397

Stringent
Posted on August 18, 2015 by David M Willis
topatoconAt the end of next month, September 26-27, I'm gonna be exhibiting at Topatocon in Easthampton, Massachusetts!  Tickets are now available!  (Also there is a concert on Friday with The Doubleclicks and Molly Lewis.)

397 thoughts on “Stringent”

  1. Sue Aside

    Towed-dad lolololol

    1. Sue Aside

      DAMN YOU ALT-TEXT

      1. Mr. Random

        Rather, DAMN YOU MAGGIE! She stole your man.

        1. Someone

          FIGHT TO THE DEATH!

        2. otusasio451

          WINNER RULES THE LANDS OF DOA!!

        3. Sue Aside

          joke or not, I don’t think I’d feel comfy fighting a pregnant lady

        4. Someone

          Well obviously you would wait for her to deliver… Then you can use her child as leverage!

          I wonder what Maggie thinks when she reads these?

        5. Angus MacAdder

          We must do right by Maggie. You must fight her in the old Highland way: bare breasted and each carrying an eight pound baby!

        6. Tawdry Quirks

          I just checked on my life insurance policy, and there’s an unusual clause which states that the policy holder must wear a big red wig and affect a Scottish accent in the combat zone.

          (This was actually meant in response to MacAdder, who lacks a reply link.)

        7. Scoops

          You’d be outnumbered, two to one!

        8. Sue Aside

          3:1 moar like

        9. Dean

          Three to one, it’s twins.

          She can tie the umbilici together and use them as nunchucks!

        10. Darkoneko

          ok, you lot are getting kinda creepy now.

        11. Someone

          We try 🙂

        12. Mr. Random

          How light are the websites you visit if you think THIS is creepy?

        13. Thor

          You’d probably feel more comfy than her. Hard to fight when your back hurts, your center of balance is not where it should be, and your swollen legs are too heavy to kick with properly.

        14. Darkoneko

          at least there are reliable leg compression stockings now.

        15. Abel Undercity

          Checkers at ten paces!

          No, no, wait, move back in. The board isn’t that big.

        16. N0083rP00F

          Full contact checkers?

      2. Tom O

        Maggie is the one commenter none of us can ever beat

        1. Doctor_Who

          Man, she probably gets to see these weeks in advance when Willis write them. Guess no amount of Patreon donations is equal to your hand in marriage.

        2. David M Willis

          a few minutes ago maggie read the strip for november 29

        3. liahansen

          any out of contexts comments on it?

        4. David M Willis

          She said that Billie is smart.

        5. liahansen

          shit dude spoilers jesus

        6. Opus the Poet

          I think we all already knew that!

        7. thebombzen

          I don’t think that would ever be true in-context either.

        8. Tucker

          Wow, that’s quite the buffer.

        9. Mr. Random

          I’m gonna remember this.

        10. Bagge

          I’m glad she said that because Billie could do with hearing that more often.

        11. tim gueguen

          Nepotism!!!

        12. gkheyf

          if i had a time machine, i’d steal the comics sections out of hitler’s newspaper. sure, it’d be the trigger to turn him evil, but how could i pass up the opportunity to be the person in history to cause hitler the most annoyance? allied forces, eat your hearts out

        13. sjmcc13

          How about becoming a famous “Jewish” art critic, and telling him his paintings are good…

        14. gkheyf

          Not sure my conscience could take it. Have you seen his art? Also, stop trying to use a time machine for good! The rules are very clear: petty selfishness only.

        15. ScumlordAzazel

          I’m fairly certain the only rule to time travel is you have to first kill Hitler.

        16. WolfLann

          @Azazel: Melody Pond / River Song tried that. Didn’t work out.

        17. PlutoniumBoss

          The only rule to time travel is NEVER DO IT. Not even once. It’s never worth it.

        18. Amazi-Stool

          Time travel never works that way.
          TV Tropes has a whole page called Hitler’s Time Travel Exemption Act.

          Example:
          Mike: But you’ve got a time machine—you could stop it.
          Joe Bogart: Couldn’t stop the Holocaust—got rid of Strasser, and this dumb painter named Adolf showed up and did it all exactly the same way. Who’d’a read about it?

        19. sjmcc13

          So you are saying Hitler (or at least his evil) is a fixed point in time….

        20. darkoneko

          Well, the US fiction loooves to think of the holocaust as a one man thing, but really, the setup was ready for anyone to use it…

        21. Strangeshapes

          No, I would absolutely defend Hitler from those who would kill him ahead of schedule. The system being as effed up as it was in Germany in that time period, bad stuff was going to happen. And Hitler was an egomaniacal idiot in so many ways, I think practically anyone could have done better. I would be terrified that I someone killed Hitler, The Axis would have won WWII.

        22. Darkoneko

          Well…no, they wouldn’t have. Such an extended “empire” wasn’t sustainable.

        23. Clif

          Not true. Willis can always comment first.

        24. Chatokun

          What do you think the Alttext is?

      3. spriteless

        So, the day early strips don’t have alt text. Interesting.

        Are you Jen’s sister?

        1. ScumlordAzazel

          I think that Jen got so tired of the comments about her not being first that she killed herself.

        2. Amazi-Stool

          Hence the new name!

      4. Rowen Morland

        I guess overused jokes aside it is clear that Maggie always gets the first comment 😀

        1. Safgaftsa

          “…aside…”

          I see what you did there.

        2. Deanatay

          Overusedjokes Aside? Another family member!

        3. WolfLann

          Nah next one is Home Aside.

        4. Deanatay

          Nah, it’s ‘Hom’ – he’s half-Chinese.

        5. Darkoneko

          I can’t for the life of me see “aside” pronounced “icide” <_<;

        6. Lumin

          I do. I pronounce them both with the same neutral vowel.

          The stress pattern would normally be different between ‘suicide’ and ‘Sue Aside’ (SOO-a-side vs. soo-a-SIDE) but I ignore that.

        7. Rowen Morland

          I was going to do worse but I got enough of a smile out of that 🙂

      5. Bagge

        No matter how quick you post, you can’t beat the alt-text

    2. Safgaftsa

      Hey, you beat Jen!

      1. you can't see me

        I can’t tell if you are joking

    3. Osaru Sensei

      … this might just be the language barrier causing trouble, but I don’t get the joke. O_o

      1. Kamino Neko

        We’ve been calling him toedad, and now he’s tow(ed)-dad.

        Toe and tow are homophones.

        1. gwalla

          Damn, look at Dina there using contractions like it ain’t no thang.

        2. gwalla

          Ugh, I’m totally failing at the comments section today. This wasn’t supposed to be a reply.

        3. gwalla

          Toad dad

  2. Nightsbridge

    Toedad got straight towed.

    1. Rognik

      I guess he’s in a tow jam now, huh?

      1. Nightsbridge

        Yeah, he’s been completely nailed.

        1. Screwball

          Sometime you just gotta go through life toe to tow…

  3. Darkoneko

    Hahaha now that’s evil.

    1. Darkoneko

      LAWFUL evil, even.

      1. Kol

        Good one 😀 I hope someone else around here got that…

        1. Opus the Poet

          I’m chaotic good, so no. 😀

        2. Disloyal Subject

          Eh, same difference.

        3. WolfLann

          Not quite. LE could be following a code of conduct but would beat you to a pulp or kill you if YOU don’t IE: the operative. CG might or might not follow law as they please but it’s never for their own gain and when they break the law is usually to help someone in need IE: Malcolm Renolds.

        4. Disloyal Subject

          True enough. I’m just constantly amused that direct opposites on the chart can play so similarly, just with different motives.

        5. Screwball

          I’m good at being chaotic, does that count?

          Daniel the Human says I’m something called Chaotic Neutral possibly. Not sure what it means, but sounds cool… :3

        6. Betty Anne

          Being Chaotic Neutral just means we play our own game by our own rules, and eff the haters. :p (I get Chaotic Neutral on pretty much every assessment these days.)

        7. Screwball

          Hmmm, jumped ship, screw Megsy, doing my own thing, using Daniel the Human for a place to crash :P, sounds about right. hate how he throws magnets at me tho…

          …And he’s reaching for the magnets now, so I gotta play nice…

      2. Freemage

        Bravo, bravo!

  4. Mr. Random

    Lawyered.

  5. Doctor_Who

    Everyone needs a friend like Sarah. A slightly evil friend.

    1. MM

      A smart and mean friend.

      1. Darkoneko

        Much better.

    2. chris73

      Sarah is the best type of friend anyone could have, smart, mean and wields a mean baseball bat, hopefully Joyce completely reconsiders her opinion of Sarah and starts listening to her more

    3. otusasio451

      Well, that’s reinforced by South Park, Star Trek, My Little Pony, various parts of the X-Men franchise, and just, just SO much more stuff in popular media.

      1. CommunistCanada

        Who’s the slightly evil one in MLP?

        1. Doctor_Who

          It’s so obviously Fluttershy.

        2. otusasio451

          Well, I WAS referring to Discord…but, yeah, Fluttershy makes sense.

        3. Mr. Random

          Isn’t Discord the dragon guy? The evil dragon guy?

        4. nothri

          Yes. He’s all powerful as well. He’s also voiced by the guy who played Q on Startrek. That last part is the most awesome.

        5. Mada

          Voice aside, he’s got the trolling manner of lessons, the white flashes whenever he does anything, the finger snapping…

          Let’s face it; Discord is Q visiting another reality.

        6. Disloyal Subject

          They modeled him after Q. Then they decided to look for a John DeLancie soundalike to voice him.
          Someone thought to just ask DeLancie himself if he was interested, and he was. So yeah, Mada has a point. He’s nicknamed DisQord for a reason, after all.

      2. Durandal_1707

        Who’d be the slightly evil one in Star Trek?

        1. Opus the Poet

          where to begin? Q, Deanna Troi’s mother, Lore, Any Ferengi,…

        2. Durandal_1707

          Those are adversaries, though, not friends.

        3. otusasio451

          I dunno, Q wasn’t always a pure adversary. Smart and mean is more like it.

        4. Opus the Poet

          Worf, Quark, the Cardassian tailor on DS9, the guy with the tribbles…

        5. Kamino Neko

          Cyrano Jones isn’t smart enough to be evil.

        6. sjmcc13

          To be fair, Garak was a spy/secret police office…

        7. Disloyal Subject

          Troi wasn’t generally an adversary… more an inconvenience. She was even an outright ally at times.

        8. Disloyal Subject

          Don’t forget Janeway…

        9. WolfLann

          Don’t remember her as slightly evil.
          She might break the law sometime but never hurt a lifeform that did not want her harm. Even then she try to shoot to disable before shooting to kill.
          And she’s a firm believer in the Prime Directive.

        10. Disloyal Subject

          “And she’s a firm believer in the prime directive.”
          HAHAHAHAHA

        11. Disloyal Subject

          To be fair, though, she suffered from inconsistent writing, so in some episodes she did respect the Directive. In others she didn’t, with an end result that she came across as a gun-toting schizophrenic at times.

        12. WolfLann

          Probably true. I haven’t watched it since it ended back around 2000-2001. I just recalled a bunch of episodes where she was more respectful of the Prime Directive and alien life forms. Like when a second Starfleet ship met them and shared their discovery of an energy source that would cut donwd the time it would take to get to Alpha quadrant. When she discovered it came from the life force of an alien she didn’t want anything to do with it. Even after said furious aliens practically destroyed both ships.
          Another example was she saved an Undine even after they furiously attacked them in the past because they got pissed off with the borgs and decided to eliminate all life in our universe.
          She even try to save some borgs that were meeting in their dreams in a secret digital world. Think it was named Unimatrix Zero.

        13. Chris Phoenix

          Q?

        14. Plasma Mongoose

          Some info about The Q.

        15. Abel Undercity

          On TOS, Scotty. He canna break the laws of physics, but he’ll find ye a loophole.

        16. fogel

          Scotty beamed the Tribbles to the Klingon ship.

        17. Abel Undercity

          He also broke out his secret stash in order to drink an alien under the table. For the ship, of course.

    4. Tacos

      So then does the slightly evil friend require a slightly evil-er friend?

      1. gkheyf

        eventually it loops around and satan plays golf with jesus

        1. Darkoneko

          For all we know, they do. Eternity gotta get boring after a while. (especially near the end)

        2. fogel

          They do hang out according to Jennie Breeden

        3. gkheyf

          Love the sinner, hate the sin?

        4. Screwball

          Yeah, but Satan still carries a bit of a grudge, so keep cheating during the long shots. Doesn’t matter tho, Jesus already knows what’s happening & corrects it in 1 way or another…

    5. Plasma Mongoose

      So does that make Sarah the Belkar Bitterleaf of DoA?

      1. Doctor_Who

        Give her a cat and see what happens.

        1. Clif

          Metaphorically, Joyce is the cat.

        2. CommunistCanada

          But Joyce is a dog person.

        3. begbert

          All cats are actually dog people. (Dog felines?) They just pretend to hate dogs because cats are dicks about basically everything on principle.

          Plus dogs genuinely see them as intruders so the charade is easy to keep up.

        4. Mr. Random

          Aren’t dog felines just foxes?

        5. Disloyal Subject

          Mine don’t even pretend not to like them, but they do make clear who’s in charge. There’s something hilariously wrong about a cat sitting comfortably in the center of a 3ft square dog bed while the dog cowers on the cold concrete floor next to the comfy cushion big enough for both of them at once twice over.

        6. Dana

          Speaking on behalf of the Internet, I demand a picture of that yesterday.

        7. WolfLann

          There is plenty of examples of that sort of behaviour on the google thingy.
          http://www.funnydogsite.com/pictures/Cat_Stole_My_Bed154.jpg

        8. Screwball

          XD Earth creatures can be so scrappin’ funny…

  6. otusasio451

    I dunno. The Masters of Smart and Mean just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

    1. MM

      No, but they’re the ones that get results without drawing attention to themselves.

  7. Stephen R. Bierce

    *plays the theme song to the old Seventies classic dramady MOVIN’ ON on the Muzak*

    1. sjmcc13

      For some reason I keep getting THIS stuck in my head with regards to Becky and her current situation.

    2. Bicycle Bill

      Do it to it like Sonny Pruitt.

  8. ack_basswards

    Only from Dina are “evil” and “mean” neutral statements or even compliments.

    1. Freemage

      My in-group uses “evil” as a compliment, especially when speaking of game-masters for RPGs.

    2. Dana

      I have a friend who uses “chaotic evil” as a self-directed compliment and “lawful good” as an insult directed at me.

    3. you can't see me

      Many people use evil as a compliment.

  9. Opus the Poet

    suitable treatment for toedad is suitable.

    1. Darkoneko

      IT’s just so more satisfying, and 100% less dangerous and law breaking than setting his car on fire.

      1. Darkoneko

        (beside, they may hint him as to Becky’s presence here)

      2. Tacos

        I don’t know about the satisfying part but I will concede it’s less law break-y.

  10. Mada

    …Sarah, today you are tied with Dina for best.

  11. liahansen

    aw Sarah you’re not evil

  12. sjmcc13

    Sarah : 5% more evil then the rest of this group…

    1. Doctor_Who

      This group consists of two girls who weren’t allowed to watch PG rated movies until they could drive a car, and one who is some sort of escaped attempt to weaponize adorability.

      105% of zero is still zero, is what I’m saying.

      1. timemonkey

        Ignorance doesn’t equal good. That’s the same logic that lead to them being made ignorant in the first place.

        1. Deanatay

          Indeed. Don’t forget Joyce = Whiteboard Dingdong Bandit, Becky enjoys tormenting Joyce to the point of SNARGLL, and Dina? Well, she instantly knew Faz was a creeper (smart), and she efficiently dispatched him (mean). Smart + mean = evil. Plenty of evil here.

      2. sjmcc13

        Fundies are not a 0, many are low due to innocence, but there is to much evil in the beliefs they blindly spout for them to be a 0. Plus they believe everyone is a sinner, so everyone has some small amount of evil in them to begin with.

        As to the Adorability bomb.. just being cute does not make you good, look at kittens…

        1. Clif

          Kittens or good and cute. So says the Interweb.

        2. Clif

          Are good and cute. DYNSpC

        3. gkheyf

          i gladly will for hours.

          ……so…evil…

        4. Darkoneko

          They tend to claws when people invade their personal space. But who doesn’t ?

          (me, partial to cats ? NEVER)

        5. Disloyal Subject

          It’s not like their tiny adorable little claws can do much.

        6. Darkoneko

          They draw blood.

        7. Disloyal Subject

          Not mine. I consider drawing blood to mark their transition from kittenhood to adolescence.

        8. Someone

          To be evil you have to be actively malicious. You can’t just be ignorant.
          To be evil you need three things.

          1. Consent to carry out malicious or bad acts.

          2. Knowledge of how this negatively effects the people around you

          3. Willingness to carry out these acts for personal gain.

          also, the acts must be major enough to count as evil and not just assholish.

        9. sjmcc13

          And proselytizing (like the scene she made after Joe and Roz’s porno) does not count? You have to know you are annoying and irritating someone, and it is partly to make you feel better about yourself.

          Or kicking Mike in the shins…

          Plus a small evil act is still an evil act, not some lesser catagory.

        10. Someone

          You do have an argument there with the Joe and Roz thing.

          But Mike deserved it. He is evil.

        11. Disloyal Subject

          Doing evil unto evil is arguably a lesser evil than it would be directed at someone else, but it’s still immoral.
          And entirely justified.

        12. Durandal_1707

          When you grow up in a fundamentalist environment, you are _taught_ that your divine mission, the reason you are put on earth basically, is to proselytize. God demands it. It’s up to you to save everyone you know from hell.

          When Joyce was proselytizing, she was honestly feeling like she was doing what she was supposed to, and doing the _right_ thing to do.

        13. Darkoneko

          Hell is paved with good intentions uh

        14. Cerberus

          Yup, and that’s what’s compelling about her moral evolution. Realizing that the things she’s been trained to do as moral acts might actually be wrong, harmful, and immoral. And agonizing over this realization as she’s also been taught that this realization is proof of the Devil clouding her God-given morality.

        15. Kamino Neko

          Are you implying something about cats? >_>

        16. sjmcc13

          They are soulless killing machines hidden under a layer of adorable fluffyness. 😉

        17. darkoneko

          No, that would be koalas.

    2. gkheyf

      minimum requirement for pre-law. how did jacob ever pass? we may never know…

      1. Tacos

        Through sheer man prettiness.

      2. sjmcc13

        By being so attractive he turns straight dudes Bi/Gay???

        1. gkheyf

          his prettiness is an abomination unto our lands.

          then again, it’s indiana

        2. Clif

          and at least he’s not running for president.

        3. Disloyal Subject

          Give him time…

        4. gkheyf

          maybe he’ll run against dorothy?

        5. Disloyal Subject

          They might make excellent running-mates, actually. Not sure which would settle for VP though.

  13. Plasma Mongoose

    Yes Sarah, use your powers of evil for good!

    1. Darkoneko

      That’s one way to put it XD

  14. Inkblot

    Get ‘im good, Sarah. You’re a good friend.

  15. MM

    Poor Joyce. I think she’s given up and decided everyone’s the bad influence.

  16. David Herbert

    Excellent, now he’ll be too poor to afford printing any more flyers.

    1. Darkoneko

      OUCH.

  17. Nena

    Wow! I wonder how this is going to play out.

    1. Mada

      It all hinges on what these four do next. It’d be a relief to assume they’ve dealt with him, but after he gets his car back, there’s nothing stopping him from coming back to campus on another day, and Dina can’t keep putting him on buses.

      As has been said by numerous people prior to now; they need to bring this up with Leslie.

      1. Cerberus

        Yeah, or the fact that the bus line connected to the school. So when he returns on the nonstop bus line, he’ll end up back on school with no way to drive anywhere else.

        Basically, they’ve guaranteed that when he gets back to campus, he’ll be hanging around a lot longer and searching a lot more thoroughly.

        So, satisfying, yes, deserved, yes, effective for their purpose of driving him off? Not so much.

        1. Tacos

          Once he returns to campus and sees his car is gone he’d either assume it got towed or stolen. At which point now he has to spend time either looking for his car at impound lots or filing papers with the cops to report a missing car.

        2. Bagge

          And he can take a cab to whatever impound they brought it to so it’s not like he’s bound to campus.

          Becky couldn’t take a cab.

          Have I mentioned that Ross is a fudging butthole?

        3. Cerberus

          Nonsense, Ross MacIntyre is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I’ve ever known in my life…

        4. Bagge

          Strange, the Sarcasmo-o-meter(TM) only shows static. I think it broke.

        5. Screwball

          Are you an Alien too? These meat-sacks are weird creatures, aren’t they?

  18. Aislashu

    Worst Day Ever only a few strips away, I bet.

    1. Mada

      Shh….don’t try to call things like that 🙁

    2. Darkoneko

      Eh, days days way longer than a few strips 😀 A few hundred maybe.

  19. Dana

    I want to know who Dina considers the second most evil. My guess is Joyce.

    1. gkheyf

      and she can logically explain her reasoning in a way in which joyce can find no fault. joyce will then give up and tattoo guy tushie on her arm

      1. saltchocolate

        Dina probably somehow knows that Joyce was the ding-dong vandal, for starters…

        1. Dana

          I was thinking more of Joyce’s beliefs vis a vis radiometric dating.

      2. Disloyal Subject

        Great. Now I’m trying to picture a tattoo design of man-tush roughly equivalent to the ink of a naked lady on a weightlifter I know… Everything I’ve come up with looks either too goofy or a little beefier than I suspect Joyce would prefer.

  20. mister gray

    I have come to the conclusion that Dina is really Data in disguise!

  21. les-be-friends dinosaurs

    Oh Sarah your so smart and mean saving lives and ruining days at the same time

  22. newllend(henryvolt)

    I wouldn’t say Sarah is evil, cruel and Spiteful at times yes but not evil.

  23. Someone

    Mike walks up

    Dina: Sarah you are no longer the most evil of us.

    Sarah: Curses!

  24. Jon P

    Last panel expressions:
    Sarah – I take neither satisfaction nor misery in this result.
    Dina – The dickbag has been defeated. It is a good day.
    Becky – BEST DAY EVER!
    Joyce – Remind me never to cross Sarah…

    1. saltchocolate

      Joyce: Remind me never to cross Sarah OR Dina . . .

      1. saltchocolate

        In other words: Dina used Sarah! It’s super effective!

    2. Bagge

      In addition:

      Sarah: Yup, a job well done.
      Dina: Parking regulations on campus are stringent
      Becky: Omygoshohmygoshohmygosh
      Joyce: People who are not me are helping Becky. I am VERY happy about that. I’m just a tiiiiiiiny bit jealous about that. I kinda wish I could have given her the best day ever.

  25. timemonkey

    Leave it to Dina to take stock of her friends abilities and understand how to use them.

    1. Darkoneko

      I guess she’ll be studying in management.

    2. drs

      She’s Batman.

      1. timemonkey

        Except she’s not emotionally stunted or an asshole or a spoiled white boy who endangers himself, teenagers and civilians to play out his revenge fantasies.

  26. Rani

    OMFG they are going Seal Team 6 on this guy.

    1. Rani

      This guy went through Vietnam, his wife’s death, and god knows what else to get to this point so this will probably just solidify his martyr complex.

      That’s where Sarah introduces the cast to her baseball bat collection.

      1. gkheyf

        i think willis at some point stated that ross has never served in the military. though i do have this information second-hand

      2. Tacos

        He’s never been in the armed forces.

        1. Mada

          So he’s one of those people that dresses like a soldier even though he’s never served.

          …Man I hate him even more now.

        2. timemonkey

          He was dressed as a soldier?

        3. Mada

          In the US (at least) there’s this sort of faux-military look that some people go around with, and Ross is kinda nailing that stereotype.

        4. Kamino Neko

          Camo-print pants doesn’t qualify as dressing like a soldier.

          It’s hunter gear. For humans the camo is offset by the blaze orange. For deer it isn’t. (I wonder if we’re accidentally selecting for human-level colour vision in deer….)

        5. timemonkey

          Dude, everyone wears camo clothing.

      3. Kamino Neko

        Wait, why are you thinking he was in ‘Nam?

        Even if he had been in the service, the Vietnam war ended 40 years ago (April 1975). He’d be, at minimum, 58. Not impossible for him to have an 18 year old daughter, but somewhat unlikely, given what we know about the family.

      4. Chris Phoenix

        You mean she introduces toedad to a cast? (Wearing one?)

      5. Lord Stoneheart

        Where was it said that Ross was a Vietnam vet? There’s no mention of it anywhere. (And with the sliding time scale, it would make increasingly less sense as time goes on). I mean just because he’s wearing camo, doesn’t mean that he was ever affiliated with the military at any time. I would actually make other assumptions about it first.

        1. Kamino Neko

          Even now it’s only very vaguely tenable – if he enlisted, or was drafted, as soon as he was eligible, immediately before the war ended, he’d be 58 or 59 right now. Meaning he was 40 or 41 when Becky was born. Not impossible, but not very likely unless Becky has a couple significantly older siblings (we’re talking, like, 30*) we don’t know about, or Ross married late to a significantly younger woman.

          * Hardly impossible…a couple of my friend as a kid were 10 years younger than their older brothers. (Two sets of twins.)

        2. yomi

          *Certainly not impossible… my grandmother even had a nephew who was older than her.

        3. Kamino Neko

          Heh…I have that in my family, too (some of my grandmother’s siblings and all of her half-siblings are my father’s age or younger)…but I was only thinking of ‘one kid (or set of kids), a long gap, then another comes along’. I’m not actually sure why… ‘A continuous line of kids’ works, too.

        4. Agemegos

          * Certainly not impossible. My eldest brother is fifteen years older than I, and he was born when our father was 35.

      6. hof1991

        Toedad is wayyyyyy too young for Vietnam. The youngest Vietnam vets are 60 plus now. Kent State was 45 years ago. The last draft was over 40 years ago.

        This only works with a trophy second wife, which I don’t see here.

  27. Sionyx

    Most I’ve laughed in a while. Thanks for that!

  28. Edupoet81

    So, now they’ve got Sarah on their team, working against Toedad McDickbag. Will Toedad surrender now that he’s so outnumbered?

    Seriously, they’re doing a good job stalling him, but they can’t stall him indefinitely. I hope they will use this extra time to look into more long term options for Becky.

    1. Clif

      Why can’t they stall him indefinitely.

      1. Mada

        Dina can’t keep putting him on a bus and he probably won’t make the same parking mistake twice.

        1. Athedia

          Maybe talk to Leslie? She probably knows a bunch of LGBT friendly organizations that would help house and find employment for Becky. I know professors at my college have gone out of their way to help students in need, and even though she isn’t technically a student there, Leslie seems like the kind of person who would help out.

        2. Mada

          That’s what a lot of us have been saying for the past half a dozen strips now, and we’re hoping its what’ll happen.

  29. gkheyf

    dina just said “what’s up” and “waylay” in like 3 seconds! and she also whiffed lawyer-evil on sarah like that one scene in jurassic park!

    1. Agemegos

      What’s remarkable about Dina using the word “waylay”?

      1. gkheyf

        is that a common thing? in my head, it’s like pirate-speak. that’s the only context in which i’ve ever heard it

  30. Rani

    Also the part where Dina used a contraction in panel four. Unironically.

  31. Rick Robin Cagnaan

    Yay… Towed that car away. Becky’s dad may not show up…

  32. dailybrad

    I got a big laugh, so, kudos to Maggie.

  33. Aeron

    Anyone who drives a sedan painted Cabin Brown should get towed regardless.

    1. Darkoneko

      Oy oy.

  34. JessWitt

    And if Ross goes around asking for someone in a Pokeyman costume, Sarah can give him directions to the local furry convention.

    1. Disloyal Subject

      …I don’t expect this to happen – this isn’t Shortpacked – but I really want it to.

      1. JessWitt

        Hey, I’m allowed to dream! :-p

  35. Jack Faire

    I wonder does anyone know if there is an legal implications with filing a false missing persons report. Like if he files it and she explains her situation to them would there be a fine or something for wasting police resources to attempt to kidnap a grown adult because what he is doing is attempted kidnapping and torture.

    1. Mada

      There might well be for him (I don’t know for sure though), but at the same time it would also out Becky as ah…an illegal resident.

      And then she’d have to start looking at bridges again.

    2. DSL

      Did he file a report, though? Or is he just putting up flyers?

      1. Mada

        Right now it’s just flyers, but I think Jack was asking what might happen IF he filed a missing persons report.

    3. Cerberus

      I honestly don’t know.

      My suspicions based on the fact that reparative therapy is not at all illegal in Indiana, all the RFRA garbage, and Robin’s statement about how the college is surrounded by peeps who think the college kids are “hellbound sluts” is that police authority is unlikely to be on Becky’s side even if she explains her situation.

      1. Athedia

        But she is a legal adult, and as such her father has no authority over her unless he can prove she is unable to care for herself. And that is more than “she is broke and homeless”, it would have to be along the lines of “she has a serious disability verified by medical professionals and I am already in place as guardian and caretaker.”

        1. Cerberus

          Yes, that’s how it is supposed to work. I just have little faith that it would. Authorities tend to have a dim view of homeless queers regardless of whether they are legal adults or not.

      2. drs

        Bloomington is a pretty liberal town, though. I have no experience with the police, but as Robin said and is true in real life, this is Democratic country, and not Southern Democrats. When I first got there for grad school, there were rainbow “say no to hate” window stickers up all over, suggesting (a) there had been a hate crime but (b) it did not have much community support. Later a cafe opened, owned and run by a not-very-subtle MtF, it seemed pretty popular.

        It’s not the college that’s surrounded (or rather, outnumbered), it’s the town, or even county, by the rest of Robin’s Congressional district. Bton itself is a town of 60+,000 people.

        1. Cerberus

          Fair enough. I guess my own experiences have given me less than ideal biases about the helpfulness of cops even in nominally liberal districts.

    4. BenRG

      Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure that he would be able to find a judge to agree that he was providing Becky with ‘needed medical treatment’. The law requires human interpretation and not all of those doing the interpretation seem to think that torturing certain types of people to force them to change is necessarily wrong.

      1. Agemegos

        Medical treatment of adults requires their informed consent, except if they are incapable, which Becky isn’t.

  36. Cheryl

    lmao tow dad

    1. a4lbi

      *screams into the abyss*

    2. a4lbi

      a) I never check the tooltip, so
      b) ???

  37. detective boomwolf

    I dunno why she is pouting. J take pride in being the most evil in my group of friends.

    1. Disloyal Subject

      Yeah, but she’s Sarah. A sinister smirk wouldn’t be out of place, but she’s not the type to pass up a perfectly good opportunity to frown.

    2. BenRG

      It’s all about self-image.

  38. zmm

    Ah I sure enjoy sarah
    Second favorite behind Dina.

  39. Marisa Mockery

    I don’t understand. How does removing his ability to leave the campus fix the situation?

    1. Tacos

      He’s already on a non-stop bus to I forget where. He’s already left the campus.

      1. Tacos

        I checked, it’s a non-stop bus to Indianapolis.

        1. Random832

          Yes, and when he comes back (also by bus) and finds his car missing (meaning he’s back on campus), they’re relying on him making the rational decision to try to deal with finding his car first rather than going back to putting up flyers (which requires less walking).

        2. Random832

          Also, technically, they’re relying on him not making enough of a scene to get kicked off the bus (I’m pretty sure non-stop doesn’t actually mean the brakes don’t work) and hitchhiking back once he notices the bus is leaving town.

  40. Frogboy

    Why did he take the bus if his car was right there?

    1. Pierre-Eric

      Dina made it sound as the easiest way, which was probably correct since toedad was in a town he didn’t know. I mean taking the bus was likely easier than taking the car and having to choose between getting lost or asking for directions.

  41. Darkoneko

    I gotta say, Sarah slightly pouting like in the 4th panel is most adorable <3

    1. Darkoneko

      IT’s like a sudden switch from the cranky, older sister to the kid-who-was-just-called-mean

  42. saltchocolate

    Days like today, I miss my old Sarah grav so much!! Yay, Sarah! Smart and mean in defense of her friends!

  43. m2iCodeJockey

    Yes but, now, when he returns to the campus, he knows he was diverted from a certain building by ‘an Asian girl dressed as a pokeman’ plus he’ll be stuck there, with a stack of fliers, for an extended length of time.

    This is not a positive development.

    1. doubleW

      He’s probably blown his whole weekend and has to return to work, unless he’s seriously a bum. He’ll be more suspicious, but won’t be able to act on it for a while.

      1. m2iCodeJockey

        Her perspective may be ‘my human rights are being trampled’ but, his perspective is ‘I am rescuing my daughter for who I care most.’

        He would not be likely to stop on one try with so much stacked toward ‘people are preventing me from collecting her.’
        Plus, I think this was the weekend, wasn’t it? His Toe-mobile is out of reach until Monday at 07:00, minimum.

        What they’ve done is guarantee he’ll be at the nearest inn for, at least, another full day plus Monday and they’ve permanently involved Joyce.

        The most efficient thing would have been to remove the fliers and stick near him, discreetly waving others off from answering him until the lobby manager escorted him away from Clark for not having an enrolled relative.

        1. Kamino Neko

          That’d be less effective than actually alerting security to his presence?

          What kind of apathetic security does this college have?

        2. Kamino Neko

          … My sarcasm is ruined by actually saying what I meant as the sarcastic question I meant to say the opposite as.

        3. m2iCodeJockey

          While Ruth is actually likely to sympathize and Leslie will know an avenue to safe haven, the school administration is on the lower side of a 50% chance of helping a non-enrollee.
          Meanwhile, Toedad is operating from the perspective that he is saving his daughter. He will never stop his current line of operation.

          Getting rid of his means of departure will more likely cause a long, drawn out ordeal rather than leading to a quick resolution. She needs to confront him, not run/hide, otherwise…

        4. Kamino Neko

          This post contradicts your first post.

          If they have no reason to remove him when they’re told he’s there, they have no reason to remove him when they notice him after the kids have been harrassing him. Therefor, by the logic of this post, all they’re accomplishing if they do what you say in your first post they should do is give Ross a cause of action against them.

        5. Kamino Neko

          Actually, on reread, it contradicts the first post on a more fundamental level…

          ‘They should wait for security to notice he’s not supposed to be there, instead of actively alerting security that he’s not supposed to be there’ is not compatible with ‘they can’t expect security to think he’s not supposed to be there’.

          There’s also the problem inherent in confronting the man who’s already tried to kidnap her once.

        6. m2iCodeJockey

          At what point did he try to abduct her? From my POV, he demanded she return home but, demanding she move and removing school support is not the same as physically moving her against her will.
          It seemed to me what upset her was his statement “…I will fix you.”

          The operations they’ve performed against him will cause him to be there longer. They need to attempt another calm chat then, get him to leave, preferably by changing his mind about tracking her physically.
          If a calm chat doesn’t work, they need the authorities.

          No matter what, choosing to hide at the school has caused the inevitable confrontation to have a high chance of occurring at the school and that means the schools administration is automatically concerned once it escalates.
          They’d have to go to Leslie or the like and convince them to go to bat.

        7. Cerberus

          M2i-

          In the flashback panel he is seen grabbing her arm while dragging her out the door. In fact in Becky’s angry panel, she can be seen yanking her arm out of his grasp as he tries to hold on:
          http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/fix/

          So yeah, confronting is unlikely to work and he may in fact settle in for the long haul so yeah, it’s a really shitty situation to deal with. Hopefully her friends can continue to protect her as long as they need to.

  44. Idon'tcarenomore

    Sarah has always been my favorite and now I have 2 favorites-Dina of course.
    I disagree that Sarah has ever been cruel or spiteful. She did what she thought was right and likely saved her ex-roomates life when she called the girls father to come and get her as she was killing herself with drugs.
    The roomies good close friends had no idea she was that bad off: and attacked Sarah for ratting her out.
    Sarah did not report her to the college office. She got her the help she needed when no one else would.
    Yes, she was worried that if the roomie was caught both of them would get kicked out and she’d lose her scholarship. But she could have got the other girl kicked out and did not.
    For this, Ridah and her group made Sarah’s life miserable. And Sarah retaliated by being just as bongoy back and ignoring them when possible.
    Sarah took a baseball bat to the guy who tried to rape Joyce, with no thoughts to her own safety or standing if she was arrested for it.
    Sarah has tried to protect Joyce, educate her without lecturing, and being a friend.
    Sarah has put up with Joyce moving Becky -a runaway with a Toedad-into their dorm room. And Is now helping Becky evade him.

    Where in all of this can Sarah be judged as spiteful or cruel?

    1. Shadow

      I’m /fairly certain/ that Dina meant it as a compliment. Every group has that one member like Sarah.

      1. Athedia

        *raises hand* My friends call what I do “Mama Owlbear” the odd part of our dynamic is that I also am the goofball usually. Sometimes you need the person who is willing to be morally ambiguous. We only are “evil” because we care.

    2. Disloyal Subject

      She’s a little more verbally vicious than is entirely necessary.
      And that’s okay.

      Overall, I’d say she’s not spiteful so much as incredibly bitter and maybe a little vindictive.

    3. blegh

      yes good spread the sarah love

  45. NinjaNick

    Sarah’s a mean genius. 😀

  46. FuryOfFirestorm

    Yes, Sarah – use your powers for good, not evil.

  47. BenRG

    Actually, I think Dina may be onto something here. For a while, I’ve thought that Sarah’s feud with Raidah will end in tears and even possibly blood because Sarah has a nasty, mean edge to her personality (seen by how she gossiped about Joyce with Jacob – something that made him uncomfortable).

    Ironically, all that was needed for this particular move was a little lateral thinking and a knowledge of the rules. It was, in other words, a move worthy of Ruth.

    1. Darkoneko

      I think she kinda needed that as an outlet of having to live with Joyce, at that point of the story.

    2. timemonkey

      Gossiping about the dumb thing your roommate does isn’t nasty and mean. As I pointed out during that story, Sarah laughs at those same things to Joyce’s face which doesn’t make it nice but removes any two faced or betrayal from the equation.

    3. Lord Stoneheart

      I don’t think that Sarah’s feud will end in blood. She’s already punched Raidah in the face and regretted it. (Her current scheme of breaking up Raidah and Jacob will probably backfire in someway though)

    4. Li

      You’re misremembering the scene with Jacob.

      Sarah talking about Joyce behind Joyce’s back eventually made SARAH uncomfortable, so she told Jacob she wasn’t going to do it anymore. And Jacob was like, “Well, that’s fine with me. Except that Joyce is the only subject you open up about, like, at all.”

      Call it what you will, but Sarah’s Joyce stories were not making JACOB uncomfortable. And imho, they weren’t mean. All of Sarah’s stories about Joyce had an affectionate edge. And she and Jacob talked about Joyce all the time because Sarah got really tongue-tied every time she tried to talk about anything else. Basically affectionate exasperation for Joyce overpowered her awkwardness.

      But Sarah eventually felt guilty and made a point of saying they needed to stop talking behind Joyce’s back, which resulted in a small fight, which then resulted in Jacob giving up on getting to know Sarah and Sarah feeling confirmed in her belief that he didn’t “really” want to be her friend.

      1. Kamino Neko

        You’re also misremembering…the fight (such as it was) didn’t come from the ‘no Joyce stories’ thing…she distanced herself from him after that because she didn’t have anything else to connect to him with, and it was her no self-esteem answer when he asked her why that pissed him off.

  48. Wafflebob

    I’ve had friends like Sarah. Sarcastic. Mean. But oh man if you cross even one of their acquaintances you will feel the fiery wrath of 1000 suns.

  49. Asper Storm

    ……. She is evil oh so evil.

  50. Bagge

    Big sister to the rescue. Not quite the baseball bat of the old testament god, but does the job and is far less likely to have negative consequences.

    Seriously. This is so incredibly beautiful. Becky is getting help from the most unlikely and diverse people because she and Joyce have gone out of their way to befriend them (and make moves on them in case of certain adorable dinosaur chicks). Towdad will NOT like round two.

    1. Disloyal Subject

      Agreed; wielding the law is a little safer than breaking it. “Baseball bat of the Old Testament God” sounds like the name of a cheesy attack in some silly anime that I suddenly wish existed, though.

  51. Jordan

    Sarah’s the big sister of the group. She’s smarter than most of the people she knows, has a bit of an attitude problem, and knows how to use both to her advantage in many situations. Creepy guy trying to drug little sister figure? Go Old Testament God on his ass with a baseball bat. Creepy dad trying to ‘correct and save’ his teenage daughter? Use the law to her advantage to make things more difficult for him.

    1. Bagge

      The fact that Sarah is a law student just make it more awesome.

      The fact that she has adopted Becky as her little sister as well (or at least friend of little sister) just makes it more beautiful.

      The fact that she regards her reaching out to save people as a character flaw makes it sad but adorable.

      1. Cerberus

        Yeah, and I think a lot of her grumpiness is that she feels a lot of empathy and wants to help people who are in crisis and be their big sister, but it went so pear-shaped with Dana (and Sarah’s still not sure if she made the right decision there), that she really doesn’t want to end up back in that role to everyone’s drama and risk getting over-embroiled to the detriment of her academics again or making a hard choice/fucking up that makes everyone hate her again.

        So she deliberately alienates people so that no one will be left to yell at her like Raidah did or like Joyce did when Sarah pointed out that the sleeping arrangement was bothering Becky.

        1. Poskie

          Can I internet marry you? Because your comments are always so on point I can’t even deal. Plus we’re both ace so the internet cake will be SUPERB.

  52. Nono

    Smart
    And
    Mean
    Villians
    Is
    Lemons

  53. Gentleman Mummy

    New life goal: get my friends to state “You’re the most evil among us”, unprompted.

  54. Shane Wegner

    Becky does need a for-reals grown-up plan for her life that involves 1) lodging not based on extended trespassing 2) some kind of job or income or school or something 3) getting her dad to bugger off, which will go down a lot smoother if she can solve 1 and 2.

    Feeling sorry for herself because daddy doesn’t approve her lesbianism and crushing on Dina isn’t really a viable business plan. No one said college freshman (-aged teenagers who aren’t even in college) are wise though!

    1. blegh

      u must be a riot irl i wish i knew u so we could hang out and bongo about teen lesbians who’ve just been thrown out of their home & their school and how unwise and lazy they are

      1. blegh

        hm i guess b!ch is censored

        1. Nightsbridge

          Yes, people got a bit enthusiastic with that word during a confrontation between Roz and Joyce a while back to the point where Willis went ‘THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER’ and put the bongo filter in, because it was getting pretty damn nasty.

        2. blegh

          good call tbh. just made my comment slightly awkward

        3. Disloyal Subject

          Your abbreviations and lack of capitalization did that for you.

        4. blegh

          aw man ur so cool!! did u go to college?? do u have a degree?? teach me how to talk like an intellectual i too want to know the secrets of caps lock

        5. timemonkey

          Although changing it from one word to another doesn’t change anything. He should have just blocked it altogether.

        6. Disloyal Subject

          Of course it changes things. It makes it hilarious.
          Or did, until it got old.

        7. thejeff

          I’ve started using “bongo” elsewhere.

        8. Nightsbridge

          Maybe, but i actually haven’t seen nearly so many ‘bongos’ as I used to see, even including what the filter changes.

    2. Nono

      She was looking for a job on the internet earlier, before Dina came in.

    3. Lord Stoneheart

      Becky knows full well she needs an actual for real plan for a lot of things. (Back when she came out to Joyce, she admitted that she didn’t have a plan, and it was silly to think that she could live with Joyce forever). Earlier this chapter she said she was trying to find a job. (Not that that will be easy, what with having no previous job experience and only a homeschooled high school equivalent education. And no current address). She’s also pretty insistent on not feeling sorry for herself. (It was what, last week’s comic when she mentions to Dina that she feels the need to keep up a facade of happiness?)

      Just because she doesn’t spend every waking moment formulating a plan for a more workable solution on where and how to live, doesn’t mean that she’s doing nothing. Just because she’s been crushing on Dina doesn’t mean she’s some short sighted moocher.

      1. Cerberus

        Yeah, it’s almost like people are finding excuses to dismiss her situation and make it a sign of her moral failure regardless of her actual actions or something…

    4. hof1991

      Yah, a strip of her looking for a job on the Internet would be soooo cool. Plus we missed the week of strip where Becky was having her hair cut. Not to mention shopping at Goodwill. Pulitzer prize please.

      DYW will not draw those things anymore than he’ll draw the gang walking down stairs to get to Toedad’s car. Notice how none of the characters ever use a bathroom? It doesn’t advance the plot!

      1. Lord Stoneheart

        Well we do see characters go to the bathroom when it’s funny. http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/orders/
        (Okay, I’m done being a pedant).

        1. Bagge

          Clearly this calls for a pedantic search for every single bathroom shown in the comic.. I suppose the “Walky” tag is a good place to start.

    5. Spencer

      We always seem to put so much emphasis on personal responsibility when it comes to the downtrodden.

      1. Cerberus

        Spencer, that’s unfair. Don’t you know that any problem can be instantly fixed with the liberal application of bootstraps and moxie. Really the downtrodden are just being lazy by daring to have any human existence outside said bootstrapification.

        1. blegh

          indeed. clearly becky needs to follow the example of her wiser, more enterprising peers, who responsibly & hardworkingly attend college while their parents cover tuition

        2. Cerberus

          Exactly! It was really irresponsible of Becky to not be born into a better, more supportive family.

        3. Spencer

          For that matter, why doesn’t Ethan just get over his sexuality and give his poor, suffering mother some grandkids!

        4. sjmcc13

          Nah, if she is going to like girly parts, it is irresponsible of her to not be born with a Penis.*(and of Ethan to not be born with a Vajina)

          *Is is bad that there might actually be someone out there that believes that???

        5. blegh

          unfortunately being born with a penis is rarely helpful in this situation! being a transgender lesbian is easier than being a cis lesbian in… no circumstance whatsoever

        6. Cerberus

          True dat.

        7. Blue

          The especial irony being that the original meaning of the ‘bootstraps’ expression was to denote an impossible action.

        8. sjmcc13

          I find the # of people who claim to be self made, when they heavily reaped the rewards of Nepotism to get where they are in life worse.

          I am doing decently in life (once my Std Loans are paid off, I will have a non trivial amount of disposable income each month after my rent, utility transportation and food bills). I also know that I would not have my current job if not for my brother’s help after I suddenly lost a previous job.

        9. sjmcc13

          Student Loands, sorry.

        10. Poskie

          Aw, you mean you can’t borrow chlamydia for a small monthly fee?

    6. Cerberus

      The silver lining to these sorts of comments appearing on every Becky thread is that it really calls attention to a daily reality to those of us who are or have been on the raggedy edge. That is how much public shaming there is of simply being disempowered, of being impoverished, or having been maltreated.

      When you are poor or homeless or relying on the kindness of friends and strangers to get by and especially when you are unemployed, there is a constant internalization of the idea that your failures to luck out in the system are all your fault, that you are not working hard enough to dig oneself out, that you have done something wrong to deserve being so fucked by the system. And that is echoed by all manner of external sources. Family members, politicians, and so on happily echo that refrain and straight up erase hard work in alleviating financial hardship because we’ve so ingrained this notion as a society that we are a meritocracy and that poverty isn’t something that just “happens” to people who don’t deserve it.

      And that leads to incredibly unhealthy behavior. I had a month run that had to end in a mental health intervention by my partner at the time where I was doing literally nothing other than searching for work and creating applications. Not going out of the house. Not doing any self care. Not interacting with friends. Not even doing all that much besides the bare minimum to take care of my base needs. Just filling out apps and sinking deeper into depression because I wasn’t getting any interviews. As such, my partner had to intervene because it was dramatically affecting my mental health and making me a really miserable person to be around.

      And that’s an easy trap to fall into because of general societal noise like the comments we’ve been seeing on Becky posts where people have been sneering at Becky and calling her manipulative and lazy even though she has been incredibly active and effective in addressing her short-term and long-term needs. Where even in a comic where she is actively addressing her most pressing and immediate problem, a scant few days after being shown actively seeking out employment and stability, people are quick to write off her efforts as nonexistent.

      And that doesn’t just happen with regards to homelessness or poverty. Things like surviving sexual assault, surviving abuse, surviving hate crimes, receiving threats, or experiencing discrimination all get similar treatments by society where you must have done something wrong to deserve it. You wore the wrong outfit, you weren’t firm enough in your no, you went to the wrong party, you stayed too long, you didn’t stay long enough, you are overplaying what happened, you shouldn’t have stood up for yourself, you should have run, you should have stood your ground, you shouldn’t have antagonized that individual, you shouldn’t have been on the internet, you shouldn’t have dated an asshole long in your past, you shouldn’t have come out at your workplace, you shouldn’t have shoved your way of life in their faces, you shouldn’t be “like that” in public.

      Victim blaming is drunk like water in our society and it really has nothing to do with the actions of the survivor, but rather the privileged actively avoiding engaging the truth of our world and how unfair and terrifying it can be. So, that bad thing can’t hit them, can’t mean that a marginalized person doesn’t have a fair shot in the system, because unlike the victim, they do the right thing. They’re smarter about it.

      And it’s infuriating because it means we get shat on even more when bad stuff happens to us because of people who want to play pretend that we live in a just world and that it’s all our fault. To use real experiences I have had, it doesn’t help processing the end of an 8+ year relationship to be told that this is a sign of how much of a failure of a person you are and proof that you are a complete fuckup. It doesn’t help the scramble to find new employment after discrimination to be told that it’s all your fault because what were you thinking bringing that trans shit to work. It doesn’t help having a harder time finding work because of who you are to be told that this is all caused by the fact that you clearly must not be searching for work because you clearly are spending all your time being super gay. It doesn’t help processing having someone debate openly to your face whether or not to kill you to be told that this is a sign that you need to address your mental illness of “thinking you are something you are not”.*

      So, yes, thank you random person, for helping to illustrate this daily reality clearer than any of us ever could.

      *Fun fact: All of these were from family too, when they were in their on-again off-again disownment phase, right before the final disownment and fairly concurrent with the efforts by my dad to angle me into reparative therapy.

      1. blegh

        the lovely benefits of a patriarchal, white supremacist, capitalist society!

        thanks for this extremely well put, powerful comment/essay. <3

      2. Bagge

        I have already given you all the internets for previous just as great comments… there are no more internets to give. Do you want some cake?

        Seriously, thank you so much for taking the time and energy to explain these things for us. If we can’t even get behind cool, likable protagonists like Becky and Amber when they face off against almost cartoonishly horrible people like Ross and Blaine – what does that say about our ability to help REAL people in similar situations, where everything is less clear and we don’t have the benefit of following their life in a web comic format to have everything laid out before us?

        1. Cerberus

          I am ace, so I believe I’m legally obligated to accept cake as a substitute in all things.

        2. Bagge

          I think cake should always be an available choice.

        3. Gamaran Sepudomyn

          I could give you a really great brownie recipe if you want. You deserve it. You’re awesome.

        4. Cerberus

          Ooh, yes. Totally down for that if it’s not too off-topic. My gf loves brownies and I haven’t settled on a favorite recipe for her yet.

        5. Nightsbridge

          I would like to second this.

    7. Tenn

      Wow, it’s like Captain Obvious and Captain Oblivious as one person.

      If this was my comic, I would frame that comment and hang it on the wall.

  55. Ashley

    Joyce’s face. JOYCE’S FACE IN THAT LAST PANEL.
    I wish we knew what she’s thinking.

    1. BenRG

      I suspect that she’s fretting over the disconnect of an authority figure, of the sort she had been brought up to trust implicitly, is clearly an existential threat to her childhood best friend. Whilst she’s puzzling over the use of legal authority to impede someone who hasn’t actually committed a crime, per se, I think that she’s also puzzling over the disconnect between parental authority and just use of said authority that this whole mess has exposed.

    2. Tenn

      “She was joking when she said they had sex… right?”

  56. blegh

    omg dina u get sarah so well. pls be bffs she needs it she’s lonely

    1. darkoneko

      They have been as of this morning’s breakfast.

  57. Zuzi

    Sarah, you are smart, petty, and passive aggressive as all hell…
    The sooner you accept it, the easier it is to live with yourself

    1. Bagge

      I dunno, I think she has made peace with that part of herself. The caring, compassionate, friendly and helpful part on the other hand…

  58. Bagge

    Wakes up in my own (borrowed) bed after an awesome party
    Church with Joyce – we can still share that
    Goodwill – get myself some new clothes
    Look for jobs, plan a future
    Dinosaur chick has the most adorable outfit ever!!!
    CRAP, BUTTHOLE DAD… is disposed of by dinosaur chick!?
    Dinosaur chick is flirting with me????
    Dinosaur chick likes-likes me?
    Dinosaur chick wants to be my girlfriend?
    I have a girlfriend???
    Heh, we can still make awesome Joyce-faces.
    Joyce accept girlfriend (with some prodding)
    Joyce’s scary, mean roommate stick out her neck to help me?
    Butthole dad delayed even longer!!!

    Becky is not kidding. Best day ever!

    1. Cerberus

      God it’s been a lovely day. Everything is going her way. She took out the trash today and she’s on FIRE (owing to Dina’s cuddliness).

  59. BenRG

    I really would like to read Dina’s ‘evil’ list and learn her reasons for the rankings.

    1. Bagge

      Most of it consist of paleontologists with slightly differing views.

      1. darkoneko

        one word : creationists

        1. Bagge

          Wow, Dina would have some very sharp words about even the suggestion of paleontologists and creationists being comparable.

        2. Disloyal Subject

          Provided the creationists can accept scientific data and embrace a realistic view of the world, and then integrate their beliefs with that, I don’t see why they couldn’t be compatible.
          As many times as the Bible’s been translated, some things are bound to have changed radically even if we ignore all the little edits ordered by royalty, and it’s silly to think humans process time the same way as a metaphysical, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent entity, so I don’t understand why Earth’s formation or the Big Bang can’t be considered the creation of the world.
          It’s silly to reject facts, and still silly to reject sound theories based on those facts, but that doesn’t mean there’s no room for spiritual beliefs.

      2. Gamaran Sepudomyn

        I don’t think she’d consider paleontologists (other than David Peters) evil.

  60. Alex C

    With equal footing who would win The Queen of Mean or Ruthless?

    And what havoc would be wrought if they ever collaborated?

    1. timemonkey

      In a no consequence world? Sarah. Ruth is more bark than bite, she bullies people to feel better about herself. Her self loathing would make her more likely to accept a beating.

    2. Spencer

      Sarah’s just kind of a grump with a chip on her shoulder due to bad experiences.

      Ruth’s actually abusive.

      1. timemonkey

        Being abusive doesn’t make you good in a fight.

        1. Spencer

          Oh. I thought we were comparing the two in terms of being jerks.

          Cuz Ruth wins that one by a mile.

        2. Disloyal Subject

          Probably. We haven’t seen Sarah in a serious fight – every time she’s resorted to violence, it’s been a sudden attack with the element of surprise, and Ruth has proven able to handle that. What’s more, her use of throws implies she’s had training, and training isn’t often limited to just throws.

        3. Spencer

          No I mean, Ruth is way more of a total, utter asshole than Sarah could ever aspire to be, since Sarah’s just kind of an angry, bitter person due to her own hang ups and some really bad fallout from the past.

          I assumed the topic was about which one was more awful, which Ruth is.

  61. Les

    Wow, Dina is really evolving. A few days ago (in story time) she was the quiet slightly weird girl who hardly interacted with people. Now she’s been a spy, single-handedly got rid of Becky’s dad, developed her first crush, gave Joyce a fit of apoplexy by joking about sex, and now is using Jedi mind tricks to bend Sarah to her will….

    1. Bagge

      And got herself a girlfriend! Clever girl indeed.

    2. Mada

      Now all she has to do is overtake Sal in the Hottest Lady poll and she’s nailed it all.

      1. Gamaran Sepudomyn

        She’s already beaten Billie, which is an impressive feat.

  62. Lurlock

    Plot twist: Toedad comes back, but due to Becky’s extreme makeover since he last saw her, he doesn’t even recognize her. And all the photos he plastered all over campus are of her old look, so nobody else does either. Problem solved.

    1. Rebecca

      I mean really if she dyed her hair she could basically disappear. No one would recognize her with such a different hairstyle and color.

      1. Mada

        Dina gives her some other form of dinosaur apparel and Toedad McDickbag mistakes her for a Pokeman.

        1. Agemegos

          Clever!

  63. John Madden

    Is that a 6th generation Grand Prix?

    Becky’s dad must like cars that rust easily.

  64. Joe

    Anybody who puns like that is worth at least double-marriage.

  65. Aolbain

    Sarah will do just fine in law.

  66. Pat Myers

    He could be back as early as tonight! That’s only a month or two away!

    1. Poskie

      This is why I wish we had a like button.

  67. Deanatay

    Looks like it’s time for a DYW…

    D’AWWWW, YOU WILLISES!

  68. Zigzag

    http://m.imgur.com/AihI9wO

    Is it possible to get one of these in glorious better definition?

    Pretty please Willis

  69. Lulu

    This will end with Dina feeding Becky’s dad remains to some big lizards, won’t it?

    1. Gamaran Sepudomyn

      I’d say birds or otherwise crocodiles (archosauria, y’know), but otherwise I think you’re mostly correct.

  70. Regalli

    This isn’t going to keep him out forever (sorry Joyce and Becky, but eventually you WILL need to talk with an authority figure of some kind to deal with him for good,) but it’ll definitely work for a story arc or two!… Unfortunately, once he gets back, he’s going to KNOW Joyce and company know that something’s up and are trying to misdirect him. And the Browns are bound to get involved in this sooner or later, too.

    C’mon, Leslie and her awesome teacher self.

    1. timemonkey

      It’s not that they don’t want to go to an authority figure, it’s that doing so would get Becky kicked out of the dorms. Once they find her a job and a better place to stay they can go about finding legal ways to keep him away from her.

  71. Shadow12000

    Just started playing GTA V and all I could think of here is that Franklin’s the one towing the car while going “Shit man, I don’t know why I do this for you.”

  72. Kraken

    Sarah isn’t evil. >:|

    Sarah is not evil! >:(

  73. Willoughby Chase

    Named my new car after Becky.

    Yes, she is showing signs of a vivacious personality!

    1. Bagge

      Your car is rad

      1. Aolbain

        His car is red.

    2. Tacos

      Uh… are you sure your car isn’t really a Transformer?

  74. Roborat

    Nicely done Sarah, clever girl.

  75. IJ

    I actually feel really bad for Becky’s dad. He’s being vilified for something he doesn’t even know is wrong? Like, where are the shitholes who taught him that homosexuality is harming his daughter? Those are the people who deserve ire.

    If I were doing something that my parents thought dangerous, they would come looking for me and would try to rehabilitate me if it were necessary. It’s a gesture of love.

    (In b4 ‘you think gays need to be rehabilitated!’ No I do not. But I don’t think Becky’s dad -knows- that.

    Also- why are we making fun of the way he looks as a way of bringing his character down further? Wasn’t that verboten when the subject was Becky’s hair, but now suddenly it’s ok?)

    1. Spencer

      Why is everyone blaming the guys who taught Ross that homosexuality is evil? It’s not like they knew any better!

      1. blegh

        no, no, it’s true, violent homophobia aimed directly at ur daughter is totally a sign of love. how could he have known that treating his daughter like shit is bad? it’s obviously his parents’ fault. actually, it kinda started with his great grandparents. or maybe with the founding of the catholic church??

        in fact this should be traced back to, like, the stone age or something. that’s probably where homophobia started right? yeah. fuck those long dead assholes. they’re the real culprits here

    2. Gamaran Sepudomyn

      Because being too bloody stupidly stubborn to think about and examine your beliefs regularly is just plain wrong.

    3. JackPoint

      We are making fun of his appearance because he is the “bad guy.”

      We don’t feel pity, or remorse, or empathy for him because he is the “bad guy.”

      This is ignoring the very phrase “bad guy” which is not “bad gal” because the second phrase holds almost no negative connotations whatsoever. In fact, I think that’s the first time I’ve ever used it or have seen it used, but I digress.

      Her dad isn’t very interesting right now. He’s a flat, boring, angry person that everyone in the chat (and reading the comic) can pretty easily get angry at, giving us all a reason to empathize with BECKY. In short, the dad doesn’t matter.

      I’d be really impressed if the storyline gave the dad some kind of depth, and showed his reasoning, and showed that he was willing to get out of his echo chamber (unlike, frankly, so many people who straight up hate the character just at face value), and yet still hold his values. I’d like to see if he can actually support his daughter, and show that he loves her WITHOUT attempting to control or coddle her.

      But honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if he just remains the “bad guy.” That raping, murdering, woman hating piece of shit that he is.

      Or something.

      1. Cerberus

        He is sadly very realistic to a specific sort of person that I wish I had way less personal experience with.

        He’s not a strawman. He’s what a good chunk of queer kids get when they come out to their folks.

        This is our reality. Not our superhero-esque escapism.

    4. Cerberus

      Well, even if he was the innocent puppet some people want to think of him as, there’s still the fact that regardless of his destructive abusive beliefs, Toedad has shown to be controlling to a crippling degree not allowing the slightest deviation from his vision. He has been shown as aggressive, rude, and openly hateful towards those different from him even when he thinks they are helping him. He has been shown in the flashback panels to use ohysical force when he feels it is appropriate and to have zero regard for his daughter’s wishes or well-being. He has been shown to cause crippling fear in his daughter and when speaking to Dina referred to his daughter in the language of aggrieved entitlement. He is intentionally incurious and uses threats of Hell to justify it.

      Even absent the toxicity of his religious beliefs and the specific unforgivable crime of wanting to send his daughter to an abuse camp in order to train her to hate and fear her own sexuality and live a shortened life in the closet unable to fully love as she wants which… Never mind I’ll tackle that later. Even absent everything people seem to want to overlook in ways that are not at all frustrating from someone who narrowly avoided being sent to one of those Hell camps. Absent all that…

      He is still a ginormous abusive asshole willing to make his daughter suffer rather than think. There is no amount of forgiveness for “brainwashing” that makes that ok or the actions of a sympathetic protagonist.

      And in context, holee fuckberries is it kinda deeply offensive. Not only to those who’ve become homeless or nearly homeless because of family abandonment owing to sexuality to hand-wave something as vile as reparative therapy as some poor attempt at showing love. Reparative therapy is a threat and an act of control. It is treating one’s progeny as property. Property that is malfunctioning and must be brought to heel. That’s not a religious quirk. That is an unforgivable act of violence that shatters familial relationships as the best case scenario.

      And to use real life examples again. My dad was carefully taught to be transphobic enough to want to ruin my life to the point where I had no choice but accept reparative therapy. I know this, because he smugly told me how his TERF of a lesbian friend told him all about how trans people are deluded fakers just trying to ruin women’s spaces. And that was a large betrayal because I came out to said friend and worked hard setting up a birthday party for her friend a few summers before this.

      Am I upset at the doucheweasel who was all too happy to feed a worried confused parent a sack of dangerous bullshit? Infuriatingly so. Does that forgive my dad’s actions? Fuck no.

      He still chose to believe that, to refuse every effort I took to try and educate him, to avoid any real information on the subject, and to engage in numerous monstrous actions that were only weakly justified with “wanting to save a deluded child”.

      He chose to do monstrous wrong rather than learn and change and support his daughter in the way he claimed he would. Toedad has done something very similar. And the weak sauce of “but my religion” does not excuse it.

      This was the act of a complete waste of space. Something so horrible that Becky, only a year after the death of her mother, has fully accepted that she no longer has a family.

      There is no softening this.

      And yes, I get this particular situation is not one most of the people idlely speculating on have even remotely experienced.

      To which I say: Good.

      But please keep in mind that not all of us have been so lucky.

  76. 3oranges

    You know, the people who taught him homosexuality was harming his daughter were probably just copying what they were taught, too, in a line back into ancient times.

    Bigotry is something invented less often than it is people accepting received wisdom without thought, cyclically like child abuse. It does great harm all the same, and good people have been working very hard to break out of the cycle.

    At what point do we get to fault those who instead accept and perpetuate it? My guess is that by the point your own daughter feels the need to reject and flee you rather than trust and love you, you deserve to be considered a controlling villain over a concerned father.

    Toew dad can enjoy his time at the impound lot without me feeling any regret for him. Hey, it was his choice to park illegally!

    1. 3oranges

      This was in reply to IJ, by the way, only I guess it wasn’t.

  77. Perish Song

    I guess now his name is TOW d-

    DANG IT MAGGIE

  78. Brute

    thanks to becky’s line in the last panel she’ll always have rainbow dash’s voice in my head.

  79. John

    Sarah may not be Dina’s favorite, but she is now mine.

    And, Sarah, you’re totally evil. It’s okay. Just embrace it. It’ll keep you warmer at night than Other Jacob.

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