One of the saddest things in modern wrestling (that doesn’t involve the lack of a union or anything one of the legions of trash people in the industry are doing) is how the indie scene turned Petey Williams’ devastating finisher into just another a spot.
That seems to happen to every move, sooner or later. What starts out as one wrestler’s irresistible finisher gets copied and adapted and eventually becomes just another standard move. It does seem to happen a lot faster these days, though. And as wrestlers constantly push the envelope in search of something unique, it’s sadly likely that some people are going to get badly injured.
Headcanon: Walky’s nickname comes from and incident when they were kids and she accidentally called him “Baka”, and then had to swiftly backtrack and claim she said something else.
Works on two levels, since she also denies being a nerd, so she should have no knowledge of anime terms.
That’s not really an excuse though. I wouldn’t appreciate my friends volunteering information about my relationships to people I’ve never even met. Especially considering the nature of their relationship when it started revealing that someone could even form a bad impression on them. This is a small thing ultimately but still kind a jerk thing to do.
Deanatay
Walky thinks of her as his sister. It’s generally accepted that you’re allowed to be a jerk to your siblings.
I’m not gonna start another rant thread on Walky again. *It’s happened too many times*. But just because it happened publicly doesn’t somehow make it okay to share. I know gossip happens but that doesn’t mean it’s right. It’s very public knowledge that Joyce glassed a guy that drugged her at a party. Would you share that with someone she’s never met before? It’s not Walky’s story to tell.
But I do like Regalli’s theory below that Walky’s probably still bitter at Ruth over the relationship and was making a passive aggressive dig at her expense. Very on brand for him.
No offense but you kind of seem anti Wally no matter what he does. I mean hes not my favorite or anything but jeez
Keulen
Sirksome definitely seems to hate Walky, and I can’t figure out why since he doesn’t seem all that bad to me.
Sirksome
Yeah I am, but I can say good things about him if I have to. I did like and was pretty impressed when he punched Asher. I also respect the fact he’s done a lot of work to improve his relationship with Sal which was probably the one thing I hated about him the most. I have a brother myself and even though I don’t like him that much I’ve had his back since we were kids and he’s had mine. That whole Leland thing still really upsets me thinking about it. And the whole “He was a kid” thing doesn’t fly with me since I’ve been in similar situations at that age.
thejeff
As for Leland, I put the blame for that squarely on the teacher. Walky was pretty blatant about just going along to avoid the threatened violence. If she couldn’t hear the obvious threat and read Walky’s reaction, she wasn’t going to listen to anything.
TemperaryObsessor
Yea chool clearly knew who they wanted to blame and anyone going against their decisions would be punished or at least have no real protection when the kids worked it out.
marcus erronius
dude your average is gonna make me cry, that’s not fair
marcus erronius
*avatar, gdi
Regalli
Yeah, Walky was not subtle there in saying ‘I am being threatened,’ and Leland was not subtle in his threatening given the teacher was right there. The school had no intention of punishing the white boy with a promising future over Marcie, and even if he had hurt Sal or Walky as actual students, I doubt much would have come of it without Linda pushing. (And I can only say for certain she’d push for Walky.)
Regalli
By which I mean, ‘even in a situation where Leland attacked Sal, unprovoked, cut and dry harm to her for no reason, I’m not confident Linda would stand up for her. In any other situation I feel safe to say she wouldn’t.’
TemperaryObsessor
But if Walky started “causing trouble” would Linda still stand up for him. Or does his protection depend on letting these things go.
thejeff
It’s actually nowhere near as public knowledge. Basically everyone on this floor saw the body slam and knows about the dating and it’s safe to assume it quickly spread to the adjoining boys floor as well. None of this is anything Walky was told in confidence or something like that. Booster would likely be the only one on the floor who didn’t know the backstory.
The glassing was known to the witnesses and few others at least for a long time. Most of the witnesses at the party, other than our cast, had no idea who Joyce was. Rumor reached Roz, who was at the party but didn’t see it, only as some kind of fight. Beyond that Joyce wanted it kept quiet and everyone respected that. Even Walky. At least until later events with Ryan, but I don’t think even then Joyce’s full connection came out publicly. She had to tell Joe about it: he knew about the stabbing, but not the connection to her.
Okay I really have to ask what this “Billie might be dead” narrative is. That was never once setup or even hinted at. I can believe Billie broke up with Ruth or even dropped out for rehab or something but she’s not dead. Killing off a character as significant as Billie without setting it up first would be a really terrible thing to do to readers invested in her story. She’s a more important character than Mike was and that dude got a whole story arch surrounding his death and some of the characters are still mourning him. Billie can’t be dead.
Demoted Oblivious
I think the narrative goes, ” Once upon a time, Billie died.”
All your points and reasoning about it are correct.
clif
Sirksome, it’s a joke. Mike died off-screen during the time skip and so now every character that we haven’t seen since is assumed to have similarly died over the time skip. Some of us have fun with crack theories. In the case of Billie and Ethan, we have the additional fact that their accustomed silhouettes didn’t seem to appear in the shaded cast photo and for Billie we have the additional fact that Dorothy said “we lost Billie.”
But now that Willis (presumably) killed off a character that way, we get to assume that’s also true of everyone that we’ve ever seen in the comic that hasn’t yet appeared since the time skip. Joyce’s mom died of being supplexed by Ruth. In fact we haven’t seen Amber at the meeting and so she obviously died from the shock of meeting Booster, who you don’t realize looks exactly like Mike except for the glasses.
All clear?
thejeff
There’s still one silhouette in the cast picture that could easily be Billie
Sirksome
Oh. I didn’t get the joke cause people have been commenting on this “Billie is dead” theory since that first strip with Becky, Dorothy, and Ruth. Where Dot was all “We also lost Billie” Which is a bit cryptic of a statement maybe, but not enough for me to assume she’s dead.
I dont know the ruth bille relationship was kind of toxic to me. I honestly dont think the whole forcibly kiss someone without there consent suicide pack and blackmail would have been considered okay today in fact I’d go as far to say if ruth was a guy no one would be okay with it. I mean the relationship did get better but I never seemed like something that would last forever. In fact in the walkyverse ruth sort of helped raise billie so it was always kind of fucked up.
CJ
Arguing it was fucked up because another dimension Ruth was a parental figure is … like arguing real-world physics should apply to Amazi-Girl.
Surprise that she didn’t have to track him down and threaten to rip his femurs out to get him to attend the meeting? She doesn’t know him very well yet.
… So, good to see Walky almost certainly DOES still resent Ruth for the dating Billie with side order of co-dependent mutual depressive spiral, and is choosing to express this via passive aggressive digs at her to the newbie.
Probably not how I’d choose to do that, but on the other hand, he has had months and Billie probably wouldn’t have appreciated direct digs. So, *shrugs* You’re all disasters, children.
The Ruthless Violence Show definitely is the best one on campus tonight, though. Fair enough, Booster.
He’s so jokey all the time, it’s hard for me to tell when his digs have a deeper meaning. I had forgotten about how upset he was when he learned that they were dating.
That one single “neat” in the face of Ruth’s almost desperate assertion that she could be a better person is probably my single favourite Walky moment. It is unflinchingly brutal.
Walky’s had a lot of… I don’t want to say *assumptions* that he secretly deep down cares a whole lot but doesn’t put effort into it, but it doesn’t come up as much as I’d like it to.
So that refusal to humour Ruth and punching Asher, that’s the Walky I want to see. Doing what he can to defend the people he loves.
There’s nothing quite like wrecking someone with one word.
clif
Though Walky reveals he really does understand in the first panel of the next strip. You really need to read the two together to understand where he’s coming from.
Demoted Oblivious
To be fair, leaving that hanging without the followup context makes it sound particularly savage. But if viewed with the context of the next strip, is diffused by Walky’s apparent distress over his own failings as a brother. He incorrectly supposed that her meds gave Ruth a clean slate.
I just described that scene to a friend of mine the other day. He had like, no context so I described Billie and Ruth’s relationship in the minimal detail necessary to get to that scene.
Ruth is still not my favorite ever. But I do respect that scene.
Ruth rocketed up the scoreboard because she feels like she’s made a genuine effort to get her shit together in such a way that it’s started to pay off after a long period of suffering. Bad shit happened to her and she stumbled in the dark dealing with it, but now there’s a sense that she’s started to stabilize.
124 thoughts on “Bonus people”
Ana Chronistic
does Ruth have to give femurs back if extra people show up
Regalli
Definitely. But she’s allowed to redistribute them as she sees fit.
Doctor_Who
Ever notice how Sierra and Rachel are super tall?
Extra femurs. Not sure how they earned them.
Doctor_Who
Well, she was gonna, but now it would be predictable so she has to do something else.
Luckily, everyone from her homeland is trained in The Canadian Destroyer.
threnodygrey
One of the saddest things in modern wrestling (that doesn’t involve the lack of a union or anything one of the legions of trash people in the industry are doing) is how the indie scene turned Petey Williams’ devastating finisher into just another a spot.
clif
You know, Booster is actually giving me hope that Billie will show up.
Even though I know she really died over the time skip.
Wizard
That seems to happen to every move, sooner or later. What starts out as one wrestler’s irresistible finisher gets copied and adapted and eventually becomes just another standard move. It does seem to happen a lot faster these days, though. And as wrestlers constantly push the envelope in search of something unique, it’s sadly likely that some people are going to get badly injured.
Sirksome
Walky really reveals way too much of other people’s personal information.
JetstreamGW
I mean, to be fair, Billie’s like one of his best friends. Even if she’s a tsundere jackass about it 😛
Doctor_Who
Headcanon: Walky’s nickname comes from and incident when they were kids and she accidentally called him “Baka”, and then had to swiftly backtrack and claim she said something else.
Works on two levels, since she also denies being a nerd, so she should have no knowledge of anime terms.
Sirksome
That’s not really an excuse though. I wouldn’t appreciate my friends volunteering information about my relationships to people I’ve never even met. Especially considering the nature of their relationship when it started revealing that someone could even form a bad impression on them. This is a small thing ultimately but still kind a jerk thing to do.
Deanatay
Walky thinks of her as his sister. It’s generally accepted that you’re allowed to be a jerk to your siblings.
Johan
Id say prolly his best friend.
Pretty sure he even referred to her as a sister.
Mariah Hardnett
I think Wally just really doesn’t like ruth and thinks shes bad for billie but the only way he can express it is by being his snarky self
Leorale
That one has already bee ln revealed to everyone on the hall, it was a whole public thing
Sirksome
I’m not gonna start another rant thread on Walky again. *It’s happened too many times*. But just because it happened publicly doesn’t somehow make it okay to share. I know gossip happens but that doesn’t mean it’s right. It’s very public knowledge that Joyce glassed a guy that drugged her at a party. Would you share that with someone she’s never met before? It’s not Walky’s story to tell.
But I do like Regalli’s theory below that Walky’s probably still bitter at Ruth over the relationship and was making a passive aggressive dig at her expense. Very on brand for him.
Mariah Hardnett
No offense but you kind of seem anti Wally no matter what he does. I mean hes not my favorite or anything but jeez
Keulen
Sirksome definitely seems to hate Walky, and I can’t figure out why since he doesn’t seem all that bad to me.
Sirksome
Yeah I am, but I can say good things about him if I have to. I did like and was pretty impressed when he punched Asher. I also respect the fact he’s done a lot of work to improve his relationship with Sal which was probably the one thing I hated about him the most. I have a brother myself and even though I don’t like him that much I’ve had his back since we were kids and he’s had mine. That whole Leland thing still really upsets me thinking about it. And the whole “He was a kid” thing doesn’t fly with me since I’ve been in similar situations at that age.
thejeff
As for Leland, I put the blame for that squarely on the teacher. Walky was pretty blatant about just going along to avoid the threatened violence. If she couldn’t hear the obvious threat and read Walky’s reaction, she wasn’t going to listen to anything.
TemperaryObsessor
Yea chool clearly knew who they wanted to blame and anyone going against their decisions would be punished or at least have no real protection when the kids worked it out.
marcus erronius
dude your average is gonna make me cry, that’s not fair
marcus erronius
*avatar, gdi
Regalli
Yeah, Walky was not subtle there in saying ‘I am being threatened,’ and Leland was not subtle in his threatening given the teacher was right there. The school had no intention of punishing the white boy with a promising future over Marcie, and even if he had hurt Sal or Walky as actual students, I doubt much would have come of it without Linda pushing. (And I can only say for certain she’d push for Walky.)
Regalli
By which I mean, ‘even in a situation where Leland attacked Sal, unprovoked, cut and dry harm to her for no reason, I’m not confident Linda would stand up for her. In any other situation I feel safe to say she wouldn’t.’
TemperaryObsessor
But if Walky started “causing trouble” would Linda still stand up for him. Or does his protection depend on letting these things go.
thejeff
It’s actually nowhere near as public knowledge. Basically everyone on this floor saw the body slam and knows about the dating and it’s safe to assume it quickly spread to the adjoining boys floor as well. None of this is anything Walky was told in confidence or something like that. Booster would likely be the only one on the floor who didn’t know the backstory.
The glassing was known to the witnesses and few others at least for a long time. Most of the witnesses at the party, other than our cast, had no idea who Joyce was. Rumor reached Roz, who was at the party but didn’t see it, only as some kind of fight. Beyond that Joyce wanted it kept quiet and everyone respected that. Even Walky. At least until later events with Ryan, but I don’t think even then Joyce’s full connection came out publicly. She had to tell Joe about it: he knew about the stabbing, but not the connection to her.
CJ
Well, he knows that that’s the way you get people to,trust you, right?
Fetch85
If Billie is dead, Walky may blame Ruth.
Sirksome
Okay I really have to ask what this “Billie might be dead” narrative is. That was never once setup or even hinted at. I can believe Billie broke up with Ruth or even dropped out for rehab or something but she’s not dead. Killing off a character as significant as Billie without setting it up first would be a really terrible thing to do to readers invested in her story. She’s a more important character than Mike was and that dude got a whole story arch surrounding his death and some of the characters are still mourning him. Billie can’t be dead.
Demoted Oblivious
I think the narrative goes, ” Once upon a time, Billie died.”
All your points and reasoning about it are correct.
clif
Sirksome, it’s a joke. Mike died off-screen during the time skip and so now every character that we haven’t seen since is assumed to have similarly died over the time skip. Some of us have fun with crack theories. In the case of Billie and Ethan, we have the additional fact that their accustomed silhouettes didn’t seem to appear in the shaded cast photo and for Billie we have the additional fact that Dorothy said “we lost Billie.”
But now that Willis (presumably) killed off a character that way, we get to assume that’s also true of everyone that we’ve ever seen in the comic that hasn’t yet appeared since the time skip. Joyce’s mom died of being supplexed by Ruth. In fact we haven’t seen Amber at the meeting and so she obviously died from the shock of meeting Booster, who you don’t realize looks exactly like Mike except for the glasses.
All clear?
thejeff
There’s still one silhouette in the cast picture that could easily be Billie
Sirksome
Oh. I didn’t get the joke cause people have been commenting on this “Billie is dead” theory since that first strip with Becky, Dorothy, and Ruth. Where Dot was all “We also lost Billie” Which is a bit cryptic of a statement maybe, but not enough for me to assume she’s dead.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-11/01-this-bright-millennium/polycule/
Jade
oh nooo I hope this doesn’t imply a Billie/Ruth breakup…
Smithy
I’m afraid it does, another comic earlier already implied as much
Mra
I thought Walky was just joking, it didn’t occur to me that he was hinting at Ruth being single.
Throwatron
Wait, the way everybody was talking so far this storyline, I thought Billie was just dead.
T Campbell
Insufficient data! But Walky’s joke doesn’t really work if Ruth is known to be currently seeing Billie.
clif
On the contrary, if she’s still seeing Billie it would make the joke funny instead of mean.
It’s too bad that Billie died over the time skip.
T Campbell
Hmmm, that is a point. Walky’s dislike of Ruth might justify the meanness to him in this case, though.
Miri
… You mean just dead but still actively dating Ruth?
clif
You know what? That works for me.
King Daniel
Weekend At Billie’s
Mariah Hardnett
I dont know the ruth bille relationship was kind of toxic to me. I honestly dont think the whole forcibly kiss someone without there consent suicide pack and blackmail would have been considered okay today in fact I’d go as far to say if ruth was a guy no one would be okay with it. I mean the relationship did get better but I never seemed like something that would last forever. In fact in the walkyverse ruth sort of helped raise billie so it was always kind of fucked up.
CJ
Arguing it was fucked up because another dimension Ruth was a parental figure is … like arguing real-world physics should apply to Amazi-Girl.
Demoted Oblivious
Y’all are reading _way_ too much into casual word play.
clif
Shhh!
Demoted Oblivious
What’s that supposed to mean? Huh? Are thems fightin’ words?
Chris
Not sure quite what’s going on with Ruth’s expression in the last panel.
Deanatay
Surprise that she didn’t have to track him down and threaten to rip his femurs out to get him to attend the meeting? She doesn’t know him very well yet.
Regalli
… So, good to see Walky almost certainly DOES still resent Ruth for the dating Billie with side order of co-dependent mutual depressive spiral, and is choosing to express this via passive aggressive digs at her to the newbie.
Probably not how I’d choose to do that, but on the other hand, he has had months and Billie probably wouldn’t have appreciated direct digs. So, *shrugs* You’re all disasters, children.
The Ruthless Violence Show definitely is the best one on campus tonight, though. Fair enough, Booster.
Mra
He’s so jokey all the time, it’s hard for me to tell when his digs have a deeper meaning. I had forgotten about how upset he was when he learned that they were dating.
Spencer
That one single “neat” in the face of Ruth’s almost desperate assertion that she could be a better person is probably my single favourite Walky moment. It is unflinchingly brutal.
poofdepoof
Oh god, your description was so delicious I had to go back and find it
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-9-comic/03-sometimes-the-sky-was-so-far-away/worser/
Spencer
So good.
Walky’s had a lot of… I don’t want to say *assumptions* that he secretly deep down cares a whole lot but doesn’t put effort into it, but it doesn’t come up as much as I’d like it to.
So that refusal to humour Ruth and punching Asher, that’s the Walky I want to see. Doing what he can to defend the people he loves.
Regalli
Seriously, that one’s impressive.
june gloom
There’s nothing quite like wrecking someone with one word.
clif
Though Walky reveals he really does understand in the first panel of the next strip. You really need to read the two together to understand where he’s coming from.
Demoted Oblivious
To be fair, leaving that hanging without the followup context makes it sound particularly savage. But if viewed with the context of the next strip, is diffused by Walky’s apparent distress over his own failings as a brother. He incorrectly supposed that her meds gave Ruth a clean slate.
Spencer
Ruth and Billie have been drama hurricanes but despite myself I’m kinda sad that they might have broken up.
I used to hate Ruth and now she’s basically my favourite ever since that one strip where she told Billie to stop trying to get her to drink.
poofdepoof
I just described that scene to a friend of mine the other day. He had like, no context so I described Billie and Ruth’s relationship in the minimal detail necessary to get to that scene.
Ruth is still not my favorite ever. But I do respect that scene.
Spencer
Ruth rocketed up the scoreboard because she feels like she’s made a genuine effort to get her shit together in such a way that it’s started to pay off after a long period of suffering. Bad shit happened to her and she stumbled in the dark dealing with it, but now there’s a sense that she’s started to stabilize.
Keulen
I kinda hope Ruth and Billie haven’t broken up, and I’m not gonna assume they have unless it’s confirmed in a later strip.
Regalli
Same.
spookyfox
soon we find out that billie has transferred to yale, earning her the title of “dead to me” by dottie
Lingo
Ooooh, that would be funny.
Wizard
And as Dorothy stews in rage and resentment, we see the origin of the next campus supervillain.
UnfrozenNeanderthal@gmail.com
Alright, so I guess Walky’s losing his femurs today
Dave Van Domelen
Stalker!Lucy….
Undrave
She’s can’t help but follow Walky, it’s the best way to get a good look at his butt!!!