Nah, it’s more like those scenarios where someone wants to wallow in their martyr complex and someone else has to go and ruin it by being a decent human being to them…
While Dotty raises a valid point, I can’t really see Roz throwing Becky out either, if the situation was explained to her. She’s unpleasant in some ways, but not “toss LGBT teen with her only parent in jail (and also a violent asshole) into the street” unpleasant.
I don’t think that she would though? Considering the fact that Becky staying there is already kind of an open secret (http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/steplightly/), Roz would have no audience to make a big deal out of it to. /Everyone/ already knows she’s there. That’s kind of part of how Mary got under Ruth’s skin, because she was literally the only person on the floor who didn’t know Becky was there.
Besides that, if Roz did make a big deal out of Becky staying there, all that would do would draw attention to Becky and give cause to her getting kicked out of the dorms, making her literally homeless again. And what purpose would that do? Roz may be all about big productions, but she knows how to be discrete and to keep a secret, evident when she found out something bad happening to Joyce at the party, didn’t push her about what happened, and immediately handed her a card to a counseling service and then never brought it up again to rub in her face or to brag about herself. If Roz knows the whole story of why Becky’s there (runaway homeless gay teen whose only surviving parent is in jail bc he tried to shoot up the school/kidnap his daughter), I REALLY doubt she would be so awful as to use that as some sort of leverage, given how much she cares about LGBT+ issues and considering the fact that she went off on Joyce about homeless gay kids in class before.
You know, this is the first comment that makes me think that Dorothy might actually be the better RA. I’ve been firmly in Roz’s camp, but you’re right, she does like her media spectacles and Becky doesn’t need that.
I’m hoping this doesn’t end up being one of those cases where Roz ends up finding out she’s “more like her sister than she wants to admit” after she tries to use Becky and somehow gets her kicked out of the dorm…
Roz likes to create media spectacle where SHE is point of contention. I may be mistaken but I can’t recall her ever dragging someone into a media circus against their will unless she was trying to highlight their wrongdoings. I think you’d have to have a pretty majorly warped perception of Roz as a character to think she’d throw an innocent marginalized person under the bus just to make a point.
Joe: Not technically against his will, but uninformed that it was likely to be a media circus.
Leslie: This varies depending on what she actually intended, but at the very least she doesn’t seem to have given a single thought, even now, to how Robin’s outing will affect Leslie.
Roz couldn’t care less that her sister (and by extension Leslie) was outed (whether true or not) because it was for ‘the greater good’.
I’m not yet convinced that Roz doesn’t view making the point more important than learning. Her attitudes towards Leslie’s teaching and Joyce learning about life haven’t always been the friendliest.
She just recently told Dorothy her plan was for Robin to come out of her own volition. She might be okay with Robin being outed, but she seems to care enough that it wasn’t the preferred result.
I doubt that the consequences for Leslie have even occurred to her yet. This fits with what she says her plan was. If Robin had simply realized she was attracted to womanfolk and changed her stances and/or came out, Leslie would not have been impacted by it. It makes sense that she wouldn’t immediately realize what fallout there would be from result she never intended.
Yeah, it’s mostly a sign on not thinking things through and considering the possible consequences. Which probably has more to do with being 18 than anything else.
Yeah, I think it’s mostly that the implications for Leslie haven’t occurred to her yet–and I’ll be curious to see her reaction when they do–but she also doesn’t know the full situation yet, and that Robin has now made things substantially worse for Leslie.
But Billie’s not upset that Dorothy’s butting heads with Roz, just that Dorothy independently “took advantage” of Ruth’s situation (long before anyone even knew Roz was competition, mind you).
Sure, Billie’s rebuttal here could’ve been “If that’s your only concern, then it would be fine to concede to Roz.” That would’ve probably “won” the argument for her, because I suspect that the Becky thing is not Dorothy’s primary motivation, and she’s just using it to defuse Billie’s anger. But that aside, Roz doesn’t have much to do with this conversation because it’s tangential to why Billie’s upset.
Billie’s going to be upset at anyone whose in the running to replace Ruth. It’s a reality she doesn’t want to accept so she’s lashing out, it’s just Dorothy is the only one she interacts with and cares about her emotional state of the two that are out to get the job so she’s the one getting the frustration vented at her.
Dorothy’s personality would not, even if protecting Becky was her *only* motivation, allow her to concede outright to Roz. She’s particular and thorough, and I think she’d most trust herself to protect Becky, even if someone else would do it, too.
I have the same personality as her, and it shows up mostly when I’m cooking. Even though someone else *could* help me out by chopping the onions or something, I won’t ask for help (or accept it unless I’m already struggling to balance all the dishes I’m making), because I know I’ll cut them the way I want them, and there’s no guarantee someone else would. It’s not that I don’t trust them as cutters of onions, it’s just that I have something very particular in mind for how they should be sliced.
Obviously, that example is far more trivial, but Dorothy can simultaneously acknowledge Roz is likely to protect Becky and still be motivated by protecting Becky to take the job either because she thinks her plan to do so is the best, or because she wants the responsibility on her shoulders.
I do think Dorothy is motivated by other things, but I also think this is a bigger motivation than a lot of folks are giving her credit for. She’s pretty connected to Joyce, after all, and Joyce would be crushed if Becky were thrown out in the streets. Protecting someone you care about can be a very powerful motivator, and one which (in general, not just for Dorothy’s personality type) isn’t fond of passing that responsibility to anyone else.
I don’t think that statement has anything to do with Roz, I think it’s defending her ambition in the first place, saying essentially “I kickstarted my personal push not only for my own ambition which I shouldn’t have to apologize for, but also because I trust me to do things like protect Becky which was something that was important to Ruth and you as well.”
As for which of the two is more likely to hold that true… well, both of them would. Like, yeah, Roz is abrasive and goes in hot a lot, but we’ve seen her practice subtlety before in service to someone’s need in her “hey, if something happened, here’s a resource specifically designed for that thing” offer of post-rape counseling services for Joyce.
And she has never since used that as ammo nor has she sought to exploit the tragedy that happened on campus.
Like, people are free to dislike Roz or find her abrasive, but she’s not the evil supervillain so many seem to want to paint her as.
She wasn’t even expecting Roz (or anyone else on the floor) to be interested in the position when she decided to go for it. She probably figured that the other candidates would all be total strangers, and Dorothy is definitely a safer bet in terms of allowing Becky to stay than some complete unknown.
That’s very true. Dorothy is not pitching herself against Roz here, she is pitching herself against some unknown last-minute-replacement Chloe will cook up. Someone who doesn’t live on the floor, someone who doesn’t know the people and someone who has a much more vested interested in following the rules than some homeless kid.
I think it’s more than likely that Roz will be just as thoughtful to Becky’s situation as Dorothy. In fact, if Roz knew about Becky’s situation she would most likely be worried about how sincere goodie two-shoe Dorothy would be breaking the rules for her.
And Roz probably knows actual resources for Becky, in case the whole “hiding in a college dorm” doesn’t actually work out. I mean, at the very least she’d probably try to put her in touch with Leslie, who has been in the “homeless teen raised by fundies” boat.
Well, anyone of them could put her in touch with Leslie, but they’re too worried about letting anyone with authority know. Leslie even tried to approach Joyce about it, but get brushed off.
And Roz really should already know about Becky, since most of the floor does, and could offer her those resources without being RA.
I wonder if that reaction might be the strong post-election memories influencing people. Dorothy’s “Too Prepared” “Always Right” traits as negatives seem almost prophetic in light of Clinton being bashed for being “Too Prepared” at the debates against Trump.
People may just be subconsciously comparing Roz to Trump in this run.
I assume Roz knows about Becky. Everyone else seemed to and to be conspiring to keep her hidden. If she doesn’t, she’s far more out of touch with the floor than she claims to be.
But yeah, when Dorothy decided to try for the RA job, Roz wasn’t in the picture. Now that she is, there’s still no reason to step aside. Roz trying for the job isn’t any better from Billie’s point of view than Dorothy doing so.
No one will vote for Mary because it’s well established that literally everyone on the floor hates Mary, and also because the RA job isn’t an election.
The fact that it’s not an election, of course, means that Mary could actually get the job somehow, and become some kind of President Trump analogue. This actually creates the most dramatic possibility, gives Mary some credibility/power she desperately needs if she’s ever going to be taken seriously as a major villain ever again, and opens the door of someone blackmailing Mary ironically. It also causes Mary’s recent fall from grace to make sense narratively, because right now Mary’s so powerless it almost comes off like everyone’s bullying her, so giving her the power to get “revenge” can kickstart a lot of stories and probably carry a whole book before she gets a satisfying defeat.
The only other dramatic option is Roz, who’s outing of Robin seems to have had some rather selfish motivations in this regard.
Ruth getting her job back makes this entire arc a waste of time, and Dorothy’s simply too competent to get the role, because she’d be able to solve a lot of problems.
That could be good, though I feel Mary has several routes to being a threat (she still knows Becky’s secret and could out it, especially if it’s an anonymous way, she can sic her church on the campus leading to protests, she could decide to attack the source of the person currently keeping her in check and try to do the whole trap and harry method to Billie about her alcoholism).
And hell, she doesn’t even need to be a credible threat to still be a nasty thorn in the side of the other characters, serving as a narrative foil to their happiness.
That all said, I think if it doesn’t go back to Ruth on a short leash, the job’s going to go to a new character or obscure Walkyverse character who was passed over for the position who will somehow manage to be infinitely worse than Ruth at doing the job.
It’s hard to be worse at this job than Ruth. She has literally assaulted people.
And I think it’d be super tacky if the way this plays out is that the dorm corrals around Ruth because she was a jerk, but she was their jerk. Ruth is inept on a good day. At her worst she is actively abusive to her peers.
And, well, I agree with ESM. Ruth getting her job back makes this entire arc pointless. It just puts every single character involved back in the same place. That’s pretty much why I don’t think it will play out that way.
Is it just me or has the comic been updating later and later every day again? I think the…logistics or whatever you call it is getting off-kilter or something.
“Goddamn it, Dorothy, how am I supposed to use you qas an emotional punching back with which I can take out my depression and self-loathing on if you keep being all reasonable and genuinely concerned for the well being and others??!”
Oh dorothy don’t try to make this about some greater good. You only want the job to pad a resume. Becky is just convinetnt way to feel better. Honestly nothing’s wrong with using the job as a stepping stone to a better goal.
Dorothy is a good person and Joyce’s other best friend, if you think becky’s situation didn’t occur to her and wasn’t a factor then I don’t think you understand her character.
Oh I’m sure it was a factor, I don’t see Dorothy outright lying to Billie’s face about having altruistic reasons alongside her selfish ones (though how long that will last for someone who wants to be a career politician is yet to be seen) it’s just it’s almost certainly a secondary or even tertiary factor next to personal ambition.
Her being in power IS for the greater good. Padding her resume is ALSO for the greater good. She’s just that awesome. Yes, she’s getting more power, but she only wants that power to make the world better because that’s what she does with power. And she’ll use being RA for the greater good, too.
I mean, she’s arrogant, but she’s the good kind of arrogant, which makes her extra-insufferable.
That seems like an extra harsh take on her character. She’s ambitious and she honestly wants to do good. At no point so far has it been hinted that she wants power purely for power’s sake. She’s naive, not heartless.
I wasn’t being harsh. And it’s not power for its own sake. Dorothy has a goal in mind and she’s so far shown she will do anything to accomplish it. honestly I would do the same thing so would most people who want to build padding to achieve a goal. Helping Becky may be a thing to do but really she’s only doing it now to get Billie and others to back her.
Why do you think that? Dorothy does care about people. Becky getting kicked out would devastate Joyce. Even if Dorothy didn’t care about Becky, she does about Joyce.
I’m not saying that her ambition isn’t a major factor, but I don’t see why this has to be only an excuse.
alright, fine. Legitimate point there. She’s still not eligible for the actual position though, right? I’m admittedly unsure about the logistics, but barring the unlikely circumstance the floor is allowed to continue without an RA, there’s a distinct gap between now and whenever Dorothy actually becomes a viable option. Wouldn’t there be the probability of either the head RA lady (sorry I forget her name, is it Chloe?) who is currently stepping in or some other replacement RA be likely to figure out Becky’s situation as well? Regardless of how sympathetic this person would be, wouldn’t that negate the point of keeping Becky a secret in the first place?
I dunno, I figure sooner or later this is gonna be addressed.
As Dorothy pointed out, none of the sophomores are interested in the position. Even if they pull in someone from another wing to do it, at the very least she’s put her name in as a person of interest – the new RA could very well ask to get caught up to speed and Dorothy can obfuscate as needed.
Dorothy isn’t regularly eligible, but given the circumstances (lots of crappy RA’s exhausting the replacement pool/the replacement pool being shallow due to a plethora of crappy applicants, expediency, the convenience of the move, etc.) Chloe has said she’d field applications from competent freshmen.
It’s the fact that A) It’s Dorothy and B) She says ‘as long as we’re picking from the floor’. That seems like a strange assumption to make, and Dorothy doesn’t tend towards strange assumptions. Since Chloe said she’d field Dorothy’s application, I’m thinking she’s worried about replacing Ruth quickly, and getting a girl from the floor is most conducive to that. Being a freshman is a problem, but if they’re a competent freshmen, Chloe seems like she’s game.
This is why I feel like ultimately Dorothy would get the job over Roz if it actually ended up being against the two of them. Even in outstanding circumstances, which have already been discussed, a freshman would still need a fantastic application and references as well as a high GPA. I’m sure Roz is a good student but all things considered someone like Dorothy would have the better resume and make a better impression during the interviewing process.
And also Roz has the whole “leaked sex tape” scandal under her belt, which in comic time was only a month or so ago. That type of thing isn’t something that would be looked kindly upon.
I disagree. Part of being an RA is being a figure of some authority, and understanding some of the red tape around being a student. First year students range from “I don’t know how to work the laundry machine” to “I’ve been living on my own for a year” and an RA is often the first stop for the former group when they run into holes in their knowledge.
Joyce is friendly. She’d be good if you have a problem with your roommate, but I wouldn’t expect her to know what to do if say, a student had a problem with their professor. Or needed to fill out forms declaring a disability. And if the problem is sexual in nature (Like someone thinks they have an STD and doesn’t know where the health services are) she’d be the last person a student would want to talk to.
Both Dorothy and Roz would at least have an idea of what the next steps are in those cases, and know what questions to be asking. Joyce on the other hand, is more likely to need an RA to answer those questions.
Also, Joyce still has some system patches she needs to do wrt bigotry. Sure, she’s not the horrible horrible asshole Mary is, and she’s learned sexuality isn’t a good reason to be a bigot (and hopefully also gender, but she may not have). She doesn’t seem to understand mental illness, and I doubt she knows much about disability. Her religious tolerance for those who aren’t Christian has almost certainly improved, but ignorant bigotry still sucks.
I don’t think Joyce would be a terrible RA. I think she, like all the other girls bar Mary, would make a decent but flawed RA. One of her flaws is she needs some more education first.
Or god forbid she finds something she gets super enthusiastic to the point of pressuring folks into doing stuff. She has a habit of continuously bringing things up until folks give in. Uncool generally, DEFINITELY uncool for an RA.
I’m all up for Joyce as an RA. She is friendly, nice and bossy enough to not be run over. She is humble enough to ASK PEOPLE when she don’t know how things work.
The hair thing would be a problem.
But she has one more qualification.
What was the one good thing with Ruth everyone agreed on? Here feeding abusive father Blaine to wild dogs.
How have we seen Joyce interact with abusive father Ross? FIST TO THE FACE!!!!
Ah, dang it. I wrote this a while back but posted it late so I’m not sure how many people saw it, and I really like it. NOW WITH ADDED BONUS MATERIAL.
For a fistfull of Beckies.
“The old sheriff was gone and they told me a slip of a girl took her place. Cute as a button she was, and the strongest word she ever took in her mouth was ‘poodle.’
The black hats congregated. The roughs and the slicks and the nasties. Each and one wanting to carve a piece of ol’ Clark and show this new sheriff that this was their town now, to do with as they liked.
Into town they rode. Two horses in breath and ten deep went the column. And the good people boarded up, watching the ruffians enter their town through narrow slits between heavy bars, the roughs and the slicks and the nasties. ‘They’re here to take us away,’ they whispered. ‘They are here to tear the town down, they feared. ‘Stromatolites might be the oldest fossils in the world’, said one (I’m not quite sure why).
And the one they call Dorothy rode from the west, the cavalery riding with her. And the one they call Roz rode from the east, the good people of the plain mustering around her. But none of them got there before the bandits, and none of them had to.
In the town square she stood, the slip of the girl, this cute little button of a sheriff, and the rode a circle around her, the roughs and the slicks and the nasties. They cackled and laughed and heckled and threatened, and the baddest of the baddies rode up to her, and looked down on her, and said, with hissing voice,
“You aint no Ruthless, girl. We aint ‘fraid of you.”
And the sheriff looked the baddie in the eye.
And the wild dogs in the edge of town perked their ears.
And this completely irrelevant General dude ran through the town square banging two pots together and screamed “FLEEE YOU FOOOOOOOOOLS.”
Anyway.
…where were I…
…yeah…
Out of town they tore, the roughs and the slicks and the nasties, like the devil himself were on their tails, and I don’t fault them one bit for not slowing down to check. Those still on their horses rode like the wind. Those who lost them scampered like rabbits, and most of them crawled on their bellies like the vermin they were, however they could, getting the hell away from Clark.
And they never came back, they said, and good riddance.
So that’s my story. There’s a new sheriff in town, and her name is Joyce. NO ONE will hurt the her people. No one. She will fight them. She will.”
It depends if you think avoiding them is better than wallowing in them. Neither is ideal or likely to contribute much to recovery/mitigation but I’ve generally found the former to be more viable long term than the latter.
She’s got all the skills. She can sort out crises, she has a lot of hard-earned knowledge about how to support a woman going through hell, she’s got an alpha percussion instrument, head cheerleader vibe that presents confidence and leadership and no-nonsense when she needs it, and she’s done better than anyone to keep Mary in check.
But she hates herself and is almost always drunk in a self-destructive way.
She’s also got leadership experience and day to day social skills for it.
Billie, therapy now, then yoink the RA gig out of Dorothy and Roz’s hands from under their feet. Then you can let Becky AND Ruth live illegally in the dorms. No abusive family returns necessary.
She’s literally done Ruth’s job for her for a while, that’s how she noticed Ruth was locked in her room for a bunch of time and found her with the bottles. The floor just flocked to her as someone who would help, up to and including sorting out couples’ spats.
Ruth was never a good RA, even when she was at her healthiest. Chloe may have liked her, but that does not mean that she should still be RA, especially when her primary mode of communication is threats of bodily harm.
Healthy Billy, on the other hand, would actually be able to help other people and genuinely like doing so. She likes being a go-getter, problem solving kind of person.
In fairness, Ruth at her healthiest was still pretty dang unhealthy. I’d be curious to see how she does post-medication and therapy. We’ve seen her do decently on her better days and I wonder if that’s more emblematic of how she’d do healthy.
Billie on the other hand, would be amazing because, unlike Ruth, she seems really invested in the problem solving thing.
Pretty much what I meant. We’ve never seen Ruth healthy.
Also in fairness, we’ve never seen Billie healthy either. The things we like about her are symptoms of her drive to prove herself useful and not toxic.
She has however been a depressed alcoholic longer than we’ve known her. Nor, as near as we can tell, has she even made as much attempt to quit drinking as Ruth has.
I’m more for Roz now than I was before since Dorothy is just using the Becky situation to justify this to the rightfully angry Billie rather than having that as a goal in the first place. It just rubs me the wrong way and seems manipulative.
I think Dorothy would make a good RA, but I’m betting if Ruth doesn’t get the job back it’ll go to someone we haven’t seen much of before. Meredith maybe, or some other character that’s new to DoA.
Oh shit that’s right. Also, does that mean Dorothy is using the “it would look good on my resume/application” as a smoke screen for her true intentions for those who the true intentions should be hidden from (Mary) or is the fact that it would look good on such a resume/application just an added bonus?
She can have multiple reasons. I’m thinking it’s ‘a bit of column A, a bit of column B, a bit of column C, all of column Protect Becky from getting tossed, etc.’
Oh she’s definitely running to keep her name in consideration for next year and to pad her resume for a difficult transfer application to Yale.
This is if anything, an add-on to that main and driving desire.
And at the end of the day, sure, so she runs primarily to pad her resume, so what? There’s a weird thing in society where women are expected to apologize for blind ambition in a way men are not.
Exactly. She’s not doing anything wrong by running to pad her application, but Billie is hurt anyways. Emotions are complicated – Dorothy doesn’t have to do wrong things to make people feel hurt. Yay, emotional complexity!
And the interesting thing is Billie is totally reasonable to be mad. It’s an unsettling and angering situation and Dorothy doing nothing wrong still hits some nasty sore wounds for Billie that was always going to make her mad.
And that’s totally legitimate. And I think Dorothy may have been better served letting Billie stew off her anger overnight or give a frank statement that she didn’t think she did anything wrong, but she’s still sad that this made a hard situation harder rather than trying to short-circuit her anger when it came out.
Yeah, I think so too. I think Dorothy is going to struggle with this because, really, she’s done nothing wrong, but it still made a situation worse for Billie.
Panel One: Oh boy, Billie’s wide eyes means she probably did not expect this. Thaaaat might end badly. She’s not feeling up to discussing ….well, pretty much anything right now.
Panel Two: She looks annoyed, upset, and defeated here. She really does not want to talk right now but she recognizes that she will.
Panel Three: It’s nice of Dorothy to try reaching out to Billie again. They aren’t particularly close, but she knows Billie enough to care and try to help. And Walky obviously cares about Billie. He jumps to help her and bends over backwards for her in ways he doesn’t do for anyone else – even Dorothy. He’s closer to her than his girlfriend or his biological sister. Dorothy understands that in some ways, but it also makes her sad that she can’t get Walky to express himself in any other ways.
Billie doesn’t look like she believes it though. Actually, she looks annoyed. Like ‘oh great, Dorothy is talking to me’. Billie is pissed – not at anyone in particular, but because A) She’s frightened for Ruth and upset about everything, and how she ‘failed to save Ruth’. And B) I think she’s having a Ruth like moment where anger is one of the few emotions she can still actually feel. So you can bet your ass she’ll cling to that for a long time.
Panel Four: Oof, yeah, that’ll upset her. Especially since Ruth hasn’t even been fired yet, but everyone acts like it’s a done deal. That has to be frustrating. Everyone is acting like Ruth’s gone for good and is never going to come back to being RA (or, in Billie’s mind, getting to stay with her).
Also, Dorothy, respectfully? Bullshit. You were going up and down the halls asking people about their problems for your notes. While that doesn’t scream RA job, it’ll definitely give people the idea something is up and there’s not a whole lot of things it could be. Although that DOES explain why Dorothy kind of brushed it off and didn’t just tell Joyce she was gunning for RA.
Panel Five: Again, Dorothy, it wasn’t that hard to figure out. You didn’t do anything ‘wrong’ per se, but it’s hardly rocket science to figure out that’s what you wanted. Also, did you really think Billie would take it better if she found out when you were appointed? I doubt it. Sure, someone would take Ruth’s job, but someone isn’t necessarily in Billie’s circle of friends and gunning before she’s even fired, never mind before the metaphorical body is cold. Sure, Billie’d be pissy with whoever replaced her, but I think it’d be different it it were, say, Mandy. Because Mandy isn’t in Billie’s circle of friends. No feelings, justified or not, of betrayal.
Panel Six: I like how Dorothy brings this up – it’s not ENTIRELY about her wanting the job or boosting her Yale application. The RA is definitely going to have a lot of responsibility for things in the dorm, and some of those things aren’t things people want to come to light.
If Becky gets found out by the new RA, she could be HOSED. She does not have anywhere near the money for a room nor does she have potential roommates (maybe if Ruth IS fired and needs a new job and Marcie wants to move into somewhere less crowded, they could pool resources and end up in a shitty, but cheap apartment, but I am not banking on this). That is an important thing to consider for who will be RA. Now, thankfully, I seriously seriously doubt Roz would chuck Becky out. I’d be stunned if she doesn’t know at least ONE resource centre that helps with housing, or at least how to find one, and point Becky in their direction.
Although, again Dorothy, you’re assuming Ruth will be fired. That is not a thing that is confirmed.
Panel Seven: Billie definitely hasn’t thought about Becky’s role in this. On one hand, she knows that that’s true. Becky needs a new home. She does not have the ability to find one right now. She needs one before they can have a regular RA again. And she does care about helping Becky – beyond her problem solver self image, she’s done some of the most to help Becky, even if it’s just giving her her bed.
Panel Eight: And yeah, that’s not a thing she can dodge. It still hurts though, because she can’t help but be mad at how things went down with Ruth and yeah, Dorothy (or anyone) gunning for the job is a reminder of that and it pisses her off. But there’s little she can do, and it may actually help other people she cares about. Billie is going to be conflicted and have lots of negative mixed feelings about this.
And Dorothy is surprised – she’s taking a lot of blows to her image lately. She’s been building herself up as the pristine, responsible, dare I say perfect girl because acknowledging her flaws would be death in politics. But it causes her to have issues with day to day sociability skills, and that can be death for her RA application. Unlike the presidency, sociability skills on the day to day level are important for being RA because you need to build trust to get people to feel okay coming to you. The very image she relies on for politics is biting her in the ass hard for her RA bid because the girls don’t relate to her and therefore would trust her less as a good ear. She’s ‘mom-ish’. She’s ‘unapproachable’. She’s ‘always right’. That’s a huge blow to how she’s felt. Dorothy is always analyzing and picking apart her image and all she can see are these seemingly glaring flaws (or things that aren’t flaws but get women torn to shreds, like DARING to have an active sex drive). So it feels weird that the other girls don’t see them too and it’s making it harder to achieve this position with different skills and images than the one’s she’s cultivated and it’s definitely upsetting her because she DOES want to be personable and likeable…just not at the expense of all her dreams for the sake of one tiny RA goal. And finding a balance between them will be important.
Yeah, I really think Billie’s falling into a state where anger is the only emotion she can still feel too.
And I think that can be seen in the fact that she’s not once cried or shown fear. She’s only shown either numb or rage since that night Ruth got hospitalized. It’s really not a good place that she’s in and I really hope that the therapy she’s scheduled for can help get her through it.
And yeah, I think you’re definitely on point with how some of Dorothy’s statements are bullshit and why this bothers Billie so much and that Roz would be just as safe for Becky as Dorothy would be.
Exactly. If she’s not silent, she’s lashing out at everyone. This is killing her, because she put so much stock in being a problem solver and she couldn’t be that for Ruth. Nobody can, because depression does not work that way, but Billie’s in no headspace to admit it.
Yup, and she based her whole self-esteem on “solving” Ruth’s unhappiness. Like, she was personally going to defeat depression, but that’s not how it works. And grappling with that now is not easy, especially as she was using the codependence of that fight distract herself from how she believes she’s a toxic mess that destroys everything she touches and who is not worthy of love from someone who isn’t equally “broken”.
I don’t think everyone NEEDS a therapist (in the sense of ‘is having a serious mental health issue that is getting worse and needs treatment’) but I do think plenty of them could benefit from one.
It’s true that Roz as R.A. would probably be good for the Becky situation. However Dorothy began her bid before she had any idea Roz even wanted the job.
The only thing Dorothy has ever seen from Roz is her being a selfish jerk. Hell, I was surprised that she wanted the job. Something with actual responsibility, instead of the guerrilla warfare techniques? Actually having to deal with people without attacking them as horrible?
If I were Dorothy, the only thing Roz’s throwing her (admittedly stylish) hat in the ring would do is make me want to work harder to win. Because I would not at all trust someone Roz to be able to do the job.
Dorothy also is not running for the job primarily to help Becky and she knows it. It is a reason, maybe a large reason, but it is not the thing first and foremost on her list.
I was surprised she wanted it too, because she didn’t seem interested in authority positions to me before, but she’s sought out jobs with some measure of responsibility before (volunteering, working for the paper), so I guess it’s not a huge shock.
It’s confusing when you switch from a name to a third person pronoun without introducing another name to clarify the switch. Otherwise, it reads very much like you’re still talking about Dorothy, and then it doesn’t make sense.
I was confused too, but BBCC was replying to Trikly who did start with “The only thing Dorothy has ever seen from Roz is her being a selfish jerk. Hell, I was surprised that she wanted the job. Something with actual responsibility, instead of the guerrilla warfare techniques? Actually having to deal with people without attacking them as horrible?”
So in that context, it makes sense that BBCC was talking about Roz, but it wasn’t clear to me until it was questioned and I went back to double check.
It also didn’t help that Dorothy also volunteers and works for the paper and does so more prominently. 🙂
Yeah, my bad on that one! I’m referring to Roz on that line, who volunteers for Planned Parenthood (and probably other spots too) and, per Willis’ tumblr, works as the sex columnist for the paper.
Poor, poor Billie. Like you say, we can see how she struggles just to get her defenses up when Dorothy calls her.
Bringing up Becky hits her right in the guilt. Billie gave Becky her room and then she will need it back. Her inability to help Becky is the latest straw in her own crumbling self image. She is not a cheer leader, not a problem solver, not an alpha bongo. She is just a horrible waste of space that makes everything worse. (never mind how much she has ACTUALLY helped Becky, with free haircut money, a cool example of a lady who likes ladies and her FRIGGIN’ BED).
Now Dorothy steps in to do something for Becky that Billie couldn’t. This will not do her self esteem any favors 🙁
Ruth did nothing for Becky though. She was too busy being drunk and depressed, and when she found out she told Billie that she had to find new housing.
She just didn’t rat her out. That’s basically on the same level as Mary.
Mary didn’t rat Becky out because she was either holding onto that to blackmail Ruth with, or else she doesn’t know Becky came back after she left with Joyce for the weekend.
After learning Becky was living on the floor, Ruth told Billie to find somewhere else to put Becky so that Ruth could deny she knew about it.
That’s not a lot, but it’s more than Mary would have even considered doing.
Plus Ruth didn’t rat out Becky when it would actually help with the blackmail situation. It’s one less thing Mary would have on her.
Plus, whether Ruth helped out or not is not really relevant. Billie wants to help Becky. Billie gave Becky her room. Billie kept Becky a secret from Ruth as long as she could. Hence Billie would want an RA that would help Becky, and not one that would throw her out.
This is why we need a machine uprising. Robots would know that Dorothy is objectively the most qualified, hardworking, conscientious, organized and smartest candidate to have put their name forward.
This is the kind of ridiculous feelings bull that let Trump get elected. Does the economy feel down? Does it feel like moral values are decaying? Does Doro-ImeanHillary feel genuine?
No, she doesn’t. Or, at least, if she does, we don’t know what they are. They would have to be things like having done something similar before. You know, resume stuff.
What we do know about Roz is how she is as a person, and she loses badly to Dorothy by every measure. It’s not even close. Roz is an obnoxious jerk who attacks everyone who doesn’t measure up to her standard. Even if you improve tremendously like Joyce did, you’re still the enemy.
Even if you argue that said personality can be useful, it’s not useful as an R.A. Sure, it’s the attitude that Ruth had, but that’s a huge part of why she was not good at her job. There was no way that Ruth could be there for you.
No, an RA needs to listen to and deal with interpersonal conflict. Sure, they have to handle some discipline, but it’s not the bulk of their job. The R.A. has to be there for you, to help you.
The closest thing we’ve seen from Roz is her telling Joyce who she could call. There’s no hotline for roommate problems. And just being quiet (like she was when Joyce came back after stopping ToeDad) won’t work, either.
Sure, it seems Roz has skills in campaigning. But the skills of that and actually doing the job are not the same, at all.
And all that’s without the obvious reason Roz can’t be RA: she created a scandal early on in the school year. She’s a liability. Hiring her would be hiring someone who creates problems for the school, not someone who helps solving them.
She has to appear as a reformed troublemaker to have a chance, and it’s not remotely been long enough for that.
A) Like you said, she’s good for the discipline part of the gig.
B) We do know she’s been responsible for day to day grunt work – with both Planned Parenthood and the school paper as the sex columnist. Both of those require a measure of responsibility, commitment, and work.
C) If you’re talking about being responsible for others, Roz has an ‘excessively numerous’ amount of sisters. I think it’s unlikely at best she’s never been responsible for at least some.
D) We know she has resources – for rape, reproductive health (not to mention hormones for Carla), probably for LGBT+ issues, abuse, probably legal or political issues considering her family, etc. Dorothy does not have these resources.
E) Roz has better day to day social skills. Dorothy isn’t good at that – and yes, that is an important part of being the RA. In part because of things like roommate issues. Roz has built better day to day relations with a few of the girls and they feel better coming to Roz because they trust her on that. And again, I find it very unlikely Roz has never had to sort out issues between younger (or even older) sisters before. She also works as outreach for Planned Parenthood – I’m guessing that entails interpersonal skills.
F) We also know she’s got the ability to reach out to students, even those she doesn’t like, at least for enough time to offer a resource for their issue.
The school’s already hired her to work on the IDS as their sex columnist, so that is actually a decent way to show off responsibility and the ability to work for the school.
You’re also ignoring one important part of her yelling at Joyce, so I’m gonna put this in capitals – JOYCE WAS ACTIVELY DOING SOMETHING WRONG. She was trying to pretend her former bigotry didn’t count and foist it off on the church as a far away entity, not an institution she did the anti-LGBT+ dirty work for. And for that, she deserved to be told off. Roz needed to stop because it was Leslie’s class and Leslie wanted her to, not because she was incorrect about Joyce. Joyce even admitted the next day that it was a good thing Roz yelled at her. That is not ‘this is good, but not up to my standards, so I am going to yell at you like an unreasonable person’ that was ‘you are pretending you never did anything wrong and that is bullshit and so I am going to loudly call you on it’. You don’t have to like it, but don’t pretend Joyce did not deserve to be yelled at for her bullshit.
Roz on offense is a horrible person who happens to be on the right side of history. People like Roz are the reason LGBT people see that there are people fighting for them, and that’s a good thing. But like Jesse Jackson before her, Roz has a flawed method of operation that in the long run does more harm than good.
We’ve seen Roz in action. LGBT and liberal-sex folk are not the only people Roz will have to take care of. Roz has no toloerance for bullshit as she sees it, and that is a fatal flaw in an R.A. or any political role. The human race will continue to spew bullshit forever and it’s a political job to deal with it and move forward. Even a relative saint like Michelle Obama is unsuited to politics because of such bullshit allergies.
Could Roz make it as an R.A.? I think she’d be better than Ruth. But Roz comes across as more interested in beating her enemies than helping her allies.
We’ve seen Roz take care of people she disagreed with – when she gave Joyce the card for post-rape counselling. Sure, she didn’t stick around and have a lengthy discussion with her about it, but she also wasn’t responsible for Joyce at that time and Joyce had been nothing but an asshole to her prior. Frankly, just dropping in, giving her the resource, and leaving was probably for the best. I can’t see her turning either Joyce or Mary away if they were having an actual problem.
Roz has no tolerance for bigotry is what you mean. And part of the RA’s job is to crack down on that, so I see no conflict here. And the worst we’ve see her do is chew someone out for it. That is not an extreme course of action for a disciplinarian.
Exactly. Roz and Joyce were not in a place there they could have a deep, heart to heart conversation. Dropping in a resource and leaving was probably the best that could be expected at that point.
It’s also the type of reactions an RA could expect from, say, Sal or maybe Carla if they had a serious problem and didn’t want the RA to get involved – drop in, offer a resource centre number, and leave.
No, I said Roz has no tolerance for bullshit and that’s pretty much what I meant. Roz has certain strong views on how the world should work. This includes not being homophobic, but also includes being free to put up sex tapes she takes on her university’s grounds, openly disrespect her gender studies teacher’s knowledge on her first day and disrupt the learning process with Joyce.
Because Joyce is an exception, not the rule. Joyce instinctively seeks out the truth even if it’s painful, and that plainly isn’t everyone’s operating instinct. It certainly isn’t Roz’s.
To be clear, I’m not saying Roz would be a terrible R.A.. She’d probably do fine. Roz has shown she’s perfectly capable of learning when presented with facts that contradict her worldview, and she’d certainly fight hardest for the groups typically in need of most protection. I’m simply saying it’s clear Dorothy is the better choice. Any freshman Joyce would think of Roz when looking for help.
A) The sex tape was connected to bigotry – the idea women can’t have control over their own bodies is a prominent topic when discussing misogyny. The issue with that was it was school property, which again, she said was a valid point.
B) The thing with Leslie wasn’t on her first day, but your point stands.
C) Joyce didn’t seek out Roz for the resource. Roz sought her out on her suspicion she was assaulted and offered her a card. She doesn’t need to be sought out for her to see someone acting strangely, or hear something happened and check in. It’s true a lot of people wouldn’t be receptive to her pointing out what they’d done wrong, but that doesn’t preclude them for being written up for it (or whatever RA’s do).
I think Roz and Dorothy would both make decent, but flawed RA’s. Their flaws are just in different areas. Roz can be short sighted, Dorothy is overbooked, Roz can jump the gun, Dorothy can drag her feet getting important but uncomfortable things done (like telling Joyce her homophobia was unacceptable or telling her Ryan was spotted), etc.
And I’m sorry for coming off with the bigotry vs bullshit thing. A lot of people have been shitting on Roz lately regarding her not coddling bigotry from Joyce, so I’ve been on edge. I should’ve handled that better and I’m sorry I didn’t.
I understand *why* Roz made the sex tape, and it’s a good cause, but it showcases the issues with her judgment. The tape preaches to the choir. Would people like Hank Brown suddenly realize his ideas on women having control over their bodies are wrong if he saw the sex tape? I’m thinking no, and that any wrong views are likely to just get more entrenched. Roz accepted the school grounds argument as valid after it was presented to her, and good on her for doing so, but the fact that such an obvious problem didn’t occur to Roz before she made the tape shows how her priorities color her judgment.
I was referring to a hypothetical freshman in Joyce’s position, who would be unlikely to feel like they could turn to Roz for help. Roz’s drawing battle lines that hard is better suited to an activism role than as an arbiter/counselor/person everyone on the floor can turn to.
As for talking to Joyce about her homophobia, true that. As we can see though, Joyce had a *lot* of naivete and wrong views to grow out of. It was already a big reach with Joyce accepting that Dorothy was an atheist, and then getting drugged at a party, and then standing up to her parents to keep her athiest friend. Plus they were already in gender studies class with a lesbian teacher. I don’t blame Dorothy for slow-walking any talk on LGBT issues with Joyce.
Things sometimes get heated in discussions like this. The apology is appreciated.
You may find that I don’t do double-speak much when I’m serious (not that I’m necessarily immune, we all have our implicit biases). It’s difficult enough communicating clearly when we’re trying our best, let alone when we’re trying to veil a second meaning. I look forward to the day where women’s rights have advanced enough such that I can call out someone for letting emotion affect their judgment and not have to worry about their gender, because dammit it’s the quality of reasoning I’m worried about and as far as that’s concerned I don’t care what the other person identifies as.
I think Roz yelling at Joyce got what it deserved – gratitude from Joyce, who knew she needed the message, and condemnation from Leslie, who knew the form was inappropriate.
But that yelling isn’t the whole story, is it? Roz is also the girl who laughed about “the fundie” attending a party. She ultimately tried to help her deal with what happened, but her first reaction was to complain about how “someone’s always gotta make a scene”. And of course she’s someone who came at her teacher with the attitude that she has nothing to learn, hoped to use her to take down her politician sister, and only sees the upsides of how that went down.
I don’t think Roz is a horrible person. She wants to be a force for good, and on the whole probably is. But it’s limited by her inclination to care first about principles (and parties) and needing to work to respect the people around her. That’s a character flaw she can, and maybe is, improving. But it would make for a poor RA.
her first reaction was to complain about how “someone’s always gotta make a scene”
That was her first reaction because she didn’t know what happened and nobody told her. Only Joyce, Dorothy, Billie, Sarah and Ron (the host of the party) know what led up to Sarah pummeling the crap out of Ryan.
Roz thought the party ended because someone got in a fight. She clearly didn’t even know WHO was involved, or since if she’d even known that someone on her floor was involved, she probably would have phrased that differently, if not realized something bad happened to Joyce even earlier in the conversation.
No, I know, and once she had details she was as helpful to Joyce as possible. But that being her first reaction my point: her casual assumption was that someone was making a scene at one of these always-awesome parties. The possibility that something had actually gone wrong is not something she worried about until told otherwise. With the result that she inadvertently dismisses what happened to Joyce to her face before she can make up for it.
It’s a little thing, and I don’t think it is her doing something wrong as a person; in that respect it’s more important that she handles it well once she does know. But those sorts of little things if repeated would be a flaw as an RA. I don’t think she’d be the worst, because she does try to be helpful in her own way, but that job is a way she is naturally suited toward.
I don’t see how “not assuming the worst when she has no way to know and no reason to investigate further” is even worth noting.
Besides, she never discussed what happened to Joyce. She asked Dorothy if she had fun at the party. Dorothy and Joyce both react with shocked silence, and then Roz – having no context or additional information from either of them – mistakenly thinks they didn’t like it because of how it ended suddenly after some kind of commotion.
At this point, she barely knows either of them, and she doesn’t even know Joyce’s name yet (she has to ask when she finds her later to give her the card). Some kind of drama ending the night early is no doubt what had made the party disappointing for her, so I don’t see how it’s at all surprising that she thought it might have been why they were acting weird.
Baring telepathy, I don’t understand why she should have realized Joyce had been assaulted at the party, based on the information she was given (none)
It’s even better on that score, Fart Captor – Roz was told the party ended because of a fight. She was given a wrong (but perfectly plausible) explanation for how the party ended and did not question it further because, again, perfectly reasonable.
And there WAS a fight at the party – between AG and the jocks who were picking on Danny.
“Inadvertently dismissed” I said. She dismisses it when says “someone’s always gotta make a scene”, which is her assumption with no way to know otherwise. I’m not claiming she did anything wrong in not magically guessing more, only that it’s the sort of assumption that can lead to momentarily upsetting people, as happens right there.
(Unless BBCC is right and it’s instead what someone else told her. If so I missed that happening. I’m pretty sure the fight between AG and the jocks was not actually at the party, though.)
In any case, it’s one example of what I think is a trend. Roz is not really good with people like Joyce in the way you would prefer an RA would be. Please note that’s not the same as me claiming she did anything wrong. I’m not! The only case I know of her doing something at all wrong is the way she called out Joyce in class, and again, I think both her reprimand from Leslie and thanks from Joyce were equally deserved there.
The fight between AG and the jocks is at the party. It takes place in the background. It’s also a bit earlier, so I still assume that Roz is talking about the attempted rape, but having heard incorrect rumors about it just being a fight instead of fighting off a rape attempt. Probably from someone who’d just seen the aftermath and didn’t know what had happened.
It’s not an assumption if she’s been told ‘it’s a fight or something’. That could mean AG or Joyce and Sarah beating the hell out of Ryan. Either way, Roz was told it was a fight. Why would she need to think it was anything else when that’s a perfectly plausible explanation?
Roz was fine when she dropped off the card for Joyce. That’s exactly the kind of thing you want an RA to do with students who don’t respond well to their check in or have a bad relationship with the RA – “Hey, I’m not sure if you want anything, but if you’re going through something, here’s resource X”. Along with, probably, a “I’m in my room if you want to talk more” if they’re an RA. Which Roz was not at the time, and she had no idea an RA space would open up, so she had no reason to offer Joyce, someone she doesn’t like and who doesn’t like her, anything more than the resource.
They were, because it was the wrong place for it. But everything she said was correct and Joyce was doing something wrong, so imo yelling is warranted.
Leslie was mad that Roz co-opted her class to yell at Joyce. That’s fair. Her yelling at Joyce was not incorrect though. Even though it IS yelling. It was the wrong setting for it though, and that is why Roz owed it to Leslie to knock it off.
Roz was told the party ended because of a fight (presumably the fight AG got into with the jocks who bullied Danny). Why would she make that leap from ‘a few people got into a fight and now the party’s over’ to ‘oh my gosh, that must mean there was an attempted rape’? A fight is a completely plausible reason for the party to end. I’m not surprised Roz didn’t question it because, until Dorothy told her Joyce went through horrible crap at the party, she had no reason to suspect anything more than a fight. That isn’t dismissing the possibility, that’s being told something completely different and not being told otherwise until Dorothy talked to her.
Not thinking she has anything to learn and not thinking through every consequence of what happens is normal 18 year old arrogance and short sightedness, not something that precludes her from being a good RA, any more than Dorothy’s ego and lack of day to day social skills will. She did not do anything to Leslie except provide further opportunities for her to meet Robin. She also asked Leslie if she wanted to be involved, and Leslie did. Leslie was 100% on board with this. If that’s ‘using’, then Roz using people does not end up being that harmful.
I’d assumed that the “fight that ended the party” was about the attempted rape, just recast by the rumor that reached her as a “fight”. Which technically it was and which a bystander not knowing the start and only seeing the aftermath could easily assume that’s all that went down.
It could be that or it could be the fight AG got into. Either way, ‘a fight’ is a perfectly reasonable explanation and it’s not unreasonable for Roz to take that at face value.
That Leslie was right to be mad at Roz for yelling, but Joyce was also right to be grateful for it, was my point.
I’m not sure where you get what Roz was told about the party. She was there. She was talking with Dorothy, and a few minutes later Dorothy and a lot of people were watching the situation with Joyce, right after there was a fight and right before the host left. Roz wasn’t standing there, and the next time we see her it’s with the idea that it was someone making a scene. No, that’s not her being a bad person.
Where I disagree with you is in the whole “arrogance and short sightedness, not something that precludes her from being a good RA”. I think yes, those sorts of things are normal, but no, they are negatives to being an RA. It’s not like someone has to have something wrong with them to be not particularly well-suited to that job! There’s only going to be the one, and it focuses on attributes not everyone else needs to have. It’s not like I’m saying Roz can’t deal with other people.
I will say that it doesn’t seem fair for you to suggest Dorothy can’t deal with other people too. Roz is more extroverted and seems more popular; Dorothy is more introverted but seems good at getting along with everyone and avoiding conflicts. Neither of anything I would call a “lack of day to day social skills”. You might say that about Amber or Dina, but I really don’t know where you get that about Dorothy at all.
If Leslie is mad about Roz yelling as opposed to Roz co-opting her class, I’d argue she IS wrong for that. Joyce needed to hear it and apparently it was something she needed screamed in her face because she otherwise was not getting it.
I said Roz was told the party ended because of a fight, not that she was told about the party. She did not witness what happened with Ryan, and the next time we see her she says the party ended early because there was a fight.
Those qualities make her a flawed RA, they don’t mean she won’t be a decent one. She also has a lot of care for marginalized people, a plethora of resources, the ability to get grunt jobs with lots of responsibility as well as interpersonal work done in a timely manner, and probably has plenty of experience sorting out squabbles and caring for other’s by virtue of being the big much older sister to Riley and (probably) other younger sisters.
This entire arc is Dorothy grappling with her lack of social skills vs Roz’s. Yes, she’s capable of avoiding conflicts and getting along, but Roz is better at the daily checking in ‘hi, how are you, how’re things’ kind of interactions. The other girls have said this. Roz has said this. Dorothy is struggling with it. She’s not an asocial recluse or someone who doesn’t understand other people, but she’s not good at making shallow day to day connections that build trust. That is one of the flaws that would affect her RA ability – three other ones are that she’s overbooked and can be very neurotic when she doesn’t know what’s wrong and can be somewhat invasive when she’s trying to figure it out. Like Roz, Dorothy would be a flawed, but overall decent RA.
BBCC, I meant Leslie being upset with Roz’s yelling in the venue it came up. I entirely agree with what you say about that, and actually a lot of this post. If our argument on RAing is “poor but not the worst” versus “flawed but overall decent”, we’re probably seeing the same things with different weights.
An exception, I don’t know that Roz is for sure better at the daily checking with other girls. Some of them certainly prefer her style for it! But at this point I don’t know if they represent them all, or just the ones who happen to hang out in the hallway. …Thinking on it, that’s a pretty small exception, so I’ll stop bugging you now.
BBCC: As far as ” Joyce needed to hear it and apparently it was something she needed screamed in her face because she otherwise was not getting it.”
Maybe she did and maybe she didn’t, but she’d had about 30 seconds from getting the first bit of the revelation (without anyone screaming in her face) to Roz starting to attack her for it. She says her one bit about being mad at the church, nothing about herself and Roz goes off on her. Joyce says nothing else until she goes to leave class.
The evidence that she wouldn’t have been capable of getting it without being screamed at is slim. If she’d actually mounted some defense of herself or even come back the next week with the same attitude, then I could see the case.
As it is, the only real evidence, at least at the time, is that she did not immediately confess to being a monster.
@ 3oranges – Eh, no worries. We’re allowed to have different weights for things. I think they’d both make decent RAs, but their flaws go to different areas of the job. For instance, Dorothy might have availability issues as she’s burning the candle at both ends. Meanwhile, Roz might have a hard time thinking through every possible consequence. Like I said, both have flaws for being RA, but both bring a lot to the table.
@ thejeff – Joyce was making a point of how angry she was at the church and saying, basically, ‘fuck you’ to them, while conveniently forgetting all the church anti gay work she participated in (like ‘free speech’ protesting at Chick-fil-A). And at the same time this girl was trying to get Becky to keep herself quiet and de-gay Ethan. She might have gotten the connection eventually, but her admitting the next day she’d needed Roz to be mean says to me she doesn’t think she’d have gotten it on her own (or as quickly), and she was not making the connection that she herself was doing gay hating things. Her not saying anything about herself was what Roz was pointing out – that she was conveniently excluding herself from the church she was condemning, even though she’d done their anti-LGBT+ dirty work. It’s a point Joyce agreed with the next day. Becky saying she was feeling crappy about Joyce needing to double check with God wasn’t getting to her. Becky protesting Joyce trying to make her be ‘discreet’ in public didn’t get to her. Hell, Amber screaming in her face she was basically trying to reparative therapy her best friend didn’t get to her. Mike bluntly pointing out her hypocrisy didn’t work. At some point, the only thing that will work is the metaphorical tactical nuke and I think that’s what Joyce was admitting the next day when she said she ‘needed Roz to be mean’.
Panels 1 and 2: I love this shot, especially as it builds on similar shots we’ve been seeing of Billie so far this arc. It’s her, from a long way away, with an empty background that leaves her looking isolated and distanced from the “camera” and thus to people.
And it’s thematically important. Billie feels all alone and angry and scared and hurting and the only emotion she can reliably access about all of it is pure blinding rage and anger or cold dead numbness.
And she finds herself sneaking in repeatedly into Ruth’s murder room, the reminder of how close she came to losing her and the times they spent together and hurts in it in quiet and isolation.
And it’s terrible, because this is the only coping strategy Billie seems to have for anything. This being of course self-destruction. When she hurts or is hurt, she responds by tearing herself apart. Sometimes explosively like with her drunk driving her car into a tree or her crippling alcoholism.
And this instant tendency to hurt herself first means she desperately needs someone to help her build new coping strategies beyond that and “new shiny relationship that is my life raft of happiness”. Hopefully therapy will be the thing to do that. Or Ruth after fully internalizing how helpful therapy and drugs are currently being for her.
Panel 3: This is a great opening line for Dorothy here. It shows empathy, it’s not too pushy, it shares some of why she was compelled to seek her out and shows that she sees she is hurting and that other people who care about her see it as well.
This, not the weird notebook of secrets she tried to show everyone to win an argument, is what would make her an excellent RA in the future. The fact that she notices when people are hurting and withdrawn and reaches out with genuine care.
These are the real skills she should be highlighting instead of the bullshit she thinks she should highlight.
And that might be one of Dorothy’s flaws, that she doesn’t trust that her ordinary humanity, empathy, and compassion are selling points. That she needs to present Super Dorothy, rather than be her genuine likable self. She has internalized so much toxic sexist messaging that she doesn’t believe herself sans performance of the perfect everything can be great and appealing.
And it’s also why she’s burning the candle at both ends in a really dangerous manner.
Panel 4: That’s the thing that’s pissing off Billie about Dorothy and well… it’s totally fair. Like, I don’t think Dorothy should apologize for her ambition or even have to explain for it. She’s not doing something wrong per se in running, but yeah, it was always going to be upsetting for Billie, because… yeah.
Dorothy is acting like Ruth is dead or at least finished in the dorms and possibly on campus which is kinda messed up. Like Billie is still processing that she very nearly could have lost Ruth in a suicide attempt and got so bad it required hospitalization and knows that Ruth’s home situation is even worse than she expected and Ruth being thrown out of her job and dorm room could lead to her girlfriend being horrendously abused somewhere far away where she can’t protect her.
That sort of thing hurts. So yeah, Dorothy acting like it’s already done and dusted that Ruth is on her way out, that there’s no hope she could recover or be given time to recover and resettle into the job? It’s hurtful for Billie, because it robs her of the hope that things can settle back into a normal she can hope for.
And this is especially important because Billie has been burying her suicidal depression in a codependent relationship with Ruth. She only defines her value currently in terms of what she’s doing for Ruth. It’s not healthy but it’s all she’s got for coping strategies right now outside of the alcoholism. And Dorothy acting like “yeah, your gf’s fucked” in her actions, is like a smack across the jaw for what Billie has been holding on to in hope.
That this one thing she could touch without breaking will shatter and fall without you and the vultures will pick its corpse before you can resurrect it.
And I’m not sure Dorothy is doing herself any favors trying to invent justifications for her actions instead of sticking to her initial honest reaction which was to feel no shame for showing ambition to an opening, but still remain resolute that that does not change how she feels for Billie and Ruth personally.
She’s not inventing justifications. Just because her ambition plays a part doesn’t mean any of the rest of what she said is untrue. It would be ridiculous to think the Dorothy of all people has one simple motivation for anything.
I’m also not a fan of treating this like Dorothy hurting Billie. Yes, Billie is hurting. But Dorothy isn’t doing something to hurt her. She’s trying to do what’s best for everyone. And everyone includes herself and her ambitions.
Pretending like Ruth is going to come back isn’t somehow a better action. Ruth is depressed. She has her own problems to deal with. She’s not going to be in any condition to take the job back any time soon.
Right now, Billie is hurting for the reasons you stated that have to do with her. She is codependent with Ruth. She has lost her self worth by no longer being popular, and then shifted that to “problem solver,” which meant solving Ruth’s problems.
Everything Billie is feeling naturally flows from that. Not Dorothy’s actions.
It is a real motivator, but it’s not her primary motivator the way she’s framing it here to Billie.
Dorothy IS hurting Billie. She doesn’t have to be doing it intentionally or out of malice or even do anything wrong for it to hurt her. Pursuing the job immediately after Ruth’s hospitalization made Billie feel worse about it.
Pretending she’ll be back, no, but she couldn’t wait until Ruth was actually fired and pursue the open job then becaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuse? Preparing to pursue the job and getting your ducks in order in case she’s fired is one thing, actively pursuing her job while it’s still Ruth’s job is another, at least in Billie’s eyes.
Much the way Dorothy can have multiple motivations, Billie can be hurt by multiple things. One of them is Dorothy pursuing Ruth’s job.
OTOH, if she waits until it’s officially decided that Ruth isn’t coming back, it will quite likely be too late. There’s a good chance that announcement would be accompanied by the announcement of the new replacement RA. The administration isn’t going to wait until the final decision to start looking for a replacement. They’ll have someone in mind and ready to go to minimize the gap in supervision.
Which is why I don’t really blame Dorothy for throwing her hat in the ring now. Ruth getting fired is a possibility and throwing her hat in the ring now and showing keenness is either going to keep her in mind if there is a replacement or put her on the list if Ruth fucks up the short leash she’s going to be on after she gets out of hospital or for next year if she doesn’t.
And she’s in a headspace where she feels she needs to grab every opportunity to shine that she can in order to have any chance for a transfer application to Yale.
That’s fair enough – I’d been thinking about jobs where they usually seek replacements for at least a little bit after someone’s fired. It didn’t occur to me they might pick one for the same announcement. That’s a good point.
Well, Dorothy’s action did hit a button and that’s legitimate. I don’t think that was intended. I don’t even think Dorothy should feel bad about it. But an action of hers did cause inadvertant pain or at least made a bad situation feel slightly worse for a person.
That’s not something she should necessarily own, cause it’s not really her fault or really something she can earnestly apologize for because her action in and of itself wasn’t wrong, but Billie feeling hurt about it is just as valid.
And I think her motivation to protect Becky is definitely a factor, but it is definitely not the or a main factor like she’s retroactively trying to spin here.
Again, I don’t think Dorothy pursuing an opening that potentially arises and putting her name out there for future opportunities is a bad thing. That she has good reasons to support it when she was first considering it definitely adds to it, but her ambition alone was not a bad thing.
…and what really gets to me is that this anger is about the only thing Billie has left. Anger over people deciding Ruth is already gone, spite towards Mary, guilt over Becky and her own self loathing.
That’s all.
WALKY, GET YOURSELF OVER HERE AND HUG BILLIE, NOW (ok, it won’t help and might cost you some teeth but I’m freaking the fudge out here)
Dorothy’s being a bit misleading if she’s implying Roz wouldn’t,
do the same. Roz has done some pretty questionable crap, and I don’t like her per se (okay, I do, but not as much as I like Dorothy), but I do think her heart is…more or less in the right place.
Roz would want everyone to know that she was letting Becky stay there because your rules don’t apply to her, man. And when that attitude led to Becky getting thrown out, it wouldn’t possibly be her fault.
When has Roz ever shown that kind of tendency? Thinking she’s above the rules or evading responsibility for her own actions? If anything, she’s shown that she has a healthy respect for being called out on her own BS (see: Leslie) and that she can in fact handle sensitiive issues in a discreet and caring way (see: Joyce).
Okay, grant you that on the first point. Still not so much on the second. I still don’t believe we’ve seen enough evidence to be so certain she would rat Becky out (even inadvertently) as a lot of people seem to think. There are plenty of obnoxious and even downright gross things Roz could be capable of, but this particular one doesn’t seem too in-character for her.
Roz has a ton of faults and is (in my opinion) one of the more easily dislikable characters in the comic. But she’s not stupid.
Frankly, I’d be shocked if Roz’s reaction was “Okay, Groups X, Y, Z, and Purple all help gay teens find housing, give them a call and let me know how it goes in the morning. We’ll go from there.”
If her reaction WASN’T “Okay, Groups X, Y, Z, and Purple all help gay teens find housing, give them a call and let me know how it goes in the morning. We’ll go from there.”
I don’t think she is implying that. She’s talking about why she’s trying for the job at all, not why she’s a better choice than Roz. She’s talking about a replacement brought in from some other dorm or something.
It’s hard not to think she could be referring to Roz when Roz is the only other candidate actively running for the job that we know of, and definitely the only one Dorothy has interacted with in this particular scenario.
Sure, it’s possible she isn’t, but what other specific person would she have in mind in the first place?
She’s not referring to any specific person, but to whatever stranger would be appointed if it wasn’t someone from the floor. The university’s list of backup wannabe RAs, most likely.
Panel 5: Yeah, like BBCC said this is weak sauce from Dorothy. She didn’t go out of her way to hide her ambitions. And while she may have “hoped” that Billie would have found out, she didn’t really go out of her way to hide that information from her.
And her arguing that there was a deeper principle is also kind of weak. Like, maybe that was a small factor, but it’s okay to just say, “yeah, I was being ambitious, I’m really sorry that felt disrespectful. If it’s any consolation I really hope Ruth is able to recover into her job again and I’ll be glad just to put my name in the running for next year”
Boom, done and dusted. But I get it, there’s a lot of pressure on women to hide all signs of ambition. Hell, this last election had a supremely qualified woman against an utter monstrosity and still everyone acts like it was a greater sin for her to lightly think she should win and fight for that than for someone to be a Hitler-loving bigot conman and thief. I can see Dorothy internalizing that and wanting to apologize and obfuscate her ambition especially to placate those who are angry.
But it just comes off as insincere and that’s always going to be a problem in politics.
Panel 6: I like and don’t like Dorothy’s argument here.
I like it cause yeah, I imagine protecting Becky was like reason number 207 why she ran but it’s a good reason and a good reason to emphasize and to give Ruth credit for even if she only partially earned that credit.
Becky’s safety does depend on either Ruth returning or someone like Dorothy or Roz taking over as someone who is… say keen to impress the bosses and show why she deserves to take over by say rooting out the previous RA’s “mistakes”.
But it’s also off, because, no, that’s not Ruth’s legacy, not really. And it’s not her main reason for doing this. And well, at the end of the day it still treats Ruth as done and dusted. And maybe she is, but it’s really too early to not be holding out hope for a short leash and rehabilitation back into a more limited form of her position.
Hell, it’s the ideal situation Chloe has been stating she wants, though her bosses may decide otherwise.
And by putting it this way, it’s also using Becky in a tactical manner, basically cutting off Billie from her right to feel angry about something that it is perfectly rational and reasonable to be upset about, by tying Dorothy’s act which is mostly about her long-term goals, to a person Billie feels intensely guilty about.
Like, yeah, part of the reason she is sneaking into Ruth’s room is because it’s her connection to Ruth, but the other part is because she desperately wants Becky to still be able to use her bed to sleep and feels bad about how much Ruth’s near suicide upset her and how she hasn’t been able to find an alternative arrangement for her if she is forced to return to her own bed.
Using that guilt, albeit likely unintentionally to shut down someone’s legitimate anger is a bit of a dick move, albeit one that is understandable given Dorothy’s circumstances and guilt about being caught out.
Panel 7: That’s shock and guilt right there.
Panel 8: I feel like there’s a double meaning here.
Like I think part of her wants to honestly acknowledge Dorothy’s point. Yeah, if someone has to replace Ruth, it might as well be someone who can carry on some of her most positive contributions. Who already knows that Joyce needs support after the shooting and that Becky doesn’t need to hide from and so on…
But I think it also has a flip meaning of Dorothy is always frustratingly right because well, she’s a debater. Which isn’t a bad thing of itself, but it does mean she knows how to twist words when she needs to to try and detangle herself from situations she feels can move in a hostile direction. We saw it in her attempted weasel with Carla and Walky’s arguments and in some of the ways she’s tried to lead Walky in a specific direction. And that bristles for Billie, because…
Well, she has a right to be mad at Dorothy just as much as Dorothy as a right to push for her ambitions without apology. Her grievance is legitimate and Dorothy’s actions hurt an already sore wound. And Dorothy trying to argue her way out of it instead of apologizing for the hurt is her needing to be “right” over her needing to be aware and non-minimizing to someone’s pain.
And that’s hard. It’s not an easy human thing to not want to argue your way out of fully owning up to hurting someone. Especially when the reason you hurt them is not really something that really requires you to feel bad or something that could easily have been avoided. And I think it’s what makes her emphasize the “frustrating” part. Because, yeah, it’s frustrating to have legitimate anger defanged with guilt because you lightly pushed your case.
And it’s not kind.
But that’s okay because Dorothy is still amazing and compassionate and having human flaws doesn’t detract from that and the sooner she realizes that, the less she’s gonna feel like she needs to bottle everything up and never share her own pains and insecurities and emotional needs with those she loves and trusts.
I do not agree that Billie has a legitimate reason to be angry at Dorothy. Billie’s anger is about what happened with Ruth. It arises from her own codependence and her own depression she tried to treat with said codependence.
It’s not as if Dorothy is lying. Those reasons she gives are the reasons she wants the job. Her ambition is just another reason–one she refuses to let be treated as being wrong. There is nothing wrong with doing something that helps others and yourself.
Dorothy made her case for why Billie should not be mad at her. She made valid points that Billie had to agree were correct. That’s not guilt.
This isn’t a world of emotions. It’s a world of facts. Emotions exist, and we do our best to accomodate them, but they are ultimately just signals in our brain that evolved in a different environment than the one we currently live in.
They may be valid in the sense that they exist and no one can tell you that you are wrong to feel them. But they can still be inaccurate representations of the world.
Hell, that’s part of the CBT they teach you for depression. You tell yourself things that are actually true, even though they don’t feel true. You are not worthless, even though you feel that way.
Billie IS angry with Dorothy for pursuing the job immediately after Ruth’s hospitalization. It felt dismissive and insensitive and that’s a legitimate way to feel – therefore, a legitimate reason to be angry. Dorothy does not have to do anything wrong for Billie’s anger to be legitimate.
What BBCC said. Dororthy did pursue a job immediately after the hospitalization before she was even removed from the position.
She’s acted like Ruth is dead or fired already and working from there.
I don’t think it’s a bad thing necessarily (throwing her name out there early is definitely going to be key if that opportunity arises and throwing her name in the first place will definitely be a positive in when she applies for an RA position next year).
But it’s going to feel disrespectful to Billie and presumptuous about what is likely to happen to Ruth and that’s going to hit some sore spots.
So, yeah, I think she’s got a right to be angry on top of the general reason she’s just been generally angry at everyone today. But I don’t think Dorothy has necessarily done anything wrong she should apologize for even though her actions upset Billie.
But Billie had full right to be upset and bothered by the presumption and Dorothy short-circuiting that with a partial appeal to the facts that put her in the best possible light to distract from the facts that don’t is a useful political skill but still something crummy to do to someone powerless who your actions hurt.
Crummy in this sense of it being a thing one might shake one’s head at, not in the sense of a grave violation of human conduct. It’s a normal thing to want to do and it doesn’t say anything bad about Dorothy’s character that she’s doing it, but it just sucks that Billie whose already going to be second-guessing her anger because that’s all she feels anymore, is second-guessing something that is perfectly normal to feel angry about because she’s worried it’s part of the same trend of misdirected anger she’s been feeling all day.
Especially since her first inclination if she thinks it’s misdirected is to point that anger at herself instead.
Panel 5. I honestly think it’s a good idea that Dorothy doesn’t repeat her justifications. She has already say her piece on why she is running. Billie has every right to be angry about it, and trying to get Billie to see it her way in her current headspace would at best lead to a shouting match.
Panel 6. Yeah, it’s a mixed bag. Becky is only one of several reasons Dorothy want this position. And she is NOT Becky’s only hope. But her stepping forward minimizes one of the greatest risks, that Chloe brings in someone from outside the floor, which would must likely mean Becky packing.
Unfortunately, bringing it up hits Billie right in the guilt, and there are a level of manipulation there. But it is also an attempt at consolidation. Calling Becky living there “Ruths legacy” is not very accurate, but it helps building a narrative that can help Billie in a horrible situation.
“Yes, Becky is in trouble but you and Ruth has done good helping her, and we can continue that good work. I can take it from here. Good work.”
I can think of very few other things Dorothy could have said that would actually have been of ANY help to Billie.
Fair point. It’s definitely a good type of statement for deescalation and for making it easier for Billie to cope if Ruth ends up fired and Dorothy gets the position.
And it also gives her hope over the Becky situation by giving Ruth (and thus by extension Billie because Billie was responsible for a lot of keeping Ruth semi-functional during their time together) credit and a legacy.
Which is important cause all we’ve seen Billie hear from the rest of the hall has been… well, Mary, openly gloating about sending Ruth to the hospital and a lot of folks willing to jump all in on this bandwagon of an election between Roz and Dorothy and just sort of assume Ruth is donezo.
So having someone say, hey, if she does get fired, I think she did some good work and I’d like to keep fighting for it. Yeah, that’s definitely something.
…and right now Billie doesn’t have a whole lot of something. Or even a whole lot of anything. So Dorothy actively reaching out to give her at least this scrap is… maybe not enough, but at least it is not nothing.
Seriously, what did Dorothy just say? “If I become RA I will let Becky stay here, in complete disregard of the rules. Not ‘um and am and try to find a better solution.’ Not ‘I’ll do what I can.’ But ‘I’ll break the rules, risk loosing my position as soon as I get it and risk sending up all sort of less-than-perfect flags for Harvard to see.’
That’s big. And it’s again a demonstration of how much Dorothy’s character development happens without big announcements. She took one good look at Becky’s situation, a crying Joyce and listened to Leslie’s “sweet Lesbian facts” and asked herself just what kind of person she wants to be once she is in a position of power.
Not only her moral character – her intended career path. She wants to do it right. She wants to have power, and use that power for good. Not just in a general sense but for specific problems.
IF she manage to become an RA she will do a lot more good for Becky than by just buying her sushi.
Now that’s a very interesting question. What was Robin’s initial ambition? Was it just to get elected and she convinced herself family value posturing was the way to do it? Or did she once have ideals that fell off along the way?
Based on Roz’s antipathy for her, I’m going to guess the former as her once having ideals that fell apart would lend itself more likely to pity, but it would be very interesting to see.
It doesn’t really have to be one or the other, though. It could be some of both, run on family values with an “end justifies the means” mentality, get into Congress, find out it’s too dysfunctional for her to actually accomplish anything, give up and start going through the motions.
Roz could also have that antipathy because she’s disappointed her sister gave up on her initial ambitions and started pandering to the worst of us instead.
But mostly, I think there’s some element of her ideals falling off along the way, because I’m not sure she would talk about congress with such flippant cynicism if there weren’t some of that going on.
Your comment just made a connection for me as to one of the reasons Dorothy’s my favorite character in the story. She’s trying to do the right thing and wants to help make the world and others better through the power she’s ambitious for. She’s like Lillian is in Twig (web serial by the author of Worm), someone who is angling for power and prestige to fix the inherent problems in her world, not for the sake of power itself–and that’s the reason Lillian’s a great character in that story.
I can’t help but feel for Dorothy, like some of the stuff she had done before like being micromanaging regarding everybody in the dorm and their issues, that IS pretty weird. But I think part of it is Dorothy needing to keep these people and their issues together, so she knows what to expect and anticipate. I think Billie and Ruth happening under her nose threw her off. It might even scare her, especially since Walky knew something was up and she shrugged it off. Now she wants to know what is going on with who.
Also, I feel for her because I was once called ‘Mother-fucking Teresa’ rather mockingly by a now ex-friend. I don’t even remember what I said or did, just his voice saying “well aren’t you a mother-fucking Teresa then?”. It…didn’t feel very nice at all.
Dorothy sees herself a bit like the team mom, as the smart, kinda sane person it is her responsibility to help the people around her (an attitude not helped by her dating Danny), but just like everyone else around here she is in over her head.
Just look at recent events. Joyce nearly raped, Joyce dating Ethan, Joyce and Becky fleeing a maniac with a gun. Ruth and Billie. Mary and Carla (to whatever extent she knows about it) The whole Amber/Amazi-girl thing, whatever Walky has going on… On. Her. Watch. Clearly she needs to step up her game!
Incidently, Roz has exactly the same attitude of it being her job to help the less fortunate (as do Billie, even if Billie now thinks she suck at it), and Roz’ outburst to Dorothy about her coddling rather than guiding Joyce in her attitudes to gay people absolutely hit home.
So Dorothy and Roz angling for the RA job is not ONLY them using it as a meriting position or genuinely wanting to help people. It is also them trying to live up to their own image of themselves.
I know its wrong but because Billies rich and brought most (not all) of her problems onto herself I really don’t have much more sympathy for her, I mean I hope she gets treatment and hopefully it helps but really I’m most liking panel six and seeing Dorothy defending herself in an emotional and slightly angry way rather then just trying to play nice and placate Billie
I agree so its nice to see her show some passion in defending herself.
I don’t know if it sounds weird or not but my wife appreciates comments on her fanfiction stories (shes Dexiedoodle) so thanks for commenting on Post-Apocalyptic Roadtrip, she really does like feedback
Other than the neglectful and emotionally (and physically) distant parents. But that really shouldn’t affect her. After all, she’s got money.
Which is basically her parent’s approach.
I like seeing Dorothy showing some passion here, its not that I don’t think she doesn’t care but seeing some emotion every now and then isn’t a bad thing
OT: Since yesterday, in Germany I get an annoying, slightly animated ad with one of those fake “you can win 500€” things – in German. Is there anything that can be done about it?
The add appears on this page, not in my email (why ever would I asked her about email spam?)
Usually, the adds appearing here are not that kind and I wondered if Willis might be able to step on some toes to get rid of it.
…is that really such an unreasonable attitude to take to college?
And have we EVER seen Dorothy falter when push comes to show? Ethics trumped Ambition when she wrote the article about Roz and Joe, when she found out Amazi-girl’s identity and when she was given the chance to debate Very Controversal Candidate deSanto. (Just imagine the headlines – “Student Totally Owns deSanto”, but she opted out for the sake of Leslie’s piece of mind and to get the chance to ask about Ryan).
Honestly, Dorothy’s one of my favourite characters in this strip. She’s hardworking and ambitious, but so far she’s also actually got a heart and is relatively incorruptible. She also has visible flaws but enough strength to likely pick herself up and dust herself off.
Self-sufficient strong female characters that are sensible and who don’t have a tragic backstory? Sign me up.
Hell, she couldn’t even bring herself to choose her Amazi-Girl article over a pair of freakin’ shoes for Walky because keeping her word and being a good person matters more to her than her work. This was established EARLY ON and it’s hardly a new thing. Yet, every time she proves this to be true people in the comments treat it like some huge turning point for her. It’s not. This is not character development, it’s just an awesome thing about Dorothy.
From my perspective, Dorothy’s facial expressions in panels 5 and 6 are genuine, she’s means what she’s saying, and this isn’t a method of manipulation.
If you have an ad blocker, you can block the specific image being used in this ad. I mostly use adblockers for that purpose (I don’t mind ads, I do mind being shown disgusting stuff and it getting reposted everywhere, so I just block the image.)
She had Dotty to hate for trying to take Ruth’s job, but now that Dotty has said that she cares about Ruth’s “legacy” or whatever she’s mad that she has nobody to hate?!! She even [snapped at poor Joyce](http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/jacket/) just to lash out, there wasn’t even a reason. At this point she’s just being angry so that she can feel angry and not sad/betrayed/alone because she and Ruth aren’t depressed together anymore. and WHY BILLIE. IF YOU WANT PEOPLE TO BE DEPRESSED SO THAT YOU CAN BE CODEPENDENT THAT IS VERY BAD YOU NEED PROFESSIONAL MEDICAL HELP YESTERDAY GO TO THERAPY.
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“DAMN YOU, RUINING MY PERFECTLY GOOD TANTRUM”
This is one of those scenarios where someone’s *correct*, but maybe not *right*, if that makes any sense?
Nah, it’s more like those scenarios where someone wants to wallow in their martyr complex and someone else has to go and ruin it by being a decent human being to them…
But since Billie pointed this out, does that mean she won the argument?
Is the tantrum really ruined if it just got heightened?
While Dotty raises a valid point, I can’t really see Roz throwing Becky out either, if the situation was explained to her. She’s unpleasant in some ways, but not “toss LGBT teen with her only parent in jail (and also a violent asshole) into the street” unpleasant.
I also wouldn’t trust Roz to not keep things quiet. She’d probably make a whole thing about Becky’s situation.
Or to put it another way: There’s a reason Dorothy is emphasizing the words “in secret”.
I don’t think that she would though? Considering the fact that Becky staying there is already kind of an open secret (http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/steplightly/), Roz would have no audience to make a big deal out of it to. /Everyone/ already knows she’s there. That’s kind of part of how Mary got under Ruth’s skin, because she was literally the only person on the floor who didn’t know Becky was there.
Besides that, if Roz did make a big deal out of Becky staying there, all that would do would draw attention to Becky and give cause to her getting kicked out of the dorms, making her literally homeless again. And what purpose would that do? Roz may be all about big productions, but she knows how to be discrete and to keep a secret, evident when she found out something bad happening to Joyce at the party, didn’t push her about what happened, and immediately handed her a card to a counseling service and then never brought it up again to rub in her face or to brag about herself. If Roz knows the whole story of why Becky’s there (runaway homeless gay teen whose only surviving parent is in jail bc he tried to shoot up the school/kidnap his daughter), I REALLY doubt she would be so awful as to use that as some sort of leverage, given how much she cares about LGBT+ issues and considering the fact that she went off on Joyce about homeless gay kids in class before.
Maybe not, but Roz is far more likely to make use Becky as a public spectacle.
‘Look congresswoman, see how your policies are throwing poor innocent women like her onto the streets and jobless!’
‘Actually I just got a jo-‘
‘Shhh poor thing, it’s all gonna be okay.’
You know, this is the first comment that makes me think that Dorothy might actually be the better RA. I’ve been firmly in Roz’s camp, but you’re right, she does like her media spectacles and Becky doesn’t need that.
Dorothy’s also far more likely to protect Amber/Amazi-Girl. If Roz found out, she’d find some way to make use of it.
Is that a good thing though?
I’m hoping this doesn’t end up being one of those cases where Roz ends up finding out she’s “more like her sister than she wants to admit” after she tries to use Becky and somehow gets her kicked out of the dorm…
Eh, but honestly I could entirely see Roz doing something like that.
Roz likes to create media spectacle where SHE is point of contention. I may be mistaken but I can’t recall her ever dragging someone into a media circus against their will unless she was trying to highlight their wrongdoings. I think you’d have to have a pretty majorly warped perception of Roz as a character to think she’d throw an innocent marginalized person under the bus just to make a point.
Joe: Not technically against his will, but uninformed that it was likely to be a media circus.
Leslie: This varies depending on what she actually intended, but at the very least she doesn’t seem to have given a single thought, even now, to how Robin’s outing will affect Leslie.
Leslie.
Roz couldn’t care less that her sister (and by extension Leslie) was outed (whether true or not) because it was for ‘the greater good’.
I’m not yet convinced that Roz doesn’t view making the point more important than learning. Her attitudes towards Leslie’s teaching and Joyce learning about life haven’t always been the friendliest.
She just recently told Dorothy her plan was for Robin to come out of her own volition. She might be okay with Robin being outed, but she seems to care enough that it wasn’t the preferred result.
I doubt that the consequences for Leslie have even occurred to her yet. This fits with what she says her plan was. If Robin had simply realized she was attracted to womanfolk and changed her stances and/or came out, Leslie would not have been impacted by it. It makes sense that she wouldn’t immediately realize what fallout there would be from result she never intended.
Yeah, it’s mostly a sign on not thinking things through and considering the possible consequences. Which probably has more to do with being 18 than anything else.
Yeah, I think it’s mostly that the implications for Leslie haven’t occurred to her yet–and I’ll be curious to see her reaction when they do–but she also doesn’t know the full situation yet, and that Robin has now made things substantially worse for Leslie.
What they said.
But Billie’s not upset that Dorothy’s butting heads with Roz, just that Dorothy independently “took advantage” of Ruth’s situation (long before anyone even knew Roz was competition, mind you).
Sure, Billie’s rebuttal here could’ve been “If that’s your only concern, then it would be fine to concede to Roz.” That would’ve probably “won” the argument for her, because I suspect that the Becky thing is not Dorothy’s primary motivation, and she’s just using it to defuse Billie’s anger. But that aside, Roz doesn’t have much to do with this conversation because it’s tangential to why Billie’s upset.
Billie’s going to be upset at anyone whose in the running to replace Ruth. It’s a reality she doesn’t want to accept so she’s lashing out, it’s just Dorothy is the only one she interacts with and cares about her emotional state of the two that are out to get the job so she’s the one getting the frustration vented at her.
Dorothy’s personality would not, even if protecting Becky was her *only* motivation, allow her to concede outright to Roz. She’s particular and thorough, and I think she’d most trust herself to protect Becky, even if someone else would do it, too.
I have the same personality as her, and it shows up mostly when I’m cooking. Even though someone else *could* help me out by chopping the onions or something, I won’t ask for help (or accept it unless I’m already struggling to balance all the dishes I’m making), because I know I’ll cut them the way I want them, and there’s no guarantee someone else would. It’s not that I don’t trust them as cutters of onions, it’s just that I have something very particular in mind for how they should be sliced.
Obviously, that example is far more trivial, but Dorothy can simultaneously acknowledge Roz is likely to protect Becky and still be motivated by protecting Becky to take the job either because she thinks her plan to do so is the best, or because she wants the responsibility on her shoulders.
I do think Dorothy is motivated by other things, but I also think this is a bigger motivation than a lot of folks are giving her credit for. She’s pretty connected to Joyce, after all, and Joyce would be crushed if Becky were thrown out in the streets. Protecting someone you care about can be a very powerful motivator, and one which (in general, not just for Dorothy’s personality type) isn’t fond of passing that responsibility to anyone else.
I don’t think that statement has anything to do with Roz, I think it’s defending her ambition in the first place, saying essentially “I kickstarted my personal push not only for my own ambition which I shouldn’t have to apologize for, but also because I trust me to do things like protect Becky which was something that was important to Ruth and you as well.”
As for which of the two is more likely to hold that true… well, both of them would. Like, yeah, Roz is abrasive and goes in hot a lot, but we’ve seen her practice subtlety before in service to someone’s need in her “hey, if something happened, here’s a resource specifically designed for that thing” offer of post-rape counseling services for Joyce.
And she has never since used that as ammo nor has she sought to exploit the tragedy that happened on campus.
Like, people are free to dislike Roz or find her abrasive, but she’s not the evil supervillain so many seem to want to paint her as.
She wasn’t even expecting Roz (or anyone else on the floor) to be interested in the position when she decided to go for it. She probably figured that the other candidates would all be total strangers, and Dorothy is definitely a safer bet in terms of allowing Becky to stay than some complete unknown.
Yeah, Roz wasn’t even a factor when she was making this decision.
That’s very true. Dorothy is not pitching herself against Roz here, she is pitching herself against some unknown last-minute-replacement Chloe will cook up. Someone who doesn’t live on the floor, someone who doesn’t know the people and someone who has a much more vested interested in following the rules than some homeless kid.
I think it’s more than likely that Roz will be just as thoughtful to Becky’s situation as Dorothy. In fact, if Roz knew about Becky’s situation she would most likely be worried about how sincere goodie two-shoe Dorothy would be breaking the rules for her.
And Roz probably knows actual resources for Becky, in case the whole “hiding in a college dorm” doesn’t actually work out. I mean, at the very least she’d probably try to put her in touch with Leslie, who has been in the “homeless teen raised by fundies” boat.
Well, anyone of them could put her in touch with Leslie, but they’re too worried about letting anyone with authority know. Leslie even tried to approach Joyce about it, but get brushed off.
And Roz really should already know about Becky, since most of the floor does, and could offer her those resources without being RA.
I wonder if that reaction might be the strong post-election memories influencing people. Dorothy’s “Too Prepared” “Always Right” traits as negatives seem almost prophetic in light of Clinton being bashed for being “Too Prepared” at the debates against Trump.
People may just be subconsciously comparing Roz to Trump in this run.
I assume Roz knows about Becky. Everyone else seemed to and to be conspiring to keep her hidden. If she doesn’t, she’s far more out of touch with the floor than she claims to be.
But yeah, when Dorothy decided to try for the RA job, Roz wasn’t in the picture. Now that she is, there’s still no reason to step aside. Roz trying for the job isn’t any better from Billie’s point of view than Dorothy doing so.
Plus, even if Dorothy concedes to Roz, Roz might not get the job.
Dotty can’t take much more of this passive aggressive stuff
Ooh, what if she snaps? What if the unknown evil is…her?
“You have replaced a dark Ruth with a dark KEEEEEEENER!!!!”
*fetches Dotty a hissing respirator mask*
so everyone ends up voting for Mary, right, because reasons? i feel like i’ve seen this story before
She is the moral center of the floor, after all.
Can’t be. The poll said “Unknown Evil.” Mary’s an all too familiar evil.
Plot twist: Sidney somehow infects the girl that wears no shoes and turns her bubbly attitude into pure EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL.
(Sorry, can’t remember her name a the moment.)
Sierra! Watch out if she starts calling everyone foooools.
Noooo!! Not Sierra! We mustn’t let sydney anywhere near Sierra.
No one will vote for Mary because it’s well established that literally everyone on the floor hates Mary, and also because the RA job isn’t an election.
The fact that it’s not an election, of course, means that Mary could actually get the job somehow, and become some kind of President Trump analogue. This actually creates the most dramatic possibility, gives Mary some credibility/power she desperately needs if she’s ever going to be taken seriously as a major villain ever again, and opens the door of someone blackmailing Mary ironically. It also causes Mary’s recent fall from grace to make sense narratively, because right now Mary’s so powerless it almost comes off like everyone’s bullying her, so giving her the power to get “revenge” can kickstart a lot of stories and probably carry a whole book before she gets a satisfying defeat.
The only other dramatic option is Roz, who’s outing of Robin seems to have had some rather selfish motivations in this regard.
Ruth getting her job back makes this entire arc a waste of time, and Dorothy’s simply too competent to get the role, because she’d be able to solve a lot of problems.
That could be good, though I feel Mary has several routes to being a threat (she still knows Becky’s secret and could out it, especially if it’s an anonymous way, she can sic her church on the campus leading to protests, she could decide to attack the source of the person currently keeping her in check and try to do the whole trap and harry method to Billie about her alcoholism).
And hell, she doesn’t even need to be a credible threat to still be a nasty thorn in the side of the other characters, serving as a narrative foil to their happiness.
That all said, I think if it doesn’t go back to Ruth on a short leash, the job’s going to go to a new character or obscure Walkyverse character who was passed over for the position who will somehow manage to be infinitely worse than Ruth at doing the job.
I mean.
It’s hard to be worse at this job than Ruth. She has literally assaulted people.
And I think it’d be super tacky if the way this plays out is that the dorm corrals around Ruth because she was a jerk, but she was their jerk. Ruth is inept on a good day. At her worst she is actively abusive to her peers.
And, well, I agree with ESM. Ruth getting her job back makes this entire arc pointless. It just puts every single character involved back in the same place. That’s pretty much why I don’t think it will play out that way.
I bet Sydney Yus because of preview panels on Willis’ Tumblr.
No one votes for her, but she gets the job anyway because it’s not an election.
…. except, you know, she won’t.
Dorothy’s finally encountered someone who doesn’t want her to fix everything. It will be interesting to watch this play out… :/
I know, people that are right when I am trying to be angry at the whole world upset me no end.
Is it just me or has the comic been updating later and later every day again? I think the…logistics or whatever you call it is getting off-kilter or something.
Shut up you kids get off my lawn
Yeah, it used to update at 2 minutes after the hour, but it’s gotten later as of late.
At least it’s consistent. It would be an outright oxymoron for it to have gotten earlier of late.
The winter solstice is over, so now each day ends a little bit later.
Can confirm this is how servers work.
She’s not always *frustratingly* right.
Sometimes she’s annoyingly right. Then there are the times when she’s aggravatingly right. Then she might mix it up a bit and be perplexingly right.
Don’t forget all the ways in which she’s left!
Behind?
Well, as long as she is left three times, then she will be right anyway.
Winchester Cathedral
You’re bringing me down…
Wow. Bring out the OLD Muzak tonight!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKc1OCJ7iXk
Hadn’t heard this one before, interesting song.
Goddammit, this is the first time you’ve managed to earworm me.
Muahahahahahaaa!
i hate it when the only winning move is to lose
No, no, it’s not to play.
Strange game.
The only way not to lose The Game is to forget you’re even playing.
Wouldn’t you prefer a nice game of chess?
‘s called a Pyrrhic victory.
Ya know, get shot through the ankle, then burnt to a cinder – by a Cinder.
*snif*
Ya, too soon.
The bittersweet side effects of the ugly truth.
Sometimes you do things with the best of intentions, but you still get draged through the mud by those you are trying to help.
*Sigh*
No good deed goes unpunished.
No act of charity goes unresented~
“No good deed goes unpunned” sounds like the title of something.
She DOES aim for a life in politics…
“Goddamn it, Dorothy, how am I supposed to use you qas an emotional punching back with which I can take out my depression and self-loathing on if you keep being all reasonable and genuinely concerned for the well being and others??!”
I know!!
So inconvenient for Billie’s misplaced rage.
Don’t worry, Billie, you’ll find a way.
Srsly, there are PLENTY of people around for her to hate. I’m sure at least ONE of them deserves it.
Oh dorothy don’t try to make this about some greater good. You only want the job to pad a resume. Becky is just convinetnt way to feel better. Honestly nothing’s wrong with using the job as a stepping stone to a better goal.
She can have more than one reason. The primary purpose is her ambition, but she also cares about people for their own sakes.
^agreed
(agreed towards matt i mean oops)
Dorothy is a good person and Joyce’s other best friend, if you think becky’s situation didn’t occur to her and wasn’t a factor then I don’t think you understand her character.
Oh I’m sure it was a factor, I don’t see Dorothy outright lying to Billie’s face about having altruistic reasons alongside her selfish ones (though how long that will last for someone who wants to be a career politician is yet to be seen) it’s just it’s almost certainly a secondary or even tertiary factor next to personal ambition.
Her being in power IS for the greater good. Padding her resume is ALSO for the greater good. She’s just that awesome. Yes, she’s getting more power, but she only wants that power to make the world better because that’s what she does with power. And she’ll use being RA for the greater good, too.
I mean, she’s arrogant, but she’s the good kind of arrogant, which makes her extra-insufferable.
That seems like an extra harsh take on her character. She’s ambitious and she honestly wants to do good. At no point so far has it been hinted that she wants power purely for power’s sake. She’s naive, not heartless.
I wasn’t being harsh. And it’s not power for its own sake. Dorothy has a goal in mind and she’s so far shown she will do anything to accomplish it. honestly I would do the same thing so would most people who want to build padding to achieve a goal. Helping Becky may be a thing to do but really she’s only doing it now to get Billie and others to back her.
Why do you think that? Dorothy does care about people. Becky getting kicked out would devastate Joyce. Even if Dorothy didn’t care about Becky, she does about Joyce.
I’m not saying that her ambition isn’t a major factor, but I don’t see why this has to be only an excuse.
alright, fine. Legitimate point there. She’s still not eligible for the actual position though, right? I’m admittedly unsure about the logistics, but barring the unlikely circumstance the floor is allowed to continue without an RA, there’s a distinct gap between now and whenever Dorothy actually becomes a viable option. Wouldn’t there be the probability of either the head RA lady (sorry I forget her name, is it Chloe?) who is currently stepping in or some other replacement RA be likely to figure out Becky’s situation as well? Regardless of how sympathetic this person would be, wouldn’t that negate the point of keeping Becky a secret in the first place?
I dunno, I figure sooner or later this is gonna be addressed.
As Dorothy pointed out, none of the sophomores are interested in the position. Even if they pull in someone from another wing to do it, at the very least she’s put her name in as a person of interest – the new RA could very well ask to get caught up to speed and Dorothy can obfuscate as needed.
Dorothy isn’t regularly eligible, but given the circumstances (lots of crappy RA’s exhausting the replacement pool/the replacement pool being shallow due to a plethora of crappy applicants, expediency, the convenience of the move, etc.) Chloe has said she’d field applications from competent freshmen.
Did Chloe actually say this? I suppose that fixes that plot whole up a bit. Still, if you don’t mind, do you have the link to the strip itself?
Nope.
Here’s Dorothy’s logic though for why she’s putting her name in on the longshot:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/longshot/
It’s the fact that A) It’s Dorothy and B) She says ‘as long as we’re picking from the floor’. That seems like a strange assumption to make, and Dorothy doesn’t tend towards strange assumptions. Since Chloe said she’d field Dorothy’s application, I’m thinking she’s worried about replacing Ruth quickly, and getting a girl from the floor is most conducive to that. Being a freshman is a problem, but if they’re a competent freshmen, Chloe seems like she’s game.
The logic does seem to include Chloe having said she’d field Dorothy’s application, in panel 4.
This is why I feel like ultimately Dorothy would get the job over Roz if it actually ended up being against the two of them. Even in outstanding circumstances, which have already been discussed, a freshman would still need a fantastic application and references as well as a high GPA. I’m sure Roz is a good student but all things considered someone like Dorothy would have the better resume and make a better impression during the interviewing process.
And also Roz has the whole “leaked sex tape” scandal under her belt, which in comic time was only a month or so ago. That type of thing isn’t something that would be looked kindly upon.
I’m calling it now. Joyce is going to be RA.
Joyce (at least since her critical system update) would make a better R.A. than either Dorothy or Roz.
I disagree. Part of being an RA is being a figure of some authority, and understanding some of the red tape around being a student. First year students range from “I don’t know how to work the laundry machine” to “I’ve been living on my own for a year” and an RA is often the first stop for the former group when they run into holes in their knowledge.
Joyce is friendly. She’d be good if you have a problem with your roommate, but I wouldn’t expect her to know what to do if say, a student had a problem with their professor. Or needed to fill out forms declaring a disability. And if the problem is sexual in nature (Like someone thinks they have an STD and doesn’t know where the health services are) she’d be the last person a student would want to talk to.
Both Dorothy and Roz would at least have an idea of what the next steps are in those cases, and know what questions to be asking. Joyce on the other hand, is more likely to need an RA to answer those questions.
Also, Joyce still has some system patches she needs to do wrt bigotry. Sure, she’s not the horrible horrible asshole Mary is, and she’s learned sexuality isn’t a good reason to be a bigot (and hopefully also gender, but she may not have). She doesn’t seem to understand mental illness, and I doubt she knows much about disability. Her religious tolerance for those who aren’t Christian has almost certainly improved, but ignorant bigotry still sucks.
I don’t think Joyce would be a terrible RA. I think she, like all the other girls bar Mary, would make a decent but flawed RA. One of her flaws is she needs some more education first.
Also-also, as RA, someone might need her to deal with hair in the showers.
Or spiders in their rooms.
Or physically ejecting a predatory stalker.
Or…
Or god forbid she finds something she gets super enthusiastic to the point of pressuring folks into doing stuff. She has a habit of continuously bringing things up until folks give in. Uncool generally, DEFINITELY uncool for an RA.
Especially if the object of her enthusiasm is of a religious nature.
YUP!
I’m all up for Joyce as an RA. She is friendly, nice and bossy enough to not be run over. She is humble enough to ASK PEOPLE when she don’t know how things work.
The hair thing would be a problem.
But she has one more qualification.
What was the one good thing with Ruth everyone agreed on? Here feeding abusive father Blaine to wild dogs.
How have we seen Joyce interact with abusive father Ross? FIST TO THE FACE!!!!
Ah, dang it. I wrote this a while back but posted it late so I’m not sure how many people saw it, and I really like it. NOW WITH ADDED BONUS MATERIAL.
For a fistfull of Beckies.
“The old sheriff was gone and they told me a slip of a girl took her place. Cute as a button she was, and the strongest word she ever took in her mouth was ‘poodle.’
The black hats congregated. The roughs and the slicks and the nasties. Each and one wanting to carve a piece of ol’ Clark and show this new sheriff that this was their town now, to do with as they liked.
Into town they rode. Two horses in breath and ten deep went the column. And the good people boarded up, watching the ruffians enter their town through narrow slits between heavy bars, the roughs and the slicks and the nasties. ‘They’re here to take us away,’ they whispered. ‘They are here to tear the town down, they feared. ‘Stromatolites might be the oldest fossils in the world’, said one (I’m not quite sure why).
And the one they call Dorothy rode from the west, the cavalery riding with her. And the one they call Roz rode from the east, the good people of the plain mustering around her. But none of them got there before the bandits, and none of them had to.
In the town square she stood, the slip of the girl, this cute little button of a sheriff, and the rode a circle around her, the roughs and the slicks and the nasties. They cackled and laughed and heckled and threatened, and the baddest of the baddies rode up to her, and looked down on her, and said, with hissing voice,
“You aint no Ruthless, girl. We aint ‘fraid of you.”
And the sheriff looked the baddie in the eye.
And the wild dogs in the edge of town perked their ears.
And this completely irrelevant General dude ran through the town square banging two pots together and screamed “FLEEE YOU FOOOOOOOOOLS.”
Anyway.
…where were I…
…yeah…
Out of town they tore, the roughs and the slicks and the nasties, like the devil himself were on their tails, and I don’t fault them one bit for not slowing down to check. Those still on their horses rode like the wind. Those who lost them scampered like rabbits, and most of them crawled on their bellies like the vermin they were, however they could, getting the hell away from Clark.
And they never came back, they said, and good riddance.
So that’s my story. There’s a new sheriff in town, and her name is Joyce. NO ONE will hurt the her people. No one. She will fight them. She will.”
I saw it and saved it.
For great justice!
Pretty much everyone on the floor, except Mary, seems down with Becky living there in secret, actually.
I’m feeling like the fact that Billie ends this conversation by stepping into the R.A.’s room might be a sign or omen.
I WISH Billie would be the RA. I think she’d make a wonderful one when she’s healthy. Sadly, when she’s healthy is the operative clause there.
Billie gets healthier when she has stuff to do and people to mama-bear for.
I’m not sure that’s healthier or her avoiding her depression and alcoholism though.
It depends if you think avoiding them is better than wallowing in them. Neither is ideal or likely to contribute much to recovery/mitigation but I’ve generally found the former to be more viable long term than the latter.
I think part of her depression might be about not having a leadership role anymore, and she’s turning to (well, heightening) alcohol use to cope.
That could be true, in which case getting the job would help a bit – though I’d rather she get therapy and anti-depressants first.
Healthy Billie would be an amazing RA.
But she’s got a lot of healing and introspecting to do first.
Yup, that’s the important part. I think when I did my pro-cons list of the girls on the floor, Billie ended up one of my favourites.
She’s got all the skills. She can sort out crises, she has a lot of hard-earned knowledge about how to support a woman going through hell, she’s got an alpha percussion instrument, head cheerleader vibe that presents confidence and leadership and no-nonsense when she needs it, and she’s done better than anyone to keep Mary in check.
But she hates herself and is almost always drunk in a self-destructive way.
She’s also got leadership experience and day to day social skills for it.
Billie, therapy now, then yoink the RA gig out of Dorothy and Roz’s hands from under their feet. Then you can let Becky AND Ruth live illegally in the dorms. No abusive family returns necessary.
So what you’re saying is, she’s the perfect successor to Ruth.
It’d definitely be a like-for-like replacement at the moment.
Part of Ruth’s legacy will live on.
… well, okay, most of it.
She’s literally done Ruth’s job for her for a while, that’s how she noticed Ruth was locked in her room for a bunch of time and found her with the bottles. The floor just flocked to her as someone who would help, up to and including sorting out couples’ spats.
So… yeah. Billie.
Yeah, but if we’re handwaving “when they’re healthy”, we might as well give the job back to Ruth.
Ruth was never a good RA, even when she was at her healthiest. Chloe may have liked her, but that does not mean that she should still be RA, especially when her primary mode of communication is threats of bodily harm.
Healthy Billy, on the other hand, would actually be able to help other people and genuinely like doing so. She likes being a go-getter, problem solving kind of person.
In fairness, Ruth at her healthiest was still pretty dang unhealthy. I’d be curious to see how she does post-medication and therapy. We’ve seen her do decently on her better days and I wonder if that’s more emblematic of how she’d do healthy.
Billie on the other hand, would be amazing because, unlike Ruth, she seems really invested in the problem solving thing.
Pretty much what I meant. We’ve never seen Ruth healthy.
Also in fairness, we’ve never seen Billie healthy either. The things we like about her are symptoms of her drive to prove herself useful and not toxic.
She has however been a depressed alcoholic longer than we’ve known her. Nor, as near as we can tell, has she even made as much attempt to quit drinking as Ruth has.
To quote Dorothy’s “competition” (because I doubt either of them will get the position) , “Man, I hate it when other people have valid points.”
I’m more for Roz now than I was before since Dorothy is just using the Becky situation to justify this to the rightfully angry Billie rather than having that as a goal in the first place. It just rubs me the wrong way and seems manipulative.
She might not have had it as a visible goal due to Becky’s situation being a secret.
Where do you get that? Couldn’t she be telling the truth when she says that’s why she quickly stepped in?
Damn you Willis
I think Dorothy would make a good RA, but I’m betting if Ruth doesn’t get the job back it’ll go to someone we haven’t seen much of before. Meredith maybe, or some other character that’s new to DoA.
I’m still wishing it would be Sydney Yus.
Oh, look! A SIDE-MOUTH!
(… yes, I’m referencing two Willis-updates in one comment. Bite me.)
Oh, there was that angle.
Oh shit that’s right. Also, does that mean Dorothy is using the “it would look good on my resume/application” as a smoke screen for her true intentions for those who the true intentions should be hidden from (Mary) or is the fact that it would look good on such a resume/application just an added bonus?
She can have multiple reasons. I’m thinking it’s ‘a bit of column A, a bit of column B, a bit of column C, all of column Protect Becky from getting tossed, etc.’
Oh she’s definitely running to keep her name in consideration for next year and to pad her resume for a difficult transfer application to Yale.
This is if anything, an add-on to that main and driving desire.
And at the end of the day, sure, so she runs primarily to pad her resume, so what? There’s a weird thing in society where women are expected to apologize for blind ambition in a way men are not.
Exactly. She’s not doing anything wrong by running to pad her application, but Billie is hurt anyways. Emotions are complicated – Dorothy doesn’t have to do wrong things to make people feel hurt. Yay, emotional complexity!
And the interesting thing is Billie is totally reasonable to be mad. It’s an unsettling and angering situation and Dorothy doing nothing wrong still hits some nasty sore wounds for Billie that was always going to make her mad.
And that’s totally legitimate. And I think Dorothy may have been better served letting Billie stew off her anger overnight or give a frank statement that she didn’t think she did anything wrong, but she’s still sad that this made a hard situation harder rather than trying to short-circuit her anger when it came out.
Yeah, I think so too. I think Dorothy is going to struggle with this because, really, she’s done nothing wrong, but it still made a situation worse for Billie.
Panel One: Oh boy, Billie’s wide eyes means she probably did not expect this. Thaaaat might end badly. She’s not feeling up to discussing ….well, pretty much anything right now.
Panel Two: She looks annoyed, upset, and defeated here. She really does not want to talk right now but she recognizes that she will.
Panel Three: It’s nice of Dorothy to try reaching out to Billie again. They aren’t particularly close, but she knows Billie enough to care and try to help. And Walky obviously cares about Billie. He jumps to help her and bends over backwards for her in ways he doesn’t do for anyone else – even Dorothy. He’s closer to her than his girlfriend or his biological sister. Dorothy understands that in some ways, but it also makes her sad that she can’t get Walky to express himself in any other ways.
Billie doesn’t look like she believes it though. Actually, she looks annoyed. Like ‘oh great, Dorothy is talking to me’. Billie is pissed – not at anyone in particular, but because A) She’s frightened for Ruth and upset about everything, and how she ‘failed to save Ruth’. And B) I think she’s having a Ruth like moment where anger is one of the few emotions she can still actually feel. So you can bet your ass she’ll cling to that for a long time.
Panel Four: Oof, yeah, that’ll upset her. Especially since Ruth hasn’t even been fired yet, but everyone acts like it’s a done deal. That has to be frustrating. Everyone is acting like Ruth’s gone for good and is never going to come back to being RA (or, in Billie’s mind, getting to stay with her).
Also, Dorothy, respectfully? Bullshit. You were going up and down the halls asking people about their problems for your notes. While that doesn’t scream RA job, it’ll definitely give people the idea something is up and there’s not a whole lot of things it could be. Although that DOES explain why Dorothy kind of brushed it off and didn’t just tell Joyce she was gunning for RA.
Panel Five: Again, Dorothy, it wasn’t that hard to figure out. You didn’t do anything ‘wrong’ per se, but it’s hardly rocket science to figure out that’s what you wanted. Also, did you really think Billie would take it better if she found out when you were appointed? I doubt it. Sure, someone would take Ruth’s job, but someone isn’t necessarily in Billie’s circle of friends and gunning before she’s even fired, never mind before the metaphorical body is cold. Sure, Billie’d be pissy with whoever replaced her, but I think it’d be different it it were, say, Mandy. Because Mandy isn’t in Billie’s circle of friends. No feelings, justified or not, of betrayal.
Panel Six: I like how Dorothy brings this up – it’s not ENTIRELY about her wanting the job or boosting her Yale application. The RA is definitely going to have a lot of responsibility for things in the dorm, and some of those things aren’t things people want to come to light.
If Becky gets found out by the new RA, she could be HOSED. She does not have anywhere near the money for a room nor does she have potential roommates (maybe if Ruth IS fired and needs a new job and Marcie wants to move into somewhere less crowded, they could pool resources and end up in a shitty, but cheap apartment, but I am not banking on this). That is an important thing to consider for who will be RA. Now, thankfully, I seriously seriously doubt Roz would chuck Becky out. I’d be stunned if she doesn’t know at least ONE resource centre that helps with housing, or at least how to find one, and point Becky in their direction.
Although, again Dorothy, you’re assuming Ruth will be fired. That is not a thing that is confirmed.
Panel Seven: Billie definitely hasn’t thought about Becky’s role in this. On one hand, she knows that that’s true. Becky needs a new home. She does not have the ability to find one right now. She needs one before they can have a regular RA again. And she does care about helping Becky – beyond her problem solver self image, she’s done some of the most to help Becky, even if it’s just giving her her bed.
Panel Eight: And yeah, that’s not a thing she can dodge. It still hurts though, because she can’t help but be mad at how things went down with Ruth and yeah, Dorothy (or anyone) gunning for the job is a reminder of that and it pisses her off. But there’s little she can do, and it may actually help other people she cares about. Billie is going to be conflicted and have lots of negative mixed feelings about this.
And Dorothy is surprised – she’s taking a lot of blows to her image lately. She’s been building herself up as the pristine, responsible, dare I say perfect girl because acknowledging her flaws would be death in politics. But it causes her to have issues with day to day sociability skills, and that can be death for her RA application. Unlike the presidency, sociability skills on the day to day level are important for being RA because you need to build trust to get people to feel okay coming to you. The very image she relies on for politics is biting her in the ass hard for her RA bid because the girls don’t relate to her and therefore would trust her less as a good ear. She’s ‘mom-ish’. She’s ‘unapproachable’. She’s ‘always right’. That’s a huge blow to how she’s felt. Dorothy is always analyzing and picking apart her image and all she can see are these seemingly glaring flaws (or things that aren’t flaws but get women torn to shreds, like DARING to have an active sex drive). So it feels weird that the other girls don’t see them too and it’s making it harder to achieve this position with different skills and images than the one’s she’s cultivated and it’s definitely upsetting her because she DOES want to be personable and likeable…just not at the expense of all her dreams for the sake of one tiny RA goal. And finding a balance between them will be important.
Yeah, I really think Billie’s falling into a state where anger is the only emotion she can still feel too.
And I think that can be seen in the fact that she’s not once cried or shown fear. She’s only shown either numb or rage since that night Ruth got hospitalized. It’s really not a good place that she’s in and I really hope that the therapy she’s scheduled for can help get her through it.
And yeah, I think you’re definitely on point with how some of Dorothy’s statements are bullshit and why this bothers Billie so much and that Roz would be just as safe for Becky as Dorothy would be.
Exactly. If she’s not silent, she’s lashing out at everyone. This is killing her, because she put so much stock in being a problem solver and she couldn’t be that for Ruth. Nobody can, because depression does not work that way, but Billie’s in no headspace to admit it.
Yup, and she based her whole self-esteem on “solving” Ruth’s unhappiness. Like, she was personally going to defeat depression, but that’s not how it works. And grappling with that now is not easy, especially as she was using the codependence of that fight distract herself from how she believes she’s a toxic mess that destroys everything she touches and who is not worthy of love from someone who isn’t equally “broken”.
Poor Billie. </3 She needed a decent therapist like three months ago.
Therapists for everyone!
wait, no, this is Dumbing of Age. Therapists for no one!
</sheogorath>
I don’t think everyone NEEDS a therapist (in the sense of ‘is having a serious mental health issue that is getting worse and needs treatment’) but I do think plenty of them could benefit from one.
It’s true that Roz as R.A. would probably be good for the Becky situation. However Dorothy began her bid before she had any idea Roz even wanted the job.
The only thing Dorothy has ever seen from Roz is her being a selfish jerk. Hell, I was surprised that she wanted the job. Something with actual responsibility, instead of the guerrilla warfare techniques? Actually having to deal with people without attacking them as horrible?
If I were Dorothy, the only thing Roz’s throwing her (admittedly stylish) hat in the ring would do is make me want to work harder to win. Because I would not at all trust someone Roz to be able to do the job.
“someone like Roz” that is.
Dorothy also is not running for the job primarily to help Becky and she knows it. It is a reason, maybe a large reason, but it is not the thing first and foremost on her list.
I was surprised she wanted it too, because she didn’t seem interested in authority positions to me before, but she’s sought out jobs with some measure of responsibility before (volunteering, working for the paper), so I guess it’s not a huge shock.
“she didn’t seem interested in authority positions”
…said of the girl who wants to become president
When did Roz want to be president? That’s whom that line refers to.
It’s confusing when you switch from a name to a third person pronoun without introducing another name to clarify the switch. Otherwise, it reads very much like you’re still talking about Dorothy, and then it doesn’t make sense.
Except that the post was about Dorothy. No-one was talking about Roz.
I was confused too, but BBCC was replying to Trikly who did start with “The only thing Dorothy has ever seen from Roz is her being a selfish jerk. Hell, I was surprised that she wanted the job. Something with actual responsibility, instead of the guerrilla warfare techniques? Actually having to deal with people without attacking them as horrible?”
So in that context, it makes sense that BBCC was talking about Roz, but it wasn’t clear to me until it was questioned and I went back to double check.
It also didn’t help that Dorothy also volunteers and works for the paper and does so more prominently. 🙂
Yeah, my bad on that one! I’m referring to Roz on that line, who volunteers for Planned Parenthood (and probably other spots too) and, per Willis’ tumblr, works as the sex columnist for the paper.
Poor, poor Billie. Like you say, we can see how she struggles just to get her defenses up when Dorothy calls her.
Bringing up Becky hits her right in the guilt. Billie gave Becky her room and then she will need it back. Her inability to help Becky is the latest straw in her own crumbling self image. She is not a cheer leader, not a problem solver, not an alpha bongo. She is just a horrible waste of space that makes everything worse. (never mind how much she has ACTUALLY helped Becky, with free haircut money, a cool example of a lady who likes ladies and her FRIGGIN’ BED).
Now Dorothy steps in to do something for Becky that Billie couldn’t. This will not do her self esteem any favors 🙁
Ruth did nothing for Becky though. She was too busy being drunk and depressed, and when she found out she told Billie that she had to find new housing.
She just didn’t rat her out. That’s basically on the same level as Mary.
Mary didn’t rat Becky out because she was either holding onto that to blackmail Ruth with, or else she doesn’t know Becky came back after she left with Joyce for the weekend.
After learning Becky was living on the floor, Ruth told Billie to find somewhere else to put Becky so that Ruth could deny she knew about it.
That’s not a lot, but it’s more than Mary would have even considered doing.
Plus Ruth didn’t rat out Becky when it would actually help with the blackmail situation. It’s one less thing Mary would have on her.
Plus, whether Ruth helped out or not is not really relevant. Billie wants to help Becky. Billie gave Becky her room. Billie kept Becky a secret from Ruth as long as she could. Hence Billie would want an RA that would help Becky, and not one that would throw her out.
I mean, she said she had to find someplace else to live. That’s more or less the same thing as getting the college to do it.
Won’t someone think of the Beckys??
The Beckies, I tell you. The Beeeckies.
This is why we need a machine uprising. Robots would know that Dorothy is objectively the most qualified, hardworking, conscientious, organized and smartest candidate to have put their name forward.
This is the kind of ridiculous feelings bull that let Trump get elected. Does the economy feel down? Does it feel like moral values are decaying? Does Doro-ImeanHillary feel genuine?
Machines would know that Dorothy and Roz are both fleshy meat sacks who are far too inefficient to lead.
Silly Captor, that’s what genetic-engineering is for! 😀
Guided by their infallible logic, the Robotrons conclude:
The human race is inefficient, and therefore must be destroyed.
Roz has plenty of qualifications for being RA as well. Dorothy ISN’T the objective best candidate. She’s a decent one, sure, but so is Roz.
No, she doesn’t. Or, at least, if she does, we don’t know what they are. They would have to be things like having done something similar before. You know, resume stuff.
What we do know about Roz is how she is as a person, and she loses badly to Dorothy by every measure. It’s not even close. Roz is an obnoxious jerk who attacks everyone who doesn’t measure up to her standard. Even if you improve tremendously like Joyce did, you’re still the enemy.
Even if you argue that said personality can be useful, it’s not useful as an R.A. Sure, it’s the attitude that Ruth had, but that’s a huge part of why she was not good at her job. There was no way that Ruth could be there for you.
No, an RA needs to listen to and deal with interpersonal conflict. Sure, they have to handle some discipline, but it’s not the bulk of their job. The R.A. has to be there for you, to help you.
The closest thing we’ve seen from Roz is her telling Joyce who she could call. There’s no hotline for roommate problems. And just being quiet (like she was when Joyce came back after stopping ToeDad) won’t work, either.
Sure, it seems Roz has skills in campaigning. But the skills of that and actually doing the job are not the same, at all.
And all that’s without the obvious reason Roz can’t be RA: she created a scandal early on in the school year. She’s a liability. Hiring her would be hiring someone who creates problems for the school, not someone who helps solving them.
She has to appear as a reformed troublemaker to have a chance, and it’s not remotely been long enough for that.
A) Like you said, she’s good for the discipline part of the gig.
B) We do know she’s been responsible for day to day grunt work – with both Planned Parenthood and the school paper as the sex columnist. Both of those require a measure of responsibility, commitment, and work.
C) If you’re talking about being responsible for others, Roz has an ‘excessively numerous’ amount of sisters. I think it’s unlikely at best she’s never been responsible for at least some.
D) We know she has resources – for rape, reproductive health (not to mention hormones for Carla), probably for LGBT+ issues, abuse, probably legal or political issues considering her family, etc. Dorothy does not have these resources.
E) Roz has better day to day social skills. Dorothy isn’t good at that – and yes, that is an important part of being the RA. In part because of things like roommate issues. Roz has built better day to day relations with a few of the girls and they feel better coming to Roz because they trust her on that. And again, I find it very unlikely Roz has never had to sort out issues between younger (or even older) sisters before. She also works as outreach for Planned Parenthood – I’m guessing that entails interpersonal skills.
F) We also know she’s got the ability to reach out to students, even those she doesn’t like, at least for enough time to offer a resource for their issue.
The school’s already hired her to work on the IDS as their sex columnist, so that is actually a decent way to show off responsibility and the ability to work for the school.
You’re also ignoring one important part of her yelling at Joyce, so I’m gonna put this in capitals – JOYCE WAS ACTIVELY DOING SOMETHING WRONG. She was trying to pretend her former bigotry didn’t count and foist it off on the church as a far away entity, not an institution she did the anti-LGBT+ dirty work for. And for that, she deserved to be told off. Roz needed to stop because it was Leslie’s class and Leslie wanted her to, not because she was incorrect about Joyce. Joyce even admitted the next day that it was a good thing Roz yelled at her. That is not ‘this is good, but not up to my standards, so I am going to yell at you like an unreasonable person’ that was ‘you are pretending you never did anything wrong and that is bullshit and so I am going to loudly call you on it’. You don’t have to like it, but don’t pretend Joyce did not deserve to be yelled at for her bullshit.
Roz on offense is a horrible person who happens to be on the right side of history. People like Roz are the reason LGBT people see that there are people fighting for them, and that’s a good thing. But like Jesse Jackson before her, Roz has a flawed method of operation that in the long run does more harm than good.
We’ve seen Roz in action. LGBT and liberal-sex folk are not the only people Roz will have to take care of. Roz has no toloerance for bullshit as she sees it, and that is a fatal flaw in an R.A. or any political role. The human race will continue to spew bullshit forever and it’s a political job to deal with it and move forward. Even a relative saint like Michelle Obama is unsuited to politics because of such bullshit allergies.
Could Roz make it as an R.A.? I think she’d be better than Ruth. But Roz comes across as more interested in beating her enemies than helping her allies.
We’ve seen Roz take care of people she disagreed with – when she gave Joyce the card for post-rape counselling. Sure, she didn’t stick around and have a lengthy discussion with her about it, but she also wasn’t responsible for Joyce at that time and Joyce had been nothing but an asshole to her prior. Frankly, just dropping in, giving her the resource, and leaving was probably for the best. I can’t see her turning either Joyce or Mary away if they were having an actual problem.
Roz has no tolerance for bigotry is what you mean. And part of the RA’s job is to crack down on that, so I see no conflict here. And the worst we’ve see her do is chew someone out for it. That is not an extreme course of action for a disciplinarian.
Especially when Joyce responded by asking if it was to her coven.
Not exactly a promising start to the conversation.
Exactly. Roz and Joyce were not in a place there they could have a deep, heart to heart conversation. Dropping in a resource and leaving was probably the best that could be expected at that point.
It’s also the type of reactions an RA could expect from, say, Sal or maybe Carla if they had a serious problem and didn’t want the RA to get involved – drop in, offer a resource centre number, and leave.
No, I said Roz has no tolerance for bullshit and that’s pretty much what I meant. Roz has certain strong views on how the world should work. This includes not being homophobic, but also includes being free to put up sex tapes she takes on her university’s grounds, openly disrespect her gender studies teacher’s knowledge on her first day and disrupt the learning process with Joyce.
Because Joyce is an exception, not the rule. Joyce instinctively seeks out the truth even if it’s painful, and that plainly isn’t everyone’s operating instinct. It certainly isn’t Roz’s.
To be clear, I’m not saying Roz would be a terrible R.A.. She’d probably do fine. Roz has shown she’s perfectly capable of learning when presented with facts that contradict her worldview, and she’d certainly fight hardest for the groups typically in need of most protection. I’m simply saying it’s clear Dorothy is the better choice. Any freshman Joyce would think of Roz when looking for help.
Any freshman Joyce would *not* think of Roz when looking for help. Oops.
A) The sex tape was connected to bigotry – the idea women can’t have control over their own bodies is a prominent topic when discussing misogyny. The issue with that was it was school property, which again, she said was a valid point.
B) The thing with Leslie wasn’t on her first day, but your point stands.
C) Joyce didn’t seek out Roz for the resource. Roz sought her out on her suspicion she was assaulted and offered her a card. She doesn’t need to be sought out for her to see someone acting strangely, or hear something happened and check in. It’s true a lot of people wouldn’t be receptive to her pointing out what they’d done wrong, but that doesn’t preclude them for being written up for it (or whatever RA’s do).
I think Roz and Dorothy would both make decent, but flawed RA’s. Their flaws are just in different areas. Roz can be short sighted, Dorothy is overbooked, Roz can jump the gun, Dorothy can drag her feet getting important but uncomfortable things done (like telling Joyce her homophobia was unacceptable or telling her Ryan was spotted), etc.
And I’m sorry for coming off with the bigotry vs bullshit thing. A lot of people have been shitting on Roz lately regarding her not coddling bigotry from Joyce, so I’ve been on edge. I should’ve handled that better and I’m sorry I didn’t.
I understand *why* Roz made the sex tape, and it’s a good cause, but it showcases the issues with her judgment. The tape preaches to the choir. Would people like Hank Brown suddenly realize his ideas on women having control over their bodies are wrong if he saw the sex tape? I’m thinking no, and that any wrong views are likely to just get more entrenched. Roz accepted the school grounds argument as valid after it was presented to her, and good on her for doing so, but the fact that such an obvious problem didn’t occur to Roz before she made the tape shows how her priorities color her judgment.
I was referring to a hypothetical freshman in Joyce’s position, who would be unlikely to feel like they could turn to Roz for help. Roz’s drawing battle lines that hard is better suited to an activism role than as an arbiter/counselor/person everyone on the floor can turn to.
As for talking to Joyce about her homophobia, true that. As we can see though, Joyce had a *lot* of naivete and wrong views to grow out of. It was already a big reach with Joyce accepting that Dorothy was an atheist, and then getting drugged at a party, and then standing up to her parents to keep her athiest friend. Plus they were already in gender studies class with a lesbian teacher. I don’t blame Dorothy for slow-walking any talk on LGBT issues with Joyce.
Things sometimes get heated in discussions like this. The apology is appreciated.
You may find that I don’t do double-speak much when I’m serious (not that I’m necessarily immune, we all have our implicit biases). It’s difficult enough communicating clearly when we’re trying our best, let alone when we’re trying to veil a second meaning. I look forward to the day where women’s rights have advanced enough such that I can call out someone for letting emotion affect their judgment and not have to worry about their gender, because dammit it’s the quality of reasoning I’m worried about and as far as that’s concerned I don’t care what the other person identifies as.
I think Roz yelling at Joyce got what it deserved – gratitude from Joyce, who knew she needed the message, and condemnation from Leslie, who knew the form was inappropriate.
But that yelling isn’t the whole story, is it? Roz is also the girl who laughed about “the fundie” attending a party. She ultimately tried to help her deal with what happened, but her first reaction was to complain about how “someone’s always gotta make a scene”. And of course she’s someone who came at her teacher with the attitude that she has nothing to learn, hoped to use her to take down her politician sister, and only sees the upsides of how that went down.
I don’t think Roz is a horrible person. She wants to be a force for good, and on the whole probably is. But it’s limited by her inclination to care first about principles (and parties) and needing to work to respect the people around her. That’s a character flaw she can, and maybe is, improving. But it would make for a poor RA.
That was her first reaction because she didn’t know what happened and nobody told her. Only Joyce, Dorothy, Billie, Sarah and Ron (the host of the party) know what led up to Sarah pummeling the crap out of Ryan.
Roz thought the party ended because someone got in a fight. She clearly didn’t even know WHO was involved, or since if she’d even known that someone on her floor was involved, she probably would have phrased that differently, if not realized something bad happened to Joyce even earlier in the conversation.
Roz also gave Joyce contact to someone who could help her.
No, I know, and once she had details she was as helpful to Joyce as possible. But that being her first reaction my point: her casual assumption was that someone was making a scene at one of these always-awesome parties. The possibility that something had actually gone wrong is not something she worried about until told otherwise. With the result that she inadvertently dismisses what happened to Joyce to her face before she can make up for it.
It’s a little thing, and I don’t think it is her doing something wrong as a person; in that respect it’s more important that she handles it well once she does know. But those sorts of little things if repeated would be a flaw as an RA. I don’t think she’d be the worst, because she does try to be helpful in her own way, but that job is a way she is naturally suited toward.
You see what I mean?
I don’t see how “not assuming the worst when she has no way to know and no reason to investigate further” is even worth noting.
Besides, she never discussed what happened to Joyce. She asked Dorothy if she had fun at the party. Dorothy and Joyce both react with shocked silence, and then Roz – having no context or additional information from either of them – mistakenly thinks they didn’t like it because of how it ended suddenly after some kind of commotion.
At this point, she barely knows either of them, and she doesn’t even know Joyce’s name yet (she has to ask when she finds her later to give her the card). Some kind of drama ending the night early is no doubt what had made the party disappointing for her, so I don’t see how it’s at all surprising that she thought it might have been why they were acting weird.
Baring telepathy, I don’t understand why she should have realized Joyce had been assaulted at the party, based on the information she was given (none)
*she never dismissed what happened to Joyce
It’s even better on that score, Fart Captor – Roz was told the party ended because of a fight. She was given a wrong (but perfectly plausible) explanation for how the party ended and did not question it further because, again, perfectly reasonable.
And there WAS a fight at the party – between AG and the jocks who were picking on Danny.
“Inadvertently dismissed” I said. She dismisses it when says “someone’s always gotta make a scene”, which is her assumption with no way to know otherwise. I’m not claiming she did anything wrong in not magically guessing more, only that it’s the sort of assumption that can lead to momentarily upsetting people, as happens right there.
(Unless BBCC is right and it’s instead what someone else told her. If so I missed that happening. I’m pretty sure the fight between AG and the jocks was not actually at the party, though.)
In any case, it’s one example of what I think is a trend. Roz is not really good with people like Joyce in the way you would prefer an RA would be. Please note that’s not the same as me claiming she did anything wrong. I’m not! The only case I know of her doing something at all wrong is the way she called out Joyce in class, and again, I think both her reprimand from Leslie and thanks from Joyce were equally deserved there.
The fight between AG and the jocks is at the party. It takes place in the background. It’s also a bit earlier, so I still assume that Roz is talking about the attempted rape, but having heard incorrect rumors about it just being a fight instead of fighting off a rape attempt. Probably from someone who’d just seen the aftermath and didn’t know what had happened.
It’s not an assumption if she’s been told ‘it’s a fight or something’. That could mean AG or Joyce and Sarah beating the hell out of Ryan. Either way, Roz was told it was a fight. Why would she need to think it was anything else when that’s a perfectly plausible explanation?
Roz was fine when she dropped off the card for Joyce. That’s exactly the kind of thing you want an RA to do with students who don’t respond well to their check in or have a bad relationship with the RA – “Hey, I’m not sure if you want anything, but if you’re going through something, here’s resource X”. Along with, probably, a “I’m in my room if you want to talk more” if they’re an RA. Which Roz was not at the time, and she had no idea an RA space would open up, so she had no reason to offer Joyce, someone she doesn’t like and who doesn’t like her, anything more than the resource.
They were, because it was the wrong place for it. But everything she said was correct and Joyce was doing something wrong, so imo yelling is warranted.
*should be “not naturally suited toward”, if I am to have a chance of making any sense at all. 🙁
Leslie was mad that Roz co-opted her class to yell at Joyce. That’s fair. Her yelling at Joyce was not incorrect though. Even though it IS yelling. It was the wrong setting for it though, and that is why Roz owed it to Leslie to knock it off.
Roz was told the party ended because of a fight (presumably the fight AG got into with the jocks who bullied Danny). Why would she make that leap from ‘a few people got into a fight and now the party’s over’ to ‘oh my gosh, that must mean there was an attempted rape’? A fight is a completely plausible reason for the party to end. I’m not surprised Roz didn’t question it because, until Dorothy told her Joyce went through horrible crap at the party, she had no reason to suspect anything more than a fight. That isn’t dismissing the possibility, that’s being told something completely different and not being told otherwise until Dorothy talked to her.
Not thinking she has anything to learn and not thinking through every consequence of what happens is normal 18 year old arrogance and short sightedness, not something that precludes her from being a good RA, any more than Dorothy’s ego and lack of day to day social skills will. She did not do anything to Leslie except provide further opportunities for her to meet Robin. She also asked Leslie if she wanted to be involved, and Leslie did. Leslie was 100% on board with this. If that’s ‘using’, then Roz using people does not end up being that harmful.
I’d assumed that the “fight that ended the party” was about the attempted rape, just recast by the rumor that reached her as a “fight”. Which technically it was and which a bystander not knowing the start and only seeing the aftermath could easily assume that’s all that went down.
It could be that or it could be the fight AG got into. Either way, ‘a fight’ is a perfectly reasonable explanation and it’s not unreasonable for Roz to take that at face value.
That Leslie was right to be mad at Roz for yelling, but Joyce was also right to be grateful for it, was my point.
I’m not sure where you get what Roz was told about the party. She was there. She was talking with Dorothy, and a few minutes later Dorothy and a lot of people were watching the situation with Joyce, right after there was a fight and right before the host left. Roz wasn’t standing there, and the next time we see her it’s with the idea that it was someone making a scene. No, that’s not her being a bad person.
Where I disagree with you is in the whole “arrogance and short sightedness, not something that precludes her from being a good RA”. I think yes, those sorts of things are normal, but no, they are negatives to being an RA. It’s not like someone has to have something wrong with them to be not particularly well-suited to that job! There’s only going to be the one, and it focuses on attributes not everyone else needs to have. It’s not like I’m saying Roz can’t deal with other people.
I will say that it doesn’t seem fair for you to suggest Dorothy can’t deal with other people too. Roz is more extroverted and seems more popular; Dorothy is more introverted but seems good at getting along with everyone and avoiding conflicts. Neither of anything I would call a “lack of day to day social skills”. You might say that about Amber or Dina, but I really don’t know where you get that about Dorothy at all.
If Leslie is mad about Roz yelling as opposed to Roz co-opting her class, I’d argue she IS wrong for that. Joyce needed to hear it and apparently it was something she needed screamed in her face because she otherwise was not getting it.
I said Roz was told the party ended because of a fight, not that she was told about the party. She did not witness what happened with Ryan, and the next time we see her she says the party ended early because there was a fight.
Those qualities make her a flawed RA, they don’t mean she won’t be a decent one. She also has a lot of care for marginalized people, a plethora of resources, the ability to get grunt jobs with lots of responsibility as well as interpersonal work done in a timely manner, and probably has plenty of experience sorting out squabbles and caring for other’s by virtue of being the big much older sister to Riley and (probably) other younger sisters.
This entire arc is Dorothy grappling with her lack of social skills vs Roz’s. Yes, she’s capable of avoiding conflicts and getting along, but Roz is better at the daily checking in ‘hi, how are you, how’re things’ kind of interactions. The other girls have said this. Roz has said this. Dorothy is struggling with it. She’s not an asocial recluse or someone who doesn’t understand other people, but she’s not good at making shallow day to day connections that build trust. That is one of the flaws that would affect her RA ability – three other ones are that she’s overbooked and can be very neurotic when she doesn’t know what’s wrong and can be somewhat invasive when she’s trying to figure it out. Like Roz, Dorothy would be a flawed, but overall decent RA.
BBCC, I meant Leslie being upset with Roz’s yelling in the venue it came up. I entirely agree with what you say about that, and actually a lot of this post. If our argument on RAing is “poor but not the worst” versus “flawed but overall decent”, we’re probably seeing the same things with different weights.
An exception, I don’t know that Roz is for sure better at the daily checking with other girls. Some of them certainly prefer her style for it! But at this point I don’t know if they represent them all, or just the ones who happen to hang out in the hallway. …Thinking on it, that’s a pretty small exception, so I’ll stop bugging you now.
BBCC: As far as ” Joyce needed to hear it and apparently it was something she needed screamed in her face because she otherwise was not getting it.”
Maybe she did and maybe she didn’t, but she’d had about 30 seconds from getting the first bit of the revelation (without anyone screaming in her face) to Roz starting to attack her for it. She says her one bit about being mad at the church, nothing about herself and Roz goes off on her. Joyce says nothing else until she goes to leave class.
The evidence that she wouldn’t have been capable of getting it without being screamed at is slim. If she’d actually mounted some defense of herself or even come back the next week with the same attitude, then I could see the case.
As it is, the only real evidence, at least at the time, is that she did not immediately confess to being a monster.
@ 3oranges – Eh, no worries. We’re allowed to have different weights for things. I think they’d both make decent RAs, but their flaws go to different areas of the job. For instance, Dorothy might have availability issues as she’s burning the candle at both ends. Meanwhile, Roz might have a hard time thinking through every possible consequence. Like I said, both have flaws for being RA, but both bring a lot to the table.
@ thejeff – Joyce was making a point of how angry she was at the church and saying, basically, ‘fuck you’ to them, while conveniently forgetting all the church anti gay work she participated in (like ‘free speech’ protesting at Chick-fil-A). And at the same time this girl was trying to get Becky to keep herself quiet and de-gay Ethan. She might have gotten the connection eventually, but her admitting the next day she’d needed Roz to be mean says to me she doesn’t think she’d have gotten it on her own (or as quickly), and she was not making the connection that she herself was doing gay hating things. Her not saying anything about herself was what Roz was pointing out – that she was conveniently excluding herself from the church she was condemning, even though she’d done their anti-LGBT+ dirty work. It’s a point Joyce agreed with the next day. Becky saying she was feeling crappy about Joyce needing to double check with God wasn’t getting to her. Becky protesting Joyce trying to make her be ‘discreet’ in public didn’t get to her. Hell, Amber screaming in her face she was basically trying to reparative therapy her best friend didn’t get to her. Mike bluntly pointing out her hypocrisy didn’t work. At some point, the only thing that will work is the metaphorical tactical nuke and I think that’s what Joyce was admitting the next day when she said she ‘needed Roz to be mean’.
HK-55 for RA!
Comic Reactions:
Panels 1 and 2: I love this shot, especially as it builds on similar shots we’ve been seeing of Billie so far this arc. It’s her, from a long way away, with an empty background that leaves her looking isolated and distanced from the “camera” and thus to people.
And it’s thematically important. Billie feels all alone and angry and scared and hurting and the only emotion she can reliably access about all of it is pure blinding rage and anger or cold dead numbness.
And she finds herself sneaking in repeatedly into Ruth’s murder room, the reminder of how close she came to losing her and the times they spent together and hurts in it in quiet and isolation.
And it’s terrible, because this is the only coping strategy Billie seems to have for anything. This being of course self-destruction. When she hurts or is hurt, she responds by tearing herself apart. Sometimes explosively like with her drunk driving her car into a tree or her crippling alcoholism.
And this instant tendency to hurt herself first means she desperately needs someone to help her build new coping strategies beyond that and “new shiny relationship that is my life raft of happiness”. Hopefully therapy will be the thing to do that. Or Ruth after fully internalizing how helpful therapy and drugs are currently being for her.
Panel 3: This is a great opening line for Dorothy here. It shows empathy, it’s not too pushy, it shares some of why she was compelled to seek her out and shows that she sees she is hurting and that other people who care about her see it as well.
This, not the weird notebook of secrets she tried to show everyone to win an argument, is what would make her an excellent RA in the future. The fact that she notices when people are hurting and withdrawn and reaches out with genuine care.
These are the real skills she should be highlighting instead of the bullshit she thinks she should highlight.
And that might be one of Dorothy’s flaws, that she doesn’t trust that her ordinary humanity, empathy, and compassion are selling points. That she needs to present Super Dorothy, rather than be her genuine likable self. She has internalized so much toxic sexist messaging that she doesn’t believe herself sans performance of the perfect everything can be great and appealing.
And it’s also why she’s burning the candle at both ends in a really dangerous manner.
Poor, poor Billie :-(. Walky is right to be super worried about her.
BILLIE: “Damn it, Keener! I had a wonderful, cathartic mad-on going and you had to ruin it by being reasonable and altruistic!”
Panel 4: That’s the thing that’s pissing off Billie about Dorothy and well… it’s totally fair. Like, I don’t think Dorothy should apologize for her ambition or even have to explain for it. She’s not doing something wrong per se in running, but yeah, it was always going to be upsetting for Billie, because… yeah.
Dorothy is acting like Ruth is dead or at least finished in the dorms and possibly on campus which is kinda messed up. Like Billie is still processing that she very nearly could have lost Ruth in a suicide attempt and got so bad it required hospitalization and knows that Ruth’s home situation is even worse than she expected and Ruth being thrown out of her job and dorm room could lead to her girlfriend being horrendously abused somewhere far away where she can’t protect her.
That sort of thing hurts. So yeah, Dorothy acting like it’s already done and dusted that Ruth is on her way out, that there’s no hope she could recover or be given time to recover and resettle into the job? It’s hurtful for Billie, because it robs her of the hope that things can settle back into a normal she can hope for.
And this is especially important because Billie has been burying her suicidal depression in a codependent relationship with Ruth. She only defines her value currently in terms of what she’s doing for Ruth. It’s not healthy but it’s all she’s got for coping strategies right now outside of the alcoholism. And Dorothy acting like “yeah, your gf’s fucked” in her actions, is like a smack across the jaw for what Billie has been holding on to in hope.
That this one thing she could touch without breaking will shatter and fall without you and the vultures will pick its corpse before you can resurrect it.
And I’m not sure Dorothy is doing herself any favors trying to invent justifications for her actions instead of sticking to her initial honest reaction which was to feel no shame for showing ambition to an opening, but still remain resolute that that does not change how she feels for Billie and Ruth personally.
She’s not inventing justifications. Just because her ambition plays a part doesn’t mean any of the rest of what she said is untrue. It would be ridiculous to think the Dorothy of all people has one simple motivation for anything.
I’m also not a fan of treating this like Dorothy hurting Billie. Yes, Billie is hurting. But Dorothy isn’t doing something to hurt her. She’s trying to do what’s best for everyone. And everyone includes herself and her ambitions.
Pretending like Ruth is going to come back isn’t somehow a better action. Ruth is depressed. She has her own problems to deal with. She’s not going to be in any condition to take the job back any time soon.
Right now, Billie is hurting for the reasons you stated that have to do with her. She is codependent with Ruth. She has lost her self worth by no longer being popular, and then shifted that to “problem solver,” which meant solving Ruth’s problems.
Everything Billie is feeling naturally flows from that. Not Dorothy’s actions.
It is a real motivator, but it’s not her primary motivator the way she’s framing it here to Billie.
Dorothy IS hurting Billie. She doesn’t have to be doing it intentionally or out of malice or even do anything wrong for it to hurt her. Pursuing the job immediately after Ruth’s hospitalization made Billie feel worse about it.
Pretending she’ll be back, no, but she couldn’t wait until Ruth was actually fired and pursue the open job then becaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuse? Preparing to pursue the job and getting your ducks in order in case she’s fired is one thing, actively pursuing her job while it’s still Ruth’s job is another, at least in Billie’s eyes.
Much the way Dorothy can have multiple motivations, Billie can be hurt by multiple things. One of them is Dorothy pursuing Ruth’s job.
OTOH, if she waits until it’s officially decided that Ruth isn’t coming back, it will quite likely be too late. There’s a good chance that announcement would be accompanied by the announcement of the new replacement RA. The administration isn’t going to wait until the final decision to start looking for a replacement. They’ll have someone in mind and ready to go to minimize the gap in supervision.
Definitely.
Which is why I don’t really blame Dorothy for throwing her hat in the ring now. Ruth getting fired is a possibility and throwing her hat in the ring now and showing keenness is either going to keep her in mind if there is a replacement or put her on the list if Ruth fucks up the short leash she’s going to be on after she gets out of hospital or for next year if she doesn’t.
And she’s in a headspace where she feels she needs to grab every opportunity to shine that she can in order to have any chance for a transfer application to Yale.
That’s fair enough – I’d been thinking about jobs where they usually seek replacements for at least a little bit after someone’s fired. It didn’t occur to me they might pick one for the same announcement. That’s a good point.
Not one that’d make Billie feel better though.
Well, Dorothy’s action did hit a button and that’s legitimate. I don’t think that was intended. I don’t even think Dorothy should feel bad about it. But an action of hers did cause inadvertant pain or at least made a bad situation feel slightly worse for a person.
That’s not something she should necessarily own, cause it’s not really her fault or really something she can earnestly apologize for because her action in and of itself wasn’t wrong, but Billie feeling hurt about it is just as valid.
And I think her motivation to protect Becky is definitely a factor, but it is definitely not the or a main factor like she’s retroactively trying to spin here.
Again, I don’t think Dorothy pursuing an opening that potentially arises and putting her name out there for future opportunities is a bad thing. That she has good reasons to support it when she was first considering it definitely adds to it, but her ambition alone was not a bad thing.
…and what really gets to me is that this anger is about the only thing Billie has left. Anger over people deciding Ruth is already gone, spite towards Mary, guilt over Becky and her own self loathing.
That’s all.
WALKY, GET YOURSELF OVER HERE AND HUG BILLIE, NOW (ok, it won’t help and might cost you some teeth but I’m freaking the fudge out here)
Dorothy’s being a bit misleading if she’s implying Roz wouldn’t,
do the same. Roz has done some pretty questionable crap, and I don’t like her per se (okay, I do, but not as much as I like Dorothy), but I do think her heart is…more or less in the right place.
Roz would want everyone to know that she was letting Becky stay there because your rules don’t apply to her, man. And when that attitude led to Becky getting thrown out, it wouldn’t possibly be her fault.
When has Roz ever shown that kind of tendency? Thinking she’s above the rules or evading responsibility for her own actions? If anything, she’s shown that she has a healthy respect for being called out on her own BS (see: Leslie) and that she can in fact handle sensitiive issues in a discreet and caring way (see: Joyce).
Using school property for the sex video was totally within the rules.
And Roz admitted that was a valid argument.
Okay, grant you that on the first point. Still not so much on the second. I still don’t believe we’ve seen enough evidence to be so certain she would rat Becky out (even inadvertently) as a lot of people seem to think. There are plenty of obnoxious and even downright gross things Roz could be capable of, but this particular one doesn’t seem too in-character for her.
Roz has a ton of faults and is (in my opinion) one of the more easily dislikable characters in the comic. But she’s not stupid.
Frankly, I’d be shocked if Roz’s reaction was “Okay, Groups X, Y, Z, and Purple all help gay teens find housing, give them a call and let me know how it goes in the morning. We’ll go from there.”
If her reaction WASN’T “Okay, Groups X, Y, Z, and Purple all help gay teens find housing, give them a call and let me know how it goes in the morning. We’ll go from there.”
Given that she’s just ruined Leslie’s life, I’m not sure she’s the best example…
Roz introduced them, and that’s it
Agreed.
Roz wouldn’t hesitate for a moment to make a spectacle of Becky. She’s a terrible combination of showboat and crusader.
“Nothing is so good for an uptious person as a consciousness of guilt. It is the father of tolerance.” – William Allen White.
I don’t think she is implying that. She’s talking about why she’s trying for the job at all, not why she’s a better choice than Roz. She’s talking about a replacement brought in from some other dorm or something.
When Dorothy decided to try to get the job, she had no idea Roz would also be interested. She’s not referring to her at all
It’s hard not to think she could be referring to Roz when Roz is the only other candidate actively running for the job that we know of, and definitely the only one Dorothy has interacted with in this particular scenario.
Sure, it’s possible she isn’t, but what other specific person would she have in mind in the first place?
She’s not referring to any specific person, but to whatever stranger would be appointed if it wasn’t someone from the floor. The university’s list of backup wannabe RAs, most likely.
Panel 5: Yeah, like BBCC said this is weak sauce from Dorothy. She didn’t go out of her way to hide her ambitions. And while she may have “hoped” that Billie would have found out, she didn’t really go out of her way to hide that information from her.
And her arguing that there was a deeper principle is also kind of weak. Like, maybe that was a small factor, but it’s okay to just say, “yeah, I was being ambitious, I’m really sorry that felt disrespectful. If it’s any consolation I really hope Ruth is able to recover into her job again and I’ll be glad just to put my name in the running for next year”
Boom, done and dusted. But I get it, there’s a lot of pressure on women to hide all signs of ambition. Hell, this last election had a supremely qualified woman against an utter monstrosity and still everyone acts like it was a greater sin for her to lightly think she should win and fight for that than for someone to be a Hitler-loving bigot conman and thief. I can see Dorothy internalizing that and wanting to apologize and obfuscate her ambition especially to placate those who are angry.
But it just comes off as insincere and that’s always going to be a problem in politics.
Panel 6: I like and don’t like Dorothy’s argument here.
I like it cause yeah, I imagine protecting Becky was like reason number 207 why she ran but it’s a good reason and a good reason to emphasize and to give Ruth credit for even if she only partially earned that credit.
Becky’s safety does depend on either Ruth returning or someone like Dorothy or Roz taking over as someone who is… say keen to impress the bosses and show why she deserves to take over by say rooting out the previous RA’s “mistakes”.
But it’s also off, because, no, that’s not Ruth’s legacy, not really. And it’s not her main reason for doing this. And well, at the end of the day it still treats Ruth as done and dusted. And maybe she is, but it’s really too early to not be holding out hope for a short leash and rehabilitation back into a more limited form of her position.
Hell, it’s the ideal situation Chloe has been stating she wants, though her bosses may decide otherwise.
And by putting it this way, it’s also using Becky in a tactical manner, basically cutting off Billie from her right to feel angry about something that it is perfectly rational and reasonable to be upset about, by tying Dorothy’s act which is mostly about her long-term goals, to a person Billie feels intensely guilty about.
Like, yeah, part of the reason she is sneaking into Ruth’s room is because it’s her connection to Ruth, but the other part is because she desperately wants Becky to still be able to use her bed to sleep and feels bad about how much Ruth’s near suicide upset her and how she hasn’t been able to find an alternative arrangement for her if she is forced to return to her own bed.
Using that guilt, albeit likely unintentionally to shut down someone’s legitimate anger is a bit of a dick move, albeit one that is understandable given Dorothy’s circumstances and guilt about being caught out.
Panel 7: That’s shock and guilt right there.
Panel 8: I feel like there’s a double meaning here.
Like I think part of her wants to honestly acknowledge Dorothy’s point. Yeah, if someone has to replace Ruth, it might as well be someone who can carry on some of her most positive contributions. Who already knows that Joyce needs support after the shooting and that Becky doesn’t need to hide from and so on…
But I think it also has a flip meaning of Dorothy is always frustratingly right because well, she’s a debater. Which isn’t a bad thing of itself, but it does mean she knows how to twist words when she needs to to try and detangle herself from situations she feels can move in a hostile direction. We saw it in her attempted weasel with Carla and Walky’s arguments and in some of the ways she’s tried to lead Walky in a specific direction. And that bristles for Billie, because…
Well, she has a right to be mad at Dorothy just as much as Dorothy as a right to push for her ambitions without apology. Her grievance is legitimate and Dorothy’s actions hurt an already sore wound. And Dorothy trying to argue her way out of it instead of apologizing for the hurt is her needing to be “right” over her needing to be aware and non-minimizing to someone’s pain.
And that’s hard. It’s not an easy human thing to not want to argue your way out of fully owning up to hurting someone. Especially when the reason you hurt them is not really something that really requires you to feel bad or something that could easily have been avoided. And I think it’s what makes her emphasize the “frustrating” part. Because, yeah, it’s frustrating to have legitimate anger defanged with guilt because you lightly pushed your case.
And it’s not kind.
But that’s okay because Dorothy is still amazing and compassionate and having human flaws doesn’t detract from that and the sooner she realizes that, the less she’s gonna feel like she needs to bottle everything up and never share her own pains and insecurities and emotional needs with those she loves and trusts.
I do not agree that Billie has a legitimate reason to be angry at Dorothy. Billie’s anger is about what happened with Ruth. It arises from her own codependence and her own depression she tried to treat with said codependence.
It’s not as if Dorothy is lying. Those reasons she gives are the reasons she wants the job. Her ambition is just another reason–one she refuses to let be treated as being wrong. There is nothing wrong with doing something that helps others and yourself.
Dorothy made her case for why Billie should not be mad at her. She made valid points that Billie had to agree were correct. That’s not guilt.
This isn’t a world of emotions. It’s a world of facts. Emotions exist, and we do our best to accomodate them, but they are ultimately just signals in our brain that evolved in a different environment than the one we currently live in.
They may be valid in the sense that they exist and no one can tell you that you are wrong to feel them. But they can still be inaccurate representations of the world.
Hell, that’s part of the CBT they teach you for depression. You tell yourself things that are actually true, even though they don’t feel true. You are not worthless, even though you feel that way.
Billie IS angry with Dorothy for pursuing the job immediately after Ruth’s hospitalization. It felt dismissive and insensitive and that’s a legitimate way to feel – therefore, a legitimate reason to be angry. Dorothy does not have to do anything wrong for Billie’s anger to be legitimate.
What BBCC said. Dororthy did pursue a job immediately after the hospitalization before she was even removed from the position.
She’s acted like Ruth is dead or fired already and working from there.
I don’t think it’s a bad thing necessarily (throwing her name out there early is definitely going to be key if that opportunity arises and throwing her name in the first place will definitely be a positive in when she applies for an RA position next year).
But it’s going to feel disrespectful to Billie and presumptuous about what is likely to happen to Ruth and that’s going to hit some sore spots.
So, yeah, I think she’s got a right to be angry on top of the general reason she’s just been generally angry at everyone today. But I don’t think Dorothy has necessarily done anything wrong she should apologize for even though her actions upset Billie.
But Billie had full right to be upset and bothered by the presumption and Dorothy short-circuiting that with a partial appeal to the facts that put her in the best possible light to distract from the facts that don’t is a useful political skill but still something crummy to do to someone powerless who your actions hurt.
Crummy in this sense of it being a thing one might shake one’s head at, not in the sense of a grave violation of human conduct. It’s a normal thing to want to do and it doesn’t say anything bad about Dorothy’s character that she’s doing it, but it just sucks that Billie whose already going to be second-guessing her anger because that’s all she feels anymore, is second-guessing something that is perfectly normal to feel angry about because she’s worried it’s part of the same trend of misdirected anger she’s been feeling all day.
Especially since her first inclination if she thinks it’s misdirected is to point that anger at herself instead.
Cause in her head, she’s the only one who deserves it.
Panel 5. I honestly think it’s a good idea that Dorothy doesn’t repeat her justifications. She has already say her piece on why she is running. Billie has every right to be angry about it, and trying to get Billie to see it her way in her current headspace would at best lead to a shouting match.
Panel 6. Yeah, it’s a mixed bag. Becky is only one of several reasons Dorothy want this position. And she is NOT Becky’s only hope. But her stepping forward minimizes one of the greatest risks, that Chloe brings in someone from outside the floor, which would must likely mean Becky packing.
Unfortunately, bringing it up hits Billie right in the guilt, and there are a level of manipulation there. But it is also an attempt at consolidation. Calling Becky living there “Ruths legacy” is not very accurate, but it helps building a narrative that can help Billie in a horrible situation.
“Yes, Becky is in trouble but you and Ruth has done good helping her, and we can continue that good work. I can take it from here. Good work.”
I can think of very few other things Dorothy could have said that would actually have been of ANY help to Billie.
Fair point. It’s definitely a good type of statement for deescalation and for making it easier for Billie to cope if Ruth ends up fired and Dorothy gets the position.
And it also gives her hope over the Becky situation by giving Ruth (and thus by extension Billie because Billie was responsible for a lot of keeping Ruth semi-functional during their time together) credit and a legacy.
Which is important cause all we’ve seen Billie hear from the rest of the hall has been… well, Mary, openly gloating about sending Ruth to the hospital and a lot of folks willing to jump all in on this bandwagon of an election between Roz and Dorothy and just sort of assume Ruth is donezo.
So having someone say, hey, if she does get fired, I think she did some good work and I’d like to keep fighting for it. Yeah, that’s definitely something.
…and right now Billie doesn’t have a whole lot of something. Or even a whole lot of anything. So Dorothy actively reaching out to give her at least this scrap is… maybe not enough, but at least it is not nothing.
Ooooooh. Strong argument to vote Keener.
Seriously, what did Dorothy just say? “If I become RA I will let Becky stay here, in complete disregard of the rules. Not ‘um and am and try to find a better solution.’ Not ‘I’ll do what I can.’ But ‘I’ll break the rules, risk loosing my position as soon as I get it and risk sending up all sort of less-than-perfect flags for Harvard to see.’
That’s big. And it’s again a demonstration of how much Dorothy’s character development happens without big announcements. She took one good look at Becky’s situation, a crying Joyce and listened to Leslie’s “sweet Lesbian facts” and asked herself just what kind of person she wants to be once she is in a position of power.
And the answer was, as always, perfect.
Okay, that’s a really solid point. What she’s saying she’s willing to sacrifice speaks very strongly for her moral character.
Not only her moral character – her intended career path. She wants to do it right. She wants to have power, and use that power for good. Not just in a general sense but for specific problems.
IF she manage to become an RA she will do a lot more good for Becky than by just buying her sushi.
I can’t help but wonder if the determination to ‘do it right’ was in Robin’s mind too, before the culture of DC absorbed her.
Now that’s a very interesting question. What was Robin’s initial ambition? Was it just to get elected and she convinced herself family value posturing was the way to do it? Or did she once have ideals that fell off along the way?
Based on Roz’s antipathy for her, I’m going to guess the former as her once having ideals that fell apart would lend itself more likely to pity, but it would be very interesting to see.
It doesn’t really have to be one or the other, though. It could be some of both, run on family values with an “end justifies the means” mentality, get into Congress, find out it’s too dysfunctional for her to actually accomplish anything, give up and start going through the motions.
Roz could also have that antipathy because she’s disappointed her sister gave up on her initial ambitions and started pandering to the worst of us instead.
But mostly, I think there’s some element of her ideals falling off along the way, because I’m not sure she would talk about congress with such flippant cynicism if there weren’t some of that going on.
Your comment just made a connection for me as to one of the reasons Dorothy’s my favorite character in the story. She’s trying to do the right thing and wants to help make the world and others better through the power she’s ambitious for. She’s like Lillian is in Twig (web serial by the author of Worm), someone who is angling for power and prestige to fix the inherent problems in her world, not for the sake of power itself–and that’s the reason Lillian’s a great character in that story.
Damn you Willis
Always appropriate. Well, almost always.
I can’t help but feel for Dorothy, like some of the stuff she had done before like being micromanaging regarding everybody in the dorm and their issues, that IS pretty weird. But I think part of it is Dorothy needing to keep these people and their issues together, so she knows what to expect and anticipate. I think Billie and Ruth happening under her nose threw her off. It might even scare her, especially since Walky knew something was up and she shrugged it off. Now she wants to know what is going on with who.
Also, I feel for her because I was once called ‘Mother-fucking Teresa’ rather mockingly by a now ex-friend. I don’t even remember what I said or did, just his voice saying “well aren’t you a mother-fucking Teresa then?”. It…didn’t feel very nice at all.
It’s an unfortunate fact that many people today regard compassion, empathy and charity weaknesses to be despised.
Dorothy sees herself a bit like the team mom, as the smart, kinda sane person it is her responsibility to help the people around her (an attitude not helped by her dating Danny), but just like everyone else around here she is in over her head.
Just look at recent events. Joyce nearly raped, Joyce dating Ethan, Joyce and Becky fleeing a maniac with a gun. Ruth and Billie. Mary and Carla (to whatever extent she knows about it) The whole Amber/Amazi-girl thing, whatever Walky has going on… On. Her. Watch. Clearly she needs to step up her game!
Incidently, Roz has exactly the same attitude of it being her job to help the less fortunate (as do Billie, even if Billie now thinks she suck at it), and Roz’ outburst to Dorothy about her coddling rather than guiding Joyce in her attitudes to gay people absolutely hit home.
So Dorothy and Roz angling for the RA job is not ONLY them using it as a meriting position or genuinely wanting to help people. It is also them trying to live up to their own image of themselves.
I know its wrong but because Billies rich and brought most (not all) of her problems onto herself I really don’t have much more sympathy for her, I mean I hope she gets treatment and hopefully it helps but really I’m most liking panel six and seeing Dorothy defending herself in an emotional and slightly angry way rather then just trying to play nice and placate Billie
FWIW, I don’t think confrontation is something that Dorothy really does; she’s a conciliator by nature.
I agree so its nice to see her show some passion in defending herself.
I don’t know if it sounds weird or not but my wife appreciates comments on her fanfiction stories (shes Dexiedoodle) so thanks for commenting on Post-Apocalyptic Roadtrip, she really does like feedback
Cheers
Other than the neglectful and emotionally (and physically) distant parents. But that really shouldn’t affect her. After all, she’s got money.
Which is basically her parent’s approach.
I do like Dorothy here, as you say.
Clearly, the solution is to buy better parents.
+1 Internet. Sorry about the shape it’s in. Maybe you can buy a better one.
I’ll see if I can get Billie to buy it, and then give it to me when she finds out its full of neeeeerds!
And faaaaaaaaaces.
I like seeing Dorothy showing some passion here, its not that I don’t think she doesn’t care but seeing some emotion every now and then isn’t a bad thing
And the depression which is not her fault. And the addictive personality which is not her fault.
OT: Since yesterday, in Germany I get an annoying, slightly animated ad with one of those fake “you can win 500€” things – in German. Is there anything that can be done about it?
Set up an email filter.
The add appears on this page, not in my email (why ever would I asked her about email spam?)
Usually, the adds appearing here are not that kind and I wondered if Willis might be able to step on some toes to get rid of it.
Oh. Well in that case they’re paying a few cents to Willis and since you’re not going to click on it, there are worse ads.
I get that “Congrats your iPad has been selected to win $1000” here and on QC… couple of other sites as well, but I don’t remember which
Poor Dorothy thought that helping people and being right about stuff would make them like her and trust her. She was wrong.
Yeah. No, I ain’t gonna trust the person who views this job as a stepping stone to greater things.
She talks a good game now, but what happens when push comes to shove?
…is that really such an unreasonable attitude to take to college?
And have we EVER seen Dorothy falter when push comes to show? Ethics trumped Ambition when she wrote the article about Roz and Joe, when she found out Amazi-girl’s identity and when she was given the chance to debate Very Controversal Candidate deSanto. (Just imagine the headlines – “Student Totally Owns deSanto”, but she opted out for the sake of Leslie’s piece of mind and to get the chance to ask about Ryan).
Yeah, I’m not sure where people get this caricature of Dorothy as a ruthless ambition robot.
Honestly, Dorothy’s one of my favourite characters in this strip. She’s hardworking and ambitious, but so far she’s also actually got a heart and is relatively incorruptible. She also has visible flaws but enough strength to likely pick herself up and dust herself off.
Self-sufficient strong female characters that are sensible and who don’t have a tragic backstory? Sign me up.
They don’t have the third-person omniscient view we have, tbf
There are those in these comments who characterize her as such — I think they get the same 3rd person PoV as we do.
Hell, she couldn’t even bring herself to choose her Amazi-Girl article over a pair of freakin’ shoes for Walky because keeping her word and being a good person matters more to her than her work. This was established EARLY ON and it’s hardly a new thing. Yet, every time she proves this to be true people in the comments treat it like some huge turning point for her. It’s not. This is not character development, it’s just an awesome thing about Dorothy.
Heh. If push comes to shove, I think I’d rather trust Dotty than, say, Roz.
Dorothy’s approach to a job she wanted was to start trying to do the job. Roz’s approach was to start campaigning for it.
Heh, that is a nice comparison (and personally I think both approaches are pretty good). In that respect, Dorothy is not that far removed from Billie herself.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/03-answers-in-hennessy/broker/
Damn it I got caught up.
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From my perspective, Dorothy’s facial expressions in panels 5 and 6 are genuine, she’s means what she’s saying, and this isn’t a method of manipulation.
Okay, seriously. Willis, retag the comic as Horror, or do something about that terrifying image on the left side of the page. :X
It’ll be gone next Monday, don’t worry.
If you have an ad blocker, you can block the specific image being used in this ad. I mostly use adblockers for that purpose (I don’t mind ads, I do mind being shown disgusting stuff and it getting reposted everywhere, so I just block the image.)
She had Dotty to hate for trying to take Ruth’s job, but now that Dotty has said that she cares about Ruth’s “legacy” or whatever she’s mad that she has nobody to hate?!! She even [snapped at poor Joyce](http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/jacket/) just to lash out, there wasn’t even a reason. At this point she’s just being angry so that she can feel angry and not sad/betrayed/alone because she and Ruth aren’t depressed together anymore. and WHY BILLIE. IF YOU WANT PEOPLE TO BE DEPRESSED SO THAT YOU CAN BE CODEPENDENT THAT IS VERY BAD YOU NEED PROFESSIONAL MEDICAL HELP YESTERDAY GO TO THERAPY.
This is not an election. But suppose someone polled the floor? The results might have some influence on Chloe’s decision.
Dayna – “Aren’t you tired of always being right?”
Avon – “Only with the rest of you always being wrong!”
Blakes 7
Billy should be RA