That’s Yoko Littner, from Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. She’s a sort of telekinetic demon with the power to use these invisible super-sharp arm things called “vectors”.
Every time someone does that, I’m reminded of that time Somebody insisted a certain character was holding a certain object, despite loads of evidence to the contrary. And I have to wonder if Some Of You ain’t tryin’ to replicate that event.
Honestly it just reminds me of the ‘Dorothy is a hypocrite because she dumped Danny to focus on work only to hook up with Walky, what a bongo!’ argument from years back only this time instead of a bunch of people doing it it’s just one person trying to yell over everyone.
Yes, that’s exactly what I’m doing versus commenting on what I perceive.
That was sarcasm by the way.
timemonkey
If you had just said it once you’d just be stating your opinion, instead you went through and posted it whenever someone said something contrary to what you believed.
Cholma
Exactly! Billie’s the one who stormed off; not Ruth.
Ruth wants what’s best for Billie’s health but it was clearly an ultimatum. That makes her the dumpee not the dumped.
It’s the same if someone said that I had to give up my career to be with someone.
BBCC
Unless your career is inherently unhealthy, then this is a false equivalence.
Alanari
“get better or I’ll leave you” still is an ultimatum. One that aims at the other improving their life, but still. It’s a try to force someone to do something they don’t want to do. If they’d want to, they would have done so already.
pjeseb
Except Ruth didn’t say that. The closest Ruth came to saying that is (strongly) implying that Billie should be going to therapy and not drinking. There’s a big difference between “Billie, you’re not going to therapy (and that’s bad),” and “Billie, go to therapy or we’re through.”
BBCC
^ This, and the fact that even if both are ultimatums, one of the ones offered is a lot more controlling and out of line than the other.
It’s the one about the career.
Needfuldoer
The therapy wasn’t Ruth’s idea, either. Billie was assigned it after Ruth was hospitalized.
Giving the context, I’d call it an ultimatum. She already said she can’t handle being confronted with Billies drinking and now, she’s requesting her to stop. And frankly, I’m proud of her for that.
Fox
That’s out of context though, she was asking Billie to make a real promise to stop drinking instead of something that sounds like a promise, but gives her a loophole. That’s not the same as an ultimatum, she’s asking Billie to not lie to manipulate her into thinking she’ll stop drinking.
Alanari
She’s asking her to stop squirreling around and to actually do something. It’s implied and not explicitly said but the subtext of “I won’t watch you get worse, I can’t handle that, change something” is there. Especially if you put it into context of the argument before, about inviting Ruth for breakfast (dinner? Not sure, something to eat though) to places where Billie can and will drink.
Fox
I disagree with that interpretation. I see no evidence that Ruth was making any such demands.
TemperaryObsessor
The previous conversation was basically Ruth telling Billy that Ruth can’t drink and needed Billie not to sabotage her.
Ruth was also telling Billie that relationships always would take some work.
Ruth neither explicitly said Billie needed to quit too nor explicitly said Billie could drink. I actually think it might be because Ruth wasn’t sure yet.
Alanari
I’d say they both dumped each other. In a way. They both have lines they wouldn’t cross for a relationship and they both found out that their relationship would require crossing them.
It’s easier to relate to Ruth because her red lines are healthy and Billies aren’t. It can be difficult to respect the right to be self-destructive. Still, they both decided that they don’t want to do what their relationship would have required them to do, which makes it kind of mutual.
Ruth is absolutely right to and coming from a family of alcoholics where two died because of it, I have no sympathy for Billie. But I’ve also been on the other end of people asking me to change and people gaslighting that I was wrong for not doing so.
So I am also glad to see Billie standing up for herself.
It’s not gaslighting, she literally is wrong for not changing her destructive personality. Billie is tangibly making people’s lives worse, just by being the way she is.
Tan
Gaslighting is when the perpetrator presents lies as truth and truth as lies in order to distort the victim’s ability to trust their perception of objective reality.
It is objective fact that Bilie drinks to excess in ways that endanger both herself and others. It is also objective fact that Billie has talked up about quitting drinking repeatedly and repeatedly failed to follow through. It is generally true that one shouldn’t mix antidepressants with alcohol; technically we only have Ruth’s word on whether there are specific interactions with Integrivact, as it is a fictional drug, but it is likely enough.
Long story short, presenting harsh truths as truth is not gaslighting.
(note: this only applies to Billie and Ruth’s situation. I do not know the details of your RL situation, but assuming you were not a danger to yourself or others, someone trying to change you against your will and make you feel bad over it is a shitty thing to do. Fuck that person/those people.)
thejeff
I wouldn’t say Billie has talked up about quitting drinking. She blatantly lied about it once to get Ruth to stop when they were first connecting. That’s it, I think, before her refusal to commit to it in the last day or so.
That’s not a good reason to actively and deliberately be an asshole.
Fox
^This. No one ever has the right to be an asshole. Someone else being shitty doesn’t make it okay to do it back, not that I think Ruth was shitty, being an asshole, doing something wrong, or dumping Billie, I think Ruth was being a reasonable human being and setting a boundary, ie make me a real promise or don’t promise me.
The idea that someone being an asshole to you means it’s okay to be one back in a different way, is like saying someone is rude to you so you have the right to shit on their carpet. That’s not how civilized society works. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
thejeff
Sometimes it’s necessary though.
Sometimes being an asshole back is the only way to handle it – either to get the first asshole to stop or just to get through it yourself.
That said, I don’t think it’s necessary here, though I’m not sure how much of an asshole Billie’s being here. It might well fall into “I just can’t face her now without breaking down.”
Fox
I disagree, you always have another choice than being an asshole. You can be assertive and draw hard boundaries without being nasty about it. Assertive doesn’t equal aggressive. You don’t have to stoop to their level to make them leave you alone, you just have to communicate that you will not tolerate it and then not tolerate it, ie leave, ignore them completely, call the police, ect whatever is necessary for the situation.
Zach
I have to disagree. Your rule is based on a premise of objective good, it does not acknowledge what other people think of your actions. If the person being shitty to you takes your ‘assertiveness’ as weakness and you know they do, then it IS weakness. Your refusal to ‘sink’ to their level is a refusal to communicate in the way they understand. And your policy of ‘not putting up with it’ by running from or ignoring problems is a weakness. It marks you as a safe target or ‘not a threat’.
It’s the sort of advice schools give the bullied so they will shut up. It DOES NOT WORK in my experience. It didn’t work at all for my mom, ever, which was hard to watch.
Just ask yourself what the utility of spite is, or google it. It’s interesting at the least.
Fox
Since you want to go by personal experience, I grew up in an extremely abusive home, which I couldn’t escape, and was bullied mercilessly because I put up with the bullying. Once I started standing up for myself, got out of that home, and defended myself, including physically if necessary, I have not been bullied since. When I said be assertive, I said “whatever is necessary for the situation” meaning if you have to call the police, do that, if you have to fight them off physically, do that, but don’t be a petty jerk who kicks people when they’re down because now you’ve become what you hate.
Fox
I don’t in any way believe in objective good, I’ve seen some awful, evil shit, I know people can be monstrously bad, but I also believe generally good people don’t have to act like generally bad people in order to stop bad people, they have to not put up with them in any way period. Assertiveness very much means set a boundary, enforce it by whatever reasonable means are necessary in the situation and never back down. I don’t know how you read what I wrote and got run away from or ignore the problem? I said “leave(as in stop associating with that person at all), ignore them completely (as in the person not the problem), call the police etc, whatever is necessary for the situation.
Let me give you a real life example, a guy comes up to me and gets in my face and grabs me, I tell him to get his hands off of me or I WILL defend myself, if he lets go and backs down I deescalate, if not I use physical force to defend myself until I can get away safely and then I call the cops. No where in here was I required to be an asshole, just a strong willed and assertive person.
Zach
I can see how I was projecting. Mom sent to a shrink to see why I wasn’t a good person because feeling hate, even hating someone who hits me all the time at school, means I’m broken. ‘Leave’ was an explicit directive to back down. You left out standing your ground in the first post.
Also you must have a lot of faith in law enforcement if ‘go to the police’ is on that list. I’ve never had much luck with that sort of thing and their hands are tied until after a crime happens.
Fox
Ah okay. Well, leave, means very different things to us both then, but that’s okay. No I don’t really have much faith in law enforcement, given the ways they’ve failed me in the past, but it’s an option because it’s better to involve them yourself and give them your side of things first, before someone else gets involved later and tries to blame you for defending yourself .
I went back and re-read the previous strips just to be sure, and AFAIK there’s been no dumping? They’re in the middle of a fight that hasn’t been resolved yet, and that’s not great, but no actual breakup has been initiated. So I don’t get where everyone else is coming from this (except for the fact that yes, Billie’s being an asshole about it).
I think Becky’s capable of being subtle, and it probably helped her survive. However, it’s not her natural inclination and certainly not what she’d choose.
She ABSOLUTELY can be subtle. See for example her first day with Joyce – chill as a bean despite being on the run, in love and scared shitless. Or when she tried to push Joyce and “Jake” together. Or when she very sneakily stole access to Robin’s twitter account.
It’s just that she doesn’t WANT to be subtle when she doesn’t have to. It’s an informed choice.
SillyGoose
I’d even argue taht she sometimes weaponizes her frontal lack of subtility.
You know, like recognizing that Billie’s acting mean and sort of calling her out on it, adding “don’t cry” to reaaaaally highlight the pettiness of it, all the while pretending she has no idea what’s going on. She is a lesbian love sleuth, after all.
Absolutely! Hiding concern and her true agenda behind her “wacky Becky” routine is one of her standard tactics. A great example is her hacking Robins phone while joking about hacking her phone
Yup, you’ll note that she didn’t nuke that closet until everyone she cared about already knew. How much of her openness about it is not wanting to get close to anyone and risk being rejected for it?
338 thoughts on “Decade”
Ana Chronistic
“not if you break them all with that grip of yours, DAAAAAAANG”
Doctor_Who
Your bones need to be subtle if you are trying to pass Ruth’s door without drawing agro. She has special femur senses.
Plasma Mongoose
I believe the word you were looking for is supple.
Delicious Taffy
Supple bones?
Plasma Mongoose
Supple bones are far harder to break after all.
He Who Abides
Hey, Plaz, who is your current avatar? And the last one, come to think of it?
Delicious Taffy
That’s Yoko Littner, from Higurashi no Naku Koro ni. She’s a sort of telekinetic demon with the power to use these invisible super-sharp arm things called “vectors”.
Kamino Neko
*twitchtwitch*
Delicious Taffy
Yeah, sorry. I tend to over-explain stuff in a weirdly reductive way. The in-show term for her is actually “Bankai”.
0kami
I think you mean Elfen Lied. Higurashi was a favorite anime of mine a decade ago.
Delicious Taffy
I don’t remember any elves.
Schpoonman
Is Ruth’s middle name “Shaq”?
Darkoneko
And the answer is “noooooope”
foamy
I think Becky’s one of the subtlest people in the whole damn strip :p
ian livs
I was about to say “the answer is obviously no” and then I saw the alt text. I mean, the point still stands, haha
Delicious Taffy
Billie, don’t be an asshole.
C.T Phipps
She’s under no obligation to be nice to her ex who dumped her. If Ruth wanted Billie, she shouldn’t have thrown her away.
timemonkey
Billie threw Ruth away by choosing alcohol over even attempting to get better or even show ant restraint.
C.T Phipps
Apparently, trying to change someone and giving ultimatums is not great relationship advice.
Ditto abandoning everything about your relationship prior to.
timemonkey
You know, having to read you repeat the same nonsense over and over again gets really tiring.
Delicious Taffy
Every time someone does that, I’m reminded of that time Somebody insisted a certain character was holding a certain object, despite loads of evidence to the contrary. And I have to wonder if Some Of You ain’t tryin’ to replicate that event.
Yumi
What would you have him change his gravatar to?
Delicious Taffy
I’m sure I wouldn’t know.
timemonkey
Honestly it just reminds me of the ‘Dorothy is a hypocrite because she dumped Danny to focus on work only to hook up with Walky, what a bongo!’ argument from years back only this time instead of a bunch of people doing it it’s just one person trying to yell over everyone.
C.T Phipps
Yes, that’s exactly what I’m doing versus commenting on what I perceive.
That was sarcasm by the way.
timemonkey
If you had just said it once you’d just be stating your opinion, instead you went through and posted it whenever someone said something contrary to what you believed.
Cholma
Exactly! Billie’s the one who stormed off; not Ruth.
C.T Phipps
Ruth wants what’s best for Billie’s health but it was clearly an ultimatum. That makes her the dumpee not the dumped.
It’s the same if someone said that I had to give up my career to be with someone.
BBCC
Unless your career is inherently unhealthy, then this is a false equivalence.
Alanari
“get better or I’ll leave you” still is an ultimatum. One that aims at the other improving their life, but still. It’s a try to force someone to do something they don’t want to do. If they’d want to, they would have done so already.
pjeseb
Except Ruth didn’t say that. The closest Ruth came to saying that is (strongly) implying that Billie should be going to therapy and not drinking. There’s a big difference between “Billie, you’re not going to therapy (and that’s bad),” and “Billie, go to therapy or we’re through.”
BBCC
^ This, and the fact that even if both are ultimatums, one of the ones offered is a lot more controlling and out of line than the other.
It’s the one about the career.
Needfuldoer
The therapy wasn’t Ruth’s idea, either. Billie was assigned it after Ruth was hospitalized.
Alanari
“just.. Just plainly say ‘I’ll stop drinking'” Ruth, this strip from probably yesterday:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-9-comic/02-but-the-sun-still-shines/nonpromise/
Giving the context, I’d call it an ultimatum. She already said she can’t handle being confronted with Billies drinking and now, she’s requesting her to stop. And frankly, I’m proud of her for that.
Fox
That’s out of context though, she was asking Billie to make a real promise to stop drinking instead of something that sounds like a promise, but gives her a loophole. That’s not the same as an ultimatum, she’s asking Billie to not lie to manipulate her into thinking she’ll stop drinking.
Alanari
She’s asking her to stop squirreling around and to actually do something. It’s implied and not explicitly said but the subtext of “I won’t watch you get worse, I can’t handle that, change something” is there. Especially if you put it into context of the argument before, about inviting Ruth for breakfast (dinner? Not sure, something to eat though) to places where Billie can and will drink.
Fox
I disagree with that interpretation. I see no evidence that Ruth was making any such demands.
TemperaryObsessor
The previous conversation was basically Ruth telling Billy that Ruth can’t drink and needed Billie not to sabotage her.
Ruth was also telling Billie that relationships always would take some work.
Ruth neither explicitly said Billie needed to quit too nor explicitly said Billie could drink. I actually think it might be because Ruth wasn’t sure yet.
Alanari
I’d say they both dumped each other. In a way. They both have lines they wouldn’t cross for a relationship and they both found out that their relationship would require crossing them.
It’s easier to relate to Ruth because her red lines are healthy and Billies aren’t. It can be difficult to respect the right to be self-destructive. Still, they both decided that they don’t want to do what their relationship would have required them to do, which makes it kind of mutual.
George
Agreed 100%
StClair
Being an (alcohol) addict is a career now?
Delicious Taffy
If you ask my mom’s husband, it is.
Deanatay
I believe it’s called ‘journalism’.
C.T Phipps
Nope. Its asking her to change.
Ruth is absolutely right to and coming from a family of alcoholics where two died because of it, I have no sympathy for Billie. But I’ve also been on the other end of people asking me to change and people gaslighting that I was wrong for not doing so.
So I am also glad to see Billie standing up for herself.
Delicious Taffy
It’s not gaslighting, she literally is wrong for not changing her destructive personality. Billie is tangibly making people’s lives worse, just by being the way she is.
Tan
Gaslighting is when the perpetrator presents lies as truth and truth as lies in order to distort the victim’s ability to trust their perception of objective reality.
If Billie were NOT an alcoholic, what Ruth has been doing would certainly be gaslighting, but she is. Ruth knows it. Billie knows it. We the reader have known it since the 3rd strip of the comic: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/01-move-in-day/reputation/
It is objective fact that Bilie drinks to excess in ways that endanger both herself and others. It is also objective fact that Billie has talked up about quitting drinking repeatedly and repeatedly failed to follow through. It is generally true that one shouldn’t mix antidepressants with alcohol; technically we only have Ruth’s word on whether there are specific interactions with Integrivact, as it is a fictional drug, but it is likely enough.
Long story short, presenting harsh truths as truth is not gaslighting.
(note: this only applies to Billie and Ruth’s situation. I do not know the details of your RL situation, but assuming you were not a danger to yourself or others, someone trying to change you against your will and make you feel bad over it is a shitty thing to do. Fuck that person/those people.)
thejeff
I wouldn’t say Billie has talked up about quitting drinking. She blatantly lied about it once to get Ruth to stop when they were first connecting. That’s it, I think, before her refusal to commit to it in the last day or so.
Delicious Taffy
If your only reason for being an asshole is that you’re not “obligated” not to be, then you don’t have a good reason.
C.T Phipps
The reason being Ruth dumped her.
Delicious Taffy
That’s not a good reason to actively and deliberately be an asshole.
Fox
^This. No one ever has the right to be an asshole. Someone else being shitty doesn’t make it okay to do it back, not that I think Ruth was shitty, being an asshole, doing something wrong, or dumping Billie, I think Ruth was being a reasonable human being and setting a boundary, ie make me a real promise or don’t promise me.
The idea that someone being an asshole to you means it’s okay to be one back in a different way, is like saying someone is rude to you so you have the right to shit on their carpet. That’s not how civilized society works. Two wrongs don’t make a right.
thejeff
Sometimes it’s necessary though.
Sometimes being an asshole back is the only way to handle it – either to get the first asshole to stop or just to get through it yourself.
That said, I don’t think it’s necessary here, though I’m not sure how much of an asshole Billie’s being here. It might well fall into “I just can’t face her now without breaking down.”
Fox
I disagree, you always have another choice than being an asshole. You can be assertive and draw hard boundaries without being nasty about it. Assertive doesn’t equal aggressive. You don’t have to stoop to their level to make them leave you alone, you just have to communicate that you will not tolerate it and then not tolerate it, ie leave, ignore them completely, call the police, ect whatever is necessary for the situation.
Zach
I have to disagree. Your rule is based on a premise of objective good, it does not acknowledge what other people think of your actions. If the person being shitty to you takes your ‘assertiveness’ as weakness and you know they do, then it IS weakness. Your refusal to ‘sink’ to their level is a refusal to communicate in the way they understand. And your policy of ‘not putting up with it’ by running from or ignoring problems is a weakness. It marks you as a safe target or ‘not a threat’.
It’s the sort of advice schools give the bullied so they will shut up. It DOES NOT WORK in my experience. It didn’t work at all for my mom, ever, which was hard to watch.
Just ask yourself what the utility of spite is, or google it. It’s interesting at the least.
Fox
Since you want to go by personal experience, I grew up in an extremely abusive home, which I couldn’t escape, and was bullied mercilessly because I put up with the bullying. Once I started standing up for myself, got out of that home, and defended myself, including physically if necessary, I have not been bullied since. When I said be assertive, I said “whatever is necessary for the situation” meaning if you have to call the police, do that, if you have to fight them off physically, do that, but don’t be a petty jerk who kicks people when they’re down because now you’ve become what you hate.
Fox
I don’t in any way believe in objective good, I’ve seen some awful, evil shit, I know people can be monstrously bad, but I also believe generally good people don’t have to act like generally bad people in order to stop bad people, they have to not put up with them in any way period. Assertiveness very much means set a boundary, enforce it by whatever reasonable means are necessary in the situation and never back down. I don’t know how you read what I wrote and got run away from or ignore the problem? I said “leave(as in stop associating with that person at all), ignore them completely (as in the person not the problem), call the police etc, whatever is necessary for the situation.
Let me give you a real life example, a guy comes up to me and gets in my face and grabs me, I tell him to get his hands off of me or I WILL defend myself, if he lets go and backs down I deescalate, if not I use physical force to defend myself until I can get away safely and then I call the cops. No where in here was I required to be an asshole, just a strong willed and assertive person.
Zach
I can see how I was projecting. Mom sent to a shrink to see why I wasn’t a good person because feeling hate, even hating someone who hits me all the time at school, means I’m broken. ‘Leave’ was an explicit directive to back down. You left out standing your ground in the first post.
Also you must have a lot of faith in law enforcement if ‘go to the police’ is on that list. I’ve never had much luck with that sort of thing and their hands are tied until after a crime happens.
Fox
Ah okay. Well, leave, means very different things to us both then, but that’s okay. No I don’t really have much faith in law enforcement, given the ways they’ve failed me in the past, but it’s an option because it’s better to involve them yourself and give them your side of things first, before someone else gets involved later and tries to blame you for defending yourself .
motorfirebox
Man, you are clearly a transplant from Berensteauoyin universe.
Delicious Taffy
I hate that I know exactly how this would be pronounced.
(Bare-en-STEW-OI-in)
Needfuldoer
It’s “Bar-un-STEEN”.
Delicious Taffy
BARN-shtin
Marsh Maryrose
FAN-shaw. Or maybe CHUM-ley. Or BEECH-um or MING-us or dee-YELL. (If it’s British, that is.)
EvilMidnightLurker
ba-DUM-tish
Delicious Taffy
I’m Galloycester Birdemptash, Minister of Aural Punctuation and Agricultural Filmography.
Kinoko
I went back and re-read the previous strips just to be sure, and AFAIK there’s been no dumping? They’re in the middle of a fight that hasn’t been resolved yet, and that’s not great, but no actual breakup has been initiated. So I don’t get where everyone else is coming from this (except for the fact that yes, Billie’s being an asshole about it).
Charlie Spencer
Oh, great. Now I’ll have Paper Lace stuck in my head all day.
Paradox
To answer your question, I would like to use a quote from Becky in the most covert and subtle point of her life.
“HEY EVERYBODY! I’M A LESBIAN!”
That is all.
Yumi
I think Becky’s capable of being subtle, and it probably helped her survive. However, it’s not her natural inclination and certainly not what she’d choose.
ShinyNeen
Hmm. That makes sense. It’s not that she’s nuked all her subtle bones from orbit (just to be sure), but more that she’d like to.
Bagge
She ABSOLUTELY can be subtle. See for example her first day with Joyce – chill as a bean despite being on the run, in love and scared shitless. Or when she tried to push Joyce and “Jake” together. Or when she very sneakily stole access to Robin’s twitter account.
It’s just that she doesn’t WANT to be subtle when she doesn’t have to. It’s an informed choice.
SillyGoose
I’d even argue taht she sometimes weaponizes her frontal lack of subtility.
You know, like recognizing that Billie’s acting mean and sort of calling her out on it, adding “don’t cry” to reaaaaally highlight the pettiness of it, all the while pretending she has no idea what’s going on. She is a lesbian love sleuth, after all.
Chris Phoenix
She is the anti-Mike.
Bagge
Absolutely! Hiding concern and her true agenda behind her “wacky Becky” routine is one of her standard tactics. A great example is her hacking Robins phone while joking about hacking her phone
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/03-the-thing-i-was-before/digitalage/
thejeff
Yup, you’ll note that she didn’t nuke that closet until everyone she cared about already knew. How much of her openness about it is not wanting to get close to anyone and risk being rejected for it?
Needfuldoer