NEW SLIPSHINE FEATURE!
Every Monday, there’ll be a new page of stand-alone NSFW art for me over at Slipshine for subscribers. I have titled this experiment Welcome To The Fuck Zone, and the first installment, which went up yesterday morning, features Walky and Dorothy. (A careful cropping of the art is on the left.) Next week you get some Sarah! After that? We’ll have to see. But keep your Slipshine accounts fresh and you won’t miss anything!
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*the entire hall points to eyes, points to Mary*
Sierra’s face is that of “dang, my Slipshine account isn’t current anymore” =<
Same. :(((((
I think Agatha is too.
“NOW THEY WANT TO TRADE EYES”
“I only have eyes for you.”
“Aw, that’s”
“Just take them! Once you take them I won’t need eyes anymore! I’ll be just like Terezi!”
“…okay.”
okay, billies officially my favorite character, I may be Baptist but, I really hate seeing people who want manipulate, judge, and torture people for every little thing and say their a Christian, last time I checked were commanded to not do any of that, it’s his place to do the judging – no ours, we all got are day coming. Judge not lest ye be judged yourself, and ye be judged by how you judged others.
Yay! Equal-oppurtunity hatred!
Yeah, make that monster pray to her god in sadness
Bet she won’t understand that she has any responsibility for any of this, and she just prays everyone else will see the light.
*insert captain america’s “you move” speech*
that sounds like something she would actually think about if she weren’t probably denouncing comic books as homosexual propaganda
Even Chick Tracts?
that’s what tv tropes calls the “moral alternative”
And I was mostly talking about superhero comics, since homophobia was a big reason behind the imposition of the Comics Code
Actually, probably… he wasn’t particularly fond of rock music (http://comicsalliance.com/history-jack-t-chick/) and Mary’s happy enough to use it as a point in favour of her preferred church (http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/02-choosing-my-religion/guitars/).
electric guitars does not mean it’s rock music. Could be country or gospel
Disclaimer: this is my experience in the Southeast US in Baptist and Methodist churches. Other denominations, regions of the US, and countries are probably different.
Traditional worship music is usually accompanied by a piano and maybe an organ. It usually appeals more to older people. Contemporary worship music is usually played with a full band, or at least a piano/keyboard and a guitar. It usually appeals more to a younger crowd. Some churches, especially in bigger cities and college towns, have a contemporary service and a traditional service.
Yeah, I live in FL, and Christian rock is actually pretty common in bigger churches. They realized that sticking to traditional gospel music was sticking to a style people were just going through the motions for.
Mary has no time for the kind of namby-pamby tolerance displayed in Chick Tracts.
Hard core, eh?
Rest in peace Jack Chick. We lost a valuable ally in the fight to make evangelists look even(gelist) crazier…
Non-Evangelical Christians breathed a silent sigh of relief as one of the worst people making them look like loons was unable to make them look any loonier.
the ghost-writers he was already using will keep it going sadly
…fffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff
Now I’m picturing Cap karaoking ‘Your Move’ from the Yugioh soundtrack
I like to move it, move it…
Wait, wrong move?
Sierra wants to boot her out! Oh, wait…
And that’s why she’s a shoe-in for my “favourite background character”.
It’s her sole purpose.
This pun thread barely got off on the right foot but I’m shoe we can make it so that all other pun threads are uggly by comparison!
It’s the Lace we can do for all these Tongue-in-cheek puns. Tred carefully, lest the moderator make you Toe the line and feel like a Heel.
That would cause quite a sandal.
you guys are kinda toeing the line here.
Sierra’s really ankling for a big toe-down with Mary.
Prepare for a tarsal.
If the shoe fits…
Sierra looks like a zombie.
Mary had better keep on the ball, or she’ll find herself Sierra’s arch-enemy. (Converse-ly, maybe Sierra will remain her usual loafer self.)
New Slipshine as well? Sex and violence in one post? You are on a slippery slope, Willis. And I am waaaaay ahead of you.
Is the slope slippery because it’s been lubricated?
*plays the jingle for Vaseline Petroleum Jelly on the hacked Muzak*
Well, he has to speed up the process somehow. His chief rival, Brad Guigar, has made Evil, Inc. a veiled advertisement for the “After Dark” side. And, by veiled, I mean the thin, sparkly, see through kind, only held on by some kind of glue, or maybe piercings.
*then plays ‘Vaseline’ by Stone Temple Pilots
If Sal or Carla shows up we could get drugs in there too!
….I may be missing something here. What’s Sal’s connection to drugs? She took Carla’s weed for like two seconds, but other than that she doesn’t really seem to use them.
Tobacco and nicotine are drugs. We’ve seen her smoke “regular” cigerettes on occasion.
Granted, if I included alcohol, I could’ve listed any number of cast members, so.
Ahhh, okay. I was thinking about illegal drugs.
Though if we’re including all things that are technically drugs, we could also include anyone using caffeine or alcohol as well, which would pretty much cover the whole cast.
I’m sure I remember even DARE telling me that cigarettes were more harmful and addictive than a ton of illegal drugs
Yup! Doesn’t change the fact cigarettes are legal though, so when talking about drugs, a lot of people don’t tend to think ‘tobacco’ or ‘nicotine’.
For most of the cast, alcohol is an illegal drug.
But nicotine isn’t.
Sure, because they’re underage, but alcohol in general is not against the law.
NOT AGATHA
What about her debilitating coke habit?
Oh sure she just started on Classic like so many of us, but now she barely gets a buzz off the Mexican stuff. It won’t be long before she’s dumpster-diving behind the Wendy’s to find those precious few drops of syrup from the empty Freestyle machine cartridges. GET HELP AGATHA WE YELL BECAUSE WE CARE!
Agatha’s Mormon. It’s not unlikely that she doesn’t even do caffeine.
Not that I can understand how anybody can live like that…
Not joking, whether the word of wisdom should cover all caffeine or just the listed drinks is something Mormons will have serious conversations about with the official answer being that it’s up to personal interpretation.
John: I can’t have caffeine because the found a polyp on my breast a decade ago and one of the first things they told me was get off caffeine. Turns out the stuff can mutate breast tissue! O_O
Anyway, I’ve been off it for years and after the first year of not having it, I quit missing it. I don’t feel a crash anymore like I use to. When I have to go on a long drive or stay up, I pop some sublingual B12 and make sure I have snacks like juice and peanut butter crackers. When I get a migraine and grab an excedrin, it works so much better and faster because I’m not desensitized to the caffeine in it. It can be annoying to get something to drink when I go out to eat if I’m in the mood for something with flavor, but now I’m use to drinking ice water (if it’s not bad tasting) which means I can really taste my food and it’s less money on my bill. I’m drinking less soda now because I no longer have a craving for caffeine and drink more water and almond milk (I’m allergic to whey) which has caused me to lose a bit of weight, save money, sleep better, and have skin that’s fine without makeup. There are a lot of options for tea without caffeine (including southern sweet tea) as well as sodas (like Peach Crush and Caffeine Free Pepsi) and coffee (if ya like the stuff). 🙂
What’s really interesting is that so far, Carla is the only one we’ve seen who uses a street drug, which is very different from my college dorm experience.
If flashback scenes count, we got Dana.
Cutting out the flashbacks, it might be that others are using, -but- it has simply never been something that’s been important to either plot or characterization. That the general attitude is the same as to whether or not someone drinks Mr. Pibbs or not, or how often they go to the bathroom.
Or it might be that Willis hates drawing bongs for some unknown and very weird reason. :p
It pretty much matches mine, out of date though it is. A couple months into the first semester, I don’t think I’d run across any. It was there, but if you weren’t into the party scene, it was easy to miss. Booze was far more common. More than here even, though we didn’t have anyone as obviously having trouble with it as Billie or Ruth.
Since we really haven’t seen much of the party animals, it’s not really a surprise. If the strip was focuses on Roz & Joe, I bet we’d have an entirely different college experience.
so she’s not pregnant but she still gets to do a walk of shame, nice
don’t think pregnant is a requirement
also “walk of shame” may mean something different to many others
Well, I think “walk of shame” should be redefined into meaning what is happening in today’s strip. Much, -much- more appropriate anyway.
I’m now reminded of the one comedy video where a woman is doing the traditional “walk of shame” out of a house but everyone on the street is actually super supportive of her and shares her enthusiasm for just having had a great night of no-strings attached sex.
Now that would be a world worth living in!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRwulXTGhKU
*death-glares at Mary*
Everyone in the hall: (◣_◢)
ಠ_ಠ ⸟_⸟ ͠°_ °
Never mess with a girl who has nothing left to lose.
Amazi-Girl was ready to but instead had a female bromance (is there even a word for that?) with Sal.
Womance!
Is Mary’s room near the elevator? She might need it to get away from all the stares.
Roz will be in there glaring at her…but she always does that, so Mary has learned to tune it out.
I assume Mary and Roz are always kept separate by the intense loathing force field between them at all times.
That must make them being roomies difficult!
Familiarity breeds contempt.
Sierra: I hate you. I hate you more than shoes.
Or socks. Or those stupid feet glove things or water shoes. I hate you more than all those things put together.
I can get behind that. My view on shoes is that they are protection against the elements. If there’s nothing to protect against, why even put them on? that’s what we invented floors and carpets for
You say than until you step on Lego.
(or any other small thing that can hurt. Maybe glass that didn’t get swept up enough.)
That comes under hazardous area: requires shoes
But nice fresh grass? carpets? smooth floors? why suffocate your feet?
Friends of Foot Fungus endorses your views completely.
I WELCOME MY FUNGAL TENANTS!
Cat poo.
Cat barf is WAY more common on my wood or Lino floors. Just sayin’, Aack-thBBbbbttt.
Agree.
also comes under hazardous area and “clean up immediately” categories
I wasn’t even aware that Sierra was capable of hate.
NOOO!! What have you done to Sierra’s sweet face? It’s all furrowed and tight and hardened. Is there no END to Mary’s evil??
Alt text sorta says it all
That’s quite the Death Stare Sierra has. I approve.
SUMMON THE SHAME NUN
Wait, Ruth WAS the Shame Nun
SUMMON THE RELIEF SHAME NUN
Wait, we aren’t going to get Yelling Bird here, are we? The bongo filter will need to get turned up to 11 in that case.
Percussion! Percussion on your whole family! Percussion on you! Percussion on your cow!…
Shame Nun? Is that what they call that nun lady from Game of Thrones?
Septa Unella? Yeah.
Agatha is making that face because you forgot to put her in the tags and she’s feeling left out.
“Am… am I not here? …Have I been a ghost this whole time?? Oh no!”
Or she forgot about an important homework assignment that’s going to kick her GPA in the mouth if she doesn’t start working on it like right now.
You know what?
This is just as satisfying as yesterday, if not more so.
Mary basically doing the -real- walk of shame. Mary finding out she has no friends, she has nobody that likes her, that agrees with her vile views, that will stand up on her behalf. Mary finding out that her attitude and behaviour has left her alone. Mary finding out that she is, in fact, without any form of power at the moment.
That’s gotta sting more than the punch.
she already assumed they were all against her on some level. At most she’s annoyed that they don’t hate ruth as much as she thought they did
really? she more gave me the impression that she believed everyone was behind her and that she was just the only one “brave” enough to spew her hate against the evil homosexuals.
That was my read as well. Kinda like the racist who’s like “ah c’mon, I’m just saying what we’re all thinking” to the crowd of people silently judging them.
And it’s what I really like about Emperor Norton’s point. She’s actually having to contend what it actually means to be hated by everyone you’re surrounded by. Not fake persecution, I’m hated because I’m so moral BS, but genuinely despised.
And she really doesn’t like it and that, more than anything, she most certainly deserves for the vileness of her actions.
I also love the differences between her “walk of shame” here and in the old Roomies comic.
In the old Roomies comic, it was super gross with her being found out to be pregnant and shamed for being a hypocrite giving in to the same secular hedonism she spoke out about. But here, her crime isn’t that she’s a secret hypocrite, it’s that the judgmental, curtain-twitching right-wing Christian abuse she preaches and practices is vile in its own right and deserving of condemnation and scorn.
And I like that contrast as it really highlights how much Willis has grown over the years.
Not so long ago, she considered herself the “moral center of this wing,” and expected everyone else to go along with her.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/moralcenter/
Also, I am liking my avatar way more after today.
She may consider herself to be the moral center of the wing, but she’s also in the habit of sitting in her room without clothing as Billie discovered when she popped in unannounced. Not sure I would completely rule out hedonistic hypocrite yet.
There are plenty of reasons why she’d be temporarily unclothed without having anything to do with hedonism. Without a comic of word-of-god explanation of why, I personally think we should not try and stretch for more reasons to hate Mary.
Especially since we have so many already.
Yeah, “hypocrisy” is a drop in the ocean compared to the other shit she’s pulled
Most obviously, she could have just been changing. 🙂
Still, I suspect there was something to that incident. I suspect our Mary has secrets. Given some of Willis’s comments on that sequence in It’s Walky, I doubt he’ll tread that ground again, but it would be interesting to see more of what makes Mary the way she is. Give us something to empathize with, while still leaving her the villain.
Never quite sure how she could think everyone would support her, when she has to know they’re accepting the “perverted vagrant” and half of them are some variation on queer anyway. Probably just didn’t think it through.
Or thought they would all be eager enough to pretend to conform to social norms, even if they don’t actually fit them.
I think I disagree somewhat with you on this. Mary here seems genuinely surprised to see that nobody looks at her with sympathy, that nobody is speaking up on her behalf. And that is usually pretty hard to achieve when you’ve just been sucker-punched.
“Why are you siding with -her-?”
AKA (my interpretation) “I can’t believe -nobody- is on my side here!”
In her story (in which she’s obviously the heroine), she’s already won the accolades of her peers for exposing Ruth as a horrible RA. Sure, she didn’t expect them all to join her, but there were certainly -somebody- out there that would back her up, right? Right?!?
I just hope she doesn’t get off on the perceived martyrdom. Then again, getting off on anything is pretty firmly against her faith.
She’ll hole herself up and essentially rebuild her broken ego on the whole “I’m a God Warrior!” schtick, will think she’s stronger than she was before, but apt to crumble at any moment. From there, Mike will swoop in with honeyed words of ‘sympathy’ just because he wants to reinforce the girl’s floor having a public enemy #1, just because it’ll be fun to watch the chaos that unravels. She’ll become confident enough to start causing problems that could get her kicked out of dorms, and when and if that does happen, he’ll yank the rug out from under her by not being around when she falls apart.
Maybe, anyway.
I think the thing is that she gets off on faux martyrdom, like many of her particular religious and political worldview. But actual martyrdom. Actual consequences? Actual hatred from everyone around her?
I don’t think she’s at all ready to actually experience what it’s like when that’s going on.
I agree, getting punched could have elicited some sympathy but instead shes found out that no ones likes her (probably not bothered) but worse no one respects her or fears her anymore
yeah. Didn’t think of that. She wouldn’t care about them liking her, but not respecting or fearing her means she has no leverage to force godliness on them
Ooh, good point. She’s totally lost people’s fear of her “telling on them” or targeting them. Billie straight up ignored her threat like it didn’t matter and no one watching made a slightest step to turn on Billie for the action. Between that and Carla owning her so thoroughly in her prank, she’s totally losing the high-ground of terrorism she exploited so masterfully with Ruth.
It stings way worse. All Mary actually wants is power to lord over people. That’s why she didn’t actually narc on Ruth; blackmailing Ruth was the goal in and of itself.
There’s a bit of a cognitive dissonance with Mary where she thinks of herself as a lone crusader against evil but also as a moral leader of authority.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/02-choosing-my-religion/avoid/
Literally the only time in the entire comic that Mary has even the slightest hesitation about being a jerk is that frowny face in panel three where she chooses not to hang out with people she likes because she deems them immoral.
Deep down, Mary wants everyone to like her, but she’s not in high school anymore, so being a jerk and a bully just makes everyone hate her. Which makes her angrier and more spiteful and more of a jerk in the process.
That’s why she works as a foil. In a comic where every other character seems to be running on pure spite, she’s *consumed* by it, and it destroys her and everyone she can get near.
I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, if my pity wasn’t all used up on the people she hurt, I would pity her a little.
No, you’re doing it wrong. Sympathy is for the people she’s hurt. Save the pity for her.
Nobody likes being pitied.
I think someone yesterday (or recently, can’t seem to find the comment) said something like “I pity not what Mary is, but what Mary could have been instead of this.”
I can get behind that sentiment.
fun fact, that was me
Well then, yay to you, because that’s a frickin’ amazing line and dead to rights. Mary could have been something other than what she is and the horror is she still can, but it would mean owning what she’s done and moving away from that towards genuine empathy and she’s not even remotely ready for that.
She’s basically a Vorbis, isn’t she?
honestly, by this point, I would not be surprised if realizing the full magnitude of harm could lead her to try to kill herself.
I mean, if I had done what she had done and had a change of heart, that is what i would do.
“harm she has caused” is what I meant to say
She wants to be Professor Umbridge when she grows up.
Felgraf- I’m rereading that right now! And totally!
Considering that her type that def beliefs in the “be fruitful and multiply” commandment, I also am sad for her future children that will have to endure being raised by her and whatever equally spiteful fundie (or victim of her spousal abuse) she marries.
Zapp Brannigan
Wow, who would have guessed that blackmailing and moralizing in front of everybody would mean that nobody likes you?
That’s what happens when you read from Starscream’s playbook.
Mary, just because someone else is bad doesn’t make you a hero for attacking them.
If Sierra is mad at you perhaps it’s time to reconsider if you’re on the side of the angels or not.
Not that Mary will.
Sometimes people really do need a punch in the head, words just really arn’t as effective as a short, sharp smack in the chops
I’m reminded of a quote from Conan: “Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.”
Mary just learnt a valuble lesson…
“I’d put my foot in your ass, but I don’t wear shoes and it would get super awkward.”
nah, it’d just drive the stick farther in
Stink eyes forever!
Wow, even the barefeet hippie is mad at Mary.
its probably because she’s a hippie that she’s mad tbh
Oh man. Gotta love Rachel’s comeback. Mary is screwed. What is she gonna say? The entire hall is against her now for what she has done and still trying to do. I’ve seen way to many people who excuse their actions because there is someone else worse or their actions only hurt people that the majority don’t like. I’ve seen people marginalize pain and struggle because somebody else had it worse. Being a bigoted asshole to an asshole doesn’t change the fact that you are a bigoted asshole any more than a cheetah stops being fast because it’s chasing an antelope.
My memory’s shot (or I’m not making the connection) – what is it they have on Mary that they can rat her out for?
Blackmailing the RA in order to get away with the verbal abuse and property damage towards her hallmates.
what property damage? The roller skates? Or am I missing something else?
That and possibly the carpet from when she stomped on the glue bottle.
oh yeah. There’s no way that won’t require them to replace the carpet to fix that
If Carla trusted the authorities, that could have very easily been a ‘have fun paying for the new carpet/new section of carpet, Mary’ moment.
come to think of it, that scene where she says she’s putting her in the boy’s wing makes no sense. What was she going to do, barge into her room and dump all her stuff into the boy’s wing? Or was the point just to misgender her?
The point was to misgender her.
What timemonkey said. The point was to misgender her and do so in a brutal abusive way. Heck, she even gloats immediately afterwards that that “shut her up”.
Blackmailing her RA to the point she was suicidal, trying to convince the hall to continue to blackmail Ruth for their benefit after she was found catatonic and longing for death, and harassing Carla (although that may not be hall knowledge yet and just be known by Billie, Carla, and Ruth).
Finally. Even Sierra has Mary’s number. I love it…”we can multi-task.
And I wonder if this is even going to make any difference in Mary at all. After she has time to sit in her room and sulk, what then? She is still asking ‘why is everyone against me?’, so I don’t think she gets it, even now.
I am proud of you Billie. You may have done it in anger but you sure did it right. Perhaps it was the only way you could get Mary’s attention.
Sierra’s death glare is quite honestly terrifying yet strangely alluring at the same time. I’m a little confused. Also Rachel with that stinger. “Yeah, she was. But we can multitask” feels like she’s saying “Maybe, but you’re much worse.”
mulititasking for fun and revenge…… well thats fun too soo fun and fun…… so fun squared?…… i feel like walking trying to do math XP
No Agatha in the tags, Willis?
It’s weird to me that everyone in the hall seems to known what Mary did, so long as they’re not a major character.
Well, Billie has just gone down the hall and told them all.
But are you sure everybody knows? Joyce and Becky weren’t there when it all went down and Billie might not have told Joyce because she didn’t know how she might react. Joyce might have insisted on going to the R.M. with the issue or Billie might have had some other possibility in mind. I hope that they all do know what happened, but there is always a chance that one or two was skipped over for one reason or another.
Billie said she told everyone on their floor. She might not be including those who aren’t here presently (so, most of the main characters), but that doesn’t preclude her from either telling them later or having told them last night.
Oh man, if Roz was at class and doesn’t find out until she gets back, she’s gonna think its her friggin’ birthday!
She’ll probably immediately go over to Joe’s room to celebrate, Roz-style.
Even better, bring Joe to their room for the partying so Mary’s stuck in the hallway of judgement.
I wanted to say that would be too cruel, but then I remembered we were talking about Mary
Ruth was a bad R.A but Mary your a bad person.
I’ve been wondering if how the other dormees feel about Mary getting Ruth kicked out isn’t somehow similar to how people felt about Sarah getting Raidah booted or wtvr had happened to her.
Sarah got Raidah taken back to the custody of her dad, hopefully for therapy. She was just doing a good job of hiding her depression in public so everyone thought it was unwarranted.
*Dana, Raidah’s friend. Raidah is still on campus. But yes, that.
right, right. Dana. Sorry, my suckiness with names extends to fictional characters.
I think it’s more “Ruth was an ass, but YOU pushed someone to SUICIDE.”
Probably looks even worse to them than to us. We knew how screwed up Ruth was already, that she was already on the brink. To the rest of the floor, this comes out of the blue and looks like it’s all on Mary.
Mary had no intention of getting Ruth kicked out she just wanted to torture her, if anybody is in the same shoes as Sarah it’s Carla considering they both did what they thought was the right call at the time.
So in summation- Suck it Mary.
Jeez, you blackmail one lesbian couple into hiding their relationship to the point where one almost kills herself and suddenly YOU are the bad guy.
Yeah, that sums it up pretty well…
[Insert Agreeing Sarcastic Comment Here]
So, “This” in sarcasm font.
(Is there a sarcasm font for the comments section?)
there should be, most people just put “/s” or “/sarcasm” at the end of a sarcastic sentance tho
Look for “Sarcastic Font”. It’s italics with a reverse slant.
Billie and Ruth are both bi.
In fairness, Mary “only” wanted to be able to boss Ruth around. She had no way of knowing Ruth would break up with Billie, and certainly no way of predicting Ruth would turn suicidal over the whole affair.
Granted, it would probably help her case if she didn’t brush Ruth’s suicide attempt off as NBD…
nah she wanted to boss ruth around so she could get everyone else to do what she wanted. she told ruth to gather everyone for a bible or prayer or some shit to which ruth was like “nah”
also p sure she was already suicidal
This is so goddamn satisfying. Mary is being forced to confront the fact that no, people don’t secretly think like she does and that her hateful world view and actions won’t be tolerated. Seeing all this finally come crashing down is so so amazing.
(and yes I know my Gravatar makes this statement look weird. Shut up.)
Oh, and that last panel.
Rachel is basically saying “Ruth was bad, you’re worse.”
Mary hoped to gain sympathy, instead they are repeating what Billie said yesterday: “Carla is bad, you are -far- worse.”
To be -repeatedly- told you are worse than the very people you yourself are thinking of as the worst of the worst; by people that you thought would at least have your back if they saw you getting punched…
Yeah, today’s strip stings worse for Mary than yesterday, that’s for certain.
That’s a very good point. In her eyes, these are the folks that are the scum of the Earth in her eyes. Who literally deserve death in her eyes. And as you note, she’s being told she’s worse than that. That’s gotta be a bit sobering though I doubt it will produce any lasting change.
Mary’s really lookin like some kind of Dark Joyce with that outfit
Mary’s always been kind of a Dark Joyce, since they started with similar worldviews, but Mary also shares the spiteful nature most of the strip has, which is a bad mix with said views.
Nega-joyce
Anti Joyce.
Terrible human is way worse than terrible RA.
Mary’s fellow dormies know she would hate on them for other stuff anyway: same sex relations, different beliefs, being barefooted.
Being barefoot is a sin unto the Lord.
Sierra quotes Exodus 3:5 at you.
Also Agatha’s face in Panel one is hilarious.
Yesterday was pretty satisfying, but damn if this isn’t even more so.
STOP AGREEING WITH ME, DAMMIT!
NO!
I mean, look at the comment I made up there:
“You know what?
This is just as satisfying as yesterday, if not more so.”
How can we maintain thoughtful disagreement when stuff like this keeps happening? Huh? Have you thought about that?
…you just walked right past the fancy logical paradox I created by not agreeing to stop agreeing with you ;_;
We are the emperor of the internet, we cannot let it be destroyed by paradoxes all the time. That would look messy and inconsiderate.
and there you are agreeing again
i ship it
Let’s do the time ship again.
What?
besides, Star Trek pretty much beat that plot line to death.
Yay! Finally I know the context of that Sierra preview panel and it’s not horrifying! (Actually I’m a bit disappointed as I hoped that it’d point toward a bit of plot relevance for her, but no dice.)
Not Enough Multitasking?
Just enough multitasking
NOT JUST ENOUGH
NEVER JUST ENOUGH?
Yes, thank you for that response. Ruth was a terrible RA… and she should be both getting help and not be an RA anymore. But… no, Mary, you’re much worse.
Um… Yeah, Rachel. We can multitask in the comment section too… of course we can…
We can?
We can what?
I don’t know.
I agree completely.
Third base?
THE ALT-TEXT SPEAKS THE UNIVERSAL TRUTH.
*plays the song that absolutely no one in their right minds should see as romantic, no matter what 80s rom-coms say*
Every breath you take..
Every move you make…
Every bond you break…
Every step you take..
I’ll be watching you…
Every single daaaay…
Every word you say…
Every game you play…
Every night you stay…
I’ll be watching you…
Ah, rom-coms. How much I hate thee…
JUSTICE!!
If you didn’t stand up to her, you did not stand against me and you don’t stand against Billie, aren’t you all cowards who will submit to the most aggressive bully at any given moment?
Sorry, I play devil’s advocate sometimes.
Maybe everyone on the floor didn’t like her for their own reasons but when it came down to the blackmail and personal harassment of Carla, maybe those were the lines that were crossed. Perhaps they didn’t know how low Mary could go.
Why should they stand against Billie when she has told them what Mary has done? Unless you think that they’ll immediately jump ship because Mary got punched in the face.
Literally nobody knew Mary needed to be stood up against until yesterday. Nobody knew she was a blackmailing shithead. At best they knew she was kind of a jerk with some serious religious mentality. And when the truth came out nobody took Mary seriously. She didn’t need to be stood up against because she was not bullying everyone like a tyrant. Neither is Billie.
I kinda feel someone needs to sit her down and explain WHY what she was doing was f-ed up, but I’m not sure she’d listen even now.
She needs to be pushed a little further.
Before she’s willing to consider what she did was wrong.
I’m surprised Billie was able to get everyone to go along–I went to a small hippie liberal arts college and I doubt even there I could’ve gotten my whole floor on board, let alone at a more varied-ideologies state school.
This is definitely interesting to see, but I get the feeling that this is just going to end up as a catalyst to something more disastrous from Mary’s side of things.
It’s strange, isn’t it? I honestly think that this is the first time that Mary has has understood that her behaviour isn’t popular and that people don’t automatically think that what she does is right. Optimistically, this may cause her to rethink her life and behaviour a little.
Excuse me, everybody. I just need to bask for a moment.
(bask)
As you were.
Ruth really was a terrible R.A. If we’re wishing for her to stay, we should wish for a scholarship or money from heaven. I don’t think she should get the job back. Especially as it seems Ruth learned about authority figures from her grandfather.
You have to be a bit of a PITA to be a good RA. But all Ruth’s talk about removing femurs and other random act of violence was more in line with Teddy Roosevelt’s famous doctrine about “speaking softly but carry a big stick”, and let everyone else decide for themselves that the best way to get along was to go along.
In that respect Ruth’s toughness and demeanor was much like Fonzie’s toughness and bad-ass persona on the old “Happy Days” sitcom. I don’t think we ever saw him actually hit anyone — not even the ‘Malachi Brothers’ — during the entire series either.
Except we’ve actually seen Ruth hit/bodyslam people? I know Billie and Mary for sure, don’t recall if there were any others. With that sort of treatment, it’s unlikely people would go to her with roommate or personal problems. And it’s not like she was a good RA in other respects–she wouldn’t give a mandatory safety meeting even after an active gunman had been at the school. She basically just used intimidation in order to do the least possible amount of work.
If her depression were actually managed so that she both had the will to do her job and didn’t want people to hate her, she might be pretty good at it.
Violence aside, she does seem to legitimately care for her residence and their issues (despite her not really making that clear or handling it well), which is more than I can say for several RA’s I knew.
*residents
This. We’ve only seen a month of Ruth’s life, and it’s one for which she’s been sliding into an ever-deeper depression.
Which I think this is the bit that made Pudding Head think that Ruth was her best RA. As Billie noted, Ruth cared. She wanted people to be safe and help out for problems and was present when she could be.
If she wasn’t depressed, self-destructive, and only able to access anger as an emotion to motivate herself, she would be one of the best RAs imaginable. Present, caring, quick to intervene when students are being harassed or put at risk.
I mean, she caught out that Blaine wasn’t supposed to be there like lightning and similarly managed to intervene in Mary’s transphobia in Carla initially. Those are amazing RA qualities that Pudding Head likely doesn’t see in her other RAs.
And Ruth’s tragedy is that her self-destructive depression keeps her from being that best possible RA she could be, that Pudding Head still saw her as and that just feeds her self-loathing, because it reinforces her idea that she is shit like her grandpa says and eventually everyone will see it when she inevitably lets them down.
Note, that last bit on only accessing anger to motivate herself is why she’s a terrible RA in practice this year. Motivating herself only with anger and self-hatred directed outward helped her become abusive and violent with her charges, mostly keeping order with fear and hiding her depressive episodes by creating a climate where people were discouraged from coming to her with problems.
Her greatest weakness used to overshadow her strengths.
She also used fear and violence to keep things in order from the very start – femur threats and physically dragging girls to the first meeting. She was already known as “Ruthless” to the older girls, which suggests the behavior wasn’t new.
I do agree that she did care and was good at parts of her job, but I still think most of her reputation with Chloe was from suppressing any trouble largely to keep anyone from having to check up on her and find out her problems.
While it’s true the other girls already called her ‘Ruthless’, this is also her first year as an RA – I think that reputation proceeded her appointment.
Being tough and being a good RA aren’t mutually exclusive. Ruth has shown some great successes (dealing with Blaine) and failures (dealing with the shooting). She didn’t start out the semester *not* depressed; she started out *less* depressed.
She’s good at sensing bad public situations, yes, but that depends on her going to the residents. For bad private situations, they’d have to go to her when they know she gets physically violent for minor infractions (running in the halls, backtalk). I had an RA help me with a major personal issue my freshman year, but if I hadn’t gone to her she never would have known, and I doubt I would have approached anyone like Ruth.
BBC: Nope. Second year as RA. She’s 20, a third year student.
I’m not sure it’s explicitly been stated, but highly implied early on when she talked about how they love her “downstairs” because she runs a tight ship.
Actually, word of Willis a while ago said it was her first year as an RA, not her second.
Ruth *was* a terrible R.A. As Rachel points out, we can “multitask” here. Many of Ruth’s actions were wrong. But that doesn’t make any of Mary’s actions right, particularly blackmailing Ruth to the point of suicide because (i) she likes the power, (ii) she honestly thinks that queers should suffer or are living in sin voluntarily and therefore should be punished, or (iii) both.
I know I’m hoping beyond hope but… is it possible that Mary might… just might consider the possibility that she is a terrible human being?
some people dont change no matter the circumstance unfortunately
And so that’s a no.
Finally Mary realizes that nobody on her floor likes her, though it could be a while before she realizes why.
Because they’ve been allowed by the perverted RA to fall into sin? More than ever, the floor needs a strong guiding Christian hand to bring them back into the light.
Exactly what I was thinking. Mary as the next RA
Luckily, that’s not an option, because freshmen can’t be RAs at IU
I’m looking forward to seeing Dorothy doing the job of RA so well
that Pudd’nhead Chloe never bothers to find out what year she’s
actually in.
That sounds like what Mary’s would assume is the reason why they don’t like her at first. I’m hoping eventually she will realize that nobody likes her because she’s a bigoted asshole, but I don’t expect that to happen right away.
I’m honestly hoping that she’ll go to Joyce to complain, out of some misguided notion that because Joyce is Fundie-raised, she’ll be sympathetic. And since Joyce was raised with such an intimate knowledge of the bible, maybe Joyce (assuming she doesn’t just completely flip out at Mary) will be able to tell Mary exactly WHY she was wrong, with actual scripture to back her up.
Granted, Mary seems like the sort of person that wouldn’t care. The Strawman Conservative Christian™ who quotes scripture out of historical and biblical context is a true stereotype, in my experience. Mary might just respond with a scripture quote that means the exact opposite of what she’s trying to say, or even make one up (which is probs out of character but you never know…), but then Joyce would probably call her out on that, and suggest that Mary’s not as good a Christian as she thinks she is, which would be interesting.
DECEPTION
DISGRACE
Evil as plain as the bruise on her face.
You know what, let’s focus on Billie for a second here.
Because contrary to her statement, Billie is clearly not out of fucks to give. At least not in the general sense. Those two panels there is some of the old Billie coming back, hopefully without some of the more negative traits that the old Billie had.
Just look at the intensity of her expression. It’s clearly signifying that she will stand in the way of anyone doing the horrible type of dangerous bullying that Mary does, even when it happens to people Billie personally does not like! Head cheerleader, problem solver, and if you’re going to act like a bongo, then you’d better beware, because Billie knows that game, and she plays it better than you do!
And more importantly, I think this shows that Billie is caring about more than -just- Ruth. Again, it was the comment about Carla sending her over the edge, not the previous comments about Ruth, despicable though they were. This Billie reminds me of the Billie that ensures that the drinks are free of roofies. She’ll do that for anyone, friends or no, because there are certain things that nobody deserves happening to them, and she’ll be there to stop them from happening, dammit!
And it makes me slightly optimistic on her behalf. If she can find this spot more often, she might finally think of herself as something else than pure poison. Wouldn’t that be nice?
Of course, in the shorter term, it also makes me worried for later tonight. Because the whole setup (talking to everyone and confronting Mary) must have taken a toll in mental energy, and currently she does not have readily access to her “charger” Ruth. Once the adrenaline rush goes over, she might have a bad crash coming… Will Sal try to reach out again? And will she succeed this time?
didn’t help that she also put quotes around the term girlfriend, mocking her love for Ruth
I like that and I think you are right. She’s hit the fuck it point, but that’s not always a universal negative thing. Hitting the fuck it can clear out a lot of cobwebs in one’s brain and make it easier to get things done.
It’s basically the shortcut Ruth’s been using this last year to remain semi-functional and I’m hoping this continues forward and she allows herself to rise into her role as Problem Solver without losing herself to the self-loathing and the way she’s convinced that she’s poisonous and useless.
Billie would have been out of fucks, but she had a stash of them she’d been tucking away just in case. A Strategic Fuck Reserve, if you will
I think I should clarify my comment somewhat (and this is a reply to Cerberus as well):
I think that in terms of feeling in any way scared for her own well-being, Billie is all out of fucks to give. Right now, she wouldn’t initially give a damn if she did get suspended (until she realised it might hurt her chances of seeing Ruth). Which of course gives one a tremendous amount of freedom. If you gladly accept any consequences of what you do, then you can do anything you damn well want.
But thankfully she doesn’t turn into someone who kills or steals because she doesn’t give a fuck about going to prison. Because she still has fucks to give -on other people’s behalf-. Mostly Ruth, of course; but also other people in general. She is still a giving tree, so to speak. Or “giving a fuck” tree, I suppose.
Of course, there is a difference that makes the future less gloom and doom right now: It might very well be that giving a fuck about other people might also be what she needs to build up a feeling of being worth giving a fuck about herself. That she is f.ex. deserving of having Ruth being in love with her. Or to go back to the analogy, that her behaviour can make her -grow- some branches and leaves.
Ok, the following part was -really- badly written:
“But thankfully she doesn’t turn into someone who kills or steals because she doesn’t give a fuck about going to prison. Because she still has fucks to give -on other people’s behalf-. ”
Let’s see if I can clarify my clarification:
Thankfully, just because Billie momentarily has that freedom, doesn’t mean she’ll do asshole things for no reason. Because she still has fucks to give -on other people’s behalf.
Hope that’s clearer.
I’m just hoping Mary will Transfer and we’ll never have to see her again.
I could see her ending up being transferred to Anderson by her parents after a carefully-parsed description of events by Mary in a letter makes her seem a victim of ‘persecution’ by this ‘viciously atheistic and amoral institution’.
I think Willis said she was self-radicalized, coming from a more normal family
And yes, I am using that term on purpose
“Just because she was horrible, doesn’t mean you aren’t horrible.”
Mary right now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbTcHpPDCu8
Ah, panel 3, my friend. That look that says “Wait, am I not immortal/untouchable/immune to consequences? When I hurt other people, even if I do it by carefully following the letter of the law, can they also hurt me? They can actually, Billie might not break my bones and stuff without going to jail for it but what if she does it anyway? Getting punched hurts so much.”
She might not change her hideous attitude, but now she might think twice before trying to hurt more people. I wonder if that could possibly have happened without resorting to violence.
Because you’re a fundie bongo, Mary.
I’ve noticed that, in lots of ways, Mary is a very typical bully. She tries to gain personal popularity by targetting the ‘unpopular kids’ and just wants to be the top of the social pile (which is why she targetted Ruth when she spied a weakness to exploit). When there isn’t an obvious weakness (such as with Billie) we see her display another typical bully behaviour: She tried to be the strongest one’s follower so she can have some ‘trickle down’ power and fear from her mistress’s own fearsome reputation.
Mary strikes me as someone who would make a very good political chief-of-staff.
She’s going to go subtle now; she’s learned her lesson about planning and gloating.
She’s not done. She’s just got a larger target list.
Y’know, even if Mary was right about them only being able to spare hateanger for one person, she’s…really underestimating the chance that she’d be the one they’d give it to.
I mean…HOW many girls on this floor are queer? And the ones not confirmed as queer themselves are friends with the ones that are.
Mary’s big problem is that, bullying aside, she’s a bit of a self-centred fusspot. She doesn’t play well with others and really doesn’t like people living their lives around her during her ‘quiet study time’. She’s one of those personalities that tends to irritate others to the point where they feel less sympathy for her.
Bottom line, she isn’t so much hated as she has failed to make anyone like her enough to back her up.
They all think about or try it, at least. It’s basically inevitable.
Girls on this floor?
Joyce – BFFs with a lesbian.
Dorothy – Pro-LGBT+ rights, friends (ish) with Becky
Sarah – Seems pro-LGBT+ rights, friends with Dina and (sort of) with Becky
Billie – Bi
Amber – BFFs with Ethan, who is gay, and Mike who is likewise Not Straight.
Sal – BFFs with Marcie, who is bi.
Becky – Lesbian
Dina – Uncertain, but into girls.
Ruth – Bi
Roz – Very vocally pro-LGBT+ rights
Rachel – Seems to be friends with Grace, who is bi.
Other Rachel – Uncertain, she gets along decently with her either LGBT+ or pro-LGBT+ rights floor mates though, and she didn’t back Mary up outside Ruth’s room, nor did she say anything about Carla yelling about the whiteboard dingdong bandit being a hate crime, so it seems like she’s more likely to be pro-LGBT+ rights.
Agatha – Seems pro-LGBT+ rights, helped hide Becky.
Sierra – Bi
Grace – Bi
Mandy – Bi
Fuck, I forgot Carla – Trans, sex repulsed asexual, and homoromantic.
Wait, Sierra bi? What did I miss?
Either Patreon or the Walkyverse.
wow. Someone picked the exact wrong floor to pull homophobic bullshit on
RIGHT? If Mary had paid a lick of attention, she’d have realized in an instant that pulling this kind of bigoted nonsense was a terrible idea.
or it could make her more determined, thinking of herself as being like the Roman martyrs
LBR, she already thinks that.
That was rhetorical, but…yeah, nice to have an explicit listing.
I figured, but I got curious and wrote one out anyways.
Yay for lists! And yeah, wrong damn floor for this shit. Hell, prolly wrong damn generation for this. Their generation is less homophobic and more likely to identify as queer than any other, so definitely less patience for Mary’s games.
While I’m sure shitheads still exist in this generation, it is absolutely true that this the WORST possible floor for this. Too use Mary’s own twisted ‘battle for souls’ logic, they already won over everybody but her, seemingly before school even began (years in advance for some of them like Amber and Sal).
Ewwww, I feel dirty now for using Mary!logic. Excuse me while I scrub my mouth out, take a million showers, and try to cure the headache.
Wait a sec… when did we find out Sierra was bi? (I can’t recall seeing anything that suggested her sexual leanings.)
A) She’s bi in the Walkyverse. The character’s sexual orientations are the same across the board.
B) Sierra says in Patreon she likes boys and girls.
It is a little creepy that so much of the floor is bi because they were basically the sex fantasy squad in SEMME.
Thankfully that fetishizing didn’t carry over to the Dumbiverse!
No fucks left to give – Billie’s memoir
they’re siding against you because you’re a homophobe, mary
Don’t forget transphobic too
and probably an anti-semite, anti-mormon, catholic hater, etc.
Basically, she hates everyone in this hall. She just picks what she sees as the easiest targets
Definitely a Catholic hater, as confirmed by her (very Catholic) roommate.
Poor Roz.
I thought her roommate was an atheist
Yes, but of a Catholic family.
double-evil then
Roz has never said she didn’t believe in God. She DID say she didn’t want to only refer to god as ‘He’.
Roz is Catholic – whether it’s important to her is something else.
LOVE frame 3 where Mary looks back at Billie and… reconsiders her next step. And all the other frames too. Multitasking.
“Ruth was a terrible bully of a person!” might go down better if they hadn’t all just overheard you saying “hey go on let me be terribel and a bully to someone I think is vulnerable”. You don’t get to say “hey the Joker killed a dude” when you’re Mr Zsasz.
more like you don’t get to complain that people let Harley Quinn off too easy for some of the messed up stuff she’s done when you’re the Joker
Ok, just some clarification. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but while what Mary did definitely exacerbated the problem, wasn’t Ruth already somewhat suicidal at the beginning of the semester?
That’s right, which makes Mary’s blackmail all the worse. Pick a vulnerable person and blackmail them? Crikey.
Well, duh.
You don’t blackmail people who aren’t vulnerable. That would be silly. It doesn’t work.
true
If Mary hadn’t got involved, being away from her shitty Grandpa and semi-financially independent could have led her to seek therapy and start building some healthier coping mechanisms
Yes, but she was doing a very good job of hiding it. Really no one but Billie (and the readers) realized what bad shape she was in because she hid it so well behind the angry bravado. So what everyone else on the floor saw was ball-busting hardass Ruth brought to the point of alcoholism, depression and suicidal thoughts by Mary’s bullying.
It’s hard to imagine, but Mary actually looks WORSE to the other floor residents than to us.
wow
I have to wonder what happens when she gets back to the room she shares with Roz…
A really good question. We all know how calm and understanding Roz can be.
Oh, don’t even start with that.
Like you’d be any more a paragon of quiet introspection if you shared a room with Mary
Surely all problems in this world can be solved by physical violence upon persons you dislike. Great work there.
Most problems can be solved with innovative uses of MAster Spark
Most problems can be solved with sufficiently large quantities of Nitro-9. Ask Ace.
Good thing that’s not what’s going on, isn’t it?
Billie didn’t punch Mary because she disliked her. Billie dislikes lots of people without punching them.
As much as I want to say it was wrongfor Billie to hit Mary because violence is bad, I can’t. It definitely wasn’t good and it probably wasn’t right, but I would be a liar if I said I didn’t think that a person should be afraid they’ll get punched if they say the things Mary has said to Billie in the last few strips. “I’d be a terrible person, this is a crime, and people would hate me” obviously aren’t sufficient deterrents in some cases
Problem with that, in my experience, is that the more violence is tolerated to enforce such things, the less it’s used to stop the really bad people and the more it’s used to enforce the nastier social norms or just bully others.
People more willing to use violence tend to be those you don’t want making those calls.
I know that it’s not viable as a deliberate enforcement strategy.
But if you say those kinds of things to somebody, they’re gonna get angry. And they should get angry.
Tell you what. You guys enjoy deploring Billie being violent. I’ll enjoy Billie smacking Mary. We both get to be happy? Deal?
I can certainly enjoy it as cathartic violence, but I think Willis may be going somewhere else with this. There seems to be a theme going in the last few weeks.
Which hit a twist a couple strips back with Marcie paying the price (again) for Sal’s violence, however justified it was.
One of the things my parents drilled into my head was that ‘unless you’re defending yourself/someone else from someone who’s already gotten physical, you do NOT get physical with them’. That being said, Mary has not only blackmailed someone, but she has displayed open bigotry and hate speech, and driven said blackmail recipient to suicidal thoughts and depression. Her luck has run out, and if it were me punching her, the only complaints I think my parents would have is that Mary could press charges, which is addressed in the strip.
Oh great, I was afraid I was done arguing against people completely excusing Mary’s own violent behaviour and not taking into account that she in the panel before the punch begged to be allowed to try to make the life of another human being into such a hell that said other human being would commit suicide. And she did this for no other reason than being a horribly bigoted piece of evil shit.
Imagine my relief right now at discovering that there clearly will always be plenty of people who thinks such violent bigotry is equivalent to “being a person you dislike”.
Some people just need to be smacked. They’re far too dense/narcissistic to actually listen to words or care that others are getting hurt by their actions (hell that’s often the whole point). But a good smack to the lip is universally understood.
Mild amounts of violence are an effective confrontation tool as a last resort.
Comic Reactions:
Panel 1: Poor Agatha back there. She really doesn’t know how to feel about all this. 🙁
And here we see a big part of why Billie felt the punch was necessary. Mary doesn’t respect her because in Mary’s mind, Billie’s just an alcoholic queer, something beneath her. Her ultimatum was met with dithering and bargaining and absolutely no intention to take it seriously.
Now, Mary’s taking it seriously and defaulting to her one other bully mode of “I’ll get you in trouble”, but she’s walking away, not continuing to antagonize and wheedle and get a better deal than being allowed to get away consequences free from nearly murdering someone and destroying two people’s lives.
And there’s a lot of complex feelings about violence that are all valid, but I’m reminded most of being a bullied kid targeted for being queer and having nothing I did to be the “better person” result in anything but increased bullying and violence while those who punched their harassers back got left the fuck alone.
And I think about the harassment movements online and how some people just don’t stop for any reason if they don’t end up facing real genuine consequences for their actions such as jail time.
Also, Mary at the end, defaulting to her other mode and it shows how she operates. Exploiting the dominant position to do what you want to the filthy others and then when they strike back or make you look bad, you threaten to tell on them or get them in trouble, trusting the system to back you up against the people you are harassing.
And it reveals that Mary has always taken advantage of having full social and systemic support, just like those who regularly harassed and beat me growing up because they could smell the queer on me back then.
And it nicely also reveals why Carla is the foe Mary can’t beat. Cause Carla’s been through that game and is done and doesn’t play by the rules for that type of interaction. Tell on her? Sure, go ahead, do it, she doesn’t care. Go after her, she’ll humiliate you with a prank that has nothing one can use to justify claiming to be the victim of violence (unless you’re a weird TERF reader of this comic).
And Billie is turning into the same here, because like Carla, she’s just out of fucks to care about Mary’s little threats anymore, even though she’s left herself way more open for reprisal.
Ah yes, finally the dorm wing is treating Mary the way she probably should’ve been treated after like, two weeks of her behavior? I’ve known dorm wings to shun a person for far less.
It’s only been a bit over a month since school started, so it didn’t take that long.
I was about to say something about Mary not immediately exhibiting her horrible traits, but then I remember her judging Sierra for not wearing shoes and Dorothy for being atheist during the first week, so yeah, that would be a poor argument of me to use.
Panel 2: I love this panel, because there’s a strength in being out of fucks. Cause see, society loves to exploit the fucks one gives, letting passive terrorism constrain where you go, who you date, what you say, whether you’re out or not. Lets the intentional fear crafted to constrain and bind win.
And being out of fucks, being done. That feeling has gotten me out of abusive situations, has recovered my dignity when I was trapped feeling I had to beg for my humanity, has allowed me to rebuild my life.
Sadly for Billie this is likely much more a part of a pattern of self-destructive wild anger, but there’s a good chance this will also give her the strength for a whole new more open mode of life where she doesn’t believe she needs to hide her girlfriends away from the world to have them and where she can exist more presently and hopefully, healthily.
Panel 3: Mary is not at all happy about her bluff being called and I think realizes she has a lot less social power here than she thinks.
Panels 4-5: I love that it’s some of the queer ladies glowering from the sidelines, because in our focus on the main cast, it might get lost that Mary has antagonized every queer girl she can find. You think she hasn’t let slip some queerphobic bullshit in front of Sierra or cattily harassed Grace and Mandy about their obvious relationship?
And more importantly, they know it could have been them in her sights, being driven to the raggedy edge, but for the grace of Willis. So yeah, they hate Mary and silent watch her departure. And I love that it’s Sierra as one of them, because Grace will glare at a lot of things, but to piss off Sierra is incredibly difficult, so it’s much more noticeable that Mary has no support.
Yeah, it takes a lot to upset Sierra like that but Mary has so truly earned it. (And I guarantee you Mary’s probably said Shit Around Sierra. As a given Sierra’s probably had to sit through something about Walky and Dorothy having sex, I assume any conversation with Mary eventually comes around to talking about sin or whatever so Sierra’s definitely sat through queerphobic bullshit, and hell probably some ‘why don’t you wear shoes’ too because Mary’s brand of judgmental shit tends towards not just ‘you’re not Christian you suck’ there’s also some shit about nonconformity too. Actually looking it up Mary’s already done that in the strips we found out Sierra doesn’t like shoes, so.)
Panels 6-8: Of course Mary asks about it as if it were about sides rather than about her actions. Because in Mary’s worldview, it’s all sides. God vs the Devil. Good vs Evil. Christian vs Sinner.
Actions don’t matter in that particular flavor of Christianity. No, literally, in Rapturist theology, caring about good works shows you mistrust God’s divine forgiveness and plan and thus shows your disrespect to God. All that matters in the Left Behind form of morality is “fighting the forces of the Antichrist”, saying the right magic words, and making sure you don’t unforgivably sin by being queer or getting an abortion or something else that shows you being on the wrong “side”. Cultural identity over morality.
So to Mary this disapproval gets to her whole worldview. In her mind, it is obvious she did right. Ruth was a disrespectful heathen and a filthy queer and was righteously suffering the mental illness inherent in that “unhealthy lifestyle”. And so anything Mary did to her or Carla should be viewed as good because she opposed them.
She was on the right side. And she’s used to having the crowd recognize that logic and support it. Having everyone know that her actions were justified simply because of her choice of target, ala the accusations that come out from some commenters when people note the totality of Mary’s actions.
And it’s what makes Rachel’s words hit harder. Rachel doesn’t shy away from the fact that Ruth was a terrible RA, though I imagine they have very very different views of the “crimes” that made her so, but offers no salve to the underlying worldview.
Actions being despised. Abuses of others being despised. Uses of power to punch down being despised. And that means the ire of those like Rachel can multitask instead of accepting Ruth as a deserving victim because she’s depressed and queer and abused.
And I think what’s also interesting is that this is truly the first time she’s experienced what it’s like, in some tiny way, to live life like one of her victims. To be truly hated by everyone that surrounds her, by the culture she is living inside.
It’s different of course because this is because of her actions which have been monstrous rather than an identity of hers, but I think this is a new experience nonetheless. I mean, her whole shtick is punching down as hard as she possibly can and so she’s used to society backing that up and keeping her victim in her trap owing to societal backlash against her target’s identity for existing.
And now, she’s genuinely despised by everyone on her floor and their angry disapproval lets her know that no, she’s all on her own on this one. She’s ostracized.
And it’ll be interesting to see how Mary will react to that as I doubt she’ll accept that with the grace Carla has with regards to how her trans identity is seen by the world (I mean, in comic world right now, her state’s former governor is the VP candidate for Trump thanks to his success supporting various reparative therapy and anti-housing programs for those like her).
Instead, I see her lashing out to try and regain the fear and silence she could use to delude herself into believing that everyone secretly supports her “divine work”.
Another angle to Mary’s whole dichotomic ‘sides’ worldview… Is that people being against both Mary and Ruth at the same time puts them on the same side. And Ruth can’t be on the right side. But Mary can’t be on the wrong side. She was just trying to study, after all.
It occurs to me that Mary has another potential target: Becky.
Becky, who lives in the dorm under the radar. Becky, who Billie was tasked with finding a new place for. Mary can alert the RM to Becky’s situation and thereby punish the entire floor, but especially Billie whose room Becky was staying in, and who failed to find Becky a new place due to everything else in her life collapsing around her.
Does she even know about Becky? I may be misremembering but I thought they were specifically keeping it from her, since alot of other people minor characters included know about her
She does. During her Ruth-blackmail strips, she specifically mentions Becky, though not by name.
No, it was Ruth they were hiding her from.
Mary’s initial blackmail included “homeless pervert” living on the floor.
It’s possible that Mary doesn’t currently realize that Becky is still here, since she was gone all weekend.
That obviously won’t last long, though
Welcome to the Fuck Zone? I guess Bone Zone was taken already, huh?
If you can’t loathe several people at once, you’re ill-suited to know of humans.
There’s more than enough hate for everyone here, Mary.
MORE. THAN. ENOUGH.
there’s something about mary
Okay…I gotta say. I just…do not see “ratting Mary out” going well for Billie unless every teacher and administrator at that school is as thoughtful and accepting as Les Bean or the RM. Let me emphasize the fact I am not saying Mary is right or righteous here. But I’m having a really hard time swallowing the idea that a thrice-assaulted student would get bongo-slapped by the administration, even with an entire floor full of students loathing her.
Let’s think about how Mary will present this. “What exactly will I get ratted out for? Telling the violent drunk suicidal RA who was fraternizing with one of her students ‘leave me alone or I’ll rat you out for your improper behavior’?”
“There’s no long pattern of hate speech anyone can point to, nor any violent behavior on my end. I misgendered Carla once (I was being figurative, she was acting like a rowdy boy!), asked for a prayer (I just wanted Ruth to be inclusive!), and, okay, I mocked Ruth because she was clearly hung over and faking affection for students. Meanwhile, I’ve been physically assaulted by both the drunken RA and the student the RA was not supposed to be sleeping with, all for saying if they didn’t leave me alone I’d tell on them. And I never did tell on them! Heck, the first time Ruth assaulted me, it was for asking her to do her job back when someone vandalized my door!”
I don’t think this is over.
Mary also damaged school property, engaged in hate speech several times, assaulted another student, blackmail is AN ACTUAL CRIME, and that’s just off the top of my head. I bet Roz has aaaaaall sorts of juicy stuff on her, and everyone on that dorm would gladly throw Mary under the bus.
If this comes to the authority-ratting blows, screwing Mary over is going to be fun for the whole family.
It depends who listens; there’s plenty of possible shitheads that could override puddinghead.
I’m now imagining university administration people that literally has shit on their heads.
And now you are too.
You’re welcome.
Well, yeah, she COULD say that.
Shame it would almost all be bullshit.
1) ‘Leave me alone’ lends itself immediately to ‘while she was being transphobic to Carla’. That is not okay and would get her in trouble – especially since the school will almost certainly prefer avoiding a potential lawsuit from her zillionaire parents to backing up a blatant bigot.
2) The idea she can’t point out hate speech is simply not true. She says things like that all the time. The majority of this floor is LGBT+ or allies. It’s pretty much just her on that and she is kidding herself if she thinks they won’t nail her ass to the wall.
3) Misgendering Carla and trying to force prayer on the others are both not okay and against the rules. ‘Inclusive’ does not stand when it shits on everyone not Christian, not that denomination, or simply not into public prayer.
4) That is not why Billie assaulted her and, again, she’s kidding herself if she thinks the rest of the floor won’t back Billie up.
5) Mary was still trying to blackmail and work Ruth’s suicidal state to her advantage and asked Billie for permission to drive Carla to that state. In front of at least one witness (Agatha) and possibly as many as four (Grace, Sierra, and Rachel). There is no reason for them not to back Billie up.
6) “Asking Ruth to do her job” and then throwing a tantrum like a spoiled toddler when she said she wasn’t doing anything RIGHT NOW. didn’t justify violence, no, but ‘asking Ruth to do her job’ is a bald faced lie.
Also, a TON of the floor mates saw her trying to spin Ruth’s state to her advantage right up until the RM showed up. If she tries to weasel out of that, a good chunk will call bullshit.
Yup, plus she’s Mary. Yes, a more competent Mary would have already run to the RM with an edited history of events in order to insure herself against the truth and would spin things to her advantage.
But Mary is luckily not that competent at her flavor of evil and so is very likely to go on a rant about immorality or dropping her little quotation marks or asking for permission to bully and ruin the whole gaslighting before it begins.
Which is probably why going to the authorities is an empty threat by her. Because she knows this place is “fallen” and thus is not swayed by “righteous arguments”.
Heck, even if no legal action is taken, they’d probably move her to another dorm building that’s not a floor of people who hate her.
Yet, do not hate her Yet. Mary will make loads of enemies before she will even unpack in her new room.
You just know Roz’s new roommate would somehow be even worse, though.
Forgot to mention: Agatha’s expression in that first panel is awesome! I bet she’s shocked about not being in the tags. Mormon-erasure! I expected better of you, Willis!
(Agatha is mormon, right? Or am I confusing her with someone else?)
Yeah
Mary’s awfulness seems to have broken her kind little brain for the moment. Helpfully she will recover soon and/or someone will give her a hug
*hopefully, not helpfully
Agatha is helpful enough already
“This nice person encountered evil and needs to reboot. We’re collecting data on the situation and then your brain will restart automatically. If you want more information you can search for the following error code:
FORFUCKSSAKEMARYSTOPBEINGAMORALBLACKHOLEYOUDRUMSET.”
Sympathy for the Devil is playing on the muzak
GOD: “Mary, you walk right back there to Billy.”
Mary: walks back
GOD: “Now turn the other cheek like a good Christian would do.”
Billie: “K-BAM! #2”
Mary: “Plop.”
GOD: “Well played, Humanity!”
Well, normal people that taken an enough of an interest in Mary to know she exists now.
The thing of it is, it also means she’s going to have her habit of interpreting everyone’s indifference towards the things she says as acceptance/approval challenged, and deal with being in the defendant’s seat whether she understands how it works that way or not.
EXILE!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRwulXTGhKU
Ok so Mary has been shamed, has lost all the fear/respect she thinks she had and everyone hates her
What happens when someone feels like they’re cornered and everyone’s against them
I smell more…DRAMA! 🙂
This was a comeuppance that was long overdue for Mary. She’s just had it forcibly impressed upon that she’s alienated everyone in the Dorm.
Whether she takes this lesson to heart is another thing though.
This is Mary we’re talking about. She’ll just brush all that aside as long as she thinks she’s doing what’s right by her standards.
I agree, when you think you’re a martyr then anything negative against you is merely proof you’re right
She won’t.
Unfortunately, I get the feeling you’re probably right.
Was about to comment “this is even more satisfying than yesterday’s punch” when I noticed that not only were there already comments about it, there were already arguments about agreeing about it.
Good arguments, funny arguments, at least.
I love the way Willis portrays this scene because, despite my general misgivings about violence, it has many of the elements of a classical tragedy. The characters’ flaws are definitive, both integral to their nature and inimical to their wellbeing as they drive them against each other. Mary can’t bear to relinquish her bigotry, even to her own detriment. Children are vulerable to hate and she has learned hate, and now she knows only hate to the exclusion, it seems, even of social awareness. Some story archetypes might allow for redemption, and maybe I’m wrong and this is one of them, however if it’s a tragedy she will clutch the fire of her hate close even as others try to extinguish it, until finally it consumes her.
This brings us to Billie. Obviously it sounds strange to characterize a desire to protect as a flaw, but bear in mind that such flaws are a staple of the heroes of history. Wholesome ideals tainted by the id of the one who holds them. Billie and Ruth’s relationship was born out of this same desire, to protect, to hold Ruth together, but in its state so far has been volatile and dangerous for both of them. The taint to this ideal I suspect is that Billie, then as now, doesn’t just want to protect others. She wants to be made whole by protecting others, made safe by protecting others, but that can’t happen because she’s looking outward for some solution to heal an inner wound.
So, returning to the thesis, she will in turn pursue her righteous protective instincts even if they hurt her, clashing against Mary’s blind and flailing hate until the escalation drags them both into a place they don’t want to be, and even then they will be helpless but to follow the path because their foe walks it also(W*lli5 is a fasc*st with his coments so I’m trying my hand at boring him with a long one. His (3rd gen?) *mm1grant z0g wife gargles n1gg*r j1zz and I hope as a result he gets H.eye.V and dyes. S3xual d3g*nerates will all h4ng sooner than you think. If you do catch it, I wasted a few minutes of my time to waste a few seconds of yours, and remind you that someone holds m4lice towards you, and I consider that money well spent. Regards, Ben “The B33ner Cleaner” Ga rrison). You may notice that I went less in depth into Mary’s character, and that’s because arguably so has Willis to date. As it stands she’s mostly just a foil, not really a tragic figure in and of herself, though maybe that’ll be expanded at a later date. Now again I will stress, this is speculation based on the suspicion that this subplot is going to conform to the story archetype of a classical tragedy, in the style of much of the best literature of history.
If any such art can be said to have a moral, with tragedies it’s generally about introspection, the idea being that looking inward at the beating heart of your own convictions can save you from the fate of the characters. In Billie’s case that would probably entail finding a healthier way of both self actualizing, and protecting others (in this case synonymous with separating the two) because by tying them together she jeopardizes both. In Mary’s case obviously it would involve looking critically at her own hate, determining its source and nature and realizing that it can only affect her negatively. This would necessarily constitute character development if it happens, bringing Mary into a more complex role in the story, so it remains to be seen whether Willis will go that route or keep the focus of this subplot centered on Billie.
Really thoughtful comment except for the splat of WTF in the parentheses in the middle.
Complaining someone is a fascist because your death threats get swept up strikes me as the height of motherfucking irony.
Imagine typing something that long and coherent on purpose just so you could slip in one sentence in the middle with the n-word in it. So much time wasted just to push your cowardly racism into public.
I mean, like, congratulations, now we know you’re a stupid piece of shit? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I want to keep this. The bit about sexual degenerates will be useful for me to point to in the future when people claim Mary is a strawman.
May one’s enemies be so dumb as to be usefully self-defeating.
(though if the comment makes other people feel unsafe, I’ll be happy to remove it — I know how relatively isolated I am from such things)
You might want to just IP block this user if you can, Willis. Mr Garrison is an obsessive, violent bigot and will keep coming back under spoof username after spoof username to harass and do violence to those who don’t fit into his definition of ‘normal’ for as long as he is able. I think he’d done it about a dozen times to Jeph Jacques before the admins on his forums IP banned him.
I think it fools him into believing he is relevant despite being an embarrassment to even other reactionaries.
IP blocking is a waste of time. Their IP is a proxy, their email address is a loaner, and even their name is fake. This person is a coward.
I honestly just thought you might care since it was also personal to you.
Like, we already have Trump threatening me on at least 4 different grounds, and that dude might be president. Johnny-go-fuck-yourself over here isn’t even a blip on my radar.
I didn’t mean to downplay your concern, sorry! I thank you for making sure I had my attention on it.
Oh, sorry. Not what I meant either. I was just saying, ‘don’t worry about me’. And I really do appreciate that you actually care. Thanks.
It’s like sneaking into a meeting somewhere just to shit your pants
The people around you may have to deal with the smell, but you’re still the one sitting in your own filth
That reminds me of this link:
https://medium.com/@katafon/the-story-of-the-old-man-who-shat-his-pants-72f52de5ceb6#.otnnzfn8n
This strip reminds me of this little exchange in Game of Thrones. If you watch the series you’ll probably know which one:
Random Character- “If you’re half as bright as you think you are, you’ll get out of this dorm.”
Mary- “Never. I’ll never abandon my divine mission.”
RC- “What will you do then? You have no support, not that you ever had it in the first place. Your reputation is in tatters. Billingsworth made sure of that. Your fellow christians have abandoned you. Your dorm mates despise you. You’re surrounded by enemies, dozens of them! You’re going to blackmail them all by yourself? You’ve lost, Mary. It’s the only joy I can find in all this misery.”