It took me a hot minute to realize what Joyce is doing with that frying pan in panel 1. I thought she was maybe afraid Billie was about to react really poorly, and it was a defensive stance.
Odds Ruth is fully aware of Fuckface, and just doesn’t give a shit?
One thing I learned upon adulthood is how much authority figures operate on “don’t make me have to be an authority figure.” If she can in any way claim she didn’t see Fuckface then she doesn’t have to acknowledge, and therefore deal, with Fuckface being in the dorms.
Gawd, I worked in the school system for 14 years and I feel this so much. There’s so many times where it’s like “if I know about this I have to do something about it, even though I personally think there’s nothing wrong with it. Can I get away with claiming I didn’t notice? Hmmmm….”
I learned this quickly in high school. However, I remember being on the Residence House Committee back when I lived in dorm in 2nd through 5th years of uni, and it blew my mind how many of the subsequent years of freshmen didn’t get this. When there was flagrant breaking of rules, they would just yell and scream at us that it *wasn’t fair* and how the “rules were stupid” etc. ad nauseum. And I would sit there all, “If I don’t know about, I don’t need to address it, so MAKE SURE I DON’T KNOW ABOUT IT! (hint, major hint, please gods take the hint.” But then they’d go and be super obvious about it again and get mad at us for dealing consequences.
seems like it’d like herself in/other than taking off the other doorknob, i’d think someone would still be able to pick the lock (even easier?), or they could just kick the door down
I suspect it’s more the fact that she broke up with Billie by essentially quickly telling her it’s over and running away and hiding without having an actual discussion. For that matter, the plan from here is to have a mutual acquaintance explain the reasons for the breakup to her.
I mean, from the sounds of it she has repeatedly attempted to break up with Billie and not had her stated wishes/boundaries respected in the slightest.
I would eventually get fed up and do something drastic, too.
Or y’know she can treat Billie with a ounce of respect and talk to her like a person in a relationship does and not drive by breakup with her. You say Billie doesn’t respect her boundaries, I argue Ruth never set any. They were just making out a moment ago. Why should Billie think this breakup is legitimate?
Yeah, sure, okay. “I break into your room and sneak into your bed while you’re sleeping, after you’ve attempted to get rid of me.” That’s worth respecting now, I guess. And candy canes will rain from the sky.
That was nastier than I meant it to come out and I apologise for the tone. A nicer way to say it might be, I don’t think it particularly matters how much respect Billie is getting here, if she’s not just talking out her ass about repeatedly breaking in. I also need to split hairs about the “not setting boundaries” thing, because Ruth wasn’t in a very good place to set those boundaries when they got together, hence the codependent relationship, and I don’t think there’s ever a bad time to start setting them, even if it’s abrupt and directly tied to a breakup.
Your tone was fine. I’ve learned to try to take most comments in the best light possible since it’s so hard to convey conversational nuance in text. It’s not just Jennifer though, Ruth’s date with Daisy proves she avoids romantic confrontation.
My thing is she chose to get into this relationship, she started it more than Billie did. It’s messed up to break something off so abruptly that you initiated.
I’d forgotten about her disaster with Daisy, tbh. I do have to disagree that it’s messed up for her to break it off just because she started it. If a breakup is a-comin’, somebody’s gotta be the one to do it, and putting it all on Billie would be just as unbalanced. It’s gonna be messy from any angle, I think.
Not an especially specific query, but I’ll do my best to clarify anyway
The first bit was just me being reminded (by Sirksome) of Ruth’s date with Daisy, which we all know went poorly. Not much to it aside from that.
The second bit is me saying, in different words, that I think a breakup is a breakup, and in a case like Billie and Ruth’s, I don’t think it matters much who pulls the trigger.
I hope that helps, because that’s about as plain as I’ve ever said anything.
To be fair, the way Ruth started the relationship was pretty much guaranteed to only get either a dumpster fire of a relationship, a lawsuit, or an employment termination.
Also, given the way the relationship was going, probably the only healthy thing to do with it was end it. This doesn’t look to me like the best way to end it, but I wouldn’t have gotten into that situation to begin with, so what do I know?
I think the problem with this is how Ruth broke up. Saying “BTW we’re breaking up” as you’re leaving a room comes off as more of a joke than a legitamate break. Especially as the two have been all lovey dovey with eachother all afternoon. The mature thing is to discuss your grievances but *gestures to name of comic*…
I literally don’t understand (@Sirksome, since this will be buried a bit). You’re saying the person who initiated a relationship can’t be the one to end it? If anything isn’t it good that Ruth realized it was fucked and pulled out?
if this is the first time Ruth has really tried to “enforce” the breakup then yeah she’s not doing the best by just mumbling it and disappearing but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t get to end it.
I didn’t articulate it well. My problem isn’t that Ruth is ending the relationship, my problem is that she’s not ending it properly which is only causing more grief in the process. It makes it worse since she is the one who initiated the romance only to end it in the worst possible way. That’s not fair to Jennifer. That’s my point. Their relationship history has taught Jennifer that this isn’t real, she’s even saying as much. Ruth is responsible to actually breakup with Jennifer in a way she understands. Not say a few words in passing, knowing it’s not going to stick and taking measures to avoid the problem while she passes the buck to Dorothy to actually explain things. It’s very confusing to me that Ruth is not perceived to be in the wrong her when by her own admission she’s stated she’s doing this in the worst way possible.
thank you for clarifying! this is why I headed with ‘I don’t understand,’ because it seemed like it couldn’t be that you thought that exactly as written
I would say Ruth set boundaries by locking the door to her private room. If it were a hetero relationship and a guy picked the lock to his (ex)girlfriend’s room the night she broke up with him we’d be calling him a stalker or abuser instead of saying she didn’t set boundaries. It’s toxic on both ends, but Ruth has clearly been attempting to change but Billie won’t let her.
Part of their deal from the very start was that Billie wasn’t going to let Ruth push her away, because that would leave Ruth free to go back to killing herself.
I agree that under normal circumstances viewed without any context, breaking into your partner’s room after a fight would be a huge bad sign, but it’s part of the deal here. Which is a problem in itself, but not a different one than it seems at first glance.
If Ruth wants to break up, she’s going to have to address that. Or, I suppose, piss off Billie enough that she doesn’t want to come back.
Someone who breaks into your room and ignores your boundaries isn’t worthy of respect. And, again, since this apparently “happens all the time” I’m not sure how many times you believe someone should have to ask to leave a relationship before they’re taken seriously (the only correct answer should be The First Time) but I’ll wager our answers differ.
It doesn’t matter what they were doing a moment ago. Ruth said “No” and that should be respected??? Shocking to have to say that in this day and age.
From another of your replies to Taffy –
“My thing is she chose to get into this relationship, she started it more than Billie did. It’s messed up to break something off so abruptly that you initiated.”
Anyone. Can break up with anyone. For any reason. This mentality is what keeps people with their abusers. You don’t need a reason to break up, you don’t need to be nice about it, particularly if you don’t think the other person will respect you wanting to break up.
If I knew someone was going to break into my room and sneak into my bed when I broke up with them, I absolutely would not worry about how polite I was going to be in the break up. In fact, I might specifically do it in a way that upset them so they’d be LESS likely to boundary stomp.
Whoever started the relationship, however recently they were kissing/fucking/whatever, no one is required to stay with anyone or couch their break up in sweet terms. If Ruth doesn’t want to be in the relationship (regardless of why) she doesn’t have to be. And Billie acting like Ruth doesn’t get to decide that absolutely validates some abruptness on Ruth’s part.
This gives Ruth way too much credit. As if Jennifer is somehow the threat. This was a two-way relationship of mutual toxicity. It’s not about Ruth breaking things off with Jennifer, she has that right, it’s that she never set these boundaries in the first place. Ruth’s the one who taught Jennifer to pick locks. She’s the one who went on a bender during one of their splits because despite alcohol conflicting with her meds she wanted to be with Jennifer more. Hell Ruth practically assaulted Jennifer to initiate their romance.
This isn’t Jennifer not respecting Ruth’s boundaries or stalking her. This is a failure on both of them to actually establish what their relationship even was and Ruth quitting it without even explaining why. Jennifer thinks this is business as usual. She doesn’t know it’s a real break up. Ruth does have a responsibility to explain this is different. Not setup Dorothy to do it for her while she works on anti-Billifying her room. This isn’t Ruth escaping Jennifer, this is Ruth trying to avoid an unpleasant situation she in part created for herself.
Or she can do what she’s doing now. Which is probably why they’re so toxic post time skip. It’s her choice. Not everyone is an angel, especially in something as complicated as romance. Ruth doesn’t get any points from me for this though.
Breaking into someone’s room after they break up with you is absolutely stalking and boundary stomping.
Setting a boundary is allowed at any point in the relationship, not just beforehand. Feeling as if you have to break a door to stop someone from just ignoring your latest attempt to break up with them suggests some pretty severe dislike for something you seem to think was mutually encouraged.
You and I clearly disagree about this in a way that isn’t resolvable, and I just don’t have the energy to keep talking with someone who believes that someone doesn’t deserve to have a break up respected just because they weren’t nice about it. Just YIKES.
I admit I’ve articulated this poorly and if you’ve become frustrated and want to exit the discussion then fair enough. I just want to clarify my position because I feel there is a miscommunication here. My apologies.
That being that I don’t actually agree with Jennifer’s methods. Ruth has the right to her agency in this situation, my problem is her method of break up robs Jennifer of hers. She’s made this decision without Jennifer’s input and can’t even truly tell her to her face. Jennifer and Ruth were partners, that implies a mutual level of respect deserved on both sides, especially since Ruth essentially trained Jennifer to react this way to a breakup.
There both not handling this very well, my initial statement was just that I don’t respect how Ruth is doing this. She’s avoiding the inevitable confrontation of this breakup. That’s what I don’t agree with. They both deserve the respect of the time invested in each other, but Ruth has chosen not to treat Jennifer with any which is why Jennifer isn’t respecting Ruth trying to initiate the breakup in the first place.
It’s not about being nice. It’s about actually breaking up with Jennifer in a way she understands. Not doing so actually hurts them both. It’s confusing for me that Jennifer is expected to know this is a legitimate end when Ruth hasn’t explained it to her. To me Ruth is actively working against herself and making the situation worse.
I still feel like I haven’t articulated this well. My apologies again, maybe our differences on this truly are unresolvable, but I don’t believe so. Either way I’ll leave it be. I don’t like causing conflict in the comments, I just like the discussion and hope to have a better one next strip.
I agree with most of your reasoning, but I disagree with your conclusions. In particular, “It’s messed up to break something off so abruptly that you initiated” is going way too far, to me. Anyone can break up or withdraw consent at any time, even if they are the one initiating it, without owing anyone an explanation.
Would it be better and healthier in this case to tell Jennifer the situation plainly? Definitely. But I don’t think Ruth has, at any moment, forfeited her right to just walk away, particularly if she thinks the situation is unhealthy for her in the long run. (Even if she might be wrong about that, tbh I really can’t tell if this is just her running away from happiness or not; the relationship did legitimately start on very bad terms.)
And regardless of how right or wrong Ruth’s handling of the situation is, Jennifer’s reaction in today’s strip is preeeetty yikes to me. You’re right that Ruth has trained her not to take breakup talks as actual breakups, and to break into her room, but this sort of talk should still not be normal. Even given their past, in a healthy relationship (which they allegedly are now) this should still be cause for concern, and there should be a desire to get to the root of what is happening. Jennifer just thinks this is fine. I’m not even sure if Ruth could make her take it seriously without outside help.
To be honest, she’s the one in the “wrong” here (as far as “right” and “wrong” go in the context of the Billie/ Ruth situation), pulling a drive-by dump/ leave it to Dorothy to clean up move. Anyone with even a modicum of self-awareness would be critical of their actions ex post facto, one would hope. That said, as many like to say, we have to bear in mind the strip title, etc etc.
Depends on how broken it is, with her hitting it from above she could have broken it in a way that bends the metal of the lock and stops the door from opening without something like a crowbar.
I forgot about the Resident Manager and her interesting hair choices, and googled Puddinghead to try to figure this comment out, and it’s all My Little Pony art which just made me even more confused.
Ruth is determined to sabotage this relationship.
(Because it makes her happy, and she’s not allowed to be that; and because it’ll end, everything good ends, so let’s do that now and get back to bad, which is the rightful order of things.)
I mean, she said before she’s trying to protect Billie from her (Ruth’s) own self destructive tendencies. Which, understandable, but also, she desperately needs therapy.
Unfortunately, the strip is set in the United States.
I sometimes wonder, as often as people specifically call out American therapy accessibility, in other countries, where they have better access, is it actually used properly?
What the hell happened while I was asleep? This wasn’t even that big of a deal, if I’m being honest, like I thought Taffy was trying to crack a joke that just didn’t land? Calling him (them?) A “whacko” is a little out of line, I mean do we need to use terms implying somebody is crazy, in a stigmatizing manner? You also called them (him?) A “fruit loop” which, again, comes across as calling the person insane, and I think also seems queerphobic to me? I just don’t think the name calling is needed, so can we please not no that anymore, even if it’s in a nother person’s defense?
And speaking of defense, I didn’t really ask for it. If I thought Taffy was an actual problem, I’d have spoken up for myself, because this isn’t even the first time they’ve (he’s?) “”come at me”, so to speak. Which I still don’t appreciate, but I thought maybe we were just on different wavelengths.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to make this a novella, it just sits weird with me how things went here.
Sheesh — are you just looking to frame every comment in the most negative possible light? The dictionary definition of Nationalism is “identification with one’s own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations.” I really don’t see The Oracle’s comment doing either, do you?
“Every comment” nothin’. There’s just something about that one that runs me the wrong way. Maybe I misidentified it, but that’s hardly following a trend, especially tonight when I’ve been trying to be very even-tempered and fair.
“especially tonight when I’ve been trying to be very even-tempered and fair”
You realize it’s not specifically your job to respond to comments? They’re not directed at you. Your own mood doesn’t dictate how other people choose to comment.
This guy always seems to respond weirdly, misread tone, and act strangely aggressively in the comments here… is there any known reason for that? Just keep seeing him weirding shit up for no reason.
this entire comment thread is hilarious because they both act aggressively towards other commentors in a similar enough manner that for a while i thought they were the same person. apparently they’re different people! just similar enough that they piss each other off
Alright, I get it, The Oracle wasn’t doing what I thought they were doing. What’s all this about me “always” being aggressive, though? That’s just inaccurate, and the misgendering isn’t really called for either. I made a bad judgement call and it backfired, but can we not pretend it’s a huge Thing I “always” do? Eesh.
@egg egg: Can we stop with this “Oracle is secretly somebody here” conspiracy stuff? I saw The Wellerman do it too, that time I spent an entire night/morning with my foot in my mouth, and I didn’t appreciate it then either. I’m just me, although I do think your observation of “similar enough that they piss each other off” is pretty funny and even probably accurate.
@Taffy: Wait, did you actually think I was like…dogwhistling some nationalism? I thought you were joking. Either way, I think it’s probably best if we move past this, and also maybe we shouldn’t “cross streams” as much, so to speak? I seem to tick you off more than you do me, so maybe this is misplaced, but it might be best if we don’t interact much. That’s not a hard boundary, and I don’t want to embarrass you since you’ve evidently been part of this community for a while, I just think we don’t get on very well and would rather not argue if it’s avoidable.
Also, Taffy, just for the sake of being clear, is it okay if I ask your preferred pronouns? You mentioned misgendering, so I’d rather avoid doing that to you as well.
Agreed, we should probably minimize interaction. If you’ve said it I missed it, and I apologise if this is a reach, but you come across as a similar flavor of neurodivergent to me, and it’s reminded me once or twice of some of my worse behaviors, which I think is what bugs me. It’s not embarrassing except in that I’ve clearly pushed a limit that shouldn’t have been pushed and so it’s a social misstep.
I’m also sorry for coming at you like that. It wasn’t called for, it wasn’t funny, and it’s not the person I want to be. People here deserve better behavior, and you especially right now since, as you said, this isn’t the first time I’ve acted shittily toward you. I’d also like to apologise for past instances of aggression.
As for the pronouns question: I personally identify as agender (lack of strong feelings toward any particular gender identity) and prefer they/them pronouns. I’ve been experimenting with others elsewhere in different context, but unless you play Final Fantasy XIV on the Primal data center, you’re extremely unlikely to encounter that context.
You shouldn’t use the name “Taffy”; it’s considered offensive by Welsh people. How dare you, you’re so inconsiderate, what gall, etc etc. That’s about as reasonable as what you’ve come out with.
I was asking more about how widely it’s actually used, not so much the quality. For example, I think even halfway decent therapy that’s used by a majority of a population, is more helpful than really good therapy that only a few people ever make use of. You can have all of the top therapists in the world, but if nobody’s paying for their services, they’re still not doing much good, through no error of their own.
other than dorothy (tho the last ‘advice’ she got from her therapist wasn’t framed in the best way), i don’t see many in the main cast being that willing/receptive to try out therapy even tho they prolly all need it at this point. (maybe danny would consider it)
While I accept the reasons for bashing the US medical system, Ruth actually is in therapy, so it doesn’t really apply here. (Or was? I assume it continued after she went home from the hospital, but was that made explicit? We know Billie’s been – eventually.)
It’s more that her happiness inevitably ruins other people. So best not to be happy as a service to the ones you love even if you’re hurting them by not being with them thus fulfilling your own self loathing interpretation of reality. Totally different justification to self sabotage!
Could be worse. Billie currently believes that toxic love is the only kind of love that she or Ruth will ever get to have. She thinks they can’t fix it because everything they touch turns to poison anyway, and because if they fixed the toxicity, they couldn’t have the love anymore.
I don’t think Jennifer actually believes that. She’s shown she’s more than capable of showing sincere love. The toxicity is starting to feel performative at this stage. She wants Ruth to meet her parents. That tells me she believes in this more than Ruth did. That’s why she’s so bitter about the split. Ruth couldn’t see it. That’s my take anyway.
Hmm, you’re right and I like that take.
Billie has been experimenting with this today (like that they can briefly manage idyllic, and “by now we’ve kind of graduated into loving each other normally”). She presented these as self-aware jokes but now I think she’s also trying it out a bit. I like that.
At Ruth’s request back when they started things. Which isn’t to say it’s right or healthy, but they’ve got a weird relationship with weird boundaries that ending it like this more difficult than it seems.
Oh god, that’s why she had the pan raised. I’m such an idiot. Somehow my brain thought it was her ready to bonk Billie on the head if the breakup caused hee to flip out or something.
Oh, right. The gaslighting. The gaslighting for Ruth, the gaslighting chosen especially to abuse Ruth, Ruth’s gaslighting. That gaslighting?
I was quietly horrified when it happened after Ruth went to the hospital for mixing alcohol and medication (that her current mixing isn’t causing rashes or other noteworthy side-effects so far is I guess a net positive), seeing that it’s apparently considered an “all the time” thing is making me a lot less quiet about it.
You know, Ruth’s whole spiel to Dorothy earlier was that she had to break up with Billie now, because it had to be done while she was in a reasonable and rational state of mind.
These are not the actions of someone in a reasonable and rational state of mind. This is rapidly approaching the most unbalanced we’ve ever seen Ruth.
TLDR, whoever Ruth’s seeing for therapy, they suck at their job.
Or she knows Billie will just gaslight her and trample her agency if she tries a direct, mature discussion again (just like last time), so she tried a hit-and-run instead.
While smashing the knob (ooh-err!) is probably satisfying, I’m not sure why just putting on a deadbolt (without smashing the knob) isn’t effective.
Given Ruth’s history, I would hope/think that she would have the thoughtfulness to put a sign on the door: “Please don’t worry, I am really seriously truly not suicidal just now, but I am really truly seriously breaking up with you.”
Of course, this comic is not titled “Thoughtfulness of Age”.
Jennifillie doesn’t seem the type to care about your mortal concepts of “reading the sign” or “being broken up with”. And frankly, her being so pissed at Ruth in the present tastes weird to me now, like there’s an “I can’t believe she actually managed to break up with me” sort of flavor.
You can pick a deadbolt as easily as any other lock, assuming it’s opened with a key. It’s still operated by pins, which you can manipulate with a tension wrench and a pick, aka a set of lock picks. (What you can’t do it slide it open with a credit card.)
Ruth needs one of those little chains that can only hooked or unhooked from the inside.
I was assuming an interior deadbolt – the kind you just slide across on the inside and turn into place. Works much like the chain, except you can’t crack the door open at all.
I actually used the wrong term when I wrote “deadbolt”. I meant something like a slide bolt or sliding bolt; something that would attach to the door and the jamb to be slid closed without a key. There are other terms used of different brands of bolt, some with some sort of mechanism to pin the bolt and keep it from being easily slid back.
They might both be hot as fuck and I might have a personal stake in their relationship continuing exclusively and explicitly for the kinky beat-up sex, but those two needed a proper breakup about…*checks watch* 2015 ago. I’m glad Ruth at least got on some better meds, even if she still does the ridiculous “for her own good” thing. Billie is still doing whatever, with whoever, for whatever reason, so whatever.
Their ship can be one of those cool seaweed-covered sunken pirate ships, the ones with all the treasure laying around in the Captain’s quarters for some reason.
Listen the treasure was a bunch of women’s jewellery and the captain was getting ready for the drag queen event that night, when those blasted heteronormative scallywags of the Crown came at them out of nowhere and sunk them.
billie just casually said she ignores Ruth’s wishes and breaks into her room on a regular basis but people are in here talking about how Ruth is the unbalanced one.
it’s amazing how much manipulation one can achieve with a little confidence.
As bad as a reason like “I’m doing this so you can be happy” is, it’s Ruth’s own decision and ultimately she doesn’t have to be in a relationship she doesn’t want to be in, regardless of what her reasons are for breaking up.
However, judging by Mary’s whole dramatic speech, we’re FAR from the end of Halloween night’s drama. This is going to get messier.
Not once have I suggested that Ruth is breaking up with Billie well. I’m just stunned at the number of people who seem to think that Billie’s response is reasonable or justifiable.
If you’re not sure someone is really breaking up with you, stalking and B&Es aren’t the answer to that. It’s just so odd to me that needs to be stated.
Me defending Ruth’s right to have her “NO” taken seriously isn’t me saying Ruth is in the right or wrong with her behaviour. I do understand where it’s coming from, though, if Billie has disregarded previous attempts to break up.
Drastic actions are sometimes needed when someone won’t take a fucking hint.
Maybe the drastic action should involve talking to them and telling them that you’re changing the deal and you’re serious this time?
She did tell Billie something like “Don’t leave me, even if I get stupid and try to make you” way back when they started. I found it this morning and linked it somewhere in these comments. 🙂
Toooooooo be fair, Ruth is still unbalanced. She was just making out with Billie on Mary’s sexual sins setup. I don’t think Billie’s scot free by any means, in fact she’s way more of a jerk about this. But if this is Ruth’s way of breaking up? “Hey we’re breaking up in a way that is indistinguishable from me expressing my low self-esteem, see you for sex and romantic dinner tomorrow”? I also wouldn’t know if someone actually for realsies broke up with me either. Throw in suicidality, addiction, and depression issues, and quite frankly I think people are being unfair to both Ruth and Billie.
And then factor in Billie’s very real concern that the reason Ruth’s breaking up with her is to break connections so no one gets hurt when she suicides
Regardless of the manner, or your worries about them, if someone says “we’re breaking up” the correct answer is not “disregard their feelings entirely and break in to their room at night”…
Gaslighting and trapping someone in a relationship with you is NOT a treatment or a valid answer to suicidal ideation, addiction, or depression. Billie is a pill sometimes, but she’s not medication or therapy.
The ends do not justify the means. When someone breaks up with you, however they do it, however recently your mouth was on them, you allow them their agency. Ask to discuss it later, check if they’re sure, fine… but if they’re not required to explain or to have reasons you agree with.
In fact, personally, just me thinking here, if a person breaks up with you for reasons you don’t agree with, it feels like a sign that communication has broken down to a severe degree already. A relationship requires that people be on the same page, or at least close enough to it that when an issue comes up they can flip back/forward a page or to and meet in the middle. Not my cleanest metaphor, but hopefully it gets the idea across.
Overriding someone breaking up with you by pretending you didn’t break up is both not something you are actually allowed to do and such toxic unhealthy behaviour.
I can’t tell the reasoning behind Ruth’s cheerful mood either. Is she becoming manic or is this just in the moment a rush of relief as she commits to her decision and fully acts on it?
Feels like a bit of both, to me. Her moods have been a little hard to pin down for a long time, to put it (I hope) delicately, but committing to a breakup is tricky business at the best of times.
That’s not how doorknobs work. Please let Ruth just be wrong about how doorknobs work, rather than Willis being wrong about how doorknobs work. It’s more understandable from a college student than from a person of Willis’ age.
In case anybody else doesn’t know, once you bust the knob off, the other side falls off too. Then anybody can just reach in and open the door latch.
There are special high security door sets that don’t work that way, but probably not in a college dorm.
They’ll have the cheapest lockset imaginable. It will now be openable with a screwdriver rather than a set of lock picks. She made it easier for Billie to get in.
Smashing the knob to the door of your room so that you cannot easily get out in case of an emergency? Sure, that’s just fine. What could possibly go wrong?
I’m pretty sure we’ve seen Amazi-Girl and Ruth having a conversation. I do get that without the shared panel thing, we could be talking about a Tyler Durden situation, but how likely is that really?
at this point amber doesn’t really need to be checked on (or it wasn’t important enough to include in the flashback?), i don’t think amber would’ve done anything self destructive the same way ruth does
well, outta anyone else’s, joyce would probably have the floors meticulously cleaned esp before having guests over , tho i imagine some ofhtem would be hesitant to have any more even w/o the awkward mood
It took me a solid thirty seconds to figure out Joyce was hiding Fuckface from Ruth with the frying pan.
I think she may not have thought about that aspect of her costume through, what with the RA and the RA’s girlfriend having been invited to her dorm room party.
Does the spearmint lose its flavor in the keyhole overnight?
If you chew it in the morning does it snap right back and bite?
Can’t you see I’m going crazy won’t somebody set me right?
Does the spearmint lose its flavor in the keyhole overnight?
I hated this relationship for being built on assault that spiraled into a suicide pact, and I hate that Billie isn’t taking “no” for an answer and allowing Ruth to end things. This relationship is six kinds of abusive, and it might make for good storytelling, but it’s awful for the characters.
Is it just me or is Billie coming off as a little rapey? “I’ll just pick the lock to her room later, sneak into bed, and tomorrow things’ll be fine.” is a little scary. You know, because of the implication.
Funnily enough, when I pointed that out when Robin did that to Leslie, I was told I was being ridiculous because this was two girls and no dudes were involved.
I don’t know what their sex life is like, but Billie is describing a situation where she breaks into Ruth’s room without her consent. To me that suggests a lack of boundaries.
Again, out of context, I’d completely agree with you.
It’s like their pretend fights leading to sex – if you don’t know they’re both into it, it looks like an abusive rapey thing.
This is part of their dynamic. I’d guess it’s been a way of testing the relationship. Of showing that Billie won’t abandon her, even if pushed away. On both their sides.
I don’t believe for a second that Ruth has really been trying to get out of the relationship and failing because Billie forces her way back in.
And that’s a boundary they explicitly set early on – “don’t leave me, even if I try to make you.” Ruth wants to change that and have Billie respect it, she’s got to do more than the muttered “we’re breaking up” as she runs out the door. Because she’s told Billie not to let her do that.
It’s certainly not a healthy relationship, but it’s not really broken in that direction.
she can have multiple reasons, including ones she wouldn’t tell Dorothy.
I actually agree that that’s probably not a main part of her motivation, but it is yet another reason it’s an unhealthy situation, and it doesn’t really matter why she wants to leave anyway. If someone wants to get out of a relationship, they’re allowed to, whether or not it’s a “good enough” reason
Sounds of, but I think it’s different: Billie invades Ruth’s room to avoid her to suicide.
I agree that their relationship is akward. But this situation is not like you have said.
Do you not? It’s important to have the right tools for the job. For example, I’ve got a crowbar, various hammers, hobby shears, several screwdrivers of various sizes, a handheld rotary tool, pliers, a couple multi tools, multiple types/sizes of scissors, several pocket knives, and assorted multipurpose liquids and safety gear, just to name a few things. Is that not normal?
I feel like this is another mark on the ‘even if you’re happy in a relationship, you can recognize it’s unhealthy and want to break it off’ chart. Like. it comes down to *ruth wants to end it*, at the end of the day, but phew.
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It took me a hot minute to realize what Joyce is doing with that frying pan in panel 1. I thought she was maybe afraid Billie was about to react really poorly, and it was a defensive stance.
Odds Ruth is fully aware of Fuckface, and just doesn’t give a shit?
The Frying Pan of Plausible Deniability.
One thing I learned upon adulthood is how much authority figures operate on “don’t make me have to be an authority figure.” If she can in any way claim she didn’t see Fuckface then she doesn’t have to acknowledge, and therefore deal, with Fuckface being in the dorms.
Gawd, I worked in the school system for 14 years and I feel this so much. There’s so many times where it’s like “if I know about this I have to do something about it, even though I personally think there’s nothing wrong with it. Can I get away with claiming I didn’t notice? Hmmmm….”
I learned this quickly in high school. However, I remember being on the Residence House Committee back when I lived in dorm in 2nd through 5th years of uni, and it blew my mind how many of the subsequent years of freshmen didn’t get this. When there was flagrant breaking of rules, they would just yell and scream at us that it *wasn’t fair* and how the “rules were stupid” etc. ad nauseum. And I would sit there all, “If I don’t know about, I don’t need to address it, so MAKE SURE I DON’T KNOW ABOUT IT! (hint, major hint, please gods take the hint.” But then they’d go and be super obvious about it again and get mad at us for dealing consequences.
It’s her natural instinct to attack the food combiners 😀
You know something’s off when the end really isn’t the end dozens of times in a row. 😟
Yeah. The sheer number of fights and mini-breakups these two have had was always going to make the big permanent breakup a bit weird to portray.
Makes me wonder how Billie would’ve done the breakup
or if doing the ‘reverse’ would work out. “Wanna get married?” “…This isn’t gonna work out”
the end is never the end is never the end is never
HAMMERTIME
Comically Oversized Prop™!
(Except, regular-sized)
I keep losing respect for how Ruth handles relationships.
Also doesn’t that technically lock her in her room?
seems like it’d like herself in/other than taking off the other doorknob, i’d think someone would still be able to pick the lock (even easier?), or they could just kick the door down
Or shim it open with a credit card. Or student ID card.
You act like this is a negative.
Yes, I received your letter yesterday, about the time the doorknob broke
When you asked me how I was doing, was that some kind of joke?–Bob Dylan
You don’t respect taking measures to stay away from someone who regularly breaks into her room?
I suspect it’s more the fact that she broke up with Billie by essentially quickly telling her it’s over and running away and hiding without having an actual discussion. For that matter, the plan from here is to have a mutual acquaintance explain the reasons for the breakup to her.
I mean, from the sounds of it she has repeatedly attempted to break up with Billie and not had her stated wishes/boundaries respected in the slightest.
I would eventually get fed up and do something drastic, too.
Or y’know she can treat Billie with a ounce of respect and talk to her like a person in a relationship does and not drive by breakup with her. You say Billie doesn’t respect her boundaries, I argue Ruth never set any. They were just making out a moment ago. Why should Billie think this breakup is legitimate?
Yeah, sure, okay. “I break into your room and sneak into your bed while you’re sleeping, after you’ve attempted to get rid of me.” That’s worth respecting now, I guess. And candy canes will rain from the sky.
That was nastier than I meant it to come out and I apologise for the tone. A nicer way to say it might be, I don’t think it particularly matters how much respect Billie is getting here, if she’s not just talking out her ass about repeatedly breaking in. I also need to split hairs about the “not setting boundaries” thing, because Ruth wasn’t in a very good place to set those boundaries when they got together, hence the codependent relationship, and I don’t think there’s ever a bad time to start setting them, even if it’s abrupt and directly tied to a breakup.
Your tone was fine. I’ve learned to try to take most comments in the best light possible since it’s so hard to convey conversational nuance in text. It’s not just Jennifer though, Ruth’s date with Daisy proves she avoids romantic confrontation.
My thing is she chose to get into this relationship, she started it more than Billie did. It’s messed up to break something off so abruptly that you initiated.
I’d forgotten about her disaster with Daisy, tbh. I do have to disagree that it’s messed up for her to break it off just because she started it. If a breakup is a-comin’, somebody’s gotta be the one to do it, and putting it all on Billie would be just as unbalanced. It’s gonna be messy from any angle, I think.
What?
Not an especially specific query, but I’ll do my best to clarify anyway
The first bit was just me being reminded (by Sirksome) of Ruth’s date with Daisy, which we all know went poorly. Not much to it aside from that.
The second bit is me saying, in different words, that I think a breakup is a breakup, and in a case like Billie and Ruth’s, I don’t think it matters much who pulls the trigger.
I hope that helps, because that’s about as plain as I’ve ever said anything.
What??????
To be fair, the way Ruth started the relationship was pretty much guaranteed to only get either a dumpster fire of a relationship, a lawsuit, or an employment termination.
Also, given the way the relationship was going, probably the only healthy thing to do with it was end it. This doesn’t look to me like the best way to end it, but I wouldn’t have gotten into that situation to begin with, so what do I know?
I think the problem with this is how Ruth broke up. Saying “BTW we’re breaking up” as you’re leaving a room comes off as more of a joke than a legitamate break. Especially as the two have been all lovey dovey with eachother all afternoon. The mature thing is to discuss your grievances but *gestures to name of comic*…
I literally don’t understand (@Sirksome, since this will be buried a bit). You’re saying the person who initiated a relationship can’t be the one to end it? If anything isn’t it good that Ruth realized it was fucked and pulled out?
if this is the first time Ruth has really tried to “enforce” the breakup then yeah she’s not doing the best by just mumbling it and disappearing but that doesn’t mean that she doesn’t get to end it.
I didn’t articulate it well. My problem isn’t that Ruth is ending the relationship, my problem is that she’s not ending it properly which is only causing more grief in the process. It makes it worse since she is the one who initiated the romance only to end it in the worst possible way. That’s not fair to Jennifer. That’s my point. Their relationship history has taught Jennifer that this isn’t real, she’s even saying as much. Ruth is responsible to actually breakup with Jennifer in a way she understands. Not say a few words in passing, knowing it’s not going to stick and taking measures to avoid the problem while she passes the buck to Dorothy to actually explain things. It’s very confusing to me that Ruth is not perceived to be in the wrong her when by her own admission she’s stated she’s doing this in the worst way possible.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-12/05-this-was-halloween/concerns/
But like I said I didn’t articulate this well and unfortunately caused a lot of confusion and frustration here. My bad. Sorry.
thank you for clarifying! this is why I headed with ‘I don’t understand,’ because it seemed like it couldn’t be that you thought that exactly as written
I would say Ruth set boundaries by locking the door to her private room. If it were a hetero relationship and a guy picked the lock to his (ex)girlfriend’s room the night she broke up with him we’d be calling him a stalker or abuser instead of saying she didn’t set boundaries. It’s toxic on both ends, but Ruth has clearly been attempting to change but Billie won’t let her.
Part of their deal from the very start was that Billie wasn’t going to let Ruth push her away, because that would leave Ruth free to go back to killing herself.
I agree that under normal circumstances viewed without any context, breaking into your partner’s room after a fight would be a huge bad sign, but it’s part of the deal here. Which is a problem in itself, but not a different one than it seems at first glance.
If Ruth wants to break up, she’s going to have to address that. Or, I suppose, piss off Billie enough that she doesn’t want to come back.
Someone who breaks into your room and ignores your boundaries isn’t worthy of respect. And, again, since this apparently “happens all the time” I’m not sure how many times you believe someone should have to ask to leave a relationship before they’re taken seriously (the only correct answer should be The First Time) but I’ll wager our answers differ.
It doesn’t matter what they were doing a moment ago. Ruth said “No” and that should be respected??? Shocking to have to say that in this day and age.
From another of your replies to Taffy –
“My thing is she chose to get into this relationship, she started it more than Billie did. It’s messed up to break something off so abruptly that you initiated.”
Anyone. Can break up with anyone. For any reason. This mentality is what keeps people with their abusers. You don’t need a reason to break up, you don’t need to be nice about it, particularly if you don’t think the other person will respect you wanting to break up.
If I knew someone was going to break into my room and sneak into my bed when I broke up with them, I absolutely would not worry about how polite I was going to be in the break up. In fact, I might specifically do it in a way that upset them so they’d be LESS likely to boundary stomp.
Whoever started the relationship, however recently they were kissing/fucking/whatever, no one is required to stay with anyone or couch their break up in sweet terms. If Ruth doesn’t want to be in the relationship (regardless of why) she doesn’t have to be. And Billie acting like Ruth doesn’t get to decide that absolutely validates some abruptness on Ruth’s part.
This gives Ruth way too much credit. As if Jennifer is somehow the threat. This was a two-way relationship of mutual toxicity. It’s not about Ruth breaking things off with Jennifer, she has that right, it’s that she never set these boundaries in the first place. Ruth’s the one who taught Jennifer to pick locks. She’s the one who went on a bender during one of their splits because despite alcohol conflicting with her meds she wanted to be with Jennifer more. Hell Ruth practically assaulted Jennifer to initiate their romance.
This isn’t Jennifer not respecting Ruth’s boundaries or stalking her. This is a failure on both of them to actually establish what their relationship even was and Ruth quitting it without even explaining why. Jennifer thinks this is business as usual. She doesn’t know it’s a real break up. Ruth does have a responsibility to explain this is different. Not setup Dorothy to do it for her while she works on anti-Billifying her room. This isn’t Ruth escaping Jennifer, this is Ruth trying to avoid an unpleasant situation she in part created for herself.
Or she can do what she’s doing now. Which is probably why they’re so toxic post time skip. It’s her choice. Not everyone is an angel, especially in something as complicated as romance. Ruth doesn’t get any points from me for this though.
Totally agreed with all of this; there’s really no legitimate argument to be had as far as I can see.
Breaking into someone’s room after they break up with you is absolutely stalking and boundary stomping.
Setting a boundary is allowed at any point in the relationship, not just beforehand. Feeling as if you have to break a door to stop someone from just ignoring your latest attempt to break up with them suggests some pretty severe dislike for something you seem to think was mutually encouraged.
You and I clearly disagree about this in a way that isn’t resolvable, and I just don’t have the energy to keep talking with someone who believes that someone doesn’t deserve to have a break up respected just because they weren’t nice about it. Just YIKES.
I admit I’ve articulated this poorly and if you’ve become frustrated and want to exit the discussion then fair enough. I just want to clarify my position because I feel there is a miscommunication here. My apologies.
That being that I don’t actually agree with Jennifer’s methods. Ruth has the right to her agency in this situation, my problem is her method of break up robs Jennifer of hers. She’s made this decision without Jennifer’s input and can’t even truly tell her to her face. Jennifer and Ruth were partners, that implies a mutual level of respect deserved on both sides, especially since Ruth essentially trained Jennifer to react this way to a breakup.
There both not handling this very well, my initial statement was just that I don’t respect how Ruth is doing this. She’s avoiding the inevitable confrontation of this breakup. That’s what I don’t agree with. They both deserve the respect of the time invested in each other, but Ruth has chosen not to treat Jennifer with any which is why Jennifer isn’t respecting Ruth trying to initiate the breakup in the first place.
It’s not about being nice. It’s about actually breaking up with Jennifer in a way she understands. Not doing so actually hurts them both. It’s confusing for me that Jennifer is expected to know this is a legitimate end when Ruth hasn’t explained it to her. To me Ruth is actively working against herself and making the situation worse.
I still feel like I haven’t articulated this well. My apologies again, maybe our differences on this truly are unresolvable, but I don’t believe so. Either way I’ll leave it be. I don’t like causing conflict in the comments, I just like the discussion and hope to have a better one next strip.
I agree with most of your reasoning, but I disagree with your conclusions. In particular, “It’s messed up to break something off so abruptly that you initiated” is going way too far, to me. Anyone can break up or withdraw consent at any time, even if they are the one initiating it, without owing anyone an explanation.
Would it be better and healthier in this case to tell Jennifer the situation plainly? Definitely. But I don’t think Ruth has, at any moment, forfeited her right to just walk away, particularly if she thinks the situation is unhealthy for her in the long run. (Even if she might be wrong about that, tbh I really can’t tell if this is just her running away from happiness or not; the relationship did legitimately start on very bad terms.)
And regardless of how right or wrong Ruth’s handling of the situation is, Jennifer’s reaction in today’s strip is preeeetty yikes to me. You’re right that Ruth has trained her not to take breakup talks as actual breakups, and to break into her room, but this sort of talk should still not be normal. Even given their past, in a healthy relationship (which they allegedly are now) this should still be cause for concern, and there should be a desire to get to the root of what is happening. Jennifer just thinks this is fine. I’m not even sure if Ruth could make her take it seriously without outside help.
some were probably genuine but i can imagine some would be in the heat of the moment or as part of their unhealthy foreplay lol
Something must have changed, as post-skip Ruth is MUCH more humbled.
The eventual fight must be one hell of an explosion, and this is just the primer charge.
well she does mention being on new medication, and though some things are repressed deep down b/c she did end up shoving her again in the present
To be honest, she’s the one in the “wrong” here (as far as “right” and “wrong” go in the context of the Billie/ Ruth situation), pulling a drive-by dump/ leave it to Dorothy to clean up move. Anyone with even a modicum of self-awareness would be critical of their actions ex post facto, one would hope. That said, as many like to say, we have to bear in mind the strip title, etc etc.
Uh.
…would that even lock the door?
Depends on how broken it is, with her hitting it from above she could have broken it in a way that bends the metal of the lock and stops the door from opening without something like a crowbar.
It’s another service call Puddinhead needs to make to Facilities, anyway.
(We know the door gets fixed because otherwise she couldn’t cuff Jason to it in January.)
this is only Step 1 of Locking the Door, if the alt-text is anything to go by
hopefully we get a strip or two of Ruth shenanigans
“Happens all the time?” [thinking emoji]
this sure will be…..something™
I’ll go get some popcorn. And Kool Aid. And Mac and Cheese. And blast shields. Not in order of priority.
And airhorns!
…. so Puddinghead’s going to be fixing Ruth’s door YET AGAIN.
Really, Ruth, a deadbolt would be easier AND more effective.
I forgot about the Resident Manager and her interesting hair choices, and googled Puddinghead to try to figure this comment out, and it’s all My Little Pony art which just made me even more confused.
“Puddinghead,” or more commonly, “Puddin’head” is old slang for someone who’s extra dumb.
So me in this moment.
Come now, a Gallifreyan need not be so self-deprecating!
If we see her again post-skip, will she finish letting her hair grow back out, touch up her roots, or deliberately keep it the way it was?
Ruth is determined to sabotage this relationship.
(Because it makes her happy, and she’s not allowed to be that; and because it’ll end, everything good ends, so let’s do that now and get back to bad, which is the rightful order of things.)
I mean, she said before she’s trying to protect Billie from her (Ruth’s) own self destructive tendencies. Which, understandable, but also, she desperately needs therapy.
Unfortunately, the strip is set in the United States.
I sometimes wonder, as often as people specifically call out American therapy accessibility, in other countries, where they have better access, is it actually used properly?
Maybe keep the nationalist undertones to yourself?
I- Hmm? Wanna run that by me again, stranger?
Just ignore this whacko, he’s always doing this. Best disregarded. You said nothing remotely worthy of criticism.
What the hell happened while I was asleep? This wasn’t even that big of a deal, if I’m being honest, like I thought Taffy was trying to crack a joke that just didn’t land? Calling him (them?) A “whacko” is a little out of line, I mean do we need to use terms implying somebody is crazy, in a stigmatizing manner? You also called them (him?) A “fruit loop” which, again, comes across as calling the person insane, and I think also seems queerphobic to me? I just don’t think the name calling is needed, so can we please not no that anymore, even if it’s in a nother person’s defense?
And speaking of defense, I didn’t really ask for it. If I thought Taffy was an actual problem, I’d have spoken up for myself, because this isn’t even the first time they’ve (he’s?) “”come at me”, so to speak. Which I still don’t appreciate, but I thought maybe we were just on different wavelengths.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to make this a novella, it just sits weird with me how things went here.
Sheesh — are you just looking to frame every comment in the most negative possible light? The dictionary definition of Nationalism is “identification with one’s own nation and support for its interests, especially to the exclusion or detriment of the interests of other nations.” I really don’t see The Oracle’s comment doing either, do you?
“Every comment” nothin’. There’s just something about that one that runs me the wrong way. Maybe I misidentified it, but that’s hardly following a trend, especially tonight when I’ve been trying to be very even-tempered and fair.
“especially tonight when I’ve been trying to be very even-tempered and fair”
You realize it’s not specifically your job to respond to comments? They’re not directed at you. Your own mood doesn’t dictate how other people choose to comment.
This guy always seems to respond weirdly, misread tone, and act strangely aggressively in the comments here… is there any known reason for that? Just keep seeing him weirding shit up for no reason.
this entire comment thread is hilarious because they both act aggressively towards other commentors in a similar enough manner that for a while i thought they were the same person. apparently they’re different people! just similar enough that they piss each other off
Alright, I get it, The Oracle wasn’t doing what I thought they were doing. What’s all this about me “always” being aggressive, though? That’s just inaccurate, and the misgendering isn’t really called for either. I made a bad judgement call and it backfired, but can we not pretend it’s a huge Thing I “always” do? Eesh.
@egg egg: Can we stop with this “Oracle is secretly somebody here” conspiracy stuff? I saw The Wellerman do it too, that time I spent an entire night/morning with my foot in my mouth, and I didn’t appreciate it then either. I’m just me, although I do think your observation of “similar enough that they piss each other off” is pretty funny and even probably accurate.
@Taffy: Wait, did you actually think I was like…dogwhistling some nationalism? I thought you were joking. Either way, I think it’s probably best if we move past this, and also maybe we shouldn’t “cross streams” as much, so to speak? I seem to tick you off more than you do me, so maybe this is misplaced, but it might be best if we don’t interact much. That’s not a hard boundary, and I don’t want to embarrass you since you’ve evidently been part of this community for a while, I just think we don’t get on very well and would rather not argue if it’s avoidable.
Also, Taffy, just for the sake of being clear, is it okay if I ask your preferred pronouns? You mentioned misgendering, so I’d rather avoid doing that to you as well.
Agreed, we should probably minimize interaction. If you’ve said it I missed it, and I apologise if this is a reach, but you come across as a similar flavor of neurodivergent to me, and it’s reminded me once or twice of some of my worse behaviors, which I think is what bugs me. It’s not embarrassing except in that I’ve clearly pushed a limit that shouldn’t have been pushed and so it’s a social misstep.
I’m also sorry for coming at you like that. It wasn’t called for, it wasn’t funny, and it’s not the person I want to be. People here deserve better behavior, and you especially right now since, as you said, this isn’t the first time I’ve acted shittily toward you. I’d also like to apologise for past instances of aggression.
As for the pronouns question: I personally identify as agender (lack of strong feelings toward any particular gender identity) and prefer they/them pronouns. I’ve been experimenting with others elsewhere in different context, but unless you play Final Fantasy XIV on the Primal data center, you’re extremely unlikely to encounter that context.
Maybe wind your neck in, fruit loop. Let Willis do the policing. You come off as a straight-up nutter.
You shouldn’t use the name “Taffy”; it’s considered offensive by Welsh people. How dare you, you’re so inconsiderate, what gall, etc etc. That’s about as reasonable as what you’ve come out with.
Why are you so obsessed with me?
I don’t think therapy is actually better elsewhere. It’s just affordable because health insurance.
I was asking more about how widely it’s actually used, not so much the quality. For example, I think even halfway decent therapy that’s used by a majority of a population, is more helpful than really good therapy that only a few people ever make use of. You can have all of the top therapists in the world, but if nobody’s paying for their services, they’re still not doing much good, through no error of their own.
other than dorothy (tho the last ‘advice’ she got from her therapist wasn’t framed in the best way), i don’t see many in the main cast being that willing/receptive to try out therapy even tho they prolly all need it at this point. (maybe danny would consider it)
While I accept the reasons for bashing the US medical system, Ruth actually is in therapy, so it doesn’t really apply here. (Or was? I assume it continued after she went home from the hospital, but was that made explicit? We know Billie’s been – eventually.)
It’s more that her happiness inevitably ruins other people. So best not to be happy as a service to the ones you love even if you’re hurting them by not being with them thus fulfilling your own self loathing interpretation of reality. Totally different justification to self sabotage!
Now I’m trying to decide whether your version or mine is more fucked up.
Could be worse. Billie currently believes that toxic love is the only kind of love that she or Ruth will ever get to have. She thinks they can’t fix it because everything they touch turns to poison anyway, and because if they fixed the toxicity, they couldn’t have the love anymore.
I don’t think Jennifer actually believes that. She’s shown she’s more than capable of showing sincere love. The toxicity is starting to feel performative at this stage. She wants Ruth to meet her parents. That tells me she believes in this more than Ruth did. That’s why she’s so bitter about the split. Ruth couldn’t see it. That’s my take anyway.
Hmm, you’re right and I like that take.
Billie has been experimenting with this today (like that they can briefly manage idyllic, and “by now we’ve kind of graduated into loving each other normally”). She presented these as self-aware jokes but now I think she’s also trying it out a bit. I like that.
To be fair, Billie is pretty fucking horrible.
She is.
Billie, that’s creepy.
I think it’s clear they’re both pretty awful for each other.
If it were any clearer, it’d be invisible.
not saying the way billie/jen’s way of doing things is right but she probably also is doing this just to make sure ruth doesn’t kill herself
At Ruth’s request back when they started things. Which isn’t to say it’s right or healthy, but they’ve got a weird relationship with weird boundaries that ending it like this more difficult than it seems.
Okay, first – I love Joyce hiding Fuckface with a pan. Too cute. Too Joyce. I love it.
Second of all….Jesus that is fucked up. Starting to get a handle on why Ruth thinks they might be unhealthy
Y’know, aside from “lesbian suicide pact” and “beating the crap out of each other”.
Oh god, that’s why she had the pan raised. I’m such an idiot. Somehow my brain thought it was her ready to bonk Billie on the head if the breakup caused hee to flip out or something.
I bet that won’t be out of the question soon.
“Starting to get a handle on why Ruth thinks they might be unhealthy”
Yeah, at this point Ruth’s perception of their relationship is firmly locked in.
She really latched onto that breakup idea, didn’t she?
(Are we doing door puns?)
Well maybe she should’ve seized her chance to bolt earlier
(Yes.)
Their entire relationship has been pretty unhinged from the start, so it’s not surprising.
To make the puns bilingual, if Billie eats all that candy, she might start to get *port*ly.
Oh, right. The gaslighting. The gaslighting for Ruth, the gaslighting chosen especially to abuse Ruth, Ruth’s gaslighting. That gaslighting?
I was quietly horrified when it happened after Ruth went to the hospital for mixing alcohol and medication (that her current mixing isn’t causing rashes or other noteworthy side-effects so far is I guess a net positive), seeing that it’s apparently considered an “all the time” thing is making me a lot less quiet about it.
Get the fuck away from her, Ruth.
Yep, this right here.
Indeed. By all accounts, it doesn’t make sense.
Did the font change for the comments?
Did you change the font in your settings? Looks the same to me.
Now that you mention it, yes.
Did it??? I can’t tell any sort of difference, on Firefox or Chrome. Not on mobile, anyway
Over what time period? I’m curious enough I wanna check it out on web.archive.org
You know, Ruth’s whole spiel to Dorothy earlier was that she had to break up with Billie now, because it had to be done while she was in a reasonable and rational state of mind.
These are not the actions of someone in a reasonable and rational state of mind. This is rapidly approaching the most unbalanced we’ve ever seen Ruth.
TLDR, whoever Ruth’s seeing for therapy, they suck at their job.
Or Ruth may be deliberately ignoring whatever sensible advice her therapist has.
Or she knows Billie will just gaslight her and trample her agency if she tries a direct, mature discussion again (just like last time), so she tried a hit-and-run instead.
Thats the spirit! The main reason I go to therapy is so I have someone else to blame than myself. I feel so much better
While smashing the knob (ooh-err!) is probably satisfying, I’m not sure why just putting on a deadbolt (without smashing the knob) isn’t effective.
Given Ruth’s history, I would hope/think that she would have the thoughtfulness to put a sign on the door: “Please don’t worry, I am really seriously truly not suicidal just now, but I am really truly seriously breaking up with you.”
Of course, this comic is not titled “Thoughtfulness of Age”.
Jennifillie doesn’t seem the type to care about your mortal concepts of “reading the sign” or “being broken up with”. And frankly, her being so pissed at Ruth in the present tastes weird to me now, like there’s an “I can’t believe she actually managed to break up with me” sort of flavor.
Yeah, she has that “you don’t get to break up with me, I break up with YOU!” haughtiness going on.
“thoughtfulness of age” HAHAHA
Truly, I feel like this solves too many discussions from the comments to name
I feel like it’s one of those things that in real life would be messed up but I’d be willing to give some amount of leeway for comedic effect.
You can pick a deadbolt as easily as any other lock, assuming it’s opened with a key. It’s still operated by pins, which you can manipulate with a tension wrench and a pick, aka a set of lock picks. (What you can’t do it slide it open with a credit card.)
Ruth needs one of those little chains that can only hooked or unhooked from the inside.
I was assuming an interior deadbolt – the kind you just slide across on the inside and turn into place. Works much like the chain, except you can’t crack the door open at all.
I actually used the wrong term when I wrote “deadbolt”. I meant something like a slide bolt or sliding bolt; something that would attach to the door and the jamb to be slid closed without a key. There are other terms used of different brands of bolt, some with some sort of mechanism to pin the bolt and keep it from being easily slid back.
Ok, this puts a different spin on things, given Billie’s described creep-ass behavior.
They might both be hot as fuck and I might have a personal stake in their relationship continuing exclusively and explicitly for the kinky beat-up sex, but those two needed a proper breakup about…*checks watch* 2015 ago. I’m glad Ruth at least got on some better meds, even if she still does the ridiculous “for her own good” thing. Billie is still doing whatever, with whoever, for whatever reason, so whatever.
They are my OTP, but I know it’s time to scuttle that ship.
Their ship can be one of those cool seaweed-covered sunken pirate ships, the ones with all the treasure laying around in the Captain’s quarters for some reason.
Listen the treasure was a bunch of women’s jewellery and the captain was getting ready for the drag queen event that night, when those blasted heteronormative scallywags of the Crown came at them out of nowhere and sunk them.
I’d watch this movie, honestly. Sounds like a good time.
…oh no.
Oh no oh no oh noooo
billie just casually said she ignores Ruth’s wishes and breaks into her room on a regular basis but people are in here talking about how Ruth is the unbalanced one.
it’s amazing how much manipulation one can achieve with a little confidence.
Yeeeaaaahhhh. If a person says “I’m breaking up with you”, then “No” isn’t a valid answer. I won’t budge on that and it’s weird if other people do.
Hard same.
As bad as a reason like “I’m doing this so you can be happy” is, it’s Ruth’s own decision and ultimately she doesn’t have to be in a relationship she doesn’t want to be in, regardless of what her reasons are for breaking up.
However, judging by Mary’s whole dramatic speech, we’re FAR from the end of Halloween night’s drama. This is going to get messier.
AGREE! I’m honestly rattled by how many people seem to feel that Ruth isn’t allowed to break up with Billie?
Nice to see some comments that aren’t ignoring Ruth’s personal agency.
Anyone’s entitled to break up with anyone. You can still do it badly.
This is doing it badly. Particularly since it’s not even clear to her partner that she’s serious about it.
Not once have I suggested that Ruth is breaking up with Billie well. I’m just stunned at the number of people who seem to think that Billie’s response is reasonable or justifiable.
If you’re not sure someone is really breaking up with you, stalking and B&Es aren’t the answer to that. It’s just so odd to me that needs to be stated.
Me defending Ruth’s right to have her “NO” taken seriously isn’t me saying Ruth is in the right or wrong with her behaviour. I do understand where it’s coming from, though, if Billie has disregarded previous attempts to break up.
Drastic actions are sometimes needed when someone won’t take a fucking hint.
Maybe the drastic action should involve talking to them and telling them that you’re changing the deal and you’re serious this time?
She did tell Billie something like “Don’t leave me, even if I get stupid and try to make you” way back when they started. I found it this morning and linked it somewhere in these comments. 🙂
They can both be unbalanced, mental instability isn’t a zero sum game.
If mental instability were zero sum, the planet would be a nightmare.
Toooooooo be fair, Ruth is still unbalanced. She was just making out with Billie on Mary’s sexual sins setup. I don’t think Billie’s scot free by any means, in fact she’s way more of a jerk about this. But if this is Ruth’s way of breaking up? “Hey we’re breaking up in a way that is indistinguishable from me expressing my low self-esteem, see you for sex and romantic dinner tomorrow”? I also wouldn’t know if someone actually for realsies broke up with me either. Throw in suicidality, addiction, and depression issues, and quite frankly I think people are being unfair to both Ruth and Billie.
And then factor in Billie’s very real concern that the reason Ruth’s breaking up with her is to break connections so no one gets hurt when she suicides
Regardless of the manner, or your worries about them, if someone says “we’re breaking up” the correct answer is not “disregard their feelings entirely and break in to their room at night”…
Gaslighting and trapping someone in a relationship with you is NOT a treatment or a valid answer to suicidal ideation, addiction, or depression. Billie is a pill sometimes, but she’s not medication or therapy.
The ends do not justify the means. When someone breaks up with you, however they do it, however recently your mouth was on them, you allow them their agency. Ask to discuss it later, check if they’re sure, fine… but if they’re not required to explain or to have reasons you agree with.
In fact, personally, just me thinking here, if a person breaks up with you for reasons you don’t agree with, it feels like a sign that communication has broken down to a severe degree already. A relationship requires that people be on the same page, or at least close enough to it that when an issue comes up they can flip back/forward a page or to and meet in the middle. Not my cleanest metaphor, but hopefully it gets the idea across.
The metaphor works and I totally agree.
So it’s not the nonchalant thing nor the attempt at a break up that set Billie off
Also uh, wow, it’s a regular enough occurrence that Billie just shrugs at it? Huh
Overriding someone breaking up with you by pretending you didn’t break up is both not something you are actually allowed to do and such toxic unhealthy behaviour.
I can’t tell the reasoning behind Ruth’s cheerful mood either. Is she becoming manic or is this just in the moment a rush of relief as she commits to her decision and fully acts on it?
Feels like a bit of both, to me. Her moods have been a little hard to pin down for a long time, to put it (I hope) delicately, but committing to a breakup is tricky business at the best of times.
Really, all I can say to it is Huh. Like… How would one even respond to Billie’s statement before their brain reboots?
YOU POOR STUPID BABIES
Ruth, you are supposed to make sure the door can’t be opened from the OUTSIDE.
Everything’s fine…
It’s actually totally 3009% fine, why would anyone think otherwise?
Everything is fine! Nothing is the matter!
That seems healthy.
Healthy as a horse. A really buff horse. A really buff horse with a perfect work/life balance.
Remind me to look the next horse you gift me in the mouth.
Are you hitting on my gift horse?
Hey, no kink-shaming!
What you do behind idiomatic closed (barn) doors is none of my concern, no worries.
I love how cartoonishly deranged the last two panels are.
The corner of the sign makes it look like Ruth is wearing Groucho glasses, a little bit, which I think makes the panel even funnier. 🥸
“I need to take a page out of Carla’s book.”
Yeah i guess this relationship really was a garbage fire on all sides
That’s not how doorknobs work. Please let Ruth just be wrong about how doorknobs work, rather than Willis being wrong about how doorknobs work. It’s more understandable from a college student than from a person of Willis’ age.
In case anybody else doesn’t know, once you bust the knob off, the other side falls off too. Then anybody can just reach in and open the door latch.
There are special high security door sets that don’t work that way, but probably not in a college dorm.
They’ll have the cheapest lockset imaginable. It will now be openable with a screwdriver rather than a set of lock picks. She made it easier for Billie to get in.
I’m taking the mouse over text to mean that both Dave and Ruth understand that’s just the beginning.
Smashing the knob to the door of your room so that you cannot easily get out in case of an emergency? Sure, that’s just fine. What could possibly go wrong?
She’s got a window. If Sal can climb out, Ruth probably can.
But Ruth isn’t Amazi-Girl!
Have we ever seen the two of them in the same room?
Yes!
Okay, but in the same panel???
I’m pretty sure we’ve seen Amazi-Girl and Ruth having a conversation. I do get that without the shared panel thing, we could be talking about a Tyler Durden situation, but how likely is that really?
Does The second panel here count?
That could be anybody’s hair.
…I thought she was going to check on Amber.
Exactly my thought as well. “yeah go ahead with your drama, but hope is Amber??”
at this point amber doesn’t really need to be checked on (or it wasn’t important enough to include in the flashback?), i don’t think amber would’ve done anything self destructive the same way ruth does
Okay yeah I’m (now) on Ruth’s side about this. Not even fazed? Did Jennifer ever, ever consider it could be real feelings, any of the other times?
She broke the only exit to her door. And now, the only thing that prevents me from assuming the worst is that she’s still the RA post flashback.
Hold up, has Ruth actually tried to break up and Billie was like “Denied”?
If so she was breaking up for all the right reasons
nah, they can both be acting for the wrong reasons (and, IMO, are).
Yeah, the whole “I know what you want better than you” thing doesn’t fly with me.
There’s been several “I’m pushing you away for your own good” moments that were denied.
Going back to the original pact
“Billie. Please don’t [leave me]. Ever. Not even if I get stupid and make you. Stay.”
Fuckface is now officially my fave character. I don’t know what it is but seeing his inadvertently smug look makes me happy haha
Fuckface is everyone’s favourite character.
Some people simply haven’t realised it yet.
This breakup will not stick.
I am certain.
They will still be together the next year.
Also…. are they going to eat those of the floor??
ewwwwww
i mean, with the stereotype of “college students living off ramen”, free food is free food even if candy isn’t that filling/nutritious
Ew, people, ew again!
Picking food from the floor?!
Picking individually wrapped fun-size candies off the floor.
Wasn’t this sorted out chex mix?
There was sorted-out Chex Mix, but Billie said ‘candy’ earlier.
It’s all vaguely square blobs anyway, who knows.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
well, outta anyone else’s, joyce would probably have the floors meticulously cleaned esp before having guests over , tho i imagine some ofhtem would be hesitant to have any more even w/o the awkward mood
Trust me you do not want to leave chex mix all over the floor for people to step on and grind into the carpet.
I’m actually more impressed that Billie (and others) managed to hear Ruth’s slurred-together break-up muttered under her voice.
Oh, hey, it turns out literally everything about this relationship was a uranium-infused tire fire.
What a revelation that has most definitely not been shown before this moment at all, whatsoever.
None of us had any warning, truly. We’re all of us blindsided by these shocking and astonishing events.
It’s Willis’s fault, really, for giving no hints of it. Bad Willis.
Even a mild foreshadowing would have been nice, if we’re on the subject. They seemed so healthy before this arc.
They were relationship goals, man. RELATIONSHIP GOALS!
It took me a solid thirty seconds to figure out Joyce was hiding Fuckface from Ruth with the frying pan.
I think she may not have thought about that aspect of her costume through, what with the RA and the RA’s girlfriend having been invited to her dorm room party.
Does the spearmint lose its flavor in the keyhole overnight?
If you chew it in the morning does it snap right back and bite?
Can’t you see I’m going crazy won’t somebody set me right?
Does the spearmint lose its flavor in the keyhole overnight?
I hated this relationship for being built on assault that spiraled into a suicide pact, and I hate that Billie isn’t taking “no” for an answer and allowing Ruth to end things. This relationship is six kinds of abusive, and it might make for good storytelling, but it’s awful for the characters.
the way this is going, I’m surprised no one else has taken a long walk off a rooftop by the present time.
Bit dark, innit? You’re not wrong though, this dorm hall would drive me up the wall.
Is it just me or is Billie coming off as a little rapey? “I’ll just pick the lock to her room later, sneak into bed, and tomorrow things’ll be fine.” is a little scary. You know, because of the implication.
Funnily enough, when I pointed that out when Robin did that to Leslie, I was told I was being ridiculous because this was two girls and no dudes were involved.
it can definitely be rapey no matter what genders are involved, but i think context is key
Their relationship does not have healthy boundaries around consent. I think Ruth is right to want to break up.
Their relationship isn’t healthy in all kinds of ways, but it’s not particularly rapey, unless you ignore the context and history of the relationship.
It might be best to end it, but Ruth’s reasons for doing so aren’t the one’s you’re talking about and she’s doing it very badly.
I don’t know what their sex life is like, but Billie is describing a situation where she breaks into Ruth’s room without her consent. To me that suggests a lack of boundaries.
Again, out of context, I’d completely agree with you.
It’s like their pretend fights leading to sex – if you don’t know they’re both into it, it looks like an abusive rapey thing.
This is part of their dynamic. I’d guess it’s been a way of testing the relationship. Of showing that Billie won’t abandon her, even if pushed away. On both their sides.
I don’t believe for a second that Ruth has really been trying to get out of the relationship and failing because Billie forces her way back in.
And that’s a boundary they explicitly set early on – “don’t leave me, even if I try to make you.” Ruth wants to change that and have Billie respect it, she’s got to do more than the muttered “we’re breaking up” as she runs out the door. Because she’s told Billie not to let her do that.
It’s certainly not a healthy relationship, but it’s not really broken in that direction.
she can have multiple reasons, including ones she wouldn’t tell Dorothy.
I actually agree that that’s probably not a main part of her motivation, but it is yet another reason it’s an unhealthy situation, and it doesn’t really matter why she wants to leave anyway. If someone wants to get out of a relationship, they’re allowed to, whether or not it’s a “good enough” reason
Maybe not directly what you said, but close to it.
Sounds of, but I think it’s different: Billie invades Ruth’s room to avoid her to suicide.
I agree that their relationship is akward. But this situation is not like you have said.
Am I the only one wondering why Ruth owns a small sledgehammer?
Do you not? It’s important to have the right tools for the job. For example, I’ve got a crowbar, various hammers, hobby shears, several screwdrivers of various sizes, a handheld rotary tool, pliers, a couple multi tools, multiple types/sizes of scissors, several pocket knives, and assorted multipurpose liquids and safety gear, just to name a few things. Is that not normal?
I’ve got all that and more, but not when I lived in the dorms.
But to the original query, no, that particular question did not immediately occur to me.
you! can! break! up! with! anyone! for! any! reason!
“I’m breaking up with you for not being Estinien Varlineau.”
weird but still allowed
So now Ruth has to go out through the bathroom? I wonder if the bathroom locks have no keyhole to pick.
I dunno, I know some married couples like that. Sometimes break up / make up is just how folks relate.
I feel like this is another mark on the ‘even if you’re happy in a relationship, you can recognize it’s unhealthy and want to break it off’ chart. Like. it comes down to *ruth wants to end it*, at the end of the day, but phew.
Mallet
Check and mate.