Dangerous element
Posted on October 4, 2025 by David M Willis


Tags: alice, ruth

221 thoughts on “Dangerous element”

  1. NGPZ

    ? To skipping, hopping, tripping,

    Fancy free and gay,

    I started it tomorrow,

    but will finish yesterday! ?

  2. Bongoplush

    Man I feel so bad for Ruth here

    1. Effie

      I feel bad for Alice here. I really don’t think Ruth is giving her good advice.

      1. Bryy

        Regardless of if Ruth is or is not, Alice went to entirely the wrong person for advice on if Jennifer is a good person or not.

      2. Lee

        I mean, if you heard those first three panels and your takeaway was “Okay[, this is a situation I definitely need to put myself in the middle of]!”, then it was the advice you deserved.

    2. Dot

      You’re hopelessly, desperately in love with someone, someone you’ve been through hell with and come out the other side relatively okay, and you still love her to the extent that you lit your relationship with her on fire because you were afraid that you were going to drag her back down into the abyss. And even then you still love her, you love her so much that it aches, and here you are reassuring the woman who you feel, you know, is going to take her, and close the door on you forever. Because you want the woman you love to be happy, and despite all your progress, despite all your growth, at the root of your heart you still feel like a person like you does not and cannot deserve someone like her.

      1. Tequila Mockingbird

        What movie was it that had the quote “I want you to be happy, even if it isn’t with me.”

        1. Leorale

          Probably a whole bunch of them. It’s a reasonably common breakup-when-in-love feeling.

        2. Leorale

          –have you ever felt that way?

        3. Jeff K!

          I definitely have.

        4. Decidedly Orthogonal

          I didn’t leave my ex-wife because I didn’t love her. That I was practicing ways of killing myself is what convinced me that I was close enough to “death do us part”. Later I realized (waaaay too slowly) that she had never loved me. Attracted sure, but she loved what I did for her, not who I was. It was only after I left that the love and hurt finally stopped.

        5. Drew Hargrave

          I think Imagine Me & You has a similar sentiment if not a direct quote.

      2. Casi

        this is literally me with my nesting partner and her girlfriend. I spiralled hard when she started getting serious with her girlfriend (we had been talking about getting back together when i moved in when it happened, making her gf a third, but things didn’t work out that way and i had a bad couple months when i first moved in, but things got a lot better after, cuz her girlfriend makes her happier than I ever did, and i’m glad)

    3. Needfuldoer

      She wasn’t even the big problem with their relationship.

    4. K. Bray

      Whatever else is going on, I feel like Ruth is completely accurate that she ended it with Billie badly. No matter what her motivations were, and I do think she felt they were pure, that was an AMAZINGLY bad way to break up.

      Also, after the fallout I’m amazed Jennifer is even willing to engage with Dorothy at all.

  3. Doopyboop

    Two pretty women in one comic strip, I don’t even perceive the words being spoken, no notes, gimme more comic strips of Alice and Ruth.

    1. BYM!

      Grav checks out, I suppose

    2. Elf grrl

      Alice’s glow up since her first appearance has been insanely good. I love her addition to the cast

  4. jeffepp

    Ruth! That’s sexy talk, you flirt!

  5. EpochFlame

    the femurs are safe today

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      Femurs are the Old Ruth. This is the New Ruth.

      1. Steamweed

        Yes, she’s got a humerus sense nowadays.

  6. Smokeysis

    Everyone involved in this love triangle is so pretty, it’s really quite unfair

    1. Nono

      But it’s also an ugly love triangle (in other meanings of the word).

  7. C.T Phipps

    Ruth is basically the Mike of this comic so her trying to be nice is unnatural and horrifying.

    1. RassilonTDavros

      Which is funny, cause DoA!Mike was basically the Roomies!Ruth of this comic, at least in terms of his death arc.

      1. C.T Phipps

        Yes, I kind of wish she’d get off the Jennifer/Alice romance arc and go back to horribly abusing her charges.

        1. Mari

          Or at least horribly abusing Jason lol

    2. biomanzilla

      Eh, the “Ruth is grumpy and mean to everyone all the time” thing never sat well with me. I remember in the beginning of the comic Ruth was actually nice and helpful to most people, she just turned up the aggression whenever she saw a rule breaker.
      https://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/01-move-in-day/agreements/
      https://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/pie/

      1. thejeff

        The “nice and helpful” includes death threats?

    3. Astariel

      I thought Mike was the Mike of this comic.

      1. Clif

        Well he was.

        I don’t want to give up on him yet though.

  8. Dot

    Ah, Ruth. I really wish you didn’t believe that about yourself.

    1. RassilonTDavros

      Yep. Yeeeee-up.

  9. HueSatLight

    new curtains?

  10. Drainiest Drain

    Just when I thought no strip could be as tasty as yesterday’s

  11. Animedingo

    Are these women colorblind? Cause all theyre seeing are flags and not red ones.

    1. Steamweed

      That’s the hormonal college experience for ya.

    2. Leorale

      “When you look at somebody through rose-colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags”

    3. The Queer Agenda [frog memes]

      When you’re attracted to red flags…

    4. anon

      Red is a lovely color on women tho ;P

    5. Kyulen

      It’s not impossible, but statistically women are a lot less likely to be colorblind than men.

    6. Freezer

      Alice already admitted she looked past Billifer’s red flags the first time. She’s looking to Ruth for assurance that those flags aren’t there anymore (or at least fewer of them).

      And Ruth just straight up lied to her.

      1. thejeff

        If Ruth’s lying to Alice, she’s lying to herself. This how she thinks of Jennifer.

        1. Freezer

          Thought that went without saying.

  12. shadowcell

    honestly that’s more of an art than a science anyway

  13. mindbleach

    Alice is really balancing out all those good decisions she made right when Jennifer ran into her.

    Ruth meanwhile bitterly sighs, ‘You should go fuck her.’

  14. Steamweed

    Always have a plan to lodge a person’s humerus through their skull.

    1. Clif

      I mean, doesn’t everyone?

  15. RassilonTDavros

    Those looks on her face in panels 2 and 3 are just heartbreaking. The way she so strongly loves Jennifer but can’t see herself as a person who’s worth anyone’s love. It’s such a horrible state of mind to be in.

    Fuck, I knew there was a reason Ruth was my single favorite character on my initial read.

  16. Marianne

    Great strip, very humerus.

    1. Jon

      You wouldn’t expect that in this joint. A little ribbing, sure, but this is outside the radius.

      1. Steamweed

        I have a bone to pick with you about all those puns.

    2. Stanistani

      I jostled my clavicles.

  17. Haz

    Thank goodness it’s not her femur.
    …That has more mass and should require less velocity.

    1. Thing 2

      Wait tho, cross sectional area will affect (wait while I put this into USA units) pounds per square inch (?) on impact.
      Pounding seems like something Ruth might do, so maybe these are the appropriate units.

      1. Clif

        Perhaps if it were two humeri attached by a creeper vine.

  18. Erica

    Aw, Ruth, Billie is awful though

    1. C.T Phipps

      #TeamJennifer

      1. nadamás

        #Teamtheyarethesameperson

        1. Freezer

          #TeamWeReallyNeedAnUpvoteSystem

  19. C.T Phipps

    I’m 100% Jennifer and anyone else.

    But I completely blame one party in their relationship while rejecting the Willis being blindingly obvious both were at fault.

  20. PrognosticHannya

    People, THIS is the poly shit you should be rooting for.

    1. RassilonTDavros

      I can root for multiple poly shits.

      1. Tequila Mockingbird

        ☝️☝️☝️ This.

      2. Stormtide Leviathan

        Or even one single increasingly complex poly shit

        1. Dara

          Sush, everyone – we’re watching the very first moments of the Greater Indiana University Polycule. it’s an historic moment, treat it with respect!

        2. Disastroid

          The Dumbing Instrumentality Project proceeds apace.

        3. Ray Radlein

          Above the future ruins of Bloomington-3

    2. The Queer Agenda [frog memes]

      I’m sold, this disaster trio has a leg up on the others.

      1. Clif

        But the question is, whose leg.

  21. ADLegend21

    Ruth is like The Iron Bull, always thinking of ways to do battle in a casual manner.

    1. SunflowerBanjo

      Ayyyy, a fellow Dragon Age enjoyer

      1. ADLegend21

        ayyy my clarion call was received!

  22. VolticEXE

    If I wanted to threaten someone, I’m beginning to learn I could probably use Alice in-place of a Bag of Bricks.

    1. C.T Phipps

      Like you’d put Alice in a sack and swing her?

  23. BBCC

    Well that is a very specific denial!

  24. Jerach

    “She is… everything anybody could possibly want.”

    Ruth, I know you love this woman, but I think you might be ignoring a few concerning issues.

    1. Taffy

      She doesn’t have a cock the exact size and dimensions of a 16oz can of Monster Energy, complete with a pull tab, so….

      1. The Queer Agenda [frog memes]

        With the internet and enough money, I’m sure she could custom order a detachable one.

      2. 3oranges

        …If that’s what someone wants, couldn’t one be strapped on?

        1. Rose by Any other Name

          I tried to adjust the “that’s my secret, cap” meme to lesbians and strap ons, but I couldn’t quiet make it work.

        2. Taffy

          It’s not the same if you can’t feel their pulse through the pull tab

      3. thejeff

        “A girl’s gotta have her standards”

  25. Shogo

    Ruth sure is living up to the comic’s title, cause holy hell is her description of Jennifer dumb.

    1. Dot

      She is in love.

      1. Taffy

        Same thing.

        1. Dot

          omg hi fuuka

        2. RassilonTDavros

          So love has blinded you?

        3. Taffy

          Sometimes love means putting on your sunglasses in the movie theater and holding their hand during the Dog Scene™.

        4. Clif

          Is that the one where Old Yeller dies?

        5. Taffy

          If it needs to be.

    2. anon

      i wonder if alice will have a chance t o talk to asher and get his input on things

  26. Karla Jean

    Ruth doing Alice dirty there.

    1. C.T Phipps

      ruth understands that Jennifer and she will be perfect together and Jennifer has no flaws!

      😀

      1. Bryy

        Jennifer almost killing both of them and not even caring was totally rectified by Joyce saying she’s cool, tho.

        1. Throwatron

          Yeah, because Alice’s like core singular character trait so far, is being easily led. Which isn’t really a criticism, just an observation.

  27. IntangibleMatter

    Wait someone should do that math now I’m curious

    Feels like something the Myhtbusters would do

  28. pjeseb

    It is of course possible that Ruth is not completely unbiased when it comes to Billie.

    1. Throwatron

      Or herself.

  29. Mal

    I feel very bad for Ruth here, and also hate this advice for Alice. Ruth is obviously: not objective, and not perfect herself. That’s all not subtle. But, not to state a fairly open fact: Jennifer/Billie is not a great person or a great partner. Which, before I’m pilloried, is not a static situation that can never change, or hasn’t already seen changes. But she JUST renewed her friendship with Alice, after a heavy amount of coaching from Joyce and Ruth to have it work. And before that she was getting into petty fights and passive aggressive snarling matches with basically everyone, including Ruth. Raidah, unpleasant as she is, pointed out how flimsy her “I’m functional and have healthy relationships!” slogan is, and Raidah’s often has some valid points packaged in with her unpleasant.
    Which is not to say Jennifer doesn’t deserve a chance to be better and have a good relationship with Alice. But selling her to Alice as a perfect package when Alice is specifically asking for the cold hard truth is…not a good start and could backfire spectacularly. Yes, yes, this is not Smarting of Age. I still get a sinking feeling.

    1. Mal

      Because there is no edit button and I regathered my thought: I do not like this, and I do not like Ruth for doing this, because this is Bad Advice to Alice that could be incredibly harmful. I don’t hate Ruth for this, Ruth’s one of my favorite characters and the reasons why she’s saying this are tangled and fraught, but she has done Alice a dangerous disservice by papering over how toxic Jennifer/Billee was and still can be.

      1. Doopyboop

        I think a big part of Billifer’s character arc with Alice is meant to be about how she has been toxic, and still has that ability, but can grow from that toxicity in order to reconnect with someone she once hurt. Alice once insisted that Billie could never change but now she’s willing to give her a chance because with the proper support and a real friend, maybe she can get better. It’s certainly better than being stuck with Raidah as her friend who talks mad shit about her behind her back.

        1. Mal

          Sure, that’s why I said Billifer deserves a chance and has already been shown to change. But Ruth presenting that to Alice as “No, Billifer is great and you just need to love her” is an extreme that sets Alice up for some really big pitfalls when Billifer falls short of that glowing assessment. It’s not true. It wasn’t true during their relationship, during their breakup, and it still isn’t true now. Billifer was still causing problems in her personal relationships [including with Ruth and Alice, as well as Joyce and Dorothy] last week, and she’s only been mending things with Alice for a few days. Alice can decide to give Billifer a chance to change, that’s great; Ruth is acting here as Billifer doesn’t NEED to change, it’s all Ruth’s fault, there are no red flags Alice. And that is untrue and not good advice, regardless of where the arc goes.

        2. Doopyboop

          I don’t think she’s saying Billifer is flawless, great, or perfect, she’s just pointing out that between the two of them she thinks she herself was the ‘dangerous’ one. Comes off to me at least as less “yeah ignore the red flags and love her forever” and more “go ahead champ, give it a shot, I won’t get in the way”. Billifer might get in her own way, and Alice and Ruth both seem to be aware of that possibility, but Ruth is just assuring her that Billifer didn’t, like, get in a drunk driving accident with her or anything like that that’d be Billifer’s fault.

        3. Clif

          Meanwhile, I maintain that Ruth is providing Alice with an extremely valuable service.

          She is providing her with someone to blame when things go south.

    2. Bryy

      Alice isn’t asking for the truth, though. She’s asking for confirmation that there is no truth. Too different things.

    3. Bash

      I do not think Ruth is deliberately lying. When she met Jennifer she was clinically depressed and suicidal. Then Jennifer showed up and did her best to help, even if her methods were questionable at times. It’s natural that Ruth would have an idealized view of her.

      1. thejeff

        Ruth isn’t even not deliberately lying. The problems that led to them breaking up were hers. They were in a good place and Ruth couldn’t trust that it would last.

  30. Twinsword

    I am a relationship paladin, and I pray to whatever gods who might care to listen: Ruth and Billie are the OTP of this story. Please let their love light the way, like no one else. I need this SO bad.

    1. SunflowerBanjo

      Dude same but also I am *adoring* Alice and want her role in the story to extend beyond being the one to reconcile Ruth and Billifer. Please please please give us the OTP *and* more Alice.

  31. Amós Batista

    okay, you can stop lying, Ruth

  32. Leorale

    People are being so sympathetic to Ruth here. I get that she’s hurting, and trying to do a kindness for Billie, and that it’s sad that she really believes this. But I’m also annoyed that Ruth thinks she’s the sole problem with their relationship, and Billie’s all great, when I thought Ruth had insight that the trouble is clearly both of them and how toxic they were together, that it was legit dangerous that they could both get their particular style of depressed at the same time, etc.

    1. GholaHalleck

      Ruth you stopped drinking and took your meds. You *tried.*

      Billie was the one who torpedoed your relationship by refusing to try and get better. You pulled the plug because you saw the tree looming in the windshield and rolled out before you hit it.

      1. Bryy

        Yup.

        Jennifer, the night they broke up, was making jokes about her being gay.

      2. perpetual summer

        Nah, Ruth explicitly talks about both of them being fine – and they are doing well in the flashback. It’s genuinely cute. Billie wants Ruth to /meet her parents/.
        Ruth was scared of either of them getting in a bad enough place again to be suicidal and specifically talks about at one point being ok with Billie dying, and THAT scares her enough to not want to be around Billie anymore. It’s not really about her own safety as much.

        So it’s more like they were driving on a road that has trees on the side sometimes & Ruth stopped the car & told Billie to get out. If we want to talk metaphors.

        1. Doopyboop

          I’m with Perpetual Summer. At the time they broke up, both Ruth and Billie had detoxed from alcohol. Neither of them were in a suicidal death pact, neither of them self-destructing, they were just gleefully making out and Billie even talking about the future. Ruth didn’t cut the relationship off because of anything Billie did, it was because she was afraid of their future and didn’t trust that they could survive another bad spell, IF it were to happen. Honestly if anyone was being self-destructive with that choice it was Ruth.

        2. Sirksome

          You can’t say these things Doopyboop. Silence perpetual summer! Don’t you fools know how dangerous, abusive, and toxic Billie is/was? She’s been the problem in every one of her 2.5 relationships we’ve seen! It’s definitely not Ruth who was the issue! Or more realistically a complicated and intense relationship where they both had problems. Only Billie! Also she was mean to Asher who totally didn’t deserve to be treated like dirt because he’s a roguish Nathan Drake type. She is legitimately to blame for the drunk driving. So fair.

          Both of you stop being entirely reasonable.

        3. Doopyboop

          You’re right, I forgot I was in a comment section.

          Rabble rabble rabble rabble!! This is Dorothy’s fault! In fact, she’s the one who told Ruth to broke up with Billie! And she said it with a gigantic smile on her face too! She’s been plotting this since Halloween!

        4. Bryy

          She’s been plotting this since 27 days in the future?

        5. Doopyboop

          See, now you’re talking truth. Dorothy’s got this shit in the bag.

        6. finep

          They where way better for sure, but I can’t ignore how Billie thought it was a good idea to invite Ruth to kill her twice in this storyline, once before and once after we learned she was in fear of exactly that.

          I don’t like the implication, and they where adorable, but it does feel like she was still (probably not consciously) pushing Ruth toward unhealthy thoughts she was trying to stop.

        7. Li

          That was dramatic irony. She was not being in any way serious, and it was tragic that it reinforced Ruth’s fears.

        8. finep

          Well, yeah, to both. But as she said herself “self-deprecation is how we’re here”. It can signal that she wouldn’t mind going back, which felt true to me at multiples times in the storyline.

          It can be dramatic irony and a reminder that B/J has a codependency problem (I don’t like that term, it feel heavy, but it was mentioned by the strips first and it seem to fit this moment).

          It is also a problem of Ruth, who took risks to stay with her, but that does make her part in the break-up at least a bit more reasonable. I think in the end it is closer to 50/50.

          With that said, I prefer Ruth, and never take her promesses of violence seriously. Make of that what you will.

        9. The Queer Agenda [frog memes]

          Their relationship was definitely at its high point/healthiest when Ruth decided to blow it up. Didn’t make a lot of sense to me at the time, but this conversation explains it. Billie wanted their relationship to be more serious, and Ruth doesn’t think she’s worthy of anyone being tied down to her long term.

          Thus, Ruth can live with inflicting herself (as she sees it) on Jason, for now. If he ever falls in love, invites her to meet his family, etc, I expect her to nuke the relationship from orbit again.

        10. Li

          Ruth was extremely explicit about her reason for breaking up with Billie.

          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-12/05-this-was-halloween/happiest-2/

          People don’t seem to remember it this way, but there is no reason to think she was lying about her reasons for breaking up, and she said them out loud with her mouth: despite how happy and stable they were together at the time, she couldn’t let go of the fear that she might someday slide back into depression and take Billie with her. She considered this possibility too big a risk to Billie’s safety to be acceptable.

          (The immediately following strip has her add that she knows she needs to do the breakup when both of them are in a good enough place to survive the misery of the immediate fallout.)

        11. SunflowerBanjo

          THIS. THANK YOU. ALL OF THIS.
          I could not understand why the comments yesterday all seemed to think Ruth was suddenly going to disparage Billifer to Alice here, when she very extremely clearly sees only the good in Billifer and wants the best for her. She sees HERSELF as the problem. She texted Alice from Billifer’s phone saying a bunch of good things about her. Why would she do a complete mental 180 now and tell Alice that Billifer is toxic and awful and to stay away from her??

        12. Li

          Like it’s a big big comic strip. It’s been going for fifteen years. A lot has happened! I genuinely understand people misremembering stuff. Especially this breakup, because there were MONTHS of speculating over who dumped whom before we finally got the flashback and explanation.

          But yeah. Ruth has not had a single bad word to say about Jennifer/Billie in years of our time, and there is no reason to think she’ll start now except misremembering and in some cases wishful thinking.

        13. thejeff

          People treated that whole breakup weird from the start.
          Ruth explained up front why she was doing it, but when she did, commenters immediately jumped to her trying desperately to get away from an abusive Billie

        14. Li

          It’s true, on this particular issue the historical revisionism started immediately, but as I also noted in my other reply above, I think that kind of makes sense given how the breakup was explained to us.

          Bc for months it wasn’t. For months people got to speculate about who broke up with whom and why. And a lot of people got VERY attached to their specific headcanon for what had gone down.

          Especially I think because Jennifer INITIALLY seemed to be in a better, more emotionally honest place than she had been the last time we saw her. When Ruth asked for forgiveness, Jennifer mused that maybe she should forgive her, “because after all everything worked out for the best, didn’t it?”

          Some folks still saw the relationship through the lens of its problematic start, and despite multiple red flags on the play (like Jennifer referring to her bisexuality as a phase, and how she was back in “don’t talk to me like you know me” territory with Walky — even though she was expressing it with more seeming maturity!), those folks really wanted to believe that she had dumped Ruth “for being abusive”.

          The folks who wanted to believe Ruth had dumped her “for being toxic” had less reason to hope, but both camps still had ample time to speculate.

          And then we got the flashback, and an extremely unambiguous explanation from Ruth, but it was the total opposite of what the above folks had been headcanoning for months on end, and furthermore asked readers to accept that Ruth and Billie had gotten to a point where they were both healthy and happy together. Not really something either camp was happy to be told.

          So yeah even in the comments on that strip you can see people determinedly not taking Ruth at face value……

        15. thejeff

          Even when we first saw them after the timeskip, a lot of people seemed think we’d left them with Billie still drinking and tempting Ruth to do the same, when there was a whole plot arc about her starting therapy, quitting booze, coming out as uncool to her dorm, etc. Just completely memory holed apparently.

        16. Li

          Yeaaaaaaaah.

          Folks are still talking about it like she’s drinking, or like she’s not going to therapy. Neither is true. Therapy isn’t a magic bullet, but she IS trying.

        17. Proxiehunter

          It’s the only way to be sure.

  33. Fail Earnhardt

    Ruth’s response is so clouded by nostalgia and self-loathing that it almost seems like she’s deliberately trying to mislead Alice. Setting Billie up to torch their relationship all over again would be diabolical if it was on purpose.

  34. Thing 2

    Doooo eeeet, Ruth. This is not a character we are hugely invested in yet. DoAiverse appears to have allowances that real life does not. People (some!) would like to see this…

    1. nadamás

      Can you clarify what yiy want her go do? I don’t get it genuinely

    2. 3oranges

      …You want Ruth to kill Alice with her own arm? I think that’s a little outside the allowances.

  35. Gangler

    You know, I’m sure there are a lot of relationships out there where truly one person was the problem. Like, extreme abuse situations where one person was just the victimizer and the other person was just the victim.

    But in my experience a lot of the time when people say things like this, they just want to avoid the optics of shit-talking their ex.

    1. Gangler

      “Yep! I was the problem! Take all your slings and arrows and point them at me because I’m the reason the relationship failed! There was exactly one factor to our dysfunction and it was her just anger at my unjust actions!”

      Then five years later when you’re closer they’ll have a candid moment where they tell you something about their ex that raises every red flag at once.

      1. thejeff

        In this case, like Bash said, it’s all tied up in her self-loathing and that she’s still in love with Jennifer.
        Which doesn’t mean there aren’t things she might say about her that would raise red flags, but she doesn’t see them.

        I don’t think this is at all about the optics of shit-talking the ex.

    2. Bash

      In Ruth’s case I think there’s also a good helping of self-loathing.

  36. Fireprincesslily

    The comments saying Ruth is doing Alice a disservice are WEIRD.

    Jennifer isn’t even in this strip to breathe, and some of y’all still won’t get off her neck.

    1. Taffy

      Her neck isn’t real and I’ll pretend to stand on it as much as I want.

      1. 3oranges

        Ruth’s neck is real though. Not the rest of her. Like you could write most of her out of the comic, but then her neck would be all that was left.

        1. Clif

          This comic needs more necking.

    2. anon

      It’s still alice’s decision in the end tho idk how she’d be if it’s like “it’s not a good idea” b/c that’d spurn ppl on to be like “i’m gonna do it anyways”

    3. Bryy

      Jennifer not being around doesn’t negate context.

    4. Ruby/AGV

      Ok but consider the following: how she handled her relationship with both Ruth and Asher.

      I’m not saying that she will screw this up (in fact I do have hope in that she’ll do right by Alice given how invested she is and the reslizations she’s gone through), but she does have issues that might still hurt Alice and herself even if it doesn’t get nearly as bad as with Ruth or Asher. Ruth IS in fact not being truthful and thus giving Alice the wrong idea, even if this doesn’t have bad consequences down the road.

      1. Li

        https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-12/05-this-was-halloween/happiest-2/

        She is absolutely being truthful as far as her perspective goes, and some of yall are remembering the breakup very inaccurately.

    5. Zaxares

      I mean… It’s not like Jennifer is “TEH DEVILLL”, but Ruth is not being entirely truthful with Alice as to the real reasons of the break-up (which is that Ruth wanted to break out of the alcohol-fueled hate-fuck style relationship they had, and Jennifer didn’t want to. Not out of malice, but because she was comfortable in that rut and didn’t want to move. So Ruth had to end it, and for good reason, because that kind of relationship, let alone lifestyle, is a VERY risky one. Exhibit A: what happened to Jennifer and Alice in that car crash.)

      1. thejeff

        That has absolutely nothing to do with why Ruth broke up with Jennifer. First of all, they’d both stopped drinking before the break up. They were in a good place. They were both happy.
        Ruth was afraid her depression would come back and she’d again be okay with not only dying herself, but with Jennifer dying with her

        1. Zaxares

          Hmm… My memory is fuzzy but I remember it quite differently. Ruth had quit drinking, yes. But Jennifer had “quit (but not really)” and she didn’t seem motivated to really change things. (Like I said, she seemed to enjoy the “let’s burn out together!” in a self-destructive way.) So Ruth knew she had to push Jennifer away for both their sakes, or they’d drown together.

  37. Sirksome

    Nothing in the comic worth distrusting today that wouldn’t be a rehash. Maybe try distrusting something in real life. Like lottery tickets, ICE agents, or sticker price at your nearest major car dealership.

    1. Clif

      Hey, I gave just the state of Texas a dollar for a 1 in roughly 26 million odds of winning 62 and a half million dollars. I trust lottery tickets because they don’t have to cheat. They make all their money off of people who can’t do math.

      Figuring the actual value of the ticket is a bit more convoluted than I’m willing to go into here, but I know how to do math.

  38. Vaishino

    That’s our Ruth, always thinking about how to bone women.

    1. Ruby/AGV

      Best comment on this strip, no notes ?

    2. Arianod

      You win the Internet forever XD

    3. Dara

      goddammit

      can’t figure out whether i’m mad at you for saying this or mad at me for not thinking of it myself xD

      1. Clif

        Both can be true.

  39. Taffy

    I wish we’d get a 7 year time skip at random, sometimes. Just for the sake of a cheap shake-up.

    1. Sirksome

      Make it a 27 year time skip and now we’re following the kids of all the main cast, as they in turn are now the evil parents we hate and you gotta deal! Can’t wait for Becky to show up to campus with a shotgun!

      1. Ray Radlein

        A time skip where we see all the kids of the cast, but we don’t actually know whose kids, exactly, they are, and then we return to the present timeline before anyone figures it out and the whole thing is never mentioned again.

        1. Clif

          We return to the present timeline to find Mike is still alive and …

          Fixed that for you.

        2. Ray Radlein

          Well now we know whose kids they are, depending on how many nickels he has

    2. anon

      i wonder how much we’d gotten before i think they only skipped over like a break when joyce came home and then we found out she was an athiest

    3. Bryy

      I assume the comic will end with something like a 10-year timeskip where now they are dumb in 30 year old ways.

    4. biomanzilla

      We see an alternate universe where they really did start college in 2010 and are all in their 30s now.

  40. Maddie B

    That’s humerus.

  41. Kyulen

    I’m starting to think Ruth might not be the best person to ask for advice about relationships, and about Billifer too.

  42. Arianod

    We’ve progressed from femurs! ^^

  43. darkoneko

    “she is everything anybody could possibly want” yeaaaah right. sure.

    1. Proxiehunter

      I mean, I have it on good authority that you could be warm and safe in there forever. What else could you want?

      1. Juanoku

        Emotional stability is a myth anyways

  44. Juanoku

    That love is true. The type that will push you to do right by others even if it hurts. Of course, letting yourself hurt forever isn’t good, and Ruth doesn’t seem very keen to move on, so unless she decides to be honest with herself, she’s going to keep spiralling like before she fought so hard to stop. And now there isn’t someone with her to see that trip down, or help it end and bring her back up.

  45. Li

    https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-12/05-this-was-halloween/happiest-2/

    One more link in a top-level. I encourage everyone to actually re-read this whole sequence, because some of yall remember this breakup very differently from how Willis wrote it, and it’s causing confusion and incredulity over this strip, which absolutely follows naturally from everything Willis has ever wrote about Ruth or Jennifer.

    1. Li

      *written

    2. Li

      Also sorry for the snark! I’m overly tired, this week was a lot. I was aiming for a kind of cheerful friendly tease and I do not think I hit the mark. 😛

      1. perpetual summer

        fwiw i don’t think this comes off as overly snarky – earlier I was tempted to write a similar comment that was MUCH snarkier before I chose to just close the tab (I didn’t want to go digging for the applicable link again). It is just a tad frustrating to see how many people apparently memory-holed this scene entirely, just because they dislike Jennifer! It’s such a good Ruth moment!

        Basically, you’re good, but also I get it.

        1. Li

          Heh, thank you <3

    3. Sirksome

      I have major thoughts on the Billie x Ruth relationship and I will always believe we should be way more upset with Ruth than we are.

      1. Li

        That’s fair but I am not going to join you. I’m not upset with either of them, though I certainly understand why Jennifer was upset with Ruth.

  46. StarfighterVicki

    Other than the one “stop trying to get me to drink,” has Ruth ever acknowledged how much of an enabler Billifer was?

    1. ResRam

      Nah.
      But then, she elevated her self-hating to olympic level.

  47. C.T Phipps

    The third panel.

    Look at those green eyes.

    …

    They are pure evil.

    🙂

    1. Clif

      The very best.

  48. Da Boy

    Such a classic tsundere line

  49. Emily

    If you want an unbiased take on whether you should date someone, the person who set you up together is probably not the one to ask.

  50. Rimwalker55

    It is remarkable that Joe and Ruth use the same paradigm in relationships. Their sense of shame doesn’t complete its cycle. They are moved to become better people but won’t accept that they ARE better people. They are buying into the premise that “redemption is just a story. We are what we were before”. They both find love and desire only the happiness of their beloved but can’t accept actually being the happiness of their beloved. There is a strong sense of self-sabotage in them both. C.S Lewis described this as feeling the shame without crediting the Mercy.

  51. DJTsurugi

    it depends entirely on where you are hitting the skull tbh… some parts are much easier to penetrate than others, for instance, the temples (the flat part just above and forward from the ears), are extremely easy to break through, in fact they have to be careful in movies because blanks have enough force to do enough damage to be very dangerous, so even “safe” Hollywood stunts can end up disastrous. ~<3

  52. ValdVin

    Does Alice need her humerus to live?

    1. Victor Riley

      She at least needs her skull un-punctured…

    2. Antisolanum

      I don’t know if a life without laughter is a life worth living, so I’d say yes

  53. GUIGUI

    Okay, now, I want a double date of Jenn and Alice with Asher and Ethan, just to see how it goes down.

  54. BlackScarabFilmZ

    What’s Ruth’s major again? Has she considered medicine? Cause she’s very knowledgeable about the skeletal system!

    1. Steamweed

      With her knowledge of anatomy and her desire to inflict suffering? I’d say she’s got a great future in physical therapy. 🙂

      1. Da Boy

        Maybe she could convert some wrestling moves into chiropractor treatments? Or the other way around make wrestling moves out of chiropractor treatments.

  55. Willoughby Chase

    That’s better

    I mean it’s not great but it’s not terrible

  56. DashWallkick

    If anything made Ruth break up with Billie it’s her own mistrust of her happiness. Things were going well, and she decided one day it’s going to end, and she would rather live in misery than see that happen, so she broke up with her. So yeah this tracks. She wants to see Billie happy because she only knows how to self sacrifice for others because she thinks she’s worthless.

    1. C.T Phipps

      While she says that, I like to think Ruth broke up with Jennifer because she was trying not to relapse into alcoholism and Jennifer was still drinking. The tragedy of that being Ruth relapsed on her own and Jennifer quit.

      1. nadamás

        There really isn’t any evidence of that

        1. Clif

          Unless, my memory is way off, Jennifer actually had stopped drinking for real this time before the breakup. But without going back and rereading, I wouldn’t swear to that.

        2. thejeff

          She absolutely had. Gone through withdrawal symptoms and everything. It was the whole culmination of their first semester arc.
          But the myth persists somehow.

      2. DashWallkick

        They were both clean by the time Halloween came up. Ruth was on meds and everything. Neither has relapsed.

  57. Victor Riley

    I dunno… I think Alice should still run. Billie/Jennifer is pretty toxic on her own, and it’s not just the drinking. She can be a self-righteous bully, and do so very quickly.

    And Raidah hasn’t even thrown her wrenches into it. Billie/Jennifer thinks she’s tight in there, not knowing Raidah is about to toss her out, because it was Asher that was the real connection there. Will Billifer’s desire to be with the “cool crowd” help ruin this? Probably.

    1. Dot

      Asher was not the “real connection,” Billie’s family is extremely wealthy and well-connected in real estate.

      1. thejeff

        I don’t know. Raidah seems to treat Asher as the important one.

        1. Gangler

          Turns out you can’t buy your way into the cool kids club. Who knew?

          Well, anybody who watched Elon Musk’s twitter takeover I guess, but other than that select group.

        2. NGPZ

          except he didn’t really buy his way into the cool kids club

          it ceased being the cool kids club because all the cool kids per say who made that platform what it were alienated by plastic bourgeois bullcrap, and so they went elsewhere

          as Huey Newton once notably remarked, change for the better is not made by individuals with vastly accrued fame or wealth, it is made by The People

        3. Gangler

          Right. Elon Musk with more money than anybody failed to buy his way into the cool kids club in an enormous public spectacle.

          Thus, anybody who witnessed this would know that you can’t buy your way into the cool kids club.

          Bringing it back home, Billie’s obsession with being popular is not remedied by her parent’s real estate connections. If she fucks things up with her new friends her dad’s money probably isn’t going to fix that.

        4. Gangler

          Even attempting to fix the problem with her dad’s money would probably only render her more of a dork in the eyes of everybody involved.

        5. NGPZ

          nah, dorks tend to be funny and cute in this comic

          using her dads money would make her, well

          just another spoiled rich kid

        6. Da Boy

          His attempts at being a “Cool Gamer” were even more cringe-worthy XD

        7. Gangler

          “What is it people like about accomplished gamers? Is it that they have a certain amount of knowledge, experience, and expertise in a subject that other gamers are passionate about? No, I bet it’s just that they have a bunch of nice baubles on their account. I’ll just have some interns farm some toys for me, schedule a stream to show them off, and shower in praise and adoration. Absolutely this will not turn into yet another exercise in public humiliation when they all see me play the game like a man who’s never seen it before, despite having the account of a seasoned veteran.”

        8. Taffy

          Having a personality is way more important for streaming than knowledgeable, honestly. Look at Jerma.

        9. Da Boy

          Normally yeah but this is how Elon tried to sell it. That he is this accomplished gamer with probably hundreds hours in the game. But when he actually showed himself playing it he was a total noob.

        10. Gangler

          Yeah, there are streamers that are just entertainers, but that’s different from the “accomplished gamer” thing he was trying to establish.

          If people just watch because you’re funny and charming then your epic level hard-core character isn’t really important. Where that’s exactly what he was showing off in the stream.

        11. Yeet

          maybe it’s not that you can’t in general, it’s that she can’t – her dad’s connections aren’t particularly useful if he doesn’t give a shit about her and she doesn’t do shit related to any of that

        12. Dot

          There’s never been any indication that Billie’s parents don’t give a shit about her, they’re just absent and poor parents who are unable to express an emotional connection to her by any means besides money.

      2. deliverything

        Evidence that Raidah knows this: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-12/05-this-was-halloween/realestate/

  58. Suet

    She is everything. She’s just Ruth.

    just love her, coz if you don’t, I will actually drive your own humerus through your skull

  59. faerevolt

    ok now all three of you make out messily and terribly thx

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