979

Restore
Posted on October 29, 2015 by David M Willis
vintagephoenix2015bigTomorrow (Friday) I'm going to be in Bloomington, Indiana!  Come see me at Vintage Phoenix Comics from 6 to 8 pm!

979 thoughts on “Restore”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    fixed that for you

    …

    open toe, insert mouth…?? o_O

    1. saki

      All of the imaginary upvotes for you!

      1. Ellen

        http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/facetoface/#comment-865764

        For anyone still wondering when Becky had time to dial 911… predicted it two strips ago. Her dialogue confronting her dad about kidnapping, gun-waving was all entirely deliberate so the operator has heard ALL of it.

        Anyway, where was I? Oh yes…
        *sits on edge of seat awaiting tomorrow’s strip*

        1. Dreadhawk177

          All the upvotes to you! All hail the great predictor of the storyline!

        2. Tofusmith

          How much does it matter, though, when a cell phone can’t exactly be location-traced by emergency operators?

        3. Ellen

          Oh but it can be! GPS signal can be traced (and probably has been). I see no reason why Dina’s phone wouldn’t have GPS turned on.

        4. Porthos9438

          In a situation like this the police contact the cellular carrier and have them activate the GPS for them and start tracking. (Used to do tech support for Verizon, and this was covered.) So yeah, once the police operator hears kidnapped and gunpoint, especially considering that there was a massive response, Toedad will soon get the whole police boot.

        5. Ellen

          And even in the absence of GPS signal, they can triangulate the cell signal from cell tower locations. Don’t know how long that takes. Usually the limitation is that cell tower isn’t super precise, but not really an issue when they’re driving down what is probably a main highway. Not many places they could be, not much place else to go. They’ll send cops to trail the vehicle and also to head them off.

        6. Wafflebob

          So having worked for land line and cell phone companies, here’s what i’m aware of. Old cell phones are not 911 compatible. 3g phones can triangulate because they connect to the 3 closest towers in range. 4g phones only connect to 1 tower and can’t be triangulated but their gps can be remotely and discreetly activated in the even of an emergency.

        7. Ellen

          Cool, useful information! I think Dina would have a relatively new cell phone. 3G or 4G for sure. We know her parents aren’t hurting for cash – they contributed $200 to a date-with-girlfriend fund, right?

        8. matt

          A quick google search of what you just said cleared (and contradicted you) a few things up because my one close friend who worked in a call center got calls from cell phones all the time. First, old cell phones were compatible with dialing 911. They just didnt submit geographical data. Second, 911 dispatchers can use the carrier towers to attempt to triangulate your position. Even if your phone only connects to one, it still can get pinged by others giving them an approximate location if given time.

          Sorry for any grammer/spelling issues, working on a cell phone ironically enough.

        9. Kryss LaBryn

          Yeah, I was just gonna say that my cell phone is an old-fashioned flip phone that can only make calls and send texts and take pics, it’s not remotely “smart” (but the battery will last for like a week, and a phone in my pocket that will last for a week in an emergency WAY beats say my husband’s smart phone that can translate French and stuff but whose battery won’t last me to the grocery store if he leaves the GPS on), but it absolutely can make 911 calls; I can think of two times in the last couple years I’ve called 911 on it (to report fires in the middle of the night). Works just fine. I have no idea how many towers it connects to, though.

          I do know you can’t call 911 from Skype, though. Never have tried it, but Skype says it won’t work and I believe they block the calls because of idiots making prank calls to other parts of the country. Harder to trace a Skype call; may be impossible to a phone line, don’t know.

        10. JetstreamGW

          All phones are required to be compatible with 911. They couldn’t legally operate the service or sell the pones if they couldn’t access the emergency system.

        11. WolfLann

          Unless where you live don’t have a emergency system.
          We can’t use 911 here either from cell phones or land lines.

        12. Needfuldoer

          If anyone reported the armed kidnapping after they left the fountain, it shouldn’t take long to put 2 and 2 together.

        13. Trousle Undrhil

          Based on the conversation in today’s strip and the fact that cell phone numbers can be traced back to a person, I think Dina’s father is about to get a visit from the police. Since no one has identified Toedad as more than “I AM YOUR FATHER”.

          Heck, with that line, Darth Vader will be getting a visit from the police too….

        14. DinaWho

          They’re going to be tracing the location of the phone here, not the owner. I think Dina’s father will be just fine.

        15. saki

          Cops can trace cell phones! ^^ Even if it weren’t possible, it’s still helpful for them to know what the situation is. 911’s sure to have received dozens of calls the gunshots, and they should have been able to get the car’s description, so they can find it even without the call trace.

        16. Durandal_1707

          And anyway, now that the jig’s up about the 911 call anyway, she can just shout the name of the street they’re on anyway without giving anything up.

        17. Bladeglory

          It doesn’t help much with the situation at hand, but it will absolutely damn him later. If the previous incidents weren’t enough to get him put away, this means he will never get Becky back now. Somebody could argue that he was just using scare tactics back at the fountain, but after slapping Becky, saying he owns her, and general murder threats, any lawyer will have a really hard time convincing anybody he’s fit to be loose, let alone within 150 feet of Becky.

        18. Annie

          Yeah, I have to admit that I’m really hoping when all this is settled, that Becky gets a restraining order against her dad and cuts contact with him permanently.

          Is it also sad that I’m glad that there are characters that cut contact with toxic, abusive parents?
          So often if someone finds out that you’ve voluntarily cut contact with a parent, they think *you* are the bad guy in that scenario and many times don’t feel shy about telling you so. I think this may happen more when you cut off a mother than a father, but it’s still good to see characters in various media that have done it.

          Not all parents are unconditionally loving. Not all parents try the best they can. Some are completely toxic and will go to extreme lengths to bring their child(ren) down as low as they can go.
          The more media shows characters that have cut off their parents, and the very, very good reasons behind it, maybe the more real people will understand that almost no one cuts contact with their parents for funsies. Most do it to save themselves from further long-term physical and/or emotional abuse.

          Maybe if cutting off a toxic parent becomes more commonplace in various forms of media, fewer people will feel the need to belittle or look down on people that do it and more victims will fell confident enough and have enough support that they can break away.

        19. Koms

          I feel you, dude. From personal experience and from coming from a culture that puts parents on an often undeserved pedestal, I can tell you that there are parents who have no business being parents.

        20. Mom

          Thank you.

        21. Ntrovert60

          Very, very well said. I am also sad that this is so true, but I am glad you shared this. Thank you for sharing on such an emotionally important yet little-discussed topic.

          Unfortunately, there are times when the answer is to cut ties, or at the very least, to make a BIG space in a relationship that may have become toxic. Sometimes it gets better, and you can repair the relationship later. But sometimes not, and as sad as it is, that is sometimes for the best.

        22. Savail

          Hear, hear!

          I’m fortunate enough to finally be at a point where it seems some of my relatives on the estranged parent’s side are realizing what a colossally horrible person he is and that I didn’t cut ties from those relatives because I wanted to, but because I had to to make that clean break. (I still feel undeservedly guilty for cutting him from my life sometimes, but I know it was the right call…everything is so much better mental health-wise since I did so)

          It seems like we have this mentality as a society (well…at least here in the States in our media) that if it’s not physical abuse, it doesn’t count. Even if we say that emotional abuse and verbal abuse are not okay, we don’t seem to really FEEL it as a people. If we did, I think a lot of us ACONs would be a lot happier and feel a lot less undeservedly guilty.

          Always remember, your friends and family wouldn’t stand for you to have a significant other treating you badly. Being family doesn’t give someone the excuse to treat you poorly either. Blood is just that–blood.

        23. Ruby Droplets

          “Blood is thicker than Water” <- Misquote

          "The Blood of the Covenant is thicker than the Water of the Womb" <- The thing that is true.

        24. ozzi

          Science proves that viscosity of blood is the same, no matter the source. Your religious nonsense is the reason Ross is in this situation.

        25. RandomRedMage

          I cut ties with my mother. She was a toxic person in my life. I love her dearly. But I cant spend time with her.

        26. Bantha

          “Maybe if cutting off a toxic parent becomes more commonplace in various forms of media, fewer people will feel the need to belittle or look down on people that do it and more victims will fell confident enough and have enough support that they can break away.”

          Well not to spoiler for anyone so I won’t mention the name…but you may be getting your wish. A popular show did just this on a recent episode 🙂 Not entirely the same situation…but close enough.

        27. Feral

          Well said, and even parents who do seem to be trying their best can sometimes be dangerous to their children’s wellbeing.

        28. Porthos9438

          A restraining order wouldn’t be necessary for about 20 years. Considering the rash of school shootings in recent years, his comments on the phone will get him zero leniency or mercy.

        29. Porthos9438

          Regardless of the fate of Becky (Hope its a good one), Toedad’s life as he knows it is over. Weather he surrenders, or commits suicide by cop, he’s done. And after those last comments I SERIOUSLY don’t want him to have his moment of redemption…at least not soon.

        30. Annie

          Thanks for the support everyone. And I really am sorry that anyone else has to deal with a parent so toxic that they’re forced to cut contact.

          I actually haven’t 100% cut contact, but only because it would mean cutting ties with my grandparents whom I love dearly and have been more loving parent-like figures to me than my mother has been.
          I *have* put a lot of distance between us. Literally and figuratively. I can’t move back to my hometown, my favorite city in the country, because she would never leave me or my family alone if I did.
          I only see her 2 days a year, never allow my son to be alone with her, and my husband tries to never leave *me* alone with her.

          In my case, she’s mentally ill (narcissistic personality disorder and bi-polar disorder), but absolutely feels that she is not, so getting her to get treatment for it, be it meds or therapy, isn’t ever going to happen.

          Some of my family members are finally starting to see why I moved in with my dad when I was a teen. At the time they thought I was a selfish, cruel little brat for doing it, but the older she gets, the harder it’s getting for her to hide her true nature around others. People are finally starting to realize that she’s not the poor, innocent little victim that she always claims to be.

          The guilt is awful. I know I’m doing the right thing for myself and my own family. I actually wish I could figure out a way to totally cut her off without hurting my grandparents since almost every conversation with her leaves me feeling like I’m going to have a panic attack.
          Even so, I still feel guilty and like a shitty human being. And acquaintances and near-strangers feeling the need to tell me that I’ll regret it when she’s gone or that you should *always* respect your parents because no matter what they love you and are trying their best doesn’t help. It makes me feel guilty despite knowing that once she’s gone my only regret will be that I didn’t get out of her house and away from her at a younger age, and knowing that she never tried her best and that she doesn’t actually love me. The woman doesn’t even like me.

          I’m actually looking forward to the day when people that are abused by their parents, even verbally and/or emotionally, are told “if you feel you need to get away or cut contact, do it. And I will be here to help you through it” rather than given a guilt trip or scolded for being a horrible person.

        31. Mom

          I don’t know if you’ll see this Annie but *hug*. I’m going through the same thing with my own mom.

          Don’t let the username fool you, I just chose it for the barrels of laughs I get when people start running with it. “Hi mom!”

        32. Savail

          Like Mom said, I don’t know if you’ll see this either, but I know what you mean. My estranged parent has brain cancer. When I said “so?”, so many people treated me like the scum of the earth because “OMG UR DAD HAVE CANCER U WILL MISS HIM.” No. No I won’t. Terminal illnesses don’t equate to a clean slate; don’t let anyone convince you otherwise unless it’s what YOU want.

          For fuck’s sake, a large part of why I didn’t want to have a wedding was because I was afraid of him showing up. College graduation? I wasn’t even going to send invites until my mum made me…because I was afraid of him showing up. Don’t let family and friends bully you into things that you don’t feel are right for you or your family. Just because they might mean well doesn’t make them right. You’re the one who has to live with the results, not them.

        33. Strangeshapes

          Agreed. And frankly unless he can physically take her like he’s doing now, she’s 18 and he has no legal authority over her. That 911 call and the fountain shot would be enough for a restraining order, I would think.

        34. Commodore Jeep-Eep

          Given how he behaves, a restraining order would likely achieve jack-squat. He needs to be locked up.

        35. Arquinsiel

          Actually if you dig into things you’ll find that phones are great tracking devices. There was a case here a few months back where a man was convicted of murder basically by phone location data. It’s basically a constant broadcasting tracking beacon with conveniently accessible recording.

        36. Historyman68

          Serial?

        37. Arquinsiel

          Nope, just the one murder. Proving phone ownership and the location data showed that the two people went to the location where the body was found together, but only one left. The Graham Dwyer case in Ireland if you’re morbidly curious. Trigger warning: dude is a Gorean.

        38. ozzi

          A Pig person?

        39. leadsynth

          I think Historyman68 was referring to the podcast Serial, which last year did in-depth coverage on a murder case that used cell phone records/maps as evidence. I dunno if you could say that Adnan was convicted “by phone location data,” though, because the phone location data didn’t fully support the testimony of the prosecution’s star witness, Jay… Man, that case was a tangled web.

        40. TheLurkerAbove

          Yes they can, it’s part of the requirements put in place:

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enhanced_9-1-1#Wireless_enhanced_911

        41. bonzombiekitty

          I used to work in this particular industry, and yeah cell phones are supposed to be able to be located when they call 911. There’s a couple different ways of doing that – either via the phone itself reporting its location or using the cell phone towers to figure out the location (using a variety of different means). I used to work for a company that did the latter means of location. It’d essentially work well with any phone as long as the phone was on, but required some really expensive equipment in the cell towers.

        42. TrueVCU

          Wait, has she been on with 911 for 47 min or 47 seconds?

        43. Ellen

          47 seconds.

        44. Athedia

          I just went back and looked at in the bottom left of the second panel on Oct 27 there is “tap, tap, tap” that must have been her dialing.

        45. Ellen

          Yes, precisely. That’s what clued me in! Someone initially pointed out the taps and wondered if Becky was texting, but I figured three taps would be odd for a keyboarded message (not to mention an impractically slow tactic on Becky’s part). Conversely, as I suspected, three taps aligned VERY well to dialling a 3-digit number. 🙂

        46. Howard Bannister

          …because Becky wasn’t going to call to save herself from her dad, from being taken away at gunpoint. It didn’t occur to her.

          She called because somebody else was in danger from her dad.

          …

        47. merbrat

          Very good point!
          (Love your “identity”. Must rewatch that. Madalyn Khan’s voice is telling me to)

        48. TheLurkerAbove

          Shit, I missed that detail. Well done, Willis.

        49. Jason

          Oh man, thank you so much for posting that link. Somehow- SOMEHOW- I missed that page. (It’s not the first time, doubt it’s the last.) It does throw more light onto the situation…

        50. Shade

          Not to mention the tap, tap, tap sound effect coming from her lap before she started the conversation.

        51. Pat

          She clearly called 911 47 seconds ago.

        52. Liam

          Yeah 2nd panel, you can see the “tap tap tap”

    2. Bagge

      AWESOME!!!!! Yup, you are NOT Becky’s father any longer. You are just ToeJerk now.

      1. xKiv

        ToeCancer.

    3. Porthos9438

      I don’t know if anyone else has said this already, but I will laugh my ass off if Toedad’s real name turns out to be Stubb. (And yes, that is a real men’s name. I have an uncle Stubb.

      1. leadsynth

        His name is definitely Ross — but his middle name could totally be Stubb. Ross Stubb MacIntyre.

    4. Liam

      2 strips ago, second panel “tap tap tap”.

      1. Ellen

        Had you followed the link I posted, you would see that the “tap tap tap” indeed led to the first predictions that Becky calling 911.

        1. Ellen

          *was calling

  2. otusasio451

    …Just…FUCK you, Ross. Right in the eyes.

    1. TheBloodsuckerProxy

      Right?

      1. Speedball

        RIGHT. Jesus. He’s gone straight into “you are my property” territory. God DAMN it.

        I’m now fully convinced he’s hurt Dina terribly and shrugged it off as her being less than human, hence, “I didn’t hurt anyone.” ASSHOLE.

        1. DarkoNeko

          I’m pretty sure he knocked her out cold.

        2. detective boomwolf

          Sound like grounds for unbriddled hatred towards him to me. Heck, he could’ve glarred at a puppy on his way there and I’dve been cheesed off with him.

        3. TheNinthShader

          So… fuck his eyes….with your penis?

        4. ozzi

          with a fox penis, 120 barbs.

        5. TheGrammarLegionary

          I think he’s only now crossing that line in his mind. I don’t think he’s hurt Dina yet, and he just left her mildly injured in the woods. In his head, Becky putting hands on him was a wake-up call to just how far his daughter has fallen. Now, in response to that escalation, he’s escalating himself.

          At least, this is what I keep telling myself, desperately hoping I’m right.

        6. Annie

          What gets me is there are so many strict fundamentalists that really DO think a woman is the property of her father until the moment she’s married and then she’s the property of her husband. And they think that situation is ideal!
          I heard one guy say he didn’t understand why women needed to vote, because if the woman is a good wife she will vote the way her husband tells her to anyway.
          I overheard it while I was in a doctor’s waiting room and I had to go out in to the hall to keep myself from decking the guy.

          I’ve also read blogs that basically say that the reason why any sexual contact (this often means kissing and *anything* more intimate than that) before marriage is immoral because up to the moment you’re married it still remains possible that God really intends the girl to marry someone else. That means that if the boy touches her in a way that’s even remotely sexual, he could be damaging the property of another man. And just the way you wouldn’t scratch up some other man’s car, you shouldn’t defile another man’s future wife.

          The attitudes in those cults can be really, really sick!

        7. Dragon_Nataku

          Isn’t asking the father for his daughter’s hand in marriage pretty much along those same lines though?

          I’ve always found that idea to be insulting cause I am not my father’s property ^=__=^ made even worse by my dad explicitly stating he’d want a guy to ask him, and we’re not even religious. gg mysogyny

        8. Gareth

          Well, nowadays, rather than permission, they often ask for their “Blessing” to marry. In my opinion, this is better. After all, if the dad says no, that doesn’t mean you won’t get married, just means you don’t have some assholes blessing.

        9. SDGlyph

          Yes, I did that during my newish-Christian, not-yet-questioning phase. More for my then-fiancée’s sake, as she’d been brought up to expect it, but I was explicit as I did it that I was asking for his blessing only – not his permission – and that the decision was hers. He could have withheld that if he didn’t approve of me (which he did, I should point out), but we both agreed that he couldn’t tell her who to marry or not marry. (Not that it worked out in the end, but heigh ho.)

        10. DSL

          Always nice to automatically regard the father of the person you want to be your life-mate as “some asshole.” (sarcasm, for those of you who need to have that explained)

        11. Pat

          If he thinks he owns his daughter and her fiance needs his permission, than he has identified himself as “some asshole” without any help.

        12. John

          In this context, it’s not just the father of the person you want to be your life-mate. It’s said father refusing to give his approval to his daughter marrying the person she wants to be her life-mate. In that situation, it’s a pretty good bet that someone involved is an asshole, and if you’re taking as given that you’re not, it’s probably him.

        13. Hi There

          Before I got married, I got pregnant. My conservative, Southern Baptist parents were irate, but they did come to the small ceremony my now husband and I had with a Justice of the Peace. Right before the exchanging of the vows, Mom came up to me and said that the Justice had asked if anyone was giving me away, since it’s usually the custom that the father gives the bride to the groom before the vows. Mom said, “Tell him that you can’t give what’s already been taken.” She was so angry, and I think Dad was hurt that no one had asked him about my getting married. Apparently Mom and Dad had even talked about it (as Mom told me later) and Dad had said that if my husband had just asked, he would have said yes. With how they talked about it, I think they saw the situation as my husband stealing me from them. My parents have both come around to liking my husband now, and of course they adore the grandchild, but it was definitely a sore spot for a while for them.

        14. Annie

          When I got married, I thought the way the Justice of the Peace did it was really beautiful. He had our parents stand behind us each with a hand on our shoulder (it was a little awkward since I had 4 parents trying to squeeze in and putting hands on my shoulders, while my husband just had 2, but it worked.) and then he talked about how marriage isn’t just about us, but that it’s the blending of 2 entire families.
          I thought it was a great way to blend the tradition of having the father-of-the-bride involved in the actual ceremony, but without treating the bride as if she’s a car having her title transferred to a new owner.

        15. Dragon_Nataku

          guh, I didn’t even think about the giving away at the wedding thing (probably cause I’m strongly opposed to any of my family being at my wedding for personal reasons). But yeah, ew. Women are not property ^>__<^;;

        16. zalf

          Honestly I don’t think this is true, at least in the sense that the idea behind ‘giving her away’ is not about ownership. I mean yes certainly in some (many? …most?) cultures it was/is corrupted to be all about ownership and property, but I truly don’t believe that is what the idea is about. I would argue that it is about paternal instinct telling guys they need to protect and provide for anyone they consider in their sphere of ‘family’. Not in an ownership way but in a being a good person way. I think at it’s core the idea is about the future husband asking the father if it okay to accept the responsibility of ‘family’ from the father.

          It’s also why I think the more modern ‘blessing’ is far more appropriate a term for the so called arrangement. Not a “You now own my daughter”, a “You can help me bear the burden of feeling protective towards someone I love”.

        17. thejeff

          But it’s specifically the daughter. No one asks the groom’s father’s permission (or mother’s, or even the bride’s mother’s.) The groom isn’t “given away” by anyone.
          It really is a tradition of transferring the woman from the father’s control to the husband’s. Maybe it once was something else, in the depths of time, but it was about control for a very long time and only really changed in the fairly recent past. Legally, marriage as a partnership of equals rather than a male controlling his wife, is a pretty new concept. And a very radical one.

        18. Hi There

          I had an English teacher in high school whose Dad was apparently really funny when her now husband asked for his daughter’s hand in marriage. The Dad’s response was, “What’re you askin’ me for? I ain’t marryin’ ya.”

        19. hof1991

          And those cults that make women property were pretty much every agriculture based society known. So, basically all of humanity for the last several thousand years, with exceptions for hunter-gatherers. Even in the US, women were not people / citizens until one long lifetime ago. No vote, couldn’t own property, couldn’t get credit on their own. In the 1940s, the police would have helped Ross.

        20. Jacknoir

          you really believe that?
          http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030193/1912-07-06/ed-1/seq-10/

          maby you should look into some first hand sources for that information because it appears that you have been lied to.

        21. Kryss LaBryn

          She’s in the previews looking pretty chipper; I think she’s fine.

        22. Pat

          Willis stated that the only person who was bleeding after their fight was Ross.
          That doesn’t mean Dina wasn’t hurt, but there’s a limit to how terribly she could be hurt without bleeding. Unless he, like, strangled her or something, and I don’t think he did that.

        23. Strangeshapes

          I would guess she is unconscious, or she would have continued to run after him.

    2. lejwocky

      Hasa diga Ross

      1. Strangeshapes

        When your Toedad hates your hair
        Dial 911, don’t just sit there!
        When your Toedad’s got a gun,
        Shout it at him as you run!
        Hasa diga Roooooosss!
        Haaasaaa diga Toedad!

        1. lejwocky

          <3

    3. Doctor_Who

      I’m trying to think of a fictional character I want to beat with a 2×4 more and having trouble. I mean, there are villains that have done worse things (in terms of scale at least), but Ross is utterly loathsome, and has exactly zero cool moments to offset his assholery.

      1. AeromechanicalAce

        He’s surpassed Umbridge. That’s a pretty difficult feat.

        1. Dr. Smart

          hey unrelated but is there any chance the Ace part of your name, while being a clever pun might have the double meaning to imply you are asexual? or am i just reading too far into it…

        2. Pl0x

          Unbridge?? Ehh I dunno.

        3. Jason

          I disagree. Ross honestly, truly believes his behaviour is right, is justifiable. Umbridge never did. She just enjoyed the misery.
          That makes Ross infinitely more of a dangerous character, in that his insane world view is literally the only thing that matters to him. How much it makes him detestable is obviously subjective.
          Personally? While his actions (and the fact that he believes they’re okay) are utterly abhorrent, I pity him. He was made the way he was by his experiences and life. I absolutely want him to be removed from society, but I feel that the fact that he’s been turned into this vile man, full of hatred and fear, is tragic.

        4. Ellen

          Ooooooh, you’re right. Umbridge was motivated, if anything, by a selfish vision of what was right or best. Ross is motivated by a vision of greater, eternal, selfless (or so he thinks, anyway) good. And that is fucking TERRIFYING.

        5. Jason

          I actually disagree that Umbridge was guided by any idea of what was good. I think she was guided by what would benefit her, and by her sadism. She was arguably the most dispicable character in Harry Potter.
          But the beauty of good writing is that you put depth into the characters and leave people to draw their own conclusions about the what it all means.

          Totally agree that Ross is terrifying though. Zero argument there.

        6. Brewerdude

          Umbridge was a character in real life for many people. That’s why, as despicable as Voldy was, Umbridge was easier to hate because she could bring vile pettiness to a personal level, in the books and films.

        7. Pat

          Umbridge’s motivation changed. She went from obsession with Fudge and hatred of Harry for claiming that Voldemort even existed, to being extremely pleased with working in an openly-evil Ministry without Fudge.
          So she didn’t actually care about any of that. She was just sadistic, and glad for an opportunity. Remember her talking herself into using the Cruciatus Curse, even though it wasn’t even very useful to her ends–she just wanted to do it, and she found an excuse.

          But Ross isn’t motivated by goodness. Sure, he’d define his behavior as good, but that doesn’t make it so. He’s motivated by extreme self-centeredness, no matter how he purports to justify it.

        8. ozzi

          And they will stretch him like a glove in prison. Esp if they find out why he is there.

        9. Gamaran Sepudomyn

          Umbridge gets points for the sheer audaciousness of making a student sign their detention lines with their own blood.

        10. Strangeshapes

          Ok, but has he surpassed Blaine? His behavior escalated more rapidly, but it seems to be a fairly recent mental breakdown. (I.e., his daughter wasn’t initially scared of him physically, was surprised that he’d hurt or threaten her, tried to reason with him, etc.) Blaine seemed like a longtime sociopath, and has damaged his daughter enough to literally split her psyche.

        11. begbert

          Ross has doubtlessly been a horrible person with horrible beliefs for decades. The only reason no conflict has arisen before now is because Becky had stayed within the lines he had drawn until now.

      2. detective boomwolf

        I wanna say Handsome Jack, but even after every terrible thing he did, even dipping into “treat your daughter like crud” territory, I like him more than I do Ross. Maybe its just the fact that he was written in a bit more of a jovial light, only for him to take a dark turn later, maybe Ross is just 50x worse than Jack. I dunno.

        1. Ollie

          Handsome Jack was hilarious.

        2. Doctor_Who

          Yeah, Jack was such a “Love-to-hate” guy. Even when committing atrocities he always had the best lines.

          Villains who are entertaining can get away with doing the most awful things because as much as we hate them we like to watch them. Darth Vader is a badass, Light Yagami is intelligent, Handsome Jack is hilarious, Mike Warner is Mike Warner.

          Ross is just repellent.

        3. Commodore Jeep-Eep

          And Handsom Jack would probably throttle Ross, or at the very least send Nisha to murder him.

          ‘Because hey, I’m the good guy.’

        4. Jacknoir

          hey he ‘was’ the good guy. told you so himself, you are a bandit and handsome Jack is the god damned hero…
          and he’s not wrong, he’s the guy trying to bring peace and prosperity to the lawless wastes and keep dangerous super weapons out of the hands of greedy murderous outlaws aka you and the other vault hunters.
          Shame he was suffering from Borderlands Personality Disorder.

        5. BPD

          Ha

        6. detective boomwolf

          No argument there. If I ever buy a horse, I don’t care what anyone tries to tell me, I’m naming him ButtStallion.

        7. KittyK

          Will it be a solid gold pony? That’s actually alive?

        8. TheGrammarLegionary

          I thought Buttstallion was made of diamonds…

        9. MindLink

          Handsome Who ?

        10. Doctor_Who

          The villain of Borderlands 2, a humorously toned FPS video game.

          Imagine if the Joker and Lex Luthor raised a kid together, and he turned out to possess the former’s psychopathy, the latter’s intelligence, and was a snarky wiseass to boot.

        11. zalf

          Tbh, it is probably because Jack is far more inherently evil than Ross is. Which in a way lets Jack be silly an entertaining in his shenanigans. Ross is not only a monster but is a fanatic, who honestly believes that everything he is doing is right and justified. So you it is not about just hating Ross, but the entire system that turned him into the creature he is.

      3. cynthash

        Hans of the Southern Isles?

        1. MatthewTheLucky

          At least Hans was clever.

        2. detective boomwolf

          At least Hans had a well thought out plan. Dude wins points for sneakiness.

        3. TheGrammarLegionary

          And his voice… Goddamn, I wasn’t a fan of ‘Love Is An Open Door’ lyrically, but I melt every time I hear it for that guy.

        4. Doctor_Who

          I dunno, locking Anna in that room and just assuming that she was doomed was dumb, as was announcing that they had exchanged wedding vows with no witnesses, so he was totally king now, guys, for realsies.

          It’s a royal marriage, it’s going to merit a little more scrutiny than that. If he had kept up the charming sociopath act for five more minutes, I bet he could have convinced her to actually marry him then and there (and call in some witnesses), then when she froze he’d have a legitimate claim.

          That being said the Reveal was great. Someone in my theater actually yelled “NO!” at the screen in utter shock. His follow up game was weak, though.

        5. Strangeshapes

          Clever Hans? What a horse’s ass.

      4. Chris2315

        Well, most people here probably haven’t read it (yet) but Molech from Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits is tough to beat. Every single word he utters makes me want to to punch him in the face. He’s like an internet troll, except he actually does all the awful things he says he’s going to do.

      5. Freezer

        He’s currently at .5 Ramsey Bolton.

        1. yomi

          Craster seems also worse. He doesn’t only consider his daughters his property and beats them, he also fucks them and kills their sons.

        2. Carolyn

          Ramsay would laugh at Ross’s amateur antics. Then probably flay him for good measure.

      6. HMRC4EVR

        Anne’s dad Tony over at Gunnerkrigg Court has had me to the point of an unhealthy rage several times over the past month or so.

        1. Jason

          I actually had to stop reading it shortly after he turned up. I just found his behaviour regularly triggering memories of my own parental abuse. From a comic I loved, I was upset to be put in that position- I hope he goes somewhere good with it, and handles it well.

        2. SDGlyph

          It’s currently getting addressed (and Annie is back in the forest), if that helps.

      7. Vouksh

        Nobuyuki Sugou. The most loathsome piece of trash to ever meander out of a fictional work. Granted, Toedad is maybe 1/2 a step below him, but there is still something worse. Sugou both claimed a girl NOT his own as his property and wife against her will, she was also, in a way, unconscious during this, and Sugou actually purposefully kept her that way. (Sorry if you haven’t watched SAO, as that’s a huge spoiler, but Sugou is literally the embodiment of evil)

        1. Carolyn

          I will credit the writers of that show for creating a character that I hated so violently that I practically went into orgasmic spasms when karma finally caught up with him.

      8. Durandal_1707

        Clay Puppington comes to mind.

      9. GandalfTheUltraViolet

        Stanislaus Braun. If I could have done worse than lock him inside a fantasy world for eternity I would have. I’d have done to him what I did to Mr. House.

        1. Kamino Neko

          Tranquility Lane is a total D: for me. ‘… Kill them all, or leave them locked in with this psycho? What kind of choice is that?’

        2. GandalfTheUltraViolet

          I know, right? Come on, I maxed intelligence and science, no way I can’t get them out from the outside. I tried every possibility.

      10. Karatesaul

        Kill la Kill’s Ragyo Kiryuin? Certainly a worse parent.

        1. Doctor_Who

          That’s the only one who could maybe come close that I can think of. But she’s so ludicrous that it’s a little hard to take her seriously. She’s the bastard offspring of Cruella DeVille and Lady Gaga.

      11. KHNO

        You then need to read a bit of Asako by Tezuka… There are several worse character. You’d even think that Asako being killed by her father would have been somewhat lighter to read. I don’t recommend to read this if you’re even a tiny bit depressed. Never assume you can know what type of tears (laugh, sadness, frustration, rage, and so on) a Tezuka comic will provoke before having read it, I think this is the meta lesson.

        1. KHNO

          Ayako, not Asako. Bloody memory.

      12. Ollie

        Eric Cartman?

    4. Safgaftsa

      Did someone ask for Genoscythe the Eyeraper? http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Memes/Worm

      1. Chris2315

        I don’t know who that is, but that’s an awesome name.

        1. Safgaftsa

          To make fun of how dark Worm is, a fan made up a villain called ‘Genoscythe the Eyeraper.’ If I remember correctly, his schtick was turning people into weapons that he would use to kill their relatives. Also, something about molesting people’s eyes.

        2. Gamaran Sepudomyn

          Still sounds less disturbing than Ross.

        3. John

          As I recall, the author’s reaction was basically, “Yeah, sure, that’s canon.”

          And Genoscythe disturbs me less than Bonesaw’s idea of fun.

        4. Safgaftsa

          Bonesaw was horrifying from the beginning, and every time I didn’t think she could outdo herself, she did.

          Regent’s interlude actually disturbed me a lot more, though.

    5. Mada

      I ain’t puttin’ my genitals anywhere near Ross’s eye, thank you very much

  3. AnvilPro

    Welp… Amazigirl is dead

    1. lejwocky

      Not dead, but dreaming

    2. DarkoNeko

      the glass will actually help slow her more gently than the metal ; also there’s a plastic film of sort on it so it doesn’t (usually) explode even when it breaks.

      probably is… here costume does protect her a lot, but not all of the back of her head 🙁
      Ever seen the result of a car/bike accident, with a head-shaped mark full of stray stuck hair on the windshield ? I wish I didn’t.

      1. Nym

        Her head seems to be forward, though, tucked in slightly toward her chest, with her arms/shoulders somewhat behind. So there is that, at least!

      2. Gerard

        I’m not afraid of her dying but her getting permanent spinal damage. This looks like the kind of injury that would put amber on a wheelchair for life.

        1. Hoop

          she dead

    3. Just A. Thinker

      There’s a very good chance that she survived with few injuries. If Ross was going 60 miles an hour, then Amazigirl was also going around 60 miles an hour in the same direction. The car behind them was also going around 60 miles an hour (possibly a bit faster), so overall she’s crashing into the car at a relative speed of around 0-10 miles an hour. Besides, she hit the windshield if she’d hit the front part, she’d roll onto the road and be crushed by the car, but right now the worst thing that can happen to her is that she goes over the car and lands on the asphalt. Whats likely going to happen is that she remains on the hood of the car. The car slows to a stop. Amazigirl ends up with some nasty bruises, and perhaps a few cuts, and maybe… MAYBE… a broken bone.

      1. Dellaran

        She even has the auction cup to grab if she starts to roll off the hood… because Amazi-girl is always prepared for anything.

        1. David Alexander McDonald

          She dropped the suction cup in the last strip.

        2. LeslieBean4Shizzle

          Apparently not, because the suction cup is on the hood of the red car. Perhaps she had two?

        3. DarkoNeko

          it landed on the car and stayed stuck there.

        4. LeslieBean4Shizzle

          Chekov’s suction cup?

        5. Historyman68

          She had two hands. I’d imagine two suction cups is way more useful than one.

        6. Durandal_1707

          The auction cup is going… going… gone.

        7. Koms

          He he

      2. Melanie D

        That’s IF the driver of the red car can maintain control of the vehicle and not crash into something solid at high speed, in which case, car stops, Amazigirl doesn’t.

      3. Annie

        But the car slammed on the brakes as soon as Ross started swerving. Before Amazi-girl lost her grip.
        I nearly failed physics in high school. I’m not sure if the car being at almost a stop when she slammed in to it is a benefit to her or likely to do more damage than if it were going highway speed still.

        1. merbrat

          The red car swerved when Ross did, but slammed on the braked when AG landed on windshield. This is where the conveniently-landed suction cup will come in handy. I wonder if the red car was following to film the crazy chick asphalt-skiing. (hope it was a passenger was holding the camera/phone)

        2. Annie

          Hmm. It looked like to me that as soon as Amazi-girl lost control, the car swerved and hit the brakes. To me the “skreeeeee” sound means squealing brakes.

          But I’m not the best at judging those things. I also thought the “tap, tap, tap” was Becky tapping herself on the chest with the finger that was pointed at her. It didn’t even occur to me that the tapping could have been from her other hand until I read this strip, then went back and read the other one again.

      4. Carefreewill

        Can a skateboard survive going that fast?

      5. DinaWho

        I’m pretty sure they’re on a regular road, not a highway here, so I doubt they’re going 60. Unless someone mapped their route and found otherwise?

      6. Strangeshapes

        I really don’t think either car was going more than 35-40mph. They are still in an area with a lot of stop signs, and he just took a corner. I would actually bet more like 25-30.

    4. Jones

      Nah. That happened to me once. I was hit by a car going ~25 mph. Specifically, I hit the windshield (breaking it), approximately in the same way that Amazi-girl did. I was actually uninjured. Not that this couldn’t kill someone, but there is a large amount of variation in the injuries that this will cause.

    5. -Sentinel-

      You’re probably right. Once she’s taken to the hospital, her true identity will become known to all. Amber will never be able to take up the mantle of Amazi-girl again.

      One hopes she’ll find a healthier way to get over her issues.

      1. tim gueguen

        That assumes that the people involved in getting her to the hospital etc. don’t deliberately ignore she’s Amazi-girl. Or for that matter she somehow doesn’t get treated without taking her mask off.

        1. Historyman68

          Or that she doesn’t get hustled away in a fake ambulance staffed by all her Amazi-Family in disguise to heal her in her Amazi-Cave and play off her injuries as a ski accident.

          You know, like in Knightfall.

      2. LuniasM

        More importantly, the original Asshole Dad is in the local hospital.

        1. John

          It’s been more than a week. Unless Amber did more damage to Blaine than I thought, it’s unlikely he’s still there. They probably didn’t keep him more than overnight, and that only because of the blows to the head.

      3. Zan Thrax

        Good. She honestly needs to be forced to get help at this point. (Considerably earlier than this point actually.)

    6. Agemegos

      God knows what the physics of that collision were. I have no idea how Amazi-Girl got high enough to hit the windscreen instead of the bumper and grill. And since the car ought to have been going no faster than she was, i don’t see how it can have caught up before she hit the road.

      That said, a collision with the windscreen is about as good as it gets, since breaking the screen absorbs some energy, and you can get thrown upwards allowing the car to pass under you rather than having to suddenly accelerate to the full speed of the car in a distance less than the thickness of your body. I was chatting last month with an eighty-year-old man who got hit by and thrown over a car while he was on his bicycle, about last Christmas.

      1. DaveM

        Fortunately she wears the costume over her normal clothing, so that will provide some extra padding.
        http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/01-the-only-dope-for-me-is-you/zipper/
        The main issue is going to be head and neck injuries, unfortunately trying to prevent a head injury will probably increase the chance of damaging her neck.

        The unmentioned issue however? This is the second time AG has responded to a crisis involving Joyce, and the second time she’s failed. Can’t see that Amber’s going to take that well at all (not to mention what it’ll do to the AG reputation).

        1. Stephen R. Bierce

          My Research Addiction(TM) made me look stuff up.
          In Football kit, a “flak jacket” is an under-jersey garment that usually incorporates a “ribs protector” device, which is also available separately and could be compatible with a “sports bra” for female athletes.

        2. John

          There’s an outfit called Zoombang that makes protective sports gear with little packets of what’s basically a high-tech oobleck – non-Newtonian fluid that’s soft and flexible under normal conditions, but goes rigid under high-speed impact. I know several people who use it in SCA combat, as rigid protection under mail or the like. I’m thinking Amazi-Girl could really use some built into the Amazi-Suit.

        3. Agemegos

          Last time I was at the national bull-riding championships (they aren’t held here any more) the riders were all wearing armour vests, and those weren’t very bulky. I’d guess that stuff designed to cope with being thrown, trodden on, mashed into fences, and gored by an angry bull would be highly suitable for Amber’s expected parkour and jiu-jutsu accidents.

      2. Gwen

        Definitely. On top of the car is SOOOOO much better than under. Still, ouch.

      3. HMRC4EVR

        What we need is someone like Mr. Neil deGrasse Tyson but who’s a webcomics and physics expert who can show up at any comic thread when science logistics are in question and expertly clear them up.

        Hey! We could get Beakman! Science and wonderfully bad puns all at once!

        1. Earnbrand

          David Morgan-Mar of

        2. Agemegos

          … Irregular Webcomic …

        3. GLaDOS

          Talking of which, this one seems almost appropriate to Amazi-Girl’s present predicament.

        4. Earnbrand

          and that’s what I get for trying to put a link in my first post.

    7. detective boomwolf

      Don’t eve go there man. I don’t even want to think about losing another fictional character this weak.

    8. Opus the Poet

      Probably not. As several people have pointed out she:
      1) hit the relatively soft windshield
      2) was moving at close to the same relative speed as the weapon vehicle (technical term for any vehicle that hits a pedestrian or other “vulnerable” user)
      3) the cape helped protect her from the broken glass of the windshield.

      1. Clif

        And of course, the suction cup on the car she hit indicates that she used that to slow down further. Don’t count Amazigirl out yet.

    9. Jade

      My thought process seeing the first panel: Oh good, the red car caught her! Yay red car!

      Wait… no… bad.

  4. Mr. Random

    Yeah, so… Thing’s aren’t gonna slow down anytime soon.

    1. Mr. Random

      Just saw the time on the call, she must have called right when she saw Amazi-Girl.

      1. TheOthin

        Yeah, look a few pages back and you can see her dialing. I didn’t notice until now.

        1. Agemegos

          Ellen commented on it last strip.

        2. Agemegos

          Strip before last, actually.

      2. Lord Stoneheart

        Two strips ago when she was trying to distract Ross from noticing Amazi Girl, there were three small taps, and her other hand was concealed. That must have been the call.

        1. Eukie

          Note how Becky launched right into saying she was kidnapped at gunpoint after she’s made those taps.

        2. Julie

          Had to go back three days to see it, nice and subtle!

        3. maarvarq

          So Toedad (and we) didn’t hear the operator saying “9-1-1, what is the nature of the emergency?” or the equivalent?

        4. Eukie

          I’m no expert on phones, but my smartphone has both volume and a mute button on the casing. If Becky muted the phone before calling, he couldn’t have heard.

        5. Bicycle Bill

          But this is not Becky’s phone, it’s Dina’s.  Becky might not be familiar with these features or how to activate them on that specific device.

        6. Annie

          But she easily could have noticed it earlier and remembered it.

          Also, given the way Dina tends to get sensory overload easily, she likely has the volume set relatively low. With the road noise of the car and Becky yelling at Ross, it’s very possible that it simply wasn’t heard.

        7. leftwingfox

          a thumb over the speaker can be highly effective as well.

        8. Linkara

          Likely she had it on mute or he was distracted by her talking.

        9. maarvarq

          Oh OK, she was deliberately talking loudly to drown out the operator and make sure they heard her.

        10. Ellen

          Yeah! And we totally predicted it down in the comments on that strip!

          With everything awful happening in the strip, a successful prediction is the one thing I have to be happy about right now :/

    2. Yotomoe

      Not until they crash into that tree!
      WOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.

      1. tim gueguen

        Ross McIntyre, Ross McIntyre
        He’s the evilest guy in Dumbing of Age history
        From the, town of La Porte
        He’s about to hit a chestnut tree

        1. tim gueguen

          I spelt his last name wrong, but he deserves it for being evil.

        2. evilmidnightlurker

          Ross, Ross, Ross McInToeDad
          Fundie as he can be
          (aaeaaaeeaaaa, aaaeeeaaaeeeaaa)
          Watch out for that tree!

  5. Injury Man

    Get rekt toedad.

    1. saltchocolate

      Not while Becky’s in the car!

      1. John

        Becky’s got her seatbelt on.

  6. CaptainBatson

    That man is going to prison.

    1. Agemegos

      Yep. He was already facing three counts of assault with a deadly weapon, one of common battery, one of brandishing a weapon in a threatening manner, one of unlawful (maybe reckless) discharge of a firearm, one of kidnapping, and maybe some moving violations. Now there is evidence of attempted murder and making terrorist threats. And I doubt that he has a cache of incriminating info on a racketeer to plea-bargain with, so I’d say he’s going down for a ‘phone number.

      1. merbrat

        Driver of red car is a corroborating witness to the swerving to dislodge strangely costumed girl, whom they seem to have caught.

        1. Ellen

          Nice newscast phrasing. 😀 Makes me wonder what the press will make of this shit after it has all gone down…

        2. TheGrammarLegionary

          Holy hell, the Student’s going to give this story to Dorothy. The press side of this could be a story unto itself.

        3. Ellen

          :O

          Quite possible! At least, if Dorothy isn’t uncomfortable accepting the assignment due to her proximity to those involved.

        4. merbrat

          Daisy will plotz!

        5. Needfuldoer

          Probably something like this:

          [Anchor at desk] A La Porte man was arrested in Bloomington today after abducting his adult daughter from the IU campus at gunpoint. We go live to Natalie Jacobson, live on the scene. Nat? [Cut to field reporter] Thanks Frank. According to local witnesses a young woman was coerced into her father’s car against her will under threat of bodily harm. [PKG,fullscreen of his mugshot] 47-year-old Ross MacIntyre has been charged with assault and battery, brandishing a firearm, and armed kidnapping [montage of crime scene footage] after reportedly discharging a rifle near the Showalter Fountain to coerce 18-year-old Rebecca MacIntyre into his car. [SOT: eyewitness interview] “It was, like, really scary after he pulled out the gun?” [Another witness] “I just hit the ground and hoped he wouldn’t shoot me”. [Cut to reporter] A local woman who attempted to intervene with the abduction was hospitalized with minor injuries. Mr. MacIntyre led police on a brief car chase before he was stopped and taken into custody. Frank? [Anchor at desk] Thanks Nat. And now we go to chief meteorologist Andy Mitchell for the forecast.

        6. DSL

          Too many multisyllabic words pronounced correctly for that to be a local newscast.

        7. Dellaran

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy3WthttQJI

          Llanfairpwllgwyngwllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysioiogogogoch.

        8. Itama

          define “minor inguries”

      2. Adj

        On the plus side for ToeDad, kidnapping is a federal offense, and federal penitentiaries are better maintained than state ones*. That is, if the local authorities are willing to cede jurisdiction on the felony menacing on campus. Were I the DA in charge of this, this case would be all mine. I would enhance the above list with a “terrorism” enhancement, and possibly a hate crime. As a DA, my statement would be “You bring a gun to inspire terror on my campuses, you go to jail for the max. How is Indiana University supposed to maintain the highest standards if the best and brightest are too afraid to enroll?”

        Seriously, I hate this Toe-Dad. Kai Wynn at least had generations of militant occupation to help explain her problems. Kai Leng was probably indoctrinated by the Reapers. And Dolores Umbridge is the bad kind of British.

        What’s Toe-Dad’s excuse?
        *Rule of thumb does not apply to Guantanamo Bay.

        1. timemonkey

          Wynn’s problem was being power hungry and bitter over being snubbed by the Prophets her entire life. Yes, the second led to the first but you can’t expect aliens outside linear time to care about cause and effect.

        2. Adj

          But she was still devout and practiced her religion when the Cardassian Occupation levied severe punishments against it. So I cut her the tiniest amount of slack. Which is why I hate her less than Toe-Dad. It’s probably Toe-Dad, Kai Leng, Umbridge, Kai Winn on my top four list of Fictional Characters I Hate, in that order.

        3. HMRC4EVR

          I mentioned this above, but if you ever read the Gunnerkrigg Court web comic you’ll be more than happy to add Anne’s dad Tony to your list. Him, Ross and Blaine would be the BrotherHood of Evil Assholes-for when being an asshole isn’t bad enough, you get to be an Evil one.

        4. leftwingfox

          Antimony’s Dad still has the possibility of a redemptive arc to him; his worst acts against her were accidental (He was trying to reach Surma, and was horrified to know he hurt her), then coerced (forced by the court under threat of her expulsion).

          That doesn’t excuse his emotional abandonment of her, nor his external lack of concern for her own emotional state, but that’s at least an easier position to walk back from than had been painted before Donny got him drunk.

        5. Rutee

          I’m pretty sure his behavior to her is not coerced, but genuine.

        6. Boom

          Tony isn’t anywhere near as bad as Ross and Blaine. Just… nowhere near.

        7. Bantha

          At least Kai Leng got what was coming to him…let’s hope Toe-Dad does as well. Looks like he’s going to.

        8. Clif

          Wait. Uxbridge is the bad kind of British? And this is an excuse for her behavior? I have no clue what stereotype you think you are appealing to with “bad kind of British” and even less idea why it would be an excuse.

        9. Boom

          The extreme “this is for your own good” kind of Britishness. Where any actual compassion flies out of the window. Where the reason for those rules becomes contempt for the intelligence of others and not concern over their wellbeing. The rules no longer exist to help people, but to control them, because they clearly can’t manage their own lives.

        10. SDGlyph

          Apart from the fact that I don’t think Umbridge ever had anyone’s good at heart – it was just the convenient excuse for her own prejudices and cruelty – I’m British and I still don’t get why the nationality is part of that stereotype…?

    2. evilmidnightlurker

      Is he crazy enough to try to stand up to the police?

      1. Agemegos

        I don’t think he’s crazy, but he is proud, mentally inflexible, domineering, and morally incompetent. He’s had all his success in life by doubling down and blustering and he has probably never learned to cut his losses by surrender in a no-win situation.

      2. Hoop

        he IS a white man

  7. Doc

    OH SHIT

  8. Rocketboy1313

    How has it only been on for less than a minute?

    1. Ana Chronistic

      I think even 911 has to take a few seconds to pick up??

      1. Valerie

        Yup. Usually a couple rings, in my experience.

        1. Valerie

          (I should clarify: my family is prone to medical emergencies. No kidnapping at gunpoint, thankfully!)

        2. Deanatay

          The count (current at 00:47 on the phone’s screen) only starts when the other end picks up. Even if it’s only a recorder, it’s evidence that they can use later on.

    2. pjeseb

      Becky started typing in the numbers the panel before last. Try saying all the dialogue that’s taken place since then and see how long it takes. 00:47 seems about right to me.

      1. Marie

        If anything it seems long, but I’m not complaining.

    3. Animedingo

      She probably dialed when she saw Amazigirl

    4. saki

      IKR? It feels like they’ve been in that car for more than a week! … Wait.

    5. Smiling Cat

      It’s amazing how slowly time seems to pass in a high stress situation… that you observe a few seconds at a time per twenty four hour period.

  9. madock345

    GO BECKY GO

    Finally, someone uses their head for something other than butting.

    1. dailybrad

      they’re unlikely to be the only person who called the cops by now, but given she is in the car with him, that is at least a more direct link

      1. Agemegos

        And more! Calls to 911 are recorded. Becky will be able to get a restraining order against her Big Toe Daddy, which will enable her to collect her social security card and her personal effects.

        1. DaveM

          Assuming Toedad avoids prison (which is possible) I think he’d treat a restraining order the same way Blaine would. Neither of them know when to back off, and treat trying to disagree with them in any way as a direct threat.

          I guess neither of them drinks, because they’d never have survived a night in a crowded sports bar with their attitude.

        2. madock345

          He did fire a gun on a college campus. That’s pretty much auto-jail right there.

        3. Agemegos

          References to a restraining order may contain traces of ironic understatement.

        4. evilmidnightlurker

          They won’t be able to put him in a prison within 200 yards of the campus? 😀

        5. Agemegos

          When Becky comes to visit he will be crushed against the wall of his cell by her invisible shield.

  10. Jason

    Hey guys, I just wanted to point out that it’s been exactly one year since Becky’s surprise appearance in Joyce’s dorm room! For what it’s worth, just over 4 days have since passed in the Dumbiverse (she appeared on Thursday morning, and “now” it’s around noon on Monday).

    1. Ruthful

      It’s been that long already? Dear god.

    2. Jason

      Messed up the link, here it is: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/angel/

      1. merbrat

        I just re-read a few of the strips (wow, a *year*?!) and when I got to this one: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/sleepover/ …I got all sniffly!

    3. Twilightomens

      This is comforting for some reason

    4. Jason

      I’m actually a bit surprised that Becky’s shown up in less than half of the intervening strips! (Only a little less than half, though.)

    5. Rodimiss

      Holy shit, it can’t have been a year?? I’m shocked.

    6. MindLink

      Hm.. that makes about 14 minutes per strip, roughly calculated, apart the ones like this sequence, where it’s more like 14 seconds.

    7. SDGlyph

      You guys you guys I went back and started reading from Becky’s first strip and I got to the one where Amazi-Girl takes down a harasser and he says her next newspaper article will be her obituary and she’s like super no and I don’t think she’s been in the paper since then and what if it’s all been a big set up and…
      *pants*
      Don’t mean to alarm anyone or anything. Go about your business.

  11. Spencer

    The most shocking thing about this strip is that Toedad actually has a mouth.

    1. Spencer

      Dangit, alt text. You win this round.

    2. Catty

      Makes you wonder why mini-Batman is trying is trying to fly up his nose instead.

  12. Plasma Mongoose

    I just hope that AG is immune to collisions.

    1. Jimmy

      Her bones are dense, she’s fine

    2. ninja_jesus

      Collisons are just criticisms of driving, and we all know Amazi-Girl is immune to criticism.

  13. Airyu

    I’m still surprised that that’s what his mouth looks like.

  14. SpoopyFox

    AMAZI-GIRL IS IMMUNE TO SPINAL DAMAGE????

    1. saki

      YES PLEASE ;_;

      1. Opus the Poet

        The Unkillable Badass says this is a messy but low damage wreck mode. The windshield will never be the same but AG should be shaken up but otherwise fine.

  15. Glitchmebaby

    D:

  16. tim gueguen

    So much for you, evil one known as Ross.

  17. shadowcell

    “so i kind of called a bunch more friends…”

  18. chefhoag

    Aw, shit……

  19. saki

    OHGODOHGODOHGOD I hope Amber’s injuries aren’t too bad and OMG what is Foedad gonna do after seeing his daughter called 911 ohgodohgodohgod

    1. Injury Man

      Well, seeing as how Becky’s been on the line for 40 something seconds, probably get shot by the inbound police. Emergency response workers don’t usually react well to “send them to hell where they belong” shouted over the phone.

      1. saki

        Yeah but it’s not like the can instantly teleport into the car and stop him from taking out whatever violent reaction I’m sure he’s gonna have to this on Becky. =/

    2. Valerie

      lol foedad
      That is seriously clever. Props, bro.

      1. saki

        I wish I could remember if I came up with it or if it popped into my head after I read it in someone else’s comment.

  20. Stephen R. Bierce

    *plays Eurythmics’ “Walking On Broken Glass” on the car stereo*

    1. Stephen R. Bierce

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIAyyugbq54 <- Could have been MUCH worse for A-G, tho'.

    2. kelticat

      Plays Queen’s “Headlong ” after the Eurythmics.

      1. kelticat

        *This is Dee Snyder on WHAP playing a request from Becky. Twisted Sister’s We’re Not Going To Take It. *

        1. merbrat

          \m/

  21. Marie

    I’m so freaked out but yes yes yes 911

    1. Marie

      I’m relieved that it isn’t 4-5 panels of Amazigirl slow motion falling though. I really hope tomorrow isn’t, I need this pacing.

  22. Shanunu

    Holy crap. She can’t even touch him?

    1. pjeseb

      Well, in the violent sense. You know how people sometimes say “touch” when they actually mean “hurt?” As in, “If you touch a hair on his head, I will blah blah blah!” I think that’s what he meant. I can’t imagine that even Toe Dad is against hugs between family members.

      1. Schpoonman

        I definitely took it that she’s not allowed to touch him at all without his express permission. He could beat her as much as he pleased, but if she so much as put her hand on his arm while he’s reading the Sunday paper she’s at fault.

        1. merbrat

          Maybe while she is “unclean”. When he gets her “fixed right”, then all will be fine.

        2. MindLink

          That really doesn’t seem the case here though ?
          At least we’ve seen no indication of that so far.

    2. Vangeln

      I think he means in an ‘unrespectful’ way.

    3. saki

      Most people react badly to being touched in any way when they’re angry, don’t they?

  23. DarkoNeko

    Aaaaaaaah it’s one hour early.
    I forgot the US didn’t switch to winter time the last sunday of october like the rest of us.

    1. CaptainBatson

      The hell is “winter time”?

      1. Yotomoe

        I’m assuming it’s what they call daylight savings across the pond?

        1. saki

          Yep.

        2. inqntrol

          Yes, we Europeans are weird.

        3. DarkoNeko

          Yes, daylight savings. summer time (from last sunday of march), winter time.

        4. MindLink

          What do you OverPonders say to distinguish daylight saving time during the summer and winter months then ?

      2. maxh

        When it’s not summer time.

        1. DaveM

          It is down this end of the world 🙂

      3. DinaWho

        Standard time, aka going off daylight savings.

      4. Cholma

        That stupid nonsense change the clock thing we do 2x a year. “Spring Ahead, Fall Back.” This year, the USA “falls back” 1 hour at 2AM on Nov 1. The UK did it already.

        1. Tacos

          It’s not even a change gone uniformly across the country. I live in Arizona and we don’t have it.

        2. Cholma

          I need to moe to AZ then. I hate this stupid shit. Back when people actually slept at night, it made sense. But this is a 24/7 society now. There are NO savings in electricity by changing when the sun appears to rise. Hell, office buildings around the world have lights burning 24/7 even if the place is empty!

        3. neeks

          Well it’s not like we Arizonans (and indianans, and people on native American reservations iirc) don’t have to deal with daylight savings time, since TV show start times and comic updates and communication with people/businesses in other time zones is still a thing. We just don’t have to change our clocks, but it still effects us.

        4. Incomitatus

          Indiana caved and adopted DST a few years ago. Arizona is the last state holdout now.

        5. MindLink

          I think the point is to prevent it being dark when you get up in the morning in the winter months. But then it gets darker earlier, so it seems to cancel out anyways.

        6. Cimorene

          Me too!

  24. Icalasari

    The longer this goes on, the more worried I get that he’s going to hurt Becky badly

    God speed, police and Sal

  25. Marvelman

    I don’t have a smart-phone. Have the cops been listening to this whole conversation? Or has Becky not pressed dial yet?

    1. Riku

      She’s been on with them for 47 seconds.

      1. Stephen R. Bierce

        And plenty of time for them to triangulate the phone’s location too.

    2. Marie

      Looks like she’s been on for 47 seconds, the thing that’s up is a swipe to hang up and there’s no button to send.

      1. Marie

        But to a 911 operator, not the cops (I’m glad they didn’t ask what was happening loud enough for her dad to hear, because she probably didn’t have time to mute it, especially since that’s a pain to do even on a phone you’re used to). I’m not sure if they’ll even have passed what’s happening on, since there’s no location or anything yet (hopefully Becky’ll say it now, if she has her bearings enough to), although they may have since there’s a known shooting/kidnapping in her area code.

        1. Marie

          I hope her dad’s too phone dumb to hang it up (if he gets it), they at least take a good whack to smash so unless he cartoonily crushes it in his fist, she should have a few seconds more.

          (he could also huck it out the window but I doubt it because he’ll probably want to immediately stop and destroy the rebellion method)

        2. fogel

          Becks should toss it in the back seat before Toehead can grab it. Hopefully it will stay on and 911 can use the continuing call info.

        3. Jason

          Yes, do this! He might have to stop the car to turn it off.

        4. DarkoNeko

          hey, it’s shorter to say than “daylight savings”if she drops the phone at the backseat of the car, toedad will have to stop to go fetch it.

        5. DarkoNeko

          wait how did these 2 comments get mashed up ? ^^;

        6. DinaWho

          When you cancel a reply it saves the text in the reply box. You probably had a cancelled reply in the ‘winter time’ thread and then replied to this.

        7. Jason

          Uh, what you said!

        8. Lucretiel

          Hopefully, because is a smartphone, they can get a pretty good location off of it.

        9. DarkoNeko

          you can get a pretty good triangulation from the antenaes it’s connected too, anyway.

        10. Failed by the System

          You forget in the US 911 is required to recieve what is known as Type 1 and Type 2 location data from the carrier for ALL calls made, Type 1 is determined via Cell towers, and Type 2 is GPS. If GPS is disabled/unavailable on the phone then they only get type 1 (for a land line that is the address of the land line). In addition they get the name on the phone (failing that the person said phone is billed to). Not that the system always works, in fact there are statistics saying that for a lot of cases there is no Type 1 data given, nor any attempts by 911 to get updated location information.

        11. merbrat

          The most important thing, now, is the 911 recording. There will have been other calls about the gun, etc. Maybe the red car called about the car dragging a girl, before she was discovered. Police are probably getting reports about AG, and may remember seeing that when they passed.
          (“stupid college kids and their games. We’ll have to catch them after we deal with the creep with the gun”)

        12. Ellen

          Thanks for weighing in, the relevant background info here is appreciated!

        13. Failed by the System

          Your welcome, security and privacy are areas of interest to me.

    3. Spencer

      The dial icon’s red, so she’s at least made the call.

    4. TheBloodsuckerProxy

      Looks like they’ve been listening for the last 47 seconds

    5. HushedGalaxy

      she’s been on the call with the 911 dispatchers for 47 seconds. So its mid call and they’ve at least heard this dialogue for this comic if not a bit of the last

      1. SpoopyFox

        and judging by when becky started tapping in a previous strip 911 should have picked up right about the time where she said “you kidnapped me” which is a very good thing

        1. Ellen

          Not only that… Becky used the phrasing she did two strips ago PRECISELY because she had dialled 911 and wanted to appraise the operator of the situation without giving herself away.

        2. Marie

          That was my thought too- also that she was maybe saying it so loud/emphasized for that reason (to drown out ‘what is your emergency’), but I avoided comment to not get my hopes up about taptaptap being 911.

        3. Cerberus

          Yup. She was clearly trying to relay the critical information while disguising it all as a last ditch effort to engage with him. It’s an impressive amount of subterfuge likely honed to perfection by a life of having to tiptoe over his controlling attitude and downplay her “rebellions” doing things like sneaking episodes of Seinfield.

        4. tim gueguen

          I wonder if Becky isn’t going to be telling Joyce some things she’s kept well hidden about what actually went on at home, and if Joyce is going to feel whole lot of guilt as a result, since she didn’t figure out these things were happening.

        5. Marie

          I think there’s a fair chance either way- he might have been a perfectly loving dad to his feminine, Christian, only child, best friends with Other Very Christian Child. (I don’t think I have to type out pontification in the direction of him as a lifelong abuser, since we can all think of reasons it makes sense)

        6. Cerberus

          I think he was probably very loving to his wife and child when they fit the roles he had proscribed to them.

          My dad was very much the same way. When I fit roles he had prepared himself for, he was all chummy and supportive and playing the “cool dad”. The instant I deviated from that script, things got bad. It came to its biggest head when I came out as trans, but he also showed signs of that tendency when I was a kid even though I was too young to recognize it for what it was (after all, everyone’s dads get upset sometimes and hit their kids, right?).

        7. Marie

          Cerberus, that is very like my mom. Not for the same reasons (she’s bigoted, but not violently so and not religious and she doesn’t know I’m trans, so that’s a bonus), she just had specific ideas of perfect daughter and jumped straight to being terrible if I violated her unseen rules, but I sympathize. I only found out much later that my friends found her terrifying when she was angry.

      2. Dr. T

        The 911 operators in Bloomington appear to be well trained. I once had to call them to help me deal with another individual who had called me, threatening to hurt themselves. I held the house phone and my cell phone up where I could hear out of each of them and speak into both simultaneously. I said nothing to the 911 operator but he picked up on what was going on immediately, kept quiet in order to not distract me, recorded the call, alerted a detective, and was able to further help me when the other person hung up their phone.

  26. John Madden

    Shoulda done that a while ago.

  27. Valis_KR3

    Amber is going to have a hard time explaining why she’s wearing a back brace for 6 months.

    1. Ana Chronistic

      “Killing Spiders.”

    2. Yotomoe

      “The amazi-rack finally took it’s toll on my spine?”
      “The what?”
      “fuck. I mean the amber rack…yeeees…that’s what I call them. Cuz I’m amber”
      “…Oh ok….I should name MY boobs…”

      1. Tacos

        She’ll say she had a grappling hook mishap with Danny.

      2. Tenn

        “…You don’t have boobs, Joe.”

    3. -Sentinel-

      I think her cover will be blown the moment she gets hospitalized.

      1. Someone

        Amber-Im cosplaying as Amazi-Girl

        1. Ellen

          HAHaHAHaha!

        2. Clif

          Looking ahead to Halloween.

        3. tim guegue

          “Young lady, why are you trying to emulate this Amazing person? She’s some sort of mentally ill vigilante!”

  28. dailybrad

    Toedad is no toe. He truly is a heel.

    1. Solenoid

      And now, he will be brought to heel.

  29. SUGauthor

    Go to Hell Ross.

    1. -Sentinel-

      “We don’t want him here!” – The residents of Hell.

  30. I Eat Cheese

    isnt that a mazda3

    1. Kiggy

      Sure looks like one. Ross’s car looks lime a 2nd gen. Ford Focus

  31. Boxilar

    Yeah, this sumbich needs to be in prison.

    1. Brasca1

      Where he will be owned by the leader of the Aryan Brotherhood.

      1. thejeff

        Not cool. Even for people like Ross.

        1. brasca1

          No it is not, but given everything that has transpired Ross has earned his place in prison and seeing as how he does not want to be a bongo to anyone that is not white he will be owned by Vern Schillinger.

  32. gkheyf

    2 things have now been settled:

    1. ross is not to be considered sympathetically

    2. someone is capable of reacting to horrible situations in a logical manner

    anyone have anything to add?

    1. Yotomoe

      Who ever was driving that red car is gonna have a really bad rest of their day.

      1. Idon'tcarenomore

        If they saved AGs life, they do have that to think of. Car repair, well that’s another story.

        1. Zan Thrax

          What does his insurance adjuster even categorize that as?

        2. tim guegue

          If the person in that car is really unlucky they’ll end up paying the whole shot because their insurer considers it their fault, or the damage value ends up being under their deductible.

        3. Clif

          Is this a no fault state? Or do Amber and Ross wind up getting sued. Or is Amazigirl gone by the time the cops get there?

    2. inqntrol

      3. He’s the only one who will go to Hell.

    3. J-Debs

      I consider him sympathetically. What are you going to do about it?

      Ok, of course I don’t but no one tells me what to do!

      1. Clif

        Keep breathing.

    4. Jay Field

      4) Ross is now officially a worse father than Blaine. Until this moment, they might have been tied, because although Blaine never showed up with a loaded rifle, at least Ross never (to our knowledge) hit his kid, nor did he take pleasure in hurting Becky.

      Ross has now hit his kid, and he wants to kill her friends. Straight up murder without a care. He has now out-awful’d Blaine.

      1. DaveM

        While both of them are vile wastes of space (and oxygen), Blaine is still #1 scum in my book. While Toedad’s actions are horrible there is no sign he’s enjoying (and getting off on) the abuse like Blaine does.
        Still, “Some men are alive simply because it is against the law to kill them.” – E. W. Howe

        1. Bicycle Bill

          There are still places in the US where the statement “He needed killing” is considered a suitable defense to a murder charge.

        2. DSL

          Toedad is not very bright, is used to having his thinking done for him, and is right now angry, on some level hurt, and probably confused as hell. His BSOD is the realization that maybe he’s in too deep. Blaine is intelligent, cold-blooded and manipulative and, yes, he enjoys twisting other people. His BSOD is anyone not falling for his shit. Toedad may have started down the road to hell with good intentions, but Blaine’s an asshole.

        3. DSL

          REALLY nasty possibility: Toedad in the hospital bed next to Blaine. Easily-manipulated Toedad sees eomeone who might help; Blaine sees someone easy to manipulate. Together, they are crime.

      2. Edupoet81

        I agree, with these latest developments, Ross has officially taken his place as Worst Father. Blaine is now in second place.

        I’m glad that a 911 operator is hearing this.

        I haven’t read through every comment. Is anyone here still defending Toedad after this? I seriously hope not.

        1. David M Willis

          they go in the spam folder: http://itswalky.tumblr.com/post/132147610202/who-is-this-guy

    5. Shawn L.

      Maybe a smidgeon of sympathy. He’s clearly off his nut.

      His best case scenario involves psychiatric care.

      This is beyond religious zealotry. I suspect the loss of his wife is something he hasn’t dealt with well. Add to that the departure of his daughter to college, he’s now alone. Then the revelation of her lifestyle change that he can’t handle, seeing that as a personal failure… BOOM.

      Two possibilities:

      Toedad hasn’t thought this out, and didn’t think of consequences (or brushed concerns of them aside)

      It would be worse if HAS thought this out. Which could mean his plan to “restore his household” includes a reunion with his wife. In the grave, with Becky. Though his statements about her hair growing back suggest otherwise.

      1. gkheyf

        ugh…sadly, i kinda agree with you. i just wanted to make a concise, definitive statement and act confident. everything, no matter how horrible, has some shades of gray that we may just not want to consider.

  33. MightionNY

    Now THAT, chillun, is an “OH CRAP” face.

    Question… the red car that Amb…Amazi-Girl hit… it got back up to speed and close enough to get hit by her after a screeching almost-stop for the loose skateboard? What’s that car’s hurry?

    1. pjeseb

      The car never stopped slowing down, it’s just that it and Amber were going so fast that it still had a lot of speed when Amber flew into it even though the driver was hitting the brakes. That’s how I picture it anyway.

    2. Catullus

      I think the car was swerving around the skateboard, not slowing down; you can see Toedad’s car doing the same thing in that panel.

    3. Idon'tcarenomore

      I think it was purposely closing in on her…maybe to be a position to ‘catch’ her.

      1. DSL

        When I was about 11 or 12 (so a bit less than 40 years ago), I was out on my bike and one of the neighborhood asshole’s dogs slipped its chain. All I remember is looking to my left and seeing teeth. Then I remember seeing the front fender of a nondescript green car, and then I remember the dog, a huge but underfed Doberman, lying dead in the road, and the car’s driver, a young mom (so she seems now, in my memory) with her two kids still in the car, standing outside and looking at the dog and then at me. I don’t remember hearing any brakes. I remember being kind of stunned and numb, and it took me several years, well into my adult life, of processing every little detail that bubbled up, one detail at a time, in my memory to conclude that the young mom in the car hit the gas when she saw the dog and possibly saved my life. I never did find out who she was.

        1. saltchocolate

          Wow. Wow.

  34. Cody

    Now 911 has heard it. Good luck explaining your way out of that Toedad.

  35. DarkoNeko

    Hey, good reflex Becky.

    also… toedad isn’t looking at the road.
    he totally isn’t looking at the roaaaaad. uh oooh.

    1. DarkoNeko

      and NOW I have just noticed the tap tap tap from a few pages ago.

      1. Wublub

        Ooooooh, that’s what that was! I noticed it when I first read that strip, but I was too distracted by Amazigirl’s cover getting blown to really think about it, you know?

  36. Mandy

    If I wasn’t so sure his lunatic religion was super against alcohol, I would 100% believe this jackass got completely hammered before all of this due to his out-of-control behavior.

    1. Twilightomens

      NOPE, this is him sober! 🙂

      1. Valerie

        Maybe he -should- have a drink to relax.

    2. Marie

      I was thinking about this yesterday, mostly because I was thinking about driving drunk adding to his infractions (especially since Amazigirl would have been injured when he was driving under the influence, rather than it being ‘just’ reckless driving)

      1. Pat

        Y’know, I think injuring the girl grappling to your car and surfing behind it on a skateboard is the one thing nobody’s gonna be able to legally blame him for.

        Of course, he did do it on purpose, so maybe.

  37. Mona

    OH shit
    nonono

    (I think this is the first time a webcomic actually gave me an adrenaline rush.)

    1. Benwhoski

      Not an exaggeration: this story arc has broken me out in literal stress-hives a couple of times.

  38. Yotomoe

    Ok…My suspension of belief can only go so deep. This man is literally so insane that I have trouble believing he’s made it this far in life without it being noticed.
    And I’m sure someone will say “Oh no. There’s totally people like this that goes unnoticed and it’s super realistic”. But at this point I feel like this character is too evil to be seen to me as anything more than “the antagonist”.

    1. ColdFury

      I’m sorry, but this is all to believable. People go insane quietly all the time, and go off the deep end for all sorts of reasons. If they didn’t, we wouldn’t have many school shootings, would we??

      1. Ana Chronistic

        It’s sort of comforting that there are people privileged enough to not believe this can happen…? I mean, hopefully it means they’re safe AND sane =p

        1. Someone

          It seems like it depends on where you live, someone is California is going to see it a lot less then someone in Alabama.

        2. David M Willis

          So many people have told me they have had to stop reading this story as it’s gone on because Ross is too much like their father, including incidents with a gun. Already someone has told me that they had to stop reading because of THIS specific strip.

          (I am super fine with anyone having to take a break. Brain health is more important than a comic strip. Come back and read it when it’s all done, or don’t. Always protect yourself.)

          ((also you avoid reading people saying that traumatizing stuff from your life isn’t real, which doesn’t sound too fun))

        3. Someone

          when did i say i was traumatized? I’m one of the guys who has never seen this but can understand it exists

        4. Cerberus

          I think it’s in reference to the person who had to take a break starting on this strip. It was a thing that popped up in the Patreon preview for this comic.

        5. David M Willis

          I was responding to the thread, not specifically to you.

        6. Someone

          Oh shit, sorry

        7. neeks

          I think Willis was using “you” generally/hypothetically, like “if the content traumatizes you because it’s too realistic, people commenting that it’s unrealistic isn’t going to be fun for you either.” So like, he was addressing the thread/topic but replying to you(Someone) while not specifically talking to you(Someone).

          And in the time it took me to tap that out on my mobile device, I’m sure several other people have explained it too. Oh well.

        8. Guairdean Beatha

          Ross isn’t like my father, but he’s like a lot of people that I knew growing up. I continue to read because it’s somewhat cathartic to see it played out from someone else’s eyes. I thank you for that.

        9. Amber

          As much as I find this arc really engaging, if my dad weren’t dead, this would be a really hard story for me to keep up with. I grew up with a dad like this, both physically and mentally abusive. He used to guilt trip and degrade everyone in the family if he had the opportunity, everything had to be what about him and what he wanted or he’d lose his temper, and I had to endure being picked up by my neck and being slammed into walls. You couldn’t even harmlessly rib at him, and I remember having to pretend to be happy when he’d return from a business trip just to try to make things remain more at ease. Even after he finally left (after years of cheating on my mom), until he died, I consistently had nightmares about him. I was always looking over my shoulder, always scared in the back of my mind.

          So when people say this kind of situation isn’t believable, well. Count your fucking lucky stars.

        10. Strangeshapes

          Funny, I have trouble with this, not because I had a crap parent, but because I have two little kids, and the thought of parents treating their kids like this makes me feel a blood-numbing rage. I’ll really be interested in how you write through arcs like these after your twins are born.

        11. Yotomoe

          I live in Georgia. Like…JUST outside the REAL country parts, but still pretty country.

        12. sps48

          You say that so easily- but I’ve lived in both states, and I disagree.

        13. Cerberus

          Yeah, it is. Like “wow, bully for you on lucking out and having a sweet enough life that this feels cartoonish and unrealistic. I really envy you.”

        14. Failed by the System

          comforting to know that some havn’t enountered… maybe
          someone going, never encountered it, must not be real. not so much.

          Gets scarier when you realize some of those people (Toedad/Ross type), go and get badges that essentially give them a license to kill.

      2. Yotomoe

        Sure. Maybe. But even if people like this DO exist…I just don’t feel compelled to be blown away by this character. The fact that he’s so one dimmensional just…I dunno. Turns me off. I guess it may mean more to people who’ve had fucked up shit happen in their lives and maybe I’m the asshole, but I’m just not seeing anything that hooks me on this guy anymore. He’s just an antagonist.

        1. Cerberus

          It does. Mean more that is. Doesn’t make you an asshole. Makes you lucky.

        2. Cerberus

          To follow up, I want to note that there are a lot of things that happen to people (especially marginalized people) that seem one-dimensionally villainous to the point where you wonder how people manage to rationalize their actions.

          Worse yet is how many will still rationalize said one-dimensionally villainous actions as somehow “not as bad” or “justified” or “caused by the victim” or otherwise make calls to the golden mean fallacy.

          For all this seems unmistakably villainous, I bet I could show it to the community I grew up with and still have a good number say his actions are justified. Hell, up until the point where he started pulling out his gun, there were plenty of people claiming he hadn’t done anything wrong and Becky was making everything up when he had already been shown to be controlling, physically abusive, and trying to send her away to an Abuse Camp to “get fixed”.

        3. Nightsbridge

          Even after he pulled out his gun, too many people talked about ‘but he’s better, because it’s coming from a place of LOVE!’

        4. Amber

          Believe it or not, there are some people who are just blatantly assholes and nothing more. Not everyone is this super complex individual, sometimes people are just what it says on the tin. People come from all different walks of life, and sometimes that walk makes them a very singular-focused person.

          From a storytelling perspective, too, there’s no reason for him to be any more complex than this. Why potentially see how he might have had some quality traits in the past? Fantasy stories often have sympathetic villains, but let’s get back to the real world where that is not much of a thing. It’s clearly not meant for us to see anything other than what a horrible person he is, because otherwise it distracts from what we are supposed to focus on- Becky’s struggle. And if we even did see flashbacks of him seeming like a decent dad from time to time, what would it matter? It wouldn’t change how awful he is here, and it would just be wasting our time on pointless details. He’s not the one we’re supposed to feel sorry for.

        5. Cerberus

          And we’ve also seen his humanity and thought process. For every plop of comments about how unbelievable he is whenever he shows his violent and controlling side, there’s also a plop of comments about how much people sympathize with him every time he was shown (during the scenes he was kidnapping his daughter at gunpoint) to have a pained or sad expression on his face or to be stuttering a little with his words. So there’s that.

          Honestly I despair to think of the comment section in future strips where he’s shown in flashback moments where he is content in how his wife and daughter fill their roles, because it’ll probably mean another influx of “why the hate for Toedad” like we got when Dina tricked him onto the bus.

      3. Lord Stoneheart

        I mean he probably thought everything would work out if he just got Becky in the car. But she’s still defying him. (Trying to grab the wheel and everything). He thought he had a handle on the situation but he doesn’t. Getting angry seems like a likely thing. And when you start out at the level he did…

        1. Cerberus

          She’s not fitting the script. She’s not acquiescing to her role. She’s not recognizing his authority. And clearly she is doing all of this because the demon in her soul wants to hurt him personally and delay his holy mission. If he can only stamp his Godly authority down harder and take out the demons who seek to swallow her in Sapphic depravity, then everything will be restored and he’ll have his family back and his daughter will relearn the role that God has chosen for her… or else.

        2. ThatGuy

          This is a good summary, as below i see people talking about the nature of insanity and I guess i have no basis for this, but I believe that what Ross is is Deluded, not Insane. And that is the problem with cults. They get you to believe that things are real and then get you to believe they are more important than other things like being alive or your daughters health. Thats how it works. Its a psychological issue but its one that is “taught”, as opposed to people who struggle with sociopathy, anxiety, schizophrenia, ect. He probably had every opportunity in life to be a good logical person but either his family raised him like this or he felt the need to turn to this because of some trauma and he’s trying really hard to not accept it by delving shoulder deep into this belief system. A great example of what he ISNT is Joyce. She was homeschooled with a very strict form of education but when faced with things that conflict with her belief system she questions it, herself, the conflicting evidence and even her belief system. She’s even resigned herself to what she is taught as “sin”-ish behavior on the HOPE that her faith is leader her right unlike what her upbringing did. But UNLIKE Joyce, Ross is fully deluded, whether he himself did it, his parents and community, or if he does have underlying mental issues that made him more inclined to commit to these ideals. Ross is Deluded, not Mentally ill. Though i guess either way he needs to see a psychologist. And work out the reason why he doesnt view his life or his daughters as important.

    2. Josh

      Oh, I really wish he weren’t believable. I really wish that were the case. But there exist people like him. Not many, luckily…. but they are out there. And, bad as he is, there are other cultures (and some cults) which are even worse.

      1. Josh

        And I’m a little bit terrified that Willis personally may have known people like that. Joyce is autobiographical.

        1. Cerberus

          I’d say it’s even money. I wasn’t fundie, but I grew up in Fundieville and I met a lot of people who were very much this way.

        2. Opus the Poet

          People like Ross are the reason I’m a tree-hugging Pagan right now. Way back in the ’80s they were telling me I needed to consume more stuff because Gawd was coming (in 2000) and would get real pissed if we had anything left over in the way of resources in the Earth.

        3. Gamaran Sepudomyn

          And here I thought the bathtub leviathan thing (seriously, look it up) thing was the stupidest kind of fundie.

    3. Spencer

      For all the complaints about suspension of disbelief, how Toedad is just too cartoonish, there are tons of people here talking about how they’ve ended up going through shit like this.

      I mean, I’m not trying to slam you specifically or anything. There’s plenty of people here who have the same complaint, but it’s real.

    4. Guairdean Beatha

      They exist. If you like, I can introduce you to a few. Personally, I keep my distance.

    5. Chubsius

      Oh, I’m sure his level of crazy has been noticed before. That doesn’t mean anybody did anything about it. Even if there were repercussions, Ross doesn’t seem like the kind of person to learn from it.

    6. Yotomoe

      Alright I take it back. If everyone else can believe it I guess it’s not my place to say what’s realistic or not. Maybe I am just a privileged baby who’s never had anything bad happen to them.

      1. sps48

        Stick to your guns, ‘Moe, I agree with you.

        Sure, there are plenty of folks who have an attitude reminiscent of Toedad’s, but the sequence being portrayed is as realistic as Amazigirl’s feats.

        1. Rutee

          WAit, you have a bunch of telling you “this shit happened to me”, another bunch who say “this happened to people and i watched”, and another bunch saying “i’ve had people tell me they stopped reading because it hit stoo close to home”, and you’re saying ‘stick to your guns, I agree this isn’t realistic’?

          What’s it like to be that objectively wrong, I wonder? Since, you know, the core conceit of ‘realism’ is “is this possible or likely in this set of circumstances?”

        2. Rutee

          To be clear, nobody seems to think yotomoe’s obligated to be interested. but he reads the comments enough that he genuinely ought to know better in terms of ‘realism’. this is a thing that happens. If it doesn’t grab you, okay. But that’s not what “this doesn’t feel real” means when you say it.

        3. Yotomoe

          Yeah, I’m sorry for implying such. I have no desire to belittle real struggles people have gone through with awful people and it may just because I’m looking at this from strictly a story telling point of view. I’m not saying this can’t or hasn’t happened, but it just messed with MY sense of disbelief. But since it seems so prevalent I guess it’s probably just an example of my narrow level of life experience. So I rescind the previous comment because apparently shit’s crazy out there.

        4. Cerberus

          Thank you, Yotomoe. You’re a real mensch.

        5. Rutee

          Yeah, you seemed to had worked that out, sorry. I was really talking to sps, who was saying “naw dude, stick to what you were saying before”. It was pretty clear you were fine now, but this guy. Thanks, though.

      2. madock345

        I’m sorry you got shouted down like that. I hate when people get ganged up on, even on the internet. If Ross’s characterization doensn’t grab you, then it just doesn’t, and people yelling at you that it should isn’t going to change that.

        1. Jason

          No one’s yelling, and probably a lot of the people who responded to him didn’t see all the other responses before commenting.

        2. Yotomoe

          Everyone so far has been really cool and so I’m really chill. I don’t feel attacked at all. People are being civil today and that makes me happy.

      3. Idon'tcarenomore

        I doubt that. We all have had bad things to live through.
        Beckys level is way worse than most. But .. Think about that religious leader who forced/coerced his followers into drinking poisoned koolaide. I’m think it was Jamestown where it took place. He killed about 300 people in the name of God, people who believed in him.
        I think that’s pretty unbelievedable…but the news has the photos and the testimony as proof.
        And there’s the guy who slaughtered a Kindergarden full of children with submachine type guns. Could he be real…could a person really do that? I still have no clue how anyone could.
        So, yeah I believe in Toedad and his actions.

      4. Xerxes93

        don’t try and play the victim because people had the audacity to tell you you were wrong. The responses aren’t even that rude.

        1. Yotomoe

          Silly Xerxes. I’m not even trying to play the victim. I’m being sincere and I’m sorry if you felt any differently. I’m just a person who’s jokey and chill about mocking myself for my lack of depth on the subject. 😛

        2. Xerxes93

          didn’t sound like it. if you’re trying to be sincere don’t be “jokey” at the same time.

          But in all honesty, I’d much rather you respond to my comment further down asking you what exactly you would diagnose ross with, since you’re so convinced he’s crazy?

        3. Yotomoe

          I didn’t feel like adding anymore conflict so I was choosing to leave it be. But if you insist.
          I used the phrase “insane” to mean that he is not acting sanely. The actions which he is taking are not the actions of a completely rational sane man. I had no intention of applying some sort of predetermined mental illness to him, or to imply that one must be mentally ill to perform a crime. But I think I’m justified in saying that
          1. Going to a public place with a loaded shotgun
          2. Being willing to SHOOT your daughter and/or go to jail forever to save her soul?
          3. After knocking a girl off of your car, showing no remorse and remarking “she’ll go to hell where she belongs”
          To be the action of a man who’s not quite acting sane. Now if you want to force me to apply this to any specific mental illness, I probably couldn’t do that accurately because I’m not educated enough to say.
          However I do know that his behavior is pretty out of the ordinary, and if what he’s doing are the actions of a sane man, then sanity doesn’t really mean what I thought it meant.
          So I’m sorry if I offended you with the use of my terminology insane, and I hope that your mental issues are manageable and that you can live a long and happy life. I’m sorry if I’ve caused you any unnecessary stress. Bye-cha!

        4. Gamaran Sepudomyn

          Rational != sane. Ross = asshole shitbag. Also, Ross = tremendously stupid and stupid != insane.

      5. Kateastrophe

        I’m really trying not to get defensive about this – I know you don’t mean to deny the experiences of people I hold dear, but that’s how it feels. I just think… Look, you probably know someone with a story pretty similar to this. Just statistically. You might not know about it, because it’s not exactly something you generally chat casually about, but the Toedads in the world aren’t exactly rare. And it’s not even always about sexuality – I’ve had to come to the midnight rescue of a friend whose religious father threatened her physical safety over her atheism. And working with and being a part of the gay community, even in my very liberal edge of California, you learn how many families this sort of thinking has shattered. My ex can’t even talk about her parents, let alone to them. And the thing is, none of the people who have done these things to my friends and loved ones are perfectly sane, and kind, to the limits of their beliefs. It’s not a matter of sanity, it’s a matter of dogma.

    7. Kole

      thank you, I agree.

      Like, does this stuff happen? Yeah, of course, it’s horrible but it does. My issue with my own suspension of disbelief comes from a few issues that mostly revolve around the pacing.

      1) I know a lot of people loved the Dina/Becky arc, it was cute, but it was paced… really… really… agonizingly slow. I dont have any major beef with this by itself, no storyteller is going to be spot on 100% of the time or be able to please anyone, but personally? Even though I love both Dina and Becky and find their relationship cute, I was so sick of seeing it and the way it was paced.

      2) it’s a slice of life college comic, and sure we’ve had a lot of pretty intense drama, but basically everything since Toedad drove up has felt … very “show”y instead of “tell”y. I respect Willis quite a deal for how his storytelling has evolved over the years (like this bit with Becky tap tap tapping and starting a dialogue with her dad so the operator can hear? THAT IS VERY GOOD!), but this hasn’t evolved believably. It feels like Willis has forgotten how fundie Christians talk to each other, even the irrevocably evil ones.

      3) It feels like Willis wrote this in anger. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he sat down and made the comic go in this direction when people started feeling bad for Toedad back when he was first introduced months ago. The reason I say it feels like he wrote this in anger is that every single character we have has reacted to this in rage or anger or violence, when that hasn’t been in their character previously. Dina drops on the guy to attack in a floppy jurrassic park reference, Joyce yells at Sal (who, ok, I can believe would appreciate it since she’s so “SCREW THE MAN” but come on if someone talked to you the way Joyce did? Come on). This could be seen as character development, but it feels sloppy and forced and it’s not quite connecting the way I’ve come to expect from a David Willis comic.

      Do people like this exist? sure. Unfortunately, but sure. Is it believable written in this way, paced the way it is? Sadly, no, not some of David’s more brilliantly executed work.

      I know Willis reads his comments so I’m not wanting this to come off as an attack or anything and I know it’s like… not fun to read extensive disappointed public critique like this about your work so he can feel free to delete the comment if he wants. But I’ll just say I do agree that my suspension of disbelief has been basically not here the entire arc. But I mean so many people are having fun anyway, and isn’t that the ultimate goal of a story in the first place? Willis is having fun writing it, people are having fun reading it, and us people with picky plot tastes just have to deal haha.

      1. Annalabagaba

        Another note is that the people getting angry are a select group. To us the readers it feels like everyone but in fact it’s almost no one. Willis might be writing this in anger but the character of Ross isn’t as bigoted about his religion as I’ve seen people get.

        1. Sudden Clarity Clarence

          Ooooh guys, I just got it. Big Toe Dad is a BIGOTED dad.

          BIGOTED. BIG OTED. BIG TOED.

        2. Agemegos

          Willis is so clever and subtle!

      2. Michael Chandra

        The current strip-buffer is 3.5 months. For him to send the comic in this direction in response to comments, he’d either have to throw away a massive part of his buffer or be changing the story (and ignoring any foreshadowing he already wrote) months away. So personally I consider your theory extremely unlikely.

        (Sidenote, Willis noted recently that it feels incredibly insulting when people suggest he changes the comic based on the comments.)

        Another personal note: This guy seems rather realistic to me and personally I think the characters acted quite believable and true to their evolving nature. So while you may believe it’s sloppy and forced, I believe it’s a well-put together storyline exposing human nature.

        1. Michael Chandra

          I just checked the tags and Ross showed in the comic nearly 3 months ago (first week of August). This ended on the 8th of August, he showed again exactly 2 months later on the 9th of October and first pulled the gun the next day. So by the time people commented on it, the current past month already was in the buffer (assuming the buffer was at least 3 months back then compared to its current 3.5). If Willis had drawn this (not even mentioning all the foreshadowing) in response to people’s comments, he’d have thrown away an entire month of buffer while pretending otherwise. To me that theory seems extremely unlikely.

      3. Cerberus

        But it was accurate to how fundies talk to each other. I mean, who knows on the anger, I’m not really Willis so I can’t say, but he definitely captured the method of speaking when fundies in power are disappointed and angry at fundies without it. Right down to the use of terms that those outside that community were baffled by (see “womanhood”).

      4. Clif

        I would suggest that your problem with the pacing comes from the speed at which you read it, not from the story itself. You can’t realistically judge the pacing until you go back and read a book at a time.

    8. Marie

      I’ve always lived in pretty liberal parts of Canada, and this isn’t surprising. I’ve not seen this exactly (especially given we have less people with guns), but I’ve seen violently awful (I’d say crazy, but most aren’t mentally ill. crazy-acting.) people and I’ve seen bigots and it makes this hardly unimaginable, even not having experienced it. Like, even with the exact situation being unrealistic to you, it’s shocking to me that you haven’t met multiple people who were visibly this ‘one dimensional’ by now (I’m assuming you’re an adult). Although I don’t find him ‘deep’ nor whatsoever sympathetic, I’d say Ross has more depth of character than a number of people I know, even if we only go off everything that has happened on camera.

      Then obviously, fucktons of news articles and commenters on places like exactly here back it up.

      1. Marie

        (Moe, you backed out while I was typing, sorry. This’ll just be to other people, then)

    9. newllend(henryvolt)

      Probably Would not have been such a big problem if Rosses character was better introduced. When we actually first met him worst thing I thought of him was that he part of a cult, but even so that was just a joke and even if that was the case a cult member doesn’t seem as extreme as a religious gun welding maniac who beats daughter and threatens her life and the life of her friends and everyone around her. Though there where a couple of Suttle hints that Ross might have been going through some traumatic experiences that had painted him unstable as hell such as the deceased wife but that didn’t go into enough detail to give a proper warning.

      And to be fair when this gun welding chase of madness all started only a select number of us actually saw that coming. I mean come on everyone really sit down and think that Ross was going to get butt hurt over being Bugs bunnied by Dina and buy a gun then drive down to the college and shoot someone then threaten Becky with the gun?

      1. SDGlyph

        I don’t get it. Were we meant to have been told, “By the way, this guy’s a total fundie whackjob with a god complex, the type to get his way through violence, oh and he’s probably in the middle of a personal breakdown due to the loss of his wife which he’s dealing with – badly – by screwing down harder and harder on his fundie authoritarianism”? Instead of having that revealed layer by layer, as the story progresses, from a relatively innocuous first impression?

        If ToeBad / FoeDad / Arseface McShitstain had acted like he currently is from his first introduction, now THAT would have been a cartoon villain.

    10. Petra

      I also don’t think he’s insane. Insane implies mental illness. He’s just a fucking asshole, a bigot, and a bully. I don’t like people saying everyone who does terrible things has to be insane, as someone who’s mentally ill myself.

      1. MindLink

        And, as someone who ALSO is mentally ill, I don’t like everyone saying that “I am insane, I am not like Ross, therefore it is insulting”.
        EVERY mental case is different! Just because SOME people are violent, assholes, etc. BECAUSE of their illness, doesn’t mean that EVERYONE, or even anyone else, is like that.
        But, I really don’t think we should accept that this kind of behaviour is reconcilable with a sane mind either, as that would sort of imply that there is nothing “wrong” with this behaviour, that this is normal (normal, as in sane).
        Anyone who wilfully harms, or threatens to harm, or abuses their force/authority, should not be considered sane, and should get treatment.
        There’s always a story behind, nobody is BORN this way, but somewhere along the way they got messed up and this is how they choose to react.
        Fortunately, most people with mental issues manage to not react violently, or abusively, like you and me, but we are not everyone.
        That’s why I think that most murders should not be punished by jail, but rather sentenced to mandatory psychiatric treatment. Unless you have no other options, and Toedad had the option of driving away (the fact that he didn’t see that as an option is a clear sign of illness itself), but he chose not to, he chose to take actions which endangered other people, which disregarded other peoples feelings and authority.
        People aren’t “evil”, outside of fiction at least.

        1. Petra

          Yes. Mentally ill people can be violent, because they are people, and people can be violent. However, they’re more likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators, and yet a lot of times, the pop culture perception of mental illness is somebody snapping and hurting people, which stigmatizes mental illness and can actually contribute to people getting violent with the mentally ill because they believe the mentally ill will otherwise get violent with them. It’s a complicated issue, but I stand by my guns.

        2. MindLink

          It may be stigmatizing, but it still true. I don’t think we should try to pretend that it doesn’t happen just in order to avoid being stigmatized by the public.
          Some conditions ARE inherently violent, for instance while most sociopaths are not serial killers, they do lack that “safety catch” that most people have when it comes to inflicting harm. There are other conditions too, where violence is a criteria for diagnosis.
          Of course anyone can be capable of doing that, but I believe it should be an indicator if a person is able to flip that switch when in a non-threatening situation.
          To give you a further understanding of where I stand on this, I also believe that mental illnesses are a LOT more common than we know, that most cases are undiagnosed.

        3. Petra

          Also, of course we should accept that this kind of behavior is reconcilable with a sane mind. Sane just means ‘not mentally ill’ in this case. People aren’t pure evil, but they can make just plain evil decisions. By othering people who act badly – and in this case, I believe a lot of people ARE othering, intentional or not – people can say, ‘this person did bad things, but I’m not going to do things that bad, because I am Normal’. It’s why I’m p firm on not dehumanizing people who do very bad things, because once you deny their humanity, you stop looking into why they did that and what we can do to prevent that in the future. They couldn’t help it. They’re a ‘monster’.

        4. MindLink

          You’re not saying that a diagnosis is “dehumanizing” are you ? I’d say it’s the complete opposite, by saying that you can do these things and still be “normal”/sane, then we stop looking for the reasons and write them off as evil.
          If, on the other hand, we say that these actions are an illness, then we can diagnose and analyse, and see what led to that cause of action, and cure them, instead of just locking them up.

        5. Petra

          I’m not, but I’m saying that people can use that to distance themselves from a situation. Augh, I’m explaining badly. It’s important to talk about mental health and violence, and how lack of better mental health care has lead to things like higher rates of homelessness and the like. I just wish people would stop acting like EVERY mental illness makes a person dangerous (in the fucks with their inhibitions way), and that they’d actually follow up with ‘so how can we help people’, instead of throwing out ‘well they must be crazy’ and leaving it at that. I think you and me probably agree on a lot of this issue, there was just a communication gap.

        6. MindLink

          This I certainly agree with.

      2. Clif

        You can call it insane or not as it pleases you, but at this point I think it’s a fairly safe bet to say Ross has suffered some disconnect from consensus reality somewhere along the way.

        1. Agemegos

          If you check the DSM definition of delusion I think you will find the believing what your preachers tell you is explicitly excluded.

        2. MindLink

          Actually, one of the check points on the list for schizophrenia, which I had to take earlier this year, was “Have you had a religious experience?”, it seems it’s OK to talk to God, but if He/She/It/They answer, then it’s counted as a delusion.

    11. Xerxes93

      To quote the late Amazi-girl “No, I’M crazy, HE’S just an incredible asshole.”

      Also, is this really what you think of the mentally ill? As someone who actually does suffer from mental illness I’m genuinely insulted. The culture of “blame violence on mental illness” is incredibly harmful, with real-life consequences to vulnerable people. But if you think he’s CLEARLY crazy, what would you diagnose him with? Cause you seem to think of yourself as such an expert that him not having been previously diagnosed is unrealistic to you.

      1. MindLink

        Please read my answer to Petra right above, I find your answer more insulting than what you are replying to.
        Mental illness is not ONE illness, we are ALL different cases.

        1. Xerxes93

          What are you even talking about? What about what I said has anything to do with what you’re saying? My answer? What answer? I’m the one asking a question. And don’t assume that just because I’m use a broad term for the sake of simplicity that I’m automatically treating mental illness as “one illness” trust me, I fucking know, I just didn’t want to list ALL of my conditions. And if you think using a broad term is worse than literally blaming any violent behaviour on being “insane” that’s your fucking problem, not mine.

        2. MindLink

          The only reason it would be problematic to label violent behaviour as a mental illness would be if you considered all cases to be the same, look at what you wrote:
          “Also, is this really what you think of the mentally ill? As someone who actually does suffer from mental illness I’m genuinely insulted. ”
          You are saying “the mentally ill”, as if that is one group, but it’s not. Unless you yourself has violent tendencys, why would you even feel insulted ?

    12. Leon real

      Madness and insanity are not things you can notice at plain sight. And even when the signs do show up, people don’t pay the necessary attention. Disturbed individuals will post their opinions against races and religions on their blogs, but no one considers it a red flag until it’s too late.
      Now, I’m not saying everything should be monitored and negative opinions exaggerated into threats; only pointing out how danger is often ignored.
      We should also consider the sort of people Toedad associates with. Any odd behavior would have been excused or even justified, seeing that he has been struggling with being the single father of a teenage daughter. Not to mention the shock of Becky coming out. Remember, she is seen as the culprit in her community.

    13. Smiling Cat

      I envy you.

    14. timemonkey

      He didn’t get spotted because he’s from a community that says all these things every day. It turns out he actually means them 100%, which I bet most of the others don’t.

    15. thejeff

      There may be a level of “Truth is stranger than fiction” going on here for some.

      Even if something can and does happen in real life, it might not work as fiction for everyone.

      That said, it’s working for me, even though I’ve never had close dealings with bigoted fundies like Ross.

    16. SonicBlueRanger

      My Dad is emotionally abusive, has thrown temper tantrums over the smallest things and treats me like an idiot if I can’t figure out something I’ve never done before in one go.

      Now he’s never gone full Ross but he is a cartoonish jerk that I could see doing this.

    17. Pat

      And that’s why people like this get away with it.

  39. Sambo

    TAP TAP TAP
    http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/facetoface/

  40. Mada

    911…and that call’s been going for almost a minute now.

    Becky, you are amazing.

    Also; all hail the powers of the Dinaphone!

    1. sps48

      Hopefully Becky never turned off Location Services or the equivalent….

      1. Dorje Sylas

        On most modern smartphones and OSes that setting gets overridden by dialing 911, as part of the emergency system. The only way around that would be to gut the phone’s OS, which I don’t see Dina (who’s phone it is) doing.

        However the phone may be going out the window.

  41. Lordess of Madness

    Dude just got done in by one of the oldest tricks! Fuck you ross, you’re toetally screwed. So’s Amzi-girl by the look of it

  42. William

    Alright, this guy needs to be put away for the rest of his natural life. I don’t want him to die. That’s too easy. I want him to sit in that cell and think and dwell on the fact that Becky not being part of his life anymore, living her own life of “hedonism” as he’d call it, and for him to fume and rage and despair that there’s not a damn thing he can do about it. That would be justice.

    1. Cerberus

      Receiving nothing but photos of Dina and Becky being cute and domestic together alongside press clippings of their awards for work in Evolutionary Biology.

      1. saki

        YES.

      2. brumagem

        Not to mention their volunteer work for Planned Parenthood and It Get’s Better.

        1. Cerberus

          Fuck yes!

        2. Opus the Poet

          I could live with Ross getting bent out of shape by that. I would prefer for him to get physically bent out of shape by a car crusher, but I can live with emotionally bent out of shape.

      3. Idon'tcarenomore

        Hell yeah.

    2. sps48

      (You know he’s not an actual person, right?)

      1. Marie

        I’m a little curious why you’re reading a character driven comic if the fact that the characters aren’t actual people makes you uninterested in any involved thinking about them.

        I couldn’t think of a way of wording that to sound less rude, but it’s not supposed to be. I’m really confused, because I don’t see anything else really driving this story.

        1. KHNO

          You can still read character-driven stories and watch character-driven films, and be not try to think about them, but just see what happens to them. The prospective can stay in the realm of “that could be but we haven’t see it all for now”. For example, I couldn’t speak of any Bergman character and being sure of its personnality by the end of any of his character-driven films (that puts out die Zauberflöte ;), morover during the film. All I can tell of their moral choices is what effect they have on me, but not how I’d like to see them treated.

          It’s very interesting because I just saw recently “United Red Army”, a relatively neutral film about a terrorist fraction post-Zengakuren aera. It’s only about a small part of the story of the movement (in fact, almost only about the relations between a few characters). In this story (I spoil only a little), one character is so horrible you’d want him/her (you won’t know the gender to stop spoilage) shot. Why then? Because he/she existed and really done horrible things, and maybe him/her being shot would mean his/her exactions end up right there.

          Anyway, there are as much way to read, analyze, interpret or enjoy a story as there are readers (thanks reception theory). Some of us want to see a story completed before being able to interact with characters, some see these works as pure expression of their maker (this time no thanks really, reception theory), some want to be involved, to the point to feel within the story (can be or not be escapism).

          Point is, here, to note that anger against fictional characters seems like overdoing for some of us. For me, if a fictional characters really angers me, I walk out, I do not see any use of suppletive stress in my life, and so does, I think but I can be wrong, sps48 but by telling this. For some, catharsis is useful, for some others it’s wasting feelings, for other some others it’s a way to repeat a feeling before having to feel it and find a way to cope more efficiently with reality, and for some others outside of the precedent others it’s more useful to keep an angerless life, especially when one’s prone to anger. And there might be other ways to face this very character, I’d swear I haven’t listed them all…

        2. Clif

          Most of us navigate effortlessly between levels of reality without ever becoming confused. I have an emotional relation with many characters who have no objective existence. The fact they aren’t real has little to do with my hopes for their future.

        3. KHNO

          I’m not opposing your point. I only answer Marie’s question.
          A bit wordy/weirdly as it is in a foreign language for me. D’autant plus qu’on aurait sans doute pu s’expliquer directement avec un répertoire verbal plus efficace au vu de son nom.

    3. Agemegos

      He’s going to spend it in religious ecstasy, praying, reading his Bible, joining in prayer groups, and felling persecuted.

      And beating up orientals and soul-less gingers in the exercise yard.

    4. Viktoria

      I never got that. I mean, why torture someone for the rest of their life? Put him down like a rabid dog, don’t lock him in a box for 50 years so that he can suffer and make other people suffer. Does life imprisonment in cases where someone is definitely guilty benefit anything other than our conscience?

      (This of course ignores that he’s facing something like 20 years, 15 with good behavior.)

      1. Hoop

        Yes.

        Because we aren’t animals.

      2. Sudden Clarity Clarence

        Life imprisonment without parole is the same as a death sentence, it’s just that the execution method is different: old age instead of chemicals or electricity.

        1. Hoop

          over 150 death row inmates have been exonerated in the last 40 years

          statistically speaking we have almost certainly executed innocent people

          that is why we can’t have the death penalty

          (p.s. check out the racial disparities of death row sentencing)

      3. Pat

        How do you both consider “definitely guilty” to be important, but consider conscience unimportant?

      4. saki

        Well if you wanna be pragmatic about it, and ignore the conscience part of it… The death sentence ends up costing a whole lot more than life imprisonment. So there.

        And, as Hoop said, it’s easy to say “if someone’s definitely guilty, why not?”, but the fact is, people do get wrongfully convicted, and no matter the size of that percentage, if it’s more than zero, then that’s just not acceptable.

      5. Rutee

        Yeaaaah, no. Not even a little bit. This is the sort of thing that’s very easy to say when you aren’t dealing with it. You know where execution expenses come from? Because it’s not the execution (Though humane ones can still be pricy). It’s the appeals. If you were right? Tht wouldn’t be true. Most people wouldn’t burn all their appeals to cling to life that much longer. No, most people would rather deal with life in prison – even life in a meriken prison – than die.

  43. Vangeln

    At least Dina is not in hell. 🙂
    Amazi-girl tough. 🙁

  44. Guairdean Beatha

    Well Fundie, how does it feel to lose everything you ever had, and possibly everything you ever will have?

    AG will have some serious bruises, but the collapsing windshield should absorb a lot of the impact.

  45. Haven

    Mmm, whatcha say…

  46. Architex

    I’ve been legitimately scared for amber for over 48 hours now

    1. maarvarq

      I normally save DoE for one of my “best strips to be read late in the day and savoured” but this storyline has me reading it ASAP to find out what’s happening.

      1. merbrat

        Me at 11:30pm… *refresh-refresh-refresh*, then read the comments, and finally I can go to bed. Worrying about what happens, next, of course.

      2. 0kami

        Same here. During slow stretches, I’d check in and catch up about weekly, but lately, I find myself spamming refresh each night, for about 15 minutes of reading and processing the story. Followed shortly thereafter by 23 hours and 40 minutes of anticipatory dread.

  47. Ellen

    Ha! HA! SNAP SNAP SNAP SNAP SNAP!!!!!

    I CALLED IT!

    WOOOOOO GO BECKY!!!!!!!!

    AND OMG, Toedad was just overheard physically assaulting his daughter and making legit,l believable death threats against her friends. ZOOOOMMG this is just TOOOO good!!!!!

    1. Twilightomens

      You look as excited as I feel

    2. brumagem

      Tooooo bad, bad enough to warrant some warrants from a just justice.

      1. Ellen

        Um. Right. NOT good. OPPOSITE of good.

        …you also get points for clever wordplay. 😀

    3. Agemegos

      Well spotted!

  48. lumen

    oh boy

  49. MightionNY

    Willis, you subtle, wondrous bastage. I went back to the 10/27 comic.

    I see what you did there.

    1. MelanieWaffle

      I just checked and it was so subtle I didn’t notice until now. Brilliant move on Willis.

    2. otusasio451

      Wait, what are you…looks back at 10/27

      …Son of a bongo. That’s fantastic.

  50. SpacemanSpiff85

    He should read Ephesians 6:4. 😛

    1. FLUFFYWOLF

      OHOHOHO SPEAKERPHONE MMMBEEYETCH
      I feel so wrong hoping for police brutality, but, well…

      1. AeromechanicalAce

        If any being in the multiverse deserves it, it’s Ross. Sadly, as a white male, he’s the least likely to get it.

      2. Pat

        If she had it on speakerphone, Ross would have heard the operator ask what the problem is.
        Fortunately, he is rather loud (and Becky was being intentionally loud).

    2. FLUFFYWOLF

      Also, might I suggest Ezekiel 25:18? 😛

  51. Matthew Chapdelaine

    Those cop cars they passed now have an even greater reason to follow. Receiving additional orders and details. Kidnapper is armed and extremely dangerous. Kidnapper is hysterical. Use of deadly force authorized. Oh, and send an ambulance to help a girl who’s been splattered all over the pavement. We need backup. Shoot to kill.

    1. Ellen

      I hope to God that the operators and dispatchers have put those puzzle pieces together and done as you suggest!

      1. Mandy

        That’s the thing – the entire path of this mess has been crazier than a rodent on drugs. I’m not sure when/where the cops and dispatchers will finally be able to catch up with them after trying to follow this fast-paced, quick-moving insanity!

    2. Agemegos

      Use of excessive force against the Toedad has been authorised.

      1. evilmidnightlurker

        “Approved.” 😀

      2. Pat

        By definition, you can’t authorize excessive force.
        However, what level of force is excessive can be variable.

        1. thejeff

          I believe the actual reference would be:
          “Use of unnecessary violence in the apprehension of the Toedad HAS been approved.”

        2. Agemegos

          Sorry. I ought to have checked the wording before I posted. It has been a long time.

        3. Agemegos

          Have you ever seen an old movie called “The Blues Brothers”? It’s a good one.

    3. Wasted

      Dispatchers don’t give the authority for deadly force. That decision is made by responding officers.

      They see him pull a gun, they’ll magdump him, as he deserves.

      Whether Willis plays this out as it should, remains to be seen.

    4. Ethan

      “Shoot to kill”

      Firstly, an order like this is never given to a police officer. Furthermore, why are you condoning police violence? “Because I hate the character, rabble rabble” is not an excuse for upending the current zeitgeist toward anti-police brutality.

      Unless, of course, you’re going to be hypocritical about it, and claim that police brutality is ok as long as it is used against people you don’t like.

      1. Hoop

        jesus christ finally someone is talking some sense here

        THE POLICE SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO MURDER PEOPLE WITH UTTER FUCKING IMPUNITY SO LONG AS I THINK THEY’RE ASSHOLES

        So far we’ve seen approximately four crimes committed here – kidnapping Becky, assaulting Dina (and that could be considered self-defense, as she attacked him first), discharge of a firearm in public, and arguably making terroristic threats. None of those are death-penalty crimes even in Texas.

        1. Pat

          Getting shot by the police isn’t the death penalty.
          That’s an immediate-emergency response, not a punishment.

        2. Hoop

          massive chunks of this comment thread seem to be using the two interchangeably

          HOPE ROSS GETS SHOT TO DEATH A BILLION TIMES BY THE COPS

          LOL HOPE THEY KILL HIS ASS etc.

          sorry i have a problem with “police violence as karmic justice” y’all

          (the less said about them that want him to be sexually assaulted in prison the better)

        3. Clif

          You’re confusing
          THE POLICE SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO MURDER PEOPLE WITH UTTER FUCKING IMPUNITY SO LONG AS I THINK THEY’RE ASSHOLES
          with
          I’D LIKE FOR THE POLICE TO MURDER SPECIFIC PEOPLE WITH UTTER FUCKING IMPUNITY SO LONG AS I THINK THEY’RE REALLY REALLY ASSHOLES

          Two different things entirely.

        4. Clif

          Note the difference between “should be allowed ” and “like”

        5. Rutee

          YEah, no, Dina didn’t attack him first. He issued a threat and followed them to make good on it. She didn’t respond with deadly force, so I don’t /think/ she had the obligation to flee, so she should have self defense. Even if she doesn’t, Ross definitely doesn’t, because he made the threat first – for some reason, assault is taken seriously in a court of law, and that matters, even if he didn’t ‘really’ mean to act on it.

        6. Pat

          The obligation to flee only applies when the victim can flee. Dina was trying that; it wasn’t working.

      2. Pat

        Police brutality is bad.
        Police shooting an armed criminal waving a gun around, punching defenseless teenagers they’ve abducted, and bellowing death threats is not police brutality. Use of force and brutality are not the same thing, even if the latter always includes the former.

        Now, it’s not a very good idea. The victim is trapped in a small space with him, for one thing. And once that’s no longer true, that level of force is unlikely to be necessary any more.

        1. Rutee

          Police killing someone unnecessarily is /always/ police brutality. Whether this will be necessary remains to be seen. But the people cheering for it are still cheering for it. Oh sure, if you asked, I’m sure they would want karma to align the circumstances so that it isn’t brutality, and perhaps Willis to oblige, but that doesn’t matter as much for us as cheerleaders.

      3. Matthew Chapdelaine

        I never claimed I wasn’t a hypocrite. And I really don’t like Toedad. I’m hoping for a bloodbath, but I only condone this in a fictional world with fictional characters.

  52. The Aussie Bloke

    The correct response to that final statement of his is “And then you will be a greater sinner than I ever was”

    1. Cerberus

      Sadly, in that culture, being gay trumps murder in the sin rankings. Especially if the murder is against “sinners” or is for religious causes. I mean, a murderer can find God and repent and enter Heaven or is justified by their fight against the tides of sin, but a gay person has just destroyed their soul and dedicated themselves to a truly sinful “lifestyle” and has committed the “ultimate betrayal” which is “rejecting God”.

      Yeah, it’s pretty fucked up.

  53. Professor Fate

    Called it. Amazi-Girl may be banged up, but she isn’t dead. Ross’ ass is grass. Kidnapping, assault, domestic violence … he’s going to the Barbed Wire Hilton for sure.

    1. Porto

      Screw assault and domestic violence, a good prosecutor could easily get him on attempted murder for what he did to Dina after that admission of guilt to the operator.

      1. DaveM

        Yeah and a good defence could get him off with “not guilty by virtue of mental illness.”. Lets see, ‘Borderline sociopathy combined with long term untreated (and repressed) PTSD over the death of his wife leading to a psychotic break’.

        Not that I believe that for a second, but a good defense could get reasonable doubt. Fortunately, Toedad would rather die than admit being wrong, and would treat prison as being martyred for his beliefs. I wonder if he knows how child abusers tend to be treated in prison?

        1. Bryan

          For as much as we hear about “not guilty for reason of insanity”, that defense actually rarely works in the bast majority of court cases where it’s invoked.

        2. DaveM

          And a tiny amount of my faith in the intelligence of the human race is restored 🙂

        3. thejeff

          Also, in those cases where it does work, you’re not guilty, but you’re also rarely set free. You’re committed to an institution, probably indefinitely.

        4. Pat

          That’s an affirmative defense.
          You’ve admitted guilt to the crimes, so now you need to prove that you can’t be held responsible. Reasonable doubt applies when you say you didn’t do it at all, when the burden of proof is on the prosecution. In that case, the burden of proof is on the defense and reasonable doubt would mean a guilty verdict.

        5. Rutee

          Hm, I could hve sworn it was “Affirmative defenses require you to put forth the defense yourself, but once you have done so, the state must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that your defense doesn’t apply.”

        6. Pat

          I don’t… think so? But then I never did go for that law degree, only got a few Criminal Justice courses in.
          But I’m not sure how your description doesn’t apply to every criminal trial–except for when the defendant pleads guilty, obviously.

        7. Rutee

          Um, yeah, don’t get your facts on the justice system from fiction plz. To expand on that, the insanity defense works less than 1% of the time – fiction pretending it’s a cure-all is probably part of the reason, nd this is NOT A GOOD THING. There aree actual mentally ill people who need time in an institution that is dedicated to helping them get better (or at least, not dedicated to emotionally abusing them). With a less poisonous prison system, this would perhaps not be so critical, but that is not what we have.

          Good defense, in Ross’ case, white or not? It’s going to reduce his sentence, not get him off scot free.

      2. Hoop

        Eh. Dina turned on him first. In some states he could have killed her then and there and gotten off scot-free.

        Hell, the NRA would likely pay for his defense in that case.

        1. thejeff

          Possible. That he was stalking his daughter and her girlfriend on campus with a rifle makes it a lot harder. It’s much harder to claim self-defense, if you’re committing a crime.
          Dina has a damn good self-defense case as well.

          Of course, if she was dead, his chances would be better, since there would be no one to counter his testimony.

          Also, she’s not black.

        2. Pat

          He was chasing her with a gun at the time she jumped him.

          You’re right, self-defense does apply to the battery that happened there.

  54. Akami

    Walk it off Amazi-girl, walk it off.

    1. Pat

      She’s fine.

  55. Leon real

    I want the police to shoot this shit in the stomach and leave him agonizing on the side of the road. And even that would be too good for him

    1. Clif

      Come on. You can tell us how you really feel.

  56. Memyself

    Any sympathy I had for Toedad is now gone.

  57. Cena's toe's going to jail

    John Cena can wrestle with his big toe doing 6 months plus in the lockup, right?

  58. Wublub

    Well, my feelings regarding Toedad just went from “I hope this jerk gets arrested and stays in jail forever” to “Fuck this fucker, I hope he dies in a fucking fire.”

    1. neeks

      Preferably without Becky still in the car, though.

    2. Marie

      A prison fire!

  59. Mr. Mendo

    Good for you, Becky. Good for you.

  60. avistel

    “Clever girl.”

    1. Agemegos

      Quite.

  61. brumagem

    Goodbye Amazi-girl’s spine, you were great while you lasted.

    1. Cephalo the Pod

      Becky is the bravest.
      I mean, obviously at least one other person also dialed 911, but Becky’s the absolute last person who should be expected to do it.

      1. Cephalo the Pod

        Aw man, this wasn’t supposed to be a reply.

        1. Marie

          It still gets +1s, because it is a Good Post

    2. Agemegos

      An old friend of mine got hit by a car while he was on his bicycle, and went off the windscreen and over the roof like this. He was seventy-nine years old at the time, and though he was banged up a bit he didn’t break any bones. He’s back on the bike.

      1. Marie

        Yeah, hitting it flat with her spine is probably really good compared to somehow compressing it (or hitting her head). Definitely feels better/recovers faster when you fall on your back than your ass/shoulders/neck, at least. Terrifying and knocks the wind out of you hard, but once you’re breathing you’re pretty good.

        Hopefully she doesn’t go through the glass. Then there’s, well, glass involved.

        1. Bryan

          Auto glass is manufactured to shatter rather than splinter. This keeps it from becoming deadly or even that damaging as the glass shatters into a million little pieces. A lot less dangerous than shards of sharp penetrating glass.

        2. merbrat

          In addition to the plastic lining to keep it intact, now making it a hammock for Amazi-Girl, while protecting the occupant(s) of the car.

  62. Marvelman

    Amber is probably fine. There is (apparently) a way to hit the car to avoid being injured. Stuntmen use this technique.

    1. Heavensrun

      Stuntmen do those things under extremely strictly controlled circumstances and still have medical help on hand in case something goes wrong. Stuntmen do not have magic “don’t get hurt” powers, they just rig the game extensively to keep themselves safe.

      1. Marie

        And they have learned skills for this sort of thing. Although hopefully she’s lucked into it, not landing her weight properly would probably negate the stunt.

  63. Tacos

    Just… go fuck yourself Toedad.

    1. DarkoNeko

      but…that’d be sinning !

      1. inqntrol

        I can’t make babies by myself!(Thank God for that, the last thing we need is a Toe birthing little toes.)

        1. JoyceParty

          Does this make Becky a little toe, though?

        2. inqntrol

          I meant that he can’t reproduce without a mate like some fish/snail/worm species.

        3. inqntrol

          And heck no. Becky has the good looks of her mother, I presume. If she doesn’t look like a toe, then she isn’t.

  64. Memyself

    Now Becky’s retelling everything expository style a few panels ago makes more sense.

    1. neeks

      Imo it still makes sense without the phone call, from the perspective of informing him that “look, I get that you think that you’re right, here, but these are the actual things that you are doing, that most people would agree are pretty fucked up, and I would like to think that you would also normally agree that it’s fucked up if I frame your actions in a literal fashion.”

      1. Memyself

        It does work. It’s very good writing. But when you go back and look at it, there’s a extra layer that changes it all. I should have said “it makes EVEN more sense”.

      2. Marie

        Yes, plus that she’s probably processing it out loud to herself as she says it for him.

  65. Valerie

    She’s not hanging up, is she? Please tell me she’s not hanging up.

    1. Cerberus

      I don’t think it’s her intention to hang up, even though I imagine that Toedad will probably be making a grab for that phone soon. Even if she does though, the dispatcher definitely has enough information to start tracking that phone and diverting police to start intercepting them.

      1. Memyself

        I don’t think they could track it. They could subpoena the carrier for the owner of the phone, and they could subpoena for a radius it was used in.

        1. Agemegos

          Call to 911. Any available location data is included automatically. And I wish we had that feature here, because I’m not looking forward to having to call an ambulance from somewhere on the beach or where-ever with the system I have to use.

        2. Memyself

          Might be available where the strip takes place – not a thing where I am.

        3. Ellen

          I’ve worked on a suicide crisis line before. We (or rather, 911) can absolutely triangulate the call location from cell signals. It just takes time, and is not always reliable. Sometimes seconds, sometimes minutes, but yes, sometimes not at all.

        4. Kelly

          From the Wiki: “Wireless network operators must provide the latitude and longitude of callers within 300 meters, within six minutes of a request by a PSAP. Accuracy rates must meet FCC standards on average within any given participating PSAP service area by September 11, 2012”

          E911 gets location data both from various types of cell tower triangulation and from the phone’s AGPS system.

        5. thejeff

          6 minutes is a long time.
          Becky, now that he’s seen the phone, yell out your location!

        6. DinaWho

          Holland, Doctor. Amsterdam. JHC!

          …that was too obscure, wasn’t it. I’ll go back to my corner now.

  66. Catullus

    I’m ashamed to admit that, when I first saw the last panel, I spent a minute trying to figure out the symbolism of “116.”

    1. Dellaran

      It’s the emergency number in Australia, of course.

      (Just kidding… apparently it’s 000 in Australia.)

      1. The Aussie Bloke

        000, yeah

  67. zebrathinker

    Well now we know who’s in the hospital.

    ALSO YEAH BECKY!!! but also what is going to happen ……. between that 911 call and the cops getting there? AAAAAAA

    1. Twilightomens

      AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

      1. Ellen

        AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHhHHhhhhhhhh

        Car chase???? Yes please!!!!

        Preferably over quickly and uneventfully… I mean… I’m not hoping that cop cars and Joyce/Sal all converge on Ross’ car at once in an epic-level showdown, no-siree….

  68. Cerberus

    If there was any doubt left that Becky and Dina are a good fit for each other, here’s Becky being a clever girl herself.

    Overall, though, wow Becky is impressive. She shows huge concern for Amber, puts herself at major risk by trying to save her from her dad’s swerving, and has apparently been recording her dad’s BS since this conversation:
    http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/facetoface/

    Which means that she managed in her first “oh hey dad, focus on me instead of the superhero on our tails” conversation to drop no less than two mentions of how she has been kidnapped and that the kidnapper threatened her and her friends with a gun. This means that the dispatcher has a good chance of knowing that they are dealing with a kidnapper not a shooter and that said kidnapper is also the same person responsible for the shots earlier.

    Thanks to Toedad’s erratic driving and his physical abuse and threats in this comic, they also know that the caller is in physical danger and so also probably know to track the phone to find them. And she did this all smoothly with her other hand while signaling him, dealing with intense emotional abuse, and the effort to rescue Amazi-Girl.

    And all while knowing that this action posed a potentially fatal risk to herself when he found out.

    Becky is unbelievably impressive here and it’s only a shame that she’s forced to be so thanks to her dad’s utter horribleness and inflexibility.

    Also… (i know, it’s already tl;dr as it is) holy shit panel 4. That threat… Toedad really has fully decided to start killing all her friends if they “interfere” with her “rehabilitation” and he really can’t take even the minimum of pushback in his abusive demands…

    Sal and Joyce are in real physical danger if they manage to get there before the cops. That being said, Becky might be in more trouble now that Toedad knows she has “betrayed HIS household” by daring to involve the proper authorities. Basically, there’s still a good chance someone (my guess is Becky) is going to end up with a bullet in her shoulder.

    1. Ellen

      Great analysis! A+

    2. Leorale

      All of this.
      I don’t think he’ll shoot her right now while he is driving, but yeah, Becky is now in even MORE immediate physical danger. I hope her terribly impressive prensence of mind continues long enough to shout out her location and toss that phone out of arm’s reach.

    3. Bagge

      Becky is SO COOL. Frankly, even if it WAS only her against toedead I wouldn’t give him too good odds, despite his gun and parental authoroty and everything (I mean, round one ended with her on the bus to IU and Joyce, despite everything he would have to say about it).

      Now, add Amazie-girl, Sal, a thoroughly pissed off Joyce and a dinosaur chick who already got the taste for blood to the mix and Toedad is toast.

  69. caesaria82

    My emotional rollercoaster during this: gaaasp, poor Amber – holy shit I am so angry at this shitstain of a person – oh god, Becky, that was SO smart but I fear for you even more now – POLICE, GET THE FUCK OVER HERE.

  70. C.

    Becky got ten more seconds in the final comic than in the Patreon version. That’s incredible luck.

    1. Dellaran

      Ten seconds of comic time to one day of real time… sounds about right. 🙂

  71. lejwocky

    From a physics standpoint, hitting the other car’s windshield was probably a good thing for Amber. She likely had a lower relative velocity to it than to the ground. The glass also cushioned her impact more than the ground or auto body would.

  72. Kathleen

    Because religous people dont shoot up schools???

    Sometimes people believe they are a martyr and do horribly violent things. That’s not just fiction.

  73. neeks

    And then tomorrow’s strip is the toedad/Becky car running into a tree because he wasn’t watching the road and didn’t notice the car was swerving off of it while he was being terrible to his daughter (while a horrified 911 operator bore auricular witness) and he will have cause to rue his lack of seatbelt in addition to everything else.

    But yeah, good on ya, Becky for calling the cops. Hey commentariat, can they use the GPS in the phone to pinpoint the location, or is that more “fictional police departments who actually have a budget because they couldn’t get anything done otherwise” territory? (Heck, for all I know there’s an app for that.)

    Also, oh, Amber…good thing there was a windshield there to break/be broken by your fall. I dearly hope all you suffer is a bruised tailbone because your tuckus(sp?) absorbed most of the impact. :((((((((

    1. Joebo

      If the GPS is enabled they can locate it that way, otherwise they can track it by pinging it off of cell phone towers.

      There’s also the fact that a jumpsuited brunette girl just went back first into a windshield and darn they might want to call 911 for that too.

      1. neeks

        I suppose it depends on how dispatching for emergency calls works, like as I recall it they usually ask “what is the nature of your emergency” so they know what vehicles to send out. We know there are already police cars headed for the campus, and presumably at least one ambulance in case anyone was already injured or dealing with the gunman headed south. We know the gunman isn’t there anymore, but they don’t know that (yet).

        Meanwhile, we have Becky’s phone call, which is less than informative for the 911 operator from a directly-conversational perspective, but does provide a third person perspective of what is going on, if not where exactly (which is why I asked about the GPS). IF the cops et al can use whatever tech they have to identify Becky’s location and trajectory, the operators can send out an APB and perhaps (some of) the cops heading for the campus who are probably the closest can turn around and deal with that. That being said, they don’t know that the campus gunman and the unidentified phone call gunman are the same guy, so they might dispatch additional cars to deal with both emergency….assuming the local PD has the budget and manpower to do that, anyway.

        AND THEN we’ve got the poor soul whose windshield was just obliterated by poor amazi-girl getting flung at it, who will hopefully be calling for an ambulance to deal with THAT.

        AND ALSO THEN we’ve got Sal “evil kineval” walkerton and Joyce “nothing can hurt me now” Brown heading for the clusterfuck and will probably be beating the cops/ambulance(s)/possibly fire trucks (since they always seem to send those just in case) there and will either resolve the situation first or complicate it even further.

        (Idk how obvious is it that I watched a police procedural tv show the other day)

        TUNE IN TOMORROW FOR MORE DOA HAPPY FUN TIMES

    2. Miss Teddy

      I found out the hard way if you hold down 9 on your cell it’ll call 911 . They were at my house in ten minutes or less and I got to find out but dialling the police is not a great thing to do before taking a shower. But yeah, even if they don’t know whats going on they’ll send someone to check and they can and will track your phone. T

      1. neeks

        ha, that reminds me of the time when i was a kid and i answered the door around like 9am on a saturday morning and it was a couple of cops asking me if i “knew anything about the accident.” i’m just like “wat.”

        turns out my bro fell asleep at the wheel and accidentally (well i don’t think it was intentional, he’s a very heavy sleeper) did a hit-and-run while coming home after driving my mom to her 6am choir practice. he really didn’t have very good luck early in his driving career. i’m surprised he didn’t develop a complex, between that and getting his brand new car totaled before he even had it in his name (at least that accident wasn’t his fault, but still.)

  74. Jesse

    I hope the cops kill him.

    1. -Sentinel-

      but he’s white

      1. Jesse

        Yeah, but he seems like the type to start a gunfight.

      2. Idon'tcarenomore

        A white drunk teen driving a car about 10mph at a major intersection of hwy 64 and Independence blvd. in Va. Beach, was shot by officers in 6 cars, so many times the goddam car looked like swiss cheese.
        The cops said one thought he saw the kid reach over the steering window, and maybe would fire.
        Blood level showed he was so drunk it was amazing he was awake let alone driving.
        So yeah, white gets it too.
        And the cops, well one fired and all the rest fired in ‘reflex actions’.
        And the parents buried their son because he committed a very stupid act of drunk driving. Bad enough to kill him for it I guess.

        1. a4lbi

          The point you missed from -Sentinel-‘s comment when you charged in with your derailing “white gets [sic] it too”: white people may still suffer police brutality, but not nearly as often as people of color ESPECIALLY black people.

          Have you not been paying attention the past six months– or the past year– or ever?

        2. Wasted

          Most people shot by the cops are white.

        3. Lord Stoneheart

          That’s because there’s a higher number of white people in the US compared to the number of black people.

        4. Smiling Cat

          There are actually no statistics to make a meaningful determination one way or the other, primarily because the FBI relies on self reporting to track those demographics (this allows people on either side of the argument to make what appear to be fundamentally opposed statements that are accurate to the data available).

          I believe it’s more firmly established that police shootings tend to track most prominently with poverty. Which is a completely different can of racial worms.

        5. MindLink

          That’s not the point.
          The point is, you have a gun-toting cop problem.
          More black people are targeted, but everyone who is targeted is at an equal risk of excessive force being applied to the situation.

      3. Wasted

        Anyone who pulls a gun on cops gets blasted, regardless of skin color.

    2. Opus the Poet

      They won’t have to, he’s about to hit a tree and he’s unbelted and out of position. He’ll go to the right of the steering wheel bag and the left of the passenger bag and splatter all over the windshield. Becky is only slightly out of position (not facing forward) and wearing her seat belt. Dina’s phone is about to be unbuttered toast bouncing against the back of the car as the airbag goes off in front of Becky’s hand.

  75. detective boomwolf

    Remember what I was sayin before? About Ross goin so far beyond that line he’d end up behind it again? I take it back, he’s now doing laps over the line. He’s gone over it so many times, they actually had to make a new line. And he crossed that line before they could even finish the new one. Least you could say that about him, for a man his size, he works fast.

    1. Cephalo the Pod

      We might as well skewer him with the line and roast him like a pig.

      1. Gamaran Sepudomyn

        That’d be mean to that poor poor fire.

  76. Professor Fate

    Called it. Amazi-Girl may be injured, but she isn’t dead. Those shatterproof windshields give under impact without breaking and she wasn’t traveling that fast. I’ve seen deer go headfirst through a windshield though.

    Ross is in big trouble. So far he’s guilty of kidnapping, domestic violence, assault, threatening with a firearm and reckless driving. He’ll be a guest in the Razor Wire Hilton for a good while once the judge gets through with him..

    1. Joebo

      Don’t forget, he just threatened murder too.

      1. Professor Fate

        That’s right! At the rate he’s going, he may be put in a Mental Ward before he’s put in jail. He’s completely bonkers. Bonkers for Jesus! Heehee.

        1. Agemegos

          More likely a prison for the criminally insane, since if he is mentally ill (which I doubt) he is not insane in the sense that allows an insanity defence in criminal law. To get that you have to be either so deluded that you don’t recognise that the things you are hitting/shooting are people or that what you do hurts them, or you have to be in the grip of an irresistible impulse that forces you to hurt/kill despite your not wanting to.

    2. Smiling Cat

      Pretty sure Amazin-Girl is dead. Amber will survive, but she can’t be Amazin-Girl anymore. Not after being packed up in an ambulance and taken to the hospital in the midst of what will be a media feeding frenzy. Best hope? Professional help to work through her issues without needing an alter ego to work out her aggression.

      1. Clif

        What? Just because she was trying out a potential costume based on a purported campus vigilante when the craziness happened?

        Always assuming that Amazigirl doesn’t just walk away or hitch a ride with Sal and Joyce.

        And you know what? She knowingly put her life on the line going up against someone she knew full well was armed and dangerous. Not for cash or fame or out of any belief she was magically invulnerable, but simply because someone needed help. And her hard acquired skills almost got her into position where she could have done something. If Amber died right now, she still would have been awesome.

  77. cmd1095

    I kind of love Toedad’s face in that final panel where he notices the phone. It’s just the ultimate “oh shit… I fucked up big time now”

    This also coincides with a banner add for DoA having a picture Amazi-girl smirking right above the panel of Becky’s face, almost like a bonus panel that summarizes all of our reactions to his reaction

    1. Guairdean Beatha

      It looks to me more like the face of “I have another tool of Satan to destroy.” He may even see the Police as henchmen of Satan and believe he is saving his daughter from the horrors of the “End Times.” If so, that makes him a danger to anyone in arms reach and rifle range.

    2. Jezi

      Yeah, I unfortunately see that as a final “HOW DARE YOU” too. My brain filled in the next strip as something truly awful — him grabbing her by the throat or slamming her into the dashboard by the hair or something like that.

      At this point, we’re past the “is this accurate for a religious nutjob” conversation and on to “is this accurate for a desperate, possibly homicidal kidnapper,” in which case most of it is unfortunately so.

      1. Rikunda

        Looks so much like a “Oh fuck” or “What the hell?!” face to me.

    3. BenRG

      My concern is just how violent his reaction will be to the realisation that he cannot win from this point. Surrendering wouldn’t seem to be in character for him; a violent outburst intended to take as many of his ‘enemies’ down with him as possible is much more likely. In other words, he’ll go Spree Killer.

      As traumatic as it is, it is quite possible that the the last memory Becky will have of her father is him being cut down by a hail of fire from the police.

      1. Commodore Jeep-Eep

        And given what the cops may already know, if he makes one false move when they catch him, they’re going to magdump, and rightly so, considering he’s shown a willingness to pull a firearm before.

  78. Sandbridge Kid

    Ben Carson approves of Toe-Dads behavior.

  79. Peng

    Toedad asked the lord to grant him the strength.
    I hope the lord grants him some sanity.

    1. Cerberus

      Even more frightening is that he is sane. Just really controlling, really abusive, and filled with really toxic views of how the world works.

      1. Agemegos

        Yep. He’s seeing what’s there and acting rationally in view of what he believes. He’s not mentally ill, he is a jealous, proud, controlling, violent, contemptible man.

      2. TheOthin

        None of the behavior he’s displayed is anything I’d call evidence of sanity.

        1. merbrat

          I would say they could claim “temporary” insanity, but he is just having his deluded fundie views/values challenged, repeatedly.

        2. Agemegos

          For an insanity defence to succeed you have to show either that the defendant was incapable of understanding the quality of his or her actions — that he or she was hurting people — or that he or she acted in the grip of an irresistable impulse and was unable to stop. Most forms of mental illness do not qualify for an insanity defence at law, and being a proud, jealous, rather stupid, narrowminded, reactionary shithead certainly doesn’t.

  80. -Sentinel-

    I hope Sal rescue Amazi-girl and they become BFFs and fight crime together.

  81. Sam

    Went back two strips and found Becky doing “tap, tap, tap”. Clever girl.

  82. Benvincible

    I HAVE A LOT OF MIXED FEELINGS

  83. Jason

    Quick Becky! Toss that phone into the back seat where the Toed can’t reach it! He’d have to stop the car in order to get it and hang it up! Then maybe you can grab the gun and run away again…?

  84. Cephalo the Pod

    Becky is the bravest.
    Becky is the absolute last person who should be expected to fix this situation, and yet here she is.

    1. Agemegos

      Yup.

      I love it when the damsel in distress rescues herself.

      1. saltchocolate

        ^ This. (And with a little help from other distressed damsels!)

  85. newllend(henryvolt)

    YEP officially the worst dad.

  86. NoHeart6265

    Becky was dialing the police
    Somebody pick up that phone because we fucking called it!

    1. Cephalo the Pod

      No, SHE did. You just said so.

  87. Ashley

    OMG

  88. Luzahn

    Amazi-Girl’s cape is….reinforced, right?

    1. Cephalo the Pod

      Oh, yes.
      With glass.

      1. Cerberus

        The shards are healing shards, so it’s all okay.

  89. Shade

    This is gonna end with somebody getting shot, isn’t it.

    1. Mkvenner

      As long as its Ross.

    2. AeromechanicalAce

      As long as it’s Toeman, It’s all good.

  90. DudeMyDadOwnsADealership

    Told ya this is all really about him (Ross) and his ego.

    1. 3oranges

      Only concerned about his authority over his daughter, and no thought for her as a person, the lives of anyone else, or even subject verb agreement.

  91. saki

    I’m way worried about the person or people in the red car, too. Like, if that windshield totally breaks, Amber’s body is gonna land straight in the driver and the hypothetical passenger’s faces. D:

    1. Cerberus

      No matter what, this is better than the alternative where she would have landed in front of the car and risked rolling under the wheels.

      1. saki

        Oh, of course, that goes without saying. ^^

    2. merbrat

      The plastic lining in the glass (shatterproof) keeps the glass together by stretching. Since she covered a larger surface area, the impact is lessened compared to a smaller area (heavy rock, etc)
      The driver is (hopefully) slowing down, quickly, rather than slamming on the breaks. So AG may not roll off, since she is basically in a hammock.

  92. Rodimiss

    Chekov’s phone! I mean! Dina’s phone!

    I was really, really afraid that Amber was going to hit the road and get hit by the car? This, here? Looks bad, is bad, could’ve been much much worse.

  93. Just Me

    I think the Red Car had to have positioned it’s self as it did on purpose to catch Amazi-Girl.

    So, now it’s up to Joyce and Sal and the 911 operator.

    1. LuckyStar7

      Not gonna lie, I was kinda hoping that Sal was just gonna catch AmaziGirl in her arms on the way past.

  94. MightionNY

    Something to think about… I haven’t seen the Patreon, but….

    …how do we know there’s not going to be more than one person in the hospital after this?

    Enjoy your evening. 🙂

    1. Cephalo the Pod

      We DON’T.

      1. Ellen

        D: D: D:

      2. DarkoNeko

        Funny how that questions comes back up pretty much every day now.

    2. Cerberus

      November is just literally every cast member lying in separate hospital beds.

      1. Fran

        Ha! Like book six of Harry Potter! xD

        1. Gamaran Sepudomyn

          I still don’t understand why they didn’t just hire a sniper and make a ton of explosives. That’d have ended the conflict in about an hour. Less, if they used magic to allow them to safely prepare large quantities of materials normally too unstable to be used.

    3. Smiling Cat

      I’ve been assuming multiple casualties since this started, but that’s kinda how my mind works.

  95. Rani

    WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?

    WE’RE A FAMILY

    …we’re a family

    1. saki

      Not sure why but when I read your comment I immediately thought of “Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind.”

      1. Spencer

        It would be pretty awesome if Stitch showed up to maul Toedad.

  96. Plume

    Sooooooooo do you think the police heard any of that or at 48 seconds will we get a “Yes this is 911 what’s your emergency?”

    1. Dave

      As with most cellphones, the timer only starts once the call connects, and damn skippy she better have put it on speaker.

      1. Marie

        I find usually you can hear pretty well without speakerphone, especially given that they were both probably talking loudly (indicated by both subject and font). Speaker would have been quite a risk, in case the other end said anything (but not a bad idea now if it’s just one button).

    2. Agemegos

      It’s recorded either way. Becky can get her restraining order.

      1. Smiling Cat

        And possibly even something useful.

  97. The Gentleman Mummy

    At this point the Dad has about the same level of realism in his speech as a character in a Chick tract. He’s just…there’s no way to read that as something a person would actually say, even someone with a very low level of self-awareness.

    1. Square Root

      Not to be overly snarky, but I’m glad your life has been such that you can believe this.

      This is the strip that Becky’s Dad became most believable for me, because my dad has never waved a gun at me, but MY FATHER HAS ACTUALLY SAID THINGS VERY MUCH LIKE THIS TO ME.

      I have several friends whose fathers say things like this and worse to them. I grew up on the fringes of Becky’s subculture, and my friends grew up in the middle of it.

      This is not exaggerated. This really, truly happens.

    2. Cerberus

      Which part? Cause his 2nd and 3rd lines (the ones about “I am your father” and “slack in my role to restore my household”) are ones I heard verbatim at a friend’s house after he was caught playing a video game with magic in it. And line one about the “how dare you touch me” is one my girlfriend has gotten from her abusive dad a few times.

      I have been lucky enough not to encounter line 4, but seeing what I have, I have no doubt that’s a not uncommon refrain for those unlucky enough to be queer in a household like Toedad’s.

    3. neeks

      You say that, but I once asked my very-involved-in-her-church mother what she wanted for Christmas and her response was “darkness is coming.”

      And what she meant was that she wanted an e-reader with a backlight because the sun was setting earlier because of winter and it was hard to read at bus stops. But the first thing she actually said was “darkness is coming”, I swear to God.

      People talk like that. She wasn’t referencing game of thrones, either.

      (I kind of hate my mom’s church community because she feels left out sometimes because she DOESN’T SPEAK IN TONGUES OR HEAR VOICES. Not even kidding. It’s probably ableist of me but I tried to get her to look on the bright side because that’s stuff people usually take psych meds for and she’s on enough brain pills as it is…)

    4. Incomitatus

      If you imagine the most hackneyed, on-the-nose, unbelievable (to you) way of speaking… I will almost guarantee you that there are people who speak that way and thinking nothing odd about it.

      The world is a strange place, full of an infinite variety of ‘normal’.

    5. Gentleman Mummy

      In that case, allow me to sincerely apologise. It is easy to forget how limited one’s own perspective can be when faced with that of others.

  98. Sionyx

    And Ross has gone from “crazy guy worried about his daughter” to “crazy guy who just jumped off that good ol’ slippery slope.” If Ross was doing ANY rational thinking now he’d have caught what Becky was trying to say when she placed that call. That was his last chance to even TRY to mitigate what he’s doing, and it was so thoroughly ignored. I still feel for the guy (…I’m a sucker who prefers her glasses rose colored, thank you) but damn, he needs to be stopped.

    1. Cerberus

      Toedad has chosen at every step to try and impose his will by any means necessary rather than choose to think and be vulnerable and reassess his actions. He’s been very much action and changing one’s mind is moral relativism and therefore Satan this whole time, so it is only fitting that that would end up being his downfall as well.

  99. Freezer

    This will end in tears and/or gunfire.

    1. Agemegos

      It has already included both tears and gunfire.

      I want it to end in jurisprudence.

      1. DarkoNeko

        It will end up with a short mention on the newspapers, like all before it. 😐

      2. Opus the Poet

        +1!

  100. LBD "Nytetrayn"

    I have seen the face of evil, and it is a toe.

    1. NinjaNick

      And he shall burn in Hell.

  101. Derek

    So I guess the big question (in my weird brain at least) is whether this is the first time Ross has ever hit Becky.

    Remember, he has escalated things today that he has never done before (Becky did not expect him to bring a gun at all) so it’s possible he was never physically abusive before either.

    Though I’m guessing the answer to my question will depend on whether Willis considers slapping/spanking as unequivocally abusive or a normal punishment (don’t get me wrong, what is happening right abusive in all respects)

    1. Cerberus

      I’d be willing to bet real money that this is not the first time Toedad has struck Becky.

      1. Clif

        But back then she was a minor so it’s all okay.

    2. Derek

      Like I guess what I’m trying to get at is that, as a child who was sometimes smacked in a Christian household (my family is Catholic), I have complicated feelings on the line between discipline and abuse of children and I think this gets aggravated in overly religious households.

      I’m horrified to read about books like “to Train up a child”, which advice constant physical and emotional abuse to subjugate children in the name of religion. And yet when people tell me any child that is spanked is an abused child, I cannot say that was my experience.

      1. de Combys

        I have similar thoughts and experiences.

      2. Cow

        Yeah, I can understand spanking. It is not the most effective means of parenting but it is an effective form of discipline. My family is half-christian (my father is not) but I have personally known people from more religious households that were abused. In my experience abuse correlates with religion.

        Toedad likely was abusive verbally but I don’t think he ever hit her, not even when he pulled her out of school. She probably would’ve told Joyce and I doubt she’d be in the car right now.

      3. Katherine

        All of my friends with kids at the moment are Christian in some way. One set of them has a 2 1/2 year old who is getting pretty hard to control at times. This past weekend, they were dealing with him being deliberately disobedient and, in a wearied tone, the mom said to the group of us, “I never thought we’d be a spanking family, but nothing else works!” They both have PhDs and are very verbal with their son, so I’m sure they will graduate to reasoning with him as soon he is receptive to it. They’re the example for me, for sure.

    3. Annalabagaba

      My guess is that he probably didn’t hit her before. Not that he wasn’t abusive, just that it was probably more verbal. If he had hit her I have a feeling Joyce would a) have known and b) not have suggested earlier to go back, no matter how much of her upbringing told her too.
      http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/fix/

      1. Marie

        And mental/emotional, even without words.

    4. Idon'tcarenomore

      My brother and I were spanked regularly when we misbehaved. Not raised in a particularly religious household, we went to church ‘most’ Sundays: but always on Christmas and Easter.
      I heard, ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’ often while growing up as my parents both believed it.
      I did not feel abused then or now.
      I do not feel that smacking a kid on the butt is going to damage his inner child and require him to go into therapy when he grows up. If it does the kid has some extra problems than just a butt smack.

      I probably don’t feel abused because my parents also believed in praise when my brother and I tried and succeeded to do something well.
      My parents did the best they could. Can’t ask for more.

      I felt loved. I think that it is all about balance.

      1. OnyxIdol

        I think it depends on the emotional context. If it’s like “I need to give you a little spank because otherwise you won’t stop being apeshit, but I hate to do it” it *may* be ok. If it’s like “RARGH I’m furious because I’m unstable or you don’t live up to my expectations and I’m gonna beat the shit out of you” – That will most likely be bad.

        I don’t remember ever being spanked, but I remember a few occasions where my father became furious as hell – for bullshit reasons, mind you – and screamed at me like an asshole. And yes, I think that had a negative effect on me because it made me feel like I’m not loved.

    5. Miss Teddy

      I was raised in a spanking household, never hurt me any. But yelling, screaming, or striking someone is definitely abuse in my mind. Plus spanking stops when youre past a certain age because then it doesn’t work. You have to reason with the kid, and college age is not one where it should be happening. I mean I know he’s not a reasonable person, but about the end of middles school or before, the kids is still going to go do bad things because a slap on the meaty portion or your rear seems a fair trade for whatever and that’s only IF you get caught. In my opinion spanking is only effective a short while. After that it breeds either fear or lies.
      She’s legally an adult so he shouldn’t be laying a hand on her regardless of the situation.

  102. Retrikaethan

    quick! throw the phone in the back of the car before toedad can turn it off!

    1. Miss Teddy

      Yes! Just thinking that!

  103. SomeRandomGuy

    Speaking as a dude who recently endured an auto accident, Amazi-Girl has the best possible survival chance here. The windshield isn’t just a pane of glass, its skinned in plastic to prevent it from becoming an additional hazard in an accident. Having rolled across one, I can tell you they eat a lot of momentum. She’s in for a lot of cuts and lacerations, and demasking is probably going to be a thing, but she’s probably gonna survive. Probably.

    1. de Combys

      Really sorry for your accident. I sure hope you’ll heal entirely.

    2. John

      She’s got cape and coverall and probably her civilian clothes between her and the glass, and auto glass is designed to shatter into cubes rather than more dangerous shards. I’d be surprised if she got cut. Bruised, yeah.

      I was in an accident last summer, slid my car broadside into a tree, and the driver’s side window fell in on me. (Side window doesn’t have the film to keep it contained like the windshield does.) I got a bunch of little microcuts, the kind where a single tiny droplet of blood wells up, on my left arm below the sleeve of my T-shirt, but even the sleeve was enough to protect. Couldn’t tell that anything had happened the next day; it didn’t even produce visible scabs. That was the full extent of the damage. (To me, anyway. Had to hang a new driver’s door on the car, and I’ve still got a wrinkled fender and a dent in the roofline above the door.)

      (I should have just hit the damn raccoon. I figured I had better odds trying to miss him than having him go under the front wheel at 50. Apparently I was mistaken.)

  104. HiiroArana79

    So… Ross isn’t a nice guy?

    1. Cerberus

      Of course he is. Currently he’s being super nice to future psychologists, making sure they get plenty of business from his daughter and all her friends.

    2. DarkoNeko

      is that scarcasm I smell ? 🙂

      1. HiiroArana79

        Kinda but truthfully I’m on board with Ross being abusive before this and the real reason Becky was hiding out. I mean Gay Away camp is a pretty bad fate. But now feel Toss could be okay beating the Gay out of his daughter. You know because his “god” says it’s okay.

  105. WingedBeast

    Okay, Ross has accomplished it. An atheist now hopes for a Hell, as that is the only place where he can be forced to endure realizing who he has become.

  106. de Combys

    For some reason I feel like watching people laugh at the Westboro Baptist Church on YouTube, now.

  107. Funhouseinabox

    So, I previously defended Ross, saying that maybe he wasn’t evil, and was legitimately acting in his own (misguided) way to help Becky. I was wrong. So very wrong, and I hope that he somehow dies or becomes crippled in this comic.

  108. Arianod

    Oh, SNAP

  109. Cow

    Okay, yeah. For awhile I’ve been thinking of Ross as an otherwise good, or at least decent dude, that’s just a victim of his ingrained religion. That was… challenged, to say the least, when he pulled a gun, but at that point I just felt sorry for him.

    Now he can just eat lead. Hopefully after he’s stopped the vehicle, but at this point, I don’t care.

  110. Someone

    Theory time, okay on The dumblr of age blog Willis mentioned that the red car was modeled in his own. We know that he is currently visiting India for book signings. The man driving the red car is nine other then…the creator of Head Alien and Monkey master, on his way to the comic book store that Danny and Amber frequent.

  111. Pyr05

    Holy crap 911 heard it all.

  112. NinjaNick

    Yes, Becky. Time to throw that douchebag “father” in the slammer.

  113. Bernadotte

    oh please someone kill him

    1. Someone

      Eh, I’m gonna batman this one

    2. inqntrol

      I will gladly joker Ross if it pleases you.

  114. Blackbird

    Do you hear that? It’s the sound of the last bit of sympathy anyone had for Ross drying up.

    1. Mkvenner

      Who had sympathy for him?

      1. Blackbird

        Did you really skip pat all those comments above that started “I defended Ross before, but…”?

        1. Blackbird

          *past

    2. Will

      Check Willis’s tumblr:
      http://itswalky.tumblr.com/post/132147610202/who-is-this-guy

  115. MissFortune

    Is anyone else worried that he’s going to lead us down this path thinking that Amber or Becky is going to get seriously injured, but then it’ll turn out that he did something real bad to Dina back in the woods?

    1. Idon'tcarenomore

      Yes. I’m worried.
      I think that when he said he ‘didn’t hurt anyone’, he simply wasn’t considering Dina as ‘anyone’. She lied to him and was a deceptioness I think he called her. And she was corrupting his daughter.
      So hurting her, in his mind ‘wasn’t hurting anyone’.

      The size of him slugging Dina is a terrible image. She is so small.

      1. kelticat

        Me, I’m thinking that Dina might be in the trunk of his car, because if he brought a gun he could have also brought a kidnapping kit.

    2. TheOthin

      Willis posted a preview panel of Dina being fine a bit later to alleviate our concerns about her, but Amber and Becky still have not appeared in any. We know there’s at least one hospital visit in the future, and I’m sure it includes Amber.

  116. Ryan Balis

    So AmaziGirl is the new Ruth?

    1. Nono

      In Dumbing of Age, you hit car!

      1. podian

        I’m fairly sure that was the case in Roomies! too.

        1. Will

          No, it was a truck.

  117. NinjaNick

    I’m now speeding up the process of my fanart drawing of Ross’ death.

  118. Jenny Islander

    TOSS IT IN THE BACK SEAT QUICK!

  119. lime sheep

    if i didnt know no one was going to die this is the part where id ask if she was about to die

    1. BenRG

      I can see the cops dragging him off her as he’s trying to strangle her.

  120. Mkvenner

    We are back on track! 😀

    1. Mkvenner

      https://youtu.be/_2VK4k-bBag

  121. firejuggler

    I wish serious harm upon you toedad.

  122. Cheryl

    wholy shit snacks!

  123. Idon'tcarenomore

    I know that AG hitting the windshield back first is the best thing that could happen to her in this case. I hope she can walk away from this, if not now in the near future.
    As for the red car, it deliberately came back in to the lane behind Toedad, and it looked as if it was speeding up – at least it looked closer to the back of his car in that last panel.
    If so, I think it was because the driver was trying to actually ‘catch’ Amazi girl and succeeded.

    As for Becky, damn she is good. Way better than I’d have thought when first she arrived ( a full year ago in real time-mindblowing) just about 4 days in campus time. She has shown such courage protecting Joyce as best she can, and tricking dear old dad into a dialogue with the cell phone on 911.

    Hopefully Dina did not turn off the gps feature on her phone. If so, 911 may have it automatically. But can triangulate if need be.

    BUT DAMN, with all the shit going down:
    gun shots on campus,
    a girl skateboarding off a bumper,
    a motorcycle with 2 girls (one with no helmet) dive bombing down campus steps,
    and former skate boarder now embedded in a car windshield -which incidentally cant see thru the shattered windshield, or AG at this point…

    Not to mention the 2 cop cars already on way to original disturbance….

    And Joyce and Sal closing in on the scene to either help or hinder…..

    Yeah its all getting about to come together.

    One thing scares me: well two: is Amber going to stay on hood I hope?

    Becky is within reach of that lunatic driving, he could kill her with one hand. He don’t need a gun.

    Not to mention – he may be about to run off the road.

  124. Blackbird

    This can only end one way…. with Mr. Saruyama being arrested (it is Dina’s phone after all).

  125. OnyxIdol

    Weird. Looking at the Mazda in the previous strip, you’d think he’d stopped by now, considering he was already swerving out of it’s lane…

    1. BenRG

      It’s possible that the driver is a hero and, seeing someone in trouble, somehow managed to position his or her vehicle to catch her as she fell.

      1. OnyxIdol

        In that case he would have amazing reflexes and balls of steel.

        1. BenRG

          Yes.

          See my comment below for more details but, in summary: “When the student is ready, the master will find them“.

  126. Xerxes93

    well, my dreams of an Amazi-Girl/Sal team up to beat up Ross have been crushed.

    on the plus there is still hope for Sal having to begrudgingly rescue Amazi-Girl, and that’s about as good.

  127. Bagge

    I don’t get what went wrong, Ross. You tried shouting and threatening and screaming and bullying and shooting and yelling and hitting and roaring and STILL everything is not the way you want it.

    YOU GO BECKY!!!! You do you best to keep you father in check, save the superhero coming for you (I bet there is one tiny part of Becky’s mind that goes “I REALLY hope I stay alive long enough to hear her story”) call for help, make sure they know the situation… YOU ARE AWESOME

    1. Anthusiasm

      I really want Becky to meet Amazi-girl and just be like, “…that’s definitely Amber, you guys see this, right.”

      1. Bagge

        Dina would approve!

      2. Bagge

        Maybe after all this, Becky will casually ask if Amber is OK after the car crash and everyone will be “What?”

  128. Dave1135

    Anyone notice that Becky is looking forward as she says no no no? Toedad is focused on her, not the road, and the few seconds its taken in this strip, there is most likely something in their path…

    1. Benjy

      I think she’s looking at the rearview mirror. See how it’s reflected on her eyes?

  129. Lasenna

    I really hope Ross has the shit beaten out of him in jail.

    1. Mkvenner

      I don’t think he’s going to survive long enough to get to jail.

      1. BenRG

        He’s going to try to have a ‘heroic’ exit (in his own mind, at least). However, live rarely turns out like the movies.

        It would be more fitting if heroic efforts by EMTs and surgeons saves his life and he has to live out a shuffling, squalid remainder of his life confined to a wheelchair in some penal institution, reduced to the weak, helpless role that he constantly tries to impose on others. Some things are worse than death.

  130. Golli

    The Amazi-board gonna be switched for an Amazi-wheelchair.

  131. BenRG

    Congratulations, asshole. You’ve just confessed to dozens of crimes to the 911 operator. I do hope that you enjoy the colours orange and grey, because they’re going to be a very, very big part of your life fro now on.

  132. BenRG

    Congratulations, asshole. You’ve just confessed to dozens of crimes to the 911 operator. I do hope that you enjoy the colours orange and grey, because they’re going to be a very, very big part of your life from now on.

    [Oops… That didn’t work right; I do hope this doesn’t turn out to be a double-post!]

  133. Zaxares

    I reeeeaaaally hope that this doesn’t mean Ross decides all is lost and decides to deliberately run the car off the road in an attempt to kill both himself and Becky. “I will NOT let your soul go to Hell!” (As a suicide, he would, but it wouldn’t be Becky’s fault and thus she would be “saved”.)

    1. Rheios

      Eh, to him that’d be arguable. She’s “sinned” to him, he might try and make her repent somehow first. Honestly while I initially took him as a extremely backwards, if somewhat sympathetic in his love for his family, I have to say this dude is full on nuts. No ‘sympathetic’ about it. What he’ll do isn’t even grounded in his faith anymore, imo. He’s just holding up the words as a hollow veil to mask whatever his real issues are. (Of which I’m sure they’re innumerable)

  134. Decepticon357

    I don’t suppose there’s any chance Ross will get the psychological help he so desperately needs, is there?

    1. BenRG

      State-provided penal psychoanalysis is well-recognised to be mostly massively substandard pill-prescribing time-servers. Unless you’re someone ‘sexy’ like a psychopathic serial killer, you’re unlikely to get anything except the most perfunctory care.

      1. AeromechanicalAce

        Ross doesn’t need help, he needs a very small cell in which to spend the rest of his miserable existence.

        Nearly everything he’s been done has been very deliberate, and he’s had every chance to walk away from this peacefully. He deserves no sympathy at this point.

        1. Decepticon357

          Perhaps not, but there is like, a sliver of real love in there for his daughter in there, and he is doing what he thinks is right, no matter how warped his idea of what “right” is.

          So it’s not like he’s pure evil like Amber’s dad, I can still hope.

        2. Pat

          Yeah, just because you use the word “love” to describe your hatred doesn’t make you not-evil.

        3. SDGlyph

          Deserve? Perhaps not, but my general philosophy (derived from the religion I, ugh, nominally share with Ross) is that ‘need’ and ‘deserve’ don’t belong in the same sentence.

    2. Kamino Neko

      The issues he’s displaying – control issues, likely narcissism, possible psychopathy – are ones that are notoriously hard to treat.

    3. David

      Ross cannot make use of psychological help since psychological help cannot reliquish him from the prison of his fundamental religious value system.

      He needs spiritual help, and it may indeed be that nothing short of an exorcism will suffice to let him distance himself from his current belief in the righteousness of his actions.

      He is so far sunk in religion that you’ll need good divers, people at home in the water, to rescue him. Non-swimmers may perform resuscitation, but they won’t be the ones getting him ashore.

    4. Wasted

      The only psychological help he needs is a bullet in the head.

      He is clearly incapable of communicating without the use of violence, and seems unlikely to co-operate with police peacefully when they arrive.

    5. Agemegos

      I don’t think he’s mentally ill. He’s a proud, jealous, rather unintelligent man who believes in a noxious (but socially sanctioned) ideology, and whose skill at making moral judgements is poor enough to be on the lose-lose side of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. But I’d guess he’s neurotypical.

  135. CJ

    Huh, even though Amazigirl was miracioulsly saved by the windscreen, things look very bad for Becky. Toedad is totally derailed and now will think she betrayed him so he will act even more irrational.

    I remember someone explaining the acts of the prosecutors in the Inquisition with basicly the same frame of mind. As hell is ethernal, they have to do anything to keep the sinners out of it. Even if, should they be wrong about the sins of one person, they might go to hell themselves for that. They never questioned if maybe their idea of hell and/or the reasons for going there might be totally off. And they never allowed it was up to you to choose your way, but somehow their resposnsibility.

    What I always don’t get is how they avoid to see their own Blasphemie in their attitude. If God is so much greater than man, thinking and saying that you know exactly what God wants basicly says that you are like God (Because man cannot understand God’s Greatness) and this is Blasphemie indeed.

  136. KSClaw

    Good job, Becky! Though now I’m worried about future strips for several reasons.

    1) Someone already pointed out that Amazi-girl might get exposed. Isn’t it possible she could get arrested, for vigilante behavior?
    2) I’m worried he’s going to do something very desperate now. I’ve heard about people with his behavior. The comment alone about Becky’s mom has be worried that he might do something beyond the stuff he’s done already (short of the long, sometimes there’s been headlines in Denmark about men who did not take divorces well. A recent case had a man shooting his ex-wife and their children, and then burning the house down. It’s not quite the same as Toedad, I know, but it feels along the same lines of ‘desperate’ to me.)

    1. BenRG

      A lot depends if she’s actually broken any laws; that isn’t a given, if she’s been careful to make use of Bloomington’s citizen’s arrest and self-defence bylaws (does Indiana have anything similar to ‘Stand Your Ground’? If so, she’d have to have been walking around machine-gunning random bystanders to be considered an outlaw).

      FWIW, I can see a senior detective sitting down with her and saying that, because she’s been small fry so far (and, arguably, actually done good), that they’re going to look the other way, this time. However, the next time ‘Amazi-Girl’ ends up in hospital because of some damn-fool stunt, she’s going to end up in a Psych Ward.

      1. Pat

        She referred to herself as an illegal vigilante.

  137. BenRG

    So, now we’re at the crisis point. Ross has been happily giving the authorities all the information that they need to find and take him. Most importantly, they will take away his ability to control ‘save’ his daughter. Combine low intelligence, fanaticism (in a belief system that I maintain he does not understand, rather whose rhetoric he’s simply parroting) with a sudden loss of hope and he is capable of almost anything, even things that most Christians would consider mortal sins.

  138. CianM1301

    Not to make a pun here, but good call, Becky.
    Also: Amber is most likely going to need a back brace for a while.

  139. Tom

    I never comment. I just read the comic.

    But I have to say… while I have no vested interest in any of the social concerns in this comic (gays, religion, etc)… on a HUMAN level…

    I

    FUCKING

    DESPISE

    TOEDAD.

    1. Bagge

      I KNOW, RIGHT!

      FUCK. THAT. GUY.

  140. Majere

    Enjoy prison you neckless sack of garbage.

    1. BenRG

      Simply put, Ross has just touched the Despair Event Horizon. There is no way forward now to get what he wants. Given that his every action to date has involved violence and anger, I don’t think that he is likely to respond by giving up. When an angry man loses any chance of victory, the only thing on his mind is depriving his ‘enemies’ of their victory in any way that he can.

    2. TheNinthShader

      You have won four whole internets for that amazing insult.

    3. SDGlyph

      You know you’ve screwed up when even Pinkie is angry with you.

  141. Lee

    F***!

  142. BenRG

    Here’s a weird thought that just occurred to me: What if my idea up-thread that the driver of the Mazda deliberately used his car to break Amazi-Girl’s fall is right? What if that’s because he or she has been in the same place (and I don’t mean in terms of street-skiing)?

    Could Amazi-Girl have just encountered her Mr Miyagi?

    1. John

      It’s Willis’s car. (Really. He used his own for his model.) Amazi-Girl just literally had God put his car exactly where it needed to be to save her ass.

  143. Parkrndl

    INITIAL THOUGHT: oh shiz. 911. Sal and the cops are gonna get there at the same time. Bad scene.

    UPON REFLECTION : Maybe not. 47 seconds isn’t enough for the cops to have turned around and caught up (remember, they passed two police cars heading toward campus), but it’s long enough for Sal and Joyce to show up and bring hell raining down upon The Toebag.

    WHAT I HOPE: There’s a standoff in which the only one left that Toebag trusts is Joyce, since his daughter has obviously been brainwashed by these heathens. Joyce plays his game just long enough to get close enough to KICK HIM IN THE THROAT.

    1. NotPiffany

      I will be very surprised if Ross listens to Joyce. She is both female and young; according to his religion, she’s not a real person.

  144. Mom

    How much more evidence does the police need to make an arrest? I didn’t even catch the ‘tap tap tap’ two comics back.

    I really hope this isn’t a hope spot.

  145. Luchucholo

    Actually, hitting the glass is worse for AG’s back than the deformable metal that most cars have, above the motor, that is. Injuries would still be severe (bumbling and crashing on the road), even at low velocity. Methinks this is going to be a PAINFUL climax. Good call, Becky.

  146. Eric

    Welp! He’s dead!

  147. seventhsword2

    Okay Ross, that’s it you deserve the joint needles.

    For those of you wondering joint needles is a torture technique where long, thin needles are inserted into some of the large joints. one of them is then flicked, this causes the needle to grind against the bones, something that is very painful, they writhe in agony, which causes more grinding, which causes more pain and writhing, ect.

  148. Chaucer59

    Clever girl.

    1. TheNinthShader

      You have won half an internet for that overused statement

  149. Amake

    You know, Ross has a very limited idea of what people should be. Why do you want to keep your girl in that tiny box, dad? What kind of God is so scared of people that he can’t let them be what they want, do what they want, go where they want?

    1. NotPiffany

      An evil one. Which is why folks like Ross (or the Westboro Baptist Church, to use a real-world analog) are cowards. They “praise the Lord” in the same way that a person coming across a large growling dog on the street might say “nice doggie… good doggie… please don’t bite me, doggie….”

      1. SDGlyph

        We can never truly know God, ergo everyone, at least to some extent, projects something of themselves onto their conception of God. Ross (and people like him) is a shallow, petty, authoritarian bigot – small wonder his God is too.

    2. Guairdean Beatha

      As Anne Lamott said: “You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”

  150. Nena

    Evil fundie prick. I hope the cops kill him.

    1. TheNinthShader

      +1 internet for you

  151. Kirdei

    God dammit, Ross.

  152. LuckyStar7

    THERE IS A MOUTH!!!!!

    1. Cephalo the Pod

      And it is horribly wasted.

  153. NotPiffany

    Okay, something not-terrible occurred to me.

    Ross talks about “restoring his household” in this strip, and mentioned Satan taking Becky’s mother away from him in this one. Perhaps Becky’s mother isn’t a total loss. She was still with Ross when Becky was outed at her old school, but it looks like she left him after Becky took off. Hopefully this means she’s not as batshit as her (ex?) husband; if Becky survives this, maybe she won’t have as much trouble getting her SSN and birth certificate as she thought. She might even have a family member or two left.

    1. Anorak

      Becky’s mother died a year ago in-comic time.

      1. SDGlyph

        Something’s been bugging me and I finally did an archive trawl to figure out what it is. I’ll have to refer to strips by date rather than link, or I’ll get caught in the moderation queue for multi-linking… again.

        Waaay back at the start of the comic, Joyce mentioned that Becky’s parents were making her go to Anderson (Sep 22 2010, for those counting). I’d write that off as Willis just having not yet decided on Becky’s backstory, but when Becky turned up in Joyce’s room (Oct 31 2014) she said that Becky’s parents wouldn’t let her have a cellphone. This was at the start of Becky’s runaway story, so the details were presumably worked out by then. If Becky’s mom died ‘last year’ (per Ross, Aug 7 2015) and we were in September at that point, there’s no way Joyce wouldn’t have known – and in any case, Becky was stood right next to her, smiling. Just a script mistake, or more of that subtle foreshadowing?*

        To be sure, every mention since then has been of her dad, singular (Dec 17, Dec 20, March 3, Sep 11 tumblr post), and the way both ToeDad (“her mother passed last year”, Aug 7) and Becky (“Put it down… for mom’s sake” / Ross: “Satan took your mother from me”, Oct 16) have talked makes it sound like she died.

        Can anyone point me to Willis’ post confirming Becky’s mom died a year ago? Not the recent ask about HOW she died, but the confirmation that she did? I’m sure I remember reading it and others keep referring to it as ‘Word of Willis says’, but I’ve been searching both his main and the DoA tumblr and can’t find it. If it’s in a strip comment, it’s one I haven’t turned up yet.

        1. SDGlyph

          *Also, I just saw in comments from one of those early strips that Spencer had spotted that too, but Willis didn’t respond to that thread so not much help for me.

        2. Spencer

          Well, it was probably a rule that Becky’s mother also enforced along with Ross, and they likewise decided that Becky had to go to Anderson early on.

          This is the first in-comic mention that Becky’s mother had died.

    2. Kamino Neko

      This is less than two months into the school year. Becky’s mom died a year ago. Ross blames the loss of her mother for Becky ‘going astray’.

      1. NotPiffany

        Well, poop. Thanks for remembering that, guys. 😉

  154. vio

    I wonder what happened to captain crazy dad when he was a kid.

    1. Bagge

      For one thing, the same thing that happened to Joyce and Becky, only he never managed to break free (or realized that he had to)

  155. Anthusiasm

    HE HIT BECKY

    NO ONE GETS TO HIT BECKY

    >:( >:( >:(

    1. SteveBob

      Except for Dina. And only consentually. In play.

      1. m2iCodeJockey

        With a well established safe word… And pink, fuzzy handcuffs… Dressed in a couple super suits… Yeah…

        1. Carolyn

          And lots of cuddly aftercare.

    2. Bagge

      FUCKING FUCKER!!!!

  156. confusopoly

    Toedad is tripping all the flags for a family annihilator here, aka murder-suicide of the whole family. Probably with a combination of the disappointment and paranoia internal narrative. And he’s been tripping those flags while his words were transmitted to emergency services.

  157. Alex

    “I have been slack in my role, but no longer!”

    “Sir, your voice is very muffled, can you please speak more clearly into the speaker?”

    “I will restore my household!”

    “Alright sir let me transfer you to the proper department, can I put you on hold?”

    “Any more of your ‘friends’ try to stop me, I will put them in hell where they belong!”

    “I’m going to put you on hold.”

    1. Guairdean Beatha

      Hopefully there’s a good 911 operator on the other end. After hearing the threat to Becky’s friends, I’d expect the dispatcher’s call to the officers to be something like “Hostage situation, probable school shooter, location xxx, approach with caution, considered armed and dangerous.” Hopefully it won’t be “911, please hold” (Jeopardy theme plays in the background)

      1. Alex

        A competent phone operator would probably be too much for my suspension of disbelief.

        1. Guairdean Beatha

          911 operators are a different breed. They’re trained to listen and pass important info on to the police dispatcher.

    2. Cephalo the Pod

      The operator probably also heard at least part of Becky’s side of the conversation, judging by the time on the phone.

      1. m2iCodeJockey

        The current call recording starts somewhere near “Face-to-Face,” second panel.
        From their POV now, Beck has announced
        -she’s being abducted
        -by her father
        -who has a firearm

        From him, the recording tells them
        -he’s spouting fundamentalism (potentially unstable)
        -he’s trying to take her home (they don’t yet know where)

        From the phone, itself, they potentially have
        -number holder name and address (leads to Dina’s parents then, Dina then, Joyce then, the Toe-bungalow.)
        -current location of the device
        -compass heading and speed

        So, combined with the info from the first two event locations, they potentially have enough info to catch up to them and/or head them off. By now, they know what he looks like but, they probably don’t know his name without running into either Joyce, Dina or getting close enough to read the plate, directly.

  158. showler

    Anyone else feel it was very brave of Mr. Willis to book a public appearance when he knew this comic sequence would be running?

    Not that he’s in any danger, but his fans might be feeling a bit “intense”.

    1. merbrat

      He was just in Austin, on the weekend of the 18th.

  159. Kater

    Is this the end of Amazi Girl?! Will our headstrong heroine triumph over theological terror?! Or will Amber awaken in ambulance agitation, anonymity abolished?!
    Find out next week(ish probably) on Dumbing of Age!!!!

    1. thejeff

      It’s also quite possible that, while hurt, Amazi-girl will still be in good enough shape to leave the scene under her power (or with help from Sal?) as the police arrive.

      Those cliffhanger teasers never turn out the way they’re set up.
      Nice alliteration, btw.:)

      1. That guy

        I am pretty confident that she’ll be fine, will get away, and won’t learn a thing from this whole experience, apart from being even more convinced that she’s an indestructible superheroine.

        1. m2iCodeJockey

          Well, the narrative will go wherever the narrative goes but, realistically, the windshield would be less on a person than being yanked around in the previous frame.
          AG would have some pretty sore rotators after having her arms (elbows) extended toward/beyond the back of her head (Amber is more of a lifter than a gymnast.)

        2. thejeff

          Well, physical damage aside, though I expect her to still be hurt, even if she does limp away, she’s likely to feel like a failure for not being able to help Joyce again. Especially if someone else gets hurt in the wrapup.

    2. NinjaNick

      Maybe so, she’ll soon be Paralyzi-Girl, which is a really bad superhero name unless she has the power to paralyze bad guys like Ross McHitler.

    3. Roborat

      Same Amazi-Girl Time! Same Amazi-Girl Channel!

  160. Sigurther

    And he goes right back to being an unredeemable asshole that needs to die again.

    1. Will

      “Goes back”? Sorry, did I miss anything?

  161. Toes14

    Wow! Becky actually thought ahead for more than 5 seconds? I’m still finding it hard to like her when SHE SHOULD HAVE LEFT THE AREA IMMEDIATELY after Dina told her she lead Toedad on a Wild Goose Chase. She’s not very bright, is she?

    That being said, Ross is a pile of feces, and needs to die in a hail of cop gunfire.

    1. Cephalo the Pod

      Left the area and gone WHERE?
      Besides, Toedad would have still come back with a gun. Instead, he’d just threaten one of Becky’s friends.

    2. Lucina

      Where the fuck would she go? She has no other friends, she has no place to stay, and she would have to throw away the new connections she’s made with people who actually accept her for who she is, including her first girlfriend.

      1. Toes14

        So staying around when she KNOWS he’s going to come back is an option? Jeez, all she had to do was find a women’s shelter for a day or two, until he gives up and goes to look elsewhere. And she could tell Dina where she went. (But not Joyce – she can’t lie convincingly.)

        Instead of a fight or flight response, Becky seems to have an “Ignore the situation” response.

        1. Lord Stoneheart

          Does Becky even know those exist? She’s an 18 year old who grew up in a very sheltered environment. Info about where to go to if authority figures in her life were being abusive wouldn’t have been just handed to her.

        2. MindLink

          The threshold you have to cross to enter a shelter can be pretty steep for most people though, and who knows how long, or even if, it would take for McToe to give up.

        3. Bleeters

          Or at least maybe don’t wander around in the open after taking no steps to alter her appearance.

        4. David M Willis

          she should drastically change her hairstyle, then her dad will never identify her

  162. Doomprix

    …i am just here to say I am putting the comments at 666, that way we firmly know who we support. Teeheehee.

    1. TheNinthShader

      Praise lord helix

  163. Willoughby Chase

    At the very least – IRL – Amber will be up before the beak, and hence to Psych Eval.

    Which I think would be to the good.

    As to Toedad, fuck him. At least he isn’t like my father. In fact seeing Toedad and the number of people who say their dad was like him, I’m thankful that my dad was a good’un. It makes his passing last Tuesday, somewhat easier and harder at the same time.

    Great strip, Willis. May your pen never dry up.

  164. Coral

    Aaaaaw snap! That call’s been going for 47 seconds! Toe Dad, you are FINISHED, mother-effer!

    1. segnosaur

      It was smart of Becky to call 911… I’m not denying that.

      But even if she did not, Toedad was still finished. There were plenty of witnesses that saw him with a gun on campus, and many people who could identify him (even if its just a case of “He’s Becky’s dad”) and the police could easily identify where he lives.

      He was going to jail regardless. Becky’s use of 911 was smart but it wasn’t necessary to guarantee that… perhaps just makes it a little quicker.

      1. Agemegos

        Also more certain. She dialled 911 and then used it to get evidence on record.

    2. Gwen

      More to the point, it can make *help* get to them faster, hopefully before further harm comes to anyone.

      1. thejeff

        Even more, it’s a character point for Becky. She was resigned, when it was only herself at risk. The moment she saw Amazi-girl and realized others were in danger again, she acted.

  165. Miss Teddy

    Poor Becky. There isn’t going to be any chance of somehow rectifing her family life. Not only is he completely unreasonable… Once you’ve got the cops involved that’s it. It’s all drama and tears and you wondering if there was anything you could have done not to loose your family. Even if he’s a [profanity ] , he was still her dad and a small part of her had to want him to just love her for her.
    Obviously that will never happen and she totally did the right thing, but the fall out of this will still hurt. Even though it’ll feel good to be free and able to just be yourself, I foresee much emotional fallout. . . And hopefully cuddles with Dina.

    1. thejeff

      Much emotional fallout. Much pain. But necessary for the healing to happen.

  166. Mike

    That moment when you realize Willis is drawing a gunfight in the Matrix. I’ve always heard time slows way down in stressful situations.

  167. Mike

    Also, who’s going to get out of the red car? Danny or Blaine?

    1. TheNinthShader

      its gonna be danny, I can just tell

    2. 0kami

      …

      …Ryan?

  168. Sensei Le Roof

    Oh, he did NOT.
    That’s it, someone take this asshole out before I do it myself.

  169. Nick

    This whole storyline is just getting progressively stupider.

    At least someone FINALLY called the cops, rather than, you know, trying to physically confront the armed unstable man.

    1. m2iCodeJockey

      Emergency Services had already been called, several pages ago.

      The thing odd is “during the first call(s), they weren’t expecting the persons of interest to be moving so, they drove right past the still occurring event.”

  170. Richard

    Seriously, everything that comes out of his mouth is spoken in the voice of Zachary Comstock.

  171. anna

    *sigh* Oh, Becky.

    Now he’s going to think he needs to send you to hell, too.

  172. Pat

    I don’t get it. Why did she call 116?

    1. Toes14

      Please type 58008 in a calculator and hold it upside down . . .

      1. Pat

        It says BOOB5!

        1. Pat

          But then all of those numbers are the same upside-down on a calculator. You could just put 80085 for the same effect, without turning it over.

          You really need to use some numbers that look different upside-down and turn into letters, like 3 or 7.
          Try 5318008.

        2. Doom Shepherd

          7734.

          Oh, wait…

        3. Pat

          .7734

    2. TheNinthShader

      911 durrr

      1. Pat

        Gee thanks.

      2. Captain Whatever on the planet of things

        Did you just hear a whooshing noise?

    3. SDGlyph

      And what is Lh:00 supposed to mean?

      1. 3oranges

        Lh is the remote for the large hadron collider and the warm-up countdown has reached 00. So now Becky has her finger on the button to create a microscopic black hole, which will promptly destroy all mankind in the span of 116 seconds.

        This is something Ross must prevent at all costs, of course, since that’s actually God’s job.

        1. Julie

          Well there’s our plot for guest strip week!

          I kid, we all know David has the next 17 years of strips in the buffer already

    4. Agemegos

      In Europe “116 is a range of easy-to-remember and free-of-charge phone numbers to assist children and adults in need.”

  173. Lulu

    Kill it, kill the toe with fire!
    What are the chances that he will go suicidal now to take himself and Becky to heaven?

  174. NinjaNick

    Next comic, Becky will say: “You’re not my father. You are NOT my father.”

    1. That guy

      He hasn’t even had a chance to cut her hand off with a lightsabre yet – I think you’re thinking a few strips ahead.

  175. Spencer

    Two points I’d like to make.

    Willis does the Chekhov’s Gun thing really well (slipping in Becky having Dina’s phone and Becky dialing 911 subtly) and it’s always fun to look back and see the clues leading up to these moments.

    Willis’ panel work when it comes to action sequences has gotten a lot better since the IW! days (read the last page and this one in order; you can practically feel the impact of Amber hitting the windshield) and I hope he makes another action-oriented series someday.

  176. Griffin

    Commenting on this comic for the first time ever to say: Willis, please kill Ross. Break your one rule. Come on, I want you to do it.

    Also “I am your father” is a shit reason to demand obedience, and one I heard a lot when my dad was at his most assholish, so hearing Ross say that kinda stung, finalizing my complete hatred for him.

  177. Guairdean Beatha

    It’s kind of sad, but I hope the slap leaves a nice bruise on Becky’s cheek. Three things will guarantee a beatdown in the squad car and again at the station house. One is harming a child, the other is hitting a woman. At this point, to the police, Becky qualifies as both. The third is resisting arrest. One way or the other, Fundie will be guilty of all three and require “reasonable force” to subdue him. Our illustrious bard has promised that no one will die, but as we learned in Aladdin, you’d be amazed at what you can live through.

    1. Pat

      Gosh, I sure do hope those police are corrupt misogynistic violent criminals!

      My various comments about what the police can/should do might be overly optimistic, but hoping that the police are incredibly dangerous and unsuited for their jobs and then hoping that said violence and danger can be aimed in an agreeable direction is… perhaps “optimistic” is not the right word here.

      1. Guairdean Beatha

        No, that’s not what I said and you know it. Don’t start silly games. I’m hoping that the police do what they always do. They protect the innocent. If that requires them to “explain” things along the way, then so be it. Police in general are capable of extreme bravery and tenderness. They’re also sons, fathers, and brothers. When they seen the defenseless being abused by some male (Fundie has lost the right to be called a Man) simply because that male has the physical power to do so, they tend to apply corrective measures. “Corrupt, misogynistic, violent criminals” would kill for the joy of it. Police are human and sometimes use certain techniques to educate the criminal element. Is it right? That’s hard to say. Criminals give up rights when they try to take rights from others. Is it effective? In many cases, yes. Is it a walk in the park compared to what child abusers face in prison? Yes, most definitely.

        1. SDGlyph

          Yeah, no, that’s exactly what you said, except for the misogynistic bit. It’s not the police’s job to apply corrective measures, it’s the court system’s. And retributively beating up a prisoner, after they’ve been subdued and pose no danger to the innocent victim, is absolutely illegal.

          Of course there are many, many good officers out there. There are also a good number of violent thugs, as five minutes reading the news makes clear. The ones who beat up prisoners in the squad car or back at the station house do not belong in the first group.

        2. Guairdean Beatha

          I never said it was the police’s job, nor did I initially make a value judgment. I simply stated that it happens. I will also submit that it happens far more that you’d like to admit, and that it’s, at the very least, condoned by more officers in your first group than you’d expect. I will also state that it’s far better than wishing him killed by the police (a seemingly popular request here) while his daughter watches. Knowing that the police used questionable tactics to subdue him will bother her for a while, seeing him killed will haunt her forever.

        3. SDGlyph

          OK, well, sorry I jumped on you. It certainly sounded like you were approving of the situation – not just saying it happens in general, but that you hoped Becky would have a bruise to ensure that it happened. In turn though, I’ll submit that condoning illegal police brutality ought to move officers out of the first group: if they condone it, even if the ‘right’ people are on the receiving end, they’re not good officers. Judge Dredd is satire, not a role model.

          I agree though that the blood lust on display from some quarters (even if exaggerated for effect) can get a little disconcerting; many cries for vengeance and meeting violence with violence.

        4. Guairdean Beatha

          The bruise will do many things for Becky. It will give proof that she wasn’t a willing participant, and it will lock in benefits for her as both a battered woman and a battered child. it could also benefit her at college. Those classifications might qualify her for tuition from various grants. The police action it could cause, whether right or wrong, will make Fundie think twice about causing problems if he ever regains his freedom. Given the current court system, releases for overcrowding, and a probable insanity plea (and subsequent “cure” in prison counseling), my guess is he’ll be out in five years.

        5. Pat

          If police officers condone violent crime, they aren’t the good ones by definition.

          Yes, we’re seeing a lot of news now about how common police brutality is, and yes, we’re seeing evidence that it’s rarely condemned and often condoned. That’s terrifying.

        6. Pat

          “Criminals give up rights when they try to take rights from others.”
          Unless, of course, those criminals are police officers, in which case they get extra!

          You’re advocating for violent crime. You can’t say it’s because of how much you hate violent crime.
          (Also, that’s a lot more assumption of misogyny while claiming my saying so was a “silly game.”)

  178. Johnnyblushoes

    Welp, he f*cked up.

  179. Aaron Bourque

    “How dare you touch me!” ::slap::

    Slapping is touching. This guy.

  180. ailorn

    I believe in Willis that this will all work out in the end… Maybe overly optimistic… I know some characters get sacrificed to the drama writing gods but in general I think he likes to make his characters happy.

  181. Crumplepunch

    I thought his chin was his mouth and he was always just kind of bemused.

    1. Cephalo the Pod

      Amazi-Girl’s new nemesis; Stapelips!

    2. Trolldrool

      Aw, crap. Now I can’t look at the previous strips and not see it.

  182. Doom Shepherd

    It’s time to stub the Toe.

  183. saltchocolate

    I’ve been forgetting that Sal and Joyce aren’t chasing Toedad—they’re trying to cut him off at the pass. Where will Sal’s shortcut come out?? And what if it dumps them out not right behind, but right in front of Toedad’s car?!

  184. Cattus99

    This is getting dark, very dark. I expect that the the future will be filled with police, gun play, blood, screaming, crying, recriminations, injuries and, in the end, lots of friends coming together to help the emotionally and physically injured.

    I suspect that it’s going to be heavy. I am anxious for what follows.

    1. TheNinthShader

      Gun play sounds like some sort of sex move. e.e
      Try using Firefight

  185. Sir Robin

    Has Becky encountered Amazi-Girl at all? She wasn’t a bit put off by a real life superhero following them?

    1. Cephalo the Pod

      Becky’s probably willing to roll woth any sort of interference at this point.

  186. Sir Robin

    Also, in comic time, what happened in the last 0:47 seconds?

    1. SDGlyph

      The last 3 strips – from Becky trying to distract ToeBad onwards (see her tapping in the bottom left of the first panel on Tuesday).

      1. Sir Robin

        Oh yeah, so she did. Nice touch

  187. brasca1

    Among the many things to worry about with how this plot will end is if Ross is going to be some fundamentalist martyr like Kim Davis that Congresswoman DeSanto will have to pander to.

    1. Commodore Jeep-Eep

      Yeah, I’ve been worried about that for a while. Political interference in a trial of this turd could be a huge problem. Sounds like you may have guessed the next arc if Ross doesn’t get resisting arrested.

      1. thejeff

        I kind of doubt it. First, this is way too blatant. We’ve got a shooter on campus, assault & battery on Dina, kidnapping, a nasty “accident” in progress and we’re still escalating. Plus the 911 recording of her statement and his threats.
        No way anyone publicly backs this guy. If he’d gotten her in the car and away quietly, it would be a different story.

        More than that though, it doesn’t work narratively. Even a trial doesn’t really work narratively. An actual trial is going to be at least 6 months down the road. That’s decades away at the speed this comic moves. The farthest we’d be likely to see is a bail hearing and even that would be next year, our time.
        I’m not sure what makes narrative sense to do here, given the limits of the medium. Killing him in a hail of bullets gives Becky massive trauma to deal with, essentially forever. A trial gives us no foreseeable resolution – unless we just accept the denied bail and out of the picture for now as resolution.
        He could escape and remain a potential threat, which is essentially what happened with our two previous villains, though he’d have the cops after him.

        1. Commodore Jeep-Eep

          Do remember, there’s a possible time skip in the cards.

        2. thejeff

          Yeah, but it’s a week or so. He’s not going to skip months.

    2. Guairdean Beatha

      No politician will back him, he fired a gun on campus. He’d be an instant liability in the next campaign. My worry is that one of his fellow fundies will deadlock the jury, he’ll be released on bond, and the threat will continue. The more likely events for the story will be his arrest and a long jail stay waiting for trial. If he is tried quickly, and convicted, Becky will have mixed emotions about contact and many sub-plots can come from the emotional turmoil from that and today’s events.

      Of course, considering my track record on predictions (I don’t think I’ve been right yet), I could be very wrong.

  188. Big Box

    BAD BOYS BAD BOYS, WATCHA GONNA DO WHEN THEY-

    *sustained gunfire*

  189. 3oranges

    Lh is the remote for the large hadron collider and the warm-up countdown has reached 00. So now Becky has her finger on the button to create a microscopic black hole, which will promptly destroy all mankind in the span of 116 seconds.

    This is something Ross must prevent at all costs, of course, since that’s actually God’s job.

    1. 3oranges

      Oops, this was a double post. It makes a lot more sense as a reply to SDGlyph. Well, a little more sense. Maybe.

      1. SDGlyph

        I appreciated it all the same 🙂

  190. bluntily.honest

    The most religious people seem to forget all the stuff about Jesus telling everyone it’s not their place to judge and to never commit the 10 big sins such as killing for practically any reason. Guys like him really piss me off.

    1. Agemegos

      People pick the stuff out of the Bible that appeals to their character. For every Sermon on the Mount there is a Leviticus, and vice versa, for every Ezekiel a Song of Songs.

    2. Guairdean Beatha

      They also forget what Jesus said about homosexuality. For those of you that don’t know, I’ll quote it here verbatim: “”. Everything he said on the subject is contained between those quote marks.

  191. Orctavius

    Wow, good on Becky for calling 911, but things are looking very bad for Amber/Amazi-girl

  192. Commodore Jeep-Eep

    Hey Canicula? You’re a police target practice cutout now, turdsack.

  193. Jess

    Huh….
    Anymore friends…
    Joyce is on Sal’s bike on her way…
    Maybe more than one hospital patient is in our future….
    Hopefully, one of them is Toedad, and he ends up cuffed to a cot with multiple bullet wounds….

  194. 0kami

    I had my doubts about ToeDad when Becky talked about him taking her out of college and trying to enroll her in one of those “gay therapy” camps.

    I hated him when he pulled a gun on Becky and Dina.

    I loathed and reviled him when he assaulted Dina and threatened her (and possibly, as far as we know, knocked her unconscious).

    I despised him with the heat of a thousand white dwarf suns when he terrorized a campus full of students by firing a shot in the air.

    Now that he’s HIT HIS OWN DAUGHTER AND THREATENED ALL HER FRIENDS WITH DEATH…

    … screw morality; in his case, I consider killing and cannibalizing him a valid punishment option.

    1. 0kami

      Wow, it is truly amazing how much a fictional character can really bring out the deep-seated rage in me.

      Willis, you have a gift for character writing. Use that power wisely, good sir.

    2. Matthew Chapdelaine

      Yum yum. Toe Dad Soup. Fried Toe Dad fingers. Baked Toe Dad Tenderloins marinated in his own fat. Tasty Damn Toe Dad Dinner, or TDTDD.

    3. Hakimaster18

      (Sorry for replying months later) Toedad crossed the moral event horizon in this chapter. I liked how in previous chapters he occasionally looked torn up about what he was doing.

  195. Micki

    Whaaa…*looks back a couple pages* oh my goooooood Willis you sneaky little…

    Clever girl…

  196. Tenn

    What I wish on Ross is that at some point of his miserable life, he realizes just how fuckingly fucking fuckwrong he’s been. Partially because it would make him stop thinking he has to “save” Becky, partially because it would be the ultimate punishment.

  197. Emerald

    I’d love to see a bonus page showing the 911 dispatchers side of everything, even if it’s just a page of text.

  198. Mojo

    I’m waiting with bated breath for Sal to arrive and lose her shit on him. She has played the badass for a while now without ever actually BEING badass. This is her chance.

    1. Strangeshapes

      Oh, and Sal and Amazi-Girl (TM) mend fences by beating him up together. “After you!” “No, dear lady, after you!”

  199. Mike

    Even if you have GPS tracking “disabled”, it STILL works on 911 calls

  200. Mike

    Amazi-girl pulls a Terminator 2 move and commandeers the car.

  201. avistel

    Man, I really hope that after this Danny tells Amber something along the lines of “knock this nigh-suicidal shit off and get help, or so help me Dog I’ll put itching powder in your full body cast”

    1. Spencer

      Considering this is the first time Amber’s been severely hurt as Amazi-Girl, and knowing she nearly got herself killed in a campus shooting, I’m guessing this is where Danny realizes that Amazi-Girl isn’t a cool pass time and it starts to clue in that his girlfriend is in deep shit.

      1. avistel

        Your reply needs more skeleton puns and less lowercase

      2. avistel

        AGH BALLS FUCKER I MEANT UPPERCASE

        1. Spencer

          Sometimes I try but I just don’t have the heart for it.

  202. John

    For maximum cool points, A-G needs to kick the windshield the rest of the way in, slide into the passenger’s seat, and yell, “Follow that car, citizen!”

    1. Valerie

      I want this now. 😀

    2. Pat

      There will be a windshield between her and the passenger seat. And the driver will have a windshield on top of them.
      It’s a little in the way.

  203. Jerden

    He’s gone full villain. Never go full villain.

    1. Deanatay

      Becky got him monologuing!

  204. OmegaDez

    HE HAS A MOUTH!

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