Billie, you’re not inherently toxic, but you’re stuck in a toxic mindset and a toxic behaviour spiral. You’re gonna need help if you want to break it. Even if you don’t go to therapy, you’ll need the support of others and actually be willing to do the work. You can’t half ass this or skim over it.
Agreed. She’s couching it like “I am Dahok, a fundamental, elemental, universal force of destruction. I am Eris of Discordia! I could never change, for I am the embodiment of evil made flesh.”
You’re a cheerleader who found out she was a medium sized fish in a small pond and used alcohol as a coping mechanism as a crutch. It would suck a little to change, but it’s not a universal apocalypse.
Her problems run deeper than that. She was an alcoholic before she got here.
Probably originally to cope with the emotional neglect of her absent parents.
*On the phone* Ey listen Josie what’samatter with this place, nothin’s looking right, where’s all the hockey and femurs? The gal’s gonna be here any—uh-huh. Uh-huh?
It wouldn’t surprise me if “Hockey and Femurs” isn’t already a band name. But “Pocky and Lemurs?” Almost certainly there for the taking.
Also, I keep wanting to turn “Hockey and Femurs” into a parody of the Doubleclicks’ “Lasers and Feelings.” “You’ve got hockey, and I’ve got femurs…” but I’m not sure where it goes from there.
Meagan
Pocky and Lemurs are both awesome. I would be interested in that band.
Well, I **completely** misread the situation and apologize for being so enthusiastic about it. I thought Billie was trying to show she wasn’t going to let being dumped get her down. So, I owe everyone a cookie if we meet in real life. I feel bad about it too because I was hoping it would be a sign that Billie wasn’t completely on a downward spiral of self-destruction.
I even had, “Aint nothing gonna break my stride” prepared as her theme song.
Considering Billie hasn’t been officially dumped nor has she officially dumped Ruth, then yeah, I’d say it’s not great.
Crash
maybe there’s a lesson here somewhere
like if literally everyone is telling you that you might be wrong, maybe you should at least consider the possibility that you made a mistake somewhere
Quite a few people agreed with me. I also think Billie is acting like it’s over but I’d rather not start any arguments on that.
Mr D, coming at ya with bad opinions
nobody outright agreed with you mate. At most they conceded a point, but as far as I saw it, everyone was yelling at you about not understanding anything.
“Never let another girl like you work me over
Never let another girl like you drag me under
If I meet another girl like you, I will tell her
Never want another girl like you, have to say, oh”
Life is Strange is how I imagine Willis would write a video game. Which is the highest compliment I can give. They should hire him for the 3rd installment (or 4th, technically).
It’s interesting. I feel like the most self-loathing characters, Billie and Amber coming to mind, are among the easiest to get extremely frustrated with (e.g. yesterday’s comment section)… Are we unconsciously learning how to treat them how they treat themselves?
(Or maybe their behavior is just really frustrating to both themselves and those around them and that’s all that is?)
I can’t speak for everyone of course, but I think generally we get frustrated with them because watching people we care about and/or root for mess up, in the same ways, over and over again, is painful. And because being in pain is no excuse for taking it out on others. (Or on themselves, frankly. Everyone involved deserves better.)
Yeah, people don’t get mad at them because they hate them. If you hate a character, it’s rarely worth getting riled up about them.
That, and plenty of us see a lot of ourselves or people we care about in Billie, Amber, etc. Like, if Mary was making bad life decisions, we wouldn’t get frustrated, because fuck her.
Geneseepaws
Put the mirror down, I can’t take my reflection today, cause you nailed it.
While I am capable of understanding that Billie hates herself and deserves therapy and to feel like she has value, I also find her behaviour extremely unlikeable regardless and find her genuinely irritating which isn’t because of how Billie views herself. It just isn’t at all likeable to be a bongo to your ‘friends’ to me and while she regards herself as ‘toxic’ by existing. She also. Continues. To act like a bongo to her ‘friends’. Which vexes me to this day.
Speaking as someone who at this point kind of has to admit that self-loathing is one of his core character traits: People HATE that shit in the long run. Feeling sorry for someone is draining for the best of people. And at a certain point you’re not only beating yourself up, you are also dismissing other people’s impression of you as false if they don’t match up to your self-flagellation.
People often say that confidence is great for getting popular. Inversely, self-loathing is great for ending up alone.
There’s truth in that, but here it often seems that a lot of the criticism is aimed at the surface behavior and ignores the self-loathing, often treating the facade as the real motivation and attacking them for that.
I think it was a Questionable Content where someone asked, quite sarcastically but also honestly, “Have you considered NOT making terrible decisions?”
All of the really terrible people I know are either totally brainwashed or they buy their own bullshit so completely that there is no reaching them. B-Dubs is neither of those things. In some ways, that makes her worse. Why does she continue in her toxicity? She knows she’s awful, that there are paths to being better.
Maybe I’m burnt out on morally grey characters that actively shirk efforts to grow. They’re just frustrating to me.
There’s different gradients to that, though, you know? Some problems are bigger or more serious or more impactful than others. Also, in my own opinion, your point just makes me want to see even fewer of those characters in my fiction. Escapism as a coping mechanism 2k19.
BBCC
I mean, there’s also still plenty of time for Billie to grow. Story’s not over yet.
MM
Yeah, we’re not even out of first semester yet, are we?
I remember reading something somewhere that the story will end before Christmas Break. Makes sense, we’re going on 9 years and haven’t even hit Halloween yet.
Maybe she feels like she’s screwed everything up so bad, she might as well embrace the trashpile she’s made of her life because it’s not like there’s any point in trying to get better
Maybe she does. But that’s depression talking and so, if anything, yet another reason she should seek help. There’s always a way out, or at the very least a way toward a way out. There’s always something to be done. The fact that the way out is often hard or uncomfortable or strange doesn’t negate it.
StClair
nah, easier to just decide she’s hopeless.
PB
^ This. Billie doesn’t see herself as capable or deserving of improvement. Now that Ruth is proving to be both things, Billie doesn’t see them as compatible anymore.
thejeff
Not just not compatible, but since she’s poisonous, she’s actually dangerous to Ruth. Which Ruth reinforced with her explosion about Billie trying to get her to drink. Which she was correct to do, because it was dangerous for her.
But Billie can’t conceive of not being that way.
Jess
well of course it’s easier
thejeff
But that’s the problem with depression: It lies to you.
It’s not just that the way out is hard or uncomfortable or strange and you’re too lazy or comfortable to try, it’s that it gets twisted inside to be impossible for you, you’re not worth the effort.
Haha I feel like every fandom I’m tangentally a part of is making the same complaint right now- But people struggling to grow and sometimes deciding not to is a hallmark of Dumbing of Age. All of the charachters- Billie, sure, but also Walky, Sal, Amber, and _especially_ Joyce are constantly confronted with knowing, vaguely, what being a better person looks like, but not knowing if they can get to that place or sometimes how to do it. It also doesn’t help that Ruth, for a while, has been the totality of Billie’s support network. Walky’s helped, sure, but because Billie had to keep dating Ruth a secret and because she’s frankly not too introspective, she hasn’t built a lot of options to help her. Joyce has the advantage of being surrounded by friends to help her through tribulations and fundamentalism; Walky had Amber and Jason after Dorothy, Sal’s reconnecting with home friends, her brother, and her nemesis; Amber’s had Dina and Ethan and Hatbae (for a while) and Walky. But Billie’s been relatively alone, because she’s cagey and because she doesn’t reach out but also because other people (aside from walky, and ruth- neither of whom exactly have a lot of space for her ATM, or are connected to the issue) haven’t been trying all that hard; and Billie doesn’t make it easy.
So, Um, it makes sense I guess? She’s dropping the ball, and it’s def her fault, but the others have advantages when it comes to personal growth that she needs to make an effort to leverage.
This is kinda why I have never dated. I don’t wanna put someone in my life until I have a better grasp on my depression. At the rate i’m going maybe….. by the end of the year i’ll try dating.
I tried that. I decided to take some time for me rather than looking for a relationship. Figured if I can turn things around and be happy with being single, I could place less stress on a relationship to help me to be happy and I could be more successful in the dating world. Now, though, I’m so comfortable being single, I find myself reluctant to start dating because I’ll have to give up the single things that I’ve come to enjoy.
That’s exactly what I said to myself. I like your hopeful statement, you’ve got this!
I’m wasn’t 100% when I started dating my partner of nearly two years (that’s a huge deal for me haha) but he’s definitely been a huge part in the process…
This isn’t a bad plan, but it isn’t for everyone. This is not aimed at you, just my own input. My problem wasn’t constant depression like it felt like at first, rather bipolar mood swings. Having someone close enough to me that they could look at me and go “You’re unusually wired today, are you okay?” Was key to me figuring out what was going on. Mental issues are not always easy to spot from the inside as it were, so there is something to be said for an outside perspective. Just two cents from my life.
Hey, from one depressed person to another, I’m proud of whatever progress you’ve already made and your determination to keep pushing forward. Keep on fighting, friend.
Billie thinks she is trash and the only way for her to be with Ruth was when Ruth also was trash. If Ruth is getting better, that means Billie will be left behind.
It was exactly that that I hoped would be the motivation for Billie to actually WANT to get better, because if she won’t do it for Ruth I can’t see why else she would.
119 thoughts on “Farm”
Ana Chronistic
No plan survives first contact with the Billie
Deanatay
Hurricane Billie?
Her-icane Billie??
(Yeah, I know the character)
fire_daws
Unless it’s a party plan, in that case she’ll add booze.
BBCC
Billie, you’re not inherently toxic, but you’re stuck in a toxic mindset and a toxic behaviour spiral. You’re gonna need help if you want to break it. Even if you don’t go to therapy, you’ll need the support of others and actually be willing to do the work. You can’t half ass this or skim over it.
Shane Wegner
Agreed. She’s couching it like “I am Dahok, a fundamental, elemental, universal force of destruction. I am Eris of Discordia! I could never change, for I am the embodiment of evil made flesh.”
You’re a cheerleader who found out she was a medium sized fish in a small pond and used alcohol as a coping mechanism as a crutch. It would suck a little to change, but it’s not a universal apocalypse.
thejeff
Her problems run deeper than that. She was an alcoholic before she got here.
Probably originally to cope with the emotional neglect of her absent parents.
TheGrimCorsair
Hockey Femurs.
Marsh Maryrose
Dumbing of Age Book 10: Hockey and Femurs
Doctor_Who
“They have a maple syrup fountain, and Timbits grow on trees!”
“Are the Maple Leafs any good in this magical land?”
“Haha, no.”
Marsh Maryrose
But as Scott Simon yells every Saturday: “Abhor the dinosaur!”
(Please no one tell Dina that he has also yelled “Revile the reptile!”)
GoblinScribe
*On the phone* Ey listen Josie what’samatter with this place, nothin’s looking right, where’s all the hockey and femurs? The gal’s gonna be here any—uh-huh. Uh-huh?
*listening*
NOT “POCKY AND LEMURS”, YOU IDJIT *hangs up*
Marsh Maryrose
It wouldn’t surprise me if “Hockey and Femurs” isn’t already a band name. But “Pocky and Lemurs?” Almost certainly there for the taking.
Also, I keep wanting to turn “Hockey and Femurs” into a parody of the Doubleclicks’ “Lasers and Feelings.” “You’ve got hockey, and I’ve got femurs…” but I’m not sure where it goes from there.
Meagan
Pocky and Lemurs are both awesome. I would be interested in that band.
Jamie
Hockey WITH Femurs.
C.T Phipps
Well, I **completely** misread the situation and apologize for being so enthusiastic about it. I thought Billie was trying to show she wasn’t going to let being dumped get her down. So, I owe everyone a cookie if we meet in real life. I feel bad about it too because I was hoping it would be a sign that Billie wasn’t completely on a downward spiral of self-destruction.
I even had, “Aint nothing gonna break my stride” prepared as her theme song.
My bad.
Stephen Bierce
That song is about trying to make up again AFTER a breakup. She breaks up with him; he tells her, you’re worth it to me and I’ll win you back somehow.
C.T Phipps
So, not a great batting average of understanding here.
Deadjolras
Considering Billie hasn’t been officially dumped nor has she officially dumped Ruth, then yeah, I’d say it’s not great.
Crash
maybe there’s a lesson here somewhere
like if literally everyone is telling you that you might be wrong, maybe you should at least consider the possibility that you made a mistake somewhere
C.T Phipps
Quite a few people agreed with me. I also think Billie is acting like it’s over but I’d rather not start any arguments on that.
Mr D, coming at ya with bad opinions
nobody outright agreed with you mate. At most they conceded a point, but as far as I saw it, everyone was yelling at you about not understanding anything.
C.T Phipps
Yeah, yeah, I know I’m wrong. No arguments now.
Carms
it totally isn’t though, right?
“Never let another girl like you work me over
Never let another girl like you drag me under
If I meet another girl like you, I will tell her
Never want another girl like you, have to say, oh”
that does not sound like he wants her back
Delicious Taffy
Don’t worry too much, everyone gets a little heated, sometimes. And I got a new Grav out of the whole thing, which is always fun.
But which version of Break My Stride? Matthew Wilder or Unique?
Nono
See, take Becky’s panel 2 speech, replace ‘girls’ with gender of your choice, and that describes literally everybody I know.
Be direct!
Keulen
As someone who has trouble catching other people’s hints, I definitely would like it if people would be more direct more often.
tim gueguen
Yeah just ask Billie about that time she visited Arcadia Bay in 2013.
C.T Phipps
Life is Strange is how I imagine Willis would write a video game. Which is the highest compliment I can give. They should hire him for the 3rd installment (or 4th, technically).
Darkoneko
Oh damnit.
Woomy
This bongo needs counseling
Jess
Dumbing of Age Book 10: These Bongos Need Counseling
Poofdepoof
It’s interesting. I feel like the most self-loathing characters, Billie and Amber coming to mind, are among the easiest to get extremely frustrated with (e.g. yesterday’s comment section)… Are we unconsciously learning how to treat them how they treat themselves?
(Or maybe their behavior is just really frustrating to both themselves and those around them and that’s all that is?)
Jess
I can’t speak for everyone of course, but I think generally we get frustrated with them because watching people we care about and/or root for mess up, in the same ways, over and over again, is painful. And because being in pain is no excuse for taking it out on others. (Or on themselves, frankly. Everyone involved deserves better.)
DailyBrad
Yeah, people don’t get mad at them because they hate them. If you hate a character, it’s rarely worth getting riled up about them.
That, and plenty of us see a lot of ourselves or people we care about in Billie, Amber, etc. Like, if Mary was making bad life decisions, we wouldn’t get frustrated, because fuck her.
Geneseepaws
Put the mirror down, I can’t take my reflection today, cause you nailed it.
Catman
Yeah, I’m frustrated but I still want to give them hella hugs.
Sam
While I am capable of understanding that Billie hates herself and deserves therapy and to feel like she has value, I also find her behaviour extremely unlikeable regardless and find her genuinely irritating which isn’t because of how Billie views herself. It just isn’t at all likeable to be a bongo to your ‘friends’ to me and while she regards herself as ‘toxic’ by existing. She also. Continues. To act like a bongo to her ‘friends’. Which vexes me to this day.
Mopey
Speaking as someone who at this point kind of has to admit that self-loathing is one of his core character traits: People HATE that shit in the long run. Feeling sorry for someone is draining for the best of people. And at a certain point you’re not only beating yourself up, you are also dismissing other people’s impression of you as false if they don’t match up to your self-flagellation.
People often say that confidence is great for getting popular. Inversely, self-loathing is great for ending up alone.
thejeff
There’s truth in that, but here it often seems that a lot of the criticism is aimed at the surface behavior and ignores the self-loathing, often treating the facade as the real motivation and attacking them for that.
Deathjavu
And thus were the interviewing tables turned
Schpoonman
Becky is the most powerful of us all (Dina only exceeds her when sufficiently motivated by paleontology).
Geneseepaws
This, yes, this.
What if Becky tries to take over the strip from Joyce? Could Willis stop her?
MM
Becky wouldn’t do that. It’s against the best friend code. (Besides, all Joyce has to do is borrow another outfit from Sal to flummox her.)
Schpoonman
I think it was a Questionable Content where someone asked, quite sarcastically but also honestly, “Have you considered NOT making terrible decisions?”
All of the really terrible people I know are either totally brainwashed or they buy their own bullshit so completely that there is no reaching them. B-Dubs is neither of those things. In some ways, that makes her worse. Why does she continue in her toxicity? She knows she’s awful, that there are paths to being better.
Maybe I’m burnt out on morally grey characters that actively shirk efforts to grow. They’re just frustrating to me.
Deathjavu
“Morally grey characters that actively shirk effects to grow” describes most real people, for most of their lives
Jess
There’s different gradients to that, though, you know? Some problems are bigger or more serious or more impactful than others. Also, in my own opinion, your point just makes me want to see even fewer of those characters in my fiction. Escapism as a coping mechanism 2k19.
BBCC
I mean, there’s also still plenty of time for Billie to grow. Story’s not over yet.
MM
Yeah, we’re not even out of first semester yet, are we?
BBCC
We’re like a month and a half in.
Schpoonman
I remember reading something somewhere that the story will end before Christmas Break. Makes sense, we’re going on 9 years and haven’t even hit Halloween yet.
Woomy
Maybe she feels like she’s screwed everything up so bad, she might as well embrace the trashpile she’s made of her life because it’s not like there’s any point in trying to get better
Jess
Maybe she does. But that’s depression talking and so, if anything, yet another reason she should seek help. There’s always a way out, or at the very least a way toward a way out. There’s always something to be done. The fact that the way out is often hard or uncomfortable or strange doesn’t negate it.
StClair
nah, easier to just decide she’s hopeless.
PB
^ This. Billie doesn’t see herself as capable or deserving of improvement. Now that Ruth is proving to be both things, Billie doesn’t see them as compatible anymore.
thejeff
Not just not compatible, but since she’s poisonous, she’s actually dangerous to Ruth. Which Ruth reinforced with her explosion about Billie trying to get her to drink. Which she was correct to do, because it was dangerous for her.
But Billie can’t conceive of not being that way.
Jess
well of course it’s easier
thejeff
But that’s the problem with depression: It lies to you.
It’s not just that the way out is hard or uncomfortable or strange and you’re too lazy or comfortable to try, it’s that it gets twisted inside to be impossible for you, you’re not worth the effort.
DailyBrad
I think you’re likely correct.
Lingo
Perhaps she’ll join Amber on Garbage Roof.
NaYa
It’s just that it requires much more effort than flaunting a 20 dollar bill.
Diner Kinetic
Haha I feel like every fandom I’m tangentally a part of is making the same complaint right now- But people struggling to grow and sometimes deciding not to is a hallmark of Dumbing of Age. All of the charachters- Billie, sure, but also Walky, Sal, Amber, and _especially_ Joyce are constantly confronted with knowing, vaguely, what being a better person looks like, but not knowing if they can get to that place or sometimes how to do it. It also doesn’t help that Ruth, for a while, has been the totality of Billie’s support network. Walky’s helped, sure, but because Billie had to keep dating Ruth a secret and because she’s frankly not too introspective, she hasn’t built a lot of options to help her. Joyce has the advantage of being surrounded by friends to help her through tribulations and fundamentalism; Walky had Amber and Jason after Dorothy, Sal’s reconnecting with home friends, her brother, and her nemesis; Amber’s had Dina and Ethan and Hatbae (for a while) and Walky. But Billie’s been relatively alone, because she’s cagey and because she doesn’t reach out but also because other people (aside from walky, and ruth- neither of whom exactly have a lot of space for her ATM, or are connected to the issue) haven’t been trying all that hard; and Billie doesn’t make it easy.
So, Um, it makes sense I guess? She’s dropping the ball, and it’s def her fault, but the others have advantages when it comes to personal growth that she needs to make an effort to leverage.
Needfuldoer
Maybe because “alpha bongo problem solver” is just comfortable, known territory for her to fall back on, even if it’s just hollow posturing.
sunflowerofice
This is kinda why I have never dated. I don’t wanna put someone in my life until I have a better grasp on my depression. At the rate i’m going maybe….. by the end of the year i’ll try dating.
Terry
I tried that. I decided to take some time for me rather than looking for a relationship. Figured if I can turn things around and be happy with being single, I could place less stress on a relationship to help me to be happy and I could be more successful in the dating world. Now, though, I’m so comfortable being single, I find myself reluctant to start dating because I’ll have to give up the single things that I’ve come to enjoy.
MN
That’s exactly what I said to myself. I like your hopeful statement, you’ve got this!
I’m wasn’t 100% when I started dating my partner of nearly two years (that’s a huge deal for me haha) but he’s definitely been a huge part in the process…
Kat
This isn’t a bad plan, but it isn’t for everyone. This is not aimed at you, just my own input. My problem wasn’t constant depression like it felt like at first, rather bipolar mood swings. Having someone close enough to me that they could look at me and go “You’re unusually wired today, are you okay?” Was key to me figuring out what was going on. Mental issues are not always easy to spot from the inside as it were, so there is something to be said for an outside perspective. Just two cents from my life.
Ferret
Hey, from one depressed person to another, I’m proud of whatever progress you’ve already made and your determination to keep pushing forward. Keep on fighting, friend.
Bagge
Billie thinks she is trash and the only way for her to be with Ruth was when Ruth also was trash. If Ruth is getting better, that means Billie will be left behind.
🙁
ktbear
It was exactly that that I hoped would be the motivation for Billie to actually WANT to get better, because if she won’t do it for Ruth I can’t see why else she would.
Alanari
She’ll need to do it for herself anyway. Stopping drinking for another person usually doesn’t work.
Needfuldoer