Some campuses get butthurt if you give away your meals by buying them and giving them to someone else or swipe someone else in with your meal card. My alma mater frowned on it. “The student’s food account is for that student only” yadda yadda yadda.
Meal plans let the school budget how much they need to purchase from foodservice vendors, and force the students to eat something relatively healthy on a regular basis. Joyce feeding Becky with her meal plan theoretically means you have two people who aren’t eating enough. (Some plans do come with room for a couple guest meals.)
The ‘relatively’ in front of ‘healthy’ there is very important.
IU students’ meal plans don’t come for free with their room, though I think living in a dorm means you’re required to purchase one, or maybe it’s that freshmen are required to purchase one? I’ve never heard anything about swiping someone else in being “frowned upon” at IU.
When I went to college the meal plan was required for freshmen. My impression was that the idea was to make sure kids who knew nothing about budgeting would not go hungry.
As I recall it was all you could eat once you were in, so bringing in strangers on your card this way would increase the amount of food eaten.
Thing is there are homeless people with jobs–while it’s easy to assume a homeless person’s skimming food, that could easily be true of someone who’s NOT homeless (commuter or relative, for instance).
I get that “room and board” is the common phrase, just arguing the point that it’s not necessarily true that getting the one means getting the other.
The largest plan at Purdue was 21 a week – that’s three a day. Granted, that does assume you absolutely never eat anywhere else, but that doesn’t make it “more meals than you could ever use as a healthy adult”
Interesting. The default (only) arrangement in my Purdue dorm days (over two decades ago now) was 20 meals a week, Sunday evening being a “fend for yourself at your nearby pizza place.”
And of course, if you were busy with school work, sometimes you skipped a meal anyways.
I may have been remembering it wrong. But my point is that the idea that it was “more than you could ever use” is hyperbole (largely based on the effect of it not being the only place most people ate).
Largest plan at my school is 20, with no breakfast on Sundays, and smallest is I think like 6 or 7. If you live on campus (as like 95% of students do) you have to purchase a meal plan.
Yeah, my daughter was at U of Iowa. The food plan provided enough to feed two people, but I wouldn’t call it healthy. In fact, it was all crap: starchy, breast, greasy crap. Every meal was either mostly pasta, mostly rice, some kind of breaded meat, bad pizza (thick crust, too much sauce, fake cheese, minimal meat), hot dogs, or hamburgers.
My friends of the Canadian persuasion would use such a sense to search-and-destroy a Tim Horton’s (derisively referred to as “Timmies”) in favor of the local donut-and-coffee shop. I have reason to believe the Timmies in the U.S. (which I kind of like) were intended as retaliation for us sending them McDonald’s.
Funky Winkerbean is a newspaper comic strip started in 1972 done by Tom Batiuk. It was originally about kids in high school. Now it’s been rebooted and it’s more like a soap opera; angsty and dealing with topical issues. It used to be funny, now it sucks.
The understanding I have, solely from the Comics Curmudgeon (I mean, I read what he posts, but that’s by no means all of it), is that it used to be a comedy starting with kids in high school, but as the author kept going he got progressively more depressed and the strip became progressively more about failure and what a hellhole the town they live in is. Also, there was a cancer arc that fridged a gal and now her husband is riding that train forever more.
Now it’s a strip about people being sh!tty to each other in the most petty ways imaginable. “Winkerbean” is how Northeast Ohioans pronounce “schadenfreude.”
… the four responses before me are entirely concerned with Billie’s breasts. Hm. They are very nice breasts, but I still can’t figure out what the actual joke is. And yes, I know by getting this confused/asking for an explanation, I am killing whatever the joke is. Sorry. I’m just being clueless I guess. ^^;;
Billie is subsiding Ruth’s rage with her ample bosom. It’s not really much of a joke. Maybe a gag at most. (I also accidentally made two question marks instead of just one oops)
Ahh.
Well, that does make sense. I think I was thrown because Billie seemed to be confused about it. When I use my bosom to do that sort of thing, I am entirely aware of its effect and the repercussions thereof.
It makes a lot more sense if you remember Ruth talking about Billie’s giant bras yesterday. Yomatoe made a joke about how, even when angry, it seems that Ruth still can’t stop thinking about Billie’s breasts.
Pretty sure that’s why Mandy had green hair last time we saw her. She realized that the redhead quotient has reached critical mass and changed to avoid being replaced.
It’s like that line from 30 Rock when the show is going to add a new cast member. “If it’s a blonde woman, I will kill myself!”
Billie in panel 2 is KILLING it. In a good way! She addressed that Ruth has put her in a very sticky spot, and she defended Joyce because…yeah, let’s be honest. If Ruth and Billie had not grown to like each other and be in a semi-relationship, Joyce asking Billie to keep this secret from Ruth wouldn’t have been an issue for her. Joyce only knows that they hate each other.
And about Ruth putting Billie in a sticky spot…yeah. Yeah, she pretty much did. The moment Ruth slammed Billie into the wall and kissed her, she put Billie in a weird spot. A spot Billie wants to stay in, mind you, but the way she did it was still pretty awful. And as we can see here, it’s not so easy to be stuck between your RA girlfriend and your friends. Billie hadn’t considered these things before jumping into a relationship with somebody who suddenly forced a kiss on her after slamming her into a wall who later nearly drank herself to death due to being rejected…
“They deftly maneuver, and muscle for rank
Fumes burning fast on an empty tank
Reckless, and wild, they pour through the turns
Their prowess is potent and secretly stern”
well she definitely knows that becky’s gay, but it’s hard to say whether she knows about the monday gunman being becky’s toedad. i know joyce told billie something at the party, when she asked her to keep the fact that becky’s sticking around under wraps, but i’m too lazy to archive dive and get the exact line. so to answer your question, maybe?
Ah, Billie cares so much about keeping secrets. Promises? Promises are just ways to fail people. But people’s secrets? She’ll keep those forever. She’ll work her ass off to hide her involvement with Ruth. She’ll stand up to her scary kinda abusive girlfriend in a totally serious, not flirty way, to keep a random promise to a friend she doesn’t even much personally care for.
And that probably says a lot about the sort of background she comes from, where appearance and status are everything, but it’s also where she hangs her pride. Just as much as Ruth hangs her pride on her ability to “do right” by her hall by her personal standards.
And neither of them seems to recognize that this little spark of caring deeply about something is what they need to so desperately nurture instead of putting all their self-esteem in saving each other from the edge.
If they could just harness and fertilize this little piece, they could be more healthy and thus more able to build what is healthy in their relationship and excise what is toxic. But they’re both too self-loathing to see it as something they can fail at catastrophically. Ruth by being blackmailed, Billie by being found out at every level (by Mary, and now by her girlfriend).
And that might be a central piece of the epic tragedy that is their self-destructive spiral and the cost of illnesses like depression. That the things that could save them get focused more on for their ability to cause pain than anything else.
actually, the weekend would possibly be a good time for shenanigans, depending on what kind of hours ruth’s bosses keep, since mary can’t exactly storm into a locked office and spill the beans to someone who isn’t even there.
although email and voicemail are things that exist, particularly useful if mary gets a video/audio recording to prove shenanigans. i guess.
sort of all depends on what they all have in mind.
I’d go less the wacky hijinks route and more the goad Mary into more reportable offenses without leaving traces of your own route. With the office staff gone and having to rely on e-mail complaints and/or voicemail complaints, they’ll have to sort it out via whomever has the best documented evidence train. If Ruth and Billie play their cards right while Becky’s nowhere to be found, it’d be quite plausible to not only nail Mary to the wall for hate speech, but to make it look like she was trumping up accusations against both Becky and Ruth/Billie for the sake of her hateful views.
A lesbian friend comes to visit for a few days and suddenly she’s all of these terrible labels and living there? Billie sneaked in and out of Ruth’s room a few times for typical freshman pranks/asshattery and suddenly Ruth and Billie are sleeping together? Wow, Mary, you’re seeing lesbians everywhere. Wait, a maintenance person found glue ground into the floor in front of your room, and someone said Carla was upset because her skates were ruined with glue. Would you know anything about that? What, you called her a boy? I think we found the problem here, Mary.
Saint putain de merde!!! What the hell is happening to Ruth in panel four? Is an eldritch being possessing her? Is she revealing herself to be a servant of the old gods?
Ugh, Billie, dammit. “I withheld information from you, but I ALSO did not tell false information to you, so it evens out” is just… ugh, don’t do that. -_-
Ruth thinks doing her job is a function of being mean and brutal to students so they’re terrified. She has NO IDEA what her job is actually supposed to be. She also is probably going to try to kick Becky out.
I don’t think that Ruth is likely to be cruel to Becky once somebody tells her Becky’s situation. She might not be able to keep Becky crashing here for free, but she might give her a lead on a job or apartment, reasonable time to move out, whatever is in her power to cut Becky a break.
Yeah, I think when she hears the whole story she’ll make the right call, which means it’s on Billie to spill said rest of the story now that she’s caught out.
Well, technically, removing the homeless vagrant who isn’t authorized to be in the building would be the “right” thing, and Ruth won’t be doing that.
I’m not entirely sure Becky’s presence is that damning on her, especially with the entire dorm sheltering. At worse I could see them reprimanding her for not noticing that rad haircut sooner.
Hello, I am Someone and I am here to talk about a disease that is sweeping the nation. It is called: Thinks it a good idea to assault your charges condition or TIGITAYG. It is shared by many people, include Ruth Lessick and Sarge, from Beetle Baily. Together we can find a way to help these people.
She covered that, too. She believes it’s acceptable to destroy herself, and possibly Billie (because she entered their pact knowingly), but not bystanders who didn’t consent to being destroyed. Depressed logic, it’s internally consistent, but weird to others.
OH I know all about depression logic. But unlike Carla, Ruth isn’t looking out for Becky. Getting involved shows Ruth is subconsciously grabbing on to reasons to live, otherwise, who cares about a homeless kid in the dorm if she’s not terrorizing people like Sara.
Oh, I see what you mean now. Yeah, although she’s getting herself together mainly to spite Mary, helping Becky could accidentally help herself, too. I wonder if her resources for “troubled teens” extend to quite this much trouble.
Though at this point she doesn’t know anything about Becky’s situation that’s not mentioned here or summed up by “perverted vagrant”. Her opinions may change if she learns more.
Because having someone essentially point it out to her face (in the form of blackmail) has caused her to actually realize HOW hard she’s failing at her job, and she’s overcorrecting in a panic.
I expect this mostly to end poorly for Becky… technically an RA has a lot of leeway as far as how the details of guest rules work, but the fact that she didn’t notice a homeless squatter for over a week is in the “putting the residents of the dorm in actual physical danger” levels of failure at RAing. So Ruth is probably going to project the failure onto Becky and go with the “come down on her like a tonne of bricks” option which is usually supposed to be reserved for more dangerous cases.
It would be nice if she was concerned because it was her job instead of because she’s covering her ass regarding her negligence, but Ruth is… kind of a genuinely bad person, honestly.
The ax murderers always live among their prey for at least a week before striking.
Yeah, the whole physical danger thing is overblown. It’s about not losing money for the college by having students live in the dorms without paying. And giving the roommate an out if they’re not cool with long term guests.
^ This. STRANGER DANGER. Every stranger is an ax murderer arsonist burglar who’s going to kill everybody in their sleep and steal all of their stuff, then burn the whole building down to cover their tracks.
Or deprive the campus of money they’d otherwise be able to squeeze out of someone else’s financial aid package, whichever. :p
My guess is eyeroll shown over bangs (which is Willis’s stylistic choice for eyes covered by hair) except only the irises wound up in a layer above the hair?
It’s unclear. If Becky’s dad is still paying off the mortgage, then the bank owns it. If Ross paid it all off, Becky could squat there, but she can’t sell it, and that community might be unsafe for her.
No, they didn’t. They’re just following the eyebrows, which are way up at the top of the head.
Maybe they’re holding the eyebrows down, because normally in a scene like this, they’d be off the head entirely.
When Ruth learns exactly what happened and why her whole floor is protecting Becky, I think that she will help Becky out by getting her to the college help center. That would be her job. And she wants to do that now.
If she does take her to the help center that will give her points with the board – all good for her job. And turning in Mary as the bigoted asshole she is, will give her more points.
Just possible she may keep her job.
Ruthless did put Billie in a tight spot by expecting her to rat on students, it is her job, and hers alone, to know what’s going on – and she can’t do that if she’s rolled up in her room around a bottle.
Gotta wonder just how many others know that Billie and Ruth are sharing a room, besides Mary that is. I got a feeling a lot of the hall knows.
If Ruth stands up for skater girl, just maybe the hall will stand up for Ruth. That would be nice.
But then we are sorta of leading up to a meltdown aren’t we, been a whole week now? (I’m not forgetting Ms. Brown awaiting the arrive of Joyce and Mr. Brown and their surprise guest).
2 meltdowns coming up.
Yeah, I definitely agree with all of this. And I can see this ending well for Ruth, if not dramatically and narrowly, but it’s definitely going to take its toll in the meantime as her morality, her anger, and her depression war in three different directions.
So unless the boyfriend somehow moved into the girls’ side, there’s no way Billie would’ve moved to the boys’ and kept showing up in the girls’ side all the time.
Meh. She comes back to shower and hang around with her girl friends. She’s just over there for the nights.
The real problem is that Billie’s story will completely fall apart if she’s actually questioned about it. If she had to name him and they wanted to talk to him, for example.
And, if anyone really starts asking questions about Ruth and Billie, the violence is more likely to come up than the relationship. Which would be even worse for Ruth.
There’s a range in both of the girls’s faces today that’s incredible lol. Billie especially goes through all the human emotions in the span of four panels xD
It just occurred to me that now that Ruth has figured it out, this actually might be a perfect time to call Mary’s bluff, if Ruth is willing to push it to that level, and everyone in the know knows to dissemble about it.
Post clean-up, all of Billie’s stuff is no longer in Ruth’s room (and is presumably back in her shared room with Sal). Bille and Ruth figure out a cover story to explain anything Mary might have observed.
Becky’s not there. Joyce is not there (and therefore would not need to lie to someone in authority, with all of the keeping-a-straight-face implied by that)
And presumably everyone else in the know would be willing to co-ordinate on what lie (or rather, half-truth) they need to tell (“Yes, Becky was here visiting, but she’s gone now.”)
So Ruth goes to Mary, and brings her to whatever administrative persons are appropriate.
“Mary made some very interesting allegations after making transphobic statements to Carla. Let us by all means investigate everything immediately.”
You are right in that its best to challenge Mary when Joyce and Becky are gone. However, there are 2 problems:
– Its the weekend, and its possible that they don’t have people with “real authority” around outside of work hours
– Even if the issue of Mary’s transphobic slurs was brought to someone’s attention, I suspect it would take more than part of a day to investigate
So… you think that if the RA that the entire dorm knows is sleeping with a student, whom anyone who’s met her can witness is continually drunk on the job, is the sole witness to a student being an asshole to another student, a university association is going to focus on the “one student was rude to another in the heat of an argument” part?
Because I’m pretty sure the bit where the person with the key that opens every room in the building is continually near a blackout drunk and didn’t even notice a homeless squatter is legitimately more worrisome; I know there’s this whole stereotype of universities overdoing the political correctness, but finding out that someone drawing a school paycheck regularly harasses and assaults the people she’s supervising is gonna win out there.
That’s the whole reason the blackmail works. If the university investigates this, Mary gets an official letter telling her to be nicer with the number for the mediation office. Ruth gets fired and probably arrested.
As far we know, no one other than Mary knows Ruth & Billie are together. I think one of the other girls suggested it but was laughed down. Nor has anyone, other than Billie, ever shown any knowledge of Ruth’s drinking. Even Mary doesn’t mention drinking while she’s ranting about perverted vagrants and defiling cheerleaders.
If any investigation digs too deeply into Ruth and the threats and violence come up, Ruth’s in trouble. If Ruth’s response is “Yes, there was a guest who stayed a few days too long because of her personal troubles, when I found out I helped her get in touch with the appropriate local resources to find her a safe place to stay. You can ask anyone about my relationship with Billie. We’re not exactly friendly.” then she’s pretty much in the clear and there’s little reason to dig deeper.
In fact, the way she’s most likely to get in trouble if they ask is that people might reports she’s been physically assaulting Billie.
Mary’s comment goes far beyond “was rude in the heat of an argument”, but there’s been a lot of talk about that and if you haven’t gotten it by now, you probably won’t.
He’s downplaying Mary’s actions, which y’know; not cool, but I think he’s right that IU would be more concerned with an abusive employee than an asshole student.
Yeah, that’s what was at the back of my mind. That’s the most support any investigation will find for a relationship between Ruth & Billie. At least among the residents.
See, this is the situation I was in last year. My roommate invited someone to live in our room and when I went to the RAs about it I was supposed to have a conversation with my roommate about it first. Apparently just having someone skimming room and board isnt enough to get them to do their jobs. From my experience, as long as everyone in the room is in agreement, the guest can stay indefinitely. But I also wasnt in a dorm but rather a campus apartment. I don’t remember the rules for the first dorm I was in.
That fits my experiences when a friend’s roommate had their girlfriend move in early in the year. Hell, the RA when I went to school didn’t even do something when it actually did negatively impact a resident, causing my friend to consistently sleep in the study box due to being sexiled. I think he ended up resolving it by refusing to be sexiled anymore leading them to move out into a nearby apartment the next semester.
Way back when, I had a roommate move out to move in with friends, and then come back begging to move back with me (off the books) when it didn’t work out. I said OK.
(No romance was involved anywhere as far as I know.)
Yeah, the idea that an extended guest is this huge crisis situation that Ruth’s going to be in horrible trouble for having solved up front just doesn’t ring true to me.
Sure, it’s against the rules. If Ruth was actively involved or knowingly condoned it, she’d get yelled at, maybe disciplined, but probably not outright fired. That she didn’t notice right away. Meh. No one’s going to care. Resolve the situation now.
Now if, like in your case, the roommate had complained to the RA and nothing was done, then there’s a better case for getting her in trouble.
Well she managed once to shove a bag of trash in the trash chute using her leg. I say she’s in good enough shape. Also, that video gave me a good laugh. XD
Given Becky’s ability to remain unseen for over a week now, perhaps she and Ruth swapped powersets, and thus Becky lost her psychic lesbian girlfriend mind-reading powers that would help a lot with Dina.
Becky is going with the Fugitive Lesbian Archetype rather than the Core Class version. At level 1 she swapped mind-reading for invisibility, and at level 2 she gives up door-locking for escape artist.
Either that or a power-stealing power.
Now I am worried that Magneto is going to abduct Becky.
Due to conflicts over film rights, the X-Men are all going instinct and being replaced as Marvel’s minority metaphor by the Inhumans, a bunch of incestuous space racists.
So thin as to be downright translucent. The (in)famous “Have you tried… Not being a mutant?” scene from X2 was apparently based off of the real coming out of a friend of Ian McKellan’s.
A part of me wonders if the metaphor might be a bit mixed, though. The X-Men were an explicit MLK Jr. vs. Malcom X reference, and the presence of groups like the Nation of Islam and the Black Panthers makes the mutants’ dangerous superpowers have a context in the story. Their ability to harm you is real, and that’s the driver of suspicion; the fear that, just because someone has power, they will use it to harm you, on the unspoken assumption that you’d do the same if you had power over them. The fears of the populace at large aren’t baseless, but they’re also the primary cause of them.
To my knowledge, there haven’t really been any violent queer activists, though, which makes the threat of violence inherent really out of place at best, and really, REALLY uncomfortable inferences at worst.
Still, hey, whatever gets people thinking about it. A victory’s a victory.
I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of using Marvel mutants and their struggle as a metaphor for the gay rights struggle. I mean, in the X-men universe the only thing that keeps some mutants from physically destroying things is good manners. You can actually get people being afraid of them and see something reasonable about it. Only the most deranged televangelist will claim a gay person can explode your family with his eye beams.
For crying out, loud, Ruth! Couldn’t you just give Billie the illusion that she had got one over you? 😉
I’ve said this elsewhere but this is an ideal time to stage a raid on Sal and Becky’s room based on ‘information received’. I bet that Becky has a small- to non-existent footprint right now and it’s unlikely that they’ll find any evidence that she’s staying there; she’s most likely taken everything she owns (which is very little) with her to the Browns.
Unfortunately, she was just able to raid her old closet at Anderson, so she may have considerably more footprint than she did before… though that isn’t difficult to do considering her old footprint was a sweatshirt, shirt and short pants and 2 Arby’s BBQ sauce packets that she lost in a bet.
Despite all evidence, I STILL maintain my headcanon that she brought her old Hymmel tapes, possibly converted to a flashdrive that’s been hidden in her left shoe this entire time.
It strikes me that Mary might very well decide that she can skip out on the floor meeting now that she has power over Ruth. If Ruth decides to protect Becky, she could use the floor meeting to coordinate an effort against letting Mary put Becky at risk.
I’m mostly throwing ideas out here. Not all of them are primed for maximum drama, admittedly. Though my idea was that Ruth would tell everyone that she knows about Becky, and that she’s not going to do anything – but Mary also knows, and Mary could get her kicked out.
I mean, she kind of has to do something. It’s her job to do something, and publicly announcing to her dorm, a dorm she’s spent the last month mostly terrorizing, that she’s not going to do anything seems a waste of time when she can be just as helpful by not saying anything in front of anyone and maintain some plausible deniability.
This is why I’m thinking she just privately approaches Joyce and Becky and tells them that she’s not going to report them, but that they need to get Becky out because she’s not allowed to be there.
Yeeeah, I don’t follow a lot of real-world myopia in the comments when it comes to Ruth being *even more* irresponsible. Plausible deniability and a private conversation, as Spencer noted, is one of the better courses of action for her to take. Or what thejeff considers, though this would make it difficult for Ruth to be evasive because she’d be expected to act pretty quickly after that, especially as she has a student who allegedly knows exactly where Becky’s staying, and it is not difficult to piece it with the kidnapping incident at Showalter Fountain.
Some commenters seem to place a lack of value on self control and level thinking, compared to gratification-motivated pettiness and one-uppery that only escalates an unfavourable circumstance.
Set up properly by Ruth, she could officially be asking for information, but actually be warning others that she’s been informed. Hopefully also including some advice on how to help homeless lesbians find a more official place to stay.
Come to think of it, Becky’s going to be able to go into her own house right? It’s not too far from Joyce’s? She ought to be able to grab some stuff she needs.
Also would be an opportunity for Joyce and Becky to bond over contrasting memories of a shared childhood.
My college had specific rules for visitors, but were only enforced when someone made a nuisance of themselves. If a visitor had to stay longer than a few days, they could ask at the housing office to stay in a guest room if one was available. They had to pay a fee for that, but the rooms were nice. But you could have a friend stay overnight in your dorm room for a short time and no one usually made a stink. A few days was pretty much normal. Beyond 4 days and it might raise eyebrows, but usually if your visitor was the same sex, no one cared a lot.
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“Wow, got it in one!”
Curse your awareness of basic reality!
Quick, Billie, plead the fifth!
No, the third! Plead the third!
what “board”, to be fair, it’s not like the dorm has a free buffet (except at the coming out party sponsored by Galasso’s)
Joyce is skipping breakfasts to feed Becky.
But that means Joyce is just giving her paid-for breakfast away. Still the same number of breakfasts as far as the school is concerned.
Some campuses get butthurt if you give away your meals by buying them and giving them to someone else or swipe someone else in with your meal card. My alma mater frowned on it. “The student’s food account is for that student only” yadda yadda yadda.
Meal plans let the school budget how much they need to purchase from foodservice vendors, and force the students to eat something relatively healthy on a regular basis. Joyce feeding Becky with her meal plan theoretically means you have two people who aren’t eating enough. (Some plans do come with room for a couple guest meals.)
The ‘relatively’ in front of ‘healthy’ there is very important.
IU students’ meal plans don’t come for free with their room, though I think living in a dorm means you’re required to purchase one, or maybe it’s that freshmen are required to purchase one? I’ve never heard anything about swiping someone else in being “frowned upon” at IU.
That is to say, they’re not complimentary. They would never have been free, of course.
When I went to college the meal plan was required for freshmen. My impression was that the idea was to make sure kids who knew nothing about budgeting would not go hungry.
As I recall it was all you could eat once you were in, so bringing in strangers on your card this way would increase the amount of food eaten.
buuts
Thing is there are homeless people with jobs–while it’s easy to assume a homeless person’s skimming food, that could easily be true of someone who’s NOT homeless (commuter or relative, for instance).
I get that “room and board” is the common phrase, just arguing the point that it’s not necessarily true that getting the one means getting the other.
Schools give you more meals than you could ever use as a healthy adult, and then won’t let you refund them, so screw those guys.
The largest plan at Purdue was 21 a week – that’s three a day. Granted, that does assume you absolutely never eat anywhere else, but that doesn’t make it “more meals than you could ever use as a healthy adult”
Interesting. The default (only) arrangement in my Purdue dorm days (over two decades ago now) was 20 meals a week, Sunday evening being a “fend for yourself at your nearby pizza place.”
And of course, if you were busy with school work, sometimes you skipped a meal anyways.
I may have been remembering it wrong. But my point is that the idea that it was “more than you could ever use” is hyperbole (largely based on the effect of it not being the only place most people ate).
Largest plan at my school is 20, with no breakfast on Sundays, and smallest is I think like 6 or 7. If you live on campus (as like 95% of students do) you have to purchase a meal plan.
Yeah, my daughter was at U of Iowa. The food plan provided enough to feed two people, but I wouldn’t call it healthy. In fact, it was all crap: starchy, breast, greasy crap. Every meal was either mostly pasta, mostly rice, some kind of breaded meat, bad pizza (thick crust, too much sauce, fake cheese, minimal meat), hot dogs, or hamburgers.
As the alumnus of a school who forced everyone who lived in the dorms to buy an “unlimited” meal plan, this. So much this.
Not like there were a lot of suspects.
It is Amazie-girl, right?
Ruth uses her magic true sight in panel four.
T-Ruth sight.
*groooan*
Billie seemed so proud too. Aw well.
“It’s not…not Becky.”
Why no like buttons willis?! MAKE LIKE BUTTONS
Um… What’s going on with Ruth’s eyes??
demonic possession by her hyperaware senses
Stuff. Things. Stuff and things.
She’s using her psychic Canadian powers to read Billie’s mind. They can also locate the nearest Tim Hortons.
My friends of the Canadian persuasion would use such a sense to search-and-destroy a Tim Horton’s (derisively referred to as “Timmies”) in favor of the local donut-and-coffee shop. I have reason to believe the Timmies in the U.S. (which I kind of like) were intended as retaliation for us sending them McDonald’s.
‘Timmies’ is not derisive.
It is in fact usually not derisive. Also I can confirm that doctor_who has it right. Tim Horton’s sense is the most basic of Canadian abilities.
Though not one useful at home…hard to turn around without finding one.
It’s a weird interpretation of rolling your eyes back (looking up) I think. Doesn’t quite work with glasses.
Or bangs.
Looks more like demonic possession.
It does. 100% Ruth is possessed by a demon. Canon now.
Totes cannon.
Ruth is possessed by a cannon toting demon?
This is my new head cannon.
XKCD reference FTW
According to patreon, it’s so visually impaired readers can see her dotted eyes in her hair.
The original strip’s eyes were a lot darker.
So they’re not Shimigami eyes?
I would prefer them hidden instead of glowy, but Billie’s faces more than make up for it. Masterful.
Super-RA psychic powers are activating to figure out the squatter.
Powering her lazer vision. Soon, she will melt all of Billie’s bras, leaving no trace.
Ouch!
Hey she could always use the laser vision on Mary.
Like how Superman lobotomised that villain with his heat-vision in that one episode?
And he did it for free! …well he gave that guy a couple of slaps.
….that’s fuckin’ harsh, yo. She needs those things.
Now I’m seeing Billie as some kind of Valkyrie!
Hey, stop giving us hopes that you know will not be fulfilled! That’s the job of damnyouwillis!
When they went from black to green it was only a step on the way to their final form.
RoboRuthless is consulting the MCP database for additional analysis.
damn it billie how could you let this happen
She overplayed her hand there.
Damn, the expressions in the last panels are masterpieces.
Panel 4 is slightly weird.
http://i.imgur.com/sTqxD2H.png
jiggy jiggy
♬♬ Jiggypuff…♬♬
Checking for suspicious lumps.
look, this comic is already depressing enough without, Billy develops breast cancer being added to the mix
That’ll be the moment we’ll know that Willis has gone Full Winkerbean.
Can someone tell me what the deal is with Funky Winkerbean? I never read that one.
(Only if it won’t set off a flamewar, please.)
Funky Winkerbean is a newspaper comic strip started in 1972 done by Tom Batiuk. It was originally about kids in high school. Now it’s been rebooted and it’s more like a soap opera; angsty and dealing with topical issues. It used to be funny, now it sucks.
The understanding I have, solely from the Comics Curmudgeon (I mean, I read what he posts, but that’s by no means all of it), is that it used to be a comedy starting with kids in high school, but as the author kept going he got progressively more depressed and the strip became progressively more about failure and what a hellhole the town they live in is. Also, there was a cancer arc that fridged a gal and now her husband is riding that train forever more.
“Fridging” is a little harsh. The writer lost his wife to cancer and had the same thing happen to a character in the strip.
But yeah, after he did that, he changed the whole strip from goofy comedy to unrelenting depression.
Now it’s a strip about people being sh!tty to each other in the most petty ways imaginable. “Winkerbean” is how Northeast Ohioans pronounce “schadenfreude.”
Isn’t FW now on its third generation of cast, or something?
They’re like big bouncy stress balls!
I could curl up inside them and be warm forever
I… I don’t get it. ^^;;
I mean, I like it – always love me some cute Ruth/Billie yuri – but… yeah, I think I’m missing some obvious joke here.
… the four responses before me are entirely concerned with Billie’s breasts. Hm. They are very nice breasts, but I still can’t figure out what the actual joke is. And yes, I know by getting this confused/asking for an explanation, I am killing whatever the joke is. Sorry. I’m just being clueless I guess. ^^;;
Billie is subsiding Ruth’s rage with her ample bosom. It’s not really much of a joke. Maybe a gag at most. (I also accidentally made two question marks instead of just one oops)
Ahh.
Well, that does make sense. I think I was thrown because Billie seemed to be confused about it. When I use my bosom to do that sort of thing, I am entirely aware of its effect and the repercussions thereof.
She’s just being Coy. She knows exactly what she’s doin’.
Honestly, I’m just happy for said breasts, no idea if I’m missing something.
It makes a lot more sense if you remember Ruth talking about Billie’s giant bras yesterday. Yomatoe made a joke about how, even when angry, it seems that Ruth still can’t stop thinking about Billie’s breasts.
So maybe they can soothe the savage beast.
I even drew a picture to that effect.
http://i.imgur.com/Ps4J3Cx.png
At this point the reaction sketches are going to need their own chronological archive!
Gotta say, I love your version of Billie in both of these reaction sketches. Have you considered doing your own comic?
Or do you already, and I’m just making a fool of myself?
People have been asking me that question for years.
The answer is yes. I’m just AWFUL lazy.
Wow, Billie. I think Walky could’ve managed a better poker face.
Becky does represent an excess of redheads in the DoA cast.
Pretty sure that’s why Mandy had green hair last time we saw her. She realized that the redhead quotient has reached critical mass and changed to avoid being replaced.
It’s like that line from 30 Rock when the show is going to add a new cast member. “If it’s a blonde woman, I will kill myself!”
DoA needs more follicle-diversity. 😀
I changed my hairstyle/So many times now/I don’t know what I look like!–Talking Heads, “Life During Wartime”
You want to unleash the soggies?!…oh wait, wong universe
Or lack thereof. We’re overdue for another visit to Galasso’s.
One can never have too many red-heads, imo.
I mean, you’re not wrong.
That Darn Becky
Hrm. I’m suddenly nervous with the situation here breaking down just when Becky leaves. Her return may be a bit…compromised.
Panel 3: New avatar. 😀
What about panel 4?
Too damn creepy.
Coming from one of Raynor’s Raiders, that means something.
I’m not sure what, but it means something.
Not to mention the fact they engage in fights with the other two races. One of them being a Swarm of nightmarish creatures.
Not for me
Needs lasers.
Deft like a ballet dancer.
I’m Billie when watching my favorite TV shows or movies with friends and they guess spoilers right before they happen
I think Ruth’s hair temporarily ate her eyes. That, or Willis messed up the layers on the cleanup for this one.
I think she broke her “deftly” in that last panel.
Ruth’s epiphany face is kind of bizarre.
I think it’s supposed to be an Eyeroll. Hard to tell behind her thick bangs.
Billie’s dismayed face amuses me. She was SO proud of handling the situation “deftly”! Then, BAM, reality strikes! 😀
Shit, Ruth has been possessed by a ghost.
It’s possessed o’clock again.
That 4th panel is terrifying.
Yeah… I’m pretty sure the intent was just to have her rolling her eyes, but it came out pretty weird.
Billie in panel 2 is KILLING it. In a good way! She addressed that Ruth has put her in a very sticky spot, and she defended Joyce because…yeah, let’s be honest. If Ruth and Billie had not grown to like each other and be in a semi-relationship, Joyce asking Billie to keep this secret from Ruth wouldn’t have been an issue for her. Joyce only knows that they hate each other.
And about Ruth putting Billie in a sticky spot…yeah. Yeah, she pretty much did. The moment Ruth slammed Billie into the wall and kissed her, she put Billie in a weird spot. A spot Billie wants to stay in, mind you, but the way she did it was still pretty awful. And as we can see here, it’s not so easy to be stuck between your RA girlfriend and your friends. Billie hadn’t considered these things before jumping into a relationship with somebody who suddenly forced a kiss on her after slamming her into a wall who later nearly drank herself to death due to being rejected…
Boy it sounds bad summarized like that.
Yeah, as nice as some of their moments are, the origins of their relationship were kinda sorta super abusive and not at all okay.
The best way to deal with sticky spots is to change the sheets.
Deft as fuck.
“They deftly maneuver, and muscle for rank
Fumes burning fast on an empty tank
Reckless, and wild, they pour through the turns
Their prowess is potent and secretly stern”
Am I the only one that sees Billie’s face as her about to tell Ruth the exact circumstances regarding Becky’s, ah, situation?
Wait.
Does Billie even know about those circumstances? I don’t even know.
well she definitely knows that becky’s gay, but it’s hard to say whether she knows about the monday gunman being becky’s toedad. i know joyce told billie something at the party, when she asked her to keep the fact that becky’s sticking around under wraps, but i’m too lazy to archive dive and get the exact line. so to answer your question, maybe?
She knows Becky was on the run from her father and has nowhere to stay. Whether she knows the connection to the incident isn’t as clear, but it’s not hard to put 2 and 2 together. (Especially if their names were plastered all over the local news.)
Ruth ate Sherlock Holmes’ femurs and gained his powers of deductive reasoning and biting condescension.
I didn’t realize there was extra commentary when you hover over the comic panel with your mouse. I must go through the entire comic again now.
It’s not all the way through, but at least a year or two back. Happy reading!
Not the entire comic. Well, not stopping you if you want to, but the hovertext starts here.
The don’t start until early 2013.
*They. Of course, John beat me to it again. Which is fine, but if I’d known he was pulling it up I’d have gone to sleep by now.
Thanks all! I appreciate the tip!
Damn my choice of words.
Ah, Billie cares so much about keeping secrets. Promises? Promises are just ways to fail people. But people’s secrets? She’ll keep those forever. She’ll work her ass off to hide her involvement with Ruth. She’ll stand up to her scary kinda abusive girlfriend in a totally serious, not flirty way, to keep a random promise to a friend she doesn’t even much personally care for.
And that probably says a lot about the sort of background she comes from, where appearance and status are everything, but it’s also where she hangs her pride. Just as much as Ruth hangs her pride on her ability to “do right” by her hall by her personal standards.
And neither of them seems to recognize that this little spark of caring deeply about something is what they need to so desperately nurture instead of putting all their self-esteem in saving each other from the edge.
If they could just harness and fertilize this little piece, they could be more healthy and thus more able to build what is healthy in their relationship and excise what is toxic. But they’re both too self-loathing to see it as something they can fail at catastrophically. Ruth by being blackmailed, Billie by being found out at every level (by Mary, and now by her girlfriend).
And that might be a central piece of the epic tragedy that is their self-destructive spiral and the cost of illnesses like depression. That the things that could save them get focused more on for their ability to cause pain than anything else.
Cerberus does it again. (Plus many.)
So…. i suppose shenanigans with Mary will ensue once Ruth and Billie realize Becky’s gone for the weekend?
actually, the weekend would possibly be a good time for shenanigans, depending on what kind of hours ruth’s bosses keep, since mary can’t exactly storm into a locked office and spill the beans to someone who isn’t even there.
although email and voicemail are things that exist, particularly useful if mary gets a video/audio recording to prove shenanigans. i guess.
sort of all depends on what they all have in mind.
I mean, if Billie and Ruth started pulling wacky hijinks on her, then that kind of gives Mary an actual, legit reason to report Ruth’s freckled ass.
I’d go less the wacky hijinks route and more the goad Mary into more reportable offenses without leaving traces of your own route. With the office staff gone and having to rely on e-mail complaints and/or voicemail complaints, they’ll have to sort it out via whomever has the best documented evidence train. If Ruth and Billie play their cards right while Becky’s nowhere to be found, it’d be quite plausible to not only nail Mary to the wall for hate speech, but to make it look like she was trumping up accusations against both Becky and Ruth/Billie for the sake of her hateful views.
A lesbian friend comes to visit for a few days and suddenly she’s all of these terrible labels and living there? Billie sneaked in and out of Ruth’s room a few times for typical freshman pranks/asshattery and suddenly Ruth and Billie are sleeping together? Wow, Mary, you’re seeing lesbians everywhere. Wait, a maintenance person found glue ground into the floor in front of your room, and someone said Carla was upset because her skates were ruined with glue. Would you know anything about that? What, you called her a boy? I think we found the problem here, Mary.
Saint putain de merde!!! What the hell is happening to Ruth in panel four? Is an eldritch being possessing her? Is she revealing herself to be a servant of the old gods?
she’s just rolling her eyes so hard the irises escaped the sclera and are hovering in front of her bangs, that’s all. nbd. comic book biology, y’know?
So irises are parasites, too? First eyebrows, now this! What next, femurs?
Now I recalling a really scary John Varley story.
See, Billie, this is what’s known as “overplaying your hand.”
Billie *thinking*: “Can’t read my, can’t read my, she can’t read my poker face!”
Ruth *thinking*: “girl why you lying, ohh you’re always lying, stop fucking lying!”
NEVER FUCKING LIE TO RUTH!
Now you’ve made me a fan of Disturbed. Thanks.
Ugh, Billie, dammit. “I withheld information from you, but I ALSO did not tell false information to you, so it evens out” is just… ugh, don’t do that. -_-
What do you care, Ruth?
Ruth thinks doing her job is a function of being mean and brutal to students so they’re terrified. She has NO IDEA what her job is actually supposed to be. She also is probably going to try to kick Becky out.
I don’t think that Ruth is likely to be cruel to Becky once somebody tells her Becky’s situation. She might not be able to keep Becky crashing here for free, but she might give her a lead on a job or apartment, reasonable time to move out, whatever is in her power to cut Becky a break.
Ruth sucks at her job but she’s not going to kick a homeless gay kid out on the streets in the name of being a good RA.
Yeah, especially when the point of getting herself together is so that other queer kids won’t be her collateral damage.
Yeah, I think when she hears the whole story she’ll make the right call, which means it’s on Billie to spill said rest of the story now that she’s caught out.
Ruth can be relied on to do the right thing, but only after exhausting every possible alternative?
Well, technically, removing the homeless vagrant who isn’t authorized to be in the building would be the “right” thing, and Ruth won’t be doing that.
I’m not entirely sure Becky’s presence is that damning on her, especially with the entire dorm sheltering. At worse I could see them reprimanding her for not noticing that rad haircut sooner.
As Winston Churchill said about Americans.
(Steal from the best.)
I think Ruth’s priorities are seriously screwed up at the moment.
We could be killed! Or worse, expelled.
(But yes, they are. Ruth has a serious mental illness, which is totally screwing up her emotions, self-perception, energy, priorities, etc.)
Hello, I am Someone and I am here to talk about a disease that is sweeping the nation. It is called: Thinks it a good idea to assault your charges condition or TIGITAYG. It is shared by many people, include Ruth Lessick and Sarge, from Beetle Baily. Together we can find a way to help these people.
TIGITAYC, the silent puncher.
Ruth answers why she cares in the first panel of today’s comic. It’s her job.
A job she’s willing to leave through a double suicide pact with someone she should be looking after
She covered that, too. She believes it’s acceptable to destroy herself, and possibly Billie (because she entered their pact knowingly), but not bystanders who didn’t consent to being destroyed. Depressed logic, it’s internally consistent, but weird to others.
OH I know all about depression logic. But unlike Carla, Ruth isn’t looking out for Becky. Getting involved shows Ruth is subconsciously grabbing on to reasons to live, otherwise, who cares about a homeless kid in the dorm if she’s not terrorizing people like Sara.
Sorry I meant Mary
Oh, I see what you mean now. Yeah, although she’s getting herself together mainly to spite Mary, helping Becky could accidentally help herself, too. I wonder if her resources for “troubled teens” extend to quite this much trouble.
Though at this point she doesn’t know anything about Becky’s situation that’s not mentioned here or summed up by “perverted vagrant”. Her opinions may change if she learns more.
Because having someone essentially point it out to her face (in the form of blackmail) has caused her to actually realize HOW hard she’s failing at her job, and she’s overcorrecting in a panic.
I expect this mostly to end poorly for Becky… technically an RA has a lot of leeway as far as how the details of guest rules work, but the fact that she didn’t notice a homeless squatter for over a week is in the “putting the residents of the dorm in actual physical danger” levels of failure at RAing. So Ruth is probably going to project the failure onto Becky and go with the “come down on her like a tonne of bricks” option which is usually supposed to be reserved for more dangerous cases.
It would be nice if she was concerned because it was her job instead of because she’s covering her ass regarding her negligence, but Ruth is… kind of a genuinely bad person, honestly.
Why would not noticing the friend of someone on the floor being there for more than a week be “putting the residents in actual physical danger”?
The ax murderers always live among their prey for at least a week before striking.
Yeah, the whole physical danger thing is overblown. It’s about not losing money for the college by having students live in the dorms without paying. And giving the roommate an out if they’re not cool with long term guests.
^ This. STRANGER DANGER. Every stranger is an ax murderer arsonist burglar who’s going to kill everybody in their sleep and steal all of their stuff, then burn the whole building down to cover their tracks.
Or deprive the campus of money they’d otherwise be able to squeeze out of someone else’s financial aid package, whichever. :p
But only once they’ve been there more than 4? nights. Until then, there’s no problem.
Mostly I expect the rule is there so the RA has something to point to when the roommate complains.
Especially with the main reason she did not notice being that damn near the entire dorm conspired to hide her!
http://i.imgur.com/L2qSRPM.png
Yep, that’s the only thing she can do. If she says anything, she’s either lying or breaking the promise. “The only winning move is not to play”.
Another one? You sure move fast.
I’m great.
You sure are!
The real mystery is what happened to Ruth’s eyes in panel 4.
I dunno, but I’m makin’ it a Grav.
As I said earlier: TOO DAMN CREEPY!
My guess is eyeroll shown over bangs (which is Willis’s stylistic choice for eyes covered by hair) except only the irises wound up in a layer above the hair?
Things will get awkward when Ruth realizes next that Billie went as far as giving Becky her room.
Ooooh, yep.
Ohhh I didn’t even think about that. Ruth ain’t gonna’ be happy.
Well to late to kick her out now.
Becky’s not really homeless now, is she? With her mom dead and her Dad in jail, isn’t her parent’s house available?
It’s unclear. If Becky’s dad is still paying off the mortgage, then the bank owns it. If Ross paid it all off, Becky could squat there, but she can’t sell it, and that community might be unsafe for her.
Are Ruth’s eyes glowing from behind her bangs?
That’s a little scary.
Ruth is rolleyeing so much in the 4th panel her eyes went above her eyebrows
No, they didn’t. They’re just following the eyebrows, which are way up at the top of the head.
Maybe they’re holding the eyebrows down, because normally in a scene like this, they’d be off the head entirely.
Well, that was easy!
I got the header where Dorothy and Joyce look shocked (I think from the party), which I found appropriate.
Maybe Ruth will finally make Joyce & Becky go talk to Leslie.
When Ruth learns exactly what happened and why her whole floor is protecting Becky, I think that she will help Becky out by getting her to the college help center. That would be her job. And she wants to do that now.
If she does take her to the help center that will give her points with the board – all good for her job. And turning in Mary as the bigoted asshole she is, will give her more points.
Just possible she may keep her job.
Ruthless did put Billie in a tight spot by expecting her to rat on students, it is her job, and hers alone, to know what’s going on – and she can’t do that if she’s rolled up in her room around a bottle.
Gotta wonder just how many others know that Billie and Ruth are sharing a room, besides Mary that is. I got a feeling a lot of the hall knows.
If Ruth stands up for skater girl, just maybe the hall will stand up for Ruth. That would be nice.
But then we are sorta of leading up to a meltdown aren’t we, been a whole week now? (I’m not forgetting Ms. Brown awaiting the arrive of Joyce and Mr. Brown and their surprise guest).
2 meltdowns coming up.
Yeah, I definitely agree with all of this. And I can see this ending well for Ruth, if not dramatically and narrowly, but it’s definitely going to take its toll in the meantime as her morality, her anger, and her depression war in three different directions.
“as her morality, her anger, and her depression war in three different directions.”
Hey, possible static equilibrium! (See ‘free body diagram’)
Engineer here, sorry, sorry…
Billie told people she moved in with her ‘boyfriend’. So anyone aware of Becky’s existence and keeping mum about her will know that too. Joyce even suspected it was actually with a girl.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/payup/
So unless the boyfriend somehow moved into the girls’ side, there’s no way Billie would’ve moved to the boys’ and kept showing up in the girls’ side all the time.
Meh. She comes back to shower and hang around with her girl friends. She’s just over there for the nights.
The real problem is that Billie’s story will completely fall apart if she’s actually questioned about it. If she had to name him and they wanted to talk to him, for example.
And, if anyone really starts asking questions about Ruth and Billie, the violence is more likely to come up than the relationship. Which would be even worse for Ruth.
Yeah, I’m really expecting something like “why are you defending Ruth so much, Billie” or “why wouldn’t you be happy she’s gone/in trouble?”
That comic doesn’t show what you think it does. Joyce never thought Billie had a girlfriend, Becky did.
There’s a range in both of the girls’s faces today that’s incredible lol. Billie especially goes through all the human emotions in the span of four panels xD
And Ruth goes through a demonic possession. An usual day at Indiana.
Not out of the ordinary.
Their reputation is they have witch covens over there.
I’m with Billie – that was deft fair and square, Ruth has no business being smart like that. I call bullshit.
Panel 3: Billie attacks with her Smile Ray, but Ruth makes her Save versus Cheerful. (She has big bonus for that.)
It just occurred to me that now that Ruth has figured it out, this actually might be a perfect time to call Mary’s bluff, if Ruth is willing to push it to that level, and everyone in the know knows to dissemble about it.
Post clean-up, all of Billie’s stuff is no longer in Ruth’s room (and is presumably back in her shared room with Sal). Bille and Ruth figure out a cover story to explain anything Mary might have observed.
Becky’s not there.
Joyce is not there (and therefore would not need to lie to someone in authority, with all of the keeping-a-straight-face implied by that)
And presumably everyone else in the know would be willing to co-ordinate on what lie (or rather, half-truth) they need to tell (“Yes, Becky was here visiting, but she’s gone now.”)
So Ruth goes to Mary, and brings her to whatever administrative persons are appropriate.
“Mary made some very interesting allegations after making transphobic statements to Carla. Let us by all means investigate everything immediately.”
If that’s what’s causing this Mary face, I’m all in favor of it:
http://dumbingofage.tumblr.com/post/138890342282/may-5-2016
My first take on that was “Ooh, these femurs are just what I need for my Strength Of Materials project!”
Anything that causes Carla to pout and Mary to go into shock can only be good.
That’s not a pout. That’s ‘oooo!’
You are right in that its best to challenge Mary when Joyce and Becky are gone. However, there are 2 problems:
– Its the weekend, and its possible that they don’t have people with “real authority” around outside of work hours
– Even if the issue of Mary’s transphobic slurs was brought to someone’s attention, I suspect it would take more than part of a day to investigate
So… you think that if the RA that the entire dorm knows is sleeping with a student, whom anyone who’s met her can witness is continually drunk on the job, is the sole witness to a student being an asshole to another student, a university association is going to focus on the “one student was rude to another in the heat of an argument” part?
Because I’m pretty sure the bit where the person with the key that opens every room in the building is continually near a blackout drunk and didn’t even notice a homeless squatter is legitimately more worrisome; I know there’s this whole stereotype of universities overdoing the political correctness, but finding out that someone drawing a school paycheck regularly harasses and assaults the people she’s supervising is gonna win out there.
That’s the whole reason the blackmail works. If the university investigates this, Mary gets an official letter telling her to be nicer with the number for the mediation office. Ruth gets fired and probably arrested.
Actually nobody knows that
– Ruth sleeps with Billie
– Ruth drinks
other than Billie, that is
and Mary but I mean the entire point is discrediting her as a queerphobic liar soooo
As far we know, no one other than Mary knows Ruth & Billie are together. I think one of the other girls suggested it but was laughed down. Nor has anyone, other than Billie, ever shown any knowledge of Ruth’s drinking. Even Mary doesn’t mention drinking while she’s ranting about perverted vagrants and defiling cheerleaders.
If any investigation digs too deeply into Ruth and the threats and violence come up, Ruth’s in trouble. If Ruth’s response is “Yes, there was a guest who stayed a few days too long because of her personal troubles, when I found out I helped her get in touch with the appropriate local resources to find her a safe place to stay. You can ask anyone about my relationship with Billie. We’re not exactly friendly.” then she’s pretty much in the clear and there’s little reason to dig deeper.
In fact, the way she’s most likely to get in trouble if they ask is that people might reports she’s been physically assaulting Billie.
Mary’s comment goes far beyond “was rude in the heat of an argument”, but there’s been a lot of talk about that and if you haven’t gotten it by now, you probably won’t.
He’s downplaying Mary’s actions, which y’know; not cool, but I think he’s right that IU would be more concerned with an abusive employee than an asshole student.
Mandy and Grace had a conversation that went something like this:
“Amber being Amazi-Girl? That’s as likely as Billie and Ruthless having a thing.”
“I’m telling you, there’s something there.”
Yeah, that’s what was at the back of my mind. That’s the most support any investigation will find for a relationship between Ruth & Billie. At least among the residents.
That’s the one
See, this is the situation I was in last year. My roommate invited someone to live in our room and when I went to the RAs about it I was supposed to have a conversation with my roommate about it first. Apparently just having someone skimming room and board isnt enough to get them to do their jobs. From my experience, as long as everyone in the room is in agreement, the guest can stay indefinitely. But I also wasnt in a dorm but rather a campus apartment. I don’t remember the rules for the first dorm I was in.
That fits my experiences when a friend’s roommate had their girlfriend move in early in the year. Hell, the RA when I went to school didn’t even do something when it actually did negatively impact a resident, causing my friend to consistently sleep in the study box due to being sexiled. I think he ended up resolving it by refusing to be sexiled anymore leading them to move out into a nearby apartment the next semester.
Way back when, I had a roommate move out to move in with friends, and then come back begging to move back with me (off the books) when it didn’t work out. I said OK.
(No romance was involved anywhere as far as I know.)
Yeah, the idea that an extended guest is this huge crisis situation that Ruth’s going to be in horrible trouble for having solved up front just doesn’t ring true to me.
Sure, it’s against the rules. If Ruth was actively involved or knowingly condoned it, she’d get yelled at, maybe disciplined, but probably not outright fired. That she didn’t notice right away. Meh. No one’s going to care. Resolve the situation now.
Now if, like in your case, the roommate had complained to the RA and nothing was done, then there’s a better case for getting her in trouble.
http://i.imgur.com/6l7JwlL.png
Flexible.
No way Billie’s still in good enough shape to do that.
Unless, like Yomi, she’s just made out of fat.
Well she managed once to shove a bag of trash in the trash chute using her leg. I say she’s in good enough shape. Also, that video gave me a good laugh. XD
Yeah, seriously. It’s only been two weeks.
Is Becky using Midwich Cuckoo powers there in panel 4?
Uh, you mean Billie?
Nope! I meant Ruth. Somehow managed to muddle up the names.
http://i.imgur.com/4VJehWz.png
Last one. NSFW.
Deadly Weapons!
NSFW tacky movie preview omitted.
http://i.imgur.com/0D8ITtb.png
I lied.
Heh! ^_^
Would you happen to have a website/blog/whatever? Your art is REALLY cute.
Damn, don’t invite Billie to poker night.
She’d be good at bluffing with her muffin.
Why do I feel like Ruth went all “Village of the Damned” to strip that knowledge from Billy’s brain?
Where did her eyes go in panel four? FOUL DEMON!
This is the perfect theme song for this relationship: Zero, by Smashing Pumpkins.
Apparently, it’s harder to lie to people you’re sexually attracted to. This is a known fact.
i did not know eyes could roll that far back. she should see a doctor.
Okay, so Billie doesn’t have a future on the World Poker Tour; that bluff didn’t last long.
Billie’s all like, “*grumble* No fair, using your psychic lesbian girlfriend mind-reading powers on me…”
Ruth is bi.
It is like multiclassing. She gets the psychic lesbian girlfriend mind-reading powers and the invisibility ones.
Given Becky’s ability to remain unseen for over a week now, perhaps she and Ruth swapped powersets, and thus Becky lost her psychic lesbian girlfriend mind-reading powers that would help a lot with Dina.
Becky is going with the Fugitive Lesbian Archetype rather than the Core Class version. At level 1 she swapped mind-reading for invisibility, and at level 2 she gives up door-locking for escape artist.
Either that or a power-stealing power.
Now I am worried that Magneto is going to abduct Becky.
Well, the modern X-men stories tend to all be thinly veiled allegories to queer rights, so, in a way…
Due to conflicts over film rights, the X-Men are all going instinct and being replaced as Marvel’s minority metaphor by the Inhumans, a bunch of incestuous space racists.
going extinct*
goddamit im bad at this
Of course they are…
On the plus side, we got Kamala Khan out of it.
So thin as to be downright translucent. The (in)famous “Have you tried… Not being a mutant?” scene from X2 was apparently based off of the real coming out of a friend of Ian McKellan’s.
A part of me wonders if the metaphor might be a bit mixed, though. The X-Men were an explicit MLK Jr. vs. Malcom X reference, and the presence of groups like the Nation of Islam and the Black Panthers makes the mutants’ dangerous superpowers have a context in the story. Their ability to harm you is real, and that’s the driver of suspicion; the fear that, just because someone has power, they will use it to harm you, on the unspoken assumption that you’d do the same if you had power over them. The fears of the populace at large aren’t baseless, but they’re also the primary cause of them.
To my knowledge, there haven’t really been any violent queer activists, though, which makes the threat of violence inherent really out of place at best, and really, REALLY uncomfortable inferences at worst.
Still, hey, whatever gets people thinking about it. A victory’s a victory.
I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of using Marvel mutants and their struggle as a metaphor for the gay rights struggle. I mean, in the X-men universe the only thing that keeps some mutants from physically destroying things is good manners. You can actually get people being afraid of them and see something reasonable about it. Only the most deranged televangelist will claim a gay person can explode your family with his eye beams.
I’ve just accepted that it’s a metaphor that works.
Trying to explain it in the context of the Marvel Universe ends up with us reading Uncanny Avengers, and nobody deserves such a fate.
For crying out, loud, Ruth! Couldn’t you just give Billie the illusion that she had got one over you? 😉
I’ve said this elsewhere but this is an ideal time to stage a raid on Sal and Becky’s room based on ‘information received’. I bet that Becky has a small- to non-existent footprint right now and it’s unlikely that they’ll find any evidence that she’s staying there; she’s most likely taken everything she owns (which is very little) with her to the Browns.
I bet that Becky has a small- to non-existent footprint right now
I know that Ross is horrible and all, but I doubt even he’d go in for foot-binding…
Unfortunately, she was just able to raid her old closet at Anderson, so she may have considerably more footprint than she did before… though that isn’t difficult to do considering her old footprint was a sweatshirt, shirt and short pants and 2 Arby’s BBQ sauce packets that she lost in a bet.
Despite all evidence, I STILL maintain my headcanon that she brought her old Hymmel tapes, possibly converted to a flashdrive that’s been hidden in her left shoe this entire time.
Ross, of course, has a large toeprint
Years from now, she blackmails the First Husband by threatening to release them to the media.
“She’s literally here all the time and she ain’t a student putting two and two together was easy”
Ruth’s eyes kinda look like grapes in that last panel. Did you want grapes when you were drawing that Willis?
Okay, that thing she did with the eyes while she went all psychic detective was *really*creepy. Cool, but creepy.
It strikes me that Mary might very well decide that she can skip out on the floor meeting now that she has power over Ruth. If Ruth decides to protect Becky, she could use the floor meeting to coordinate an effort against letting Mary put Becky at risk.
That would require admitting they’ve been sheltering Becky to the abusive RA who beats up one of her charges.
I dunno, everyone rallying together seems too easy a solution.
I’m mostly throwing ideas out here. Not all of them are primed for maximum drama, admittedly. Though my idea was that Ruth would tell everyone that she knows about Becky, and that she’s not going to do anything – but Mary also knows, and Mary could get her kicked out.
I mean, she kind of has to do something. It’s her job to do something, and publicly announcing to her dorm, a dorm she’s spent the last month mostly terrorizing, that she’s not going to do anything seems a waste of time when she can be just as helpful by not saying anything in front of anyone and maintain some plausible deniability.
This is why I’m thinking she just privately approaches Joyce and Becky and tells them that she’s not going to report them, but that they need to get Becky out because she’s not allowed to be there.
gatdanged italics tags
Yeeeah, I don’t follow a lot of real-world myopia in the comments when it comes to Ruth being *even more* irresponsible. Plausible deniability and a private conversation, as Spencer noted, is one of the better courses of action for her to take. Or what thejeff considers, though this would make it difficult for Ruth to be evasive because she’d be expected to act pretty quickly after that, especially as she has a student who allegedly knows exactly where Becky’s staying, and it is not difficult to piece it with the kidnapping incident at Showalter Fountain.
Some commenters seem to place a lack of value on self control and level thinking, compared to gratification-motivated pettiness and one-uppery that only escalates an unfavourable circumstance.
Set up properly by Ruth, she could officially be asking for information, but actually be warning others that she’s been informed. Hopefully also including some advice on how to help homeless lesbians find a more official place to stay.
I sure hope that she helps Becky rather than just abandon her.
Come to think of it, Becky’s going to be able to go into her own house right? It’s not too far from Joyce’s? She ought to be able to grab some stuff she needs.
Also would be an opportunity for Joyce and Becky to bond over contrasting memories of a shared childhood.
Ruth: ”That’s my job.”
*rolls down on the floor from laughter.*
Oh, I get it.
Heh.
Heh heh.
Hehehehehe.
PffftHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
HAHAHA*MANTIS.exe has stopped working due to humor overload. Please replace MANTIS.exe.*
My college had specific rules for visitors, but were only enforced when someone made a nuisance of themselves. If a visitor had to stay longer than a few days, they could ask at the housing office to stay in a guest room if one was available. They had to pay a fee for that, but the rooms were nice. But you could have a friend stay overnight in your dorm room for a short time and no one usually made a stink. A few days was pretty much normal. Beyond 4 days and it might raise eyebrows, but usually if your visitor was the same sex, no one cared a lot.
Her eyes disappear into her forehead while figuring it out.
What is she? A Cyborg or alien?
(fore)Head Alien
busted…
eh?