Penises drawn on whiteboards last week, on everyone’s door. This dorm is afraid of me. I have seen it’s true face. The hallways are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and fun-having will foam up about their waists and all the lesbians and alcoholics will look up and shout “Save us!”…
Put a camera in her hands then maybe. Knowing something and having evidence of it are two different things. Still we don’t really know Mary’s credibility. Some of the cast don’t like her, but she could have an amazing relationship with the faculty and be a flipping honor student. It remains to be seen what actual damage she’s capable of with just her word. I imagine she could at least get a teacher down there if she complained enough.
When Mary smiles for one full hour, all of your family dies, your friends die, all of the cutest kittens and babies die, every single one of these people who die go to Hell, and the world ends up hating every one of them.
Also, she eats that slice of pizza you’ve been saving in the fridge.
First, I think the nest building going on between those two is a good sign. They’re at least taking care of themselves. A nice omen to chase the suicidal overtones of how they became a couple.
Its a very good possibility if Mary obtains hard proof and throws enough of a stink with ResLife. Even if it’s not explicitly spelled out most RA (or positions of authority in general) are required to act professionally with their charges.
However I think Mary is heading for Blackmail. Which gets lovely legally messy. Reciprocal boinking an adult resident is just (and likely heavily) against policy, blackmail is actually a crime recoginized at the state level.
I’m still not sure what the actual arrangement is here between these two. Is Billie actually moving in? Ruth seems like someone who needs her space. I’m sure it’ll become clear by sundown. Or 2015.
Well, at least they’re aware of the danger that is Mary. Having the BillingsLess/RuthWorth/Whatever ship get sunk by a completely unsuspected Greek-tragedy-type act of revenge would have sucked. But these two still have some figuring out to do…
Contradictions breeds skepticism.
Skeptcisim breeds questions.
Questions breed “shut up and do as the Pope/King says”.
“Shut up and do as the Pope/King says” breeds Protestant religions.
Protestant religions breed more questions (I mean why not? If the old men incharge were wrong once….).
More questions, plus advances in communication and information storage technologies (mass printed books), breaks the whole thing open.
Christianity became the official religion of Rome because Emperor Constantine decided to become Christian if he won his next battle after he saw a cross in the sky…and the Pope didn’t tell him to get lost.
Constantine’s adoption of the Church was a MAJOR turning point for Christianity. From a persecuted minority religion it turned into the official religion of an Empire whose Number 1 business was war.
It’s an interesting and important question, but I don’t know much. I haven’t heard of a state before 4th century Rome that espoused/fought in the name of Christianity, but there were some soldiers in the Roman army who practiced Christian worship before Constantine, even during periods when they could have been in big trouble if caught doing it.
While Constantine gave a lot of lip service to Christianity for political reasons, and definitely gave preferential treatment to Christianity, Christianity didn’t become the official state religion until Emperor Theodosius I was in charge.
You are right about the details. Further, the state persecutions had been halted/paused earlier. More broadly, the merger of Rome & the Church was a long process involving millions of people — if Romans hadn’t been converting for centuries before even in the face of the state’s persecutions it never could have happened and even the merger took decades under multiple emperors. But the Big C played a decisive role in the merger and changing the direction of the Church. If he hadn’t taken that battle as a test of Christianity AND won it, well, from there Christianity became The Special Sauce for a whole lot of armies over most of 2 millennia … and counting. And before anyone says that most armies have had their religion — and lots of those armies have spread their religion with sword and gun — and most religions have sponsored armies THAT IS TRY HOWEVER (1) we are discussing whether Christianity is an exception, which it’s not (in either direction), and (2) the record of conquests and bloodshed done by self-proclaimed Christian warriors INCLUDING warriors officially sponsored, INCLUDING warriors who belonged to official organizations of “Christian knights” is definitely top tier — which doesn’t mean Christianity is blood thirsty OR all/most Christians AND I am not going to argue about who is a “real” Christian or a “good” Christian or anything else like that.
Counterpoint: Warrior saints(Sergius and Bacchus, George, Vartan Mamikonean in the Armenian tradition) as well as literary usage of martial prowess as a demonstration of religious virtue; a classmate of mine also pointed out when discussing the Book of the Himayrites that some of the exchanges echo pre-Islamic Arabian martial poetry although that is a little further afield). See also Michael Gaddis’s _There is No Crime for those who Have Christ_ for a recent and excellent study of religious violence as a site of contestation in the Roman Empire and the uses of and objections to said violence.
But God dictated it to all of them and none of them got any of it wrong so its still like the literal word of God, right? No human foibles in there, right?, cause those foibles make me real nervous…
Christian warrior assqueen Mary….and that is a pretty fair description of Mary…but I’d have thrown a bongo in there, maybe between warrior and assqueen.
Okay, that shoots my theory out the window. That Joyce was still unconscious in the stall, and dreaming the interactions; it explained her being overly blunt, Becky’s taciturn responses, and more.
I just don’t get how the fainting in the stall was just…glossed over, but okay, back to reali…comic strip reality.
The same way her slipping and flipping upside and landing on her head and somehow not splattering her brains all over the shower stall was just glossed over. It’s a comic strip. Sometimes it’s a little cartoony.
I’m not sure this relationship between them is healthy. Do they really love each other or are they using each other to mask their pain? Both of these two have emotional issues. Also, they may be overdependent on each other. What happens if they break up? Do they drown themselves in alcohol again?
Well, Billie is certainly overdependent on Ruth. Honestly, moving some of her clothes to Ruth’s room strikes me as rather creepy considering how long it’s been.
It’s not really creepy Ruth told her to never leave Ruth is creepy since she’s admitted the only thing keeping her from offing herself is Billie. If anyone’s overdependant it’s Ruth.
We’re all a little creepy. And life is a little creepy. And when we find someone whose creepiness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying creepiness—and call it love—true love.
You’re serious, aren’t you. Okay, considering Ruth’s surprise at the idea of Billy LITERALLY NEVER LEAVING that was clearly metaphorical. “Don’t leave me”, not “Never exit my presence.” Have your problems with the former statement, if you will, but the latter? Clearly Billy’s idea.
I think it’s more a pragmatic decision to keep things secret: Billie can have a change of clothes in the morning if she stays over so no one will know she wasn’t in her room that night (except Sal who doesn’t seem like a gossiper).
It’s less “I WANT TO MOVE IN WITH YOU MY LOVE” and more “If we want to keep this a secret from angry Christians, I should probably have a change or two of clothes here”
Been too long since I was on campus, I have no idea what the rule set would be for ‘overnight visits’ in and among the dorms. The Official rule set.
They know it happens, they ignore it, if they can’t see it, it don’t happen? Besides, that’s what RA is for…uhoh…well. Yeah, like the Ladies of court, they are above reproach.
Rambling here, but the short line is: so what if RA has a friend over for the night? Is it a big deal in todays dorms? Homo or hetro and is that an issue?
I don’t know about their dorms, but on our campus the “overnight guest” rule was no more than three days – basically, it was to prevent people from letting someone else live with them for free or constantly have a non-student living in their room.
However, plenty of boyfriend-girlfriend arrangements (including RAs) got around that by simply continuing to pay for their own room and going back to it once in a while – usually on one of the “open door night” events where we’d get goodies for being good little students and studying with our door open.
Of course, plenty of us also wandered the hall in our underwear, or in the case of a couple of the guys, with only a bath towel around their waist, so…we wouldn’t have needed to stash clothes to keep a relationship secret. No one would have looked twice at Billie wandering the halls in her underwear.
Yeah, not really getting the living arrangement issue thing here…Granted, my experience was probably before Willis was born, but my freshman year was on a floor that was coed by room, and I pretty much got dragged into bed by a girl across the hall from me the first weekend, which was all sorts of wierd for a midwestern boy like myself. The RA had her boyfriend pretty much living out of her room. Nobody cared. All sorts of pairings going on as I remember.
About a decade ago, my then SO was living in a sort student hostel/dorm in Tours, France. Two students (of properly different gender, implying different floor levels) decided to make things simpler for them by moving their matresses in one room and their living/studying stuff in the other.
They got a warning from the cleaning personnel. Some time later they were reported and thrown out.
Should have been late in the last decade of the twentieth century.
When I traveled there for an overnight stay, we had to take a hotel room. No visitors allowed after 7pm or so.
Yes, France. Felt somewhat surreal. Of course with a concierge and stuff.
A lot of American stereotypes about France are … untrue. Sexual mores are different than America’s, though that doesn’t mean that everyone is getting it all the time, AND The Rules tend to be enforced whether they make any sense at all AND the concierges RULE France.
My freshman dorm rector was an ex-priest who had become a protestant minister (forget his denomination), who pretty much stayed holed up in his apartment with an ex-nun while we did what we wanted to do … the night the fire department showed up was memorable. Which causes me to suddenly wonder: DOES THE DUMBY DORM HAVE ANY OFFICAL ADULT SUPERVISION?
“It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice of Sapho that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains. The stains become a warning. It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.”
But Joyce is also a closeted lesbian! And Becky! And Billie! And Catholic reform schoolgirl Sal! Which must mean *all* christian women are closeted lesbians! Which explains nuns & cloisters! o_O
– Mary is hiding a horrible secret in her room. Her roommate is still not revealed. But Mary’s thoroughly heterosexual, I’m sure.
I’m sure that would make the becky/joyce fangirls squee, but I feel like we would get more sinful glimpses into Joyce thinking about girls sexually and hating herself for it if she wasn’t straight, kind of like how we get her thinking about the male body now.
There have been a couple uncomfortable moments for Joyce where she did think about her own gender sexually or at least worry that she was. I am too lazy to trawl through the archives now, but at one point she asked Billie if it was natural to think impure thoughts (or something of the like) about other Girls.
That said, Joyce also seems attracted to Boys in a way outside of her Christian “I need to get married someday” sense of duty.
Personally, I’d be inclined to think of her as mostly straight but maybe slightly bicurious (made worse by the fact that she is pretty repressed in general and fixates on stuff) but arguments could range pretty far up either side of the Kinsley scale.
@ Nightsbridge: You’re probably right. Although there is the possibility that Joyce does not recognize her moments of attraction to other girls for what they are / seem to be.
@ Marianne: You’re right, of course. And Mary refused to be in their room while Riley was there, for some reason. That sets up a possible situation where Roz accidentally tapes something that Mary might want to hide.
Replace “suicide” with “murder” and let’s see them refill Mary’s water bottle with something a little more lethal. (I can’t believe I’m advocating murder! Mary, what have you done to me!?) 😀
It’s a dead certainty that Billie is underage, and regardless of whether Ruth is of legal age or not, no school is going to tolerate an alcoholic RA. And maybe this is what Mary knows about and feels is her ace in the hole, and it has nothing to do with any same-sex hanky-panky.
She did make a pointed comment to Billie about how she thinks lesbian sex acts are a sin and then said “God sees everything.” I doubt it’s about the alcohol.
Reminds me of this legend of a ghost called the Black Friar. He haunted the Byron family, and would appear at events like weddings and funerals and such. But on the happy occasions, he would look angry and upset, whereas when someone was dying he would look gleeful. He would also look happy at weddings when the marriage was going to be an unhappy one.
Mary is an evil spirit who delights in misery and whose smile is a portent of doom, is what I’m saying.
I must be missing something because I’m unsure why Mary knowing is a bad thing. Is it something to do with Ruths position or is it just that Billy is technically Christian? I have no idea why she seems like she’s going to blackmail them because their relationship doesn’t seem like a big deal to me.
Although I haven’t read Willis’s other comics, going by previous comments, Mary appears to be a destructive person and the “bad type of Christian” who demonizes things like homosexual relationships. The biggest concern here for Ruth and Billie’s relationship is most likely Ruth’s position as a Resident Advisor, since it’s at least of really bad taste for RAs to pursue a relationship with their residents.
It’s a subordinate/superior relationship (Ruth being an RA), so it’s highly inappropriate and Ruth would probably be fired if word got around. Also, Mary is an asshole.
It completely depends upon your university. I was an RA and dating your residents was not encouraged… but it wasn’t anything even mildly job threatening.
RA dating residents is tricky and might get her fired. Even if it didn’t, Ruth’s reputation would definitely take a hit for it.
Also, both of them don’t really seem overly confident in their orientation and while they do like eachother, I don’t think either want to be outed to the student body yet.
On the other hand, people keep shouting blackmail when I’m not sure that’s what Mary is going for: It seems more to her character just to let it hang over their heads that she is morally better than them. It’s still dangerous; she doesn’t have a particular incentive to keep it secret after all, but I don’t think she’s actively angling to get anything out of this.
I gotta say that first line “Back already?” sums up my thoughts. We took a LONG detour in the “Who drew all the penii?!” story and now it looks like we’re about to take a LONG detour on the “Joyce’s BBF visits (and I thought was going to confess her long-time love for Joyce)” story.
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Beware the smile of Mary. It can only be bad.
Beware the facepalm of Ruth
Mary knows that facepalm all too well.
especially when that face palm has a dick drawn on it in permanent marker
Exactly. Even if she didn’t know, when people like her smile, outside of a quick sarcastic emote, at you, it’s means something wicked this way comes…
I wonder why Mary was smiling…
Cos she has dirt on someone, namely Billie and Ruth.
Because this confirmed her belief that she was a beacon of virtue in a world of sin.
Mary’s Journal. November 8th, 2014:
Penises drawn on whiteboards last week, on everyone’s door. This dorm is afraid of me. I have seen it’s true face. The hallways are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and fun-having will foam up about their waists and all the lesbians and alcoholics will look up and shout “Save us!”…
…and I’ll look down, and whisper “no.”
Wow! It’s almost creepy how accurate that could be.
But comforting to know Mary will get disintegrated in the end
No. Don’t do that, don’t… just don’t… I actually [I]like[/I] Rorschach. Mary, on the other hand, can die.
Mary should die.
I dunno if I likeRorschact, but I have a lot of respect for the character.
Mary delenda est
That sounds more like Buckets of Blood Guy. Has he appeared in the Dumbiverse yet? Trying to think where he’d fit in…
THIS.
Wow. Did you look that quote up to modify it for this occasion or did you have it memorized already? I’m not sure which would impress me more.
I believe she probably has thoughts a lot like Seymour’s.
Every time Mary smiles, a puppy dies.
Because Mary killed it.
I came from Reddit, and for a moment I thought this comment was the first reply because it had been voted up to here.
I would totally upvote this, if it had a little upvote arrow.
Did she use science?
Do you have cause and effect right? It could be “Every time a puppy dies, Mary smiles” instead.
It’s both.
a perpetual loop of endless smiling puppy death.
Oh, I assure you. The puppies are NOT smiling when they die. That would imply they die happy. They suffer.
i prefer to imagine that mary’s smiles are so potent that they force themselvetims, even as they die from agonizing internal ruptures.
huh. must have gotten the coding wrong.
No, it was suitably horrifying.
Jesus, that’s disturbing.
on a slightly separate note, that is totally my next gravitar.
It’s both, Mary’s smile is like Joker poison.
Endless Smiling Puppy Death is the name of my new babygoth band
Baby Goth? Is that the new fad after Baby Mozart?
All playing Bauhaus to infants in hopes that it’ll make them good at school later.
Sounds more like America’s answer to BABYMETAL. Who are completely awesome. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cK3NMZAUKGw
She and Seto Kiba should get together.
“We are both so screwed.”
“And not the fun way, either. At least, no longer only the fun way.”
*plays “Moses Supposes” on the Muzak*
Mary suspects
That her floormates have sex
But Mary suspects
And for once is corrects
Mary Suspects
That sex is vexed
As Mary suspects the sex to be.
you asked for it ^_^
I’ve always loved that short.
yesssssss….
I love that cute ghost.
The best short I’ve ever seen. 🙂
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa this is so adorable is there more of this little ghostie
“SHE KNOWS… KILL HER”
“Ya don’t have to ask me twice!”
Ass Queen? Mary is lucky to be an Ass Knave.
That video has scarred me.
*hehe*
tell that to this bammin’ slammin’ bootylicious first panel: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/room/
Looks flatter than month old soda to me.
yeah, it’s the only picture of her from the back I could find.
Oh yeah, look at that curved line, so hot
My thoughts exactly
How Mary became an assqueen?…BAM! That’s a slipshine!
All hail Mary, Queen of the Donkeys!
Yeah. I’d expect the term “assqueen” to have more positive connotations in Willis’ writing.
Silly Billie, you don’t need clothes when you’re with Ruth.
She does when she leave the room afterwards.
I for one have no problem with her forgoing those, actually. Then again that’s pretty much my stance on any attractive female anywhere, so…
Billie, I must be able to see at least 3 CM of cleavage whenever we’re talking. That is the parameter for our arrangement.
Oh no! Mary knows! Too bad she has no proof and most people hate her.
Your Gravatar makes your comment amusing. Like Mary is calling herself out.
It’s really not fair Mary is one of the avatars, but at least nobody is stuck with Blaine.
I am so making a Blaine avatar now.
I blame you 3oranges.
Mary hates everyone. ESPECIALLY Mary.
Proof?
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/clear/
Put a camera in her hands then maybe. Knowing something and having evidence of it are two different things. Still we don’t really know Mary’s credibility. Some of the cast don’t like her, but she could have an amazing relationship with the faculty and be a flipping honor student. It remains to be seen what actual damage she’s capable of with just her word. I imagine she could at least get a teacher down there if she complained enough.
“Professor Bean! I need you to help me end the HORRIBLE atrocities going on at clark wing!”
With that acknowledge she can… continue to be as unpleasant as always.
When Mary smiles, babies cry, flowers wilt, and Blaine is allowed an hour of happiness.
When Mary smiles for one full hour, all of your family dies, your friends die, all of the cutest kittens and babies die, every single one of these people who die go to Hell, and the world ends up hating every one of them.
Also, she eats that slice of pizza you’ve been saving in the fridge.
Not the pizza! That monster!
(My dad does this to me all the time :P)
You are confusing cause and effect. That’s what makes Mary smile, not the other way round.
i am certain this conversation has already happened 😛
Well that explains how Amber was concieved.
But does it explain how Faz was conceived?
Nice of Ruth to address her by her full title.
Some people only call her christian. More only call her ass-queen. Strangely no one calls her warrior.
Christian Warrior Assqueen…. BWEHWEHWE!!!! XD
It was a crappy follow the leader version of Xena: Warrior Princess.
Ask and you shall receive.
I’m getting mixed signals from your title, your highness.
Heh heh heh nickname Ruth. Better than any I have ever thought of
Ignoring Mary to bask in the happiness that FINALLY is Ruth & Billie.
First, I think the nest building going on between those two is a good sign. They’re at least taking care of themselves. A nice omen to chase the suicidal overtones of how they became a couple.
Delenda est Mary.
In where Billie learns what a “shit eating grin” looks like.
Ruth’s all like “Billie we just made out. It’s not time to move in, yet.”
There’s a very old joke about this, involving a u-haul. (I bet the commenters can come up with a better one, though.)
Alison Bechdel tells it best!
I remember this, a lesbian second date involves a U-Haul… But since neither Ruth nor Billie is a lesbian, it’s just a laundry basket.
They made a drunken sexual lesbian suicide pact, clearly is time to move in.
Mary only smiles when she knows something. She doesn’t smile much.
Mary delenda est
Can Ruth lose her RA position because of this?
If not, then they should tell Mary to fuck off and then make out in front of her.
Its a very good possibility if Mary obtains hard proof and throws enough of a stink with ResLife. Even if it’s not explicitly spelled out most RA (or positions of authority in general) are required to act professionally with their charges.
However I think Mary is heading for Blackmail. Which gets lovely legally messy. Reciprocal boinking an adult resident is just (and likely heavily) against policy, blackmail is actually a crime recoginized at the state level.
Ruth facepalming would appear to indicate it’s not going to be quite that simple.
That, and the pointedly anti-lesbian comments.
I like that Billie’s evasion about laundry day gets explained. Girl is serious.
I like that, too!
Nobody mentioned U-Haul lesbians yet? Nobody?
O, wait. Right up above.
There is one solution to that problem.
Cut a frown into her face? Make her the anti-Joker?
Make it a Ruth/Billie/Mary threesome?
since when did the Joker have a Glasgow Smile?
You can thank Heath Ledger for that one.
Leave Mary in a ditch in Nevada?
Too close. make it in Tierra del Fuego.
Try a ditch in Antarctica, then I’ll consider it worthwhile.
I’m still not sure what the actual arrangement is here between these two. Is Billie actually moving in? Ruth seems like someone who needs her space. I’m sure it’ll become clear by sundown. Or 2015.
Looks like Billie sure intends to, and Ruth is unsure but hasn’t really tried to stop her yet. 2015 sounds about right.
Well, at least they’re aware of the danger that is Mary. Having the BillingsLess/RuthWorth/Whatever ship get sunk by a completely unsuspected Greek-tragedy-type act of revenge would have sucked. But these two still have some figuring out to do…
Admit it, you wanna call it Worthless.
The odds of their relationship lasting are bad enough without jinxing it with a name like that. 😀
The comic and ensuing conversation make me think that “Mary Pretends” by Fuel fits Mary perfectly.
Christian warrior is a contradiction.
Coough cough, the Crusades, cough.
Was the Crusades good moral Christian behavior? I think not.
Killed all the Muslims & Jews in Jerusalem. No big.
They sure as hell thought so!
In most religions, there’s a bit of a gap between the theory and the practice.
And that gap breeds atheism.
hm, I think the lack of evidence breeds Atheism
Contradictions breeds skepticism.
Skeptcisim breeds questions.
Questions breed “shut up and do as the Pope/King says”.
“Shut up and do as the Pope/King says” breeds Protestant religions.
Protestant religions breed more questions (I mean why not? If the old men incharge were wrong once….).
More questions, plus advances in communication and information storage technologies (mass printed books), breaks the whole thing open.
Yeah. (X) millions killed over the millennia. That’s basically peaceful. And they probably deserved it, besides.
Tell that to the Crusaders… Crusades.. Whatever they were called.
Mary’s nefariousness indicates her direct lineage from the Crusades.
I’d have pegged her for an Inquisitor, myself.
NOOOOO one expects the nosy Christian hypocrite!
Christianity became the official religion of Rome because Emperor Constantine decided to become Christian if he won his next battle after he saw a cross in the sky…and the Pope didn’t tell him to get lost.
I wonder if there was a precedent, or if that’s the first time a Christian was allowed to just up and kill people.
People had been killing other people in the name of their particular brand of god for a looong time before Christianity came around.
Constantine’s adoption of the Church was a MAJOR turning point for Christianity. From a persecuted minority religion it turned into the official religion of an Empire whose Number 1 business was war.
It’s a major turning point, but I was wondering about the lead up to it and if allowing Christians to kill was really made up for the occasion.
It’s an interesting and important question, but I don’t know much. I haven’t heard of a state before 4th century Rome that espoused/fought in the name of Christianity, but there were some soldiers in the Roman army who practiced Christian worship before Constantine, even during periods when they could have been in big trouble if caught doing it.
While Constantine gave a lot of lip service to Christianity for political reasons, and definitely gave preferential treatment to Christianity, Christianity didn’t become the official state religion until Emperor Theodosius I was in charge.
Sorry, I know I’m being nit-picky.
You are right about the details. Further, the state persecutions had been halted/paused earlier. More broadly, the merger of Rome & the Church was a long process involving millions of people — if Romans hadn’t been converting for centuries before even in the face of the state’s persecutions it never could have happened and even the merger took decades under multiple emperors. But the Big C played a decisive role in the merger and changing the direction of the Church. If he hadn’t taken that battle as a test of Christianity AND won it, well, from there Christianity became The Special Sauce for a whole lot of armies over most of 2 millennia … and counting. And before anyone says that most armies have had their religion — and lots of those armies have spread their religion with sword and gun — and most religions have sponsored armies THAT IS TRY HOWEVER (1) we are discussing whether Christianity is an exception, which it’s not (in either direction), and (2) the record of conquests and bloodshed done by self-proclaimed Christian warriors INCLUDING warriors officially sponsored, INCLUDING warriors who belonged to official organizations of “Christian knights” is definitely top tier — which doesn’t mean Christianity is blood thirsty OR all/most Christians AND I am not going to argue about who is a “real” Christian or a “good” Christian or anything else like that.
“Christian warrior” is typically used as a metaphor, like “prayer warrior” (a term I, as a Christian, despise).
You may want to take that up with Augustine or Aquinas.
jus bellum iustum
Modern Islamic thinkers came up with a similar set of justifications when promulgating their wars.
Tell that to Kid Crusader.
Objections have been lodged from the Teutonic Order, the Knights of St. John, Order of Hospitalliers, the Livonian Order, the Knights Templar, etc.
Counterpoint: Warrior saints(Sergius and Bacchus, George, Vartan Mamikonean in the Armenian tradition) as well as literary usage of martial prowess as a demonstration of religious virtue; a classmate of mine also pointed out when discussing the Book of the Himayrites that some of the exchanges echo pre-Islamic Arabian martial poetry although that is a little further afield). See also Michael Gaddis’s _There is No Crime for those who Have Christ_ for a recent and excellent study of religious violence as a site of contestation in the Roman Empire and the uses of and objections to said violence.
Matthew 10:34New International Version (NIV)
34 “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.
Yeah, and he who lives by the sword dies by the sword? Turn the other cheek? Prince of Peace. Do unto others … I AM SO CONFUSED.
it’s almost like the bible was written by like a billion different people
But God dictated it to all of them and none of them got any of it wrong so its still like the literal word of God, right? No human foibles in there, right?, cause those foibles make me real nervous…
When Mary smiles, an angel loses his wings!
They are ripped off in a horribly painful dismemberment . . .
Then he is cast down from Heaven. However, instead if He’ll, he is made mortal, and it then run over on the freeway.
*of Hell
Christian warrior assqueen Mary….and that is a pretty fair description of Mary…but I’d have thrown a bongo in there, maybe between warrior and assqueen.
Okay, that shoots my theory out the window. That Joyce was still unconscious in the stall, and dreaming the interactions; it explained her being overly blunt, Becky’s taciturn responses, and more.
I just don’t get how the fainting in the stall was just…glossed over, but okay, back to
reali…comic strip reality.The same way her slipping and flipping upside and landing on her head and somehow not splattering her brains all over the shower stall was just glossed over. It’s a comic strip. Sometimes it’s a little cartoony.
I’m not sure this relationship between them is healthy. Do they really love each other or are they using each other to mask their pain? Both of these two have emotional issues. Also, they may be overdependent on each other. What happens if they break up? Do they drown themselves in alcohol again?
Well, Billie is certainly overdependent on Ruth. Honestly, moving some of her clothes to Ruth’s room strikes me as rather creepy considering how long it’s been.
It’s not really creepy Ruth told her to never leave Ruth is creepy since she’s admitted the only thing keeping her from offing herself is Billie. If anyone’s overdependant it’s Ruth.
We’re all a little creepy. And life is a little creepy. And when we find someone whose creepiness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying creepiness—and call it love—true love.
I think that’s how the quote goes.
You’re serious, aren’t you. Okay, considering Ruth’s surprise at the idea of Billy LITERALLY NEVER LEAVING that was clearly metaphorical. “Don’t leave me”, not “Never exit my presence.” Have your problems with the former statement, if you will, but the latter? Clearly Billy’s idea.
FTR I assumed Billie was joking about the clothes, but she is still the one who was like “I don’t care about dumb stuff like classes anymore <3"
I think it’s more a pragmatic decision to keep things secret: Billie can have a change of clothes in the morning if she stays over so no one will know she wasn’t in her room that night (except Sal who doesn’t seem like a gossiper).
It’s less “I WANT TO MOVE IN WITH YOU MY LOVE” and more “If we want to keep this a secret from angry Christians, I should probably have a change or two of clothes here”
They are planning to drown themselves in alcohol anyway. No need to break up for that.
Been too long since I was on campus, I have no idea what the rule set would be for ‘overnight visits’ in and among the dorms. The Official rule set.
They know it happens, they ignore it, if they can’t see it, it don’t happen? Besides, that’s what RA is for…uhoh…well. Yeah, like the Ladies of court, they are above reproach.
Rambling here, but the short line is: so what if RA has a friend over for the night? Is it a big deal in todays dorms? Homo or hetro and is that an issue?
Meaning of course, to normal people, not Mary.
I don’t know about their dorms, but on our campus the “overnight guest” rule was no more than three days – basically, it was to prevent people from letting someone else live with them for free or constantly have a non-student living in their room.
However, plenty of boyfriend-girlfriend arrangements (including RAs) got around that by simply continuing to pay for their own room and going back to it once in a while – usually on one of the “open door night” events where we’d get goodies for being good little students and studying with our door open.
Of course, plenty of us also wandered the hall in our underwear, or in the case of a couple of the guys, with only a bath towel around their waist, so…we wouldn’t have needed to stash clothes to keep a relationship secret. No one would have looked twice at Billie wandering the halls in her underwear.
Yeah, not really getting the living arrangement issue thing here…Granted, my experience was probably before Willis was born, but my freshman year was on a floor that was coed by room, and I pretty much got dragged into bed by a girl across the hall from me the first weekend, which was all sorts of wierd for a midwestern boy like myself. The RA had her boyfriend pretty much living out of her room. Nobody cared. All sorts of pairings going on as I remember.
About a decade ago, my then SO was living in a sort student hostel/dorm in Tours, France. Two students (of properly different gender, implying different floor levels) decided to make things simpler for them by moving their matresses in one room and their living/studying stuff in the other.
They got a warning from the cleaning personnel. Some time later they were reported and thrown out.
Should have been late in the last decade of the twentieth century.
When I traveled there for an overnight stay, we had to take a hotel room. No visitors allowed after 7pm or so.
Yes, France. Felt somewhat surreal. Of course with a concierge and stuff.
A lot of American stereotypes about France are … untrue. Sexual mores are different than America’s, though that doesn’t mean that everyone is getting it all the time, AND The Rules tend to be enforced whether they make any sense at all AND the concierges RULE France.
My freshman dorm rector was an ex-priest who had become a protestant minister (forget his denomination), who pretty much stayed holed up in his apartment with an ex-nun while we did what we wanted to do … the night the fire department showed up was memorable. Which causes me to suddenly wonder: DOES THE DUMBY DORM HAVE ANY OFFICAL ADULT SUPERVISION?
CWAM. Almost as bad as CHOAM.
(What? I was in the mood for a gratuitous Dune reference.)
I’m down with that.
“It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice of Sapho that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains. The stains become a warning. It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.”
Mary needs to learn not to antagonize people who have the master key to where she sleeps.
This comment makes me very happy!
Or can pick the lock of the room where she sleeps.
Or can kick down the door to the room where she sleeps. Although picking the lock is much less trouble, or so I’ve heard.
mary is a closeted lesbian i’m p sure
But Joyce is also a closeted lesbian! And Becky! And Billie! And Catholic reform schoolgirl Sal! Which must mean *all* christian women are closeted lesbians! Which explains nuns & cloisters! o_O
– Mary is hiding a horrible secret in her room. Her roommate is still not revealed. But Mary’s thoroughly heterosexual, I’m sure.
I’m sure that would make the becky/joyce fangirls squee, but I feel like we would get more sinful glimpses into Joyce thinking about girls sexually and hating herself for it if she wasn’t straight, kind of like how we get her thinking about the male body now.
There have been a couple uncomfortable moments for Joyce where she did think about her own gender sexually or at least worry that she was. I am too lazy to trawl through the archives now, but at one point she asked Billie if it was natural to think impure thoughts (or something of the like) about other Girls.
That said, Joyce also seems attracted to Boys in a way outside of her Christian “I need to get married someday” sense of duty.
Personally, I’d be inclined to think of her as mostly straight but maybe slightly bicurious (made worse by the fact that she is pretty repressed in general and fixates on stuff) but arguments could range pretty far up either side of the Kinsley scale.
i could very easily see joyce as bi
Mary’s roommate is Roz, this was revealed way back when Roz filmed herself and Joe sleeping together.
@ Nightsbridge: You’re probably right. Although there is the possibility that Joyce does not recognize her moments of attraction to other girls for what they are / seem to be.
@ Marianne: You’re right, of course. And Mary refused to be in their room while Riley was there, for some reason. That sets up a possible situation where Roz accidentally tapes something that Mary might want to hide.
I think Mary is a closeted heterosexual.
Really really glad Billie went the route of immediately informing Ruth. Somehow I expected her to be the type to try and hide something like that.
In panel 2, could that be SARCASM coming from Ruth?
The jig is up, initiate Alcohol Poisoning Lesbian Suicide Pact
Replace “suicide” with “murder” and let’s see them refill Mary’s water bottle with something a little more lethal. (I can’t believe I’m advocating murder! Mary, what have you done to me!?) 😀
“Uh, this lemonade tastes like piss.” — “What?”
If you kill Mary an even greater evil will take her place,
Mary delenda est
Y’know, not trying to rain on anyone’s lesbian parade here, but remember that Ms. Billingsworth already has a reputation as an alcoholic. And remember that Billie did find Ms. Lessing in a drunken stupor in her room on more than one occasion — and has a picture to prove it.
It’s a dead certainty that Billie is underage, and regardless of whether Ruth is of legal age or not, no school is going to tolerate an alcoholic RA. And maybe this is what Mary knows about and feels is her ace in the hole, and it has nothing to do with any same-sex hanky-panky.
She did make a pointed comment to Billie about how she thinks lesbian sex acts are a sin and then said “God sees everything.” I doubt it’s about the alcohol.
Ruth’s underage still, too. She’s 20. I asked Willis a while back ’cause I was wondering about that.
But, yeah, it’s not the drinking Mary was on about earlier.
Christian warrior assqueen sounds just about right.
Time to pick up some counter-blackmail material, guys. Get on the ball.
Reminds me of this legend of a ghost called the Black Friar. He haunted the Byron family, and would appear at events like weddings and funerals and such. But on the happy occasions, he would look angry and upset, whereas when someone was dying he would look gleeful. He would also look happy at weddings when the marriage was going to be an unhappy one.
Mary is an evil spirit who delights in misery and whose smile is a portent of doom, is what I’m saying.
Maybe he was just lonely! He’s so misunderstood, but I can fix him.
Fix him with your penis?
Lord Byron once said that on his wedding day the Black Friar looked possitively gleeful.
I must be missing something because I’m unsure why Mary knowing is a bad thing. Is it something to do with Ruths position or is it just that Billy is technically Christian? I have no idea why she seems like she’s going to blackmail them because their relationship doesn’t seem like a big deal to me.
Although I haven’t read Willis’s other comics, going by previous comments, Mary appears to be a destructive person and the “bad type of Christian” who demonizes things like homosexual relationships. The biggest concern here for Ruth and Billie’s relationship is most likely Ruth’s position as a Resident Advisor, since it’s at least of really bad taste for RAs to pursue a relationship with their residents.
It’s a subordinate/superior relationship (Ruth being an RA), so it’s highly inappropriate and Ruth would probably be fired if word got around. Also, Mary is an asshole.
It completely depends upon your university. I was an RA and dating your residents was not encouraged… but it wasn’t anything even mildly job threatening.
RA dating residents is tricky and might get her fired. Even if it didn’t, Ruth’s reputation would definitely take a hit for it.
Also, both of them don’t really seem overly confident in their orientation and while they do like eachother, I don’t think either want to be outed to the student body yet.
On the other hand, people keep shouting blackmail when I’m not sure that’s what Mary is going for: It seems more to her character just to let it hang over their heads that she is morally better than them. It’s still dangerous; she doesn’t have a particular incentive to keep it secret after all, but I don’t think she’s actively angling to get anything out of this.
I gotta say that first line “Back already?” sums up my thoughts. We took a LONG detour in the “Who drew all the penii?!” story and now it looks like we’re about to take a LONG detour on the “Joyce’s BBF visits (and I thought was going to confess her long-time love for Joyce)” story.
Much as I dislike Mary (and I really, really do) anything that breaks up Billies and Ruths relationship can only be a good thing.
What about a speeding truck
Only if Fax is behind the wheel. And the truck is his penis.
Maybe a trucks going a tad far
ooohhh that is a huuuge nono ;-;