And then Ruth shoved her all angry-like, and then kissed her. So, uh, yeah. She put herself at least partially in the ‘enemy’ category without respecting Billie’s wishes for something straightforwards.
Yeah, even Billie understand that relationship with violence is not a healthy one. Relationship with anger issues will fed up one side sooner or later.
I’m assuming, on the Ethan Principle, that she’s at least bi enough to have an exception for Ruth.
She’s shown in-universe signs of being into girls, too. Trying to kiss Sal, for example. Yeah, she was drunk, but that’s the Jennifer Billingsworth in her natural habitat. I wouldn’t put money on Sal being the first girl Billie’s tried to lay a drunken kiss on.
I’m personally hoping that Billie’s aware of and accepting of her own bisexuality, and would be totally down with Ruth-makeouts if not for Ruth’s abusive approach. It makes a more interesting story… the “coming to terms with one’s sexuality” plot has been done to death.
And I’M assuming that without true, photographic representation of what is going on in both of their minds (or a good approximation via a current movie like “The Lezbo bongoes Of Briscoe!”) we’ll never really understand or hope to understand.
Help us, Obi Willis Kenobi! Help us see the true vision!
Angry, quasi-violent, forced makeouts aren’t good for the start of a relationship? WHAAAAAT?
You botched the initial encounter, Ruth. It’s not Billie’s role to follow up. If you want this, you’re going to have to pursue her…and in a much more romantic way.
“Mmm… Oh baby… Show me that big, throbbing retirony… Oh…Oh… I need me some of that Craptastic World… OH! I’M ABOUT TO CERBERUS SYNDROME ALL OVER THIS ROOM!”
If you’re going to post a link to a pink cat in a webcomic context, I would think that Choo-choo bear is a more appropriate example. I would link to it myself, but my browser’s giving me a malware warning for that webcomic at the moment.
It doesn’t get to be this easy. Ruth may have raised the flag, but she crossed a line while doing it. Billie’s right. If Ruth wants to get some of that sweet sweet Jenni-fur, she’s going to have to atone somehow and earn it.
I still really like that Penny Gravatar, and her more “adult” capabilities. In fact, can I get one of those drawn up at one of the conventions — in the typical Hustler pose? I want to know if she has ruby red lips! 😀
Of course Ruth gathers them herself. Otherwise what’s the point? You think she’s some kind of poser like those guys who have never been hunting but have a den full of stuffed animals? Hell no! Every femur she has on display was one she brutally acquired from uncooperative residents.
If I could put my artistic talents to pen/brush and paper/canvas (or digital equivs) I’d be doing “fan art” of all kinds of things!
Insteaad… I’m stuck with MUSIC, which if I were in a band, playing right now, tonight, in Athens, GA, I’d be doing way better than EVERY character in the strip right now, just between sets! >:->
These kinds of posts are sanding away at my enjoyment of the comics. Truly just a stain on them. And if they don’t go away soon, it’s going to be what finishes them.
If you can see them, I suggest that it may not be shippers saving a ship, but real people trying to put out a fire. It may be your house. I recommend that you investigate this possibility.
Yeah! She shouldn’a! She should’ve been nicer, cooked you dinner, maybe got you tickets to that show you’ve wanted to see, a backrub maybe, i hear she was taking missus classes as an extra curricular.
My memory of the series may be slipping, but that seems more like a mix of references to both Love is a Croc and Baby Doll rather than just to one or the other. Dahl is the character from TAS I wish had been carried over to other Batman media that wasn’t, she has the best pathos of nearly the whole series.
Ahhhhh, that makes more sense. I was thinking that missus classes were the classes one took while working on getting one’s MRS. And Ruth doesn’t reallly seem like the type.
This can go many different ways. Heck, Billie could file a complaint with the college, escalating the situation to the point of expulsion for both of them (blackmail pictures, etc). They could just have a very public fight with the same result, or just a fight with no expulsion. Or they could even (gasp) sit down and discuss this as adults might!
Once again, Willis manages to keep the fans guessing.
Why do they have to sit? Why can’t they stand? I understand that sitting down for a long conversation might be more comfortable, but why mention at all in the context of a rational discussion? As long as they’re talking about it, it should be fine. The only reason that they might sit down in the context of having a rational discussion is to simply make it harder for one party to abandon the discussion prematurely, which would imply that that party is not mature. If it’s a discussion ‘as adults might’ have, then that implies that both parties are mature (despite the practical inaccuracy of this conclusion), so again, the sitting is irrelevant.
I’m not. I’ll just bet she’s sulking. I mean, I don’t see Willis killing off a character with so much potential with no real development. AFAIK, everybody who died and wasn’t a background character got more fleshing out than this, even when he was at his most kill-happy.
Having just read through the Roomies! archives again… I think DOA Ruth has actually had more screen time and more development than Roomies! Ruth got before her death.
Of course, Willis has gone on record several times now saying that he’s not killing Ruth off again.
I’m betting (ok, wishing) that Ruth has been watching thru the peephole and will come bounding out after Billie… Then they both run towards each other, arms outstretched, in slow motion… and then collide, cracking both their skulls, and falling down that trash chute. But of course it’s blocked, so they’re stuck there, barely consious, until they perish in each other’s arms, in a tragically romantic conclusion to their brief but tormented affair.
Well, they both run toward each other but then in my mind they start fighting like Mortal Kombat complete with X-Ray broken skulls and skeletons scenes. Also Walky yelling “TOASTY!” during the battle.
Billie will triumph in the end and her fatality is to smoosh her breasts to Ruth’s face until her head explode.
Is getting explicit consent an American thing? I’ve never been asked if its okay to kiss me, and I don’t think any of my friend have been asked either. It’s always been implicit.
Consent is not implicit when you’ve just shoved (consent probability -> 10%) someone of the same sex (consent probability -> 10% * 10% = 1%) against the wall after tormenting them for a prolonged period of time (consent probability -> 10% * 10% * 1% = 0.01%). Oh, and you’re the RA, which apparently makes the relationship inappropriate (consent probability -> 10% * 10% * 1% * 2% = 0.0002%). (I wouldn’t know about this last one, having no knowledge of the function of an RA).
I wouldn’t say that consent needs to be ‘explicit’, but it should be very firmly there in some form. And it wasn’t.
If Billie were upset about the kiss, that would be her right and I’d never tell her she was overreacting, but I don’t think sexual assault ALWAYS comes into play when you are kissed without explicit consent, and I worry that using the term “sexual assault” to mean something plenty of little kids experience in grade school (from other little kids, harmlessly!) will dilute its meaning.
People already attempt to say feminists make too big a deal out of actual rape. Why give them a bone by applying “assault” to every interaction, including ones where YES, Billie CLEARLY kind kind of wanted it?
She said no and she had a right to and Ruth immediately backed off, tried to call out to her, and then went straight into a self-hate spiral.
I think it is pretty clearly not sexual assault under these circumstances.
…it’s not assault if you “clearly kind kind of wanted it”? The hell? If it had been full-blown sexual assault, would “kind kind of wanting it” still be a defense? Jesus Christ.
Kiss or no kiss, grabbing someone and shoving them up against a wall is assault where I come from.
And clearly she is at least offended by the kiss – see her Twitter feed. This comic suggests that she might have been more amenable if it had been under different circumstances, but it wasn’t under different circumstances.
I think Billie was okay with the kiss because hey! Kiss! From a cute girl! But then wait this lady is abusive…but hey! Kiss! Oh wait she’s abusive. Maybe Billie really wants (sexual/romantic?) attention, and was a bit flattered? But then wait she’s abusive…
Is Ruth really abusive, though? I honestly thought that her “violence” was just a dynamic of their relationship. You know, a “fight then have great make up sex” relationship.
I think the whole “Give me some stability” thing is key here. If it had been a love-hate relationship, at least Billie’d have known it was a love-hate relationship. This is more like a hate-hate-push-shove-wait-maybe-you’re-tolerable-nope-maybe-not relationship.
Really it’s more like a Ruth is carrying some nasty baggage (details of which we’re still not privy to) and really just doesn’t know how to express her interest in a healthy way (which implies things about that baggage), while Billie seems like she could reciprocate, but can’t deal with the unhealthy way Ruth expresses her interest.
Yep. Plus Ruth’s in a position of power which she enforces by continously putting up a harsh image, and she probably knows that there are people who don’t like her who could exploit vulnerable moments, which makes her less able to show interest for another in general. Either way, there’s a lot of outside forces working at them preventing them from being honest with each other, and even when they are being honest with each other…it doesn’t have very good results.
You sum up what’s happened well, though!
Some seem to miss the whole point here I think. Billie suffered physical abuse and verbal abuse from Ruth. There is no Ship people. Not unless Billes is a total idiot, which she does not appear to be.
Billie is not there to apologize or check up on Ruth. She is there because she was asked to report the chute being stopped up. I think the chute is stopped up with Ruth.
The problem with knocking the police station door it will make the situation even worse not just for Billie and Ruth. But also the campus and dorm management. Also parents.
I can imagine the garbage shoot now. Tin can flung up in the air – BANG! Shredded to a fine dust, no longer a problem. Old pizza box – BANG! Mouldy sock – BANG! Disgusting smelly – oh… Okay, I’m dropping the weapon. Jeez, calm down, it was just a garbage shoot. What? What’s that? Oh… I thought it was an odd way to do it myself, but you know, I thought they would’ve come up with an alternative spelling or something if they meant something different… they did? CURSE YOU Pyr05!
(I tried to write DAMN YOU but it kept telling me I was using it wrong.)
This reminds me of the Joyce/Sarah story line. Two people, who have been hurt in the past, open up to one character, but due to their pain, push away the person they want to take care of most. The thing is, Sarah and Joyce became closer after a traumatic incident. I wonder if Ruth and Billie will share a similar highly emotional moment, or be forced to go their separate ways.
I don’t think that’s the same though. While Ruth probably having a legitimate problems but Billie is more like a waning diva who want to grab her old glory back. Billie just want to mend her pride as the alpha girl. She also realize that Ruth is acting like a jerk and no way she will put her pride down for her.
There’s a difference, though — Ruth and Billie’s traumatic incident was caused by one of them. Sarah managed to protect Joyce from a threatening third party, but in this case, Ruth is the threat.
I would imagine if Ruth only had the hots for Billie, instead of generally caring about her, she would have an easier time controlling her actions, and wouldn’t have shut herself in her room for a day. Billie basically does the same thing that Ruth does to her: show a moment of one strong feeling, soon followed by the opposite (Violence/Compassion, Empathy/Blame). Except here, she opts to not show Ruth either side. I think they’re both conflicted with how they feel, showing that they care for each other, at least a little.
i dont know, i think that Ruth and Billy will become an item. So then Joyce will say something stupid about that. Ethan will snap and come out to Joyce… Walky get dump because nachitos… Joe become the womenizer nerd we all love.. And ultracar become the protagonist of dumbing of age.
Just so long as Dave Willis hasn’t become Dave Sim and we spend the next 6 months showing what happens in a hallway over the span of the next 10 minutes…
“For one thing, most his lead characters are female.”
So ?
They would just stop being interesting, act out-of-character and be retconned into Mysandrist caricatures while the male protagonists would do all the interesting stuff.
It’s just that instead of one Jakka there would be a dozen of her.
We’re all still worried about shipping, but… Billie just turned her back on a person with a known history of depression who has not been seen outside her room in a deviation from a normal routine since she experienced a traumatic-on-both-sides rejection. I really hope I’m not accurately seeing where this is going.
If Billie doesn’t feel comfortable going in, that’s understandable — if someone had shoved me against a wall and kissed me after a period of abuse, I certainly wouldn’t feel comfortable seeking them out.
But she needs to go get help immediately, not let spite control her actions. Ruth’s life could easily be at stake.
The phone call might just have been particularly bad news, and the reaction specific to that situation? I dunno, it’s just that we haven’t seen it more than once.
She’s shown several signs of something being wrong in this comic, and in the Walkyverse she definitely did have a history of it. Granted, Walkyverse Ruth was much, MUCH different, and her backstory has almost certainly received a major overhaul in this universe. So it’s kind of hard to say. However, I would say there’s enough information to say Ruth has some issues in this universe as well.
Or maybe Ruth is coping with what happened by getting drunk–which is a coping strategy Billie’s actually seen from her, unlike self-injury–and if Billie goes to get an adult witness Ruth will get kicked out. Or maybe Ruth is just curled up in bed crying, and will bitterly resent anyone else seeing her that way. I really don’t see any reason for Billie to jump to “Ruth is suicidal and I have to get help.”
Ohh, the drama. They will! They won’t! They will! They won’t! They might, but neither will be happy about it! (Personal opinionato: They’re both too unstable to get into a relationship with someone whose presence provokes them right now. At most, now that they’ve both showed themselves vulnerable, they might put down a truce while they manage to sort things out.)
Billie doesn’t know how Ruth actually feels about her (and because she doesn’t know that, she doesn’t know how she feels about Ruth), and that’s why she’s uneasy around her.
The shove-kiss was such a big thing that it gave Billie steady ground for a few moments, and she managed to slot Ruth firmly into the “sleazy bongo” category. Now she’s had a while to think and calm down, and she almost gives her the benefit of the doubt (by making contact with her again), but she doesn’t. I think she knows that there’s more to Ruth than this, maybe even that she needs help, but it’s so satisfying to know where she stands with her that she’s willing to tell herself that’s all there is.
Ruth, meanwhile, knows she’s messed things up on a grand scale, and has begun digging a tunnel out of the dorm so that no one will ever call her out on her actions.
Is she using a spoon or a shovel? I’m just wondering how long its going to take.
Just kidding. I agree with many of the points you made and I don’t think either of these would ever make a good relationship together.
I also think that maybe Billie is now concerned about the way Ruth made her feel? Its gotta be confusing and revealing about her. I don’t know any comic history about her character, so I’m going on by what I’ve read through this one.
Billie and Ruth’s relationship in the Walkyverse is so completely and totally distant from what it is here that using it as a way to predict the actions of either party is kinda pointless.
She’s using a spork. That way she can literally eat dirt.
Not a good relationship right now, anyway. They’ll both need to get their life in check, confront their issues…and even in a hypothetical situation after all that, they might be terrible together, since they might bring up bad memories just by being around each other.
I agree with the ‘way Ruth made her feel’ thing — though I wonder, if this is about Billie being uncertain about her sexuality, wouldn’t there be someone else she could talk to? Like Les. Daisy. (Alright, maybe not Daisy, since she accidentally triggered the same thing with her.) So maybe she found her heterosexuality to be such a part of her identity that she doesn’t want to reveal this to anyone else? (Not since discovering any attempt to describe the situation leads to a re-enactment of it, anyway…)
And Wack’d is right — Billie and Ruth’s relationship in the Walkyverse showed up in just a few joking comics. Ruth was much more of a calm mentor character in Roomies!. (Kind of hard to place, actually.) I don’t think I remember Billie’s character in the Walkyverse well enough to place, but I can remember that she was very fierce about keeping her life the way she wanted it (got into a huge fight with Sal about Danny, for instance).
That’s right, Billie. Walk away. She doesn’t deserve your good graces. Or your bad ones. She was due for a fall, let it happen. I hope she’s found drunk and fired.
To her credit, if Billie has realized that she’s now in the position of power, she doesn’t seem to be planning to use it to deliberately make Ruth’s life miserable. I’d like to think I wouldn’t either, but….
I’m sorry, but i’m still mad at Ruth for the sexual harassment and Billy is right to not feel bad, but I do want Ruth to apologize and then cute Ruth Billie things happen
Noooooo. Billie, you don’t owe her anything if you don’t want to talk to her, but you seem like you need some clarification! Healthy conversations, people, healthy conversations! Use your words! Maybe the RA can…oh wait.
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Gotta hand it to Billie. She sticks to her guns.
Yeah. What’s interesting to me is that she doesn’t appear to care about the kiss. But physical violence? bongo shouldna shoved her.
Because she understands the shoving.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/stability/
Billie was like ‘hey, decide what you are to me’.
And then Ruth shoved her all angry-like, and then kissed her. So, uh, yeah. She put herself at least partially in the ‘enemy’ category without respecting Billie’s wishes for something straightforwards.
I meant more that she can comprehend the violent part, but the kiss tripped her out.
Yeah, even Billie understand that relationship with violence is not a healthy one. Relationship with anger issues will fed up one side sooner or later.
Also, Billie might not be gay, or even bi.
I’m assuming, on the Ethan Principle, that she’s at least bi enough to have an exception for Ruth.
She’s shown in-universe signs of being into girls, too. Trying to kiss Sal, for example. Yeah, she was drunk, but that’s the Jennifer Billingsworth in her natural habitat. I wouldn’t put money on Sal being the first girl Billie’s tried to lay a drunken kiss on.
I’m personally hoping that Billie’s aware of and accepting of her own bisexuality, and would be totally down with Ruth-makeouts if not for Ruth’s abusive approach. It makes a more interesting story… the “coming to terms with one’s sexuality” plot has been done to death.
>>>I’m assuming, on the Ethan Principle…
And I’M assuming that without true, photographic representation of what is going on in both of their minds (or a good approximation via a current movie like “The Lezbo bongoes Of Briscoe!”) we’ll never really understand or hope to understand.
Help us, Obi Willis Kenobi! Help us see the true vision!
Bite your tongue.
Now there’s a violent idea for a kiss.
Angry, quasi-violent, forced makeouts aren’t good for the start of a relationship? WHAAAAAT?
You botched the initial encounter, Ruth. It’s not Billie’s role to follow up. If you want this, you’re going to have to pursue her…and in a much more romantic way.
Let’s start with “healthy”. Romantic is really not anywhere near as important as healthy.
Courage billie, courage.
Why would Billie need a pink dog?
Why WOULDN’T she need a pink dog?
How about a pink cat instead?
Was not sure if that was going to be porn. To anyone in the future wondering: it is not.
I don’t post porn/hentai as a rule and if I did, I would have placed a NSFW in with the post.
For someone it might’ve been 😉
Well, just to be pedantic, anything one could post could potentially be porn to someone. Even a TVTropes link.
“Mmm… Oh baby… Show me that big, throbbing retirony… Oh…Oh… I need me some of that Craptastic World… OH! I’M ABOUT TO CERBERUS SYNDROME ALL OVER THIS ROOM!”
If you’re going to post a link to a pink cat in a webcomic context, I would think that Choo-choo bear is a more appropriate example. I would link to it myself, but my browser’s giving me a malware warning for that webcomic at the moment.
Heck, isn’t there a pink feline eldritch abomination in the Walkyverse proper? I’d thing that’d be the go-to pink kitty from here.
IIRC Singulari-kitty is the spawn of Choo-choo or something like that.
Choo-Choo Bear of Something*Positive and Sprinkles of Girls with Slingshots.
Their other kittens reside in their respective comics as well as in All New Issues.
I find it funny that her problem is that she shoved her. IF YOU JUST MADE OUT FRIENDLY STYLE WE’D BE OK!
Yes the ship isn’t sunk yet XD
I think it’s like…Billie’d feel worse about rejecting her feelings and breaking her heart if she wasn’t so abusive to her to begin with.
Hey, Billie started to return the kiss. I’m thinking she really wants a piece of that, but just has a problem with Ruth’s approach.
Is it her problem? or her excuse?
Yes.
exactly.
Both, I’m thinking.
God damn you Willis!!!
Grav + post = Perfect match.
It doesn’t get to be this easy. Ruth may have raised the flag, but she crossed a line while doing it. Billie’s right. If Ruth wants to get some of that sweet sweet Jenni-fur, she’s going to have to atone somehow and earn it.
So many innuendos, so little time.
I still really like that Penny Gravatar, and her more “adult” capabilities. In fact, can I get one of those drawn up at one of the conventions — in the typical Hustler pose? I want to know if she has ruby red lips! 😀
If you do get such a pic, remember to link to it when you post.
I guess I always figured Ruth’s door would have a delivery slot for femurs. Guess she prefers to gather them herself.
Delivery sloth for lemurs?
Naturally. They’re only good when they’re fresh.
Of course Ruth gathers them herself. Otherwise what’s the point? You think she’s some kind of poser like those guys who have never been hunting but have a den full of stuffed animals? Hell no! Every femur she has on display was one she brutally acquired from uncooperative residents.
Willis…
Will you ever stop teasing us like that?
of course he won’t. he survives on our agony
and the merch we buy from him.
But mostly the agony.
He will blueball the crap out of us, you should expect this by now. 😛
The only cure for this kind of blueball is fan-art.
But there is a high risk that said fan-art could end up being creepy and destroy your brain, forever.
I have seen my childhood and even young adulthood ruined by my own twisted little imagination and the internets, so I think I can risk it.
Sadly, my young Adulthood isn’t ruined (Yet), so I still have something to lose.
I can’t risk myself to expose to such content 🙁
If I could put my artistic talents to pen/brush and paper/canvas (or digital equivs) I’d be doing “fan art” of all kinds of things!
Insteaad… I’m stuck with MUSIC, which if I were in a band, playing right now, tonight, in Athens, GA, I’d be doing way better than EVERY character in the strip right now, just between sets! >:->
Ah, should have known this would be the outcome. Just gotta wonder what Ruth is doing to cope now.
maybe redefining the term, “coping saw.”
So she’s making fancy furniture?
I’ll take an ottoman made of Ruth’s tears to go please?
I lathe these posts.
These kinds of posts are sanding away at my enjoyment of the comics. Truly just a stain on them. And if they don’t go away soon, it’s going to be what finishes them.
Shave it, all of you.
It is plane to see that you wish that puns like these would just varnish.
You nailed it Plasma, this conversation thread is now level.
Awl tell you guys, you really auger quit before this gets out of hand.
I am plumb tuckered reading these puns, Bob.
It’s more a question of what she’s drinking to cope.
She’s upset about getting *shoved*?
There’s hope for Billie x Ruth after all! Yesss
Your avatar is appropriate for that comment.
She HAS grown accustomed to her FAAAAAAAAAAAACE, after all.
Right thing to do, Billie.
Sad for the readers, though.
More like sad for the shippers.
I can see them busy doing a bucket brigade to save the ship from sinking.
If you can see them, I suggest that it may not be shippers saving a ship, but real people trying to put out a fire. It may be your house. I recommend that you investigate this possibility.
Oh, it is ON now!
Your avatar and the comment….
Angry Sal is ALWAYS appropriate
Billie. YOU need to shove her back.
Preferably onto a bed.
Preferably with your face. or if you’re feeling daring, your pelvis.
Definitally with her FAAAACE.
this is the end?
Called it.
sigh… I Really wanted shotty on that ship
And I wanted to buy shares in that mixed metaphor, but we can’t always get what we want.
But if we try sometimes, we just might find we get what we need
You will not get the ship you want, but you will get the ship you deserve.
and what you deserve is Mike x your mom
of course there was a nickel involved
Yeah! She shouldn’a! She should’ve been nicer, cooked you dinner, maybe got you tickets to that show you’ve wanted to see, a backrub maybe, i hear she was taking missus classes as an extra curricular.
What in the world are you trying to say with this? Your hyperbole implies that you think Billie is being stupid for resenting getting SHOVED.
She shouldn’t have made baby angry. They could have been tagether forever. (guess which Batman: the animated series episode I’m referencing)
My memory of the series may be slipping, but that seems more like a mix of references to both Love is a Croc and Baby Doll rather than just to one or the other. Dahl is the character from TAS I wish had been carried over to other Batman media that wasn’t, she has the best pathos of nearly the whole series.
If it were me, I would’ve settled for not, y’know, being sexually assaulted.
Missus classes?
I think he meant Masseus
I think you meant Masseuse. And despite the misspelling, that’s an ingenious and probably accurate interpretation that I never would have thought of.
Ahhhhh, that makes more sense. I was thinking that missus classes were the classes one took while working on getting one’s MRS. And Ruth doesn’t reallly seem like the type.
Oh but the genius of it all is that I’ll never reveal what I misspelled. Tee-hee.
Joyce is taking Missus classes.
Don’t push me cause I’m close to the edge….
I’m trying not to lose my head…
Yeah, yeah… we get your message ;D
Billie can’t get no satisfaction.
As opposed to everything else she did?
The end! No moral.
The moral is she shouldna shoved her.
The moral of the story is that snow goons are bad goons.
and that soggies may rule
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him wink.
This can go many different ways. Heck, Billie could file a complaint with the college, escalating the situation to the point of expulsion for both of them (blackmail pictures, etc). They could just have a very public fight with the same result, or just a fight with no expulsion. Or they could even (gasp) sit down and discuss this as adults might!
Once again, Willis manages to keep the fans guessing.
the very public fight could be with lightsabers
Who would get what colours?
I vote Ruth gets red, and Billie gets orange and green, cause she be dual-wielding like a boss.
Light Saber pom-poms would be a deadly new variant.
Probably difficult to wield those fuckers without cutting your own hands off.
Well, at least we know it’s not that last one. No way they’re gonna have an adult conversation about this. Where would be the fun in that?
I’m holding out for Ronald Regan to come sit Billie down and say some emotional speech that makes her realize *gasp* LESBIAN MAKE OUTS ARE AWESOME.
i think that speech is any speech
Why do they have to sit? Why can’t they stand? I understand that sitting down for a long conversation might be more comfortable, but why mention at all in the context of a rational discussion? As long as they’re talking about it, it should be fine. The only reason that they might sit down in the context of having a rational discussion is to simply make it harder for one party to abandon the discussion prematurely, which would imply that that party is not mature. If it’s a discussion ‘as adults might’ have, then that implies that both parties are mature (despite the practical inaccuracy of this conclusion), so again, the sitting is irrelevant.
For those who doubt that Wednesday’s comic is setup for a brick joke, there you go.
She’s a…
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HOUSE.
Drat. Wanted to find an ascii Kool-Aid Man, but the only ones are way too big for these comments.
Wall-Banger?
I’m kind of worried that she’s dead in there…
I’m not. I’ll just bet she’s sulking. I mean, I don’t see Willis killing off a character with so much potential with no real development. AFAIK, everybody who died and wasn’t a background character got more fleshing out than this, even when he was at his most kill-happy.
Having just read through the Roomies! archives again… I think DOA Ruth has actually had more screen time and more development than Roomies! Ruth got before her death.
Of course, Willis has gone on record several times now saying that he’s not killing Ruth off again.
That is because as we all know, the only thing that can kill Ruth is alcohol.
Wait, no. Ruth killed Ruth. With a truck.
Without context, that could still be alcohol.
Exactly, and no one ever died of alcohol poisoning in college.
I’m betting (ok, wishing) that Ruth has been watching thru the peephole and will come bounding out after Billie… Then they both run towards each other, arms outstretched, in slow motion… and then collide, cracking both their skulls, and falling down that trash chute. But of course it’s blocked, so they’re stuck there, barely consious, until they perish in each other’s arms, in a tragically romantic conclusion to their brief but tormented affair.
Ok I don’t know what happened there.
Well, they both run toward each other but then in my mind they start fighting like Mortal Kombat complete with X-Ray broken skulls and skeletons scenes. Also Walky yelling “TOASTY!” during the battle.
Billie will triumph in the end and her fatality is to smoosh her breasts to Ruth’s face until her head explode.
Off topic, but thank you for writing between failures. The dialogue and characterization are excellent.
Me too. I hope she’s okay!
Being kissed without consent is apparently fine, just don’t be shove-y about it.
This is her train of thought.
Billie you baffle me.
Since Billie is apparently fine with being kissed, so long as it isn’t accompanied by shoving, I don’t see how “without consent” fits in there.
How doesn’t “without consent” fit in there?
When Billie’s fine with it. Is someone else’s consent required?
This.
Is getting explicit consent an American thing? I’ve never been asked if its okay to kiss me, and I don’t think any of my friend have been asked either. It’s always been implicit.
Shoving is not cool, especially not into a wall.
Consent is not implicit when you’ve just shoved (consent probability -> 10%) someone of the same sex (consent probability -> 10% * 10% = 1%) against the wall after tormenting them for a prolonged period of time (consent probability -> 10% * 10% * 1% = 0.01%). Oh, and you’re the RA, which apparently makes the relationship inappropriate (consent probability -> 10% * 10% * 1% * 2% = 0.0002%). (I wouldn’t know about this last one, having no knowledge of the function of an RA).
I wouldn’t say that consent needs to be ‘explicit’, but it should be very firmly there in some form. And it wasn’t.
Also this.
If Billie were upset about the kiss, that would be her right and I’d never tell her she was overreacting, but I don’t think sexual assault ALWAYS comes into play when you are kissed without explicit consent, and I worry that using the term “sexual assault” to mean something plenty of little kids experience in grade school (from other little kids, harmlessly!) will dilute its meaning.
People already attempt to say feminists make too big a deal out of actual rape. Why give them a bone by applying “assault” to every interaction, including ones where YES, Billie CLEARLY kind kind of wanted it?
She said no and she had a right to and Ruth immediately backed off, tried to call out to her, and then went straight into a self-hate spiral.
I think it is pretty clearly not sexual assault under these circumstances.
…it’s not assault if you “clearly kind kind of wanted it”? The hell? If it had been full-blown sexual assault, would “kind kind of wanting it” still be a defense? Jesus Christ.
Kiss or no kiss, grabbing someone and shoving them up against a wall is assault where I come from.
And clearly she is at least offended by the kiss – see her Twitter feed. This comic suggests that she might have been more amenable if it had been under different circumstances, but it wasn’t under different circumstances.
First, I love the url, it reads “Guess who’s coming to Galasso’s… bongo!”
And then augh oh god Billings face panel three, OOF, hit right in the feels!
I think Billie was okay with the kiss because hey! Kiss! From a cute girl! But then wait this lady is abusive…but hey! Kiss! Oh wait she’s abusive. Maybe Billie really wants (sexual/romantic?) attention, and was a bit flattered? But then wait she’s abusive…
My god, I just realized it: RUTH IS A TSUNDERE! DX
RUN BILLIE! RUN BEFORE YOU BECOME A CHARACTER IN A MEANDERING HAREM ANIMATEdyeahokIguessthatalreadykindahappened.
Tsundere… tsundere… tsundere brat HOOOOOOO!
Is Ruth really abusive, though? I honestly thought that her “violence” was just a dynamic of their relationship. You know, a “fight then have great make up sex” relationship.
I think the whole “Give me some stability” thing is key here. If it had been a love-hate relationship, at least Billie’d have known it was a love-hate relationship. This is more like a hate-hate-push-shove-wait-maybe-you’re-tolerable-nope-maybe-not relationship.
Really it’s more like a Ruth is carrying some nasty baggage (details of which we’re still not privy to) and really just doesn’t know how to express her interest in a healthy way (which implies things about that baggage), while Billie seems like she could reciprocate, but can’t deal with the unhealthy way Ruth expresses her interest.
Yep. Plus Ruth’s in a position of power which she enforces by continously putting up a harsh image, and she probably knows that there are people who don’t like her who could exploit vulnerable moments, which makes her less able to show interest for another in general. Either way, there’s a lot of outside forces working at them preventing them from being honest with each other, and even when they are being honest with each other…it doesn’t have very good results.
You sum up what’s happened well, though!
“If the bongo hadn’t shoved me, we could be on her bed making babies right now.”
Unless one of them has been very good at hiding things, I somehow doubt that.
Billie didn’t pay much attention in Health class.
You can’t procreate with the same sex…
Well you can. Maybe they’re really they’d be doing invetro fertilization on the bed. They’re both WAY into chemistry.
The only way babies could be made in this case would be if someone brought a turkey baster filled with man-milk.
Joe is pretty okay to be the man milk supplier with his own turkey.
Mike would provide it for a nickel and probably throw in a shove upon request…
Lesbian babies, dude.
Filled? Kinda messes up the spontaneity, when you have to go around the building to all the guys’ rooms to get the thing filled…
I prefer to think of it as Crazy Prepared.
Some seem to miss the whole point here I think. Billie suffered physical abuse and verbal abuse from Ruth. There is no Ship people. Not unless Billes is a total idiot, which she does not appear to be.
Billie is not there to apologize or check up on Ruth. She is there because she was asked to report the chute being stopped up. I think the chute is stopped up with Ruth.
>Implying they can’t reconcile.
Reconcile? even when Ruth always acting like an ass toward the girls in the dorm all the time? her pride will never allow that.
Character development.
Oh ffs, one of them needs to make the first move already! The problem isn’t going away on its own.
I’m pretty sure that Ruth making the first move GOT them into this situation.
one of them did make the first move.
in a manner that could eaisly be called sexual assult.
so billy could really be knocking on the door at the police station ifshe wanted to. so, your ships not totally sunk yet :p
The problem with knocking the police station door it will make the situation even worse not just for Billie and Ruth. But also the campus and dorm management. Also parents.
And the incident happened because Billie was trying to be less stressed.
For the las time, it wasn’t sexual assault. Calling it that insults actual victims. It was a stupid thing to do, but not nearly a felony.
“Because I, for one, do not need to use the garbage shoot EVER.”
She can be like me and just let it pile up in her room.
Window. Sal and Billie are strong enough to throw them far enough.
I can imagine the garbage shoot now. Tin can flung up in the air – BANG! Shredded to a fine dust, no longer a problem. Old pizza box – BANG! Mouldy sock – BANG! Disgusting smelly – oh… Okay, I’m dropping the weapon. Jeez, calm down, it was just a garbage shoot. What? What’s that? Oh… I thought it was an odd way to do it myself, but you know, I thought they would’ve come up with an alternative spelling or something if they meant something different… they did? CURSE YOU Pyr05!
(I tried to write DAMN YOU but it kept telling me I was using it wrong.)
This Ruth in garbage chute idea needs to be explored. Uniqueantique’s hunch is fertile, I sense.
Okay, now it feels like something’s happening at that door.
-kushh kisshh- Your emotions betray you -kushh kissshh-
I know this is a weird thing to be thinking right now, but is it me or has Billie lost weight?
Probably just the magic of hoodies.
She just looks thinner from the side.
Dem broad hips.
This reminds me of the Joyce/Sarah story line. Two people, who have been hurt in the past, open up to one character, but due to their pain, push away the person they want to take care of most. The thing is, Sarah and Joyce became closer after a traumatic incident. I wonder if Ruth and Billie will share a similar highly emotional moment, or be forced to go their separate ways.
I don’t think that’s the same though. While Ruth probably having a legitimate problems but Billie is more like a waning diva who want to grab her old glory back. Billie just want to mend her pride as the alpha girl. She also realize that Ruth is acting like a jerk and no way she will put her pride down for her.
There’s a difference, though — Ruth and Billie’s traumatic incident was caused by one of them. Sarah managed to protect Joyce from a threatening third party, but in this case, Ruth is the threat.
“the person they want to take care of”? Well, I’d be surprised. Nah, Ruth is crazy hot for Billie, but that’s it.
Except why is Billie going to Ruth’s door then?
I would imagine if Ruth only had the hots for Billie, instead of generally caring about her, she would have an easier time controlling her actions, and wouldn’t have shut herself in her room for a day. Billie basically does the same thing that Ruth does to her: show a moment of one strong feeling, soon followed by the opposite (Violence/Compassion, Empathy/Blame). Except here, she opts to not show Ruth either side. I think they’re both conflicted with how they feel, showing that they care for each other, at least a little.
blue balls!!!!
i dont know, i think that Ruth and Billy will become an item. So then Joyce will say something stupid about that. Ethan will snap and come out to Joyce… Walky get dump because nachitos… Joe become the womenizer nerd we all love.. And ultracar become the protagonist of dumbing of age.
Almost forgot… Mike have a nickel for your mom.
I thought it was YOUR mom, not Mike’s mom?
My bad… Mike has a nickel for YOUR mom.
No the fuck she shouldn’t have! Shiet!
Just so long as Dave Willis hasn’t become Dave Sim and we spend the next 6 months showing what happens in a hallway over the span of the next 10 minutes…
David Willis becoming Dave Sim would be troubling for a vast number of other reasons!
For one thing, most his lead characters are female.
“For one thing, most his lead characters are female.”
So ?
They would just stop being interesting, act out-of-character and be retconned into Mysandrist caricatures while the male protagonists would do all the interesting stuff.
It’s just that instead of one Jakka there would be a dozen of her.
We’re all still worried about shipping, but… Billie just turned her back on a person with a known history of depression who has not been seen outside her room in a deviation from a normal routine since she experienced a traumatic-on-both-sides rejection. I really hope I’m not accurately seeing where this is going.
If Billie doesn’t feel comfortable going in, that’s understandable — if someone had shoved me against a wall and kissed me after a period of abuse, I certainly wouldn’t feel comfortable seeking them out.
But she needs to go get help immediately, not let spite control her actions. Ruth’s life could easily be at stake.
This is a pretty interesting perspective. The only thing I’m uncertain about is — Ruth has a history of depression? I wasn’t aware.
Come on. The phone call with her dad, the drinking, and the sobbing into her pillow while Billie hid in the closet?
It wasn’t her dad. Or at least she says it wasn’t. Otherwise, yeah.
The phone call might just have been particularly bad news, and the reaction specific to that situation? I dunno, it’s just that we haven’t seen it more than once.
She’s shown several signs of something being wrong in this comic, and in the Walkyverse she definitely did have a history of it. Granted, Walkyverse Ruth was much, MUCH different, and her backstory has almost certainly received a major overhaul in this universe. So it’s kind of hard to say. However, I would say there’s enough information to say Ruth has some issues in this universe as well.
Its not Billie’s responsibility to check up on her, and she doesn’t know how hard it hit Ruth. If things do go that route Billie’s totally blameless.
Or maybe Ruth is coping with what happened by getting drunk–which is a coping strategy Billie’s actually seen from her, unlike self-injury–and if Billie goes to get an adult witness Ruth will get kicked out. Or maybe Ruth is just curled up in bed crying, and will bitterly resent anyone else seeing her that way. I really don’t see any reason for Billie to jump to “Ruth is suicidal and I have to get help.”
Ohh, the drama. They will! They won’t! They will! They won’t! They might, but neither will be happy about it! (Personal opinionato: They’re both too unstable to get into a relationship with someone whose presence provokes them right now. At most, now that they’ve both showed themselves vulnerable, they might put down a truce while they manage to sort things out.)
Billie doesn’t know how Ruth actually feels about her (and because she doesn’t know that, she doesn’t know how she feels about Ruth), and that’s why she’s uneasy around her.
The shove-kiss was such a big thing that it gave Billie steady ground for a few moments, and she managed to slot Ruth firmly into the “sleazy bongo” category. Now she’s had a while to think and calm down, and she almost gives her the benefit of the doubt (by making contact with her again), but she doesn’t. I think she knows that there’s more to Ruth than this, maybe even that she needs help, but it’s so satisfying to know where she stands with her that she’s willing to tell herself that’s all there is.
Ruth, meanwhile, knows she’s messed things up on a grand scale, and has begun digging a tunnel out of the dorm so that no one will ever call her out on her actions.
Is she using a spoon or a shovel? I’m just wondering how long its going to take.
Just kidding. I agree with many of the points you made and I don’t think either of these would ever make a good relationship together.
I also think that maybe Billie is now concerned about the way Ruth made her feel? Its gotta be confusing and revealing about her. I don’t know any comic history about her character, so I’m going on by what I’ve read through this one.
Billie and Ruth’s relationship in the Walkyverse is so completely and totally distant from what it is here that using it as a way to predict the actions of either party is kinda pointless.
She’s using a spork. That way she can literally eat dirt.
Not a good relationship right now, anyway. They’ll both need to get their life in check, confront their issues…and even in a hypothetical situation after all that, they might be terrible together, since they might bring up bad memories just by being around each other.
I agree with the ‘way Ruth made her feel’ thing — though I wonder, if this is about Billie being uncertain about her sexuality, wouldn’t there be someone else she could talk to? Like Les. Daisy. (Alright, maybe not Daisy, since she accidentally triggered the same thing with her.) So maybe she found her heterosexuality to be such a part of her identity that she doesn’t want to reveal this to anyone else? (Not since discovering any attempt to describe the situation leads to a re-enactment of it, anyway…)
And Wack’d is right — Billie and Ruth’s relationship in the Walkyverse showed up in just a few joking comics. Ruth was much more of a calm mentor character in Roomies!. (Kind of hard to place, actually.) I don’t think I remember Billie’s character in the Walkyverse well enough to place, but I can remember that she was very fierce about keeping her life the way she wanted it (got into a huge fight with Sal about Danny, for instance).
Awww….no lesbain makeouts this fortnight?
I never know about Les Bain guitar, but I knew Les Paul guitars though :p
Why do I have the sneaking suspicion Ruth is going to be found dead from alcohol poisoning? 🙁
That’s right, Billie. Walk away. She doesn’t deserve your good graces. Or your bad ones. She was due for a fall, let it happen. I hope she’s found drunk and fired.
…well. That was about the worst gravatar EVER to put with that post.
I hope she’s drunk and fired! Yay! 😀
That’s right. She should have embraced you slow and kissed you softly.
To her credit, if Billie has realized that she’s now in the position of power, she doesn’t seem to be planning to use it to deliberately make Ruth’s life miserable. I’d like to think I wouldn’t either, but….
I’m sorry, but i’m still mad at Ruth for the sexual harassment and Billy is right to not feel bad, but I do want Ruth to apologize and then cute Ruth Billie things happen
Noooooo. Billie, you don’t owe her anything if you don’t want to talk to her, but you seem like you need some clarification! Healthy conversations, people, healthy conversations! Use your words! Maybe the RA can…oh wait.
Still waiting for the deredere and raburabu…
My gravatars always seem to make my comments more interesting. You should see the comment I made from the Joyce wet dream/nightmare comic.
AWESOME! CANT WAIT, Mr Willis, cant wait 🙂
Damnit Willis, why must you tease us so.