Well, honestly she’s basically right. Or has been up to now that the meds are starting to kick in.
Hasn’t that been a basic point of the depictions of Ruth’s depression?
Sometimes anger. Mostly just nothing. Flat.
We don’t know Rachel’s back story so we dont know what shes been through in the past but we do have an insight into Ruth’s behaviour the previous year (and this year as well) plus Rzchrl hasn’t been privy to Ruth’s progress the way we have so giving stick to a possible victim of Rutha previous bullying just doesn’t sit right with me
Also the splash damage there included Joyce – who needs to hear that she’s capable of growth – and Amber.
The Ryan stabbing occurred not much later that night. She probably would’ve stabbed him regardless,* but it’s entirely possible Amber being told she was doomed to be a terrible person forever influenced the ferocity of the stabbing.
* Or beat the shit out of the guy, either way she probably would’ve been more than minimum force necessary. And I’m not crying over Ryan, but that stabbing DEFINITELY worsened Amber’s headspace dramatically.
The fact that she chose to stick around rather than transferring to another dorm is very telling. This isn’t a personal grudge. She just revels in being a bully to people who “deserve” it.
In that way, she’s no better than Mary, even though Mary is an objectively worse person overall.
I think it’s pretty clear swapping rooms takes a long time in this school. Malaya put in for a transfer on the first day and still had to wait a month and a half, and even she only got moved so quickly because Billie got bumped to the top of the list to get her out from under Ruth’s authority.
Even if Rachel has put in for a different dorm, she’s gonna be waiting a while.
We’ve seen no sign that she’s actually done that. In fact, in all her appearances in the strip, she doesn’t actually start pushing back against Ruth until AFTER the suicide attempt, when Ruth has already been broken down.
That’s why I said ‘even if she has put in for a new dorm’. My point is that her still being in this dorm is not evidence she had no personal grudge against Ruth.
And the point I’m making is that there’s no evidence that she’s put in for a new dorm, and she clearly seems to not mind talking shit in Ruth’s presence.
And, lest we forget, it really doesn’t matter what the background is. Telling a suicide risk they’ll never ever be a good person means you ain’t shit.
“Well you didn’t leave so clearly you didn’t mind before now” is a really really weak argument.
I’m not talking about whether or not Rachel’s a good person or not, I’m talking about the idea that she didn’t leave being ‘telling’. Fuck THAT noise. Even if she hasn’t put in for a transfer, that’s not evidence she’s been okay with Ruth.
I never said that she was “okay” with Ruth. What I’m saying is she didn’t see Ruth as a threat to her personally, just another bully to take down. And she picks AFTER the suicide attempt to do that “taking down.” Yeah, way to speak truth to power.
You know what’s bull? Your argument for something that’s not at all borne out in the comic itself. And again, even if you’re right and she’s switching rooms at some point, so what? *It doesn’t matter.* That doesn’t excuse what she did and what she’s continuing to do, especially since she KNOWS Ruth struggles with being suicidal. All she has to do is avoid Ruth until she moves and be done with it, and you know it.
I’m really done with this discussion. Rachel ain’t shit and people who defend her actions ain’t shit either.
I didn’t say she was for sure switching rooms. What I said was that regardless of whether she is or not she was transferring, her being there does not equal being okay with Ruth’s presence because that’s victim blaming horseshit. I didn’t say Rachel was right to say anything to Ruth or she was a good person.
“All she has to do is avoid Ruth”
Who not only lives on her floor, but is in charge of it. And whose superiors don’t seem to care about her problems or her bullying. If Ruth wanted to go back to bullying, avoiding her wouldn’t be that simple.
Again, I do think Rachel went too far, but much of what she said was justified and much of the abuse she’s taking here is over the top.
I dunno if agree that it’s over the top (I’m not even clear on the meaning of “ain’t shit” beyond it being negative), but I can agree that it’s not fun to see a stream of non-constructive negative comments about Every Single Character (minus Becky?) when they appear. Even the ones I agree with. The pattern as a whole bugs me, but since it’s often different people it seems sorta unsolvable.
Absolutely no one here in this thread was defending Rachel or any of her actions, and you could see that if you took a step back and stopped being on the defensive.
The point you and BBCC were debating over has no evidence either way. There’s no evidence or mention if Rachel has put in a transfer to another dorm or not. To claim that because Rachel hasn’t left, even though we have no knowledge of if she’s attempted to do so or not, is somehow telling of her character is a fallacious argument. Simply put, we don’t know either way. Rachel could be on the waiting list, like BBCC said. Rachel could not have even bothered, like you assumed. It’s not come up in comic, so it could be either way. And simply pointing that out is not automatically a defense of Rachel or anything she’s said or done in comic. It’s just pointing out that you’re arguing about a facet of her personality that you have no evidence for.
I agree that Rachel’s argument regarding abusers was inappropriate and misguided and toxic. But I do not think she is a bully going after people who ‘deserve’ it. She has had limited interactions in this comic, and of those, the only two people she has really fought against are Joe and Ruth, with primary focus on Joe. She has, unlike what you think, stayed away from Ruth. But it’s kind of hard to do that when she’s the RA in the dorm you live in and you have to share common spaces, like in this comic. Rachel said her piece to Ruth, as inaccurate and full of harmful beliefs as it was, and she is done with it. She’s not harassing Ruth at every turn, yelling that she’s irredeemable. Scoffing that Ruth doesn’t have feelings doesn’t help, but she’s not going out of her way to interact with Ruth.
I’m not even arguing that Rachel’s for sure on the list or not – my argument is regardless of whether she’s on the transfer list or not, her still being in the dorm is not an indication she’s fine with Ruth’s presence and claiming it is and that she isn’t against Ruth’s behaviour because she hasn’t left is a serious load of victim blaming.
I’m sick of this argument. I was sick of it the last time it came up and I’m sick of it now. It super double doesn’t matter what your “back story” is when you’re basically telling a suicide risk they’ll never be a good person. Ruth could be a controlling bully (thanks to mental illness and alcoholism) but I don’t see Rachel asking for a transfer to another building to get away from her. Which says that she’s perfectly fine being in Ruth’s presence, especially since she now essentially gets to hate on the mentally ill suicidal girl without repercussion.
Yeah, no, you can go fuck yourself if you think “People don’t change; you’ll always be a monster,” are ever appropriate words to say to a suicidal person.
That shit could have pushed Ruth over the edge in a universe where “God” wasn’t literally willing no one die during this period. I don’t care for the idea of suicide, but if someone really really really wants to end it, it’s ultimately their life and their choice. But to take someone who is actively seeking to right wrongs that they’ve committed, trying to step away from the edge, and shove them back over?
Rachel can get fucked until she apologizes to Ruth.
You obviously have had RA or their equivalent before. At her worst she was average for the position and at her best she was one one of the better ones.
I don’t know. My RAs never physically threatened or assaulted anyone. Nor did they have sex with any of the students they were supervising and bullying.
Ruth had her good moments, but her bad ones were really bad.
Oh, those are coming. I meant right in this first wave of Spontaneous Shower Emotions. Give the complex stuff another couple days, right now ‘crying’ is an emotion in its own right.
Joyce is 5’4″ according to the wiki, and the gallon jugs for her shower shoes are probably cut off at 4 inches (any higher and you’re in the handle part), so Rachel must be close to 6′ tall.
failed intervention for girlfriend’s drinking problem + driving away the one person who had your back for this entire time, and took your abusive behavior + actually feeling emotions thanks to your meds.
A lot of sadness and regret in that shower room right now.
yup. it took me well over a decade (or two, depending on how you count) to figure out how to delay tears (and even then I’m not sure how reliable it really is – the migraine of doom started not long after, so who gives a shit now I’m usually home anyways)
Coming out of a period of flat affect (or having one emotion and that is anger) due to depression can be like this:
**KAWHAM** You’re crying. Maybe about something. Or nothing. Or everything. Had something to do? Nope, crying now. Maybe for a few weeks.
**KAFWOOSH** Suddenly stuff is funny again! Everything is funny! You’re giggling like a baby at lint!
**KAPWINNNNGGGG** Oh goodie, here comes terror, back again. You only thought you were scared before. Enjoy heart-pounding panic!
And so forth.
(Full disclosure: Mine wasn’t due to meds, so I can’t speak to the intensity of antidepressant Lights Coming On-itis. But I spent many years with flat affect, then it unflattened, and it was kinda like being three again. EMOtions.)
I had one of those climbing out of brain fog due to coming off bad meds, a second one giving me emotions other than “manic” and “depression” when I got my thyroid pills, and a third one once I was finally on anxiety meds that let me feel the full brunt of things other than fear. I can only imagine how bad it would be getting all of that at once.
Rachel absolutely knows that Ruth is suicidal. She was one of the students outside the door, talking to Mary about how her blackmail plan was bullshit, and also reported Rachel’s condition to the adult with the word: ‘suicidal.’
As others said she does know – though how seriously she takes it might be open to question. After all, Ruth was returned to her job with no consequences and she didn’t even actively attempt suicide.
But remember, the most important thing is to be supportive of bullies and abusers when they claim they’re going to change. There’s no way that can go wrong.
I don’t actually agree with Rachel on this, but we’ve got to remember what this looks like from her point of view. She hasn’t had the front row seat on Ruth’s struggles we’ve had and from outside it doesn’t look good. Especially if she’s had experience with the kind of abuser who’s constantly promising to change and never actually doing so.
“Didn’t even actually attempt” … yeah, I’d back off that one. Suicidal ideation is incredibly serious. Even hedging that discursively is really dangerous.
Doesn’t matter. Rachel’s seen more than enough to know that the way she’s treating Ruth is messed up. Nobody here is asking Rachel to ‘be supportive’ of Ruth. We’re suggesting that Rachel leave Ruth the fuck alone if she has such a problem with her, which she seems incapable of doing.
When the bully is actively trying to be a better person, yes. :/ Yelling at Ruth won’t get her out of the RA job… Unless it leads to another suicide attempt maybe :/
But Rachel had no reason to think she was trying to be a better person. She’d apparently gotten away with it with no consequences – back in charge on the floor, still with Billie.
Sure, she said she was going to change, but abusers often say that.
Now, we know how Ruth is struggling and that she is trying, but Rachel isn’t reading the comic.
Rachel didn’t exactly give her a chance to change, either. It was straight from post-suicidal apology to tearing her down. I don’t like people who kick others when they’re down. As others have said, there’s plenty of ways to not accept an apology without being mean about it.
Also, like, you don’t have to forgive people even if you do think they’re trying to change.
If I were in Rachel’s position and my abusive former friend came to me saying she’d changed and wanted to do better, I don’t think I could promise kinder than ‘Okay, cool, good for you, why the fuck are you bothering ME about it? *I* don’t care. This is a ‘you’ problem, not a ‘me’ problem. Now get out of my face.’
…So, what, does the general rule ‘you don’t have to be nice to people who’ve abused you’ just not apply to Rachel for some reason?
Like I’m not even going to get into whether or not her ‘redemption is a story’ spiel was toxic or not (imo it was), but her not being nice about rejecting an apology? She’s not obligated to be.
I think there’s a lot of space between ‘not nice’ and ‘mean’, and what Rachel said (the redemption spiel) was really mean. She doesn’t have to forgive Ruth, and I don’t have to forgive her.
So… When it comes to Rachel’s insensitive lines *today*, maybe we should all just roll our eyes and move on?
And also remember it’s not just “abusive former friend”, it’s abusive supervisor, who’s just been put back in charge with the apparent support of the higher authorities, so there’s no real appeal.
But yeah, I’d agree that Rachel went too far – especially given the unintended spillover onto Amber and others, but I think the bile directed at her here goes too far as well.
Yes. There are loads of other students in this dorm who seem perfectly capable of not getting involved in Ruth’s drama, and Rachel, for the entire time leading up to Ruth’s hospital stay, was one of them. Now, all of a sudden, she’s up in Ruth’s face being a right proper c*** to her all the damn time. Why, I wonder? Is it because Ruth is vulnerable now? Whatever her reasons, I reiterate, Rachel can fuck all the way off and stay there.
I mean, yes. Rachel probably only said what she said because she felt safe enough to say it. Ruth, at the beginning of the semester, was so brutal she threw Billie across the room. She regularly threatened the residents and inflicted violence upon them. If Rachel would have said anything before, she would have had no guarantee for her own personal safety.
It doesn’t make what she said right, and it doesn’t mean she chose the right opportunity to say it, but she’s only able to say what she wants to say to Ruth now because, yes, Ruth is vulnerable right now.
Okay, you can take several steps back. I wasn’t defending Rachel. I was literally only saying that she only felt safe enough to talk back to Ruth because of the circumstances. Which, yeah, says a lot about how Ruth ran things before.
And here for a controversial opinion: Ruth being suicidal does not negate any of the actions she inflicted on her residents. Rachel has a right to be angry about the abuse that’s happened all semester, and be angry about how Ruth seemingly got away with it all. Ruth being apologetic does not mean anyone has to forgive her, and her being mentally ill does not mean that she is above criticism. I am saying this as a mentally ill person with depression who has been hospitalized for suicidal thoughts before.
Now, this does not mean that Rachel was in the right when she yelled at Ruth, let alone used the right phrasing or had healthy beliefs behind her words. She has some pretty unhealthy, toxic thoughts on the cycles of abuse and redemption. And her words had unintended harm splashed back onto Joyce and Amber, who internalized that they can’t change and are irredeemable. That’s not good. But Rachel’s not a villain for standing up to Ruth the one (1) time she felt like she actually could and then avoiding interactions with her, just like you claim she’s not doing.
You don’t have to be supportive, Rachel wasn’t even obligated to accept Ruth’s apology. Nobody ever is.
The opposite of being supportive ISN’T telling a suicidal person they’ll always be a horrible person. It’s just saying “I don’t forgive you.” She didn’t have to go that fucking far. It was completely uncalled for.
Agreed! No one has said Rachel had to believe, support or even really be all that nice to Ruth in general. Just that she didn’t have to completely tear Ruth to shreds for even daring to try to say sorry. She doesn’t even have to interact with Ruth 99% of the time and didn’t even have to bother to show up to that meeting in the first place but chose to anyway even though most of the hall didn’t.
Yeah, that’s really all I think Rachel should apologize for. Also it seems obvious to me at least that that speech might have been meant for someone else in her life besides Ruth, so Ruth is just as much collateral damage as, say, Amber.
Honestly, I chalked up the femur removal threats as obviously absurd geared towards getting reactions. Much like when I threatened to duct tape my daughter and my housemate’s daughter together and dangle them off the balcony. They knew I didn’t mean it, laughed, and stopped squabbling for awhile.
Ruth has acted violently and inappropriately, no doubt. But I kinda pity anyone who actually took femur removal seriously (including Joyce).
The thing is severe depression mutes your emotions. The meds kicking in means the floodgates are open again – so yes, she is genuinely feeling sad because of life, but she’s feeling sad SUDDENLY because meds. Hence why she’s not crying in her room.
I agree; I’m not sure what I said that contradicts this. I meant that since you can also get stupid sudden crying for literally no reason while you adjust to new meds, she can use that excuse.
I’d argue it’s not an excuse when it works as a literal response to what’s said (‘Ruth doesn’t have emotions’). But hey, point being Sudden Shower Sadness.
I think Axel is referring to how many people/cultures get weirdly judgemental about crying, so having a “oh this isn’t *my* fault it’s my meds” excuse can be useful.
Unfortunately, such cultures are also likely to have plenty of stigma around meds, too. :/
The last ten years I’ve spent on the internet have done wonders in shattering a lot of preconceptions of mine, as well as helping me fix a lot of really damaging language I’d internalized. That’s why I’m happy that “Fuck you,” is an always safe yet always powerful option.
Man, at my undergrad university the TAs had teeeeny tiiinny but personal bathrooms in their rooms. Without that I can’t imagine why on earth anyone would be willing to work as a TA. ._.
A paycheck would have to be significantly higher than the standard work study job to convince me to go back to sharing a communal bathroom with 50 freshman.
It would be slightly hypocritical to use my default happy Claireface in the circumstances, especially when I’m ticking you off for using an outrageously cheerful beck-tar.
(Ahem) Ah, Rachel? Dear? There are words you need to say to Ruth. No rush, and I wouldn’t say this if she weren’t actively trying to improve, but an apology is absolutely in order.
Oh Ruth, Ruth, Ruth. I knew that this was going to happen eventually. I’m still sorry that you have to feel this though. No-one should be forced to feel this, no matter how objectively good it may be for their mental health in the long run.
I know it’s unlikely but I do hope that at least one of the girls tries to help her in some way, even if only with a hug.
Rachel’s dislike of Ruth seems fairly justified on the basis of the fact that she is an abusive person — but if she continues knowing she’s actually on drugs for serious depression and other conditions then it’s going to be much much harder to treat her sympathetically.
Rachel knows that Ruth has been ACTING like not a horrible monster for a bit.
Rachel also knows that MARY has been acting like not a horrible monster for a bit.
Rachel’s wrong in Ruth’s case, but Ruth’s abuse did earn her later reform some skepticism, and I’m willing to extend Rachel some “okay you’re not a telepath” leeway. But seriously Rachel, tred a bit more careful around people who were recently hospitalized for being suicidal.
Rachel also knows that Ruth was actively suicidal, and that Mary was actively trying to murder a suicidal person. I think that maybe puts them on slightly different tiers of ‘horrible person’-dom.
But Rachel is apparently also ok with personally aggravating extremely serious mental illness, so maybe she doesn’t think what Mary did was all that bad actually.
Rachel definitely hates Mary more than Ruth. When Billie was going around telling everybody what Mary did with Ruth, Mary protested they hated Ruth too. Rachel said ‘Yeah, but we can multitask.’
Rachel does say stuff that is shit to say to/about anybody. Even if you’re opposite an abuser/alcoholic who told you several times they’d stop and didn’t. It that case, you have every right to say “nope, you promised this already x times and didn’t deliver and I don’t trust you now”, but still not ” no one can chance”.
I love the little splash-rosettes at the speaker-pointer-end of Ruth’s speech bubbles in this strip. We get two lettering styles, too—I guess the blue letters are much further from being verbal than the black letters. Since part of the joke is the uncertain identity of the occupant of the shower, there’s no face to do the emotions with, but that doesn’t faze our experienced host.
Gonna take a shot in the dark here: If Ruth wanted to bawl in privacy, she would have done it in her room, into which only Carla and Billie have the courage to barge uninvited. The fact that she’s doing this in the communal shower is because, on some level, Ruth wants the others to know that she’s in distress. The question is now how they will respond to this.
Mental dysfunction manifests in different ways. Ruth’s depression muted her emotions, and given how horrible Billie was yesterday, she has a lot of reason to be sad.
It’s a very accurate portrayal. The rush of emotions that antidepressants can bestow if you’ve spent a period of time muted can be very overwhelming.
It depends on the person and the med in question. Depression is less about being sad and more about being… nothing. When it’s bad enough, you don’t care about anything. There are people who will just lie in bed and wait for death because they don’t care enough about dying to actually kill themselves but they also don’t care about life enough to get up and live it. They’ll just lie there and stare at the ceiling or the wall and just… exist.
We’ve seen good evidence that this is what Ruth was like without meds.
So when people like that start on meds, sometimes they get just enough of an effect to start feeling sad. They might cry, they might scream, they might harm themselves (up to and including active suicide). It could be as simple as needing a higher dose if the symptoms are bad enough. It could be as complicated as needing to try a bunch of different medicines until you find the right one/combination.
So, as counterproductive as it might seem, this is actually a sign that Ruth’s meds are working exactly the way they are meant to.
I think it’s really important to show this instead of the typical idea that antidepressants just make you not-sad. A lot of people think their meds aren’t working and get all stressed out and think that it’s all useless and stop their treatment, which of course leads to things getting worse more often than getting better.
So if whoever is reading this is on antidepressants and noticing more feelings, even negative ones, just know that it’s a good sign. If it gets bad enough that you want to hurt yourself or someone else, tell your doctor ASAP so you can try something else or get a different strength. You’re awesome and you can do this.
Indeed, the effect you describe is why depressed people with suicidal ideation need to be supervised when getting medication for depression. Where before they wanted to die but lacked the energy to act on the impulse, some meds return the energy before removing the desire to die. It’s not they want to kill themselves, but they want to die and nobody was helping.
I feel like these comment boxes are extremely dramatic and treat relationships between people who talked to each other twice in the halls as matters of equal importance to the one between themselves and whatever ex the commenter in question has unresolved issues about while at the same time assuming that every 18 year old at a random college in Ohio or wherever they are fully understands the implications of, and is comfortable walking on egg shells vis á vis, each others’ terrible traumas and mental health issues.
Rachel’s being a dick to her dick of an RA but it’s not the end of the world they’re like 12 and barely know each other.
Use me, I’m a fictional character wandering around in Real Life™. Seriously, I have been told my biography reads like Bad Fiction between getting caught in a revolution/failed coup, certain romantic encounters, surviving getting hit by trucks 3 times, and stuff that’s still classified.
Jebus, even just writing about it sounds like Bad Fiction. Also the HTML is supposed to be the trademark sigil if it didn’t come out right.
Indianna. Ohio isn’t great, but at least it isn’t Indianna. *Shudder*
Anyway, while Rachel has been unacceptable before, I think this isn’t malice so much as “No, you can’t expect to sob uncontrollably in a communal shower stall, without someone taking notice”. Not saying Rachel won’t be a jerk in the near future, just that this isn’t a jerk move yet. I think if Rachel was being a jerk, Joyce would stand up for Ruth.
Because telling somebody they’ll always be an abuser is a perfectly normal thing to tell a person you barely know. Especially when one of the few things you know about that person is that they are suicidal.
There were other people in the room who barely knew Ruth and weren’t comfortable walking on eggshells about her mental illness who didn’t go out of their way to be horrible. Amazing. All it takes is to just not open your damn mouth and say completely unnecessary, horrible shit.
Of course one of the other things you know about them is that they’re a bullying abuser, who’s just apparently escaped any consequences for their abuse. Who “bullied your way into a relationship with Billie somehow, and yet you get to keep her.” Who “bullied your way through your job, and somehow you get to keep it.”
“Tell me how everything will be different now. How you’ve changed. That’s how abusers work, right?”
Rachel goes too far, but there’s a reasonable core there. She doesn’t have to take at face value that Ruth has changed. That she’s not going back to her bullying. Nor does she have to hide it and stay quiet.
On a more meta level, I also find today’s outrage at Rachel an interesting contrast to the chorus of “Billie’s a lying alcoholic. Of course she’s not going to stop” from a couple weeks back.
No one has said Rachel had to believe her. Or that she couldn’t be skeptical. But Rachel threw a whole fit at Ruth for daring to try to apologise and say she was going to try to do better which is a great way to discourage change and shove the suicidal person right off the edge they just walked away from.
No one expected Rachel to be her BFF or take her words at face value, they just expected her to be a decent human being that knows that there is a time and place to let your frustrations out, and it isn’t right to someone’s face the very second they say they will try to be better.
I’ll definitely agree that Rachel went too far knowing Ruth was suicidal, but if Ruth stopped trying to change because Ruth didn’t forgive her and went right back to being ‘Ruthless’, all she’d do is prove EXACTLY why she wouldn’t have deserved to be forgiven.
The implication isn’t that Ruth would go back to being ‘Ruthless’. The implication is that Ruth would go back to trying to die, and feeling hopeless about your right to go on living is not something that renders a person unworthy of forgiveness. Unless you believe it is, in which case… I’m not even gonna go there.
It’s the ‘discourage change’ bit that implied going back to Ruthless to me. The ‘shove the suicidal person off the edge’ does imply depression, you’re right and I do think that’s more likely than discouraging change. The suicidal depression isn’t what Rachel’s angry with, it’s the Ruthless behaviour, and that’s why I said she wouldn’t deserve to be forgiven IF she went back to acting that way.
I do get your point, and it’s a possibility, but I think it would have been a much likelier possibility if Rachel had confronted Ruth at a point where she were more stable, like say, more than 24 hours after her release from the hospital.
Which is probably why Rachel waited until Ruth was vulnerable to say anything. It’s not uncommon for people to wait until their abuser can’t hurt them to tell them off because doing so beforehand is too dangerous. That’s probably what Rachel thinks happened.
The problems being A) Ruth is suicidal, not just having a bad day or whatever and B) Rachel went waaaaaaaaaaay beyond telling Ruth off.
I do not think that it is just her meds that are making her cry in the shower. Billie’s attitude is also playing a major role, in her sadness. Stupid Billie.
Rachel, I don’t know what your deal is or what your interactions with Ruth were before the story or off-screen, but that doesn’t give you carte blanche to be an asshole and say shit like “Ruth doesn’t have feelings”. Just because you don’t think people can change or are capable of emotions you haven’t personally seen doesn’t make those facts reality.
I’m going to take a step back from the question of whether one should like Rachel as a person &c. and just appreciate that she is a consistently written character who adds variety to the cast, and it’s interesting to see how other characters incl. Ruth and Amber engage with her and her ideas.
I read this and for a brief second I thought “Team Pizza” must be some kind of game, like team cribbage. And now I’m trying to imagine what one does when one plays team pizza.
Loading ...
never had to suppress those feels at work, nope, completely unrelatable
definitely never snuck out of work to cry into a five guys milkshake and fries, no sir
Obligatory “Fuck you, Rachel.”
Why?
“Ruth doesn’t have feelings”
Well, honestly she’s basically right. Or has been up to now that the meds are starting to kick in.
Hasn’t that been a basic point of the depictions of Ruth’s depression?
Sometimes anger. Mostly just nothing. Flat.
Everyone has feelings, even if they aren’t visible.
Even to herself. Ruth talked about not being able to feel anything.
Pretty sure here while suicidal thing is common knowledge, isn’t it?
*her whole
“People don’t change. You will always be an abuser. Just like your grandfather.”
We don’t know Rachel’s back story so we dont know what shes been through in the past but we do have an insight into Ruth’s behaviour the previous year (and this year as well) plus Rzchrl hasn’t been privy to Ruth’s progress the way we have so giving stick to a possible victim of Rutha previous bullying just doesn’t sit right with me
I’m well aware. Rachel could totally have an abuser that kept getting multiple chances.
…but now we’re making possible excuses for telling suicidal people that they can’t ever improve. Woo!
(I’m trying to say this is a cycle of “Everybody’s an Asshole.”)
Well yeah, college.
You’re saying we shouldn’t kick people when they’re down? Crazy talk!
…funny you should say that, considering today’s It’s Walky…
Also the splash damage there included Joyce – who needs to hear that she’s capable of growth – and Amber.
The Ryan stabbing occurred not much later that night. She probably would’ve stabbed him regardless,* but it’s entirely possible Amber being told she was doomed to be a terrible person forever influenced the ferocity of the stabbing.
* Or beat the shit out of the guy, either way she probably would’ve been more than minimum force necessary. And I’m not crying over Ryan, but that stabbing DEFINITELY worsened Amber’s headspace dramatically.
honestly now i want to know what happened to her so that she thinks this way
The fact that she chose to stick around rather than transferring to another dorm is very telling. This isn’t a personal grudge. She just revels in being a bully to people who “deserve” it.
In that way, she’s no better than Mary, even though Mary is an objectively worse person overall.
I think it’s pretty clear swapping rooms takes a long time in this school. Malaya put in for a transfer on the first day and still had to wait a month and a half, and even she only got moved so quickly because Billie got bumped to the top of the list to get her out from under Ruth’s authority.
Even if Rachel has put in for a different dorm, she’s gonna be waiting a while.
We’ve seen no sign that she’s actually done that. In fact, in all her appearances in the strip, she doesn’t actually start pushing back against Ruth until AFTER the suicide attempt, when Ruth has already been broken down.
That’s why I said ‘even if she has put in for a new dorm’. My point is that her still being in this dorm is not evidence she had no personal grudge against Ruth.
And the point I’m making is that there’s no evidence that she’s put in for a new dorm, and she clearly seems to not mind talking shit in Ruth’s presence.
And, lest we forget, it really doesn’t matter what the background is. Telling a suicide risk they’ll never ever be a good person means you ain’t shit.
“Well you didn’t leave so clearly you didn’t mind before now” is a really really weak argument.
I’m not talking about whether or not Rachel’s a good person or not, I’m talking about the idea that she didn’t leave being ‘telling’. Fuck THAT noise. Even if she hasn’t put in for a transfer, that’s not evidence she’s been okay with Ruth.
I agree, and suspect that she’s one of the many students on a long transfer list wasting away in Chloe’s filing cabinet.
I also agree that Rachel’s redemption spiel was awful regardless. I think I everyone’s in agreement on that now.
I never said that she was “okay” with Ruth. What I’m saying is she didn’t see Ruth as a threat to her personally, just another bully to take down. And she picks AFTER the suicide attempt to do that “taking down.” Yeah, way to speak truth to power.
So, to reiterate: Rachel ain’t shit.
That’s bull. The argument someone must not be threatened if they haven’t left is BS. Also, yes you did like one or two comments down.
“but I don’t see Rachel asking for a transfer to another building to get away from her. Which says that she’s perfectly fine being in Ruth’s presence”
You know what’s bull? Your argument for something that’s not at all borne out in the comic itself. And again, even if you’re right and she’s switching rooms at some point, so what? *It doesn’t matter.* That doesn’t excuse what she did and what she’s continuing to do, especially since she KNOWS Ruth struggles with being suicidal. All she has to do is avoid Ruth until she moves and be done with it, and you know it.
I’m really done with this discussion. Rachel ain’t shit and people who defend her actions ain’t shit either.
I didn’t say she was for sure switching rooms. What I said was that regardless of whether she is or not she was transferring, her being there does not equal being okay with Ruth’s presence because that’s victim blaming horseshit. I didn’t say Rachel was right to say anything to Ruth or she was a good person.
“All she has to do is avoid Ruth”
Who not only lives on her floor, but is in charge of it. And whose superiors don’t seem to care about her problems or her bullying. If Ruth wanted to go back to bullying, avoiding her wouldn’t be that simple.
Again, I do think Rachel went too far, but much of what she said was justified and much of the abuse she’s taking here is over the top.
I dunno if agree that it’s over the top (I’m not even clear on the meaning of “ain’t shit” beyond it being negative), but I can agree that it’s not fun to see a stream of non-constructive negative comments about Every Single Character (minus Becky?) when they appear. Even the ones I agree with. The pattern as a whole bugs me, but since it’s often different people it seems sorta unsolvable.
Absolutely no one here in this thread was defending Rachel or any of her actions, and you could see that if you took a step back and stopped being on the defensive.
The point you and BBCC were debating over has no evidence either way. There’s no evidence or mention if Rachel has put in a transfer to another dorm or not. To claim that because Rachel hasn’t left, even though we have no knowledge of if she’s attempted to do so or not, is somehow telling of her character is a fallacious argument. Simply put, we don’t know either way. Rachel could be on the waiting list, like BBCC said. Rachel could not have even bothered, like you assumed. It’s not come up in comic, so it could be either way. And simply pointing that out is not automatically a defense of Rachel or anything she’s said or done in comic. It’s just pointing out that you’re arguing about a facet of her personality that you have no evidence for.
I agree that Rachel’s argument regarding abusers was inappropriate and misguided and toxic. But I do not think she is a bully going after people who ‘deserve’ it. She has had limited interactions in this comic, and of those, the only two people she has really fought against are Joe and Ruth, with primary focus on Joe. She has, unlike what you think, stayed away from Ruth. But it’s kind of hard to do that when she’s the RA in the dorm you live in and you have to share common spaces, like in this comic. Rachel said her piece to Ruth, as inaccurate and full of harmful beliefs as it was, and she is done with it. She’s not harassing Ruth at every turn, yelling that she’s irredeemable. Scoffing that Ruth doesn’t have feelings doesn’t help, but she’s not going out of her way to interact with Ruth.
I’m not even arguing that Rachel’s for sure on the list or not – my argument is regardless of whether she’s on the transfer list or not, her still being in the dorm is not an indication she’s fine with Ruth’s presence and claiming it is and that she isn’t against Ruth’s behaviour because she hasn’t left is a serious load of victim blaming.
I’m sick of this argument. I was sick of it the last time it came up and I’m sick of it now. It super double doesn’t matter what your “back story” is when you’re basically telling a suicide risk they’ll never be a good person. Ruth could be a controlling bully (thanks to mental illness and alcoholism) but I don’t see Rachel asking for a transfer to another building to get away from her. Which says that she’s perfectly fine being in Ruth’s presence, especially since she now essentially gets to hate on the mentally ill suicidal girl without repercussion.
Rachel ain’t shit.
Having a sad backstory might make you understandable but not excusable. As Jake said “Cool motive, still murder.”
Ugh, I need to get caught up. I still haven’t seen all of season 5, and none of season 6.
Appropriate gravatar.
Remind me again — how many people was Rachel in a position of authority over, and how many of them was she abusive to?
We know basically nothing about her, tbh.
Yeah, no, you can go fuck yourself if you think “People don’t change; you’ll always be a monster,” are ever appropriate words to say to a suicidal person.
That shit could have pushed Ruth over the edge in a universe where “God” wasn’t literally willing no one die during this period. I don’t care for the idea of suicide, but if someone really really really wants to end it, it’s ultimately their life and their choice. But to take someone who is actively seeking to right wrongs that they’ve committed, trying to step away from the edge, and shove them back over?
Rachel can get fucked until she apologizes to Ruth.
Word. Rachel ain’t shit.
You obviously have had RA or their equivalent before. At her worst she was average for the position and at her best she was one one of the better ones.
I don’t know. My RAs never physically threatened or assaulted anyone. Nor did they have sex with any of the students they were supervising and bullying.
Ruth had her good moments, but her bad ones were really bad.
That doesn’t negate the fact that Rachel ain’t shit.
You don’t tell a suicide risk they’ll never be a good person.
Do we actually know why Rachel hates Ruth so much?
Does it actually matter?
When someone threatens physical violence on you or a friend, you might be inclined to think they’re dangerous and to tell them to stay away from you.
The femurs statement may have been taken as an implicit physical threat.
…you mean the explicit threat?
Agreed
Wow, Ruth with medication in effect is going to be a whole new beast… one that I don’t want to be further hurt by Billie
Ruth’s only here because Amber took up all the privacy chairs again.
Yeah, that happens with some meds. I know from personal experience.
Indeed
Ah! Meds finally kicked in! At exactly the moment most inconvenient!
Yeah, that sounds about right.
At least she could’ve gotten even worse emotions?
Replace “could’ve” with “could still”.
Oh, those are coming. I meant right in this first wave of Spontaneous Shower Emotions. Give the complex stuff another couple days, right now ‘crying’ is an emotion in its own right.
Indeed, Some meds seem to make me a big green rage monster.
You’re Norman Osborn?
*plays Kix’ “Cold Shower” on the hacked Muzak outside the washroom*
Maybe Joyce’s shower shoes can cheer Ruth up. I know I’m a fan.
For those who’ve forgotten: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/03-the-thing-i-was-before/framework/
Carla’s engineering remains fuckin’ flawless.
Quality engineering is a thing of beauty.
Those things are nose-bleed height!
And Rachel *still* overtops Joyce. She’s huge.
Joyce is 5’4″ according to the wiki, and the gallon jugs for her shower shoes are probably cut off at 4 inches (any higher and you’re in the handle part), so Rachel must be close to 6′ tall.
Okay Yumi, that’s just scarey. For some reason Ana’s post for that day has been removed. I sense a conspiracy!
Shouldn’t “Semi-Giant Woman Shower Shoes” be tagged?
Shower stilts ™
failed intervention for girlfriend’s drinking problem + driving away the one person who had your back for this entire time, and took your abusive behavior + actually feeling emotions thanks to your meds.
A lot of sadness and regret in that shower room right now.
This is what the kids call a “big mood”
I feel like Joyce’s shower shoes should have a tag.
(Ye beat me to it. Good show.)
The important to note here is that even with massive shoe lifts Joyce is shorter than Rachel.
Girl’s hella tall. Joe must have given her that extra point for having Amazon DNA.
Can’t blame him there. To quote Sal, “ah go fer tall”.
Too bad about her crappy attitude about people changing, though.
Why doesn’t Ruth cry in her own dorm room?
Sudden onset, she was taking a shower when she got hit by a feels train.
This bout of sobbing was not intentional. She didn’t have a choice of location.
And then you don’t want to risk the walk where people can see you while you’re crying, so you try to stop, but that just makes you cry more.
yup. it took me well over a decade (or two, depending on how you count) to figure out how to delay tears (and even then I’m not sure how reliable it really is – the migraine of doom started not long after, so who gives a shit now I’m usually home anyways)
I thought you were trying to say that those two things were related (i.e. that delaying tears caused your migraines), which sounded really sad :/.
Coming out of a period of flat affect (or having one emotion and that is anger) due to depression can be like this:
**KAWHAM** You’re crying. Maybe about something. Or nothing. Or everything. Had something to do? Nope, crying now. Maybe for a few weeks.
**KAFWOOSH** Suddenly stuff is funny again! Everything is funny! You’re giggling like a baby at lint!
**KAPWINNNNGGGG** Oh goodie, here comes terror, back again. You only thought you were scared before. Enjoy heart-pounding panic!
And so forth.
(Full disclosure: Mine wasn’t due to meds, so I can’t speak to the intensity of antidepressant Lights Coming On-itis. But I spent many years with flat affect, then it unflattened, and it was kinda like being three again. EMOtions.)
I had one of those climbing out of brain fog due to coming off bad meds, a second one giving me emotions other than “manic” and “depression” when I got my thyroid pills, and a third one once I was finally on anxiety meds that let me feel the full brunt of things other than fear. I can only imagine how bad it would be getting all of that at once.
Hehehe. Lint.
Fuck off, Rachel. Just…fuck all the way off and never interact with suicidal people ever again.
How ’bout we have her do battle with Ruth’s grandfather. Give that unforgiving attitude to someone who really deserves it.
Is it widely known that Ruth was suicidal? Has Rachel known her as anything but abusive toward others?
Ruth being depressed and suicidal is kind of the reason Carla outed her to the rest of the dorm, yes.
Yes.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/chloe/
Rachel absolutely knows that Ruth is suicidal. She was one of the students outside the door, talking to Mary about how her blackmail plan was bullshit, and also reported Rachel’s condition to the adult with the word: ‘suicidal.’
She was hospitalized. Furthermore, Rachel is the one who told Chloe when she showed up that Ruth was suicidal.
I think, without a doubt, we can safely assume that Rachel has absolutely no self-awareness.
As others said she does know – though how seriously she takes it might be open to question. After all, Ruth was returned to her job with no consequences and she didn’t even actively attempt suicide.
But remember, the most important thing is to be supportive of bullies and abusers when they claim they’re going to change. There’s no way that can go wrong.
I don’t actually agree with Rachel on this, but we’ve got to remember what this looks like from her point of view. She hasn’t had the front row seat on Ruth’s struggles we’ve had and from outside it doesn’t look good. Especially if she’s had experience with the kind of abuser who’s constantly promising to change and never actually doing so.
“Didn’t even actually attempt” … yeah, I’d back off that one. Suicidal ideation is incredibly serious. Even hedging that discursively is really dangerous.
Yes, we know how bad Ruth was and still is.
From Rachel’s point of view though …
Doesn’t matter. Rachel’s seen more than enough to know that the way she’s treating Ruth is messed up. Nobody here is asking Rachel to ‘be supportive’ of Ruth. We’re suggesting that Rachel leave Ruth the fuck alone if she has such a problem with her, which she seems incapable of doing.
“Just leave the abusive bully who’s been put back in power over you alone.”
When the bully is actively trying to be a better person, yes. :/ Yelling at Ruth won’t get her out of the RA job… Unless it leads to another suicide attempt maybe :/
But Rachel had no reason to think she was trying to be a better person. She’d apparently gotten away with it with no consequences – back in charge on the floor, still with Billie.
Sure, she said she was going to change, but abusers often say that.
Now, we know how Ruth is struggling and that she is trying, but Rachel isn’t reading the comic.
Rachel didn’t exactly give her a chance to change, either. It was straight from post-suicidal apology to tearing her down. I don’t like people who kick others when they’re down. As others have said, there’s plenty of ways to not accept an apology without being mean about it.
Also, like, you don’t have to forgive people even if you do think they’re trying to change.
If I were in Rachel’s position and my abusive former friend came to me saying she’d changed and wanted to do better, I don’t think I could promise kinder than ‘Okay, cool, good for you, why the fuck are you bothering ME about it? *I* don’t care. This is a ‘you’ problem, not a ‘me’ problem. Now get out of my face.’
…So, what, does the general rule ‘you don’t have to be nice to people who’ve abused you’ just not apply to Rachel for some reason?
Like I’m not even going to get into whether or not her ‘redemption is a story’ spiel was toxic or not (imo it was), but her not being nice about rejecting an apology? She’s not obligated to be.
I think there’s a lot of space between ‘not nice’ and ‘mean’, and what Rachel said (the redemption spiel) was really mean. She doesn’t have to forgive Ruth, and I don’t have to forgive her.
So… When it comes to Rachel’s insensitive lines *today*, maybe we should all just roll our eyes and move on?
You’re right! You don’t have to forgive Rachel (to the extent real people forgive fictional characters)!
I don’t disagree what Rachel said was wrapped in a lot of toxic ideas and it hurt at least three people she didn’t mean to hurt.
And also remember it’s not just “abusive former friend”, it’s abusive supervisor, who’s just been put back in charge with the apparent support of the higher authorities, so there’s no real appeal.
But yeah, I’d agree that Rachel went too far – especially given the unintended spillover onto Amber and others, but I think the bile directed at her here goes too far as well.
Yes. There are loads of other students in this dorm who seem perfectly capable of not getting involved in Ruth’s drama, and Rachel, for the entire time leading up to Ruth’s hospital stay, was one of them. Now, all of a sudden, she’s up in Ruth’s face being a right proper c*** to her all the damn time. Why, I wonder? Is it because Ruth is vulnerable now? Whatever her reasons, I reiterate, Rachel can fuck all the way off and stay there.
Wasn’t it just the one time? I don’t think we’ve seen much of her in a while.
I mean, yes. Rachel probably only said what she said because she felt safe enough to say it. Ruth, at the beginning of the semester, was so brutal she threw Billie across the room. She regularly threatened the residents and inflicted violence upon them. If Rachel would have said anything before, she would have had no guarantee for her own personal safety.
It doesn’t make what she said right, and it doesn’t mean she chose the right opportunity to say it, but she’s only able to say what she wants to say to Ruth now because, yes, Ruth is vulnerable right now.
What a friggin hero, standing up to the evil RA when she knows Ruth wants to die. Such nobility and courage, a real example for the kids.
Okay, you can take several steps back. I wasn’t defending Rachel. I was literally only saying that she only felt safe enough to talk back to Ruth because of the circumstances. Which, yeah, says a lot about how Ruth ran things before.
And here for a controversial opinion: Ruth being suicidal does not negate any of the actions she inflicted on her residents. Rachel has a right to be angry about the abuse that’s happened all semester, and be angry about how Ruth seemingly got away with it all. Ruth being apologetic does not mean anyone has to forgive her, and her being mentally ill does not mean that she is above criticism. I am saying this as a mentally ill person with depression who has been hospitalized for suicidal thoughts before.
Now, this does not mean that Rachel was in the right when she yelled at Ruth, let alone used the right phrasing or had healthy beliefs behind her words. She has some pretty unhealthy, toxic thoughts on the cycles of abuse and redemption. And her words had unintended harm splashed back onto Joyce and Amber, who internalized that they can’t change and are irredeemable. That’s not good. But Rachel’s not a villain for standing up to Ruth the one (1) time she felt like she actually could and then avoiding interactions with her, just like you claim she’s not doing.
You don’t have to be supportive, Rachel wasn’t even obligated to accept Ruth’s apology. Nobody ever is.
The opposite of being supportive ISN’T telling a suicidal person they’ll always be a horrible person. It’s just saying “I don’t forgive you.” She didn’t have to go that fucking far. It was completely uncalled for.
Agreed! No one has said Rachel had to believe, support or even really be all that nice to Ruth in general. Just that she didn’t have to completely tear Ruth to shreds for even daring to try to say sorry. She doesn’t even have to interact with Ruth 99% of the time and didn’t even have to bother to show up to that meeting in the first place but chose to anyway even though most of the hall didn’t.
Yeah, that’s really all I think Rachel should apologize for. Also it seems obvious to me at least that that speech might have been meant for someone else in her life besides Ruth, so Ruth is just as much collateral damage as, say, Amber.
thanks rachel
I realize Rachel has no love for Ruth (understandably so) but damn, That’s one “Souless Red headed Machine” joke gone a bit to far.
Possibly, but by far not the worst thing she’s said About Ruth TO Ruth
Corollary to Garbage Roof: Sobbing Shower Stall.
“In here, we can bawl our hearts out.”
Ruth threatens to remove femurs.
Ruth is a strict authority figure with some actual authority over Rachel.
It’s not an unfair thing to say.
Honestly, I chalked up the femur removal threats as obviously absurd geared towards getting reactions. Much like when I threatened to duct tape my daughter and my housemate’s daughter together and dangle them off the balcony. They knew I didn’t mean it, laughed, and stopped squabbling for awhile.
Ruth has acted violently and inappropriately, no doubt. But I kinda pity anyone who actually took femur removal seriously (including Joyce).
At least she can claim it’s meds crying and not real emotion crying, if she later wants to save face. But idk, I’d like her not to
The thing is severe depression mutes your emotions. The meds kicking in means the floodgates are open again – so yes, she is genuinely feeling sad because of life, but she’s feeling sad SUDDENLY because meds. Hence why she’s not crying in her room.
I agree; I’m not sure what I said that contradicts this. I meant that since you can also get stupid sudden crying for literally no reason while you adjust to new meds, she can use that excuse.
I’d argue it’s not an excuse when it works as a literal response to what’s said (‘Ruth doesn’t have emotions’). But hey, point being Sudden Shower Sadness.
I think Axel is referring to how many people/cultures get weirdly judgemental about crying, so having a “oh this isn’t *my* fault it’s my meds” excuse can be useful.
Unfortunately, such cultures are also likely to have plenty of stigma around meds, too. :/
The last ten years I’ve spent on the internet have done wonders in shattering a lot of preconceptions of mine, as well as helping me fix a lot of really damaging language I’d internalized. That’s why I’m happy that “Fuck you,” is an always safe yet always powerful option.
Rachel’s kinda tall if Joyce is still a little shorter with her ridiculous shower shoes, but then again, Joyce is a bit of a half-pint.
Man, at my undergrad university the TAs had teeeeny tiiinny but personal bathrooms in their rooms. Without that I can’t imagine why on earth anyone would be willing to work as a TA. ._.
Eh? It’s a paycheck.
A paycheck would have to be significantly higher than the standard work study job to convince me to go back to sharing a communal bathroom with 50 freshman.
Ruth is in college herself.
Really? That’s a heck of a perk for a TA.
RA. Residence Advisor is a much different job than Teaching Assistant.
Eh, I think it was a typo. We’ll see.
I wish I could ETA: Forget what I said. “TA” is there twice.
Single room. And I’d assume it’s got the usual half-bath arrangement, probably to herself, though we haven’t seen it.
It’s just the showers that are communal.
We have in fact seen it.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/03-answers-in-hennessy/hiding/
Hey, you’re right. I remembered that as a closet. I guess it was the closet that Billie hid in when she overheard the phone call with “Sir”.
Dear Ruth:
Be careful what you wish for… http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/03-the-thing-i-was-before/effect/
Oh Ruth 🙁
mood
Inappropriate grinning avatar is inappropriate.
Curse my Becky-gravatar and it’s non-reducable rad-ness!
I noticed you changed to an appropriate Claire for the occasion.
That’s impressive!
It would be slightly hypocritical to use my default happy Claireface in the circumstances, especially when I’m ticking you off for using an outrageously cheerful beck-tar.
…to be fair, it WOULD be pretty funny 🙂
Oh god, book 8 kickstarter, or tickets to Metallica!. Book 8 kickstarter…but…tickets to Metallica!! DAMN YOU WILLIS!!
(Ahem) Ah, Rachel? Dear? There are words you need to say to Ruth. No rush, and I wouldn’t say this if she weren’t actively trying to improve, but an apology is absolutely in order.
The key word there is “communal” so that was a big ask for Ruth.
Aaaw, my poor baby… T~T
So according to Rachel, Ruth was a Vulcan until her anti-depression meds kicked in?
“You were the Chosen one! You were supposed to bring balance to my emotions, to make me happy! Not to make me MORE sad!”
Everyone has feelings, Rachel. Everyone except Blaine. He is pure shit.
No he has feelings. Anger is a feeling, sadistic Joy is a feeling
And there’s me being reminded why I hate Rachel.
Because she has no hopes for redemption of anybody as stated in her speeches directed to Joe and Ruth?
Because she ain’t shit.
Oh Ruth, Ruth, Ruth. I knew that this was going to happen eventually. I’m still sorry that you have to feel this though. No-one should be forced to feel this, no matter how objectively good it may be for their mental health in the long run.
I know it’s unlikely but I do hope that at least one of the girls tries to help her in some way, even if only with a hug.
Rachel still really dislike Ruth eh
Okay, Rachel. Move along, nothing to see here.
Rachel’s dislike of Ruth seems fairly justified on the basis of the fact that she is an abusive person — but if she continues knowing she’s actually on drugs for serious depression and other conditions then it’s going to be much much harder to treat her sympathetically.
Rachel was there when everything went down with Ruth and Billie. Rachel knows Mary was trying to kill her (and Mary WAS trying to kill her).
Rachel has known that Ruth is not a horrible monster for a while.
Rachel knows that Ruth has been ACTING like not a horrible monster for a bit.
Rachel also knows that MARY has been acting like not a horrible monster for a bit.
Rachel’s wrong in Ruth’s case, but Ruth’s abuse did earn her later reform some skepticism, and I’m willing to extend Rachel some “okay you’re not a telepath” leeway. But seriously Rachel, tred a bit more careful around people who were recently hospitalized for being suicidal.
Rachel also knows that Ruth was actively suicidal, and that Mary was actively trying to murder a suicidal person. I think that maybe puts them on slightly different tiers of ‘horrible person’-dom.
But Rachel is apparently also ok with personally aggravating extremely serious mental illness, so maybe she doesn’t think what Mary did was all that bad actually.
Rachel definitely hates Mary more than Ruth. When Billie was going around telling everybody what Mary did with Ruth, Mary protested they hated Ruth too. Rachel said ‘Yeah, but we can multitask.’
Rachel does say stuff that is shit to say to/about anybody. Even if you’re opposite an abuser/alcoholic who told you several times they’d stop and didn’t. It that case, you have every right to say “nope, you promised this already x times and didn’t deliver and I don’t trust you now”, but still not ” no one can chance”.
I love the little splash-rosettes at the speaker-pointer-end of Ruth’s speech bubbles in this strip. We get two lettering styles, too—I guess the blue letters are much further from being verbal than the black letters. Since part of the joke is the uncertain identity of the occupant of the shower, there’s no face to do the emotions with, but that doesn’t faze our experienced host.
Gonna take a shot in the dark here: If Ruth wanted to bawl in privacy, she would have done it in her room, into which only Carla and Billie have the courage to barge uninvited. The fact that she’s doing this in the communal shower is because, on some level, Ruth wants the others to know that she’s in distress. The question is now how they will respond to this.
that or, as she said, she was taking a shower and her medication suddenly kicked in. she was warned she’d have mood swings
Sometimes I am at work and it all comes on suddenly and I
Do antidepressant really work that way? I take antidepressants and they stabilize my mood, not make me sad…
Mental dysfunction manifests in different ways. Ruth’s depression muted her emotions, and given how horrible Billie was yesterday, she has a lot of reason to be sad.
It’s a very accurate portrayal. The rush of emotions that antidepressants can bestow if you’ve spent a period of time muted can be very overwhelming.
It depends on the person and the med in question. Depression is less about being sad and more about being… nothing. When it’s bad enough, you don’t care about anything. There are people who will just lie in bed and wait for death because they don’t care enough about dying to actually kill themselves but they also don’t care about life enough to get up and live it. They’ll just lie there and stare at the ceiling or the wall and just… exist.
We’ve seen good evidence that this is what Ruth was like without meds.
So when people like that start on meds, sometimes they get just enough of an effect to start feeling sad. They might cry, they might scream, they might harm themselves (up to and including active suicide). It could be as simple as needing a higher dose if the symptoms are bad enough. It could be as complicated as needing to try a bunch of different medicines until you find the right one/combination.
So, as counterproductive as it might seem, this is actually a sign that Ruth’s meds are working exactly the way they are meant to.
I think it’s really important to show this instead of the typical idea that antidepressants just make you not-sad. A lot of people think their meds aren’t working and get all stressed out and think that it’s all useless and stop their treatment, which of course leads to things getting worse more often than getting better.
So if whoever is reading this is on antidepressants and noticing more feelings, even negative ones, just know that it’s a good sign. If it gets bad enough that you want to hurt yourself or someone else, tell your doctor ASAP so you can try something else or get a different strength. You’re awesome and you can do this.
Indeed, the effect you describe is why depressed people with suicidal ideation need to be supervised when getting medication for depression. Where before they wanted to die but lacked the energy to act on the impulse, some meds return the energy before removing the desire to die. It’s not they want to kill themselves, but they want to die and nobody was helping.
I feel like these comment boxes are extremely dramatic and treat relationships between people who talked to each other twice in the halls as matters of equal importance to the one between themselves and whatever ex the commenter in question has unresolved issues about while at the same time assuming that every 18 year old at a random college in Ohio or wherever they are fully understands the implications of, and is comfortable walking on egg shells vis á vis, each others’ terrible traumas and mental health issues.
Rachel’s being a dick to her dick of an RA but it’s not the end of the world they’re like 12 and barely know each other.
Let’s… not use real people to make this point, maybe?
Use me, I’m a fictional character wandering around in Real Life™. Seriously, I have been told my biography reads like Bad Fiction between getting caught in a revolution/failed coup, certain romantic encounters, surviving getting hit by trucks 3 times, and stuff that’s still classified.
Jebus, even just writing about it sounds like Bad Fiction. Also the HTML is supposed to be the trademark sigil if it didn’t come out right.
Indianna. Ohio isn’t great, but at least it isn’t Indianna. *Shudder*
Anyway, while Rachel has been unacceptable before, I think this isn’t malice so much as “No, you can’t expect to sob uncontrollably in a communal shower stall, without someone taking notice”. Not saying Rachel won’t be a jerk in the near future, just that this isn’t a jerk move yet. I think if Rachel was being a jerk, Joyce would stand up for Ruth.
Still shuddering over Indianna. Yuck.
I think the anti-Rachel sentiment comes more from the “Nonsense. Ruth doesn’t have feelings” part.
Yumi if you read this I am really glad you are here to read it. My heart is with you.
Because telling somebody they’ll always be an abuser is a perfectly normal thing to tell a person you barely know. Especially when one of the few things you know about that person is that they are suicidal.
There were other people in the room who barely knew Ruth and weren’t comfortable walking on eggshells about her mental illness who didn’t go out of their way to be horrible. Amazing. All it takes is to just not open your damn mouth and say completely unnecessary, horrible shit.
Of course one of the other things you know about them is that they’re a bullying abuser, who’s just apparently escaped any consequences for their abuse. Who “bullied your way into a relationship with Billie somehow, and yet you get to keep her.” Who “bullied your way through your job, and somehow you get to keep it.”
“Tell me how everything will be different now. How you’ve changed. That’s how abusers work, right?”
Rachel goes too far, but there’s a reasonable core there. She doesn’t have to take at face value that Ruth has changed. That she’s not going back to her bullying. Nor does she have to hide it and stay quiet.
On a more meta level, I also find today’s outrage at Rachel an interesting contrast to the chorus of “Billie’s a lying alcoholic. Of course she’s not going to stop” from a couple weeks back.
No one has said Rachel had to believe her. Or that she couldn’t be skeptical. But Rachel threw a whole fit at Ruth for daring to try to apologise and say she was going to try to do better which is a great way to discourage change and shove the suicidal person right off the edge they just walked away from.
No one expected Rachel to be her BFF or take her words at face value, they just expected her to be a decent human being that knows that there is a time and place to let your frustrations out, and it isn’t right to someone’s face the very second they say they will try to be better.
I’ll definitely agree that Rachel went too far knowing Ruth was suicidal, but if Ruth stopped trying to change because Ruth didn’t forgive her and went right back to being ‘Ruthless’, all she’d do is prove EXACTLY why she wouldn’t have deserved to be forgiven.
The implication isn’t that Ruth would go back to being ‘Ruthless’. The implication is that Ruth would go back to trying to die, and feeling hopeless about your right to go on living is not something that renders a person unworthy of forgiveness. Unless you believe it is, in which case… I’m not even gonna go there.
It’s the ‘discourage change’ bit that implied going back to Ruthless to me. The ‘shove the suicidal person off the edge’ does imply depression, you’re right and I do think that’s more likely than discouraging change. The suicidal depression isn’t what Rachel’s angry with, it’s the Ruthless behaviour, and that’s why I said she wouldn’t deserve to be forgiven IF she went back to acting that way.
I do get your point, and it’s a possibility, but I think it would have been a much likelier possibility if Rachel had confronted Ruth at a point where she were more stable, like say, more than 24 hours after her release from the hospital.
Which is probably why Rachel waited until Ruth was vulnerable to say anything. It’s not uncommon for people to wait until their abuser can’t hurt them to tell them off because doing so beforehand is too dangerous. That’s probably what Rachel thinks happened.
The problems being A) Ruth is suicidal, not just having a bad day or whatever and B) Rachel went waaaaaaaaaaay beyond telling Ruth off.
What the FUCK? Give your head a shake and don’t drag other people (who asked to not talk about this) into this.
Fuuuuck you Rachel!
What? Ruth asked a question, and Rache gave the correct answer. What Ruth requested is Simply. Not. Possible.
I do not think that it is just her meds that are making her cry in the shower. Billie’s attitude is also playing a major role, in her sadness. Stupid Billie.
The meds allow her to actually feel sad and cry because of Billie, rather than just feeling numb and shut down.
Yep, this.
Rachel, I don’t know what your deal is or what your interactions with Ruth were before the story or off-screen, but that doesn’t give you carte blanche to be an asshole and say shit like “Ruth doesn’t have feelings”. Just because you don’t think people can change or are capable of emotions you haven’t personally seen doesn’t make those facts reality.
Seeing the hue and cry about Rachel, I really hope we eventually get more insight into her. It’d at least clarify a few things.
I’m going to take a step back from the question of whether one should like Rachel as a person &c. and just appreciate that she is a consistently written character who adds variety to the cast, and it’s interesting to see how other characters incl. Ruth and Amber engage with her and her ideas.
Also Joe, Mary, Dorothy, Roz…
Nope. Not allowed.
Must pick a side and hate the other side. It’s how we roll around here.
I miss Team Pizza.
Team Pizza Lives!
I read this and for a brief second I thought “Team Pizza” must be some kind of game, like team cribbage. And now I’m trying to imagine what one does when one plays team pizza.
That sounds like politics.
At least as it is practised these days.