From the under eye line in panels 3 and 4, it looks she’s straining under the weight of the trauma and her own expectations but won’t acknowledge either. Really hoping someone sits her down and tells her it’s okey to not be okey all the time.
Fucked, isn’t it? It is not sane to believe things that are untrue, and yet sanity is also closely tied to normalcy– to fit in with society. And society demands people believe things that’re untrue all the time (from big things like the American Dream to small things like “I’m fine”). Sanity is insanity and insanity is sanity and I can’t tell whether I’m being driven insane or… Anti-non-un-insane.
Yeah I think what our society calls “sanity” is generally just: whatever society considers the most “normal” emotional/psychological behavior based on what’s common and what’s culturally acceptable.
No one is 100% mentally/emotionally balanced, some people are just better at blending in or their irrationality or emotional reactions just happen to be the sorts those around them find acceptable.
Anyway, re: Dorothy I’ve always gotten the impression she has a bucketload of anxiety and doubt that she tries very hard to hide by pretending she has eeeeeverything under control and trying to take charge and fix everything.
As a psychology major, gotta step in on this one: Mental illness is defined as something that is harmful to either ourselves or those around us. If you go to a therapist wondering if something you do is normal, a good therapist will say: “well, is it hurting you or the people around you? If it’s not, don’t worry about it.” There are discussions of changing the names of classes called “abnormal psychology” to “mental illness,” because depression and anxiety in this era have become so common that they are kinda a normal thing to experience. Just cause they’re normal it doesn’t keep them from being harmful though. Psychology has had major pushes away from defining mental health as what’s common in society, but since we’re social creatures, definitions are always going to be partially reliant on it- because it can be quite harmful to us when our behaviors prevent us from socializing in the way that society wants. We can lose support networks, friends, and family. And this is why gayness wasn’t taken off the list of mental illnesses until like 1973, because it took awhile for psychologists to go: okay, being gay is not common, but it’s normal. It can’t be “cured,” and the personal harm comes from unaccepting societies, not queer people themselves. Sanity and insanity are legal terms though, not medical ones, so I can’t say what Ruth’s alluding to here, but here’s my two cents
Re: being gay, THIS right here!!! In this same vein, it is very much my hope that autistic traits can be accepted as normal in spite of not being common.
I am definitely seeing a much bigger push for that lately! Speaking as someone heavily involved in the disability community, there are sort of two distinct categories of what our society currently defines as “disability.” Those that are definitely an abnormal, inherently harmful state, and those that are more likely just variations of normal but get lumped in with disability because society is not set up to accommodate those particular types of variations.
The former might be things like a chronic illness (like lupus, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a seizure disorder, etc), which causes clear impairment regardless of social tolerance or accommodations. Even in the most accommodating society, they would still be disabilities that cause problems for people if there is no cure.
I know a lot of people in the disability community view autism as more the latter: just a normal variation within the range of how human brains work. I am not autistic myself so I don’t want to speak for anyone who is, but I know there are people who are who consider it a disability, and people who are who do not, and I think how someone views it per their own experience is valid regardless.
I score juuuuust outside “the spectrum” and some autistic traits do seem to overlap with ADHD (which I do have) symptoms. But the fact that I identify with so many autistic traits but not enough to qualify for official diagnosis furthers my belief it is just one end of a large spectrum of variations in how our brains work, and I guess I sit somewhere in the middle, definitely not neurotypical and constantly struggling when interacting with neurotypical people because of it.
Stuff like ADHD is probably a bit more of a grey area. One could argue it’s just a variation of thinking patterns, and it may have benefits like increased creativity/non-linear thinking, and would definitely be less difficult to deal with in a society with less pressure, deadlines, responsibilities, etc. But I also feel like it makes it hard to think in general which would maybe make it at least somewhat disabling regardless. But I don’t know how much that matches the experience of others with ADHD. I also suffer from brain fog as a result of POTS (I have EDS, it’s linked with POTS, MCAS, and ADHD, and even often autism) and it’s sometimes hard to tell whether this is “just the way my brain is wired” or if it’s that I’m literally not getting sufficient blood to my brain and if THAT is what causes ADHD like symptoms in people with EDS (though it seems to respond to the same treatment as any other presentation of ADHD).
Anyway, I do hope in general society continues to be more tolerant and accommodating to neurodiverse people and accepts the idea that it’s just another variation of normal.
personally my autism is a mixed bag… parts of how I think are very “me”, but the sensory issues? I really wish any research was being done on treatment for that. sometimes just having skin is torture, and there’s no accommodation that’ll make that not be hell (although bamboo fabric helps somewhat). my kingdom for sensory volume controls!
PS – I’m never sure where my executive dysfunction comes from either. it was *better* before the brain fog rolled in, but when I mentioned suspecting ADHD to my friends, several were like “oh yeah that makes sense” – I was very much the “hyperfocus and forget to eat/pee” type long before my body fell apart.
Oh yeah I know in both a medical and legal sense these things have more set definitions. I just meant colloquially what society/culture refers to as “sanity” outside those contexts. As in, how those around you (without medical degrees) view whether or not your behavior and mental processes are “normal” or “abnormal.”
I’m very late but agree (sanity defined by those in power). When I said Dorothy was not sane, obviously it was a little tongue in cheek, but I meant that she seems not to be in the best, most rational place right now, especially for giving advice/making decisions for other people (I think that unless one cannot understand enough to consent to something (ie an invasive medical treatment), or is actively going to harm themself, there is almost no time where one isn’t sane enough to make decisions for themself)
Oh yeah I agree! Dorothy is good at HIDING her stress, which may make her seem a bit more neurotypical, but she also clearly has many mannerisms and ways of doing things/thinking that rub her peers the wrong way so I’m not sure how many in her dorm would consider her one of the “most sane” by the social metric.
Also continuously shoving her trauma down is absolutely not healthy and is definitely a great way to end up having a full on breakdown eventually!
I suppose we could argue she tries to approach situations rationally, but even then her metric for what is “most rational” is not going to be the same as everyone else’s. For her, ignoring or ending interpersonal relationships in favor of career goals/schoolwork is most rational. To someone who values their emotional connections over that stuff, that would be irrational.
So I guess it just depends on what kind of advice Ruth is actually looking for. I.e. why she (presumably) wants to break up with Billie. Ultimately I think that’s an impossible question to ask anyone and truly get an answer that is most right for the person asking, because everyone is going to form an opinion based on what would be best within the context of their own feelings/priorities. The only person who can REALLY decide what’s best for Ruth in this scenario is Ruth. Though bouncing ideas off others and hearing what they might do in your shoes can definitely still be helpful as far as giving you different ways of looking at it and seeing if one response feels more right than any other.
To clarify, I’m mocking the word rather than misspelling it because it’s a ridiculously condescending theory primarily promoted by people like Dawkins that attempts to infantalize Bronze Age civilizations (let alone all the peoples beforehand).
I sometimes hear voices calling after me that I need to pay for that before I leave the store but they’re typically on the heavier side and I successfully escape them.
I mean, really, Carla is a sound choice. The advice she gave Malaya about gender was insightful and sincere, and her assessments about what goes on between all her dormmates are accurate if sometimes snarky. She’d be a solid choice here.
But she’s also an asshole. Not a bad person, necessarily, but an asshole. I assume Ruth approached Dorothy because she wants to break up in the most appropriate and considerate way possible. “Appropriate” and “considerate” are not Carla’s strong suits.
What you do is you say, “I baked all my love from you into this pie” and then when they cut into, they realize it’s just the pie crust with no filling, which, like, how did you get the top crust to stay up like that with no filling, that’s impressive– and they think about that while they cry.
I’m not sure we’d pick up the breakup clues if we didn’t know there was a breakup coming.
And that’s assuming there isn’t a twist coming, which wouldn’t surprise me at all. After all the hints, “Ruth decided to break up with Jennifer and did it on Halloween” seems a bit tame.
It’s hard to say because “sane” is a pretty rough metric here. But I’d probably extend outside of the main cast. Not to, like, Rachel, for the purpose of Ruth getting advice. But maybe Agatha? Or Mandy? Ooo, Bloodrose.
Maybe the whole president ideal is a coping mechanism for Dorothy. Like a security blanket. As long as becoming president is possible the world makes sense.
She’s made being president such a rigid life goal I fear even the slightest suggestion that presidency is not guaranteed for her could be the breaking point.
I dont disagree that she would be a great president. It’s the fact that she’s making it her whole identity that is worrying because no matter how over qualified you are for a job there’s always a chance you wont be chosen, especially when there are politics involved.
Yeah, that’s my read on it too. Although, it is rather unwise to put all your eggs in one basket, and count your chickens before they hatch, both of which Dorothy is doing here.
Yeah like; what’s Dorothy’s major anyway? Is she choosing law or whatever because many Presidents did that or what? Does she actually like it though? What would she pick otherwise if being President wasn’t her goal? Would it still be law/whatever she chose to achieve that goal?
Sometimes you can know even that you don’t like something but feel stuck as you don’t know what you do want.
Dorothy being the one to help Ruth break up with Billie makes her reminding Ruth that they ‘lost’ Billie even more of an asshole move, ngl. ‘Remember Billie? Your ex-girlfriend? The one you broke up with? Her? Your ex? Who I gave you advice for breaking up with? Her? Remember?’.
It is pretty interesting though. Dorothy broke up with Danny because he’d been far too attached to her, and had no real plans for himself while also lowkey hoping her own plans plateaued so he could stick with her. She broke up with him for his own good. I can absolutely see how Ruth feels she must do the same for Billie.
Wasn’t that Boomer who brought up Ruth losing someone during their quick fire psychoanalysis at the dorm meeting?
Or was that a different time that I’m forgetting about?
Also, when did Dorothy want Danny to stick with her?
The comic has been going on for years, so I could just be blanking on that, but it does not sound familiar.
She’s definitely wanted to mess with Walky again a few times, but I don’t recall her feeling the same towards Danny.
She never did. Dorothy was done with Danny before the comic even started and regrets not breaking up with him before even heading to college. The best I think you could argue is the wanting to stay friends cliche.
I…did not say Dorothy wanted Danny to stick with her? Unless you are misreading where I wrote that Danny lowkey hoped her plans would fail so HE could stick around HER. This is referencing when Dorothy was trying to buck up the nerve to break up with him and Danny said “also maybe you won’t wanna go to Yale and you can just stay here with me!” which provided a good motivation for her to go through with it. She definitely was fine breaking things off with Danny period, which does make her different from Ruth, who actively wants to stay with Billie, but BOTH initiated their break ups for the good of themselves and their partners.
Sorry. Your sentence was written from Dorothy’s perspective at the beginning, plus the “own” in “her own plans” added to the idea that you were writing from her perspective the entire time.
Sorry for the confusion! It’s why I wish these comments had an edit button. I now see where you would have gotten that impression. Nah on this front we can all agree, Dorothy had hang ups with Walky but absolutely none with Danny. Sometimes I forget they even dated.
I’ll never buy the breaking up with someone for their own good argument unless one of the partners involved is abusive. Maybe that applies to Ruth and Jennifer due to the highly volatile and sometimes violent/suicide pact nature of their relationship, but it really didn’t apply to Dorothy. That was a spin to make her action seem less selfish even if it had some truth to it. She was just done with him and wanted a fresh start at college.
Eh, true. Honestly it was just a break up because she didn’t love him anymore, at least not like a romantic partner. But at least in the POV of the characters, they believed they’re doing this for their own good. And that’s all I really mean by it, as an ace who has had a grand total of three relationships in 29 years of life, I certainly don’t have that drive or life experience.
Dorothy was absolutely right to break up with Danny because that was just not a healthy relationship* but between her tendency to flee from emotional commitment when it interferes with her Plan and the arrival of the Yale letter, I wonder if we’re going to be getting an arc soon about her having an increasingly hard time doing that and wondering if it’s the right thing. Like I would agree that for someone like Dorothy, going to your dream school to help pursue your career goals is probably more important than being at the exact same school as your friends (friends can stay friends long distance!) but that would definitely break Joyce’s heart, and Dorothy is definitely not the same person she was at the start of college, and dealing with some very obvious repressed trauma, so I’m curious to see where it goes.
* As an aside: I used to find Danny super bland (which I assume was the point) but enjoy him more as the comic progresses. Danny seems to have actually started to find some direction now, even if a lot of his behavior IS still motivated by whatever person he’s dating…he’s clearly a guy who likes being the supportive partner and just needed to find someone who specifically wants/needs that in a partner.
I like him and Sal together because she’s clearly someone who has never had much stability or support. A partner who is very invested in being as supportive as possible absolutely seems like what she needs and probably why she likes him. He’s probably one of the first people in her life she felt genuinely cared about her and how their actions made her feel. As indicated by her initial distrust that he couldn’t possibly just be genuinely nice just because making HER happy matters to him, because who has ever done that in Sal’s life before? I mean Walky has finally started to support and stand up for her, but he looked the other way and judged her harshly for a looong time.
As a fellow religious person, I would say that her atheism isn’t necessarily because she doesn’t believe anymore. But rather she cannot reconcile what she was taught to believe to an insular almost cult like degree with the actions of those who who raised that way. Unlike Becky who for whatever reason either never bought into it like Joyce or who had a paradigm shift in her beliefs because of her mother’s death. Joyce hadn’t and so hers is less a paradigm shift and more a natural (if rather painful) deprogramming of that extremely insular teaching. Which is why we see her always relapsing at weird things. 18 years of brainwashing and not knowing any better is a hell of a hill to climb.
Cannabis is not the answer to all life’s problems. I get that it helps some people. It also can just about ruin the lives of some users’ family members. It can make living with a user just about unbearable sometimes. And it can put folks in danger.
plus weed is diff for every person, some ppl don’t get ‘mellow high’ and just freak out (tho even if it did help take the edge off i wouldn’t wanna be dependent on it even fi it was medical marijuana) one of m yhigh school friends said he had some bad weed once and it felt like he was falling all day
Sorry about what happened to your friend. Are you sure it was just weed he took though? If you get it from illegitimate sources, often times it can be cut with other drugs, some of which are much much more dangerous than the weed itself.
Not necessarily cheaper but more addictive. In Philly, it’s been cut with PCP, crack cocaine, fentanyl… a little cheaper to mass-produce and dose in tiny amounts, getting people more strung out and coming back for more.
And it can devastate families. Economic loss (sometimes the user’s entire budget goes to weed, leaving family members to provide for basic needs), criminalization and risk of prosecution, increased vulnerability to crime (especially for home growers), jeopardized housing, secondhand smoke poisoning, restrictions on travel, accidental ingestion by kids and pets, memory loss and personality changes, impaired thinking/driving/speech, rebound symptoms and cravings after cessation, impairment of dietary self-management, exacerbated health conditions of those exposed to secondhand smoke, medication interactions…
I do understand that it can be lifesaving medication for certain medical conditions, and I don’t mean to knock its value as medicine or harm reduction. Just that it sometimes also carries heavy costs, not just for the user, but for the user’s household and family and support community.
Thanks, NG, for being open to dialogue on this. It’s a thorny subject.
That’s alright. i recognize it’s not for everyone, but it’s an option that is still worthy to consider, especially considering that it’s many many times less rough on the body and brain than alcohol and even many prescription drugs.
As with any other drug, prescription or not, you always take precautions. Always start with lower doses to see how it affects you, don’t drive or operate machinery, and if necessary hire a trip sitter.
Exploring options is like faring the sea for fertile places for healing and personal growth. Just don’t forget to wear a life jacket. 😉
Until a month ago, I had a mentally ill roommate who was so dependent on weed she was not even a little bit functional. Not gonna go into all the specifics, but I can tell you it absolutely soured me on the idea that marijuana is some kind of harmless, universal panacea, particularly as a coping mechanism for mental health issues. It is absolutely possible to abuse weed in a way that’s personally destructive, even if the physical effects on the body are less damaging than, like, alcohol abuse.
Yeah but it’s fashionable these days to pretend there’s absolutely no chance of a person developing any sort of dependence on the funny grass because something something smoke your entire body weight something something. Ya know, because it’s really funny to pretend that a mind-altering substance that’s relatively easy to obtain could never be used as an extremely unhealthy coping mechanism for, just as an example, severe depression. Absolutely no chance that it could be really tempting to “just” have an edible (for example) because maybe it helps a person “Not Be Me” or “Shut My Brain Up” for a few hours. It’s only weed after all, what are you, a square?
Yeah, when it comes to coping mechanisms, be it weed or hyperfixation on becoming president, it’s definitely wise not to put all your eggs in one basket.
BTW Taffy, what’s with this “Your Ad Here”? Is this another human meme thing or do you really desire to sell your gravitar as ad space?
My brain’s not halfway diseased enough to make a meme part of my front-facing online image. The closest I’ve gotten to that is with either a 15-minute change to match a quote I’m making (which goes back to default almost immediately, or a meme I started here, and I only change my gravatar to that picture on the actual anniversary. Keeping up with memes is impossible, impenetrable, and not worth the five seconds said memes will last.
I don’t know “trauma is just grist for my mill” is pretty bad ass
Tho i am curious what level of trauma she’s had before entering college if at all, because even a bit of trauma, other than fighting back against the system, feels like it’d discourage anyone from wanting to be the president/want to get into politics
I want to say around the time a movie actor became president is when it started, but that may be unfair as I honestly don’t know how serious he was about his policies despite him being a republican.
And if it wasn’t clear, I mean Ronald, not Donald.
I don’t know about fanfic or manga, but the historical research into President James Buchanan and President Abraham Lincoln strongly suggests that both men were either bisexual or gay. (Buchanan being more on the gay side.) Of course, there are critics to any theory.
See, e.g., https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexuality_of_Abraham_Lincoln
Interesting– I knew there was speculation about Lincoln being queer, but I didn’t realize it was at “has it’s own Wikipedia page” levels. Buchanan, of course I know that he never married (and that that phrase has been used as a euphemism for gay men at some points in history), but I don’t know more that supports the idea of him being gay.
It’s interesting because of course so many LGBTQIA+ people throughout history have had that part of their life erased, but also their understanding of identities and expression were so different, and even our own is still evolving. Like, Buchanan could have been gay. But what if he never married because he was what we would today consider aroace? I’m going to assume he had (a) close relationship(s) with (a) guy(s), but what if it was what we would today consider queerplatonic?
There is a lot more evidence about Lincoln’s having same-sex love affairs than just those in the Wikipedia article. Anyway, he was a fascinating president.
The historical information in those articles is interesting, but the opinion aspects (that Buttigieg– or another candidate– wouldn’t be the first gay president because Buchanan) aren’t it for me.
Oh, yeah, I just sometimes feel these discussions are handled in a way that paints a narrow version of queerness onto the past– and I recognize that there are people who go, “No, everyone back then was straight! ‘Queerness’ is newfangled nonsense. What does ‘cis’ even mean?” that are in part what’s being challenged. Maybe it is better to assign specific labels to historical figures to highlight the “we’ve always been here” aspect. I just feel hesitant for a few reasons, which I don’t need to get into.
I can relate, I spent years denying my childhood was anything less than a total disaster area despite all the evidence, and that includes several people I went to school with committing suicide, getting addicted to drugs, or going to prison by the time they were 21 (and some managing the trifecta), and much later getting talked to by shrinks trying to figure out why military brats of that era had drug use and criminal records similar to combat vets of the same era. PTSD was only a vague notion by that point, and the concept that kids could get it was almost a fantasy. Not going to claim I had it rough, like I said there were a bunch of us that didn’t make it.
Your post makes it sound like you’ve got PTSD. If you’ve got PTSD you by definition had it rough. It’s not a competition and no one wins in a game of trauma poker.
I get that, Opus. Secondary traumatization and vicarious trauma, not to mention family trauma, can have devastating effects. Especially where a family member has combat PTSD, or substance use, or emotional dysregulation, or economic insecurity, or unstable housing and living environment, or simply having to move and change schools a lot, not to mention inadequate housing provided for military families — the trauma of those kinds of stressors is all very real.
I am so sorry you had to go through trauma, Opus. I feel for you.
Also I think Dina has been pretty upfront about the fact that dealing with irrational human behavior is not always her best skill. She’s a highly logical person who likes applying the scientific method to most decisions and Ruth and Billie are…whatever the opposite of scientific and rational is (violently contradictory emotional chaos?)
Though maybe that’s a good argument for them NEEDING advice from someone like Dina lol.
I mean, generally yes, but as a lot of people have pointed out, Ruth definitely seems to be angling the conversation toward, “How do I break up with Billie?” and I don’t think Dina has any experience on that front.
I don’t know, telling Sarah that you plan on dumping Jennifer would probably put her over the top and she’d just be genuinely cheerful for the rest of the evening.
I mean… she was still kidnapped and her best friend was: drugged with intent to date rape, threatened by a crazed man with a gun on campus, then also kidnapped… and I’m pretty sure she saw someone get murdered?
She has loads of reasons to be messed up beyond Mike’s death.
Honestly, I would put my vote on Rachel being the most sane one in the whole wing (if she is in the same wing?)… Which of course doesn’t help Ruth, given that the two of them are not on speaking terms.
I might also suggest Roz as a sane person, by the standards of this community of students.
She’s at least 18, she’s given this a lot of thought and is deeply committed to exploring her sexual freedom, and most of all, it’s her body. Even if you and I never want to upload a sex tape, that doesn’t make a different choice insane. She is very much allowed.
This whole thread reeks of slut-shaming. People can enjoy physical things (including uploading a sex tape) without being devoid of emotional attachments or understanding of emotional situations.
No one here is slut-shaming Roz, and the sex tape isn’t the issue.
Roz is wildly envious and resentful of Robin, and she’s particularly bothered that nothing she does actually upsets or horrifies her older sister. (Robin’s too self-involved and uncomplicated – she loves her sister because she’s her sister, and nothing Roz might actually do would change that.) And of course, Robin is Roz’s hero and everything she wants to be. The politics aren’t an issue because Roz’s leftism is just performative, as was Robin’s conservatism.
I don’t think Laura’s comment can be considered slut shaming. An 18 year old downloading a sex tape online to spite her sister seems not the best decision.
I am very sorry, Nova. I meant to share my perspective, which was informed by my own personal and family experiences. But I can see that it came across in completely the wrong way and gave the impression that I was trying to police what other people do with their bodies. In today’s post-Dobbs world, as a feminist, I should have been more sensitive. I do regret causing offense or causing others to feel targeted for condemnation.
Well, of course she’s allowed. She’s just a little young, developmentally, for that. Kids that age aren’t considered legally mature enough to drink responsibly. Nor to buy a handgun. Some foster kids remain “wards of the state” through age 21. I’m not condemning her choices. I’m just saying she’s awfully young to be making those kinds of permanent decisions about what happens to the Internet’s “forever” images of her body. To me, that speaks to her impulsiveness and not necessarily to her emotional maturity and stability.
“Kids that age aren’t considered legally mature enough to drink responsibly. Nor to buy a handgun.”
In the USA.
In the UK she’d be able to drink at 18, and no one is allowed to own handguns. There is absolutely nothing wrong with deciding to show your own body, your own consensual sex (with your partner’s approval), or anything else you like. She just doesn’t hold the same views you do.
That doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with her.
Nova, I can see that I have offended, and I do apologize sincerely.
I meant no slut-shaming at all. I have my own past in that regard, which many others might choose to shame. I’m no puritan.
I am truly sorry for how my words have caused others to feel shamed. It was not my intention, but it was the unintended effect. I hope that my apology can be accepted. Thank you for understanding.
The issue is that not everyone agrees with you, and putting a sex tape of yourself on the internet can have an impact on future career prospects. Maybe she’s thought it through deeply and doesn’t care, or maybe it was a bit impulsive.
That has nothing to do with calling the adults this comic is about kids. If they were kids then the Toe That Walks would have had a legal right to shove Becky in his car and bring her back “home” against her will. If they’re kids then Willis should probably stop doing those slipshines about them. If 18 year olds are kids then that calls into question if we should re-amend the US Constitution so they can’t vote anymore.
But an 18 year old isn’t a kid. An 18 year old has reached the age of majority in the United States of America where the comic is set and is legally an adult. I’m not arguing if it was a good or bad decision I’m saying that it was her decision to make and no one else’s and that it’s condescending to say that she’s a little young developmentally to make that decision. The entire phrase calls into question if that’s a decision that she an adult human being should be allowed to make.
Thank you for sharing that important perspective, Proxiehunter. I appreciate your standing up for the rights of younger adults. You are a powerful advocate. I respect you.
I also appreciate your mentioning the Slipshines. I don’t read them, nor do I read the fanfic and drawings and such sometimes posted in the comments, for that very reason. I don’t want to participate in objectifying younger folks.
Proxiehunter, it was a poor choice of words on my part. I am truly sorry that my perspective (as an older person) came across as condescending. I’m a mother hen — that’s just who I am. That’s my personal character flaw.
I just feel a lot of deep care and concern for younger folks, who are trying their best to figure things out during their “dumbing of age” transition years. So, for example, I think of (fictionally) Roz’s younger sister, whose family name is now associated with a sex tape, and who may be teased about it in school. I think of the school and her classmates, now having to answer questions about how a dorm room came to be used as a film production site. Roz’s tuition payment may be something that her whole family participated in, too, and now they may be wondering about their own financial contribution toward the dorm room used to make the video. I think about Joe, who may be happy now with the headline calling him “DeSantos Boy Toy,” but who may not be so happy when it’s the #1 Google result for his name, years down the line, and he’s applying for jobs. I think of Danny, whose foot they used as a tripod, who was unconscious and did not consent to his unwitting part in the production of an explicit video.
I think about all these fictional people, some of whom are actual minors, as Roz’s little sister is, or as some of their classmates may be. (I was 17 when I graduated high school, for example.)
And I think that, perhaps, an 18-year-old who chooses to involve all those people (albeit peripherally) in her own explicit performance art, may be still having a difficult time predicting actions’ long-term effects on other people.
That was my thinking, ProxieHunter. I wasn’t trying to allow anyone to do anything, or forbid anyone from doing anything, nor to control anyone. I said, “Roz would not be on my list.” If I were Ruth, I would not personally go to Roz for relationship advice.
I have some personal experience with exploitation. So do my sisters. It’s not something I talk about. It informs my perceptions. If I see a young person in a potentially dangerous situation, I get concerned for them, whether they are 15 or 18 or 21. My heart goes out to them and I worry for them. I don’t condemn them or try to control them, certainly, but I do worry.
But Proxiehunter, I do agree and understand that my use of the word “kids” was insulting and offensive. I am truly sorry for using language that caused such offense. I did not mean to harm you or others. I can see that I did so, though, without intending to. And I am very sorry.
I’m actually gonna step away from commenting, now, since I realize that I’m not adept enough to tactfully discuss sensitive topics like these without accidentally causing hurt or offense.
Depends on your definition. Some laws put the age of majority (for example, to age out of juvenile detention) at 21 or even later. Some folks stay on their parents’ insurance until age 26. ABLE accounts and Social Security Benefits allow beneficiaries to be considered “disabled as children” even if the disability onset date was in the early 20s.
I mean no disrespect to 18 year olds, of course! I just recall how very immature I was, all the way up to age 26 or so. And even later in some ways. So I tend to be a little more concerned for younger adults, who may make decisions that they may later regret.
I can see that my comment was offensive, and I am truly sorry.
There’s definitely more to go developmentally people who are 18. However, people who are around that age are what makes us the pool that Ruth is drawing from, so I do think writing one off for unrelated advice on the basis of “made a sex tape” is… well, it made me uncomfortable and upset. I appreciate the apology.
You’re right, Yumi. I am so very sorry for making you feel uncomfortable and upset. I shouldn’t have made such a flip comment. I am so very grateful to you for accepting my apology. Thank you.
In the future, I will try harder to think in advance about how my comments might be perceived or received, what effect they will have.
If it’s any consolation, I feel very protective of elders, as well as youngsters. I’m kind of an equal-opportunity “mother hen” and feel concern for just about every character in this comic (and for the demographic groups whom their characters represent).
I was concerned about Joe and Danny, too, when that storyline came out.
My concern came across as overbearing or patronizing or shaming, and I do apologize. I have a personal history in this regard, which affects my own sense of concern, but not everyone sees these things in the same way, and I should have been more sensitive to that.
What I should have made more clear in my original comment was that participating in a widely-viewed sexual performance (even where consensual) can be traumatic, too, especially for younger folks, even if they have reached the age of consent.
I should have chosen words more carefully, or simply refrained from making the comment at all.
The part of the brain that’s responsible for impulse control and long-term decision making isn’t even done forming until your mid-twenties!
You can’t rent a car in the US until age 25, and that’s not the law, that’s because rental car companies did the math and determined that customers under that age aren’t worth renting to because they are statistically much, much, MUCH more likely to get into expensive accidents.
From what I’ve seen– having heard the “can’t rent a car until 25” thing A LOT– you can actually rent a car when you’re under 25, but there are surcharges. Which fits with what you said about companies doing the math. I just find “can do something with additional cost” to be pretty different from “can’t do something.”
Frankly, if the advice Ruth is looking for is ‘what about Billie’ Roz might not only be a sane person in the wing but a genuinely good choice. I suspect Roz would take the situation seriously and do her best to be supportive and helpful.
I’m unsure that Roz can be convinced to care enough to give Ruth really good advice. It sounds like Ruth needs someone to really understand the situation and walk her through what she needs to do. Roz is a kind-enough person, but I can’t see her wanting to get involved.
Dorothy, openly making every helping gesture related to your political career isn’t a great way to make people feel comfortable with having a personal conversation with you.
She’s usually not *this* bad, though it has been an issue in the past, like the false alarm that Ruth would be replaced as RA and people not having her as their ideal option. (Though honestly, both her and Roz would be terrible RAs.)
I think she’s just worse than usual because she’s trying to not slow down long enough for the trauma to sink in, like how if you keep walking, you can stave off aching feet just a little bit longer than if you stop and the throbbing begins.
Definitely, and the harder she tries to work herself out of trauma the worse it gets, which in turn makes her ultimate goal harder to reach. Hoping someone points this out ro her because it might be what convinces her to schedule time in for trauma processing.
Yeah, Dorothy is going to be processing the first few months of her Freshman year for a while. Witnessed at least one murder, was acquainted with another murder victim, kidnapped by the murderer and his 2nd victim, I expect her to be chewing on this for the better part of a decade. And that’s not even counting the other shenanigans on the floor.
It’s odd, though, that one can experience very much the same kinds of horror and terror and personal violation and physical injury and fear for one’s life over the course of an arrest and custody (especially a juvenile detention). And yet “getting arrested” doesn’t carry the same kind of automatic trauma-recognition that “getting kidnapped” does. Even though arrestees are legally innocent until proven guilty, and often factually innocent, too.
Soon comes the plot twist, that Dave only did this flashback storyline because he needed a break from the intricate coloring. “Forget it! I can’t do it! Make it all blue!”
Ruth’s problem with Billie I suspect is that medicated Ruth doesn’t want a relationship that includes massive amounts of romanticized anime abuse. The angry rage-filled relationship of the lesbian suicide pact now…well, horrifies her. Mind you, Billie has been clear about who she is and what she enjoys and Ruth has attempted to change her constantly.
It’s a relationship that is destined to fail because they want different things now.
“the free world” stopped being a non-cringe thing to call the USA, like, 5 years ago, Dorothy. (Not that it wasn’t jingoistic nonsense before then, but that fact hadn’t fully penetrated the popular consciousness yet)
I think we’re all just supposed to be either anti-American or ashamed of being American, now. I don’t make the rules, I just try to keep my mouth shut and hope nobody can place my accent in public.
No one’s telling you to be ashamed of being American, but the country is pretty cringe. Though tbh i find patriotism in general pretty cringe, internationally. I get it if your country is actually good at taking care of it’s people or survived something horrific (eg Ukraine) but I’m most cases it’s like
Why are you so proud of the rock you just happened to be born on? That’s dumb. People in my country are mad patriotic in spite of the fact that we Suck Super Hard in every possible way
Because if you don’t have a place you call home and you don’t cherish and defend it you will end up being a 2nd class citizen in someone else’s country. Just like what Ukrainians are going through now.
A lot of us are already second-class citizens as it is, so I figure the only difference in another country would be some local customs. The most I can personally defend is like one room of my apartment, so defending an entire country seems a little lofty.
Or as “the leader of the free world”. I don’t recall holding an election for that position. It doesn’t seem like something we should be able to just self-declare.
The argument in favor of the US President being the leader of the Free World isn’t that the USA is “The Free World”, but that the USA’s overwhelming military and economic might means that it is the de facto leader of NATO and the rest of the west.
It’s incredibly arrogant, absolutely, and by no means am I saying this is unequivocally a good thing, but the practical situation is just that the USA has a fuckton of weight to throw around that puts it in charge of just about any international situation it wants to be in charge of.
The Ukraine War is a pretty good example of that: Despite being one of the furthest nations away from the conflict, its the USA that’s supply the majority of arms to Ukraine. Not that other NATO members aren’t helping out (particularly the former Soviet nations that have a lot of ammo for the guns that Ukraine’s troops were already trained on), just that the nation with more weapons than people had more to give, and that kinda puts it in charge most of the time…
Then there is the fact that unlike other major NATO countries like Germany or France, US does not have a gas noose around its neck and doesn’t have to tiptoe around Russia.
It’s also a title that got applied and stuck in aftermath of WWII and the era of the Cold War, when it seemed a bit more appropriate. It’s hard to imagine or remember now, but when the alternatives you’re comparing the US (with all of its problems) to were Nazi Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union, things are a bit more stark.
Am I the only one that didn’t recognize Ruth in the first panel at first because she lacked any sort of incredulous look on her face? Anybody? Just me then…
Ruth with a mildly timid look on her face does not register in the brain. I also felt the same when she smiled so earnestly at Billie a few strips ago. I’m not used to her looking anything other than: depressed, angry, or gleefully murderous. Meds are clearly starting to make a difference!
Dorothy is gonna accidentally absorb the alcohol addiction from Ruth and Billie and become a disaster
ok probably not, but she will completely shatter into dust soon, and will be unable to properly continue down this current path due to long term exhaustion finally catching up with her
I think Dorothy needs to realize that you don’t have to be all that intelligent or go to the best schools to become president. You just have to be rich and/or really good at sucking up to the rich, and of course be very good at lying to the working class people about how you’re gonna help them if they vote for you.
And if you’re a Democrat, you also need to constantly berate the people you’re demanding votes from while simultaneously holding your hand out for more money that won’t be spent on anything you’ve promised. (Not sour about anything recent, promise)
That or genuinely try to achieve the things that you’ve promised to accomplish for years, only to be stymied because the systems in place are set up to prevent you from actually doing so, and the rest of your party is too enslaved to the fiction of “responsible politics” to dare risk being seen as going against tradition.
Eventually, becoming beaten down by the system and just trying to be satisfied with the small achievements you did manage to push through, and trying not to think too much about the things you had to do to maintain your power in the first place.
Dorothy also needs to note the best thing she can do is suck up to other politicians and network so that eventually it will be “her turn” in the Democratic establishment. The networking element of the Party and fundraising as well as favor trading elements are all skills she has to master.
If she wants to actually win instead of just run it’s that or Republican. If she goes for congress she might have a shot as an Independent that caucuses with the Democrats.
“Caucus” being a legitimate political term is so weird for me, because in Alice in Wonderland, at least the Disney version, the “race” is just a bunch of random animals running in a circle getting soaked over and over again and insisting they’re getting dry. In the book, I’m pretty sure they just ran wherever-the-fuck, which still isn’t very inspiring as a political image.
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do we have an objective assessment that Dotty is, in fact, sane after all of that tho
doesn’t seem like it
From the under eye line in panels 3 and 4, it looks she’s straining under the weight of the trauma and her own expectations but won’t acknowledge either. Really hoping someone sits her down and tells her it’s okey to not be okey all the time.
Can’t feel trauma if you run away from it full-tilt in perpetuity.
[Dorothy doing the Roll Safe forehead tap meme]
Dorothy perpetually arriving late to feel the trauma vs. Evil Librarians
Someone needs to sit Dorothy down with a blanket and a cup of hot cocoa and read The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Pressure to her.
Sanity is relative, some people believe they hear a voice that tells them what to do. Is that normal? No. Is it sane? Jury’s still out on that one.
For the time being though, we can estimate Dorothy’s sanity with a simple question: Do you still want to date Walky?
As history teaches us, defining “sanity” is really nothing more than an exercise in power.
Now, I really wanna know is what standard was used to rate Sarah as the “most sane” here.
Fucked, isn’t it? It is not sane to believe things that are untrue, and yet sanity is also closely tied to normalcy– to fit in with society. And society demands people believe things that’re untrue all the time (from big things like the American Dream to small things like “I’m fine”). Sanity is insanity and insanity is sanity and I can’t tell whether I’m being driven insane or… Anti-non-un-insane.
This is a really good point.
Yeah I think what our society calls “sanity” is generally just: whatever society considers the most “normal” emotional/psychological behavior based on what’s common and what’s culturally acceptable.
No one is 100% mentally/emotionally balanced, some people are just better at blending in or their irrationality or emotional reactions just happen to be the sorts those around them find acceptable.
Anyway, re: Dorothy I’ve always gotten the impression she has a bucketload of anxiety and doubt that she tries very hard to hide by pretending she has eeeeeverything under control and trying to take charge and fix everything.
As a psychology major, gotta step in on this one: Mental illness is defined as something that is harmful to either ourselves or those around us. If you go to a therapist wondering if something you do is normal, a good therapist will say: “well, is it hurting you or the people around you? If it’s not, don’t worry about it.” There are discussions of changing the names of classes called “abnormal psychology” to “mental illness,” because depression and anxiety in this era have become so common that they are kinda a normal thing to experience. Just cause they’re normal it doesn’t keep them from being harmful though. Psychology has had major pushes away from defining mental health as what’s common in society, but since we’re social creatures, definitions are always going to be partially reliant on it- because it can be quite harmful to us when our behaviors prevent us from socializing in the way that society wants. We can lose support networks, friends, and family. And this is why gayness wasn’t taken off the list of mental illnesses until like 1973, because it took awhile for psychologists to go: okay, being gay is not common, but it’s normal. It can’t be “cured,” and the personal harm comes from unaccepting societies, not queer people themselves. Sanity and insanity are legal terms though, not medical ones, so I can’t say what Ruth’s alluding to here, but here’s my two cents
Re: being gay, THIS right here!!! In this same vein, it is very much my hope that autistic traits can be accepted as normal in spite of not being common.
I am definitely seeing a much bigger push for that lately! Speaking as someone heavily involved in the disability community, there are sort of two distinct categories of what our society currently defines as “disability.” Those that are definitely an abnormal, inherently harmful state, and those that are more likely just variations of normal but get lumped in with disability because society is not set up to accommodate those particular types of variations.
The former might be things like a chronic illness (like lupus, Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a seizure disorder, etc), which causes clear impairment regardless of social tolerance or accommodations. Even in the most accommodating society, they would still be disabilities that cause problems for people if there is no cure.
I know a lot of people in the disability community view autism as more the latter: just a normal variation within the range of how human brains work. I am not autistic myself so I don’t want to speak for anyone who is, but I know there are people who are who consider it a disability, and people who are who do not, and I think how someone views it per their own experience is valid regardless.
I score juuuuust outside “the spectrum” and some autistic traits do seem to overlap with ADHD (which I do have) symptoms. But the fact that I identify with so many autistic traits but not enough to qualify for official diagnosis furthers my belief it is just one end of a large spectrum of variations in how our brains work, and I guess I sit somewhere in the middle, definitely not neurotypical and constantly struggling when interacting with neurotypical people because of it.
Stuff like ADHD is probably a bit more of a grey area. One could argue it’s just a variation of thinking patterns, and it may have benefits like increased creativity/non-linear thinking, and would definitely be less difficult to deal with in a society with less pressure, deadlines, responsibilities, etc. But I also feel like it makes it hard to think in general which would maybe make it at least somewhat disabling regardless. But I don’t know how much that matches the experience of others with ADHD. I also suffer from brain fog as a result of POTS (I have EDS, it’s linked with POTS, MCAS, and ADHD, and even often autism) and it’s sometimes hard to tell whether this is “just the way my brain is wired” or if it’s that I’m literally not getting sufficient blood to my brain and if THAT is what causes ADHD like symptoms in people with EDS (though it seems to respond to the same treatment as any other presentation of ADHD).
Anyway, I do hope in general society continues to be more tolerant and accommodating to neurodiverse people and accepts the idea that it’s just another variation of normal.
personally my autism is a mixed bag… parts of how I think are very “me”, but the sensory issues? I really wish any research was being done on treatment for that. sometimes just having skin is torture, and there’s no accommodation that’ll make that not be hell (although bamboo fabric helps somewhat). my kingdom for sensory volume controls!
PS – I’m never sure where my executive dysfunction comes from either. it was *better* before the brain fog rolled in, but when I mentioned suspecting ADHD to my friends, several were like “oh yeah that makes sense” – I was very much the “hyperfocus and forget to eat/pee” type long before my body fell apart.
This. 👆🏼
Oh yeah I know in both a medical and legal sense these things have more set definitions. I just meant colloquially what society/culture refers to as “sanity” outside those contexts. As in, how those around you (without medical degrees) view whether or not your behavior and mental processes are “normal” or “abnormal.”
The metric Willis is using? Put me down as betting, “willingness to acknowledge that life is shitty, especially in ways that apply to other people”.
I’m very late but agree (sanity defined by those in power). When I said Dorothy was not sane, obviously it was a little tongue in cheek, but I meant that she seems not to be in the best, most rational place right now, especially for giving advice/making decisions for other people (I think that unless one cannot understand enough to consent to something (ie an invasive medical treatment), or is actively going to harm themself, there is almost no time where one isn’t sane enough to make decisions for themself)
Oh yeah I agree! Dorothy is good at HIDING her stress, which may make her seem a bit more neurotypical, but she also clearly has many mannerisms and ways of doing things/thinking that rub her peers the wrong way so I’m not sure how many in her dorm would consider her one of the “most sane” by the social metric.
Also continuously shoving her trauma down is absolutely not healthy and is definitely a great way to end up having a full on breakdown eventually!
I suppose we could argue she tries to approach situations rationally, but even then her metric for what is “most rational” is not going to be the same as everyone else’s. For her, ignoring or ending interpersonal relationships in favor of career goals/schoolwork is most rational. To someone who values their emotional connections over that stuff, that would be irrational.
So I guess it just depends on what kind of advice Ruth is actually looking for. I.e. why she (presumably) wants to break up with Billie. Ultimately I think that’s an impossible question to ask anyone and truly get an answer that is most right for the person asking, because everyone is going to form an opinion based on what would be best within the context of their own feelings/priorities. The only person who can REALLY decide what’s best for Ruth in this scenario is Ruth. Though bouncing ideas off others and hearing what they might do in your shoes can definitely still be helpful as far as giving you different ways of looking at it and seeing if one response feels more right than any other.
The Bimacharial Man said that the voice of God was just our own thoughts mistaken for a god.
But no…it was Cthulhu all along.
The Bicameral Mind?
Y’know, a mind with two chambers? Not a man with two knives (machaira)…
To clarify, I’m mocking the word rather than misspelling it because it’s a ridiculously condescending theory primarily promoted by people like Dawkins that attempts to infantalize Bronze Age civilizations (let alone all the peoples beforehand).
It occurs to me you may have no idea what I’m referring to:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bicameral_mentality
I sometimes hear voices calling after me that I need to pay for that before I leave the store but they’re typically on the heavier side and I successfully escape them.
It’s the peppiness for me
Eh, Sane is relative
Of course she isn’t sane. In fact, she’s completely Dotty! ;D
It’s obviously Carla.
Her solution to Ruth’s problem will involve pies.
I mean, really, Carla is a sound choice. The advice she gave Malaya about gender was insightful and sincere, and her assessments about what goes on between all her dormmates are accurate if sometimes snarky. She’d be a solid choice here.
But she’s also an asshole. Not a bad person, necessarily, but an asshole. I assume Ruth approached Dorothy because she wants to break up in the most appropriate and considerate way possible. “Appropriate” and “considerate” are not Carla’s strong suits.
A pie is not an appropriate way to break up?
I’m sure we’d all rather break up a pie
What you do is you say, “I baked all my love from you into this pie” and then when they cut into, they realize it’s just the pie crust with no filling, which, like, how did you get the top crust to stay up like that with no filling, that’s impressive– and they think about that while they cry.
<3
Dorothy, the emotionnally intelligent one … ? Apparently that’s not what people tell her, usually
I think Dorothy IS quite emotionally intelligent, for the most part, but she has some pretty big blind spots, mostly regarding herself.
is she emotionally intelligent enough to pick up on the breakup clue?
I’m not sure we’d pick up the breakup clues if we didn’t know there was a breakup coming.
And that’s assuming there isn’t a twist coming, which wouldn’t surprise me at all. After all the hints, “Ruth decided to break up with Jennifer and did it on Halloween” seems a bit tame.
By the standards of this wing? Absolutely
Good question Ruth! Who would you all say is second?
I see Willis says Sarah. I’d say it’s either her or Sal. What do you think?
I think Sarah, as well.
If we expand beyond the wing to cover the building, Danny is, for the moment, probably the most put together (not by a lot, but still).
Are we just using the girls exclusively? Cause Jacob is likely the most sane member of the regular cast. I’m sure he’ll show up eventually.
Ruth’s specifying the wing. Jacob’s in Beck 3 and this is Clark 3.
Sierra seems calm and well-adjusted.
Ruth, not knowing her well, is likely to see the perpetually bare feet as a red flag.
It’s hard to say because “sane” is a pretty rough metric here. But I’d probably extend outside of the main cast. Not to, like, Rachel, for the purpose of Ruth getting advice. But maybe Agatha? Or Mandy? Ooo, Bloodrose.
I agree, the main cast is the main cast because they are drama magnets and make dumb but entertaining choices.
Definitely Bloodrose.
Sarah is fairly rational, but I worry that the areas in which she has…deficiencies would line up with Ruth’s and create some sort of feedback loop.
“But what if I don’t HAVE a bat?”
“That’s where your specialty comes in handy. A femur is about the right shape and size to substitute!”
Honestly depends on what metric you’re using.
Dina is smart and sane, but often lacks contextual clues.
Becky is culturally aware and smart, but has emotional shields.
An excellent point!
Sal’s got issues that translate into difficulties establishing and maintaining interpersonal relationships.
I’m leaning towards Rachael being the sanest. Go ask her, Ruth! What could possibly go wrong?
(Or maybe Other Rachael. Or maybe Mandy or Grace. Possibly Sierra.)
She’s not the most sane, but for emotional advice Becky might be good.
Haven’t seen enough of Rachel and Other Rachel in this universe but it’s worth a try.
Maybe the whole president ideal is a coping mechanism for Dorothy. Like a security blanket. As long as becoming president is possible the world makes sense.
Yikes that is bleak. I never thought of it that way, though it makes sense in retrospect.
If it wasn’t then, it sure as hell is now. The Dorothy mental breakdown is going to be nuclear.
She’s made being president such a rigid life goal I fear even the slightest suggestion that presidency is not guaranteed for her could be the breaking point.
Like I said, I really wish we had a 2016 Presidential Election comic for Child Dorothy.
Dorothy addresses this (the naysayers telling her she’s delusional) in her Twitter feed.
I do not think it is a problem. And I think she’d be a decent president (after 30-40 years of public service).
I dont disagree that she would be a great president. It’s the fact that she’s making it her whole identity that is worrying because no matter how over qualified you are for a job there’s always a chance you wont be chosen, especially when there are politics involved.
Every obsession is a coping mechanism on some level.
Well, define “obsession”.
Yeah, that’s my read on it too. Although, it is rather unwise to put all your eggs in one basket, and count your chickens before they hatch, both of which Dorothy is doing here.
Huh. I thought the bird on the presidential seal was an eagle. Learn something new every day. 🙂
Could be. As long as being president is her goal, she doesn’t have to think about what actually-possible things she might want in life.
Yeah like; what’s Dorothy’s major anyway? Is she choosing law or whatever because many Presidents did that or what? Does she actually like it though? What would she pick otherwise if being President wasn’t her goal? Would it still be law/whatever she chose to achieve that goal?
Sometimes you can know even that you don’t like something but feel stuck as you don’t know what you do want.
Poli. Sci., I think.
Dorothy being the one to help Ruth break up with Billie makes her reminding Ruth that they ‘lost’ Billie even more of an asshole move, ngl. ‘Remember Billie? Your ex-girlfriend? The one you broke up with? Her? Your ex? Who I gave you advice for breaking up with? Her? Remember?’.
It is pretty interesting though. Dorothy broke up with Danny because he’d been far too attached to her, and had no real plans for himself while also lowkey hoping her own plans plateaued so he could stick with her. She broke up with him for his own good. I can absolutely see how Ruth feels she must do the same for Billie.
Wasn’t that Boomer who brought up Ruth losing someone during their quick fire psychoanalysis at the dorm meeting?
Or was that a different time that I’m forgetting about?
Also, when did Dorothy want Danny to stick with her?
The comic has been going on for years, so I could just be blanking on that, but it does not sound familiar.
She’s definitely wanted to mess with Walky again a few times, but I don’t recall her feeling the same towards Danny.
She never did. Dorothy was done with Danny before the comic even started and regrets not breaking up with him before even heading to college. The best I think you could argue is the wanting to stay friends cliche.
That’s what I remember, too Sirksome.
Sorry. Booster, not Boomer.
Boomer did bring up Ruth losing someone but I mean this strip https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-11/01-this-bright-millennium/polycule/ it was already tonedeaf but with the extra context that Dorothy was actually involved in some capacity with the break up…
I…did not say Dorothy wanted Danny to stick with her? Unless you are misreading where I wrote that Danny lowkey hoped her plans would fail so HE could stick around HER. This is referencing when Dorothy was trying to buck up the nerve to break up with him and Danny said “also maybe you won’t wanna go to Yale and you can just stay here with me!” which provided a good motivation for her to go through with it. She definitely was fine breaking things off with Danny period, which does make her different from Ruth, who actively wants to stay with Billie, but BOTH initiated their break ups for the good of themselves and their partners.
Sorry. Your sentence was written from Dorothy’s perspective at the beginning, plus the “own” in “her own plans” added to the idea that you were writing from her perspective the entire time.
Sorry for the confusion! It’s why I wish these comments had an edit button. I now see where you would have gotten that impression. Nah on this front we can all agree, Dorothy had hang ups with Walky but absolutely none with Danny. Sometimes I forget they even dated.
I’ll never buy the breaking up with someone for their own good argument unless one of the partners involved is abusive. Maybe that applies to Ruth and Jennifer due to the highly volatile and sometimes violent/suicide pact nature of their relationship, but it really didn’t apply to Dorothy. That was a spin to make her action seem less selfish even if it had some truth to it. She was just done with him and wanted a fresh start at college.
Eh, true. Honestly it was just a break up because she didn’t love him anymore, at least not like a romantic partner. But at least in the POV of the characters, they believed they’re doing this for their own good. And that’s all I really mean by it, as an ace who has had a grand total of three relationships in 29 years of life, I certainly don’t have that drive or life experience.
Dorothy was absolutely right to break up with Danny because that was just not a healthy relationship* but between her tendency to flee from emotional commitment when it interferes with her Plan and the arrival of the Yale letter, I wonder if we’re going to be getting an arc soon about her having an increasingly hard time doing that and wondering if it’s the right thing. Like I would agree that for someone like Dorothy, going to your dream school to help pursue your career goals is probably more important than being at the exact same school as your friends (friends can stay friends long distance!) but that would definitely break Joyce’s heart, and Dorothy is definitely not the same person she was at the start of college, and dealing with some very obvious repressed trauma, so I’m curious to see where it goes.
* As an aside: I used to find Danny super bland (which I assume was the point) but enjoy him more as the comic progresses. Danny seems to have actually started to find some direction now, even if a lot of his behavior IS still motivated by whatever person he’s dating…he’s clearly a guy who likes being the supportive partner and just needed to find someone who specifically wants/needs that in a partner.
I like him and Sal together because she’s clearly someone who has never had much stability or support. A partner who is very invested in being as supportive as possible absolutely seems like what she needs and probably why she likes him. He’s probably one of the first people in her life she felt genuinely cared about her and how their actions made her feel. As indicated by her initial distrust that he couldn’t possibly just be genuinely nice just because making HER happy matters to him, because who has ever done that in Sal’s life before? I mean Walky has finally started to support and stand up for her, but he looked the other way and judged her harshly for a looong time.
This strip really clinched that ship for me: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-12/04-dont-stop-billie-ving/adorable/
It’s so cute, and as someone who has always really liked Sal, I’m so happy seeing her happy and getting something real, that isn’t just about putting on a cold front to protect herself emotionally.
We don’t know if Dorothy gave any advice, or what the advice was. Her advice could have been to stick it out, but things deteriorated anyway.
Yeah Dorothy needs therapy most of all.
At least Joyce is dealing with it by going atheist.
As a religious person, I think that is actually unfair to Joyce’s atheism.
Joyce stopped believing not because of trauma but simply because she doesn’t believe in it. It doesn’t make sense to her.
Which is how most atheists are.
As a fellow religious person, I would say that her atheism isn’t necessarily because she doesn’t believe anymore. But rather she cannot reconcile what she was taught to believe to an insular almost cult like degree with the actions of those who who raised that way. Unlike Becky who for whatever reason either never bought into it like Joyce or who had a paradigm shift in her beliefs because of her mother’s death. Joyce hadn’t and so hers is less a paradigm shift and more a natural (if rather painful) deprogramming of that extremely insular teaching. Which is why we see her always relapsing at weird things. 18 years of brainwashing and not knowing any better is a hell of a hill to climb.
Dorothy is getting therapy.
Yep. She should consider taking weed in conjunction with it.
BAH! How could someone do pot and still become president!
Don’t inhale, Dorothy!
Eh, if you can’t be electable as result of using cannabis, it’s a sign that the “United” States isn’t gonna last that much longer as a nation anyway.
Dorothy’s loss wouldn’t be much, as she’d be playing cards with a system that’s pretty much irredeemably unfair and broken to begin with.
Cannabis is not the answer to all life’s problems. I get that it helps some people. It also can just about ruin the lives of some users’ family members. It can make living with a user just about unbearable sometimes. And it can put folks in danger.
…Sorry. Hit a nerve.
plus weed is diff for every person, some ppl don’t get ‘mellow high’ and just freak out (tho even if it did help take the edge off i wouldn’t wanna be dependent on it even fi it was medical marijuana) one of m yhigh school friends said he had some bad weed once and it felt like he was falling all day
Sorry about what happened to your friend. Are you sure it was just weed he took though? If you get it from illegitimate sources, often times it can be cut with other drugs, some of which are much much more dangerous than the weed itself.
…what “other drugs” are cheaper than weed?
Not necessarily cheaper but more addictive. In Philly, it’s been cut with PCP, crack cocaine, fentanyl… a little cheaper to mass-produce and dose in tiny amounts, getting people more strung out and coming back for more.
And it can devastate families. Economic loss (sometimes the user’s entire budget goes to weed, leaving family members to provide for basic needs), criminalization and risk of prosecution, increased vulnerability to crime (especially for home growers), jeopardized housing, secondhand smoke poisoning, restrictions on travel, accidental ingestion by kids and pets, memory loss and personality changes, impaired thinking/driving/speech, rebound symptoms and cravings after cessation, impairment of dietary self-management, exacerbated health conditions of those exposed to secondhand smoke, medication interactions…
I do understand that it can be lifesaving medication for certain medical conditions, and I don’t mean to knock its value as medicine or harm reduction. Just that it sometimes also carries heavy costs, not just for the user, but for the user’s household and family and support community.
Thanks, NG, for being open to dialogue on this. It’s a thorny subject.
Yes, I accidentally ate some of my wife’s edibles and spent hours under the cover terrified of the infinity outside my blanket.
Mind you, I ate 4 cookies thinking they were normal ones.
That’s alright. i recognize it’s not for everyone, but it’s an option that is still worthy to consider, especially considering that it’s many many times less rough on the body and brain than alcohol and even many prescription drugs.
As with any other drug, prescription or not, you always take precautions. Always start with lower doses to see how it affects you, don’t drive or operate machinery, and if necessary hire a trip sitter.
Exploring options is like faring the sea for fertile places for healing and personal growth. Just don’t forget to wear a life jacket. 😉
Until a month ago, I had a mentally ill roommate who was so dependent on weed she was not even a little bit functional. Not gonna go into all the specifics, but I can tell you it absolutely soured me on the idea that marijuana is some kind of harmless, universal panacea, particularly as a coping mechanism for mental health issues. It is absolutely possible to abuse weed in a way that’s personally destructive, even if the physical effects on the body are less damaging than, like, alcohol abuse.
Yeah but it’s fashionable these days to pretend there’s absolutely no chance of a person developing any sort of dependence on the funny grass because something something smoke your entire body weight something something. Ya know, because it’s really funny to pretend that a mind-altering substance that’s relatively easy to obtain could never be used as an extremely unhealthy coping mechanism for, just as an example, severe depression. Absolutely no chance that it could be really tempting to “just” have an edible (for example) because maybe it helps a person “Not Be Me” or “Shut My Brain Up” for a few hours. It’s only weed after all, what are you, a square?
Yeah, when it comes to coping mechanisms, be it weed or hyperfixation on becoming president, it’s definitely wise not to put all your eggs in one basket.
BTW Taffy, what’s with this “Your Ad Here”? Is this another human meme thing or do you really desire to sell your gravitar as ad space?
If it’s a meme, I don’t know or care. No, I’m not actually trying to sell my 50×50 icon as ad space, what.
OK just asking. I am not really conversant with memes, either 😅
My brain’s not halfway diseased enough to make a meme part of my front-facing online image. The closest I’ve gotten to that is with either a 15-minute change to match a quote I’m making (which goes back to default almost immediately, or a meme I started here, and I only change my gravatar to that picture on the actual anniversary. Keeping up with memes is impossible, impenetrable, and not worth the five seconds said memes will last.
Can’t say you aren’t right!
Try telling that to corporations who are always looking to cash in on memes with their advertising! 😝
I don’t know “trauma is just grist for my mill” is pretty bad ass
Tho i am curious what level of trauma she’s had before entering college if at all, because even a bit of trauma, other than fighting back against the system, feels like it’d discourage anyone from wanting to be the president/want to get into politics
It would be even more bad ass if I hasn’t had to look up what “grist” is first.
Now some of the magic has been lost.
This is why you should never bother learning what words mean.
Hear that Dorothy? That’s the path to becoming president!
… dammit, when did real life become satire?
I want to say around the time a movie actor became president is when it started, but that may be unfair as I honestly don’t know how serious he was about his policies despite him being a republican.
And if it wasn’t clear, I mean Ronald, not Donald.
Eh, it goes back at LEAST to Nixon. Probably to McCarthy.
Abraham Lincoln had a life full of trauma and heartbreak. And he became the second (known) gay or bi president of the US.
I feel like this is a reference to some kind of manga or fanfic somebody wrote between 2003 and 2011, but I’m too intimidated to check.
I don’t know about fanfic or manga, but the historical research into President James Buchanan and President Abraham Lincoln strongly suggests that both men were either bisexual or gay. (Buchanan being more on the gay side.) Of course, there are critics to any theory.
See, e.g., https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexuality_of_Abraham_Lincoln
Interesting– I knew there was speculation about Lincoln being queer, but I didn’t realize it was at “has it’s own Wikipedia page” levels. Buchanan, of course I know that he never married (and that that phrase has been used as a euphemism for gay men at some points in history), but I don’t know more that supports the idea of him being gay.
It’s interesting because of course so many LGBTQIA+ people throughout history have had that part of their life erased, but also their understanding of identities and expression were so different, and even our own is still evolving. Like, Buchanan could have been gay. But what if he never married because he was what we would today consider aroace? I’m going to assume he had (a) close relationship(s) with (a) guy(s), but what if it was what we would today consider queerplatonic?
idk. This is just rambling spec at this point.
I read a bunch of articles on it back in 2012-13 — I think it was The Atlantic. Can’t find them now, but these shed much the same light on Buchanan:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/pete-buttigieg-wouldnt-be-americas-first-gay-president/2019/03/26/0b7b1eb4-41de-11e9-922c-64d6b7840b82_story.html
https://newsfeed.time.com/2012/05/17/who-was-our-first-gay-president/
There is a lot more evidence about Lincoln’s having same-sex love affairs than just those in the Wikipedia article. Anyway, he was a fascinating president.
The historical information in those articles is interesting, but the opinion aspects (that Buttigieg– or another candidate– wouldn’t be the first gay president because Buchanan) aren’t it for me.
Well, yeah. Those are just examples of some of the research out there, opinions aside.
Oh, yeah, I just sometimes feel these discussions are handled in a way that paints a narrow version of queerness onto the past– and I recognize that there are people who go, “No, everyone back then was straight! ‘Queerness’ is newfangled nonsense. What does ‘cis’ even mean?” that are in part what’s being challenged. Maybe it is better to assign specific labels to historical figures to highlight the “we’ve always been here” aspect. I just feel hesitant for a few reasons, which I don’t need to get into.
That makes perfect sense, Yumi. Thank you for sharing that important insight! 😀
Much appreciation and respect to you.
I hadn’t heard the word queerplatonic. I would have used homosocial. Thank you for teaching me this new term! 🙂
So he was gay AND a vampire hunter? Wow, quite the renaissance man.
Buffy, move over! ;-D
That’s how I’ve felt about the president thing the whole time too (Ruth), but even moreso with calling herself the (future) leader of the free world
Also: Get a new therapist Dorothy
Sarah, alt? I’d be thinking the other girls we haven’t seen in eons are saner than zanier. Sierra included.
Book 12: Trauma is Just Grist for My Mill (ft. President Doris and Julia “Sal” Gray)
candidates:
-Carla
-Dina
-Other Rachel
(sarah is also a candidate but i think she’d appreciate being left of a ‘list of people for ruth to go bother’)
I don’t know about Dina. Since she’s a dinosaur, I don’t know if her version of sanity would map all that well with the mammal version.
Is this going to be advice on whether or not she should break up with Billie?
I’m sure anyone, sane or otherwise, can convince her to do that.
Is it Agatha?
panel 3 Dorothy squishing down her trauma is….hmmmmmmmmm not great
Eh, I feel so bad that her fixation on her ultimate goal is likely the only thing keeping her from a breakdown.
If anything ever stops her from doing that, or simply loses an election after investing so much, it’s gonna hit her really hard.
If it’s any consolation, some sap in the DOA universe might just make a game about it. Something like, say, Pokemon GO to the Polls!!!
I can relate, I spent years denying my childhood was anything less than a total disaster area despite all the evidence, and that includes several people I went to school with committing suicide, getting addicted to drugs, or going to prison by the time they were 21 (and some managing the trifecta), and much later getting talked to by shrinks trying to figure out why military brats of that era had drug use and criminal records similar to combat vets of the same era. PTSD was only a vague notion by that point, and the concept that kids could get it was almost a fantasy. Not going to claim I had it rough, like I said there were a bunch of us that didn’t make it.
One might say that… The Kid’s Aren’t Alright.
Ok, but that song really does seem depressingly accurate as a depiction of late 20th century adolescence.
Your post makes it sound like you’ve got PTSD. If you’ve got PTSD you by definition had it rough. It’s not a competition and no one wins in a game of trauma poker.
I get that, Opus. Secondary traumatization and vicarious trauma, not to mention family trauma, can have devastating effects. Especially where a family member has combat PTSD, or substance use, or emotional dysregulation, or economic insecurity, or unstable housing and living environment, or simply having to move and change schools a lot, not to mention inadequate housing provided for military families — the trauma of those kinds of stressors is all very real.
I am so sorry you had to go through trauma, Opus. I feel for you.
Dorothy is fine. Totally fine. Everything is fine. Nothing to see here. How are you?
Sarah, eh? Eh, I’m surprised the answer isn’t Dina, but eh, whatever.
Logically, maybe but i don’t imagine Ruth would consider asking Dina advice for anything not dino related lol
Also I think Dina has been pretty upfront about the fact that dealing with irrational human behavior is not always her best skill. She’s a highly logical person who likes applying the scientific method to most decisions and Ruth and Billie are…whatever the opposite of scientific and rational is (violently contradictory emotional chaos?)
Though maybe that’s a good argument for them NEEDING advice from someone like Dina lol.
Yes. A fresh perspective like Dina’s would be REALLY called for. However, like you highlighted, this isn’t Smarting of Age, so go figure.
I mean, generally yes, but as a lot of people have pointed out, Ruth definitely seems to be angling the conversation toward, “How do I break up with Billie?” and I don’t think Dina has any experience on that front.
That’s the answer you get when Mike’s dead.
I don’t know, telling Sarah that you plan on dumping Jennifer would probably put her over the top and she’d just be genuinely cheerful for the rest of the evening.
A genuinely cheerful Sarah might cause the space-time continuum to collapse
“billie and you are toxic together, dump each other”well dorothy and mike weren’t esp close, i imagine she’d be more shaken up if it was someone she was properly friends with.
I mean… she was still kidnapped and her best friend was: drugged with intent to date rape, threatened by a crazed man with a gun on campus, then also kidnapped… and I’m pretty sure she saw someone get murdered?
She has loads of reasons to be messed up beyond Mike’s death.
Honestly, I would put my vote on Rachel being the most sane one in the whole wing (if she is in the same wing?)… Which of course doesn’t help Ruth, given that the two of them are not on speaking terms.
I might also suggest Roz as a sane person, by the standards of this community of students.
Roz would not be on my list.
She means well, but she’s a little young to be making sex tapes and uploading them to the Internet.
She’s at least 18, she’s given this a lot of thought and is deeply committed to exploring her sexual freedom, and most of all, it’s her body. Even if you and I never want to upload a sex tape, that doesn’t make a different choice insane. She is very much allowed.
It doesn’t exactly make her anyone’s go-to for relationship advice though, at least if those relationships go beyond the physical.
This whole thread reeks of slut-shaming. People can enjoy physical things (including uploading a sex tape) without being devoid of emotional attachments or understanding of emotional situations.
No one here is slut-shaming Roz, and the sex tape isn’t the issue.
Roz is wildly envious and resentful of Robin, and she’s particularly bothered that nothing she does actually upsets or horrifies her older sister. (Robin’s too self-involved and uncomplicated – she loves her sister because she’s her sister, and nothing Roz might actually do would change that.) And of course, Robin is Roz’s hero and everything she wants to be. The politics aren’t an issue because Roz’s leftism is just performative, as was Robin’s conservatism.
The conversation I’m responding to was very much about the sex tape being an issue. So that’s what I responded to.
I don’t think Laura’s comment can be considered slut shaming. An 18 year old downloading a sex tape online to spite her sister seems not the best decision.
I’m a little surprised by this take. What are you basing it off of?
I am very sorry, Nova. I meant to share my perspective, which was informed by my own personal and family experiences. But I can see that it came across in completely the wrong way and gave the impression that I was trying to police what other people do with their bodies. In today’s post-Dobbs world, as a feminist, I should have been more sensitive. I do regret causing offense or causing others to feel targeted for condemnation.
Well, of course she’s allowed. She’s just a little young, developmentally, for that. Kids that age aren’t considered legally mature enough to drink responsibly. Nor to buy a handgun. Some foster kids remain “wards of the state” through age 21. I’m not condemning her choices. I’m just saying she’s awfully young to be making those kinds of permanent decisions about what happens to the Internet’s “forever” images of her body. To me, that speaks to her impulsiveness and not necessarily to her emotional maturity and stability.
“Kids that age aren’t considered legally mature enough to drink responsibly. Nor to buy a handgun.”
In the USA.
In the UK she’d be able to drink at 18, and no one is allowed to own handguns. There is absolutely nothing wrong with deciding to show your own body, your own consensual sex (with your partner’s approval), or anything else you like. She just doesn’t hold the same views you do.
That doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with her.
Nova, I can see that I have offended, and I do apologize sincerely.
I meant no slut-shaming at all. I have my own past in that regard, which many others might choose to shame. I’m no puritan.
I am truly sorry for how my words have caused others to feel shamed. It was not my intention, but it was the unintended effect. I hope that my apology can be accepted. Thank you for understanding.
The issue is that not everyone agrees with you, and putting a sex tape of yourself on the internet can have an impact on future career prospects. Maybe she’s thought it through deeply and doesn’t care, or maybe it was a bit impulsive.
“Kids” that age aren’t kids, they’re adults.
Adults (of any age) are still quite capable of being idiots.
That has nothing to do with calling the adults this comic is about kids. If they were kids then the Toe That Walks would have had a legal right to shove Becky in his car and bring her back “home” against her will. If they’re kids then Willis should probably stop doing those slipshines about them. If 18 year olds are kids then that calls into question if we should re-amend the US Constitution so they can’t vote anymore.
But an 18 year old isn’t a kid. An 18 year old has reached the age of majority in the United States of America where the comic is set and is legally an adult. I’m not arguing if it was a good or bad decision I’m saying that it was her decision to make and no one else’s and that it’s condescending to say that she’s a little young developmentally to make that decision. The entire phrase calls into question if that’s a decision that she an adult human being should be allowed to make.
Thank you for sharing that important perspective, Proxiehunter. I appreciate your standing up for the rights of younger adults. You are a powerful advocate. I respect you.
I also appreciate your mentioning the Slipshines. I don’t read them, nor do I read the fanfic and drawings and such sometimes posted in the comments, for that very reason. I don’t want to participate in objectifying younger folks.
Proxiehunter, it was a poor choice of words on my part. I am truly sorry that my perspective (as an older person) came across as condescending. I’m a mother hen — that’s just who I am. That’s my personal character flaw.
I just feel a lot of deep care and concern for younger folks, who are trying their best to figure things out during their “dumbing of age” transition years. So, for example, I think of (fictionally) Roz’s younger sister, whose family name is now associated with a sex tape, and who may be teased about it in school. I think of the school and her classmates, now having to answer questions about how a dorm room came to be used as a film production site. Roz’s tuition payment may be something that her whole family participated in, too, and now they may be wondering about their own financial contribution toward the dorm room used to make the video. I think about Joe, who may be happy now with the headline calling him “DeSantos Boy Toy,” but who may not be so happy when it’s the #1 Google result for his name, years down the line, and he’s applying for jobs. I think of Danny, whose foot they used as a tripod, who was unconscious and did not consent to his unwitting part in the production of an explicit video.
I think about all these fictional people, some of whom are actual minors, as Roz’s little sister is, or as some of their classmates may be. (I was 17 when I graduated high school, for example.)
And I think that, perhaps, an 18-year-old who chooses to involve all those people (albeit peripherally) in her own explicit performance art, may be still having a difficult time predicting actions’ long-term effects on other people.
That was my thinking, ProxieHunter. I wasn’t trying to allow anyone to do anything, or forbid anyone from doing anything, nor to control anyone. I said, “Roz would not be on my list.” If I were Ruth, I would not personally go to Roz for relationship advice.
I have some personal experience with exploitation. So do my sisters. It’s not something I talk about. It informs my perceptions. If I see a young person in a potentially dangerous situation, I get concerned for them, whether they are 15 or 18 or 21. My heart goes out to them and I worry for them. I don’t condemn them or try to control them, certainly, but I do worry.
But Proxiehunter, I do agree and understand that my use of the word “kids” was insulting and offensive. I am truly sorry for using language that caused such offense. I did not mean to harm you or others. I can see that I did so, though, without intending to. And I am very sorry.
I’m actually gonna step away from commenting, now, since I realize that I’m not adept enough to tactfully discuss sensitive topics like these without accidentally causing hurt or offense.
Thank you for helping me to see that.
Good comment.
Exactly.
Depends on your definition. Some laws put the age of majority (for example, to age out of juvenile detention) at 21 or even later. Some folks stay on their parents’ insurance until age 26. ABLE accounts and Social Security Benefits allow beneficiaries to be considered “disabled as children” even if the disability onset date was in the early 20s.
I mean no disrespect to 18 year olds, of course! I just recall how very immature I was, all the way up to age 26 or so. And even later in some ways. So I tend to be a little more concerned for younger adults, who may make decisions that they may later regret.
I can see that my comment was offensive, and I am truly sorry.
There’s definitely more to go developmentally people who are 18. However, people who are around that age are what makes us the pool that Ruth is drawing from, so I do think writing one off for unrelated advice on the basis of “made a sex tape” is… well, it made me uncomfortable and upset. I appreciate the apology.
You’re right, Yumi. I am so very sorry for making you feel uncomfortable and upset. I shouldn’t have made such a flip comment. I am so very grateful to you for accepting my apology. Thank you.
In the future, I will try harder to think in advance about how my comments might be perceived or received, what effect they will have.
If it’s any consolation, I feel very protective of elders, as well as youngsters. I’m kind of an equal-opportunity “mother hen” and feel concern for just about every character in this comic (and for the demographic groups whom their characters represent).
I was concerned about Joe and Danny, too, when that storyline came out.
My concern came across as overbearing or patronizing or shaming, and I do apologize. I have a personal history in this regard, which affects my own sense of concern, but not everyone sees these things in the same way, and I should have been more sensitive to that.
What I should have made more clear in my original comment was that participating in a widely-viewed sexual performance (even where consensual) can be traumatic, too, especially for younger folks, even if they have reached the age of consent.
I should have chosen words more carefully, or simply refrained from making the comment at all.
The part of the brain that’s responsible for impulse control and long-term decision making isn’t even done forming until your mid-twenties!
You can’t rent a car in the US until age 25, and that’s not the law, that’s because rental car companies did the math and determined that customers under that age aren’t worth renting to because they are statistically much, much, MUCH more likely to get into expensive accidents.
From what I’ve seen– having heard the “can’t rent a car until 25” thing A LOT– you can actually rent a car when you’re under 25, but there are surcharges. Which fits with what you said about companies doing the math. I just find “can do something with additional cost” to be pretty different from “can’t do something.”
Frankly, if the advice Ruth is looking for is ‘what about Billie’ Roz might not only be a sane person in the wing but a genuinely good choice. I suspect Roz would take the situation seriously and do her best to be supportive and helpful.
I’m unsure that Roz can be convinced to care enough to give Ruth really good advice. It sounds like Ruth needs someone to really understand the situation and walk her through what she needs to do. Roz is a kind-enough person, but I can’t see her wanting to get involved.
I don’t know if Dorothy even considers Mike a friend.
Dorothy, openly making every helping gesture related to your political career isn’t a great way to make people feel comfortable with having a personal conversation with you.
She’s usually not *this* bad, though it has been an issue in the past, like the false alarm that Ruth would be replaced as RA and people not having her as their ideal option. (Though honestly, both her and Roz would be terrible RAs.)
I think she’s just worse than usual because she’s trying to not slow down long enough for the trauma to sink in, like how if you keep walking, you can stave off aching feet just a little bit longer than if you stop and the throbbing begins.
Definitely, and the harder she tries to work herself out of trauma the worse it gets, which in turn makes her ultimate goal harder to reach. Hoping someone points this out ro her because it might be what convinces her to schedule time in for trauma processing.
Yeah, Dorothy is going to be processing the first few months of her Freshman year for a while. Witnessed at least one murder, was acquainted with another murder victim, kidnapped by the murderer and his 2nd victim, I expect her to be chewing on this for the better part of a decade. And that’s not even counting the other shenanigans on the floor.
It’s odd, though, that one can experience very much the same kinds of horror and terror and personal violation and physical injury and fear for one’s life over the course of an arrest and custody (especially a juvenile detention). And yet “getting arrested” doesn’t carry the same kind of automatic trauma-recognition that “getting kidnapped” does. Even though arrestees are legally innocent until proven guilty, and often factually innocent, too.
I had ambitions, too, when I was Dorothy’s age. Funny, what gets in the way.
This is a really good point. Wishing you well.
Oh dear, Dorothy is not able to paper over the cracks of witnessing a murder so easily.
Soon comes the plot twist, that Dave only did this flashback storyline because he needed a break from the intricate coloring. “Forget it! I can’t do it! Make it all blue!”
Ruth’s problem with Billie I suspect is that medicated Ruth doesn’t want a relationship that includes massive amounts of romanticized anime abuse. The angry rage-filled relationship of the lesbian suicide pact now…well, horrifies her. Mind you, Billie has been clear about who she is and what she enjoys and Ruth has attempted to change her constantly.
It’s a relationship that is destined to fail because they want different things now.
This is the reason for their breakup that I find most likely now. Thanks for laying it out like that C.T.!
Seconded. Thanks C.T.!
“the free world” stopped being a non-cringe thing to call the USA, like, 5 years ago, Dorothy. (Not that it wasn’t jingoistic nonsense before then, but that fact hadn’t fully penetrated the popular consciousness yet)
It’s tough to pronounce the asterisk after “free”.
Well so long as US keeps Russians out my country I’ll call it Free World all day.
It has never not been cringe
I’m actually kinda grateful for US involvement in both World Wars as well as Cold War which resulted in my country gaining freedom.
I think we’re all just supposed to be either anti-American or ashamed of being American, now. I don’t make the rules, I just try to keep my mouth shut and hope nobody can place my accent in public.
No one’s telling you to be ashamed of being American, but the country is pretty cringe. Though tbh i find patriotism in general pretty cringe, internationally. I get it if your country is actually good at taking care of it’s people or survived something horrific (eg Ukraine) but I’m most cases it’s like
Why are you so proud of the rock you just happened to be born on? That’s dumb. People in my country are mad patriotic in spite of the fact that we Suck Super Hard in every possible way
Because if you don’t have a place you call home and you don’t cherish and defend it you will end up being a 2nd class citizen in someone else’s country. Just like what Ukrainians are going through now.
A lot of us are already second-class citizens as it is, so I figure the only difference in another country would be some local customs. The most I can personally defend is like one room of my apartment, so defending an entire country seems a little lofty.
I’m sort of specifically talking about the rhetoric of the United States as “the land of the free” which is and has always been a lie.
Eh, true but no country is perfect I guess.
Or as “the leader of the free world”. I don’t recall holding an election for that position. It doesn’t seem like something we should be able to just self-declare.
“Busybody of the free world” seems a lot closer. Gotta stick the nose in everyone else’s business and damn the consequences.
The argument in favor of the US President being the leader of the Free World isn’t that the USA is “The Free World”, but that the USA’s overwhelming military and economic might means that it is the de facto leader of NATO and the rest of the west.
It’s incredibly arrogant, absolutely, and by no means am I saying this is unequivocally a good thing, but the practical situation is just that the USA has a fuckton of weight to throw around that puts it in charge of just about any international situation it wants to be in charge of.
The Ukraine War is a pretty good example of that: Despite being one of the furthest nations away from the conflict, its the USA that’s supply the majority of arms to Ukraine. Not that other NATO members aren’t helping out (particularly the former Soviet nations that have a lot of ammo for the guns that Ukraine’s troops were already trained on), just that the nation with more weapons than people had more to give, and that kinda puts it in charge most of the time…
Then there is the fact that unlike other major NATO countries like Germany or France, US does not have a gas noose around its neck and doesn’t have to tiptoe around Russia.
It’s also a title that got applied and stuck in aftermath of WWII and the era of the Cold War, when it seemed a bit more appropriate. It’s hard to imagine or remember now, but when the alternatives you’re comparing the US (with all of its problems) to were Nazi Germany and the Stalinist Soviet Union, things are a bit more stark.
Am I the only one that didn’t recognize Ruth in the first panel at first because she lacked any sort of incredulous look on her face? Anybody? Just me then…
Ruth with a mildly timid look on her face does not register in the brain. I also felt the same when she smiled so earnestly at Billie a few strips ago. I’m not used to her looking anything other than: depressed, angry, or gleefully murderous. Meds are clearly starting to make a difference!
I dunno about timid, but she definitely seems a bit blue.
I couldn’t recognize Ruth for her asking for help.
Honestly if she wants someone emotionally intelligent she should probably go for Roz.
No take-backs! Dorothy gets to answer your question
Dorothy is gonna accidentally absorb the alcohol addiction from Ruth and Billie and become a disaster
ok probably not, but she will completely shatter into dust soon, and will be unable to properly continue down this current path due to long term exhaustion finally catching up with her
Love those “Dr McCoy eyebrows” on Ruth in Frame 5.
[Kirk and Bones nodding in agreement dot gif]
Dorothy has waited for this day in entire Dumbing of Age origin.
Finally, someone pointed out how insane it is for Dorothy to actually WANT to be president.
I think Dorothy needs to realize that you don’t have to be all that intelligent or go to the best schools to become president. You just have to be rich and/or really good at sucking up to the rich, and of course be very good at lying to the working class people about how you’re gonna help them if they vote for you.
And if you’re a Democrat, you also need to constantly berate the people you’re demanding votes from while simultaneously holding your hand out for more money that won’t be spent on anything you’ve promised. (Not sour about anything recent, promise)
That or genuinely try to achieve the things that you’ve promised to accomplish for years, only to be stymied because the systems in place are set up to prevent you from actually doing so, and the rest of your party is too enslaved to the fiction of “responsible politics” to dare risk being seen as going against tradition.
Eventually, becoming beaten down by the system and just trying to be satisfied with the small achievements you did manage to push through, and trying not to think too much about the things you had to do to maintain your power in the first place.
Dorothy also needs to note the best thing she can do is suck up to other politicians and network so that eventually it will be “her turn” in the Democratic establishment. The networking element of the Party and fundraising as well as favor trading elements are all skills she has to master.
I don’t know what I was expecting but the thought of Dorothy as a Democrat makes me sad.
If she wants to actually win instead of just run it’s that or Republican. If she goes for congress she might have a shot as an Independent that caucuses with the Democrats.
“Caucus” being a legitimate political term is so weird for me, because in Alice in Wonderland, at least the Disney version, the “race” is just a bunch of random animals running in a circle getting soaked over and over again and insisting they’re getting dry. In the book, I’m pretty sure they just ran wherever-the-fuck, which still isn’t very inspiring as a political image.
In the book it says that they ran “in a sort of circle”. Though they started running whenever they liked and stopped when they liked too.
that’s a bait, and I’ll refuse to discuss politics in a place outside Twitter…
She’s far too pragmatic to be a 3rd-party candidate.
Oops! Meant that to be a reply to Alex. Sorry!
And clearly not a republican but still I somehow envisioned more for her.
Maybe she is part of the Cheese Party when he arrives and creates a new religion.
Cheese it!!!!