That...that makes much more sense... [6/13/2012]

[timemonkey]

Nice to see he's still needlessly unpleasant for no real reason.

IT'S NOT FOR NO GODDAMN REASON.

You get enough people, on a daily basis, mocking and belittling you, your looks, your dress, your speech, any and everything about you, I'd like to see your ass force a smile onto your face and pretend everything's booze and hookers in your life.

Been there, done that, decided it wasn't worth the pain and paranoia weren't worth it. If you go into every situation with a bad attitude and expecting the worst that's all you get from people.

Frankly I think it's pretty mean of Jade to make Ronnie her go-between on this. Either he doesn't get the reference and feels like he's locked out of the loop, or he DOES get the reference (or looks it up afterwards) and knows he's being used to set up a booty call for Jade. Either way it reinforces Ronnie's feelings of being a second class citizen in the cool kids' world.

Or he doesn't read the message not intended for him and just delivers it in mildly annoyed indifference. Why would you even read someone else's message?

[Artemisia]

You know something. . .I don't feel all that bad about Ronnie. Alright, so your overweight and not exactly attractive. . .you don't have to take it out on everyone else, and you don't have to act like an asshole towards everyone. I think there's a lot more to Ronnie's background than we know, and that may be causing him to be insufferable, but honestly, if you're unpopular, fat and unattractive- do something about it. Diet, exercise, chat with people on the net.

It always amazes me that people like me, but you know something, at least I've tried to be personable- and I'm coming from a position where I really think of my body as being downright ugly. I have been miserable, sick and lonely most of my life, but at least I didn't make everyone suffer for it, and I am working on getting healthy.

So, no, I don't feel all that sorry for Ronnie.

[CEOIII]

Nice to see he's still needlessly unpleasant for no real reason.

IT'S NOT FOR NO GODDAMN REASON.

You get enough people, on a daily basis, mocking and belittling you, your looks, your dress, your speech, any and everything about you, I'd like to see your ass force a smile onto your face and pretend everything's booze and hookers in your life.

Been there, done that, decided it wasn't worth the pain and paranoia weren't worth it. If you go into every situation with a bad attitude and expecting the worst that's all you get from people.

Hit a dog everyday and that dog will eventually learn to fear all human contact. People aren't any different.

I'm going to reverse Tamar's comment, because it makes more sense (to me) that way: His behavior may not be justifiable, but it's definitely understandable. Especially to me.

[Freemage]

Yeah--I get Ronnie's behavior, I understand the isolation factor in play, here--but that doesn't necessarily make him any easier to LIKE. If his tormentors were malicious (as opposed to unaware of his state of mind, which is certainly possible in most/all of the flashback sequences we saw), then I would cheerfully condemn them. But it doesn't make the fact that he's damaged goods at this point any easier to overcome, either.

(As an aside, that 'joke' he opened with, on top of being incredibly negative and passive-aggressive, was also just flat-out bad as a joke, from a technical standpoint. If I say, "Nice to meet you," I'm not saying that ~I~ am nice, I'm saying that the meeting is a pleasant thing for me. Thus, he just told Lisa that meeting her felt "ugly"--frankly, if Lisa had taken it as a deliberate insult, I wouldn't have blamed her.)

[timemonkey]

Nice to see he's still needlessly unpleasant for no real reason.

IT'S NOT FOR NO GODDAMN REASON.

You get enough people, on a daily basis, mocking and belittling you, your looks, your dress, your speech, any and everything about you, I'd like to see your ass force a smile onto your face and pretend everything's booze and hookers in your life.

Been there, done that, decided it wasn't worth the pain and paranoia weren't worth it. If you go into every situation with a bad attitude and expecting the worst that's all you get from people.

Hit a dog everyday and that dog will eventually learn to fear all human contact. People aren't any different.

I'm going to reverse Tamar's comment, because it makes more sense (to me) that way: His behavior may not be justifiable, but it's definitely understandable. Especially to me.

I'm not saying the behaviour doesn't make sense, it's just pointless and self defeating. It's one thing to be suspicious until given reason not to be,m it's anouther to act hostile and then act liek a victim when people aren't friendly to you. Hell, everyone we've seen talk to him so far has been nothing but nice or at least neutral so he is actually being rude to them for no actual reason.

[Alice Macher]

You get enough people, on a daily basis, mocking and belittling you, your looks, your dress, your speech, any and everything about you, I'd like to see your ass force a smile onto your face and pretend everything's booze and hookers in your life.

Hit a dog everyday and that dog will eventually learn to fear all human contact. People aren't any different.

Yes, but CEOIII, we haven't yet seen that anyone in Ronnie's past has been abusive to him. All we've seen is a few flashback panels of high school classmates smiling and speaking to him, and his insecure, suspicious thoughts. We're not told what they said. None of the smiles looked especially mean-spirited. Nevertheless, maybe at least one of those people was being mean. Maybe all of them were.

Or...maybe none of them were. Maybe it was his family instead.

Or, maybe--just maybe--Ronnie has been living for a long time with major depressive disorder, of which one of the symptoms is taking how others act and react toward oneself in the most negative manner possible. That doesn't make Ronnie a morally bad person, of course. Not by a long shot. But it may have made him a not very pleasant person.

In other words, I'm waiting to see what more we learn about Ronnie's background before coming to conclusions as to whose "fault" it is, if anyone's or anything's, that he's the way he is today.

[Tamar]

Also, with regard to this:

I'd like to see your ass force a smile onto your face

...as a matter of fact, while it may not be easy to do, and may not (especially in the case of major depressive disorder and similar conditions) be effective all on its own, some mental health professionals do recommend "faking it until you make it" when it comes to such things as greeting people you know with a smile, meeting new people and making friends. The idea being that if you can manage, even to a limited extent at first, to act cheerful and pleasant, you may eventually find you're no longer acting.

Again, that's not a cure-all; it may not work for everyone, and it's not a substitute for other approaches (medical, social, nutritional/fitness, or spiritual) to feeling better about oneself. But there is something to it.

[Pink Freud]

Temperance needs to learn to tuck in her shirt.

Loopy McGloop.

[Zanosuke Kurosaki]

It just hit me - Lisa nearly put her foot so deep in her mouth here that she would have been gnawing on her thigh. And that expression in panel 3. Oh, Lisa. Could you be broadcasting your horror any more clearly? *facepalm* (Yes, an argument could be made more for "startled", but that looks more like her expression in 4.)

And going by his expression, I have to ask: How much of Lisa's words is Ronnie actually taking in, and how much of it is he just filtering out because he's become cynical and instead thinks she is saying?

Eta: After looking over Ronnie's previous interactions, apparently he narrows his eyes a lot when he's filtering. But since he didn't do that in the last part of the flashback, I can't be completely certain. Good job Ronnie, you just made me want to study you more to figure out when you do and when you don't.

[Hexr]

One quote-heavy post, coming up!

Nice to see he's still needlessly unpleasant for no real reason.

IT'S NOT FOR NO GODDAMN REASON.

You get enough people, on a daily basis, mocking and belittling you, your looks, your dress, your speech, any and everything about you, I'd like to see your ass force a smile onto your face and pretend everything's booze and hookers in your life.

Hey, now! I've done that! (In fact, I still do that any time my day is less than great. [Most days are great])

Agreeing strongly here with Adrishiana and Dude. That certain behaviour (in this case, surliness, excessive suspicion and rudeness) may be understandable does not make it justifiable.

CEO reversed this already to a form I'm more comfortable with. Either way, you're right, as are Adri and Dude. He most likely does have a reason to act the way he does (very few people decide to be rude for no reason). Doesn't mean he has a right to treat other people like that.

Been there, done that, decided it wasn't worth the pain and paranoia weren't worth it. If you go into every situation with a bad attitude and expecting the worst that's all you get from people.

So when you decided it wasn't worth it, you just stopped/changed the way you think? (snapping fingers optional)

In other words, I'm waiting to see what more we learn about Ronnie's background before coming to conclusions as to whose "fault" it is, if anyone's or anything's, that he's the way he is today.

Didn't feel like quoting the whole post, so...
Yeah, I'm really looking forward to finding out what happened, and when, and who, and all the rest. Cause in personal experience, it takes years of shit to become that.. jaded? (I'm not looking at you, Jade.)

Also, with regard to this:

I'd like to see your ass force a smile onto your face

...as a matter of fact, while it may not be easy to do, and may not (especially in the case of major depressive disorder and similar conditions) be effective all on its own, some mental health professionals do recommend "faking it until you make it" when it comes to such things as greeting people you know with a smile, meeting new people and making friends. The idea being that if you can manage, even to a limited extent at first, to act cheerful and pleasant, you may eventually find you're no longer acting.

Again, that's not a cure-all; it may not work for everyone, and it's not a substitute for other approaches (medical, social, nutritional/fitness, or spiritual) to feeling better about oneself. But there is something to it.

It is a way of coping, for sure. (Hey, I coped with it!) However, there are a couple of difficulties with the approach. First is that it's so damn difficult to start doing, when you expect to be kicked to curb until you look like Jagger (no offence, sir Mick!) and the second is that once you "made it" it's even more difficult to stop "faking it", because
a)by then you're used to it, and
b) that's what worked in the first place, and if you stop pretending, what if you find yourself in the first place again?

On a happier, non-Ronnie-related, note: What a power couple Lisa and Jade could be if they hooked up! I can see four possible reactions: Either you love them, love to hate them, hate to love them, or hate them but can't help but love them.

[Adrishiana]

I think I might ship the couple a little more if only I could evaporate the mental image of one (or... both, I guess) screaming "PIKACHU, I CHOOSE YOU" in bed.

You're welcome.

[LadyObvious23]

I just wanna hug Ronnie. :/ Poor thing.

I don't, but maybe buy him something to cheer him up.

I'd buy him something but I'm too cheap. X3 So I'd hug himself instead.

[Kamino Neko]

if only I could evaporate the mental image of one (or... both, I guess) screaming "PIKACHU, I CHOOSE YOU" in bed.

You say this like it's a bad thing...

But perhaps I've said too much...

[Hexr]

I think I might ship the couple a little more if only I could evaporate the mental image of one (or... both, I guess) screaming "PIKACHU, I CHOOSE YOU" in bed.

You're welcome.

You're not putting enough thought in this.
You see, Pikachu fails at competitive battling. More like
Either one:"Heracross... I choose you!"
The other: "Go, Crobat!"
(Note: As of Gen5, my knowledge of competetive battling is slightly outdated. The ones I chose are just examples. If you know better ones, feel free to replace with them.)

[Lia S]

It just hit me - Lisa nearly put her foot so deep in her mouth here that she would have been gnawing on her thigh. And that expression in panel 3. Oh, Lisa. Could you be broadcasting your horror any more clearly? *facepalm* (Yes, an argument could be made more for "startled", but that looks more like her expression in 4.)

To be fair, horror is an appropriate response to the message "I'm ugly. Have sex with me." Even when it's from someone who is more attractive than average.