287

Covertly
Posted on June 15, 2017 by David M Willis

287 thoughts on “Covertly”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    not enough sleep in the world to make me not want to punch something

    1. Ryek Hvek

      “Punch the world, I want to get off.”

    2. Artemis

      I don’t remember where the quote is from but it seems apt.

      “When life gives you lemons, you don’t make lemon juice, you strangle life for giving you fucking lemons!”

    3. Raibean

      not enough lack of sleep in the world to make me eat at arby’s

      1. Sephiroth144

        Tonight at arbys: no one cares. Kill. Die. OD. Sleep over. Whatever. We can’t express this enough: we don’t care.

        Eat Arbys

  2. Emperor Daniel

    When the sun boils the oceans to ash, then you have my permission to make them miss you.

    1. Joe Covenant

      “*I* could boil the oceans to ash?”

      “This ISN’T helping!”

  3. DarkoNeko

    Easy there, tiger

    1. TheAnonymousGuy

      I still find it odd that billies so okay with being moved like this

      1. zoelogical

        i feel like she was underwhelmed by how little of a queen bee she was in this floor.

        and, also, coming up right smack dab against the very personal family drama that is rooming with Sal.

        but like also she’s had bigger things to worry about than getting moved

        1. TheAnonymousGuy

          “Sir” said it himself. Moving billie was basically a power play to keep hold over ruth and keep any outside influences from helping her, just like back home with that guy and Howard.

        2. zoelogical

          yeah

          but like this is also the price of getting to continue to date Ruth for Billie. because Billie has no intention of moving meaning she can’t date her girlfriend.

          i don’t know what Clint’s contingency plan was for this, but Billie’s a very determined girl and he does not have any authority over her

        3. Tgape

          More specifically, according to the likely dormitory rules, once Billie moves, there’s no problem with her dating Ruth. So she can officially move, then move back in with Ruth once and for all. No problem. I don’t see why they’re making a big deal of it. The rule is really there to protect Billie and ensure she has somewhere to go if she needs to get away from Ruth.

        4. Roborat

          Yup, that is my read too, if she is moved, there is no need to keep things secret anymore.

        5. Liliet

          ^^^ this

        6. Temperaryobsessor

          Of course he said it himself. With a few words even if Ruth knows objectively that its what the school needs to do to give her permission to date Billie it now feels like their being torn apart.

      2. Pat

        It’s not like it’s a punishment. It’s explicitly so that she and Ruth can continue their relationship without breaking any rules. Was she that attached to her room? She barely used it anyway.

        1. Heavensrun

          Sal -is- going to have to worry about her new roommate finding out she’s Amazi-girl, tho.

        2. Clif

          All problems can be solved with high enough defenstration.

      3. Needfuldoer

        She’s being moved, not banned from the floor, so she’ll just have a commute to participate in the plot now.

        1. Kryss LaBryn

          Not even much of a commute; now she can openly sleep over with Ruth whenever she likes. She can even bring clothes over for a few night’s stay.

          As long as she still does laundry in the other wing, and maintains that as her “official” address, I personally don’t see any reason why she shouldn’t be able to sleep over pretty much all the time–although I guess that “Guests can only stay for four nights” thing means she’d need to crash back at home every fifth night, which isn’t too big a compromise for being able to stop hiding the relationship. 😀

  4. Andy

    That sigh physically shows her bubble being burst. I love that.

  5. AutobotDen

    Joyce will miss her. But she’ll still be nice to whoever moves into the room next, because that’s just how she is.

  6. Tacos

    Quick! let’s post the most nihilistic things we can think of before asking people to eat Arby’s.

    1. Reltzik

      Eat at Arby’s.

      Eat at Arby’s.

      1. Emperor Daniel

        Ryan’s dead.

        Eat Arby’s.

      2. Doctor_Who

        Can’t top that.

    2. John

      donald trump is president of the united states

      eat at arby’s

      1. Reltzik

        You too can be like Donald Trump.

        Eat at Arby’s.

        (Works whether or not Trump actually eats at Arby’s.)

      2. Dana

        That was below the belt.

        1. John

          Well, Tacos did say “the most nihilistic things we can think of”.

      3. Pablo360

        Donald Trump could literally pardon himself and everyone involved for the Russia scandal and the GOP-dominated Congress wouldn’t lift a finger.

        Eat at Arby’s.

        1. TheStranger

          If the President pardons himself for crimes committed, does the Congress have the Constitutional authority to impeach for those crimes after the fact?

          That would be the Constitutional crisis to end all crises, I think.

          (Eat at Arby’s.)

        2. Reltzik

          Impeachment is a bureaucratic procedure and not a criminal prosecution. Just like if you commit a crime your boss can fire you for it and that’s separate from whether you get put on trial by the law. But because Trump’s party controls a majority, they’d let him get away with it, and new precedent would be established.

          Eat at Arby’s.

        3. thejeff

          “he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.”

        4. Pablo360

          Granted, the courts could throw that out. But he basically also owns the Supreme Court, so

        5. Deanatay

          Except that President Ford pardoned ex-President Nixon, so that isn’t true.

        6. thejeff

          Technically, Nixon wasn’t impeached. He resigned when it became apparent the House would impeach him and the Senate would convict. Ford pardoned him to avoid any criminal trials following his resignation.
          As I read it though, even if he been impeached Ford could have done the same thing (or Nixon himself could have, before his removal), but that would only have affected criminal proceedings.

          I think the point is that the President cannot use the pardon power to prevent removal by impeachment – either of himself or others. He can use it to remove criminal penalties, even in cases that also involved impeachment.

        7. Tarmaniel

          Impeachment isn’t a criminal trial, Congress can impeach for literally any reason. All impeachment does is remove you from office, it doesn’t send you to prison.

          If Trump were to be impeached, he could theoretically then be prosecuted for any crimes he committed as President, but unless some hard evidence of the Russia collusion turns up there really aren’t any at this point. “Trump obstructed justice” is fairly dumb in the abstract, Trump literally can not commit the crime of obstruction of justice no matter what he does, as he’s the executive and has absolute authority over what the Justice Department investigates. Congress can impeach him for “obstruction of justice,” but that’s totally meaningless in an actual criminal trial because Congress can impeach him because they don’t like his tie color.

        8. hof1991

          Nope, the Justice Department doesn’t work for the president. They take an oath of office, but to the consitution, not the president. Firing those who are investigating you is a crime. That Congress is complicit in the crime doesn’t make it not a crime, one that he can go to jail for. Just not while he is still in office. And everyone short of him can go to jail for assisting him.

        9. Schol-R-LEA

          Keep in mind, one of the reasons that the Clinton trail stalled, even after he was impeached, was because Larry Flynt offered up to $1 million a pop for dirt on every GOP senator who voted for the impeachment. According to him, by the end of the year he had enough material to send not only them, but every single Senator and Rep, along with Clinton and everyone in his Cabinet, to jail for life.

          This was almost certainly an idle boast, but that threat, along with the large number of other folks digging into things on both sides of the aisle, was a significant factor in scaring off not just that proceeding, but the current investigation as well (as a lot of the same people who were in Congress 20 years ago still hold office).

        10. Schol-R-LEA

          (Of course, dirt – or at least things that are ‘dirty’ – is something Flynt specialized in, so maybe…)

          There were other factors, of course, and that wasn’t the biggest one; the real kicker was that the impeachment vote was so narrow that the GOP leaders weren’t sure they could carry a conviction, which keep in mind would have been tried by the Supreme Court with Congress as the jury. Still, there are plenty of people who know where the bodies are buried.

          Getting 500 career criminals to convict one of their own? Not easy. Could they do it with an alleged (but not really in any real way) outsider like Trump? Uh… actually, that’s even less likely. Too many toes to step on for anyone’s liking (Trump is in Construction… think about who the people are who keep bankrolling him after he threw away more than twice as much as he inherited, and are able to keep up the illusion of his nonexistent status as a billionare). Basic survival – not just political, but actual staying alive survival – trumps political partisanship (pardon the pun).

        11. begbert2

          Wait wait wait – did you just (strongly) imply that Trump would put out mob hits on any congressmen who dared to participate in a trial against him?

          How can something sound both batshit paint-eating insane and strangely plausible at the same time?

        12. PlainMarie

          Well, that is depressing. I’d like to think at least half of my senators and reps would not sink to that level to get where they are. Or one of my local reps who I think is aiming at the Senate for someday.

        13. Deanatay

          Unfortunately, ‘both batshit paint-eating insane and strangely plausible at the same time’ pretty much describes the entire Trump presidency.

        14. Marsh Maryrose

          And if President Trump were impeached and removed from office, President Pence would probably offer him a preemptive pardon. And if Pence were also impeached and removed from office, President Ryan would probably offer him a preemptive pardon too.

          And yes, President Paul Ryan is a possibility. Eat at Arby’s.

        15. Schol-R-LEA

          Actually, it doesn’t even do that; it just removes the official privilege of immunity from prosecution. Removal from office would have to come after an actual conviction, and then would require a separate vote. I seem to recall that at least some Congresscritters have continued to hold their elected positions after being impeached and convicted.

        16. thejeff

          I don’t think that’s a separate vote, though I’m not 100% sure. Near as I can tell, a conviction means removal. There may be a separate vote to bar them from holding (any?) office again. It’s possible that’s what you’re thinking off.

          Near as I can tell, no Congresscritters have been impeached as Congresscritters. One Judge, Alcee Hastings, was impeached and subsequently won a seat in the House.

        17. hof1991

          If the president is part of a conspiracy (money laundering) then he can not pardon his co-conspirators. Once he is notified that he is under investigation, he is not allowed to pardon those that conspired with him. He is, he is and he can’t. Even Pence, who may be part of the consiracy, may not be able to pardon him.

          With Ford and Nixon, Ford stayed out of everything which then allowed him to pardon Nixon.

        18. Schol-R-LEA

          IIRC, it wasn’t so much that he stayed out of it, as he wasn’t there for it in the first place. He succeeded Agnew (who resigned over a different scandal) after the events that led to the investigation, (I’m not sure, but he might even have taken office after the investigation began – under his own auspices as Speaker of the House).

        19. Woobie

          Where is the pardon limited like that?

        20. thejeff

          It’s not, as far as I know. Other than by tradition, which no longer applies.

          The President can use his executive authority to halt or interfere with investigations under the Department of Justice, even if they’re aimed at him or his close associates. It was assumed that if this was done inappropriately Congress would assert its authority and impeach him for that abuse of power. Checks and balances. A political remedy for a political problem.

          Such norms no longer appear to hold.

    3. Passchendaele

      You can only force others to miss the ones you love. And you’ll eventually die too, with nobody caring enough to take over for you.

      eat. arby’s.

    4. Kernanator

      You will never achieve your dreams because you are forever trapped within a single year centered on you college life.

      Eat at Arby’s.

    5. Pablo360

      Everything you do to keep yourself alive is staving off the inevitable, and everything you do that doesn’t keep you alive is even more futile than that.

      Eat at Arby’s.

    6. Pablo360

      In a few billion years all traces of humanity on the cosmos are likely to have been obliterated and nobody will mourn our passing.

      Eat at Arby’s.

    7. kkiten

      Is that a nightvale reference? Or just a meme?

      1. Kernanator

        It’s a reference to the Nihilist Arby’s Twitter account.

        https://twitter.com/nihilist_arbys

      2. Tacos

        It’s a reference to Nihilist Arby’s.
        https://twitter.com/nihilist_arbys

    8. Pablo360

      You will never have everything you want, and if you ever do you will not be satisfied because you will have nothing to strive towards.

      Eat at Arby’s.

    9. Pablo360

      Human-caused climate change has inexorably accelerated the end of the global ice age such that within a couple hundred years the Earth may be mostly uninhabitable to us even if we completely stop our continued assault on the atmosphere.

      Eat at Arby’s.

    10. Pablo360

      If this is the ultimate version of reality, then when you pass there will be nothing for you. If it is not, then whoever made it doesn’t care enough to rescue you.

      Eat at Arby’s.

    11. Pablo360

      The only way you can ever be guaranteed to meet your own expectations of yourself is if you lower your expectations to the extreme, in which case you will never feel satisfied about meeting them.

      Eat at Arby’s.

    12. Pablo360

      You can neither relive your good moments or take back your bad ones.

      Eat at Arby’s.

    13. Pablo360

      You are, mathematically speaking, almost entirely empty space, just discrete pinpricks, and are no more than an emergent property of quarks, gluons, and electrons behaving according to laws nobody fully understands.

      Eat at Arby’s.

    14. Pablo360

      The secrets of Greek fire are lost forever. Even if we were to re-create it, we would not know that we did. The same fate awaits all the creations of humankind.

      Eat at Arby’s.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        Okay, but this means future civilisations will be able to invent pizza, over and over again, until the end of all life.

        1. Pablo360

          But that also means they will continually invent new ways to ruin perfectly good pizza crust, over and over and over again, until the universe is nothing but endless black holes.

        2. BBCC

          So long as some civilization or other eventually ‘forgets’ to put cheese on their pizza recreation, I’ll be happy.

        3. Rukduk

          Define “ruin” in relation to pizza. Because I have never found a pizza I did not enjoy. Charred crust? Still good pizza. Undercooked? Still good pizza. Too much cheese? No such thing. Too much sauce? No such thing. Imbalanced sauce to cheese ratio? It’s still damn good pizza. Weird Greek goat cheese and olive oil pizza? Hey, it’s original way of making pizza before tomato sauce was a thing. Hawaiian pizza? I don’t fall into the category of people who find that disturbing so I really don’t understand the big fuss. Olive, ancove, pineapple, and peppers without meat but with mushrooms in the sauce for some reason? Disturbing yes, but also surprisingly satisfying. The point is, I have honestly no idea as to how one would ruin a pizza.

        4. BBCC

          My friend said pizza without cheese was an atrocity. He ate it, but he complained the entire time.

        5. Rukduk

          Seriously? While I personally do enjoy cheese on my pizza, I can most definitely see the appeal of pizza without cheese and have definitely enjoyed cheeseless pizza in the pass.

        6. BBCC

          I can’t eat cheese (allergic to the mould in it), so for me, pizza is sauce covered crust and a lot of pepperoni. I guess the lack of cheese makes it hotter, because that’s what he picked to complain about. XD We were hanging out at my boyfriend’s house, the three of us and his roommate, and we decided to order pizza for dinner. We were gonna get two, one for me and one for the guys, but I was the one who ended up buying, so I just got the one. My boyfriend and my friend’s roommate both ate it, but my friend labelled it an atrocity.

          I feel like I should note now that when I say ‘complained’ I mean the joking kind of complaining that makes me laugh.

        7. vlademir1

          @BBCC Sorry to hear about that food allergy. As much as so many of the rest of us in the world enjoy cheese it’s got to be at least as tough as a nut allergy to deal with.
          That said, and purely out of personal curiosity, have you tried any of the vegan cheese alternatives? There are several that are quite good (unfortunately none I’ve seen that are commercially produced mind) and even a couple that work as a mozzarella replacement for stuff like pizza.

        8. BBCC

          Eh, as long as I don’t eat it, I’m good. So I won’t have a bad reaction if I smell cheese on someone’s breath or if my boyfriend eats it and then kisses me.

          I’m not sure about vegan cheese. The part I’m allergic to is the mould, not the dairy. And I tend to distrust things that claim not to be ‘real’ cheese due to lack of dairy because some of them have given me a reaction, while others don’t – for instance, Doritos, cheesies, and crunchits, don’t have mould so I can eat those (though there was a period a couple years ago where they switched to real cheese and I did have a bad reaction, so that sucked. It seems they’ve gone back on that lately, though, whatever they claim, because it no longer bugs me). Regardless, I tend to stay away from anything calling itself cheese, because I don’t want to take the chance and then end up puking my guts out the next day.

        9. Kryss LaBryn

          Hey, BBCC, if you can’t eat cheese due to the mould in there (or maybe the rennet that is used to curdle the milk?), did you know you can make cheese at home without it? Just need milk, vinegar, and salt, and it takes about ten minutes. I’m told it melts beautifully and tastes good, and if you’re okay with those ingredients you could use that on your pizza if you liked! It’s a very similar recipe to mozzarella, just using the vinegar (which apparently one can’t really taste) instead of the rennet.

          Here’s a how-to video:

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdG21HTn-jE

          🙂

        10. John

          You can use pretty much any acid, I guess. At a recent SCA event, I took a hands-on class on cheese-making, and we made a cottage-cheese-like cheese using lemon juice to curdle it. The lemon juice gave it a slight but noticeable lemony flavor. It was pretty good. The tricky part is you need to tightly control the milk temperature, and most kitchen thermometers don’t work in the right range.

          We tried making a mozzarella with rennet, too, but it refused to set properly.

          Unfortunately, the handout from that class isn’t in an easily linkable format.

        11. BBCC

          Interesting! I’m not in a rush to try cheese, but it sounds like fun for a rainy day. Thank you!

        12. Halpful

          mmm, acid 😉

          now I wanna try that with apple cider vinegar 🙂

        13. Marsh Maryrose

          You say “pizza without cheese,” I say focaccia. Although focaccia can have cheese without being pizza, so I’d say that pizza is a subset of focaccia.

      2. Chris Phoenix

        Our works have all faded, our kings but a list
        The faintest of ghosts, we won’t even be mourned.
        It was by creation we hoped to persist
        Yet all we created is shattered and scorned.

        What has become of the tablets of law
        Broken to shards that no whisk will reveal
        Clay that our scholars once studied with awe
        Dust ground to dust by a plundering heel!

        From “O Sumer” by Cat Faber, poet and songstress extraordinare

        1. Chris Phoenix

          Oh yeah – and eat at Arby’s.

        2. Marsh Maryrose

          Adieu, farewell earth’s bliss!
          This world uncertain is:
          Fond are life’s lustful joys,
          Death proves them all but toys.
          None from his darts can fly; 5
          I am sick, I must die—
          Eat at Arby’s,

        3. John

          What was she doing when it blew in
          Over the seven hills, the red furrow, the blue mountain?
          Was she arranging cups? It is important.
          Was she at the window, listening?
          In that valley the train shrieks echo like souls on hooks.

          That is the valley of death, though the cows thrive.
          In her garden the lies were shaking out their moist silks
          And the eyes of the killer moving sluglike and sidelong,
          Unable to face the fingers, those egotists.
          The fingers were tamping a woman into a wall,

          A body into a pipe, and the smoke rising.
          This is the smell of years burning, here in the kitchen,
          These are the deceits, tacked up like family photographs,
          And this is a man, look at his smile,
          The death weapon? No one is dead.

          There is no body in the house at all.
          There is the smell of polish, there are plush carpets.
          There is the sunlight, playing its blades,
          Bored hoodlum in a red room
          Where the wireless talks to itself like an elderly relative.

          Did it come like an arrow, did it come like a knife?
          Which of the poisons is it?
          Which of the nerve-curlers, the convulsors? Did it electrify?
          This is a case without a body.
          The body does not come into it at all.

          It is a case of vaporization.
          The mouth first, its absence reported
          In the second year. It had been insatiable
          And in punishment was hung out like brown fruit
          To wrinkle and dry.

          The breasts next.
          These were harder, two white stones.
          The milk came yellow, then blue and sweet as water.
          There was no absence of lips, there were two children,
          But their bones showed, and the moon smiled.

          Then the dry wood, the gates,
          The brown motherly furrows, the whole estate.
          We walk on air, Watson.
          There is only the moon, embalmed in phosphorus.
          There is only a crow in a tree. Eat at Arby’s.

        4. John

          (apologies to Sylvia Plath)

    15. Artemis

      No matter what you do, or how much you accomplish in your life, history will forget you.

      Eat at Arby’s

    16. Rukduk

      The only thing worse than dining on ashes is eating at Arby’s.
      …
      I no longer have the money to afford the local ashes.
      Eat at Arby’s.

    17. vlademir1

      Any action you may take, including failing to act, will do nothing to cease the suffering of anything in the universe and the only exit from this cycle is absolute oblivion.
      Eat at Arby’s.

    18. Sam

      No matter how much you try to idiotproof an idea or invention, there will always be people that manage to kill someone else or themselves with it or injure someone else or themselves with it. It is unavoidable and you will be blamed for it by parents that weren’t supervising their children and people that threw the instructions on a bonfire instead of reading them even though they hacked off the safety measures designed to protect them like mindless children.

      Eat at Arby’s.

    19. Reltzik

      This wave of almost-ironic nihilism is the closest to fun that we are capable of achieving in this moment.

      Eat at Arby’s.

    20. a/snow mous/e

      @nihilist_arbys reference? :p

      1. a/snow mous/e

        oh the ONE DAY i don’t read the alt-text

    21. K the Nerd

      You will be outlived by many organisms that existed before you were born… unless you aren’t.

      Eat at Arby’s.

    22. K the Nerd

      No matte how objectively good Wonder Woman is, it still won’t dissuade those who fervently object to non-cis-male-led stories.

      Eat at Arby’s.

    23. K the Nerd

      People who belong to multiple groups often considered to be distinct or opposed can feel that they don’t truly belong to any of them.

      Eat at Arby’s.

      1. Halpful

        this is seriously getting depressing. :/ like, actual depression not just sad.

        1. K the Nerd

          Sorry; not trying to exacerbate any sort of mental illness. The one you commented on was kind of a Take That! at myself.

        2. Clif

          this is seriously getting depressing. :/ like, actual depression not just sad.

          Eat at Arby’s.

          Fixed that for you.

          (Also hugs).

    24. K the Nerd

      These jokes are simply forced smiles that are unconvincing attempts meant to hide our deep-seated pain.

      Eat at Arby’s.

  7. Reltzik

    And once again, Billie refuses to acknowledge Walky’s friendship.

    …. also, doesn’t she now get to spend most her nights sleeping in Ruth’s room ANYWAYS?

    1. Fart Captor

      Ruth seems to be the only person she can believe really cares about her right now :[

    2. BBCC

      I believe Ruth meant her wing, which Walky isn’t part of.

    3. Sam

      Ruth meant the wing which Walky isn’t part of. Billie really isn’t friends with anyone except Joyce in their wing and Sal (I guess?).

    4. Deanatay

      NOOOOO Walky might have to walk ten minutes to see Billie NOOOOOO

      FRIENDSHIP OVER

  8. Shiro

    No, Ruth. That’s back to where we were before, and that is bad.

  9. Fart Captor

    Aww, Billie <3

    You know you can't escape Joyce that easily

    1. Doctor_Who

      She will teleport across campus at the crack of dawn each morning to wake you up with her 600 watt smile and the blue eyes that stare into your very being.

      Seriously, Joyce must have grown up on Arrakis to have eyes like that. Her psychic powers are phenomenal. She’d be the Kwisatz Haderach, but it doesn’t gel with her religion.

      1. Roborat

        Every time I see those eyes I think of Carol from Tomo Chan wa Onnanoko.

  10. Solenoid

    Some days it feels like we’ve already passed by the heat death of the Universe of Things that Matter.

    So sure, make them miss her.

  11. Puckish Rogue

    Like the comic but sometimes I just don’t get the references

    1. Rectilinear Propagation

      If you mean the alt text, it’s a reference to Nihilist Arby’s: https://twitter.com/nihilist_arbys

      1. Puckish Rogue

        Ah ok cool, we don’t get Arbys in NZ so wasn’t sure what it was about

        1. Rukduk

          Trust me on this, you’re missing out on nothing foodwise.

      2. Delicious Taffy

        Was just getting ready to ask about that. Thought I’d missed some new political thing.

  12. John

    I still want Billie to get swapped with Malaya, who is not fond of her current roommate.

    1. Reltzik

      …. so Malaya rooming with Sal?

      That would be awful, by which I mean awesome.

      1. BBCC

        I KNOW, RIGHT?

        I want this so badly.

        Also, Billie discovers Lucy’s love of comics and cartoons. It will be funny on BOTH room’s accounts.

      2. Bagge

        And thus Sal walked out from through the window and was never seen again.

        1. BBCC

          Counterargument: She might actually get to see Marcie if Malaya lives with her.

        2. Reltzik

          That would assume she would spend more time with Malaya and/or at her dorm because of it.

        3. BBCC

          Depends how much she wants to see Marcie, I guess.

        4. Reltzik

          Given that Sal’s aware of Marcie’s intentions and knows better than to be a third wheel…

        5. BBCC

          Sure, but that doesn’t mean she can’t see her when they first get there – unless they show up already making out in which case, yeah, out the window.

      3. thejeff

        Though a Malaya/Billie, Sal/Lucy set up would be fun as well.

        1. showler

          I’d like to see how Joyce feels about being out-cheerfuled.

    2. Fart Captor

      That’d definitely be interesting, but I kinda want Roz and Malaya to switch.

      Mary would absolutely loathe her.

      1. BBCC

        Okay, now I kinda want this too – Malaya’s greatest strength is she simply does not give a flying fuck if people like her or not. She’s Malaya – what does she need your approval for? If you don’t like her, you don’t like her. Whatever, no fucks given. Unlike Roz who tries to argue with her, or Ruth or Carla who have insecurities to grapple at, Malaya would probably shrug at Mary and say ‘Whatevs, Jesus lady, I’m going to roller derby, bye.’ Mary would HATE that.

        Even moreso if/when Marcie and Malaya get together.

        1. BBCC

          Vulnerabilities is a better word than insecurities.

        2. Emily

          Well Ruth has her fair share of both.

    3. Puckish Rogue

      Lucy looks like she’d be a great roommate/girlfriend…we need more Lucy

    4. Cass

      Ooh, maybe they could do a ring of moves: Billie moves in with Lucy, Malaya moves in with Mary, and Roz moves in with Sal. And then we all can be happy that Mary gets stuck with someone who will gladly taken over punching her when she gets too hateful now that Billie’s not allowed.

      1. zoelogical

        what if billie moves in with raidah

  13. Stephen Bierce

    Fee~eelings…wo wo wo…

  14. Passchendaele

    your femurs will rue (ruth?) not missing her!

  15. C.T Phipps

    Ruth, why do you believe violence is not the answer?

  16. achallenger

    ok i was gonna go with an easy ice bear joke bbbut nihilistic arbys always wins

    1. Delicious Taffy

      Ice Bear is fine with moving.

      Eat at Arby’s.

  17. Keulan

    Unfortunately, punching things does not solve every problem.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      This is true. Punches only solve those problems which do not directly result from other punches.

  18. anglebracket

    ?if there’s one thing we learned
    from our oh so silly trip
    it can be explained in three words
    listen to this:
    eat at Arby’s!?

    the flavour text reminded me of a thing.
    https://sulek.bandcamp.com/track/oscar

    1. Some Random Name

      I thought it was a Nihilist Arby’s reference.

      1. anglebracket

        it is. but my brain went here first.

  19. BBCC

    Well, her eyes are green, so that’s good!

  20. Delicious Taffy

    This is a quick reminder of Clint’s idiocy: Billie is fully capable of just walking over to Ruth’s, if she wishes. Couples frequently live in different buildings, towns, states/provinces, and even countries, all without having to stop dating. What, did he expect them both to just forget the other existed, once they stopped living within 50 meters of each other? Fucking. Idiot.

    1. BBCC

      I think he’s banking on Ruth taking the hint that she’s not to see Billie anymore.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        It’s too late. She’s listed as Ruth’s emergency contact. The wedding is next month. Nothing can stop this train, now.

    2. Puckish Rogue

      True but its also a pretty good demonstration that Clint has quite a bit of power, at least enough power to force the college to move Billie at his request

      and if he can do that then what else can he do…

      1. Delicious Taffy

        He can get in the fucking sea, is what he can do.

      2. Bagge

        Yup. The main part is a powerplay and a threat.

        “She will forget about you. She will”.

        He didn’t add the “or else”. He didn’t need to.

      3. Temperaryobsessor

        I’m not sure “Sir” had any say in that. I think he co-opted the school’s plan to cover their own asses to make it seem like the opposite of what it means. Actually it sounded like he was confused about the school’s intent at first. Pudding head essentially told him that the school has no intention of controlling Ruth’s dating life so long as their not under her charge or in charge of her in a way that is related to the school.

    3. Sam

      It is not idiocy. It has absolutely nothing to do with the logistics and logic and everything to do with playing up a minor inconvenience as a major inconvenience so that it weighs on Ruth that she is a burden and turns what would have been a positive action from Billie into something else that just adds to Ruth’s suffering.

      It has far more to do with making it emotionally impactful in the way he desires which is negatively. If he says ‘she’ll forget you’ as if that is the easiest and more obvious response, when Billie doesn’t, it doesn’t matter, as he didn’t actually expect Billie to forget her as that is plain illogical, but for Ruth to feel guilty about the ‘effort’ Billie ‘has to put in’ to ‘resist’ the desire to forget her instead of you know, thinking about how caring and sweet it is if Billie checks in often.

      1. Halpful

        o.0

        …

        thank you for poking a hole in some of the BS that NVoice was pulling on me.

        it really seems to want me to be miserable, to never try or have hope. why is it so full of hate? 🙁

  21. Some Random Name

    Was… was the hover/alt text a Nihilist Arby’s reference???
    …nice.

    1. svata

      Wow. Beat me to it.

  22. Goki

    Sighs, I say this because I know this is not real and all, but I kinda rooted for Ruth when she was able to get the job done, even if she threatened by removing Femurs. Anyone who works with high school or college students knows that if there isn’t an incentive, most students will probably ignore rules, assignments or meetings, even if it is for their own good (example: safety, policies, assault prevention, hotlines and emergency numbers, what to do and not to do on campus, etc.) I know most students would probably be like “Ugh, why can’t they just email or text this information”, well there are no guarantees that they would actually read the info, then the school is in trouble when crap happens. At least with RA meetings they can take attendee and report who was at the meeting and who wasn’t, and if they don’t pay attention, it’s on them. I am sure Ruth adopted her “Ruthless” nature because without it most people probably didn’t listen to her otherwise and that can be so frustrating, especially when you genuinely want to help. It was probably one of the reasons why she was considered one of the better RA’s (according to her), and why her boss gave her so much slack, (which might be the reason why Rachael hates her so much). Anyway, Ruth is going to have a real tough time now and if the girls on the floor feel inclined, things could get so much worse, so I hope the best for her.

    1. zoelogical

      see like…if you have to resort to threatening to remove people’s femurs, it sounds badass but it’s kind of more of an empty threat. because if Ruth ever did actually remove anybody’s femurs, she’d have a hell of a lot of lawsuits on her hands.

      ……….i would argue that if you have to threaten people in order to lead them, you aren’t being a very good leader. IMO the most important part of effective leadership is empowering people to live their lives. if a student skips a nonessential RA meeting in order to study or decompress, that’s not a failure on the part of the RA. that’s a success, because the ultimate goal of the RA is their charges’ wellbeing.

      mandatory RA meetings on the other hand are mandatory because they distribute the kind of information you’re talking about. but even then most people have handouts and emails in addition to the meeting itself, because shit happens. like. one of the first things i learned in communications class is that you have to repeat something about eleven times before it gets properly learned.

      I…really think that there are better incentives for going to mandatory meetings and learning the rules/policies/important phone numbers, like: the consequences of not knowing these things will bite you in the ass later on with a vengeance if you don’t know them.

      I…very honestly believe that if you think that people aren’t listening to you and then resort to yelling at them in order to force them to listen to you, the problem isn’t the people. It’s you. You aren’t taking the time to listen to the people you’re trying to communicate with because you’re so insistent on being heard, and so you have no idea how much is actually getting through. The more you yell, the more you become white noise, and the less effective you become. The more you yell, the less likely it is that people are going to hear anything important you have to say.

      haha I also come from the perspective that Ruth being one of Chloe’s best RAs is more of a symptom of how awful the RA pool is and how little support the RAs actually get, less a symptom of how effective Ruth is. Because Ruth was a terrible RA. Nobody came to her for help when Joyce got assaulted – they felt they had to solve it on their own. She spent far too much time drunk, slept with one of her charges, and then got blackmailed by another. She wasn’t able to protect her floor when they needed it, because she could barely protect herself.

      Leadership through fear is no true leadership, imo. There’s a difference between making people terrified and being willing to do what needs to be done, and Ruth crossed that line in the first meeting. Her biggest failure in leadership is seeming untrustworthy. And to a point? That wasn’t a wrong impression.

      1. thejeff

        Ruth certainly had problems as an RA, but I think you’re kind of overstating what reasonable for an RA to accomplish.
        They didn’t go to her when Joyce was assaulted because Joyce didn’t want it reported for fear of her parents learning and her getting expelled. Ties into the much larger problem of women not reporting rapes (or attempted rapes). Even a hypothetical perfect RA wouldn’t have changed that, since she could really do in that situation was go to the police or the university administration, which was exactly what they didn’t want.

        It’s nice to think that bunch of older teens/young adults will sufficiently self-motivated and aware of long term consequences that they don’t need to be pushed to learn “the rules/policies/important phone numbers” or whatever else the mandatory meetings are for, but it’s unrealistic. Nor can an RA be expected to inspire them to do so in a matter of weeks, especially if she can’t even make them show up.
        I mean, I absolutely agree that threats (and use) of force were wrong, but that doesn’t mean threats of disciplinary action would be.

        And RAs really can’t be expected to be “true leaders”. They’re barely leaders at all really. They’re mostly 19-20 year old kids, with a couple weeks of training. They’re there to disseminate some information, be on the scene to keep things from getting too out of hand and to be the first point of contact if someone has problems. That’s really it.

        And as I understand it, Chloe thought Ruth was the best RA because Ruth kept things under control without bothering her with problems. The other RAs may demand more support from her – coming to her with issues that maybe they could have handled themselves (or maybe shouldn’t have been able to.) Ruth kept everything quiet, intimidated everyone from going over her head, tried to keep a lid on things so no one would see how horrible she was at it and have it all collapse, bringing the wrath of Sir down on her. Chloe should have checked up enough to realize something was wrong, but we’ve seen Chloe and it isn’t surprising. The other RAs probably really are better, but they don’t hide their flaws from management, so they don’t look as good.

        1. zoelogical

          I guess I feel like they didn’t go to Ruth because they fundamentally didn’t trust her. An RA who had taken the time to try and build a trusting relationship with their charges would at least have been someone they could have gone to for advice and after-care and resources, even if Joyce never chose to come forward about her assault. Like – Ruth might not have made that much of a difference, but at least she would have been an authority figure on their side. And like half of what makes trauma traumatizing is not being able to share it with people – trauma is what happens when you can’t integrate parts of your experience with the rest of your experience. Being able to talk to an authority figure about this and have the horror of the experience validated might have made a lot of difference for Joyce.

          I mean. You usually have maybe one or two mandatory meetings a semester, I figure. After that you get what you put into it. So I agree, set up disciplinary consequences for not going to the mandatory meetings, but after that it’s fair game. All the RA really has to be responsible for at that point is making the necessary information available. And then adulthood is about being responsible for that and catching up whatever you’ve missed.

          I just am very strongly against this idea that you have to lead through fear in order to be an effective leader, which is what I felt was being proposed! I think when you get to the point where you’re saying “I have to yell at you because otherwise you won’t listen”, that is fundamentally an abusive stance that places all the responsibility for the actor’s actions on the actee’s response, instead of everybody just being responsible for the things that they actually friggin’ do.

          I think that’s a reasonable analysis of Ruth. idk, I’ve been working with a manager who is very…laissez-faire in her management style. And there are pros and cons – I don’t feel as supported, but I definitely feel more freedom and trust in my position. But also it’s been frustrating because there hasn’t always been someone around I could ask for help when I needed it.

          but idk – it’s also like, the difference between a leader and a manager. A leader has to inspire people towards a common cause. A manager has to empower people to do their best job. The one’s active, and the other’s reactive.

    2. Goki

      The sad part is, I have seen RA’s far worse than Ruth. (This is not a justification, just a statement and I have seen better) You two are right though, it wasn’t so much that she was a good RA as it was she kept “order” on her floor and probably made less problems for her boss.

      Thanks for giving me your thoughts. ^_^ I think we can all agree that Chloe could be better at her job, once again, not the worst, but she could do so much better.

      1. zoelogical

        haha i kinda got…really carried away here, which is probably more than you were Expecting or Needed. i don’t want to make you feel like you were Wrong, At All. i guess i just happened to have some really strong opinions that i needed to flesh out

        but yes, definitely, Chloe could be doing better

  23. newllend(henryvolt)

    Dorothy’s always to busy to notice this.

    Sal is well I don’t know

    She kind of hit the nail on the head with Joyce

    Walky doesn’t even live there himself but I doubt that would stop him from checking up on her.

  24. ZerglingOne

    Ooo…that’s the thing Ruth. Nothing DOES matter. But that’s good news because your transgressions have no bearing on anything. We are but the most significant microbes on a mote of dust floating in a droplet of a solar system within a small lake of a galaxy attached to an unimaginably large ocean of galaxies.

    Cherish your moment of brief consciousness in this universe, but realize that nothing NEEDS meaning to enjoy your time here.

    1. BBCC

      Eat Arby’s.

      1. Rukduk

        Thing is, I kinda think that last sentence seems too cheerful for a proper “Eat at Arby’s”. Then again, what do I know? I didn’t study philosophy.

        1. Emperor Daniel

          Nobody uses philosophy, anyway.

          Eat Arby’s.

        2. Reltzik

          Yeah, that last sentence is less nihilist and more existentialist.

        3. Kamino Neko

          Existentialism is basically nihilism on anti-depressants. :p

  25. Rukduk

    Welp, getting surgery in the morning, probably won’t be around for a couple days. I’m a little torn between getting sleep or hanging here for a few hours. Oh well. See everyone in a couple of days. Or not. Who knows, maybe the surgeon will sneeze and slice my trachea instead of my thyroid. Also, I don’t care how memetic it is DO NOT eat at Arby’s. The food is even worse than their Niztche worship.
    …
    Eat at Arby’s.

    1. BBCC

      Good luck! You’ve got this! *hugs if wanted*

      1. Rukduk

        Thanks. I’m still a little irrationally worried but, since I recognize it as irrational it’s making it much easier to deal with. Well, the nervous humor helps deal with the irrational anxiety as well, which is kinda weird but also kinda comforting?

        1. BBCC

          I hope all goes well.

    2. Bagge

      Good luck, and look forward to see you back here again.

      1. Rukduk

        Thank you.

    3. Fart Captor

      Good luck!
      And a pro tip in case you end up laid out in bed for multiple days with an IV: elevate your junk. Especially if you can’t lie completely flat. You don’t want to be getting IV fluids for a long period and have that being the lowest point on your body.

      1. Rukduk

        Thanks. I remember having to get surgery at age 8 and I’ve had other surgeries before. So “This ain’t my first time at the rodeo.”
        …
        Sorry. Nervous jokes make me less anxious.

        1. SgtWadeyWilson

          I am now imagining surgery with a bull in place of the operating table, which is either an impressive showcase of skills, or somebody’s worst nightmare.

          Luckily, there’s no way it can go that wrong, so I’ll just look forward to seeing you back.

        2. Fart Captor

          You don’t need to apologize to me for that! Humor is how I deal with pretty much everything. Taking the edge off is worth risking the occasional awkward moment.

    4. Cerberus

      Good luck! *hugs offered*

      1. Rukduk

        Thank you.

    5. Halpful

      Good luck! And bring books, IME hospitals have lots of waiting.

      1. Rukduk

        Thank you. I’ve got a couple picked up just in case.

        1. BBCC

          The longer the better, tbh. I was in the hospital for a week last year and I brought two. One I got through the first day or two, and my parents brought me the third book in A Song of Ice and Fire. Did the trick – it was over a thousand pages. So, yes, wordier the better.

        2. thejeff

          Oh god yes. Last time I was in the hospital it was an emergency and I had nothing. No books, nothing to read or do. I had my phone, but no charger.

          Luckily it was only overnight, but still …

        3. Kamino Neko

          You had nobody who could bring you anything? Whenever I’m in hospital, I have stuff (books, my tablet, cards, drawing materials, etc) brought in as soon as I know I’m being admitted.

        4. thejeff

          Not conveniently. If I’d been there longer, I would have arranged something.

          I also didn’t know I was being admitted to well after the fact. Kind of.
          Bike accident with short term memory loss. Don’t remember anything from sometime before the accident until after I’d been in the ER for a few hours.
          Apparently I made it the rest of the way into work and passed for normal (if a bit banged up) for a little while before it got to odd and they took me in.

          No apparent lasting effects though.

        5. Kamino Neko

          I suppose the fact that I’m in hospital so much (week+ stays on average about once every year and a half for the last decade and change) changes my perspective on it…

        6. Rukduk

          Welp, I’m still waiting. And waiting. It’s 1:46 pm my time. Surgery got delayed. I’m not really upset, because the reason for said delay is that most of the surgeons are dealing with the results of a major traffic accident and pile up. Hope these new patients get taken care of well. I’m fine with being triaged till later. Might not actually get seen until tomorrow, but that’s fine. I got my copy of The Lord of the Rings and my copy of the Silmarillion as well as a very well done historical book on Genghis Khan, which is part biography, part examination of the Mongol Empire’s role in creating the modern world. Plus, get to give you all one last update.

        7. thejeff

          Hope it goes well.

          That reading material would keep even me busy for a few days. 🙂

    6. zoelogical

      Good Luck!!

      …haha the only good thing i’ve ever had at arby’s has been their fries and their jamocha shakes

      1. Rukduk

        1. Thank you very much.
        2. …I’ve never heard of a jamocha shake.

        1. zoelogical

          aw man they’re amazing. chocolate and coffee shake. mmmmm

          my meds don’t mix well with coffee so i haven’t been able to have any in AGES

    7. vlademir1

      I somehow missed this on my first pass through the comments earlier. I hope everything works out well for ya.

    8. JBento

      Good luck!

    9. Roborat

      We are all rooting for you. And think of the backlog to get to read when you get back.

      1. Rukduk

        Thanks, although I’m probably going to have a couple “Oh this motherfu-” reactions to some of the comments since I’ll miss the next three or four strips and something big is going to happen with the comments in that amount of time.

    10. Rukduk

      Update, surgery is currently delayed because of the results of a bad traffic accident and pile up, probably won’t get seen until tomorrow. Still gives me time to give all of you a big “Thank you” for your support and well wishes.

  26. Bagge

    I will be honest – I will gush over whoever the hell replaces Billie

  27. Eukie

    Ah, there’s the Ruth I love. <3

  28. Cerberus

    Comic Reactions:

    Panel 1: It’s moments like this that make me temporarily forget the origins of this relationship and just quietly adore it without reservations. Like, this thing, two damaged broken people trying to reach out and support each other and check in while just barely holding on themselves, that’s my relationships often times and especially lately thanks to Trump.

    Just holding on by the skin of our teeth, but trying to reach out, trying to be there for each other. I dunno, it’s not much, but it’s something important and seeing Ruth and Billie do it is just all sorts of heart-warming.

    Panel 2: And Ruth has no time for Billie’s dodge of focusing on the physical to evade the question of the psychological. Though if Billie wanted to disguise it, she might want a little less of an obvious tell.

    Panel 3: Billie’s self-esteem is doing… great… But yeah, seriously, this is something I hope gets a bit more focus in the narrative as Billie does her own therapy sessions. That way of looking at herself as worthless and unlovable, as someone everyone will be glad to be rid of. It may not visually look as “severe” as Ruth’s depression, but it is no less self-destructive of a depressive haze.

    Panel 4: Oh, Ruth, you’ll have to find means other than violence to support the woman you love. Have you tried being taken on a car ride by her as you solve the mystery of the spirit vines?

    Panel 5: Someday she’ll find the freedom of rock bottom outside of a “now I get to be violent” lens and it’ll be everything.

    1. John

      Ruth and car rides don’t mix well.

    2. Reltzik

      But yeah, seriously, this is something I hope gets a bit more focus in the narrative as Billie does her own therapy sessions. That way of looking at herself as worthless and unlovable, as someone everyone will be glad to be rid of.

      …… wow. Alice had only, what, five strips? But looking back, that encounter may have had a huge shift on Billie. Or was it something bigger that was growing up until that point?

      1. Cerberus

        I think it was building for awhile, but getting dressed down by a former lover while in a depressive haze with the lover saying how she needed to stay away for their own good and that Billie was toxic as a partner and a friend probably really didn’t help.

        1. Delicious Taffy

          I keep seeing references to Billie and Alice being an item, but I can’t seem to find the strip that actually confirms it. Is this a tumblr thing?

        2. ValdVin

          No, it’s a few strips starting here.

          http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/04-the-whiteboard-dong-bandit/scowl/

        3. Cerberus

          Rereading it, I feel stupid, because I’ve only just now realized that Billie likely interrupted Alice in the middle of a date. Like, Alice when she’s trying to politely dissuade Billie from making herself comfortable keeps specifically saying “both” and “we’re” and her and the short-haired blonde girl who keeps getting cut out of frame are sitting across from each other on one of the smaller more intimate tables.

          Like, probably not an early date in their relationship, but part of what might have made her feel it was too little too late of an epiphany might be that she just tried to reassert an old dynamic with no question or concern that the person Alice was with might be important.

          Heck of all of them, only Joyce seems to recognize that the interaction is more than just Alice and Billie.

          Plus, blonde girl’s pose in panel 2 here: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/04-the-whiteboard-dong-bandit/wally/

          With the fist clenched on the table definitely feels at least to me more “what the fuck and who the fuck is this” than “oh, cool, old friends joining for our hang out, that’s nice”. Especially since in the previous conversation before Billie added herself, blonde girl’s elbows are on the table and her hands are mostly up and concentrating on her… chicken burger? I dunno, I don’t really know Chik-fil-A’s menu because of the whole virulent anti-gay thing.

        4. thejeff

          Hmm. Possible. OTOH, the comic doesn’t really give any importance to the other girl either. She’s mostly out of panel completely, with only a few including even parts of her. Not even a single full face shot.

          They certainly could be a couple and it does add an interesting twist to the scene. I’m not sure it’s very strongly implied in the actual scene.

        5. Kamino Neko

          It’s specifically this strip that makes it explicit. ‘I thought I loved you’ and ‘drama hurricane can be sexually transmitted’ are hard to argue against.

      2. BBCC

        My guess is it had been building for a long time. Possibly related to parental neglect or her taking care of friends in bad situations left her stressed and depressed.

    3. Sam

      Tbh while I do feel sympathy for Billie, I would probably feel more for her if she literally wasn’t a bongo to the people that do care to the point that if I was their friend I WOULD be recommending they drop her (with the exception of Ruth).

      She deserves to feel cared for and like people can love her, but most of the people that care about her also deserve better treatment than she usually gives them.

    4. thejeff

      Ruth has no time for Billie’s dodge, particularly when she’s asking to dodge Billie asking her how she’s feeling.

  29. Ray Radlein

    One thing that gives me life is that the actual Denny’s Twitter account is frequently indistinguishable from Nihilist Arby’s

  30. miados

    I normally feel with my hands.

  31. Reltzik

    ….. okay, I gotta know. A lot of people have been calling Ruth’s hair a “bisexual haircut”.

    …. WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?

    1. zoelogical

      it’s a haircut worn by bisexuals

      http://ukbisexualblog.tumblr.com/post/133933219331/the-bisexual-haircut

      1. Bagge

        Becky: Is that even a thing?
        Danny: Lame. No ukulele.

        1. zoelogical

          Billie: no cowbell

      2. Cerberus

        Yup, it does seem to be the haircut many bisexual women gravitate towards with or without the fictional depictions. My ex got that haircut right after she came out as bi, when the only fictional bi character with any meaningful air time was Jenny and Alice of the L Word.

        Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

      3. TheKelliestKelly

        I remember reading another version of that and laughing because I’ve had that exact hair cut (and am bisexual). Thinking about getting it again too – I don’t know how I used to stand having long hair in hot weather.

      4. Halpful

        haha, that is actually pretty close to my hair right now. except I shaved some bits.

  32. Eldritch Gentleman

    Get that Apocalypse here already so Ruth can satiate her hunger for FEMURS!

  33. Rosstifer

    Is that… an SMBC reference in the hovertext?

    1. Rosstifer

      Oh, turns out it’s referencing a twitter account. I still feel like this comic may have been the influence for the account though: http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id=2805

  34. JessWitt

    Thanks for books 1 to 4, Mr. Willis. I had them ordered through a family friend in the States because international postage is crazy. The bookmark is a nice surprise.

    Next books are targeted for Christmas.

  35. EvolutionistX

    Do they not have cellphones on their campus, such that they can keep in touch with and arrange to have lunch with someone living in a different dorm? Or is there some rule that students can only be friends with people in their own dorm? This conversation is weird.

    1. Eldritch Gentleman

      Well it’s easier to socialize when you live close to someone. Distance and having to schedule meetings puts a strain on relationships.

      1. vlademir1

        That is a strain many of us have had to deal with at much more significant distance (I at one point spent five years involved in a relationship with a woman who lived four hours drive from me for example). The bigger issue here is that Billie is pretty much Ruth’s entire useful support network, and without her nearby Ruth is going to be, in part at any rate, dealing with all the issues that got her to the point of being suicidal before (less those caused by trying to keep that a secret) plus all the new stresses introduced by the fallout from hitting that point.

      2. Delicious Taffy

        Okay, but how big of a distance can there realistically be, if they’re still on the same campus? You don’t have to live within 100 meters of someone to be able to see them without it being a proper inconvenience. If you can get from your place to theirs within half an hour, on foot, there is no major inconvenience to seeing them.

        Like, even when I lived in the same town as my girlfriend, it was either halfway across town or clear on the other side, and we still managed to see each other on a regular basis, with or without a vehicle. Billie being moved to another dorm on the same campus does not deprive Ruth of anything but whatever negligible amount of time it takes for them to walk over to each other’s rooms.

    2. Cerberus

      Well, they’ll probably go back to mostly living with each other again after the move-out, so I think the real element is the psychological effect of it. Like, it’s creating an emotional separation against anyone who isn’t Ruth in Billie’s support network, ensuring that if Billie needs space or Ruth pushes her away she needs to go much farther from Ruth in ways that will not be great for her mental health given how much she freaked out before when they shared the same hall, and Mary will likely nickel and dime them over Billie “always being over here and acting like a resident of the hall” as much as she possibly can as an additional factor.

      1. Marsh Maryrose

        One element of this strip I’m not getting: in the past, Billie had to be covert about staying in Ruth’s room, because their relationship was inappropriate for Ruth as Billie’s RA. But now, their relationship is public, and with Billie on another floor it won’t be inappropriate.

        So: is Billie implying that she still needs to be covert about going into Ruth’s room? If so, why?

        1. Cerberus

          I’m not fully sure. Since they are both students, I don’t think the residency rules trigger in per se and Billie was essentially moved in before, so it might be more the psychological effect of the distancing when her brain is already in “I’m worthless to everyone but Ruth” mode.

  36. ValdVin

    Logistics time: Billie is being moved off the floor. How far away, and did Clint have any influence to make that a much farther place than not?

    My college was nothing like IU in size, and the dorms were largely in one area, so no personal idea of the long walks they’re taking here.

    1. Me

      Yah, I’m kind of having a hard time relating too.

      My whole campus wasn’t that bad of a walk to even the most distant buildings.

      Also, I suspect the rules about visitors staying over may have been much much different. It was pretty much anything goes so long as your roommate is ok with it up to 3 consecutive days. On the fourth day you have to take a day off.

      Couples with roomates who were cool with it could just go back and forth to each other’s rooms. 1-3 days here, 1-3 days there. That of course only applies to overnight stays. During the day you could hang out as much as you like. (provided you don’t flunk your classes of course!) Actually that meant you could bring someone in during the day and just make sure they don’t leave the room from whatever time of evening they started signing people in (I forget exactly) until morning. We had bathrooms for every suite so at most you only had to get one roommate and two suitemates to be ok with it.

      Usually it was the guys who were more ok with their roomates having a girl stay over so we had a lot of over-occupied guy dorms and under-occupied girl ones.

      Visiting each other at my school was so easy I don’t think we would have thought anything at all about getting moved around like that. It would have been a total non-issue. Basically it would be a sentence of having a little walk to the place you store your clothes.

      1. thejeff

        I have no idea what the actual rules for visitors were when I was in college. I’m pretty sure they weren’t enforced unless someone complained. Frankly, I suspect that’s still true most places. In the comic there doesn’t seem to be any official tracking – visitors don’t have to sign in and out, certainly not to the individual floor, so it would be hard for anyone official to know.

        1. ValdVin

          I think I went to college before either of you, and there were fewer rules then.

          Natural outgrowth, I guess: An all-female dorm had the strictest policies on buzzing in/entrance locking/staffed desk, signing in with ID/visiting room ###, etc. And it was the one which ended up least trashed.

    2. Fart Captor

      I think the reason why Billie’s worried is that she’s afraid to let Ruth out of her sight. Living elsewhere (or even maintaining the illusion that she is) would mean more time they’d be apart, and more chances for Ruth to emotionally collapse without Billie being on hand to catch her

  37. CoMa

    I really love Ruth’s expression in this one!

    Completely off topic, but I’d love to have opinions on this from this community, because the discussions here are always very educational and broadening my horizon:
    I had an online discussion with someone who argued that feminism was never about men’s rights, only ever promoting female rights and welfare and that feminists are basically all about pampering women and that women having had to fight for their rights was only feminist propaganda and that women in history had it better, because they could choose to stay at home while men had to do the dangerous, hard, or life-threating labour. While I agreed that both had it bad, I always had understood feminism as being about equality on both sides, and also fighting for male rights, and I personally was agreeing to “both had it kinda bad in their own kind of way and still have” – but he was very sure that much of society’s (gender role related) problems today (different expectations – for women more broadened, and for men still being mainly seen as the provider) being due to feminists propaganda. What threw me off was that even though his argumentation was mostly sound, he hardly ever tried to look into my side of the story (with saying: feminism never was about equality – it’s all feminist propaganda and so on) …

    Any thoughts on the topic of “feminism” as seen from different angles, and not fighting for men’s rights too?
    (even though the discussion grew very complicated, we basically focused on cis white men/women, because that’s basically the group we’re in. I of course do know that there are much more problems and rooms for discussion with regards to personal identity beyond gender roles, nationality, race, religion etc.)

    1. CoMa

      gotta have to edit * both had it bad in their own ways, but I don’t really like comparing hardships because there was or is always one that has had it more bad. I’d rather acknowledge them, than compare.

    2. thejeff

      Sounds like typical MRA propaganda to me.

      In some ways it’s complicated and obviously feminists are mostly focused on women’s issues, but at the same time, it’s largely feminism that’s responsible for the changes in gender roles. As you look back historically male and female roles were more and more constrained – women more obviously and legally, and men more due to social pressure. Men as “house husbands” and primary parents might still get ridicule in some circles, but it would have been completely unheard of and unacceptable in the 50s or earlier.
      Feminist movements have been the primary drive behind those kinds of changes, even if they’re far from complete. So men have benefited in some ways. In other ways, not so much. But that’s to be expected from an equality movement when one group has most of the privileges – equality means they lose some.

      It might also be worth pointing out that it’s been feminists pushing for women taking on more of that “dangerous, hard, or life-threating labour” and men resisting it. The move of women into the military and the recent push to allow them into formal combat roles, for example.

      1. Cerberus

        What thejeff said. This is a pretty standard MRA talking point.

        But as to the substance of it, more well-paying and stable dangerous jobs tend to be men-dominated not because evil feminists encourage women not to apply, but rather because those spaces tend to be actively toxic to women that do apply to them, with many of the industries or institutions being places where sexual harassment or assault is common (see military).

        Nonetheless, it has typically been feminists who have fought hard for women’s inclusion in those spaces. Like, feminist organizations like NOW have fought for years for increased inclusion of women in organizations like the military, trying to get women included in the mostly meaningless “selective service” laws, and for the recognition and support of women already in dangerous male-dominated fields. And the traditional MRA groups who spout this kind of crap tend to be heavily hostile to the idea of women existing at all in men-dominated spaces of any kind, but especially workplaces.

        Additionally, extremely dangerous women-dominated work not only tends to be less well-paid and stable, it’s frequently almost entirely erased and sometimes made illegal. Like, of all jobs, one has the highest rate of being killed on the job or otherwise murdered or assaulted and it’s not a male-dominated field. It’s sex work. Sex workers face huge unnecessary risks because of how that field is set up at the moment and even women in legal sex work tend to be more targeted for assault from entitled customers (see the phenomenon of creepy customers waiting for the stripper to get off work to try and threaten (most likely her) for a date or a fuck).

        For more legal work, you still get the erasure of on-the-job industries in other fields that are woman-dominated, such as nursing, which rivals traditionally dangerous men-dominated fields like construction for on-the-job injuries.

        Not to mention that the MRA groups selling how “dangerous” men-dominated work is tend to be libertarians who actively oppose the enforcement of safety measures in those fields that would make those industries less dangerous. Whereas many feminist organizations also tend to ally themselves to organizations supporting general labor rights including the right of workers to be safe in their workplace no matter where they work.

        Another factor is that part of the reason men-dominated fields have had to actively discourage or fight women entering the often higher paying dangerous men-dominated fields is paternal sexism. Basically this cultural idea that women are weak and fragile and thus can’t be allowed to join the workplace because otherwise they’d “drag everything down”. So hiring biases tend to be common in the field and anyone femme in those industries tends to be harassed and drummed out.

        The bit about women being the ones behind women not working is also rich given that’s been a major platform of most feminist organizations since the 2nd wave and “The Feminine Mystique”. Middle-class women didn’t “choose to stay at home”, they were forced to stay at home, where the value of their labor was erased and they were often cut off from community or even being fully seen as people (more as ancillary accessories of the man, hence Mr. and Mrs. Man’s name).

        It was a bitter decades-long fight to fight for the inclusion of middle-class women* in the workplace and in jobs that were men-dominated and it’s nowhere near done. Heck, most anti-feminist activism is deliberately a backlash against the fact that more and more women are working outside the home and are designed to try and force women back to that “natural role” by any means necessary (including making workplaces hostile to women, harassment of women in the workplace, fighting against laws like equal pay for equal work or the ERA, fighting for the right to discriminate against women employees and applicants, and most crucially, fighting hard against birth control access as they see reproductive control as a crucial factor of why more middle-class women can prioritize a career).

        *I note middle-class women, because the whole “stay-at-home” phenomenon was always a temporary weird blip made possible by the booming economy and middle-class of the 50s and 60s that made it possible for middle-class households to more easily survive on one income. Poor and working class women have always had to work, even when that was heavily restricted, because they didn’t have those luxuries. This was especially true if the women in question were not white. And it’s worth noting that it’s not feminist organizations that are fetishizing this nuclear-family idea of the 1950s and demanding that be brought back by force.

        Additionally, yes, feminism has always had huge benefits for men as part of the movement. Like, feminists are largely responsible for men being able to work in the home if they so choose, for more men’s inclusion in women-dominated work such as secretarial work, nursing, and engineering (yes, engineering used to be women-dominated and shockingly was devalued as “structurally the same as being a secretary” until the field became more men-dominated). Feminists have also fought hard for the allowance of more free gender expression for men, standing behind fights to allow men social space to demonstrate emotions such as sadness, fear, or heartbreak without suffering violence or mockery from other men. And it is largely due to feminism’s successes that there has been more of a space for femme men and those read as such to present themselves without facing violence.

        Again, there have been folks fighting against this and that are openly hostile to the notion of men being allowed any expression beyond a very narrow strip of toxic masculinity and it is not feminists but rather MRA groups and other patriarchal anti-feminist organizations.

        Feminists have also been key to the queer movement with many of the queer movement’s early activists either being openly feminist, coming directly out of feminist movements, or in open support to major feminist goals. Sylvia Rivera and Miss Major Griffin-Gracy were or are lifelong feminists and instrumental at the riot at Stonewall. Brenda Howard, the bi woman who organized the first Pride parade as a response to that was also a lifelong feminist activist. Additionally, a lot of early lesbian activists in general stemmed from the feminist movement including Audre Lorde, Adrienne Rich, Phyllis Lyon, Del Martin, Roma Gay, etc… And a lot of other major queer activists were and are openly feminist such as Cleve Jones and Cecilia Chung.

        And it was feminist organizations and activists who were some of the first to align themselves with the queer movement at times when that was an incredible risk. Like Sally Gearhart who fought alongside Harvey Milk against the horrendous anti-gay Prop 6 or the feminist organizations who stood up for queer rights and political action during the Plague Years.

        In fact, it was this support of queer issues that was partially exploited by homophobes to destroy key feminist legislation like the ERA. Like, Phyllis Schlafly who hard sold the idea that supporting feminism made one a lesbian and that “good women” should reject “immoral” organizations like that.

        Important to note, MRA groups tend to be virulently anti-gay and against queer rights and many anti-feminists go-to attacks against feminist women is the charge that they are “ugly lesbians” who “can’t get a man”.

        Also, the idea that men “have to be the provider” is something that feminist organizations have fought against for literal decades and is something anti-feminist organizations rail hard to preserve. Like, what is being critiqued there by him is not the feminist position, but rather the patriarchal expectation of white middle-class women and those constricting gender roles.

        Honestly, that’s a hallmark of this crap though. Like, what a lot of MRA groups complain about are points where patriarchy hurts men too (expectation that one should tough their way through pain and never show weakness or sadness, lack of men seeking therapy when they need it because of how it gets gendered, restrictive gender norms, expectation to be a sole provider in a capitalist system that makes that impossible, harassment of femininity or perceived femininity, support for men who are victims of rape and sexual assault, support for queer and black men facing oppression, and toxic masculinity).

        But none of them actually do anything to fight that and often support all those things, because what they want isn’t for those systems to end but for them to have all the system of patriarchy without any of its cloistering side-effects (which is impossible, because the toxic masculinity and other oppressions are necessary to perpetuate a system that makes all genders more miserable, but where men have more power over women’s lives).

        And that quickly becomes apparent in MRAs’ tactics and activism. Almost none of them do anything to actually materially support the issues they claim to care about when it’s time to invent supposed “male oppression” at the hands of feminism and when some MRA men try, they are often actively sabotaged by other MRA men or try and use the platform as a recruitment center (see Paul Elam setting up a “therapy clinic for men” to try and lower men’s suicide rates that is more about charging exorbitant fees to have Paul Elam rant at you about how feminism is responsible for everything wrong in your life).

        Because MRAs aren’t a meaningful activist movement, they’re a hate group who sees recruitment into the hate group as being above anything so meaningless as telling the truth. Hence, why your friend kept dismissing real world evidence that he was wrong as “feminist propaganda” and kept to a set of talking points that on the surface appear to be valid complaints about ways patriarchy hurts men if it was at all presented in good faith who is actually fighting to end those systems of oppression.

        Because the point is to perpetuate an aggrieved entitled anger at “feminists” for somehow doing men wrong and somehow being responsible for men’s oppression at the hands of men, because “shadow feminist mind-control forces working behind the scenes” and so on.

        Like, push hard on any point and the conspiracy theories come out. A giant movement inventing a long history of material activism and a conspiracy by all powers to support that, women controlling powerful men through sex to explain away bosses and politicians mostly being men, women only sleeping with 20% of men to harm “betas” and then trap “beta” men in relationships after they’ve been “used up” sexually, a massive conspiracy of fake rape accusations and domestic violence accusations to steal men’s kids, literal sperm-jacking (yeah, that one is a popular MRA myth and it’s as fucked up as you can imagine, basically it’s about women supposedly sleeping with men to steal their sperm in condoms and impregnate themselves with it so they can force the man to give all of his money in child support, because child support is totally lucrative and not at all not even enough to cover the cost of child rearing), and so on.

        And if you look back at it, it might be clear how much his points were only “solid” because he actively rejected any real information you presented that demonstrated the inaccuracy of them.

        Like, growing up being a trans woman brutalized by patriarchal gender expectations and toxic masculinity enforcement, it was not feminists responsible for my oppression. It was feminism that was my liberation and told me I could be who I was, that what I was wasn’t wrong or twisted or needing to be eliminated, that I had a right to exist.

        It was patriarchy that tried every damn trick in the book to kill me. It’s still trying every trick in the book to try and kill me. And MRAs are often the most gleeful enforcers of that, just look to how many of them actively target trans women to go after and attempt to harass to death.

        tl;dr MRAs are full of shit and selling bad faith ahistorical crap as an intentional recruitment strategy in very similar ways to white supremacists, the hate movement that ruined gaming, or the alt-right. All of whom MRAs are very closely aligned with and often overlap with.

        1. PlainMarie

          Thank you for this. Well-written and laid out in a way I can get my head around it all.

        2. CoMa

          @ thejeff & Cerberus: Thank you so much for taking time to answer to me, especially Cerberus. I value your answer very much, because of all the information and the point of reflection that it provides me. I wish I could’ve argued like you, but because of lack of information and ability to know how exactly to disprove his so-called factual statements, I simply couldn’t. This was the first time for me to actually have a discussion with a person that sounded reasonable but also wrong- and I had a very difficult time to formulate my answers, because he didn’t seem completely illogical. It also explains why I couldn’t simply shake off what he said and leave it be, because it sounded logical but at the same time made no sense at all, and I ended up simply at my above statement that it’s an issue of society (as he also brought up the example of men being groped too but being laughed at as a response to me mentioning that women suffer from sexual harassment, or expectations for gender roles). :/

          Again, thank you very much for these explanations – it is so well-written and good to understand and follow- it is very appreciated!!!!

        3. Cerberus

          I’m glad it helped! *hugs*

        4. CoMa

          It definitely did! *accepts hugs and offers hugs in return (as thanks and for everything else)*

          I’m really thankful for the opportunity to get to experience and learn with all this feedback and opinions and respectful comments and discussions. 🙂

        5. Roborat

          That was a very interesting read, thank you. I do have a question. That comment about engineering being female dominated. I have never heard this before, and, being an engineer myself, I have had some interest in, and exposure to, the history of the field. Could you please elaborate on this, or point me to where to find more information on this subject.

        6. Cerberus

          Definitely.

          So basically at its origin, computer programming was viewed essentially as equivalent to secretarial duties and so it was regarded as women’s work and it was even advertised as “an exciting career path for women” in women’s magazines:
          http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/computer-programming-used-to-be-womens-work-718061/

          And a lot of that has to do with the pioneers of computer programming being largely women. Like, the crack team of codebreakers that were colleagues of Alan Turing to crack the Nazi codes were almost entirely women. And they formed one of the earliest computers in Colossus.

          (I’m only allowed one link without hitting moderation, so google Bletchley Park and click the BBC link and check out some of the articles and videos in that link)

          You also had the EINAC. So hardware was seen as man’s work, but the mathematical programming was seen as women’s work because math was seen as more of a provence of keeping a home than building a career at the time. As such, some of the best mathematical minds were women. So, you have EINAC, which is one of the earliest electronic computers in the world and 2 of the first 6 programmers of it were Jean Jennings and Frances Bilas, with the rest being other girls.

          (google npr “The Forgotten Female Programmers”

          One of their colleagues was a woman named Grace Hopper. Now she’s a big deal because she was the first to figure out a way of creating a word based system of entering information into the computer, literally inventing the first programming language of COBOL.

          Now part of why this was seen the way it was also had to do with who flushed out the theoretical framework of computing. So, in the 1800s there was a woman named Ada Lovelace who did the major work of creating the Babbage Engine (and if you’re wondering why it’s the Babbage Engine and not the Lovelace Engine, I just point meaningfully to what happened with Rosalind Franklin).

          So yeah, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s it was seen as all women’s work, which is also why a lot of the early big video game designers had a lot of women as well (see Roberta Williams). There was a push later to make it be seen as men’s work so it would be taken seriously and compensated fairly, which unfortunately meant an active campaign to push women out and hard-selling the image of the modern computer geek we think of today.

        7. Halpful

          The is awesome, but, um, computer science and engineering are separate departments. The engineers have a ring and professional society and stuff, and it seems like an important distinction to them?

          another interesting point about comp sci: my university had an exchange program with a chinese university, and the chinese students were about 50% women. 🙂 that particular gender bias just didn’t exist there. (but I did have an.. interesting.. conversation with a cab driver about how no, I wasn’t in any hurry to get married, etc)

        8. Cerberus

          Fair.

          Though engineering had a very closely related arc to it and was equally dismissed as women’s work back then, including the development of professional societies for the purpose of “making it respected” by making it a field for men by excluding and erasing the women pioneers of the field and setting “standards of qualifications” that women were barred from fulfilling because they were not allowed into the programs that officiated that.

        9. Bagge

          Yup. That whole “programming is a man’s world” is so stupid that it would be funny if it is not so damaging.

          I also think it’s interesting that at the same time computing stopped being “secretary work”, classical subjects such as literature and language stopped being a “gentleman’s” field and is now more associated with women (and for some unfathomable reason, has lower status)

    3. Tarmaniel

      The examples of “hypocrisy” that usually get run out here are when feminists push for numerical equality of outcome in certain things but not others. For example, the fact that the overwhelming majority of STEM degrees go to men is seen as a problem, but the fact that women are far outperforming men in college in general (women today get >140 college degrees for every 100 degrees that men get, and this gap is increasing) is not seen as a problem.

      1. Cerberus

        Because there is active evidence of harassment of women and enbies who go into STEM from students, faculty, and workplaces that have been ruthlessly studied and recorded from every angle it is possible to study it from including the admission of the people within those programs.

        And because general women’s success is a temporary blip caused by the fact that we require women to succeed at twice the level of a man to be taken half as seriously, leading to more women actively driving themselves to the edge to try and be accepted into colleges and succeed there knowing that one slip up could fuck them over. As those academic expectations level out, you will see women getting more degrees level out as well.

        And as a teacher, I might point out that this “women are succeeding more than the real students, panic” BS is one of my biggest pet peeves being sold hard by anti-feminist op-ed writers and pundits. Like, no, there’s not some secret feminist conspiracy to raise women’s grades over men’s. It’s literally as simple as a man getting a C is viewed way less hostilely than a woman getting a C and so more women burn themselves the fuck out trying to meet unfair expectations they know will be used as a cudgel against all women.

        It’s this xkcd comic: https://xkcd.com/385/

        A man bad at math is a man bad at math, but a woman bad at math is a statement about women’s general abilities in the field of math. That expectation has consequences and this has also been extensively studied.

        1. CoMa

          That’s another thing that came up with one external person joining the discussion. They stated that feminist issues ruined The Big Bang Theory (as a response to a video). And I called him out on his understanding of feminism, and then the other person with whom I had the more detailed discussion butted in.
          But the first person also said that feminist is the cause that women are better in schools – because schools keep male students glued to their seats and they can’t be active and are forced to talk about feelings (they weren’t as articulate as the other person). Since I know more about the cultural history of writing and learning (it’s part of my studies), I argued that writing itself had been a male-dominated field for centuries, basically starting off with the production of scriptures in monarchies – so originally male-dominated field for a long period of time (+ learning in a school-like setting). I wish I’d have also thought about the further indications you mention. (Again, thanks so much for this!)

        2. CoMa

          * I of course meant “monasteries” and not “monarchies”

        3. Delicious Taffy

          Sure, feminism is what ruined The Big Bang Theory, not increasingly unfunny writing, flanderisation of nearly every character, the on-again/off-again Leonard and Penny relationship, or any of the other problems plaguing the series. It was definitely feminism that killed it.

        4. CoMa

          Exactly my thoughts. Especially because their argument was basically that Amy and Bernadette as intelligent women with feminist agenda ruined the series.

        5. BBCC

          Sure, it’s not like Bernadette was introduced as a grad student in microbiology and Amy was basically a female Sheldon and therefore very smart.

        6. Kamino Neko

          The flanderisation basically kept making it more sexist, too.

          ‘Not only do the girls not like geeky stuff, because, pfft, girls don’t, duh, they’re also complete and total percussion instruments about it, because chicks, right?’

          So, yeah…superfeminist.

          (Having watched a couple episodes from the last couple seasons, they seem to have course-corrected somewhat, on that note, at least with Bernadette and Amy…they still did an episode where Penny unilaterally started tossing out Leonard’s toys and other collectables – including a Batman keychain!)

        7. BBCC

          UGH don’t remind me of the episode where they go to a comic store. I was fucking fuming.

        8. Kamino Neko

          Uch. Yes. I had that one, specifically, in mind when I wrote that.

    4. Vulcanodon

      Feminism isn’t just for women. I felt like there was no hope of escape from toxic masculinity until I started reading some feminist bloggers. Now, I have some hope. This is the difference between literally decades of dangerous depression and imagining myself having a future.

      1. PlainMarie

        You are not alone in that. My husband feels similarly.

      2. Vulcanodon

        Thank you PlainMarie, and my sympathy for your husband.

        Along with some feminist bloggers I also look forward to certain commenters here every day. This strip has become very important to me, but don’t tell Willis, it’d go to his head.

      3. Bagge

        Speaking as a Man who is trying his best to raise Boys – YES. Feminism is one of my best tools to muddle through cultural baggage and help my kids avoid the worst traps in the message they are given. Feminism makes me a better parent and, consequently, them better people.

      4. StClair

        I consider myself extremely fortunate that my parents raised me better, though of course I’m still exposed to it, have to deal with it, and (to my shame) probably benefit from it at some level. (The privilege, if not the toxicity per se.)

    5. Me

      Just my opinion, I would say it is true that traditional gender roles also constrained men to a degree. Take for example male teachers or male nurses. To say however that they constrained men to the same degree that they constrained women is stretching the truth well beyond the breaking point! Only a few roles were defined as being feminine and thus off-limits to males while everything else was off-limit for females.

      That’s history though. There are few if any roles which general society feel that a woman should not be in.

      I realize that there has been a lot of fuss about certain fields that are still predominantly male. For example, STEM degrees which were mentioned above. Note that correlation does not imply causation. If it could be shown that few women were going into STEM because they were somehow being denied the opportunity it would have been shown by now. Far too many people want to prove that for it not to be proven already unless it is false.

      In a truly equal society people will not even think about gender, race, etc.. when it comes to percentages in an occupation because people will choose their occupations based on their own individual desires as human beings, not as a gender.

      If that leads to a gender imbalance in certain professions then so be it. This should not matter. What does matter is that an individual who wants to go into a certain field can do so and an individual who does not can choose not to regardless of their genitalia. This is provided of course that they have the necessary abilities and that there actually is a market for that particular service. We don’t need everyone going in to some desirable field to the exclusion of others just because the individuals all wanted to nor do we need surgeons with bad hand-eye coordination (of any sex), etc…

      1. Cerberus

        It has been. Extensively.

        Here’s just one collection of some of the studies on the various crap thrown against women in STEM:
        https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/07/how-women-are-harassed-out-of-science/492521

        And there are a number of jobs and fields that a woman in has to survive inordinate amount of harassment and sexual assault to succeed in and even then are frequently targets of harassment campaigns (women video game designers being the most prominent recent examples) as well as jobs that actively and intentionally discriminate against women even though that is illegal in many states.

        1. tenkiforecast

          Mid-20th Century meteorology was full of men going, “This field is too complicated and difficult for women, we can’t let them study it, it’s too much for their poor brains.”

          Cue Joanne Simpson, earning her Ph.D in 1949 and becoming one of the most influential tropical meteorologists of the 20th century. Of course she is rarely mentioned by most when referencing tropical meteorologists or influential female scientists, because sexism persists.

          Meteorology has its own share of problems affiliated with sexism because of the broadcast side of the industry…it can get really toxic. I know meteorologists that went into broadcast and quit because of the sexual harassment, either from employers (who immediately fired any woman who had the ‘gall’ to have a child) or creepy viewers.

        2. Bagge

          Wow, I didn’t know that. Joanne Simpson seems awesome.

  38. Daniel

    Read the comic, come down to comments, immediate conversation about feminism. No clue how it happened.

    Why is the hovertext eat at arby’s? o.o

    1. Cerberus

      You and me both. That was not at all what I was expecting to need to respond to first thing in the morning. 🙁

      But to answer your question, the hovertext is referencing this twitter feed that Willis is a major fan of:
      https://twitter.com/nihilist_arbys?lang=en

      1. CoMa

        Really sorry about that (especially if it made your day bad because of my comment and questions)! 🙁

        This community is the safest place I know to ask for such stuff, I’m really sorry if it had a bad impact on you!

        1. Cerberus

          No, it was okay, just very surprising. I am glad my answer helped!

        2. Bagge

          They always do 🙂

        3. StClair

          Indeed.

  39. C.T Phipps

    Rip some femurs out!

    🙂

    Practice on that corpse outside the building. Its starting to stink.

  40. spriteless

    Trying to distract us from the Ryan cliffhanger by making me wonder who the new character will be, if they are a new character and not other other Rachel.

  41. Scar Man!!!

    Every day we see nothing about the Ryan cliffhanger, i get 10% more anxious about seeing the new page the next day.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      The good news about that is, you can’t get more than 100% anxious about it, so you’re good after the 10-day mark.

      1. Daibhid C

        You think? The way I read that is not “+10% of the maximum possible amount of anxiousness” (since there is no such thing) but “+10% of how anxious I was yesterday”, a formula which doesn’t even plateau, never mind stop.

        (Start at, say, Anxiousness Level 6, and the lack of resolution puts you up to Anxiousness Level 6.6. Then the following day, still no resolution, so that ramps you up to Anxiousness Level 7.62 (6.6 plus 0.66). And the following day, add 0.762 to that to get Anxiousness Level 7.986. And so on, until death or Willis relents, whichever happens first.)

  42. Delicious Taffy

    I’ve been planning on starting a podcast, as soon as I get the gear, which should be happening some time this year. Once it’s up and going, I’d very much like to have some folks from here as guests.

    There are plenty of you who have a wealth of knowledge regarding things such as gender politics and mental health, and I’d like to provide a platform for that knowledge, as well as personal anecdotes from people whose experiences, more often than not, would otherwise go unheard.

    1. CoMa

      That’s such a great idea!

      I’d love to listen to it, once you start it, if it’s alright of me asking for such a thing.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        Naturally. The point of uploading it is for people to be able to listen, after all. If you’re interested, I’ve uploaded an old pilot for my last attempt at launching a podcast, on my channel.

        That one didn’t work out, since the guy who owns the mic we used wound up on my personal blacklist. Come to think of it, none of the three others in that pilot will be on the one I’m planning, with the possible exception of one.

    2. nightsbridge

      Oh, cool!

  43. Vi

    I’m so happy about how far Billie and Ruth have come? I know their relationship was/is unhealthy, but it was unhealthy in a mutually destructive way of two people having a hard time and I think they really are turning into a more supportive couple and boosting each other up, rather than spiraling out together.

    1. thejeff

      I’ve actually never thought their relationship was unhealthy (not since it turned into an actual relationship).

      They were both very unhealthy, but I think the relationship has been good for them.

      1. Daniel

        That’s a good point. Drowning their sorrows in alcohol was bad, but that was something they had already been doing on their own–and at one point even tried to support eachother through going sober together. And were quite serious about it.

        1. thejeff

          Well, other than Billie never really trying to stop.

  44. Jhon

    Pay toilets are gone. We can thank feminists for that.

    Eat at Wendy’s.

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