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Intended-to-be
Posted on May 7, 2020 by David M Willis
She's here!  The DUMBING OF AGE BOOK 9 KICKSTARTER has unlocked a pledge tier to add a magnet of BUSINES BECKY to your Dumbing of Age Book 9! You can pledge for just her, pledge for PICK THREE or PICK FIVE and select her to join your squad, or go for the gusto of COMPLETE MAGNET POWER and get every single Book 9 magnet! Next up at $50K is MALAYA!

215 thoughts on “Intended-to-be”

  1. OtterBoy1

    “Call him an ambulance!”
    “He’s an ambulance!”

    1. Doopyboop

      I call for a petition for there to be an edit of this comic where Walky walks in and carries out this punchline.

  2. King Daniel

    Ross MacIntyre:
    Free your body and soul;
    Unfold your powerful wings;
    Climb up the highest mountains;
    Kick your feet up in the air;
    You may now live forever –
    Or return to this Earth –
    Unless you feel good where you are!

    (Acrostic sourced from a real-life gravestone in Montreal, Canada.)

    1. OtterBoy1

      That is incredible

    2. Regalli

      Thank you, gravestone acrostic-writer.

      1. Chris

        I believe it was written by the guy’s wife and his mistress.

        1. Regalli

          If so, they did damn well with that. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy!

        2. King Daniel

          Eyup: http://bytesdaily.blogspot.com/2010/01/epitaphs-john-laird-mccaffery-1940-1995.html

        3. butting

          “Missed by your friends” is solid.

        4. Geneseepaws

          Missed by your friends?
          So who shot him? The Wife or the Mistress?

        5. Deanatay

          They both shot at him. They both missed. Thus, the epitaph.

        6. BrokenEye, the True False Prophet

          The butler, obviously.

        7. Deanatay

          They both clearly enjoyed the intercourse.

    3. Doctor_Who

      (Applauds)

    4. Raen

      I’m just impressed they got permission to use English exclusively.

    5. maarvarq

      Apparently Arnie pulled this trick, although not on someone’s tombstone, when he was Governor of California. https://www.cracked.com/article_27584_real-petty-politician-schemes-that-sound-like-sitcom-plots.html?

  3. BBCC

    Damn, Becks. You’re a badass alright. <3

    1. Regalli

      I’m glad this strip is coming out during Kickstarter season. It gives me hope that someone with $150 to spare might be planning a Becky-and-someone-else-who-can-hug-her commission.

      1. BBCC

        That would be nice. Her and her mom maybe?

        1. clif

          Should I win the lottery, it will be Mike and all the moms.

  4. Van Jealous

    “Free Your Mind! And your Ass Will Follow!” (George Clinton, 1970)

    1. MightyPinto

      “The Kingdom of Heaven is Within!”

      1. Van Jealous

        🙂

  5. Mra

    I hate ross, but why couldn’t it have been Blaine who died?

    1. JetstreamGW

      Because Ross is an antagonist. Blaine is a villain.

      1. Strangeshapes

        Is there a specific trope definition for antagonist vs. villain?

        1. SuperZero

          Why not use the real definitions instead?

        2. vlademir1

          There are plenty of reasons depending how you mean “real definition” here. Provided you mean the definitions as used in a dictionary, which are in most cases, and certainly here, the words’ denotations, there is no definable difference between an antagonistic person and a villain. Meanwhile, on a connotative level a villain, at least in many lay and academic schools of narrative analysis, is an antagonist whose actions are fueled by either malice or evil.

        3. SuperZero

          An antagonist is the person opposing the protagonist. They are not necessarily evil, and may in fact be the hero of the story. A villain must be bad, and also generally must be important.

          “Antagonistic” isn’t quite the same, since as a characteristic it describes a person who regularly clashes with others, so it’s going to go with actual villains fairly often (but not necessarily, since a character can be antagonistic in a particular situation).

          In fiction their Venn diagram will mostly overlap, but they don’t mean the same thing.

          In any case, I’m not sure how that’s supposed to be an answer to what I said. Which was about tropes (“any literary or rhetorical device, as metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, and irony, that consists in the use of words in other than their literal sense;” hm, now there’s a word whose meaning has drifted).

        4. liliaeth

          Take for example… on supernatural. There’s a character called Victor Henriksen, who was an fbi agent that hunted down the Winchesters because he believed them to be criminals and murderers. He was an antagonist, in that he got in the way of the protagonists goals, but he was not a villain. In contrary, he was a good man, just doing his job.

          On the other side, a villainous character might not always be antagonist. Sometimes a villain can even occasionally side with the hero, or at least work towards the same goal, for their own purposes.

        5. BBCC

          An antagonist is just someone who works against the protagonist. They’re not necessarily evil. Someone who wants the same job as the protagonist is likely an antagonist, but depending how they go about it they may not be evil. A villain is evil.

        6. BBCC

          I would argue however that Ross is evil.

        7. Needfuldoer

          I’m not sure he’s evil. That’s probably being a lot more charitable than he deserves, but compare his motives to Blaine’s.

          Ross wanted what he thought was best for Becky. Don’t get me wrong, what he wanted was completely abhorrent, but he didn’t want things to go his way just for himself.

          Blaine is evil, purely driven by greed. He wants what’s best for himself, damn the consequences and everyone who stands in his way. He doesn’t want to pay for Amber to go to college anymore, therefore he must make Amber and her friends suffer. Ross trips up his pathetic outline of a plan? Hammer time!

          I’ve read Ross’s arc as the tragic downfall of a horribly misguided man failing to reconcile the events of his life with the dogma he lived under. Blaine’s a villainous egotist who flew too close to the sun and got taken down by his own hubris (and daughter).

        8. thejeff

          I can’t agree. Evil can be driven by those misguided beliefs that what you’re doing is right. True believing fanatics can be just as evil as cynical ones using it for gain.
          Ross’s story may be tragic, but it’s tragic because he makes no attempt to reconcile – he just sticks with the beliefs that leave him in charge of his daughter’s fate, regardless of the outcome or what he has to do. And since we’re arguing definitions – there’s also no arc. His character doesn’t change. His motivation when introduced is his motivation here (or at least when he was last conscious.) He’s never even questioned what he was doing.

          There’s been a lot of apologia for Ross since we’ve been able to contrast him with Blaine’s more over the top approach, but Ross is exactly the same here as in the earlier kidnapping story.

        9. Anon A Mouse

          You’ve hit on a point I feel a lot of people don’t seem to agree on and why I think Ross is discussed so much in relation: that a person can be evil if they let their misguided faith lead them to do terrible things because it aligns with their own already set motivations. Does Ross want what is “best” for Becky? Yes, I’d say that in an of itself he wanted good things for her. However, he was misguided in what was “best”. Being misguided isn’t evil but allowing your misguidance to justify whatever actions you want? That’s evil in my opinion.

        10. Regalli

          Yeah, rereading the car chase scene was, ah. Enlightening. I remembered that he was an abusive ass, but I forgot just how incredibly AWFUL he was in the one scene he and Becky are alone together. Here’s what I started as saying were highlights but is actually more of a play-by-play:

          – “Your hair is your womanhood, and you must reclaim it.” After he gets her in the car, Becky has a couple lines of begging him not to drive super-illegally and dangerously where he refuses. The next things he says to her – the first things not related to the immediate car chase – are how her hair will grow back. It’s kind of a summation of how wrecked their relationship is that he focuses on THAT of all things.

          – ‘I will bring you back. I will have my daughter again, instead of whatever… this is.’ Line immediately after that. Separating them because seriously. Whatever this is. That’s how he refers to Becky.

          – Becky tries to grab the steering wheel because Ross is swerving once he sees AG. He responds in the next strip by slapping her and saying ‘how dare you touch me.’ She is not shocked by this. She’s shocked by him bringing the gun on campus (why wouldn’t she be,) but she doesn’t really have a reaction to him slapping her. I don’t think this is the first time he hit her, is the thing. And ‘how dare you touch me’ as his line. As a generality, followed immediately by his ‘I am your father and will restore my household’ line. Seriously, THIS is standard Ross.

          – ‘Any more of your “friends” try to stop me, I will put them in hell where they belong.’ Yeah, no, he was 100% ready to kill people to get Becky back under his grip. He hesitated with Mike because he didn’t see how this related to his goal. I forgot how it wasn’t just ‘accepting deaths as collateral damage’ but also an active death threat.

          – ‘Do you have a cellphone? How much have you defied me?’ Reminder: Ross is the kind of controlling jackass who didn’t let Becky have a cellphone going away to college! Reminder: He is more upset that she has it and is on the line with 911 than her line in response to him, that that’s her girlfriend’s.

          Ross would likely be an abusive shithead, religion or no. His abuse takes the form it does because of his religion, but ‘how dare you touch me’ and ‘how much have you defied me [for having a cell phone]’ with the distinct NON-reaction to Becky referring to her girlfriend both say this is very much about control, and always has been. When he’s alone with Becky, he’s virtually identical to Blaine. Physical abuse and all.

        11. Flint Fredstone

          Ross drove his wife to suicide. And still hasn’t noticed. I’d say villain.

        12. King Daniel

          I don’t think Willis has ever told us why Bonnie did what she did – and honestly, I’d rather leave it that way.

        13. Harmony

          Not Villain. Villain is the head badguy.

          He’s an evil minion. Sure he was ‘allies’ with Blaine who is a villain,
          but Ross is a brainwashed minion of a much bigger villain: Organized religion.

        14. BBCC

          I get that, but I think it’s important to look at his ACTIONS, not just his motives, and Ross has:

          1) Quite possibly driven Bonnie to suicide

          2) Yanked his daughter out of university for being gay

          3) Tried to kidnap her to go to conversion therapy

          4) Chased her to IU and tried to kidnap her AGAIN with a GUN, including assaulting Dina, firing a shot in the air of a crowded area, and trying to shoot AG by firing in the air of a busy road AGAIN and threatening to kill anyone who intervened, as well as hitting Becky for calling 911 because how DARE she not want to be kidnapped.

          5) Immediately tried to kidnap her AGAIN once on bail by kidnapping her friends (plus Dina who seems to have snuck in the truck before she knew what was going on kinda kidnapped herself) as well as taking part in the attempted murder of Mike and didn’t say a peep when they were threatening to kill hostages until AG left.

          Intentions matter, but so does impact. Ross was fuckoff evil.

        15. drs

          I’d say Ross has *done* evil. And if he *is* evil, it’s a different kind of evil than Blaine.

        16. Freemage

          I like ‘different kind’. Blaine is willfully malignant–he wants others to suffer for the sake of their suffering. He’s enjoyed his stint as ‘the villain’ opposing AG, precisely for this reason. That said, he also has goals, and his actions, wicked as they are, are also meant to advance those goals.

          Ross is a horrible person, because he’s the sort of person who believes he is good no matter what, and therefore that he cannot commit an evil deed. With that particular pair of blinders on, the individual becomes, often, capable of greater harm than someone who is willfully malignant, even, because they never double-check their deeds even against their own well-being or ask if it will advance their own agenda.

        17. Kella

          Yes, the antagonist doesn’t have to be a person or even alive. It’s just whatever the key thing is that works against the protagonist.

        18. Tualha

          If a villain has a mustache, it needs to be a particular shape. It certainly should not look like a bat landed on his face.

        19. Opus the Poet

          As a writer myself, the antagonist is there to drive the plot in the direction the writer chooses, where a villain has to be evil, bad , nasty and disreputable, but not used to drive the plot. One character can do both, one or the other, or neither. Also the antagonist can be a group of characters, or nobody, like a force of nature. The rogue wave in A Perfect Storm was an example of this kind of antagonist.

        20. Deanatay

          In Avatar:TLA, Zuko was an antagonist. His father, the Fire Lord, was the villain.

    2. Dave Van Domelen

      Blaine needs to suffer more.

    3. Dr. T

      Blaine will possibly serve as a recurring unrepentant villain. Ross only has so many possible storylines left without a redemption being required.

      1. Doctor_Who

        I strongly expect/hope/demand that Blaine is going to jail now, and with the rate time passes in this comic, hopefully we never hear from him again, unless Patreon votes for us to see him having a terrible time in a bonus strip.

        1. Icalasari

          Or more worrying, Patreon gets strips of what Blaine is up to

          …And it shows an empty cell at night. The last panel has a poster fall from the wall, revealing a hole and a dead guard

        2. Doctor_Who

          Took Andy Dufresne 20 years to pull that poster business off. Unless someone sends him a cake with a jackhammer in it, Blaine’s gonna be in there longer than any of us will be alive.

          I’m also hoping he’s in trouble with his “associates” for using his pull on a petty personal matter that is gonna lead to a murder investigation. He might be safer in jail.

        3. Tualha

          What, you think the mob can’t get someone whacked in prison?

        4. Khyrin

          By definition, it HAS to be at least slightly more difficult to wack someone in a prison cell. Like, it has to wait until your man on the inside comes on shift and has an opportunity.

        5. Needfuldoer

          The man on the inside could also be another inmate, who could off Blaine in a communal area if they’re both in general population.

          He’ll be in the county jail until after his trial, though. Enough to keep him contained, but not “prison” yet.

        6. BBCC

          Blaine’s boss has guys on the police force apparently.

          I don’t think he’s going to get to leave that county jail.

        7. Regalli

          I’m expecting “oh huh, the cameras were off” or something of equal shadiness. Gramps is not letting Blaine turn state’s evidence, and neither are any of the cops on his payroll who Blaine may or may not have names to give. (Not that I’m certain state’s evidence works when the crime you’re being tried for is COMPLETELY UNRELATED to the one you’re trying to flip for, but Blaine is just good enough at spin that he may well try.)

        8. Freemage

          Actually, state’s evidence can work in that precise situation, and often does. Plea bargains are for crimes that are the subject of the investigation–person cooperates with investigators, gets lowered prison time or even none. State’s evidence means you’re offering the cops/DA something so valuable that they are willing to overlook whatever crime bust brought you to the bargaining table in the first place.

          The fact that so many state’s evidence types are also horrible, horrible human beings up to their elbows in crime themselves often works against them on the witness stand, of course.

        9. Undrave

          I also expect his hired goon to throw him under the bus the moment the cops get involved and tell EVERYTHING they know.

        10. DailyBrad

          Faz’s mom might be a problem instead, then. She wasn’t exactly a ray of sunshine, either.

        11. Axel

          I’ve been considering the idea of him being accidentally smothered but I doubt we’ll have two characters with dads dying on the same day.

    4. Reltzik

      Because Ross wasn’t batshit enough to be the one to murder his partner.

    5. Nick

      Because having Blaine arrested for Ross’s murder is so much more satisfying than the reverse.

    6. Regalli

      Because Amber and AG would have a different emotional response (probably responses, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s overlap) to Blaine’s death. Still some degree of conflictedness, I’m sure, but probably with some ties to their own self-loathing (especially since it happening now would probably include some degree of “AG injuring him last night” being a contributing factor, which is a plot complication we do NOT want to get into here.)

      Also, Willis already wrote an “Amber gets to tell this shitstain to go fuck himself for dying before he could realize how wrong he was about her” strip back in Shortpacked. It was a very different Amber (older, generally better-adjusted, and I say that even in the context of her marrying Mike in that universe,) and this would be a radically different interaction as a result, but the fact that that ground has been covered in some way probably is a factor for them here.

      Said comic, for reference, since it really is one of my absolute favorites: https://www.shortpacked.com/comic/last-respects

      1. King Daniel

        I recall someone once did a mashup-comic of that strip with Dumbing of Age panels thrown in as well. No idea where I saw it last, though (maybe Willis’s tumblr?).

        1. Regalli

          Could’ve been. I know I mentioned it way back when when I submitted the punch to the Crowning Moment of Facepunch Tumblr (because that was satisfying, but so is a god-damn FACEPUNCH, you know?… This was before it proceeded to traumatize Amber,) but I’m not sure I included the actual panel in the submission.

    7. Keulen

      I hate both Ross and Blaine, but I really didn’t want either of them to die. Just end up in prison for a very long time.

    8. Sombrero

      Because Ross wanted to die if he couldn’t have “his” Becky. Blaine does not want to die in any way. That gives him an advantage.

    9. Kaidah

      Ross was too one-dimensional, an overbearing fundamentalist with single-minded goals is never going to grow into anything else. Blaine on the other hand is intelligent, scheming, manipulative, and frankly bug crazy.

      One is good for a couple of story arcs so the more important characters can experience growth. The other can come back again and again with increasingly wacky/life threatening plans until he builds a doomsday device on top of the library or something and has a final showdown with Amazi-Girl.

  6. Boh No

    and I think its gone be a long long time

  7. Kravis

    Don’t worry, Becks.

    If the afterlife exists in the Dumverse, I’m sure he’ll be looking up on you for the rest of your life.

  8. Ed Rhodes

    FEELS!

  9. Some1

    Ross: I’m getting better!

    Becky: No you’re not, you’ll be stone dead in a moment.

    1. BigDogLittleCat

      I think I’ll go for a walk.

      1. Agemegos

        You’re not fooling anyone!

    2. Rabid Rabbit

      It’s scientific fact. I’d know, ’cause I’m going to be a scientist.

  10. Aragem

    As sad as this scene is, there is a positive outcome to this. Ross won’t threaten Becky’s freedom. Blaine will hopefully go to prison for kidnapping and murder. And Joyce’s church is going to have to deal with the fallout for being responsible for freeing a man involved in a mass kidnapping. How much better things would have been if they simply left him in prison.

    1. Icalasari

      Not just connected to a mass kidnapping, but also they have to deal with the fact that they were convinced by a man who ended up murdering Ross

      1. Aragem

        Oh, yeah! That too! Yep, there should be some fallout from this. Especially between Joyce and her mother.

      2. Regalli

        And convinced by a GODDAMN MOB STOOGE at that. The fallout’s going to be interesting, yeah.

        I’m torn between “Becky’s going to finally cut loose after years of demurring, snark, and unsubtle but quiet rebellion because she has FUCKING HAD IT with these people,” “Joyce goes barbarian because what did any of you THINK was going to happen? You in particular, Carol,” and “both? both. both is good.”

        1. BBCC

          ^^^ This.

    2. Abbe_Faria

      Not sure but they might have legal protection for making his bail, so long as they were adding and abetting what he did after getting out. Though on the personal level they deserve to catch so much backlash for this no matter how they try to spin it. You let a guy out who threatened violence to “get his daughter back” with the seemingly explicit purpose of him doing an encore of his first performance, who THEN partnered with a guy with mob connections, to then kidnap her friends, blackmail her into coming to him, AND hired/recruited a small group of guys on the promise of being able to beat the shit out of a girl (though given their attitude I really hope they run face-first into “being tried as an adult” since they seemed quite up for beating up their hostages).

      1. SeanR

        BEING tried as an adult? Presumably, they’re all college kids. Odds are, everyone one is 18 and LEGALLY an adult.

      2. BigDogLittleCat

        You are correct. Helping him make bail does not make them liable for his actions when he’s out.

        I wonder if they’re going to get their money back? I’m pretty sure that if you commit a crime while out on bail you forfeit the bail, but if the defendant dies before he’s supposed to appear, the bail is refunded.

        1. Chris Phoenix

          Wait, what? That would give anyone who put up bail money for a bail-breaker a strong incentive to murder them.

        2. King Daniel

          Ooooor, if they’re thinking rationally, they could just not bail the person in the first place and thus keep all their money without being possibly arrested for murder.

        3. Fred

          Congratulations! You’ve just invented bounty hunters, and “wanted: dead or alive” posters. Now, society has put up some rules around bounty hunting, skip tracing, bail bondsmen and their agents, etc. People aren’t usually wanted “Dead” anymore. But that’s the basic idea: Skip bail, and someone tries to hunt you down.

        4. Insanenoodlyguy

          He was found dead in the course of comitting a crime, I feel like that would probably invalidate bail in most cases.

        5. Needfuldoer

          The cops Weekend at Bernie’s him back to jail.

          Then he and Blaine Swiss Army Man their way back out again.

        6. clif

          Okay, I was actually interested enough to look up whether they would get the money back. If the money was used to pay a bail bondsman to put up the actual money for the bail, then they do not get that money back and owe the bondsman whatever the agreement was. On the other hand, whoever directly put up the money to the court, whether it be the church, Blain, or a bondsman, once Toedad dies before trial, then even if he died committing a crime, the money is returned less a fee to the court, which is normally about 10%. So if the church met the bond with Blaines contribution, they get about 90% back. If they hired a bondsman for most of the money then they get nothing. If they trusted Blaine to use their money to help bail Blaine out, then they get nothing and he gets 90% back unless Blaine voluntarily returns it to the church or they successfully sue. Absent a written agreement, how much Blaine would owe the church in those circumstances is the kind of question that makes lawyers ritch. The case would be entertaining though.

        7. thejeff

          Seems like maybe there should be a clause in there about if the guy posting the bail murders the guy he bailed out in the process of kidnapping a bunch of kids together, he really shouldn’t get the money back. 🙂

        8. Regalli

          That does seem like the kind of thing that should be there! Especially since there HAS to be precedent somewhere in the long and storied history of criminal mishaps.

          I do so hope it was “they gave the money to Blaine and trusted him to take it all to the court”. Blaine dying in jail is very likely (because again, I’m pretty sure any even halfway competent mobster’s gonna cut their losses on THIS idiot). The church suffering actual consequences of some form for their abject cruelty and trusting a goddamn mobster is not yet guaranteed.

        9. Cattleprod

          That’s a plot point in Jackie Brown (spoilers I guess), the bad guy bails someone out just to murder them so they can’t testify against him.

    3. Sirksome

      It might not workout that great. For one I doubt the church will face any negative blowback from this. If anything Ross will be seen as a martyr who gave his life to save innocent kids from a madman who took advantage of them. The comic has also established police on the take so while I doubt Blaine can dodge a murder charge there’s enough set up to make it plausible he gets out of this lighter than he deserves. Becky is free but she’s also most likely an orphan who had to see her father die. She’s tough but that will mess up anybody. And there’s a good chance the douche bros get light sentences being minors and will be free to terrorize IU with their cliche yet dangerous brand of toxic bullying within months. There is a lot to clean up here before we actually relax. The fallout of this will have a lasting impact on everyone involved.

      1. King Daniel

        The douchebros, at least, aren’t minors unless they all happen to be under-18 freshmen – not the likeliest of scenarios.

        1. Bicycle Bill

          They’re not minors, but unless they’ve already got a record it’s likely they’ll get off relatively easy due to ‘first offender’ status.

        2. Ray Radlein

          I know they’re white and all, but I strongly suspect that Kidnapping and Felony Murder are not the kind of things generally amenable to “first offender” adjustments

        3. BBCC

          That might be the kind of thing that moves it down from “life in prison” to “25 years in jail”.

        4. Captain Oblivious

          Definitely some of them aren’t minors. The first run in was Beef and two other guys aiming to beat up a “gay freshman”, so they were very much othering him for the purpose of dehumanizing him and making it ok (in their minds) to assault him.

          src: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/01-move-in-day/gay/

  11. Moon

    wait becky is still a christian right? does this imply that she thinks toedad is going to heaven or that her mom is in hell? if the bad place is real toedad’s going

    1. Dunedon

      Her mother committed suicide … accordingly she’s already down there waiting for Ross. Stupid religion.

      1. King Daniel

        “Suicide equals damnation” isn’t a universally-held belief among Christians – and I doubt Becky “God Answers Lesbian Prayers” MacIntyre would be one of those who do believe that.

      2. Paul

        Catholic dogma no longer teaches that victims of suicide go to hell, either.

      3. Fart Captor

        There’s no way Becky believes her mom is in hell, even if she was taught that

    2. King Daniel

      Depending on Becky’s particular beliefs (yes, she’s still Christian last we heard from her on the subject), she may believe that her dad’s still going to heaven regardless of his past sins. “The blood of Christ washes it all away,” and all that.

      1. Some1

        I mean if were taking the concept of Hell literally, does Ross really deserve to be tortured forever? Hell (no pun intended) does Blaine deserve to be tortured forever? Forever is a long time.

      2. Reltzik

        Probably not that particular rationale, since this particular group does believe hell exists and that atheists and the like get sent there.

        I’m guessing it’s more of a once-saved-always-saved thing.

        Or, you know, Becky doesn’t care to think that part of the dogma through.

        1. Marduk

          I was raised in pretty much a carbon copy of Joyce and Becky’s church: once saved, always saved *unless you curse the Holy Spirit* which is the sole sin for which there was no redemption possible. Suicides not going to heaven was never a part of any evangelical belief set I encountered (both the family church and the greater ecosystem of supporting organizations). It’s just that, if you were truly saved then you’d be too committed to preaching the gospel to consider suicide, so if you did show up at the figurative pearly gates having killed yourself, you’d better have a dang good reason for doing so.

        2. Caspar Mulders

          As an unbeliever who is nonetheless somewhat familiar with the Bible and theology, it never ceases to amaze me how many radical Protestant groups, despite vesting absolute authority in scripture, have a poor grasp on said scripture and just make stuff up along the way and/or ignore those parts of scripture they don’t like.

          Having said that: there is no purely biblical basis for considering suicide a terrible sin – six (I think) pretty much incontrovertible suicides occur in the Bible (five in the Old Testament), and none are accompanied by a condemnation of suicide, and at least Samson’s suicide is actually painted as praiseworthy.

        3. Chris

          Samson didn’t collapse the building in order to kill himself. He did it in order to kill the enemy, with his own death as an acceptable side effect.

        4. temperaryobsessor

          My understanding was that suicide is killing a person and that’s a big no no. And the timing made it hard to repent before you die.

      3. NelC

        I’ve come to the conclusion that the only crime worthy of being tortured forever is… torturing people forever. Which has some interesting theological implications.

        1. Caspar Mulders

          Actually, there have been Christian sects and ‘heretics’ since the very dawn of Christianity (Marcion of Sinope) who considered the biblical god to be an evil, lesser deity falsely claiming to be the true god. They explain the ‘problem of evil’ by postulating that the world was created and is ruled by this evil being, who may or may not be the devil.

        2. Council

          I am part of a modern version of just one such denomination.

    3. JessWitt

      I’m guessing purgatory? I’d direct Ross to hell if I was St. Peter.

      1. Jamie

        I don’t think that anyone present is Catholic. IIRC, Purgatory is specific to Catholics, not general to Christians.

        1. JessWitt

          Ahh I had a feeling it mIght not have applied to evangelicals. Thanks for that.

        2. Chris Phoenix

          There was a time when the Catholic Church was quite blatantly extorting money from people. It makes sense that Purgatory would be invented. “Your dear mom is in Purgatory. It’s not Hell, but it’s not a fun place. Pay for ten masses to be said for her soul, and she’ll go to Heaven.”

          If you think I’m exaggerating, look up “indulgences.”

        3. Huehuetotl

          “invented for” isn’t quite the same thing as “developed into”. Purgatory was imagined because it’s a shitton closer to the idea of ‘just’ than infinite torture. Something like it also found in branches pre-Christian Judaism and hellenistic polytheism, from which the Christian versions of an afterlife were derived.

        4. Geneseepaws

          Do NOT look up indulgences, the implications will make you nauseous.

        5. Harvey Janus

          Finally get to use my new degree.

          Purgatory as a concept was in Catholicism from way before they started extorting the populace, as was the concept of indulgences. Which are still around. Because they’re not anything specific other than a generic spiritual reward for good or faithful works. You get indulgences for… basically being a good Catholic or doing charitable works.

          The defense many bishops and a handful of popes used for the sale of indulgences was that the ‘donation’ to the church was a good work, thus granting an indulgence to the person making the ‘donation.’

          Prior to the creation of aural confession and reconciliation by the Irish, penance was only for extremely serious sins like apostasy and adultery, and could not be repeated. Indulgences were for the basic everyday sins that most people commit.

        6. JessWitt

          As a lapsed Catholic, I did not know they were called indulgences. Looking back I definitely have been through them, saying prayers and such as an impressionable child. And then I get older and went to a secular college.

        7. ValdVin

          “Lapsed”? I thought people like us who gave up that Church called ourselves Recovering Catholics.

        8. JessWitt

          Seems like different ways of saying “tomato”.

        9. dulcisdomus

          But official Catholic doctrine does not have purgatory anymore, either, right?
          IIRC Pope Benedict declared that belief in purgatory is no longer appropriate about a decade ago, after he already had been opposed to the concept much earlier when he still was Cardinal Ratzinger.

        10. Mkvenner

          John Paul II and Benedict XVI said was that purgatory was not a place but a condition of existance.

      2. TyrNaNorg

        Roman Catholic here. I was taught the following:

        if you’re Roman Catholic: You go to Heaven, period. Saint Peter may have words for you, but you’re in.

        If you are non-Catholic Christian: You’re still in.

        If you are Jewish or Muslim: You’re in.

        If you are atheist, agnostic, Deist, Pagan, et cetera and are Righteous:because the Abrahamic God IS The One true God and all faiths are simply varying interpretations of his Works, you go to Purgatory and your spirit helps to hold the Adversary in place until the Apocalypse, after which you are ushered to a place of honor in the Kingdom of Heaven to watch as the Jews and the Christians do battle with the Adversary and his thousand thousand thousand spawn.

        They never told us what happens to the non-Righteous.

    4. BigDogLittleCat

      Becky probably feels that even as shitty as he is, he’s going to Heaven. I don’t think she has it in her to consign someone to Hell.

      1. SuperZero

        It’s not actually up to her.

        1. BigDogLittleCat

          I know.* But religious people think what they think regardless of official dogma. She surely thinks he’s going to Heaven because she cannot believe he deserves Hell.

        2. BBCC

          I mean, Becky’s already broken with the church (though NOT Christianity) on the matter of being gay and likely suicide as well (since it seems likely this church considers suicide a sin since they were telling the kids she had cancer) I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s got a sort of ‘God’s all forgiving, everyone goes to heaven’ sort of vibe going on.

        3. Regalli

          And Ross’s ‘Satan took [Bonnie] from me’ definitely also seems like it’s a ‘the urge to commit suicide is sent by the devil to tempt you’ sort of thing much like being gay, so yeah, I suspect sin there.

          And I would not be shocked if Becky, who found Bonnie and who probably has a better sense than Ross of how unhappy she was in hindsight, has a much less demonically-minded view of suicide.

        4. BigDogLittleCat

          Ross blames Satan since it can’t possibly be *his* fault that his wife was so miserable she killed herself.

          The Browns probably kept the truth from Joyce to “protect” her. And maybe to spare Becky questioning or looks. Or they* don’t want to admit that a Good Christian Woman (TM) could possibly not be happy in her marriage.
          Because a fundy marriage is by definition blissfully happy, donchaknow? *read: Carol.
          Wait- didn’t Hank express some surprise that Joyce didn’t know how Bonnie died?
          That means it was all Carol’s doing.

        5. Delicious Taffy

          That’s more or less irrelevant.

  12. Reltzik

    God: “Yeah, Becksters, about that… you do know he’s not going to the same place as her, right?”
    Gabriel: “Uh, Lord, you muted your chat? So that living people couldn’t hear you unless you explicitly DMed them? Remember? Something about preserving the free will?”
    God: “What? No! Since when have I ever cared about preserving free will? I just like making snarky comments when they can’t hear me. You should have heard the zinger I had for Tony Spell.”

    1. Regalli

      God: “Speaking of which, that continuation of Enterprise! Come on, CBS. You came SO CLOSE with Discovery!”

      (This joke was last referenced in March 2007, back in the aftermath of Shortpacked having a cult. I’m bringing it up anyway because I was already tag-trawling Shortpacked.)

      1. Reltzik

        “Unfortunately, God, we can’t make it happen. Captain Archer’s too busy bumming around New Orleans.”

        “…. time to wipe New Orleans off the map, then. Hmm. Fire? Flood? Pestilence? Earthquake? Tsunami? Meteor? Eh, screw it, it’s on the Caribbean, that means I throw a hurricane at it.”

  13. DamonicFury

    For those wondering what her intended-to-be last words were:
    https://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/unlimited/

  14. Tan

    Her previous intended-to-be-last words to him:

    https://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/unlimited/

    Definitely solid and satisfying

    1. Bagge

      A+

    2. Jezzeh!

      This is why I came to the comments section. Thank you!

  15. Some1

    Plot twist: The Dumbiverse runs on reincarnation. At the end of the comic it will fast forward to ten years in the future where Joyce and Becky run into a toe shaped child.

    1. Deanatay

      OR… Ross’ corpse is reanimated with cybernetic implants, giving him a mockery of God’s gift of life… and an overwhelming desire to save his daughter’s soul!

      THE TOEMINATOR

      1. clif

        You are evil for making me want this.

        Why, no. I’m not evil at all. Why do you ask?

  16. SailorCakes

    I’m not crying you’re crying! T_T

    1. Deanatay

      Those aren’t tears, they’re liquid justice!

  17. Sirksome

    Uh….I don’t know much about Becky’s mom but something tells me Ross probably ain’t going to the same place she is.

    1. Beef

      Come to think of it that’s even true from his point of view

    2. Sombrero

      Becky’s view of religion is healthy and simple: God is kind.

  18. Bagge

    Becky is amazing. again she is faced with tragedy and death, and again she faces her idiot dad in a way that lets her say what needs to be said and leave as little as possible to fester. In the end of the day, after he refused to make room for her – the real her – in his life, the only words that really needed to be said were “goodbye”. and she made it count, then and now.

    and that last panel…. ooof. Becky knew the danged extent of her expectations, knew that the road they put her on was that of her mother, that ended in death. That is what she has been running from all this time. and her declaration to live in the last panel is the declaration to not be that. To not be what her father wanted for her. Becky is free.

  19. Misfortune

    Just realized that Ross’s last words to Becky (over the phone, anyway) were “See you soon.” So this seems as good a rebuttal as any, I guess.

    1. Bagge

      Better than his last intended last words

      https://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/alive/

      I love the nickname by the way. any inspiration from the game?

      1. Tan

        I don’t think he ever intended them to be his last words to her. He was never intending that to be their last interaction.

        1. Bagge

          Well, things don’t always go the way ToeDad intend, do they?

    2. Misfortune

      Thanks! Same idea, but no, it was a character I played a long time ago in D&D named Fortune who fucked up real bad and thereafter started going by Ms. Fortune.

      1. Bagge

        Heh! It’s awesome that you actually earned it.

  20. Bagge

    And poor Dina is so far out of her comfort zone she has no idea how to deal with any of this. But she is by Becky’s side and that’s important.

    1. Rikunda

      I disagree. Look at her eyes. They have sadness and concern. Look at their hands. They are holding each others. She is doing exactly what one would expect at a time like this. Way to go, Dina!

      1. Bagge

        True. I’m mostly thinking of her glance at Becky at panel 3 and 4, trying to figure out a social cue how the situation will develop.

        1. Robbie

          I agree with you both. I think she’s concerned about Becky and a bit unsure about exactly what she should be doing, but she’s is doing exactly what’s needed.

        2. Human Bean

          Same as anyone would be in that situation, no?
          It doesn’t seem like Dina-specific uncertainty.

      2. Needfuldoer

        Sympathy through light physical contact.

  21. butts

    nic e

  22. Uly

    In 80 years they may finally make it out of freshman year.

    1. Sirksome

      It is kind of crazy that tbey didn’t even finish midterms of their first semester before getting involved in an incident where a guy died.

      1. Bagge

        Which sums up Walky’s expectations of the midterms pretty well.

    2. Needfuldoer

      And halfway into Sophomore year!

      If we’re still on the 66.67:1 time differential, and DoA continues to follow 2010’s calendar into 2011 for its days of the week, 80 years in real time takes us to “next December” or the following January.

      (Math)

  23. Toes14

    Great, now Becky can legally inherit any assets her dad had left and actually not be homeless!

    1. Bicycle Bill

      Unless the assets are mortgaged to the hilt, or the hospital doesn’t file a claim against them.  Remember Ross was in the hospital after the first kidnapping incident, and that sort of thing ain’t cheap.  And the legal staffs of most hospitals could teach the IRS a few things about getting blood from a stone.

      1. Needfuldoer

        Do we know what his job is/was? He could just be on the hook for a copay if he has insurance. It’s doubtful he’s old enough to be on Medicare, low-income enough for Medicaid, and IIRC Indiana was one of the states that dug its heels in and got dragged into the ACA kicking and screaming…)

        Hospitals charge insane rates to insurance companies just because they can. Sometimes if you’re paying for everything out of pocket they’ll settle for less (if only because average individual could ever scrape together what they’d normally charge, so they’ll take what they can get).

        1. Bicycle Bill

          “… so they’ll tak what they can get.”

          Like your house, your car, your bank accounts, and all your other shit.
          You don’t have to give up your firstborn, but that’s only because they don’t want to have to feed and clothe it.

  24. Ahriman

    Ehm… Guys… You’re taking for sure that anyone won’t hide the truth and make Ross an hero who helped the kids to escape and sacrifice himself against Blaine. Police and Media may do it, the church may do it, even the kids themselves may do it to help Becky not be too stressed by Ross’ supporters in future or some other motivation.

  25. Greylurker

    I know this is a very Becky focused moment here, but there is another shoe to drop. How are Joyce’s mom and the rest of the churchy bunch going to react.

    1. Romanticide

      they will be in horror, but they will probably think this happened for whatever except the reality.

      1. Bagge

        “That poor man, so horribly murdered because of his evil daughter”

        1. Needfuldoer

          “All he wanted to do was save his daughter’s soul from the devil! This is all her fault! If she just went with him the first time, none of this would have happened!”

          Or something else along those abhorrent lines, as if Becky was seven and ran away to dodge going to the dentist for a routine cleaning.

        2. Human Bean

          Yeah, probably :/

          I mean, Carol’s reaction to Ross kidnapping his daughter at gunpoint was basically “so, is being a lesbian worth putting your father in jail?”

          When people are really determined to believe something, nothing is going to make them reconsider, I guess.

        3. Shariku

          I imagine this will probably be the moment where Joyce and her mother finally have to cut ties.

        4. Bagge

          YUP

          “your mom… and your church… will always do the right thing.”

          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/02-to-remind-you-of-my-love/therightthing/

        5. Regalli

          It’s gonna be BIG and AWFUL and I for one cannot WAIT.

          (They’re definitely going to cognitive dissonance away the fact that Ross was attacked by his co-conspirator, who chose the kidnapping victims and thus deliberately excluded Becky; that Becky arrived pretty much as soon as physically possible and was already too late to stop Ross getting hit; that Becky had no idea where Ross was before the kidnapping began so it’s not even as though she could have preemptively turned herself over; and that maybe a guy who comes out of nowhere offering to bail out a complete stranger arrested for kidnapping and firing a gun on a college campus – who can pay that bail in full – is perhaps not the most trustworthy person and this was all foreseeable. But JOYCE AND BECKY have all this knowledge, and I can’t imagine a scenario where neither of them brings any of that up.)

        6. BBCC

          I know, I’m stoked!

        7. Freemage

          The bit I’m hoping for is that Hank also comes to the conclusion that it’s time to cut ties with Carol. She literally almost got their daughter killed. That’s ‘call a good divorce lawyer’ time.

    2. Delicious Taffy

      They’ll just be mad at Becky because they’re fucking stupid.

    3. Bob

      Joyce: Hey mum, wanna try that again or do you get the message?

  26. SuperFroakie82

    So it’s lookin like Ross isn’t gonna get any actual last words with Becky.
    I guess he didn’t deserve any.

  27. Hex Hornet

    I gotta say: Becky’s handling this with more grace and poise that I would have, were I in her shoes.

  28. Amelie Wikström

    He died as he lived, making life impossible for everyone around him to satisfy a judgmental invisible magic bigot in the sky his priest told him needed his worship.

    No but really, I’d like Ross to be coherent enough for some questions along the lines of “What did you think was going to happen?” I mean, it’s mostly Becky he tried to bend to his will, and presumably her mom, but it’s not that different from what he tried to do with Blaine, except for the part where Blaine had a hammer. This pattern of deciding he knows better than everyone what God wants and it’s more important than their comfort or well-being or life and making it impossible to deal with him in any way other than rejecting him with every bit of force available which was never enough. The question should be “Did you want force your daughter to either kill you or die herself? Because you realize those are the options you were trying to force her into.”

    I mean, Becky’s hands may be clean in a turn of coincidence worthy of a classic Disney hero, but realistically she’s going to blame herself so much it wouldn’t make a lot of difference if her hands held the hammer. It still seems like a valid question.

    1. Mopey

      If we assume Ross is indeed a fundie down to the bones then he would accept both his own and his daughters death if it meant “saving” her “soul”.

      It’s crazy but it is consistent with someone who views life as an application process to an ultraconservative idea of heaven.

      1. Amelie Wikström

        Yeah, I recall that was covered in the comments at around the time Ross was waving a gun in Becky’s face. But if that belief holds up in the face of his own death, that’d be good to know. Then he should not be afraid of death at all, and Becky shouldn’t have to care about him dying at all, if death is only the beginning.

    2. BBCC

      Hey, that’s not Ross at all!

      A priest would be Catholic and Joyce’s church says Catholics are icky. 😛

  29. Nono

    Wow, this has real shades of ‘Amber at Blaine’s funeral in Shortpacked!’.

    1. Regalli

      Very much so, agreed.

  30. Thursday Violist

    “Tell Mom I’m gonna be a while.”
    “’cause I’m gonna invent immortality.”
    ~Becky

    1. clif

      Or at least radical life extension.

      Entropy always wins in the end.

  31. Warcodered

    What is going to yell up at her?

  32. Delicious Taffy

    The cops are gonna show up and arrest everybody except Blaine, who will somehow go completely unnoticed.

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      He has an SEP Field?

      1. thejeff

        It’s actually build into Amazi-Girl’s cape, which is currently wrapped around his head.

        1. Caspar Mulders

          So they’re going to arrest Blaine’s body but leave his head behind? Hmm. I’m actually ok with that.

  33. Slartibeast Button, BIA

    But considering the time ratio between the real world and the Dumbiverse, what are the time ratios between the Dumbiverse Corporeal Place and Dumbiverse afterlives?

    1. clif

      Insufficient data.

  34. Rabisch

    Still. Ross can survive.

  35. Eric

    These are good words. Drama Words: Words that could never be called upon IRL.

  36. Deanatay

    Tell Mom I’m Gonna Be A While: DoA book X

    That line gives me a lot of hope for Becky. Losing a parent can engender feelings of guilt, depression and despair, but she’s having none of that. She has goals and plenty of reasons to live, and she ain’t goin’ anywhere. She’ll be sad, sure, but she’ll recover.

    1. clif

      Yeah, Joyce and Becky make an interesting contrast. For all her deflections, Becky is much more in tune with her emotions and knows right where she stands.

  37. DudeMyDadOwnsaDealership

    Looks like the baby got his bottle….Again, but this may be the last time. I don’t see him not blowing his trial or having an easy time in prison ( if he lasts long, that is )

    Sad, ugly truth. Empathy and avoiding being a jerk can be a liability, sometimes. Just like Aesop’s Fable of the Snake and the Farmer, some people will just wreck your life for it…

  38. Falcon

    And then Ross got amnesia and became a good man unburdened by reactionary dogma. He helped the poor and the dick, stood up for the defenseless, and had a black, gay mentor figure. Over time, he learned with much horror of his previous deeds and worked to support Becky while she studied for her PhD. He also helped pay for Becky and Dina’s wedding. The End.

    1. Reltzik

      ….. I know that was a typo, but…..

    2. Roborat

      I loved that typo, made me laugh a little.

  39. Blah

    Dunno about all this antagonist vs villain talk.
    I’d say it’s because Ross is a Stooge who’s played his story to it’s end. Blaine still has cards to play and is certainly more villainous than Ross. His killing of Ross serves to give him more notoriety for down the road.

  40. Sombrero

    Dumbing of Age Book 10: Guess You Wanted To Have The Last Word, Huh?

    1. Sombrero

      Yes, I know is too short.

      1. King Daniel

        It’s not shorter than #1 (This Campus Is a Friggin’ Escher Print), #3 (Your Stupid Overconfidence is Nostalgic), #4 (Amazi-Girl is Always Prepared For Anything), #5 (Hey, Guess What, I’m a Lesbian!), or #8 (Up Here We Can Be Garbage), so that length wouldn’t necessarily disqualify it.

        Really, the only ones it’d be shorter than as a title are #2 (I Beg You, Don’t Cast Your Body Into the Cragged Shame Pits of the Lustwolves), #6 (The Machinations of My Revenge Will Be Cold, Swift, and Absolutely Ridiculous), #7 (Just Put Down the Ukulele – Only Then Can the Healing Begin), and #9 (Now Let’s Go Commit Something Mildly Subversive Which, at Worst, Will Serve as a Humanizing Anecdote and Not as Anything Truly Threatening to the Power Structures at Hand). That’s less than half of the current book titles. 😛

        1. Sombrero

          Great analysis!, but I think I detect some lenghtening trend. I never thought Willis would decide on somehting longer than #6, and then #9 came.

  41. Willoughby Chase

    As my dad lay drowning in his own lung fluids, close to dying, the nurse said: “You can talk to him, hearing is often the last to go.”

    He was near deaf but she wasn’t to know.

    I talked to him anyway.

  42. Josie

    Whelp that made me cry…dyw (damn you Willis!)

    Ps: I’m hot for business Becky!!

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