682

Redemption
Posted on May 28, 2017 by David M Willis

682 thoughts on “Redemption”

  1. Ash_Ketchup

    Oh god that one hit Amber too.

    1. Emperor Daniel

      Aaaaaa

    2. TheAnonymousGuy

      Why? I may get irritated about her hating sal but, at least it’s legitimit, she triggers ambers PTSD and honestly is making progress to understand her better. Why does she need to seek redemption? (Also, I wonder if Willis is a Red dead redemption fan and excited for the up coming sequel.)

      1. Emperor Daniel

        Amber feels guilty for how she’s treated Danny (echoes of her own abusive father and all).

        1. Spencer

          She yelled at him one time over a misunderstanding and has spent every other moment since then blaming herself, acting like he’s better off without her, that she’s too dangerous to be around, and that she’s just a burden to be abandoned. That is not echoing her father.

        2. Luddeus

          Whether or not it echoes her father is separate from what Amber thought she did and how she felt she handled it, and thus what she personally is struggling with.

        3. Spencer

          Yes Amber blames herself but that’s different from actually being like her father. She didn’t launch a protracted campaign of abuse against Danny.

        4. Emperor Daniel

          That’s what she fears, though.

      2. AutoButt

        Amber is troubled by her penchant for anger and control, which is exactly what her father does. She uses Amazagirl as an outlet to do good with that anger but she is not perfect. Rachel’s words affect her because it would mean that beyond the facade she puts up she is still like her father and therefor a monster.

        1. TheAnonymousGuy

          You and Daniel make excellent point’s. I didn’t think of that

      3. TheOthin

        She has some violent tendencies she seeks ways of getting under control, as seen with her stabbing Sal.

      4. chris73

        Oh hell yes to the Red Dead sequel!

    3. Cerberus

      And likely Joyce too.

      Lest we forget Joyce is on a redemption arc and has a lot of worry about some of the things she did and believed before she realized fully how toxic and harmful they were.

      So Rachel’s “no one can be redeemed” rant is likely to hit home in very very uncomfortable ways for Joyce as well.

      1. Fart Captor

        Not to mention Billie.

        Mary is the only other person in the room who is not trying escape the person they once were

        1. Fart Captor

          * or in Amber’s case, escape the person she fears she’ll become, and the mistakes she’s made that convince her that she will

        2. Spencer

          I think at this point Amber has given up on ever bettering “Amber”, and has divided herself and Amazi-Girl into everything bad and good about herself.

      2. Goblin Scribe

        I wonder if the next comic will be Joyce calling Rachel out. Let’s not forget, Joyce isn’t just on a redemption arc—Joyce is one of the most spiritually solid people in the comic, in a lot of ways. If anyone will have the tools and guts to stand up to someone making a (partially valid) point to bully someone else, it’s Joyce.

      3. Daniel Martin

        Also, Joyce is strongly primed to believe in redemption arcs. The central Christian story may not be directly a redemption arc (it’s about an undeserved redeeming, but not about redemption in the same way; though you could read a redemption arc into the story of Saul/Paul), but assuming she’s had the typical evangelical Christian upbringing she appears to have had, speakers talking about how awful they were until they found Christ and turned their lives around will have been a regular part of her childhood and adolescence.

        1. Woobie

          I think the “central Christian arc” you reference is forgiveness. Which can be part of redemption.

      4. TachyonCode

        If you ask me, the question isn’t whether redemption is possible, but specifically what sort of acts “require” this apparently impossible rebuttal.

        1. TachyonCode

          I mean, “redemption” as an idea in the context it’s being used here has as much to do with “the narrative arc of someone’s life” as with “public opinion about that person’s character”. You can go for one without changing the other, and vice-versa. And neither erase history.

          So this is a little too broad a rejection, from where I’m standing.

      5. Tgape

        Rachel’s reply applies to everybody, including her, because everybody does stupid shit that they need to learn from and get some redemption. Which is why redemption is totally real. But there are a lot of people who claim to seek redemption rather than really seeking it, because just making the claim gives most of the benefits, short term.

    4. BenRG

      I have no doubt that Joyce was impacted too. In fact, the only person who is unlikely to be affected is Mary and that is because she is mentally incapable of realising that she could be in the wrong.

  2. C.T Phipps

    So, you don’t believe in redemption Rachel or that people can change and all that awful shit just piles up? So, what does it mean when you’re bullying a mentally ill girl, who almost died not two days ago, in public?

    1. Kris

      I think she’s been wanting to say this for a while but feels she can now that Ruth is in a position of weakness. I personally find it a little cowardly that she waited till Ruth was coming off a major mental shutdown instead of saying this when Ruth was a tyrant. Some people say Rachel was intimidated back then. I don’t quite believe that cause she definitely doesn’t seem that way now.

      1. C.T Phipps

        I agree Ruth was a terrible RA, abusive, and an awful person. I think if I knew her in RL, I’d think she was a bully because she liked it. However, in RL, I’ve been bullied and beaten by people like Ruth and I’d have some basic human decency (not just demanded by my Jedi faith) to hold off on any bile when they’re fresh from mental treatment that may have (certainly did) affect their behavior.

        Plus, where was Rachel when Billie was being abused or Carla or MARY? The hypocrisy on display is almost as awful as the fact she’s now abusing and bullying every bit as bad as Ruth and then some because at least we have an expectation of suicide not being a likely result with Ruth’s victims.

        1. C.T Phipps

          Mary wasn’t being bullied in the above sentence. It should read, “Mary was doing her thing?”

        2. Cerberus

          Yeah, the cowardice and selectivity of Rachel’s focus bothers me a lot too. Like, I would never demand folks shove themselves into danger with an abuser and accept the consequences of that to have a right to complain or feel aggrieved. Safety is critically important.

          But the amount of supposed moral authority she is calling on here to justify her actions gets a lot harder to swallow when she is specifically waiting until Ruth is at her weakest and most vulnerable point to lay into her and is ignoring people she could stand up for that might require her to incur social or personal consequences.

        3. timemonkey

          Ruth wasn’t apologising before now, wasn’t claiming she’d change before now, that’s what seems to be setting Rachel off more than anything.

        4. Mav

          Yup. From Rachel’s perspective it only seems like she’s doing this because she finally got caught, not because she chose to do it on her own.

        5. Woobie

          Rachel may be reminded of a previous abuser who apologized and promised repeatedly in her life.

        6. Kim Biebaut

          Well, yeah, it’s braver to do it while Ruth was in the middle of her reign, but well, Rachel was intimidated by the abuse. Seeing her abuser get caught and exposed in something, only for her to (in Rachel’s perspective) Karma Houdini her way out of any consequence for her actions puts more weight on the anger side of the scale, as does the whole (in Rachel’s perspective) meaningless show of contrition, Ruth deliberately saying she isn’t gonna do such things anymore reduces the fear side of the scale, and bam, it flips.

          And also, since Rachel does believe Ruth will change back, that she never changes at all, she does feel like there is a risk. And considering Ruth still has a temper there, she is in fact playing with fire there. She’s harsh, and definitely catching some folks in the blast there that she doesn’t now. But when your abuser is down, but still holds on to that position of power, I cannot blame a victim that they don’t WANT that Abuser to get back up again. And that they try to put a heel on their knee cap.

          Which is of course why Ruth keeping her job is a terrible, terrible idea, both for herself and the people around her. For Rachel and many others, seeing Ruth around is a source of fear and anger, like any abuse victims forced to face their abusers on a daily level, for Ruth, it’s all shame, especially because that fear and anger.

          It sucks terrible for Ruth. Absolutely.

      2. Mav

        I wouldn’t call it cowardly. Trying to get her to breakup with her girlfriend, reporting her, and calling her out? Old Ruth would smushed her into a pancake.

        1. Kris

          The problem is I don’t know Rachel. I don’t know what her issue is or why her terror of Ruth had outweighed her anger all this time, because it’s a considerable amount of anger. I feel like someone this mad would say something sooner.

        2. Mav

          You greatly underestimate the potential power of passive aggression. But yeah we have no idea what she’s *actually* thinking of as she’s talking about her no redemption philosophy.

        3. C.T Phipps

          Ruth did a lot of threats and growling but the only person we know she ever hit was Mary and that was with a cartoon penis. Not to undermine verbal abuse but given people made jokes about Ruthless I don’t think Ruth’s actions warrant the idea of being too terrified to report her.

        4. timemonkey

          There was other physical violence. She forcibly dragged Sarah to one of her meetings, she had that fight with Billie, she pulled Dinah out of an elevator.

      3. Morrison

        This.

        1. Morrison

          “This.” Was meant for Kris’s first comment.

    2. Jerach

      That’s kind of how I feel right now. Like, in her eyes what’s a person who’s made big mistakes like this supposed to do? Just fucking kill themselves? That’s stupid and fucked up. People can change and they can get better. It’s kind of horrific to think otherwise because everybody makes mistakes and does terrible things at some point.

      1. Dave

        Perhaps, the point she herself isn’t getting [as well as 90%+ of this comic’s cast] is that change takes *time*, it ain’t something that will happen overnight or over the course of a week. Maybe THAT is why she’s not down with the redemption arc thing.

        1. Elisto

          Yeah, it takes time, but she seems to be mad that Ruth is even starting.

    3. Jago

      To be fair, she tried to talk to her earlier, but Howard was with Ruth.

    4. Delavan

      Give C.T Phipps a cookie. 10,000% this.

  3. fillerusername

    Okay Rachel must have an abusive relationship in her past.

    1. Kris

      What?!

      1. Ash_Ketchup

        I mean, at the time. Then she was saved and went through therapy and now she’s healing.

    2. C.T Phipps

      It’s possible this is coming from a very dark place in her past. However, it could also just be that she’s speaking from her own beliefs about how the world works. Certainly, I’m hoping it’s not yet another abusive parent figure as we’re running out of space for them in hell.

      1. Cholma

        She’s definitely got issues to have that much spite & vitriol in her.

      2. fillerusername

        How she’d get those beliefs though? Her level of anger towards Ruth screams projection to me. I don’t think you try this hard to tear someone down this mercilessly unless you take what they did very personally. Yes this could be coming from how Ruth treated her in the past year but I don’t think she was particularly cruel to Rachel and I know everyone handles mistreatment in their own way but there seems to be more going on here. I think she either has an abusive parent who kept getting forgiven and brought back promising to change and never changing or an abusive ex who she took back one too many times and has a lot of regret and anger about.

        1. C.T Phipps

          It could be Rachel and Ruth were friends (probably not a thing) before Ruth went through a spiral before.

        2. Mav

          I agree. We haven’t seen her backstory yet. She’s having a really intense moment here, like everything she’s ever wanted to say to people in her life that act like Ruth does.

      3. Cass

        It could also be from watching someone she loves keep going back to an abusive relationship because “They’ve really changed, things will be better this time!” and it was never different that time.

        1. MM

          That seems more likely to me. Obviously not everyone comes through abuse or trauma the same way, but I feel like she wouldn’t be this confrontational if she’d been there herself, especially recently.

        2. AlmondJoy

          I think this is the case because I have been in this exact same place myself. I’ve said some of the exact same words that she’s saying. I’ve grown a lot and I know now that people can change, but there is still one specific person I would happily scream this at.

    3. fillerusername

      Why?????

    4. zoelogical

      i don’t think she’s been abused. just doesn’t…read like that. she doesn’t have the fear. but i think she’s had some troubled relationships where she’s had her faith in people squashed

      1. Emily

        Not everyone handles trauma the same way.

        1. zoelogical

          that’s true enough

          idk she just doesn’t read to me that way but like i could be wrong

      2. Jago

        People react different to differend kinds of bad relationships. And look at it like this: why else would she be this angry and unforgiving?

        1. Minotaur

          I think I would go with someone dear to her going back to their abuser time and ttime again because “this time it’s going to be different”. This reads like anger on behalf of somebody else to me. In my experience that’s very hard to put aside, and it can really build up.

        2. zoelogical

          she could have been neglected. which is a form of abuse, but a very passive one.

          but mostly like i’m judging this based on how generalized her definition of abuse was? like she literally knows very little about billie and ruth’s relationship and yet she makes that call. she makes that call and she says it to ruth, who she assumes is the abuser. someone familiar with abuse wouldn’t have done that, because they would know that the first person the abuser would hurt would be their primary victim.

          it felt very much like just a term she was throwing around because she could, because she was trying to put a term on ruth’s behavior she could judge her by. this here is the most personal rachel has gotten. and what we know about her is that she doesn’t think people can really change.

          which is…a mark of her inexperience, frankly, but then she’s either a teenager or barely out of being a teenager. my guess is that her dad’s a jerk who left her mom but like…being a jerk is not the same thing as being abusive

          but definitely she’s grappling with a lot of things she doesn’t fully understand

      3. PapayaPunkPixie

        I dunno, I have a friend who’s very much like that because of her trauma of being emotionally abused. She has zero tolerance for abusers, she won’t even interact with my ex even though they and I have made up and have a healthy friendship now

    5. Aviana

      Yeah that was my impression too, or at least she has some kind of past where this reaction to stuff is triggering her. I’ve seen a lot of stuff in the comments about what does Rachel have against Ruth and I’m starting to think it has nothing to do with Ruth personally.

  4. Optimal Optimus

    I think this is one of the best strips of the series so far.

    1. svata

      No? Because that’s bullshit. People can change for the better. It isn’t just an story and a lie. It may not be super common, but it DOES happen.

      1. Optimal Optimus

        You misunderstand. I liked this strip because it was powerful. But, what Rachel said is just her personal opinion. My liking this strip has nothing to do with agreeing with what she said.

        1. svata

          Ah, ok. sorry, been on the receiving end of this shit, and its incredibly damaging.

        2. lia47

          yeah, it’s cool how it ties into Ruth, Amber, and Robin’s stories at once while also opening up the way for Rachel’s.

        3. -Sentinel-

          That’s what I like about David Willis’ writing. He doesn’t pass judgement on his characters. Well, he does to some extent (for example, he’s exasperated with Mary apologists), but most of the time, he just presents his characters as they are, with their flaws and their blind spots and their sincere but sometimes questionable opinions. It’s up to us to judge.

        4. Dr_Gonzo

          Honestly I’d actually like a chance to view Mary with some empathy or compassion, which isn’t necessarily the same same thing as actually liking her.

        5. murderbridd

          otoh fuck that

      2. Meta

        I don’t think Rachel’s supposed to be the good guy here, even if she’s not strictly the bad guy. And I don’t think what she’s saying is supposed to be true — it’s what Robin is starting to feel, and how Ruth has felt for a while.

        1. fillerusername

          Yeah I don’t think we’re meant to be agreeing with Rachel here because what she’s saying obviously isn’t true. People can and do change for the better. We’re just being given some interesting insight into her worldview.

        2. foamy

          She’s an accurate reflection of the comments section when certain characters show up, though.

        3. Emily

          Because this is true for certain people. Sometimes there’s no making up for the harm you’ve done and there’s no real redemption there’s just trying to be less of a terrible human being in the future.

        4. DinaWho

          Maybe I’m weird, but I thought redemption was acknowledging the shitty crap you did and working to the best of your ability to not do it (or at least not do it as much as humanly possible) going forward, and to try to work to fix the shitty crap you did in the past where possible.

        5. Fox

          I thought the same.

        6. Bladeglory

          Rachel is definitely the bad guy in this situation. Worse, she may be the bad guy that thinks they’re the good guy.

          She’s essentially telling someone that hope doesn’t exist and she’ll be a terrible and depressed villain her entire life. Like people pointed out yesterday, we haven’t seen Rachel do anything to actually improve the Ruth situation. All we’ve seen is her be unforgiving and indignant after the fact. She doesn’t need to forgive Ruth, but right now she’s actively keeping Ruth from improving herself and fulfilling exactly the same role that Grandpa asshole has been for most of Ruth’s life: keeping Ruth self-loathing intact.

          I’m just hoping that Joyce chimes in tomorrow and tells Rachel how wrong she is, using herself as an example.

        7. Halpful

          Joyce! I had forgotten she was there 🙂 thank you.

        8. merbrat

          Yeah, she’s *just* off camera, so we aren’t seeing her start to fume at Rachel’s comments. We may see another red-eyed Joyce, next strip. (well, maybe steam-out-of-ears, anyway)

        9. Delicious Taffy

          Red-eyed Joyce will give me a nice new Gravatar.

        10. TheAnonymousGuy

          None of this really makes sense either, it feels more like someone getting part of a story and assuming what the missing pieces are, I agree Rachel isn’t the bad guy of this story more situational antagonist. Also yes, people changing or redeeming themselves is possible, it’s weather or not others forgive them that’s difficult, some will, some won’t. However they have to be willing to forgive, you can’t force them, nor should you. If you honestly want change, change. Fill yourself with those who’ll give you a chance, and leave the ones who wont behind you as you progress.

        11. RacingTurtle

          +1 for “situational antagonist”. Perfect descriptor.

    2. crys

      i think it would be more interesting and powerful coming from someone other than rachel. she’s had very little storytime and tangential involvement with ruth and billie. if we saw the story behind rachel’s attitude, or shown how she responded to ruth’s abuses of power while they happened, her words might hold more weight. but here my reaction is mostly “fuck off rachel”

      1. Luna

        Yeah, I agree with this. Like, we know in an abstract kind of way that Ruth was likely Rachel’s RA last year too and that had to have been awful, but from what we’ve actually seen, Rachel’s mostly been a bystander. She’s never tried to help Ruth’s more direct victims, and also has never been shown as a real target for Ruth before. Some flashbacks showing more of her POV would probably be helpful in understanding the vehemence of her anger.

  5. Kris

    I guess no one gets redemption in Dumbing of Age.

    1. ditrysia

      I think hey do, and Rachel is just wrong. Like I don’t think Willis actually feels that way himself.

      Just because abusers take advantage of the redemption narrative doesn’t mean redemption is impossible. Otherwise we’d all be hopeless I think.

  6. Andr3wtime

    If Darth Vader can redeem himself enough to become a force ghost than anyone can.

    1. C.T Phipps

      To be fair, Vader walked the walk about dying for it.

    2. timemonkey

      That has nothing to o with actual redemption though, you just stop using the dark side and go back to the normal Force.

    3. Emily

      Darth Vader’s redemption was horseshit and I don’t accept it at all.

      1. C.T Phipps

        Eh, it reflects a very simple fact that if you stop trying to be evil then are still evil?

      2. Bizbag

        It’s a little horseshit, yeah. There’s so many things Anakin and Vader did that don’t merit true redemption, and had he lived, he wouldn’t have deserved anything but the maximum justice under the New Republic.

        But at least in the OT, the Force wasn’t about “light and dark” as much as it was nature vs corruption. Anakin let hatred and self-loathing consume him, which he was only able to let go of in the hour before his death. He could never make up for the atrocities he’d committed, but he was able to set his soul on the path to redemption.

        Which may be what we see with Rachel here. Ruth has committed crimes that Rachel may never be able to forgive. And Ruth doesn’t deserve to get away with those crimes, at least not without consequence. And neither would Vader. But she wants to give up her precious behavior, and so did he. Ruth may never earn Rachel’s trust, but redemption isn’t exoneration.

  7. Deathjavu

    Poor Amber, just sitting in the background taking all this collateral fire from Rachel.

    I think this tirade is a lot more telling of you than it is anyone else, Rachel.

  8. Danni

    cold butt, robin

    1. Barf Ninjason

      Ooh baby

  9. spideronyourface

    Ok there’s definitely a story here

  10. Kernanator

    Yyyyeah, Rachel’s speech reeks of the “you do one single bad thing at any point in your life and you are garbage forever” mentality that I can’t stand. Believe it or not, people are not static! Not everyone is willing to change, obviously, and sometimes people pretend to change to fool others, but this is completely disingenuous.

    1. C.T Phipps

      I wonder if Rachel will get a bunch of defenders because they remember the Rachel of other universes. I imagine there’s probably a story here where she got betrayed but in real life, plenty of people are also just incredibly judgemental and self-righteous.

      1. Optimal Optimus

        I actually disagree with Rachel. Also, Ruth may be a bully, but she hasn’t done anything so awful that she deserves such condemnation from Rachel.

        1. TheAnonymousGuy

          thank you, I was honestly confused on that, I can’t remember a point where she was out right awful to anyone.

        2. Andy

          I mean she’s never been as bad as she could be but she hasn’t been nearly as nice as she should be either. There’s being a dick doing a job and then being Ruth, and being Ruth was definitely a step beyond. That said, Rachel specifically doesn’t have reason to complain except about what was doe to others. So when those others aren’t complaining, and actually haven’t really passively taken Ruth’s shit in the past, Rachel may need to rethink her position.

        3. Andy

          I have nothing further to add to what you said, Andy, I just wanted to say hi.
          –Andy

      2. Fart Captor

        I’m sure that this incarnation isn’t 100% awful, even though in this moment she really sucks.

      3. Kernanator

        Oh to be sure, she has a reason for this philosophy, whether that reason is “I have personally experienced someone exploiting my desire to believe they’d changed” or “I think idealism is for stupid kids and being a real adult means being a cynical jackass”. That doesn’t change the fact that she’s generalizing it to a level that just doesn’t hold up.

    2. ditrysia

      Yeah I think what she said was bull. I get that there’s probably a reason why she said it, but she’s not right at all.

      Also as someone has commented already, she’s kicking a girl with known mental health issues when she almost just died two days ago and telling her there’s no hope for her when she’s trying to make a change. That’s effed up.

    3. Touchfuzzy

      I feel like this is a good opportunity for Joyce to speak up. Cause honestly, while I’m as areligious as they come, the idea of redemption and being able to change is one thing from the Christian beliefs I believe in. (Even though I think it is you who change yourself, not some spiritual being).

      1. Oz

        actually, I think cristianity is very in line with we changing ourselves, or at least the catholic branches I’m more familiar with are outright obcessed with that idea, through the concept of repenting. Of course there’s always the “accept christ in yourself so that He can help you change” level, but that’s only half the story, you have to put in the effort to change your ways,

    4. Jon S.

      “If once you start down the Dark Path, forever will it dominate your destiny! Consume you it will!”

      Yeah, I didn’t buy it from Yoda and I ain’t buying it from you, Rach.

    5. StClair

      Also “there’s no escaping the cycle of abuse; if it was done to you, you can’t ever stop or change, you’re doomed to be as much of a shit as your abuser, forever.”

      1. Benjamin Geiger

        And all those things you learn when you’re a kid
        You’ll fuck up just like your parents did
        It all just happens again, way down the line

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xsp8DmgtjHY

    6. Emily

      If by “one bad thing” you mean systematically abuse an entire floor of people under your authority as a petty means to vent your own frustrations than sure Ruth did “one bad thing.”

      1. Kernanator

        You are missing the forest for the trees. I didn’t say Ruth did one bad thing, I said she was expressing a similar mentality. She is saying that no one can ever be redeemed, that change is impossible and you should just give up on trying to improve yourself. She is hurting EVERYONE IN THE ROOM by saying this.

        And what is the benefit here? Who benefits from her rant? It isn’t Billie, who is being told that she’ll never recover from alcoholism. It isn’t Amber, who is being told that she’ll always be violent and dangerous. It isn’t Joyce, who is being told she’ll always be a bigot. And it sure is shit ain’t Ruth, who is being torn down at her most vulnerable moment. The only ones benefiting are Mary, who is getting SO MUCH ammunition to continue her bullying with, and Rachel, who gets to feel great.

    7. Jago

      ‘“you do one single bad thing at any point in your life and you are garbage forever” mentality’

      So, tumblr.

    8. Pylgrim

      Hatred is a terrible force that will seek to feed itself even in the absence of reasons to exist. It is easier to believe that Ruth is lying and remains an evil bastard than to stop hating her. One takes effort.

      1. thejeff

        One is risky. One risks giving the bully more room and leverage to hurt you again.

  11. Stephen Bierce

    *plays Hoodoo Gurus’ “I Want You Back” on the hacked Muzak*

  12. Peruhain

    Gut punch.

  13. Cephalo the Pod

    So Rachel can just fuck off now.

  14. captainswift

    “Tertiary characters gettin’ all up in my face, mumble, mumble…”

    1. Kris

      Damn right! If I were Ruth I’d be like “Come back when you’re on the main cast page.”

  15. Ele

    Only a Sith deals in absolutes, Rachel. Wait… isn’t that an abso… dang it.

    1. C.T Phipps

      Technically, that qualifies as a Zen koan or Obi-Wan is a Sith. It’s also true to the fact he gave Luke a lot of bad advice as well as outright falsehoods.

      1. Emperor Daniel

        That line would have been so much better if it had been “A Sith only deals in absolutes” instead of being “Only a Sith deals in absolutes”.

        In fact, I think that’s what I heard the line as being the first time I watched the movie. 😛

        1. Cerberus

          I always wonder if that wasn’t part of the point, especially in the prequels. That the line between Jedi and Sith wasn’t nearly as wide as the Jedi council was pretending it was and it was a lot of the toxic traditions of the Jedi that allowed the Sith to fester unchecked.

        2. iforgetwhatiputhere

          You know, I could easily see myself regularly reading a blog where you analyze other media than DoA, just saying…

        3. Tangled _z

          Yes to that.

        4. zoelogical

          honestly!!! absolutely!

          it was the Jedi’s blindness and inability to both stay true to themselves and adapt that did them in. or to acknowledge that, like, people had emotions and those were natural and ok

          and their struggle to find solutions that weren’t pulling out a shiny laser sword

        5. showler

          I have a theory that the Jedi and Sith were one group originally and had a schism over something (possibly how much to get involved in things) and then their divide grew to extremes on both ends.

          Luke going back to the ancient temple may reveal the truth and explain why the Jedi have to come to an end. They need to go back to what they were originally.

        6. Lord Of The Sword

          In the Extended Universe at least, they were originally one order called the Je’daii, who held the light and dark in balance. Then they had a schism over (I believe) whether they should get involved with the politics of the wider galaxy at large.

        7. vlademir1

          That is canon. The details of it from the EU Legends no longer are, but the fact of it entered canon in a 2015 novel.

          Also the current main consensus of opinion is in agreement with that last paragraph, showler.

        8. Kamino Neko

          I’ve never wondered that. There was never enough from the OT to prompt thinking about it, and after the prequels, I took it as a given – I saw no room for wondering in the corruption of Anakin.

      2. Mr D

        You know, I’ve been watching the Cinemawins series on the prequel trilogy, mostly because I needed some positivity about them after years of seeig them shat upon, and the guy does bring up real good points.

    2. zoelogical

      from a certain point of view…yes

      1. Clif

        Point.

  16. C.T Phipps

    So, anyone want to explain why they think Rachel gets to get on her soapbox about all this? I’m not sure Rachel would be socially entitled to do this if Ruth had shot her parents in a dark alley and triggered her transformation into Amazi-Girl.

    1. Emily

      Because abuse is bad and Rachel was one of the people Ruth abused.

  17. Shiro

    I…okay, Rach, dial it back a smidge, we didn’t cross a line so much as tap-dance across it flipping dual birds.

    1. Deanatay

      So, she’s pulling a Carla?

  18. Dalrint

    Wow that is an impressively shitty attitude and Rachel needs to back the fuck off.

  19. Showler

    Geez, now I’m beginning to wish that Willis had changed the story to mess with NoOneLikesRobin. This is brutal.

    Is there any chance that Rachel was driving that truck in Roomies all those years ago?

    1. Cephalo the Pod

      Assuming Rachel is around Joe’s age in the Walkyverse…maybe? I doubt it, but I’m pretty sure 19 isn’t an impossible age to have a license to drive an 18-wheeler.

    2. Ronnie

      Headcannon accepted

    3. zoelogical

      no

      i mean don’t get me wrong this attitude is shitty but also: no

    4. NoOneLikesRobin

      Willis is a better writer than I gave him credit for. I am 100% happy to be completely wrong about where I thought he was going.

      1. thejeff

        You may still be wrong.
        I’m pretty sure Rachel’s opinion isn’t actually his.
        Which doesn’t mean it’s easy, just possible.

        1. NoOneLikesRobin

          That’s fine, honestly. Point is, since I was wrong about where he was going with Robin, if she DOES eventually get her redemption, it will actually require her to grow and crawl up from the bottom, during which (I assume) she’ll undergo character growth. She might actually end up being a character that doesn’t immediately take me out of the strip at the end of it, and that journey will be great to read.

        2. Delavan

          I’m kinda shocked you didn’t think the “crawl to redemption” was where this was going. Willis is pretty clear that people don’t magically recover from mental illness, self-denial, or entrenched ways of thinking… it takes time, effort, and introspection. That’s probably the #1 reason I read this comic, is that is so clear… but it’s also clear that it’s *possible*, which is why this isn’t constantly depressing.

        3. NoOneLikesRobin

          My whole (wrong) assumption was that since Willis was playing Robin’s whole bucket of problems for shenanigans rather than actually treating her as an actual human being that lives in the real world (as well as others around her. Leslie was essentially her straight man, no pun intended), her continued “growth” would be shenanigan related thanks to character favoritism. And yes, that’s why I read this strip too.

  20. Fart Captor

    Rachel can fuck all the way off with that crap.

  21. Passchendaele

    After today, I’m stuck in a state between “wtf rachel, why are you so cynical and cruel” and the solemn realization that, due to human insticts and instrumental components of one’s personality (as demonstrated by my recent wave of errant stupidity when around friends), she is partly correct about the futility of redemption (though, given the complexity of the mind and how it changes, not by much). I guess Robin will learn that the hard way.

    1. C.T Phipps

      I’m going to go on a wild tangent and believe since Willis started as a fundamentalist with beliefs he no longer holds (something I similarly come from), that even if he wasn’t a bad person he’s not going to hold truck with the idea Rachel has of people being unable to change.

      It was stupid when John Calvin said it and it’s stupid today.

      1. Passchendaele

        Rachel has some piece of a point, but yeah, I’ve always despised Calvinism and fatalism (as a longstanding nihilistic atheist raised in a faintly religious background), as they’re both self-righteous, negligent of the human mind, and horrifically cruel.

      2. Fart Captor

        Yeah. Rachel is correct that some abusers pretend they’ve changed to keep their victims within reach. However, she is absolutely wrong about actual redemption being impossible.

        I think the key factors are truly recognizing and accepting that there is a need to change, and having the will to put in the necessary effort.

        Ruth has demonstrated both, while Robin has only vaguely shown a willingness to change, but still seems to be in heavy denial about how much she was harming other people and how much effort she’ll need to put in to truly change.

    2. Deadlinedance

      In the most twisted way, you could she’s right.

      Redemption is not achieved. It must be given, by others.

      Rachel is apparently unwilling to be so charitable.

      1. Lauren

        OK, this is really interesting. Because by this line of thinking it seems Rachel is getting all worked up and ranting and raving about something SHE is actually causing, by being unwilling to accept the idea that a person can change.

        Not even saying who I agree with or support or whatever because I like to stay out of the argument side of comments. But this one just had me stop and think awhile. Interesting…

      2. EnerPrime

        I disagree. Forgiveness is something that must be given, not achieved.

        Redemption is internal. Redemption is recognising for yourself that you were a shitty person who did bad things, and deciding to change that going forward. And then, most importantly of all, following through on that decision. You don’t apologise to the people you wronged because you need their forgiveness, you do it because you wronged them and they deserve an apology. Being forgiven is nice, but it can’t be the end goal of redemption because there is no end goal of redemption. There is no magic ‘Redemption Achieved” moment. Redemption is making a choice every day not to go back to who you used to be, regardless of whether or not anyone ever accepts your change of heart.

        1. Temperaryobsessor

          True.

        2. DinaWho

          ^this

    3. Lena

      I mean, regardless of how hard redemption is, acting like it’s fundamentally futile is a very pointless attitude; if there’s no hope of improvement why even bother trying to improve? People can get better; it’s worth trying to get better no matter how hard it might be.

  22. WikiDreamer

    ….uhm…Rachel? Honey, is there something you need to tell us?

  23. March

    …I’m suddenly wondering how much of that was actually about Ruth, and how much was about someone else for Rachel.

    1. C.T Phipps

      Or Rachel herself.

      1. March

        That too. Like, that was vicious. That was extremely vicious against someone who was just released from suicide watch. Either this is something very personal, or someone who has an extreme black-and-white worldview to the point of lacking empathy.

        1. Jago

          I think it’s personal, or the delivery would’ve been different.

  24. Cephalo the Pod

    Also, Amber’s face in Panel 3 reminded me that there are, like, 4 people in this room who feel terrible about things they’ve done and want desperately to better themselves.

    1. Cheshrin

      Ruth and Billie have them trying to deal with the fallout of the breakdown and build something better and healthier, as well as Ruth’s additional guilt over her abusive tendencies as RA.

      Joyce has her working through her fundamentalist teachings, trying to reconcile the fact that she no longer recognizes her family and her home as safe. (Joyce’s also proves Rachel wrong, given the strides she’s taken to better herself and shed her bigotry.)

      Amber has her fear her anger and of becoming like her father and perpetuating the abusive cycle, a fear so profound it created Amazi-Girl.

      … Yeah, this has gotta be a punch to the gut for everyone in that room except Mary, and Mary’s just… awful. Like, I know Rachel’s probably coming from a very valid point of very real emotion, and I don’t hate her for it, but this was the exact wrong crowd of people to hear this.

  25. Elacular

    I tried everything to fix it with my abuser. She didn’t change. Because she wasn’t interested in it. I bent myself over into a pretzel to make my abuser see reason. But she kept her eyes closed. A person who should have loved me did everything to hurt me.

    So I can understand the cynicism.

    But cynicism like Rachel’s is a powerful tool for terrible people. Not just in day to day life, but in politics. When people listen to her, they stop trying to better themselves. They become defensive. And more than that, it gives the person saying the words an excuse not to try.

    “All people are trying to use me, so I should fuck them before they can fuck me.”
    “All politicians are the same, so why bother voting.”
    “My so called ‘friend’ hurt me? Guess we’re not friends anymore.”

    People like this make the world worse, both by their inaction and by their justification of it in themselves and others. But it’s so fucking easy to fall into.

    1. C.T Phipps

      The thing about Rachel’s attitude is that it’s not the attitude of Amber to her father. It’s the attitude of Amber’s father to Amber. Rachel is yelling, insulting, and belittling an abuse victim to make herself feel better because she thinks sh’es in the right.

      SO DO ALL ABUSERS.

      She’s not on Becky’s side, she’s on Toedads.

      1. Mav

        I wouldn’t go that far. Clearly she has a lot of pent up anger towards Ruth. I wonder if we’re going to get another “here’s what happened to said character” series of strips, because I find that very few people in this comic are completely irredeemable. A lot of people didn’t like Sal until we got her flashbacks, and the same for Amber, so we’ll see.

        1. C.T Phipps

          While Toedad is a low place to go, I keep coming back to the fact Rachel is punching on a clinically depressed recently-hospitalized abuse victim. That’s about as low on the punching down as you can do.

        2. Mav

          It is a low punch. She punched her heart right out. Rachel is going in for the kill here. She is communicating to Ruth that if she had a choice, she would never engage with her again, but since Ruth is here, she’s choosing to make it difficult since apparently (in her eyes) no one else is getting the justice they deserve for being treated the way they were.

          The timing here is just shitty. Someone pointed out to me yesterday that Ruth is expected to work immediately, so she has to say something to people eventually. I just think she should have given everyone (including herself) time here. She’s not required to have a dorm meeting the next few days after she’s released. It’s right after everything came to a head for Ruth, but it’s also that for everyone else, too.

        3. C.T Phipps

          It’s deliberately shitty timing as she chose to do it in public too to maximize the audience.

        4. Mav

          Ruth was the one that gave them the public forum. She could have seen them all in individual sessions. She planned this whole session badly – I’ve mentioned before that since she was going through what she was, she had no idea the scope of the effect she was having on everyone there. So she’s expecting people to feel some kind of way obviously, but I don’t think she was expecting all this.

          It seems to me that she thought she would just call them in, explain, apologize and promise to do better, and then it would be over, but didn’t count on people actually being as upset with her as they are. Or I don’t know if she was going to have a Q&A type thing at the end of her speech, because no one let her finish.

        5. C.T Phipps

          No one is upset with her BUT Rachel, though. Not even Mary.

        6. Mav

          Replace “people” with Rachel, and my point still stands, though. She was not expecting this. She was, but she wasn’t at the same time. And we can’t rule out that Mary will be back to her old ways with renewed vigor in no time. She’s already putting on her act.

        7. Suzi

          I think you’re forgetting here, that to those not seeing Ruth’s story, Ruth is a TYRANT. Ruth went out of her way to be mean, to belittle, and to make the hallway a difficult place to live. Several people have SEEN her literally throw Billy out of her room, THROW Billy over a chair, and generally be a dick all around.

          Ruth has been a victim here, but we have to face it she was also a bully. Being a victim of abuse doesn’t give you a free pass to be a bully to others. From Rachel’s perspective, Ruth is an abuser to Billie (this appears particularly bothersome to Rachel) and worse Billie’s superior which makes it not only abusive but power dynamic inappropriate, a menace to everyone else, and after having a mental breakdown, is getting her job back. To her, this isn’t fair, this isn’t right, and an abuser has just been given a pass to go back to their life with no consequence.

          WE of course understand Ruth, her motivations and why she does the things she does, however Rachel does not know these things. Rachel just knows a perceived abuser has just gotten a free pass on everything they’ve done up to this point.

          Her timing IS deliberately shitty, because she wants Ruth to know she won’t accept her bullying, and that she no longer holds power over the hallway like she did before. She’s doing this to show Ruth that she can’t make empty promises.

        8. Mav

          Agreed with much of what you said. At the risk of sounding less understanding than I am:

          For Ruth, the hospital visit was (is) the start of a new beginning, as is the ideal purpose of such a visit. She’s much, much better than she was before. Not completely, but still.

          For Rachel, presumably never having experienced anything Ruth has (although I don’t know if that’s true), the hospital visit was just the end of Ruth’s downward spiral. She HAD to go, she didn’t go because she wanted to. There was no other choice, everything was too messed up. And Ruth hasn’t actually done anything to *show* that’s she’s better.

          I see both perspectives. Rachel is both speaking her true thoughts and projecting here, I think.

        9. Dr_Gonzo

          Agreed. Rachel is being cruel here and she doesn’t know about Ruth’s circumstances. However this is a further result of Ruth’s failure to cultivate loyalty and friendship among the dorm residents she was charged with

        10. chris73

          So that basically sums it up better then I could

        11. The E-man

          Thank you Mav and Suzi! I don’t believe in what Rachel is saying but also I think her points come from an understandable place – so it’s nice to see others share a similar perspective.

        12. Emily

          She’s also punching on an ABUSER. Mental illness and trauma do not magically absolve Ruth of the awful shit she’s put these girls through. Not to mention Rachel doesn’t even know about Clint she just knows Ruth has been consistently terrible to people she is supposed to be helping and overseeing.

        13. Knayt

          She’s also punching on someone who has had a lot of power over her personally, has abused that power, and who has suddenly reclaimed that power when it seemed like she would finally lose it. More than that, she sees Ruth’s act as a way of securing her full power again now that she’s somewhat weakened because of the oversight, and is moving to stop that from happening.

          That doesn’t even vaguely resemble Toedad.

    2. Cerberus

      Elacular- *appropriate gesture of support* and I agree completely.

      Like, she’s not wrong that abusers do exploit positive things like forgiveness and folks have gotten locked into nasty cycles of hoping one last second chance will be enough to finally get through to one’s abuser. I’ve slammed my face against that wall plenty of times in my past as well.

      But yeah, at the same time, you’re absolutely right that that cynicism and fatalism has been just as exploited by the same fuckers and I’ve just as much seen assholes who’ve tried to exploit the general surrender to status quo instinct to try and get away with their abusive bullshit.

  26. Roger Sterling

    …look at the fucking Javert Junior over here.

  27. Bluewind

    She needs to either have a back story of abuse and/or loved one who was abused or she’s about to shoot to a spot on my least favorite character list. Some change and some don’t, but Ruth has been through a hell of a lot lately and she’s young, so change is possible. And for gods sakes, Ruth is fresh out of the hospital for suicidal ideation! You don’t punch somebody in the stomach after they had their appendix removed! This is a dick move.

    1. C.T Phipps

      Rachel has every right to hate Ruth, hate her as RA, and not forgive her for what she’s done. However, what she’s doing here has a genuine possibility of KILLING her so in the words of Joyce “bad word Rachel. Bad word Rachel and the horse you rode in on.”

      1. Bluewind

        That’s what I’m saying. Rachel hating Ruth and choosing not to interact with her? Fine. Rachel actively berating and insulting someone who is fresh out of the hospital for suicidal ideation who is currently still trying to get mess in her system and could easily relapse and end up dead? Wrong on so many levels. Also, Ruth is on medication now which for all Rachel knows could be treating a condition which caused her to be aggressive in the first place (side bar: depression and many other mental health issues can cause aggression and anger issues in some people). So her acting like this? It’s a slap in the face of people with mental health issues especially since a lot of us don’t get treatment (or are even asymptomatic) until our teens or twenties or even older. Ruth isn’t someone who went through a breakup or went to one therapy session crawling back saying she’s changed. Her attempted suicide wasn’t fake to gain sympathy. She really wanted to die and is now getting treatment (both medical and therapeutic) for her condition. Her conversation is already laced with negative talk and self hate. The least Rachel can do is dislike her in private to not trigger Ruth into having a spiral as her meds aren’t in her system yet. If she starts acting like her old self, gently call her on it giving her at least a month on meds to at least partially stabilize before you get harsh on CURRENT things she’s doing wrong.

        Let’s say you know someone who ends up in the hospital after an extreme manic episode. They were either not on their meds (happens to people who can’t afford them or who are convinced to get off them), on the wrong meds, or undiagnosed. They did crazy or even terrible things while manic, but now they are getting help. Hell, they may not clearly remember everything that happened! What good would it do screaming at them fresh out of the hospital? It would probably end up doing more harm than good. Why not say this is how you hurt me before and I want you to know that to help you in the future and to also keep you on the right meds?

        1. Temperaryobsessor

          Response to “Rachel hating Ruth and choosing not to interact with her? Fine”
          Roz can’t get a transfer, and they put Ruth back in charge. That is to say if she were to go down that rout she would have to find a whole new school or find a place off campus and likely eat the cost of dorms this semester.

        2. Knayt

          How? Rachel is directly under Ruth’s authority. How exactly can she choose not to interact with her? Disengagement doesn’t work when you can’t disengage, and I’m not seeing any way she can’t disengage.

    2. StClair

      Rachel doesn’t have to have a history herself, shouldn’t have to show receipts, to not be awful. She can just be what she is, IMO: angry and lashing out, with incomplete information. Even good intentions and a belief that she’s acting righteously to justify expressing the anger she has. Like Sarah, she has a year on the freshmen, but she’s still young, and if there’s one constant in this strip, it’s that the young are often wrong. And they should be allowed to be, without being condemned for their ignorance, as long as they’re willing to learn and change and grow.

      Please consider the irony that you seem to be on the verge of condemning a character based on one thing you’ve seen them do, with no information (just a lot of speculation) why.

      1. Bluewind

        My least favorite character list fluctuates. Hell, Amber use to be on that list. The difference between her and I is that if I was in universe, I would either ignore her or at least be civil around her. Rachel is being an ass and insulting Ruth and Billie on top of making everybody who can currently hear her (including those not in the room) feel bad about themselves and/or others. That’s why I threw in that if this outburst is not coming from her projecting something from her own past (or maybe a mental health issue?), then it’s a dick move. If she’s projecting or has a mental health issue, then at least she is a good person who is currently acting stupid. Without that, she’s publicly yelling at a woman she herself witnessed being suicidal 3 days ago and her girlfriend who also has depression. That’s not righteous; it’s Diet Mary self service.

        Also, my cousin is an asshole, but I never screamed at her during Christmas dinner and just avoided her. When I yelled at my mother when I cut her out of my life (long story), it was over the phone with my door shut and her alone where she was living (even if she deserved to get punched, what would that do for me other than leave me needing bail?). The only time in the past several years I’ve gotten pissed off with others around was at a woman at the library who insulted me several times one day after several instances of me trying to be civil (she worked there).

        Also, random side note, but I wrote my original post and my reply to C. T. after having a bit over 3 glasses of wine (OP was after just the first glass). I normally don’t drink, but that’s what I had left from a bottle in my fridge (it was a housewarming gift that I got months ago and I rarely drink) and I was tired of it taking up space in my fridge. My run on sentences need a hatchet taken to them! XD

        1. Kim Biebaut

          Suicidal or not, depressed or not. Ruth is also an abuser. And everyone under her authority, even the ones she didn’t slap have been victimized by her, though some people might have been hardly affected by that. And the problem is, because Ruth chooses to keep her job (she has good reasons, but Rachel cannot know these) her victims will have to continue to live with her holding authority over them.

          I think the ‘nobody ever redeems’ story is wrong, and way too harsh, but I cannot fault Rachel for not showing Ruth a shred of sympathy, anymore than I could fault any victim for not showing sympathy for their abuser. It’s a nice and kind thing if you do it while keeping track of your own safety, probably foolish if you don’t, but it shouldn’t be ‘expected’ from them anymore.

  28. Andy

    Wow, didn’t realize I was going to outright hate Rachel. That’s cool, I’ve got room in the “characters I don’t want anything to do with” box.

    It’s not as though she’s not allowed to feel like Ruth isn’t really planning to change. That’s fine. She’s probably even projecting based on someone who has abused her and how they Honeymooned often enough she saw that as a Red Flag despite how it can sometimes be, oh I don’t know, actual change.

    But Rachel doesn’t really care a lot about collateral damage here, does she? Let’s tell the person on suicide watch that she’s a _Thing_ and let’s tell Billy that she’s an abuse victim, in front of the abuser, as though that could not possibly make it harder on Billy. Let’s talk about everyone as though they are static individuals and can literally never grow and change.

    Stuff like this is why I just uprooted from Tumblr and plan to never go back. Once a bad person based on actions you take, always a bad person based on your past, you can literally never improve you sack of garbage, just go off yourself.

    That stuff strikes me as abusive in and of itself, but what do I know?

    1. Cerberus

      Yup. The collateral damage and lack of respect for the context of her actions is really really toxic here and dangerous. Like she’s risking driving Ruth into another suicide attempt or hospitalization. If she was actually fully right about Ruth and Billie, then she’d have just both treated an abusive survivor as a thing at the same time she’d have just put Billie in tons of danger. And the way this is not only spilling back onto Billie, Joyce, and Amber because she decided to make this universal, but is also giving Mary all the ammunition she needs to restart her reign of terror is definitely a giant fuck up at the least.

      And the way she went out of her way to do this teardown after already giving two other teardowns today make me hope Ruth takes some active steps to try and avoid her as much as possible going forward. Because that’s not especially safe.

      1. Andy

        Yeah, exactly. I am just in awe (and also, not, because I have people in my life who act like Rachel does here) that Rachel thought it was just A plus fine to casually call out “an abuser” in front of them so that Billie could… what? Suddenly be saved, gosh, she sees the error of her ways in being in a relationship with Ruth, she’s all better now, she’ll be safe and fine and everything.

        Like come the piss on, Rachel. When I was in an abusive relationship, I would have been in so much danger if a self-righteous friend had determined that I needed their savior complex to fill my life and call me and them both out on the abusive relationship. Oh, wait, that literally actually happened! I suffered for it!

        The thing is, Rachel is straight up wrong. I hope that she can be redeemed herself, for assuming so much, for ignoring other peoples needs so she could verbally punch Ruth, for just about everything I have seen in the last few strips. Some of the things needed to be said, but other things were absolutely not acceptable, case in point being today’s strip.

        tl;dr Rachel is wrong wrongity wrong. She’s being, dare I say it, abusive to others in her absolute self-righteous tirade. I can only hope someone like Mary says something in agreement that Rachel is Totally Right, and Rachel realizes that she’s just gone and goofed. I can only hope Rachel seeks to be less self-righteous and more empathetic.

        Also, I agree. I want Ruth to get the fuck away from Rachel, to stay away from Rachel, and to not have to deal with Rachel. I know Willis said no one dies, but I keep worrying with Ruth that maybe something will change and…

        Ugh, this is a long tl;dr oops

        1. Cerberus

          Yeah, if she was actually right, this would have gone so so bad for Billie and it deeply bothers me that not only did she not consider that, but she didn’t even have the decency to speak directly to her or treat her as anything more than a tool for hammering on Ruth.

          Like, if Rachel was right she just put Billie in immense danger as a rhetorical tool for having a cathartic teardown on Ruth. Which is… yeah, she’s young, but still no, just no.

  29. Deadlinedance

    Well that’s got to be the stupidest philosophy espoused in this comic.

    Mistakes are inevitable. Perfection is impossible. If redemption isn’t real… than all anyone can ever be is their mistakes. That’s not a life anyone can lead.

    Stop telling the suicidal girl fatalist BS, Rachel.

    1. Snippy Harold

      It gets even dumber when you take it to its logical extreme.

      If Rachel’s right, the logical thing for Ruth to do is to smack her in the face and do absolutely nothing differently, because by Rachel’s own statements, redemption doesn’t exist. If you are always your worst moments and your worst days, why ever try to do better? You are what you are, and no amount of attempts to be better will actually change that.

      Rachel’s trying to conflate “people who claim they want to change without actually changing” with “people who are changing and may still make mistakes.” For better or worse, Robin and Ruth both are genuinely trying to do better and improve themselves. Whether or not it’s going to work out in the long run remains to be seen; whether or not the very concept is real doesn’t seem like it’s under realistic debate.

  30. James DeRiven

    Oh, good, Calvinistic determinism. That’s not totally specious bullshit or anything.

    (YOU HEAR THAT, BABY WHO JUST KNOCKED MY FAVOURITE VASE OVER AND BROKE IT? NOTHING YOU EVER DO CAN REDEEM YOU FROM THIS INATE EVIL. THIS IS WHO YOU ARE, BABY: EVIL. YOU MAY GAIN SPEECH AND FINE MOTOR CONTROL AND A PERSONALITY AND DEPTH BUT DON’T CONFUSE THAT WITH CHANGE.

    YOU’RE EVIL. FOREVER.)

    1. Cerberus

      Really, the fact that the baby knocked over the vase is just proof that our decision to mark it as sinful and place it upon the sacrificial altar was the correct one. Now place the backup vase upon the pedestal and let us begin the ritual again.

  31. Jabberwocky

    Christ I hate fatalists

    1. Jabberwocky

      Like, there’s blunt honesty, and then there’s cant

  32. AkerSama

    I take it “Redemption” is the theme of Book 7, then.

  33. John

    Rachel, you are making everyone sad. Even Robin, and she’s not even there.

  34. Cass

    Uh-oh, Ruth lost her irises again. Not a good sign.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      Oh, but it’s just what she fucking needs, today. More of the fucking same, am I right? However low she is, she clearly deserves to be shoved even lower.

  35. nlips

    Redemption might not be real, but forgiveness is.

    1. C.T Phipps

      Cerberus brought up there’s a lot of social pressure to forgive abusers which usually ends up being meant to force persecuted minorities to tolerate their awfulness. However, the extreme of vendettas has literally killed millions of people. Forgiveness is a wonderful thing and you shouldn’t let hate dominate your life.

      But there’s also something to be said for understanding forgiveness does not mean acceptance nor does anger preclude understanding as well as sympathy or compassion. Balance in all things.

      1. Cerberus

        One of the worst things about abusers is how they exploit good tendencies in people. How they make vulnerabilities out of things like forgiveness, empathy, second chances, and a desire to help in order to establish a pattern of control.

        See “sir” grampus exploiting Ruth’s love for her parents and her brother to deepen his control and limit her ability to fight back against him or Ryan exploiting Joyce’s desire to be friendly to a seemingly fellow slightly out of place christian kid at the party who is acting so nice.

        And it’s especially awful, because the traits that they exploit are good ones. It’s good that we believe in people’s ability to be redeemed, that we can forgive those who’ve harmed us out of earnest mistake rather than intentional violence, that we want to see the good in all people whenever we can. These are good aspects and abusers twist that to the point where people become terrified of actually showing or trusting those traits lest they be put into another horrifying abusive situation.

        1. Mav

          Yeah. It completely destroys the ability to trust people and the self. It’s so hard to build it back up again. It’s taken me this long to have genuine friendships, but romantic relationships is can of worms I haven’t even opened yet and I have moments when I think it’ll never happen for me. What if they see who I am and decide I’m not good enough? What if they turn out to be an abuser, etc.

        2. Cerberus

          *nods* and *appropriate gesture of support*

          Yeah, I have things I’m not able to do anymore because of abusers and assholes. Like, I really miss being able to walk anywhere outside without being a hypervigilant mess.

        3. Halpful

          *Jedi hugs*

          Yeah this stuff takes so much work to unfuck. Knowing is only half the battle at best. *Believing* that you are enough just as you are, that’s fucking hard. Feeling safe enough to risk letting down some defenses, just as hard. Actually there might be some overlap there; when you can believe in yourself, failure is more just a sad thing that may happen, not the end of the world. Risks feel safer when you feel you can recover from them.

        4. Mav

          *hugs* thanks, you two.

    2. Fart Captor

      Redemption is real, even though forgiveness is not obligatory even when it is. This is still pretty damn vicious, considering Ruth got off suicide watch earlier today.

      1. C.T Phipps

        This is definitely judgement without compassion, empathy, or understanding.

  36. admiralnoob

    Yeesh, she’s saltier than a bag of Lays. No, saltier than McDonald’s french fries. If her words were true at all, then all of us should be childish, immature idiots with no clue how to live our lives. Redemption involves change. Growth. If we couldn’t change, then nothing in life would ever progress. People can grow. People can change. It’s how we lose or gain friends and family. It’s how we become more than just children but slightly more knowledgeable human beings. It’s how the world, despite how crap it is now, is still somewhat better than a couple decades ago. Thus, redemption is possible. Therefore, screw you Rachel and your constant Ruth-bashing. #stopRuthabuse2017

    1. svata

      Her salt content rivals that of your average Twitch chat.

  37. Justin Time

    What did she do to Rachel again?

    1. Kris

      She was just generally a bully to everyone. Some people have suggested there might be some past trauma on Rachel’s end. Which is like “welcome to the club” y’know? No excuse to be a douche.

      1. Gryph

        No excuse to be a douche BUT people have used to excuse both Ruth and Amber. And abusers threatening and “attempting” suicide is not an uncommon tactic to keep their victims close and we have no real idea of exactly how much any of them know about the details.

        1. Emily

          Ugh don’t even get me started on suicide threats as a means of control.

  38. Showler

    I am a bad person because I just thought it would be funny to cut to Joe standing in the doorway saying “Let’s revise that to a one”.

    1. Pigeon Pollyx

      shit dude that’d be hilarious

    2. Rukduk

      On the one hand that would be funny and show that Joe puts a lot of thought into personality, on the other hand it’s still ranking someone and Joe being outside the meeting would be really creepy. So my final answer is, no it does not make you a bad person but it makes Joe even creepier than he already is.

  39. Pigeon Pollyx

    you know… I wonder if rachel’s gonna get a redemption arc…

    1. StClair

      Nope. No such thing. She can’t change or improve, she’s forever defined by this one thoughtless act. Even if she apologizes later, it’s just a lie… a story.

  40. Mav

    Wow, Rachel does not pull punches when she gets the chance. I have mixed feelings about it. I would be like if I said all the awful things I ever thought I wanted to say to my abuser to them. Would I be wrong in that moment? Would that make me an utterly horrible and bad person?

    1. Pigeon Pollyx

      Well in this instance Rachel’s giving this tirade to a person who’s hardly a day out from the hospital for suicidal ideation, in front of a person struggling with her own trauma and personal image and disregarding the agency of another, all while leaving the person who actually blackmailed and bullied the first into their suicidal state completely unacknowledged, so

      mayhaps context is crucial

      1. Mav

        You’re right, the context here is important. And I definitely don’t think Rachel is “right” in the truest sense of the word.

        I’m speaking to the sentiment here that people are not allowed to be outwardly angry with people who’ve wronged us, especially when it’s an inconvenient time for that person.

        I’ll play the devil’s advocate – the context of suicide attempts could also refer to abusers who regularly deploy it as a method of control and keeping a person in their life. Obviously not what’s going on this strip, but “Rachel can’t be angry because it makes her just as bad and she should say nothing while Ruth gets to speak her piece and leave” is a slippery slope.

        1. Gryph

          And Rachel may not know that that isn’t the story.

        2. Mav

          Yep. It’d be really interesting if her backstory revealed that’s what she was thinking of.

        3. Halpful

          Rachel can be angry. Right now, she’s gone past angry into abusive, and *that* is what isn’t okay. And Cerberus explained yesterday how there are more than two possible responses here.

          “Do a bad thing or nothing” is a false dichotomy. The solution is to learn what the other options are.

        4. Mav

          But if we’re supposed to forgive Ruth since most of what she did came from a deeply distressed emotional state and she’s trying to get better, why can’t we just forgive Rachel (assuming she is also speaking from a place of deep pain)? And if we find out that she is, does that necessarily change the shittiness of what she said? Which relates to how people are saying they can’t understand why she’s choosing to be shitty here.

          I’m not actually forgiving Rachel here, I’m just trying to point out the weirdness of saying that her saying something incredibly shitty to Ruth *once* is the same as everything Ruth has done combined, just because Ruth happens to be sincere about her change, which is just a sentiment that others have expressed today (not you in particular).

        5. Cerberus

          I forgive her, but just as I recognize that the things that Ruth did to Billie when their relationship began was not okay, I can recognize that Rachel’s actions here are also crossing a line.

          And yeah, I wouldn’t at all blame Rachel just having no fucking time for Ruth’s redemption as that’s an absolutely fair thing that can be a critical defense against a dangerous abuser exploiting your compassion and desire to do nothing to risk permanently harming someone.

          But she didn’t need to go out of her way to come here, exploit a deliberately vulnerable space to hammer as hard as she possibly can and do so in a way that spoke universally instead of specifically to the damage of at least 3 unintended individuals in the room.

          Like, I don’t think she’s a bad person for doing it. And I have sympathy for the anger and pain she is likely feeling, but she fucked up here and that fuckup had consequences and real harm she is going to deeply regret if she ever learns the full context of what she pulled here.

          And I hope for both their sakes that Rachel and Ruth are able to stay out of each other’s ways going forward (they won’t because that wouldn’t make as interesting of a story) as they are clearly not good for each other’s mental health.

        6. Mav

          I see what you’re saying. It also occurred to me that what she said would affect everyone else, too, especially because she’s speaking in such a way that she believes she’s right. After i made that comment I thought more about what you and other said about the nature of her statement, especially the timing.I hope one day Ruth understands what she said here as well.

          I agree that the best thing would be if they just never interacted with each other again. Just as Rachel won’t forgive Ruth, there’s no sense in Ruth chasing people who don’t want anything to do with her – it would only be destructive for both of them.

        7. Cerberus

          Definitely! And that’s an absolute okay ending. Sometimes people are toxic for each other and it definitely would be a positive thing for them both to stay out of each other’s ways.

        8. thejeff

          The problem with that is that Ruth is the RA. She’s been put back in charge of her victims.
          Rachel can’t just not interact with her. Even Ruth really can’t.

      2. Galdan

        Pigeon Pollyx is right. Under different circunstances, Rachel would be right, but she is speaking to person who just tried to commit suicide. This isn’t the time to go all Justice Warrior on Ruth; this is the time to shut up because the consequences of her tirade could be potentially worse than anything Ruth ever did…

        Is Ruth an abusive jerk? Yes. Does it make right to push her back to alcoholism and suicide? Nope.

        And yes, I know, I know, “everybody is responsible for their own actions… yadda, yadda,… Kantian ethics… blah, blah…” People who are sent to the psych ward and stuffed full of happy pils after a depression-induced suicide attempt can’t be assumed to be fully responsible of their own actions. I’m not saying it will be Rachel’s fault if Ruth falls further into depression, but she should at least be careful for now…

  41. JessWitt

    What’s the story, Rachel? What’s this you’re speaking of?

    1. JessWitt

      *Wishbone theme FYI*

  42. Annamal

    There is a narrative that runs through some people’s lives, where abusive people are able to avoid consequences by publicly apologising to their victims (emphasis on the ‘publicly’) part and then community pressure slams down on their victim to ‘forgive’ them (ideally in public).

    It can be a pretty insidious force on someone who has already been victimised (and may be victimised again in the future once the community’s attention has turned).

    If Rachel has been part of one of these sin and redemption pantomimes in the past, it would be understandable if she reacts very badly to a situation she perceives as similar.

    None of this makes what she is saying ok, but it might explain why she thinks it is OK call a mentally ill person a “thing”.

    I should note that Ruth’s apology does not have the hallmarks of the spectacle apology described above, she’s not looking for reactions and she is actively stopping other people from minimising her actions.

  43. tempest

    It’s… interesting? how she says both “redemption is more than the minimum possible effort” and “redemption literally does not exist in any form, ever”.

    I mean, if she really wanted to make the point that redemption is fake, she could have said “even if you devote every ounce of your being to atoning for your sins for the rest of your life, you will still be exactly the same vile scum at age 80 as you are now, so you may as well just kill yourself”. But she didn’t say that. Likely because she knows on some level that it’s not true.

    Does she even notice the contradiction in her own thoughts?

  44. sun tzu

    …Too far, Rachel.
    I thought you had good points yesterday. You were saying things that needed to be said.
    This, though? While I don’t doubt for a moment that there are abusers who try to “game” the redemption narrative to their own advantage, the idea that redemption isn’t a thing is ABSURD.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      Sorry, you’re inherently wrong. Rachel says it’s not a thing, so that applies to every single person across the globe. That’s how it works.

      1. StClair

        College freshmen may think they know everything, but college sophomores actually do. Consider Sarah.

        1. Rukduk

          Ironically the Greek roots that make up “sophomore” mean “wise-fool”.

        2. DinaWho

          It’s probably worth noting that Rachel is a sophomore too.

  45. Derek

    methinks Rachel is not talking to just Ruth anymore

    1. Derek

      in the sense that she’s addressing an abuser in her past, or perhaps an abuser of a loved one

  46. Cephalo the Pod

    Is it too much to hope Joyce chimes in at this point? She hasn’t said much yet.

    1. Barf Ninjason

      I was just thinking that this would be an ideal time for Joyce the rescue with a stirring defense of redemption and forgiveness, those being the best aspects of Christian ethics.

      1. Kole

        The christian idea of redemption is “stop being a filthy sinner so god can love you again”, in western christianity anyway

        1. Barf Ninjason

          I’ve definitely known people who take all the forgive-y feelings and not-judging-folk-up to heart, though. They’re perhaps less prevalent than I’d like. I suppose I should specify that I’m not a Christian and have been unable to believe in any higher powers since I was 12. Is Orthodox Christianity less like what you’re descriving, then? That’s the only non-Western form I can think of, unless you count the remnants of Gnosticism or something.

        2. Dr_Gonzo

          I’m not Orthodox Christian(though I often admire much of its tenants) but my understanding is roughly yes. In the end it’s only God who has the final say on who has earned salvation. Even though Orthodoxy has tenants of good works within the Church community and codes of conduct, they don’t presume(I’m generalizing here) that those are be-all tenants in part because Orthodoxy makes it clear even good Christians will never be wholly free from sin. Much of what earns you salvation is your relationship with other people. Actually I think you behave too high and holier than thou, that’s a warning sign.

      2. SUGauthor

        Based off the way Rachel’s acting right now, I’d say she’d write off anything Joyce said as Christian non-sense and disregard her entirely. She’s seems far more interested in the characters she’s created in her head then the people who are actually here right now.

        1. Delicious Taffy

          I bet Rachel would have a great following online, if she started a blog. All emotion, no substance? Guaranteed audience.

  47. brasca1

    While I think that’s a blanket indictment based on opinion more than fact she is entitled to feel that way if she’s been betrayed in the past and will not risk giving anyone the benefit of the doubt.

  48. mister gray

    Screw Rachel and the soap box she thinks she is standing on. People don’t change but people can be redeemed, people can be if given the right circumstances. So screw Rachel and her ideas of redemption.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      Sorry, but people do change. Not everyone, but plenty of people change.

      1. Mister Gray

        Ok it was late and I forgot to put that that people don’t change often. I saying people don’t change but can be redeemed seems contridictory. I apologize for my error.

  49. R David Betz

    OK, I officially hate Rachel

  50. tim gueguen

    Given how common a theme redemption is in all sorts of artforms from all over the place I wonder what Rachel does for entertainment.

    1. Fart Captor

      Well, redemption as presented commonly in fiction is often unrealistic. Often it’s presented like a switch being flipped, and then whatever happened before basically goes away forever and everyone who doesn’t forgive is a huge asshole.

      That definitely isn’t how it works

      1. Mav

        That’s what I like about this comic. Sure we have straw characters like Blaine and Toedad, but people like that actually exist in real life. What we are seeing here is not a singular redemption based on the author’s opinion forced upon us, but a myriad of realistic reactions. Like dislike Ruth right now because what she said was shitty, but her reaction isn’t unrealistic.

        1. Fart Captor

          If people like them exist in real life, then they aren’t straw men, which they sadly aren’t.

        2. Delicious Taffy

          They probably burn as nicely as straw men, though.

        3. Cerberus

          Yeah, it’s cool seeing the mix of fucked up people who fuck up and folks who recognize their path is a shitty one with the types of abusers who really do exploit those narratives to their own end and cause pain in doing so. It’s a nice reflection of life and the difficulties in figuring out which is which and which folks are just not worth trying to interact with for whatever reason because the interaction is toxic.

        4. StClair

          Very much so.

  51. MM

    I get the feeling Rachel and Sarah would get along, if they can get past their misanthropic suspicion long enough to talk.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      I don’t think Sarah has punched down like this, though.

  52. Ridureyu

    Man, I hope someone takes Rachel aside and says, “That’s good, Rachel. Because you’re a worthless piece of shit, and you always will be.”

    And I hope they say it until Rachel is broken.

    1. zoelogical

      man that sounds super depressing!!!

      1. Delicious Taffy

        Imagine if she’d said something like that to someone else.

        1. zoelogical

          Imagine if someone said something like that to anybody

    2. Jago

      WTF?

  53. Elacular

    Armchair psychologizing here…Joe being a tool seemed like a pointless interlude, but then this happened…has Rachel been abused by a romantic partner before? And Joe brought memories of it back, and she’s taking it out on Ruth?

    1. Elacular

      Or a history of sexual assault or something. One way or another though, Joe set her off. I don’t think this is just a result of Ruth’s meeting.

      Plus, conservation of detail means that has to have meant something.

      1. spoopyfox

        she was already pretty hostile when Howard was still here

  54. C.T Phipps

    FYI – to be a complete piece of string here, am I wrong I am entirely cool with forgiving Ruth but have no inclination whatsoever to forgive Robin or think redemption is good for her?

    1. C.T Phipps

      I am, I know but it’s harder to care when Robin had every privilege and advantage but still became a completely awful person. She’s also an adult in her thirties while Ruth is barely one.

    2. Cephalo the Pod

      I mean, Ruth terrorized a wing of a dorm.
      Robin supported legislation to discriminate against LGBT+ people.
      Pretty different magnitudes involved.

      1. C.T Phipps

        Robin’s dad drove her to it! I mean he has 30 Star Trek ties!

        1. Li

          That’s not her dad, that’s her stepdad. Her dad abandoned his family from the sounds of it.

        2. C.T Phipps

          I tend to think of the person who raised her as her dad.

    3. Fart Captor

      Well, Robin hasn’t really shown any initiative on her own to become a better person yet, only a willingness to not do crappy things. Ruth has shown an understanding of how she hurt people, and not only the desire to change, but she’s actually followed through on it already.

      1. Temperaryobsessor

        Only a willingness to not do crappy things when they are no longer convenient. That is nothing. That is quitting killing people because nobody is hiring assassins not because you don’t want to kill people. Right now Robin thinks that’s redemption.

        1. Fart Captor

          That was my point. It’s technically an improvement, but it doesn’t show any real understanding of how she’s hurt people, or any remorse for it. Nothing yet to really show she’s actually willing to do the work to make a change that’s more than superficial.

  55. Doopyboop

    As someone who heavily believes in redemption and rehabilitation, I’m kinda gnashing my teeth right now. Which is good writing, because boy does this give me emotions. It’s just sad that the emotions are negative ones that make me dislike Rachel.

    Like, yes. Ruth did awful things. I’m still on the fence with her relationship with Billie because of the awful things she did to her. But ever since they actually struck up a relationship, Ruth has been trying to do right by her, lesbian suicide pact aside. They are both broken people, trying to find happiness in each other. And you do not tell a broken person this kind of shit, especially one who almost committed suicide just a few days ago. The reason Ruth went to the hospital was because she needed help. The therapist there no doubt told her that it wasn’t too late to make amends, that she doesn’t have to be her mistakes. That she can grow and change. Because that’s how some people are. Not all. But some.

    And just because some people may be abusers as long as they live, does not mean nobody can be redeemed. We all make mistakes. Some of us make more mistakes than others. Sometimes we perpetuate the cycle of abuse. If someone is trying to genuine break out of that cycle, you don’t fucking cram them back in there and tell them they cannot change. I know Rachel doesn’t know about Ruth’s grandpa, and yes that abuse doesn’t excuse her actions, but Rachel’s being so damned pious right now. And it’s not just affecting Ruth, but Amber too.

    Good job Rachel. In your attempt to put an abuser in their place, you are instead hurting two abuse victims. She who fights monsters…

  56. Keulan

    I liked Rachel up until this strip. What she just said is utter bullshit. If someone realizes they’ve behaved badly in the past, and works to become a better person, it’s unreasonable to treat them as if they haven’t changed at all and are still the bad person they used to be.

    1. Cephalo the Pod

      Dumbing of Age has a disturbingly high number of characters who come off as reasonable/non-monstrous for a few strips before very rapidly nosediving.

      1. tim gueguen

        Just wait until the “Dina eats live kittens” plotline is revealed.

        1. Delicious Taffy

          I’m sure Dina would have a good reason to eat those kittens, and would deeply regret being forced to do it.

        2. StClair

          “I’m sorry. This was the best I could do.”

        3. Delicious Taffy

          I shouldn’t be laughing at this.

        4. DrunkenNordmann

          Ouch.

        5. thejeff

          “It’s what any raptor would do.”

      2. Dr_Gonzo

        Yeah, well we’re talking about a cast of characters mostly in their late teens/early twenties. Of course their going to be unbalanced.

  57. Cephalo the Pod

    I know it won’t happen because it would diffuse this drama way too early, but I could just see Mary nodding in approval and echoing Rachel’s thoughts, only for Rachel to realize “Oh Christ I’m on the wrong side here, aren’t I”.

    1. MM

      What Wouldn’t Mary Do? seems a sensible moral guide.

  58. Fallingivy

    There’s a lot to parse in what she’s saying, but I’m just still goggling over someone saying that to a woman straight out of suicide watch RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE MALICIOUS TRANSPHOBIC BIGOT WHO SENT HER THERE AND GIVING HER MORE AMMUNITION

    1. C.T Phipps

      I’d like to also point out Rachel is taking the lead in a conversation with Joyce not two steps away as someone who experienced Becky’s dad trying to kill her. Who exactly does she think she’s talking for?

      1. Delicious Taffy

        If I had to guess, she’s projecting her anger toward a person who hurt her or someone close to her in the past. Which can be helpful, but in this situation is a horrible thing to do.

  59. tenkiforecast

    …Rachel’s channeling my sister here.

    Are there people that will never change abusive ways? Absolutely. I have examples in my own family. My dad’s oldest brother is one of them–an abusive monster who gave his own kids PTSD and refuses to accept any form of responsibility for his actions, be his abuse of his kids, abusing employers for insurance, abusing his siblings, and being a racist, sexist piece of trash (I told the story about the Galveston Hurricane, how Cuban meteorologists predicted it, and white meteorologists were racist assholes who mocked them and caused thousands of deaths in response. He tried to say that the white people were correct and when I mentioned Cuban meteorologists are still better than most US mets at forecasting hurricanes, he went full conspiracy theory. Even though it’s because they *live* in the tropics).

    My father was also abusive–chronic alcoholism combined with PTSD. We were lucky–it mostly came down to shutting down ideas he did not like and his self-inflicted emotional wounds. Unlike his garbage brother, he is actually striving to improve himself. He’s now a major fixture in local Al-Anon and AA groups, as they saved his life. He’s done everything he can to make amends for his actions.

    It’s been 3 years since the worst with my dad. I don’t think my sister is going to make amends with my father anytime soon–every interaction between them is extremely strained. It’s all about identifying those who do want to change. My dad does want to change. My uncle never will. Ruth…is one of those who wants to change. The problem, the people who need to be supporting her for that change to happen…are not right now.

    1. C.T Phipps

      I know my older brother was a drug addict who spent two decades trying to atone for the fact he once violently assaulted me. He became the single most important person in my life. He died tragically at a young age, still trying to make up to the people he’d wronged.

      So, yeah, Rachel, screw you.

      1. Cerberus

        *hugs to both of you*

  60. Travestyhat

    This was brutal. I don’t agree with her but I definitely understand her trepidation: Ruth’s damage has been a cause of harm to others on more than one occasion. That said I’m rooting for Ruth to pull through here.

  61. Barf Ninjason

    Rachel I’ma fart on your pillow

    1. Delicious Taffy

      Do you want her to get pink eye? Because that’s how you get pink eye.

  62. Tomas

    This is kind of meta. Rachel is saying all of this to this to the version of Ruth who didn’t sacrifice her life to save Danny after inspiring him to drive drunk.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      I’m sure she’d love it if Ruth did something like that over this.

  63. Absorbingman

    Its funny. The woman I dated tonight told me something similar over dinner. “A person can change their mind, but not their heart.”

    1. Delicious Taffy

      Well, that woman is wrong on a fundamental level, so I’d reconsider any thoughts of a second date.

  64. Rukduk

    Uh, Rachel. John Calvin called. He wants his cynical mindset back. Also, if redemption doesn’t exist and you are your mistakes forever, then congrats, you’re the cynic who just bullied the suicidally depressed girl. Which you know about because you were there when she had to go to the hospital. So you’re telling someone that you know is depressed and suicidal that no matter what she does she’s a horrible human being who can only ever be horrible and never change. You basically just told Ruth to go kill herself. How does it feel to be the bully Rachel? How does it feel? Does it feel good? Because unless you want to admit you’re wrong on the redemption front, then that’s what you are for eternity: a bully who targets the suicidal. And after you complained about Ruth being a bully in yesterday’s strip as well. Is that ironic, or hypocritical? Have fun sleeping tonight.

    1. C.T Phipps

      Abusers always think they’re the righteous ones. It’s how you can tell the difference as the worst make their apologies about them being better than you because they’re good with Jesus now.

      It’s some weird ass reasoning but Comstock in Bioshock showed it well. Guys who think even their atonement is about being better than other people.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        Fuck Comstock. He’s an irritating little C-word, and I loved killing him.

    2. StClair

      Exactly. 🙁

    3. Felis Leo

      I was thinking the exact same thing. Rachel is plainly a strict Calvinist.

  65. AY

    holy shit, rachel.

  66. Halpful

    Wow. Fuck.

    I’m just gonna offer ALL THE HUGS to Cerberus and Spencer and everyone else who probably needs them right now.

    I hope Rachel comes to understand exactly how horrible this was someday.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      I also hope she understands it, and I hope she learns to grow out of it. If only because she’s demonstrating an unwillingness to offer the same courtesy to someone else, and the irony would be delicious.

    2. Cerberus

      Aw thanks *accepts hugs*

      And yeah… that last wordbubble of Rachel hits really hard.

      Like, I didn’t really get into in my analyses, but that whole notion that all the good aspects myself are just wallpaper over some deep rot everyone eventually sees and recoils at is something I deeply struggle with. So yeah, that hit especially hard home.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        Same here.

        1. Rukduk

          *hugs to you both*

    3. Spencer

      Hi I’m okay. Thanks for worrying about me.

      Yeah this strip is kinda, well it’s harsh. Panel 4 is basically what I tell myself every day. I guess I’m more in Amber’s shoes because I’m more wrapped up in the fears of becoming An Abuser, rather than pulling myself out of that hole? If I ever did something like that, I don’t know.

      But I’m good. I’m fine.

  67. Cephalo the Pod

    It took me a while to figure out, but Rachel being written this way makes a lot of sense when her big character moment in It’s Walky was finding out the guy she was sorta-seeing online was the awful jerk from the supermarket.

  68. Ronnie

    No this is fine because my face blindness and difficulty with names kept getting me mixed up between Rachel and Mary.
    Now there’s less of a difference.

    (This is not fine)

    1. Delicious Taffy

      At least Mary would discourage personal growth so she can get something out of it. What’s Rachel’s motive, setting up a pointless mic drop?

  69. The Mad Academic

    So yeah, Rachel can go jump off a cliff. Wasn’t she there when they took Ruth to the hospital? Also, did no one explain that the R.A was suicidal? That seems like something a University official should do. I’m pretty sure the University would do SOMETHING, or does this comic take place in a world where authorities are non-existent?

    Because seriously this is really pissing me off. Especially because I have been in a similar position as Ruth. And because of that I have zero fucking tolerance for Rachel’s attitude. People who are that fucking cynical and blame happy can fuck right off. This… I literally cannot handle this.

    1. Mav

      That’s medical information and considered confidential. The school could actually get into a ton of legal trouble if they disclosed it themselves. The only way that would get out was if someone there told another student.

      I think Rachel does know about the suicide attempt because people were gossiping about it. I understand why you’re mad; it pings in the part of us that would like to be forgiven for things we’ve done.

      1. The Mad Academic

        I’m mad for a whole slew of reasons that I currently don’t have the capacity to express. It’s less about being forgiven for things done and more to do with kicking a depressed person when they’re down.

        1. Mav

          I misunderstood then. That’s totally valid.

        2. Emily

          Except this may be the only chance she gets to kick Ruth without violent reprisal because her whole experience with Ruth has been her as a violent and controlling abuser and she’s not wrong that this whole display even including the suicide attempt is a right out of the abuser playbook. She doesn’t have the knowledge we do so it’s easy to see how she could perceive this as a bullshit manipulation.

        3. The Mad Academic

          You do not gamble with something like suicide. There isn’t a single justification for pushing someone who is potentially suicidal. None. I’m not defending Ruth’s past actions, however, Rachel’s cynicism is something I have personally faced in a similar situation as Ruth. You don’t kick people when they’re down. That doesn’t make it better. Nor is it an excuse for being a fuckhead. Rachel has found this amazing cynical soap box and decided to use it to, be an abuser.

          So, theoretically, let’s say Ruth now commits suicide. Let’s say Rachel’s little outburst her is what pushes her over the edge. According to Rachel’s logic, Rachel is responsible for that. And Rachel can never be forgiven for that. Even now, Rachel’s outlook means that she will never be absolved for being a shitty person to a suicidal person. That is fucked up. But, I suspect, Rachel and people like her, would simply find a new justification and continue to shit on the now dead Ruth.

          Because, that’s what people do to people like Ruth and I. We struggle to even stand up some days and then someone comes along and reminds of just how shitty we are. As if that was necessary. So no, you don’t get to excuse Rachel for this. And you don’t get to handwave away her horrible horrible outlook.

        4. DinaWho

          (CW: suicide, maybe abuse?)

          I agree that suicide attempts/threats are a way used by abusers to control their victims. And though there’s some evidence (see the link in Cerberus’s post) that Rachel knows Ruth is truly suicidal, she could still see this as within the abuser playbook.

          The impression I’m getting is that Rachel’s reaction is acceptable had Ruth’s suicidal ideation been an act. I guess the thing I’m puzzling on is how do you tell? Where do you draw the line? How do you distinguish a ‘real’ suicidal person from someone who’s only claiming to try and manipulate? Is there an acceptable level of misidentification, of genuinely suicidal people like Ruth who end up on the receiving end in situations like this? Are some ‘deserving’ of this treatment, suicidal or no? Am I asking a lot of overly philosophical moralising questions that can’t be put into practice in the real world?

          Okay, probably yes to the last one.

          My perspective here is probably pretty drastically skewed, I’ll acknowledge. I’m a maladaptive perfectionist who has a tendency to spiral into suicidal thinking following a perceived or actual fuckup, and at one point attempted to suppress my struggles with depression and suicidal ideation to the point they nearly blew up in a full-fledged attempt in substantial part because I was in a struggling relationship at the time and was scared actually talking about it would make me a manipulative piece of shit.

        5. Halpful

          Rachel’s reaction is never acceptable, because it encourages exactly that type of destructive perfectionism.
          Nobody deserves that. If you fuck up, you are not 100% fuckup forever and ever. Learning to accept that is fucking hard, but it’s worth it.

          Rachel herself has done a bad thing here. By her logic, that makes her irredeemable. Luc she’s wrong, and her mistake may be forgiven in time. And she’s got plenty of time ahead of her to figure it out.

        6. DinaWho

          Thanks. Upon reflection, this comment probably would have been better made as a standalone, since it’s more of a response to a number of comments in this vein as opposed to this one alone.

      2. bhtooefr

        Rachel was even the one that told Chloe about Ruth’s suicidal state, so she’s got zero excuse here.

        And, Chloe “find[ing] them both sprawled out on [Ruth’s] bed, wanting to die” was very public, to the point that everyone knew about it.

        Of course, Carla also very publicly outed Ruth, too.

    2. Emperor Daniel

      Ruth has Puddinghead for an overseer. Chloe is . . . not the best example of what a university official should be.

      1. The Mad Academic

        That’s an understatement.

    3. Delicious Taffy

      I agree with your sentiment, as well as the words you used.

  70. Rex Vivat

    Right, you can’t change and everyone is always the same person all their lives, forever.
    You’re full of shit, Rachel.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      She’s not just full of shit. She’s reached complete fecal saturation. Silos have to be built to hold all the surplus shit she’s taking on.

  71. Cephalo the Pod

    Oh hey, a(n almost) title drop!

    1. foamy

      Curses. 🙁

  72. Cody Connelly

    Being someone who has suffered from an abusive relationship with an abuser who refused to change (even after numerous promises to do so), there is a part of me that can understand the anger behind Rachel’s words. I can also agree with the part about “wallpaper over it with a sorry” because for someone to truly change, they can’t ignore what they did, they have to accept it & actively work to show they are no longer like that.

    That being said, Rachel probably shouldn’t be saying this to someone who was just released from a mental health unit for attempted suicide, especially with the level of venom she’s spitting with it.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      Wallpaper is certainly worthless. Actively working to show you have changed/are changing, that’s always good, even if nobody has to be alright with it.

      Kicking someone while they’re down and telling them their effort is outright worthless, though? That, in my mind, is almost as bad as the abuse the person is trying to distance themselves from.

      1. Cerberus

        Sometimes the person doing repairs is putting up new wallpaper. Sometimes they are actually dealing with tearing out the rotted drywall and putting in fresh.

        It can be hard to tell from the outside, but kicking them when they are down because it might just be wallpaper is a shitty practice when you can just refuse to have anything to do with their potentially dangerous house.

        1. Delicious Taffy

          Sometimes we are actually working on replacing the rotten parts, that’s so true. I also agree with you that people can just refuse to interact with someone they think is just putting up wallpaper only to keep up appearances. The infuriating part is, they often choose not to, and that’s not helping anyone.

          I say “we”, because I’m currently experiencing this firsthand, for the same reasons I opened up about on this site, however many weeks ago.

        2. Cerberus

          *hugs offered*

        3. Delicious Taffy

          Likewise.

        4. bhtooefr

          Not a defense of Rachel, but I wonder if this is a contributing factor… Can she refuse to have anything to do with that particular house? After all, Ruth is her RA, and not only that, but the wait list to get transferred out of that wing just got longer due to Billie being bumped to the top of it.

        5. Skater Girl (@syleegrrl)

          Considering only 5 people showed up to this meeting, she obviously can refuse.

  73. Firewater513

    Well that’s a great viewpoint. Conclusions to draw if Rachel was in any way right:
    Never take back an ex, and also never forgive a SO of any wrongdoing.
    Capital punishment, and only capital punishment, for any crime.
    Pencils no longer need erasers, because anyone who ever misspells something just shouldn’t be allowed to write anymore. Make a mistake once, you’ll just make it again, you’ve lost your writing privilege.
    Etc

    1. Delicious Taffy

      This, several dozen times over.

  74. Briny

    Here’s hoping Joyce’s turn is next. You know, the woman whose entire worldview hinges on redemption.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      Oh, but she can’t change, because God-Empress Rachel, Chief Arbitrator of Redemption, says so.

  75. Kris

    I found this strip. Of Rachel witnessing Ruth extorting Billie with her cheerleader uniform and she did nothing about it.
    http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/ransom/
    So I don’t know, maybe Rachel was afraid of Ruth? Still don’t know why.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      She doesn’t seem so afraid of her now, when she’s at her most vulnerable.

    2. Emily

      Because she was violent and threatening towards her charges on a regular basis and literally ruled her floor through fear?

    3. Liliet

      Not only did she not stand up to Ruth which is, yes, dangerous to both her and Billie (LIKE OH I DON’T KNOW A CERTAIN THING SHE DID LAST COMIC), but she also did not offer Billie any support separately. Rachel does not care about her except as a prop in the play of “Violent evil bully Ruth and righteous good Rachel”

  76. Katrika

    Because the best ways to deal with abusers is to tell them they can never ever change, so why even try?

    The myth is being able to ‘earn’ your way to everything being just like it was before. That can never happen. And you can’t make people forgive you, or like you, or want to be around you. But the narrative of being able to make an internal change for the better, not because of all the rewards it’s going to get you but because it’s healthier for yourself, is super important. And I think Rachel is conflating the two.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      That first sentence, exactly. Sorry, I guess actively trying to better myself and remove all the shitty behaviors isn’t worth a damn, so I might as well just just go be an MRA. /s

      1. Katrika

        You doing okay? This strip seems to be hitting you hard.

        1. Delicious Taffy

          Thanks for asking, that’s very considerate of you. I’m actually doing pretty well, today, but Rachel’s bilious diatribe hits a hot button. Mostly because it could just as easily be aimed at myself.

        2. Foxhack

          Hello Saiyan person, I’m glad I’m not the only one that’s feeling this hit close to home.

        3. Delicious Taffy

          Super Saiyan Ruth is the most timely Gravatar I’ve ever used.

          This is hitting extremely close to home, and you have my empathy, if you’d like it. I could be both Ruth and Amber, in this situation.

        4. StClair

          It could pretty much be aimed at everybody. Let he/she who is without sin…

        5. Jhon

          Ow! Ow! Stop that! OW!
          (where did all these rocks come from?)

    2. Katrika

      Like. Abusers can change and stop being abusive. People can become better, healthier people. But the key thing is, if someone abused you or was shitty to you, you’re not obligated to spend time with them or emotional energy on them just because they’ve changed. That’s important!

      But what’s also important is that abusers are people. There isn’t a firm divide between ‘people who abuse’ and ‘people who do not abuse’. You’re not born one or the other and can never change. People BECOME abusive through their actions, so they can STOP being abusers by stopping those actions. Many abusers will not do this because they’re too caught in the emotional patterns that lead to the abuse or enjoy the rewards of their actions too much. Admitting you did something wrong is hard, admitting you hurt someone who cared about you is hard, and many people are going to turn away from that self-reflection rather than face it.

      But telling someone who’s doing fucked up stuff that they can never ever change? The only person that benefits is YOU, because you get the warm fuzzy glow of being righteously angry at a Bad Person. It absolutely doesn’t help the abuser, or more importantly, the people caught in their actions. Rachel thinks Ruth is abusing Billie and she’s not exactly wrong, the relationship is toxic, but she’s too busy being angry to realize that if she was right, making this point so angrily and publically to Ruth would only result in Billie getting more hurt later, in private.

      Rachel’s a teenager who is making a not-great judgement call here, and I wonder if she’s drawing from personal experience with abuse for her anger.

      1. Cerberus

        This.

  77. buddy

    rachel dropped the fuckin mic so hard that its reverbrating throughout the story and making everyone question themselves

    1. Delicious Taffy

      Too bad she had no good reason to drop it, so she’s just stood there looking like a fucking moron.

      1. buddy

        damn im just commenting on rachel’s mic dropping skills theres no need to get hostile

  78. Delicious Taffy

    Fuck you, Rachel. People can fucking change, we’re not exactly the fucking same as we were the day we were fucking born. I used to get into fist fights with people, I guess that’s still happening. I said the N-word to one of my black friends once, before I understood racism, so I guess I voted Trump. I accidentally crashed my mom’s car into a ditch a few times, so I guess that happens every single time I get behind the wheel.

    It’s this kind of black-and-white BULLSHIT that discourages people from even trying to change, which, how nice for you and your stupid little narrative, causes them to give up and lean into their negative behaviors harder than before. Fuck Rachel, right now, and fuck this pathetic narrative she’s pushing.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      OH BY THE FUCKING WAY

      Amber is sitting right fucking there, hearing all of this, with her own internal struggles going on. I’m sure she’s really enjoying being told (by proxy) that nothing she does matters and she’ll always be a violent rage-demon.

  79. Cerberus

    Comic Reactions:

    Okay, before I get into the meat of the panel by panel, I need to say this out loud. No one owes anyone their regard, their good feelings, or even not hating them. And in a redemption arc, there are going to be people you hurt who you can never make things right with and it’s just a situation where you walk away as much as you can and let them rebuild things without you. And this does not mean your redemption is failed. It means sometimes in life, that which got broken can’t get fixed and you have to learn to accept that and fix what you can and move to not break stuff as much as you can going forward.

    And with Rachel’s rant, it’s absolutely acceptable that she loathes Ruth, that she views her as a violent abusive thug, that she mistrusts her attempt to turn over a new life and reads it as a means of honeymoon phasing the hall before starting up on a reign of terror. It’s acceptable that she loathes Ruth with every fiber of her being.

    And who knows, maybe there’s a moment in their shared pasts that makes this rant more than that loathing allowed to spiral out of control into a real bad place out of frustration and anger at the forces downstairs for reinstating a deeply fucked up RA who did not serve the best interests of the hall before.

    That all said, wow is what Rachel does here not okay.

    Like, this is part of why Carla is real hesitant and terrible at admitting fuckups like we saw in her attempt at an apology to Ruth. Because sometimes folks will use the vulnerability of being in a space of admitting fuckups to write you off as garbage and tear you the fuck down in some cathartic ritual of destruction, pouring out some general performative rage on you because you’ve admitted to fucking something up.

    And I’m definitely not saying that’s what Rachel is doing per se. I believe she earnestly believes in the statements she is making, but she’s echoing a lot of the effect of those people in how she expresses that and in the context she is making this rant. And that’s really not cool.

    1. Mav

      I wish this was Kinja so i could give all the stars to your first paragraph.

      I agree with you here – what Rachel said was shitty of her, and it’s so, so hard to be the person hearing it, even if you’ve hurt the person saying it to you. Even a person not dealing with mental illness would be devastated. It is a relationship ending thing to say: “You’re awful and shitty, you’re never going to change, and I’m done with you.”

      1. bhtooefr

        Side note, I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen the phrase “I wish this was Kinja”.

    2. Andy

      It absolutely enrages me that people will use an apology as a space to tear into someone. Like, this ritualistic verbal violence towards anyone who has messed up in any capacity, “calling them out” in ways that is super damaging to everyone witnessing (I can never fuck up, I can also never admit it if I do, unless I want to have this happen to me) is just something that I hate. I absolutely hate a culture that thrives on hiding mistakes, punishing you further and shaming you if you apologize and admit your mistakes, and also punishing those who DON’T apologize for their mistakes. Like, what do we gain from that, as a society? What do we learn?

      Stay inside, never talk to anyone, don’t try anything new, never make a mistake at all.

      It’s like that Spongebob episode where he’s in the middle of the floor with a chip, a penny, and a used napkin. Just stay indoors, never talk to anyone, never do anything new. Or you’re FUCKED kiddos.

      1. thejeff

        OTOH, there’s the opposite thing where we’re supposed to let an apology paper over real problems. Where apologies often are just words – cover to get out of trouble.
        Where abuse victims are supposed to accept them and trust the abuser until the next time. Where abuser makes a fake apology and gets right back into a position to keep abusing.

        All of which we know isn’t what’s happening here, but Rachel doesn’t. Especially if she’s got some experience with that cycle.

        1. Andy

          You can accept an apology and still not forgive a person or not hold them accountable. Rachel isn’t even considering that this might be anything other than Ruth being a manipulative piece of shit, and that’s super damaging. She’s not giving any leeway, and in that, she’s hurting literally everyone else in the room except Mary, who is obviously so perfect she never needs to improve anyway. *sarcasm at that last bit*

  80. Cerberus

    CW: abuse tactics

    Panels 1-2: Like, here is where it really goes off the rails. Everything last comic was harsh, but at least focused on actual actions of Ruth’s and specific to Ruth. But here she expands that into a universal and a deeply cruel universal. That redemption is impossible, that it is a myth, that that growth out of bad behavior is impossible and eventually doomed to failure.

    And that’s bullshit. Redemption is hard, ever-going, and you need to be careful not to slip back into the patterns that were hurting people and sometimes some wrongs never get made right or you need to pay a legal price for what you did or accept certain consequences.

    Like, some people may never fully trust that that redemption won’t disappear in a moment. Maybe they’ve had bad experiences with abusers, maybe they’ve seen one too many “reformed” person slip back into old ways after one bad political argument, or maybe they view the harm done as the sort of thing you can’t just “oops sorry your way out of”.

    But that redemption exists. Folks who served great wrong have come out of those cultures and ended up decent folks, have sought to fix the damage their former views caused. This strip is written by one.

    Panel 3: Before I tear into this a little, I want to note one aspect in this that is very true. Abusers do sometimes exploit positive things like these narratives to worm their way back into their victims’ lives. Because, they are shitty people who view things like empathy, second chances, redemption, and wanting to do right as exploitable weaknesses. And it’s one of the nastiest little packages you get out of an abuse. That loss of trust or kindness or willingness to forgive because someone awful exploited that positive trait to hurt you and drag you back into a position to keep hurting you.

    And I’ve seen some horrific versions of it, against me, against people I’ve loved. Abusers who threatened suicide or mass murder that “only the victim could prevent” everytime the survivor tried to leave. Abusers who played hard on the notion that only love could cure their worst tendencies. Abusers who gaslit constantly playing on people’s assumptions that someone wouldn’t deliberately lie to their face about stuff that matters for a social advantage. Abusers who exploited mental illness to make their victim’s doubt their own perception of reality. Abusers who twisted the notion of fairness to its absolute limit to try and justify demanding that their survivor accept their abuse and never speak out against it. And so on and so forth.

    And I won’t even blame Rachel for holding these views or believing this to be true of Ruth or even if she wanted to warn the others not to trust this turning of a new leaf.

    But…

  81. Cerberus

    Content Warning: acephobia, transphobia, misogyny, abuse

    Panel 3 (cont): Rachel’s gone out of her way to be at this meeting. And it’s clear from her rant that she was planning on delivering this type of public dressing down from the beginning, especially as she’s been biting at the bit to do so at every other instance of today, whether it be the moment in the hall or Ruth announcing the meeting to her door.

    And that becomes deeply fucked in context. Like, hate her, think she’s an abuser, think she’s the literal antichrist come to bring MAGA to blanket the Earth in darkness? Cool, but Ruth is literally just out of the hospital because she was suicidal to the point of being a severe risk to herself. And Rachel knows that because she made the call to bring in Chloe and straight up told her “Ruth is suicidal”:
    http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/chloe/

    And I dunno, maybe it’s a limit to my pettiness (and part of me can be very petty sometimes), but I can’t even begin to imagine doing what Rachel is doing here to one of my abusers the day they got out of a mental hospital. Refusing to meet with them, telling others there is no way in hell I’m speaking to them, refuse to say anything nice about them, block their number and block the number of anyone who tries and pressure me to forgive them? Definitely, sure.

    But this sort of full-scale tear-down cathartic rant designed to target her vulnerability in order to cause maximum pain? Never.

    Like, this is the sort of shit that can put suicidal people back into the hospital and I’ve seen too many of my friends jumped on by disingenuous fucks who’ll latch on to any invented excuse to justify tallying them up on their kill count to really be able to stomach this shit. And oh yes, abuse is on the list. After all, aren’t all trans people abusing the notion of womanhood… somehow? Aren’t all ace people abusing their allo partners and/or the queer community by calling it a queer community or something? Aren’t all feminists something something cancer? Aren’t all liberals destroying God’s super ultra special country of Jesus Flagtopia by their very weak but somehow violent existence?

    And her rant is made even worse by two other factors. One, that her rant about disingenuous lies and abuse occurred after watching Mary in public pull her little disingenuous power play and openly gaslight about her actions while fully erasing the enormity of her crime. Yet this rant is, for all of Rachel’s blather about multitasking monomaniacally focused on Ruth.

    And two…

    1. MM

      I suspect Rachel was (not unreasonably) counting on the call to Chloe to get Ruth removed and let someone else deal with her problems. As you said above, she’s angry that didn’t happen, and taking it out on the wrong person.

  82. Cerberus

    That traumatized look on Amber’s face.

    Panel 4: Rachel made an active choice here, not only to cross a major line and go on the offensive in a surely cathartic but a bit fucked up way when a simple “fuck you and your redemption” would have served her purposes nicely. But also by making her statement a universal one. To claim all redemption is fictional and that all redemption arcs are meant to serve the interests of abusers who exploit them. That everyone who has ever harmed someone is doomed forever to be that person who harms and that the rot inside will eventually burst forth and destroy everything.

    And that’s devastating enough to Ruth. Like, Ruth is full on dissociating from the moment here in trauma response and the fact that Rachel can’t or is unwilling to pick up on the body language of that in her rant doesn’t say great things about her.

    But it’s even worse to the two non-assholes in attendance here. Both Amber and Joyce have a strong need to believe in redemption. Amber because she believes she carries her father’s violent abusive poison within her. Joyce because she knows she’s supported horrific views on behalf of her religion and her raising environment she is trying to move away from. And Rachel just in collateral damage basically told them both that they are doomed and fucked and should just give up and kill themselves.

    All in her eagerness to cathartically tear down the bully. And that’s the danger of these big performative moments, the splash damage can be really massive. Hell, it even fucks with Billie, the supposed “victim” she supposedly cares about as we know her actions in high school hang deeply on her and a lot of her self-destructive actions are directly because she believes this kind of narrative about herself. That she is forever poisoned by that and can never change or get better.

    Like, I’m not saying Rachel should like Ruth or forgive her or not hate her with all of her hate. But that her actions are hurting people and hurting people in cruel and needless ways I’m sure she would be horrified if she found out how much and to whom. And that her choice to do this here and now and in the way she has crosses some nasty lines that turns this from cathartic screaming match at an abuser to an act of abuse itself against far more than just Ruth.

    And it’s what I’ve been scared for all this time. That Ruth would be ripped apart by shit like this and Mary’s power play and dropped right back into that pinprick suicidal space by folks who see that vulnerability of admitting fault as a reason to go full attack (and yeah, I’m not overly inclined to not include Rachel in that category considering she didn’t once speak up against Ruth when there were potential consequences and Ruth was Ruthless, but just can’t wait to be champion of the little guy once Ruth is in an emotionally vulnerable state and unlikely to fight back). Like, I get self-protection, but at the same time, yeah…

    Panel 5: And here we see Robin. And yeah, she’s learning a similar lesson. That this isn’t a movie and there’s no magic reward for turning over a new leaf, especially one as minimal as not deleting some pro-LGBT tweets and standing by the thing she already said she was going to do as it matched her own convictions.

    This doesn’t mean she won’t find redemption. But it’s going to be way longer and harder of a road than she’s fully willing to risk here and she’ll have to do it because she wants to make amends and acknowledge how she’s harmed people, not because she expects to get a free lesbian out of it like a prize.

    And it’s not only going to take hard work, it’s also going to take her fully owning what she did in a real way like Ruth has been. That her policies weren’t just whoopsy-daisies but actually made it hard for folks to survive and contributed to an environment that increases harassment and suicide rates. It’s going to take openly acknowledging all the fucked up boundary violations she committed against Leslie in trying to force her to serve as an actor in her internal story and her making concrete steps to prevent that happening in the future or the, well, present.

    It’s going to take more than Robin is in a headspace to tackle at the moment and at the end of it, she may never earn herself a second chance with Leslie after the damage she did to her home and her life and her peace of mind. And she needs to be ready to accept that possibility.

    Redemption is a rare and special thing and it takes some serious hard work and humility to reach. I suppose we’ll see if Robin has the focus, intention, and willingness to do so given that her whole life so far has mostly been built around avoiding any genuine self-introspection or ownership for her actions.

    And frankly, until she was way farther along on this path, I don’t want her interacting with Leslie as Leslie is going to be in a headspace to accept the barest sign as a reason to bring her back in and well, Robin is still viewing her as more a prize than a person at the moment.

    1. vlademir1

      Not only is Rachel not thinking about the repercussions of her actions on those around her, but she is also expressing a pattern (cf Lenore Walker’s published work) that isn’t universal in all abuse and may not apply to this case while failing to be aware of/consider other patterns that commonly crop up in relation to abuse. On top of that she is acting in a manner that typically serves to help perpetuate these types of cycles of violence by acting in a (perhaps borderline) verbally abusive manner herself.
      I’ll add that I suspect from her comment to Agatha in the morning of this long day, her comments regarding Ruth/Billie just before this and her comments here that Rachel has some history with abusive relationships (be that direct or indirect experience) and/or domestic violence programs. Between that suspicion and her age (most of these characters are teenagers after all) I can’t bring myself to feel the kind of acrid hate at her behavior many others have expressed in these comments today and merely just hope that she’ll over time grow to act differently if ever presented a similar situation again.

    2. Rukduk

      I’d be fine with Rachel just hating Ruth, but this? I went on a little rant above about how much her words just really pissed me off. Because she’s just harming so many people right here. And I feel that if we weren’t apparently transitioning to Robin here we’d have a very upset Joyce saying, with tears in her eyes most likely, something along the lines of “So does that include me? Am I bigot forever because of my views when I came here? Because I think I changed, and a lot of other people think I changed, but I guess to someone like you I haven’t.” Because out of all the people in that room, and all the people Rachel’s hurting with that little “people never change and are always rotten speech”, Joyce is the one best suited to call that out as harmful and express her own hurt. Because Mary’s probably dancing with joy off panel, Ruth is going into her “sir grampus” is here mode, Amber’s practically having an anxiety attack about her rage and father, and Billie’s off panel ready to beat Rachel to a bloody pulp after this. It’s just…damn but if Agatha or Sierra or maybe even Meredith had been at this meeting things might not have gotten to this point.

    3. Anowan

      Thank you for the analysis, Cerberus. I needed to read that. (The three parts).

      Because I thought “hey no Rachel, people can change and grow, look for example…” and then froze, finding no example.

      1. JBento

        You’re not getting anyone in-comic yet, mainly because it has been so little in-world time – it was a lot to us, but it has only been a couple of months for the Dumbers. I was agreeing with Rachel on that first panel because when she said “Redemption is a story” I thought she meant it was a process.

    4. JBento

      I think the Robin/Ruth juxtaposition is perfect, in the sense that it’s the exact same arc applied to two different people. The arc being “hitting them in the face with reality until their teeth come off.”

      But Ruth is a better person than Robin. She’s actually going to try (and has made a very small step towards) making things better, and she acknowledges that her trying, maybe even her success, doesn’t merit her anything from her victims.

      On Robin, on the other hand, I disagree with you. She hasn’t turned a new leaf. Her going with Becky’s pro-LGBT tweets is the exact same leaf Robin has always been in, which is “whatever gets me more acclaim at this particular moment.” Robin hasn’t even said “I’m sorry for what I did to you” or “I was wrong” to anyone.

    5. Bluewind

      I agree with everything you said and the way you said. It was more elegant than I could express it (especially since I am running on no sleep). Thank you. 🙂

      Also, how are you and yours? Any good news? I hate to admit it, but I’ve rage quit the news. I couldn’t handle the bi hourly scandals caused by the muppet reject and his minions. I’m a bit out of touch, but I do read what Willis puts on Twitter via the Twitter widget on here, so hopefully it has kept me from missing a major thing.

      PS: Can I use this safe spot to scream into the void and then bang my head on your lovely desk?

  83. AutobotDen

    …Rachel needs to be hit with a flying dong. or have the shit smacked out of her.

  84. Katrika

    The problem with this is even if Rachel was 100% right about Ruth being a horribad person who was abusing Billie and meant nothing in her apology and was just trying to paint herself in a good light, this confrontation would end with Ruth taking out her frustration on Billie in private. You never confront an abuser like this without the backing of the person they’re abusing.

    1. Sophie's Choice

      YES THANK YOU.
      If Ruth were, in fact, physically abusing Billie, Rachel’s little stunt here would have just earned Billie a whole shit-ton more of it tonight. Nice going.
      And, okay. I’m a survivor of abuse myself. I do not think my ex is capable of redemption. I am SURE AS SHIT not going to say that in front of his current girlfriend, even were I unfortunate enough to run into them. That would be stupid.
      Rachel did not think this through. It would seem to be more important to her to score a moral point against a supposed abuser than it is to get the victim some actual help. As a survivor, I hate that shit.

      1. BP

        THERE’S the last thing that was bothering me! Thank you both for putting it so well.

    2. Larkle

      Exactly! Top rule of DV work, the survivor is ALWAYS the expert on their own situation. This kind of confrontation not only does not help the survivor but most often further traumatized and takes power from them. The focus always has to be prioritizing the survivor not prioritizing the abuser.

  85. Hera

    Most people don’t change in any significant manner, however this dose not mean people can’t change, something Rachel seem oblivious to.

    1. Katrika

      People change all the time. Like, everyone’s changed in a significant matter.

    2. Felgraf

      This comic is written by someone who used to believe in young-earth, christian fundamentalism who is now an atheist.

  86. zoelogical

    to interrupt talking about rachel…

    …

    i really hope that roz pulls up to check on her dopey sister

    1. Fart Captor

      Yeah, it looks like cold, harsh reality is finally sinking in. It might be a good time for a hug and an “I told you so”

      1. zoelogical

        it’d be really nice!!

        and hopefully roz planned ahead and brought some sweatpants

  87. Zaidyer

    Rachel knows that abusers will use anything as a weapon. They will turn their own depression, contrition, remorse, and suicide attempts into knives and twist them off in your back. Anything to keep a victim from breaking free.
    What Rachel doesn’t know is that Ruth is sincere. If she learned this, she might react as though she’d just discovered a unicorn.

    Meanwhile, in panel five: Holy hell, it’s a unicorn! …Or is it? You’ve burned me before, GOP, don’t think I don’t know your games…

    1. MoonLord

      Rachel thinks that Ruth is lying to herself about changing, so sincerity doesn’t matter.

      It’s not unheard of that abusers want to change after seeing the damage they’ve done, and are sincere about it initially. Then their life starts to normalize and they fall back into old patterns.

      1. Mav

        “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” so goes the saying

  88. Vancore

    Well, so much for therapy! But hey, its like this with anybody with a criminal past, she’s actually got it easier. Once you got that stigma it will stick to you, and the rest of your life just becomes a hard hell.

    A little off topic, in japan there is a system where a person can pay to vanish from society because of some hit they’ve taken to their honor like the loss of a good job or an affair that becomes known. Society doesn’t forgive them so they decide to just ‘vanish’ from society/family to stop the stress of constant criticism… like what Rachel just did for a different reason.

    But yea, Ruth has it easier than an actual criminal, in that all she has to do is leave that place and the things she did won’t really follow her society wise.

    O and the thing about redemption… Damn you Willis! I just feel that’s warranted.

    1. Foxhack

      “But yea, Ruth has it easier than an actual criminal, in that all she has to do is leave that place and the things she did won’t really follow her society wise.”

      Until someone does a web search on her and finds out what she did from someone’s rant on a site about her.

    2. Jhon

      Johatsu. ‘Evaporated people’.

  89. brasca1

    For all those quick to burn Rachel at the stake would you be so forgiving if Ryan was there to apologize and ask forgiveness? We readers have the benefit of knowing Ruth’s home life and how she is truly sorry and wants to change, but Rachel doesn’t. From her POV Ruth is another abuser trying to make good for whatever reason, but ultimately won’t because they’re either lying or incapable of changing. Demanding that she forgive Ruth would be no different than demanding the same from Joyce if this was Ryan.

    1. Fart Captor

      Rachel was the one who made the call to Chloe that alerted her to the situation. She knows why Ruth was in the hospital, and just got back this morning.

      I hardly want to burn her at the stake, and I completely agree she isn’t obligated to trust or forgive Ruth even slightly.

      But this? This shit is vicious. Not forgiving Ruth does not require that she slings this crap at her, the day she got off of a suicide watch. She could have left it at what she said yesterday, and left. It still would’ve been harsh, but within reason.

      Even if she’d waited a couple days and THEN done exactly this, I would’ve been less pissed at her.

    2. dethtoll

      Google “false equivalence.” Nobody’s asking Rachel to forgive Ruth off the bat, but A) this is someone who is known by everyone in the room to have just got out of suicide watch and 2) even if that weren’t the case, what Rachel is saying is still pretty heinous.

      1. brasca1

        It’s not a false equivalency to demand someone who has been wronged to forgive the transgressor no matter what the offense. Initially Ruth had a right to despise Billie for driving under the influence, but she did not have a right to abuse her to the extent that she did. And yes, Ruth isn’t asking forgiveness, but trying to convince those in attendance that she’s trying to do better and Rachel has every right to not believe a word of it as well as voice her own opinion. Now if Ruth was just another student on their floor I would agree that this was a heinous thing to say, but it seems like you’re ignorant of false equivalence because she’s not just a student she’s an RA, someone with authority that has previously and flagrantly abused her authority.

        1. Andy

          “It’s not a false equivalency to demand someone who has been wronged to forgive the transgressor no matter what the offense. ” That right there is what I am engaging with here. No one is demanding Rachel forgive Ruth. Ruth is not demanding it. I have read all these comments as of an hour ago when I’m coming to comment and I do not recall anyone demanding that.

          Rachel can have opinions, she can voice those opinions. This is not her just “voicing” an opinion. This is her tearing Ruth down for the express purpose of making Ruth aware that she is, and always will be, garbage. She has this planned. This is premeditated. This is literally something she has shown clearly in her interactions with Ruth all day as something she wants to do, and the only reason she didn’t earlier was because Howard was there.

          She’s not just not giving Ruth the benefit of the doubt, something she doesn’t have to do. She’s actively saying that Ruth will never change, even as she is attempting to make it clear that she will do what she can, not for her personal gain. Even if she doubts the sincerity of RUTH’S statements that she wants to do better, because as many have noted some abusers use this as a ploy to get pity and get forgiven so they can abuse again, she is not saying that RUTH alone is clearly insincere. She is stating, outright, verbatim “Redemption is a story. It’s a good story, and people like to tell it, but that’s all it is. A story. And it’s one that violent thugs like yourself like to employ. You lie to yourself, you lie to those you victimize. But you know what? No Matter how many lies you tell, you will *always* be the *thing* you were *before*. You can’t wallpaper over it with a sorry and a smile. It will always be there.” Emphasis not my own, but evident clearly in her words as written, directly transcribed above.

          Like, I honestly don’t understand what you want here, or if you want anything at all. This feels like some sort of bizarre “gotcha!” moment. Like, surprise! Ruth showing herself to be someone who wants to change and grow because she got an intervention she needed and is on meds and is going to therapy is the same as if Ryan were to apologize and acknowledge that he had knowingly premeditated raping a girl, after lying to her about not only his name, but also most likely everything else.

          “Now if Ruth was just another student on their floor I would agree that this was a heinous thing to say, but it seems like you’re ignorant of false equivalence because she’s not just a student she’s an RA, someone with authority that has previously and flagrantly abused her authority. ” It doesn’t matter if she’s an RA or just a student. If she were just a student, if she had been stripped of her position, and Rachel had said this, would that make it ok? Because that doesn’t remove Ruth’s previous behaviors or her previous position of power. It doesn’t remove the abuse she engaged in, not at all. So if she were just a student, would that make what Rachel is saying now an ok thing to say?

          That is literally not how false equivalence works. Her having had a position of power does not negate your statement being a false equivalence. You can think it’s not, you can not want it to be one, but it is.

          Ruth is not Ryan. Ruth did not do what Ryan did.

          Things Ruth has done: slapped a penis onto a girl’s face. That’s a bad action she took. Be physically violent with Billy, in any capacity. Cut up Billy’s clothing. Verbally berated people on the floor and taken it out on them that she has a shitty homelife.

          Things Ryan has done: Lied about his name, likely his father’s profession (he said his dad was a pastor to lure Joyce in, I believe) and specifically taken steps to avoid having to take responsibility to having, using, and planning to take advantage of the fact that he drugged At Least one girl, Joyce. Who knows how many others he has done this with. He has access to drugs that would let him roofie someone, and he used them. That takes planning.

          You’re absolutely enraging people by acting as though Ryan premeditating and carrying through actions to rape is the exact same thing as what Ruth has done. It’s not. It is still not, even if you consider Ruth is an RA, and even if she has coerced Billy into the beginning part of their relationship.

          I don’t give a fig what Rachel has seen. She’s shown herself a coward and an ass. She is hitting Ruth while she’s down, hurting others in the blast as though they don’t matter, potentially endangering Billie if Ruth is actually abusing Billie still and hasn’t changed, and she’s not seemingly caring about how anyone else feels.

          It’s garbage.

          I am not going to engage with you further. Someone who takes Ryan being a would-be and potentially is rapist as on the same level of Ruth must be insincere and also is the same as Ryan is just absolutely not worth my time further.

    3. Cerberus

      I mean, I don’t blame Rachel having no truck with Ruth’s redemption arc and not trusting it and I’ve tried to compare Rachel’s actions and see if I could do the same if it was my dad or my rapist or someone else who truly deeply harmed me.

      And not at this moment. Not the day they got out of suicide watch. Not when they were showing their vulnerability like scars on their wrists. I’d run screaming away. I wouldn’t accept their attempts at apologies. I would reblock their numbers if I had them or look into changing addresses if possible.

      But I don’t think I could do what Rachel does here. I don’t have it in me. Maybe that’s a failing on my part but what she’s doing here definitely feels like it’s crossing a line.

      1. thejeff

        I agree that she’s crossing a line – especially with the bit about Billie yesterday and the absolutist nature of today’s rant, but:
        She doesn’t get to run screaming away. She can’t block Ruth’s number or change addresses.
        Ruth’s been put back in authority over her, just when she thought it would be over.

    4. newllend(henryvolt)

      You have a point, except for the part where you compare a anger proned girl who lashes out blindly to feel better to a flat out rapist.

      1. Andy

        Literally that for me. Like, thanks for the false equivalence, I don’t have those enough in my life and I was looking for a new one. Additionally, I don’t see where anyone is suggesting the evident hyperbole of burning Rachel at the stake? People can be angry, sad, dissosciative, whatever about what Rachel is saying. They can not really like her. They can see her own behavior that is very clearly more aggressive than it needs to be, as broken down in numerous comments, and say no that shit is fucked up even if she had a point in yesterday’s panels.

        Her not caring about any damage she does to anyone is the problem. She’s punching everyone (except Mary, no doubt) in her comments. She has hurt literally everyone (except Mary) with her statements. She doesn’t even seem to care about this.

      2. brasca1

        From Rachel’s POV Ruth is an abusive woman who seemingly strong armed another girl into a relationship with her. Perhaps Rachel extrapolated that and if that were the case it really would make Ruth no different than Ryan. Do keep in mind we have the benefit of knowing better, but she doesn’t.

        1. newllend(henryvolt)

          Going off what you know is one thing, going off what you assume out of a fabricated Theory in your head is another.

  90. Rosicrucian

    Somebody abused Rachel’s kindness.

    I just want to ask her who hurt her, but even that is insensitive.

    1. Jago

      I don’t think it is. Asking for a “permission” (proof that she had a bad experience herself) to be this brutally direct would be. Just asking why she is this angry isn’t really insensitive, I don’t think.

  91. MoonLord

    This one feels like a well-deserved jab at the fans. There have been quite a few comments about how some characters are irredeemable monsters and hey here’s a cut to Robin.

    1. foamy

      I don’t think that’s the only motivation here, especially given the callback to the storyline title, but I would not be at all surprised if it was ONE motivation.

  92. dethtoll

    Goodness gracious, but I don’t like Rachel at all. No amount of backstory will justify the stuff she’s saying here.

    1. StClair

      soooo… you’re saying that she can’t be redeemed for this?

      1. dethtoll

        Nice avatar.

        I’m saying that even though we don’t know her backstory or her history with Ruth, it doesn’t matter because while she is well within her rights to be angry with Ruth regardless of personal history, this has crossed the line from justifiable anger into inexcusable abuse.

      2. dethtoll

        To answer your “gotcha” directly, I’m not saying there’s no coming back from this. But Rachel is being tremendously awful here, and it’s going to take some doing for her to not look like an asshole after this.

      3. EnerPrime

        There’s a difference between “here’s my backstory that makes what I did acceptable and/or understandable” (which is what dethtoll said is impossible) and “I have realised I am a shitty person, and will try not to be one any more” (which is what redemption is).

  93. Bleu

    I think we found who the Tumblrina SJW amongst the cast is.

    1. dethtoll

      You seem lost.

      1. Liliet

        this is the best response I have ever seen. You are amazing

        1. dethtoll

          I try. <3

  94. Delicious Taffy

    There are a couple of terms I’m not used to seeing here.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      This is meant as a reply to Bleu.

  95. Foxhack

    Rachel can go to hell.

    I know I’m a horrible person, but fuck me if I’M NOT FUCKING TRYING TO BE A BETTER MAN THAN I WAS BEFORE.

    1. foamy

      There’s some irony in condemning someone to hell on the grounds that they think redemption is impossible and you disagree.

      1. Foxhack

        Well I can’t just go se puede ir a chingar a su pinche vieja madre in an English speaking comment section, can I?

    2. Vulcanodon

      I feel you on that one Foxhack

  96. Goki

    OK I gotta ask, WTH did Ruth ever do to Rachael specifically? Did I miss something? I mean yeah Ruth did some pretty crappy stuff, but the people who she “wronged” are all at least in a truce or at peace with her. (Truce = Mary, Peace is everyone else at the meeting at least). It seems that Rachael is being petty about the situation when she probably could have just not come like everyone else., she wants a fight, she wants Ruth to hurt. I actually find Rachael hypocritical, her efforts counterproductive and honestly she is a coward. At least during her reign of terror she would always say that people could take their shot, either physically or mentally, as long as they could live with the consequences. Rachael could have aired her grievances anytime for weeks but didn’t and now that she knows Ruth won’t (possibly can’t) fight back. Pretty despicable.

    Now, all this being said, it could be there has been a real injustice Rachael has or is living through and she is venting her frustrations at Ruth, we will have to wait and see.

    Oh and btw, I completely disagree with her take on redemption something people can’t achieve.

    (first time posting, so feel free to disagree. ^_^u

    1. Fart Captor

      We’ve never seen Ruth bully Rachel specifically, but it’s been sufficiently established that at least at the start of the semester she was bullying and threatening enough of the residents that it’s safe to assume that at least some of it was specifically directed at her.

      Though she seems to be reacting largely to Ruth’s particularly violent treatment of Billie early on. Which someone noted they continued (but faking it) to hide their relationship, so to Rachel, that violence has appeared both more frequent and more recent.

      She’s still being a butthole tho

      1. Goki

        Thanks for the reply. ^_^

        As I said, Ruth is far from being an innocent, but Rachael (as you put it) is being a butthole. I would more understand this behavior if she was the one being bullied directly, but this seems… excessive. (interesting backstory perhaps will explain)

        Oh and one more thing, if it was impossible to be redeemed, then there would be no incentive for people to get better after making a mistake.

        1. Andy

          “if it was impossible to be redeemed, then there would be no incentive for people to get better after making a mistake.” a Thousand times this.

          Why even bother, if no matter what you do everyone is going to only think of you as your mistakes? A THING that will always be rotten?

          Might as well just…

        2. Emily

          The incentive should be that it’s the right thing to do not that others will regard you as a changed person and think better of you. There shouldn’t need to BE an incentive to not hurt others.

        3. thejeff

          But Rachel’s not even saying that people won’t forgive you even if you change, she’s saying you can’t change “You will always be the thing you were before”.

        4. Goki

          For what it is worth, I know it is possible to be redeemed and changed, so in that respect I completely disagree with Rachael. However, the small area that I can see her point of view, is that to be able to be redeemed, a person will have to go through quite a bit, work hard, keep vigilant, suffer an insane amount of scrutiny, and it doesn’t happen right away, it takes time. (Poor Robyn is getting a lesson in reality tonight) Not everyone can do it, and many fall into bad habits that got them in trouble in the first place. In that way, and possibly Rachael’s current rant is really a result of a life where she was disappointed again and again by people who wanted to change but weren’t willing to do what is necessary.

          Of course, this is all speculation

          (I am sure that Joe’s “flirting” didn’t exactly help her mood either)

    2. Nono

      Rachel’s a second year, so she’s likely had more time under the wrath of Ruth.

      So maybe there are some things we haven’t seen in Ruth’s past as a RA.

    3. Tarmaniel

      Ruth was also implied to have been the RA the previous year as well, so Rachel has been putting up with her shit for over a year now.

      1. Goki

        To Nono and Tarmaniel, I hope they show a little backstory of last year, because I kinda doubt they usually allow a freshmen be an RA (key word is usually) At this point it is just speculation that she was even an RA in freshmen year and maybe there is more to Ruth and Rachael than we know.

        At this point, she just seems like a girl who was slightly inconvenienced and her reaction seems overkill. I hope someone calls her on this and maybe we get a better explanation.

        Still feel she is a coward because where was this outrage earlier in the year, she saw plenty and did nothing. (That we saw, always remember we only see what the Willis allows us to see). Again, it is interesting she is so vocal now that she knows Ruth won’t (or can’t fight back)

        1. Fart Captor

          Ruth is a year older than Rachel. She would’ve been a sophomore last year, not a freshman.

  97. BenRG

    Well, it looks like Willis has decided to introduce a new villain. A villain of the worst sort too: One who refuses to let someone forget and move on to better things.

  98. Kitty

    I’m really glad people are finally getting sick of Rachel’s cruelty. I never understood why Roz was so widely hated for being aggressive (when her worst crime was calling out Joyce’s need to own specific harmful behavior, and unlike Rachel, she had no way of knowing Joyce’s emotional state,) but Rachel got a pass for calling Ruth a “piece of shit” and irredeemable.

    1. Temperaryobsessor

      Joyce was ignorant never malicious. Roz had every reason to believe Joyce actually grew in that specific way. Roz is likely not gay.
      At this point what Rachel is doing is worse than what Roz was doing because Roz at least left the possibility of a future where Rachel is telling Joyce that she can never really change.

  99. NinjaNick

    Rachel’s statement is such a story.

  100. acher4

    ….omg.

  101. Foxhack

    So I just went through the tag and apparently Rachel wanted to tell her this to her face earlier, but Howard stopped her.

    So she knows, deep down, that saying this will hurt Ruth very strongly. She cared enough to not hurt Howard – but not enough to leave Ruth alone.

    Hm.

  102. Farmer_10

    Wow, takes a big man to get in the lion’s face AFTER it’s been de-clawed and de-fanged. Where were all these cojones when Ruth was a massive rip roaring bongo?

    1. chris73

      Well no, Ruth is a violent bully that has shown she has no problems getting physical with people

      Rachel did what she was supposed to and let the higher ups know what was happening, they let her down and now shes rightfully pissed

      1. Mav

        Agreed. I think people are forgetting that before now, Rachel would never have had the chance to speak her mind and not suffer any consequences. Think of how Ruth treated Billie in the beginning – and this was when Billie *actually* tried to stand up for herself.

        It’s really easy to say you’d personally stand up to a violent bully yourself, but I have a feeling a lot of people here might not actually have done it if they were in that situation though. In fact, I have a feeling it would have been a more indirect intervention, like someone calling Chloe instead.

        1. Mav

          Also shoutout to saying what’s on your mind to someone who’s hurt you, but you’ve pent up your anger and resentment so much that you end up acting like much more of an ass than you intended

        2. CJ

          Actually Rachel comes across as doing exactly what she planned to do when she heard of that meeting.
          I never liked the people who kicked those who were down.
          That said, she seems to have experience with bullies who used “I’m so sorry” to get in a position to do more harm.

        3. Emily

          Sometimes the only chance you get to kick a person is when they’re down because when they’re up they’ll break your femurs.

        4. CJ

          And that is a reason to kick in your book?
          Does anyone trust you?

        5. Kim Biebaut

          I cannot blame an abuse victim for not holding to the code of chivalry when dealing with their abuser. Especially if the abuser voluntarily maintains a position of authority over you.

        6. Mav

          See, that’s why I have mixed feelings. What Rachel is saying is incredibly messed up given the circumstances *for Ruth*.

          But this comment isn’t fair – she’s not saying this to someone who’s done nothing to her whatsoever. She’s saying something she’s been bottled up for a long time, what did people think she was going to say “everything is fine and let’s pretend the past 6 weeks never happened??”

          It’s like I said earlier, it’s such a weird thing to make Rachel out to be this awful person when she’s done none of the things Ruth has. Is having a tragic back story a ticket to doing what you want scot-free? What she said was really far as I agreed with several people above, but if she didnt say that I wouldnt have been that bothered if she’d otherwise thrown the apology in her face, even. She’s still pissed. Thats her right.

        7. CJ

          About 20 years ago, when I was in a bar that just had women’s day, I saw a group of women attacking a drunk guy who came in and didn’t just turn around when someone told him it was women’s day. He was loud but didn’t attack, but the shoved him outside, punched him, and when they started kicking him when he was down, me and some friends interfered.
          They were definitely enraged and totally high on the feeling of having the upper hand. And I decided I cannot and will not trust people who act like that.

        8. Mav

          That situation was fucked up, and i’d be interested to know what that man was saying to those women. “Loud but didn’t attack” sounds like he was threatening them. because I’ve been in similar situations where a man wasn’t actually touching me but was clearly making me feel threatened – there’s the whole dynamics of gender and power there, but’s a whole ‘nother discussion.

          But that’s not what happened in this strip. In this strip, Rachel gets a chance to say every shitty thing she’s ever though of saying to Ruth, who has done a lot of damage to her and other people in the room. It’s not her being this cowardly devious person, and frankly it’s bad and unrealistic advice to expect someone to straight up confront their abuser since we all know it won’t end well in 90% of cases.

        9. CJ

          The place had been a normal corner bar for ages, then had been standing empty for some time and then had been taken over by a leftist collective recently. The guy came in, 4 or 5 women converged on him in a threatening way and told him, he should leave because it was women’s day. He’d probably never before in his life heard that this was a thing. He blustered a bit, I don’t remember what he actually said. He was so drunk he couldn’t stand straight.
          If anyone feel threatened by him, they some should have organized their friends to beat up the actual abuser in their lives, that guy was in no state to damage one women, let alone 5.
          And I see the parallel in acting out over the top when one perceives themselves in a position of power over someone associated with what you hate. They attacked him because they could without risk to themselves. Just like Rachel.

        10. chris73

          Exactly, people are saying Rachel should have said something earlier but saying something earlier might well have meant getting punched in the face (or worse) and now, in Rachels eyes, its not just Ruth but the equally violent Billie to deal with

        11. CJ

          Actually, most of us are saying that she can hate Ruth all she wants but tearing into her in public like this with a generalizing statement about redemption not being possible is a
          – assholi behavior towards someone fresh from suicidal watch
          – throwing everybody else struggling with past deeds that were not ok under the bus
          – why doesn’t she tear into Mary who is abusive as hell and never had a hierarchical position above her?

    2. Eldritch Gentleman

      The thing is, Ruth was not de-fanged and de-clawed. She still has her RA position and in Rachel’s view this apologetic behaviour is just an abuser doing the whole “apologize and then abuse again” routine.
      Before Rachel just bore with it having more important stuff to worry about (studying). But now that the hope of being rid of Ruth for good was taken away from her she snapped out of anger.

      1. Temperaryobsessor

        Well Ruth had her claws trimmed from Rachel’s perspective she’s relatively safe now but her claws will grow back and be sharp again.

        1. Eldritch Gentleman

          Pretty much. Commenting that “She is weak and vulnerable now” doesn’t quite hold water because it’s obvious she will recover and THEN might seek vengeance.

        2. thejeff

          Is she safe now? She seems to be, but she just got put back in charge with no consequences after finally be caught for all her abuse. They didn’t even do anything to protect Billie.

          Now she’s get even less reason to worry about being stopped by the administration, why wouldn’t she return to her reign of terrors?

          Of course, we all know that’s not the situation, but isn’t that what it would look like to Rachel?

  103. Bagge

    Eat at Arby’s

    1. Minder

      sHIT

    2. Tomas

      You win.

  104. chris73

    Wow poor Rachel, I wonder what happened to her to make her this way

    1. BenRG

      Ruth probably treated her just as badly as she treated everyone else. She’s just much less willing to let it go than most.

      1. CJ

        No. Nothing Ruth did gives a reason for this kind of rant. Throwing the possibility for fundamental change out of the window like this? Either she once believed someone and was extremely bitterly disappointed or she belongs to another flavor of fundamentalism that I haven’t heard about yet.
        I rather suspect the former with a fatal result.

      2. Minder

        Rachel is also extremely skeeved at Billie/Ruth being canon given the historically “uneven power dynamic”

    2. Carms

      My money is on a loved one stuck in cyclical abuse, rather than herself.

  105. Hashbrownmashup

    “I’m sorry to hear that you think that way Rachel, I really am. But I’m not trying to redeem myself. I’m trying to move past this. I think people always, especially at our age, can grow and change. But to do that, Rachel… All of you… I need your help.”

    1. Temperaryobsessor

      I’m not trying to be a better person, I’m trying to get to a place where I can ignore all the bad stuff in the past which I have done. But I can’t do that unless you cooperate. Please practice on helping me move past my mistakes because I will want to move past this even faster next time.
      Yea I’m weirdly drawn to abuse information online. This is what what you’re saying means.

  106. TheLurkerAbove

    Ouch. Rachel sounds VERY bitter here. I wonder what happened to her in the past?

    1. a4lbi

      This bitterness rivals Serah’s.

      Girl, whaf on earth happened to you?!

      1. a4lbi

        *Sarah’s and *what

        This is why I don’t type on my phone.

  107. Tia Nadiezja

    This too feels personal. I remarked on that in the last post.

    I don’t think Ruth has done anything to Rachel in particular.

    Who did?

  108. Synnerman

    Punch her Billie!

  109. chris73

    It’ll be interesting seeing Rachels backstory, if there is one forthcoming

  110. Minder

    BLACK EYES TAKE WARNING

    also I can’t tell if Robin’s feet are burned or it’s just shading but either way, if anyone deserves this rant (and I don’t really think anyone does. I don’t.) then Robin is a much much better candidate than Ruth and unless Rachel thinks the suicidal ideation was faked, then…I can’t paint her actions here generously unless she’s coming at this from a place of horrid personal or vicarious experience, or she simply is lucky enough not to understand that being out of the hospital does not mean Ruth is actually fine now.

    and it’s horribly unfair that Ruth (and Amber, and Joyce…) have to deal with the consequences of the latter if that’s the case, even if it is a webcomic about making mistake

    (Mary can still go orb herself forever)

    1. Brute

      yes thank you for saying all those things you said and for saying them better than i could ?

  111. Moose

    Tookie Williams would disagree with her. Well, he would had he not been executed.

  112. Eldritch Gentleman

    Annnnd Rachel kinda lost all my respect with these lines… Still it really makes me wonder where is all this coming from.

  113. Kraken

    I kinda agree with Rachel in so far as if one is an X, you can be a recovering X and have constant vigilance against doing what someone who is an X is prone to do. And that’s different from curing that aspect of yourself entirely, or thinking you can just decide your brain won’t work that way anymore.

    Ruth channels abuse from her grandfather and her general grief and sadness into abuse of those she has power over. She doesn’t want to do it anymore, but she fell into that pattern again during this day in the comic with Billie (and the poor, defenseless recycling bins).

    However, I totally believe that Ruth can get to the point that she recognizes that part of her and has techniques to not let that happen. But that’s different from thinking that’s not a part of her. And it’s okay if it’s a part of her as long as she doesn’t let that part come out and hurt others. Obviously, Rachel is perceiving this as just being part of the cycle of abuse.

    The exchange actually reminds me a lot of the Roz and Joyce one (although Joyce was walking back her criticism at the time). I think that in both cases Roz/Rachel is mostly right, but is probably not saying those things in a way and at a time that would likely help Joyce or Ruth.

    And I think the extrapolations of her rant to criminal rehabilitation/recidivism aren’t fair. Rachel is railing against people who keep getting to do what they’re doing without consequence. People who hurt their spouses and never get the authorities called on them because they feel bad and apologize and the spouse “knows” “they didn’t mean it.” People that promise they’ll never touch someone again when they threaten to leave only to fall into the same behaviour and cycle. Basically people who prey upon the forgiving nature of others to never change.

    That’s way different from someone getting actually punished, going to jail, being treated inhumanely, leaving after several years separated from their loved ones and the outside world, and returning with a stigma that prevents them from finding work and just living like a normal human being. That’s a whole different can of worms from this, and to say “I guess Rachel thinks that if you do a crime, you’re a criminal for life” doesn’t make sense. It’s framed generally so the parallels to Robin and Amber can be drawn, but she’s talking specifically about patterns of abuse to someone she has labeled as an abuser.

    I do think there is a really hollow ring to this and the last strip with how Billie was being bullied (and beaten by her failures in general) to suicidal depression without Rachel ever deciding to check on her. I don”t expect her to come at Ruth, but Billie could’ve used some support, especially from an upperclassperson. Even after Ruth was taken away she could’ve checked on Billie.

    1. Carms

      Rachel talks a good game but where’s the money. Where’s she for the slog of supporting the abused. It’s nice catharsis to yell at the shitty person, but you don’t get to do that so easy when that person is powerful. One of the reasons she hasn’t come out with this before.
      Compare Billy who was powerless against grampus but is there in support even when it’s not feel-good, and is difficult. Danny and Ethan, who can’t do shit about Blain but do their best by Amber.
      Joyce and Dina who got BOTH deals.

    2. Andy

      Your comment is literally the only “Rachel is right in this particular way, let me explain” comment that has not made me want to just absolutely scream. That is, you make a point, you don’t hyperbolize, and you don’t draw hollow and damaging false equivalences.

      I still disagree. Rachel says, verbatim “Redemption is a story. It’s a good story, and people like to tell it, but that’s all it is. A story. And it’s one that violent thugs like yourself like to employ. You lie to yourself, you lie to those you victimize. But you know what? No Matter how many lies you tell, you will *always* be the *thing* you were *before*. You can’t wallpaper over it with a sorry and a smile. It will always be there.”

      This does not support the statement you make about who she is specifically trying to hurt. ” Rachel is railing against people who keep getting to do what they’re doing without consequence. People who hurt their spouses and never get the authorities called on them because they feel bad and apologize and the spouse “knows” “they didn’t mean it.” People that promise they’ll never touch someone again when they threaten to leave only to fall into the same behaviour and cycle. Basically people who prey upon the forgiving nature of others to never change. ”

      Even if it did, that’s not the point. Because she clearly hurts Amber in the background (who she can’t see, but we can) she has clearly hurt Billie by treating her like someone to not even talk to, instead treating Billie like someone to talk about right in front of her. And even Joyce is hurt by this, by this talk that improvement is futile. That redemption is something made up.

      She absolutely might be railing against the people you mentioned, not just everyone who has ever hurt someone and might want to improve as some take her statements, but rather only against those who abuse second chances. In fact, it is very likely that if she were to calm down she would likely not express things so very black and white.

      I have Borderline Personality Disorder. My mind is VERY Black and White. As you said above, with X people taking care to not behave X ways, I am constantly bearing that in mind but I will never NOT be someone with BPD. It is a part of myself, but a part I manage as best as I can. I don’t expect forgiveness from those in my past I have wronged, though in some cases they give it regardless, but I do my best to make amends however I can, and to improve in the future.

      To see Rachel point blank Generalize things instead of how she was in the prior comic where she specified Ruth as the one doing wrong, is where people are absolutely furious.

      It’s not, I feel, an unfair thought that Rachel here is being absolutely abhorrent. She’s hurting almost everyone in the room, and she’s evidently not caring about it. She is not being specific to just Ruth, she’s not being specific to just those who prey upon victims and pretend to be sorry. She says that’s what Ruth is, but she doesn’t specify that only those people can’t really be redeemed. She just states, point blank, that redemption isn’t real.

      This, I feel, is where people are so upset. If redemption isn’t real, all chances for personal growth aren’t real. They don’t matter. You are only the shame of your past, good luck going forward.

      This isn’t even a hyperbolic statement. I have been on specific blogging sites and encountered it personally. If I reblogged something from a person who was “bad” then I was also “bad”. I have gotten death threats for this. I have been told to just off myself.

      That’s the emotional impact this has on me. That Rachel is having on me. She is seeming so righteous, so right, in her head. She’s just “calling out” someone bad. She’s doing her part.

      She’s dehumanizing someone, before they’ve ever even shown that they shouldn’t be trusted for a second chance. She’s not even seeming to let anyone else make that choice, without her saying they’ve just been coerced, like with Billie.

      1. Kraken

        I do totally agree with you that her words are hitting pretty much anyone who would like forgiveness or thinks they are capable of change. I think she is trying to target Ruth as a stand-in for an abuser in her or a friend or family member’s life. I’d argue that she’s trying to hurt that person through Ruth more than she is trying to stop abuse from happening (which kinda goes along with her not ever trying to help a bullied Billie), and that motivation has added a lot of imprecision and vitriol that obviously has hurt Amber, and maybe even Joyce.

        I was trying to speak to her intentions, but that shouldn’t override her execution which is definitely messy enough to hit more people than just habitual abusers. My mistake.

    3. Temperaryobsessor

      I’m with Andy. Yesterday while Rachel was saying things which might not help to say at least she had good reason to actually believe they were true. Today what Rachel is saying is redemption is a lie. Rachel might mean that who you are now will always be a part of you which you need to work to not act on, or that the bad things you have done in the past will always be things you have done, but right now she is saying that self improvement does not matter. Joyce you are still a bigot and will always be a bigot no matter how much you improve, Amber you know the part of you that thinks you might be able to stop being a violent asshole, wrong, Billie you know how you’ve recently found out you were sort of mean and destructive in high school will always be that.

      1. Mav

        You have to look at her choice of words here: she specifically means people like who she assumes Ruth is, people who do get away with really hurting people, because they have a story that makes people sympathetic..so she actually is being specific here; this is not true *for Ruth*, but she is clearly speaking from a place where is happens a lot. And it is true that abusers will make you feel sorry for them to get in your good graces again. it is very, very common and that is where Rachel is coming from.

        Think about the wallpaper like installing a shower. You can’t put shiny new tiles over the wall of your shower. If you have a deep seated mold issue, you have to Rip the whole wall down and actually get a new one, and then put the tile on it. Like wallpaper. If the wall underneath is problematic, it has to get scrubbed away first, then time to dry, then new wallpaper gets put on. She is saying that she thinks Ruth has just put wallpaper on without confronting the deeper problems that caused the wall to get that bad. She is saying that Ruth has done a half assed job, and she thinks her wall is peeling, although we know this not to be true. The timing here is indeed crappy because its literally the day after everything blew over: for Ruth, and everyone else.

        And, like you said, there will always be the fact Ruth had to perform that cleansing. For people like Rachel, a great way of not making the same mistakes again is to always remember them. She is telling Ruth she will never let her forget her mistakes. Its kind of unhealthy in my opinion.

        Rachel is not actually talking to anyone else here. They are absorbing what she’s saying, but she is not actually talking to them seeing as she has no idea about them as what we the audience know. Although I’m sure Amber will be most affected by it.

        Basically, it’s a fucked up way of saying she doesn’t believe Ruth can change and she’ll never trust her again, so Ruth shouldn’t waste her breath. She is a representation of the people in our lives that we have failed. Maybe deliberately, maybe on accident, but we still failed them. The ones that don’t want anything to do with us again, even thought we may be different people now. That’s why its so painful: because we can’t make those people forgive us, even though we really want it. And people not forgiving you makes it harder to forgive yourself. I think this redemption part is bringing up a lot of feelings in people for that reason.

        1. Inbar Fink

          I mean, when you literally say “Redemption is not real”, it’s kinda hard to interpet it as just being about this spesific person – and with english working the way it does, the word “You” can mean either Ruth spesifically or people in general and… while I get that she’s got a lot of emotions in her right now and wording shit can be hard, she does have to consider the collateral damage

        2. Mav

          Not really. She means people like Ruth, specifically. How this language works is you have to read her entire speech from the previous strip to now. This is what she would have said in the hallway, had Howard not been there, and she would have been alone with Ruth then.

          She’s talking to Ruth, she’s saying that Ruth’s redemption isn’t real, under the context that Ruth is saying to her that she’s changed and will be better. She’s not saying that about small inconsequential run of the mill mistakes in relationships, she’s saying it about people who abuse others, not everyone in general. It’s really cynical, but she’s saying that simply telling people a sympathetic story shouldn’t get Ruth off the hook without her actually *doing* anything to be a better RA/person yet. I’m not saying she’s right, but that’s who she’s talking about. I agree with you that she’s not considering the collateral damage.

  114. Aggrax

    Rachel sure put a lot of passion into being completely wrong.

    1. HMH

      Being completely wrong has a way of making people passionate, in my experience.

  115. Carms

    Hey Rach, let she who is without sin, ay?

  116. Michael Chandra

    Ghost hugs to all who need them.

  117. nightsbridge

    I am super distressed by Rachel’s speech and absolutes, and the knowledge this comic is a story is the only reason i’m not more distressed.

    And I’m having trouble putting bead on why? Like, I think I hate the world she is describing herr so much. This absolute, ‘people never change, your mistakes are forever.’

    I won’t forgive everyone but I don’t wanna live in that kind of world, the kind where meaningful improvement is a farce and the only thing that’s real are your rotten bits, no matter how you’ve cleaned them up.

    1. HMH

      The thing is, people who agree with Rachel are generally immature, or lack any modicum of self-awareness. They have no sense that the words they are saying, when they’re words such as this, also apply to them. They just think, “hey, I’m good people, I don’t do bad things, I don’t hurt nobody,” and anybody they see as good is good, and anybody they see as bad is bad. That exact line of thinking, in my very personal and subjective opinion, is one of the primary sources of what some people would call “evil” within our world.

  118. darkoneko

    Rachel seems to have parental issues (or an ex ?).

    1. darkoneko

      That is, she has that “I’ve seen that crap before” feel right now.

  119. RogueParasol

    Rachel’s being an asshole. I think she found a soap box that didn’t need to be used, and is now enjoying rubbing it in Ruth’s face, and that’s gross on a number of levels. But…I also think people are quick to condemn her, because we understandably want Ruth to be happy, because we know her better, and because we’ve been following her personal hell for so long. And I think this is stuff that needs to be confronted (not AGREED with, but discussed to have it out there), even if it’s absolutely shitty to here from a specific character.

    And I question the idea that an apology can’t be “challenged.” Again, this strip is not the best example because we know so much about what Ruth is going through from an omniscient perspective, but from Rachel’s perspective, there’s nothing to really indicate that Ruth is sincere, just that she was backed into a corner and “feels bad” while still having the means to continue abusing her power. Again: Rachel should not be pulling this shit, particularly in public, but her reaction is fairly human, if flawed. Heavily flawed, but many of the characters in this comic are.

    I’ve had a few people use intimidation and manipulation to up my anxiety and make me feel responsible for their “bad” behavior. As if I was responsible for them harming others, because I didn’t agree with them, or give them what they wanted, or let them make me an accomplice to destructive habits. And I’ve seen them come back and say how sorry they were: some of them meant it. Some of them were only saying that because they got caught, realized they had lost the “high ground” they thought they securely had over people, and wanted to grovel to clear themselves. I’ve had some of them do it in public, well, online so a group saw it too, to garner support for how good they were for apologizing before demanding “FORGIVE ME ‘CAUSE I SAID THE RIGHT SENTANCE, everyone saw me be good!!!” And fuck that. And I won’t pretend to think it was sincere or give them a cookie for everyone to see. I never said they were unredeemable, I don’t think that and don’t think saying it helps anything, but I didn’t pretend that their apology was anything more than obligatory bullshit. And I’ve had people challenge my apologies over stuff (different stuff, but I was in the wrong): it sucked, but it made me realize that I would have to work and maintain “redemption.” So the idea that Rachel should just privately contain her thoughts that Ruth isn’t being sincere and could still be a problem rubs me the wrong way- Ruth asked her if an apology wasn’t enough, and Rachel is being an ass about it, but “*silence*” or “Probably not *silence*” doesn’t seem fair to impose on Rachel if she genuinely thinks Ruth isn’t doing anything but going through futile steps.

    Like…ugh, I don’t know how to express it, but: Rachel is being a raging asshole. Absolutely. But the idea that RACHEL is entirely irredeemable because of that glosses over the fact that many characters in this comic, that we now love or want to see improve, have done destructive, unwise, dangerous things with potentially disasterous repercussions. Do I see where Rachel is coming from and think there was a way that she could have expressed this less disgustingly? Yes. Do I like Rachel and condone her behavior? No. Is deciding “Rachel is an asshole, period” fair in my opinion? Also no.

    1. RogueParasol

      To add- I have seen people redeem themselves, or start the path to redeem themselves. I’ve seen people who were entirely sincere, and people who even if their initial apology had flaws or didn’t fully grasp what needed to be done, I’ve seen people change and stay the course of being sure not to slip back into harmful habits. So I’ve SEEN Rachel be wrong. But I still think Rache’s points, while cruel, bring up an area this comic needs to explore and a “black-and-white” view that’s hopefully disproved.

  120. Wereg

    “Hurr durr people can’t change.”

    I respected her reasons for being upset until now, but this is just shitty.

  121. notlegato

    wait… sure, yeah, you can’t just snap your fingers and be forgiven, but it’s not like it’s impossible to be redeemed for the things you’ve done. harsh.

  122. Jago

    I like the comic, it’s very well-done – reminds me of the time some people said they didn’t want Robin to have a redemption arc.

    The comments seem to be either asking for what happened to make Rachel that bitter, and it’s a pretty bleak world-view, or say over and over again what a terrible person she is. But I stopped reading when someone tried to make her out as abusive.

    Honestly? I think people CAN redeem themselves. Even if that doesn’t make what they did disappear. It’s true, it will always be there, but people can change. I certainly believe in Ruth. I know I thought like Rachel here once, because I was hurt and angry. But I also know that people, if they WANT to chance, can. And often with help, which I hope Ruth will get, and not just from Billie.

    1. Jago

      Seriously though, can we stop making every person that is angry or rude to the protagonists we like out to be _abusers_?

      1. dethtoll

        It’s certainly abusive language, and to someone who just got off suicide watch at that. And Ruth seems to be slipping into her facing-Sir expression, which tells you all you need to know.

      2. HMH

        I agree with the principle of this statement, but everything I can project onto the kind of attack that Rachel is making, out of everything I know about my own anger and fantasies of vengeance, is that what she is saying to Ruth here is less about her genuine concern for anybody on the floor, or the general situation at hand, and more about fulfilling a personal desire to brutally tear somebody down and hurt them unimaginably badly, but to do it to somebody “bad” so that you can rationalize that you’re not a bad person for sinking to their level. I don’t think it’s unfair to call something this aggressive, and intentionally damaging, abuse.

        Last strip? Last strip was fine. Commendable, even. But there is no way any of Rachel’s intentions are good here. She is doing this to hurt Ruth because she personally feels that Ruth deserves pain.

        1. Mav

          I have mixed feelings about calling it abuse. What Mary did, for example, was abusive. I think Rachel is so angry here that shes not even thinking hard enough about the context in which she’s saying these words. Maybe later on shell understand, but not now..

          I really want to be clear that even though Ruth has just come back from the hospital, Rachel is NOT telling Ruth to kill herself. Ruth is interpreting that way because of what’s going on in her head. Same with Amber, most likely – interpreting that way even though Rachel is not talking to her. Rachel is telling Ruth she doesn’t think she’ll quit being abusive to people. What that means to Ruth, Rachel has no idea of knowing, so she shouldn’t have voiced her dissent in that manner. But here’s the thing: she shouldn’t have put it that way, but is it ever easy to tell someone you’re done with them – is it ever easy for the person hearing? Should she have just ghosted Ruth instead? I don’t think she should have said nothing at all.

          Ruth has hurt Rachel. Rachel wants to hurt Ruth back. It’s incredibly fucked up, but it’s a natural response to want to retaliate. I think of times I wanted to say hateful things to people who have really hurt me. Sometimes I’ve said them, most times I haven’t. I just really doubt that no one here has ever said anything they regret to someone – especially in the heat of an emotional discussion.

        2. Fox

          In my opinion, abuse isn’t always intentional, a behavior or action can still be abusive even if it’s not the goal or is completely unintended. Abusers are people who abuse on purpose, but anyone can be abusive even if it’s only once because it’s the action and it’s effect, not the intention that matters.

        3. Mav

          I see where you’re coming from, but that’s what I take issue with though. Is every mean thing that’s ever said to anyone automatically abusive? Shouldn’t it matter if the person saying it is actually an abuser as opposed to someone who’s angry about something the recipient has actually done? Abuse refers to a pattern of behaviour. Occasionally being upset or angry doesn’t automatically make a person abusive.

          I can get into a fight with my best friend, and we say things to each other that are hurtful, but we’re not abusing each other. I can say one thing that really hurts someone and they don’t forgive me for it, but I wouldn’t call it abusive nor myself an abuser. It would have been me being a douche for sure, but not being an abuser. Why? Because there’s no pattern there. It’s not something consistently done. And abuse is really actually deliberate. Most of these types know exactly what they’re doing.

          Like, I understand that feelings get hurt no matter the intention, but if what you and others have been saying is literally true, we’d all here be abusers because we’ve all said things we regret. And that’s a really weird thing to say to someone who has actually been abused – “you say one bad thing, it makes you just as bad as your abuser”. It’s holding the victim to a completely different, higher (and unrealistic – really, Rachel can’t want to say one mean thing after everything Ruth has done?) standard and that doesn’t make sense to me (disclaimer: obviously what Rachel said was fucked up) and I can understand the reactions of people who are saying that they’re not entirely feeling that Rachel is completely wrong and horrible here.

        4. Fox

          You’re not understanding my point. I’m saying all abusers are abusive, but not all abusive behavior makes you an abuser. Abuse is by definition not required to be a pattern, abuse is treating a living thing badly in a way that causes harm. http://www.dictionary.com/browse/abuse?s=t
          The difference between an abuser and someone being abusive, is the former cannot or will not change and the latter can and will if given the right tools.
          Let me demonstrate my point with an example of the difference, person A screams at their wife to control her, they are an abuser. Person B screams at someone in anger and says awful things, person B is BEING abusive. Person C and person D call eachother names and are passive agressive, both are BEING abusive. Do you see the difference?

          Any time you are legitimately hurting someone, not bothering them or making them mad, unless it’s on purpose, but actually hurting them, with your anger, with your actions, ect. your behavior is abusive. It is even worse if it is premeditated as Rachel’s tirade is here. Being an abuse victim doesn’t mean you can’t be abusive, Ruth is an example of that, and abuse isn’t always abuser vs victim it can also be two people who treat eachother in an abusive manner equally. Basically, it’s shades of grey not black and white, it’s not all or nothing.

          Also, if you and your friend yell awful things at eachother then your behavior is abusive because you’re using your anger to hurt eachother, but you are not abusers because you aren’t purposefully using anger or your other behavior to exert control over another person or going out of your way to be hurtful on purpose to keep them afraid. Also, yelling isn’t a healthy way for people to handle anger, everyone has said something in anger they regret, but your reactions are a choice and you have the choice not to react that way. No saying one bad thing doesn’t make you as bad as your abuser, it makes your behavior in that moment abusive. It’s not unrealistic to expect someone not to sink to the level of and use the same tactics as, an abusive person in a moment of anger. Being an abuser is bad and people condemn that, but you can’t expect people to excuse you for being abusive just because the person you’re doing it to abused you, two wrongs don’t make a right, it just makes you look bad.

          Rachel didn’t say one mean thing, she made a blanket statement and said if you do a bad thing you’re an irredeemable human being. That statement wasn’t only directed at Ruth, but all people who’ve done bad things, thus hurting everyone in that room but Mary who is a 100% bona-fide abuser. Mary, more than anyone else, actually deserves to be called out as opposed to the people who are trying to be better. Yes, I think Rachel had the right to call out Ruth’s abuse of the floor and her, but she isn’t doing that, she’s getting revenge and being abusive with her words. Rachel also just called out a supposed domestic abuser in front of their supposed victim, which if Ruth really was abusing Billie like Rachel thinks, she could have just gotten her killed. Rachel is taking revenge and hurting everyone else, but Mary, in the process. She is attacking a woman she knows to be suicidal, because she wouldn’t have called in someone to help if she thought Ruth just wanted sympathy, and inadvertently calling everyone in that room irredeemable human garbage and that is abusive, that doesn’t however maker her an abuser because she isn’t doing it with the goal of control and power.

        5. Mav

          I understand that Ruth is both victim and abuser here, and I understand that at one point a person can be an abuser and then change and no longer be one. But Rachel is not an abuser here, in this moment. I think that there is a difference between a genuine mistake and an act of abuse. If I embezzled money from my company once, that would be singular abusive act of power. This kind of abuse is in the context of relationships:

          http://domesticviolence.org/what-is-abuse/

          Yelling at someone in an argument is not the healthiest thing – but it is human, it will happen at some point in your life. You will yell at someone, maybe because you’re pissed or you don’t feel like you’re being heard. Every single one of us have. However, yelling to control someone, especially when there are power dynamics there is actual abusive behaviour.

          The context is everything. If I lose my temper with my friend, and I yell at her or maybe we yell at each other, in recounting what happened and I said “I abused her” or even “that thing I said was abusive” don’t you see how that might be inaccurate description? Wouldn’t it be more accurate to say “I did a hurtful thing, and that was a mistake.”? Or what if someone said within earshot that they really dislike my friend, maybe they called her a bad person. This hurts my feelings, but was that person being abusive? Categorizing all those behaviours as abusive actually would downplay abusive patterns and acts, because then you’re lumping in things that happen as a natural part of being human with deliberate abusive behaviour – then how would you tell the difference? You wouldn’t be able to trust anyone who’s ever hurt you in any capacity.

          A boss who yells at his employees regularly is abusive. A boss that yells because his employees have really screwed up had an inappropriate response, and the yelling is uncomfortable and even hurtful to them, but he’s not an abuser. Hurting someone’s feelings is not absolutely always an abusive act. Basically, i’m trying to say that there’s levels to this stuff.

          And she did say one nasty thing. She was talking to Ruth. She doesn’t even know anything about anyone else’s situation there, so how could she possibly be talking to them in general? They might have interpreted it that way for their own reasons, but it was directed at *abusers*. Not regular mistake makers. People who regularly *abuse* people, like Ruth did. Like I mentioned on an earlier thread, if Howard hadn’t been there they would have had this conversation by themselves, and she most likely would have said the same thing.

          It is unrealistic to expect Rachel to say nothing even remotely negative to Ruth. Simply telling someone you don’t think they are a good person, even in the nicest of terms, would still be hurtful, so I’m not sure what people were expecting here.

          She’s not being a bad person here. She’s being an asshole in this moment, yes, but that does not make her a bad person and frankly this whole thing of otherwise decent people being shredded meanwhile people who actually have done incredibly shitty things on a regular basis not being held to the same standards and being easily forgiven is totally irritating and dishonest. It doesn’t give room for the wronged person to have the negative feelings they’re going to have. It does not give them room to be human and have normal human negative feelings. Yes, there is a moral aspect to acting on the impulse to retaliate towards someone, and I’m not saying Rachel is right here, but simply wanting to (or even doing so sometimes) doesn’t make you inherently bad. The two wrongs don’t make a right thing doesn’t really account for the nuances of life. Yes, yes we know Ruth has changed. Rachel does not have to give Ruth the time of day though. It’s not owed to her.

          Ruth had to go to the hospital because she would have died otherwise. At the risk of sounding insensitive here, this entire thing was a giant mess, and it came to a head with Ruth not leaving her room. Something had to be done. From Rachel’s point of view, that’s what happened – Ruth swooped in, trashed everyone for like 6 weeks, and swooped out leaving chaos behind her. And that’s the last she heard from Ruth, until now. Now that Ruth has her job, and everyone is happy that she’s together with the same girlfriend she was abusing at the beginning of the story. Like I said before, Rachel is too angry here – she’s just saying what she feels without really thinking about later, and being that everyone there is really young, I wouldn’t expect them to know how to handle DV situations properly.

        6. Fox

          You’re still not really understanding what I’m saying, you’re still equating abuser and abusive and like I said it’s not that black and white. Doing an abusive thing doesn’t make you a bad person unless you do it habitually or to control others. I’m saying Rachel’s BEHAVIOR is abusive NOT that SHE is abusive. To give some background on my views, I grew up with abuser parents and so did my husband, when we were first together we both displayed abusive BEHAVIOR habitually because we hadn’t learned a different way to be. Then we got help and changed, while our respective parents never did and never will because they don’t think they did anything wrong. That’s the difference, we didn’t realize we were being abusive, we were just doing what we knew, once it was pointed out by a therapist I’d been seeing for other reasons, we got help and changed. So would you call my husband and I abusers because we didn’t know another way to have a relationship or would you say our behavior was abusive and we’re still good people?

        7. Mav

          I mean, I wouldnt. I would call the behaviours unhealthy coping mwchanisms or toxic even, but I’m not sure cause don’t know the whole story.. which is what I was saying. I would never tell you that your husband is an abuser, especially if you yourself have worked it out and everything, so I can’t really judge on that.

          I just take issue with negative behaviours being blanket grouped as abusive without taking in context, which is something that happens a lot here.

          But all in all, after some thought I am considering changing the way we talk about negative behaviours in general. You have an interesting way of thinking about it, but I fear that the abusive label would create unnecessary stigma for people who don’t really deserve that label.

        8. Fox

          Probably best we just agree to disagree then.

        9. Mav

          Agreed.

        10. Halpful

          The stigma is a good point. Like, so many of my friends (maybe all of them at this point) have struggled with depression, but it’s almost never talked about, because of the stigma.

        11. Halpful

          Mav, google “intent is not magic”, then google “intent is fucking data”. That might give you the context to understand what people mean here.

        12. Mav

          I understand that the way we intend things is not what happens always. And that sometimes we intend one thing but another happens, and that’s kind of my point.

          It’s not “magic”, and apologies don’t always fix things either for the record.

          What I don’t get is that people say this literally every time a character says anything mean or questionable (ex. Sarah, Roz, etc) and they automatically become “an abuser”. I’m speaking to how broadly labeling like that is problematic, not just because of the inaccuracy of using the word like that, but because broadly painting people in general with a brush like that doesn’t give people much room to be imperfect, and also implies things about their character that is not accurate at all.

          Like, it’s completely ironic that people understand that Ruth did the shitty things she did because she was hurt and the general consensus is that she is Good Now, but somehow they don’t get that that same logic could be applied to Rachel as well. It’s part of what Rachel is saying. Having an unfortunate background gives you a free pass, not only because people are sympathetic but they also jump to defend you anytime you potentially have to suffer consequences for your actions – which includes people expressing their anger for what you’ve done, and those people somehow end up being the bad guys.

          I’ll be honest and admit that I’m in my feelings because I’m really great, but I’ve wanted to be Rachel so many times, but everyone telling me how horrible I am because don’t I know that my abuser had a hard life and I should just “be the bigger person” and let everything go with no processing on my part whatsoever, because They’ve Changed and that should be enough for me. That if I don’t forgive them or I give a piece of my mind that’s somehow worse than everything they’ve done to me.

          So basically, I think having a shitty backstory as intent is also not a magic wand is what I’m saying and people are being unfair to Rachel.

        13. Mav

          I just want to be clear that on this thread I’m debating about the way we use words and language to describe things. I am NOT denying that abuse exists.

          I’m commenting on a trend I’ve seen also outside this forum which is the bastardization of terms normally used in an academic context or even stretching the meanings to suit purposes. See: KellyAnne Conway calling herself a feminist and people debating whether Richard Spencer shouldn’t have been punched, because that made the person punching him “just as bad” as being an actual Nazi, or people “feeling bad” for Trump and wanting to give him a chance.

          This is not directed at this forum, but what I’ve been seeing and experiencing in this American culture is the worship and protection of bullies. We want to be them, we defend them at every turn, they are then held to a much lower standard than the average person, we are not allowed to dissent because that would make us Bad People.

          Sorry for rambling, that’s just where my headspace is right now.

        14. Halpful

          Ohhhhhh. You think “they did an abusive thing” means “they are an abuser and a Bad Person forever and ever”. That’s what we’re arguing *against*. Rachel is the one who thinks doing abusive things makes you an abuser forever and ever. No, i think probably everyone does abusive things sooner or later and that sucks but it’s not the end of the world.

          But I can see how it can be hard to see it that way if your emotions are in the habit of seeing “abusive” as “abuser”. Language is a pain in the ass sometimes.

          If anything it highlights the problem of thinking like Rachel. But… Now I’m gonna have to think about whether “abusive” is as useful a word when some people are going to read it the way you do.

        15. Halpful

          Like, Rachel hasn’t been as bad as Ruth, and Ruth hasn’t been nearly as bad as Clint. But they’re all on a spectrum of abuse here, and if Rachel continues thinking she’s done absolutely nothing wrong here she might keep at it and keep hurting people this badly.

        16. Halpful

          The tragic thing is Rachel’s own words are a barrier to admitting wrong. She thinks that if she did a bad thing that makes her a bad person, and as long as she believes that, she’s under incredible pressure to justify all her actions and insist she did nothing wrong. Or at least that she didn’t just do an abusive thing.

        17. Mav

          Ahh, Ok ok I thought more about it and I do understand what you guys are saying. in my experience, people who did abusive things to me always turned out to be abusers. And that’s why I’m like “huh?!” when people are saying that that thing Rachel did was not abusive, but not that she herself is abusive.

          Yes, I agree with you. It’s totally surprising how cruel people can be when they believe they are right about things. My abuser was always “right”. That meant she could do anything she wanted to me because o was “wrong”. It is a moral thing here, because that is a very unhealthy way to think. Like I feel that if she were saying this to Blaine, we wouldn’t feel as bad but since she’s talking to Ruth..

          And I think think it would be an interesting discussion to have about language, especially as it applies to justice and relationship. I.e., what we define as abuse, elevating “domestic” violence to regular violence to help survivors, talking about the murky situations, etc.

        18. Mav

          * the thing she did was abusive*, sorry

        19. Jago

          That’s what’s bothering me about the “abusive” thing. That people tend to go to extremes once a character or PERSON has this label (which happens all the time and at every opportunity), and with time, it loses all meaning.

        20. Halpful

          Jago… I’d much rather get rid of the extremes than get rid of the label. The latter is a bandaid; the former gets at the root of the problem. I’m not sure how possible it is… But hey, we managed to get a good portion of the world to accept women as people, so it’s worth a try 😉

        21. Mav

          @ Jago, yup. I can see different perspectives, but that’s what I was getting at. Kinda like how people use the word “Nazi” all the time in the US (i.e, being a grammar nazi, I’ve even seen people use the word gestapo as a joke and it’s abhorrent to me) but very few people have actually studied what they actually were and what they did. Now that we have actual Nazis and sympathizers running the government, people don’t seem to understand why they’re labeled as such. No one here is joking about abuse, but I do take issue with calling every negative behavior abuse, because evey negative behavior isn’t abuse.

        22. Fox

          I also said that to be abusive the actions have to cause harm, upsetting someone or being the cause of hurt feelings doesn’t count, raking someone over the coals mercilessly does. Harm not temporary pain, real damage.

  123. Wispy

    Okay that’s real effin’ neato lady, life isn’t a storybook and even though as a comic strip character your life -is- you have no reason to know that.

    But you know what? To hell with your crappy nobody can improve attitude. So what if someone will always be themselves no matter what? Getting up in their face for trying to act halfway normal is the best way to keep them from trying to halfway resemble something other than a neurodiverse mess for five seconds.

    People like you are why prisons don’t give a shit about rehabilitatating minor cases and are overclogged hellhole factories that turn people out bigger drains on society than when they came in.

    Honestly I can’t even fucking what Ruth did lately other than be a grumpy petty tyrant bongo then lock herself in her room until her friends had to drag her out.

    1. Jago

      I think Rachel had dealt with Ruth for a year longer than this comic. So I’m not sure if this is about ‘lately’.

  124. Lielac

    “violent thugs” + Amber’s face in panel 3 = hoooooo boy collateral damage

    nice job, Rachel, really good callout /sarc

  125. Rotunda

    The cut-away to Robin is a very nice touch. Robin can’t hear Rachel, but she needs to get this message even more than Ruth, who began the meeting anticipating a hostile reception.

    1. Schpoonman

      She needs to be told that she’ll always be a shallow monster without sufficient redeeming qualities?

  126. Edward Starsmith

    I used to think I was a cynical SOB. Then I met Rachel.

    I’m Mother Teresa compared to her.

  127. Caf

    Damn, she shocked Ruth right back to beady-eye territory.

  128. NoOneLikesRobin

    Haha yayyyy.
    This comic is awesome.
    Guess who was wrong? This guy, right here in the comments. Presenting Captain Wrongerton of the USS Incorrect.

    1. Vulcanodon

      What changed your mind?

      1. NoOneLikesRobin

        I don’t mean to imply that I ever thought the comic was NOT awesome, that’s not the case. I just meant I was sure where this storyline would go and I was wrong and I am super happy about that.

        We get a stunning drama sequence that strikes at the heart of most characters present, and a little bonus panel of Robin being sad and having nothing. Yaaaaay.

        Of course now that I’ve said this, Willis will write a future storyline for Robin where she becomes President specifically to make me “mad”, except it’ll still be great so I won’t be irritated in the least 😛

        1. StClair

          While one can never be certain of such things, I believe you imagine you are much more important than you actually are.

        2. NoOneLikesRobin

          Calm down Sister Act, it was what we humans call “a joke”.

        3. Vulcanodon

          You know, for just a fleeting moment, I thought I had a bit of warm regard for you. But it was just gas.

        4. Liliet

          No, the part where Willis might write a storyline just to piss them off was a joke. Follow the conversation better

        5. Vulcanodon

          That was obvious. But “Hey lighten up It was just a joke” couched in a condescending wrapper, no matter who it’s directed at or why, eats up a chunk of social capital.

        6. Liliet

          I just read it as playful banter? Internet is terrible at tone, and I’ve found it useful to try and puzzle over things that seem rude until I can figure out the most charitable possible interpretation…

        7. NoOneLikesRobin

          And her reply wasn’t condescending?

          Ya’ll need to lighten the fuck up on here sometimes, Jesus. Yes, it was banter, thank you Liliet.

        8. Kitty

          Yikes. That seems uncalled-for.

    2. Liliet

      Welp, you just gained some major respect points from me. And they say there is nothing good in the internet comment sections

  129. The Aussie Bloke

    Knowing where Ruth is mentally and emotionally right now… I kinda wanna bongo-slap Rachel

  130. podian

    Whoa, way to gut-punch basically everyone in the room (well, except Mary, who isn’t planning on redeeming herself anytime soon).
    What the heck, Rachel.

    (also, isn’t the “once a bad guy, always a bad guy” attitude from the general public part of the reason for America’s legendarily horrible prison system?)

    1. dethtoll

      It’s part of the reason for a lot of problems in the US to be honest. And our definition of “bad guy” extends down to drug users, but apparently not up to rich white dudes who commit assault or rape.

  131. SundaesChild

    I have to wonder – is Rachel, to some extent, projecting her own fear? Not that it excuses directing that sort of fatalism towards a mentally ill person, but if she lived in an abusive home, found out a family member was NOT the person she thought they were as a child, or worse still, felt doomed to be a product of said environment, it would explain a lot. I know that I’m terrified of repeating some of my father’s sins, and that and a legalistic childhood can lead to some really cynical thoughts.

  132. Vulcanodon

    I really hadn’t noticed Rachel before, but she’s sure on my radar now.

    One hard thing about change, about becoming a better person, is that the people in your sphere don’t want you to change. In some perverse way they know how to live with you as a jerk, and they aren’t about to make space for you to work on being better. Redemption, already a long climb, is 10x harder if nobody says; “What you propose is incredibly hard, but I at least hope for your success.”

    No, she doesn’t have to like Ruth or forgive her or even trust her. But leaving aside her callous assault on someone she knows just got out of the hospital, there’s a lot she doesn’t know and a lot of other people in the room.

    This strip is the most painful exposition of splash damage I’ve ever seen, but you had to read the comic from way back to know that. And that’s the point: you don’t know what’s going on in the other person’s life, you have not read their whole comic.

    I hope tomorrow brings Joyce stepping in between Rachel and Ruth.

    1. Jhon

      Having learned to step around the missing stair, I will be annoyed when it gets fixed. Because now I have to change how I do things again.

  133. JBento

    Okay, so we know Rachel had to endure Ruth’s reign of fear and tyranny for at least one year before the start of the strip, but I doubt Ruth had made any public attempts to change back then. THIS part of Rachel’s “weapons blazing” makes me think she has experience with a past classical abuser, one who went the “I-say-I’m-going-to-change-but-actually-not” beaten path. This is “lowered shields were once taken advantage of, so now they stay up, and have spikes on them” attitude.

    Need Rachel flashbacks!

  134. Just Me

    I gather Rachel isn’t a psychology major, a theology major or a philosophy major.

    It’s one thing to speak up when abuses are happening, it’s another to kick someone in their mental ‘surgical stitches’. It’s like giving a recovering heron addict a box of illegal drugs for their birthday.

    How Ruth handles this will say a lot about how well she’ll be able to deal with and come to terms with her issues.

    1. Kim Biebaut

      When your abuser still chooses to retain her position of power, still maintains a romantic relation with a victim of her abuse, it’s not THAT strange at least one person seriously questions the value of that ‘face turn’ And of course WE know that Ruth has non-selfish reasons why she chooses not to leave her position, but Rachel doesn’t know that. And it’s not fair to expect her to know that.

      As the victim of Ruth’ abuse, she is not worried about Ruth’s wellbeing, and she is not supposed to be. She wants to both warn people to keep their shields up and their eyes open, and get ready to try to get Ruth kicked out at the first opportunity. And that’s… generally not a bad thing. If I was faced with someone in this situation, my thoughts would be. “You want to show you’ve turned over a new leaf and you no longer want to harm us? Fine. The next step is you go and quit this job. You being here harms us. Long as you don’t do that, our wellbeing is apparently less important than you keeping my job”

      The whole ‘never ever ever redemption is going too far thought’

      1. 3-I

        Okay, but Ruth has already explained “I don’t want this job any more than you want me in it,” and Rachel replied “Oh, and that’s supposed to make it okay?”

        Like, we’ve had this conversation. And Ruth isn’t even promising to turn over a new leaf, just talking about what’s going on. Not to mention we have still not seen any reason for Rachel to react as harshly as this, compared to all the other people in the dorm saying nothing.

        Seriously. The only person I am really comfortable saying Ruth abused was Billie. I’d like anyone to point out exactly what she did, other than threaten to tear out femurs, to anyone else. Because usually, it was one-time, and it was in defense of someone else.

  135. Bstuts

    “Redemption is not real.” Seriously? How about ‘a leopard can’t change it’s spots.’ Or, ‘once a cheater, always a cheater.’ Do people still believe that stuff. Ruth should have gotten a hug. She deserved and needed one.

  136. Scar Man!!!

    Ok, she is totally wrong, but do you think she’s just cynical, or is she speaking from tough experiences

    1. JBento

      I’m going for tough experiences. Even if you’re cynical to the point of “there’s no redemption,” I don’t think you get this angry about it without having at least seen it happen to a relative or friend.

  137. Black

    The truth of the matter is, no matter how much good someone does, it doesn’t wipe away the bad things they’ve done. They may decide to be good, and no longer do bad things, but they can’t just pretend those bad things didn’t happen.

    1. HMH

      Sure, but from Rachel’s point of view, as soon as you do, or be, anything bad that could hurt another person, you should immediately kill yourself because you are worthless and undeserving of any happiness for the rest of eternity.

      1. Vulcanodon

        This is why, in the view of one of my office mates, Christ had to die for you. Otherwise you deserve an eternity of suffering for even the tiniest wrong act.

  138. Tomas

    Times like this make me wonder what happens when the friends and neighbors of Willis’ parents find out about DoA.

    “Oh look! Your son makes comics. How cute.”

    [One binge read later.]

    “Damn. You wrecked that boy.”

    1. HMH

      I have sincere doubts that Willis’ parents would ever admit his existence to anybody who doesn’t already know it.

      Note that there’s one child in the Brown family who is completely AWOL, and is pushing on He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named territory.

  139. Wendy

    I mean, Rachel isn’t wrong.

    Take an abuse victim and ask them if they care about their abuser’s “redemption arc”. Some of us may care… Some of us won’t. Some of us will take umbrage at the very idea that someone who abused us can be “redeemed” – or if not, at the idea that we, their victim, should CARE that they’re redeeming themselves, or be expected to forgive them or allow them to continue to play the role in our lives they always have.

    Fron Rachel’s perspective, Ruth is asking everyone she terrorized to accept her back into the much-abused position of power over everyone she was in before. She’s well within her rights to say “hey this is bullshit”. From the floor residents’ standpoint, at least those with no friendship with Ruth and no interest in one, her redemption is indeed just a “story”.

    Which isn’t to say it’s not a vital one for Ruth to write for herself. Because it is. But those who are forced to be a part of it when they never wanted to be in the first place have every right to be pissed.

  140. Sam

    TW: Suicide and abuse mentions.

    My thoughts on Rachel before: Okay, she’s a level-headed person who doesn’t approve of blackmail, good.

    My thoughts on Rachel now: She’s a self-righteous coward taking as many shots as she can at a suicidal person the day they’ve returned from hospital and are offering her the least resistance possible.

    She is also wrong because redemption can and does happen but here she goes dropping an emotional abuser’s favourite idea to put in someone’s head that they will ‘always be X’ and one of the most torturous concepts for mentally ill people that they will always be suffering or always be causing suffering which tends to lead to get this: suicide attempts!

    You’ve just given Ruth very good reason to try to kill herself again Rachel, congratulations. And you’re shouting just like “Sir” so I’m almost hoping she says something like ‘Sorry Sir’ just so that Rachel will freeze in her tracks because I don’t want Ruth to take any more blows.

    I’d also wager that she doesn’t care if Ruth is or is not an abuser to Billie as much as she does about it being a good potshot at Ruth because calling her out in the open like this, if Ruth were such an abuser, could have resulted in Billie being killed later, as she has literally no way to get Billie away from Ruth after this meeting as she has turned Billie against herself. She cares far more about giving Ruth a ‘The Reason You Suck’ speech than about actually protecting people she feels are at risk from Ruth.

    And even if Amber and Joyce weren’t in the room to be collateral damage of this, her whole idea of ‘changing isn’t possible’ is toxic to literally everybody that ever tries to improve as a person. It is toxic to the mentally ill, people with low self-esteem, and victims of abuse or any variety of cruelty. But it is also toxic to the manipulators, abusers, relatives etc. that realise their behaviours are harmful and try to change for the better because telling them they can’t change discourages them from trying to and can lead to them hurting even more people or turning self-destructive themselves because no one wants to feel like they’re a monstrous and evil person that can never change.

    For people trying to recover and people trying to improve on or completely stop harmful behaviours towards people they care about, what Rachel just said is literally the scariest thing ever.

    And it is so so so wrong. Because people who genuinely want to change can and will try their best to do so and eventually, they should succeed as long as they stick with their efforts. Rachel hasn’t even given Ruth a chance to show whether she is going to be better or not, she’s just assuming on the first day Ruth is back that this is all a big lie to win them over based on… nothing that we actually know of as Ruth has never tried to manipulate people into liking her before.

    1. Liliet

      ^^^^ this

  141. ValdVin

    Chloe comes in for a lot of flak, but I believe her on this more than Rachel.

    Ruth: I don’t deserve my job, my grades, and I certainly, absolutely don’t deserve the prettiest girl in the whole damned wing.

    Chloe: You’re bright, you’re skilled, and you’re only twenty. You have decades to decide what is next.

    http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/decision-2/ &c.

  142. Liliet

    holy shit Rachel what the FUCK

    Amber in the background really helps underscore just how terrible what Rachel is saying here is. She is generalizing and she is doing it in, like, the most unproductive way ever. This is the kind of black and white thinking that has two possible results: 1) the person is already down and internalizes everything, 2) the person is more well-defended mentally and just stops listening to anything you say ever. Or better yet, a horrifying combination where a person becomes convinced that they neither can nor should change this thing about themselves.

    Like… holy wow. This isn’t even crossing the line, this is revealing that you’ve been standing on the other side of it the entire time.

    Maybe I’m overreacting. We still don’t know what it was that Ruth did to Rachel. But… just the collateral damage from these words is horrifying.

    1. Liliet

      And yes, I absolutely hate the saying of “Redemption is a rare and special thing”, especially to someone who is trying to currently redeem themselves. Like WHAT IS THE FUCKING POINT. Are you just trying to gatekeep your little club of “really good people” and desperately try to keep others from finding their way in? Coz that’s kind of the exact opposite way from how the issue should be approached.

      Like, there are three possible reactions I can see there:
      1) -ignore it / convince yourself you’re an exception’ (which is actually the one most likely to happen with actual abusers/bullies who aren’t even clear on what they did wrong)
      2) just give up and say “well in that case I’ll just keep doing my thing” which, yes, means that they weren’t really committed to it to begin with, but when what they’re trying to redeem themselves from is harming other people, you’d think their ~moral purity~ is not the greatest concern on the table
      3) go into a spiral of self-loathing, depression and possibly suicidal ideation because you’ve just been denied the way up you were trying to carve for yourself

      Like… that is a fucked up approach.

      I GUESS Rachel is also trying to talk to everyone else to convince them that Ruth is just honeymooning, but the thing is, instead of calling out specific things that Ruth’s done, she’s being so generic she’s spraying collateral damage onto basically everyone present other than the one person who would actually deserve it.

      Just, fuck.

      1. Liliet

        So I was scrolling the comment section and multiple people mentioned the prison system, and it clicked with me why I was so little inclined to give Rachel the benefit of doubt here.

        The word “thugs”.

        Maybe Rachel was abused / witnessed someone being abused before, or maybe she’s just full of self-righteous theoretical knowledge – and from how she treated Billie I’m calling the latter to be honest. But this is what she really believes, this is her core ideal. If you asked her “what about people in the prison system for minor offenses” she wouldn’t say “well obviously I wasn’t talking about them” or “oh shit sorry I didn’t think”, she would say “see: my point” and would think herself completely justified in that. Because that’s a pretty pointed word she used, and it is pointed in a very specific direction.

        She absolutely meant what she implied about Amber. She absolutely meant what she implied about Joyce, Billie, anyone who’s ever done “A Major Wrong” from her point of view. And she does think herself an arbiter of which wrongs are major and which aren’t (her own always aren’t obviously).

        She’s a teenager, of course, so it’s not like this locks her into a pattern forever. You learn better, you meet people, you hear stories, you get a more nuanced outlook. And moreso, despite that she didn’t like Ruth or trust her, she DID call Chloe, so she’s not acting out of a Mary-like “anything is justified towards those I villify” brand of self-righteousness, but a much more mild and productive “I will do the right thing always no matter who it is for and reserve the right to look down on them from my high horse”.

        I don’t… hate Rachel. Hell, I recognize younger me in her.

        But she is what she is, and I am not charitable towards her motivations or backstory.

  143. JMP

    I…don’t actually remember what Ruth even did to Rachel.

  144. Sam

    Genuine question: why was Ruth so abusive/tyrant-like to her floor-mates?

    1. HMH

      Because if it ever got back to her Grandfather that she wasn’t doing a perfect job to maintain her position, which keeps her out of his hair and makes it affordable to school her, he would profoundly abuse her helpless brother in ways we can only imagine, for an indeterminable intensity and duration of time, specifically to punish Ruth for being an incompetent failure and burdening him with her existence.

    2. Vulcanodon

      Because wounded, broken people are often dangerous. We grew up in toxic environments and it’s the work of a lifetime to get it out of our veins.

    3. Liliet

      And the third answer is, because anger was the only emotion she could reliably access in her most depressed moments.

    4. zoelogical

      because she didn’t know any other way to lead than through fear, i figure

      and fear/anger were really easy for her to access

    5. chris73

      All of this plus, on some level, she probably enjoyed it as well

  145. Richard

    So by Rachel’s standards, the human race should be wiped out?

    (Her last name’s Ghul, isn’t it? Say the full name out loud and you’ll get it.)

    1. HMH

      No, just people she specifically doesn’t like. She’s never done anything wrong or hurt anybody.

      1. Richard

        (please tell me you’re being sarcastic)

    2. Vulcanodon

      I see what you did there!

    3. StClair

      “Actually, Detective, we have counted.”

    4. Stranger

      Not unless you want to wipe out life as a whole, considering how awful animals behave.

      1. zoelogical

        embrace the green!

        1. JBento

          You mean, Poison Ivy?

        2. zoelogical

          yes

        3. zoelogical

          im pretty sure ra’s al ghul and poison ivy went out once

          and if they didn’t they should have before ivy tried to kill him and he dodged hardcore

        4. Spencer

          I’m pretty sure that’s Swamp Thing’s gig.

  146. Luna

    Looking back on it, Rachel’s demonstrated this kind of exhausted cynicism before. Back when she and the Other Rachel were talking about Ross pulling a gun on campus, she was completely dispassionate and convinced that it would lead to nothing, and any kind of change was impossible and no one would even try to enact it. (Which, I mean, was right.)

    Anyway, I wonder if that’s why she’s tearing into Ruth so viciously here, while she’s never done anything remotely close to Mary, who is also still pretty much getting away with her awful behavior. Mary can’t be changed, so no point in wasting energy over her. Ruth can’t be changed either, in Rachel’s perspective, but all of a sudden she’s pretending to try and wasting everyone’s time and might even get some people’s hopes up. Maybe Rachel would rather get back to the status quo, where at least no one has any illusions about what’s going on and can deal with it accordingly.

    (insert disclaimer that of course Rachel has a right to never forgive Ruth regardless of what Ruth does anyway)

  147. Bicycle Bill

    “Redemption is a story. Redemption is not real.”
    Rachel is so wrong about this that I could write an entire thesis about it.  Her life must literally be hell on earth if she is already this cynical at eighteen (or maybe even nineteen) years of age.

    Either that or she’s got a backstory that would rival Amber’s as far as dysfunctional parents and serious issues in her (young) life.

    1. HMH

      “Her life must literally be hell on earth if she is already this cynical at eighteen”

      No, I’m pretty sure that all eighteen year olds are generally that cynical, smug, self-satisfied and blissfully self-unaware. SOURCE: Was eighteen once, knew others who were as well.

      1. Liliet

        Same. Rachel just isn’t grasping the implications of what she’s saying there. She lives in a blissful black-and-white world where people divide neatly into ‘good’ and ‘bad’, and it’s easy to pass judgement on who is who.

        She’ll learn.

      2. Eldritch Gentleman

        Especially nowadays with the Internet providing SO much material to be cynical about.

    2. Stranger

      Why is she wrong about that? Changing your behavior doesnt make up for all the crap you’ve done in the past. “Redemption” in real life is mostly a matter of people just wanting to ignore bad things so they can get on with their lives. If you’re a victim of someone, if you dont play nice and be quiet about your pain, you’ll be dealing with it alone because no one wants to hear about it, it makes them uncomfortable.

      1. Fart Captor

        She’s wrong because she’s not talking about forgiveness. She’s saying that if someone is abusive it is impossible for them to ever sincerely change.

        A person being redeemed doesn’t necessarily include being forgiven or ever trusted again by the people they’ve wronged. A person can become a saint and it wouldn’t obligate anyone they’ve hurt to forgive them. But that doesn’t mean make the actual change impossible.

        1. Temperaryobsessor

          This

  148. Stranger

    She’s not exactly wrong. It’s like addiction, if you’re an addict, you’re an addict and have to live your whole life being constantly aware of that. And shockingly, most people will eventually grow resentful and bitter about not being able to follow the impulse that bleats in their brain every day of their life. It doesnt matter how self-destructive it makes you, it never does, all your brain cares about is that it’s not getting what it wants

    1. Eldritch Gentleman

      Which doesn’t mean that people can’t change. We are not mindless slaves of our instincts. We are self-aware and we can win against our desires and instincts.

      1. Stranger

        People can TRY to change, but they havent actually changed as a person, they still want to do those things, the consequences are just too severe to indulge anymore. Hence, you’re stuck with a lifelong problem that will chip away at your willpower until you either give in or become resentful that you arent allowed to.

        1. Fart Captor

          While there definitely ARE people who never change, you’re completely wrong to say that it’s universal.

          Plenty of addicts get clean and stay clean. Even more stay clean apart from the occasional relapse. The same is true of abusers.

          Those who truly WANT to do those things will no doubt never change. Those who realize the harm they are doing, who recognize that they need to change, they can learn to handle their emotions in healthy ways.

          Even in cases where they do have to resist harmful impulses for the rest of their lives (which is not always the case, impulse control is not the only reason someone might end up being abusive), it’s still something many people manage to do.

  149. Liliaeth

    That’s bullshit really. That kind of perspective leads to people feeling that they shouldn’t even bother to try and change. That if redemption is just a lie, then why bother trying to learn from your mistakes, or fight to become a better person? It’s that kind of thinking that makes life worse for everyone.

    1. Stranger

      Same reason most people arent criminals, the social consequences are too severe. Granted, the kind of crimes MOST people actually want to commit are petty, but still.

  150. Noxx

    Well she’s not entirely wrong.

    You may be a murderer who has reformed, does good deeds, helps people selflessly, the tag “murderer” is still on your resume. Items may be minimized on the canvas of your life, but they don’t come off.

    I have a hard time being sympathetic towards Ruth here. She wants to appear to have come to terms with her behavior, but all of it is colored by her earlier statement about “doing it for Howie”. She’s moving herself into a sort of classic martyr / abuser scenario where she’s allowing herself to participate in horrible behavior in order to love / protect / be faithful to someone else or an ideal.

    “I never would have been here if I hadn’t been looking out for you!”

    ugh.

    If she let Howie be his own person, walked away from her grandfathers influence, and attempted to simply be a student within her own means, that would be redemptive. That would be an inspiring narrative for her. Currently, she’s just setting up the next bombing run.

    1. Schpoonman

      Ruth would have to become insanely callous, completely out-of-character in order to abandon Howard, and that would be an actual horrible stain to carry forever. Never once has she shown any resentment towards Howie and it’s absurd to suggest it when every part of her character screams that she loves Howard incredibly deeply.

      1. Luchucholo

        Actually, she isn´t really saving “Howie” this way. The best way for her is to be independent as soon as she can while she studies (she could try to have a different part time job : Galasso isn´t afraid of hiring, etc. Also she could search for whatever educational help she can have as a foreign student in Indiana U, etc), and maintain contact with Howard with the available means (mobile, telephone number, internet chat). Of course, we could say that she was basically mentally “pruned” by Clint. But this denies any agency she has on her matters on her narrative as a character, and basically leaves us to see her trainwreck crash, if it wasn´t for Billie… basically she arrived to this conclusion: she thinks that Howard can´t escape by himself, and she doesn´t trust that he will when he comes to adult age. She needs an honest to god chat with Howard in the near future. Otherwise, they both are screwed.

        1. Fart Captor

          Financial independence from Clint accomplishes nothing to help Howie. He’s a minor. He’s stuck in his clutches for another 2 years unless gramps does something shitty enough to lose custody, and leaves enough evidence to actually make that happen.

          And as long as Howie’s stuck with him, any defiance on Ruth’s part could result in pissing Grandpa Shitstain off and him taking that anger out on Howie. He’s probably going to do it anyway, but for all Ruth knows, it would at least be less if she does what he says. Either way, that fear gives him a powerful grip on Ruth.

          Like, yes, Ruth and Howard should talk about this shit. But I’m sorry, it’s not going to be some magic bullet that will solve their problems. There isn’t one.

        2. Temperaryobsessor

          It would be a gamble but Ruth disconnecting from “Sir” grampus could be good for Howie long term. If Ruth can convince him that Howie is not an effective lever for her, He might just sort of lose interest in him, or he could make Howie into the new golden child which would be a mixed bag but might be marginally better.
          The thing is assuming that it works the short term increase could outweigh the long term decrease. However financial independence determines how easy it will be to cut ties with Clint when Howies an adult

        3. Fart Captor

          It’s still ridiculous to call that an easy solution.

          Even more ridiculous to accuse Ruth of “not letting Howie be his own person”, which is just blaming her for her grandfather’s abuse, which is what Noxx seem to be doing.

          It’s the height of pretentiousness to think there are easy solutions in this sort of situation, in both the practical sense (what will I do?) and the emotional sense (actually being ready to take the risks necessary to get away)

        4. Temperaryobsessor

          I do think she should work towards financial freedom that increases the chances she can quickly free herself and them when Howard turns 18, but I’m honestly not sure trying to cut “Sir” off before Howard turns 18 is a good call for her which sucks.

    2. Liliet

      You know, in my country, once you’ve served your term for whatever crime you might have committed, it’s off your record once and for all. Like, when I was trying to get employed in a ~super secret important government place~ (it didn’t work out in the end) (it was not actually secret in any way but some procedures were left over from Soviet Union when EVERYTHING was secret) I had to go and get a paper from the police about where I was for the last several years that specifically stated that I do not have any unserved accusation / court verdict hanging over me. I specifically noted the part that clarified that they were only asking if I was, like, on the run from justice or due for court, and not whether or not I’ve been convicted for anything in the past.

      It’s a pretty neat approach, IMHO. As battered spouses and abused kids who kill in self-defense will no doubt tell you.

    3. Liliet

      You know, in my country, once you’ve served your term for whatever crime you might have committed, it’s off your record once and for all. Like, when I was trying to get employed in a ~super secret important government place~ (it didn’t work out in the end) (it was not actually secret in any way but some procedures were left over from Soviet Union when EVERYTHING was secret) I had to go and get a paper from the police about where I was for the last several years that specifically stated that I do not have any unserved accusation / court verdict hanging over me. I specifically noted the part that clarified that they were only asking if I was, like, on the run from justice or due for court, and not whether or not I’ve been convicted for anything in the past.

      It’s a pretty neat approach, IMHO. As battered spouses and abused kids who end up killing in self-defense will no doubt tell you.

  151. Tim Kai

    … you are the thing you were before? Sure! What happened in the past doesn’t change.

    But you don’t stay in the past forever. Unless you are kept there, by yourself or someone else.

  152. Kintrex

    And in the span of a single strip, Rachel has gone from “reasonable person making good points” to “vengeful monologing supervillain.”

  153. nothri

    If I had to guess, Rachel is presently talking about something only partly related to Ruth at this point. To me this speaks to someone else in her life who was abusive and repeatedly broke promises to change and be a better person. Probably family. I don’t think you develop this particular view of redemption as a nonentity without something specific and awful in your own life to base the belief on.

    1. Spencer

      Yeah I think so too. Rachel’s words are too specific for this to be a standard “you’re a bad person” rant.

      The ironic part is that, if Rachel is treating Ruth as a representation of her past suffering, then she’s doing to her what Ruth did to Billie.

    2. Andrea

      I completely agree! I’m surprised more people aren’t commenting about that. Maybe it’s just because I’ve had a similar experience to what Rachel must have experienced with a past abuser.

  154. Luchucholo

    “Hey, I´ve turned a new leaf, I will try to be a better, different person! I want your forgiveness for whatever I´ve done to you all in the past.”

    A) “Eh, uh, okay?”

    B) “Excuse me, but we don´t buy it at all, because reasons”.

    It´s sad, but most people don´t give second chances at face value. Rachel perhaps is taking it a bit personally, but I don´t judge her: she doesn´t have all the information, and to be fair, Ruth gained the nickname truly to her actions. So, no, it´s to be expected that people don´t shrug things like nothing has happenened. Ruth has some hard work to do, despite her personal problems. Mental illnesses like depression or anything else don´t excuse abusive or harming behavior.

  155. Owl

    Never commented before, but this comic, and the one before it, are really upsetting me. And I don’t think anyone in the comments has yet to put their finger on exactly what is bothering me.

    Rachel is perfectly reasonable and within her rights to say she doesn’t want an apology from Ruth, and that she will not accept an apology if given, because actions matter more than words. It is reasonable for her to say she doesn’t think Ruth will ever change, and that she will assume this all just a show until proven otherwise. It is even reasonable for her to say there is nothing Ruth can do or say to earn her (Rachel’s) forgiveness for her past actions. Ruth was a violent bully who had and has power over her, and her mental health issues don’t negate that.

    But that is NOT what she is saying in this strip, or even the one before it. She is telling Ruth that she will never change, and the proof she offers is Ruth’s *initial attempts at apologizing.* Ruth hasn’t had *time* to show she has changed, which is exactly what she is acknowledging in what she says to Rachel in the last strip. Rachel is saying that Ruth will always be an abuser, and any actions she takes will only be continued acts of abuse.

    I didn’t have to read today’s strip to know what Rachel was going to say in this strip. It was already clear from the second panel of yesterday’s.

    And the number of people in the comments who are confusing Rachel’s right not to forgive, and her reasonableness in being openly mistrustful of a claimed attempt to change, with her decision to declare Ruth an abusive bully who will never change, with the evidencing being that *she is attempting to change*? That is really upsetting me.

    1. 3-I

      This, yes.

  156. Faun

    For every comment about Rachel being a coward I lose a bit of my sanity.

    1. chris73

      I know right, its not cowardly to avoid something that will likely get you physically assaulted

      1. Untes

        Avoiding something that will likely get you hurt?
        That is literally being a coward.

        1. Fart Captor

          By that logic, trying to be hit by a car while crossing the street would also be cowardice.

          There are situations where the line between cowardice and self-preservation can be hard to find, and this one is morally very complicated, particularly since we know so little about Rachel.

          What she’s doing and saying here is rubbing a lot of people the wrong way, for a number of different reasons.

        2. Fart Captor

          That should have said “trying not to be hit by a car” -_-

        3. chris73

          Depends, a soldier avoiding a situation where they might get hurt is cowardice, a cop likewise, a fireperson also etc etc

          A 19 year old student living in a dorm not wanting to get smacked in the face by their RA is entirely resonable

    2. C.T Phipps

      You’ll forgive me but the cowardice on display isn’t her avoiding confronting Ruth before today, it’s attacking a depressed person on suicide watch. Even if Ruth was a monster, that’s like the scene in Rome where Brutus tries to impress the Germans by saying he killed Caesar only to get rightly told he murdered an unarmed man who was already dying from a dozen sneak attacks.

      1. chris73

        Well its not really as Rachel isn’t looking to impress anyone, that sounds more like something Mary would try

  157. chris73

    For those hating on Rachel just remember that:

    Rachel is angry so shes running on emotion at the moment not logic

    Shes tried doing the right thing by informing the authorities and they’ve let her (and everyone else) down

    Rachel is not privy to the same information we have but also she probably has information we don’t

    She was probably scared of Ruth and thought that if she brought these issues earlier that Ruth might have assaulted her (does anyone here like getting punched in the face, I know I don’t) and now Ruths partnered up with the equally aggressive Billie Rachel has every right to be worried

    Rachel probably had Ruth as an RA last year

    Rachel is (probably) 19-20 and the title of this comic is Dumbing of Age

    Rachel probably has a backstory and we haven’t seen it yet

    and completely unrelated to this, the writing for this strip is really good, everyone has issues and things to work on and its good to see a strip where the characters have to strive for change and its all the more satisfying when they effect that change

    1. Katrika

      I can be pissed at Rachel and still know all those things. She’s got a right to be mad, but the whole ‘you can NEVER change’ thing is a pretty terrible thing to say to ANYONE. I definitely get the impression she’s projecting something else on Ruth here, like maybe she’s got history with someone who kept promising to change and leveraging that good will to keep doing bad stuff.

      It’s also p valuable to point out in the comments that flashy confrontations with abusers without getting the permission and help of the person they’re abusing is a bad idea.

      1. chris73

        Oh yeah shes wrong about people never being able to redeem themselves but what the person did doesn’t get wiped, it’ll still be there

        I’m taking it that Rachel is angry and so quite emotional and that’s when logic gets thrown out the window

        But yes this is sounding quite personal so hopefully we’ll get some more context for Rachels outburst

        1. Katrika

          It just sucks that her words aren’t just hurting Ruth (which Rachel is mad enough to intend rn, even if she might regret it later) but also Amber, who is a completely unintended victim here. I don’t think Rachel is evil or deliberately cruel, she was the one who helped get Ruth to the hospital, but this seems like something she’s been stewing over for probably over a year.

        2. chris73

          Yeah agreed, it really does sound personal for her

  158. BP

    First off: dot eyes nononononONONONONONO

    Second: Cerberus linked to this strip: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/chloe/ and it made me realize why Rachel’s attitude bothers me so much. Not only am I wondering “what is her deal” but I’m wondering “what the hell happened between them or her and someone else, that was so awful she’d tear down a person getting over suicidal thoughts?”

    1. rectilinearpropagation

      I noticed the eyes too. 🙁

  159. Smooti

    I mean the thing is?

    Rachel’s… kind of right. Perhaps not the best time to be saying all of this, given Ruth’s current mental state and stuff, but Ruth’s actions WERE terrible and abusive. She WAS in the wrong throughout most of her stint as an RA. Rachel doesn’t know the full situation, but she’s not wrong on those points.

    And also? Ruth being abused by her grandfather doesn’t make up for her own abusive behavior. It EXPLAINS why she’s like that, it doesn’t excuse it.

    I do also think Rachel would totally not be saying things in this manner if she knew Ruth had asked to step down from the RA position and was basically forced back into it.

  160. Joner

    is it just me or is the art style in this strip different than in the previous one?? like a solid good bit

  161. Somethingvaguelyclever

    I comment rarely, but I can’t leave this one alone. Sorry, but what does this college student know about redemption, regret or self-improvement? What big huge life experiences does she have to draw on? How much life has she actually lived in order to see that people don’t change?

    Did she read about it? Did she watch a movie about how the jerk never changed? What does she know about it?

    Absolutely nothing. She’s a child. I don’t mean it as an insult, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Her life has always been based around the framework of school. I say this because I used to believe the exact same thing, and used it as an excuse for why I shouldn’t forgive, why I shouldn’t try to change. And the years I wasted on that misguided, misbegotten belief will always be a source of personal shame.

    She doesn’t know shit, and how dare her for saying that someone is or isn’t capable of doing more for themselves and those they care about. Redemption is a story, but stories reflect the real world.

    1. chris73

      In Rachels defence she probably had Ruth as a RA the previous year so shes been able to watch Ruth far longer than we have since we only see snippets of whats been happening

      As for the redemption side yeah people can redeem themselves but what they did will always be there, it’ll never go away and while Rachel said or shouldn’t be saying this the meeting was Ruths idea in the first place

      1. Yumi

        Isn’t Ruth a sophomore, meaning she wouldn’t have been an RA the previous year? Or is she a junior? I always basically read with the assumption that this was her first year as an RA.

        1. Fart Captor

          Rachel is a sophomore, Ruth is a junior. I don’t know that it’s been explicitly stated that she was an RA last year, but it seems likely.

        2. thejeff

          She definitely seemed to have a reputation already at the start of the year.

        3. chris73

          I’ll admit I’m extrapolating somewhat on whether Ruth was Rachels RA last year

    2. thejeff

      She says it because she believes it. Because she’s young and the young are often firmly convinced of things they’ll change their minds on in later years.

      Like you were.

  162. Grethelwveir

    I’m seeing Amber’s face in these panels, and I’m realizing that four out of the six people in that room have harmful issues they are trying to change in themselves. Ruth is trying to change the outwardly destructive ways she deals with her depression. Amber is trying to change how little she can control her violent temper. Joyce is trying to fix the bigotry she supported for years. Billie is trying change how unstable and dependent she is. And I can’t imagine that Rachel’s words aren’t being internalized by all of them. “I’ll always be someone to fear.” “I’ll always be dangerous.” “I’ll never do enough to atone.” “I’ll always be a train wreck.” The only person there who’s NOT going to change, is the unrepentant Mary.

    1. Fox

      Exactly, she is hurting everyone except the most awful person in the room, Mary, who doesn’t care who she hurts. Ruth was awful and abusive, but no one deserves to be told they can’t get better. That’s the exact reason Leslie called out Roz in class and Leslie was right, you can be mad about the bad they did, but it’s unfair and unreasonable to be nasty to them for trying to do better.

  163. Wyrm

    Oh, ouch. A harsh college-aged girl named Rachel saying that redemption is just a story and people don’t change? Were you a fly on the wall of my life while you wrote this strip?

  164. Deviant

    A speech worthy of a batman villain.

  165. rectilinearpropagation

    I can’t imagine coming off of a suicide watch and not only getting immediately shat upon in general but specifically told that 1) you’re an awful person for being mentally ill in the first place and 2) you can’t change.

    I mean, is the idea to send her right back into a hospital? WTF?!

    Seriously, what is Rachel hoping to gain from saying this to her? What is her desired outcome?

    1. rectilinearpropagation

      (Doing the “Roll Credits” joke felt inappropriate.)

    2. 3-I

      Seriously. SERIOUSLY.

  166. Orion Fury

    Wow. Just, wow.

  167. Adam

    Apropos of subject…
    https://youtu.be/rzJ21OpFnZ0

  168. Adam

    Funny Ruth was always given every benefit of the doubt by most fans. Even when she didn’t seem to deserve it, and we couldn’t yet see the full cause s and trigger s for her Behavior.
    ( I assumed people were just invested in the previous character ) . On the other hand, this is the worst thing Rachel has said or or done. And unlike Ruth, most of this Rant is fully justified. Where she goes too far, her emotions are justified. Rachel has made it clear what she expects from Ruth before she will entertain this conversation: accountability; she expects Ruth to resign. Rachel doesn’t know Ruth Tried to resign and is being punished. Ruth is still an undeserving Authority figure who abused power. a

    1. 3-I

      Rachel was already told Ruth didn’t want this job and refused to listen in a prior strip, so, uh…

    2. Adam

      And is seemingly using cheap forgiveness to go back to a status Quo she isn’t entitled to.

      I think Ruth is sincere, but sincere apologies from alcoholic abusers have the shelf life of opened milk. Ruth has a right to ask forgiveness. But not as Authority Figure who simultaneously needs respect and sensitivity .
      It’s awful Ruth was suicide watch, but it’s unfair to expect a role reversal from her charges, while she’s in Authority. That’s evidence she can’t do her job.

      This is the first time Ruth was called out just by an equal for her Behavior. ( As apposed to Juniors, Seniors, or Abuse from her grandfather . ) It’s harsh. But not unwarranted. I think Rachel deserve s the same benefit of the doubt as Ruth.

      1. Fart Captor

        Ruth has not asked for forgiveness. She even explicitly acknowledged in yesterday’s strip that she understood an apology wasn’t going to be enough for Rachel, and the unfairness that she still has her job in the strip before that. She pretty clearly doesn’t even expect forgiveness.

        Admittedly, Rachel is under no obligation to trust a word of it, but I think the vast majority of people who are pissed off at Rachel are well aware that she has very good reasons to be angry with Ruth. Many (including myself) have explicitly said as much.

        But even if her anger is justified, there’s collateral damage from her words. Amber, Joyce, and Billie have all struggled trying to become better people, and have all caused harm in the past to people they care about, which they deeply regret. Rachel’s words are definitely hitting Amber right now.

        And as much as Ruth truly has earned this level of anger, and it’s understandable that Rachel is too mad to think about the fallout, that’s still harmful to people who don’t deserve it in any way.

        Plus the timing and exact words she’s using are really damn awful, considering Ruth was under a suicide watch only this morning. That doesn’t mean Rachel should have to wear kid gloves and keep quiet, but this is cringey at best.

        If she’d told Ruth “there’s nothing you can do that will convince me you’ve changed”, “you’re full of shit and should’ve been fired”, or simply “fuck you, you abusive asshole”, I would have been 100% cool with that. All those things would’ve been justified.

        Hell, even if she’d said exactly this, but waited a couple days, I would at least have been less mad about it.

        Like, I’m sure Rachel isn’t some inhuman monster. She’s probably a good person overall. But right now she’s being an asshole.

    3. rectilinearpropagation

      No, this specific rant from Rachel isn’t justified at all.

      Because Rachel isn’t complaining about accountability or authority here. She’s telling a suicidal person that they can’t change.

      You are likely right about *why* she said it but that doesn’t change what actually came out of her mouth.

  169. Lorien Inksong

    While I entirely understand Rachel’s anger here its really shitty of her to say that redemption isn’t real. If we condemned every person who ever did something cruel or petty we’d all be damned. This sort of attitude doesn’t benefit anyone.

    (Though I do think the ‘camera’ turning to Roz at the end was a nice touch. I’m not sure if she can really change yet, but I hope so.)

  170. JohnnyO

    Rachel is getting real personal about this and she’s being extremely unforgiving and extreme. It makes me wonder if she’s dealt with abuse in her own past.

  171. a person

    and this is why things like the death penalty still exist… sheesh. what a horrible outlook on life. dont care what happened to you. The idea that “bad people always stay bad” is pretty extreme. Never have i seen college kids take an RA so dang seriously. emphasis on KIDS. (yes i m aware this i a work of fiction but dang.) She’s an RA who was kind of a jerk, not a murderer or a rapist. let her make some mistakes and get on with her life like every other human being ever.

  172. Ferret

    Speaking as a former shitty person who worked really hard to stop being shitty… fuck you Rachel. Someone release the Billy.

  173. Jay Carr

    Bullshit

  174. Josh Spicer

    Oh I disagree. I disagree entirely.

  175. smolgrlboi

    gaaahhh I can be such a Rachel and I feel called out by this comic thank you willis (that is sincere I should work on this)

  176. Nezumi

    … When did Rachel turn into an abusive monster projecting all over everyone else?

    1. BP

      Sometimes it doesn’t take much to remind someone of an awful situation, and make them warp back in their heads to that moment and say what they wished they’d said then.

  177. gaeila

    Redemption is real. It’s just rare. Most human beings deep down don’t really want to change. Even if one has an epiphany and does want to change, change is usually very, very difficult. Humans have a very tough time overcoming “code” or “script” aka learned behavior that’s instilled at young ages. Particularly, the FIRST time a child has a new experience, code is input, and tends to stay there. If the child has the same experience over and over, that reinforces that code until it’s almost hard-wired. As an adult, it’s extremely difficult to change this code aka early learned behavior. It takes time and hard work.

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