doing right by them, but she has so internalized this notion of having to scrap and be seen as an asshole to survive that it’s hard for her to show that consistently.
And it’s worth noting, this isn’t the first time that Carla has let that particular mask slip for Ruth before. I think she’s grown fond of Ruth in a way, maybe not even close to the extent of Sal, but definitely in the realm of “I care deeply whether or not you are okay”.
“And well, that can become a thing for young trans women sometimes. All the world wants to fight you and asks to justify your existence in public, so for a certain personality type, you end up swinging back with all your force and going fuck you to the world back and being that kind of on-edge fighter ready to scrap.”
I’ve DEFINITELY noticed this among queer crowds more than anyone else, yeah. And on the one hand it makes sense as a defense mechanism! Like you said, to a certain personality type, it’s the easiest way to cope. And most people don’t exactly blindly trust authority if they’re a minority anyway LMAO. (I know I don’t!)
On the other, it’s really REALLY hard to know how to relate to and have productive discussions with people who cope that way if you personally don’t. Which I… don’t. Haha. I wouldn’t call myself naiive (hopefully???), but I’d still rather give people the benefit of the doubt even when I’m 99% sure it’ll come back to bite me in the ass. Which is probably an absolutely awful survival technique, but. I’m a timid wuss who, at the end of the day, just wants everyone to get along as well as they can manage. I’m defintely that deescalator type. ;~;
…oops, sorry for going on such a long tangent about myself. TL;DR: yeahhh I’ve definitely noticed that too
(As an aside, since you also brought this up: I do love that lately we’ve gotten to see Carla’s mask slip and reveal the empathy underneath! It makes her feel a lot more human and I think it’s great. ;w; …which is kind of a hilarious statement considering her character origins as a car OMG.)
That reflexive anti-authoritarian brattiness was me as a kid. And I think Carla might do it for the same reason I did: Less an “I want attention” or “I want to be annoying” and more “I’m here, and you can’t make me leave.”
Yeah, that’s likely a major factor. There’s so much political power behind literally trying to legislate trans folks out of public life, so there’s a strong impetus to go all in on tactics to visibly and noticeably exist.
I still have what I call my ‘no’ reflex – if I feel pressured into anything, even if it’s something I want to do, my nope reflex activates and I back out. Vehemently. And unlike Carla, who keeps her anti-authoritarianism and resistance to bullies strictly non-violent, I would throw punches if I felt cornered enough (cornered enough usually equating to “under imminent threat of physical or sexual assault with no way to flee” and of course the school had the attitude that I should independently develop teleportation tech and magically tell a teacher who would just as magically choose this time to believe me before I got my ass kicked instead of suspending me for “telling tales” or telling me to quit being so over sensitive before pointedly turning a blind eye to my bullies. Wanna know why Carla has so little trust in authority? Shit like that’s why. Teachers who think that just because you exist while LGBT you’re deserving of whatever anyone wants to throw at you).
“Man, I know you used to be super mean and everyone on the floor hated you, but I liked you better that way because you let me get away with breaking the rules.”
Oh, previous Ruth would have been less likely to let her get away with the rules.
What she misses is being able to just view Ruth as the faceless mean authority figure she could openly defy in full anti-authoritarian glory, making a mockery of “the rules, maaaaan”.
Having her empathy appealed to, knowing the pain Ruth is going through, hearing her beg her to stop and make this less rough on her? That ruins the game. That makes it real and makes it impossible to separate “authority figure” from “scared girl curled up on her bed wanting to die”.
And that’s a land Carla is much less comfortable with, because in her mind, doing right by that is an invitation to violence against herself.
Panel 3: And here we get the confirmation of the rep and pose of an asshole as defense measure. Her eyes and face reveal that what struck home for her was the appeal to empathy and her desire to do right by people, but even with an audience of just two people who’ve already seen this positive side of her and in relative quiet in the hall, she’s terrified of openly acknowledging it.
To the point where she’s already thinking of folks coming and confronting her about her not skating and seeing it as a sign that she was taken down a peg. Even though very few people outside of asshole Mary have tried to confront her about much of anything in comic. And it’s that sense she has of being hunted that follows a lot of trans folks, especially in this political climate that largely defines a lot of her actions.
She’s not letting herself any time to micturate in doing right by Ruth, because she’s already worrying about justifying herself, having to deal with confrontation, and coming up with excuses to try and prevent any sign that others could conclude “Carla is a good egg, she should have a ukulele”.
Because in her mind being seeing as that is a sign saying it is open season on transphobic “jokes”, low-key harassment, and exploitation of her better nature. And that’s the central tragedy of Carla. And what she will in time outgrow like so many trans college students before her.
I can see all of that, but I was interpreting her as still feeling guilty over mishandling Ruth’s suicidalness. (I don’t know the real word, all right?) And perhaps a bit defiant towards Billie for being blamed for that, and also resentful towards Billie for putting her in that place to begin with. But towards Ruth? I was seeing it mostly as a mix of guilt and “please don’t die”.
I imagine that’s partially mixed in to it. I don’t think Carla handles guilt particularly well and it’s already been shown that all that stuff has been eating her up inside.
In panel 2, Carla learns that, yes, Ruth can do puppy-dog eyes and that it’s super-effective on her! In fact, I suspect that there is no-one Carla knows who can so completely make her feel like a complete heel!
So, obviously, Ruth’s turned over a new leaf and the residents of the floor are really having a difficult time working out how to respond to this. Mostly it seems they’re responded with new nicknames for Ruth that should be insulting but mostly just reflect puzzlement.
Wow does Carla actually look sad? It feels like she has lost something. With old Ruth she could banter and argue and don’t feel bad because Ruth was threatening her with femur extraction.
But now it feels like kicking a puppy so she can’t bring herself to disobey Ruth…
Ruth-less, Ruth-full. When you add -less it means the person has none of that (like merciless) and when you add -full it means someone is full of it (like merciful). It’s a bad pun.
Wait. Why IS Ruthless being Toothless? Way I see it she just proved that she can’t be fired. Nobody else knows she’s terrified of her uncle, just that she’s banging a student and somehow allowed to keep her job.
“You used to be Ruthless…”
Yeah, but you still skated in the hallway anyway so…eh?
Anyway, it makes sense that Ruth got this kind of pushback from Carla but I hope (despite knowing better) that she doesn’t get a lot of static for trying to enforce the rules normally with everyone else. I’m preemptively side-eying the thought process for that:
*Ruth enforces floor rules via fear and bullying.*
Residents: “I sure hate that Ruth uses bullying to enforce the rules.”
*Ruth stops using fear and bullying to enforce the rules*
Residents: “She’s stopped bullying us? Well why should I listen to her now?”
With Carla I feel it’s like… she lost a purchase she had. Basically she seems like someone who’s been attacked and bullied to the extent that she went “Fork the world! I’ll do whatever I want and won’t listen to these assholes!”
But with Ruth as she is now Carla simply can’t fight back because she is not being attacked. She uses people’s animosity as an excuse to act like an ass towards them. But when there is no animosity she can’t fight back.
You see a lot of this in fiction, where the winning tactic against a foe or attack that turns your fear, anger, etc back at you is to dismiss all of that, and give them nothing to work on.
Of course, as we see with Amber and other examples, actually doing that tends to be a lot harder than just a ten-second scene of centering yourself and finding inner tranquility, especially in a stress situation. :/
Informing people that you stopped because of what got her potentially fired in the first place seems like a dick move (or whatever the female equivalent is).
Probably… Thing is… I have a fairly thick skin when it comes to jokes aimed at me so unless I feel something is Really inappropriate I don’t think the jokes are in bad taste.
You should be taking into account other people’s feelings besides your own when you’re making a public post in a popular forum and poking fun at a marginalized group though.
Okay so if your response is you don’t know if you would have felt the need to call attention to a cis man’s genitals and you also have no idea what Carla’s stage of transition is anyway why did you feel the need to add that last part at all? All you succeeded in doing by adding that was adding a layer of dehumanization to a debatable opinion.
I’m not dehumanizing Carla. I was making a joke. Me and my friends often throw insulting jokes at each other so I lack the “sensitivity” of you people. Sorry for being insensitive.
If you wouldn’t call it a pun when referring to a cis man, it doesn’t matter what’s going on in Carla’s pants.
Like, if you were talking about Roz while she was wearing that condom hat, or Joe while he was talking about sex, THAT would make sense.
Otherwise, it just feels like you’re bringing up Carla’s genitals simply because she’s trans. As if “possibly having a penis” would be considered one of her important attributes.
It’s kinda insensitive to bring up, even more so in a context that implies it’s funny
Frankly… I was actually Trying to be considerate. My line should be interpreted as “she is a bit of a dick, not that it has anything to do with her being trans” or “Not that I’m trying to point out her being trans”.
Maybe just fight the urge to call attention to it? Because I promise you if you had called Carla “a bit of a dick” and left it at that no one but an absolute troll would have called you out on it because no one would have made the leap to calling her a dick to calling out her being trans. Cis women get called dicks. Straight men get called dicks. Trans men get called dicks. It’s a neutral insult until you make it otherwise by calling attention to her marginalized status. It comes off as othering her even if your intention was to do the opposite.
Frankly with you people I’m never sure if I’m stepping on a mine or not. This is where the whole “no pun intended” came from. I wasn’t even sure if I WILL be called out or not.
I figured you didn’t mean anything malicious by it, just wanted to explain how it came across.
It’s not a huge deal, just something to avoid. If you try to be sensitive and are willing to listen and apologize when you screw up, that’s all anyone really expects. I’m straight and cisgender. I’ve made similar mistakes.
The “you people” stuff and getting defensive doesn’t help any. That’s the kind of thing that can turn a small, innocent mistake/misunderstanding into a nasty argument.
It’s cool. Nobody’s bringing out the torches and pitchforks or anything.
Now that you pointed it out… I think this might be my problem I might be a bit like Carla. Getting all defensive and hostile because I have a bit of experience with these things escalating at me… Kind of a conditioned reaction.
Okay how about this if you think making a joke is going to end up being a potential landmine ask yourself if it’s worth telling? Or maybe just pick a less potentially loaded word? But I also don’t think the people who comment here are as “sensitive” as you’re making us seem. I’m honestly trying to save you some trouble in the future by letting you know how your comment could be seen as potentially offensive since you already said earlier you have a thick skin and don’t always intuitively know when you’re being offensive.
Assigned Male is such a great comic. It is definitely one of my primary sources of educating myself into being actually a good ally to my wife & supportive and non-harmful to the other trans people in my life. I still fuck up a lot, but I read (and reread) Sophie Labelle’s Assigned Male and I do think it gives me tools to be a better person.
…A jackass is just a donkey/horse hybrid. I forget which way makes a jackass and which way makes a mule. I think the former is male donkey and a mare, while the latter’s a stallion and a jenny.
(Also, this makes this, oddly, the second DoA comments section in which I have discussed jackasses and given Old English etymologies. Though, granted, the latter is not particularly unusual for me.)
I like how “Ruthfull” implies that she now gets to be herself. I’ve been back on my meds for a few months now and I just recently started to get back into my hobbies, etc. You go, Ruth.
Where did Hollywood go so wrong? I thought movies were supposed to be an escape from reality, a chance to put your worries aside and not have to think about any underlying ideas or concepts. Well, not anymore.
theonion.com/you-can...
It's not a new argument, of course, but Chesterton dismissed it effectively in 1908.
"You will hear everlastingly... this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has been bribed already. That is why he is a rich man."
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com ⋅ 19h
Hawley dismisses Trump lining his pockets with his memecoin: "Listen, I think nobody believes that Donald Trump can be bought. I mean, what does Donald Trump need more money for?"
wilbur, savvy enough to know he's in a comic strip but still not a great actor, awkwardly lifts a muffin up into frame so that we, the audience, understand that he has a muffin right now, which is very important narratively, but he's not really selling it well as an organic, human action
confirming that the reason there's been no Galaxy Version female characters in Blokees until now is that they felt they needed to make Round Lady Thighs For Ladies
It's #webcomicday? We have a special day???
Well, my name is Pat McHoarney and I draw 69 Mouse-Ear Blvd, a multigenerational story about women who all have sexy legs and probably other features. There was a grandmother, but she wasn't hot and so she died off-panel.
Elizabeth Holmes is in prison for defrauding investors through her blood-testing company, Theranos. Her partner, Billy Evans, is now trying to raise money for a company that describes itself as “the future of diagnostics.” nyti.ms/3FbtZm9
www.ebay.com/itm/23609767...
selling my netflix war for cybertron megatron -- the walmart exclusive one that came with pinpointer and lionizer (but being sold here without pinpointer and lionizer)
Gran... IS ALIVE?
okay, juliette still has brown hair, so this is probably definitely a flashback
i'm just surprised that the comic has remembered her, at all
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com ⋅ 19h
Pavel
@spavel.bsky.social ⋅ 10d
The New York Times @nytimes.com ⋅ 5d
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 3d
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better than covfefe
(except this one, which is pretty awesome)
…I wonder if RUTHFULL means anything
like
Righteously
Unopposed
Tearing
Her
Femurs
Undergrads’
LandLady
Wait that’s a real proposed act of Congress?! That’s amazing
Yeah, Mike Quigley is one of the most impressive current Representatives in regards to poking fun at power while making an amazingly solid point in the process.
Congressional Acrostic Champion 2017.
Scores high on the Bad Acronym Naming And Nomenclature Assessment Scale (BANANAS).
“naming and nomenclature”
Acronyms can totally be redundant acronyms.
“ACT BRA” ???
BANANAS itself scores quite highly on the BANANAS scale.
It’s kind of self-referential.
Brought to you by the Department of Redundancy Department.
Mojo Jojo approves of this message! That is to say, Mojo Jojo endorses it mightily!
beebo.org/smackerels/how-i-met-my-wife.html
“ruth” is an old word for mercy, which is where the word “ruthless” comes from. So “ruthful” or “ruthfull” = merciful, though it hasn’t been in regular usage for quite a while.
I admit Ana’s explanation is more interesting.
More precisely, reuthe actually meant ‘pity or compassion for others’, thus someone who was ruthless lacked pity or compassion for others, while someone who was ruthful was filled with such sentiments.
Later utilizations of ruthful turned the term into something which evoked ruthe in others- that is, something which was ruthful was deserving of pity [I believe the compassion bit drops off here, so it’s a straightforwardly negative utilization].
Thus, the final definition of the word ended up being “the feeling, showing, or arousing of pity or sorrow”. Given the context of today’s comic, I’d assume it’s the derogatory usage which is intended, hence Ruth’s reaction in the last panel.
http://www.yourdictionary.com/ruthful
I honestly don’t understand how social media DOESN’T already fall under presidential record. I mean, the whole point of it is to record the president’s communications. Social media, by definition, is a communication channel.
because social media is new, and under NORMAL circumstances, legislation moves at glacial pace
http://www.gocomics.com/pearlsbeforeswine/2013/05/16
Ok but can we all sign a petition to call Ruth toothless because that’s adorable
Need to get her a HTTYD t-shirt first
And do we start calling Billie Hiccup?
… so you’re implying that Hiccup had sex with his dragon? I suppose that’s one way to train them.
Rule 34. :p I’m not gonna go looking for it, but I’m sure it’s out there.
I meant more that they’re partners, but I suppose that is an unfortunate inference too. XD
Gilbert and Sullivan explored this one pretty thoroughly:
For your foes are fierce and ruthless, false, unmerciful, and truthless;
young and tender, old and toothless, all in vain their mercy crave!
I hope Ruth goes through the character development where she realizes that physical violence, brutal put downs, and outright killing her charges ala Amazi-Girl doesn’t mean she’s like Clint. No, it just means she enjoys hurting people and that is okay. She can be happy and non-depressed by crushing the souls of those under her as a proper RA.
Be like the Queen of Blades, Ruth. It is your destiny to command the Zerg through hate as well as love.
I looked up the Queen of Blades and now I am all angsty.
Now I wanna play through SC2 again to choose the options I didn’t last time.
Killing her charges, ala Amazigirl??? What? When did Amazigirl kill anyone?
About a week and a half ago, maybe.
Femurs now canon
femurs was always canon
Chock full o’ Ruth
Ruth isn’t a dragon
But she’d love to turn into one.
Billie’s a Dragon, per her HS cheer outfit.
Just saw How to Train Your Dragon for the first time, today. What a coincidence, considering.
For the record, I liked it alright. Wasn’t particularly wowed, but there were some really good scenes, especially the climax. The supporting characters were much more tolerable than I expected, and whenever I thought to myself “Okay, they’ve done X, now here comes Y, initiating eye-roll,” they didn’t do it. Pretty solid, and I’d probably watch it a couple more times, or at least stick around if it’s on and I’m not already busy with something else. For those who care about such, I’d give it a 7.5/10.
Also for the record: If you want to like the movie, don’t read the book first (yes, there’s a book, a whole series in fact!). They stray very far from the plot. Very far indeed.
My brother mentioned that while we were watching it. I already dislike the dumb names everyone has, but they don’t say them too much in the movie. I don’t think I could tolerate them in written form.
I’m pretty sure even if I’d read the book first, I’d have preferred the movie. The book is…passable, and actually has one bit of semi-accurate ‘Viking’ culture that the movie didn’t (Hiccup’s ‘heroic hair’), but it’s really very…thin, and I don’t mean physically (though it is that, too).
All bisexuals are dragons. It’s part of the cool powers you unlock when you figure out you’re bi.
My Chinese zodiac sign was right on the money then.
CRAP AM I MISSING OUT well better go suck a dick, see what happens
(no one ever do or think this)
I am amused you felt it necessary to add the disclaimer.
Damn, I was about to make a comment about Spyro, but I’m pretty sure he’s asexual, at least in his classic version. Not so sure about the Elijah Wood version, though.
Spyro could be asexual and bi-romantic.
I thought of that as well, but in the theme park in Ripto’s Rage!, he can go through a Tunnel of Love ride with Elora, and he basically ignores her in favor of looking around. There’s also his comment in the third game, of “It’s a sad sight, Sparx. Another noble warrior falls victim to the plague of love. Just look away.”, as well as his complete disinterest when Elora’s pretty blatantly flirty with him.
It is incredibly fitting that the aro ace dragon is purple.
Is all of this speculation and meaning we are attaching to the character long after the fact, or was there a secret aro/ace agenda the programmers adhered to from the start?
*Twilight Zone theme*
It may simply be a product of the time, since there were a lot of Young Male Protagonists™ with absolutely no interest in any sort of romance, around then. Some of the dialogue, particularly from Elora, makes it seem like they wrote the plot out in a standard way, with a romance between the protagonist and primary female support character, and then just sorta replaced his romantic lines with “Ew, no. Look, I’ve got things to do.”
Not that this is a bad thing. I actually really like the “Spyro is aro ace” interpretation, since that means there’s at least one prominent video game protagonist people of that variety can relate to.
Also, if memory serves (SPOILER ALERT) Spyro and Cinder become an item at the end of Dawn of the Dragon on the Wii. Think they’re both too young for sexual relations to come into it though. Depends on when dragons mature sexually in that mythos.
But she is partnered with one.
that’s ridiculous, why use your own femurs when you can get a couple of perfectly serviceable femurs from Ryan, the sun-bleached blood-drained corpse still lying on the steps outside
Four reasons why:
1: It’s what Ruth is known for. When you have a famous signature move, don’t mix it up unless it actually turns more awesome.
2: Ripping out femurs is so much more satisfying when the victim is alive to “enjoy it”.
3: Victim unable to run away as you beat them.
4: There’s a reason Ryan’s corpse is still lying there: Nobody wants to touch that thing with a ten-foot pole. Not even the crows are eating on it.
Like I said a few strips before, not even the microbes are eating him, because they have standards despite being microbes.
It’s so repulsive, even the bugs and germs that normally cause decay won’t touch it. It still smells fresh as a daisy!
If only gravity could become repulsed by him and refuse to push him down, so that he’d basically be flung into outer space…
….Though I guess outer space found out about gravity’s plan and told it “Hell no, ain’t nobody gonna put that shit in our space!”
I love how this is escalating. What’s next, outer space trying to toss not-Ryan into black hole, but the event horizon avoids touching him?
My headcanon is that literally never once before this did Ruth say “please” as an RA because it didn’t occur to her. Mostly because it makes the second panel even more endearingly pathetic.
Maybe it wasn’t necessary to have your spirit completely crushed to realize that you don’t have to threaten people to get what you want, but here we are.
man!!! those realizations when you get to the absolute end of yourself!! fun times!
I think you’re right. And I think part of the reason is saying please never worked with “sir” grampus, because “sir” grampus say that as simply the price of what he was owed. So for Ruth, saying please and appealing to basic humanity was a futile effort that triggered too much related to her abuse.
yeesh that last sentence punched me in the gut
Who the heck says ruthfull, execute these people making up stupid sounding words.*
*Do not actually execute them. You can still be very disappointed in them though.
My wife has a certain way of looking disappointed at me (usually when I make a really bad pun) that makes me wish she’d just execute me instead.
you want get mad at people coming up with words? then direct it at the person who came up with the word for people with a phobia of long words.
TRIGGER WARNING (No seriously)
The irrational fear of long words – hippopotomonstrosesquipedalian
-coined by: I don’t know, couldn’t find a name
Actually, the word is hippopotomonstosequpidaliophobia. All phobias end with “phobia”.
And for the record, “sesquipidaliophobia” would have been good enough. Way to go psychiatrists!
sorry I knew I couldn’t spell it so I looked it up on google and that’s what came up
it is good enough
And quoting from the usage notes of the longer version:
I believe the full word is hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia. You know, because your word just wasn’t long enough. That person really hated people that had a fear of long words, didn’t they?
I was actually already aware that the phobia of long words was itself a long word. Most phobia names are long to start with because phobia already has 6 letters and the shortest addition in front of it is four letters e.g. acrophobia (the irrational fear of heights) though.
There is also the question of whether someone can actually ever naturally develop a fear of long words in the first place. An array of fears can be caused by trauma/bad memories e.g. the fears of colours so it would be technically possible I guess but what weird circumstances would make you fear long words in GENERAL rather than just a specific one? Would you have to be in a room filled with long words on all the walls? These are the real questions.
Learning disabilities making reading/writing those words difficult, and getting punished when you mess up, just off the top of my head.
Getting attacked by a dictionary?
Beating someone to death with their own skull still has more of an intimidation factor, I’d say. Not to mention the impossibility factor you’d have to surpass to do such a feat.
THIS DOSEN’T SEEM PHYSICLY POSSIBLE!!!!!!!!!!
Calm down Tucker.
Actually, it was Grif that usually said that…
This is going to be a Fatality in the next Mortal Kombat, right?
Okay, I am so here for both Ruth’s new hair AND her recent character development.
(It came at a painfully relatable cost, but I have faith she and Billie will keep finding a way to make a mess of trauma into something positive. Maybe slowly, yes, but. Eventually. ;~;)
I dunno about the cost being painful. There seems to be a stylist near campus that only costs $20
:V
…We leave the comment field for a few months and this is what FC has devolved into in Our absence? This will not stand!
FC: Indeed, it will sit down!
Wait, what? Since when are you managing to make a comment in Our comment? What hideous sourcery is this?! GUARDS! TAKE THIS FART CAPTOR AWAY!
Hey, sometimes the comments are happily lacking people being Wrong On The Internet, and so I’m left with no choice to quietly make my little jokey-jokes.
But now that you’re back, I’m sure that situation will be remedied in no time! (kidding, of course)
I finally understand your name. Just read the Sandman. Keep being rad your excellency.
We strive for nothing less but the best of imperial radness!
P.S. Did you know that 30 000 people attended (or attempted to) Norton I’s funeral?
Haha OMG well played
YOU GOT ME THERE
Mispent Ruth? Ruthful Offender? The Ruth, The Whole Ruth, And Nothing But The Ruth?
*plays Debbie Gibson’s “Electric Youth” on the hacked Muzak*
You Can’t Handle the Ruth!
Ruth, Justice and the American Way
Is there supposed to be some meaning to ‘Ruthfull’? Because if so I am completely missing it.
Well, as a suffix, the “less” in “Ruthless” implies a complete absence of whatever “ruth” is, so “Ruthfull” is the semantic opposite.
It also sounds like “rueful,” which applies to kinder, gentler Ruth.
“Ruth” is “a feeling of pity, distress, or grief”, derived from Old English hreow. It is in fact related to “rue”.
It’s hardly ever used except with the “-less” suffix, but “ruth” and “ruthful” are totally legit words.
Only with one l though. These mad people have been using TWO ‘L’S AND BILLIE KNOWS IT.
It’s supposed to be the antonym for “Ruthless”. So, instead of “having or showing no pity or compassion for others”, it becomes “having or showing too much pity or compassion for others”.
Not the best word people have come up with, but it exists.
Upon reflection, I have noticed a possible play on ‘truthful’, though the presence of the double l makes it unlikely that is the intended play.
It’s like whelm.
It just sounds weird hearing it on its own.
Five, and most of them from Mary, who I am *very very tempted* to defenestrate. #thinkofthewindows
Just make sure you fenestrate her first.
… Are Carla’s eyes just drooping into her cheeks or something?
That’s extreme avoidance of eye contact. Probably fueled by two or more types of guilt.
I was gonna ask if that Ruthfull joke was based on a bunch of comments saying that, but oh yeah this strip was written three months ago
We may be just that predictable to Willis.
trying to not be who you were because it isn’t considered healthy is…… not easy.
…What would that even mean? Is that supposed to be a play on “wrathful”? If so, it really doesn’t work.
“Ruth” is an archaic synonym for “mercy”; so “ruthful” is “merciful”. I’m not sure why “ruthless” stuck around while “ruthful”, and, for that matter, “ruth” itself, fell out of fashion, but it did.
So whoever coined “Ruthfull” is at least taking a Ye Olde English class.
I am whelmed.
And I am both plussed and mused.
Nice work both of you, I am pressed.
I wonder if Ruth is just trying to make it until her anti-depressents kick in.
Off Topic: You asked me about a 19th century book a few days ago and I sadly didn’t notice until much later, so I’ll just leave the answer here. The name of the book is Foraadt (or Betrayed in english) by Amalie Skram, a Norwegian author who also wrote a novel revealing the appaling conditions in danish institutions for mental illness at the time.
Thank you!
I think Ruthfull equates to pitiful…as Ruthless does to pitiless.
or hopeful? like in that whole thing about wanting redemption
Ruthfull with two L is not a word.
Ruthful with one L is.
Billie as a writer must destroy them all as she KNOWS they’ve been using the former. SHE KNOWS.
Merciful, not pitiful.
‘Pity’ is the word more commonly used in defining ‘ruth’, but ‘pitiful’ has experienced a semantic drift that makes it the wrong word. Being ruthful is feeling pity, not being subject to pity yourself.
I’d actually go with sympathetic over merciful, as a more accurate synonym.
Also, ruthful has actually been utilized both to indicate expression of or evocation of sympathy, so it can mean either (see my post at the top of the page for more on that). Oyste is likely correct in their assumption, especially given the flow of the comic (where none of merciful, sympathetic, or full-of-pity-for-outside-elements would make any sense as a mean nickname for Ruth :P).
Gee, who would have figured, asking someone politely to stop something isn’t a completely unreasonable thing to do.
As an aside, I can’t stop imagining Ruth sounding exactly like Peridot.
….hmmm. Yeah, I can picture that. It works very well actually.
Yeah, but it’s also the MATURE thing to do. BOOOoooooRIIIIIiiiiing.
It turns out appeals to humanity work on folks with humanity… The internet will be stunned by this revelation!
“Click here –><– to see the one weird trick that stunned the internet!"
Yeah. Who knew.
Ruthfullessick. The new Rumplestiltskin of names.
Also, wouldn’t it be “Ruthful” with one L?
That is why it is so wrong. Billie can sense they’ve been using two.
I’m loving Ruth’s hair for some reason.
Why anyone would intentionally flat top and extend the top of their hair like that is beyond me. It looks like she’s got a robot-head. :’P
Yup. Confirmed. New hairdo is very nice on Ruth.
Chloe: Wow, Ruth! You finally convinced Carla to stop staking in the halls. I’m so proud of you! How did you manage that?
Ruth: I threatened to beat her to death with her own femurs.
Chloe: …
Ruth: What? It’s not like I have to worry about getting fired, is it?
Ruth: “Or ARE you going to fire me?”
Chloe: “….. if this keeps up, we’ll need your grandfather to come back to straighten things out again.”
Ruth: “….”
…..
…. okay, I meant for there to be a punchline, but it kinda dove into the abyss there.
” You finally convinced Carla to stop staking in the halls.”
Ruth is pro-vampires? Or is there just a rule against fencing?
No rule against fencing, but there is a rule against claim jumping surprisingly enough.
Curses! Foiled again!
Well if at first your comment does not succeed, just reposte it.
i’ll make sure you épée for that pun
Dammit, I just had to ruin a perfectly good joke with a bad typo, didn’t I? No wonder I can’t get a job as an editor anywhere.
It’s not ruined if it’s still funny.
listen if u keep inviting vampires in and then dusting them INSIDE THE DORM, you know who has to clean up the mess? maintenance!! and they are quite done with that business Thank You Very Much
Carla is a slayer? That explains so much.
There is a sort of freedom in rock bottom. I wonder if Ruth will recognize it or if her desire to do right by the position as she sees it will outweigh that.
She’s not quite hit rock bottom yet. She still has people she can lose, like Billie and Howard.
The two aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. Even if Ruth doesn’t flat-out lie to Chloe in the hopes of getting fired, there are times when “doing the right thing” and “pissing off your boss” can go hand-in-hand. Like the Becky situation, for example (although we really don’t know how Chloe would have reacted had she found out; personally I think she would have just swept it under the rug along with everything else).
Of course, given all the horrible crap Ruth has done (and that has happened to her) that Chloe has either ignored or failed to notice, it’s hard to imagine that the last straw would be something morally-justifiable-but-technically-against-the-rules.
Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose…
Ruth, the answer is clearly thirty seven.
I guess it could be a play on “rueful”, but…
Also, good Carla, cutting her a break. But she’s gotta protect her rep at the same time, after all.
OK, so to anyone saying “ruthfull” is made up:
OK, the second L is made up, but “ruthful” is a word. And it has in fact several meanings. It can of course mean “compassionate”, but also not just “sorrowful” but “causing or apt to cause sorrow or pity”, as well as “feeling remorse or self-reproach”.
If there is one word to describe Ruth right now…. This is the one. Everything it can mean is applied to current Ruth.
So…. Ruth’s full of it?
Guards! Take Reltzik away!
*Disguised as a guard.* Which way? A way that is towards rewards?
*shakes head*
Maybe it’s best to just close the whole damn internet forever…
Need more reliable guards…
Why not combine the two into Toothfull?
It is kinda incisive.
Subtext:
“Okay, I won’t make this harder on you. But you know… I liked it when you were assertive, before. When you had agency. You need to reclaim that.”
I think it’s more “its much easier to maintain my image as an anti-authority rebel who doesn’t care what anyone thinks if I’m only caving into authority under threat of femur-removal, rather than because I’ve been asked nicely”
OK, making bad jokes is bad enough, but now you have to go and be right about something?!? Ragnarok is about to appear, isn’t it?
Well it will be coming to theaters soon so, yes?
(Runs away going “Whoop” like Curly)
…. technically being asked nicely ISN’T caving in the face of authority.
Yup, that’s exactly what I’m seeing. She’s a reflexive anti-authoritarian and she liked when Ruth was just the faceless physical presence of fun-killing authority trying to catch her out. It made it all a fun little cat-and-mouse.
But now she’s being appealed to by Ruth the person and all the context that comes with that and it ruins the game and she’s worried it’ll hurt her rep to be seen being more swayed by that than the sort of ham-fisted authority that is much more invigorating for her to fight against.
Pfffft, it’s not like she cares or anyth…
OK, fine, she cares, but don’t tell anyone.
SO MUCH RECIPROCAL GUILT!
“Ruthfull” is a perfectly cromulent word.
Indeed! A ruthfull spirit embiggens the smallest man (or woman).
You used to be mad, but now you’re just kinda sad.
You used to be reckless, but now you’re just kinda feckless.
You used to be spastic, but now you’re just kinda plastic.
I am now picturing Ruth as an adorable dragon.
Sounds accurate to me!
ALWAYS
Aw )= :>
Did anyone else go to the dictionary to see if “ruthful” actually was a word? Just me? Okay.
(It is, according to Dictionary.com. Spelled with one L instead of two though)
Nah, I already knew. Though I did google for a copy-pasteable definition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xhm0uG1JUz4
No fair bringing out the puppy eyes.
See, this is why Joyce would have been a great RA
And in return we get Carla looking…chastened? Wow. I think that is a new. one.
I’ve realized that you know that Willis is an excellent writer, when you worry about characters despite death being a non issue.
Also I’ve realized that Mary is my favorite villain because unlike Blaine, Ross and Clint she doesn’t have any actual power. Mary actually has to plan and fight on the same level as the protagonists. She also isn’t a complete idiot and seems to make sure to keep her evil right within the line of legality (in comparison to someone like Ross). Plus we get to see more of Mary’s personality, and I really hope we get to see some glimps of her back story one of these days.
I’m confused about how Mary has any sway as a villain, not only because like you said, she has no power, but it’s also been established twice that physical violence can be inflicted on her without any consequences.
The banality of evil. The small little digs, the wielding of social power and dynamics, finding little things she can latch onto and exploit, making it just an impossible situation to rest for a second, because she’s always there hammering on the little microaggressions until you literally break. And she’ll specifically target perceived weak points and is fully willing to push someone to death to “get rid of them”.
It’s the sort of villain most of us deal with everyday. That just makes life that little bit less enjoyable for having to suffer through them and watch yourself not to fall afoul of.
She keeps herself just within the boundaries of policy so that no one can retaliate. She knows how to do exactly as much as she can get away with and much more when nobody is looking. She knows how to find any piece of leverage she can get her hands on to stop anyone from taking action when she crosses a line. Perhaps worst of all, she targets people who are already isolated; the mean spirited RA and the obnoxious loner, who are already the most vulnerable and the least likely to find sympathy from their peers.
When everything went pear-shaped for Mary after Ruth and Billie were outed, Mary was counting on no one being willing to stand up for Carla, least of all Billie, so she could continue to torment someone. She seemed genuinely shocked that everyone on her floor hated her so goddamned much that they would have stuck up for just about anyone rather than let her torment anyone else.
Now she seems to have leverage again, even if we don’t immediately see how. And every day, Billie, Ruth and Carla are going to leave their rooms knowing that they’re going to see Mary. And she’s going to say something hateful. She’s going to do it with a smile on her face. And they can’t do anything to stop her. Just knowing that makes it so much harder to face the day. And every day it gets a little bit harder as she wears down their stability. Soon enough they feel trapped. They simply do not have the emotional fortitude to face her “polite” suggestion that Carla would be more comfortable showering in the men’s wing. But not showing up at the showers before class let’s Mary know that she’s getting to them and if she sees that then she’s going to be so much worse tomorrow.
That’s how she’s such an effective villain.
You mentioned that we don’t know how she has leverage now. I think she’s going to target Billie. I am not ready.
“Just ignore them. ‘Sticks and stones’…”
Yeah. When I was a kid being bullied, especially in Grade Four, there wasn’t any zero tolerance policies on bullying. It was just something that happened, “kids being kids,” and the “fix” for it was for the victim to stop being such a damned target. Stand up for yourself! Jeez! What is wrong with you that you’re making and allowing these perfectly normal and acceptable kids to call you names and throw things at you and shove you around?! Fix yourself, loser! If you’re being picked on it’s your own damned fault for being so pick-on-able.
Why aren’t you just getting along with that kid? Here, let’s put your desks right beside each other (like, touching) so you can learn to get along with him.
*heavy sigh*
(at least the desk thing didn’t last long.)
See, the problem with “Just ignore them,” is that the issue is not “So-and-so said a particular combination of words that I didn’t want to hear.” The issue is “So-and-so is deliberately and with intent going out of their way to actively find ways to cause me distress, and then acting on it.”
Whether that distress is physical, emotional, psychological, doesn’t really matter. It’s not “Waah, someone said something in passing, peripherally, and I didn’t like it.” It’s “This person is wilfully and maliciously trying to hurt me!”
Just ignoring that does not, in fact, make the problem go away, nor does it make it easier to bear. All it does, in fact, is dismiss the complaint and tell the victim that their complaint does not actually matter. Which, especially if one is young or otherwise marginalized, is very hard to not internalize as “You don’t actually matter.”
Because it’s causing you distress, right? Because they are looking for ways to hurt you. Because dealing with that shit constantly is exhausting and emotionally devastating and not acceptable and has life-long repercussions.
But hey, just ignore it, right? Because it is ignorable (at least, to everyone else, so obviously you’re just an over-sensitive snowflake), which means it doesn’t really matter, which means that you don’t really matter.
Fuck that shit. Fuck Mary, and everyone like her, and everyone who makes excuses for her and for how she isn’t actually terrible and all her reasons for treating Carla like shit are perfectly justifiable and, like, barely any one thing she’s done has actually been all that bad, right, so the total effect of all those micro-aggressions (and thank goodness for that word) also cannot possibly be bad and it’s all Carla’s fault for skating in the hallways in the first place and, you know, for daring to exist.
Fuck ALL of that shit.
–And thank you guys for letting me rant here for a bit. I am still pissed off at it all, because it is still affecting my life. I had wanted to be a scientist, damn it; I was going to be a roboticist. Get an engineering degree. Instead, I went to a shit school that didn’t teach me shit for Grade Five (but at least was a private school with a zero-tolerance policy towards bullying–not that that stopped the pastor from paddling you if you didn’t do your homework too many times) and then Grade Six was back in public school but an experimental class that also didn’t teach us shit but at least was fun and also had a zero-tolerance policy (plus no paddling) and by Grade Seven I’d missed too much math, barely scraped by but didn’t actually comprehend how to manipulate fractions, had a shit Math teacher in Grade Eight and finally failed Math then; but by then the damage was done and I’d missed too much of the foundational stuff and was shit with algebra (although I’m great with geometry, since thankfully I have an innate grasp of it), and thus couldn’t take Calculus.
So I never got my engineering degree, and instead am qualified to work most any minimum wage job that doesn’t require me to work face-to-face with angry customers, since, guess what, I don’t deal with aggression and bullying well. You know. When my depression is under control.
So, you know, unemployed.
And it all started with that one little FUCK in Grade Four. He wasn’t the first to casually pick on me; but he was the first to systematically target me, hard, and the adults around me did not see fit to stop him, even with my mum complaining about him to the school (hence why the desk thing didn’t last long).
Because I was just sooooo pick-on-able. I just needed to change myself so he wouldn’t have any reason to pick on me anymore.
Because that’s how bullying works, right?
FUCK these assholes.
All of this, also *massive supportive hug* for going through all that. The way we make it way too easy for kids to slip through the cracks is completely fucked.
There’s a kernel of truth in the “just ignore it” argument. Sometimes such bullies are looking for the reaction and if you don’t give them what they want they’ll leave you alone. Of course, not showing reaction is harder than they make it sound and even if it works it doesn’t solve the real problem since the bully just goes to look for a more entertaining target.
And then there are the cases where they are already fixated on you and trying to ignore them just makes them push harder.
So it really is horrible advice, but there was just enough behind it that it sounded plausible.
For some, not showing a reaction is just as entertaining. Even if they don’t take it as a challenge, they may decide to try and test how much you’ll ignore. I once ignored a bully for 35 minutes of a 40 minute bus ride, before finally snapping and pounding the crap out of him. This kid was smaller than me. His friends weren’t even egging him on, just watching from a few rows back. Nevertheless, letting me mind my own business and listen to my walkman would’ve been so boring.
When it’s a kid who can’t fight back, or who is marginalized and can’t get away with fighting back? No. “Just ignore them” goes beyond being garbage advice into being harmful.
Unless it’s “just ignore them, I’ll handle this”, and followed up with real action, it’s inexcusable.
“Horrible advice” as I said. Goes wrong in many, maybe even most cases, but that it might work occasionally makes it seem plausible.
As is the other common “fight back and they’ll respect you and stop” advice. Again, sometimes works. Sometimes just gets you pounded into the ground harder. And these days, quite likely to get you in more trouble than than the bully gets into.
Ugh, that is some absolute bullshit you had to deal with. It’s disgusting how frequently the response to bullying is to try and “fix” the kid being bullied, rather than do anything meaningful about the bullies themselves.
You deserved a hell of a lot better
Mary takes advantage of the fact that decent people aren’t generally violent, that both Carla and Ruth have VERY limited interactions with others and aren’t well-liked either so they don’t really have friends nearby to stand up for them at most times. Only Billie has ever stood up for them, so she is also taking advantage of the fact that most people want to stay clear and won’t do anything to actually stop her EVEN IF THEY ALSO CLEARLY HATE HER.
The fact Carla and Ruth aren’t very well-liked also helps her in another way: other people are very unlikely to build them back up which makes it easier to continuously knock them further down. The others might not let her get Carla and Ruth to kill themselves but they’re also not going to be there reminding Carla and Ruth that Mary is an asshole and deconstructing what Mary said so that they aren’t damaged by it.
Mary honestly doesn’t have to have inherent power – she just has to take advantage of circumstances and emotions to create her own and if she weren’t so petty, she could be so much more devastatingly destructive with it.
But even despite that, she has still been wearing Roz thin without even targeting her in particular even though Roz goes to parties fairly often so is likely not even regularly near her more than she has to be. Her small little niggling comments and pokes and prods still have their impact. They still bring dread to the people she targets. They still wear away at them and their will to fight her.
And this is how people like Mary work, they don’t need to have inherent power to wear you down to nothing then say you got what you deserved. It is like someone throwing pebbles at your window where all the cracks are, making them bigger and bigger and then when your window shatters they say ‘it wasn’t my fault, you deserved it for having a cracked window to start with!’
Even though no one else was throwing pebbles or thought it was appropriate to.
Though Mary was lucky (or more likely careful) not to pull that on Carla when Sal was around. Sal likes Carla and does not have much of an aversion to violence. Nor, far as we know, does Mary have any blackmail material on Sal.
Generally I think that is more just Mary being lucky that Sal is hardly ever just hanging around during the day. I don’t think she even knows Carla gets along with Sal.
Oh, she knows. Mary spies on people, remember. She’s more likely to know than anyone else.
Probably mostly luck though.
Except Mary would have little trouble figuring out how to retaliate against the “angry black girl with a criminal record” for committing violence against her.
It’s not even a given that she would need to know about the criminal record for that to blow up on Sal.
Only if she weren’t petty. Mary’s greatest weakness is that she is so petty that she never goes to people with authority about things when they are actually in her favour and then she can’t go to them afterwards because she has done worse.
Pretty much. If she gave a rat’s ass about going to the proper authorities, she’d have gone to Chloe or campus security to get Carla to stop skating, not laid down or set glue or hurled transphobia at her, and then using blackmail to get a free reign.
It’s not about going to the authorities. It’s about using the threat to gain power. So it comes down to how easily Sal is blackmailed. I suspect Mary’s face won’t like the answer.
She could certainly retaliate and might, despite preferring blackmail to going to the authorities.
But it would be after they pulled Sal off of her. I don’t think Sal would blackmail easily.
So, however long it takes for Marcie’s shift to end and her to get to the building.
Mary just might die.
Mmhmm, and it’s part of the systematicness of harassment. Find people already marginalized, especially those struggling with mental health or those with marginalized identities like being trans, harass them nearly to death, driving a wedge between them and support and then openly harassing anyone who comes to help and make an example out of them, so most people learn to stay out of it out of fear of safety and leave the abuser to torment their victim in peace.
It’s basically the tactics perfected by the hate movement that ruined gaming before they morphed into the hate movement that ruined our country. Make an example out of the first responders to dissuade the second and third responders and then harass relentlessly anyone who doesn’t fall in line with the fictional narrative or bigoted viewpoint.
It’s what makes Mary so terrifying as a villain and makes her current targeting of Billie through the means of hurting Ruth so important and intense.
Like, getting in the radar of a relentless bully is exhausting and emotionally destructive and even more so when you start pulling away from everyone to try and protect them from the ancillary fallout.
It’s actually kind of fascinating: I find Mary infuriating and want to see more of her in the comic at the same time. As a personality she pretty much seems irredeemable to me, but from a character and plot point of view she could go into interesting directions.
Ruth needs to do a headbutt of a high place now… or snap someone in a crossface…
I figured that not explaining whaat I meant would make my comment make no sence. there was a Canadian wrestler at one time that was known as “ruthless aggression” and then at some point it was noticed that he was missing some of is front teeth, so some mocked him as “toothless aggression”. Chris Benoit was his name.
Comic Reactions:
Panels 1-2: Ruth is doing better than could be expected after that hellish day and being trapped in a constant nightmarish job that is a symbol of “sir” grampus’s control over her, but the heavy eyes and drooped head also betray how much everything is weighing on her and how badly she just wants to give up.
And Carla? Oh, I love Carla.
The first panel is totally just a graduate school demonstration of the “make me” school of bratty kid resistance that’s always so “fun” to deal with as a teacher and I like that because well, Carla can be a jerk. She can keep pushing where it’s really not really on and look for fights where someone is trying to de-escalate (see also her dragging Dorothy over her attempt at staying neutral in the Ultra Car debate with Walky)*.
*And well, that can become a thing for young trans women sometimes. All the world wants to fight you and asks to justify your existence in public, so for a certain personality type, you end up swinging back with all your force and going fuck you to the world back and being that kind of on-edge fighter ready to scrap. Like, I can think of at least 5 trans kids back in my college mentoring days that Carla is exactly like on this score, where they were ready for any scrap with authority because authority had kicked them one too many times while they were down and out.
And the second? Reveals that that assholery is partially a front, a very thin mask over a deep ocean of empathy. When Ruth is “authority lady” telling her not to do a thing she wants to do, she’s ready to scrap. But when Ruth stoops down and shows a bit of how tired and drained she is and begs Carla to knock it off?
Carla’s face shows exactly how much that hits home and impacts. An earnest appeal to her good nature and empathy is powerful, because she really does care about people and doing right by them, but she has so internalized this notion of having to scrap and be seen as an asshole to survive that it’s hard for her to show that consistently.
And it’s worth noting, this isn’t the first time that Carla has let that particular mask slip for Ruth before. I think she’s grown fond of Ruth in a way, maybe not even close to the extent of Sal, but definitely in the realm of “I care deeply whether or not you are okay”.
“And well, that can become a thing for young trans women sometimes. All the world wants to fight you and asks to justify your existence in public, so for a certain personality type, you end up swinging back with all your force and going fuck you to the world back and being that kind of on-edge fighter ready to scrap.”
I’ve DEFINITELY noticed this among queer crowds more than anyone else, yeah. And on the one hand it makes sense as a defense mechanism! Like you said, to a certain personality type, it’s the easiest way to cope. And most people don’t exactly blindly trust authority if they’re a minority anyway LMAO. (I know I don’t!)
On the other, it’s really REALLY hard to know how to relate to and have productive discussions with people who cope that way if you personally don’t. Which I… don’t. Haha. I wouldn’t call myself naiive (hopefully???), but I’d still rather give people the benefit of the doubt even when I’m 99% sure it’ll come back to bite me in the ass. Which is probably an absolutely awful survival technique, but. I’m a timid wuss who, at the end of the day, just wants everyone to get along as well as they can manage. I’m defintely that deescalator type. ;~;
…oops, sorry for going on such a long tangent about myself. TL;DR: yeahhh I’ve definitely noticed that too
(As an aside, since you also brought this up: I do love that lately we’ve gotten to see Carla’s mask slip and reveal the empathy underneath! It makes her feel a lot more human and I think it’s great. ;w; …which is kind of a hilarious statement considering her character origins as a car OMG.)
That reflexive anti-authoritarian brattiness was me as a kid. And I think Carla might do it for the same reason I did: Less an “I want attention” or “I want to be annoying” and more “I’m here, and you can’t make me leave.”
Yeah, that’s likely a major factor. There’s so much political power behind literally trying to legislate trans folks out of public life, so there’s a strong impetus to go all in on tactics to visibly and noticeably exist.
I still have what I call my ‘no’ reflex – if I feel pressured into anything, even if it’s something I want to do, my nope reflex activates and I back out. Vehemently. And unlike Carla, who keeps her anti-authoritarianism and resistance to bullies strictly non-violent, I would throw punches if I felt cornered enough (cornered enough usually equating to “under imminent threat of physical or sexual assault with no way to flee” and of course the school had the attitude that I should independently develop teleportation tech and magically tell a teacher who would just as magically choose this time to believe me before I got my ass kicked instead of suspending me for “telling tales” or telling me to quit being so over sensitive before pointedly turning a blind eye to my bullies. Wanna know why Carla has so little trust in authority? Shit like that’s why. Teachers who think that just because you exist while LGBT you’re deserving of whatever anyone wants to throw at you).
“Man, I know you used to be super mean and everyone on the floor hated you, but I liked you better that way because you let me get away with breaking the rules.”
Oh, previous Ruth would have been less likely to let her get away with the rules.
What she misses is being able to just view Ruth as the faceless mean authority figure she could openly defy in full anti-authoritarian glory, making a mockery of “the rules, maaaaan”.
Having her empathy appealed to, knowing the pain Ruth is going through, hearing her beg her to stop and make this less rough on her? That ruins the game. That makes it real and makes it impossible to separate “authority figure” from “scared girl curled up on her bed wanting to die”.
And that’s a land Carla is much less comfortable with, because in her mind, doing right by that is an invitation to violence against herself.
Mary never actually complained to Ruth about Carla skating in the hallway. Carla didn’t show up until Mary made the transphobic comment.
Panel 3: And here we get the confirmation of the rep and pose of an asshole as defense measure. Her eyes and face reveal that what struck home for her was the appeal to empathy and her desire to do right by people, but even with an audience of just two people who’ve already seen this positive side of her and in relative quiet in the hall, she’s terrified of openly acknowledging it.
To the point where she’s already thinking of folks coming and confronting her about her not skating and seeing it as a sign that she was taken down a peg. Even though very few people outside of asshole Mary have tried to confront her about much of anything in comic. And it’s that sense she has of being hunted that follows a lot of trans folks, especially in this political climate that largely defines a lot of her actions.
She’s not letting herself any time to micturate in doing right by Ruth, because she’s already worrying about justifying herself, having to deal with confrontation, and coming up with excuses to try and prevent any sign that others could conclude “Carla is a good egg, she should have a ukulele”.
Because in her mind being seeing as that is a sign saying it is open season on transphobic “jokes”, low-key harassment, and exploitation of her better nature. And that’s the central tragedy of Carla. And what she will in time outgrow like so many trans college students before her.
Huh.
I can see all of that, but I was interpreting her as still feeling guilty over mishandling Ruth’s suicidalness. (I don’t know the real word, all right?) And perhaps a bit defiant towards Billie for being blamed for that, and also resentful towards Billie for putting her in that place to begin with. But towards Ruth? I was seeing it mostly as a mix of guilt and “please don’t die”.
I imagine that’s partially mixed in to it. I don’t think Carla handles guilt particularly well and it’s already been shown that all that stuff has been eating her up inside.
I generally use the term “suicidality,” though I’m not actually certain that’s right.
Suicidal ideation?
That’s more specific. Ideation is when someone’s imagining ways in which to kill themselves. Not necessarily planning, but fantasizing.
It’s very possible that Ruth got to that point, but if she did, she’s said nothing about it.
What she was doing was expressing… not exactly a desire to be dead, but at least a preference for it.
Just letting you know that, as always, I chin-hands your analysis.
In panel 2, Carla learns that, yes, Ruth can do puppy-dog eyes and that it’s super-effective on her! In fact, I suspect that there is no-one Carla knows who can so completely make her feel like a complete heel!
So, obviously, Ruth’s turned over a new leaf and the residents of the floor are really having a difficult time working out how to respond to this. Mostly it seems they’re responded with new nicknames for Ruth that should be insulting but mostly just reflect puzzlement.
Not sure those are puppy-dog eyes. Could be “I am just holding on by my fingernails and have this job I don’t want so please help me out” eyes.
so, human eyes. full of pain, as many are.
who even says ruthfull?
people who can’t spell “ruthful” apparently
(though to be fair, I’d assume Bille only heard it spoken)
(…which makes it Willis’ fault, really :P)
I like Ruth’s new hairdo.
That would make Billy, Hiccup… That’s a bit wrong when you think about it.
To be fair, Carla, threatening you with bodily harm is only bound to make you do it more. Asking nicely can have a different effect.
For all her showing off Carla just can’t bring herself to kick a puppy.
Carla would have more trouble roller-skating in the hall if you removed her feet!
*pause*
You know, after you slaughter the others.
Wow does Carla actually look sad? It feels like she has lost something. With old Ruth she could banter and argue and don’t feel bad because Ruth was threatening her with femur extraction.
But now it feels like kicking a puppy so she can’t bring herself to disobey Ruth…
Okay, I feel like I’m missing something, what’s ‘Ruthfull’ a pun on?
Ruth-less, Ruth-full. When you add -less it means the person has none of that (like merciless) and when you add -full it means someone is full of it (like merciful). It’s a bad pun.
how resourceful
Wait. Why IS Ruthless being Toothless? Way I see it she just proved that she can’t be fired. Nobody else knows she’s terrified of her uncle, just that she’s banging a student and somehow allowed to keep her job.
“You used to be Ruthless…”
Yeah, but you still skated in the hallway anyway so…eh?
Anyway, it makes sense that Ruth got this kind of pushback from Carla but I hope (despite knowing better) that she doesn’t get a lot of static for trying to enforce the rules normally with everyone else. I’m preemptively side-eying the thought process for that:
*Ruth enforces floor rules via fear and bullying.*
Residents: “I sure hate that Ruth uses bullying to enforce the rules.”
*Ruth stops using fear and bullying to enforce the rules*
Residents: “She’s stopped bullying us? Well why should I listen to her now?”
With Carla I feel it’s like… she lost a purchase she had. Basically she seems like someone who’s been attacked and bullied to the extent that she went “Fork the world! I’ll do whatever I want and won’t listen to these assholes!”
But with Ruth as she is now Carla simply can’t fight back because she is not being attacked. She uses people’s animosity as an excuse to act like an ass towards them. But when there is no animosity she can’t fight back.
So like reverse Aikido. You can’t use your enemy’s attack against them if there’s no attack…
You see a lot of this in fiction, where the winning tactic against a foe or attack that turns your fear, anger, etc back at you is to dismiss all of that, and give them nothing to work on.
Of course, as we see with Amber and other examples, actually doing that tends to be a lot harder than just a ten-second scene of centering yourself and finding inner tranquility, especially in a stress situation. :/
Yup, all of this!
The Ruth is out there.
I want to Billieve
Hm, “ruthless” & “toothless”?? Looks like somebody’s been watching the 100th episode of “Robot Chicken”??
Informing people that you stopped because of what got her potentially fired in the first place seems like a dick move (or whatever the female equivalent is).
Well Carla is a bit of a dick (no pun intended)
@eldritch gentleman: If Carla were a cis man would you have felt the need to add “no pun intended”?
Maybe, maybe not. Frankly I don’t even know what stage of conversion is Carla at so no telling whether there would be any pun involved.
It is perhaps a deeply inappropriate thing to say regardless.
Probably… Thing is… I have a fairly thick skin when it comes to jokes aimed at me so unless I feel something is Really inappropriate I don’t think the jokes are in bad taste.
You should be taking into account other people’s feelings besides your own when you’re making a public post in a popular forum and poking fun at a marginalized group though.
Okay so if your response is you don’t know if you would have felt the need to call attention to a cis man’s genitals and you also have no idea what Carla’s stage of transition is anyway why did you feel the need to add that last part at all? All you succeeded in doing by adding that was adding a layer of dehumanization to a debatable opinion.
And if you were just trying to be funny you failed.
I’m not dehumanizing Carla. I was making a joke. Me and my friends often throw insulting jokes at each other so I lack the “sensitivity” of you people. Sorry for being insensitive.
It is absolutely dehumanizing to reduce a trans person to the potential state of their genitals.
Many things are acceptable joking between friends that aren’t acceptable to a broader audience.
If you wouldn’t call it a pun when referring to a cis man, it doesn’t matter what’s going on in Carla’s pants.
Like, if you were talking about Roz while she was wearing that condom hat, or Joe while he was talking about sex, THAT would make sense.
Otherwise, it just feels like you’re bringing up Carla’s genitals simply because she’s trans. As if “possibly having a penis” would be considered one of her important attributes.
It’s kinda insensitive to bring up, even more so in a context that implies it’s funny
Frankly… I was actually Trying to be considerate. My line should be interpreted as “she is a bit of a dick, not that it has anything to do with her being trans” or “Not that I’m trying to point out her being trans”.
Maybe just fight the urge to call attention to it? Because I promise you if you had called Carla “a bit of a dick” and left it at that no one but an absolute troll would have called you out on it because no one would have made the leap to calling her a dick to calling out her being trans. Cis women get called dicks. Straight men get called dicks. Trans men get called dicks. It’s a neutral insult until you make it otherwise by calling attention to her marginalized status. It comes off as othering her even if your intention was to do the opposite.
Oh and I meant to type Cis men not straight men there.
Frankly with you people I’m never sure if I’m stepping on a mine or not. This is where the whole “no pun intended” came from. I wasn’t even sure if I WILL be called out or not.
@Eldritch Gentleman:
I figured you didn’t mean anything malicious by it, just wanted to explain how it came across.
It’s not a huge deal, just something to avoid. If you try to be sensitive and are willing to listen and apologize when you screw up, that’s all anyone really expects. I’m straight and cisgender. I’ve made similar mistakes.
The “you people” stuff and getting defensive doesn’t help any. That’s the kind of thing that can turn a small, innocent mistake/misunderstanding into a nasty argument.
It’s cool. Nobody’s bringing out the torches and pitchforks or anything.
Now that you pointed it out… I think this might be my problem I might be a bit like Carla. Getting all defensive and hostile because I have a bit of experience with these things escalating at me… Kind of a conditioned reaction.
Okay how about this if you think making a joke is going to end up being a potential landmine ask yourself if it’s worth telling? Or maybe just pick a less potentially loaded word? But I also don’t think the people who comment here are as “sensitive” as you’re making us seem. I’m honestly trying to save you some trouble in the future by letting you know how your comment could be seen as potentially offensive since you already said earlier you have a thick skin and don’t always intuitively know when you’re being offensive.
Yeah backing off from potentially sensitive joke might be the best way to go.
Or maybe consider adding a trigger warning…
hey, I found a new comic and it’s relevant here!
http://assignedmale.tumblr.com/post/136136184652/how-to-talk-to-a-trans-person-step-1-dont
I am learning many things.
wow, the way that url truncated the title is… unfortunate.
@Halpful
Assigned Male is such a great comic. It is definitely one of my primary sources of educating myself into being actually a good ally to my wife & supportive and non-harmful to the other trans people in my life. I still fuck up a lot, but I read (and reread) Sophie Labelle’s Assigned Male and I do think it gives me tools to be a better person.
No.
“Jerk” is a nice gender-neutral word, but I’m partial to “Jackass,” but that may be gendered in some contexts.
…A jackass is just a donkey/horse hybrid. I forget which way makes a jackass and which way makes a mule. I think the former is male donkey and a mare, while the latter’s a stallion and a jenny.
A jackass is a male donkey. A mule is the offspring of a jackass and a mare. The offspring of a stallion and a jenny (female donkey) is a hinny.
(Also, this makes this, oddly, the second DoA comments section in which I have discussed jackasses and given Old English etymologies. Though, granted, the latter is not particularly unusual for me.)
Fair enough, but I felt like my statement wasn’t necessary for context one way or the other. My point came across.
Gd Dmn it Carla
A: “You won’t believe this! Lessick got Carla to stop skating in the hall!”
B: “What? How?”
A: “She asked… Nicely…”
B: ( shudders)
Go Leafs?
I like how “Ruthfull” implies that she now gets to be herself. I’ve been back on my meds for a few months now and I just recently started to get back into my hobbies, etc. You go, Ruth.
Though seeing that happen to Ruth will probably be less personally relevant in 2030.
ruth got a haircut?? that actually did happen, huh? I was like ‘why is she being drawn differently… what is it….’