Dana was doing very illegal drugs, which if got that much outta hand would have cost Sarah her scholarship or even coulda landed her in the SYSTEM.
the danger Sarah herself faced if she chose not to act is one which for some reason Raidah was rather oblivious to in her decision to jettison her “friend” ?
Vanessa
Also her roommate was self-districting and possibly suicidal. Radha thinks this was fine but as a parent I would rather know that my child needed help than look back in grief and wonder why no one helped them.
Vanessa
*Self-destructing
jeffepp
Self-gerrymandering
Formedras
About 40% of me is self-gerrymandered to support socialism. 40% for communist democracy without the fascist introductory part that Leninism and Maoism mandate (and never moved past). About 5% for wishing to become a Saiyan or Kryptonian and doing Leninist fascism into communism.
My right foot is dominated by liberal capitalism. We don’t listen to my right foot.
eh, whatever
My right foot is dominated by liberal capitalism. We don’t listen to my right foot.
but like something tells me he’s either naïve or ignorant about both Naomi and what was happening with Dana
after all according to Sarah “[she] was the only one who got to see behind-the-scenes Dana”.
Yumi
Also, thinking of other things Sarah could have done, like, she could have put in for a room transfer. But that wouldn’t have done Dana any good, and Sarah cared about her.
Sol
It’s also been noted in-comic that room transfers can take *months* (if they happen at all) and that wouldn’t have helped Sarah either.
thejeff
And also to remember that Sarah’s personality makes her talk about it in a way that emphasizes her personal stake (“I couldn’t study”) and de-emphasize her caring about Dana, which tends to make us see her in a worse light.
HueSatLight
Dana was smoking pot the whole year. It’s only after her mother died and she got extremely depressed that Sarah called her mother. so no. not a false equivalence.
missilentmurmur
What? How many mothers did she have?
Dday
Lol, there’s some irony here dude look at your av rn.
IIRC in addition to weed, Dana was also on substances a lot worse?
either way Sarah was that much more likely than her to be arrested for drugs found in her room because of the unfortunate reality of racism in policing
one of the biggest differences between Sarah alerting Dana’s parents and Jacob alerting Ethan’s parents is that Jacob didn’t also risk losing his entire future if he chose not to act
Ethan’s state of depression more than puts him at risk akin to Dana, but for those situations it is important to remember that the stakes to those involved were not exactly the same.
Adam Black
as from weed, what else? reefer? maryjane? devilweed?
Dday
Ehh If she was hitting anything harder I can’t find it in the archives.
BBCC
It isn’t stated anywhere she was doing anything but weed, but we do know Sarah was afraid of Dana dying if she didn’t act. Whether she meant by ODing on something else or her committing suicide is left in the air.
mainly im goin off the fact that Sarah said “my room-mate was doing illegal drugs” -> drugs *plural* meaning not just one?
Shade
…what?
In both cases I think their actions are based on concern for their roomate. Jacob is worried about Ethan who we already learned earlier hasn’t been eating properly.
SignSeeker
He is worried that Ethan is suicidal. He specifically stated in a recent (in comic time) conversation with Sarah that he’s been massively concerned that Ethan went through a stretch of not wanting to live. Sarah didn’t rat out her friend because she was using illegal drugs: she ratted her out because she was over-using illegal drugs to the point of self-destructio because she didn’t care about being alive anymore, and Jacob is worried that Ethan is in the same mental place. It’s really not a false equivalence at all.
Lumino
Right? Why is this a bad thing? Jacob was concerned for Ethan and did the only thing he could think of to try and get him help.
He was wrong, sure, but I try not to criticize people for effectiveness.
Nymph
Yeah, I think the outcome was even pretty good, tbh. It isn’t Jacob’s job to manage the adults in the lives of people he loves with at college. He did what you are supposed to do when you’re worried someone is suicidal – you call in for help from the people who care about them.
I would rather a friend be alive but mad at me forever than the opposite.
Nymph
Lives with*
Lysbeth
Loves*
Nymph
Loaves*
Michael Steamweed
Louvres*
Makkabee
Laves*
Azhrei Vep
It’s not a bad thing, but that doesn’t mean Ethan isn’t going to be pissy about it. Nobody likes a snitch, even when snitching is absolutely the right choice.
Azhrei Vep
Possibly especially in such cases.
Freemage
Cool, so it’s another reason for me to be annoyed at post-skip Ethan.
eh, i see the equivalence
as in: they’re both a blatant violation of boundaries. sure you can be worried about me but that’s for you to deal with, don’t go behind me violating my privacy because you’re worried about me
that’s only going to make me distrust you more, and probably if i was in a bad place get me to a worse place
yeah, i see the equivalence in what sarah did and what jacob did, even if it’s different circumstances; neither of them should’ve done what they did
thejeff
Definitely never try to intervene when someone’s in a bad place. If the worst happens, at least you’ll know you didn’t violate their privacy.
It’s a hard call and I’d say from the little we know Sarah was more justified than Jacob. Ethan seems to have been crawling out of the hole a little bit these last few days, while Dana wasn’t as far as we know.
Okay but then what should have been done? Leaving the situation as it is untenable. Not only is it a risk to Sarah’s ability to stay in school (because she was no longer sleeping) but she was also afraid Dana was going to die. She refused to see a mental health professional and her friends refused to reach out.
Ethan isn’t quite there yet but he’s not been eating to the point he’s visibly lost a ton of weight and he hasn’t been going to classes. If he was ever required to see student mental health services, clearly they have not helped and he’s isolated from his friends.
yeah even if Sarah didn’t wanna violate boundaries, her hand was forced because just drugs being in her room carried risk to her being wrongfully imprisoned and her entire future going down the toilet
systemic racism has this way of bringing the worse out of everyone; if one thing needs to be made absolutely clear, nothing about ANY of this is okay
egon
remember kids, next time a friend is in a bad way, just leave them alone and hope for the best
Finding out that Jacob is actually on Sarah’s side in that whole debacle NOW is so wild to me. Dude you dated the girl who socially shunned her bc of it.
Given Joyce’s constant pitching of Sarah to Jacob, and given Raidah front-loaded it with “she punched me in the mall,” it wouldn’t surprise if the story was only ever half-explained to him and once he broke up with her and saw Ethan spiraling he went, “Ah.”
He’s only heard Raidah’s version, but he can now get a recap of it from Lucy any time he wants, so thers no reason to bother going and asking Sarah.
Hoboturtle
Lucy doesn’t only heard Raidah’s version too, doesn’t she. That’s one of the reasons Sarah got pissed at her cause she started giving Sarah grief about it without even asking for her side.
Morleuca
yuuuup
Rabbit
I wonder if Lucy being friends with Raidah is going to bristle some shit with Jacob
Hoboturtle
Lucy only heard Raidah’s version too*. That’s one of the reasons Sarah got pissed at her cause she started giving Sarah grief about it without even asking for her side.
(I don’t know why I added a bunch of “doesnt” to my comment. I was literally falling asleep as I wrote it.)
Actually it turned out OK, and Ethan knows his mom cares about him. Even if she’s not perfect, she is trying.
3oranges
She cares about him so much she is willing to accept his identity, for now! …Which is to say she is trying, but “not perfect” is kind of an understatement on this one.
What else should Jacob have done, as a menschy bystander to some very obvious self destruction?
Ethan has been acting Very Alarming for a long time. He’s absolutely a person whom you should call the cavalry on. It’s not Jacob’s fault that the cavalry is wildly inept.
BBCC
And you know what? This cavalry told Ethan she would rather he be alive and gay than dead. She wasn’t perfect but it’s a big improvement to what she told him last semester.
him wanting to help is good, but getting Naomi to come was a mistake, themz a dice roll which coulda made things WORSE for him
Leorale
Worse than a crisis level of depression? When things are this bad, please take the risk.
Plus, whatever Jacob said, he said it in a way that made Naomi move towards being significantly less terrible* towards Ethan. Dude rolled a 19.
*I mean obv Naomi is still terrible. It’s just, she used to be even more terrible, and parental rejection is the biggest risk factor for making gay kids into dead kids, so, Jacob is doing the good work.
Nymph
Agreeeed. People complaining about what Jacob did: Tell the class what you think he SHOULD have done. Who should he have told? What would have been actually effective? Give ideas rather than shitting on something that did actually kinda work.
Jeremiah
And you know what? Even if there was something better he could had donde I don’t want him to had done that! I think it’s actually good and interesting that the characters make imperfect choices based on their personality rather that being ideal role models.
Nymph
Yes, also this. Narrative interest is often at odds with perfect choices and behavior.
BBCC
Well, sure, but it can be fun to debate if something would be a better option in a vacuum without that necessarily being something you’d want to happen, especially if it’s a situation that’s come up in the story before.
I dont know how much Jacob knows about Naomi, but ideally if I wanna help a friend who’s depressed as this, putting them near their bigoted parent who’s literally one the biggest reasons they wound up like this in the first place is literally the opposite of what’d I do if I knew they were like that.
Jeremiah
But as you say we don’t know how much Jacob knew about Ethan parents.
Hazel
It’s easy to point out what someone shouldn’t have done without giving a better option (especially one that doesn’t assume the person has all the knowledge).
papaya
jacob was aware that ethan was queer at least, and assuming a queer person’s parents are safe is an awful move. If any of my friends had tried what Jacob just did here, I likely would have been pulled out of college and forced into an even worse situation. Things are bad for ethan, but they could have absolutely gotten worse.
Mark
It’s a judgment call. Jacob figured that the expectation of harm from calling Ethan’s mom was less than the expectation of harm from doing nothing.
Or perhaps he thought, “I don’t want a hundred people to ask me why I lived in the same room with the guy and did nothing, said nothing, let him die.”
Or perhaps both.
Chubsius
Would you forgive Jacob depending on the contents of the e-mails? If he told Naomi, “stop being a piece of shit, you’re killing your son,” would that change your mind? What if he said more tactfully than that?
Les
A student with a dangerously troubled room mate can go to the university or to the parents.
The University is not more loving or more chilled out than the parents. Students can be forced to withdraw. This can lead to rather a lot of family drama. It can also impact student access to their parents health insurance. The bureaucracy doesn’t want the student to completely self destruct while at the university and what happens when the student is withdrawn is not their problem. It might be sad, but they have no liability or duty of care, so if this makes everything much worse, see the first clause of this sentence.
Adam Black
Probably the RD.
The Campus has really let down the entire group of abductees. They all need evaluations and extra help.
214 thoughts on “Credits”
NGPZ
…WHYYYYY?
NGPZ
for reals tho does Jacob not see how he’s drawing a false equivalence here? :/
Jo_cubstar
How so? Sarah also was concerned for her roommate who obviously needed help
NGPZ
Dana was doing very illegal drugs, which if got that much outta hand would have cost Sarah her scholarship or even coulda landed her in the SYSTEM.
the danger Sarah herself faced if she chose not to act is one which for some reason Raidah was rather oblivious to in her decision to jettison her “friend” ?
Vanessa
Also her roommate was self-districting and possibly suicidal. Radha thinks this was fine but as a parent I would rather know that my child needed help than look back in grief and wonder why no one helped them.
Vanessa
*Self-destructing
jeffepp
Self-gerrymandering
Formedras
About 40% of me is self-gerrymandered to support socialism. 40% for communist democracy without the fascist introductory part that Leninism and Maoism mandate (and never moved past). About 5% for wishing to become a Saiyan or Kryptonian and doing Leninist fascism into communism.
My right foot is dominated by liberal capitalism. We don’t listen to my right foot.
eh, whatever
“Liberal capitalism, my foot!”
NGPZ
it’s good he wanted to help his friend for reals,
but like something tells me he’s either naïve or ignorant about both Naomi and what was happening with Dana
after all according to Sarah “[she] was the only one who got to see behind-the-scenes Dana”.
Yumi
Also, thinking of other things Sarah could have done, like, she could have put in for a room transfer. But that wouldn’t have done Dana any good, and Sarah cared about her.
Sol
It’s also been noted in-comic that room transfers can take *months* (if they happen at all) and that wouldn’t have helped Sarah either.
thejeff
And also to remember that Sarah’s personality makes her talk about it in a way that emphasizes her personal stake (“I couldn’t study”) and de-emphasize her caring about Dana, which tends to make us see her in a worse light.
HueSatLight
Dana was smoking pot the whole year. It’s only after her mother died and she got extremely depressed that Sarah called her mother. so no. not a false equivalence.
missilentmurmur
What? How many mothers did she have?
Dday
Lol, there’s some irony here dude look at your av rn.
NGPZ
lol
IIRC in addition to weed, Dana was also on substances a lot worse?
either way Sarah was that much more likely than her to be arrested for drugs found in her room because of the unfortunate reality of racism in policing
one of the biggest differences between Sarah alerting Dana’s parents and Jacob alerting Ethan’s parents is that Jacob didn’t also risk losing his entire future if he chose not to act
Ethan’s state of depression more than puts him at risk akin to Dana, but for those situations it is important to remember that the stakes to those involved were not exactly the same.
Adam Black
as from weed, what else? reefer? maryjane? devilweed?
Dday
Ehh If she was hitting anything harder I can’t find it in the archives.
BBCC
It isn’t stated anywhere she was doing anything but weed, but we do know Sarah was afraid of Dana dying if she didn’t act. Whether she meant by ODing on something else or her committing suicide is left in the air.
NGPZ
mainly im goin off the fact that Sarah said “my room-mate was doing illegal drugs” -> drugs *plural* meaning not just one?
Shade
…what?
In both cases I think their actions are based on concern for their roomate. Jacob is worried about Ethan who we already learned earlier hasn’t been eating properly.
SignSeeker
He is worried that Ethan is suicidal. He specifically stated in a recent (in comic time) conversation with Sarah that he’s been massively concerned that Ethan went through a stretch of not wanting to live. Sarah didn’t rat out her friend because she was using illegal drugs: she ratted her out because she was over-using illegal drugs to the point of self-destructio because she didn’t care about being alive anymore, and Jacob is worried that Ethan is in the same mental place. It’s really not a false equivalence at all.
Lumino
Right? Why is this a bad thing? Jacob was concerned for Ethan and did the only thing he could think of to try and get him help.
He was wrong, sure, but I try not to criticize people for effectiveness.
Nymph
Yeah, I think the outcome was even pretty good, tbh. It isn’t Jacob’s job to manage the adults in the lives of people he loves with at college. He did what you are supposed to do when you’re worried someone is suicidal – you call in for help from the people who care about them.
I would rather a friend be alive but mad at me forever than the opposite.
Nymph
Lives with*
Lysbeth
Loves*
Nymph
Loaves*
Michael Steamweed
Louvres*
Makkabee
Laves*
Azhrei Vep
It’s not a bad thing, but that doesn’t mean Ethan isn’t going to be pissy about it. Nobody likes a snitch, even when snitching is absolutely the right choice.
Azhrei Vep
Possibly especially in such cases.
Freemage
Cool, so it’s another reason for me to be annoyed at post-skip Ethan.
lur
eh, i see the equivalence
as in: they’re both a blatant violation of boundaries. sure you can be worried about me but that’s for you to deal with, don’t go behind me violating my privacy because you’re worried about me
that’s only going to make me distrust you more, and probably if i was in a bad place get me to a worse place
yeah, i see the equivalence in what sarah did and what jacob did, even if it’s different circumstances; neither of them should’ve done what they did
thejeff
Definitely never try to intervene when someone’s in a bad place. If the worst happens, at least you’ll know you didn’t violate their privacy.
It’s a hard call and I’d say from the little we know Sarah was more justified than Jacob. Ethan seems to have been crawling out of the hole a little bit these last few days, while Dana wasn’t as far as we know.
Shade
Really? You just let someone self destruct?
What?
Whirlakitty
I think that was sarcastic. I think.
NGPZ
i know lur and dm them a bunch and can confirm:
nope! lol
BBCC
Okay but then what should have been done? Leaving the situation as it is untenable. Not only is it a risk to Sarah’s ability to stay in school (because she was no longer sleeping) but she was also afraid Dana was going to die. She refused to see a mental health professional and her friends refused to reach out.
Ethan isn’t quite there yet but he’s not been eating to the point he’s visibly lost a ton of weight and he hasn’t been going to classes. If he was ever required to see student mental health services, clearly they have not helped and he’s isolated from his friends.
Joy
Agreed … Oh well
NGPZ
yeah even if Sarah didn’t wanna violate boundaries, her hand was forced because just drugs being in her room carried risk to her being wrongfully imprisoned and her entire future going down the toilet
systemic racism has this way of bringing the worse out of everyone; if one thing needs to be made absolutely clear, nothing about ANY of this is okay
egon
remember kids, next time a friend is in a bad way, just leave them alone and hope for the best
Rabbit
Finding out that Jacob is actually on Sarah’s side in that whole debacle NOW is so wild to me. Dude you dated the girl who socially shunned her bc of it.
Alongcameaspider
Makes me wonder if at some point he reached out to Sarah’s old roommate and got a very different version of events then what Raidah tells people
DashWallkick
Given Joyce’s constant pitching of Sarah to Jacob, and given Raidah front-loaded it with “she punched me in the mall,” it wouldn’t surprise if the story was only ever half-explained to him and once he broke up with her and saw Ethan spiraling he went, “Ah.”
Queezle
Maybe he was not sure until he was in the situation himself
Needfuldoer
I forget, did he ever hear the story from Sarah directly, or did he only ever hear Raidah’s comic book villain version?
morleuca
He’s only heard Raidah’s version, but he can now get a recap of it from Lucy any time he wants, so thers no reason to bother going and asking Sarah.
Hoboturtle
Lucy doesn’t only heard Raidah’s version too, doesn’t she. That’s one of the reasons Sarah got pissed at her cause she started giving Sarah grief about it without even asking for her side.
Morleuca
yuuuup
Rabbit
I wonder if Lucy being friends with Raidah is going to bristle some shit with Jacob
Hoboturtle
Lucy only heard Raidah’s version too*. That’s one of the reasons Sarah got pissed at her cause she started giving Sarah grief about it without even asking for her side.
(I don’t know why I added a bunch of “doesnt” to my comment. I was literally falling asleep as I wrote it.)
thejeff
He did, but despite Raidah’s influence he never seemed to turn against Sarah, so it shouldn’t be too surprising he’s taking her side.
TrueVCU
In which there was an attempt, but Jacob forgot he lives in The Universe of Terrible Parents
NGPZ
like does he KNOW Naomi is a piece of shit?
what in the disney channel fuck was he thinkin?
Vanessa
Actually it turned out OK, and Ethan knows his mom cares about him. Even if she’s not perfect, she is trying.
3oranges
She cares about him so much she is willing to accept his identity, for now! …Which is to say she is trying, but “not perfect” is kind of an understatement on this one.
Lysbeth
She’s trying alright. A real trial she is
someone
Very trying.
Leorale
What else should Jacob have done, as a menschy bystander to some very obvious self destruction?
Ethan has been acting Very Alarming for a long time. He’s absolutely a person whom you should call the cavalry on. It’s not Jacob’s fault that the cavalry is wildly inept.
BBCC
And you know what? This cavalry told Ethan she would rather he be alive and gay than dead. She wasn’t perfect but it’s a big improvement to what she told him last semester.
NGPZ
him wanting to help is good, but getting Naomi to come was a mistake, themz a dice roll which coulda made things WORSE for him
Leorale
Worse than a crisis level of depression? When things are this bad, please take the risk.
Plus, whatever Jacob said, he said it in a way that made Naomi move towards being significantly less terrible* towards Ethan. Dude rolled a 19.
*I mean obv Naomi is still terrible. It’s just, she used to be even more terrible, and parental rejection is the biggest risk factor for making gay kids into dead kids, so, Jacob is doing the good work.
Nymph
Agreeeed. People complaining about what Jacob did: Tell the class what you think he SHOULD have done. Who should he have told? What would have been actually effective? Give ideas rather than shitting on something that did actually kinda work.
Jeremiah
And you know what? Even if there was something better he could had donde I don’t want him to had done that! I think it’s actually good and interesting that the characters make imperfect choices based on their personality rather that being ideal role models.
Nymph
Yes, also this. Narrative interest is often at odds with perfect choices and behavior.
BBCC
Well, sure, but it can be fun to debate if something would be a better option in a vacuum without that necessarily being something you’d want to happen, especially if it’s a situation that’s come up in the story before.
NGPZ
I dont know how much Jacob knows about Naomi, but ideally if I wanna help a friend who’s depressed as this, putting them near their bigoted parent who’s literally one the biggest reasons they wound up like this in the first place is literally the opposite of what’d I do if I knew they were like that.
Jeremiah
But as you say we don’t know how much Jacob knew about Ethan parents.
Hazel
It’s easy to point out what someone shouldn’t have done without giving a better option (especially one that doesn’t assume the person has all the knowledge).
papaya
jacob was aware that ethan was queer at least, and assuming a queer person’s parents are safe is an awful move. If any of my friends had tried what Jacob just did here, I likely would have been pulled out of college and forced into an even worse situation. Things are bad for ethan, but they could have absolutely gotten worse.
Mark
It’s a judgment call. Jacob figured that the expectation of harm from calling Ethan’s mom was less than the expectation of harm from doing nothing.
Or perhaps he thought, “I don’t want a hundred people to ask me why I lived in the same room with the guy and did nothing, said nothing, let him die.”
Or perhaps both.
Chubsius
Would you forgive Jacob depending on the contents of the e-mails? If he told Naomi, “stop being a piece of shit, you’re killing your son,” would that change your mind? What if he said more tactfully than that?
Les
A student with a dangerously troubled room mate can go to the university or to the parents.
The University is not more loving or more chilled out than the parents. Students can be forced to withdraw. This can lead to rather a lot of family drama. It can also impact student access to their parents health insurance. The bureaucracy doesn’t want the student to completely self destruct while at the university and what happens when the student is withdrawn is not their problem. It might be sad, but they have no liability or duty of care, so if this makes everything much worse, see the first clause of this sentence.
Adam Black
Probably the RD.
The Campus has really let down the entire group of abductees. They all need evaluations and extra help.
Rolf of Many Doors