/doag/ - Dumbing of Age General: EVERY DAY UNTIL WE KILL OURSELVES Edition

Previous thread: >>WhoGivesAFuck
Today's topic of discussion: Who the hell is this bitch?

Praise Kek that He might bestow upon Patreanon a lot more free time to shitpost about the latest DoA strip.

Other urls found in this thread:

pastebin.com/5MwZPhsE
dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/05-media-rumble/sir/
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

OP here, and it just occurred to me how fucked this chick's proportions are. Her legs are literally half of her entire frame; your knees are supposed to bend up to your shoulders, while hers go to her chest and her feet go to her head.

Criminy, Willis. Is this another one of your shortstack things? Are you breaking physics to answer lesbian prayers?

I have those exact proportions. I am also a dude.

Draw your own conclusions about Willis.

this is just him putting the least effort possible into the outfit reference pics. theyre all like that

In that case, my friend, you are fucked up.

However, make a trap out of yourself and Willis is sure to try to sleep with you at a convention.

In today's Very Special Episode of Dumbing of Age, we learn that ONE DAY of therapy and pills turns a supposedly suicidally depressed person into a fucking Disney character.

this is downright offensive

Y'know, I wonder what would/will happen if people who have actually been hospitalized for attempting suicide see how Willis is treating the concept.

I'm with ; I'm not a victim of attempted suicide myself and I'm offended on behalf of all of them. So this is what being an SJW-type is like...

I swear, every time I feel like he cant get any fucking worse, he pulls one so fast I feel like my legs went out from under me. How can you be this moronic to think this is how it actually works?

agreed actually, as someone who's been on antipsychotics, they're not magic

wow, I knew that he is in the "fucks not giving camp" but did not expect him to actively try to piss piss off this hard.

Mine are.

>And on that day, Ruth learned that, once the shakes have passed, sobriety and expressing your feelings in a controlled and supportive environment have a positive impact on one's well-being and are far better methods of dealing with one's issues than sadistic behavior and binge drinking.
>Unfortunately Billie's need for an enabler and shield to deflect criticism of her own behavior will see her work aggressive to return Ruth to the bottle.

Same here. As someone who actually was suicidally depressed (and hospitalized at 14 when I downed most of a bottle of Tylenol), this shit does. not. happen. overnight. It took years of therapy and carefully ramping up my antidepressants to turn me into a functional human being again.

The way this is panning out, one of three things is happening.
A.) Ruth wasn't suicidal at ALL and has come to the realization that with the loss of her job comes some kind of actual freedom.
B.) Ruth is pink clouding and has actually made a plan to kill herself, which means that she is reveling in the euphoria that comes with a concrete plan. Sudden onset happiness in somebody who's been actually suicidally depressed is a warning sign, not a sign of celebration.
or C.), the thing that is actually happening, Willis is a fucking hack who didn't even bother to google depression before writing this storyline.

Happy Ruth is cute.

>Billie is outwardly supportive of Ruth's newfound stability and optimism
>Inside, Billie resent for losing her codependent relationship
>Back at the dorms, Billie begins to gaslight Ruth viciously
>Relationship turns violent, sexually sadistic and toxic very quickly
>Billie gets off on the power rush of becoming Ruth's abuser
>All my greatest fetishes cum true
>Willis ruins it all with shitty explicit art on Slipshine

I've been put into inpatient care for attempted suicide, so I think I can answer 's question. Let's give this a shot.

One day of antidepressants actually DID make me feel unbelievably happy and positive after actively wanting to die, but I was repeatedly cautioned that the effect would wear off over time and that I should focus on thinking about my future while my happy bubble was there to give me clarity. So, point to Willis here for accuracy, but I have a sinking feeling this is going to be "drugs destroy your soul and take away the Real You!" rather than "medication can help, but not on its own".

I'm utterly baffled by how disgusted Billie is with Ruth's happy mood. What, are we supposed to think that having her be monotone and affectless is somehow better because it's not chemically induced or whatever? Ruth has major mental issues; what does Willis think SHOULD be happening here? Does he honestly believe that all mental and physical trauma can be overcome as long as you remain within an echo chamber of bitter, petulant assholes who enable each others' worst impulses and never make them do anything they don't already want to do?

Is...is this how *Willis* dealt with it?

Is this how *the comments section* deals with it?

I hope I'm not right. Christ, that'd be sad.

If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. Or commission it.

I thought her green eyes symbolized her depression/alcoholism. In the strip she decided she was going to therapy, her eyes turned black in the last few panels.

...

Willis will be the first against the wall when the death squads come.

Sounds like what happens when one of those "prayer is all you need" types goes atheist.

To be fair to him, I've been prescribed fast-acting "emergency pills" before that can make you feel pretty chipper for a time.

Speaking of comments, here's an analytical piece by Our Favorite Commentator:

>Cause yeah, [Billie] genuinely believed she was the only one who could save Ruth and that Ruth being broken and toxic meant she wouldn’t be destroyed by her own toxicity (this being how Billie views herself rather than something true). >And that meant that part of her needed Ruth to stay broken to feel like she’s not something that will destroy her. That she can be capable of opening up joy in someone rather than pain.
And playing off Leorale [another commentator], there’s another nasty element of being the person who helps “fix” their partner and care for their mental illness during a time of crisis and it’s one I fell into really bad in my youth.
>And that’s that if you’re the one “fixing” and “supporting”, then it can seem wrong or gauche to process your own pain or suffering and in fact can be outright discouraged because that’s not the dynamic.
>It’s been clear for a while in comic that Billie is incredibly depressed and in emotional crisis, but has been using “being there for Ruth” and “caring for Ruth” as her excuse to avoid actually tackling that and healing from that. If Ruth is well, then her excuse to hide from her own pain disappears and I don’t think she’s fully ready to acknowledge just how bad her mental state currently is.

And in a separate comment:
>[A] cynical part of me honed by too many years of supporting suicidal friends and lovers warns me that someone suddenly seeming happy after a long depressive episode often means that they’ve started forming a suicide plan and are about to have an attempt.
>So… yeah, I’m really glad she’s safe and in hospital right now and I’m going to hope like hell that it’s just the hospital care and therapies working rather than a portent of something sinister.

So even they know that Willis is probably going to mishandle it.

Those comments are pretty similar to ones in this thread right now.

>Is...is this how *Willis* dealt with it?
>Is this how *the comments section* deals with it?

So it would seem. Willis also hangs out on one of the absolute worst Transformers boards out there

Eyo, guy who got put in a psych ward here.

I've been bouncing around from different anti-depressants for years now, and none of them have given me that 'holy shit, everything is finally okay' feeling. Hell, when i had to go to group therapy after I got out, a few people complained that the drugs they were on either weren't working or were causing more detrimental effects, like blurred vision or lethargy.

I'm not saying that drugs don't work -- a few of them have reported success stories -- but Ruth getting lucky on the first fucking try is unrealistic. And it really, really shouldn't be happening that fast unless they're putting Ruth on a bunch of super happy pills, and like Zagreus said, that shit would backfire as soon as the rush wears off.

Also, fuck Willis for continually throwing shit at group therapy while never showing it on-screen. It's a healthy experience that allows you to connect with people who have similar problems (and just generally entertaining people, like the paranoid conspiracist in my group), and gives you a sense of perspective on your own problems. Treating it like it's useless garbage is just promoting pop culture bias that therapy is worthless

Tianeptine works on depression immediately but it's not approved in the USA. I think Xanax can make a person euphoric though, which is way more realistic than getting high on group therapy.

I remember hearing about trials with Ketamine several years back having good immediate effects on severe depression, but I have no idea if it went anywhere.

...and puts and end to her alcoholism.

>This is not how antidepressants work goddamnit
I kinda wish it was.

>I downed most of a bottle of Tylenol

How do you still have a liver?

not that user, but the liver does regenerate.

Or they got a transplant.

Ketamine is inconsistently effective and is only used in an emergency situation. Arketamine is a superior rapid action anti-depressant, but realistically Ruth would never be given either as they're usually reserved to treatment resistant cases or the emergency room.

Xanax is primarily used to treat anxiety and panic disorders and has more of a mellowing effect than an euphoric effect.

Man, it lost me about 20 words in...

Cerb is more or less on the right track though.

>Also, fuck Willis for continually throwing shit at group therapy while never showing it on-screen.
I attribute Ruth's new sunny disposition to talking about her shit, both in group and confessing at least some of her RA sins, getting some rest, and having her blood sugar raised by eating. Ruth was just depressed when Carla freaked out, not actually suicidal.

The pacing kills it. Ruth's downward spiral and positive reaction to mental health treatment should have taken at minimum two weeks. As is Ruth broke up with Billie on Friday night, spent Saturday completely functional, was melancholic on Sunday morning, and is now chipper on Monday morning. It should also be noted that she stopped drinking on Friday too.

Exactly. Ruth didn't even miss classes due to detoxing and depression. Ruth should have been in her bed for months, real-time, for her behavior to be a recognizable problem. Even Willis doesn't have enough patience for his own glacial pacing.

The non-responsive lying in bed deal could have gotten her medical intervention pretty quickly, though it wouldn't be until someone noticed she wasn't doing any RA duties and investigated. Willis should have dropped focus on Ruth for a month or two of strips and had people in-universe notice that Ruth hasn't been around for days. He's got like a dozen primary characters, he could have easily filled the space.

He should have set it up better, how many years has it been since Billie overheard Ruth getting upset while on the phone with her grandpa?

>non-responsive lying in bed
I'm not saying that this is what you mean, but she wasn't entirely non-responsive. At least not to the point that, I think, one could think that she was in a critical state (like mid-overdose or something).

(I've made the case before that if Carla thought Ruth was mid-suicide attempt and her first instinct was to leave instead of checking around for say a drug bottle or alcohol bottle, checking Ruth's pupils, or just generally approaching her and doing any sort of physical check etc. then she kinda blew it. Now that I look, I don't really think there's any reason to think this is a medically urgent situation. So I'll excuse her on that, but it makes the big scene she made even more difficult to swallow.)

pastebin.com/5MwZPhsE

>So, point to Willis here for accuracy, but I have a sinking feeling this is going to be "drugs destroy your soul and take away the Real You!" rather than "medication can help, but not on its own".
>I'm utterly baffled by how disgusted Billie is with Ruth's happy mood.
The first week on my antidepressants was great. My whole life had come crashing down on me, and it felt like it was my own fault. The past year, I had been having really strange symptoms that no one could explain. Turns out I was having bad side effects from a medication my school health center had given me. I was given some medication to help with my migraines, and it happened to also be an antidepressant. I had just broken up with an abusive boyfriend, and I was just an absolute wreck. The pills helped. Significantly. But as with you and everyone else, I got used to it, and I mellowed back out.

As the years have passed, I've gotten higher dosages of my antidepressant because my migraines got worse, and I finally--FINALLY--made progress emotionally. Started the meds in 2009. Broke the shell in 2013. I am still adjusting to feeling like an actual person. I used to never get angry at people, and then I suddenly latched onto being able to feel anger and resentment. I have no idea who I am anymore, because the last time I felt like a person was in middle school. It's taken a long time to figure out how to deal with conflict resolution now that I have feelings again.

It is terrifying to not know who you are anymore. And it can be scary when someone you love gets better, too. My boyfriend went from being super-chill to super-hyper.

But I cannot fathom Billie being actually angry at Ruth for acting like a normal person. It will take adjusting, but if she actually loves Ruth, she should be glad. Eventually.

No, they appeared when she and Billie finally hooked up.

June 2011.

dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/05-media-rumble/sir/

I didn't mean non-responsive in a medical sense. I think that Carla's actions would have gone over a lot better if it had been presented as a freakout over how real everything was getting and not wanting to be involved in something potentially major. Even if it's not presented as her being in the wrong, admitting that she didn't take the best course of action would go a long way to making her feel like an actual character.

Billie actually has no idea what Ruth is like as a person, she's only ever dealt with the violent, spiteful, depressive, suicidal drunk.

>a victim of attempted suicide
>victim
>of yourself

>it wouldn't be until someone noticed she wasn't doing any RA duties and investigated.
So it would take months, since she doesn't do that shit. Only Mary would actually care.

Think about that.

I don't know why people ITT continue to read this and QC. And I hate that guy who barges into threads to tell people to stop liking things.

The layouts are stiff, the facial expressions are wrong more often than not, and the punchlines are on life support.

I can't even ironically appreciate it as "so bad it's entertaining." It's just bad. It's suffering to read through in a way that doesn't even justify itself.

I'm sorry for blogging. But it's really depressing to read this, even with edits or snarky comments.

>it's really depressing to read this, even with edits or snarky comments.
That's correct.

A bunch of us are ex-fans who still care enough about the characters to keep following it but hate what Willis is doing, so we come here to gripe about it.

I actually don't mind QC that much. It's a 6/10 on a good day and a 5 or 4 in general, but Jacques doesn't have his head up his ass the way Willis does

I left the internet for a month, a fucking MONTH, to do some humanitarian work in Thailand.

And the comic is STILL FUCKING HOVERING IN THIS SHITPILE OF A PLOT

One, if you're a regular, then you should know that it'd take much longer than a month to get out of this shitpile

Two, what are you doing, trying to make something out of your life and helping others when you can be here raging about a mediocre webcomic artist?

I read these threads mostly because seeing a terrible author and artist like Willis succeed helps remind me that my own work doesn't have to be perfect to be worthwhile.
It's also interesting to see how and why people hate things.

I believe my pattern was

>See ad for Dumbing of Age
>Read it (it was like in its first month or something at that point)
>Mildly curious that it seems to be a continuation
>Binge Shortpacked
>Apparently THAT'S a continuation too...
>Binge It's Walky and relevant previous comics
>Liked It's Walky
>Liked Shortpacked a bit
>Everything comes tumbling down tumbling down

And now I'm here because pic related

I was WAY into Willis in high school. I used to think his webcomic was one of the best things I read.
Then I grew up and started hating his comic and him. But deep down I think I still want it to be good. I get a cathartic pleasure out of discussing it's flaws in an environment that's not censored to hell and back with one narrow one-sided narrative.

>Only Mary would actually care.
That would have been worlds more interesting than Carla freaking out over nothing and Mary's half-assed blackmail mongering.

Maybe his stomach got pumped before it digested all of them

I am sort of regular. I know of Willis's work through other hate machines built around shitting on his comics. I knew he had a tendency to draw things out but fuuuuuck meeee

TWO: think of humanitarian aid as like, shift work. I go back to Thailand in another 2 weeks to resume helping the impoverished and shitting in an actual bucket for another month.

I was just joking with you, bruh. If you've got a good job/volunteering thing going, then good on you.

And yes, this is just about average for Willis. Did you know that we haven't even hit six weeks yet in-comic? Amazing.

I keep expecting a Star Trek 6 moment, where Willis, and ergo his character give a speech about how they *need* their rage, contempt, and wry cynicism to be Real and Enlightened.

Griping about a bad comic and ragging on it's shitlord of an authoris FUN.

That's all anyone really needs to know.

Power Transference is someone's Thing.

>it's really depressing to read this, even with edits or snarky comments.

And... not reading it didn't occur to you?

>shitting in an actual bucket for another month.

At least you're not shitting right on the street, like they do in India

Not an option

Never an option

>not reading something you don't like
are you a wizard?

I can't tell if this means if Willis has bad instincts, because of the "increasing feeling" that he was doing poorly the first time, or if he has good instincts that are stymied by his conscious mind overthinking his work.

Either way it's a bad change.

Willis' loathing for doctors and psychiatry shine through. Ignoring doctor's orders and becoming a Wry Cynical Online Commentator is the true way to internet enlightenment.

Pretty much this. If Billie doesn't need to 'save' Ruth anymore, what exactly does she have? Besides being a simmering mass of sardonic rage like half the cast.

I had my stomach pumped, but I fucked my liver up GOOD. To this day, I can't have alcohol.

In tonight's strip, Ruth shows a tiny shred of self-awareness.

Can't wait to see how the regular comments react to last night's strip, though!

Hopefully, taking it out on Mary in the guise of protecting the floor and eventually getting disciplined for it. Ending in some unity for the floor.

This is stupid.

That's really all I can say.

>Can't wait to see how the regular comments react to last night's strip, though!

It'll be a wash of YEAH RUTH SO STRONK CANT WAIT FOR THE SLIPSHINE OF THEM FUCKING ON THE HOSPITAL BED ILY WILLIS JERK OFF ONTO MY FACE YEEEAAAAHAHHHRAHRHAWHRH

Man, he's really drawing Ruth's eyes bigger than ever before. And just like it's supposed to, it makes the character seem way more innocent/childlike/cuter.

I kinda hate that it works despite knowing exactly how it's working.

Fuck, what did he do to her eyes?
Panel 4 scares me

Maybe she's stoned out of her gourd on meds, which dilated her pupils.

Her conflict with Mary. Looking back, Billie sorta defines herself through control and influence of others. Her relationship with Joyce was heavily about Billie influencing Joyce's social development and took a backseat when Sarah stepped in to counter her. She guilt tripped Carla into looking after Ruth. Her relationship with Walky is affected too, in that he views their relationship through the lens of the equality of their childhood friendship which causes her to draw away from him as she's not in charge.

She'd probably need pupils for that.

Eyes work funny in DoA.

>Ruth, what's wrong with your eyes?
>Last night I had a visitor. More than man, more than woman, it was old and young and smelled of a thousand memories you wish you could forget. It's name was a thousand yattering syllables and discordant alliteration. And it promised me, it promised me so many things.
>What are you talking about, Ruth, you're scaring me.
>I was scared too. Scared of what might happen. But no more. I can feel it. My soul being torn open and burned to ash as power beyond reality seeps into my veins and amplifies me, makes me something beyond myself. Join me Billie. It will come to you sometime soon in the dark, lonely night. Join me and be more than what you are. Together we will cast down the petty Gods of Earth and rule; conqueror queens of an empire without end. All will be born, die, live, breath, grow, and rot at our whims and the sun will be quenched by the blood of those who oppose us.

That sounds like something I would have written when I was whacked out on ambien

What? You don't want DoA to turn into a sprawling, cosmic/techno/body horror story straight out of maddened scrawls of a Japanese film director?

You sound like you'd be fun to talk to when you're whacked out on Ambien.

>Man, he's really drawing Ruth's eyes bigger than ever before. And just like it's supposed to, it makes the character seem way more innocent/childlike/cuter.

Yeah, she's definitely supposed to look cuter. Might be the meds, but the intention is clear.

She's high as a kite.

I dunno about talking but it was my way upon taking it to open up a Notepad doc on my computer and wait for it to kick in, then wake up the next morning with a vague recollection and a page full of mindfuck

That's awesome, got any good stuff you'd care to share?

Then I guess you have no one but yourself to blame then. Because no one's forcing you to enter these threads

I'd have to dreg it up from an old laptop which might not even work anymore first.

It's mostly just philosophical rambling with some poetic flair intercut with the occasional proclamation of "I'm high as all fuck right now".

Okay, Sup Forums what the fuck is this? Wasn't homestuck enough for you? Just y u read dis?

Willis lack of understanding for psychiatric facilities is really shocking. Like...he could at least do some research.

It's easier to bullshit though

Okay, she's flirting with being relatable. I can take this

It amazes me that no one's called him out strongly enough for him to make some public passive-aggressive post about it.

why do you keep reading this
why
it doesn't even make sense
just stop, dude
get a fucking life

>"drugs destroy your soul and take away the Real You!"

Even if that were true, this is Ruth we're talking about here. Is the "Real" her worth sustaining?

Id call that a blessing for everyone involved.

This is coming across more as a selfish "She should be rescued, but only on MY terms. And she should always be beholden to ME for it"

Sounds like SHE wants to control the relationship now.

this is...actually not awful.