956

Troopers
Posted on October 16, 2015 by David M Willis

956 thoughts on “Troopers”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    well, you can’t be like Fox News and call him a killer without a cause

    (he just has a completely shitty one, like all of those fuckers)

    alt: “WE’RE CATHOLIC! DON’T YOU KNOW THAT BEING HAPPY IS A SIN???”

    (idk if they’re actually Catholic or just Puritan)

    1. DarkoNeko

      Aren’t they protestant ?

      1. Twilightomens

        Yeah, Joyce was against Catholicism, I assume that’s because everyone in her church is too

        1. Ana Chronistic

          …I don’t even remember what I was going for with that

          time for bed I guess

          *goes to see if Patreon decides to load or not*

        2. Ana Chronistic

          CHURCH OF ST. BASTARD

        3. efes

          I think you’ll find it’s a boarding schoo (specifically, England’s most vicious one).

        4. evilmidnightlurker

          St. Trinians has that distinction sewn up.

        5. TheEighthShader

          RAINBOWSSSS

        6. David

          St Trinians <3

        7. TheEighthShader

          Tru tru

        8. The Biggest Tom

          I’m Catholic. You would be…surprised. You may be thinking, “Wouldn’t Christians like other Christians?” And you’d be right! However, to many Protestants, Catholics aren’t Christian. Apparently we worship the Pope, not Jesus, like good normal folks should.

        9. Freemage

          In fairness, it’s only relatively recently that Catholics have admitted that non-Catholic Christians might qualify for heaven, too.

        10. AdmiralChucK

          Honestly, I think the bitterness between the different sects of Christianity stems from the awful 30 years war that took place during the Reformation. Still hasn’t healed properly.

        11. Jerden

          And, you know, everything since then mostly made it worse.

        12. Joseph Cartwright

          And some are bitter for the Catholic Church changing the day of worship from Saturday to Sunday.

        13. drnuncheon

          Hell, some of the Catholics hate the Catholics. One of the protesters outside of our local Planned Parenthood is still upset that the Mass is no longer in Latin.

        14. Nerd Patrol

          Just wait’ll you discover the world of sedevacantism.

      2. EmbraceEvil

        according to the about page, Willis was and Joyce is “nondenominational fundamentalist (nonaligned Protestant)”

        1. Jenny Islander

          “Non-denominational” all too often means “One preacher + N people he’s buffaloed into thinking that he’s All That + zero oversight = reality-divergent super-sheltered bubble at best and destructive cult at worst.”

        2. Willinwoods

          That just got me thinking ‘Buffalo preachers buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo…’

      3. QD

        Yeah I’m pretty sure Toedad’s version of Christianity thinks Catholicism in general and the Pope in particular are agents of the antiChrist.

        1. WeirderThanWeird

          But this pope is so awesome. I love this pope and I’m agnostic-very-much-not-Christian.

        2. gwalla

          Yeah, and they think this pope is extra antichristy for the same reasons you like him.

        3. murderbridd

          He really isn’t, though. Just the same old shit with a new veneer.

        4. stevecharb

          Francis came in and made drastic reforms, in policy and in attitude, to a powerful and rigid institution over a short period of time.
          The Catholic Church is no longer the active crusader against same-sex marriage and abortion it was just a few years ago. The social conservatism has been put on the back burner; the roar reduced to grumbles.
          Instead Francis has pivoted the Church for its original purposes: to teach love and tolerance and to fight global poverty. He has spoken in favor of evolution.

          If you’re dissatisfied with Francis for not making enough changes, you have unrealistic expectations.

      4. Justin

        Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh so this is how Willis will break becky. not through romantic subplot, but through the trauma of seeing her father killed in front of her. well played willis. I Approve~

    2. Inkblot

      Toedad why

      This is a bad idea on all fronts

      1. EdHead

        Toedad, just went full “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”

        1. Jimmy

          Except he’s already the villan

        2. BL

          w-wait when was he ever considered a hero in this story

        3. podian

          He considered himself a hero all the time.

        4. Darwin

          Before he went all Toedad, it might have been possible that he was Becky’s hero. We’re seeing him at his absolute worst, but it’s possible he was not always a religion-crazed abusive a-hole. Well… he was probably religion-crazed, but Becky’s basically a good kid. The two of ’em might have been very close before he flipped out.

        5. Deanatay

          Even abused kids love their parents, and look up to them. As a child, Becky may have seen Ross as her hero. Ross definitely sees himself as a champion of Becky’s soul.

        6. Shake and Bake

          Way back before college when he drove them to Six Flags. That was his hero moment.

        7. evilmidnightlurker

          I’m thinking more Falling Down.

          “I’m the bad guy?”

        8. Halloween Jack

          Yeah, very definitely a D-FENS thing going on here, I think.

        9. DarkVeghetta

          Indeed.
          We’re sadly missing the retirement-day cop that learns to stand up to his wife though.

      2. Screwball

        It’s official, Toedad is now emulating this guy…

    3. LeslieBean4Shizzle

      They are fundamentalist – that way WAY different than Catholics.

      1. John

        Yeah, they probably teach that Catholics are the pawns of Satan.

        1. Magoo Comma Mister

          Shrimp are the prawns of Satan.

      2. LeslieBean4Shizzle

        Hell, I’m a pagan lesbian (well, bi leaning lesbian, but I digress) and one of my best friends is a very devout Catholic. She has zero problem with me or my wife.

        1. Myth

          To be fair, that has nothing to do with being Catholic, and everything to do with “not being a horrible person.” Plenty of Catholics might take issue with a pagan lesbian (plenty of Catholics DO take issue).

        2. Yu'Karaya

          From what I can tell, fundamentalists and evangelist churches are much more likely to preach intolerance for specific groups of people. They try to make visible enemies out of actual groups in society, and have a weird psuedo militant way of teaching kids that they actually have enemies out to get them in the form of gays or whatever

        3. stormbeta

          Sure, but Catholicism seems to push the love and tolerance angle a lot more strongly than protestants in my experience, and the result is that even though *officially* the Church has some pretty ugly ideas about gay people, a lot of actual Catholics are pretty open-minded and tolerant.

        4. No Name

          Especially since Pope Francis took the throne.

        5. masterofbones

          Francis really isnt teaching anything new. He is just focusing on the positive

        6. LiamAldam

          Dude, Pope Francis took the throne and put it in a museum. The guy now sits on just a white chair.

        7. DarkVeghetta

          ^ He does? Very humble of him. Still not quite as badass as John Paul II was, but he’s getting there.

        8. No Name

          At master of bones: Yes, but being Pope has its privileges and one of them is being able to steer the church however you please.
          At LiamAldam: Really? I can’t say I’m surprised. Good on him! Has he given up absolute power over the Vatican?

        9. murderbridd

          That really isn’t true. The Pope is only the head of an entire college of cardinals and without the adjudication of the whole magisterium he can’t change doctrine willy-nilly, and he hasn’t. Girls like me are as dangerous as nuclear bombs to him and that’s not acceptable.

          And he can’t give up absolute power over the Vatican.

        10. Parkrndl

          < open-minded and tolerant Catholic

        11. Spiny Creature

          Yu’Karaya wasn’t talking about the Catholic Church, she’s not disagreeing with you. “Fundamentalist and evangelical churches” refers to (some types of) Protestant churches, not the Catholic Church. The Church is not fundamentalist.

        12. Amazi-Stool

          Oh, look how open-minded and tolerant the vatican has become:
          A senior priest at the Vatican has revealed he is gay, on the eve of a major meeting that will define the Catholic Church’s teaching on family.
          (…)
          The Vatican called his actions “very serious and irresponsible” and stripped him of doctrinal responsibilities.

        13. Gand

          Being gay is not the reason he got stripped of responsibilities.
          The main reason is that he had a partner, breaking the rules of celibacy for priests. And the fact that he did the announcement the day prior of the meeting, trying to put pressure on the discussions.

        14. Weyland

          @Gand – True though that may be, it still doesn’t make the fact that they continue to maintain the celibacy rules any less silly. And the fact that breaking celibacy was likely only the given reason.

        15. TessHM

          “Breaking News — Pope is Actually Catholic!!”

        16. Myth

          Again I wholeheartedly disagree that love-and-tolerance level has anything to do with what sect of Christianity is being practiced. My best friend is a devout Latter-Day Saint (Mormon). Her husband-to-be is openly atheist, genderqueer (prefers male nouns and pronouns though) and way into BDSM. Another of my friends is a Baptist from the Deep South and he is a strong activist against sexism in comic books (comic books are his passion, he has written some indie ones).

          Any person from any religion, or any branch of a religion, can be open-minded and tolerant. The frequency of openmindedness and tolerance among specific religions/sects is a pointless debate. Decent people are decent, and bigots are bigots, regardless of what their religion may be. No religion can truly be said to have a greater number of decent people/bigots.

        17. Bruceski

          I’ve found it really depends on the community mix/size. My synagogue was small enough that our denomination was “if anybody gets mad we lose a minyan” and so taught general Jewish spirituality while leaving it up to the people to choose their own flavor of how observant they wanted to be. The town was small as well so we all knew folks of different faiths, heck most of my friends were Mormon and it wasn’t until I left town that I learned those guys had a bad rep elsewhere, they were just people.

          Meanwhile if you get an isolated town of all one faith, or a city big enough for people to segregate themselves, that’s when it can start getting ugly. Up in Chicago, my grandma’s family disowned my grandpa when the “wrong” rabbi oversaw her funeral.

        18. murderbridd

          Wrong. Go stand guard for a Planned Parenthood. Maybe deal with a rally sometime. See how lax and tolerant Catholics can be.

        19. de Combys

          Just saying, my nation is 80-90% catholic and we have gay marriage since 2006. We also have laws to protect laicism, and we accomodate religious minorities.

          This may or may not be directly linked.

        20. JonRich

          What is laicism?

        21. Dandi Andi

          The short version: French secularism.

        22. Deanatay

          It looks like a misspelling of ‘racism’, but it’s apparently derived from ‘laity’, a word used in Catholicism to refer to secular authorities. Laicism is a principle of government that specifically excludes religious authority. It’s a simpler way of saying ‘separation of church and state’.

        23. No Name

          I don’t know about “simpler”. Shorter, yes, but not simpler.

        24. Spiny Creature

          How is it not simpler? It’s a general concept shared and understood among all Catholic European countries (and Latin America), and it’s the same in a bunch of languages (laicism, laicismo, laïcisme, laicità). Separation of church and state is a specifically American concept based on specific wording in the US Constitution.

        25. Swissaboo

          Having been raised catholic, the joke I like to make is that everyone who felt like they needed a church they actually agreed with left during the reformation, leaving catholicism as 90% people who don’t give a single shit what the catholic church actually says. And that includes the catholic fundamentalists, who have a surprising tendency towards literal heresy.

        26. Ashflake

          I think that is basically true.

          The thing about catholicism is that while doctrine can be strict, it also has a long history of “off course you don’t practice what you preach”. I mean, you think most of our priests (yeah, i was raised catholic in the sense described below) really live celibate? Right. In fact, celibacy has been described as a sort of funtional medieval “safe harbor” for male homosexuals, because they didn’t have to explain why they weren’t married.
          Catholicism has many adherents over the world, most of them don’t really know what’s in the bible either. In parts of europe, catholicism is really more about rituals and, “well, we’ve always been catholic” than about “giving yourself to jesus”. Which to me, also goes a long way to explain why catholics are often about as liberal as the general society they live in .

          This is also why catholicism is despised as next to satanic by evangelicals. It may also be what triggered the reformation.

          That is not to say that “don’t practice what you preach” isn’t a big problem in and of itself, especially if you are an actual gay catholic believer if e.g.:
          a) You want/need official recognition by the church
          b) Against all odds, you are a DEVOUT catholic and question yourself because of doctrine
          And that can be a big problem, because doctrine changes really slowly in catholic church, if at all.

          So, basically, the way i see catholicism is that it’s basic mode has traditionally been hypocrisy. I admit i have a sofft spot for catholicism because to me it’s ultimately human, i prefer hypocrisy over religious fervor. But then again, i’m not directly concerned by a) or b)

        27. murderbridd

          Don’t describe the priesthood as a safe haven. It wasn’t.

        28. Ashflake

          Ok. It’s just i’ve heard this before, and thought it was an interesting twist, but i don’t have any sources to back it up. Do you know where the notion comes from?

        29. Amazi-Stool

          It may also be what triggered the reformation.

          No that was not what triggered the reformation.

          The roman catholic church turning the franchise into a money source was what triggered the reformation.
          Martin Luther could have been a character straight from Shortpacked!

        30. Luther, Martin

          Martin Luther had 93 points that he made about the Catholic Church to trigger the Reformation. Only like four of them were about the blatant greed of the church at the time. It’s like saying “Rosa Parks caused the civil rights movement!” when it was actually the rallying cry to vent decades or centuries of frustrations about a broken system.

        31. Lasenna

          If you’re a bi-leaning lesbian, it’s probably clearer to just say you’re sexually fluid.

        32. DarkVeghetta

          Actually, I find it clearer the way she sed it.

        33. timemonkey

          In my experience, it’s best not to tell people how to identify themselves unless specifically asked for advice on the matter.

        34. de Combys

          This ^

        35. ranthog

          It makes perfect sense, since bisexuality doesn’t mean equal levels attraction to all genders, but that one is attracted to genders besides the opposite sex. (Trying to keep this as gender inclusive as possible.) This may mean that someone is often attracted to men, but occasionally women as well.

          I’m not surehow sexually fluid would fit in there.

          That and its kindof rude to tell someone they’re identifying wrong. I personally don’t find there to be any significant difference between bisexual and pansexual (besides being explicit instead of implicit about other gender expressions), but I’m not going to substitute one label for the other if one gives a preference

        36. de Combys

          I’m what I would call “homoflexible”, which I gather to be the same as bi-leaning homosexual. Meaning perhaps 90% homo (in my frame of reference anyway).

          My boyfriend labels huimself pansexual and one of my male friends labels himself bisexual. The difference between them two is this : my boyfriend feels that gender is secondary attraction-wise (the feeling of sexiness isn’t linked to the feeling of gender), and my friend feels that gender plays a primary role in his attraction (he is attracted to different genders in different ways). I think why they interpret those words that way is because the prefix bi- suggests a distinction and the prefix pan- suggests an encompassment. But other people see it differently.

        37. Li

          The thing about the word “bisexual” is that it was reclaimed. Originally it, just like “homosexual”, was a clinical term that attempted to pathologize non-straight orientations. The difference is that the bi community reclaimed it, while the gay community largely rejected “homosexual”.

          My point is that bi’s etymology is irrelevant, because it was created by bigots. So what the prefix bi “suggests” doesn’t so much matter.

          The bi community has been defining the term since the 70s as attraction to one or more genders, which can of course encompass anything from “just two” to “all”.

          I personally identify as pan, but I just wanted to further hammer home your last point: that the labels are personal, and the distinction depends on the person.

        38. Li

          Ugh. TWO or more genders. (Alternately, “my own and other genders”, which is a neat way of working two back in there.)

        39. Tunasammich

          Sometimes I wish I could upvote a comment on here, thank

        40. de Combys

          What the prefix suggests doesn’t so much matter… except if it does to the person using it. I said what my friend said. He’s the judge.

          Nice infos, though.

        41. Ranthog

          The distinction that gender plays a secondary versus primary role in attraction isn’t a meaningful difference in all cases, since it is something that can vary for someone depending on circumstances.

          Also, consider that bisexual comes from a time before there was really language for anything beside the two genders, so the implication fit the language of the time rather than in practice. Truthfully the difference between bisexual and pansexual, if any, is very fuzzy. There doesn’t seem to be any consensus.

        42. de Combys

          And here I am wondering why you people only answered my comment to tell me stuff like that. I’m just sharing what my friend and boyfriend told me about themselves. Of course it’s different for everybody. I’m so, so tired of label policing.

        43. Lasenna

          1) I never said she was identifying wrong.
          2) I only addressed the issue because it was literally the very first sentence of her comment, not something plucked out of the blue sky.
          3) By the comments I think a lot of people here don’t really understand what sexually fluid means. It doesn’t mean equally bi, it doesn’t mean mostly straight or gay, it means you can find people attractive even if you lean more towards gay/straight. In a way, it’s one of the most all encompassing descriptions there is. If you want to understand what sexually fluid means, you should read this:
          http://everydayfeminism.com/2012/10/fluid-sexuality-lgbtq-spectrum/

          And a lot of you really need to read this article because this is clearly a term that is still not well understood.

        44. Roborat

          But pretty much all sex involves fluids.

        45. de Combys

          Be safe.

      3. Idon'tcarenomore

        And different than a lot of Christians too.

      4. Reltzik

        There are fundamentalist Catholics, but yes, they’re generic fundamentalist Protestant. (Probably evangelical.)

    4. Lord Stoneheart

      They’re non denominational Protestant.

    5. No Name

      There whatever breed of American nondenominational fundamentalism Willis was born into. As far from Catholicism as possible while still being considered Christian.

      1. I Write Monsters

        They’re close to the breed my friend grew up in, and he was told at age 11 that the Catholic Church was so satanic, he would one day fight a beast with seven pope-heads barehanded.

        1. Rycan

          Seriously? Fighting a geriatric monster? Have they no shame?

        2. Blue

          Your friend sounds like the chosen one.

        3. I Write Monsters

          He actually kinda misses being the Chosen One.

        4. Vincent

          Did… Did he end up getting dismembered and left on the slopes of a volcano?

        5. Deanatay

          Nah, probably just has younger siblings now.

        6. gwalla

          Pope Ghidorah

      2. Dr. T

        So……Mormon?

        I’m kidding. The farthest from Catholicism you can get and still have a Christian flavor is Unitarian Universalism. Pretty sure they aren’t that.

        1. fizzywafflezsuperstore

          We taste like Christians?

          This I never knew.

        2. Dr. T

          Technically, you taste like chicken, but so do Christians.

        3. fizzywafflezsuperstore

          Oh, people tasted like pigs last time I checked–though I may be wrong on that.

    6. QF

      Go check the About page, because I’m pretty sure they’re from the same religion as Joyce.

      1. Doctor_Who

        Dexter and Monkey Masterism?

    7. Kamino Neko

      They’re not Catholic…also…that makes no sense from a Catholic POV.

    8. Ana Chronistic

      I should delete any posts I start with idk =p

    9. Rheinman

      Puritanism – the desperate fear that someone, somewhere is having a good time

      1. Kryss LaBryn

        “Two spikes would be an extravagance!”

        The Whiteadders’ visit: Best Blackadder episode ever. 😀 Which is saying a lot.

      2. Arkantos

        Eh, Puritans weren’t really just eliminating everything fun, they just wanted to make absolutely sure no one was putting something else before God. Still kinda shitty, but ya know, it was the 15th century.

        1. kelticat

          Given that the Puritans did their best to eliminate Christmas, are you so sure about that.

        2. fogel

          And closed the theaters a few decades after Shakespeare.

        3. Ana Chronistic

          you wouldn’t know it from the names they chose

    10. barefootbiker

      Having been raised Catholic (though not religious anymore) I’ve actually found it to be one of the least fire-and-brimstoney of common American Christian denominations. Obviously there are plenty of people who don’t exemplify that, but the churches I went to were mostly of the “judge not lest ye be judged” variety. Contrast that with some of the evangelical types on my dad’s side (born-again Assembly of God *shudder*) and Catholicism looks like flowers and butterflies and pleasant wine-drunkenness.

      1. Rukduk

        As someone who has had a similar experience with the Catholic Church it’s even better if you hang out with anyone from quite a few of the orders. Particularly Jesuits and Lassalians. So liberal, we (the orders and those educated by them) are sometimes called commies. Good times.

        1. de Combys

          Jesuits… *shudder*

      2. MrZombieScordo

        I was raised evangelical presbyterian. Not really sure what that means, but the result was be nice to everybody so that you know that you are better than them.

        1. Anomylous

          Ha. My family is Presbyterian and that’s pretty spot on. I’ll take it over the Baptist “everybody except us is going to hell, oh well, humanity is evil anyway” attitude any day, though.

      3. Tacos

        I’m Catholic myself though from my experience, every religion ends up with different sects regardless of claiming to all be unified so invariably you end up with some real asshole groups. I will say that the churches we’ve gone to teach what basically boiled down to, “Be nice to people and don’t be an asshat.”

    11. EvolutionistX

      Neither Catholic nor Puritan. Modern Puritans are, like, Unitarians and totally mellow.

      1. Spiny Creature

        Yeah, the modern-day descendants of those New England Puritan churches are… well… in New England. So they’re actually some of the most liberal and hippie-ish churches in the whole country. I grew up in a Massachusetts church like that.

    12. LiamAldam

      Just wanted to stop by to say a religious Catholic reads and enjoys this strip. Is that an argument for tolerance?

      1. Deanatay

        If you want it to be, sure. Welcome!

      2. Ana Chronistic

        yeah, tolerance is awesome!

        *periodic reminder to self that religion isn’t necessarily any more a valid target than other things*

        **that is I do apologize for the alt: part of the first post if anyone wanted it**

    13. Cody B

      It’s not really a bad cause: saving his daughter from eternal damnation.

      Really it comes down to the interplay of three separate positions

      Position 1) Nonchristians burn forever in a fiery damnation. It is therefor your moral responsibility to save your loved ones from eternal torture.

      Position 2) Nonchristians burn forever in a fiery damnation but it’s your right to choose for yourself, even if your choice directly leads you to eternal torture.

      Position 3) Nonchristians do not burn forever in a fiery damnation.

      If you are a father, even if you mostly fall in position 2, you are likely to have special considerations for your daughter, which push you closer to position 1. And if you are already position 1 to begin with, like Toedad, then your sole responsibility is to keep your daughter’s soul safe. Even her physical safety is less important.

      Personally, I fall into position 3, but I have a hard time just writing off people who are indoctrinated into faith-based beliefs and follow those beliefs to their logical ends as “jerks.” Misguided? Maybe. Probably. Jerks… maybe not.

      As for the whole lesbian equals going to hell thing… I don’t even know where it comes from, but I know that many churches teach it. And if your church teaches it, and that is your primary source of biblical interpretation… well, faith-based is not evidence-based.

  2. Nightsbridge

    Aw, look guys, everything’s going to be alright! He cares! /sarcasm

    . . .

    Fudge you Ross.

    1. No Name

      He does care actually, just in all the wrong ways.

      1. Cholma

        “Good teacher. He really seems to care. About *what* I have no idea.” ~Thornton Melon

    2. Inkblot

      I never thought that I would feel sorry for the guy. I really didn’t. I’m against what Ross is doing, and I’m against what he stands for and why he’s doing this.

      Looking at panels four and six, however, actually managed to accomplish what I thought was impossible.

      I don’t know where the feeling comes from, and the more I think about it, the more I don’t like it. But goddammit, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that for a brief few moments, the look on Ross’s face in those last few panels made me feel a brief moment of sadness for the man.

      And then I think about what he’s doing and the sadness goes away. Even if this is something he believes in with all his heart and earnestly believes he’s trying to do good, that doesn’t change in the least what he’s doing.

      I felt momentarily sorry for him, but it speaks volumes that I could only do it out of context.

      1. TheLurkerAbove

        Me too. It’s totally wrong, and he’s a shitty parent, but damn Willis, that was well-played, again. This is some top notch writing and artwork.

      2. Orion Fury

        The way it seems to lean is that his wife is gay, and left him, but not on pleasant terms. It left him broken, and in his grief he erroneously latched onto the wrong cause of the pain. Now he’s afraid that he’ll lose his daughter. He just doesn’t seem to be capable of understanding throughout all of this that he won’t.

        Perhaps a mental substitution would be needed. In his mind you could say his likening Homosexuality to a severe heroin addiction. Would anyone consider his actions to be wrong if he tried to put her into rehab, she broke out, and was being enabled by her friend and her dealer, possibly one hit away from death? A willingness to die so that she can live her life to it’s fullest makes more sense there.

        I’m not excusing his actions, but stating that they seeming come from misinformation, old doctrine, and pain. What he’s doing is wrong, but also sad.

        1. Anothis

          I think the wife is dead. I’m almost certain Becky or Joyce mentioned this at we point.

        2. Rando

          Actually I went to exactly the same place as Orion Fury on this one. Toedad didn’t say his wife was taken away or taken by God, she was taken by the Devil. That’s a horribly specific way of saying it.

          Joyce and Becky have said that Becky’s mother is dead, but we’ve established that they belong to a pretty fundamentalist community. It doesn’t seem a stretch of the imagination that if she came out to her husband, rejected the church or did anything else seen as a betrayal of the faith that she would be ‘cast out’ (think of the Last Temptation of Leslie Bean) and ‘written out’ of their lives as dead. Its all a bit Moses but fits the community.

          It may also explain why both toedad and Becky’s room-mate’s family both seemed to separately behave like the room-mate was and innocent lead astray by Becky who ‘had the devil in her’. If Mrs toedad was gay it would be easy to assume the ‘evil’ passed down to the daughter.

          Heck, at a stretch it may explain why Joyce’s uber religious parents allowed her to go to their alma mater instead of ‘god college’ with the gay woman’s daughter who was close to their daughter.

        3. Amazi-Stool

          Does not really make sense.

          If his wife is still alive, why would Becky have claimed “i have no where else to go”?

        4. Screwball

          Because as far as she knows, her Mum IS dead?

          Daniel here. I get what Orion & Rando are saying. Becky & Joyce believe Becky’s Mum is dead because that’s what she’s been told repeatedly ever since she vanished, but what is that was a lie maintained by toedad/their Church/the local community? What if her “death” was in fact her being banished/fleeing the family home, with the “death” story used to cover the fact she’s never allowed/going to return?

          That said, there IS another situation where a person can die, but still “taken by Satan”.

          Suicide.

          Suicide is considered a Sin by most versions of the Church I’ve heard of. To many versions, it doesn’t matter WHY they killed themselves (chemical imbalance in the brain? Doesn’t matter. Terminally ill? Nope), they kill themselves, they’re going to Hell. I’ve seen a TV show reporting the late great Robin Williams had undiagnosed Lewy Body Dementia, which slowly shuts down neural pathways 1 connection at a time, changing behavior. They loose control over themselves. And yet, some Churches don’t care.

          The last option that crosses my mind for the “Satan took your Mother from me” line, though the least likely (hopefully), she did something like Orion & Rando said (came out as Bi/Lesbian/hating Church ideals) so in order to prevent his beloved Daughter being “contaminated”, Toedad killed Mrs Toedad…

          I doubt it’s the last option, but it’s a possibility, he has proven himself potentially Fanatical enough…

        5. fizzywafflezsuperstore

          Because everyone told her her mom was dead.

        6. Steve

          I can’t find that reference but when a Christian’s loved one dies, it’s; usually ‘God took them’. “Satan took them’ usually means they either decided to leave to do something awful for the good Christians or they left because of not being able to take their loved ones’ lunacy to the bad Christians…

        7. Toby

          Or that they committed suicide rather than live a lie…

      3. No Name

        Pity is a perfectly natural emotion to feel for those you despise. Especially if those you despise are also human.

      4. otusasio451

        Honestly…I dunno. I get where you’re coming from. On the other hand, what he’s doing, whether it’s out of love or not, is INSANE. It’s also just…despicable. I mean…it’s your daughter, and her best friend, and you’re holding a GUN on her. I DO feel bad for Ross. But at the same time, I hate him WAY more than I did before for doing this. Seriously. Unless Willis pulls a Charles Whitman and reveals that Ross has a brain tumor on his amygdala, there is NO EXCUSE, and NO forgiving his actions.

        1. SUGauthor

          If I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that my daughter would be eternally damned and subjected too horrendous torture for literally all of time if I didn’t save her from the path she was on, I’d pull a gun on her too.

        2. SDGlyph

          …

        3. Joolie

          If you knew those things beyond a shadow of a doubt, then you would not be a member of a faith based organization.

          The cornerstone of faith is not knowing for certain but believing regardless.

          I think there are a lot of people who somehow lose the meaningful distinctions and flip it around to “whatever I believe is fact, not faith”. Or just, my faith is fact. Which, oh /honey/.

          But having been raised in nearly exactly the same circumstances as Joyce, not a single person I knew would have ever thought it appropriate to pull a gun on their child even if their very soul were on the line.

          Also and mostly irrelevant, but it always bothered me how Christians gloss over their usual “power of prayer” attitude when it comes to situations like these. Getting out a gun is basically telling god, “Yeah I know I’ve been praying for her, but you’re doing jack shit. Let go of the fucking wheel. I don’t think you’re handling this right. I’m taking over from here, you fuck up.”

          Also it’s really late. I shuddup.

        4. Blob Blobberman

          I went to a a nondenominational fundamentalist christian high school myself. They taught us that real faith was the belief in things unseen based on the evidence of things seen. They taught us that blind faith wasn’t real faith, that you should have evidence.

          Of course.. the evidence that they provided to get to their conclusions was full of problems that I could go on all day about.. But of course it wasn’t presented that way. They believe there is real tangible evidence for their beliefs. In their minds they don’t just choose to believe these things, they know them to be fact.

        5. Spencer

          I’m guessing what you meant to say was “if I subscribed to these beliefs”, right?

        6. SUGauthor

          If I was going to do something that drastic just subscribing to the belief wouldn’t be enough, I’d need to know for sure. But if we do assume for a moment that Ross’s horrible view of the world is true, then I think scaring Becky with a gun is definitely preferable to eternal torture don’t you think?

        7. Spencer

          If what the worst elements of Christianity espoused was objective fact, then yes. Fortunately we live in a better world than that and such questions aren’t really worth asking.

        8. SUGauthor

          I think it’s important to consider how Ross views the situation when discussing whether or not his actions are forgivable. He is kind insane right now, but he’s still genuinely looking out for Becky’s best interest, so much so that he’s willing to lay down his life for her. Compare that to Blaine, who’s just an evil jackass in general and doesn’t give a shit about his daughter.

        9. Cerberus

          Not really, but then I’m of the mind that any God who would torture someone forever because of what I believed or who I loved is an awful tyrant who must be stopped by any means necessary, rather than a man who must be appeased with whatever horrible actions will keep one in His good graces.

          And that was pretty much a choice I came to when I was a kid and pondering about what I would believe if I was a part of the religion that surrounded me, if their view of the afterlife was real. And yeah, in that case, send me to Hell, conscript me to Lucifer’s army, because if God is that terrible of a person that he would demand such abusive action from his followers, then he’s probably lying about how bad Satan really is.

        10. Spencer

          That’s honestly what pushed me away from Christianity in my youth. I saw a play at my church, put together by the sweetest people ever, and it scared the absolute shit out of me. The moral was “literally everybody except for the devout are going to Hell, it doesn’t matter how good they are.”

          Kind of heavy for a 9-year old.

        11. SUGauthor

          I personally think the concept of ANYONE going to Hell, regardless of what crimes they committed is seriously fucked up. That said the idea that we would be capable of defeating God if that was true seems unrealistic to me, I don’t blame someone for knuckling under instead of rebelling.

      5. fogel

        More important story wise than what any of us think about him is that Becky cares about him (pretty obviously I think).

      6. fogel

        Couldnt you be sad that he’s in the grip of his hateful religion? I think that’s at the core of what I’m feeling. Which, I think, is in context.

      7. thomas wrobel

        “I don’t know where the feeling comes from, and the more I think about it, the more I don’t like it”

        There is nothing remotely wrong with having empathy or even sympathy for someone you strongly disagree with. In fact, Id say having empathy for your “enemy’s” is a trait all too often lacking in people.

      8. The Biggest Tom

        I’m pretty sad and moved. The more I read over this, the more I see that Ross is really, really fucking desperate. He knew that he was risking his own life to get his daughter back. :c

        Some people are still angry at Ross for what he did. That’s justifiable. I think a lot of them may just be riding on negative feelings like Ross = Bad Guy Forever, but there’s really no defending what he did.

        Still…i can’t help but feel like he heard about this and felt so alone for a little while. At least for Becky things turned out okay. For Ross, this whole situation must have been a living nightmare.

      9. Cerberus

        This. His actions are monstrous and demonstrably harmful, but he is also a human being with working emotions. It’s just his empathy is short-circuited by his commitment to dogma. And it’s awesome when people recognize that seeing the pain and worldview that has led someone to hurt someone else deeply does not justify their actions or make them more sympathetic. It just emphasizes how human even the horrible people are.

        1. fogel

          This. Except for not making them more sympathetic? Definition says sympathy = “feelings of pity and sorrow for someone else’s misfortune”. And I have those feelings about Ross’ “misfortune at becoming who he is and having his love for Becky so, so twisted to the dark side. Perhaps not sympathy FOR Ross, himself?. Certainly not sympathy for what he is doing. ZERO sympathy for his actions. And I see ZERO justification for what he is doing. But sorrow and pity for the situation he is in and what’s brought him to it. NOT that I think that that does anyone any good.

      10. Z

        The way it reads makes me worry that he may have killed his wife, so I’m not getting the “sympathetic” vibe.

        If she just left him for another woman, then:
        1. Unless he got a kick-ass lawyer, Becky would’ve been raised by a lesbian, and, well….
        2. Becky wouldn’t be asking Dad to do it for mom’s sake.

        Oh- unless mom had a psychotic break or something and ended up in the hospital. 🙁 Then I would feel bad.

    3. Meebo

      I don’t get the sympathy angle that’s popping up in the comments.

      After we lost my mom, my dad gave everything for me and my sister. Literally. The stress of the circumstances killed him. I’ve seen what it is to lose a wife, and I’ve seen what it is to desperately love your family so much you’re willing to do anything for them.

      This is not it.

      He drew a weapon on his own daughter. It doesn’t matter who he lost, or believes he lost, or what he feels inside. That is utterly unforgivable.

      Turning a gun on something means you are willing to see it destroyed. What kind of monster is willing to watch their child die?

      1. No Name

        What has happened to Ross Babies McIntyre is designed to explain, not excuse, his actions. As you have no doubt experienced, there are plenty of people who have gone through what Ross has and haven’t gone off the deep end in response. Also, all I feel for him is Pity. Pity that he couldn’t have held on to his sanity just a little longer. He still deserves whatever the cops dish out to him (if they come).

        1. Meebo

          Yeah. Yeah, that is definitely a good point.

          Really feel for poor Becky, Jesus. I want to reach in and give her a hug. Well, I want to reach in and get the gun away from Toedad and call 911, but then I want to give her a hug.

        2. thomas wrobel

          ” He still deserves whatever the cops dish out to him”

          Depends on the cops really.
          He has drawn a gun and deserves to be arrested, not gunned down, for example.
          He hasn’t actually harmed anyone at this point (physically), and while he
          is being irresponsible in the extreme, it doesn’t look like he intends to use
          that gun for anything but cowards show of power.

        3. No Name

          Two strips ago, he threw Dina to the ground. Sure it was self defense, but he still physically hurt her.

        4. Cerberus

          This and *appropriate gesture of sympathy* to Meebo for what you’ve been through.

      2. Pylgrim

        He clearly belongs to the kind of people that sincerely believe that weapons are not meant to destroy but to dissuade evildoers. A very sincere, but very mistaken belief that every other month allows a shooting to happen at schools or cinemas or whatnot as people employ weapons to destroy without being dissuaded at all.

        1. Blob Blobberman

          I can think of two times in my life where my father showing a gun caused people who meant to rob and possibly harm my family to peacefully leave. A third time the appearance of having a gun (which I didn’t actually have) did the same for myself.

          I have never pointed a gun at another human being. I have no desire to ever do so. My father may have done so as part of his duties as a Marine. I don’t know for sure. If so I am confident it has only happened as a Marine, not as a civilian. If you ask him he will only answer that killing is a horrible thing that does great psychological harm to the killer and you should hope never to have to do it.

      3. bearpelt

        I think it’s more of a sadness rather than a forgiveness of his actions, if that makes sense? Like I feel sad for him. But I also have very high emotional empathy and feel sad when pretty much anybody feels sad, no matter how much I hate them. But that doesn’t make me stop hating them.

        I guess I just hate seeing suffering in general. But I definitely can’t excuse or forgive or condone his actions at all and find what he’s doing repugnant.

        It’s also heartbreaking for me to see how this affects Becky.

      4. WaytoomanyUIDs

        Exactly

    4. otusasio451

      No, no, you’re doing it all wrong! It’s “FUCK you, Ross.” Because that’s what he deserves.

      1. Jacknoir

        kinky, I’m sure he’d like that quite a bit.

        1. TheEighthShader

          RAINNNBOWWSSS

    5. Reltzik

      Honestly, I’m a bit with the sympathizers at this point. The guy needs to be stopped, hard, before he hurts anyone or kidnaps Becky, and he needs to be restrained and perhaps incarcerated to keep from doing it in the future. But he’s also clearly redeemable if he can just be pulled out of the religious nutjob mindset. He’s not a hardcore inexcusable asshole like Blaine or Ryan.

      1. de Combys

        Yeah but he’s so deep in it that it might be impossible for him to get out… he clearly isn’t intelligent enough to sort things out by himself, and being in jail would probably not be the greatest help on that aspect.

        1. No Name

          That’s what “not guilty by virtue of insanity” is for. Also, mental institutions.

        2. de Combys

          Yeah, he would need one of the latter. It would be wonderful if they could teach him the simple “live and let live” principle.

        3. Reltzik

          IIRC, the current psychological DSM explicitly exempts religious thinking and beliefs from the big catalog of crazy, even in instances when a strict reading of the literature might file it under other categories of delusion or schizophrenia. (Tried to google to confirm, but google is down atm.) So no, no insanity defense.

        4. de Combys

          Whaaaattt

      2. Jacknoir

        he’s trying to protect his daughter he just has a fucked up idea about what she needs to be protected from.
        if he were trying to save her from human traffickers rather than Vagina and the “gay agenda” they’d make a movie with him played by Liam Neeson.

        1. EmbraceEvil

          I tried to think of a parody of a taken quote, but i couldn’t think of anything that didn’t make me nauseous.

        2. Deanatay

          Here, let me help:

          “I don’t know what you want. If you want money, I can tell you I don’t have any. What I do have are a certain set of beliefs, beliefs that make me a nightmare to atheist lesbians like you. If you come back now, I won’t come looking for you. But if you don’t, I will come looking for you. I will find you. And I will kill you.”

        3. TheGrammarLegionary

          Good lord… I see the humour in this, but it’s still more unnerving than anything else.

        4. TheEighthShader

          Do you see the humor in… RAINBOWWSSSS

        5. fizzywafflezsuperstore

          Honestly-no, not really.

        6. qman

          This, exactly. It’s painfully obvious he cares about her immensely, but he’s taking all the wrong actions. Unfortunately I don’t think that can really be fixed at this point, he’s in too deep, and he doesn’t know any other way to deal with it. Things aren’t so black and white, and just because he’s behaving this way now doesn’t mean he was a bad father or a bad person before.

    6. fogel

      Who said everything is going to turn out alright?

  3. DarkoNeko

    oh fuck.

  4. EdHead

    It has hit the fan and now spinning around.

  5. liahansen

    UH WHAT DOES HE MEAN BY THAT

    1. Doctor_Who

      Nothing sane. Dude’s cuckoo for cocoa puffs.

      1. Plasma Mongoose

        If only he liked Rice Bubbles instead, he wouldn’t be in this mess.

      2. Charles Phipps

        I think Toedad’s actions are motivated by either getting Becky back or suicide by cop. Which, weirdly, means he’s far more rationale than he first appeared.

        1. Cerberus

          He’s fighting Satan. Either he dies fighting a great evil that has stolen his daughter, martyring himself to be greeted in Heaven by his wife (unless the reason he claims Satan took her is because she killed herself or was taken out by him for failing to “live up to Godly standards”) or his show of sacrifice and conviction is enough to pierce the lying veil of Satan and remind his wayward daughter of the path back to the light.

          In his twisted view, it’s win-win as he doesn’t have the humility to admit he might not actually know best about what his idea of his God would want or what is actually best for Becky.

          Sadly, a major liability for Becky here is she cares if he lives or dies. He doesn’t. Nor does he care if she lives or dies, so long as she does either free of “the sin that has consumed her”.

        2. Reltzik

          Exactly what you said about liability. I’m worried that Becky will go along with him now so that his brain doesn’t get ka-spewed by state troopers.

        3. WaytoomanyUIDs

          That’s what he’s hoping

        4. fogel

          Perhaps it doesn’t matter for the way this unfolds, but it seems to me that he does care if she dies. He’s willing to kill her to “save” her (maybe?) but he does care. I suspect when asked for God to give him strength, it was because he doesn’t WANT to kill her, it’s because he was afraid that he wouldn’t have the determination to go through with whatever he has planned.

        5. Cerberus

          Yup. He’s mistaking his empathy for the deceptions of Satan trying to dissuade him from his Holy Crusade. And he’s believing that his anger and selfish stubborn bigotry are God granting him the strength to work through and remain resolute no matter what the accursed one says to try and dissuade him from his task.

          His brain is screaming at him that this is wrong and he’s doing harm, but he’s trusting God and his desire to control to keep him on “the right path” and do “whatever is necessary” so that he, personally, can have a victory over Satan.

        6. SDGlyph

          Good rule of thumb for believers: if you ever find that you have to overrule your God-given conscience to do what you think God wants, stop immediately. You’re doing it wrong.

        7. fogel

          That is a VERY good rule of thumb.

        8. fogel

          Lord, he IS very badly messed up, ‘tricked’ into horrific, unjustifiable, unforgivable actions, by his hateful dogma and his determination not to be “tricked” into shirking his “duty”. That’s what evokes my sorrow and pity — and horror.

        9. WaytoomanyUIDs

          Yeah, I reckon both. He’s hoping to guilt Becky straight, and if it has to be by suicide by cop then so be it. he is not exactly rational

      3. liahansen

        but what about Becky’s mom? Did she like leave him or like did he… do something…? yknow?

        1. Arianod

          He didn’t. No way Becky wouldn’t have mentioned it at some point if he had.

        2. Deanatay

          Er, actually, when a parent dies in a bad way, it tends to be something the kids DON’T like to talk about. Even to their friends. ESPECIALLY to their friends.

        3. merbrat

          Word of Willis is she died of cancer, last year. But, this is disturbing, Ross is saying Satan took her. Isn’t the usual (when someone beloved dies) God took her early/before her time/etc?

        4. Lucy

          My personal theory is that she admitted to not believing/losing her faith before she died. I remember hearing a lot of prayers as a child for elderly relatives and acquaintances to resist the “last temptation”–basically, letting the devil use your fear of death to destroy your faith in your last moments.

        5. Cerberus

          It could also be that they believe in prayer as the best medicine, so part of her “betrayal” could be her seeking medical intervention instead of trusting to his prayers.

        6. merbrat

          I thought that was just Christian Science (my grandmother was very big with that. I went to Sunday School, but still went to doctors) We didn’t believe in the devil, though.

        7. neeks

          She’s dead. Precisely how she died has yet to be explained. Beyond, uh, Satan, I guess.

          Which doesn’t really clarify it.

      4. John

        No, that would be better, because then he could bond with Dina over their shared love of Cocoa Puffs.

    2. Gangler

      I’m hoping he means that Becky’s mother ran off with her new wife so he told Becky she was dead to shield Becky from the harsh reality of the situation.

      1. Mkvenner

        That sounds like something Willis would do.

      2. LeslieBean4Shizzle

        That’s my guess.

      3. Lord Stoneheart

        The main reason I wouldn’t guess that is that Willis has referred to her as being dead. (And Ross has referred to her as dead to people other than Becky)

        1. Gangler

          If his ex-wife isn’t straight he’s probably not too eager to talk about that to every stranger he meets in Joyce’s college campus.

        2. No Name

          You seem to forget that Willis, the literal God of the DoA-verse, said she was dead. For over a year, so the grief isn’t going to be to much of drag in either case.

        3. fizzywafflezsuperstore

          He could just be saying that so we don’t spoil the twist ending for ourselves

      4. timemonkey

        Willis already said she was dead.

        1. EmbraceEvil

          but if she was “taken by Satan” doesn’t that mean that her death involved something Ross views as sin?

        2. fogel

          Well, what does his religion say about suucide, for one thing? That’s some pretty serious sin according to the Roman Catholic Church.

        3. EmbraceEvil

          wouldn’t be surprised. kind of makes Becky even better if this is true, considering how cheerful/perky she is

        4. thejeff

          But Becky isn’t necessarily “cheerful/perky”. Becky puts on a huge “cheerful/perky” front because she thinks no one will like her if she doesn’t. .
          She was also “cheerful/perky” when she first showed up on the run and desperate. She’s very good at seeming perky when she’s actually on the verge of a breakdown.
          This is not actually a sign of mental health and a good loving upbringing.

        5. fogel

          Yes. Also her reaction when Joyce told her that she didn’t reciprocate her amorous & physical attraction/desire.

        6. WaytoomanyUIDs

          The are not Roman Catholic, they are evangelical protestants. Do you have some special breed of nutjob Catholics over there or something?

        7. EmbraceEvil

          from my experience (through my best friend who is catholic mostly) there is a lot of disagreement in the catholic churches to the point even people in the same church has disagreements.

        8. Reepunzel

          That sounds like every church everywhere.

        9. fogel

          Suicide is a super sin in the RCC. I don’t know how it is in Toedads religion, which is a variety of protestant I’m not very familiar with.

        10. Trolldrool

          Last I checked, most protestant denominations don’t have a problem with suicide. As in, they of course don’t want people to kill themselves, but it’s not considered an unforgivable sin that lands you straight in Hell.

        11. Kamino Neko

          Suicide is a super sin in the RCC.

          No, it really isn’t. It is a sin, yes, but not ‘a super sin’.

          The Catechism of the Catholic Church has this to say on suicide:

          Why it is bad:

          2280 Everyone is responsible for his life before God who has given it to him. It is God who remains the sovereign Master of life. We are obliged to accept life gratefully and preserve it for his honor and the salvation of our souls. We are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us. It is not ours to dispose of.

          2281 Suicide contradicts the natural inclination of the human being to preserve and perpetuate his life. It is gravely contrary to the just love of self. It likewise offends love of neighbor because it unjustly breaks the ties of solidarity with family, nation, and other human societies to which we continue to have obligations. Suicide is contrary to love for the living God.

          2282 If suicide is committed with the intention of setting an example, especially to the young, it also takes on the gravity of scandal. Voluntary co-operation in suicide is contrary to the moral law.

          Why it is not ‘a super sin’:

          Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide.

          2283 We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance. The Church prays for persons who have taken their own lives.

        12. fogel

          K Neko, I see your point. (“Super sin” was deliberate and careless; I’d forgotten the actual sin rating. I figured that “super” covered it. Mostly based on what I know of the RCCs involvement against medical suicide.)

        13. Steve

          Yep. Taken by God is the actual expression for when a loved one dies…

        14. Trolldrool

          Could also imply that he had convinced himself that their relationship was so pure and righteous that Ross could see no conceivable way even God, with all his inscrutable ways, would separate them. And thus Satan is to blame.

        15. Benwhoski

          There are some religious sects that literally believe that illness itself comes from and is spread by Satan. So, he could very well consider death by illness/disease being “taken away by Satan” as it would have been Satan that gave them the illness in the first place.

  6. TrueVCU

    JFC toedad just GO HOME

    1. podian

      James Fenimore Cooper?

      1. Durandal_1707

        Jesus Fried Chicken.

        1. EmbraceEvil

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQf-EV8JXl0

          not sure how to feel about this.

  7. Stephen R. Bierce

    *plays the Purple One’s “I Would Die 4 U” on the hacked Muzak*

    1. MeghanTheDreamCrusher

      Why has the muzak suddenly become hacked? It was always just muzak before.

    2. Bicycle Bill

      I hijacked it a couple days ago when I played the BeeGees.  Stephen hacked into it to regain control.

      1. barefootbiker

        So if I wanted to jam to “Sympathy for the Devil” for this strip, I would have to wipe it clean and re-install its infinite music collection?

  8. Hippienerd

    I hate it when my wife runs away with Satan

    1. de Combys

      She does that often?

      1. gears

        I wish I could simply like this comment. I actually laughed.

      2. Jacknoir

        about once a month

        1. de Combys

          Hahaha!!!

    2. Roborat

      What, she runs off with a washed up European hockey player?

  9. Marvelman

    Um, what’s this about Becky’s mother being taken away? Did we already know this or is it new information?

    1. Doctor_Who

      She left him for a quiet dinosaur girl too.

    2. QF

      New info. We don’t know anything about how she died.

    3. Opus the Poet

      Becky’s mom died from breast cancer a year before the comic started (so sometime around 1989 our time).

    4. Benwhoski

      I believe it was mentioned when ToeDad made his first appearance that Becky’s mother had passed away.

      1. liahansen

        ohhhhh ok

    5. Catullus

      Becky’s mother died about a year prior to the events of DoA.

    6. kelticat

      Unless he thinks cancer is caused by Satan, this is new information.

      1. Tacos

        He might actually think that.

      2. Rycan

        I wouldn’t put that past him.

      3. Heatth

        I wouldn’t be surprised if he thought cancer is caused by Satan, to be honest.

      4. Cerberus

        Oh, forgot about the cancer.

        As to your question, it depends. Some evangelical group members see illness as a major test of faith and a reminder that death comes like “a thief in the night to righteous and villain both without warning or regard for goodness”. But others genuinely believe in things like the healing power of prayer, so when cancer fails to go into remission, that becomes either a sign that their faith was not strong enough or pure enough or that Satan has especially chosen their family to do violence upon.

        I’m going to guess Toedad is the latter type of dude.

        1. de Combys

          Ew wth people

        2. SDGlyph

          Hm, I’m not convinced it’s a direct “illness = Satan” link there. I think it’s more to do with Ross’ own need for control. He’s a full-blown authoritarian, evidently, and part of that mindset is that things don’t ‘just happen’. Someone has to be in control. That means either Ross, or a higher authority he defers to.

          Ross’ wife died, and his illusion of control was shaken. I’m pretty sure he’s also swallowed the fundamental attribution error (that bad things don’t happen to good people, or essentially that bad things happen because the person deserved it somehow) but can’t bring himself to believe that it was deserved, so he needs another reason. What do fundamentalist types call it when bad things happen outside their control? Satan.

          I think Ross has spent the last year twisting himself around this until he’s convinced that Satan is attacking him and his family and he has to fight back. This is his test; he and only he stands in Satan’s way and he must be prepared to do anything to regain control*. In other words, I read this as a breakdown.

          Guy needs therapy. Well, first he needs to put the gun down and be taken into custody so he’s no longer a danger to himself and others, but then he needs therapy.

          (Seriously, some of the people baying for blood in here scare me. Look in the mirror, people.)

        3. SDGlyph

          * There’s another ugly aspect here that I didn’t want to digress into above, and that’s that it seems to be all about Ross in his head. It’s common to the authoritarian mindset. Look at his phrasing: “Satan took your mother from me”, “How dare [Dina] try to steal my daughter away from me”. It’s not about his wife’s suffering, or his daughter trying to find her identity in life; it’s about Ross, as the authority figure in his family.

          I’m not sure to what extent I think this has been his mindset all along, as opposed to something that he’s built up as a coping mechanism since his wife died (I don’t think he’s always been this bad; the commenters saying they were surprised he’d take Becky and Joyce to Six Flags were probably on to something). I think it’s clear, though, that Becky discovering her orientation was the snapping point. It would be interesting to know, not that I ever expect an answer, how things would have gone if Becky came out while her mother was still alive.

        4. Deanatay

          He probably feels very alone. His wife died, so he became very attached to his daughter. Unfortunately, he’s an authoritarian, so his way of expressing affection is to try to control (‘protect’) his daughter. Now she’s rebelling against that control, and he feels even lonelier, and its driven him to a pretty dark place.

        5. Cerberus

          Very much all of this. Things aren’t going on for his wife or for his daughter, it’s all about him and his role as moral protector and authority for his family. Bad things aren’t just bad things outside his control, they are Satan attacking him personally. Because as the man of the house, he’s the only one who really matters in the end.

        6. fogel

          You make this flavor of patriarchy extremely vivid and understandable.

    7. Blue

      We know she died about a year (or maybe less) before the start of the comic. We don’t know exactly what she died of.

      Coming from Toedad, that could mean almost anything.

      1. LeslieBean4Shizzle

        Gangler above suggested that the death-by-cancer thing may have been a fiction he told Becky to cover his wife running away with a woman. From context, I’m finding that theory fairly possible.

      2. Blue

        Sooo, why is your name “blue”? I have blue hair. Just curious.

        1. Blue

          Very random. The cast and I started college around the same time. When I took Japanese (only a semester, so I have naturally lost it all by now), a friend in the class nicknamed me the Japanese word for blue. I decided to go with that for the comments.

          I’m considering photoshopping the Dina grav so her hat looks like a TARDIS and changing my name on here to DinaWho (since I make an egregious number of references already), so this was a perfectly timed question.

          I had seen you commenting about here before, so nice to finally talk to my comment name twin!

        2. saki

          Fellow Whovian here, I look forward to seeing that TARDIS hat if you do photoshop it, sounds like an awesome idea! :3

    8. Yotomoe

      The story of Taken 2 is actually based on Ross. He didn’t make a dime off of the royalties however. He’s being a dramatic asshole now so he can gather more hype for the next Taken movie, Taken Tag Tournament.

      1. evilmidnightlurker

        …go stand in the corner and think about what you’ve done.

      2. OnyxIdol

        +1

  10. AnvilPro

    I swear guys, we’re one comic away from a happy ending

    1. lejwocky

      All we need is for Dina to initiate instrumentality

      1. Inkblot

        I wish that I could turn back time~

      2. Tacos

        What would a Dina-led Instrumentality be like? Probably includes dinosaurs. Scientifically accurate ones.

    2. Marie

      ka spew

      1. Dana

        I’m hoping things turn out well enough for that to be okay to repeat later on. Intended to comment with such when i’d finished reading the comments.

    3. Toad

      Ha, nope, this comic “day” is going to last at least until November 5th, according to Joyce’s outfit in the preview panels on Willis’ tumblr. I suspect it’ll end on or near the 10th, when he previewed a shot of a hospital…

      1. Darwin

        Dear god. That’s a horrible way to start a day of Fallout 4!

        1. LiamKav

          Considering that a day of Fallout 4 will involve most of humanity being wiped out in a nuclear war, the comic will probably be fairly light in comparison.

  11. inqntrol

    Satan took his wife? So will we get to know how Becky’s mother died?

    1. Mada

      Satan took her, obviously.

      🙂

      1. Someone

        Next story arc they travel to hell.

        1. Rycan

          In a handbasket!

        2. m2iCodeJockey

          “If you’re goin’ to hell, take a limo!”
          (Louie Anderson)

        3. fizzywafflezsuperstore

          Becky’s ride to hell is very hugglable.

    2. Dean

      We don’t know that she died. Maybe she ran off.

      I feel kind of bad for Ross. Look at him, he has absolutely no idea how to handle the situation he’s in.

    3. Annalabagaba

      Are you sure she died? If Satan is at works here according to toedad than its more likeley adultery, alcoholism, drug abuse…. hell maybe she discovered her own queerness or transgender self.

    4. Yotomoe

      Satan literally came up and just grabbed her and took her to hell. He’s kind of a dick like that.

      1. Tacos

        Isn’t that the story of Hades and Persephone?

        1. podian

          So does she come back to Toedad for six months every year?

        2. Yotomoe

          “So how’s satan”
          “Ah you know. Busy. Him and Jesus have been arguing a lot. Occupying himself by writing speeches for Donald Trump. That kinda thing”
          “That’s so like him”.

        3. fizzywafflezsuperstore

          So Donald Trump is secretly a puppet being controlled by Satan, or Donald Trump is so evil that Satan’s just like “Hey, man, I wrote a speech for you! You don’t have to thank me, because you’re evil.”

        4. stevecharb

          You also don’t have to wash your hands. Because you’re evil.

        5. chris73

          Or Persephone knowing that her Mom would be pissed deliberately ate the seeds knowing she’d have to stay because she didn’t want to leave…

        6. Kintrex

          Only if God encouraged Satan to do it because he deserved her.

    5. Kai

      Satan took his wife?
      … From behind? Did he pay a nickel?

      1. Dana

        You know Satan. The nickel was probably wooden

      2. fizzywafflezsuperstore

        Wait, wait, wait. Do you mean to say that Mike is setting the example for Satan!?

        That’s quite an accomplishment, Mike–Conglaturation!

  12. SpoopyFox

    jesus christ, he really believes he’s making the right choice here

    1. Mkvenner

      Called it!

    2. Cerberus

      Of course. To do otherwise would be moral relativism and moral relativism is the Devil trying to twist your mind and play off your empathy. The righteous stand firm even when it is hard and resist like Jesus when he underwent his temptation. After all demons will say anything to avoid being driven out by the righteous.

      And I wish that last paragraph was a joke, but that’s really the worldview. Think Bush back when he was selling his “Moral Clarity” garbage. To a disturbingly large number of people, morality is defined by never changing one’s stance or mind even in the face of new information. To a pre-millennial dispensationalist rapture-believing Christian type, there’s the added wrinkle that empathy itself is a sign of the Antichrist. After all, someone without God in their heart (as defined as belonging to the right Church and believing the right things), cannot be good by definition and as such there can not be good in them to see and empathize with. So any tug of the heart-strings is an attempt by a demon to corrupt your soul.

      1. saki

        Fundamentalism is some scary shit, man.

        1. cynthash

          That it is.

      2. Gamaran Sepudomyn

        By that logic, toedad is trying to be Satan toeday.

    3. Smiling Cat

      As a rule, people generally don’t do something if they believe it to be the wrong choice.

    4. andmangrewproud

      “The villain is the hero of his own story.”

  13. SpacemanSpiff85

    Maybe don’t make the guy feel like he has nothing to lose, Becky.

    1. Alice Macher

      I guess she was counting on him still having a glimmer of sanity in there somewhere.

      1. SpacemanSpiff85

        If he’s sane enough to realize she’s telling the truth, that’s the problem. If he thinks that he’s going to die anyway, so whatever he does doesn’t matter, that’s a big problem.

        1. Mkvenner

          Depends on when the SWAT team gets here.

      2. Darwin

        Toedad is sane. His behavior is horribly irrational to us, but he’s got his sanity. To him, and the religion he’s chosen, this requires a big gesture. He has to demonstrate that he will do and risk anything to save his beloved daughter. Now in a world that works basically like ours, we all know this is colloquially ‘nuts’, but it’s not any real mental illness or breakdown. These are all rational choices based on a magical worldview. They’re really -bad- choices, because the world isn’t magical, but they’re rational ones.

        1. Cybersnark

          His actions are internally consistent, he’s just Wrong Genre Savvy.

        2. SpacemanSpiff85

          This just seems like reading in a lot to a character who really hasn’t been developed at all beyond “jerk” and “claims to be Christian”.

        3. Darwin

          I start with the idea that he has a life outside of his appearance in the comic. It’s not Toedad of Age, after all. We start with what we do know about him. He’s a jerk now, yes. His behavior is ‘nutty’ (not insane, just wrong for the society he and we live in). But Becky’s basically okay. She’s a charming lady. Sure, she’s good at hiding what’s really bothering her, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t get a basically good upbringing. So I base what I think about Toedad on his effect on characters we do know he has interacted with in the past.

  14. Mada

    Oh come on, panel 2 dude there needs a tag.

    Also Ka-Spew is now the best face.

    1. I Write Monsters

      I will laugh my ass off if he becomes “Panel 2 Dude” and only ever appears in the second panel.

      1. fizzywafflezsuperstore

        That would be great.

  15. EdHead

    If Ross leaves now, he can probably get away before the cops show up.

    1. barefootbiker

      Enough people have seen him, though, including people who saw his car, that he wouldn’t be able to stay hidden for long. Whether or not he actually shoots anybody, pulling out a gun on a college campus and threatening people (in this case, probably only Dina directly, although Becky definitely has a case) would be more than enough to constitute menace and possibly stalking. In Indiana, those can carry fines of up to $10,000 or 3 years in prison for the stalking charge, or up to $1,000 or 180 days in prison for the menace charge. If Becky, Dina or IU decided to call the police, Ross could wind up in some pretty deep shit– especially if he decides to keep his hands on that gun when the cops show up, which given his current emotional state is definitely plausible.

      1. Darwin

        Pretty sure that since he had the gun when he threw off Dina (whose actions could be construed as self-defense), he’s got felony battery on top of that. Given that he was acting because Becky was a homosexual and Dina was her girlfriend, that tacks on a hate crime rider, which would make anything else irrelevant.

        1. Gamaran Sepudomyn

          It’s Indiana. Indiana apparently has some very badly thought-out hate crime laws, which do not cover sexuality-related hate crime.

        2. Silamy

          I’ve been wondering -how old are Dina, Becky and Joyce? If any of them is seventeen still, is Toedad also facing additional charges for assaulting/endangering the welfare of a minor?

  16. Plasma Mongoose

    “Better out than in?”

  17. thebatman22

    What happened to Beckys mom???

    1. No Name

      Satan took her! Didn’t you Ross Babies McIntyre? He’s the authoritive source on everything!
      /sarcasm
      But seriously, she died. Breast cancer apparently.

      1. Dellaran

        Actually, Ross is dyslexic… it’s Santa who took Becky’s mom. She’s an elf now.

    2. Smiling Cat

      I would guess we’ll find out soon.

    3. Carolyn

      They were just out on a walk when Satan jumped out from behind some bushes and shot her.

  18. Twilightomens

    Oh my god OH MY GOD

  19. Jude Deluca

    What really happened to her mother. Is she really dead or did he just tell everyone that?

  20. Charles Phipps

    Well, it’s possible Becky’s mother is a lesbian or she’s recently been killed (probably not by Toedad).

    1. tim gueguen

      She died a year or so ago. There hasn’t been a cause given in comic.

      1. LeslieBean4Shizzle

        Of course the “cause of death” could be “Toedad made it up to cover his wife leaving him for a woman” – until told otherwise, this is what I choose to believe.

        1. tim gueguen

          Like I said below I can’t imagine Joyce’s parents not knowing if she simply ran off, and if they knew she ran off Joyce would know as well. It’s the kind of thing that would likely generate gossip amongst their group.

        2. LeslieBean4Shizzle

          It wouldn’t be that hard if Toeday said that to EVERYONE, not just Becky. I could see him having a funeral with an empty casket and everything.

        3. Leorale

          I don’t think the cancer story is fake. If Ross was faking a death, he’d want to say she had a sudden heart attack/stroke/aneurysm that killed her instantly. Breast cancer’s way too slow, she’d have to wait for the treatment, people would want to visit her in the hospital, etc.

        4. Marie

          You don’t think she’d say anything to anyone at all? Also, the logistics of arranging such a funeral seem unlikely

        5. LeslieBean4Shizzle

          A) If she was going to run away from a fundamentalist community, where her only friends were likely to shame her or try to “fix” her? No. No I don’t.
          B) Others have said that cancer was never mentioned. Only dead somehow.
          C) If I’m proven wrong tomorrow, that’s fine. I just feel that the implication from the way Toedad said that she was “taken by Satan” and then implied that Becky was also in the process of being “taken by Satan” says a lot.

        6. LeslieBean4Shizzle

          Oh, and D) funerals with no body happen all the time for various reasons. It wouldn’t be that hard. Pointlessly expensive, yes, but possible. Alternatively, he could have claimed she was cremated and simply gotten some wood ashes.

    2. Yotomoe

      She died from being too gay. She got suffocated in lady crotch!

      1. LeslieBean4Shizzle

        I know that’s how I plan to go.

        1. Yotomoe

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zHvI3_fwQY
          And my headstone will be a handprint so you can walk by and give me a high five
          BUH-BAM!

        2. LeslieBean4Shizzle

          **watches video**
          Randy forgot the most important rule of hottub oral – have the person sit up on the edge.
          Although, I have to say, I went in to that video hoping for a story about someone dying by being too gay, that being the part of your original comment that I was replying to specifically.

      2. Tandel

        So what you’re saying is, is that she lived (died?) the dream?

  21. detective boomwolf

    ROSS, NO ONE NEEDS TO DIE HERE! RIGHT NOW, MANY OF US ARE OK WITH THE IDEA OF YOU DYING, BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN ANYONE NEEDS TO! FOR BALLS SAKE YOU WALKING SACK OF CRAZY PUT THE FRIGGIN GUN DOWN!!!!!!

    1. Someone

      As much as I hate him I don’t want him to die. Wanting people to die is fucked up no matter who they are

      1. detective boomwolf

        I don’t want him to die either. I don’t want anyone here to die. But if anyone dies here and it happens to be him i honestly don’t think I’d be extremely torn up over it. I dunno about everyone else of course, I suppose I could’ve worded that better.

      2. Gamaran Sepudomyn

        I don’t want him to die. Death is too good for him.

    2. Deanatay

      Thank you, Hostage Negotiator Boomwolf.

  22. DarkoNeko

    “Satan took your mom from me”

    …I *really* don’t like where this is going. She probably commited suicide.

    1. DarkoNeko

      I mean, if it was (physical) sickness, there’s no way he’d have formulated it that way.

      1. saki

        It was mentioned above that she died from cancer, which some religious groups may consider to be the work of Satan.

        1. DarkoNeko

          hm, I didn’t remember that.

      2. Agemegos

        Right. It wouldn’t make sense to say that Satan had taken her if she might have gone to Heaven. It’s God who takes away good people. “Satan took her” means she’s gone to Hell.

    2. Safgaftsa

      That was my guess. I wouldn’t be surprised if he abused her, either.

    3. Marie

      I think physical sickness and stuff would still count. Satan made her sick, somehow (or made her get hit by a bus, or whatever).

      But it could also be something he sees more obviously as Satan’s influence, like suicide.

      Or she could have been murdered by a cult, idk.

      1. No Name

        I’m thinking the cancer caused to much suffering and she went the easy way out.

  23. Dalrint

    Actually, depending on the state, he’s perfectly allowed to brandish his rifle at a school.

    Yeah. I wish that wasn’t true either…

    1. Dr. T

      Not in Indiana. Legally he is allowed to have it secured away out of sight in his car when on school property, but waving it around like that is way, way, way out of bounds.

      1. Deanatay

        Even if it were still technically legal, with the literal plague of school shootings going on, he’d probably be arrested or shot pretty quickly.

    2. TheOthin

      Regardless of laws about what you can carry where, he’s clearly threatening people with a deadly weapon. I don’t think there’s any place in America where that’s legal.

    3. Tacos

      What? To my knowledge no state let’s you brandish a rifle at school. Or does open carry also apply to long guns?

      1. John

        Carry laws are generally more lenient about long arms, which are hunting weapons (and I know folks for whom that’s still a survival necessity), than about handguns, which basically exist only for punching holes in targets and killing people. I haven’t actually looked it up, but someone else here said a few days ago that open carry of long arms is legal without a permit in Indiana.

        But like I said below, there’s a big difference between “carry” and “assault”.

    4. John

      I’m pretty sure what he’s doing with it isn’t legal anywhere. I believe open carry of long arms is legal in Indiana, but what he’s doing isn’t “carry”, it has names like “brandishing”, “‘terrorizing”, “assault with a deadly weapon”, and “attempted kidnapping”, and those are crimes, at least a couple of them serious felonies.

      1. John

        Oh, and while the carry might be legal, it is against IU rules on their campus.

    5. Smiling Cat

      Even in open carry situations, you aren’t allowed to make threatening gestures with it unless in defense of yourself or a third party. He is aiming it at people.

    6. Darwin

      Carry in some states? Probably okay. But never ‘brandish’. That’s a crime in lots of places, and can be interpolated as a crime in all the rest. Nobody likes people who yell and hold guns in their hands ready for action.

  24. Cattleprod

    My initial response: “That person diving for cover in panel two is awfully tall.” Statue. Right.

    1. DarkoNeko

      hahahahahahah XD

    2. Yotomoe

      Sculptor, could you sculpt me diving for cover. I just have a sneaking suspicion some shit is gonna go down right here at this spot years from now.

      1. Dean

        Years ago, Toedad burst into the sculptor’s studio with a rifle while the sculpting was in progress. Dude gets around.

        1. Blue

          My first thought when I read that comment was ‘Bootstrap paradox!’

      2. Deanatay

        Well, from an artist’s perspective, all of the characters in this comic are still images – technically, none of them actually move. The illusion of movement is just that.

        Even images in movies are technically a fast-moving sequence of stills. In fact, the human eyeball perceives movement through a progression of still images – maybe ALL movement is illusion!

        *reasons himself into catatonia*

        1. Blue

          Technically, what our eyes see is all still images and specialised neurons in the brain interpret movement from cues in the information coming from our eyes. It’s actually a (rare) medical condition where someone can’t perceive movement.

          So basically… you’re kind of right?

  25. Shanunu

    I’m glad that Becky is trying to reason with him. Like I don’t know what Toedad thought would happen. You don’t bring a gun to a school. You just don’t.

  26. John

    I think the hovertext is being optimistic about the contents of Ross’s head.

  27. Tacos

    Oh no Willis, don’t go trying to get us to feel sympathy for him. We ain’t falling for that… hopefully.

    1. Yotomoe

      I have a huge capacity to feel sympathy for anything. Especially evil things. Because no one else will.

      1. Tacos

        Then I must commend you for your capacity to feel sympathy for him. I have none for him.

      2. Gamaran Sepudomyn

        I wouldn’t classify him as evil. Evil is actually knowing that what you’re doing is wrong and doing it precisely because of that. Jerkass is thinking that what you’re doing is right, without caring about others feelings. Within this framework, the spectrum goes: Galasso-Mike-Toedad.

    2. Mkvenner

      I’m not. I’m more worried about Dina.

      1. DarkoNeko

        well, rest easy.

        Or, you know, don’t.

        1. Gamaran Sepudomyn

          Yay! She survives. But she could still have horrible injuries that we can’t actually see.

        2. SDGlyph

          Ah! Whew. Thanks, I hadn’t seen that one yet.
          So Dina looks pretty much unscathed and untraumatised there, only a day or two of comic time later.

          And good post title, Willis! 🙂

  28. Hogan

    Now, that was good to hear… now, will you please proceed to the front gate and wave that gun around a bit for good measure, then wait for the men in blue to show up and grant you your wish?

    1. Mkvenner

      Aren’t State Troopers usually in khaki?

      1. Dr. T

        No, that’s the Sheriff’s Dept. Indiana State troopers wear dark blue.

        1. Deanatay

          Ah, but what color do IU campus police wear?

        2. Dean

          Blue, according to Google Images.

        3. Dr. T

          Yeah, cream and crimson uniforms would look ridiculous, so blue it is.

  29. Mandy

    Poor Becky. On top of everything, now she has to be upset about and terrified that she’s going to see her own father killed.

    1. Cerberus

      In front of her.

      Now matter how much one has hardened one’s heart against a toxic family member who is a direct threat to you, that’s a really hard thing to go through.

      1. Leorale

        and if he does indeed get SWATted, Becky will totally feel like her dad died before her eyes because she was gay. (It wouldn’t be true — his response was all his choice and not hers — but she couldn’t help but feel that it was her fault.)
        There is nothing good about this scenario.

        1. Cerberus

          This. There’s a lot of guilt potentially at play here. Feeling like her gayness is going to get her dad killed. Feeling that her seeking out Joyce’s help may just get her shot at or further traumatized. Feeling that her allowing herself a bit of happiness with a new girlfriend may have just put said girlfriend in a potentially deadly situation.

          Even if Toedad is meekly arrested and no one is shot, Becky is not getting out of this without even more of a complex about how much she “imposes” on people and how much “damage” her presence is “causing”.

  30. Yotomoe

    Satan actually met her mother at a company picnic. They just hit it off. She spent a while trying to break it off with Ross and he took it really hard. Satan’s just a really charming gentleman with a very unfortunate name. Runs a puppy sanctuary. Occassionally bites the head off of a goat.

    1. Rycan

      Girls just love a bad angel, don’t they?

      1. Yotomoe

        You could say she’s really fallen for him.

      2. saki

        May bad, bad angel~ You put the devil in me~

        1. DarkoNeko

          So to speak.

    2. Rheinman

      Perhaps he is referring to former NHL goalie Miroslav Satan, who she tried to run away with until the tragic Zamboni incident…

      1. WaytoomanyUIDs

        That is now my head canon

      2. Deanatay

        SOOO many Zamboni-related deaths!

        WHEN WILL THEY FIND A CURE??

  31. Nat

    Well… I hope this works….

  32. FriendlyNeighborhoodDave

    …Now i’m scared to ask how her mother died.

    1. Opus the Poet

      breast cancer about a year ago in-comic.

      1. Blue

        Can I have a source for the cause being breast cancer? Not that I don’t think it’s plausible, but I’m not sure if that might be confusing her with Dana’s mom, who I know for certain did. Either an in-comic reference or a Willis comment or Tumblr post works.

        1. inqntrol

          Ross only said that his wife died without giving the reason.Dana’s mother is the one who died from breast cancer. Here.

        2. FriendlyNeighborhoodDave

          I remember Willis posting on Tumblr that she was dead, but I don’t think he’s ever revealed what the actual cause was. Ross’s comments here make me worried.

        3. Blue

          I just recently looked at his tumblr, and he is still declining to give a cause of death, but hinted that it may end up being revealed in-comic.

  33. CommunistCanada

    Damn it Willis. Do not make me feel sympathy for this guy because his wife is dead. I refuse.

    1. Mr. Demiurge

      You shouldn’t feel sympathy for this guy because his wife is dead. You should feel sympathy for this guy because he is the product of a pretty warped subculture which teaches that everyone either accepts its ideas or spends the rest of eternity roasting and screaming and pleading for mercy that never comes in a lake of fire.

      I don’t know about you, but if I believed with all my heart and soul that some of the family members I love most were headed for such a fate, I could imagine doing some pretty drastic things to prevent it. Examined in that light, Toedad is a figure to be pitied as much or more than hated.

    2. Mr. random

      Why not? You can sympathize with someone sometimes even if you hate him.

  34. JessWitt

    So, monochromatic flashback to Becky’s mom’s passing?

  35. Cody

    Ross has now punched the ticket for the Crazy Train.

    1. cynthash

      *epic guitar solo*

    2. NinjaNick

      Dumdum. Dumdum dumdum dumdum. Aye-ay-ay-ay.

  36. Charles Phipps

    I suspect we’ll find out the gun isn’t loaded and ToeDad actually wants to die.

    1. Marie

      The gun being loaded isn’t going to prevent him from dying though, should they choose to fire.

      1. DarkoNeko

        thatsthepoint.gif

        1. Marie

          I may have worded it badly (a bit backward) but I don’t think it was that redundant. I meant that wanting to die doesn’t mean it isn’t loaded.

  37. otusasio451

    …Well, holy shit.

    Also, how the hell did Becky’s mom die?

  38. mo

    KA SPEW

    I love how Becky can somehow stay so Becky-esque in situations like this.

  39. TheTJ

    Becky’s mom actually just shacked up with a guy named “Stan” and Toedad never could keep the name straight.

    1. Yotomoe

      He has similar issues with his coworkers Lucy Furrr and Muffy Stopholes.

      1. Tenchan

        You two literally made me loled!

      2. saki

        You guys crack me up. XD Glad the comment section keeps its humour no matter how serious the strip gets.

    2. segnosaur

      Actually it was Miroslav Satan that she shacked up with…. former NHL player who played for the Penguins, Sabres, and several other teams.

      1. John

        He took her to Hell. Michigan.

        1. DarkoNeko

          And on this day, Hell was freezing over. I mean, of course it was, it’s Michigan.

        2. Clif

          Was unfamiliar with Hell, Michigan. Only knew about Hell, Texas whose main claim to fame are their “I danced in Hell” T-shirts.

  40. CommunistCanada

    Is there a way to view the hovertext on mobile? If not can somebody tel me what it is?

    1. JessWitt

      Tap on either left or right space below comic strip

      1. lejwocky

        Thank you kindly.

        1. JessWitt

          Sure thing.

  41. Mr. random

    A broken man is scary. For he who has nothing to lose will do anything to get it back.

    1. Mr. random

      Also, I’m doing this on a PHONE! How sweet is that?!

  42. poppaboo2electricboogaloo

    Oh hey it’s Background Bob.

    1. Orion Fury

      I nominate this name. Is there a second on that? Willis?

  43. Yotomoe

    I have to wonder what his projected “Best Case Scenario” is. Like “I’ll get shot in the face and that’ll make my daughter stop eating taco.” I mean to be fair, I’d probably not be intimate with anyone if it gave me the mental image of my father’s brains getting blown out whenever I make out with a lady. Those’re some extreme measures there, Ross.

    1. StClair

      In all seriousness? He shoots Becky before she can descend any further into sin, giving her at least some chance of eventually making it to heaven, and then gets martyred-by-cop.

      1. StClair

        (Actually, really best-case for him would be that she caves, gets in the car, and they go back home and None Of This Ever Happened. But I think he’d be willing to “settle” for the above.

        Remember, this mortal world is but an ephemeral shadow; heaven and hell are eternal.)

        1. Yotomoe

          You know, assuming his stupid crazy religious shit is right, it’d almost be kind of a meaningful sacrifice since the last thing he did on earth is kill his daughter. That’s gotta be a huge gamble for going to hell. Like even if he believes the Lord will grant him amnesty I’m sure it’s not a 100% Guarantee God won’t forsake you for that shit. That’s a hell of a theoretical insane sacrifice.

        2. Kamino Neko

          Except that it is 100% guaranteed in his world view. It is an act of pious devotion and self-sacrifice in the name of God. There’s nothing that gets you into heaven faster than that.

        3. StClair

          yeah, just ask Abraham.

          LORD: “hahaha no, j/k, it’s okay, you don’t really have to kill your own son, dude. It’s enough that you would because I asked.”

  44. Cerberus

    I want to just take a moment to highlight how badass each of the main women of this arc have been.

    I mean, we had Dina attacking and trying to waylay an armed man who was at least double her weight just to try and protect her girlfriend.

    Last comic we had Joyce moving subtly in front of Becky in order to be a physical barrier and to try and talk him down from his “crusade” and trying genuinely hard to be the voice of wisdom.

    And this comic… I mean, her father has now just threatened both of them with a gun. That is a major escalation, but she makes sure to check in about her girlfriend, moves out of Joyce’s way so she won’t be shot if he chooses to fire and even though she’s scared and crying, she’s even trying to save her dad’s life and try and reason with him as best she can. Even though that action might get her shot by the man who raised her.

    That’s damn heroic.

    And this fucker can’t see beyond lesbians=Satan because pastor told me so.

    1. Idon'tcarenomore

      +1

      1. liahansen

        me also with the +1

        1. saki

          Seconded. (Or, technically, thirded?)

    2. Bagge

      They are so AWESOME. Brave and compassionate even in the face of this horror.

      Heh, in the midst of everything it’s just hilarious that Joyce and Becky do the same “no, me first”-shuffle they did with the beds.

      Fudge you, Ross

    3. Darwin

      I’m guessing Toedad is triple Dina’s weight. If she’s more than a hundred pounds in winter clothes and big heavy boots, I’ll eat a soda can (she’s built like my foster daughter, who is 60″ and 98#s). Toedad looks like he’s around three hundred. He’s very tall, heavily muscled, and it looks like he’s going to pot in the gut. My father was in similar shape and he was about 300.

  45. liahansen

    jfc panel three is gonna make me cry

    1. Rodimiss

      I can’t deal with those tears.

  46. Julian

    Why isn’t this strip titled “Ka-spew”, that’s what I want to know.

    1. JessWitt

      ‘Cause Willis wanted to mislead us with the title “Troopers” to expect the worst/best.

    2. John

      He’s saving “Ka-spew” for when it actually happens?

  47. Selv

    Uggghhhh…”If you don’t come with me, they’ll kill me and you’ll feel guilty forever!” He’s forcing a lose/lose situation.

    1. Chubsius

      Yup, he’s just made the classic suicide threat, making himself simultaneously the hostage-taker and hostage.

      1. Cerberus

        It’s a common enough abuser ploy. Threaten killing yourself or threaten to kill a close loved one of the target to get them to play along and comply and do what you want. One of my ex’s abusive boyfriends pulled that card multiple times in order to prevent her from leaving him and to make her more compliant with regards to his regular sexual assaults.

  48. Idon'tcarenomore

    Oh Crap!. So now are we supposed to ‘feel’ for Toedad? Well, I don’t. The man is a total psycho, who sees his daughter, not as a person, but as a possession.
    Blow him away, and get his threat to life off the planet.

    1. Smiling Cat

      Since this is just another layer of abuse, no, I don’t think we’re supposed to feel bad for him.

      1. Smiling Cat

        Also since he’s still aiming the gun in the direction of his daughter.

    2. Marie

      I don’t think sympathy for toedad is what he’s going for so much as Becky being very heartbroken because she knows that’s where it’s going, and to show how far gone her dad is already.

      1. Marie

        (and like smiling cat said, it is just another abuse, although one that has historically gotten sympathy)

    3. Yotomoe

      “It’s good to just kill people who are dangerous because life being valuable is actually a myth. I’m sure Becky can’t wait to see her dad fucking die. I know I’D be happy.”

      1. No Name

        The world isn’t black and white. There’s a continuum of greys in between, as well as every color in the rainbow and a few that aren’t. Willis does a pretty good job of capturing that.

        Besides, just because a man is upset his wife is gone doesn’t mean we have to relate to him. All it means is he’s human. Nearly everyone has lost a loved one, and those who haven’t will soon enough.

        1. No Name

          Darn it, wrong guy. One level up, guys.

        2. Smiling Cat

          *nod* understanding isn’t condoning. He’s disturbed, unstable, grieving, and still wrong.

      2. lime sheep

        the fact that becky still loves her dad doesnt mean we have to

        1. Smiling Cat

          Hate only ends one way, though.

        2. Rutee

          lol no. Sometimes it ends with your safety and sanity with a better life.

          Fucking hell people, watch the damn platitudes.

        3. Smiling Cat

          Bullshit. Anger and hate doesn’t fix you, it eats you up. The person who’s safe, sane, and in a better life didn’t get there by hating someone, they got there by walking away.

        4. Smiling Cat

          Too provide further emphasis, President Donald Trump. This would have no chance of happening if our first response to something we don’t like or want wasn’t to hate it.

        5. lime sheep

          ???????

    4. Mr. Demiurge

      I find it sad that so many people here can’t. Toedad is simply an especially ugly product of an already ugly belief system. There is a distinction to be made between a first generation abuser and someone who has himself grown up abused and as such has developed in such a way where he can no longer understand what is acceptable behavior.

      1. NakedDumblydore

        Thank you for saying this. There’s a relevant (not equivalent, though) situation in my personal life, and no one’s been able to phrase this in a way that I could really wrap my head around. This makes sense, though.

  49. Lone Wolf

    I’d really, really rather this end without anyone’s brains getting blown out. Even toedad’s.

    1. Smiling Cat

      Agreed.

    2. liahansen

      I don’t think thatll happen. Im sure the no-death policy extends to the main characters’ immediate family as well

  50. Ragnal

    YEAH. THAT’S NOT THE TALK OF A CRAZY GUY. AT ALL!

  51. Smiling Cat

    Soo… emotional blackmail as well. I’m… not sure why I didn’t expect that.

    1. brumagem

      All is fair in love and WHEN THE OTHER GUY HAS A FUCKING GUN.

      1. Smiling Cat

        I’m referring to Toedad’s emotional blackmail of his daughter (he’s essentially threatening suicide unless she submits). Becky’s not doing anything wrong.

        1. No Name

          brumagem’s point still stands.

        2. Smiling Cat

          Maybe, but it’s completely unrelated to mine.

        3. brumagem

          Ah, my mistake. I took you for one of those Toedad Defenders®

  52. newllend(henryvolt)

    What happened to his wife anyway ? We were told she died but we get so back story on that?

  53. Spack

    Becky’s Mom pops into frame: “‘STAN’, Ross! His name is ‘Stan’! No horns or cloven hooves, no cosmic evil involved, just a guy who’s not a colossal toe-shaped asshole!”

    1. Yotomoe

      He’s finger shaped. And Fingers are so much sexier. Especially in bed.

      1. liahansen

        pfff arguable

  54. Larkle

    It’s nice that you’re willing to die for your daughter and all, but maybe you could rechannel that devotion to accepting her for who she is and loving her and maybe not making the news as a psycho shooter.

  55. Tenchan

    I suddenly have the following theme stuck on my head:

    https://youtu.be/SPFJ7LhQygw

  56. Mkvenner

    That can be arranged. 🙂

  57. segnosaur

    Well, at least we know that Dina (probably) isn’t hurt. (Given all the worried comments over the past few days its probably a relief for some.)

    1. brumagem

      The flipside being there’s now about an 80% chance it will be Becky making a hospital visit.

      1. segnosaur

        Not necessarily. Could be toedad if the police show up soon enough. Could be something unrelated to this story line. Heck, it could even be one of the main characters who went to the hospital not from physical injury but from emotional stress.

        1. Darwin

          Personally? I’m hoping it’s an establishing shot for a fakeout where we discover that Ruth has an appointment with her ENT doctor.

        2. brumagem

          I doubt it. Students wouldn’t be going to the hospital to visit Ross, and it is EXCEEDINGLY rare that emotional duress would cause a physical reactions severe enough to warrant an ER visit (although I would not blame anyone who might be in shock after WHATEVER happens if they needed professional help).

    2. Idon'tcarenomore

      We don’t know that, do we?

      1. segnosaur

        Well when Becky said “Have you hurt anybody” he said no. Its certainly possible that he’s lying, but I think its unlikely. For one, he doesn’t seem smart enough, and given the fact that he’s willing to threaten his own daughter with a gun, he might think telling her “I hurt your friend… I’ll do the same for you” would help convince her to go with him.

      2. saki

        From the last strip we saw Dina in, I got the feeling that as soon as Ross spotted Becky he went straight for his car to follow her and totally forgot about Dina. At least that’s what I’m hoping.

      3. Blue

        Out of universe, we now have a preview panel from next chapter showing a reasonably unharmed Dina.

  58. Rideps1

    DAMN YOU WILLIS, MAKING ME FEEL BAD FOR A GUY WHO WAS BEATING UP DINA

  59. Cephalo the Pod

    So, this is good, right?
    I mean, relative to the possibility of him just shooting right away.

    For real though, I’m glad Ross was able to enter conversation. It stalls for time.

    1. newllend(henryvolt)

      The conversation sounds a lot like he’s planning to get himself killed.

  60. brumagem

    BUT TOEDAD if you kill her now she can’t repent her sins and find Jesus again … again (just play along til the gun’s gone).

  61. Plume

    Satan? Whatever happened to ya know “All part of God’s plan”? Isn’t that the party line?

    1. Rycan

      Satan seems to be a convenient bogeyman for some people to pin all the problems of the world upon, so that they don’t have to believe that it’s the work of God. Or something like that.

      1. No Name

        A theory that has popped up is that since Mrs. McIntyre was suffering from her illness (breast cancer), she had an assisted suicide. And as we know, suicide is a sin in Judeo-Christian ideology.

        1. Leorale

          There’s room for argument that subtly assisted suicide might be sometimes acceptable in the case of impending death. But Ross isn’t much of a grey-area thinker anyway.

        2. No Name

          My point precisely. Obviously, the doctor or a nurse had to do the deed, because no one in the church circle would even think of such a thing.

        3. bearpelt

          Ugh, please don’t say “Judeo-Christian.” It’s an inherently anti-Semitic term in that it assumes Judaism is ANYTHING like Christianity, and it’s also Islamiphobic but pretending the third Abrahamic religion is somehow radically different enough from the other two to be left out.

          People really need to stop fucking saying “Judeo-Christian” when they mean CHRISTIAN. I am so fucking tired of seeing goyim say that.

      2. Rheinman

        Not so omnipotent after all.

    2. Kamino Neko

      ‘All part of God’s plan’ is when something bad happens to someone else.

      ‘Satan’ is when it happens to you.

      1. Cybersnark

        And “Lawyers” is when it happens to everybody.

        1. Plume

          lolz nice 😀

      2. Gamaran Sepudomyn

        To quote Terry Pratchett, “Just because it’s not nice doesn’t mean it’s not miraculous.”

  62. Gangler

    Joyce didn’t even know he had a gun. Becky may or may not have known.

    Has he secretly had a gun all along, or did he just buy the thing today? Does he have any idea how to use it properly?

    1. Yotomoe

      Wait, why would Joyce know he had a gun over Becky? In this situation Becky should be more aware of how much possesion he has a gun, right? What are you talkin’ bout?

      1. Gangler

        Joyce in this strip expresses surprise that Ross owns a gun, pretty clearly indicating that she did not know this.

        Joyce then asks Becky if she knew that Ross owns a gun. Becky doesn’t answer, being pre-occupied with other aspects of this situation. It’s unclear whether or not Becky knew that Ross owns a gun since she neither expresses prior ignorance nor prior knowledge of this.

        1. lime sheep

          earlier becky said “why did you bring that”, which implies that she already knew he owned it.

        2. Blue

          Joyce’s line here is a bit ambiguous. She could he asking Becky if she knew her dad owned a gun, or if she knew he had it with him when he confronted her on campus minutes ago.

    2. Lone Wolf

      Some of the people in the comments for the “Clever girl” comic mentioned that he was practicing proper trigger discipline while he was in the woods, and I though I remembered someone mentioning he used to be in the military before he found Jesus, though I’m not 100% sure on that last point.

      1. Kamino Neko

        Ross being ex-military has not been established. It may be canon over in the other universe, for all I know (but I don’t think he had more than a couple appearances there), but it hasn’t been shown for DoA.

      2. Tacos

        Willis has stated that he’s never been in the armed forces.

      3. John

        Back when we got the first picture of butthole dad from the waist down, I asked if he was ex-military or just one of those guys, and didn’t get a direct answer, but something else Willis said led me to believe it was the latter.

        1. David M Willis

          What I said was that he got his camo pants from Walmart.

          Which is a detail I wanted to drop in the strip, but never found a place to fit in. SPOILERS, I guess.

        2. GhostWriterL

          I should say that I took a guess on Ross being more militia than military.

          I should also add that I concluded that because he looks like someone I met in a Walmart parking lot that I stopped at to buy some household necessities on the way home from work a few years ago. A someone who fumbling with a half-empty beer in said parking lot, by his “DON’T TREAD ON ME” and confederate flag adorned truck, and equally adorned with at least one large tattoo of a confederate flag with some kind of battle slogan below it on his arm, who decided to swagger over to where I was loading in my stuff into my car and make a comment about how I should go bar hopping with him and he’d totally show me a good time.

          Dude was also wearing camo pants, and a white shirt (though unlike Ross, it was stained with what I can only assume was beer dribblings, sweat, and maybe vomit.

          I declined his offer and had never stepped foot into a walmart again until about a week ago.

        3. Smiling Cat

          It could just be that he likes camo pants. Or they were on special. Or his other pants were in the laundry.

      4. Xerxes93

        he was practicing trigger discipline, but also he was pointing his gun with no intention to shoot which is also not something you’re supposed to do. so 1/2

      5. Smiling Cat

        I practice proper trigger discipline (and muzzle discipline). I’ve never had any affiliation with the military, militia groups, or any such thing (I also grew up in a rather fundamentalist household).

    3. Julie

      Joyce could have meant “Did you know your dad brought his gun with him today?”

    4. Arkantos

      There’s no way he bought it today. Waiting periods are a thing, unless he bought it from the stupidest private seller this side of the Mississippi.

      1. Darwin

        THere’s usually no waiting period on long arms. Almost all long arms are bought for the explicit purpose of hunting. People who want to commit crimes usually go with pistols, which is why in some jurisdictions, there are waiting periods on handguns.

        1. GhostWriterL

          Depends on the firearm your buying, and if your background check comes back clear or not. If there’s a hit on your check, the gun owner will likely have to wait for a definitive yes or no from the ATF which may take a phone call, a few hours, or days to complete. Anything can really affect that check, such as unpaid parking/traffic fines.

          I think there is a more stringent process for something that qualifies as a defense weapon, such as an AR15 or a handgun, which unlike a hunting weapon, have the intention to some degree of putting holes in a human body.

          Also depends on the state you get the firearm in. California has 3 day waiting period no matter the firearm. A state like Texas has minimal to none. Of all the factors that go into whether someone commits a violent crime with a purchased firearm, this one matters the least. Waiting periods don’t deter someone from killing other people, it just forces them to PLAN to kill other people and wait a little longer before actually killing people. Last I checked, the time of which a shooting takes place is never a considered factor in how bad a shooting is… and all anyone really cares about is one happened at all.

          Or, at the very least, I can say I’ve never heard anyone (not even Fox News or CNN) say something like “5 people were killed at a school shooting in ____ at approximately 10AM, but at least it happened on a Thursday instead of a Monday!”.

        2. qman

          Most states have no waiting periods and very little restriction on rifles, shotguns, and other long guns. California is the exception. Only pistols tend to be heavily regulated. I’ve bought rifles both private sale and in a store, neither required any sort of backgound check. In the store, I had to prove I was 18 and sign a card that had a few lines to the tune of “I am not a fugitive of the law”. (You don’t have to be 18 to buy a rifle, just to legally sign the card. If you’re not, you need a guardian present.) The private sale was like any other cash transaction, there were no legal requirements to report anything, sign anything, do background checks or whathaveyou.

          In most of the US, private sellers normally are not required to do anything. Their liability ends at knowingly selling a gun to someone who is prohibited, which usually amounts to asking to see ID. It is the buyer’s responsibility to be truthful and follow any state law that may apply, such as registering a handgun where required, disclose felonies that would disqualify them, disclose what state they reside in, etc.

        3. thejeff

          Actually, one thing it does is deter impulse “acts of passion”. Sure, you can plan to kill and wait a few days and get a gun and carry out your plan, but you can’t get mad, run down to the corner store, come back with the gun and blow someone away. You’ve at least got a few days to cool down.

          That doesn’t show up on the evening news, since if the story is “Guy bought a gun with the intention of shooting up a school later in the week, but by the time the waiting period was up he’d changed his mind” no one ever finds out about it.

      2. Eric

        I’ve never had any waiting period in five states.

  63. Lord Stoneheart

    I’m not sure what Ross is up to here. But it sounds like he knows that this is going to end poorly for him.

  64. Yotomoe

    Dad, if you strike me down I promise I will become more Gay than you could possibly IMAGINE!

    1. Tandel

      Mmmm… THAT’S good levity. I tip my hat to you.

    2. newllend(henryvolt)

      I now longer think know he planning on killing anyone but himself…so I guess he’s not sure if it suicide or not if he gets someone else to shoot him.

      1. GhostWriterL

        If you’re killed by someone else for a religious and righteous cause, it’s martyrdom.

        Some cases it’s also martyrdom if you kill yourself, but you kinda have to have the whole of your heart and dedication into offing yourself for the glory and victory of God.

    3. saki

      Also, if she doesn’t want her dad to get shot by troopers, “If you don’t put the gun away right this second, I will become so gay my hair will take on the colours of the rainbow!”.

  65. Mr. Mendo

    Well…

    That escalated quickly…

    1. Mkvenner

      We’re well past that point already.

      1. Mr. Mendo

        The drama, I meant, not the events.

        An extra layer got added…

  66. Irune

    where the hell is everyone on this flippin campus!!! Someone needs to do something!!!

    1. No Name

      There’s that guy in panel two who almost walked into the line of fire. He looks like he might call 911.

  67. Tandel

    Hey, I actually feel sympat- NOPE! I lied. Fuck you Toedad.

    Dude obviously needs help though. But probably not as much as the girls will as a result of this.

    1. Rycan

      Yeah, my sympathy for the deluded runs out the moment they pull out a gun.

  68. Rycan

    I think he might actually be half right. Satan didn’t steal his wife, but he may have stolen his sanity.

  69. Reflex76

    Looks like Toedad is willing to go out in a blaze of glory.

  70. Idon'tcarenomore

    Guess I’m just an unforgiving asshole. I wouldn’t mind a bit seeing him blown away. But…yeah not something I’d want Becky to have to witness.
    So, lock him up for the next 50 years, take that long to square him away.

  71. Strangeshapes

    I just had a very bad, sad thought. Ross knows, *really* knows, that Becky is a lesbian. That it’s bone deep, and no amount of prayer is going to change her. If he thought she could really be changed, he would be backing off, trying to convince her to go with him in some other way. A way that didn’t draw the attention of people who would stop him. I think he has given up, and the only question now is whether he wants a suicide-by-cop, or a murder-suicide-by-cop.
    I need to go sleep now. My head hurts all of a sudden.

    1. Chubsius

      Alternatively, Ross knows Becky “irredeemable,” thus he has to kill her now before she can heap even more damnation upon her soul. Not saying he’s at that stage yet, but I worry that’ll be his eventual conclusion.

    2. Cerberus

      It’s possible.

      At the very least, he thinks this “stand against Satan” is critical, either by martyring himself or blowing away the demon that has stolen his daughter (and I’ll leave it to the horrible bits of my brain to worry about whether that would be Becky, Joyce, Dina or all of the above).

    3. Amazi-Stool

      Well at least on the previous day he said:
      I will not lose faith that she can be corrected.
      (…) I will rehabilitate her through any means necessary.”

  72. tim gueguen

    I doubt the Becky’s mom ran away and Ross pretended she’s dead theory is viable. Surely Joyce’s parents would know if she simply disappeared, and hence Joyce would know as well. And although we don’t know anything about her it’s a reasonable guess that she wouldn’t have much more experience living by herself, if any, than Becky does. Ross doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who’d marry a woman who’d come from a less restrictive background than he finds acceptable.

    1. Dr. T

      There is the little issue of the fact that Becky was 17 at the time and probably would have noticed the distinct lack of a funeral had Ross faked her death.

      1. tim gueguen

        Yeah. Unless of course Ross is a funeral director.

  73. Catullus

    I don’t like Ross. I don’t agree with Ross. I absolutely don’t condone the shit he’s doing. But after reading this strip, I’m beginning to feel like I might understand Ross.

    It’s only been a year since his wife died, which in the grand scheme of things isn’t a whole lot. I doubt he’s coped in the healthiest ways. And so, when Ross finds out that Becky, his daughter, the last surviving piece of his immediate family, is (at least in Ross’ warped mind) betraying him…

    The straw breaks the camel’s back. Ross MacIntyre was probably an unpleasant guy even before any of this happened, but in his attempts to “repair” things, he took the plunge and went into gun-swinging, final-gambit mode. Because if he can’t fix this, what else does he have?

    Again, I don’t want any of this to seem like I’m trying to excuse Ross in any way. I mean, for God’s sake, he’s trying to take his daughter to conversion therapy by gunpoint. But I’m able to visualize where he’s coming from, and it’s an unsettling place.

    1. Cerberus

      Yup. In his mind, he lost the fight against cancer because his faith was not strong enough, he did not pray enough, he was not righteous enough for God to intervene. And now, less than a year later, he has been handed another major test of faith, the last of his family stolen away by demons that are in the very process of recruiting her and stealing her soul. And this time he has no intention of showing the same weakness that cost him his wife.

      In short, it’s all about him in his head. His wife didn’t get an illness that was very hard for her. Instead, his wife was targeted to see if his faith was strong enough to save her. Similarly, his daughter is not just a gay person. It’s all another test by God or Satan to see how far he’d be willing to go to save his family.

      One among many of his major flaws is that he really does believe that he’s the center of his own universe and everything is tests of faith, righteous rewards, or punishments for not being firm enough. And that is sadly a worldview that is promoted a lot in that particular subset of Christian ideology. That tragedy to those close to you is really about you and is about a chance to show how righteous and pious you are.

      1. saki

        It makes me really sad to know that to this day, there are people raised in that manner of thinking. And that it has been hammered into their brains so strongly since childhood that for a lot of them, no amount of reasoning of new evidence can ever change their minds and heal them from that brainwashing. Truly a tragic reality.

        1. Cerberus

          The positive side of this is that I can say having grown up in that culture that it isn’t taking in this generation as well as it has before. Things like the internet means it’s way harder to shield kids from knowledge of the world and interactions with diverse individuals. As such, a lot of fundie kids I knew ended up like Joyce or Willis, either adapting their faith to accommodate the world or who have fully broken with their former faith and become strident critics of how they were raised.

          The brainwashing is weakening and so more kids are being able to escape.

        2. saki

          I suspected as much, but wasn’t sure if it was just me trying to be optimistic. Glad you can confirm it. With some luck, fifty years from now, this way to raise someone will be practically unheard of in secular countries. (Not that I’m not hoping this won’t be the case in non-secular countries, I just highly doubt it’s feasible.)

        3. Marie

          Especially because even innocent googling (that is, not trying to research to undermine your parents, but googling a question because you don’t feel like asking or it’s tangentially related to something) can bring up new information, I assume?

        4. SDGlyph

          Related: Becky made a comment about not having had unfettered internet access before, and getting lost in googling all the stuff Dina had been talking about…

        5. Cerberus

          Oh very much so, Willis has talked about being on Transformer message threads and simply noticing that the back and forth about bots being awfully similar to internal Church debate and I knew a number of kids growing up who started forming very heretical (by their Church’s viewpoint) views on the treatment of gay people in society because an internet personality they liked or a clan member in their MMORPG was gay and talked about their life experiences.

          None of them were intending to fall out of line with the faith they grew up with, but it’s hard to hold such cold viewpoints when you can actually see the full shape of those you’ve been trained to see as the enemy.

      2. Marie

        Would you say, Cerberus, that this also is related to the paternal themes that were discussed elsewhere, such as the continued Victorian idea that the male sphere encompasses spirituality, and the expected roles of women as wives in such communities- in short, that because he is the man, this is all based around him (and his perceived strengths and faults)? Or is it more likely just a very self centered view of God and spirituality? (or most likely, a combination thereof)

        1. Cerberus

          Very much so. The idea of global events just being the setpiece for the personal battle for one’s soul is a broader and more universal facet of this worldview, but it definitely gets wrapped up in those patriarchal values. He’s the man, the protector against moral corruption and he failed… twice in his viewpoint. Thus its “on him” to set it right.

          So yeah, what you said with it being a combination thereof.

      3. Willoughby Chase

        This struck a chord with me, particularly the responsibility aspect. When I started my therapy, I discovered that I felt responsible for everything.

        I grew up in an atmosphere which was at once fundamentalist (in an English way, so no guns) but also turbulent in that my father married a Welsh Chapel-goer. My mother was not an easy mix with my grandparents. So I imbibed this sense of responsibility, even taking on a role so that my father could live vicariously through me.

        It did me no good.

        However, we now have a villain who is freighted with self-failure and grief. A slightly better villain than we first started with, more of a tragic figure self-figured for suicide-by-cop.

        It will hit Becky hard when that happens, and I’m not sure about Joyce’s reaction.

        BTW, Willis posted something on his twitter-feed about a bad father who was arrested on his way to his child’s college.

      4. fogel

        In the Old Testament “God said to Abraham, ‘Kill me a son'” as a test of Abe. Is Ross’ view of this analagous? Does he believe that God has told him what to do OR that he’s being tested to come up with a solution, and God will be grading him? (If that makes sense….)

        1. SDGlyph

          Of course, one strand of Jewish thinking on that one is that Abraham failed the test by not arguing with God about it. There’s also the interpretation that the story is meant as a contrast with other gods of the area, to show that Israel’s god is different: of course Abraham’s god demanded the sacrifice, that’s what gods do. But wait, this god stopped him and saved the son instead? Huh?

          … AFAIK, neither of these interpretations gets much traction in evangelical / fundamentalist circles.

  74. wynne

    Willis pulled the drama tag.

    Jesus, I don’t want to think about what might have happened to Becky’s mom.

    1. No Name

      Willis pulled the Drama Tag on the first strip. Although it didn’t look like it what with Becky telling a poop joke.

  75. Just A. Thinker

    Can we try to feel some sympathy for Becky’s father? I mean, the dude’s actions are horrible. His methods for achieving his goal of “reclaiming” Becky’s soul are horrible. But he honestly believes that he’s protecting Becky from Satan. He isn’t using it as an excuse; he honestly believes this is what he is doing. He is responsible for his horrible, horrible, actions, but the most tragic part is that he honestly believes he’s doing the right thing. He’s not just an unstoppable rage machine. There’s still hope that he’ll come to his senses, and that no one will get killed. Becky still loves him, and he still loves her. Fundamentalist Christianity is just as much as fault for Ross’s actions as Ross is. Ross doesn’t understand lesbians, and so it’s easy for him to hate them. We don’t understand Ross, so its easy for us to hate him. Ross’s actions are unequivocally wrong. I’m just asking that we try to understand him because only understanding can lead to reconciliation. Ross is fictional, but he’s representative of a few million of the most fundamentalist Christians in America. If we can’t understand the way they see the world, we’ll never be able to find the strength and love to convince them that all deep romantic relationships are expressions of love and care independent of the genders of the couple in the relationship, and thus that all people deserve equal rights to marry whomever they choose.
    Fundamentalists are defined by their hatred, and if we exhibit that hatred towards them we become what we claim to hate.

    1. Yotomoe

      A while back I said I didn’t like Ross because his character felt too flat and this comic kind of quells that. He’s not just a robotic monster with a gun SO I’m more fine with his character’s role in this story at least.

    2. liahansen

      ok im gonna need to disagree with your last sentence straight out bc that’s just not true. Hating an oppressor is not the same as hating the oppressed. That said, yeah, sure, he believes what he’s doing is right. That doesn’t mean we need to feel sympathy for a (grown-ass) man who THREATENS HIS DAUGHTER AND HER GIRLFRIEND WITH A GUN!!!! I say he and others like him have had plenty of fucking time in their lives to sort out their hate- at some point they don’t get to use the church as an excuse anymore. If he can get his shit together and somehow make amends for this (which will take YEARS, decades maybe), then yeah, fantastic. But right now, fuck him. fuck him fuck him fuck him fuck toedad

      1. Just A. Thinker

        We currently hold the power. We are the majority. They oppress members of their community and their family, and we need to halt that oppression. But hatred won’t help that situation AT ALL. It’ll only turn us into oppressors ourselves because, again, as a majority we currently hold the power.

        1. Cerberus

          Really, we queerfolk hold all the power over Christian Dominism? Wow. That’s impressive. Cause it really has seemed that we only were just allowed to marry like people after a long and drawn out fight mostly involving the disproportionate amount of political power that particular sect has. And like we can still be fired in most states or refused housing or discriminated against simply because an employer/landlord/business decides that us existing is a violation of his moral code.

          And like the landscape for the T in LGBT is still frequently targeted for murder by those who follow those religious tenets. And like we’re not really allowed to piss in peace and are demonized as child molesters in order to enrich those who’ve built a career out of hassling queer individuals for decades.

          And like a huge chunk of our homeless population is queer or trans, mainly because of families like these who find disownment a casual thing and a necessary thing in order to “protect the spiritual health of the family” and the messages of hate give protection to other hateful people to see queer people as acceptable targets for abusive laws or ill treatment.

          I know what you are trying to say, but the oppressed do not hold the power. Not even now that gay marriage is legal in the States. Us recognizing harm perpetuated against us and being against that is not the same as perpetrating that harm in the first place. It’s the difference between raising one’s arms as a shield against strikes and striking someone.

        2. Just A. Thinker

          I was looking at this from the perspective of “A majority of americans support gay marriage, thus we’re the majority”, however I believe you offer a more nuanced view of the situation. You’re right.

        3. Lena

          Marriage is just one small aspect, homophobia and transphobia
          are still bloody rampant. Repeat your statement when people
          stop getting kicked out, getting murdered, etc… just for not being
          cis-het.

        4. liahansen

          dunno who “we” are

      2. Yotomoe

        I don’t think that’s how brainwashing works, Liahansen. If you’re brainwashed to think you’re right you’re probably not gonna easily decide “Maybe I’m wrong”. That’s why it persists in our minds well into our adulthood. People are weird.

        1. liahansen

          “Brainwashing” isn’t a magical excuse that absolves people of blame. The point is, this is an adult with a gun threatening his child with kidnapping, murder, or suicide because she’s gay. To me, that’s not deserving of sympathy. I understand that he’s a human (well, a character who represents real humans) and more complex than his actions here alone, but these actions are seriously unforgivable. I can understand him without sympathizing with him

        2. Yotomoe

          I think he’s in need of therapy. This is probably the first time his mental disconnection has come this far to light because he’s been so sheltered his whole life. I want to see him get better. Not die or just be thrown in jail with no chance of redemption. He may be a lost cause and he may never change, but I’d rather him get help than just get rid of him.

        3. liahansen

          me too. I want him to be somebody I could sympathize with. Right now he isn’t

        4. liahansen

          If he doesn’t though, if he grows old and alone because of his own actions and never changes his beliefs, then I couldn’t give a care

        5. fogel

          I don’t forgive him. What he’s doing is unforgivable. But, maybe I’ve absorbed “hate the sin, love the sinner” … not that I “love” Ross, and in my world he’s the sinner (NOT Becky). But I want to … pity him? (which is perhaps patronizing? ) rather than hate him. As i was taught about Greek Tragedy.

        6. Gangler

          Becky’s surely as brainwashed as he ever was and somehow she was able to come around on the subject.

    3. Dr. T

      Nope. He is using emotional blackmail on his daughter in order to force her into letting him kidnap her and send her away to get “fixed”. If I knew of anyone IRL who did that I would tell that person to eat a never-ending bag of dicks.

      1. Just A. Thinker

        That is a logical theory. We should still make attempts to understand fundamentalists, though. Most parents do actually love their children, even if religion warps how they “show” their love.

        1. liahansen

          any kind of love that involves gunpoint negotiations is not a love i want to be a part of

        2. Just A. Thinker

          I’m not saying we should be accepting of the way they act, or that sort of “love”. I’m saying that we need to understand their motivations if we are to help them realize just how wrong their actions are.

        3. Pat

          That’s not a theory, it’s a description of what’s happening.

          And that he does not love her is demonstrated.
          Yes yes, I’m sure he’d claim he does. But the word has a meaning, and he does not.

    4. Kamino Neko

      But he honestly believes that he’s protecting Becky from Satan. [elaboration snipped] There’s still hope that he’ll come to his senses, and that no one will get killed.

      Conclusion doesn’t follow from premise.

      That he is willing to die for this shows that not only does he think he’s right, he’s not harboring any real doubts about it. Being that fully entrenched in a way of thought makes it less likely that he can be talked down.

      1. Just A. Thinker

        I meant that he’ll realize that if he murdered his daughter or anyone else, that would be an act of Satan. I don’t believe in Satan; I’m just trying to use Ross’s worldview to offer a justification for putting the gun away.

        1. Kamino Neko

          But, again, his worldview does not offer such a justification.

          Shooting Becky would not be an act of Satan. To condone her sin would be.

      2. fogel

        But he doesn’t “want” to do this, he believes it’s his duty. That’s why he asked God to give him strength to do what he believes he must, even though he doesn’t want to, and fears that he lacks the strength for. That’s why he looks so sad in todays strip. I think. This doesn’t excuse/mitigate his actions in any way. Nor do I forgive him. Maybe I should? But my sympathy (if that’s what it is), doesn’t extend to that.

    5. bearpelt

      Yeah, no. Responding to hate with “love” or something gets you shot. Not playing.

      1. Gamaran Sepudomyn

        Unless you do it like this: http://www.nuklearpower.com/2004/11/27/8-bit-chronicles-3-of-3/

    6. Pat

      “He’s evil, but we should have some sympathy due to his reasons for being evil, those being that he’s really bleeping evil.”

  76. Jezi

    You know, even when I was Christian, one thing I always hated about the flavor of crazy fundie I grew up around (not my family, thankfully, but just in this area) was their belief that someone who was born, lived, and died without ever hearing of the existence of Christ would still go to hell for not being saved.

    That kind of goes the other way around here, too. I’ve always had a bit of sympathy for people who are born and live in such a walled-off religious environment that they’re never even exposed to reality, at least not without it being shouted down as Satan’s evil secular influence by everyone around them.

    It’s not enough to excuse anything Ross is doing, or not want him to get his just punishment for it. But it’s kept me softer than most towards Joyce and Becky (and to some degree the Browns).

    The fact that so many of us are feeling uncomfortable slight empathy towards Ross just means that, despite him being very clearly the villain, his motivations are meaningful and understandable, as opposed to just “because evil fundie raaar” — which is a mark of great writing. Hat tip to Willis for that.

    1. saki

      You put into words several things I’d been thinking about since this thing with Ross started.

      We remember how Joyce initially reacted when Dorothy told her she was an atheist. We also know that, soon enough, she sorta made peace with it. Joyce is much younger than Ross and I think she has a more open mind thanks to that. Younger minds are more malleable, less used to thinking “this is that, period”, and therefore more prone to doubt and to changing their minds when presented with evidence.
      What I’m getting at is that, as Jezi touched upon, Ross has probably spent his whole life in the same fundie bubble. He never had the opportunity to go through what Joyce is going through right now, which is to be confronted with non-believers, “sinners”, who are actually really nice people, and readjust your belief system consequently.
      As such, even though Ross’s actions are horrible and I really hate him, I find myself understanding where he is coming from, and hoping that he won’t die (which would cause Becky unnecessary pain), but instead, with time (probably spent in jail, for Becky and Dina’s safety), will see how wrong he had been, reconsider his beliefs, and redeem himself by fully accepting Becky as she is.

      I have very many doubts that Ross is capable of that, considering how far off the deep end he’s gone, but this is what I hope happens. For Becky’s sake as well.

      1. fogel

        Jezi, Saki: I can’t find the up/+ button, but, yes.

    2. bearpelt

      Recently discovered that my boyfriend’s mom apparently thinks people who don’t believe in Jesus will go to hell. There was some sort of discussion about whether or not pets went to heaven (which I tried to joke about the movie “All Dogs Go to Heaven about, but sadly was ignored) and then there was a debate about if infants would go to hell for not believing in Jesus and I was like……..

      you do realize

      that the women your son is dating is a non-religious jew right?

      standing right fucking here.

      wonderful.

    3. Gamaran Sepudomyn

      I understand why Ross is the way he is, but that still doesn’t make it any less assholish.

  77. I Write Monsters

    We are literally seconds away from a Toedad “Roy Batty” speech, comeplete with dumpy pigeons.

    1. Darwin

      It’s not raining. So it’ll look really dumb, since how will tears be lost without rain to wash them away? Though Roy’s last words…

      1. David Alexander McDonald

        He could fall into the fountain.

  78. Sionyx

    Whelp, he’s nuts. Loves his daughter and is deeply worried about her, but still nuts. There’s something off about someone who just refuses to put down the gun in a situation like this.

    But damn panels four and six are well done. Becky’s gotten through to her dad and there’s a smidgen of sympathetic person there. Ross is teetering on the edge here. I may not like him, but he’s out of my “punch his teeth in” category.

  79. read all over

    In comment to the brains going everywhere it’s okay he’s not really using it from the looks of things.

  80. shoeboxjeddy

    Hey toe head, don’t pull the trigger. Maybe this day can end in court mandated therapy for you instead of… you know the whole head explosion thing.

    1. fogel

      Which he should definitely NOT put Becky through.

  81. Dean

    I know that David Willis has said that he has no interest in bringing her back, but I wonder whether one of the cops who responds to this will be Guns from It’s Walky!.

    1. Yotomoe

      One of the cops will just be an actual gun.

  82. Someone

    crazy theory time

    Okay, we know that Becky’s mom died. But how did she die? My guess she was murdered. But who murdered her? That’s easy. Who haven’t we seen yet, who was evil as hell in the last universe, that would make sense as a drug cartel or gang member? Jason’s father! Think about it Dargon is a anagram of Dragon, Ross says that the devil took her away. A dragon is a popular portrayal of the devil. This all makes so much sense!

    1. Yotomoe

      0/10
      Didn’t involve aliens.
      Some Conspiracy theory!

    2. m2iCodeJockey

      The audience cannot say “Becky’s mother is deceased.”
      The audience just knows they aren’t together.

      What the audience, and Beck, may like to find out some time is: “Does Ross color his hair?”

      1. Lord Stoneheart

        We can say Becky’s mom is dead. Characters in the comic have stated she’s dead. The author has stated she’s dead. And red hair is a recessive gene. Even if neither of Becky’s parents had red hair, if they both have incidences of red hair in their family, it’s possible for Becky to have red hair.

    3. GhostWriterL

      She’s dead. What killed her is speculation.

      Some think she died of something like cancer, which can kill you within weeks or months of it appearing, or take years.

      Which personally, I think she had some kind of illness like cancer, or something else chronic, but with the added component of it going ignored/untreated.

      Why? Because of something called “faith healing” where people abhor and avoid doctors, hospitals, and anything resembling modern medicine for themselves and their families, and think all illness and injury can be prayed away, and any lingering scarring, effects, or death is a direct result of “not praying and believing hard enough”.

      Considering Ross said he wanted to “have us lay our hands over you” in regards to Becky’s lesbian orientation, and being gay is considered a defect or a sickness to his brand of religious-stupid, either Ross came from a faith healer upbringing, or he bought into it at some point… I’ve heard of some people diving head first into practices like that when they or a loved one is diagnosed by doctors with a major illness or medical issue, or after seeing the after effects of treatments like chemo, where they then blame the doctors and medicines for making them or their loved one sick, so they opt to reject it entirely.

      Could be possible that Ross went faith healer and either convinced, or forced, his wife to not be treated for her sickness, under the promise of “praying hard and long enough will cure everything”. She dies, he assumes it’s because they didn’t try hard enough, or something else caused it.

      Then… he finds out about his daughter making out with her roommate.

      One can assume he blames Becky’s lesbian orientation for his wife’s death, though given his almost sympathetic representation here, he probably doesn’t blame Becky herself. She’s a target of evil forces, the same ones that foiled his intense praying to cure his wife, and he MUST save his daughter before they take her too. If it requires his death, then so be it.

  83. Arianod

    Becky uses Reason and it… might be working??? Nah, it can’t be.

  84. Guairdean Beatha

    Yes, Fundie, you’ll die for her, but will you live for her? Will you do what is best for your daughter, or will you cling to your dogma and try to make her conform to some archaic vision?

    1. Cerberus

      The latter. To change is to surrender to Satan in his worldview. And so even though that would be best for both of them. He refuses.

      In this, he’s the anti-Joyce.

      Joyce had a moment of either updating her faith or standing firm even though it would hurt herself and others and she went with the former, enriching both herself and those around her. Toedad has done the opposite and so has made everyone else’s life so much worse.

    2. Toad

      “Dying is easy, young man. Living is harder.”

  85. caesaria82

    This is just… so heavy. Wow.

  86. cmd1095

    Well, he’s still a violent, abusive asshole of a dad, but at least his heart is in the right place… that gives him one place where he’s better than Amber’s dad… sort of… ugh damn it Willis why can’t you let us demonize Toedad? Now I feel almost bad for him despite his asshole personality… almost

    1. Just A. Thinker

      Becky obviously loves him… His actions in this arc seem to be an extreme unlike anything she’s ever seen; its perfectly plausible that he never once abused her or became violent with her prior to this (outside of religious brainwashing, which is abuse).

      1. Cerberus

        Or that even when a parent is abusive, you still don’t want them to die. I mean, I’ve known enough people with abusive parents and I’ve spilled my own situation with my parents enough times. It’s one thing to recognize abuse and toxicity and try to move to a point where you can heal and another thing entirely to be unmoved by their illness or death.

        My gf’s dad is epically physically abusive and has been so her entire life, but she was still shaking in grief and worry when he had a heart attack recently and was willing to put herself in harm’s way to try and help him. And that’s not uncommon for a number of abuse survivors.

        Based on the depth of her survival strategies its very likely she put up with regular emotional abuse at least and he is currently threatening one hell of a big basket of all sorts of nasty abusive behavior. But that doesn’t mean that she’s in a place where she can sit by and watch her daddy get shot in front of her.

        1. Marie

          Becky seems surprised enough that I feel as though she hasn’t experienced ongoing abuse, but +1 on that she wouldn’t necessarily want to see him die (and even if she did want it, wouldn’t necessarily be totally okay with watching it unfold, feeling like she could somehow prevent it).

          Also, because of her super confined upbringing, she might not until now be thinking of things as abuse, and therefor might not harbour the same resentment she might in a few days as she learns more about things he did not being okay (this is me, although not on a gun waving level- on a ‘mom was emotionally and verbally abusive but I didn’t resent it until I was ~17 and learned that wasn’t everyone’s family dynamic’ level).

      2. Pat

        She ran away from him because he was abusive. He used the word “escaped.”

        Oh, and she went from defiant to “Run! Split up in the woods!” very suddenly, at about the same moment he went for the gun.
        She did not expect the gun itself, but she still expected to be physically chased down. She saw it coming and realized that Dina was also in danger.

    2. BenRG

      He’s a moron and I mean that in the old-fashioned sense of the word.

    3. Gamaran Sepudomyn

      Think about it for a second. This is what he does when he tries to help someone.

    4. Pat

      His heart could not be less in the right place.

      Look at what you described. That is not “heart is in the right place.” That is “heart is two states away and partially melted.”

  87. lime sheep

    im ready for those state troopers now

  88. Derek

    I was right! He did not bring that gun to hurt anyone, but “just in case”. So that means he’s not a 10/10 assholish monster, he’s 9.7/10, so slightly better?
    Still incredibly messed up an abusive on all accounts.

    Becky’s crying, but her words seem to be at odds with her emotions. The way she describes he father possibly being shot to death by the police seems rather cartoony. Is this because she has a hard time grasping the situation herself?

    1. Yazu

      I think she’s in turns freaked out, still freaking out, and trying to emphasize to her dad the enormity of what he’s done.

    2. Yotomoe

      I certainly enjoy this direction to his character. I still hope he gets arrested or something but it means he’s a human and not a monster. I find that refreshing.

      1. Kamino Neko

        No, he’s every bit the monster he always was.

        1. Yotomoe

          Ugh. What I mean is he isn’t just A tasmanian devil. He’s not An Axe murderer. He’s not a shark. Because if he was he’d be (in my opinion) a much weaker character. A one-dimmensional villain might as well be anything and they’re incredibly boring. that’s what I mean.

        2. Kamino Neko

          But he hasn’t been changed one whit by this strip.

          There is nothing new in this strip. This is exactly how he’s always been. He has always been an asshole true believer who thinks that his beliefs make him justified in abusing her. That is neither new in nor contradicted by this strip.

        3. No Name

          We have found out he feels guilty (in his own twisted version of “guilty”) for losing his wife. That is what has changed, and that is what is pitiable.

        4. Kamino Neko

          Where are you seeing ‘guilt’, here? There’s no ‘I couldn’t save her’, it’s ‘Satan took her’. It’s anger and sadness and fear.

          And, again, this is not a change in any way. It’s always been obvious that his actions were directed by love and fear of loss as twisted by his religion.

        5. Derek

          Personally I do find a difference between the guy who intends to murder his daughter because she reflects badly on how he raised her and the guy who will force her at gun-point to pray her “sexual deviancy” away.
          He loves Becky and is scared for her soul, this is not him being angry because “his property” was tainted.

          Granted, intent means nothing, the end result is that he’s pointing his gun at his own daughter, this is all bad. But this gives us the small glimmer of hope.
          Hope for what I don’t even know myself, this seems to have gone past the point of “talk this out”.

  89. Derek

    Also I am incredibly curious as to why Ross said that Satan took his wife and not God. How did she die? In some “un-godly” way like suicide?

    It just strikes me as odd that a very religious person would describe the death of a loved one as anything other than “she’s with God now”. Methinks there’s a bigger story here.

    1. BenRG

      It’s alarming and, given that Ross has been invoking Satan’s direct action as being behind what’s been going on with Becky, it’s potentially alarming.

      Remember Of Mice and Men? What the gentle giant Lenny did to that girl simply because he didn’t know how to gently handle fragile, pretty things? I’m starting to wonder that Ross doesn’t understand how easy it is to hurt or frighten people and that his religion gives him the convenient excuse of blame transfer for when those misjudgements get lethal.

    2. timemonkey

      Likely a matter of perspective. She was taken from him by illness, that’s bad, Satan is bad, therefore satan did it.

    3. Pat

      Remember, when Satan wants to take things Ross points a gun at them.

  90. Ranial

    I just noticed his pants are camo. I honestly thought this entire time he was wearing pajama pants, thinking “Ross has made worse choices in this comic, why should I question this one”

    1. Xerxes93

      they could be camo pajama pants

      1. David M Willis

        it is canon

        1. segnosaur

          His pants are a canon? Then whey does he need a gun?

        2. wynne

          This is genuinely what I thought when he first showed up.

        3. halcyon1234

          Why would you do that? That is literally the WORST decision you can make.

          Do you KNOW how hard it is to draw and color camo pants?!?!?!

        4. David M Willis

          Not as hard as it is to draw and color camo shirts! Hooray for medium shots.

  91. Rodimiss

    Everything about all of this is so unbelievably twisted and awful and heartbreaking. Poor Becky. Poor Joyce. Poor, poor Becky.

  92. Bagge

    Joyce and Becky do a great job talking him down. They might actually have gone through to a less crazy person.

    I love the water in the background. Nice effect

  93. Kaara

    Okay so Becky’s mom died before this? Because my first reaction was OH GOD HE ALREADY KILLED HER MOTHER OMG WAS SHE TRYING TO STOP
    HIM WHEN SHE REALIZED HE HAD A GUN AND WAS GOING TO FIND THEIR DAUGHTER???

    1. Regina Phalange

      Her mom may have just sinned….he’s comparing satan taking mom to satan taking Becky, and the latter is just Becky being gay, so the former could be something else–adultery, etc.

    2. Kamino Neko

      Her mom died a year ago. It’s one of the first things we learned about her.

      1. Jason

        Not until Toedad mentioned it.

  94. Sanity

    I… actually feel somewhat sorry for him, even though it appears (to me at the very least) he doesn’t understand basic rights and freedoms. I feel as though we need to just take the gun, give him a glass of milk, pet him on the head and tell him everything will be ok.

    And then swiftly throw him into a madhouse, just for safe keeping.

    1. Just A. Thinker

      Oh, he totally understands freedom [if this were the 1800s]. Everyone knows true freedom is freedom from sin and from temptation [if “everyone” means only religious people from the 1800s].

  95. Gob Hobblin

    How about live for her? Could you stand to do that? Maybe!?

  96. LeKaz Bam

    Talk about zero to 100. Most in that group would pray the gay away or send them to some camp. This fool brings a fucking shotgun to school and is about to shoot his daughter. And whats worse is ghat he probably did this to his wife.

    1. Pat

      Actually, outright murdering the gay kid or the “we suspect this toddler is gay” kid totally happens.
      Also, they tend to… not always survive those things.

  97. Kraken

    Of course… Satan. That old saw.

    I really appreciate Becky’s ability to deliver such a colourful description under duress.

    I hope captain obvious over there gets out of the situation okay.

    Where’s Dina Watch: Day 2

  98. Benvincible

    WHERE IS AMAZIGIIIIIIRL AAAGGGH

  99. robertskitch

    Dumbing of Age and Questionable Content are all sunshine and roses at the moment. 😛

  100. Bicycle Bill

    This is the first time we’ve seen the business end of the gun, and I have to say that the size of the bore in that barrel looks a damned sight larger than a .223 (which is about 2/3 the size of your average yellow #2 pencil).

    1. Just A. Thinker

      Willis is a cartoonist, not a camera.

  101. Reltzik

    24 hours later, cell phone footage gets remixed into the newest YouTube hit song, “Oh Shit Dude’s Got A Gun”.

    1. NinjaNick

      Rossie’s got a gun!
      Rossie’s got a gun!
      Becky’s worst has begun.
      All the Hoosiers are on the run.

  102. Just Me

    Ross may be crazy, but if he was in counseling right now, I think he’d be crying. He really needs counseling, and I mean the good or at least the half-way decent kind.

  103. Bagge

    So he left Dina in the woods. Ross, have you not learnt yet not to underestimate Dina? Especially when she is pissed off, scared and in dinosaur mode. I predict that we will say “clever girl” at least one more time before this is over.

    ….but that’s not necessarily a good thing. Dina is scared and angry and desperate, she hes every reason to believe that Ross will kill her Becky within the next few minutes and even when she gave it her best raptor move she couldn’t stop him. Dina hates to feel powerless.

    She will escalate this, and I’m afraid that DOESN’T mean getting the cops, but going in herself – harder next time. We know how crafty she can be in short notice. Steal Sal’s motorcycle and ram him? Get a knife and go for the throat next ambush? She walks too much in Amber’s footsteps as it is for me to be comfortable with this thought.

    1. Marie

      What she’ll do depends on if there have been any findings about dinosaurs and tool use.

      In more reality, I expect the cops to get there first (although oh man her sprinting onto the scene from anywhere other than behind Ross sounds terrifying), but I hope her getting there ends in hugging Becky once it wraps up.

      1. Bagge

        I think her mindset will be more like “It failed because I don’t have proper claws and teeth. I have to compensate for that.”

      2. Gamaran Sepudomyn

        Well, crows have been known to use everything from paperclips to vending machines.

  104. Cow

    Yesterday I said Willis would not stop until everyone’s dad was in jail.

    I know better now. Willis won’t stop until everyone’s dad is dead.

    1. random832

      What did Mike’s dad ever do to you?

      1. Cow

        My mother.

        It runs in the family.

    2. Darwin

      Or Joyce’s? I still contend that her dad’s just a goofy dad who happens to be religious.

  105. Yotomoe

    Mhm, I get that. It’s a false equivalence for sure. I’m saying that mindset in and of itself is dangerous. When you decide it’s ok for “bad guys” to be killed, it might further your disconnect to realize who is dead. You gotta show restraint with that kind of thinking.
    Say there’s someone who’s really racist and says racist things and acts racist and yells slurs at mexicans and black people.
    That guy is an asshole and a detriment to the further of society.
    But I don’t have a desire to kill him. But someone might decide that he DOES deserve to die. It only takes one person to kill him before he’s dead. And I mean if you believe that’s fine that’s your prerogative. I don’t know what’s right or what’s wrong because I don’t believe an absolute right or wrong exists. It’s a case by case basis though. Sometimes some people just need to die. I’d just like to think we don’t let that effect the way we view “bad people”.

  106. Koms

    I don’t know if I’m right or wrong but from what I’ve read it seems that Becky’s mom might have committed suicide. For someone who has spent a lot of her life with a fanatic like Ross, it might have led her to take her own life. And I understand where Ross is coming from. He’s the typical guilt your children into doing your bidding type. One of the worst kinds of abusers. Not that there are any good kinds.

    I hope Amazigirl or the police intervene before any shots are fired.

    1. Koms

      Whoops. It seems I am mistaken. Her mom died due to cancer. But why Satan then…. I got carried away. It’s a bit personal for me.

      1. timemonkey

        For why Satan, it’s a matter or perspective. Some people look at a loved one whose passed away and think God’s taken them to a better place, making it about the loved one, other’s curse Satan for taking the loved one away from them, making it about themselves.

  107. Zaidyer

    Nice try, old man, but I know the “look what you’re doing to me” playbook inside and out. You may have fooled yourself, but you ain’t fooling this reader.

  108. saki

    Where’s Ben Carson when you need him?

    Political humour aside, I really hope Panel 2 Guy has the good sense of calling the cops.

  109. Rukduk

    Wait. I thought Becky’s mom was dead? What does Toad-Ross mean by “Satan took your mother away from me”? Was Becky’s mom a closeted lesbian?

    1. Mollyscribbles

      I was thinking it was maybe one of those things where they blame cancer or something on the work of the devil; like how disease and death didn’t exist before the Fall or whatever.

  110. Mr. Demiurge

    For all those completely unsympathetic to toedad, imagine for a second someone you love, be it a parent or a child or a sibling or a spouse or whoever. Imagine you believe, body and soul, with utter and complete conviction, that something this loved one is doing is going to land them in eternal agony, such that a googleplex of millenia in the future they will not even be the tiniest fraction of a percentage closer to this terrible agony ending. Seriously try and picture that and believe in it, just for a second.

    Now, what would you not do to save your loved one from that fate? What would it take for you to just say, ‘well, geez, it’s their life, if they want to burn forever who am I to stop them’?

    I’m not saying you have to like the man. I’m not saying that if violence has to be used to stop him that said violence isn’t justified. I’m not even saying he isn’t taking it to a crazed extreme even for the subculture he’s a part of, such that most others in that subculture would be reacting in horror right along with everyone else.

    I’m saying that warped beliefs inevitably produce some warped people, and while you can cheer for those who manage to escape that fate, you should retain enough humanity to feel some pity for those who never do and succumb entirely to its logic.

    1. Gangler

      Imagine go fuck yourself.

    2. Tenzhi

      To summarize:

      “Imagine you’re crazy and/or stupid. Wouldn’t *you* do crazy and/or stupid things in that case? So have sympathy for the crazy, stupid people!”

      1. Mr. Demiurge

        More like “Imagine someone has been indoctrinated to be crazy and stupid from practically the moment they were born. Some manage to escape it and we cheer for them. Some don’t. Should the latter be hated for being crazy and stupid? Or pitied, even as we work to stop their crazed stupidity?”

        1. Zaidyer

          Interestingly this seems to cut both ways. Long ago, someone pinpointed this phenomenon and said, “what if we could bend this to OUR methods, to get people to uphold our values by feeling this way?” The result is the situation being depicted here.
          So where does the buck stop? I submit that it stops when an absolute has been dealt. The man who says “I will die for you” and brandishes a gun in the context of pressuring his gay daughter to stop being gay has made his choice.

      2. BenRG

        Or “Imagine that you are low intelligence and easily frightened by a world you can’t understand. Then imagine that you depend on others to keep you from hurting people in your fear because you are very strong and short-tempered. To what lengths would such a person go to in order not to lose his last anchor to something approaching normality?”

        He’s a fundamentalist version of Lenny from Of Mice and Men. It’s not a justification but it is mitigation. He needs to be cared for so he can’t hurt anyone else but he is sadder than he is evil.

    3. Yotomoe

      I get what you’re saying Mr. Demiurge. Don’t feel the need to go fuck yourself. Hopefully your feelings aren’t too hurt.

      1. Mr. Demiurge

        I was actually kinda feeling like fucking myself even without the prompt. I am eminently self-fuckable.

    4. Cerberus

      My pity and understanding exist. But my deference to that pity ends at the point where they harm others in service to that ideology. I can empathize with how a bigot feels, thinking that their “tough actions” will save their child from a “grave mistake”. I can understand the worldview and misinformation that can inform such terrible acts.

      But everyone has a choice at the end of the day.

      And we’ve seen that in the last book. Joyce was given the same moral dilemma from the same background and chose to side with trying to minimize her harm, to educate herself and empathize with what her friend was going through, and stretch herself to support her.

      Toedad has the “excuse” of his chosen faith. But it is a chosen faith. Sure, supported by his surrounding culture, but he’s the one who has managed to justify assaulting, threatening, and potentially murdering children, traumatizing close family friends and his own daughter, and has chosen his own sick pride to “save her” personally. Sure, he can blame it all on “giving her pain now, so as to spare her eternal torment” to justify it to himself in the same way that my dad was able to believe that tough love to bully me into reparative therapy was needed to shake me from my delusions and the deceptions and “brainwashing” of my long-time partner at the time.

      Abusers always have an excuse, whether it is faith, moral standards, or any number of transgressions their victims have “committed” against them that allow them to sell their actions to their own conscience.

      Toedad made the choice here to use that background to grievously harm a number of others today. And so, my sympathy falls to anger. Toedad is an asshole. I sadly understand the culture he is from very well, but he is an immense fuckweasel and his harm against Becky, Joyce, Dina, those poor students also around the fountain are unforgivable.

      1. Mr. Demiurge

        There is nothing wrong with anger, or dislike, or even violent opposition in the face of those who are doing wrong. It’s hate and dehumanization that saddens me and which I think leads us nowhere.

        To take a comparable example, there is often bewilderment on the right at attempts to understand the causes and mentality underlying terrorism. To suggest there is anything at all understandable there almost seems like an attempt to excuse it. ‘I don’t want to know how these sickos think or what makes them what they are. I just want them to die.‘

        I disagree with that mentality. It’s a dead end, satisfying personally but solving nothing. Hate doesn’t get you very far in changing things, IMHO, and it isn’t necessary for you to stand in fierce opposition to something or someone.

        In defense of everyone in the area, toedad could have his brains splattered all over the sidewalk and I would feel it entirely justified. But whatever combination of factors led to him failing the test Joyce passed, whether lack of intelligence, absence of any counterbalancing good influences or something simply fucked up about him in terms of nature as well as nurture, I feel with utmost conviction you can and must try to understand such people. From a certain perspective, you do someone a far greater wrong by stripping away their humanity in your mind than you do by even killing them.

        1. Cerberus

          My sympathy turns to anger, not my empathy.

          And I don’t believe anyone deserves death. Life in a well-designed and non-abusive prison (such as a Nordic model) so as not to pose a continued threat to others or stripped of power to harm others through removal from positions of authority. Very much so.

          It is not dehumanization to say that an action is awful and harmful and those who suffer it do not owe their perpetrator their sympathy. It is not robbing a person of their humanity or their autonomy to believe that certain actions are not forgivable nor should be forgivable. I feel anger for those harmed by these types of actions and attitudes. I have been up close and personal for too many I have cared for as they have dealt with the aftermath of a giant buffet of awful. I admit to anger, even hate, for those who have harmed them with flimsy excuse.

          I can empathize with how those perpetrators came to the position to commit such wrong. I seek to understand this behavior in the interest of better figuring out my activism in stopping it. I try and do my part to understand the human emotions and biases and life experiences that drive an individual to harm another. But I will not weep for those who have done great and traumatic harm, especially when I have seen the years of PTSD and flashbacks that they wrought in their victims for their few moments of power or to preserve their power.

          I personally feel this is a key distinction, but I understand if you do not share that view.

        2. Cerberus

          And it’s worth noting that I’m coming from a very specific set of life experiences which has included watching abusive people exploit empathy and people’s desire to be “fair” in order to manipulate and further harm the people they are trying to control.

          And that I have a personality trait where I am fiercely protective and loyal to those who are dear to me. Not to mention a lot of particular life experiences where I am on the receiving end of a lot of bigoted violence and actions.

          It is a safety requirement that I understand, say, what drove an individual to debate murdering me because he thought that me and my girlfriend were cis lesbians who he thought would be hot to see making out but then felt his boner was deceived by my trans state and thus murder was a legitimate option for restoring said boner’s honor. But I’m not going to begin to cry for that feeling of “betrayal” on his part, nor am I inclined to forgive his actions or censor my own feelings of fear, hatred, and anger at that little encounter.

          This is the type of life experiences I am coming from, if that helps give context for what may seem coldly inflexible when summarized.

        3. Mr. Demiurge

          “I personally feel this is a key distinction, but I understand if you do not share that view.”

          No, we’re mostly on the same page. There are far worse people than toedad in the world today, as there always have been, and you need not forgive or like or shed any tears over any of them.

          It’s just best not to hate them, if it can be avoided. Hatred is understandable, above all from those who have suffered at someone’s hands, but it’s also deeply regrettable. The goal is to figure out how to create a world that does not produce such people and hate blinds us in that pursuit, leading us to a pointless game of wack-a-mole where we lash out blindly at each horrible person produced because my god it’s satisfying to see them get what’s coming to them.

          I prefer, when I see even the absolute worst of humanity, to reflect:

          “I could be them. We are both people and, under the right circumstances, I could have been them. The right chemical imbalances in my brain, the wrong upbringing, some terrible influence in my life skewing my behavior…any combination of it could have made me into them.”

          Then I breath a sigh of relief my upbringing was mostly sane, my parents were mostly kind, and to the extent I’m crazy it’s in the self-destructive way rather than in the way that hurts people I love. And from that point, while I may see the necessity of fighting awful people or locking them up, I can no longer quite hate them.

        4. fogel

          You write of Tragedy, I think.

        5. fizzywafflezsuperstore

          So, I didn’t read any of that conversation; I skip over large groups of words when reading. But from the sheer quantity of words, I will presume someone has been provoked.

        6. Flipz

          Forgive my ignorance–what is this Nordic model? You wouldn’t happen to have an explanatory link, would you?

        7. Gamaran Sepudomyn

          Well, I don’t know how Scandinavian prisons tend to be set up, but it says something about the system that, when a guard in a Swedish prison once forgot to lock the cells for the night, the prisoners decided to make chocolate cake and watch TV.

        8. fogel

          http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/why-scandinavian-prisons-are-superior/279949/

        9. fogel

          Cerberus, with respect and desire to understand: you will not weep or you cannot weep for them — or is that not a distinction for you? And is that because they CHOSE to do as they do or because of WHAT they do — or is it the terrible combination of those two?

        10. Cerberus

          Hmm, interesting question. Extra interesting as I’m pretty fucked up and so weeping in the literal sense is often really difficult for me (it helps though in remaining supportive and calm when people are describing horrible things they go through).

          Looking brutally honestly at myself in introspection, I guess it’s somewhere in the middle if that makes sense. I definitely “will not” weep for them in that I don’t feel their actions are more justified because I understand the thought process and pain that formed them. But there might be a little bit of “cannot” in that it is more difficult for me to give a fuck about the minor slights that lead someone to do such disproportionate damage. Like remembering abusive exes of loved ones, I’ve understood the living up to toxic masculinity and bad friends that compounded it, but have felt little sympathy to that and have little respect for that being used as an excuse. I also tend to harden my heart as a protection measure against individuals who directly do harm to me.

          So, yeah, mostly “will not”, but there might be some “cannot” as well owing to how damaged I’ve become over the years.

          As far as the latter question, it’s a combination. A lot of my anger comes in the what someone does as I’ve seen a lot of especially abusive parents make protestations of love, while demonstrating by their actions a need to control, censor, or dominate their child’s life and I’ve seen a lot of the scars that that causes. Having seen a lot of the harm, the “what” matters a lot, but I’m extra incensed by the “choosing” of it. When someone has an option not to commit harm, and especially when they have a wealth of information and resources to utilize, but still makes the choice to hurt another that really pisses me off. And this is especially true of abusive parents who act as if it is the child’s job to walk them through their life experiences and put up with a lot of casual bigotry in order to “make them understand” when there’s a whole internet of information on that kind of stuff literally accessible on the phone.

          At the risk of getting even more TMI than I already have (sorry, this is a rather personal question and so required a bit of deep introspection), I came to a major ah-ha moment on choice when I was deep in trying to get my main family to understand and support me as a trans person (this at a time when my uncle was sending hateful messages on the regular and my dad was trying to angle me into a position where he could “get me fixed”) and putting forth lots and lots of effort for a lot of requests to put aside my feelings and apologize a lot because this “super gay” stuff is so hard on the family. While this was going on, I had a biological aunt who was super supportive and awesome and she said “Yeah, I was confused at first, so I googled a bunch of stuff so I wouldn’t say something fucked up.” And that really put it into perspective. My abusive family chose not to do the research to grow into new people, finding it easier just to bully me into “knocking it off” even when I literally sent them reading materials to help them. That wasn’t just ignorance. It was a choice to be deliberately ignorant so they wouldn’t have to change and grow and become supportive. And that realization was critical to just allowing one of the disownment cycles play out without desperately trying to repair it. And that decision has really been for the best emotionally even if it means I’m in a really precarious position otherwise.

          So, yeah, the what is primary, but the choice is also infuriating. At least to me.

          Hopefully this answers your question. Sorry for it being long-winded.

        11. fizzywafflezsuperstore

          This is the longest comment

          Ever

          There has never been a longer comment

          (Actually, there probably has, I just haven’t seen one)

        12. Cerberus

          Sorry.

    5. fogel

      Pity … and sorrow?

    6. Gamaran Sepudomyn

      I would find the person planning to inflict said torment and chew their eyes out.

      1. fizzywafflezsuperstore

        Don’t chew their eyes out!

        Read every book by Michael Crichton and kill them by every means described by him at once.

        ALL OF THEM

    7. Pat

      Becky isn’t doing anything.
      It is her existence that he hates.

      Now, his own behavior is quite obviously evil. If people like him ever actually applied that reasoning instead of focusing on gay people and other minority groups/women, you’d be arguing that Becky needs to be using potentially lethal force to stop his actions–and hey, you’ve come back around to something far more reasonable.

  111. Professor Fate

    “I will die for you, Becky!” I can live with that. Better to be an orphan than have a psycho like that for a father. I shudder to think how he would ‘cure’ that poor girl of her ‘gayness’.

  112. Asper Storm

    This could get deadly……..

  113. LBD "Nytetrayn"

    Now we just need Optimus Prime to drive in and save the day.

    …by which I mean Ethan throwing a Masterpiece Optimus Prime in truck mode straight into Toedead’s face with the last thing he sees being his face in Prime’s grill, Thrust-style.

    1. evilmidnightlurker

      Toedad must be stopped, no matter the cost.

      1. fogel

        “No matter the cost”
        Didn’t Toedad say that?

  114. No Name

    With all the comments on the subject I’d like to clarify a point:
    Sympathy is what causes one to reach out and give aid.
    Pity is what causes one to sadly shake one’s head and sigh.
    They are not synonyms, and Ross Babies McIntyre deserves the latter but not the former. Insane asylums exist for a reason.

    1. saki

      Insane asylums exist for a reason? What? Do you understand what insane asylums are? How people are treated in them? I wouldn’t wish being sent to an insane asylums on my worst enemy, and Ross certainly gets the same amount of hate from me as my worst enemy ever could.
      If anything, I would put Ross in prison since he is clearly a danger to his daughter and anyone who stands in his way. Or, if I believed putting him in a psychiatric hospital (=/= asylum) and getting him extensive therapy could make him see how crazy his beliefs are and turn him into a reasonable person who would never again do anything remotely like what he’s doing now, I could roll with that.

      1. Gamaran Sepudomyn

        Also, he isn’t insane, as such: his assholishness is entirely the result of his own decisions on how to act.

        1. saki

          I wouldn’t say entirely. He has been brainwashed into this particular mindset since childhood, and even considering that, there are surely plenty people who grew up exactly like him but wouldn’t act the way he did. I don’t know about the word insane – only used it above in the context of the words “insane asylum”, but he clearly has mental issues that need addressing.

      2. Blue

        Thank you for this. As someone who spent a week institutionalised against their will, I can guarantee that psychiatric hospitals are plenty traumatic in their own right, and it’s unnerving to see the number of people in the comment thread who are so casually referring to institutionalisation and ‘insane asylums’.

        My personal impression of Ross is that he is a man who has been through a deeply painful experience. Not necessarily mentally ill – at most I would say he suffered (and is possibly still struggling with) a situational depression following the death of his wife. He never really made it all the way through the grieving process, and seems to have turned to anger that his wife was taken from him. Counseling might have been helpful in helping him come to terms with the loss, but he likely would have avoided it due to either religious beliefs opposing it (an answer Willis put on his tumblr seems to suggest this might be the case) or out of the view that admitting emotional vulnerability would be ‘unmanly’. In that mindset, his daughter’s sexuality is yet another unfair-in-his-mind (and therefore an act of the Devil) misfortune heaped upon him as head of the household.
        I also find it interesting that when a white Christian American is driven to commit objectively unspeakable acts due to his religious beliefs it is assumed he must not be of sound mind, and I wonder if the reaction would be the same if Ross was from a different faith tradition.
        (The above is not a condemnation of all Christianity, just pointing out that violence motivated by religion is not typically written off as due to mental illness on the part of the actor.)

        1. Blue

          Also, wow, that comment wound up going places I didn’t originally plan on it going.

        2. saki

          I’m not sure you got the point I was trying to make? Insane asylums and psychiatric hospitals aren’t the same thing. Insane asylums are the places that existed before real psychiatric and psychotherapeutic care were developped, where things like lobotomies and shock therapy and the like were performed, where patients were basically treated like animals.
          Psychiatric institutions are nothing like that (or if they are where you live, that’s fucked up, and your government probably isn’t spending enough on health care). They are meant to help and heal, with actual scientific methods. Of course, the psychiatric field is still pretty young, and depending on the country, the institutions may be underfunded and therefore not be what they should be, so there is still a lot of room for improvement, of course, but it’s still a hundred times better than asylums.

          Regarding the very last point you made, I’d just like to say this for the record: I do not believe anyone in their right mind would act the way Ross is doing. Faith is irrelevant. Whether it’s a White Christian threatening his daughter with a gun, or an Indian Muslim beating his daughter because she was raped, my thought would always be; that person is not in their right mind, that person has mental health issues. I’d never fully blame the faith itself and it enrages me that so many people do. And, since the people following this comic are for the most part very progressive, I’d wager if Ross was indeed of any faith other than Christian, you’d have just as many people saying he’s not mentally fit as currently are.

  115. TheGrammarLegionary

    So, apparently Joyce’s eyes react to fear by not being blue anymore?

    1. fizzywafflezsuperstore

      Yes, yes they do.

  116. someguywithakatana

    This would be sweet if it wasn’t 8 shades of fucked up

    1. fizzywafflezsuperstore

      How about fifty?

      That’s so, so much more f!@#ed up.

  117. Victor Riley

    He’d die for her? Let’s hope he gets on that soon. Time’s a ‘wastin’.

    (Yes, I know that’s cold, but I have no sympathy for abusive assholes, even those who genuinely think they’re not, and only acting in the best intentions.

    Intentions are irrelevant. All that matters is impact.)

    1. saki

      What about sympathy for Becky, then, who would lose her father? It’s very clear from this strip that she doesn’t want that. She’s gone through enough shit to lose what seems to be her last remaining relative.

      1. Darwin

        I’m with Saki on this one. Toedad’s not a -great- dad right now, but we don’t know if he took a particularly dark turn only after he saw his daughter changing from what he thought was ‘right’. Becky might look at him, and remember “This is the man who taught me how to ride a bike. This is a man who held me while I cried over my mother’s death. This is the man who taught me what a man should be. Now he’s nuts, but maybe he’ll get better.” Seeing him taken away? That’s the best outcome right now. He’ll go to jail for a long time (menacing, assault w/ a deadly weapon, etc), but he’ll be alive. But seeing her father die, that would be like ripping out a part of her. Love’s a funny thing. It can’t just be switched off.

        1. BenRG

          FWIW, he may end up in an institution – If I’m right about the developmental disability, he may be ruled incompetent to fully understand and be legally responsible for his actions.

      2. EvolutionistX

        Technically, she probably has some cousins out there somewhere.

    2. SDGlyph

      “Intentions are irrelevant. All that matters is impact.”
      I strongly disagree. Impact is the most important factor in the moment, when the point is to stop the harm right now, but intent is pretty damn important for figuring out what happens next and how you stop it happening again.

  118. io

    I’d just like to take a short moment away from all the talk of ross to say that the random bystandard is my favorite part of this page xD

  119. BenRG

    I did wonder and today’s strip confirms it. Ross is a below-average-intelligence man-child, ruled by primitive emotions and for whom Becky (and previously her mother) had to think to stop himself getting killed. The problem? He’s also brave on a certain level and that makes him willing to take stupid risks to confront what he honestly believes are threats.

    I still can’t get around my worries about how Becky’s mother really died. Ross’s comment about ‘Satan’ taking her away has so many possible interpretations but, given how he’s been reacting to Becky and the terminology he’s been using, the implications are not nice.

    1. saki

      Commenters above have mentioned that she died from cancer around a year before the events of DoA. The fact that he thinks Satan took her can be explained by understanding that some religious people see their relatives dying form illness as a sign that either they didn’t pray enough, or Satan personally made it his mission to kill this particular person.

      1. Darwin

        Which is so effed up, really. When I was still religious (Pentecostal, a particularly fervant brand of fundie), when somebody died of an illness (such as cancer, pneumonia, heart attack, or what have you), they usually described it as that person has ‘gone home’. That ‘God embraced them.’ It’s weird seeing a fundamentalist who would blame Satan for something that’s obviously (their) God’s will.

        1. saki

          Seeing it as them going home is good and all, and certainly helps accept the reality of death, but I think most people, regardless of their faith, will generally see the death of a loved one as unfair. If you can’t stop that feeling of unfairness, it’s only normal for a believer to blame Satan, since you probably don’t want to think of your God as unfair.

        2. SDGlyph

          It’s fallout from developing the concept of God as the supreme authority, micromanaging the world to His will. (Have I mentioned how often authoritarianism and fundamentalism go hand-in-hand? This version of God is the ultimate power fantasy.) But then you run smack into theodicy (the problem of suffering), because everything has to be orchestrated by God…

          Given the option of believing that (their version of) God is a monster, or opting for a more dualistic interpretation pitting God or his proxies against a godlike, literal Satan in near-eternal conflict, many choose the latter. It’s strongly influenced by the Babylonian portions of the Old Testament – which itself owes a lot to Marduk, Gilgamesh et al – and is buoyed along by the ability to cast themselves as heroes in an ongoing war. Hence the appropriation of military metaphors and, in extreme versions, actual hardware.

          tl;dr: Theodicy has been a subject of active debate for a very long time and isn’t getting resolved in this comment thread, but I would point to the fundamentalist answer as one that definitely doesn’t work.

        3. fogel

          My grandfather decided that he didn’t care if God existed, because God would allow all that he’d witnessed & experienced, he didn’t want anything to do with such a God. (As for what he witnessed & experienced, it was a couple of huge helpings of prime, 20th Century, European ‘history’, 1914-1921 edition.)

        4. fogel

          Because IF such a God did exist, he wouldn’t have anything to do with him

        5. Darwin

          Thanks, SDGlyph for the new and exciting term, and for clarifying why Fundamentalists tend toward dualism in a religion where Satan is not only vastly weaker than his opponent, but also still subservient in spite of his supposed rebellion.

  120. Packy

    Toe Dad is the BEST kind of villain: he’s the hero of his own narrative. He’s doing whatever it takes to “save” his daughter.

    He’s doing this out of love. Horribly misguided love, but love nonetheless.

    DAMN YOU WILLIS.

    1. Cerberus

      And the most chilling part of it all is that he is reflective of a not-insignificant number of parents of queer children.

  121. Darwin

    Confirmation that he ditched Dina in the woods makes me feel better. This close to what he thinks might be his death, I doubt Ross would want to have an ‘abomination’ in God’s eyes on his soul (Prov 12:22). I’m willing to take his word that he threw her off, snatched his gun, and ran as quickly as those legs could carry him back to his car.

    (Yes, I invoked a Bible verse, but when dealing with fundamentalists, it helps to invoke the source of their mindset)

    1. SDGlyph

      Of course he wouldn’t lie. He’s trying to do the right thing – even if that means hunting down his daughter with a rifle and forcing her home against her will – and lying would be a sin.

      1. Enkai

        Aaand now I have the ending of Tom Lehrer’s “An Irish Ballad” running through my head.

        1. SDGlyph

          Figured I’d share 😉

      2. Darwin

        Religion is crazy nuts like that.

  122. Xerxes93

    What I’ve gleaned from the comments is that a lot of you are finding Ross sympathetic. Congrats, you have fallen hook, line, and sinker for one of the most basic levels of emotional manipulation.

    1. Clayton

      Oorrrr maybe Becky’s mother left him for another man, cheated on him, contracted cancer, or divorced him when she came to terms with her own sexuality. Any of this could have turned the guy into who he is today. i.e a bitter Christian mad at the world who only thinks the true way to raise his daughter is to live by the word of God.

      I lived with this shit. I still live with this shit. It’s heartbreaking.

      1. Xerxes93

        I feel you may have replied to the wrong comment.

    2. SDGlyph

      One thing I’m finding is that a lot of folks are seemingly incapable of empathy.

      1. Xerxes93

        There is literally nothing about Ross’s situation to empathise with.

        1. SDGlyph

          Wow.

      2. Pat

        Have you considered empathizing with the victim?

      3. Pat

        Lack of empathy is what makes people like Ross. That is his failing.

        He kind of blatantly said so, when he openly described Becky as “escaping” from him. He did not take her into consideration. He does not seem terribly willing or able to take other people into consideration at all.

    3. winter

      Sympathizing with a point of view does not mean buying into it.

      Recognizing that an emotionally manipulative appeal can be made in earnest and with good intentions does not make one incapable of recognising it as emotionally manipulative.

    4. Mr. Demiurge

      Quite the contrary. Empathy is meant to be about understanding. If you have dismissed someone as irredeemable when they in fact can be redeemed, you have failed to understand them. But if you get taken for a patsy by someone manipulating your emotions, you have equally failed to understand them.

      You can be entirely empathetic with someone and still feel their proper place is a prison, because they’re simply too dangerous and unhinged to be allowed freedom. But there is nothing wise in hatred and hoping for someone to die.

      1. Darwin

        I think that comes from a sort of refusal to see those with idiological differences as ‘people’. They simply become “the enemy”. They are to be mocked, not to be converted, educated and redeemed. Democrats call their foes Repugnicans, Republicans call their foes Demorats. Liberals mock the ice-hearted conservative. The Conservative mocks the liberal as commie. Communists mock the exploitive libertarians. Libertarians mock the statist communists. Atheists mock the invisible friends of the religious. The religious mock each others’ invisisble friends as well as the hellbound and easily-duped atheists. It’s super-easy to fall into tribal ‘camps’ and just not see that those camps are filled with people like you who just have incorrect ideas.

        1. Pat

          Being a bigot and opposing bigots are, surprisingly, actually quite different.

          No, “You’re the real bigot for hating bigots which are an oppressed minority group!” is not an adequate recognition of hypocrisy.

  123. Rikunda

    This is why cults are bad. Religions are cults we find socially acceptable.

  124. Acher4

    Damn you Willis!
    Suddenly this is heartbreaking from all the sides.
    Did we have to have feels for him also?
    😛

    1. greengeekgirl

      tbh, I don’t feel bad for him. Him being willing to die for her not to be a lesbian is not actually a kindly father kind of thing. It’s more like those dudes who threaten to set themselves on fire if gay marriage happens.

      1. fizzywafflezsuperstore

        Think

        You could have been him, if put through most of the same experiences

        You could have been trapped in a lie that you feel forced you to murder a loved one for very stupid reasons

        That could have happened

        But it didn’t

        And so you don’t feel bad for him.

        1. Pat

          See, I’d have to be a person who wanted to murder “loved” ones for that.

  125. TheGrammarLegionary

    You know, until Ross came back, I was really thinking most of the drama might focus on Ruth and Billie’s alcoholism. Or maybe Sarah’s growing sense of dissatisfaction with her own worldview. Or perhaps Walky’s imminent comeuppance in calculus.

    You know, the happy stuff.

  126. Sock_V

    I was really hoping today’s comic would just be Joyce dropping an F-bomb, everybody staring at her open mouthed…then her collapsing (leading to the hospital).

    1. fizzywafflezsuperstore

      That should have been this one

      But it wasn’t

      -Such wasted potential

  127. Heather

    Wait… wait. “Satan” took your wife? When someone of their religion they love passes away naturally usually christians will say ‘God took her home’ or whatever….
    I suddenly have a very bad feeling.

    1. BenRG

      Yeah, me too. What’s worse, I don’t think that there is a court on Earth that would find him competent to stand trial.

      It’s going to be a shitty year or so for Becky, having to deal with her father being institutionalised as an irresponsible imbecile who probably murdered her mother in an episode of confused rage and having to learn how to live independently with her immediate family gone and (with the exception of Joyce) most of her community not wanting anything t odo with her.

      1. Xerxes93

        You need to stop with the blatant ableism. New Flash, perfectly sane and mentally competent men do shit like this ALL THE TIME. People you would deem “[Too in]competent to stand trial” are actually more likely to be VICTIMS of violence. What you’re saying is harmful and uncalled for. Fucking stop.

        1. BenRG

          Yes, but the thing is that Ross isn’t acting like he’s “perfectly sane and mentally competent”. His speech patterns, behaviour and ability to judge the likely consequences of his own actions just don’t match up with that characterisation.

        2. BenRG

          I just want to confront the charge of “ableism”.

          I’m not saying that Ross is doing this because he suffers from some kind of developmental delay. What I’m saying is that the combination of that with the intolerant brand of fundamentalism and an aggressive culture along with his own immense natural strength in combination have led to this outcome.

          People rightly condemn simplistic narratives for violence like ‘inspired by rock music’ or ‘influenced by violent video games’. The truth is always that each individual has a complex narrative of influences, mental health, triggers and environment that lead them to an outcome. I’ve just got the feeling that this is the specific one that has led Ross to this place and time.

        3. impish

          “I’m not saying that Ross is doing this because he suffers from some kind of developmental delay.”

          That is literally what you said right here.

          Mental illness and developmental disabilities are associated with violence. Inversely. As in, people who’re mentally ill and/or have developmental disabilities are less likely to be violent.

          Feel that cognitive dissonance hearing a fact (look it up yourself) that conflicts with a deeply held and valued belief? Reaching for your inane circular reasoning? Angry? Yeah. You’re not really very different from Ross at all, no matter how much you want to cling to the idea that you’re just too intelligent and superior and everything bad is the result of inferiors.

        4. Random832

          Ross isn’t a statistic, he is a person. No-one (except you) is saying he’s going to be the perfect average of a category that apparently includes all people with any type mental illnesses treated or untreated (but obviously not undiagnosed since how do you even study that?)

    2. saki

      It’s been commented above that Becky’s mom died of cancer one year prior to DoA events. The belief that “God took her home” unfortunately does not apply to all strains of Christianity, apparently. As Cerberus explained in this thread, in cases of illness, if the person passes away, it seems the people around them are prone to believe that their faith wasn’t strong enough, and / or they didn’t pray enough, OR that Satan had personally decided to take this specific person away.

      1. Smiling Cat

        I think it’s more simple than that. I’m pretty sure that Toedad just figures God wouldn’t inflict such pain on him without a “justification”, therefore it must have been Satan.

        1. Flipz

          Honestly, based on how Toedad’s been shown to treat his family so far, if I had to attribute his wife’s death to a supernatural cause I’d probably attribute it to God (doing it out of mercy) rather than Satan (who I was told as a child absolutely LOVES to watch humans suffer). Then again, maybe I’m being too harsh here–Toedad hits a lot of personal notes for me, so my sympathy towards him is even more limited than it already would have been.

  128. NinjaNick

    I don’t know if Ross the Toe Fungus is either (worse than) Satan or just BS insane. Still hoping Dino-Ninja-Dina takes him out from nowhere.

    1. fizzywafflezsuperstore

      This comment is ART!

  129. Willoughby Chase

    So Ross is now a tragic, slightly comic, figure. As part of his tragedy, he probably thinks therapy is the devil’s work.

    Becky, just keep talking. Don’t let the emotional blackmail work!

    I hope he survives. If he does, he will be become sad, pathetic figure and his hold over Becky will weaken. If he dies, her grief might reinforce that hold.

    Here’s hoping.

    1. BenRG

      I think that what Ross needs is to be reassured that she’s going to be okay and that the worst thing that he can do right now is leave her so soon after her mother died.

      I strongly suspect that, before this sequence ends, we’ll see Ross crying onto Becky’s lap as she strokes his hair.

      1. Willoughby Chase

        Ross’s fundamentalist beliefs and attitudes are part of his tragedy and problem.

        Being OK for Ross means not being gay as well.

        He wants to play the martyr so that, by his sacrifice, Becky will see the “error” of her ways.

  130. BenRG

    I’ve finally worked out. The person who needs to be grounded is Ross. It always was. This was never about Fundamentalism, that was Willis’s well-plotted red herring. This is about mental developmental delay and the dangers that can bring to bystanders.

    The clue was in Joyce’s shock, not that Ross was threatening them with a gun but that had a gun at all! However, the first clue was Ross’s speech patterns. He sounded a bit odd to me and now I know why. His communications skills reflect his generally low intelligence.

    Back home in La Porte, all the men of the congregation know that Ross MacIntyre is a strong, reliable, loving (in a stern way) but ultimately dull-witted and slow man. Not the sort of man with whom you could trust a lethal weapon and, for that reason, they regularly check to make sure he hasn’t bought a gun and the kids all know to tell their parents if they see him with one.

    Fortunately, Becky’s mother was there; she was always the brains of the operation, really. Who knows what was the basic relationship? The point is that she loved him in a certain way and ensured that he was never left confused and frightened by a world with just a bit too much nuance for him to understand. Because, when a man as strong and slow as Ross gets frightened, they become violent and that could have bad consequences.

    Then Becky’s mother died. The local community wasn’t too worried. The Browns lived nearby and were there to keep Ross grounded; to reassure him when he got confused and stop him from getting frightened and violent. Besides, Becky was going to college soon and, once she’d moved out, more permanent arrangements could be made.

    That’s when disaster struck. Becky was discovered in a lip-lock with her room-mate. Instead of doing what anyone in La Porte would have known to do – to call Hank Brown and let him explain things to Ross in a way that kept him calm – the Administrators of Anderson did what they were legally required to do and called Becky’s parental guardian: Ross.

    Ross arrives, confused and upset. As always happened when he was confused and upset, he got aggressive and started shouting at Becky and manhandling her. He started making promises to ‘fix’ her, based on a half-remembered conversation with a guy in a bar who claimed that he’d heard homosexuality could be ‘cured’ by some doctors.

    Becky ran but it is quite likely Ross didn’t understand the gravity of the situation. To him, it was like the day she smashed that window with her softball and ran away to hide under Joyce’s bed. He’d just need to go and fetch her… It might take some effort but that’s what is asked of a Christian father. Along the way, he stopped at a gun fair. He knew that Becky was in danger and, like a good Christian father, he wanted to be ready to defend her. To die for her, if necessary.

    This is the genius of Willis choosing a Ruger 1v rifle. It looks a lot like a Winchester Plainsman lever action, the sort of weapon someone like Ross might associate with the stereotype of the heroic male defending his family (thanks to Western films and TV shows). However, it is a lot simpler. Basically, Ross was too dull to get a more combat-able weapon; he just got the one that was easiest for him to operate.

    What about the fight with Dina? Well, how would a five-year old boy react if a smaller girl jumped on his back and started scratching him? That’s basically what we’re dealing with here.

    So we come to now. Ross is frightened and confused. All he knows is that he has to protect Becky, no matter the cost. He isn’t able to reason effectively enough to realise that he is the threat. So, what Becky has to do is talk him down. Tell him that he doesn’t have to die for her; things aren’t that bad yet. What she wants from him, what she needs from him, is to live for her so she isn’t all alone in the world.

    She needs him to put down the gun. Give it to Joyce so she can stand guard until the police arrive and take him to where Hank can come and collect him and take him home.

    The future? Ross did wrong but, fortunately, it is unlikely that anyone was seriously hurt. A decent lawyer might get him remanded into the Browns’ custody. They’ll have to sell the MacIntyre house and Ross will probably have to move into their spare room. However, that’s a good thing. Living with the Browns means that someone will always be there to keep an eye on him and keep him calm; stop him getting confused and frightened in this way ever again.

    With a little bit of luck and time, Becky may find a woman to marry and a confused but happy Ross (because his little girl is happy and that’s what really matters) may give her away at her wedding.

    He’ll always need someone to ground him but it is unfair to expect Becky to have to do that forever. It’s a good thing that she’s got friends and an extended surrogate family to help her do so.

    1. BenRG

      Huh. I wish that this board had an ‘edit’ function; still I can see how that could be abused. Please read the opening paragraph of my rant above to read:

      “I’ve finally worked out. The person who needs to be grounded is Ross. It always was. This was never about Fundamentalism, that was Willis’s well-plotted red herring. This is about mental developmental delay and the dangers that can bring to bystanders if they do not receive the appropriate care and support.”

    2. Willoughby Chase

      Take away Ross’s fundamentalism and the way that that philosophy helped him develop into the – let’s face it – the monster he’s become, you lessen the man and his tragedy.

      1. BenRG

        Oh, it’s a part of it alright. The point is that it has a distorted affect, especially combined with macho stereotypical male culture, as promoted by the mass media, on someone who has impaired reasoning abilities.

        I’m not saying that Ross might not have ended up like this anyway because of the teachings of his particular religion. What I’m saying is that the way Willis has characterised Ross so far really does point towards developmental delay. To not factor it into our understanding of his actions would lead to wildly inaccurate conclusions.

        1. Willoughby Chase

          “impaired reasoning ability”

          Are you calling Ross an idiot? Again that lessens his tragedy.

          I think you’re reaching if you’re trying to blame the mass-media and media culture. Firstly, there is no evidence for either and secondly he carries a fucking Varmint rifle for shooting varmints. Someone who bought into the macho culture would have bought a Deagle or Uzi or something equally “manly”.

          He even let a *girl* creep up on him. I wouldn’t call that particularly macho.

          There’s even less evidence for media infatuation. His language is solely that the of the Christian fundamentalist.

        2. BenRG

          The gun makes sense if he has no idea what a good gun for this situation might be but instead bought something on the basis that it looks like something he saw his childhood heroes use in the Westerns.

          I don’t get why you think that having a totally distorted idea of masculinity and the role of aggressive/violent behaviour therein should make him perspicuous enough or a skilled enough wilderness survivor to detect Dina sneaking up on him. My theory would actually demand that he be the opposite.

          His language is, as others have pointed out, the language of someone repeating poorly-understood dogma. It doesn’t even read like something being said by someone who understands it.

        3. BenRG

          Perhaps we have different appreciations for the character and story. To me, the story of a simple man lost in a complex world and in danger of a pointless, violent death because of a totally wrong-headed idea that he needs to ‘protect’ his daughter against something form which she does not need protection is tragedy enough.

    3. hof1991

      And Willis just updated his Mr. Brown model recently. Showed it to us too. I believe he does this kind of foreshadowing on purpose as an Easter egg.

    4. 3oranges

      That’s a lot of assumptions and invented backstory simply to excuse the church-implanted hatred of homosexuality from its central role in all this.

      1. 3oranges

        I mean, let’s be clear. Leslie has mentioned real figures about how many homeless youths are LGBT, and how often religious groups turn them away. We know Joyce said they were sinful, like liars, and managed to persuade herself otherwise for her best friend’s sake. We saw how her parents handled an atheist and can see Joyce has been scared to tell them about Becky. And so on.

        But instead we just suppose that Hank was going to keep Ross reasonable about all this, that the idea of fixing gay people is only something he overheard at a bar, and of course that what’s really wrong with him must be some kind of mental disability despite all but no indications of these things?

        Is there any reason to accept these hypotheticals, except as a way to refocus things from the harm Christian extremists really do cause to people like Becky?

        1. BenRG

          His behaviour does not support someone who is thinking clearly and has the ability to do so. The strange way he spoke to Dina as if he were reading a pre-written statement which he only vaguely understands. His bringing a weapon wholly unsuited for the purpose for which he apparently intends it. Everything suggests a person with mental impairment of some description.

          Combine this with poisonous pseudo-religious rhetoric, a culture that worships violence and tells men that they must be aggressive and violent in protecting things they value and you have a toxic combination that leads to this: A confused and simple man standing in a faculty quad who clearly hadn’t even realised that waving a gun around might attract unwelcome attention and that it might put him in danger.

        2. 3oranges

          Saying that because he doesn’t think clearly when he’s extremely angry, and the weapon he brought might shoot someone but isn’t the perfect one for the job, that the only logical conclusion is that he’s developmentally impaired would be a stretch for Gumby.

          I agree he’s plainly confused in the sense of at odds with reality. My point is there is a lot to indicate how important his fundamentalist religion was in confusing him into this. Instead you’ve been making up how the idea of fixing gays must have been something he just picked up, how he’s obviously simple, etc.

          Those are inventions without support. As other people have pointed out, some from their own experience, there are some versions of Christianity that really do mess up people this badly when LGBT issues are concerned.

    5. Blue

      Aside from Joyce asking Becky if he had a gun, is there any textual evidence for this?

      Also, I’m fairly certain that the chapter title is from the song Defying Gravity, which is about being yourself regardless of social cost. Especially since the next chapter is a lyric from Let It Go from Frozen, which is a similar sort of song performed by the same singer.

      1. BenRG

        The other hard evidence is his weird speech patterns as well as the mystifying and clearly deliberate (on Willis’s part) choice of weapon. The rest is just joining together dots in a way that pleases me.

  131. Morrison

    Could amazi-girl handle this? Open area, not a lot of room to sneak up. And the worst she has knowingly faced is a knife.

    1. BenRG

      I honestly think that Becky can defuse this situation non-violently. All it really will take is to convince Ross that she isn’t in danger and that he doesn’t need to die for her right now. In fact, I think that the most telling blow she could deliver is to tell him that she needs him to stay alive for her.

      1. Kamino Neko

        You seem to have forgotten that the ‘danger’ he perceives – because of his religion, not because of any mental deficiency – is that she is a lesbian.

  132. Amake

    I’m curious how he imagines he’s going to save her from Satan by getting himself killed. He obviously can’t kill her without praying the lesbian out of her first, and killing Dina won’t help cause there’s plenty more lesbians in the sea. Who else can he shoot in his battle against Satan?

    Might as well save us all some trouble and start with himself.

    1. BenRG

      I doubt that he has thought that far ahead or is necessarily capable of doing so. The gun is just a shield that he’s hiding behind.

      1. Darwin

        You might be right about the idea of the gun as a shield. He’s only actually looked down the barrel once in all these strips. Usually, he’s just holding or brandishing it. It seems to be more a talisman for him than a weapon.

    2. Willoughby Chase

      I suspect he wants to become a martyr so that Becky will guilt herself into seeing the error of her ways.

      It’s something my Christian family were adept at doing. You can sacrifice yourself in other ways than dying.

  133. bearpelt

    I’m really not a fan of so many folks INSISTING that only a “crazy” “insane” person would do this.

    It’s incredibly ableist and ties back into the concept that neurodivergent people are inherently dangerous to those around them when it’s mostly neurotypical people who commit atrocities (and disabled people who are the victims of these atrocities much of the time).

    It’s just a very gross thing I keep seeing in this thread. Getting tired of it.

    1. BenRG

      Not ‘crazy’ or ‘insane’ by any colloquial standards. Just somewhat child-like in his reasoning capabilities. Combined with religious rhetoric that he probably only partially understands anyway and a gun, it’s a dangerous combination.

      1. Smiling Cat

        I don’t think I buy it. I see it as a combination of grief, fundamentalism, and desperation.

        1. Willoughby Chase

          You’ve hit the nail on the head.

          His mindset has brought him to a public square pointing a gun at his daughter and her best friend.

          Even Ross’s friends would not call those the actions of a balanced individual.

        2. li

          Someone: I’m tired of all this ableism, can we stop acting like Ross would need to be cr*zy to do this?

          You, for some reason: but c’mon, even his friends would agree he wouldn’t do this unless he was cr*zy

        3. Willoughby Chase

          Is that your interpretation of our remarks? Interesting.

          I avoided the word crazy for good reason.

          I don’t regard taking a gun to abduct one’s daughter as mundane, everyday behaviour therefore there must be some reason for it.

          The man is clearly still grief-stricken for his wife, and emotionally over-whelmed that his daughter has run away. It has knocked him off-balance and away from being able to make good judgements.

          Willis has given us a fully rounded character, and I’m trying to work it out, rather than excuse it.

        4. Random832

          Ironically I think that it’s the same kind of thinking at work that Ross himself is engaging in. People’s “evil” actions can’t possibly be caused by factors beyond their control, they have to be caused by the person choosing to turn away from good/God and towards evil/Satan.

        5. Willoughby Chase

          Um, no.

          The reasons I mention were both particular to Ross and his own agency, and reasons external to him, his wife dying of cancer or his daughter being gay.

          But an interesting explanation nonetheless.

        6. Li

          I don’t see any distinction when you keep using phrases like “off balance”. You’re maybe saying he’s TEMPORARILY cr*zy, but otherwise what is the difference.

          This is also why it’s not enough to just eliminate a few words from our vocabulary, you have to go after the whole thought process and nix it.

        7. Willoughby Chase

          The trouble is we have to something that describes the state that Ross is in emotionally. It maybe a temporary state that Ross is in, but if we don’t find words for it then, for me, we deny that state any chance of being examined.

          One night along time ago, I got up from my desk and almost followed a silver thread out onto the dark Dutch roofs and onto the street. The moment passed and I found myself a psychiatrist.

          What would you call the state I was in? How you would you describe the bundle of emotions, feelings that found their focus in Ross and propelled him to do something out of the ordinary like trying to abduct his daughter at gun-point?

        8. Darwin

          I’d rather not. Crazy is a perfectly cromulent word for irrational behavior. And before I get charged as an able-ist or guilty of some sort of other ‘-ism’ to designed to shut me up, I suffer from a kaleidoscope of mental illnesses related to irrational fears of other human beings as well as the crushing spectre of depression. And for the record, Ross isn’t crazy. He’s making rational choices. His choices are terrible, but he reasoned out in a mind the presumably functions perfectly well, what they should be.

          Remember: when you reduce the words in a language, you reduce what thoughts people can have. There’s a reason why Orwell’s Oceania had trimmed down their language to less than 11000 words.

        9. Li

          @Willoughby: I’m not against the entire concept of mental illness???? I am literally only arguing against the kneejerk urge to describe bad, violent, or evil people by diagnosing them with disorders. It further stigmatizes mentally ill people, does not reflect reality, and is in no way useful.

          @darwin: I’m not super interested in your slippery slope, literal-invocation-of-1984 argument against avoiding ableist language.

          1.) you’d always be welcome to use the word however you want. It’s literally your slur, to reclaim or not.

          2.) other neuroatypical and neurodivergent people disagree with you, and want the word avoided by folks like me. When I have to choose between listening to people who are being hurt by a word and listening to people who don’t care, I prioritize the people being hurt.

          3.) my comment was directed at willoughby, who had already indicated that they didn’t want to use cr*zy carelessly. Therefore I thought they would be interested in the argument that it’s not enough (or even all that useful) to just change your language if you aren’t going to change the thought process.

          4.) I’ve never found avoiding ableist language to be limiting; on the contrary, I’ve found it makes me more precise. If I’m not calling a politician cr*zy, I have to actually unpack what it is about their views that offends. There’s a lot of great words, and I always find one to use that conveys my meaning better.

        10. Li

          Also, as a bonus, I feel kind of like you missed something about Newspeak. It wasn’t just the reduced vocabulary that was oppressive? It was the relabeling of bad things as good things, war as peace, etc. Since that’s not at all what “avoid using language that actively encourages stigmatizing marginalized groups” either aims for or will ever accomplish, it’s just a really bad comparison.

      2. li

        That’s not less ableist, ugh.

    2. Willoughby Chase

      To call Ross a full-on crazy, or stupid, is to deny, possibly, that fundamentalism is a part of Ross’s make-up.

      But to go to the other extreme and deny that this is a mundane, everyday situation does seem a little illogical.

      To get himself to this point, Ross has to be a little worked-up, over-emotional, unbalanced as it were. He’s not clinically insane, or crazy even, but neither has he full control of his faculties IMO.

      Both stances seem to want to deny Ross as a fully-rounded character acting from a melange of pressures.

      1. Willoughby Chase

        Take out deny from the second para.

        In law terms, if this were real and Ross survives, he may get diminished responsibility and a visit to Psych Eval which is I suspect will be a punishment in and of itself.

        Then again, I’m expecting some super-hero bollocks to come in and save the day. Who can say what Willis has is his buffer, if you know what I mean.

  134. Crumplepunch

    No great volume of brains will be lost, it seems.

  135. Lasenna

    Okay this is the moment where I want to see a whole brigade of campus police rush and tackle the deranged gunman on the “weapons prohibited” college school grounds.

  136. Lasenna

    I don’t remember if they ever said anything about Becky’s Mom. I guess she’s not dead or Becky wouldn’t say that, but based on Toe-Dad’s words I’m guessing she’s finally left him for being a nut case?

    1. BenRG

      In a previous strip, Ross told Dina that Becky’s mother had ‘passed’. I’m assuming that she’s dead as it’s difficult to shoehorn that into meaning she’d left him.

    2. 0kami

      It sounds as though Becky might not be aware of her mom’s passing, or else Toedad might have been trying to shield her from learning about it. Some people, especially people who thrive on maintaining their own personal sense of “order and control” will go to any lengths, even hiding and burying the truth from others to keep that control and keep things going as business as usual.

      Starting to see a sympathetic side of Becky’s dad, but it’ll be a long time before I see beyond the “armed zealot with nothing to lose pulling a gun on his own daughter” side.

      1. BenRG

        It is entirely possible that Becky is pleading with her father to act in the way that her late mother would have wanted him to.

  137. feli

    Toedad has lost it. Probably a loooong time ago.

  138. Pyr05

    Blinded logic is blinded.

  139. BenRG

    It’s a sort of emotional investment. Willis has plotted this arc so well that he’s deliberately created in some people’s minds a cartoon villain that’s easy to hate (and I plead guilty to that myself). Now, he’s suddenly blind-siding us with the possibility that Ross may not be a black-and-white villain character at all but a deeply confused and (because of that confusion) unwittingly dangerous man who has been reacting without thinking.

    The problem is that so many people have invested so much emotional strength in hating the red herring that they’re struggling to understand and react appropriately to the real and nuanced character with which Willis has surprised us.

    1. Bagge

      I don’t hate Ross the cartoon villain.

      I hate Ross the realistic villain. I hate the man who points a gun at his child.

      1. BenRG

        This is the first time I’ve realised this but… have we actually seen him point that thing at anyone yet?

        Wave it about for emphasis, yes, but I’ve yet to see him actively be threatening with it except when he was in the woods. He wasn’t exactly pointing it at anything he could see or even be sure was there at that point.

        1. Nono

          Proper gun control would expect you to have the gun down and only bring it up when you expect to fire. Not only is this less dangerous, it’s also less physically demanding.

          Either he’s pretty dumb about guns or he was ready to fire if he needed to.

        2. segnosaur

          Well, in the scene where he is first attacked by Dina, Toedad has the gun leveled and aimed at something he hears in the forest. It may have been Becky he heard running, or it may have been just some random sound; however, it suggests that even if we don’t see him aim the gun at someone NOW, he was at least thought he was pointing it at someone.

        3. Pat

          He said out loud at the time that he believed it was Becky he was aiming at.
          So he tried to aim a gun at her, anyway. That’s the same thing, from a villainy standpoint.

        4. segnosaur

          Actually, if you look at the positioning of characters in this comic, he might be aiming at Becky now.

          In the first panel, Toedad is positioned as if he were facing to the right of Becky, and he has the gun aimed towards his left, in Becky’s general direction. Becky and Joyce are also standing on the top of some steps, so they are higher than him, and he has the gun aimed upwards.

          If he’s not pointing the gun at them, its aimed darned close.

        5. Blue

          A. He was pointing it very clearly at something when Dina found him in ‘Clever’; based on his dialogue there, he was pointing it at the spot where he believed his daughter was hiding.
          B. From the way he’s holding it in this very strip, there’s a good chance he’s pointing it at her here.

      2. Kamino Neko

        Yes. This. He’s never been a cartoon. He’s always been a real, and dangerous type, and this is all a part of that.

  140. dg

    See, I don’t think this has anything to do with Toedad with a gun on Campus and I think Becky knows it too. It’s about getting his daughter back or suicide by cop. With her leaving his way of life he will have no one.

  141. Ruby Droplets

    I stand by my the idea that this whole thing is really a set up to break Joyce. What would it take for her to realize this is bullshit. So friggin what if she’s gay? So friggin what if that’s against your god? If you want to believe she is a sinner for that, FINE. It doesn’t mean you cant still Love her. it doesn’t mean you cant help her, or let her do what she wants and hopefully (NOT) come back to you and your god. NO ONE HAS TO DIE FOR THAT!!!

    1. SDGlyph

      Er, what?
      I think you’ve missed quite a lot of story in the last couple of months.

  142. gkheyf

    And now I think that we can finally understand him. He’s beautiful. It’s just his world that is ugly.

    (For those who recognize that, may have just finished binge reading roomies/it’s walky/joyce and walky. Btw, Dorothy comes into it for like 3 panels that suggest a plot. Did I miss something? Is the rest available offline?)

    1. thejeff

      The rest of Joyce and Walky is available on line for a fee. And Dorothy does play a role.

  143. Tiggerpete

    This is getting pretty dark, granted sexual assault and the whole Amber’s dad thing aren’t exactly light, but potential violent death is pretty fucking dark.

    Here’s hoping that the situation deescalates and that a happy outcome is possible.

    1. BenRG

      Actually, after today’s strip, I have a slight hope that this is possible. Becky just has to ground him, like the chapter title says.

    2. Cephalo the Pod

      Just a reminder that Joyce’s next character model is the first time she’s EVER frowned (in the model).

      1. BenRG

        Even if this ends peacefully, I suspect that Joyce will have a lot of reasons to demand answers from her father about how things were allowed to develop to this point. I also think that Hank will be long on excuses for what happened and short on understanding of Joyce’s own feelings.

    3. SDGlyph

      Honestly, he’s talking. That’s good. Despite his determination at the end of this strip, I’m expecting the situation to de-escalate either tomorrow or the day after (barring interventions!). I think Becky’s getting through to him.

  144. Alex

    Now THIS is what I’m TALKING about.

    I was seriously worried about the “RAAAWR FUNDIE WITH A GUN” characterization, especially when it was accompanied by a bunch of social media posts going “LOOK LOOK HOW BAD HE IS” but THIS, this is what I wanted.

    Yes he’s a psycho yes he’s terrible but he’s desperate and scared and doesn’t know what to do, it’s not just cruelty for the sake of it, it’s got an actual human motivation behind it.

    Good job setting my expectations on their head.

    1. Bicycle Bill

      I see this ending with Ross putting the gun down, surrendering meekly to police, and the whole thing segueing into a discussion of mental health and mental instability and how ephemeral the line between the two actually is.

      1. Alex

        I will rescind the use of the word “psycho” but mostly because I do not want to have this conversation about the appropriateness of non-literal expressions.

        Not that I can stop the rest of the comments section from pointing the ableist finger at each other. I mean don’t get me wrong I don’t think there’s anything wrong with calling out ableist behavior but when has the last time an internet discussion about the intricacies of mental health and terminology ever had a positive effect on anyone? Speaking as someone kneedeep in student debt to study the topic I find it usually just ends with more misinformation than we started with despite the well-meaning intent of its participants.

    2. Pat

      Cruelty is a real human motivation.

  145. Kirbilius Clausius

    I think Ross won’t be shot by the police. After all, he’s white.

    1. BenRG

      You’ll find that the modern militarised police force is only slightly less enthusiastic about shooting whites than it is with shooting blacks. All it takes is something that vaguely seems like a threat… or an excuse… or an implication of disrespect.

      1. raza

        Not in the least bit true. Police happily kill black people for jaywalking but white mass murderers get their rights. Even in legal open carry areas if a black person walks openly with a weapon he’ll get killed or arrested and a white person barely questioned – if at all.

        That being said, I think Becky will go with him to keep him from shooting people – that or else he’ll shoot someone. We shall see!

        1. 3oranges

          The impression I get is that police can be as bad to white people, but it’s typically because there is something else “unusual” about them. White people with mental illnesses or disabilities, for instance, have had a very bad time. But yes, having darker skin puts you on that list right away.

        2. thejeff

          That pretty much says it. By default, black people get treated like crazy white people.

  146. Luchucholo

    well, I’m glad that he’s not the classic phsycho. In fact, the proof is that he didn’t think things through, with that gun . The gun, if anything, is proof that he is insecure that he can bring Becky to his side, with words or another means. Still, he has some screws loose, for sure. I’m sure that Ross has little to fall back on his life or has the classical “tunnel” perspective about what is Life supposed to be. Even very smart people fall into this kind of loophole, althought not necessarily taking the frustrations unto others, be bystanders or close family. FundieDad needs counseling. I hope he doesn’t go for the martyrdom option.

  147. SDGlyph

    I sometimes wonder what goes through Willis’ mind while reading page after page of commenters offering layman’s psychoanalysis on his characters mid-story – before we even know all their actions, much less how he developed the character. (And I’m well aware I’ve contributed my share!) I wonder what the rough proportions of “eh, maybe?”, “that person gets it” and “wtf are you talking about” might be.

    1. Willoughby Chase

      Ha!

    2. Darwin

      I think we like to imagine that there are more to characters than their brief onscreen appearances. Like maybe Panel 2 guy is an aspiring anchorman, and he’s spent most of his life speaking up about obvious things everyone else has noticed.

    3. thejeff

      Mostly: “At least they’re interested”.

      And hopefully the occasional “I never thought of it that way, but that makes sense.”

  148. Sigurther

    The upside being is that he’ll be dead by the end of this arc.

  149. IRL name TBD

    So is he ignoring that he PUNCHED Dina? Or does he not consider that hurting someone?

    BECAUSE HE PUNCHED THE DINASAUR AND THREATENED HIS DAUGHTER AT GUNPOINT.

    HARM HAS BEEN COMMITTED, TOEDAD.

    1. IRL name TBD

      tfw you thought you logged in on this computer.

      1. IRL Name TBD

        Wait what is happening? Why is my gravatar different?

        GUISE HELP.

        1. Alex

          No, it’s too late.

          You reign over pizza now.

    2. Cephalo the Pod

      Despite the sheer, terrifying levels of stupidity he’s demonstrated thus far, I like to think Ross understands what Becky means by “hurt”.

    3. Darwin

      That might have just been him throwing her off. Dina wasn’t noticeably marked up from what looked like an uppercut to the jaw.

  150. Skizz

    That’s it! I am going to be reading this steip in weekly chunks from now on.

  151. MaximumZero

    With all the shit she’s gone through, Joyce is going to have to bury herself in heavy metal headbanging to help get the anger out. Don’t think Joyce could do metal? Start her with the opening line to “Peace Sells” by Megadeth (who has a Conservative christian republican lead singer/guitarist in MegaDave,) and then nudge her into “Cemetary Gates” by Pantera. It could work. We could make a metalhead out of Joyce.

    1. tim guegue

      There are Christian heavy metal bands.

      1. MaximumZero

        I’m aware. I’m actually pretty fond of As I Lay Dying, despite being an anti-organized-religion atheist. Also, Alter Bridge used to be Creed, so there’s that.

  152. Clodia

    Becky, sweetie, it’s a tad better than you think. Your dad’s white – the authorities will at least make some effort to take him alive.

  153. Emma

    Why the ASS did he bring a gun? Like, is he planning on murdering someone, or is it just to give him more gravitas? The last line is oddly sweet, but given the context it kind of scares me a little bit.

    ROSS WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING?

    Also it’s ok Becky, they probably will want to capture him, so they’ll probably aim for an arm or a leg unless he starts shooting back.

    1. GrandFalloon

      Yeah, that’s not how it works. The police do not aim for arms or legs. Ever. They always shoot for the center of mass. If you’re going to pull the trigger, you’re past the point of “taking him alive.”

      1. Alice Macher

        Exactly. In TV shows, movies and such, it’s possible to aim for a limb or even to shoot a gun out of someone’s hand. In real life, such precise aim is next to impossible. That’s why one of the primary rules of gun use is: Never point (let alone fire) a gun at anyone you aren’t prepared to kill.

      2. qman

        Correct. This is just basic training for gun use. It’s true of police and government, private citizens for defense, and also for hunting. You aim center of mass, always. To put it in perspective, the lawful, defensive motive for shooting a person is to stop them. Your best chance at stopping them is going for your best chance at hitting the target, which is aiming center of mass. Injury and death is just a side effect.

    2. Blue

      Given that she had already escaped once, he probably figured bring her back would require more than just physically overpowering her.

      Disturbing, but plausible.

      1. Blue

        *Would like to add that he may have just intended to use it as a threat of force instead of actually planning to shoot her. Either would fit with that rationale.

  154. Emma

    Also I’m going to assume Becky’s mom died by suicide, since most Christians believe that you go to hell if you die by your own hand.

    1. Amanduh

      I suspect it’s safe to assume Toedad was referring to Becky’s mom’s cancer. Yesterday, a post from a friend-of-a-high-school-friend showed up in my Facebook feed. She was asking for prayers because Satan has beset her family by giving all of them colds during the week she was planning some big shindig for her Sunday school class.

      That’s right – she believes that the virus her toddler picked up at preschool is totally the work of Satan, trying to stop her from spreading the Good Word, and she wants people to ask for strength for her in the face of his attack.

      If real-life human beings can honestly believe this, a comic strip character can totally believe Satan caused his wife’s death in order to make it easier to also lead his daughter astray.

      1. Emma

        Oh. Oh wow. That’s. Okay then, I suspect you’re right. After reading that I think that I won’t be surprised by anything ever again.

  155. Toes14

    I think he’s planning a suicide by cop as a last resort to get his daughter to ‘come back to the light’.

    Side note – This seems like really slow response time by the campus and/or city police. It had to have taken Ross several minutes to drive from the woods to the fountain, and we know a bystander saw the gun before he went into the woods and tangle with Dina.

    1. The Heretic

      That’s campus police for ya.

    2. Eric

      Cops are up at the woods right now, and will be headed to the fountain in another few strips. Consider RPG ‘ticks’, each one is only ~six seconds. Each day’s strip is little more time than that.

    3. Pat

      If Becky can sprint there, it’s not gonna take several minutes to drive there.

  156. WillisDamningSquadron

    Is the slow and subtle response by the witnessing public supposed to refer to how normal it is in the U.S. for weapons to being swinging around, and how crazy stupid it is that that is the norm?

    1. Bicycle Bill

      There is a reflexive condition in humans in high-stress situations (such as seeing a man with a gun) known as the “fight or flight” reflex.  If it is possible to do so, most people — by which I mean something like 99 and 44/100% of them — will choose the “flight” option and high-tail it out of there.  So that’s why no one at the fountain area has confronted ToeDad yet.

      As for calling 911 or ‘live-tweeting’ the situation, I would estimate that somewhere between five and **at the very most** no more than ten minutes of DoA time have passed since ToeDad pulled up to the curb, produced the gun, and the faceless person in the background seems to have taken note of it and might possibly have called 911 — and that’s assuming that he or his companion had a phone in the first place.  According to the Word of God Becky and Dina were already running away and did not see the gun; there were no witnesses to the chase through the woods and Dina’s scuffle wth Ross; Becky has Dina’s phone and used it to call Joyce, not 911; and we have no idea what Joyce did or how long it took her to do it — I’m thinking she froze like a deer in the headlights and has done nothing.

      So the guy in panel two who states “Oh shit, dude’s got a gun!” is really the first instance where there is no doubt that someone has taken note of the presence of the firearm — yeah, I know Becky and Joyce realize that ToeDad has the gun, but they’re busy trying to keep him from pulling the trigger; taking out your cellphone and announcing that you’re calling the cops would probably not be the wisest move in those circumstance — and realizes that something is definitely not right .  So start your countdown to the arrival of the cops from *NOW*.

      1. qman

        Even if someone had called 911 right in the first panel the gun was present, the police would probably still not be there. 15 minutes would be a _fast_ response for most police departments, and it hasn’t even been that long. I don’t know what the average response time is in this area, but in many it’s as much as an hour.

  157. Ender

    Just let the State Troopers do their thing. It’s probably for the best. Besides he’s going to Heavan, or Shaka’rie, or whatever.

  158. Apostate

    I’m fairly certain that he does not consider Dina a person.

  159. Alopex

    Oh man, this is the first time I’ve actually felt bad for the guy. Or about the guy. He’s a shit dad but his daughter doesn’t want him to die for it. Or. Um. Die herself. Those could easily be panic tears but he’s not Blaine levels of Bad Dad as far as I can tell. This sorry motherfucker wants to be a good dad and he’s trying so hard and he is fucking up ROYALLY, good job jackass.

    Not to mention Joyce is already afraid of male strangers and now she knows that guys she grew up knowing could easily flip when pushed the wrong way and today just sucks for everyone.

    1. Just Me

      I don’t feel bad for him, but I’ve seen enough police dramas to see people do dumb things for reasons they thought was right.

      The best ending for this would be for Ross to drop the weapon, get in the car, and go home.

      Becky obvious doesn’t want her Dad to get killed, nor does she want him to end up in jail for killing others.

      Of course, she doesn’t want to die herself, and she doesn’t want Joyce or Dina to get hurt.

      But the worst ending, aside from those, is Becky sacrificing her freedom by going with her Dad. Odds are, if she does, she’ll end up dead anyway eventually.

      Hopefully the girls can stall him long enough for help to arrive.

  160. Benjy

    He still has absolutely zero sympathy from me. He’s not dying for his daughter, he’s dying for some fucked up ideal of his daughter, and doesn’t care how his actions and manipulations affect her.

  161. pjeseb

    Dammit. Now I’m hoping that Ross survives, just so that him dying doesn’t screw up Becky even more.

    Damn you Willis!

  162. Genuity

    The most generous interpretation of Ross’ actions is that he never intends to use the gun, that it isn’t even loaded, and that he is only using it as a prop to bring the threat of cops down on himself. A “if you don’t come with me then I will stand here and provoke the police into shooting me. Do you want to kill me, Rebecca?” sort of thing.

    Which is manipulation exactly on the same level as threatening to kill yourself if the other person doesn’t do what you want, so it’s still despicable.

    1. segnosaur

      Remember, he had the gun in the forest, when there was no chance of the cops seeing him, and he did have the gun raised and aimed at what he thought was Becky. So its more than just a ‘suicide by cop’ threat.

  163. Kitschensyngk

    Well, now I’m curious what Becky’s mom did.

    Knowing her dad, I’m guessing it was something in between “get a divorce” and “listen to rock music”. Maybe even “use a curse word.”

  164. Spencer

    I keep trying to come up with some clever zings, but apart from Yotomoe already taking the really good one, this situation per trying to reason with an abusive parent you still care for is too goddamn real for me.

    Dangit, Willis. Gosh dang you.

  165. OnyxIdol

    The comments today have been good reading.

  166. BlackScarabZ

    I really hope this doesn’t end with him being killed in a shootout. Not because I like him or anything, just because I worry about what effect that would have on Becky’s mental state.

  167. Guairdean Beatha

    Is Becky’s Mom really dead, or is it “She’s dead to us”, or possibly “She’s sinned and is dead in Christ”? If it happened a year ago, it could be that she stayed with the abuse until her daughter was safe at college, then took off. She may have found someone that treated her well, and, thinking that her daughter was out of his reach, is now “living in sin” somewhere. Fundie would see that as being dead and would probably describe her that way. It would be the only way he could deal with his prize trophy defying him and his faith. Becky’s announcement, and departure from his control, might have pushed him over the edge. His announcement that he’s willing to die for her may be part of a murder/suicide plan. “If I can’t pray away the gay, I’ll kill her to save her soul. If I die in the process, then both of our souls will be in Heaven.” It’s the sort of logic that drives many fundamentalists to extreme action.

    1. Kamino Neko

      If it happened a year ago, it could be that she stayed with the abuse until her daughter was safe at college,

      This is 2 or so months into their Freshman year.

      1. Guairdean Beatha

        Does that mean that Mom showing up as a member of the SWAT team is out of the question?

    2. Benjy

      It was mentioned in one of Ross’s first comics that her mother died last year.

      1. Guairdean Beatha

        I found the strip here http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/04-walking-with-dina/pokeman/ but his use of “passed” does sound like an actual death. In any case, Fundie’s delusional enough to classify her escape as death. Those not living according to his church doctrine would be classified as dead, as in “Let the dead bury the dead” after having “strayed from the path of the Lord.”

  168. Lulu

    I hope Satan will take this dad out from Becky life.

    And I really hope Becky won’t go back with him out of pity.

  169. Roborat

    Well, Becky was getting through to him, until she mentioned her mother, must be some backstory there.

  170. Bicycle Bill

    The remark “If I have to die for you, Becky, I will” is significant.  It can be taken as “I’ve got nothing left to lose”; but it could also be the first sign we’ve seen that deeply buried in that bulk there is still a parent’s love.

    “Greater love hath no man than this; that a man lay down his life for his friends” — just substitute ‘child’ for ‘friends’.  It’s the best reason so far that I hope this doesn’t end with blood — not even Toedad’s.

    1. John

      It isn’t love. He isn’t laying down his life for Becky. He’s laying down his life in an attempt to force Becky to conform to the warped, twisted image of her that his church and culture have impressed upon him is the only possible thing she is ever allowed to be, whether she wants to or not. Bottom line, he brought a fucking gun to force his daughter to stop being the way she was born. That’s isn’t love. That’s fucking crazytown.

      Now, I don’t want butthole dad to die here, either, but not because I think he has any redeeming traits whatsoever. I don’t want him to die, because as much a butthole as he is, he’s still Becky’s dad, and him dying, especially violently right before her eyes, would fuck her up hardcore, and she doesn’t need anything more to deal with on her plate.

      1. John

        However, a long, long prison stay is certainly in order.

      2. Bicycle Bill

        See also my earlier remark about mental health/mental instability.  I contend that even if he is doing this in all the wrong ways and for all the wrong reasons drummed into him by his fundie religious indoctrination, he is still doing what he honestly and seriously believes to be the right thing — and I feel that intent should be taken into account.

        Compare it to the Japanese in WWII who fought to their death for their Emperor rather than surrender and shame themselves, or the followers of Islam who believe that dying in jihad is one of the most noble and highly-rewarded acts of their faith.  Were they/are they right?  Not to the Western way of thinking; but we cannot apply our way of thinking to their culture.  The same thing holds with sane, ‘normal’ people and deranged individuals like ToeDad here.

        1. John

          Mmmmmmnope. I’m going to have to take a daring moral stand against holding your adult daughter at gunpoint because you don’t approve of what she is.

        2. Spencer

          Yeah, I mean, it’s not all that complex. He’s doing something reprehensible and morally justifying it to himself using his religion.

        3. John

          Less snarkily, compare butthole dad’s reaction to Becky’s orientation to Joyce’s. Joyce has been brought up in the same church, the same culture, with the same indoctrination, and honestly and seriously believed that Becky being gay was evil and wrong and she was going to Hell for it. But when confronted with the fact of Becky’s homosexuality – compounded by Becky making unwanted sexual advances on her – when given a choice between her sincere beliefs and Becky… Joyce chose Becky, and threw out or heavily modified those beliefs to fit. Because Joyce loves Becky. And Joyce’s heart always wins.

          When butthole dad was confronted with the choice between his sincere beliefs and Becky, he picked up a gun and went to stalk his daughter like an animal so he could capture her and ship her off to be tortured into a facsimile of heterosexuality. THIS IS NOT LOVE.

        4. Bicycle Bill

          And how much longer has he been indoctrinated in his beliefs?  Or to put it another way, how much stronger is his resistance?

          That look in Toedad’s eyes in the fourth panel — that’s uncertainty.  For the briefest of moments he wavered.  He wasn’t entirely sure he was in the right.  If we’d been able to see this in a long shot we might have even noticed the muzzle of the gun drop slightly.  Then his years of training/upbringing/brainwashing kicked back in.

          Blink and you would have missed it.  But for that one brief moment, for that one split-second, we were shown that first little chink in Toedad’s armor.

        5. Bicycle Bill

          After seeing the next day’s comic — I humbly request that readers disregard anything I’ve written in this thread.

  171. Kaziel

    I’m just really, really hoping that this doesn’t end badly… but we’ve seen that (much like real life) that things don’t always end happily….

  172. Dutchtica

    Wooooooooooowwwwww.
    Damn you Willis. How do you turn super religious nutso dad with lesbian daughter from “He’s horrible” to “Holy shit this is heart wrenching” in one strip

    1. anna

      He writes people who are real. That’s how.

      1. brumagem

        This is what makes them so much more adorable/terrifying.

  173. smooti

    yeah i’m calling it now: becky’s mom had cancer, or something similar in devastating illness, they tried to “pray away” her sickness instead of getting real help. they’ve thought it was some sort of moral failing that kept her from getting better.

    1. smooti

      my avatar changed! im that one guy!!

  174. Anikiki

    Poor Joyce. On top of her getting drugged at the party that one night and helping her best friend (who is a runaway because she is a lesbian), now she learns said best friend’s dad has a shotgun and has carried it on college property. She’s going to need A LOT of therapy after this semester ends.

  175. MordWa

    Is Amaz-Girl immune to 12-gauge? Or just sarcasm?

    1. brumagem

      (It’s a low-caliber single-shot varmint rifle) but yeah I think she’s only immune to sarcasm regardless.

  176. Sophia

    This is scary and I don’t like it. Please bring back the happy times. =(((

  177. Mike

    Someone please tell me that Becky’s mom didn’t die in a car crash involving the parents of certain Canadian redhead.

    1. tim gueguen

      Becky’s mom died a year ago. Ruth’s parents died when she was 16, so at least 3 years ago.

      1. DarkoNeko

        They were all going to a redhead convention.

        1. Rowen Morland

          A tragic year for redheads.

  178. LuckyStar7

    Aww, he cares! In his own demented way!
    WILLIS! THIS GUY GAVE ME FEELS! HOW DARE YOU?!!

  179. Emma

    Tbh the feels this guy is giving me is not making me sympathetic towards him. He’s crazy and he needs to go down. I hope Becky gets a restraining order against him, and that he serves time. Fucking asshole.

  180. Miffed Mab

    Hoping he goes to jail rather that getting killed, if only to spare Joyce and Becky more horror.

  181. Aislashu

    I want him to die. He needs to die so Becky can inherit all his money and the house and not have to worry about shit.

  182. DinaWho

    Grav test *crosses fingers*

  183. Steff

    So has anyone wondered how the gun toting bible humper lost his wife to satan? When just at the beginning of the school semester (that’s book 1 comic #11; posted on sept 22, 2010) Joyce mentions how Becky’s parents, as in plural, are sending her to a different collage.

  184. Yugnat

    This is relevant.

    1. Yugnat

      Wait, no, it’s not, I meant to post that elsewhere. Darn.

  185. TheGrumpyBear

    I would willingly pull the trigger myself. Kill the ass.

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