Either Ruth just assumes that stink-eye is Mary’s default expression, or Mary’s got an extra pair of eyes on the back of her head that are doing it too.
Folded arms. Hunched shoulders. We can’t see her lower body but there is a LOT that can be expressed in posture and body language that would indicate the stink eye without actually seeing someone’s face.
Oh, that was a clever move of Joyce that shows she understands Mary very well. Direct her attention onto a lesser secret that you pretend to care about more!
Yeah, but the genius of it is that Mary doesn’t know where the iguana came from, and since she didn’t get the story, she doesn’t know it’s something worth tattling about. To her it’s just Joyce being weird.
thejeff
She does know pets aren’t allowed.
So is Mary fooled here or is she holding onto the bigger secret for later use?
Mary’s not really a tattler. She’s a hoarder. She uses secrets for power, not just to get people in trouble up front.
ruhrow
But at this point, the ‘secret’ is that Joyce brought an iguana into the dorm…or maybe, just maybe, she could stretch that into “Joyce possibly has a pet iguana”, which could be easily disproven by searching her room. Joyce has no real ties with Malaya, so it’d be a leap to jump there. She may possibly go with “someone possibly has a pet iguana somewhere in the dorm,” but proving that would require searching EVERYONE’S room, which is problematic on the face of it (especially given that Mary is unpopular overall and with Ruth even more so) and would also give Malaya ample time/warning to cover her tracks.
Joyce played this well, overall.
thejeff
Or Mary will do her thing, now that she knows to look for something and lurk and spy and wait for more evidence.
Huh, I’m actually impressed that Joyce was able to come up with that so quickly and that Mary bought that. Maybe Fuckface’s powers aren’t as bogus as I previously thought…
I suspect it was a true statement, although it’s possible Dorothy had permission, so when Ruth takes the accusation seriously and follows up on it (probably the correct course of action unless Mary cries wolf too much), Sierra will honestly be able to say Mary was bearing false witness. Borrowing + suspicious demeanor ≠stealing.
I actually went back to see if Dorothy’s feet are ever visible to see if she has shoes. Because Sierra doesn’t wear them, and she’s borrowing her clothes…
Subterfuge? To avoid detection from an authorothy figure?
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: NEVER mess with Joyce.
She can break your heart (right, Joe?)
She can break your pedal magna distal phalangeal bone (right, Toe?)
Or, if she feels like it, she can be a very sharp suberfuge operator indeed. It start to show that although she did not always agree with her methods, this is the girl who grew up with Becky has her best friend.
Seriously. Mary would be the one complaining about noise and parking when you have three friends over for dinner at six pm on a Saturday. (Not even a party with music or anything, just dinner.)
They may be right about Mary (like 100% right with a 2% margin of error), but…..do they know why children love the great taste of cinnamon toast crunch?! I don’t think so. Stay humble ladies.
Well, Ruth didn’t already know about Becky and Fuckface has been less obvious, so I kind of doubt it. The only real clue Ruth’s had is the escaped Lettuce.
ShinyNeen
Yeah, fair. I mostly meant that there’s reasonable odds that Ruth would turn a blind eye to Fuckface -after- learning about him. She wouldn’t have the same reasons as she did for turning a blind eye to Becky, but still.
If that’s true then it’s just another point towards Ruth being a really bad RA because there are a lot of good reasons pets generally aren’t allowed in college dorms. In no particular order: 1) Animals are often messy and don’t exactly respect damage deposits 2) It’s unfair to expect people to cohabit with someone else’s pet not to mention allergies exist 3) Shoebox dorm rooms don’t have the space for the proper enclosures for most animals (they’re not even enough space for the people living there in the first place) 4) Animals can be unpredictable and the college doesn’t want to be liable when someone’s roommate gets bitten by their nervous dog
That was unfair and over the top. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I always find your comments so irritating., but I’m going to see if I can keep myself from responding to them for a few day.
Emily
No need to apologize, I honestly couldn’t give less of a fuck what you think of me.
Emily
But also go fuck yourself. Just on like general principle for conflating me with a transphobe and homophobe.
3-I
“No need to apologize, but also go fuck yourself” is the title of the next book.
Inahc
Because they are consistently negative, judgemental and dripping with scorn? It’s not that they’re *wrong*, it’s just… consistently unpleasant to read.
I am wondering if Fuckface actually even has a proper iguana enclosure or whether he’s just wandering around freezing half the time, crapping everywhere and being miserable. Reptiles are not easy to care for, and real adult iguanas who are cared for properly get much larger than Fuckface and require enclosures too large to reasonably fit in a dorm regardless of any other issues.
He might just be a magical comic iguana like he was in Shortpacked, but if reality applies to him at all, sadly, we’ve seen no indication Malaya is taking care of him on a basic level.
I think all of this is true, barring the bit about it being unfair to expect people to live with other’s pets. Unless there are allergies, you take that risk if you agree to a random roommate. That’s not to say pets should be allowed in the dorms – you’ve given ample good reasons why its a bad idea. I just don’t think it’s unfair to expect others to cohabit with others pets in a random roommate scenario.
Inahc
I’m on the fence there. pets that stay in a cage/tank should be easy to ignore, but some pets can get really destructive (I lost a lot of things to mum’s dogs as a child) and some pets are incredibly smelly (ferrets, omfg).
then again, I just skipped the whole dorm thing myself (which it turned out was a good idea because of the people running the dorms anyways – they had somehow gotten an exemption from the Residential Tenancy Act, so they could be as awful as they liked and students literally had no right to complain)
BBCC
I’m not referring to the dorms – like I said, there’s a bunch of good reasons to avoid pets in the dorms. But if you agree to a random roommate, you need to accept the risk they have a pet. The pet owner is obligated to keep the pet as unobtrusive as possible, but that doesn’t mean that you (general you) have the right to demand they give up their pet or find somewhere else to live when you agreed to live with a random roommate (which, barring situations like dorms where there are good reasons to bar pets, includes anything they come with).
Inahc
…
why *would* someone agree to a random roommate outside of dorms? that sounds like a blind date that lasts months instead of one evening.
BBCC
I have no idea, but my point is if you agree to room with someone you don’t know, you kinda have to take whatever possessions they come with (barring if they are illegal to have in the house) if you want to live there (and you don’t have to! Saying ‘no thanks’ is an option). There are good reasons not to allow pets in the dorm, but lots of apartments don’t ban pets (and, where I live, they are not ALLOWED to ban pets except for allergies – they can say a specific animal is disruptive or dangerous but they can’t ban pets in general) so if you agree to room with someone you’ve not met and discussed this with previously, I kinda feel like that’s your own fault (though, again, the owner is obligated to make sure it behaves).
134 thoughts on “Tattler”
Ana Chronistic
Ruth: What do YOU got the stink-eye over?
Mary: *pushes kitchen magnet ‘8’ upwards* “Everything.”
Doctor_Who
Either Ruth just assumes that stink-eye is Mary’s default expression, or Mary’s got an extra pair of eyes on the back of her head that are doing it too.
DailyBrad
Guessing she might be able to tell from her posture, or her just kinda standing in the hallway being pissy.
BarerMender
Willis always draws the characters facing the reader, no matter which way they’re actually facing in the DoA world.
Taellosse
*looks at first panel*
Deanatay
How do you tell if Mary is angry at someone?
Check her pulse. If she’s got one, she’s angry.
Kitty
Folded arms. Hunched shoulders. We can’t see her lower body but there is a LOT that can be expressed in posture and body language that would indicate the stink eye without actually seeing someone’s face.
ShinyNeen
I adore that fourth panel.
Whoop!
Deanatay
Clearly, Joyce’s workouts with her sister are paying off…
ShinyNeen
You’re right! She’s actually got lots of practice moving people around.
Shiro
Oh, that was a clever move of Joyce that shows she understands Mary very well. Direct her attention onto a lesser secret that you pretend to care about more!
Keulen
That was pretty impressive, and I’m hoping it worked. Seems like it’d be hard to forget that one of your hall-mates is using an iguana as a hat.
Heavensrun
Yeah, but the genius of it is that Mary doesn’t know where the iguana came from, and since she didn’t get the story, she doesn’t know it’s something worth tattling about. To her it’s just Joyce being weird.
thejeff
She does know pets aren’t allowed.
So is Mary fooled here or is she holding onto the bigger secret for later use?
Mary’s not really a tattler. She’s a hoarder. She uses secrets for power, not just to get people in trouble up front.
ruhrow
But at this point, the ‘secret’ is that Joyce brought an iguana into the dorm…or maybe, just maybe, she could stretch that into “Joyce possibly has a pet iguana”, which could be easily disproven by searching her room. Joyce has no real ties with Malaya, so it’d be a leap to jump there. She may possibly go with “someone possibly has a pet iguana somewhere in the dorm,” but proving that would require searching EVERYONE’S room, which is problematic on the face of it (especially given that Mary is unpopular overall and with Ruth even more so) and would also give Malaya ample time/warning to cover her tracks.
Joyce played this well, overall.
thejeff
Or Mary will do her thing, now that she knows to look for something and lurk and spy and wait for more evidence.
Kyrik Michalowski
Huh, I’m actually impressed that Joyce was able to come up with that so quickly and that Mary bought that. Maybe Fuckface’s powers aren’t as bogus as I previously thought…
Inahc
yeah. I really thought they were fucked, there.
King Daniel
You thought that, but Joyce faced Mary down with courage.
emusam
I suspect it was a true statement, although it’s possible Dorothy had permission, so when Ruth takes the accusation seriously and follows up on it (probably the correct course of action unless Mary cries wolf too much), Sierra will honestly be able to say Mary was bearing false witness. Borrowing + suspicious demeanor ≠stealing.
foamy
Am I the only one noticing Mary shifting ‘borrowing’ to ‘stealing’ in her game of telephone tattling?
foamy
… literally the comment right above mine said the same thing twelve hours ago, I’m an idiot.
TheKelliestKelly
Mary sounds like the un fun aunt in the first panel and the annoying cousin in the last two panels.
Cattleprod
I actually went back to see if Dorothy’s feet are ever visible to see if she has shoes. Because Sierra doesn’t wear them, and she’s borrowing her clothes…
Needfuldoer
It looks like she just threw that floral print shirt on on top of what she was already wearing.
showler
Frictionless shoes, apparently.
Bathymetheus
It seems that Joyce’s command of psychology is as good as Dorothy’s.
Tacos
Look at that expression on Fuckface. He’s so done with this shit.
Keulen
I don’t know, that seems like Fuckface’s default expression.
MatthewTheLucky
Exactly.
Beef
Fuckface is permanently done with all the shit
Bagge
Subterfuge? To avoid detection from an authorothy figure?
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: NEVER mess with Joyce.
She can break your heart (right, Joe?)
She can break your pedal magna distal phalangeal bone (right, Toe?)
Or, if she feels like it, she can be a very sharp suberfuge operator indeed. It start to show that although she did not always agree with her methods, this is the girl who grew up with Becky has her best friend.
Minotaur
“But she’s always a woman to me!”
Bickendan
lol
beat me to it!
Bagge
Wha… what are you two talking about?
StClair
Song lyric.
Bagge
Aaaaah, that makes much more sense. Thanks
Bagge
Found it! Not half bad, either.
Kern Wallace
Mary better watch out, I hear there’s a killer going around called the Tattletale Strangler.
BBCC
Well, they’re right. You’re the DEFINITION of a tattler, Mary.
Bagge
Cerberus was spot on when she described her as a curtain twitcher ready to catch her neighbor in any little sin they might be up to
Needfuldoer
Somewhere out there, there’s a seat on a homeowner’s association board with her name on it.
Bagge
Good LORD do I not want her as a neighbour.
Regalli
Seriously. Mary would be the one complaining about noise and parking when you have three friends over for dinner at six pm on a Saturday. (Not even a party with music or anything, just dinner.)
Kris
They may be right about Mary (like 100% right with a 2% margin of error), but…..do they know why children love the great taste of cinnamon toast crunch?! I don’t think so. Stay humble ladies.
Some1
Is it sugar? I’m gonna go ahead and guess sugar.
BarerMender
Well, I’m not prepared to say it’s sugar, but, yeah, it’s sugar.
BBCC
CINNAMON sugar even?
3-I
The irony here is that at this point, Ruth would be more likely to throw Mary out than Fuckface. She already knows what Mary is.
Bagge
Yeah, I give it VERY good odds that Ruth already knows about Fuckface and tries very hard to maintain plausible deniability
ShinyNeen
Fuckface, a.k.a. “Becky 2”? I could see it.
thejeff
Well, Ruth didn’t already know about Becky and Fuckface has been less obvious, so I kind of doubt it. The only real clue Ruth’s had is the escaped Lettuce.
ShinyNeen
Yeah, fair. I mostly meant that there’s reasonable odds that Ruth would turn a blind eye to Fuckface -after- learning about him. She wouldn’t have the same reasons as she did for turning a blind eye to Becky, but still.
Emily
If that’s true then it’s just another point towards Ruth being a really bad RA because there are a lot of good reasons pets generally aren’t allowed in college dorms. In no particular order: 1) Animals are often messy and don’t exactly respect damage deposits 2) It’s unfair to expect people to cohabit with someone else’s pet not to mention allergies exist 3) Shoebox dorm rooms don’t have the space for the proper enclosures for most animals (they’re not even enough space for the people living there in the first place) 4) Animals can be unpredictable and the college doesn’t want to be liable when someone’s roommate gets bitten by their nervous dog
Clif
Thank you, Mary.
Clif
That was unfair and over the top. I’m sorry. I don’t know why I always find your comments so irritating., but I’m going to see if I can keep myself from responding to them for a few day.
Emily
No need to apologize, I honestly couldn’t give less of a fuck what you think of me.
Emily
But also go fuck yourself. Just on like general principle for conflating me with a transphobe and homophobe.
3-I
“No need to apologize, but also go fuck yourself” is the title of the next book.
Inahc
Because they are consistently negative, judgemental and dripping with scorn? It’s not that they’re *wrong*, it’s just… consistently unpleasant to read.
not someone else
I am wondering if Fuckface actually even has a proper iguana enclosure or whether he’s just wandering around freezing half the time, crapping everywhere and being miserable. Reptiles are not easy to care for, and real adult iguanas who are cared for properly get much larger than Fuckface and require enclosures too large to reasonably fit in a dorm regardless of any other issues.
He might just be a magical comic iguana like he was in Shortpacked, but if reality applies to him at all, sadly, we’ve seen no indication Malaya is taking care of him on a basic level.
BBCC
I think all of this is true, barring the bit about it being unfair to expect people to live with other’s pets. Unless there are allergies, you take that risk if you agree to a random roommate. That’s not to say pets should be allowed in the dorms – you’ve given ample good reasons why its a bad idea. I just don’t think it’s unfair to expect others to cohabit with others pets in a random roommate scenario.
Inahc
I’m on the fence there. pets that stay in a cage/tank should be easy to ignore, but some pets can get really destructive (I lost a lot of things to mum’s dogs as a child) and some pets are incredibly smelly (ferrets, omfg).
then again, I just skipped the whole dorm thing myself (which it turned out was a good idea because of the people running the dorms anyways – they had somehow gotten an exemption from the Residential Tenancy Act, so they could be as awful as they liked and students literally had no right to complain)
BBCC
I’m not referring to the dorms – like I said, there’s a bunch of good reasons to avoid pets in the dorms. But if you agree to a random roommate, you need to accept the risk they have a pet. The pet owner is obligated to keep the pet as unobtrusive as possible, but that doesn’t mean that you (general you) have the right to demand they give up their pet or find somewhere else to live when you agreed to live with a random roommate (which, barring situations like dorms where there are good reasons to bar pets, includes anything they come with).
Inahc
…
why *would* someone agree to a random roommate outside of dorms? that sounds like a blind date that lasts months instead of one evening.
BBCC
I have no idea, but my point is if you agree to room with someone you don’t know, you kinda have to take whatever possessions they come with (barring if they are illegal to have in the house) if you want to live there (and you don’t have to! Saying ‘no thanks’ is an option). There are good reasons not to allow pets in the dorm, but lots of apartments don’t ban pets (and, where I live, they are not ALLOWED to ban pets except for allergies – they can say a specific animal is disruptive or dangerous but they can’t ban pets in general) so if you agree to room with someone you’ve not met and discussed this with previously, I kinda feel like that’s your own fault (though, again, the owner is obligated to make sure it behaves).
Stephen Bierce
*hacked Muzak switches to The Bee Gees’ “Jive Talkin'”*
Kris
Just own it Mary. That way you take the power from them!
foducool
ahaahah it worked
butts
you’re a rebel, Joyce
Marsh Maryrose