Is this high school pizza thing just a universal constant??? I mean, my college’s pizza was actually great, but my high school’s pizza was all homemade and amazing and stuff, so better. No, it wasn’t a private school, just had a relatively good staff running lunch.
My secondary school, the lunches were …pretty meh. 4th and 5th years were allowed to leave the school grounds during lunch hour, so we basically all went to the McDonalds just around the corner. Then down to the train station where there was this cool video arcade centre, and spent the rest of our lunch hour (and our lunch money) there. xD
Those arcade games helped me to not gain as much weight for a couple of years in my teens there. In exchange, I temporarily became awesome at Daytona USA. xD
If I were judging objectively, our high school pizza was on the level of Totino’s
However, our college’s pizza was like literal grease discs and I never ate it, while high school Totino’s is ok but I do crave it lots, like Pizza Hut pan pizza
You’re like the Justin Y. of this webcomic’s comment section, except I’ve been reading your comments on here much longer than I’ve seen his anywhere. So other way around, I guess.
Also, my high school was really small, so it was more cost effective to just hire a private chef rather than a corporate food service, so our pizza was delicious. The food would be the only reason I’d ever go visit.
Overspiced watered down meat sauce & greasy cheese on matzo-like crust vs. Pizza Hut quality. Both did in a pinch but is it any wonder I stopped by a real pizza place on my way home when I could.
I don’t know how they made those little pencil eraser pepperonis taste better than real pepperonis, but one day I will discover the secret!
Then I will open a pizzaria with “Those little pencil eraser pepperonis you remember from high school and which you’ve been missing all these years and haven’t realized until you read this sentence, so order them and become complete” as a topping option.
My pizza restaurant will put all others out of business, I will become a trillionaire, and then rule the world!
I loved those pizzas with the eraser shaped pepperonis on them, they were delicious. The pepperonis on Totinos are slightly similar in shape but not quite in flavor, at least to the ones we had.
While I am often the first to compare myself to Billie (like yesterday), this is completely foreign to me. When I started making out with girls in highschool, I was like “oh – guess I’m gay” and never had this “I kiss girls but am still straight” thing that Billie has.
Cause yeah, if I was Billie in this situation, I’d be all like “yeah Lucy, this is the RA I totes seduced. She’s my girlfriend now. Isn’t she sexy and awesome? I bet you wish you had a girlfriend as awesome as mine.”
I think Billie’s issue is more that being affectionate and loving with someone is not alphabongoy. Her new dorm sees her exactly the way she wants to be seen, and if she’s seen being anything other than former head cheerleader and totally cool person who everyone tries to be like that facade will start cracking and eventually crumble, and then she’d have to deal with being (and being seen as) depressed Billie with a drinking problem again.
I don’t really think Billie has an issue with her sexuality considering she’s pretty open about it with most people and in public. I think she just might be bisexual Sunny is right about her just trying to portray a certain image to her new dorm.
She does have something of an issue with it, in the sense that she’s denied being any kind of queer. She’s just a normal girl who likes girls sometimes like everyone does.
She’s pretty clearly bisexual, but she wouldn’t say that. Probably because her alpha bongo cheerleader self-image doesn’t mesh with her image of queerness. She’s fine with the kissing girls part and doesn’t have any issue with people knowing it, but just doesn’t want to be associated with some label that suggests she’s something weird.
She has said she is bisexual before to Becky who said it wasn’t real which irritated Billie but she flipflops on whether that it is real or not herself, telling Howard it was made up for porn. Billie definitely has some internal biphobia to work out and it is tied to her image – she has said she thinks ‘it is inevitable’ to Joyce a.k.a. all girls will like some girls at some point, that is totes what happens to all girls, not at all an experience only some people have.
Billie said she liked girls sometimes, but everyone did, so it wasn’t weird. Becky said you can’t like both. Neither used the word bisexual, because Billie thinks bisexuality is a porn thing.
This. Yes. This strikes me more as an issue of being uncomfortable with her new community seeing her as a vulnerable human, who she is ashamed to be, rather than an inherent issue with Ruth. Also, coming out is hard. And you have to do it repeatedly, and it is not a straightforward thing.
Still not really coming out here though. She’s never had much problem with that – at least as far as people knowing she’s into girls. She’s not okay with the labels for reasons.
The Forrest girls know she’s slept with Ruth. That’s not the issue. It’s that vulnerable human part.
WOAH! I get not wanting to be associated with Walky and Joyce (Get, not like) but that’s serious fucking shade, whether it’s Billie not wanting to be seen with Ruth or that she doesn’t want Lucy to know she’s gay/bi
She’s been treating Ruth like a conquest rather than a girlfriend over at her new dorm. She booted Joyce out when she was trying to tell them how cute she and Ruth’s relationship was.
“Real women can have sex with partners but not feel for them. Also, they can only be angry and cool all the time.”
– Said no one ever until the people at Forest Quad.
I don’t think it’s so much that as that Billie’s never actually *dated* a girl before, as part of it. It’s come up before that even her highschool “ex” was a with-benefits thing that clearly meant more to the other girl than Billie, judging by how hurt they seemed.
Hmm, has Billie *dated* anybody, come to think of it? She was sexually active, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything in terms of relationships.
We do at the very least see that Billie endeavors to not showcase any vulnerability around the “nerd wing” people to maintain her status, whether she’s trying to or not. It feels like she’s backsliding on her previously rejecting her highschool mentality and giving up defining herself as head cheerleader anymore.
Billie’s told Ruth she’s not very experienced at dating, but she told those in her new quad that she came onto Ruth hot and heavy because she takes what she wants. That’s treating Ruth more like a conquest than a girlfriend. Her booting out Joyce when Joyce tried to talk about them as a relationship also is not a good look.
Yeah, what BBCC said about treating Ruth like a conquest and not wanting the actual intimacy in their relationship to be known in her new dorm, because she’s crafting an image for herself there where she’s intimidating.
But the other residents of Forest Quad themselves have absolutely not exhibited this behavior. They are impressed with her confidence, because they are easily impressed. But they never WANTED Billie to be that way in the first place. They’re simply reacting to Billie-as-presented, unaware that that’s not really who she is.
Though when it came up she started equivocating and they jumped right in with “she did seduce her” and “you’re a damn bad ass” and it was only with that she jumped on the “yeah I take it” line.
They kind of prompted her to go with the conquest thing.
That’s a fair point. To me, it sounded like they’d heard gossip about her that were trying to get verified, and Billie opted to play it in her favor rather than being vulnerable about her situation and her feelings.
They’re enabling her, but they don’t realize it.
I really don’t understand why folks keep claiming:
A) Forest Quad is toxic
No. Billie is toxic, and they aren’t aware they’re enabling her.
B) Lucy is out to dethrone Billie and steal her popularity
No. Lucy is simply concerned that her dorm-mates are following Billie’s lead blindly and still wants everyone to be friends.
C) Forest Quad hates relationships with feelings??
No. Billie said she seduced Ruth for sex, and they believed her.
D) Forest Quad is homophobic???
No. Billie was up-front that she screwed her female RA and they were impressed with Billie’s prowess.
Like, people can act in ways that are frustrating and contrary to what you want / what’s best for you without having any ill intent toward you whatsoever.
Forest Quad IS toxic to *Billie specifically*. As you say, they’re enabling her without realizing it, but whether they realize it or not, they’re still doing.
I wouldn’t even say “enabling”, but “encouraging”.
Billie already told her new dorm mates that she was moved because of fucking the RA. RA’s are same-sex, so they know she’s gay or bi. But she’s wearing glasses, something she didn’t want her new dorm mates to see. She told them she moved on Ruth (she said saw what she wanted and took it) and maybe it’d come out that it didn’t happen that way.
It’s not that they’re shallow. It’s that the image Billie has been very intentionally presenting over in Forest Quad is held together by a few precarious threads. Ditching her glasses was part of a play to get people to see her differently with little effort. While obviously, yes, people with glasses can be confident and cool, this was an assumption of *Billie’s*, not her new dorm-mates. She changed a few surface-level details because she knows how they look *on her*, and then played up to their expectations.
Damn it Lucy, you should have done your stalking online. Billie, you didn’t get your question answered. Ignore Walky and ask it again. If you don’t make this about Lucy invading your privacy the other alternatives are not going to work out well for you.
Ruth already looks confused and mildly hurt in panel 4, I can only imagine this is going to get worse before it gets better. As much as I don’t want Ruth to have to deal with that, I also don’t want Billie to keep doing it either.
I miss the buffalo chicken pizza I used to get at lunch in high school, and I don’t know if that’s just an odd bit of nostalgia or if it was actually good.
I also miss the Bosco Sticks of middle school lunches. I got some frozen ones from the store once, but it wasn’t the same experience.
OH MY GOD SOMEONE ELSE WHO HAD THE BOSCO STICKS! They had them in the ala carte line at my high school! They were so good but eventually (for government reasons detailed in my comment further below) my school replaced them for a cheaper substitute which was like…weird breadsticks with parmesan on them. Those were eventually replaced as well, with some really stiff and gross breadsticks that looked like overcooked pizza crust. God I miss the bosco sticks…
My high school pizza was edible, and that’s about the best I can say about it. But, that was a long time ago, so maybe school pizza technology has improved since then.
My high school pizza was meh. $1.25 for a rectangular slice the size of an index card. Much of the other food followed the same quality and quantity, assuming I didn’t have a small peanut butter and honey sandwich from home.
Hmm, now I realize why I felt so bonked out at cross-country practice.
My school system got really lousy pizza from some local place that’s thankfully now defunct. Thin bready crust, plain sauce, no spices, oily cheese, they had it all. Domino’s, Little Ceasars, or Papa Ginos would have all been massive improvements. But hey, “all kids love pizza” and it was the cheapest so that’s what they always ordered.
*tilts head* . . .I don’t get the reactions here. Is Billie embarrassed that Lucy saw her and Ruth holding hands? Is she afraid that her cool new rep at her new dorm might get ruined? I’m not even going to try and get what Ruth’s face is telling here.
I just hope that this reaction leads them to a serious and productive conversation about their relationship (and how Billie is desperately clinging to her cheerleader status)
I also think that Billie is reluctant to admit that she’s bi(?) because that’s still a relatively new thing for her. I don’t think we’ve seen her really address it outside of “oh, I guess this is a thing now”
It would seem that she was bi in hs as well, going by what Walky implied went on between Billie and that other cheerleader girl.
So not too new to the experience, but more so she has to come to tems with there being nothing wrong, shameful, or embarrassing about it.
She had a girlfriend in high school and told Joyce that being interested in both boys and girls was “basically inevitable.”
Now to be fair, that statement is one that definitely screams “is bisexual but assumes this is a universal experience and doesn’t know self is bisexual.”
The opposite of Danny, who assumed that being attracted to only one gender is universal and therefore he could not exist.
It’s not that new. There was Alice back in high school.
But Billie isn’t bi. She identifies as straight. Or more probably “normal”, with all the baggage tied up in that. (Actually, I suspect she really identifies as “cheerleader” and being straight is linked up with those stereotypes.)
She’s actively rejected being labeled as queer.
I think you’re right, that Billie has leaped into reputation-protecting damage control toward this member of her new dorm “tribe” (with whom she has high status and influence), AND she’s reacted as if the fact that she and Ruth are an item will threaten that.
The most dangerous panel, IMHO, is #4, in which Ruth starts to realize that, as far as Billie is concerned, she comes in second to Billie’s ego and self-importance – Ruth is a *liability* to Billie. Shouldn’t Ruth be an *asset* to someone who loves her? Isn’t that the *least* Ruth deserves as someone who is loved? If she is truly loved, that is. Billie’s now got some SERIOUS real-world-relationship damage control she needs to come to terms with. It is time for Billie to drop the façade, the mask, the persona, and identify who she is and BE that person.
But.. Billie’s new dorm knows she has a girlfriend? I’m almost sure of this but too lazy to dig up the strip. Why would she not want Lucy to know she’s with Ruth then?
Did she ever give them a good name? Walky’s mentioned they used to shove him into lockers (exaggeration?). And then there was the D.U.I. (or rather, getting caught being a teenage alcoholic)
Billie has reverted to Drama Hurricane mode. (assuming you believe she ever lost that title)
Shoving people into lockers might be intended as an exaggeration in this case, but it’s definitely a thing that actually happens. As far as I know it didn’t happen at my highschool, but my middle school? I saw it happen there with my own eyes multiple times (then subsequently unlocked some of those lockers).
The way she has portrayed her relationship with Ruth has been very different at her new dorm. She has acted like she seduced and conquered Ruth rather than being honest with their rather messed up circumstances. Which if she didn’t want to share those circumstances then fine, but lying was not acceptable.
Billie, you really need a reality check. Also it seems like Lucy already sees what is going on here, and while I don’t advocate crashing Billie’s world down around her and forcing her to deal with the fallout… No wait, that’s exactly what I’m advocating. Lucy won’t do it because she is too nice, but Ruth doesn’t deserve it and Billie can’t keep acting like this.
Honestly, the nice thing to do here would be to tell Ruth what Billie is doing. It’s not nice to Billie but this isn’t a situation where you can be nice to everyone and Billie is definitely the one least deserving of it here.
We were able to get either cheese or pepperoni but either the cheese would be really dry, it’d be super greasy to the point that the paper it was placed on would be completely see through, soggy, or some combination of greasy and soggy.
My high school didn’t have a cafeteria, but the grad class would sell slices of panago pizza as a fundraiser. I volunteered at least once in my year because it meant a free slice, whatever leftovers you wanted, and an excuse to be late for class.
My college had a cafeteria but I don’t know that I ever tried the pizza. My husband went to a different campus and they had one not great cafeteria, in the business side, and one amazing one run by the chef students in the trade side where he was, but they didn’t serve pizza.
The pizza at my high school might as well have been cardboard with cheese on it! …Then again I’m in a poor area with bad test scores from the majority of students, in the South, and this was during the time of ye fabled ‘no child left behind’. So the budget at my school for food was like…a penny.
Also I feel so bad for poor Ruth here. I mean, don’t get me wrong, people have reasons for not liking Ruth. Good reasons. But I think she’s been doing right by Billie consistently, and Billie had been doing right by her…except for this moment. And anything to do with her new dorm, because her bragging about Ruth as a conquest was very cringey. Ruth is now aware that Billie…is almost embarrassed of her? At least, embarrassed to admit to others that she loves her. She’d rather make people think Ruth’s just a piece of ass.
I mostly say almost embarrassed because the expression on Billie’s face here isn’t exactly embarrassed. I’m grasping at straws to come up with the right word, but it’s basically Billie being…Billie! She doesn’t want people to think she has weak dumb feelings of romance. She doesn’t want to let people in or be anything less than top tier cream of the crop. I guess it’s a mixture of pride, insecurity, fear, and awful self-worth issues.
I once dated a 19 year old when I was 22ish before learning she was still in high school. She went to my college some didn’t know better.
But I went to her prom. Which I should have known better than to do.
I got a lot of disapproving looks. After she ditched me (can’t remember why but I’m sure I deserved it) I went to a party wirh my adult friends and drank to forget that awkwardness.
Sounds to me like you’re being too hard on yourself. That’s only a 3 year difference. Plus, if she was still in high school she was held back. So you only dated a high school girl on a technicality.
I think I called this back when Lucy was first roaming around the old dorms – that it could easily lead to the Billie’s unfortunate claims regarding Ruth to come back and bite her on the ass.
I saw this coming way back. Billie is such a second-hander she’ll give up love before she gives up her admirers. But it’s too late. She’ll end up without either.
Billie letting go of Ruth’s hand in panel 2 and then Ruth holding onto her own hand in panel 4 with this betrayed expression… I didn’t expect that to hit me as hard as it did.
Ruth won’t get in trouble. They moved Billie to the other dorm so Ruth would not be her RA, so they could maintain their relationship.
The problem wasn’t Ruth’s having a relationship w another student. It was having a relationship w a student she had authority over.
Billie doesn’t want her new dormmates to see that she is a human being that genuinely cares about Ruth, has feelings and wears glasses. She wants them to see her as a perfect unquestionable cheerleader and give her adulation and praise she has done nothing to deserve.
… on Parents’ Weekend, or when there were conferences or whatnot using our facilities (we didn’t get any of it then). The rest of the time it was horrific. French bread covered in ketchup and half-melted mozzarella, kept warm and soggy by steam.
The food service from my college has been ruled unconstitutional to use in prisons, on account of being cruel and unusual punishment. I am not making this up.
God… Damn it, Willis. After the beautiful sweetness 🙁
Ruth’s pain here it’s giving me an awful cramp in my old relationship memories. It’s really shitty to feel like your partner is ashamed of you and… Damn. 🙁
Mind you there’s nothing wrong if Billie doesn’t want to have a serious relationship right now and Ruth is far more committed than her partner. It happens. Billie is just a Freshman and has many more years to get her life in order and find that special someone.
It is a time to be wild and carefree and rebellious.
Considering how emotional she’s gotten over Ruth’s well being and how much is assimilated into Ruth life and daily routine I feel like this is already quite serious to be honest – you know what….no we are not sit here after seeing like countless comic strips of these two being cutesy and write this off as “this isn’t all bad since they’re not that serious” especially counting the last 8 stripes these two have been in. This is Billie being slightly inconsiderate to Ruth for a split second because she panicked about keeping up an appearance. Nothing less nothing more.
It’s a little more, though I agree that they are serious.
But it’s bringing into focus a conflict that’s been brewing for awhile, not just an inconsiderate split second. Billie’s been posing in her new dorm and that’s going to have to be torn down. I have faith she’ll choose Ruth, but there’s going to be drama before we get there.
If Lucy had ever given any indication of being mean-spirited, that feels like almost the bongoiest thing she could have said. Especially given Billie’s reaction.
The interesting thing is Lucy’s face in the last panel, though. That doesn’t really look like “Oh crap, I just blurted out something stupid.” It almost looks like a disingenuous attempt at making that face. Hmm.
This may just be me but I think that, in the last panel today, Lucy is reacting because she can see in Ruth and Billie’s faces the out-of-control chain reaction to an argument or even a break-up building up.
Yeah, it seems to be a recent thing; I think that, at some point, someone pointed out that there didn’t seem to be a difference between school and prison canteen food.
Ouch, poor Ruth. When push came to shove, Billie chose head-cheerleader popularity and image over Ruth. She’s still hung up about “being a lesbian.” Apparently head cheerleaders can’t be lesbians?
I hope it’s not that she’s ashamed of Ruth herself.
Ugh. There’s a reason Billie is low on my list of the main characters.
The issue here isn’t that she’s lesbian (or bi really (or normal, like she says)). They know she slept with Ruth.
It’s that they saw it as a conquest and she leapt on board that theory to build her popularity and now doesn’t want them to know it’s a real relationship.
Something tells me that Billie and Ruth may be in for an awkward conversation about emotionally healthy living environments and the way Billie has so totally but Read Hall behind her. So far behind her that I notice Billie is embarrassed to even hint to Lucy that Ruth is her girlfriend (at some point, Lucy needs to tell her that she already knows).
I honestly don’t understand sometimes how no one in the comic has called Billie out on what a rude person she is, or on her high schoolish behavior. Besides Dorothy calling her one-note, or Sarah being Sarah which would roll off her back anyway, I really can’t think of any strong examples. Like, even in my first year of university, someone being OPENLY obsessed with popularity and talking about it in such a high school manner all the time, or actually caring about people being “nerds” would be considered uber cringeworthy, and something a loser would do. Then again, people are easily misguided, and can believe you if you give off a convincing enough “alpha” persona.
But I feel it’s a little strange that the people who hang around Billie the most, Joyce and Walky, are the ones she constantly belittles. I wouldn’t want to be around someone who constantly makes me feel like I lack value, and makes it clear they don’t actually want me around. Even Walky, who blurts out whatever’s on his mind at any given moment, and is constantly verbally attacked by her, seems to have some kind of pseudo-stockholm syndrome with regards to her behavior. I honestly find Mike to be a more pleasant character, because at least his assholishness is funny. Billie’s is just childish and grating.
I hope this is the turning point. I hope that Ruth points out in no small words that Billie is a jerk, that her sneaky actions in the name of social status are immature, and that she (Ruth) can do better, especially after all the things they went through in order to NOT be a secret… but I don’t know that Ruth’s in the mental state where any of that would be clear or doable. I really hope this doesn’t impact Ruth’s healing, because she really deserves to find some peace. I wish that Lucy would say something, but she’s too nice. I could perhaps see a standoff though, if Billie keeps pushing her. If someone were constantly calling me a nerd in a derisive tone I’d be mocking them right back, and pointing out that popularity is something everyone craves to some extent, but it’s one of those things where if you actually talk about seeking it unironically you seem like an awkward person, which should actually lower your popularity.
I dunno. I liked Billie for awhile, but the way she treats Walky, Joyce and Lucy really sets me off and reminds me of some people I know, people who in their 30s still haven’t done anything with their lives and who spend all day in dive bars flirting with lonely people and trying to impress old alcoholics, and who treat every situation and interaction as a power exchange and a way to gain ground.
I don’t think Billy really interacted with the other people in her dorm that much outside of some of our core crew.
-Her and Walky are friends who act like siblings. That’s their relationship. Walky knows exactly who she is but still comes to her for advice.
-Her and Sal didn’t interact too much. Heck, Sal being gone was the catalyst for the Ruth trouble’s she had (Ruth straight up harassed her).
– She isn’t any harsher on Joyce than Walky or Sarah is.
-Everyone else she gets along with as well as other characters do
Yeah, Billie and Walky’s relationship is very much a sibling one. Constantly sniping at each other, but also turning to and supporting each other when it’s needed. Billie went to Walky when she was at her low point – on the outs with Ruth.
Also, Walky speaks fluent Billie-ese and knows what she means. And vice versa.
I beg to differ – my high school’s pizza was awful. The only toppings were olive and pineapple and there was barely any tomato sauce. It was just cheesy bread stained red.
1. Going to that new hall was really bad for Billy. It pretty much sucked her back to HS. Second they met her they started stroking her ego and asking Questions. Billy is best around people who don‘t care or are like Joyce.
2. I know people are on about Billie acting like Ruth was a conquest, but I think it‘s a bit deeper than that. Back when they had their 1st date ( this was Jan 2018 our time) she was a little weird about seriously dating a girl. I think she‘s trying hard to reconcile who she was, who she thought she was gonna be, and who she is. Even when I was out ( was even an officer of the college lgbt group) I kept it to myself in other situations. When your bi and still figuring things out in your head, it can be easier to just let people assume, even if you’re technically out.
3. I still think Lucy being there is weird. Sorry. She’s a sweet girl and means the best, but I don’t see how you can’t see this situation as not being a bit invasive. She should’ve told Billy about the movie situation instead of side-stepping her and going to her old hall asking for strangers advice. Billie isn’t really the monster some of y’all make her out to be.
She’s not a monster but I can see why Lucy decided to side-step seeing how all she did that very morning was say ‘good morning’, ‘we’re having a movie night, wanna come?’, and ‘do you want breakfast?’ and Billie left the room in a mood. So…the mood is definitely not one of ‘please talk to me anytime roomie!’. Plus she’s had no opportunity to talk to Billie before this because Billie’s been with Ruth all day after aforementioned grumpy leaving.
Billie’s problem isn’t being outed as gay/bi. Her problem is Ruth being outed as more than a conquest. In any case, she’s never done anything but belittle Lucy, so Lucy is not obligated to show her any consideration. And that’s assuming she knew she was crossing a line.
Ruth and Billie should never have happened in the first place so if this leads to break up then that’s good but this is just a really shitty way to find out just how important you are to someone
Basically, Billie has to decide: Ruth or her facile alpha-girl popularity. I honestly don’t know which way Billie will jump. I’m just hoping that it isn’t off Garbage Roof.
What I think is likely to come out is how weak Billie’s self-esteem actually is and how desperately needs to be ‘the most popular girl in school’ just to maintain any sense of self worth. Ruth is in no position, mentally or emotionally, to be the carer for Billie; this is why their relationship isn’t likely to last long-term and it makes me worried for Ruth’s future.
It never was going to work long-term, not without a lot of emotional growth on both their parts. To start off with, Ruth manipulated Billie into this relationship, and from there it somehow grew into an unhealthy co-dependent relationship. I’ve yet to really see any evidence that Billie and Ruth actually share long-term relationship goals, things like starting a family, what are their views on career vs personal life, things that a lot of young couples neglect to consider when they’re all caught up in the passion of that initial romance.
But regardless, that look on Ruth’s face when Billie just drops her hand like a hot potato made me sympathize with her a lot, because I’ve been in relationships like that where you realize that your partner is either ashamed of or feeling guilty about being with you, and you have to confront them about just how much you being together means to them. In some extreme cases, you might even be the mistress/boytoy on the side. Are you always going to be “the guilty secret” that none of their friends and family can ever know about?
I don’t disagree that their relationship requires a lot of emotional growth on both their parts, but your point about them discussing ‘long-term relationship goals’ seems a bit much. They’re both very young and haven’t been dating too long. There’s a lot they need to work on in terms of having a long-term relationship WAY before discussing starting a family and career plans.
They’re just barely past the point of “We have no future because we’re going to drink ourselves to death. Together.”
They’re working on week by week, not decades.
That said, they’ve talked about the future: backpacking through Europe and getting manicures. 🙂
Also, my high school didn’t have a cafeteria, so I can’t weigh in on how good high school cafeteria pizza is. But I probably wouldn’t take it over actual pizza
Hm… That doesn’t match my pizza experience. High School pizza had crust akin to cardboard, and was only edible when smothered with ranch. College had BREAKFAST PIZZA. Of course, it all pales in comparison to a certain off-campus pizza joint that had $2 slices the size of a plate that we’re 35% grease.
This isn’t the “can’t be seen as gay” move. I mean, Forest Quad already knows she’s been banging Ruth. This is the “can’t be seen as actually liking them” move, which is a different kind of “ow”. Billie’s a DIFFERENT kind of awful.
Agreed; Billie believes in being seen as dominant in a relationship to the point where it appears abusive (note her advice to Walky in the previous chapter). She doesn’t want Lucy to think that Ruth is anything other than yet another inferior hanger-on she’s gracing with her attention.
That Panel 4 just hits like a wrecking ball. The glassy eyes, touching the hand, you can just see her depression running wild with that moment in a way she never intends to share with another living person least of all Billie.
Like, it makes sense Billie would react this way. It might be longer from our perspective, but Billie’s only been out for a couple of weeks now and has a lot of internalized queerphobia from her closeted days in HS she’s still unpacking. Especially in front of someone from her new dorm where she’s been able to explore the popularity of those days.
So of course she has a natural inclination to shift her hands away, hide the dopey easy romanticism she was enjoying with Ruth and try and get into “persona” mode and freak out that her persona was broken and the “consequences” she feared in HS for breaking character would come for her.
But still, that quiet heartbreak in Panel 4, internalizing way too much of that moment. It’s evocatively brutal, especially when linked with Panel 2. Made even more brutal by the fact that neither Ruth nor Billie are the type to talk openly about the various insecurities surrounding that moment.
I’m not sure how much it’s the internalized queerphobia. It seems more the clash between her romantic side and the dominant persona she’s put back on in Forrest. I mean, they know she’s banged the RA, they just don’t know she’s in love with the RA.
It’s also not clear how much she was closeted in high school. She had some kind of a relationship with Alice that was open enough that Walky knew about it, even though they weren’t that close in high school. I’d assumed it was at least an open secret and that her “I’m normal and normal girls like other girls sometimes” attitude goes back to then. Even if she was banging drunk boys at parties on the side.
But yeah, it’s definitely hitting Ruth hard. This has been coming ever since she went to Forrest Quad. Hopefully it’s coming out in the open now so they’ll have to deal with it, rather than let it fester longer.
It’s hitting Billie in panel 5 too, though I don’t know yet whether that’s “This is going to trash my rep” or “This is going to hurt Ruth”. Or some toxic mix.
She seems to be looking at Lucy, so I’ll venture the former. It’s not obvious either way, but I’m not sure Billie still has any “benefit of the doubt” left.
I forgot: it’s a… weird closeting, if it IS closeting, isn’t it? Like, Billie didn’t (doesn’t?) know bisexuality is a thing, and she doesn’t make any effort to hide she was in a… SOMETHING with Alice, but she said she was straight (or something to that effect) when she talked with Becky about it.
“I’m straight.”
“But you’re a girl who has sex with girls.”
“So? I also have sex with dudes.”
“But that’s not straight.”
“Yes it is.”
*brain gives up trying to follow*
How did that creepy 22-year old get into the high school in the first place? Have you seen security at those places? Unless the 22-year old worked there, there was no way that person was getting in.
(My high school pizza was awful, but that was long, long ago. It may be better now. I can’t get in to find out.)
A 22 year old could reasonably pass as a student. Also, when I was in high school, security was lax enough for me to access restricted areas. Never did anything nefarious, just didn’t like being told what to do.
That may be a Willis recollection from a simpler time slipping in.
I know back in my day I wandered back into high school to visit younger friends and some teachers several times during my college career with no problems.
I’ve done that too. I went to visit my friends and my teachers occasionally my first year. And then never again because dear jesus god, I could FEEL my soul leave my body and be replaced with a ball of dead minded exhaustion as soon as I entered. Which is weird because I loved it when I went.
It seems like Billie realizes her ego might end late cus she thinks Lucy knows the truth about her and Ruth now. Which it isn’t. I’m on lucy’s Side, Billie never should’ve lied. Hey! That rhymes!
hey, don’t you dare knock college pizza! I worked at my school’s pizzeria for a semester, it was legit, made by an Italian guy and everything! It was just like the pizza I had back at home, and not that just ok $1 pizza slice, I mean legit non-chain restaurant pizza!
Loading ...
the 22-year-old doesn’t happen to be one of the staff serving the food…?
also agree on high school pizza
Is this high school pizza thing just a universal constant??? I mean, my college’s pizza was actually great, but my high school’s pizza was all homemade and amazing and stuff, so better. No, it wasn’t a private school, just had a relatively good staff running lunch.
It’s very much not. Our pizza was garbage, to the point where students went to a nearby Little Caesars as a better alternative.
My secondary school, the lunches were …pretty meh. 4th and 5th years were allowed to leave the school grounds during lunch hour, so we basically all went to the McDonalds just around the corner. Then down to the train station where there was this cool video arcade centre, and spent the rest of our lunch hour (and our lunch money) there. xD
Those arcade games helped me to not gain as much weight for a couple of years in my teens there. In exchange, I temporarily became awesome at Daytona USA. xD
If I were judging objectively, our high school pizza was on the level of Totino’s
However, our college’s pizza was like literal grease discs and I never ate it, while high school Totino’s is ok but I do crave it lots, like Pizza Hut pan pizza
Ours either had almost no sauce, or things would slide off. No happy medium, and no good pizza. Jalepeno corn dogs on the other hand…..
You’re like the Justin Y. of this webcomic’s comment section, except I’ve been reading your comments on here much longer than I’ve seen his anywhere. So other way around, I guess.
Also, my high school was really small, so it was more cost effective to just hire a private chef rather than a corporate food service, so our pizza was delicious. The food would be the only reason I’d ever go visit.
Not a universal thing
Representative of my highschool’s pizza
Representative of my college’s pizza
That rectangle pizza was the best, and I will crave it until I die.
Overspiced watered down meat sauce & greasy cheese on matzo-like crust vs. Pizza Hut quality. Both did in a pinch but is it any wonder I stopped by a real pizza place on my way home when I could.
We didn’t have pizza on mine but they had a concesion with a local restaurant and omg I regret not buying more of those nachos.
“Billie!”
“Lucy!”
“Billie!”
“Ruth!”
“Walky!“
“Chief!”
“McCloud!”
In before KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!
Hoooooogaaaaaaaaaaaan!!!
BULLWINKLE!
Sorry. My time in the GSA/Drama club Rocky shadowcasts at college flashed before my eyes.
BRING ME THANOS!
“Janet!”
“Dr. Scott!”
“Janet!”
“Brad!”
“Rocky!”
“Grunt”
Tetsuo!
Kaneda!
DONKEY!
ROCKY!
Adrianne!
Nora!
STELLAAAAAAA!!
WIIIILLMAAAA!!
JETSOOONNNNNNN!
KHAAAAAN!
YOGI!!!!!
HOGAAAN!
MAX!!!!!
Snake!?
Snake?!?!?
SNAAAAAAAAAAKE!?!?!?
or, alternatively:
LIQUIIIIIIIIIIIID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Gary?
Donkey!
Steeeeveeeen!!!
Dillon!
“Janet!”
“Dr. Scott!”
“Janet!”
“Brad!”
“Rocky!”
Norm!
Wrex.
Shepard.
“INUYASHA!”
“KAGOME!”
“SASUKE!”
“NARUTO!”
I’m going to be honest and say I think Ruth deserves better. Alas, this isn’t the smarting of age.
Also, high school pizza was the bomb. I don’t know why or how it was better than everything else I’ve ever eaten. Especially with corn.
She deserves better than this reaction at the absolute minimum.
I don’t know how they made those little pencil eraser pepperonis taste better than real pepperonis, but one day I will discover the secret!
Then I will open a pizzaria with “Those little pencil eraser pepperonis you remember from high school and which you’ve been missing all these years and haven’t realized until you read this sentence, so order them and become complete” as a topping option.
My pizza restaurant will put all others out of business, I will become a trillionaire, and then rule the world!
…Holy shit, I think I just figured out Galasso.
I loved those pizzas with the eraser shaped pepperonis on them, they were delicious. The pepperonis on Totinos are slightly similar in shape but not quite in flavor, at least to the ones we had.
Which is why Totinos makes the most delicious freezer pizzas out there. If they ever perfect the recipe, they will dominate the freezer aisles.
While I am often the first to compare myself to Billie (like yesterday), this is completely foreign to me. When I started making out with girls in highschool, I was like “oh – guess I’m gay” and never had this “I kiss girls but am still straight” thing that Billie has.
Cause yeah, if I was Billie in this situation, I’d be all like “yeah Lucy, this is the RA I totes seduced. She’s my girlfriend now. Isn’t she sexy and awesome? I bet you wish you had a girlfriend as awesome as mine.”
I think Billie’s issue is more that being affectionate and loving with someone is not alphabongoy. Her new dorm sees her exactly the way she wants to be seen, and if she’s seen being anything other than former head cheerleader and totally cool person who everyone tries to be like that facade will start cracking and eventually crumble, and then she’d have to deal with being (and being seen as) depressed Billie with a drinking problem again.
I don’t really think Billie has an issue with her sexuality considering she’s pretty open about it with most people and in public. I think she just might be bisexual Sunny is right about her just trying to portray a certain image to her new dorm.
She does have something of an issue with it, in the sense that she’s denied being any kind of queer. She’s just a normal girl who likes girls sometimes like everyone does.
She’s pretty clearly bisexual, but she wouldn’t say that. Probably because her alpha bongo cheerleader self-image doesn’t mesh with her image of queerness. She’s fine with the kissing girls part and doesn’t have any issue with people knowing it, but just doesn’t want to be associated with some label that suggests she’s something weird.
She has said she is bisexual before to Becky who said it wasn’t real which irritated Billie but she flipflops on whether that it is real or not herself, telling Howard it was made up for porn. Billie definitely has some internal biphobia to work out and it is tied to her image – she has said she thinks ‘it is inevitable’ to Joyce a.k.a. all girls will like some girls at some point, that is totes what happens to all girls, not at all an experience only some people have.
… what? No she hasn’t. The only interaction with Billy/Becky that I could find WRT Billy’s sexuality was this:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/02-this-is-the-way-that-we-love/fancy/
Where BILLY has the issue of being labelled as any form of queer and Becky’s like “uh okay then”.
My apologies, I guess my memory was playing tricks on me. I thought she had said it – probably my brain taking shortcuts as brains tend to do.
They did have more interactions about it (kind of). This one might be the one Sam is remembering, though: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/sneaking/
Billie said she liked girls sometimes, but everyone did, so it wasn’t weird. Becky said you can’t like both. Neither used the word bisexual, because Billie thinks bisexuality is a porn thing.
She vehemently denied being gay and said “I’M NOT GAY! Sometimes I like a girl.” She is not aware that bisexuality is a thing.
This. Yes. This strikes me more as an issue of being uncomfortable with her new community seeing her as a vulnerable human, who she is ashamed to be, rather than an inherent issue with Ruth. Also, coming out is hard. And you have to do it repeatedly, and it is not a straightforward thing.
Still not really coming out here though. She’s never had much problem with that – at least as far as people knowing she’s into girls. She’s not okay with the labels for reasons.
The Forrest girls know she’s slept with Ruth. That’s not the issue. It’s that vulnerable human part.
WOAH! I get not wanting to be associated with Walky and Joyce (Get, not like) but that’s serious fucking shade, whether it’s Billie not wanting to be seen with Ruth or that she doesn’t want Lucy to know she’s gay/bi
Its kind of bizarre that she can seduce her bisexual RA but apparently not have feelings.
Toxic Femininity exists in Forest Quad it seems. Which…is a thing apparently there.
She’s been treating Ruth like a conquest rather than a girlfriend over at her new dorm. She booted Joyce out when she was trying to tell them how cute she and Ruth’s relationship was.
“Real women can have sex with partners but not feel for them. Also, they can only be angry and cool all the time.”
– Said no one ever until the people at Forest Quad.
I don’t recall angry, in their defence.
Mind you, I’m making a joke about male chauvinist stereotypes which Billie kind of weirdly has a gender inverted version going on.
Ah, I see, I didn’t realize you were joking.
I don’t think it’s so much that as that Billie’s never actually *dated* a girl before, as part of it. It’s come up before that even her highschool “ex” was a with-benefits thing that clearly meant more to the other girl than Billie, judging by how hurt they seemed.
Hmm, has Billie *dated* anybody, come to think of it? She was sexually active, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything in terms of relationships.
We do at the very least see that Billie endeavors to not showcase any vulnerability around the “nerd wing” people to maintain her status, whether she’s trying to or not. It feels like she’s backsliding on her previously rejecting her highschool mentality and giving up defining herself as head cheerleader anymore.
Billie’s told Ruth she’s not very experienced at dating, but she told those in her new quad that she came onto Ruth hot and heavy because she takes what she wants. That’s treating Ruth more like a conquest than a girlfriend. Her booting out Joyce when Joyce tried to talk about them as a relationship also is not a good look.
She booted out Joyce when Joyce started talking about her being flawed and vulnerable and human.
Said vulnerability was about how Billie smiles adorably when Ruth’s around.
Billie’s new dorm is not good for her at all. She’s basically a recovering alcoholic trapped in a liquor store that’s giving out free samples.
[Dr. Evil fingerquotes]
“Recovering”
Yeah, what BBCC said about treating Ruth like a conquest and not wanting the actual intimacy in their relationship to be known in her new dorm, because she’s crafting an image for herself there where she’s intimidating.
But the other residents of Forest Quad themselves have absolutely not exhibited this behavior. They are impressed with her confidence, because they are easily impressed. But they never WANTED Billie to be that way in the first place. They’re simply reacting to Billie-as-presented, unaware that that’s not really who she is.
Though when it came up she started equivocating and they jumped right in with “she did seduce her” and “you’re a damn bad ass” and it was only with that she jumped on the “yeah I take it” line.
They kind of prompted her to go with the conquest thing.
That’s a fair point. To me, it sounded like they’d heard gossip about her that were trying to get verified, and Billie opted to play it in her favor rather than being vulnerable about her situation and her feelings.
They’re enabling her, but they don’t realize it.
I really don’t understand why folks keep claiming:
A) Forest Quad is toxic
No. Billie is toxic, and they aren’t aware they’re enabling her.
B) Lucy is out to dethrone Billie and steal her popularity
No. Lucy is simply concerned that her dorm-mates are following Billie’s lead blindly and still wants everyone to be friends.
C) Forest Quad hates relationships with feelings??
No. Billie said she seduced Ruth for sex, and they believed her.
D) Forest Quad is homophobic???
No. Billie was up-front that she screwed her female RA and they were impressed with Billie’s prowess.
Like, people can act in ways that are frustrating and contrary to what you want / what’s best for you without having any ill intent toward you whatsoever.
Forest Quad IS toxic to *Billie specifically*. As you say, they’re enabling her without realizing it, but whether they realize it or not, they’re still doing.
I wouldn’t even say “enabling”, but “encouraging”.
Billie already told her new dorm mates that she was moved because of fucking the RA. RA’s are same-sex, so they know she’s gay or bi. But she’s wearing glasses, something she didn’t want her new dorm mates to see. She told them she moved on Ruth (she said saw what she wanted and took it) and maybe it’d come out that it didn’t happen that way.
Apparently, the people at Forrest Quad have no real life prejudices but many many unique fantasy ones.
That or it’s all Billie’s insecurity and they’d be just as impressed by the real Billie, or at the very least like her just as much
Considering how they reacted to the idea of her wearing glasses, I’m gonna say nah they’re just incomprehensibly shallow human beings.
It’s not that they’re shallow. It’s that the image Billie has been very intentionally presenting over in Forest Quad is held together by a few precarious threads. Ditching her glasses was part of a play to get people to see her differently with little effort. While obviously, yes, people with glasses can be confident and cool, this was an assumption of *Billie’s*, not her new dorm-mates. She changed a few surface-level details because she knows how they look *on her*, and then played up to their expectations.
There’s also Billie’s weird thing about not being lesbian or bi, just liking girls like normal girls do.
Damn it Lucy, you should have done your stalking online. Billie, you didn’t get your question answered. Ignore Walky and ask it again. If you don’t make this about Lucy invading your privacy the other alternatives are not going to work out well for you.
If you make it about that, it’s going to work out even worse, though you’ll be able to keep the bandage on a little longer.
Rip it off.
Rip it off. – thejeff. (Saved to quote on Valentines Day)
Or other inopportune times.
Oh, Ruth. This might be very unpleasant for both of you.
Also, Walky, if you don’t leave soon, Sal’s gonna see you when she eventually leaves your room.
* her room
Ruth already looks confused and mildly hurt in panel 4, I can only imagine this is going to get worse before it gets better. As much as I don’t want Ruth to have to deal with that, I also don’t want Billie to keep doing it either.
We’re still 31 strips away from Valentine’s Day!
Much further in-comic time.
I’m just hoping Ruth will be as quick to call Billie out on this shit as I expect.
Billie just took the wind out of Ruth’s sails.
That may have spared Walky’s femurs as an uninteded consequence, but at what cost?
And it’s so pointless. Even for maintaining her rep in Forest.
Lucy clearly saw her clinging to Ruth with her goofy smile. Jumping away now doesn’t change that.
When has Billie ever shown herself to be a person who makes sensible choices that take other people’s feelings into consideration?
Where did you guys with good pizza go to high school? Asking for a friend whose high school never gave him good pizza. (That friend is me.)
(But also, poor Ruth. This is gonna hurt.)
I miss the buffalo chicken pizza I used to get at lunch in high school, and I don’t know if that’s just an odd bit of nostalgia or if it was actually good.
I also miss the Bosco Sticks of middle school lunches. I got some frozen ones from the store once, but it wasn’t the same experience.
OH MY GOD SOMEONE ELSE WHO HAD THE BOSCO STICKS! They had them in the ala carte line at my high school! They were so good but eventually (for government reasons detailed in my comment further below) my school replaced them for a cheaper substitute which was like…weird breadsticks with parmesan on them. Those were eventually replaced as well, with some really stiff and gross breadsticks that looked like overcooked pizza crust. God I miss the bosco sticks…
My high school pizza was edible, and that’s about the best I can say about it. But, that was a long time ago, so maybe school pizza technology has improved since then.
my school just bought papa johns and called it a day. not that i got to partake of it after a while.
My high school pizza was meh. $1.25 for a rectangular slice the size of an index card. Much of the other food followed the same quality and quantity, assuming I didn’t have a small peanut butter and honey sandwich from home.
Hmm, now I realize why I felt so bonked out at cross-country practice.
My school system got really lousy pizza from some local place that’s thankfully now defunct. Thin bready crust, plain sauce, no spices, oily cheese, they had it all. Domino’s, Little Ceasars, or Papa Ginos would have all been massive improvements. But hey, “all kids love pizza” and it was the cheapest so that’s what they always ordered.
The idea of Domino’s being a massive improvement is somewhat terrifying.
Yeah, they would have been better off ordering cases of those square Elio’s pizzas, and those aren’t that great either!
Celeste makes the best crappy, frozen, under-a-buck microwave pizza.
Our high school had a local pizza chain doing it. It wasa amazing
Ruth just looks so betrayed and confused by Billie removing her hand like it was infected.
“Wait, why are we hiding? Who are we hiding from? Am I a shame?”
Billlllliiiiieee, don’t give up your pissy red dandelion!
Okay, that comment got a giggle out of me.
Billie used it here, and I’d like to think it’s now a pet name.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/manager/
*tilts head* . . .I don’t get the reactions here. Is Billie embarrassed that Lucy saw her and Ruth holding hands? Is she afraid that her cool new rep at her new dorm might get ruined? I’m not even going to try and get what Ruth’s face is telling here.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-8/01-face-the-strange/salacious/
Part one.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/03-faz-is-great/insecurities/
Part two.
I just hope that this reaction leads them to a serious and productive conversation about their relationship (and how Billie is desperately clinging to her cheerleader status)
I also think that Billie is reluctant to admit that she’s bi(?) because that’s still a relatively new thing for her. I don’t think we’ve seen her really address it outside of “oh, I guess this is a thing now”
It would seem that she was bi in hs as well, going by what Walky implied went on between Billie and that other cheerleader girl.
So not too new to the experience, but more so she has to come to tems with there being nothing wrong, shameful, or embarrassing about it.
She had a girlfriend in high school and told Joyce that being interested in both boys and girls was “basically inevitable.”
Now to be fair, that statement is one that definitely screams “is bisexual but assumes this is a universal experience and doesn’t know self is bisexual.”
The opposite of Danny, who assumed that being attracted to only one gender is universal and therefore he could not exist.
It’s not that new. There was Alice back in high school.
But Billie isn’t bi. She identifies as straight. Or more probably “normal”, with all the baggage tied up in that. (Actually, I suspect she really identifies as “cheerleader” and being straight is linked up with those stereotypes.)
She’s actively rejected being labeled as queer.
Word of Willis is she is bi, but yeah, she’s calling herself straight right now.
oooooh, i get it now. somehow forgot about that
dammit Billie, that’s mad uncool.
I think Ruth is confused why she jerked away like she was unclean.
I think you’re right, that Billie has leaped into reputation-protecting damage control toward this member of her new dorm “tribe” (with whom she has high status and influence), AND she’s reacted as if the fact that she and Ruth are an item will threaten that.
The most dangerous panel, IMHO, is #4, in which Ruth starts to realize that, as far as Billie is concerned, she comes in second to Billie’s ego and self-importance – Ruth is a *liability* to Billie. Shouldn’t Ruth be an *asset* to someone who loves her? Isn’t that the *least* Ruth deserves as someone who is loved? If she is truly loved, that is. Billie’s now got some SERIOUS real-world-relationship damage control she needs to come to terms with. It is time for Billie to drop the façade, the mask, the persona, and identify who she is and BE that person.
Billie has repeatedly stated who she is and chooses to be. The problem is people keep trying to ask her to be more.
The problem is actually that the things she’s stated conflict. Or at least she thinks they do.
I’m wondering what Lucy’s reaction is there in the last panel.
“Oh, I shouldn’t have said that.”
Gaah! 11th at best!
like it was neeeeeeeeeeerdsville
where i was born
a million miles away
all the trees were green
in neeeeeeeeeerdsville
But.. Billie’s new dorm knows she has a girlfriend? I’m almost sure of this but too lazy to dig up the strip. Why would she not want Lucy to know she’s with Ruth then?
No, they think she seduced the RA as a sort of sexual power play. She’s a high school cheerleader and they do that, apparently.
Billie has no man or woman to tie her down.
In that case, Billie is giving cheerleaders a bad name.
Did she ever give them a good name? Walky’s mentioned they used to shove him into lockers (exaggeration?). And then there was the D.U.I. (or rather, getting caught being a teenage alcoholic)
Billie has reverted to Drama Hurricane mode. (assuming you believe she ever lost that title)
Shoving people into lockers might be intended as an exaggeration in this case, but it’s definitely a thing that actually happens. As far as I know it didn’t happen at my highschool, but my middle school? I saw it happen there with my own eyes multiple times (then subsequently unlocked some of those lockers).
The way she has portrayed her relationship with Ruth has been very different at her new dorm. She has acted like she seduced and conquered Ruth rather than being honest with their rather messed up circumstances. Which if she didn’t want to share those circumstances then fine, but lying was not acceptable.
Lying is perfectly acceptable if you don’t give a shit about the people involved. That’s the first rule of Cheerleader Club.
The second rule is not to give a shit about anyone.
I think you have your rule numbers switched.
Its sort of like the revision to the Green Lanterns Code.
The first rule is that you can lethal force against the Sinestro Corps.
The second rule is you can use lethal force against anybody.
Lucy saw Billie have human affection and glasses.
I’m not sure she can be allowed to live.
Billie, you really need a reality check. Also it seems like Lucy already sees what is going on here, and while I don’t advocate crashing Billie’s world down around her and forcing her to deal with the fallout… No wait, that’s exactly what I’m advocating. Lucy won’t do it because she is too nice, but Ruth doesn’t deserve it and Billie can’t keep acting like this.
Lucy will, of course, be kicked out as the lying liar who lies.
Lying-ly.
I mean, geez, Lucy, we knew you were jealous but this is just petty.
I advocate inviting Ruth to movie night.
Honestly, the nice thing to do here would be to tell Ruth what Billie is doing. It’s not nice to Billie but this isn’t a situation where you can be nice to everyone and Billie is definitely the one least deserving of it here.
Sadly, I don’t think Lucy has it in her.
I don’t think I’ve ever had good school pizza.
My schools only bought pizzas with cheese.
We were able to get either cheese or pepperoni but either the cheese would be really dry, it’d be super greasy to the point that the paper it was placed on would be completely see through, soggy, or some combination of greasy and soggy.
The cheese at my high school looked watery and the pepperoni looked thick. Ick. I couldn’t eat it because cheese, but it did not look appetizing.
My elementary school ordered from pizza restaurants for pizza lunch days because we didn’t have a cafeteria. Fun times.
My high school didn’t have a cafeteria, but the grad class would sell slices of panago pizza as a fundraiser. I volunteered at least once in my year because it meant a free slice, whatever leftovers you wanted, and an excuse to be late for class.
My college had a cafeteria but I don’t know that I ever tried the pizza. My husband went to a different campus and they had one not great cafeteria, in the business side, and one amazing one run by the chef students in the trade side where he was, but they didn’t serve pizza.
in the original version of this, which disappeared when I briefly lost wifi, I included that they sold two cheese, two pepperoni, and a veggie.
i mean Billie you did create this problem yourself, dunkass
*looks in the fridge at the leftover pizza*
Bah, i think that can wait till later.
It’s *fine* until it’s furry.
When it comes to pizza left over from last night, I just reheat it for breakfast the next day.
For me, leftover pizza, like revenge, is a dish best served cold.
I tried it cold once, I popped into the microwave after that first bite.
Unintended burns are the best burns.
Billie proves, once and for all, what a horrible person she is. Ugh.
The pizza at my high school might as well have been cardboard with cheese on it! …Then again I’m in a poor area with bad test scores from the majority of students, in the South, and this was during the time of ye fabled ‘no child left behind’. So the budget at my school for food was like…a penny.
Also I feel so bad for poor Ruth here. I mean, don’t get me wrong, people have reasons for not liking Ruth. Good reasons. But I think she’s been doing right by Billie consistently, and Billie had been doing right by her…except for this moment. And anything to do with her new dorm, because her bragging about Ruth as a conquest was very cringey. Ruth is now aware that Billie…is almost embarrassed of her? At least, embarrassed to admit to others that she loves her. She’d rather make people think Ruth’s just a piece of ass.
I think that it goes beyond almost embarrassed when you’re actually embarrassed.
I mostly say almost embarrassed because the expression on Billie’s face here isn’t exactly embarrassed. I’m grasping at straws to come up with the right word, but it’s basically Billie being…Billie! She doesn’t want people to think she has weak dumb feelings of romance. She doesn’t want to let people in or be anything less than top tier cream of the crop. I guess it’s a mixture of pride, insecurity, fear, and awful self-worth issues.
“Cheese on cardboard is still cheese.”
– Ron Stoppable
There is a missing panel. Panel six should be a close-up of Lucy, in homage to the climactic scene of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
Also, I think this is the first time Lucy has seen Billie with glasses?
Now I’ve got to watch that scene again.
I once dated a 19 year old when I was 22ish before learning she was still in high school. She went to my college some didn’t know better.
But I went to her prom. Which I should have known better than to do.
I got a lot of disapproving looks. After she ditched me (can’t remember why but I’m sure I deserved it) I went to a party wirh my adult friends and drank to forget that awkwardness.
Didn’t get to try the high school lunch.
Sounds to me like you’re being too hard on yourself. That’s only a 3 year difference. Plus, if she was still in high school she was held back. So you only dated a high school girl on a technicality.
I think I called this back when Lucy was first roaming around the old dorms – that it could easily lead to the Billie’s unfortunate claims regarding Ruth to come back and bite her on the ass.
And yep, posted about it twice on this page – http://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-9-comic/02-but-the-sun-still-shines/allencompassing/
Oh darn, now she knows you like Ruth. Oh darn, now she can see you as a more real human being. Oh darn.
Billie has been very clear that’s the one thing she doesn’t want or need.
Oddly, she started dating Ruth because she didn’t want that.
Ruth’s :< face is breaking my heart
Poor Lucy will somehow get transferred to this hellish domain and be shunned by her former friends!
SHUNNED.
Given how quickly her friends picked billie over her, she might be better off.
I saw this coming way back. Billie is such a second-hander she’ll give up love before she gives up her admirers. But it’s too late. She’ll end up without either.
Not as long as Fox News exists.
I fully perceive Bille’s career as White House Press Secretary for President DeSanto and later as a commentator with them.
Your assuming republicans would elect a hispanic woman as president. Tokenism will take you far, but not that far.
Of course, if you see yourself as worthless….
Billie’s tragic flaw, then?
I’m hopeful that this will play out with Billie getting her priorities in order. It’s going to take some pain for her to see the error of her ways.
“I needed those nerds to look up to me so I *pretended* to conquer this dorm instead of being emotionally destroyed most of the time.”
Which is really conquering it by another name, isn’t it?
Sometimes the winners write history. Other times it’s whoever got to the book first.
Goddamn, Billie. That’s messed up as hell.
Billie letting go of Ruth’s hand in panel 2 and then Ruth holding onto her own hand in panel 4 with this betrayed expression… I didn’t expect that to hit me as hard as it did.
Oh. But are you not, out? Billie? Or is that that Ruth can still be in trouble because you are still together? What. Is going on?
Billie is embarrassed to admit Ruth’s more than someone she banged to climb the social ladder.
Ruth won’t get in trouble. They moved Billie to the other dorm so Ruth would not be her RA, so they could maintain their relationship.
The problem wasn’t Ruth’s having a relationship w another student. It was having a relationship w a student she had authority over.
She’s been lying to her new dormmates that she has no emotional relationship with Ruth, but juste banged her because she (Billie) is a badass.
Billie doesn’t want her new dormmates to see that she is a human being that genuinely cares about Ruth, has feelings and wears glasses. She wants them to see her as a perfect unquestionable cheerleader and give her adulation and praise she has done nothing to deserve.
My dorm cafeteria had great pizza!
… on Parents’ Weekend, or when there were conferences or whatnot using our facilities (we didn’t get any of it then). The rest of the time it was horrific. French bread covered in ketchup and half-melted mozzarella, kept warm and soggy by steam.
The food service from my college has been ruled unconstitutional to use in prisons, on account of being cruel and unusual punishment. I am not making this up.
God… Damn it, Willis. After the beautiful sweetness 🙁
Ruth’s pain here it’s giving me an awful cramp in my old relationship memories. It’s really shitty to feel like your partner is ashamed of you and… Damn. 🙁
I feel like “Highschool lunch Pizza” is a euphemism of some kind here.
Mind you there’s nothing wrong if Billie doesn’t want to have a serious relationship right now and Ruth is far more committed than her partner. It happens. Billie is just a Freshman and has many more years to get her life in order and find that special someone.
It is a time to be wild and carefree and rebellious.
Considering how emotional she’s gotten over Ruth’s well being and how much is assimilated into Ruth life and daily routine I feel like this is already quite serious to be honest – you know what….no we are not sit here after seeing like countless comic strips of these two being cutesy and write this off as “this isn’t all bad since they’re not that serious” especially counting the last 8 stripes these two have been in. This is Billie being slightly inconsiderate to Ruth for a split second because she panicked about keeping up an appearance. Nothing less nothing more.
It’s a little more, though I agree that they are serious.
But it’s bringing into focus a conflict that’s been brewing for awhile, not just an inconsiderate split second. Billie’s been posing in her new dorm and that’s going to have to be torn down. I have faith she’ll choose Ruth, but there’s going to be drama before we get there.
If Lucy had ever given any indication of being mean-spirited, that feels like almost the bongoiest thing she could have said. Especially given Billie’s reaction.
The interesting thing is Lucy’s face in the last panel, though. That doesn’t really look like “Oh crap, I just blurted out something stupid.” It almost looks like a disingenuous attempt at making that face. Hmm.
This may just be me but I think that, in the last panel today, Lucy is reacting because she can see in Ruth and Billie’s faces the out-of-control chain reaction to an argument or even a break-up building up.
If Lucy was mean-spirited she could have said a lot worse things. I don’t know why some people have such a hate-train towards Lucy.
I don’t recall pizza ever being an option at any of the schools I ever went to.
Yeah, it seems to be a recent thing; I think that, at some point, someone pointed out that there didn’t seem to be a difference between school and prison canteen food.
Life was different back in the 20th century.
Time to play another round of “Who’s that Character” with Plasma Mongoose.
Today’s character is my SU gemsona Vivianite.
II’m trying to figure out why Billie’s face looks like that in panel 5. Embarrassment/shame/“it’s all crashing down around me again”?
She REALLY should have been going to those therapy sessions.
I think it’s panic, like she’s thinking ” oh no now they’re going to know I’m less than perfect, the jig is up.”
Ouch, poor Ruth. When push came to shove, Billie chose head-cheerleader popularity and image over Ruth. She’s still hung up about “being a lesbian.” Apparently head cheerleaders can’t be lesbians?
I hope it’s not that she’s ashamed of Ruth herself.
Ugh. There’s a reason Billie is low on my list of the main characters.
Damn, I’d forgotten Billie didn’t give them the real story.
Billie, you suck.
Billie’s not a lesbian. Neither is Ruth.
Apparently head cheerleaders can’t be lesbians?
I always found it weirder that they weren’t all lesbians.
Porn lied to us!
It often does which I am thankful as the last thing I want when I have pizza delivered is the delivery man offering me “more sausage”.
The issue here isn’t that she’s lesbian (or bi really (or normal, like she says)). They know she slept with Ruth.
It’s that they saw it as a conquest and she leapt on board that theory to build her popularity and now doesn’t want them to know it’s a real relationship.
Yikes, that is a big oof. *yeets away*
Wow, that second panel almost hurt physically. Yikes.
Kept refreshing to see this page, and now I wish I hadn’t. Damn you, Willis.
Another interesting angle to this is Lucy has a chance to knock Billie down a peg, but revenge might conflict with her personal ethics.
Oh shit, now I’m worried about the future of the Billie and Ruth relationship.
Something tells me that Billie and Ruth may be in for an awkward conversation about emotionally healthy living environments and the way Billie has so totally but Read Hall behind her. So far behind her that I notice Billie is embarrassed to even hint to Lucy that Ruth is her girlfriend (at some point, Lucy needs to tell her that she already knows).
I honestly don’t understand sometimes how no one in the comic has called Billie out on what a rude person she is, or on her high schoolish behavior. Besides Dorothy calling her one-note, or Sarah being Sarah which would roll off her back anyway, I really can’t think of any strong examples. Like, even in my first year of university, someone being OPENLY obsessed with popularity and talking about it in such a high school manner all the time, or actually caring about people being “nerds” would be considered uber cringeworthy, and something a loser would do. Then again, people are easily misguided, and can believe you if you give off a convincing enough “alpha” persona.
But I feel it’s a little strange that the people who hang around Billie the most, Joyce and Walky, are the ones she constantly belittles. I wouldn’t want to be around someone who constantly makes me feel like I lack value, and makes it clear they don’t actually want me around. Even Walky, who blurts out whatever’s on his mind at any given moment, and is constantly verbally attacked by her, seems to have some kind of pseudo-stockholm syndrome with regards to her behavior. I honestly find Mike to be a more pleasant character, because at least his assholishness is funny. Billie’s is just childish and grating.
I hope this is the turning point. I hope that Ruth points out in no small words that Billie is a jerk, that her sneaky actions in the name of social status are immature, and that she (Ruth) can do better, especially after all the things they went through in order to NOT be a secret… but I don’t know that Ruth’s in the mental state where any of that would be clear or doable. I really hope this doesn’t impact Ruth’s healing, because she really deserves to find some peace. I wish that Lucy would say something, but she’s too nice. I could perhaps see a standoff though, if Billie keeps pushing her. If someone were constantly calling me a nerd in a derisive tone I’d be mocking them right back, and pointing out that popularity is something everyone craves to some extent, but it’s one of those things where if you actually talk about seeking it unironically you seem like an awkward person, which should actually lower your popularity.
I dunno. I liked Billie for awhile, but the way she treats Walky, Joyce and Lucy really sets me off and reminds me of some people I know, people who in their 30s still haven’t done anything with their lives and who spend all day in dive bars flirting with lonely people and trying to impress old alcoholics, and who treat every situation and interaction as a power exchange and a way to gain ground.
My take:
-Billie’s old acquaintancies (Walky et al) know her and probably don’t think confronting her isn’t going to do any good.
-everybody else just thinks she’s an asshole and not worth the trouble, especially now that she’s in a different dorm.
I don’t think Billy really interacted with the other people in her dorm that much outside of some of our core crew.
-Her and Walky are friends who act like siblings. That’s their relationship. Walky knows exactly who she is but still comes to her for advice.
-Her and Sal didn’t interact too much. Heck, Sal being gone was the catalyst for the Ruth trouble’s she had (Ruth straight up harassed her).
– She isn’t any harsher on Joyce than Walky or Sarah is.
-Everyone else she gets along with as well as other characters do
Yeah, Billie and Walky’s relationship is very much a sibling one. Constantly sniping at each other, but also turning to and supporting each other when it’s needed. Billie went to Walky when she was at her low point – on the outs with Ruth.
Also, Walky speaks fluent Billie-ese and knows what she means. And vice versa.
Billie no ;_;
I beg to differ – my high school’s pizza was awful. The only toppings were olive and pineapple and there was barely any tomato sauce. It was just cheesy bread stained red.
I love pineapple and even I think this is the most bullshirt thing I’ve ever heard of
Right?
1. Going to that new hall was really bad for Billy. It pretty much sucked her back to HS. Second they met her they started stroking her ego and asking Questions. Billy is best around people who don‘t care or are like Joyce.
2. I know people are on about Billie acting like Ruth was a conquest, but I think it‘s a bit deeper than that. Back when they had their 1st date ( this was Jan 2018 our time) she was a little weird about seriously dating a girl. I think she‘s trying hard to reconcile who she was, who she thought she was gonna be, and who she is. Even when I was out ( was even an officer of the college lgbt group) I kept it to myself in other situations. When your bi and still figuring things out in your head, it can be easier to just let people assume, even if you’re technically out.
3. I still think Lucy being there is weird. Sorry. She’s a sweet girl and means the best, but I don’t see how you can’t see this situation as not being a bit invasive. She should’ve told Billy about the movie situation instead of side-stepping her and going to her old hall asking for strangers advice. Billie isn’t really the monster some of y’all make her out to be.
She’s not a monster but I can see why Lucy decided to side-step seeing how all she did that very morning was say ‘good morning’, ‘we’re having a movie night, wanna come?’, and ‘do you want breakfast?’ and Billie left the room in a mood. So…the mood is definitely not one of ‘please talk to me anytime roomie!’. Plus she’s had no opportunity to talk to Billie before this because Billie’s been with Ruth all day after aforementioned grumpy leaving.
There was also the “Too bad if you still want to sleep this is what you’ve got to deal with”
Billie’s problem isn’t being outed as gay/bi. Her problem is Ruth being outed as more than a conquest. In any case, she’s never done anything but belittle Lucy, so Lucy is not obligated to show her any consideration. And that’s assuming she knew she was crossing a line.
Ruth and Billie should never have happened in the first place so if this leads to break up then that’s good but this is just a really shitty way to find out just how important you are to someone
She realized, lolz
No, wait a goddamn minute, she’s *amashed* to hold hand with Ruth in front of Lucy ?
Bad Billie. BAD.
Basically, Billie has to decide: Ruth or her facile alpha-girl popularity. I honestly don’t know which way Billie will jump. I’m just hoping that it isn’t off Garbage Roof.
What I think is likely to come out is how weak Billie’s self-esteem actually is and how desperately needs to be ‘the most popular girl in school’ just to maintain any sense of self worth. Ruth is in no position, mentally or emotionally, to be the carer for Billie; this is why their relationship isn’t likely to last long-term and it makes me worried for Ruth’s future.
It never was going to work long-term, not without a lot of emotional growth on both their parts. To start off with, Ruth manipulated Billie into this relationship, and from there it somehow grew into an unhealthy co-dependent relationship. I’ve yet to really see any evidence that Billie and Ruth actually share long-term relationship goals, things like starting a family, what are their views on career vs personal life, things that a lot of young couples neglect to consider when they’re all caught up in the passion of that initial romance.
But regardless, that look on Ruth’s face when Billie just drops her hand like a hot potato made me sympathize with her a lot, because I’ve been in relationships like that where you realize that your partner is either ashamed of or feeling guilty about being with you, and you have to confront them about just how much you being together means to them. In some extreme cases, you might even be the mistress/boytoy on the side. Are you always going to be “the guilty secret” that none of their friends and family can ever know about?
I don’t disagree that their relationship requires a lot of emotional growth on both their parts, but your point about them discussing ‘long-term relationship goals’ seems a bit much. They’re both very young and haven’t been dating too long. There’s a lot they need to work on in terms of having a long-term relationship WAY before discussing starting a family and career plans.
They’re just barely past the point of “We have no future because we’re going to drink ourselves to death. Together.”
They’re working on week by week, not decades.
That said, they’ve talked about the future: backpacking through Europe and getting manicures. 🙂
Willis obviously never had my HS pizza. It was just as awful as university pizza.
On that note, pizza that tastes sweet should die in a fire.
Quad City pizza though.
JFC, Billie. No, just no.
Yikes, por Ruth
Also, my high school didn’t have a cafeteria, so I can’t weigh in on how good high school cafeteria pizza is. But I probably wouldn’t take it over actual pizza
*poor, even
Man, that hand drop. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the violent, power-abusing RA deserves better.
No, no, wait… please, let them have one happy day…
.
.
.
Aw, damn.
Hm… That doesn’t match my pizza experience. High School pizza had crust akin to cardboard, and was only edible when smothered with ranch. College had BREAKFAST PIZZA. Of course, it all pales in comparison to a certain off-campus pizza joint that had $2 slices the size of a plate that we’re 35% grease.
Ow, nothing like the good old “can’t be seen as gay” move.I’ve been there, Ruth ..😢
This isn’t the “can’t be seen as gay” move. I mean, Forest Quad already knows she’s been banging Ruth. This is the “can’t be seen as actually liking them” move, which is a different kind of “ow”. Billie’s a DIFFERENT kind of awful.
Agreed; Billie believes in being seen as dominant in a relationship to the point where it appears abusive (note her advice to Walky in the previous chapter). She doesn’t want Lucy to think that Ruth is anything other than yet another inferior hanger-on she’s gracing with her attention.
OH…no….
That Panel 4 just hits like a wrecking ball. The glassy eyes, touching the hand, you can just see her depression running wild with that moment in a way she never intends to share with another living person least of all Billie.
Like, it makes sense Billie would react this way. It might be longer from our perspective, but Billie’s only been out for a couple of weeks now and has a lot of internalized queerphobia from her closeted days in HS she’s still unpacking. Especially in front of someone from her new dorm where she’s been able to explore the popularity of those days.
So of course she has a natural inclination to shift her hands away, hide the dopey easy romanticism she was enjoying with Ruth and try and get into “persona” mode and freak out that her persona was broken and the “consequences” she feared in HS for breaking character would come for her.
But still, that quiet heartbreak in Panel 4, internalizing way too much of that moment. It’s evocatively brutal, especially when linked with Panel 2. Made even more brutal by the fact that neither Ruth nor Billie are the type to talk openly about the various insecurities surrounding that moment.
I’m not sure how much it’s the internalized queerphobia. It seems more the clash between her romantic side and the dominant persona she’s put back on in Forrest. I mean, they know she’s banged the RA, they just don’t know she’s in love with the RA.
It’s also not clear how much she was closeted in high school. She had some kind of a relationship with Alice that was open enough that Walky knew about it, even though they weren’t that close in high school. I’d assumed it was at least an open secret and that her “I’m normal and normal girls like other girls sometimes” attitude goes back to then. Even if she was banging drunk boys at parties on the side.
But yeah, it’s definitely hitting Ruth hard. This has been coming ever since she went to Forrest Quad. Hopefully it’s coming out in the open now so they’ll have to deal with it, rather than let it fester longer.
It’s hitting Billie in panel 5 too, though I don’t know yet whether that’s “This is going to trash my rep” or “This is going to hurt Ruth”. Or some toxic mix.
And as always, good to see you stop by.
She seems to be looking at Lucy, so I’ll venture the former. It’s not obvious either way, but I’m not sure Billie still has any “benefit of the doubt” left.
I forgot: it’s a… weird closeting, if it IS closeting, isn’t it? Like, Billie didn’t (doesn’t?) know bisexuality is a thing, and she doesn’t make any effort to hide she was in a… SOMETHING with Alice, but she said she was straight (or something to that effect) when she talked with Becky about it.
“I’m straight.”
“But you’re a girl who has sex with girls.”
“So? I also have sex with dudes.”
“But that’s not straight.”
“Yes it is.”
*brain gives up trying to follow*
Billie thinks bisexuality only exists in porn.
Billie is one of those bi people that thinks everyone has a queer phase but you can’t expect it to last or anything.
It sounds like she expects it to last with Ruth.
It really sounds like she thinks everyone likes girls. At least sometimes.
I’m not sure what she thinks bisexuality is – if it’s only in porn maybe she thinks it’s wanting threesomes with both at once?
Good to see you around, Cerberus. Hope everything’s okay with you.
How did that creepy 22-year old get into the high school in the first place? Have you seen security at those places? Unless the 22-year old worked there, there was no way that person was getting in.
(My high school pizza was awful, but that was long, long ago. It may be better now. I can’t get in to find out.)
A 22 year old could reasonably pass as a student. Also, when I was in high school, security was lax enough for me to access restricted areas. Never did anything nefarious, just didn’t like being told what to do.
That may be a Willis recollection from a simpler time slipping in.
I know back in my day I wandered back into high school to visit younger friends and some teachers several times during my college career with no problems.
I’ve done that too. I went to visit my friends and my teachers occasionally my first year. And then never again because dear jesus god, I could FEEL my soul leave my body and be replaced with a ball of dead minded exhaustion as soon as I entered. Which is weird because I loved it when I went.
Oof, that one hurt
I don’t understand the reaction, What’s going on with Ruth ?
Panel 2 is what’s going on with Ruth.
HOW HAS THAT BEEN IN MY BLIND SPOT FOR SO LONG ?!??
I swear I didn’t notice it up until you mentioned it.
Walky is still unmurdered. This is a strange situation for both him and Ruth.
It seems like Billie realizes her ego might end late cus she thinks Lucy knows the truth about her and Ruth now. Which it isn’t. I’m on lucy’s Side, Billie never should’ve lied. Hey! That rhymes!
hey, don’t you dare knock college pizza! I worked at my school’s pizzeria for a semester, it was legit, made by an Italian guy and everything! It was just like the pizza I had back at home, and not that just ok $1 pizza slice, I mean legit non-chain restaurant pizza!
That small moment of the hands separated communicates so much. Ruth is in pain and Billie just realized she fucked up.
Billie sucks.
Bad move Billie.
I feel like the only guy who thought and WANTED Billie and Ruth to work out.
And maybe I just wish we’d reach a point where people are actually happy for like one week?
Like I get drama breeds success nine times out of ten, but good God can we just not for once?
High school lunch pizza is still the worst pizza I have had.