Actually, he hasn’t fired, yet. He seems well-trained in its use, and shows good fire discipline. Given that Ross shows many signs of being ex-Army, this is not surprising.
(No, this is NOT ‘defending Ross’, noting one positive aspect in a UNIVERSE of negative ones is hardly a defense.)
He’s not ex army, he just likes the pants. Also he was clearly aiming for what he thought was Becky yesterday so I’m perplexed by everyone congratulating him on firearm safety. (“Never aim at something you don’t intend to shoot” is still a rule, with or without your finger on the trigger.)
Do you think it’s possible the gun isn’t loaded? Baring in mind that Toe-dad wants to “save” his daughter, it might be possible he brought the gun for intimidation purposes, with no intention of using it.
Even if you think the weapon is unloaded, you STILL shouldn’t aim it at anything you wouldn’t want to shoot. It’s a basic rule I learned as a little kid, and our country doesn’t exactly have lax gun control…
Quite the opposite, because, as you say it yourself, he wants to “save” her. So she’s better off dead in the heavens (ans then her loving family can pray infinitely for her soul and God’s forgiveness) than desecrating and soiling herself on Earth, isn’t she? Because, then, she would not be welcomed in paradise anymore. And so, if she resists her father’s will, she will go to Hell and thus the only way to “save” her might be to kill her.
Disclaimer : these are in no way my personal views.
It got lost amidst the discussion of the Jurassic Park jokes, but Ross was trying to either threaten Becky with his rifle or at worst actually take the shot.
First rule of firearms is that you don’t aim at anything you don’t plan on hitting.
But… only people properly trained to use and have appreciation for weapons would know that. Ross likely isn’t.
Chances are Ross is one of those hyper-masculine and thus hyper-insecure assholes who went out and bought a rifle in order to be as cool as all his guy friends, impress someone, for “home defense”, or to use as a tool of intimidation to keep his female property in line prior to Becky’s mother dying and her leaving for college.
Ex-Army? Probably “failed out of MEPS” Army. I’d wager his training is more “protect dat dar homefront from them blacks and jews and GAYS!” backwoods militia.
Now that I think about it, given how old he might be, Ross may very well have been old enough to have been drafted into the military, or could have enlisted during a time of low admittance standards and lacking psychological evaluations for potential recruits.
Regardless, whatever his service was, I doubt it was long, and his clothing preference still screams “militia” more than “military”.
If consumed quickly enough, it gives you projectile vomiting as well. The ability to launch large amounts of strong acid could be useful in this situation.
Actually, I think I would pay good money to see Sal and Ruth tag team Toedad Put the back wheel of Sal’s motorcycle on his “Trail Mix”, and max throttle!
Well, Willis have fooled us with tags before. If it was his intention to make us think it is Becky, then he could just add her name to the tag to confuse us.
He doesn’t like to do that. He honestly tags things, like when he was doing Amber’s flashbacks. He drew someone into them specifically because he wouldn’t include them in the tag otherwise.
Willis has been misleading with tags, but not inaccurate. Based on what he said about the Sal situation, there must be at least some part of Becky shown in one of these panels for her to get tagged.
I dunno, we’ve already established that Ross is proof to Ruth’s better attacks (no femurs, no neck), she’d have to get creative… still, I’d LOVE to see her try.
You’re most likely right, and I stand by to be disappointed tomorrow, but I really hope that he just had a moment of sanity, where he found himself about to say the word “murder,” and everything snapped into perspective (or at least something closer to perspective than the deranged worldview he’s been working under), and he realized that what he was about to do was horribly wrong.
I mean, I doubt he’d change his mind about homosexuality or anything like that, but maybe, just maybe he might have realized that murdering people was a lot worse than anything Becky or Dina has done (even from his point of view).
Like I said, I expect to be disappointed, but I can hope, right?
Most of it quite comprehensible, especially given the era’s lack of any type of useful prison system and the tendency of almost any crime (including street muggings) to end up as a murder given enough time and the wrong circumstances.
Really? You think he axe-murders his neighbours who mow their lawns on the Sabbath, regardless of if they’re Christians or not, in accordance with The Good Book?
Notice: He doesn’t have the rifle. Dina got it away from him, somehow, in the scuffle. I also don’t see it in his immediate area in panel 2. I think the next comic may be the scramble for the gun followed by distant “BANG!” with the shocked faces of Toedad and Dina in the following panel.
It’s also possible that it is the terminus of a cloaca (gross if bird-like) or that it’s something equally horrible, like a hemi-pene (grosser if reptile-like).
I sincerely hope you weren’t referring to this unspeakable horror; it’s upsetting enough that I remember it.
CLICK AT YOUR OWN RISK. Even the relatively clinical and sane description of the atrocity is disturbing.
At that range? Not likely.
Though if he’d thrown her off one-handed, I guess he could’ve followed up with a finishing shot, but I’m assuming he’s lucid enough to realize that a gunshot will attract unwelcome attention.
And it turns out to be….the completely harmless stranger!
the completely harmless stranger: I…just….wanted….to not rape anyone. *dies* cue rain Dina goes RAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Translated from Raptor as NOOOOOOOOOOO!
As such, Becky’s “problem” in Toedad’s eyes is that her place and role as a woman has been confused by his weakness and the deceptions of Satan and Dina is further preying on that to further mislead and confuse her about the proper gender role of being heterosexually attracted to men thus robbing her further of her womanhood.
Which is why this particular branch of bigot tends to view trans people and queer people as part and parcel of the same coin (often to the point where trans people are just viewed as “extreme” versions of gay people).
Which leads to some fun cognitive dissonance when they encounter a gay trans person. Intersectionality doesn’t exist, you can be gay OR trans, not BOTH, you shouldn’t WANT to be both since even ONE is going against God’s will or whatever ANYWAY, so why would you try to STACK your existential blasphemies?????
(Note: the previous sentence was facetiousness on my part but there are people who actually believe that stuff. I had fun explaining to my very Christian mom that when a trans woman in her mental health support group had transitioned but was still into women, it’s not that “he” had been “straight”, it’s that SHE was a lesbian and was only now able to present as such. I used some admittedly problematic language at the time, but I’m learning, at least.)
Oh very much so. As a mostly homoromantic trans person, I get that kind of crap all the time. “What? You’re queer too, then why would you even bother transitioning?”
You know, not to sympathize with the gun-toting, racist, chauvinist, homophobic, condescending monster, but…you know what, know. There’s not but there. I was GOING to say that growling at him wouldn’t exactly dispel the whole “demon possession” thing he’s got going…but screw it. Go for the jugular, Dina.
I said it yesterday on Patreon and I’m repeating it here: that person in the distance is not Becky. Not that Toedad will try to confirm in his current state.
Yeah, yesterday’s strip definitely didn’t work for me. All the tension’s gone. I should be worried for either of the girls, but I’m very meh when I definitely wasn’t meh 2 days ago.
Y’know, there’s a part of me that wants to see Ross say something like that…
only to be very surprised, and confused, when this angry little brown man (wearing a blue sash) steps into frame, takes away the gun, and glares at him.
He already parked his car blocking a lane of a really busy street (facing the wrong way on a one-way street if I got the location right), so even if he did not wave a gun around he would have gotten the cops’ attention.
If we don’t know who ends up in the hospital, maybe it’s Toe-Dad (presumably other people have suggested this) who gets shot by the cops, leaving Becky/Joyce absolutely shattered with guilt? That seems more like classic Willis.
Yes because as everyone knows, no white man has ever been killed by cops for having a gun or them believing he has a gun. I guess Dillon Taylor, Gilbert Collar, Derek Cruice, Christopher Roupe, etc, just never existed.
He’s not joking, he thinks she is destroying his daughters womanhood, because he is an idiot.
He’s pretty much proved that so far. Thinking he ‘owns her’, thinking he can pray her life to is way’, taking a gun onto a school campus. PUlling it out after screeching to a halt in the road-and chasing his daughter and Becky into the woods.
He really is not all there in any sense of the word. I seriously doubt he has a sense of humor.
I’m guessing that this is another, unnamed orange haired character, as Willis is damn particular about his tags (‘You can see a little of Amber’s hand there, see?’)
Maybe the person in the hospital will be unnamed redhead, sniped by toedad
Surely he’s not going to run out into that park chasing after a girl with a gun? Pretty sure you can’t do that even in America without drawing some police attention.
If he’s in enough of a hurry, he might leave the rifle with Dina in favor of catching up to Becky.
Not likely, and he’d still be a major threat, but I can hope.
It may not have been, but his wife just died last year, and if Becky resembles her late mother at all, he might have put 1 + 1 together and came up with Wife #2.
I don’t think he’s that particular flavor of awful parent. I think it might just be standard Purity Culture “daughter’s sexuality is owned by the parent until she is given away to a proper Christian husband” crap… That being said, purity culture and rape culture go really well together.
I got that vibe from the way he said “lay on hands” earlier, and the fact, that the phrase triggered Becky to back down and run. If not sexual abuse, then I totally believe physical abuse.
I believe ‘lay on hands’ was something he said while Dina was sneaking up on him. The line that made her turn and run was ‘hand of God’, which seems more suggestive of physical violence.
It looks like Dina marked his face, good for her, but she’s not out of danger by any means.
People out there in the background, but looks like 2 are playing frisbie. The other may be running to or from the woods. Hard to say…waving for help -it could be Becky.
And if so, she isn’t out of rifle range.
And Dina isn’t out of beating range either.
Wait, Becky is running to Joyce. He knows Joyce. I imagine that there’ll be a desperate hug between them when they meet. He is in prime position to see that hug. He is also in the mindset to see any platonic affection between women as a sign of lesbianic moral corruption. He might also be in the headspace to assume that since Dina came around after the initial corruption and confusion that it might be blamable on someone closer to her, someone who didn’t fully live up to his impossible standards of moral behavior…
He may end up trying to take a shot at Joyce and if he takes a shot at Joyce, Becky is going to try and intervene into the way…
I’m sure he knows Dina is protecting his daughter from him, but it’s not likely to recontextualize much for him, since that’s what “evil” always does against “good”.
Relax. Willis stated way way ago that because of the pace that DOA (heh) goes, he doesn’t want to kill anyone because he would have to show characters grieving for a believable amount of time, which would work out to something like 10 years real-world time, and that would be a big bummer of a decade.
Now, Funky-Winkerbean-style maiming? That might still be in play. And there’s still lots of time to give a few of the characters cancer.
Yes, but everyone does die eventually. And some major events from the other universe already explicitly happened outside of the comic’s events (eg Ethan’s coming out), or were tweaked (like Joyce’s number of siblings).
So no, she doesn’t necessarily have to die during the comic.
I’m trying to decipher what is going on in the second panel, and the more I look at it the less it makes sense. Dina was on Ross’s back, but the speed-lines indicate some kind of upward motion, and now she has her to back to him and is upside-down. So, like, how did an uppercut turn her 180 degrees and put her in front of him? Is this some kind of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure power where she starts spiraling forward as she phases through his back?
This is totally ignoring the fact that she ends up face down with her feet pointing towards him in panel three, which means she must have spun around on her head before landing like a breakdancer…
Comic panels sometimes compress time to allow things to progress at a reasonable pace. Dina may have re-oriented herself to get her hands under her and allow her to spring back to her feet (easier to do if you’re face down) between panels. But before she could get up, Toedad’s ridiculously oversized hand has clamped down on her head, and presumably he’s resting another limb on her back to shut down her mobility.
The switch in panel 2 could be her resisting his throw and trying to getva grip before flying off. No reorientation after that; he just walks up next to her.
Now if Dina was a Utahraptor… nah. He’s realized she’s got a monstrous head start, and he can’t go charging in the open with a rifle. Dina’s done her job pretty good. Now if only Toedad can demonstrate some sense and get back to his car before the campus cops run up and blow their whistles at him.
There’s so much here in the visuals. First up is just how impressively she has managed to leave her mark. I mean based on Toedad’s face in the top part of panel 5, Dina has managed to leave strong gouge marks on both sides of his face and has managed to at least temporarily knock the gun from his hands if little else. I don’t know if that will comfort her for what comes next, but it’s not nothing and it’s fairly impressive for such a dangerous high-risk act.
Beyond that, just looking at Dina’s face in panels 3 and 4, that impotent rage and defiance. She’s beaten, humbled, but she’s refusing to quit and submit or even to show fear to the dangerous man with a gun who thinks she’s a demon in human form. She’s just angry that she couldn’t hurt him more even though she probably has a concussion from how hard she hit that hard ground.
This is what we’ve seen foreshadowed in her response with regards to Raidah. That she holds a grudge and does not easily forgive or submit when she has decided that she intends on action. Even in dire circumstances, she is not going to beg for her life and while incredibly brave, this very well could have ended in her death and while Becky may be cursing her hi-vis hair color in a strip or two, it has literally saved her girlfriend’s life.
And as far as the words, well, I’ve said that Toedad views Becky as malfunctioning property and this is a rather stark confirmation of that above and beyond. Becky’s womanhood is for him to protect and sell to a proper Christian suitor who submits his proposal to him and wins him over. Not her own and certainly not some pokemans lesbian demon’s.
Toedad thinks he is defending against a theft and is using the same tools a gun enthusiast might defend against a theoretical home invader. After all, breaking into his property and stealing it from him requires him to defend his castle as it were.
“…Toedad views Becky as malfunctioning property…”
Yes. He views her non-conformity to his own ideals like a malfunctioning product of his own construction. A personal failure.
Dina is a target for his redirected blame, no matter how irrational the timing.
Any confrontation between them had to happen before now, the point of no return. It always had to do with simply convincing him to not pursue her so she could plant herself and take root, elsewhere.
There is very little chance he will accept her, perhaps even for years or decades.
Walky called Joyce’s problem out and she was horrified to hear it. Ross’ problem is the same but, he is the extreme. If someone explained it to him, there’s no way he’d ever be able to hear it and I don’t see him sharing a season of D&MM, afterward…
From his hand motions in yesterday’s strip and this one, I think he dropped the rifle or tossed it aside to deal with Dina, not that that lessens Dina’s bravery or success here.
I’m not going to touch that last paragraph. Time and place.
True, that is unfair phrasing in that last paragraph. As such, let me replace it here with “a very particular subgroup of dangerous individual” as that is certainly not synonymous with all gun owners or enthusiasts.
Maybe first you better start with Dina’s nose. It’s just a line and a dot. How does that work? And all the characters are only about 5 heads tall. Is this a high-gravity version of Earth? And where the heck are everyone’s fingernails?
There’s a lot to sort out here before you even get to Dina’s teeth.
Somehow, I don’t think too many participants in, say, the Crusades asked themselves that question when presented with the spoils of a victory.
But I’m guessing flogging or a quick, clean death to ‘purge her evil’ were his main ideas.
Quick, with all your springy raptor strength, KANGAROO KICK!!!!!!!! TO THE GUT (because as sour as he is she likes his offspring). Maybe a finger in his eye if you can manage it quickly.
Then bite so he’ll release and book it. NO BACKUP PRECIOUS RAPTOR CHILD, BOOK IT!!! Up a tree!! For his gun (steal the bullets or just his barrel maybe if it’s an easy disassemble)!!
She’d be better to grab it in one piece and take it with her. Removing bullets from a loaded gun by someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing can be difficult. Once she has enough distance between her and Toedad, swinging it as hard she can against a tree can bend the barrel and functionally ruin the firearm. It was what the British intended to do with Colonial firearms during the attempts to seize the weapons of Colonials.
Bent barrel, hm. Smart. I shall make note of this tactic. Well, I meant as she’s running away, yeah. I just thought she wouldn’t want to be seen running with a gun on campus. Maybe holding it by the barrel if you had to…
I was just thinking about how much of a PITA it is to remove bullets from a loaded gun, and I’m someone who knows what he’s doing. Doing it while on the hoof with everything bouncing around and while being pursued by a very large man who looks like a giant brisket shoved into a pair of pants and covered by a t-shirt would short-circuit my hand-eye coordination. Given the way Dina’s mind works, she may have an escape strategy formulated. This is all presuming she has some method to get out of Toedad’s grip.
If there’s one thing cartoons have taught me, it’s that you can just plug the barrel of a gun with your finger, and it will blow up in the attacker’s face.
It’s a single-shot rifle with no magazine. It’s got, at most, one bullet in it, loaded into the chamber. If butthole dad has more, they’re in his pocket or something, not in the gun.
You sure about that? It looks lever-action, but it could be single shot. Recall some early lever-action rifles like the Henry had a wholly internal magazine, like a modern pump shotgun. THough in that case, it’d be simply a matter of working the lever until the chamber was clear.
Yeah. Someone a few days back identified it as a Ruger No. 1 Varminter, which looks correct, from the images GIS turns up. It’s a falling-block action breech-loader. Pushing the lever forward drops the block, opening the chamber and ejecting any round that might already be in it. You stick a round into the chamber and pull the lever back, which raises the block, closing the chamber, and cocks the internal hammer. Fire. Rinse and repeat.
By weird coincidence, I was 3D-modeling a very similar, fictional, gun recently, based largely on the Martini-Henry the British Army used in the mid-to-late 19th century.
Is it cool to post links to preview panels here? I mean, Willis has already censored it, but here. It may put your mind at ease.
dumbingofage.tumblr.com/post/124984014817/anybody-wanna-name-tattoo-skateboard-glasses-guy
It won’t work out for him, take solace in that. It’s not like he can shake Dina off from chasing him, or stop from causing a /terrific/ scene, getting his car reported (who saw /what/ happen in a car with /what/ plates?) if that’s where he’s headed. And anyways, how can he possibly maintain superiority and surety by holding the proof of Becky’s gayness /hostage/ while trying to take her away from it? Nothing that Becky can say would shake him? Nothing at all? Not even the little bit it would take to get campus security or amazigirl on scene?
It’ll be alright. I’m with you, really, currently still shocked at how flippant Dina’s being with her own safety for the sake of somebody she’s been involved with for such a short time. Says something about her, certainly.
I honestly think that considering he drove his car onto the sidewalk, and pulled out his gun in plain sight, and considering he’s a religious nutcase who has displayed a rather alarming lack of intelligence, that there is little that can deter him from doing something really stupid.
Oh hey Dina made him drop the gun, alright Toedad, now let your blind, unthinking rage compel you to blindly chase Becky without thinking to retrieve it first.
“You should” be in jail for attempted kidnapping, attempted assault with a deadly weapon, any other firearms violations local laws can dig up, and hate crimes. Sir.
It’s not a hate crime, legally speaking, because Indiana law does not cover sexuality as a protected class. It is the reason that the Freedom of Religion law passed earlier this year caused such a mess because it specifically made legal discrimination based on sexuality because it isn’t a protected classification.
Now, if you could argue that he is assaulting Dina because of her ethnicity you could charge him with a hate crime in Indiana.
Curse you science and your un-movielike portrayal of raptors.
But damn, look at Dina. She is knocked down by a madman three times her size with a gun, and she keeps going. If Toedad gets distracted just one moment she might very well go for the throat.
So, he knows how to handle himself physically. Unfortunate; I’d hoped Dina had a plan.
At least he has a higher priority than hurting her… Now where did the rifle land?
Her plan is basically to attack him directly so that Becky can get away, using her silent approach to get close. She’s not a natural fighter, and is trying to Dino-channel up some wild aggression, but there’s no finesse to it aside of a wild delay/attack this monster who wants to hurt Becky.
To clarify: I’d hoped she had a plan to neutralize the threat he posed and/or escape after delaying him. Animal savagery can only do so much without technique.
I honestly expected her to go for something vital like his eyes while she had the element of surprise.
Yay! My day just got started but Dina has made it already, even if the Abominable Toedad predictably made short work of her.
But what is Becky doing? Isn’t that the exact opposite of what she should be doing?
She’s fleeing. That was the plan.
Dina deviated from the plan, possibly because she misunderstood Becky’s brief description and possibly because she preferred this course of action – it did drastically improve Becky’s short-term odds of escaping.
He looks like he’s got strong legs, though. And a hunting rifle. I’m afraid Becky might be making herself a sitting duck by running out in the open like that.
And for a moment, Ross looked up and saw his daughter running over a field. He hesitated. Maybe he remembered the little girl who chased a ball over the lawn and laughed, maybe she reminded him of her mother. Maybe the sheer horror of what he was about to do – what he was doing in this very moment when his fist landed in the face of a teenage girl – dawned to him.
OR MAYBE THE FUCKER JUST WERE AFRAID THAT HIS PRAY WOULD GET AWAY. FUCK YOU, ROSS, YOU DESPICABLE CREEP.
In his current state, remembering Becky chasing a ball would just harden his heart and make him more committed to “saving” her by any means necessary and make him even more convinced that he cannot let her escape him this time.
After all, her “immortal soul” is on the line. And that little baby girl needs to stay on the pathway to Heaven by regaining her “proper gender role” once more.
I really, really, really wish that he at some point in his life (in a prison, far from her) will realize that his idea of what Becky once was and he tries to force her back to become, was a lie from the start.
That’d be nice. But somehow, I don’t think locking a religious fanatic away from the real world is going to make him reconsider his beliefs. (It’ll make the world a tiny bit safer for everyone else, though)
And what the heck is she going to do about him; she would probably walk into this mess with very little information about WTF is going on. We may omnisciently know all this stuff about Becky, Ross, Dina and the backstory- but Amber / Amazi-girl is probably clueless and elsewhere. Unless Joyce decided to call her for help somehow…and Amazi-girl works in nightly stealth partly so the authorities don’t haul her in for being a vigilante/ idiot/crazy/repeat assaulter. Doing this in broad daylight with a high probability of serious cop presence would certainly blow her cover for good.
You should what, Ross?
Or are you realizing Dina is a small, eighteen year old person that you have pinned, who is terrified of you but still trying to defend your daughter from you? Please let this character be having an epiphany of what exactly he is doing.
Or more likely, a guilty feeling Joyce will once again reach deep within herself to try and stop all this; Ross would not know anyone presently on campus but Becky and Joyce, and Willis has been good at showing Girl meets Real World conflicts inside Joyce…who stood up creakily against her parents to speak on Dorothy’s behalf on Parents’ Day. God knows if she could reach Ross at this point, but she’s the only thing short of a bullet that *might* slow him down.
I don’t pretend to know Indiana’s laws on self-defense, but I think eviscerating a crazed gunman trespassing on school grounds is justifiable… I hesitate to call it homicide, as that implies Dina is in some way like him, but justified killing.
As an Unkillable Badass I think I should do it… Sure dying hurt, actually it wasn’t the dying that hurt, it was the coming back to life after, being dead was quiet and boring. But the point is I don’t stay dead, so I should do it.
It looks to me like Dina has been saved from a beating by Ross getting a reminder that he has some very clear priorities in his life right now. Like Becky says, she has high-visibility hair.
Unfortunately it’s also clear that Ross’s priorities are so overriding that they’re interfering with his survival instincts. He’s going to continue this pursuit into a public place, clearly trusting in whatever deity he thinks would approve of his action to keep him from arrest.
Well, the obvious. They call for massive backup,including the local cops, and try to simultaneously get him to stop dead in his tracks while shooing off the students from possible fields of fire. No idea how quick the campus cops will be on reaction. They’re more used to breaking up Amazi-girl types of jerks, not dealing with paychos with guns.
If it’s anything how they react here in the UK, they’ll call in huge amounts of backup and huddle helplessly behind their cars counting gunshots until the SWATs arrive.
Eh, they have a duty to get possible victims of a nutcase the heck out of the way. Open assault on a guy with a high powered gun when he can see them coming – not so much. Possibly Bloomington cops would be able to handle this, possibly the Indiana State Patrol.
American police officers have consistently terrible aim in actual combat situations, though. I think “cowering behind their cars” in this case would be a better idea because if they’re not going to hit the aggressor anyway, they might as well refrain from causing potential civilian casualties through their own missed shots and ricochets.
Has Toedad actually committed a crime with his gun here? I’m not from America, but I recall an instance where a person had to cancel a university lecture after 4channers made a shooting threat because US law not only permits, but encourages bringing guns onto a university campus; the university wouldn’t take any precautions such as checking people’s bags for guns.
So if he doesn’t actually shoot people, is he completely in the clear? Or can only actual students at the university legally carry guns, and Toedad can’t? Or does it vary by state?
It varies by state, but also by specific jurisdictions. In many, if not most, states public educational institutions have the right to declare themselves gun free zones and most larger universities have their own police departments enforcing their own very local regulations.
Private institutions of all kinds (which, to be clear, IU is not, it is public, but just for completeness…) can *always* ban firearms from their property. The right to bear arms applies only to your own property and most (but not all) *public* lands.
That’s more than a little inaccurate. Gun laws in the USA is a mess as it is something handled mostly at the State level in terms of regulation and some states allow Open Carry, which is being allowed to carry a legal firearm in a stowed position if it is clearly visible. That said it is well within the rights of a business to require all patrons to not bring firearms onto the premise.
Universities do not encourage and will often forbid firearms from being brought onto campus. Being that they are private institutions they are well within their rights to do so. In addition to that if the University did allow firearms to be brought on campus and someone was shot then the University in question could be held liable for failing to ensure the safety of their students.
And even in the most lax states when it comes to gun laws wielding a firearm in a threatening manner is an offense warranting arrest. If you have a firearm on your person when committing another crime, even if in a legal open carry position, you can have additional charges leveled against you for assault with a deadly weapon or threatening with a deadly weapon, it instantly turns the crime to be considered a violent crime. More over if you are committing a violent crime like assault and have a gun on your person they may also hit you with attempted murder/manslaughter as willingly carrying a firearm could be argued as an intent to use in the case of violent crime.
tl:dr? Federal Laws allow regulated firearm ownership with regulations set by individual states. Universities could be held liable if they allowed firearms on campus. Carrying a firearm while committing a crime always makes the charges a lot worse.
As someone whom works at an IU Campus, all IU campuses are gun free zones. Only exceptions are for “law enforcement officers” and special written provisions made by the Superintendent of Public Safety and can be only granted for educational or research purposes.
Toe-dad is unlikely to be either. Unless he is a cop, off-duty cops are allowed, kinda. You do have to be authorized to carry the firearm. It would be a stretch to try and justify a off-duty cop bringing and pulling out a loaded non-state issued rifle onto the campus.
The details of what he’s actually guilty of vary with jurisdiction, but he’s definitely committing several crimes here. Under Indiana law, I think it’s legal for him to openly carry a long gun. However, when he starts brandishing it in a threatening manner, that’s assault with a deadly weapon, or something along those lines. And Becky is a legal adult, over whom he no longer has any parental authority, so trying to force her to come with him, using the threat of lethal force, is attempted kidnapping. There may be other laws he’s breaking, but those are the big ones.
He’s also in violation of IU policy forbidding firearms on campus, which isn’t actually law, but may mean that he’s no longer allowed to be there and so has just become guilty of trespassing, too.
That 4chan story seems really bizarre to me. IME, it’s normal for colleges to have rules like that linked. And I went to college (and still live) in the state with the U.S.’s laxest weapons laws. As far as the state of Vermont is concerned, I can carry anything I can lift, openly or concealed, without a permit… but I couldn’t even have my sword on campus. (Which just meant I stashed it in my closet before room inspections.) There were shooting and hunting clubs, but their firearms were kept under lock and key when not in use for club activities.
This was at Utah State University a year ago; the response to the shooting threat: …”in accordance with the State of Utah law regarding the carrying of firearms, if a person has a valid concealed firearm permit and is carrying a weapon, they are permitted to have it at the venue.” Yeah, bizarre, especially from a non-US perspective.
I’m avoiding mentioning the name of either the target or the hate group responsible, in case it causes a moderation headache.
I live in one of the most gun friendly states, Arizona. What he’s doing is definitely illegal here and in this state as well. Brandishing his gun like that would come under the umbrella of disorderly conduct in my state. That’s just considering the initial moment he displayed the gun. His actions has probably netted him some felony charges at this point.
There was a recent documentary called Welcome To Leith, which covered the events of a small town in North Dakota that had to deal with a sudden influx of neo-nazis. (They planned to ‘take over’ the town.) Two if the individuals were arrested after they went on ‘patrol’ around the town while carrying loaded guns. (They were booked on ‘suspicion of terrorizing’.)
Given the fact that toedad is also brandishing a loaded weapon (and at one point had it aimed in the direction of a person), I can see similar charges being leveled against him.
You want disgusting… There’s a possibility that Indiana’s stand your ground law could allow him to fire on Dina legally, if a jury decides that he has a reasonable belief that Dina was kidnapping Becky (a forceful felony). And, this is Indiana, so it could happen.
(Of course, this works both ways – Dina could legally use deadly force against him to protect Becky. But, for many reasons, I don’t think that’d happen – it’s terrible tactically, and I don’t think Willis wants a SYG law to be used against an attacker, because, really, they’re not often used like that (people who should have been let off under SYG laws being convicted of manslaughter or murder, and people who used SYG laws to get away with murder).
I found this page, http://www.indygunsafety.com/FAQ.html , which has a good FAQ and links, and is specific to Indiana.
Q: Can I defend my property with my handgun?
A: No! You may only use deadly force to protect yourself (or another) if you have a REAL & REASONABLE fear of great bodily harm or death. What is reasonable to you may not be to a jury! You may protect your vehicle only if it is occupied. Cuts and scrapes from a scuffle will not rise to a reasonable fear of death or great bodily injury.”
Note the real and reasonable clause and the explicit statement in the last statement. No Indiana Jury would see Dina posing a “real and Reasonable Threat” to Toedad’s life.
According to this lawyer’s website, http://www.hesslerlaw.com/practice-areas/handgun-firearm-charges/, just pointing a firearm at another human being is a crime, regardless of wither you intend to shoot, or even if the gun is loaded.
Under federal sentencing guidelines “while in possession of a firearm” is a modifier to just about every crime. This can be added time to a prison stay, and/or increase the severity of the crime, ie what type of felony or misdemeanor it is, or even bump it from a misdemeanor to a felony charge.
In addition many places there are additional penalties incurred because “With a firearm” can make a non-violent offense a violent offense. This can add a strike in ” Three strikes and your out” states. It also is a much larger stumbling block to pass any sort of background check, wither for a job, a lone, a place to live or even renting a vehicle or tool.
Indiana’s stand your ground law includes using deadly force against someone committing a “forcible felony”, which includes kidnapping.
I’m saying that, if Ross can get it in the right jurisdiction, he may be able to get off by claiming that he was preventing Dina from kidnapping Becky. This couldn’t be further from the truth, but it might work as a defense.
I could be wrong here, but I think they may have to actually be committing a felony, not just doing so in your imagination. At the very least, the “reasonable person” theory would apply.
Given that the encounter started with Becky yelling to Dina to run and that part of the encounter was likely seen by witnesses, he’s going to have a hard time convincing a jury that a reasonable person would believe this small, unarmed girl was kidnapping his daughter without using any apparent force or even being in contact with her.
Kudos to Cerberus on the insights into Ross; or at least I feel Cerberus is a darn good guesser. If he’s going after Becky on foot, he’s probably going to do something to wallop Dina hard so she’s not slowing him down (which I think is going through his head) – not shoot her but incapacitate her.
Past that, I can’t imagine he’s such a hot broken field runner to directly chase Becky, but he’s determined enough to chase her down to drag her back. If he’s going to shoot at her – have no idea how good he is with the Ruger or what sort of range it has – he’d probably pull it out and do it now before she’s too far gone.
Who would be better able to handle Ross/aka Toedad? Sal? Or Amazi-girl? Or someone else? Assuming the police don’t get involved and someone rescues the girls.
Sal would not impress Ross. Amazi-girl is brave, but going up head-on against Ross would confuse him with the ta-da super routine, just before he blasted her. Jumping him and getting him down by surprise- mmmmmaybe.
Amber isn’t that mentally unstable. She’s come at him hard and fast from cover to bring him down before he hurts anyone. It would be interesting to see if a sleeper hold would work around that muscular knuckle of a neck. Sal would be more up-front and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she has a shiv in that jacket (which could get her in trouble – known juvenile delinquent stabs a man; some DAs would prosecute even with the mitigation of her defending someone against a murderous attack).
Remember, while toedad does outweigh Amber (and is probably stronger), Amber does have experience fighting with larger opponents. (Recall in an earlier strip that she fought someone who was sexually harassing a woman on the street. In that case, the person she was fighting seemed to be fairly big/tall. More so than Blaine was.)
The scenario that I’m visualising is Joyce putting herself in between Ross’s gun and Becky. He then has to ask himself if he’s ready to shed her blood. I’m also thinking that Joyce pays for Becky’s medical treatment (getting the bullet out and fixing the hole) out of her college trust fund.
An alternative scenario is that Joyce actually physically attacks Ross with something long and hefty she grabbed whilst running over. She is more of a surprise than a cause of damage but it buys enough time for others to arrive and dog-pile him.
It’s just a feeling that I’m getting – That Hank’s appearance next year is going to be somehow involved with the Brown family crisis at her choosing ‘the wrong side’. Maybe, in the recent preview picture, Hank is warning that she’ll have to do without stuff because the fund isn’t being topped up to cover for all the money she spent on Becky’s care.
He probably has a better opinion of his shooting abilities than is warranted. However, once you start putting lead in the air, anything can happen. He could miss Becky and hit someone or something else. And he most certainly can aim to hit her in a leg and miss and cause a great deal more damage than he might really want.
Yeah, I think that he’s going to try a ranged shot to stop her in front of dozens of witnesses and be genuinely shocked and enraged when other people try to help her and stop him. I’m not sure if he’s going to get out of this one alive. I can see him trying to take down campus cops with his bare hands if they get in his way, all the while screaming about ‘God wills it’.
Could be. She’d make a convenient hostage and that would give him the leverage to force Becky into the car. So far he’s just trusted his gut rather than act strategically, but he could be deciding to switch it up and try another tactic.
I’m not too sure, unless Toedad has really gone off the deep end. He’s trying to rescue his property from Satan’s infernal liberal clutches, and is using his God-given right to firearms to coerce her back to the path of light, but if he takes Dina hostage he’s unambiguously committing a crime and he will be arrested.
“Officer, you don’t understand! I wasn’t going to shoot my daughter! My holy rifle was designed to frighten the wretched gay liberal demons lurking within!”
Yeah, that thought IS horrifying… but as nightmares goes, in my book it still comes after being targeted by a madman with a gun who I know will keep coming after me and my loved ones, is in a position to do real damage on multiple levels and who fully believes himself to be justified in his actions.
OOH! New theory! Everyone gets out alive, but Dina’s injured and hospitalized. The Saruyamas arrive, hear the entire story, and take in Becky because they were completely supportive of their daughter and this woman who happens to be their daughter’s girlfriend has no support.
So glad someone pointed out Dina’s hair. I had read Toedad’s looking up and close up after “I should” as him having an idea of what he should do to Dina and the wide shot of people going about their business an playing Frisbee as dramatic contrast. Honestly, I thought there was going to be an attempted “corrective” rape in the next strip. I couldn’t work out why the comments where relatively calm.
OK, Willis is usually so painstakingly accurate with his art and locations in this strip that I am legitimately confused here. Six or seven days ago he posted a picture of Jordan Avenue near the Simon Music Library and the Musical Arts building on his Tumblr and remarked that he had just had a couple of characters (Dina and Becky) crossing this street; and it was presumed that this was also the street on which Ross was driving when he spotted Becky and her high-vis hair. When confronted, the girls then turned tail and fled into the woods. So which woods were these girls running into/through?
If this was supposed to be the area known as Dunn’s Woods, that is quite a ways west of their last known location and my question is “How did they get there?” If this *isn’t* Dunn’s Woods, then where are they, and what is that open area that Becky is now running across? Again, according to my maps, there isn’t anywhere between Jordan Avenue and the Showalter Fountain that would have that dense a stand of trees opening onto such a large open area.
I’m not sure about the Jordan Ave comment, but he also said in a comment a few days back that they were near 6th St, which is the other side of campus, near Dunn Meadow. It’s not clear to me if Dunn Meadow has enough woods, but I’d guess they were walking up N Indiana Ave, ran into the woods along the southern edge of Dunn Meadow and are now looking out at Becky running across the meadow.
That was also my interpretation, though those woods are not so thick in real life. At first I thought they were in Dunn Woods, which is that thick, but the lack of buildings beyond the clearing indicate that is not the case. Still, either way it is a busy enough area that someone has to have noticed him roughing up Dina.
It took me a while, but I was able to convince myself that David drew the right place. Dunn Woods is mostly in the southwestern corner of campus (not exactly adjacent to Sixth Street), but there is a small wooded area *just* south of Dunn Meadow through which Dina and Becky could run. I could even see them weave around Dunn Woods proper for a bit, trying to lose Toedad, before eventually reaching the more northern bit just south of the Meadow.
As for the lack of buildings beyond the clearing: Seventh Street forms the north border of the Meadow, on the other side of the fence shown in the last panel. David probably just decided to show only one building on the other side of Seventh Street, instead of all 7 or 8 of them. The one building he drew looks to be the GLBT Student Support Services office.
IRL, there’s a new building going up right where Dina and Toedad currently are. So, that small wooded area is pretty much gone now. :/
15 seconds? Google maps shows it as almost a quarter mile from the edge of Dunn Meadow, more from where she probably is.
Since Becky’s not likely a world class sprinter, probably more like a couple of minutes flat out.
It looks to me that Becky, Ross and Dina are practically on the opposite side of Campus from Joyce’s location. It very much looks like the girls are on their own for now.
It’s OK, Willis explained in a comment a couple of days ago that the Jordan Ave thing was for a future strip. Becky and Dina, at the time, had just crossed from 6th Street towards Dunn Meadow: http://bit.ly/1jgHdih (Joyce and the fountain are in the big square in the middle of campus, on 7th St)
I spent some time with Google Maps yesterday, and pretty well convinced myself that, in the strip where butthole dad shows up, they’re right at the intersection of E. 6th and N. Indiana. There’s some trees there between Dunn Meadow and Franklin Hall, but in real life, or at least Google Street View, they don’t seem to be anywhere near as dense as they are in the strip. I’m thinking Willis just took some artistic license with the foliage.
Dad is a really scary guy… Becky coulda mentioned this. “Oh, hi Joyce! I’m gay now and my dad is prone to chasing me down with a rifle.” Plus, it seems that some folks saw the gun totin maniac and may have called the cops…or the cab driver who dropped the manic with the gun at the COLLEGE CAMPUS! Head Alien is behind this, right?
Well Becky didn’t see the gun when she started running. And she may not have known that her dad would go that far. (Also, what cab driver? Ross drove here in his own car. Which is why he probably had the gun in the trunk)
Ok I apologise if this has come up before and I missed it but has anyone considered that this might be a tranquilizer gun or something?? Not that this would make it in any way ok to shoot at Becky but at least it wouldn’t be, y’know, murder. As someone who is not particularly familiar with weapons (non-American here), am I missing any obvious signs that this rifle has actual bullets in it?
A simple “yes people have mentioned it before” would habe been enough and I’m pretty sure every five posts is a vast exaggeration. But please, take my deepest apologies for not thoroughly reading each and every one of the 3000ish comments posted since he took the gun out before posting.
The gist of it is that tranqs are seldom used because to be effective and nonlethal, they need to be precisely calculated to body weight. That said, ToeDad might have access to Becky’s recent medical records from just after pulling her out of Anderson…
Possible but not very likely. Not to mention that you can’t just walk into the corner pharmacy and ask for a tranquilizer dart and 100 cc’s of pentathol or whatever it would take to put Becky down for the count.
It’s not a tranquilizer gun. It’s a Ruger No. 1 Varminter, intended for shooting small pest animals, or “varmints”.
It is possible that it’s not loaded – the only real way to tell, other than pulling the trigger and seeing if it goes bang, would be to work the action and look inside the chamber (and then it would be unloaded regardless, because working the action would eject any cartridge that might have been in there, and it’s a single-shot weapon that holds only the one round in the chamber).
However, one of the most basic firearms safety rules is that the gun should always be treated as if loaded, and not pointed at anything you’re not okay with killing or destroying. (Last time someone pointed an “unloaded” gun at me, I sprained his finger taking it away from him. It wasn’t unloaded.) Butthole dad has enough firearms training to have good trigger discipline – he keeps his finger along the side of the gun instead of on the trigger until he’s ready to fire – which implies that he should know this. Yet he’s willing to point the gun at Becky.
Is it too much for me to hope that Dina takes this opportunity to punch him in the face so hard that it knocks him out cold and it’s her that winds up in the hospital with a simple broken hand?
Unfortunately, Dina is going to end up with trauma from this and anything else Toedad decides to throw at them in the future. It’s not easy being the partner of someone when scary bigoted stuff is affecting them and it leaves its own type of scar. Hyperawareness in public will probably be the least of it and that’s assuming he leaves her knocked out in the woods. I have a gnawing worry that this is just the beginning of Dina and Becky’s traumatic day. After all, there’s a month of things going wrong before we get to the ambulance/hospital preview panel.
I’d rather she have the shooting someone kind of gun-related trauma than the been shot kind of gun-related trauma.
Or the watched him shoot her girlfriend kind either.
But yeah, all in all, I’d rather not have her shoot him either.
See also the story of Jephthah’s daughter (and commentary thereon) and why she asked for two months “to mourn her virginity”.
You know, while Ross and his firm belief that what he is doing to his daughter is divinely inspired and approvedd, now that I re-read that passage from Judges it is even more troubling to know that there were/are people who truly believe that Jephthah’s daughter is a perfect role model for a young woman.
Someone else mentioned this higher up in the comments, but fundamentalist Christians put a lot of stock into what they call “traditional gender roles”. They see homosexuality as a deviation from this. (That’s why back when Joyce was dating Ethan she wanted to decorate his door with sports stuff. And also why Ross blames his daughter’s homosexuality on the fact that her mom died last year, and that without a traditional female role model she was turned into a lesbian by Satan or something).
on one hand, i’m glad toedad dropped the gun. on the other, i hope he grabs it and runs into that field full of people. i am also similarly glad he is either more sane than he appears or is way more fixated on becky than should be appropriate for a father and will not be killing dina in favor of chasing his actual “prize.”
You know, I honestly can’t quite tell what that look is. His eyebrows aren’t furrowed and he doesn’t look quite as mad overall. He stopped at the “I should…” Maybe he didn’t know how to fill in the sentence. I should…kill you? …shoot you? She’s just sacrificed herself for her friend, and she’s a tiny -girl-. Maybe it broke through… I should…what? what am I doing??
Sadly, there was no knockout like I’d hoped. The last panel is quite intriguing. I can’t figure out if Fundie’s upset that his property has escaped, or if it just dawned on him that he was willing to kill his daughter. I’m leaning towards anger that his property won’t be easy to recover and “deprogram.”
I just realized I left out one remote possibility. He’s just heard the bolt of a SWAT Team AR-15 being cycled. Not a likely occurrence, it would cut the drama short, but it would be interesting to see the predator become prey.
Hope whatever training or experience ToeDad has with that rifle didn’t cover “how to take down a fleeing deer”.
Though, you know, I don’t see how absolutely no one else didn’t happen to see a car swerving off the road and watching some big dude in camo pattern pants jump out with a fucking firearm and chase after two girls into the campus shelterbelt. Forget Amazigirl handling this one. I hope the next panels involve a campuswide alert for all students to seek cover competing with the wails of police and SWAT sirens, and for Ross to decide his calling is to go out as a martyr for whatever militia he’s affiliated with in trying to take out some “unlawful gubment authority” and ends up with more holes in him than swiss cheese for his efforts.
1: according to our resident gun experts, it’s a hunting rifle; taking down fleeing deer might be just the job for it :c
2: people saw him from the other side of the road. Help is probably on its way, but it must have been, like, one minute since it all started.
As a hunter myself, I can safely say that having a hunting rifle doesn’t mean jack if you’ve never trained with or gotten actual experience with it. Hunting weapons like that just tend to be easier to get if you don’t have a criminal record, because most gun regulations are focused on either automatic two-handed firearms (home defense models like the AR-15, which is just a “civilian version” of an M16A2 or an M4) and handguns. A lot of militias and their members promote themselves as “hunting clubs” and buy hunting weapons in order to not get too much attention on them from entities like the FBI or ATF. It gives actual hunting/conservation organizations like Ducks Unlimited a bad name, and I can guarantee most of them couldn’t hit anything past 50 yards that wasn’t 1) enormous, 2) stationary, and 3) brightly colored.
If Ross decides to take that shot, he may “luck out” and hit Becky… but he’ll probably also hit other people, or his shots will ricochet and hit other people. Also, given he wants to take his daughter prisoner and force her into some kind of “correction ritual”, he will likely intend to hit something like her leg to maim or cripple her, but… as I said above… I highly doubt someone like him would have the experience to be that accurate, and he’ll end up hitting the larger area of mass where more vital organs are located.
Scenarios like this are why I, a proponent of second amendment rights to own and bear firearms, actually support some gun control… because I know there’s assholes like Ross out there who, like all the school shooters the past 10 years, think all their problems have to be forced to be resolved with a gun and a bullet, and that they’re entitled to any resolutions being in their favor (whether them being thought of as a martyr for a cause, or making hot chicks strip naked and fuck them on demand).
So, what you’re basically saying is that someone is bound to get hurt unless this guy has a last-minute fit of common sense, and Becky has, like, half the tickets in the lottery. Well, that’s an improvement from the scenario I was contemplating. Hurray… :c
(Now, if only Dina managed to kick the gun away and buy some more time… but you’re gonna tell me that could make it go off and hit someone anyway, aren’t you)
It’s also been pointed out that the gun has mounts for a sight, but no actual sight, so any long shot will be just that. Pretty much regardless of how good he is with the gun.
Looks like Joyce is running, probably towards Becky and her Toedad [I’m really getting to like calling him that, since there are worse things he could be called and I wouldn’t use them here so as not to make Willis upset].
Options:
1. Toedad shoots Dina. Toedad may or may not go to jail. Bring in Amazigirl or Sal looking for revenge? This really ends the plot, not very interesting. Unlikely.
2. Toedad chases Becky, Dina picks up gun and shoots. This is plausible because Dina doesn’t seem to understand the limits of what she is expected to do for her friends. Also brings dilema to Amazigirl, friend loyalty, the law, what is right, etc. Toedad could survive, making matters worse and more complicated.
3. Most likely, Toedad just continues chase with or without the gun, leaving Dina. After all, this story is really about Joyce. The climax is going to be centered around her.
For what it’s worth, Dina would be 100% justified under Indiana law in shooting Ross, if Becky was in imminent danger of having a forcible felony (like, oh, kidnapping) committed against her.
However, I really don’t see Willis using Indiana’s stand your ground law in a positive light.
You make a good point. The story is centered around Joyce, and Fundie’s actions (even if he walks away right now and is never seen again) will force her to make some hard choices about her beliefs. If he still pursues Becky, he’ll have to chase her to the dorm. If he does that armed, SWAT will take him out quickly. If he does it unarmed, the students in the dorm will take him down, if not out. In the end, Becky and Dina’s relationship has been forged in fire. They’ll be friends, and maybe more, for life. Joyce will see the seedier side of her faith, and Becky will need a lot of support from her friends. Whatever Fundie’s fate turns out to be, her family will blame her.
Something I didn’t think of: Toedad could hold Dina hostage, using Joyce as an intermediary to get Becky to come back to him. Seems unlikely because police could get involved, but this could bring back Amber’s hostage trauma, and the main characters aren’t know for running to the police with problems.
Yay! No shots fired! Gunpowder saved for better ocassions! Dina saving the day! What’s next? Lookup the next issue: Terrifing Toedad stalks the night in campus! 😀
Cut Dina some slack? I’ll do far more than that. I’d give her a standing ovation. I’ll wager that few have been able to stand up to Fundie, and her attack raises her to a truly laudable level.
Am I the only one that Becky’s Dad’s dialogue is not working for? “Led me astray?” “Destroy her womanhood”? “You DARE attempt to steal my daughter from me”? Doesn’t anybody else get a “real people don’t talk that way” vibe? The “DARE attempt” sounds more like Dr. Doom at his most pompous.
But then, Willis said he based this on his life, so maybe he saw something like this.
If there is ever a point where you see one of the Christian fundamentalist characters and think “that can’t be real, Willis is making shit up”, chances are it’s legit.
This. I grew up surrounded by that exact type of pre-millennial dispensationalist Rapturist Christian culture. This is a common way of talking for them, especially when angry or appealing to a “higher authority” to justify their actions. It comes from most of the free reading being spent in either the King James bible or the New International version.
Also a lot of the words that seem stilted and old-fashioned are common terms of frequent conversation. “Womanhood” in particular is not an antiquated term for genitalia in that community, it’s the go to term for femininity and proper “female gender roles” that all women are to strive for (think June Cleaver in Leave it to Beaver if that was considered God’s chosen plan).
Similarly coming from an often authoritarian mindset, children are seen as their parents’ property and responsibility. A child should obey their parent in all things and let them decide what is moral for them to aspire to, but a parent is expected in turn to maintain discipline and ensure their child’s “proper spiritual growth”, culling them from connections outside the Church that could corrupt their moral discipline. There’s a whole gossip culture based around shaming parents seen as “weak” because their children “are doing sinful acts”. This also serves as a secondary control mechanism for ensuring parents disown or “fix” children who commit “major sins” like being queer, getting pregnant, dating some non-white (might only be applicable to the particular flavor I grew up with), or not worshipping Jesus in the proper way. As well as ensure that all parents of the Church crack down on non-disowning level “sins” like consuming non-approved media, using a curse word, or looking at dirty pictures.
Of a similar vein, the mother of the family is seen as … oi, it’s a bit complicated, but it’s basically a possession of the father of the household, but with the Victorian illusion of spheres, where they are both two equals, but the man controls all the important things like decisions about the family and money and the woman controls the shape of the home, but defers to the man when a disagreement occurs because the man has the “hard job” of “maintaining spiritual order” within the home, which somehow equals not fully bing an equal within a relationship. Many of the moms I knew in this worldview then compensated by being extra involved in the Church and in spiritual discipline within the home so as not to need to be kowtowed by their husband.
There is also a strong vein of removing agency from disobedient children. A child is not resisting the way of the Lord because of their own moral decision making because that would be a sign of a moral failing or an acknowledgment that there is more than one moral way to see the world and that is moral relativism which is the literal worst in their eyes. Instead, a child who is caught being gay/getting pregnant/having pre-marital hanky-panky/not worshipping the same version of Jesus as their parents/dating someone not of the Church or not white (again this last bit may only apply to the particular corridor of Southern Californian Southern Baptist I grew up in) has been led astray by Satan himself or has been stolen away by corrupting influences (this is why Becky’s roommate blamed her for the whole thing in order to save herself). As such, someone didn’t choose to come out, they were deceived by Satan or stolen by the romantic partner or a queer friend in order to corrupt their very soul.
It all gets very dramatic and stilted and old-fashioned in the word choices, because otherwise the flock might start to wonder and think about the narrow and uncomfortable demands of this particular sect. Full of Satan daring to steal the Holy members of the Lord and destroying womanhoods and leading people from the Path or the Way.
Honestly, given what I am and was at the time, I’m surprised more parents didn’t turn on me as the Great Deceiver corrupting their children’s souls more often than they did (as the token non-believer, instead, I was often treated as a pet project their children were expected to work on and convert, leading to some very awkward dinner conversations where I tried to be very quiet about politics and religion while the parents asked very pointed questions at their kids while occasionally glaring at me… I often made myself scarce when the parents were home for that and other reasons.
Aside from noting that he’s dropped the pretence of being concerned for Becky and shifted to possessive terms, I figured his oddly stilted phrasing comes from spending far too much time with the KJV Old Testament. (I’ll lay any odds that Toedad’s home church is KJV-only.)
I’ll second Cerberus’ terrific reply and add that “church lingo” is a very insider language. Certain words or phrases are specific or general based on the context, and a single word can have a great deal of little theological meanings behind it. Kinda like the gunpowder behind the bullet. So in the end, someone speaking purely in that lingo is going to sound off to someone not part of that community.
Lord, grant him a tree root to trip over; and another one to meet his head on the way down. I beseech thee. Because Willis obviously isn’t going to make it that easy on us.
Ok Dina you’ve done enough, you’ve lost the element of surprise so any further attacks will only see you get seriously hurt. Becky looks like shes over a 100 meters away (though that may just be my perspective) and running so shes a difficult target for a single shot rifle with iron sights so while Toe Dads distracted you need to get out of there pronto….if you’re physically able to
I know Toe Dad is the bad guy here, but I keep seeing him as just one more victim of horrible childhood brainwashing indoctrination. He’s been conditioned to think he’s the good guy. How sad.
I know a lot of people who grew up in repressive home environments like this. Most end up like Joyce, some end up like Toe-Dad and that’s because they like the power.
‘Less those bullets are full’a holy water, silver shavings, white oak, “the woicks” hellboy style; I don’t see how he thinks shooting her will drive out the ‘evil’
Everyone has missed an obvious possibility for how this neatly resolves. Toedad gives up on plugging Becky and turns his attention to Dina. He quickly takes aim and pulls the trigger (and I still say the strip should cut away at this point for a few days of fan-frustrating meaningless fluff) and the gun blows up in his face because the barrel is plugged with dirt from when he dropped it.
. . . It would help if you read the discussion instead of sneering at it without hearing what everyone else has to say. Because for every one person coming in here and snarking that this can’t be real, there are two or three people who are nodding their heads soberly and saying ‘this was me, I experienced this.’
Well, I doubt he or any of his close friends were actually chased across campus by a crazed father with a gun. But then I also doubt he actually knew a costumed vigilante whose boyfriend was abducted by her abusive father either.
Yeah, these are exaggerated and condensed for dramatic effect. Big surprise.
That he’s known, possibly after his years at IU, people from his religious subculture with similarly dangerous parents and at least concerns about such blatant violence – along with more everyday abuse, I certainly wouldn’t be surprised. Along with the gun fetish.
I do kind of suspect much of that would have been after his IU time. He was working through his upbringing then, as you can tell from reading Roomies and early It’s Walky!. Realistic portrayals of LGBTQ people don’t really show up until Shortpacked.
In what is absolutely not a blatant attempt at distracting from ANGUIIIIIIIIISH…
I really hope I get to see Ruth respond to ESPN declare that the Leafs are, based on multiple criteria, the absolute worst team of the four major sports leagues. Just the /worst/. …Or possibly, Billie bring it up to Ruth, because angry-sex is fantastic.
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QUICK WHILE HE’S DISTRACTED GO FOR THE JUGULAR
OR THE FEMURS
You got this, Dina
Just give him teeth to the FAAAAAAAACE!
Specifically the eyes
And maybe the ears and nose
Actually, just hit anything soft, vulnerable, and likely to either bleed a lot or cause searing amounts of pain
his dick?
That Mike Avatar makes this perfect
If his mom costs a nickel, what would hitting his dick cost?
A recording of Toe Dad writhing on the ground in pain?
That?
Utterly impossible to place a price.
Go for broke. A dollar ninety-eight.
Two nickels
Maybe three
I’d say snap his neck…but he does have one. so, go for the kidneys
While he’s distracted, grab his gun and let give him back his bullet. In his wuzname.
Actually, he hasn’t fired, yet. He seems well-trained in its use, and shows good fire discipline. Given that Ross shows many signs of being ex-Army, this is not surprising.
(No, this is NOT ‘defending Ross’, noting one positive aspect in a UNIVERSE of negative ones is hardly a defense.)
He’s not ex army, he just likes the pants. Also he was clearly aiming for what he thought was Becky yesterday so I’m perplexed by everyone congratulating him on firearm safety. (“Never aim at something you don’t intend to shoot” is still a rule, with or without your finger on the trigger.)
Do you think it’s possible the gun isn’t loaded? Baring in mind that Toe-dad wants to “save” his daughter, it might be possible he brought the gun for intimidation purposes, with no intention of using it.
Still scummy behaviour.
Even if you think the weapon is unloaded, you STILL shouldn’t aim it at anything you wouldn’t want to shoot. It’s a basic rule I learned as a little kid, and our country doesn’t exactly have lax gun control…
Exactly. Others have said it, but it bears repeating: he was quite likely willing to shoot his daughter.
Well said
http://grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1776
Even if you cleared it yourself, always treat the weapon as loaded.
Quite the opposite, because, as you say it yourself, he wants to “save” her. So she’s better off dead in the heavens (ans then her loving family can pray infinitely for her soul and God’s forgiveness) than desecrating and soiling herself on Earth, isn’t she? Because, then, she would not be welcomed in paradise anymore. And so, if she resists her father’s will, she will go to Hell and thus the only way to “save” her might be to kill her.
Disclaimer : these are in no way my personal views.
There was a case of a woman who drowned her children in the bathtub because she was convinced she was saving them from the devil by killing them.
Not loaded? Wasn’t he loading it in the previous comic?
Or what also was that “SNAP!” sound in the first panel yesterday?
A branch getting broken. He mentions in the next panel having heard someone.
This.
It got lost amidst the discussion of the Jurassic Park jokes, but Ross was trying to either threaten Becky with his rifle or at worst actually take the shot.
First rule of firearms is that you don’t aim at anything you don’t plan on hitting.
But… only people properly trained to use and have appreciation for weapons would know that. Ross likely isn’t.
Chances are Ross is one of those hyper-masculine and thus hyper-insecure assholes who went out and bought a rifle in order to be as cool as all his guy friends, impress someone, for “home defense”, or to use as a tool of intimidation to keep his female property in line prior to Becky’s mother dying and her leaving for college.
Maybe it’s loaded with tranq darts?
(yeah, no)
Ex-Army? Probably “failed out of MEPS” Army. I’d wager his training is more “protect dat dar homefront from them blacks and jews and GAYS!” backwoods militia.
Now that I think about it, given how old he might be, Ross may very well have been old enough to have been drafted into the military, or could have enlisted during a time of low admittance standards and lacking psychological evaluations for potential recruits.
Regardless, whatever his service was, I doubt it was long, and his clothing preference still screams “militia” more than “military”.
Last draft was in the early seventies, which would make Ross mid-sixties min, if he’d been drafted, which he doesn’t appear to be.
Do agree about his clothes.
Go for the eyes, Dina! Go for the eyes!
Darn, I was going to make that joke.
How do I go about setting my gravatar as the image I put on wordpress for my gravatar D:
You set it, you select the lowest rating so no sites will filter it, and you wait 15 minutes or so for it to take effect.
Ohhh ok thanks 😀
Did it work?
I REALLY hope that Becky is standing in front of him with the gun…. Or really anyone.
In the last panel he sees Becky running across the field. So, no. She’s not standing in front of him with the gun.
Both. Both’s good.
Go for the jug Lars or lemurs? Don’t you mean JAGUARS or lemurs?
Of course it would end like that, what did you expect, silly girl.
CLEVER girl
shoulda bulked up on whey protein instead of Cocoa Puffs
But sugar gives you super-strength. 😛
And super-speed!
and hyperactivity!
And diabeetus !
…wait.
Not to mention dental caries.
If consumed quickly enough, it gives you projectile vomiting as well. The ability to launch large amounts of strong acid could be useful in this situation.
No, I assure you, this was pretty stupid.
You assume that “Clever Girl” is supposed to be indicative of actually possessing cleverness. Nope, just a title.
Her love knows no bounds – even unto a willingness to sacrifice her life for her love – which is why Dina is the best.
If she had consumed a bowl of Cadbury Egg cereal she’d have Ross’ spinal cord for a belt.
And suspenders.
Although if we are going to be using internal organs for decorative clothing items, intestines work much better for pants retention devices.
Guts for garters?
I prefer the symbolism of her removing his penis.
Not to mention the other effects that would have
Death by blood loss?
Yeah, on of the functions of the penis, keep your blood in your body.
Nothing wrong with that. A Penis is a privelege, not a right.
I’m hoping he chases his daughter, leaves Dina, and has a jesus-fueled heart attack.
Communion wafers and wine are so high in cholesterol after all.
Evangelicals don’t do wine in communion, they do grape juice. Drinking is a sin, even sacramental drinking.
I think Toedad probably consumes a lot of pork & pork products – not all conducive for heart health. Here’s to a MASSIVE corornary.
I imagined him to be a beef man, myself.
only the FINEST goats boiled in the milk of not their own mother
Don’t know why,but what you said sounds like something Omi would say.
just something I heard somewhere
He does look like a cow.
Seems like a load of bull to me …
Aint nothin ended yet. Toedad has placed himself in prime finger-removal position
I really hope she doesn’t try. He’d break her adorable teeth 🙁
Credit where it’s due, she is still actively trying to fight him even now.
She disarmed him.
Damn that hi-vis hair! DAMN IIIIIIIT!!!
Should got a dye job with that sweet ‘do.
But that would have been an extra 20 plus dollars.
She could’ve just annoyed Billie some more.
She was busy spending quality time with Dina.
I’ll admit that I didn’t put two and two together there – I was wondering “why is Ghost Rider running across the field?”
“Where is his bike ?!”
Ghost Strider?
Sal beat him up and took it.
She put regular tires on it because she got sick of getting pulled over for setting things on fire behind her.
I didn’t even realize that was Becky until you said it.
It might’ve saved Dina’s life…so really, ALL HAIL THE HI-VIS HAIR
Crunch his nuts, Dina!
^ This!
Actually, I think I would pay good money to see Sal and Ruth tag team Toedad Put the back wheel of Sal’s motorcycle on his “Trail Mix”, and max throttle!
I don’t see how ruining his trail mix will help…
I gotta say, ‘trail mix’ is a catchier amd more disturbing euphemism than ‘junk.’
adjust his jewelry
It’s not like he’s going to give beef franks anyway.
I don’t know what he’s expecting to accomplish with his rifle, but that’s a good opportunity to do whatever with it.
No, it isn’t. Note the last panel: he’s realizing that he’d get caught.
No, he’s spotting Becky(look at the heads).
I think that’s really a false positive in the distance. But Dina doesn’t know that.
On second look, Becky is tagged, so yeah, it’s her.
Well, Willis have fooled us with tags before. If it was his intention to make us think it is Becky, then he could just add her name to the tag to confuse us.
He doesn’t like to do that. He honestly tags things, like when he was doing Amber’s flashbacks. He drew someone into them specifically because he wouldn’t include them in the tag otherwise.
The figure does have the exact same color hair as Becky.
Willis has been misleading with tags, but not inaccurate. Based on what he said about the Sal situation, there must be at least some part of Becky shown in one of these panels for her to get tagged.
I think it wasn’t, must’ve updated it.
Becky was not tagged when the strip went live, the tag was added later.
I’d agree it’s possible, though unlikely, but Becky is tagged today. So unless Willis is screwing with us via tags(which he has done), it’s her.
If I recall correctly, the only way he’s screwed with us is by not tagging a character and then going back to retag after the reveal. I’m not hopeful.
That and dead-naming Jocelyne until her reveal, but unless Becky is going to turn out to be trans, I don’t think that’s going to happen here.
If it is a false positive, it’s gotta be Little Miss Ruthless. Ross is cruisin’ for a bruisin’.
Oh man, that would be the best.
I dunno, we’ve already established that Ross is proof to Ruth’s better attacks (no femurs, no neck), she’d have to get creative… still, I’d LOVE to see her try.
HA! Oh man, I would love to see him mistake Ruthless for Becky! A world of hurt would be his, and she’d have the police there to haul the trash away.
Wrong shade of hair, and the runner’s clothing matches what we last saw Becky wearing.
You’re most likely right, and I stand by to be disappointed tomorrow, but I really hope that he just had a moment of sanity, where he found himself about to say the word “murder,” and everything snapped into perspective (or at least something closer to perspective than the deranged worldview he’s been working under), and he realized that what he was about to do was horribly wrong.
I mean, I doubt he’d change his mind about homosexuality or anything like that, but maybe, just maybe he might have realized that murdering people was a lot worse than anything Becky or Dina has done (even from his point of view).
Like I said, I expect to be disappointed, but I can hope, right?
As I recall, the Bible has a pretty specific rule about killing.
Unfortunately it is somewhat fuzzier on the subject of kneecaps.
Firefly reference FTW.
Depends where you read. There are plenty of places where the Bible orders the death penalty for various things.
Most of it quite comprehensible, especially given the era’s lack of any type of useful prison system and the tendency of almost any crime (including street muggings) to end up as a murder given enough time and the wrong circumstances.
I wonder how death sentences given frequently might hamper the creation of a useful prison system.
Prisons aren’t really feasible for nomadic societies.
I’m pretty sure it says “If you’re god it’s okay.” Meanwhile toedad considers himself to be an extension of god’s will or some crap like that.
Really? You think he axe-murders his neighbours who mow their lawns on the Sabbath, regardless of if they’re Christians or not, in accordance with The Good Book?
Oh hey also this. If you’re going to pick and choose anyways, then why not choose to not be an asshole?
I thought he was just noticing Becky’s flaming red hair. He already pulled the gun out in front of people.
Notice: He doesn’t have the rifle. Dina got it away from him, somehow, in the scuffle. I also don’t see it in his immediate area in panel 2. I think the next comic may be the scramble for the gun followed by distant “BANG!” with the shocked faces of Toedad and Dina in the following panel.
He dropped it to the side to throw Dina off.
“excuse me sir but i had not yet proceeded to destroy her womanhood although that was certainly a possibility at a later date”
I shudder to think what sort of sex-toy has the power to DESTROY someone’s womanhood.
Probably one made by Kitchen-Aid.
Milwaukee is already halfway there with the Sawzall…
I’ve seen examples. It’s pretty terrifying.
Tyrannosaurus Dildo?
The penis of the Tyrannosaurus rex has been estimated to be between 10 and 14 feet long.
Now imagine that as a dildo.
It’s also possible that it is the terminus of a cloaca (gross if bird-like) or that it’s something equally horrible, like a hemi-pene (grosser if reptile-like).
“10-14 foot ‘endowments'”
“destroying womanhood”
“cloaca”
*remembers The Game That Shall Not Be Named*
*twitch*
I sincerely hope you weren’t referring to this unspeakable horror; it’s upsetting enough that I remember it.
CLICK AT YOUR OWN RISK. Even the relatively clinical and sane description of the atrocity is disturbing.
It probably exists already.
Whales are pretty impressive, too
http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2949
It would have to be a very expensive gadget.
Never seen Se7en? Lucky you.
That’s when you hook a sex toy up to an electric handsaw.
You, ser, have not been to the right sex shops.
Cleverer girl?
uh-oh…it looks like a hamster just got on a wheel for the first time in a while
oh thank god. I thought she was going to get shot…..
At that range? Not likely.
Though if he’d thrown her off one-handed, I guess he could’ve followed up with a finishing shot, but I’m assuming he’s lucid enough to realize that a gunshot will attract unwelcome attention.
“…go play frisbee with those people.”
Ok, you win.
“I should …” remember the joys of having a kid, for once ?
That or he just saw Becky running through that field. Orange hair, blue shirt, I can’t see well but it matches 🙁
And so he shoots the figure, but it turns out to be a different redhead in a blue shirt! (sad trombone)
And it turns out to be….the completely harmless stranger!
the completely harmless stranger: I…just….wanted….to not rape anyone. *dies* cue rain Dina goes RAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Translated from Raptor as NOOOOOOOOOOO!
to anyone wondering what the hell I’m referencing
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/01-pajama-jeans/furthest/
Proper tombstones text:,,Here lies the harmless stranger. We barely knew him.”
CHS _is_ a readhead…
Her unintentional sacrifice won’t be forgotten.
I’m torn. This feels like too serious of a situation to make a joke about Dina ‘destroying [Becky’s] womanhood’.
That’s what fan-art is for.
I sincerely hope that your selection of the word ‘torn’ wasn’t premeditated.
Oh god, no, it wasn’t.
Oh, ye all out of faith! This is how you feel? You are cold! Be ashamed!
Dina sharpens her teeth for occasions like this.
Destroy her womanhood?What?
Oh, well, when a lady touches another lady’s clit with her tongue, if turns the clit into a penis. It’s like, transubstantiation.
I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that anime…
Only one? You’re missing out.
Once you break it down to the genre level, all animes in that genre are basically parts of the same anime.
trans guy here, if that worked we so would not exist… 😛
In the worldview of pre-millennial dispensationalist rapturist Christian belief, gayness is a symptom of failed gender roles. It’s basically the stuff Joyce was talking about here:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/03-up-all-night-to-get-vengeance/genderidentity/
As such, Becky’s “problem” in Toedad’s eyes is that her place and role as a woman has been confused by his weakness and the deceptions of Satan and Dina is further preying on that to further mislead and confuse her about the proper gender role of being heterosexually attracted to men thus robbing her further of her womanhood.
Which is why this particular branch of bigot tends to view trans people and queer people as part and parcel of the same coin (often to the point where trans people are just viewed as “extreme” versions of gay people).
Which leads to some fun cognitive dissonance when they encounter a gay trans person. Intersectionality doesn’t exist, you can be gay OR trans, not BOTH, you shouldn’t WANT to be both since even ONE is going against God’s will or whatever ANYWAY, so why would you try to STACK your existential blasphemies?????
(Note: the previous sentence was facetiousness on my part but there are people who actually believe that stuff. I had fun explaining to my very Christian mom that when a trans woman in her mental health support group had transitioned but was still into women, it’s not that “he” had been “straight”, it’s that SHE was a lesbian and was only now able to present as such. I used some admittedly problematic language at the time, but I’m learning, at least.)
Oh very much so. As a mostly homoromantic trans person, I get that kind of crap all the time. “What? You’re queer too, then why would you even bother transitioning?”
I’m hoping that the lack of a Becky tag is prophetic somehow?
That’s fixed not.
But “Dina, Ross” continues to amuse me.
“now” not “not”
You know, not to sympathize with the gun-toting, racist, chauvinist, homophobic, condescending monster, but…you know what, know. There’s not but there. I was GOING to say that growling at him wouldn’t exactly dispel the whole “demon possession” thing he’s got going…but screw it. Go for the jugular, Dina.
…the sound of old T.Rex…
Oh, man, I need TV when I got T. Rex…
I said it yesterday on Patreon and I’m repeating it here: that person in the distance is not Becky. Not that Toedad will try to confirm in his current state.
…huh. The Becky tag wasn’t there when I posted this. Okay, nevermind, continue panicking.
*runs around in cicles*
“We mustn’t panic! We mustn’t panic! ….. AAAAAAAAAH!”
Chicken Run
She actually drew blood.
Good job, Dina 🙂
Now draw more.
Forget blood. He’s got a lot less vitreous humor to lose.
And dinosaurs are very skilled at removing that.
Yeah, yesterday’s strip definitely didn’t work for me. All the tension’s gone. I should be worried for either of the girls, but I’m very meh when I definitely wasn’t meh 2 days ago.
And now that he’s lulled you into a false sense of complacency, the bloodsport truly begins!
Oh no, the author stated he won’t kill anyone, now every suspense and tension is ruined forever !!!!1!
Snerk.
Is he going to grab his rifle and run out into that open field full of people?
Seems that way, he’s just that big an idiot.
Depends on the range of his rifle, and how willing he is to let Jesus aim for him.
“My daughter’s life is in your hands, Jesus. Shoot to kill. Amen.”
Y’know, there’s a part of me that wants to see Ross say something like that…
only to be very surprised, and confused, when this angry little brown man (wearing a blue sash) steps into frame, takes away the gun, and glares at him.
And then throws a table at him?
Yes
In shortpacked That’d so happen
Is Ross’s face just dirtied up a little, or does he now have a facial wound like Ryan does in Joyce’s flashbacks?
You should… go out in public and wave your gun around to attract attention. That will go smoothly.
He already parked his car blocking a lane of a really busy street (facing the wrong way on a one-way street if I got the location right), so even if he did not wave a gun around he would have gotten the cops’ attention.
If we don’t know who ends up in the hospital, maybe it’s Toe-Dad (presumably other people have suggested this) who gets shot by the cops, leaving Becky/Joyce absolutely shattered with guilt? That seems more like classic Willis.
Gun-toting white male shot by cops? Seems a bit farfetched.
Yes because as everyone knows, no white man has ever been killed by cops for having a gun or them believing he has a gun. I guess Dillon Taylor, Gilbert Collar, Derek Cruice, Christopher Roupe, etc, just never existed.
Well, that’s a relief.
NEVER TAKE YOUR EYES OFF OF YOUR OPPONENT. GOD TOE DAD. IT’S LIKE YOU WANT TO BE KILLED BY LESBIANS.
I think this might be the best comment I’ve seen today.
Mike would be proud.
Yotomoe, don’t you remember?
It’s not the lesbian you SEE that gets you.
*cue Daisy’s war cry*
He’s not joking, he thinks she is destroying his daughters womanhood, because he is an idiot.
He’s pretty much proved that so far. Thinking he ‘owns her’, thinking he can pray her life to is way’, taking a gun onto a school campus. PUlling it out after screeching to a halt in the road-and chasing his daughter and Becky into the woods.
He really is not all there in any sense of the word. I seriously doubt he has a sense of humor.
Yup, he’s deadly serious. Emphasis on the deadly.
I told you guys he’d blame Dina for it, even though she was gay before they met.
She did some damage, just not enough (he can still see the redhead, who may or may not be Becky).
She also managed to disarm him.
Come on DIna ya bum! Get up and kick his ass back to Payless!
Yo is that the Abominable Snowman from that old Ski game?
The suspense is killing me and I have to wait another 24 hours to see what happened! Could the last two panels be any more ambiguous?!
After reading the rest of the comments and saw the tag of Becky, I now understand that Toedad spotted his daughter. Great…[/sarcasm].
Oh god oh god oh god, it keeps escalating!
I’m guessing that this is another, unnamed orange haired character, as Willis is damn particular about his tags (‘You can see a little of Amber’s hand there, see?’)
Maybe the person in the hospital will be unnamed redhead, sniped by toedad
Never mind, Becky was tagged while I was typing up my comment
Apparently Willis decided that I was going to be an unnamed character in the hospital, sniped by Willis
Becky’s in the tags, and when he wants to, he can leave a character off the tags anyway.
Oh, she was added. It wasn’t the case in the few first hours after publication.
Surely he’s not going to run out into that park chasing after a girl with a gun? Pretty sure you can’t do that even in America without drawing some police attention.
One would think that, but (and perhaps fortunately) Toedad is far from rational right now.
The police will be there any hour now.
If he’s in enough of a hurry, he might leave the rifle with Dina in favor of catching up to Becky.
Not likely, and he’d still be a major threat, but I can hope.
And then she’ll shoot him.
I adore angry Dina
Something about his possessiveness and use of the word “womanhood” makes me wonder if his abusiveness is more than just emotional.
It may not have been, but his wife just died last year, and if Becky resembles her late mother at all, he might have put 1 + 1 together and came up with Wife #2.
I don’t think he’s that particular flavor of awful parent. I think it might just be standard Purity Culture “daughter’s sexuality is owned by the parent until she is given away to a proper Christian husband” crap… That being said, purity culture and rape culture go really well together.
Those purity balls between father and daughter reek of disturbingness.
I got that vibe from the way he said “lay on hands” earlier, and the fact, that the phrase triggered Becky to back down and run. If not sexual abuse, then I totally believe physical abuse.
He said “put our hands over you in prayer”; probably referring to his particular congregation doing something like this.
It was still fucking creepy tho
I believe ‘lay on hands’ was something he said while Dina was sneaking up on him. The line that made her turn and run was ‘hand of God’, which seems more suggestive of physical violence.
It looks like Dina marked his face, good for her, but she’s not out of danger by any means.
People out there in the background, but looks like 2 are playing frisbie. The other may be running to or from the woods. Hard to say…waving for help -it could be Becky.
And if so, she isn’t out of rifle range.
And Dina isn’t out of beating range either.
But Toe Dad ain’t out of Frisbee range either. I’ve played enough Mortal Kombat to know a decapitation opportunity when I see one.
TEST
YOUR
MIGHT
*tch tch tch tch*
My internet was acting up and that last panel took forever to load. I was fully expecting a big “BANG” in that final panel. I am so glad I was wrong.
What happened in the second panel ? Did he punch her or throw her off his arm? I’m going to go with punch.
I’d go with throwing her. Judging by the position of his other arm, possibly a two-handed toss.
Maybe he’s realizing that Dina is protecting his daughter, and realizing with horror that she’s protecting Becky from HIM.
That’s some wishful thinking you got there.
Wait, Becky is running to Joyce. He knows Joyce. I imagine that there’ll be a desperate hug between them when they meet. He is in prime position to see that hug. He is also in the mindset to see any platonic affection between women as a sign of lesbianic moral corruption. He might also be in the headspace to assume that since Dina came around after the initial corruption and confusion that it might be blamable on someone closer to her, someone who didn’t fully live up to his impossible standards of moral behavior…
He may end up trying to take a shot at Joyce and if he takes a shot at Joyce, Becky is going to try and intervene into the way…
:c
I’m sure he knows Dina is protecting his daughter from him, but it’s not likely to recontextualize much for him, since that’s what “evil” always does against “good”.
So….the Bloomington School of Law runs a restraining order clinic. Not sure Toedad would obey a court order, mind you…
He doesn’t seem to care about laws.
Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck please have Dina and Becky survive please
Relax. Willis stated way way ago that because of the pace that DOA (heh) goes, he doesn’t want to kill anyone because he would have to show characters grieving for a believable amount of time, which would work out to something like 10 years real-world time, and that would be a big bummer of a decade.
Now, Funky-Winkerbean-style maiming? That might still be in play. And there’s still lots of time to give a few of the characters cancer.
But the rules of the multiverse (major events occur across all timelines) say Dina has to die… Also, this is “Damn You” Willis after all
Yes, but everyone does die eventually. And some major events from the other universe already explicitly happened outside of the comic’s events (eg Ethan’s coming out), or were tweaked (like Joyce’s number of siblings).
So no, she doesn’t necessarily have to die during the comic.
She doesn’t have to die in freshman year! Sheesh!
Dina gets killed by a terrorist while she’s in grad school for her doctorate in paleontology. By which time Willis will be 107 years old and retired.
A terrorist. So… by a random fundie ?
That… went about as well as I expected it to? Maybe he’ll just forget the gun now though? Maybe?
Wait, her teeth become zig zag claw teeth when she is angry. Is that her mutant power?
Yes.
I’m trying to decipher what is going on in the second panel, and the more I look at it the less it makes sense. Dina was on Ross’s back, but the speed-lines indicate some kind of upward motion, and now she has her to back to him and is upside-down. So, like, how did an uppercut turn her 180 degrees and put her in front of him? Is this some kind of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure power where she starts spiraling forward as she phases through his back?
This is totally ignoring the fact that she ends up face down with her feet pointing towards him in panel three, which means she must have spun around on her head before landing like a breakdancer…
Comic panels sometimes compress time to allow things to progress at a reasonable pace. Dina may have re-oriented herself to get her hands under her and allow her to spring back to her feet (easier to do if you’re face down) between panels. But before she could get up, Toedad’s ridiculously oversized hand has clamped down on her head, and presumably he’s resting another limb on her back to shut down her mobility.
The switch in panel 2 could be her resisting his throw and trying to getva grip before flying off. No reorientation after that; he just walks up next to her.
Now if Dina was a Utahraptor… nah. He’s realized she’s got a monstrous head start, and he can’t go charging in the open with a rifle. Dina’s done her job pretty good. Now if only Toedad can demonstrate some sense and get back to his car before the campus cops run up and blow their whistles at him.
two words: loaded rifle.
Dina’s job is only half finished.
On a more dinosaur related note, I’m pretty sure Dina weighs a LOT more than a velociraptor.
Alt text.
He has a clear shot, not good.
And now, back to your regularly scheduled drama.
She should have gone for his eyes.
There’s so much here in the visuals. First up is just how impressively she has managed to leave her mark. I mean based on Toedad’s face in the top part of panel 5, Dina has managed to leave strong gouge marks on both sides of his face and has managed to at least temporarily knock the gun from his hands if little else. I don’t know if that will comfort her for what comes next, but it’s not nothing and it’s fairly impressive for such a dangerous high-risk act.
Beyond that, just looking at Dina’s face in panels 3 and 4, that impotent rage and defiance. She’s beaten, humbled, but she’s refusing to quit and submit or even to show fear to the dangerous man with a gun who thinks she’s a demon in human form. She’s just angry that she couldn’t hurt him more even though she probably has a concussion from how hard she hit that hard ground.
This is what we’ve seen foreshadowed in her response with regards to Raidah. That she holds a grudge and does not easily forgive or submit when she has decided that she intends on action. Even in dire circumstances, she is not going to beg for her life and while incredibly brave, this very well could have ended in her death and while Becky may be cursing her hi-vis hair color in a strip or two, it has literally saved her girlfriend’s life.
And as far as the words, well, I’ve said that Toedad views Becky as malfunctioning property and this is a rather stark confirmation of that above and beyond. Becky’s womanhood is for him to protect and sell to a proper Christian suitor who submits his proposal to him and wins him over. Not her own and certainly not some pokemans lesbian demon’s.
Toedad thinks he is defending against a theft and is using the same tools a gun enthusiast might defend against a theoretical home invader. After all, breaking into his property and stealing it from him requires him to defend his castle as it were.
“…Toedad views Becky as malfunctioning property…”
Yes. He views her non-conformity to his own ideals like a malfunctioning product of his own construction. A personal failure.
Dina is a target for his redirected blame, no matter how irrational the timing.
Any confrontation between them had to happen before now, the point of no return. It always had to do with simply convincing him to not pursue her so she could plant herself and take root, elsewhere.
There is very little chance he will accept her, perhaps even for years or decades.
Walky called Joyce’s problem out and she was horrified to hear it. Ross’ problem is the same but, he is the extreme. If someone explained it to him, there’s no way he’d ever be able to hear it and I don’t see him sharing a season of D&MM, afterward…
It’d just be sign of demon possession or an attempt to twist and corrupt him.
From his hand motions in yesterday’s strip and this one, I think he dropped the rifle or tossed it aside to deal with Dina, not that that lessens Dina’s bravery or success here.
I’m not going to touch that last paragraph. Time and place.
True, that is unfair phrasing in that last paragraph. As such, let me replace it here with “a very particular subgroup of dangerous individual” as that is certainly not synonymous with all gun owners or enthusiasts.
Much appreciated.
Okay what I want to know is what the heck is up with Dina’s teeth.
Ferocity and focus has sharpened many things about her.
Maybe first you better start with Dina’s nose. It’s just a line and a dot. How does that work? And all the characters are only about 5 heads tall. Is this a high-gravity version of Earth? And where the heck are everyone’s fingernails?
There’s a lot to sort out here before you even get to Dina’s teeth.
Queer demon possession… that or pure rage.
It’s not the first time the art has done pointed teeth. See: When Mike hijacked Joyce’s phone to scream “Hail Satan” into it.
I think that’s one of those things where it’s just best to say “It’s a Cartoon” and move on.
I keep wondering what Ross thinks he “should” do to Dina. A lot of really violent scenarios are going through my head, each worse than the last D:
Just think to yourself “What kind of physical assault would Jesus do?” and you’ll have your answer.
And since he already flipped her over like a moneychanger’s table, he has to be out of tricks now.
Somehow, I don’t think too many participants in, say, the Crusades asked themselves that question when presented with the spoils of a victory.
But I’m guessing flogging or a quick, clean death to ‘purge her evil’ were his main ideas.
Quick, with all your springy raptor strength, KANGAROO KICK!!!!!!!! TO THE GUT (because as sour as he is she likes his offspring). Maybe a finger in his eye if you can manage it quickly.
Then bite so he’ll release and book it. NO BACKUP PRECIOUS RAPTOR CHILD, BOOK IT!!! Up a tree!! For his gun (steal the bullets or just his barrel maybe if it’s an easy disassemble)!!
She’d be better to grab it in one piece and take it with her. Removing bullets from a loaded gun by someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing can be difficult. Once she has enough distance between her and Toedad, swinging it as hard she can against a tree can bend the barrel and functionally ruin the firearm. It was what the British intended to do with Colonial firearms during the attempts to seize the weapons of Colonials.
Bent barrel, hm. Smart. I shall make note of this tactic. Well, I meant as she’s running away, yeah. I just thought she wouldn’t want to be seen running with a gun on campus. Maybe holding it by the barrel if you had to…
I was just thinking about how much of a PITA it is to remove bullets from a loaded gun, and I’m someone who knows what he’s doing. Doing it while on the hoof with everything bouncing around and while being pursued by a very large man who looks like a giant brisket shoved into a pair of pants and covered by a t-shirt would short-circuit my hand-eye coordination. Given the way Dina’s mind works, she may have an escape strategy formulated. This is all presuming she has some method to get out of Toedad’s grip.
If there’s one thing cartoons have taught me, it’s that you can just plug the barrel of a gun with your finger, and it will blow up in the attacker’s face.
This is fool proof.
It’s a single-shot rifle with no magazine. It’s got, at most, one bullet in it, loaded into the chamber. If butthole dad has more, they’re in his pocket or something, not in the gun.
You sure about that? It looks lever-action, but it could be single shot. Recall some early lever-action rifles like the Henry had a wholly internal magazine, like a modern pump shotgun. THough in that case, it’d be simply a matter of working the lever until the chamber was clear.
Yeah. Someone a few days back identified it as a Ruger No. 1 Varminter, which looks correct, from the images GIS turns up. It’s a falling-block action breech-loader. Pushing the lever forward drops the block, opening the chamber and ejecting any round that might already be in it. You stick a round into the chamber and pull the lever back, which raises the block, closing the chamber, and cocks the internal hammer. Fire. Rinse and repeat.
By weird coincidence, I was 3D-modeling a very similar, fictional, gun recently, based largely on the Martini-Henry the British Army used in the mid-to-late 19th century.
Thanks for the information! Clears things up, especially the references to it being a .22 I keep seeing.
Is it cool to post links to preview panels here? I mean, Willis has already censored it, but here. It may put your mind at ease.
dumbingofage.tumblr.com/post/124984014817/anybody-wanna-name-tattoo-skateboard-glasses-guy
Skateboard guy’s just really stunned at the guy running around in the giant phallus costume.
Why do I have the horrible feeling he’s just thought of using Dina as a hostage to make Becky come back?
On the plus side, he’d have to shout to make Becky see him, so other people would notice. One can hope.
:c
That’s really plausible. That’s really really plausible.
At least he seems to have dropped the gun. Hopefully Dina has the sense to run now.
Perhaps if she weren’t pinned.
It won’t work out for him, take solace in that. It’s not like he can shake Dina off from chasing him, or stop from causing a /terrific/ scene, getting his car reported (who saw /what/ happen in a car with /what/ plates?) if that’s where he’s headed. And anyways, how can he possibly maintain superiority and surety by holding the proof of Becky’s gayness /hostage/ while trying to take her away from it? Nothing that Becky can say would shake him? Nothing at all? Not even the little bit it would take to get campus security or amazigirl on scene?
It’ll be alright. I’m with you, really, currently still shocked at how flippant Dina’s being with her own safety for the sake of somebody she’s been involved with for such a short time. Says something about her, certainly.
I appreciate how Dina, who normally speaks so carefully and formally, has become completely non-verbal in this situation.
The careful speech requires focus and effort and Dina is not in a headspace to spare either.
Raptors don’t speak. Dina has nothing to say to Ross that she can’t say with her teeth.
Becky would be smart to keep in the open, public areas. Ironically, that might deter her father from doing something really stupid.
Either way, Dina, you delayed him long enough now get up and make a run for it. Becky, keep running until you get to the fountain.
Joyce, call everyone in the Dorm, get them all out to the fountain.
I honestly think that considering he drove his car onto the sidewalk, and pulled out his gun in plain sight, and considering he’s a religious nutcase who has displayed a rather alarming lack of intelligence, that there is little that can deter him from doing something really stupid.
Saturating the area with potential targets seems like a bad idea. Maybe ‘everyone who can help.’
BITE HIS FINGERS OFF.
GO FOR THE THUMB. HE WON’T BE ABLE TO SPOON HIS RECOVERY SOUP.
Oh hey Dina made him drop the gun, alright Toedad, now let your blind, unthinking rage compel you to blindly chase Becky without thinking to retrieve it first.
Yeah, he’s going to jail.
“You should” be in jail for attempted kidnapping, attempted assault with a deadly weapon, any other firearms violations local laws can dig up, and hate crimes. Sir.
Ooooh, burn
It’s not a hate crime, legally speaking, because Indiana law does not cover sexuality as a protected class. It is the reason that the Freedom of Religion law passed earlier this year caused such a mess because it specifically made legal discrimination based on sexuality because it isn’t a protected classification.
Now, if you could argue that he is assaulting Dina because of her ethnicity you could charge him with a hate crime in Indiana.
Curse you science and your un-movielike portrayal of raptors.
But damn, look at Dina. She is knocked down by a madman three times her size with a gun, and she keeps going. If Toedad gets distracted just one moment she might very well go for the throat.
So, he knows how to handle himself physically. Unfortunate; I’d hoped Dina had a plan.
At least he has a higher priority than hurting her… Now where did the rifle land?
Her plan is basically to attack him directly so that Becky can get away, using her silent approach to get close. She’s not a natural fighter, and is trying to Dino-channel up some wild aggression, but there’s no finesse to it aside of a wild delay/attack this monster who wants to hurt Becky.
To clarify: I’d hoped she had a plan to neutralize the threat he posed and/or escape after delaying him. Animal savagery can only do so much without technique.
I honestly expected her to go for something vital like his eyes while she had the element of surprise.
Hey, did Dina manage to disarm him?
In a manner of speaking; he let go of it to fend her off.
It looks like he may have used a two-handed toss to get her off in panel two, in which case he had to drop the gun to do so.
I think he should die for his heathenous sins against me!
Yay! My day just got started but Dina has made it already, even if the Abominable Toedad predictably made short work of her.
But what is Becky doing? Isn’t that the exact opposite of what she should be doing?
She’s fleeing. That was the plan.
Dina deviated from the plan, possibly because she misunderstood Becky’s brief description and possibly because she preferred this course of action – it did drastically improve Becky’s short-term odds of escaping.
He looks like he’s got strong legs, though. And a hunting rifle. I’m afraid Becky might be making herself a sitting duck by running out in the open like that.
And for a moment, Ross looked up and saw his daughter running over a field. He hesitated. Maybe he remembered the little girl who chased a ball over the lawn and laughed, maybe she reminded him of her mother. Maybe the sheer horror of what he was about to do – what he was doing in this very moment when his fist landed in the face of a teenage girl – dawned to him.
OR MAYBE THE FUCKER JUST WERE AFRAID THAT HIS PRAY WOULD GET AWAY. FUCK YOU, ROSS, YOU DESPICABLE CREEP.
In his current state, remembering Becky chasing a ball would just harden his heart and make him more committed to “saving” her by any means necessary and make him even more convinced that he cannot let her escape him this time.
After all, her “immortal soul” is on the line. And that little baby girl needs to stay on the pathway to Heaven by regaining her “proper gender role” once more.
Which yeah, ALL THE FUCK YOUS TO THAT SHIT!
I really, really, really wish that he at some point in his life (in a prison, far from her) will realize that his idea of what Becky once was and he tries to force her back to become, was a lie from the start.
That’d be nice. But somehow, I don’t think locking a religious fanatic away from the real world is going to make him reconsider his beliefs. (It’ll make the world a tiny bit safer for everyone else, though)
“FUCK YOU, ROSS, YOU DESPICABLE CREEP.” – 100 times this.
It’s WAAAAAY to tame, but apart from raptor snarls I know no words in any language strong enough to capture my feelings about people like Ross.
Ross vs. Blaine in awful dad attacking on campus match?
“Wolfman’s got nards!”
And so do butthole dad’s. Aim for his weak spot, Dina!
“Rage. Rage, but no power.”
Becky wasn’t kidding when she said hi-vis.
Why is there never a superhero around when you need one?
And what the heck is she going to do about him; she would probably walk into this mess with very little information about WTF is going on. We may omnisciently know all this stuff about Becky, Ross, Dina and the backstory- but Amber / Amazi-girl is probably clueless and elsewhere. Unless Joyce decided to call her for help somehow…and Amazi-girl works in nightly stealth partly so the authorities don’t haul her in for being a vigilante/ idiot/crazy/repeat assaulter. Doing this in broad daylight with a high probability of serious cop presence would certainly blow her cover for good.
You should what, Ross?
Or are you realizing Dina is a small, eighteen year old person that you have pinned, who is terrified of you but still trying to defend your daughter from you? Please let this character be having an epiphany of what exactly he is doing.
I could hope it’s going to go that way, but I’m pretty certain that’s Becky’s red hair in the distance in the shot below the bastard.
To him, Dina’s courage is just a sign of her irredeemable evil in that she’s fighting to keep the Righteous from their divinely-appointed task.
Probably.
With any luck he’ll leave Dina, go for Becky, and Joyce has called Sal back…
Or more likely, a guilty feeling Joyce will once again reach deep within herself to try and stop all this; Ross would not know anyone presently on campus but Becky and Joyce, and Willis has been good at showing Girl meets Real World conflicts inside Joyce…who stood up creakily against her parents to speak on Dorothy’s behalf on Parents’ Day. God knows if she could reach Ross at this point, but she’s the only thing short of a bullet that *might* slow him down.
On one hand, it’s a good thing Dina isn’t a raptor. Because this would have been a perfect moment to demonstrate a raptor’s toeclaw.
Sounds to me like you’re saying its a bad thing she’s not a raptor!
Well it would delay the man huntsman, but at the same time, we wouldn’t want Dina getting in trouble.
I don’t pretend to know Indiana’s laws on self-defense, but I think eviscerating a crazed gunman trespassing on school grounds is justifiable… I hesitate to call it homicide, as that implies Dina is in some way like him, but justified killing.
that was supposed to say MAD huntsman.
Toedad just punched Dina.
…
-researches way to become webcomic character to murder Toedad-
In a Willis comic? You are brave, so brave.
As an Unkillable Badass I think I should do it… Sure dying hurt, actually it wasn’t the dying that hurt, it was the coming back to life after, being dead was quiet and boring. But the point is I don’t stay dead, so I should do it.
It looks to me like Dina has been saved from a beating by Ross getting a reminder that he has some very clear priorities in his life right now. Like Becky says, she has high-visibility hair.
Unfortunately it’s also clear that Ross’s priorities are so overriding that they’re interfering with his survival instincts. He’s going to continue this pursuit into a public place, clearly trusting in whatever deity he thinks would approve of his action to keep him from arrest.
When the COPS show up and see ToeDad with a gun… on Campus…
What do you think will happen?
Well, the obvious. They call for massive backup,including the local cops, and try to simultaneously get him to stop dead in his tracks while shooing off the students from possible fields of fire. No idea how quick the campus cops will be on reaction. They’re more used to breaking up Amazi-girl types of jerks, not dealing with paychos with guns.
If it’s anything how they react here in the UK, they’ll call in huge amounts of backup and huddle helplessly behind their cars counting gunshots until the SWATs arrive.
Eh, they have a duty to get possible victims of a nutcase the heck out of the way. Open assault on a guy with a high powered gun when he can see them coming – not so much. Possibly Bloomington cops would be able to handle this, possibly the Indiana State Patrol.
All American cops have guns and the training that comes with them.
American police officers have consistently terrible aim in actual combat situations, though. I think “cowering behind their cars” in this case would be a better idea because if they’re not going to hit the aggressor anyway, they might as well refrain from causing potential civilian casualties through their own missed shots and ricochets.
Don’t overreact, WolfPup – it’s not like they’ll shoot him without giving him a chance to surrender.
He’s white.
Has Toedad actually committed a crime with his gun here? I’m not from America, but I recall an instance where a person had to cancel a university lecture after 4channers made a shooting threat because US law not only permits, but encourages bringing guns onto a university campus; the university wouldn’t take any precautions such as checking people’s bags for guns.
So if he doesn’t actually shoot people, is he completely in the clear? Or can only actual students at the university legally carry guns, and Toedad can’t? Or does it vary by state?
It varies by state, but also by specific jurisdictions. In many, if not most, states public educational institutions have the right to declare themselves gun free zones and most larger universities have their own police departments enforcing their own very local regulations.
Private institutions of all kinds (which, to be clear, IU is not, it is public, but just for completeness…) can *always* ban firearms from their property. The right to bear arms applies only to your own property and most (but not all) *public* lands.
That’s more than a little inaccurate. Gun laws in the USA is a mess as it is something handled mostly at the State level in terms of regulation and some states allow Open Carry, which is being allowed to carry a legal firearm in a stowed position if it is clearly visible. That said it is well within the rights of a business to require all patrons to not bring firearms onto the premise.
Universities do not encourage and will often forbid firearms from being brought onto campus. Being that they are private institutions they are well within their rights to do so. In addition to that if the University did allow firearms to be brought on campus and someone was shot then the University in question could be held liable for failing to ensure the safety of their students.
And even in the most lax states when it comes to gun laws wielding a firearm in a threatening manner is an offense warranting arrest. If you have a firearm on your person when committing another crime, even if in a legal open carry position, you can have additional charges leveled against you for assault with a deadly weapon or threatening with a deadly weapon, it instantly turns the crime to be considered a violent crime. More over if you are committing a violent crime like assault and have a gun on your person they may also hit you with attempted murder/manslaughter as willingly carrying a firearm could be argued as an intent to use in the case of violent crime.
tl:dr? Federal Laws allow regulated firearm ownership with regulations set by individual states. Universities could be held liable if they allowed firearms on campus. Carrying a firearm while committing a crime always makes the charges a lot worse.
As someone whom works at an IU Campus, all IU campuses are gun free zones. Only exceptions are for “law enforcement officers” and special written provisions made by the Superintendent of Public Safety and can be only granted for educational or research purposes.
Toe-dad is unlikely to be either. Unless he is a cop, off-duty cops are allowed, kinda. You do have to be authorized to carry the firearm. It would be a stretch to try and justify a off-duty cop bringing and pulling out a loaded non-state issued rifle onto the campus.
The details of what he’s actually guilty of vary with jurisdiction, but he’s definitely committing several crimes here. Under Indiana law, I think it’s legal for him to openly carry a long gun. However, when he starts brandishing it in a threatening manner, that’s assault with a deadly weapon, or something along those lines. And Becky is a legal adult, over whom he no longer has any parental authority, so trying to force her to come with him, using the threat of lethal force, is attempted kidnapping. There may be other laws he’s breaking, but those are the big ones.
He’s also in violation of IU policy forbidding firearms on campus, which isn’t actually law, but may mean that he’s no longer allowed to be there and so has just become guilty of trespassing, too.
That 4chan story seems really bizarre to me. IME, it’s normal for colleges to have rules like that linked. And I went to college (and still live) in the state with the U.S.’s laxest weapons laws. As far as the state of Vermont is concerned, I can carry anything I can lift, openly or concealed, without a permit… but I couldn’t even have my sword on campus. (Which just meant I stashed it in my closet before room inspections.) There were shooting and hunting clubs, but their firearms were kept under lock and key when not in use for club activities.
This was at Utah State University a year ago; the response to the shooting threat: …”in accordance with the State of Utah law regarding the carrying of firearms, if a person has a valid concealed firearm permit and is carrying a weapon, they are permitted to have it at the venue.” Yeah, bizarre, especially from a non-US perspective.
I’m avoiding mentioning the name of either the target or the hate group responsible, in case it causes a moderation headache.
I live in one of the most gun friendly states, Arizona. What he’s doing is definitely illegal here and in this state as well. Brandishing his gun like that would come under the umbrella of disorderly conduct in my state. That’s just considering the initial moment he displayed the gun. His actions has probably netted him some felony charges at this point.
There was a recent documentary called Welcome To Leith, which covered the events of a small town in North Dakota that had to deal with a sudden influx of neo-nazis. (They planned to ‘take over’ the town.) Two if the individuals were arrested after they went on ‘patrol’ around the town while carrying loaded guns. (They were booked on ‘suspicion of terrorizing’.)
Given the fact that toedad is also brandishing a loaded weapon (and at one point had it aimed in the direction of a person), I can see similar charges being leveled against him.
You want disgusting… There’s a possibility that Indiana’s stand your ground law could allow him to fire on Dina legally, if a jury decides that he has a reasonable belief that Dina was kidnapping Becky (a forceful felony). And, this is Indiana, so it could happen.
(Of course, this works both ways – Dina could legally use deadly force against him to protect Becky. But, for many reasons, I don’t think that’d happen – it’s terrible tactically, and I don’t think Willis wants a SYG law to be used against an attacker, because, really, they’re not often used like that (people who should have been let off under SYG laws being convicted of manslaughter or murder, and people who used SYG laws to get away with murder).
I found this page, http://www.indygunsafety.com/FAQ.html , which has a good FAQ and links, and is specific to Indiana.
Q: Can I defend my property with my handgun?
A: No! You may only use deadly force to protect yourself (or another) if you have a REAL & REASONABLE fear of great bodily harm or death. What is reasonable to you may not be to a jury! You may protect your vehicle only if it is occupied. Cuts and scrapes from a scuffle will not rise to a reasonable fear of death or great bodily injury.”
Note the real and reasonable clause and the explicit statement in the last statement. No Indiana Jury would see Dina posing a “real and Reasonable Threat” to Toedad’s life.
According to this lawyer’s website, http://www.hesslerlaw.com/practice-areas/handgun-firearm-charges/, just pointing a firearm at another human being is a crime, regardless of wither you intend to shoot, or even if the gun is loaded.
Under federal sentencing guidelines “while in possession of a firearm” is a modifier to just about every crime. This can be added time to a prison stay, and/or increase the severity of the crime, ie what type of felony or misdemeanor it is, or even bump it from a misdemeanor to a felony charge.
In addition many places there are additional penalties incurred because “With a firearm” can make a non-violent offense a violent offense. This can add a strike in ” Three strikes and your out” states. It also is a much larger stumbling block to pass any sort of background check, wither for a job, a lone, a place to live or even renting a vehicle or tool.
Indiana’s stand your ground law includes using deadly force against someone committing a “forcible felony”, which includes kidnapping.
I’m saying that, if Ross can get it in the right jurisdiction, he may be able to get off by claiming that he was preventing Dina from kidnapping Becky. This couldn’t be further from the truth, but it might work as a defense.
I could be wrong here, but I think they may have to actually be committing a felony, not just doing so in your imagination. At the very least, the “reasonable person” theory would apply.
Given that the encounter started with Becky yelling to Dina to run and that part of the encounter was likely seen by witnesses, he’s going to have a hard time convincing a jury that a reasonable person would believe this small, unarmed girl was kidnapping his daughter without using any apparent force or even being in contact with her.
Kudos to Cerberus on the insights into Ross; or at least I feel Cerberus is a darn good guesser. If he’s going after Becky on foot, he’s probably going to do something to wallop Dina hard so she’s not slowing him down (which I think is going through his head) – not shoot her but incapacitate her.
Past that, I can’t imagine he’s such a hot broken field runner to directly chase Becky, but he’s determined enough to chase her down to drag her back. If he’s going to shoot at her – have no idea how good he is with the Ruger or what sort of range it has – he’d probably pull it out and do it now before she’s too far gone.
All kudos to Cerberus.
Unfortunately, as we’ve been told the reason Cerberus is so insightful about the ToeDads of the world is not guesses – it’s experience.
True that. Had my own set of those.
*Appropriate gesture of support* Toedads are the worst.
THE EYES
GO FOR THE EYES, DINA
With your thumb.
Who would be better able to handle Ross/aka Toedad? Sal? Or Amazi-girl? Or someone else? Assuming the police don’t get involved and someone rescues the girls.
Sal would not impress Ross. Amazi-girl is brave, but going up head-on against Ross would confuse him with the ta-da super routine, just before he blasted her. Jumping him and getting him down by surprise- mmmmmaybe.
Amber isn’t that mentally unstable. She’s come at him hard and fast from cover to bring him down before he hurts anyone. It would be interesting to see if a sleeper hold would work around that muscular knuckle of a neck. Sal would be more up-front and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if she has a shiv in that jacket (which could get her in trouble – known juvenile delinquent stabs a man; some DAs would prosecute even with the mitigation of her defending someone against a murderous attack).
Remember, while toedad does outweigh Amber (and is probably stronger), Amber does have experience fighting with larger opponents. (Recall in an earlier strip that she fought someone who was sexually harassing a woman on the street. In that case, the person she was fighting seemed to be fairly big/tall. More so than Blaine was.)
The scenario that I’m visualising is Joyce putting herself in between Ross’s gun and Becky. He then has to ask himself if he’s ready to shed her blood. I’m also thinking that Joyce pays for Becky’s medical treatment (getting the bullet out and fixing the hole) out of her college trust fund.
An alternative scenario is that Joyce actually physically attacks Ross with something long and hefty she grabbed whilst running over. She is more of a surprise than a cause of damage but it buys enough time for others to arrive and dog-pile him.
It’s just a feeling that I’m getting – That Hank’s appearance next year is going to be somehow involved with the Brown family crisis at her choosing ‘the wrong side’. Maybe, in the recent preview picture, Hank is warning that she’ll have to do without stuff because the fund isn’t being topped up to cover for all the money she spent on Becky’s care.
Double team with Sal and Amazigirl. I wanna see Ross’s ass kicked severely by the most bad ass girls in Dumbing of Age.
Why oh why do I expect him to try to shoot her, believing he can wound her?
Why oh why do I expect the highly visible red hair to belong to someone innocent and completely unrelated to the whole affair?
He probably has a better opinion of his shooting abilities than is warranted. However, once you start putting lead in the air, anything can happen. He could miss Becky and hit someone or something else. And he most certainly can aim to hit her in a leg and miss and cause a great deal more damage than he might really want.
Or hit her in the leg … in the femoral artery … and she bleeds out before the ambulance arrives?
IM JUST GLAD HE LOST THE GUN TBH
He didn’t lose it; it’s at his feet somewhere, perfectly functional.
Is it too much to hope that Toe-Dad might have had a bit of a moment of clarity?
Well, he has a clear line of fire, at least.
Yeah, I think that he’s going to try a ranged shot to stop her in front of dozens of witnesses and be genuinely shocked and enraged when other people try to help her and stop him. I’m not sure if he’s going to get out of this one alive. I can see him trying to take down campus cops with his bare hands if they get in his way, all the while screaming about ‘God wills it’.
Unfortunately, pretty much.
Wait a minute. He mentions “stealing his daughter away from him”.
Is Toedad going to abduct Dina?
It has been implied, though not confirmed, that after he took her from the first school, he was abusive. What kind of abusive, well…
Becky is his first priority but I’m pretty sure that he plans to ‘punish’ her, if he gets a couple of minutes spare to rub together.
Could be. She’d make a convenient hostage and that would give him the leverage to force Becky into the car. So far he’s just trusted his gut rather than act strategically, but he could be deciding to switch it up and try another tactic.
I’m not too sure, unless Toedad has really gone off the deep end. He’s trying to rescue his property from Satan’s infernal liberal clutches, and is using his God-given right to firearms to coerce her back to the path of light, but if he takes Dina hostage he’s unambiguously committing a crime and he will be arrested.
I mean, he’s committing a helluva lot of crimes now, but it’d probably be easy enough for him to rationalize it to himself.
Dina is clear an agent working on behalf of the devil. His ‘Conscience’ will remain clear.
I wonder how he’d try to explain it.
“Officer, you don’t understand! I wasn’t going to shoot my daughter! My holy rifle was designed to frighten the wretched gay liberal demons lurking within!”
You know, he is an asshole, but I still feel sorry for him. Living in a bubble of ignorance like that is one of my worst nightmares.
Yeah, that thought IS horrifying… but as nightmares goes, in my book it still comes after being targeted by a madman with a gun who I know will keep coming after me and my loved ones, is in a position to do real damage on multiple levels and who fully believes himself to be justified in his actions.
Yes. Nothing more dangerous than a person who thinks their way is the only way.
You and me both.
Well, sans the ‘one of’ part. Nothing scares me quite so badly.
*nothing else
I’m just want to say that I’m glad I’m not the only person who has legit growled at somebody in a fight in real life.
OOH! New theory! Everyone gets out alive, but Dina’s injured and hospitalized. The Saruyamas arrive, hear the entire story, and take in Becky because they were completely supportive of their daughter and this woman who happens to be their daughter’s girlfriend has no support.
So glad someone pointed out Dina’s hair. I had read Toedad’s looking up and close up after “I should” as him having an idea of what he should do to Dina and the wide shot of people going about their business an playing Frisbee as dramatic contrast. Honestly, I thought there was going to be an attempted “corrective” rape in the next strip. I couldn’t work out why the comments where relatively calm.
…Becky’s hair?
Yep. I fail typing what I am thinking forever
OK, Willis is usually so painstakingly accurate with his art and locations in this strip that I am legitimately confused here. Six or seven days ago he posted a picture of Jordan Avenue near the Simon Music Library and the Musical Arts building on his Tumblr and remarked that he had just had a couple of characters (Dina and Becky) crossing this street; and it was presumed that this was also the street on which Ross was driving when he spotted Becky and her high-vis hair. When confronted, the girls then turned tail and fled into the woods. So which woods were these girls running into/through?
If this was supposed to be the area known as Dunn’s Woods, that is quite a ways west of their last known location and my question is “How did they get there?” If this *isn’t* Dunn’s Woods, then where are they, and what is that open area that Becky is now running across? Again, according to my maps, there isn’t anywhere between Jordan Avenue and the Showalter Fountain that would have that dense a stand of trees opening onto such a large open area.
But then again, Dina shouldn’t have sharp, pointed teeth.
I’m not sure about the Jordan Ave comment, but he also said in a comment a few days back that they were near 6th St, which is the other side of campus, near Dunn Meadow. It’s not clear to me if Dunn Meadow has enough woods, but I’d guess they were walking up N Indiana Ave, ran into the woods along the southern edge of Dunn Meadow and are now looking out at Becky running across the meadow.
That was also my interpretation, though those woods are not so thick in real life. At first I thought they were in Dunn Woods, which is that thick, but the lack of buildings beyond the clearing indicate that is not the case. Still, either way it is a busy enough area that someone has to have noticed him roughing up Dina.
It took me a while, but I was able to convince myself that David drew the right place. Dunn Woods is mostly in the southwestern corner of campus (not exactly adjacent to Sixth Street), but there is a small wooded area *just* south of Dunn Meadow through which Dina and Becky could run. I could even see them weave around Dunn Woods proper for a bit, trying to lose Toedad, before eventually reaching the more northern bit just south of the Meadow.
As for the lack of buildings beyond the clearing: Seventh Street forms the north border of the Meadow, on the other side of the fence shown in the last panel. David probably just decided to show only one building on the other side of Seventh Street, instead of all 7 or 8 of them. The one building he drew looks to be the GLBT Student Support Services office.
IRL, there’s a new building going up right where Dina and Toedad currently are. So, that small wooded area is pretty much gone now. :/
Alumnus out.
So it looks like Becky is running east, paralleling Seventh Street and heading toward the fountain… but it’s going to take her a while to get there.
She’s closer than you’d think. At a running pace, she could make it from Dunn Meadow to the fountain in 15 seconds.
15 seconds? Google maps shows it as almost a quarter mile from the edge of Dunn Meadow, more from where she probably is.
Since Becky’s not likely a world class sprinter, probably more like a couple of minutes flat out.
It looks to me that Becky, Ross and Dina are practically on the opposite side of Campus from Joyce’s location. It very much looks like the girls are on their own for now.
It’s OK, Willis explained in a comment a couple of days ago that the Jordan Ave thing was for a future strip. Becky and Dina, at the time, had just crossed from 6th Street towards Dunn Meadow:
http://bit.ly/1jgHdih (Joyce and the fountain are in the big square in the middle of campus, on 7th St)
I spent some time with Google Maps yesterday, and pretty well convinced myself that, in the strip where butthole dad shows up, they’re right at the intersection of E. 6th and N. Indiana. There’s some trees there between Dunn Meadow and Franklin Hall, but in real life, or at least Google Street View, they don’t seem to be anywhere near as dense as they are in the strip. I’m thinking Willis just took some artistic license with the foliage.
Dad is a really scary guy… Becky coulda mentioned this. “Oh, hi Joyce! I’m gay now and my dad is prone to chasing me down with a rifle.” Plus, it seems that some folks saw the gun totin maniac and may have called the cops…or the cab driver who dropped the manic with the gun at the COLLEGE CAMPUS! Head Alien is behind this, right?
Well Becky didn’t see the gun when she started running. And she may not have known that her dad would go that far. (Also, what cab driver? Ross drove here in his own car. Which is why he probably had the gun in the trunk)
Trunk nothing, it looks like it was riding shotgun (heh) with him up front.
Ok I apologise if this has come up before and I missed it but has anyone considered that this might be a tranquilizer gun or something?? Not that this would make it in any way ok to shoot at Becky but at least it wouldn’t be, y’know, murder. As someone who is not particularly familiar with weapons (non-American here), am I missing any obvious signs that this rifle has actual bullets in it?
It’s come up many times, like once every five posts since he pulled the gun.
A simple “yes people have mentioned it before” would habe been enough and I’m pretty sure every five posts is a vast exaggeration. But please, take my deepest apologies for not thoroughly reading each and every one of the 3000ish comments posted since he took the gun out before posting.
The gist of it is that tranqs are seldom used because to be effective and nonlethal, they need to be precisely calculated to body weight. That said, ToeDad might have access to Becky’s recent medical records from just after pulling her out of Anderson…
Possible but not very likely. Not to mention that you can’t just walk into the corner pharmacy and ask for a tranquilizer dart and 100 cc’s of pentathol or whatever it would take to put Becky down for the count.
It’s not a tranquilizer gun. It’s a Ruger No. 1 Varminter, intended for shooting small pest animals, or “varmints”.
It is possible that it’s not loaded – the only real way to tell, other than pulling the trigger and seeing if it goes bang, would be to work the action and look inside the chamber (and then it would be unloaded regardless, because working the action would eject any cartridge that might have been in there, and it’s a single-shot weapon that holds only the one round in the chamber).
However, one of the most basic firearms safety rules is that the gun should always be treated as if loaded, and not pointed at anything you’re not okay with killing or destroying. (Last time someone pointed an “unloaded” gun at me, I sprained his finger taking it away from him. It wasn’t unloaded.) Butthole dad has enough firearms training to have good trigger discipline – he keeps his finger along the side of the gun instead of on the trigger until he’s ready to fire – which implies that he should know this. Yet he’s willing to point the gun at Becky.
Thanks for the info people – I kept hoping it wasn’t a real gun but like everybody else I’m officially scared now D:
Is it too much for me to hope that Dina takes this opportunity to punch him in the face so hard that it knocks him out cold and it’s her that winds up in the hospital with a simple broken hand?
Yeah, thought so. -_-
Knocking someone out cold doesn’t last long short of serious, life-threatening injury. Fiction is a bit misleading on that count.
I should tie you to the train tracks and hold you ransom until that damned Dudley Do-Right stops me! Nyehehehehe!
I really do hope Dina does not end up shooting Toedad. The last thing I want that girl to have is gun-related-traumas.
Unfortunately, Dina is going to end up with trauma from this and anything else Toedad decides to throw at them in the future. It’s not easy being the partner of someone when scary bigoted stuff is affecting them and it leaves its own type of scar. Hyperawareness in public will probably be the least of it and that’s assuming he leaves her knocked out in the woods. I have a gnawing worry that this is just the beginning of Dina and Becky’s traumatic day. After all, there’s a month of things going wrong before we get to the ambulance/hospital preview panel.
I’d rather she have the shooting someone kind of gun-related trauma than the been shot kind of gun-related trauma.
Or the watched him shoot her girlfriend kind either.
But yeah, all in all, I’d rather not have her shoot him either.
I take it back! Go back to the Jurassic park jokes!
Could it be that all of a sudden he realised that Dina sacrificed herself to let Becky escape, and somehow that will manage to touch a nerve?
“To destroy her womanhood”.
That’s funny I was under the impression conservative Christians were big on the whole, “Virginity is taken when a dick breaks the hymen” thing.
It’s a reference to his concept of a woman’s role – to be a mother and home-maker. To be anything else is not to be a woman, in his eyes.
I know I just wanted to talk about vaginas.
Did you know they can make babies?
Time and place, dude.
Besides, it’s the uterus that’s responsible for most of the babymaking.
See also the story of Jephthah’s daughter (and commentary thereon) and why she asked for two months “to mourn her virginity”.
You know, while Ross and his firm belief that what he is doing to his daughter is divinely inspired and approvedd, now that I re-read that passage from Judges it is even more troubling to know that there were/are people who truly believe that Jephthah’s daughter is a perfect role model for a young woman.
!!!! — the phrase “is bad enough” should have been after “divinely inspired and approved”.
Someone else mentioned this higher up in the comments, but fundamentalist Christians put a lot of stock into what they call “traditional gender roles”. They see homosexuality as a deviation from this. (That’s why back when Joyce was dating Ethan she wanted to decorate his door with sports stuff. And also why Ross blames his daughter’s homosexuality on the fact that her mom died last year, and that without a traditional female role model she was turned into a lesbian by Satan or something).
on one hand, i’m glad toedad dropped the gun. on the other, i hope he grabs it and runs into that field full of people. i am also similarly glad he is either more sane than he appears or is way more fixated on becky than should be appropriate for a father and will not be killing dina in favor of chasing his actual “prize.”
Ya know, Becky, you should be yelling “MAN WITH A GUN!!!” and wildly gesticulating toward the trees as you run . . .
(Does Becky know he has a gun?)
Nope. That’s the worrying part of it. She might do something objectively dangerous because she isn’t aware of just how far he seems willing to go!
I want to break into a song… STILL ALIVEEE
♫I feel fantastic and I’m still alive
And while you’re dying I’ll be still alive
And while you’re dead I will be still alive.♫
Nnnnot sure this is the best song for hoping everyone makes it through alive and untraumatized.
*Hijacks the Muzak from Stephen Bierce and plays the Bee-Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive”*
You know, I honestly can’t quite tell what that look is. His eyebrows aren’t furrowed and he doesn’t look quite as mad overall. He stopped at the “I should…” Maybe he didn’t know how to fill in the sentence. I should…kill you? …shoot you? She’s just sacrificed herself for her friend, and she’s a tiny -girl-. Maybe it broke through… I should…what? what am I doing??
Or, you know, not.
Jurassic Park Raptor = Deinonchus. Look it up. 😛
Closer in size to Utahraptor, though
Sadly, there was no knockout like I’d hoped. The last panel is quite intriguing. I can’t figure out if Fundie’s upset that his property has escaped, or if it just dawned on him that he was willing to kill his daughter. I’m leaning towards anger that his property won’t be easy to recover and “deprogram.”
I just realized I left out one remote possibility. He’s just heard the bolt of a SWAT Team AR-15 being cycled. Not a likely occurrence, it would cut the drama short, but it would be interesting to see the predator become prey.
…. oh christ no…. please no.
AmaziGirl had better show up before he….
exactly how many people’s parents are going to turn out to be violent sociopaths?
Hope whatever training or experience ToeDad has with that rifle didn’t cover “how to take down a fleeing deer”.
Though, you know, I don’t see how absolutely no one else didn’t happen to see a car swerving off the road and watching some big dude in camo pattern pants jump out with a fucking firearm and chase after two girls into the campus shelterbelt. Forget Amazigirl handling this one. I hope the next panels involve a campuswide alert for all students to seek cover competing with the wails of police and SWAT sirens, and for Ross to decide his calling is to go out as a martyr for whatever militia he’s affiliated with in trying to take out some “unlawful gubment authority” and ends up with more holes in him than swiss cheese for his efforts.
Don’t care if he lives or dies after that.
1: according to our resident gun experts, it’s a hunting rifle; taking down fleeing deer might be just the job for it :c
2: people saw him from the other side of the road. Help is probably on its way, but it must have been, like, one minute since it all started.
As a hunter myself, I can safely say that having a hunting rifle doesn’t mean jack if you’ve never trained with or gotten actual experience with it. Hunting weapons like that just tend to be easier to get if you don’t have a criminal record, because most gun regulations are focused on either automatic two-handed firearms (home defense models like the AR-15, which is just a “civilian version” of an M16A2 or an M4) and handguns. A lot of militias and their members promote themselves as “hunting clubs” and buy hunting weapons in order to not get too much attention on them from entities like the FBI or ATF. It gives actual hunting/conservation organizations like Ducks Unlimited a bad name, and I can guarantee most of them couldn’t hit anything past 50 yards that wasn’t 1) enormous, 2) stationary, and 3) brightly colored.
If Ross decides to take that shot, he may “luck out” and hit Becky… but he’ll probably also hit other people, or his shots will ricochet and hit other people. Also, given he wants to take his daughter prisoner and force her into some kind of “correction ritual”, he will likely intend to hit something like her leg to maim or cripple her, but… as I said above… I highly doubt someone like him would have the experience to be that accurate, and he’ll end up hitting the larger area of mass where more vital organs are located.
Scenarios like this are why I, a proponent of second amendment rights to own and bear firearms, actually support some gun control… because I know there’s assholes like Ross out there who, like all the school shooters the past 10 years, think all their problems have to be forced to be resolved with a gun and a bullet, and that they’re entitled to any resolutions being in their favor (whether them being thought of as a martyr for a cause, or making hot chicks strip naked and fuck them on demand).
So, what you’re basically saying is that someone is bound to get hurt unless this guy has a last-minute fit of common sense, and Becky has, like, half the tickets in the lottery. Well, that’s an improvement from the scenario I was contemplating. Hurray… :c
(Now, if only Dina managed to kick the gun away and buy some more time… but you’re gonna tell me that could make it go off and hit someone anyway, aren’t you)
It’s also been pointed out that the gun has mounts for a sight, but no actual sight, so any long shot will be just that. Pretty much regardless of how good he is with the gun.
I just thought everyone would be interested in knowing that in another 2 weeks something makes Joyce do this: http://itswalky.tumblr.com/post/125675043372/dumbingofage-november-5
Looks like Joyce is running, probably towards Becky and her Toedad [I’m really getting to like calling him that, since there are worse things he could be called and I wouldn’t use them here so as not to make Willis upset].
Now, Dina! Bite his hand while it’s in biting distance!
Wait, holy shit, did she draw Blood!? Dina, do you clip your fingernails occasionally?
Some of us like to keep them long enough to pry or rip packaging open.
I guess skin could be considered packaging.
Options:
1. Toedad shoots Dina. Toedad may or may not go to jail. Bring in Amazigirl or Sal looking for revenge? This really ends the plot, not very interesting. Unlikely.
2. Toedad chases Becky, Dina picks up gun and shoots. This is plausible because Dina doesn’t seem to understand the limits of what she is expected to do for her friends. Also brings dilema to Amazigirl, friend loyalty, the law, what is right, etc. Toedad could survive, making matters worse and more complicated.
3. Most likely, Toedad just continues chase with or without the gun, leaving Dina. After all, this story is really about Joyce. The climax is going to be centered around her.
For what it’s worth, Dina would be 100% justified under Indiana law in shooting Ross, if Becky was in imminent danger of having a forcible felony (like, oh, kidnapping) committed against her.
However, I really don’t see Willis using Indiana’s stand your ground law in a positive light.
You make a good point. The story is centered around Joyce, and Fundie’s actions (even if he walks away right now and is never seen again) will force her to make some hard choices about her beliefs. If he still pursues Becky, he’ll have to chase her to the dorm. If he does that armed, SWAT will take him out quickly. If he does it unarmed, the students in the dorm will take him down, if not out. In the end, Becky and Dina’s relationship has been forged in fire. They’ll be friends, and maybe more, for life. Joyce will see the seedier side of her faith, and Becky will need a lot of support from her friends. Whatever Fundie’s fate turns out to be, her family will blame her.
Something I didn’t think of: Toedad could hold Dina hostage, using Joyce as an intermediary to get Becky to come back to him. Seems unlikely because police could get involved, but this could bring back Amber’s hostage trauma, and the main characters aren’t know for running to the police with problems.
Yay! No shots fired! Gunpowder saved for better ocassions! Dina saving the day! What’s next? Lookup the next issue: Terrifing Toedad stalks the night in campus! 😀
Cut Dina some slack, this was the best she could do.
Cut Dina some slack? I’ll do far more than that. I’d give her a standing ovation. I’ll wager that few have been able to stand up to Fundie, and her attack raises her to a truly laudable level.
Am I the only one that Becky’s Dad’s dialogue is not working for? “Led me astray?” “Destroy her womanhood”? “You DARE attempt to steal my daughter from me”? Doesn’t anybody else get a “real people don’t talk that way” vibe? The “DARE attempt” sounds more like Dr. Doom at his most pompous.
But then, Willis said he based this on his life, so maybe he saw something like this.
If there is ever a point where you see one of the Christian fundamentalist characters and think “that can’t be real, Willis is making shit up”, chances are it’s legit.
This. I grew up surrounded by that exact type of pre-millennial dispensationalist Rapturist Christian culture. This is a common way of talking for them, especially when angry or appealing to a “higher authority” to justify their actions. It comes from most of the free reading being spent in either the King James bible or the New International version.
Also a lot of the words that seem stilted and old-fashioned are common terms of frequent conversation. “Womanhood” in particular is not an antiquated term for genitalia in that community, it’s the go to term for femininity and proper “female gender roles” that all women are to strive for (think June Cleaver in Leave it to Beaver if that was considered God’s chosen plan).
Similarly coming from an often authoritarian mindset, children are seen as their parents’ property and responsibility. A child should obey their parent in all things and let them decide what is moral for them to aspire to, but a parent is expected in turn to maintain discipline and ensure their child’s “proper spiritual growth”, culling them from connections outside the Church that could corrupt their moral discipline. There’s a whole gossip culture based around shaming parents seen as “weak” because their children “are doing sinful acts”. This also serves as a secondary control mechanism for ensuring parents disown or “fix” children who commit “major sins” like being queer, getting pregnant, dating some non-white (might only be applicable to the particular flavor I grew up with), or not worshipping Jesus in the proper way. As well as ensure that all parents of the Church crack down on non-disowning level “sins” like consuming non-approved media, using a curse word, or looking at dirty pictures.
Of a similar vein, the mother of the family is seen as … oi, it’s a bit complicated, but it’s basically a possession of the father of the household, but with the Victorian illusion of spheres, where they are both two equals, but the man controls all the important things like decisions about the family and money and the woman controls the shape of the home, but defers to the man when a disagreement occurs because the man has the “hard job” of “maintaining spiritual order” within the home, which somehow equals not fully bing an equal within a relationship. Many of the moms I knew in this worldview then compensated by being extra involved in the Church and in spiritual discipline within the home so as not to need to be kowtowed by their husband.
There is also a strong vein of removing agency from disobedient children. A child is not resisting the way of the Lord because of their own moral decision making because that would be a sign of a moral failing or an acknowledgment that there is more than one moral way to see the world and that is moral relativism which is the literal worst in their eyes. Instead, a child who is caught being gay/getting pregnant/having pre-marital hanky-panky/not worshipping the same version of Jesus as their parents/dating someone not of the Church or not white (again this last bit may only apply to the particular corridor of Southern Californian Southern Baptist I grew up in) has been led astray by Satan himself or has been stolen away by corrupting influences (this is why Becky’s roommate blamed her for the whole thing in order to save herself). As such, someone didn’t choose to come out, they were deceived by Satan or stolen by the romantic partner or a queer friend in order to corrupt their very soul.
It all gets very dramatic and stilted and old-fashioned in the word choices, because otherwise the flock might start to wonder and think about the narrow and uncomfortable demands of this particular sect. Full of Satan daring to steal the Holy members of the Lord and destroying womanhoods and leading people from the Path or the Way.
Honestly, given what I am and was at the time, I’m surprised more parents didn’t turn on me as the Great Deceiver corrupting their children’s souls more often than they did (as the token non-believer, instead, I was often treated as a pet project their children were expected to work on and convert, leading to some very awkward dinner conversations where I tried to be very quiet about politics and religion while the parents asked very pointed questions at their kids while occasionally glaring at me… I often made myself scarce when the parents were home for that and other reasons.
Aside from noting that he’s dropped the pretence of being concerned for Becky and shifted to possessive terms, I figured his oddly stilted phrasing comes from spending far too much time with the KJV Old Testament. (I’ll lay any odds that Toedad’s home church is KJV-only.)
I’ll second Cerberus’ terrific reply and add that “church lingo” is a very insider language. Certain words or phrases are specific or general based on the context, and a single word can have a great deal of little theological meanings behind it. Kinda like the gunpowder behind the bullet. So in the end, someone speaking purely in that lingo is going to sound off to someone not part of that community.
it’s all in the voice you give him
That’s good ol’ fundamentalist rhetoric, actually.
for real, i am so, so jealous of anyone who ISN’T familiar with dialogue like that. i fucking wish it weren’t based on reality.
Lord, grant him a tree root to trip over; and another one to meet his head on the way down. I beseech thee. Because Willis obviously isn’t going to make it that easy on us.
Oh god… He’s going to shoot her. Or shoot at her. To quote one of my favorite movies ‘please let no bad happen’.
So uh…
Where’d his gun go?
Ok Dina you’ve done enough, you’ve lost the element of surprise so any further attacks will only see you get seriously hurt. Becky looks like shes over a 100 meters away (though that may just be my perspective) and running so shes a difficult target for a single shot rifle with iron sights so while Toe Dads distracted you need to get out of there pronto….if you’re physically able to
I know Toe Dad is the bad guy here, but I keep seeing him as just one more victim of horrible childhood brainwashing indoctrination. He’s been conditioned to think he’s the good guy. How sad.
I know a lot of people who grew up in repressive home environments like this. Most end up like Joyce, some end up like Toe-Dad and that’s because they like the power.
‘Less those bullets are full’a holy water, silver shavings, white oak, “the woicks” hellboy style; I don’t see how he thinks shooting her will drive out the ‘evil’
There’s a long history of killing the sinner to save their soul.
Just finished reading though the archives for the first time and yeah. What a place to end up.
Nuuu! Don’t kill Dina again! *puppy eyes*
“My God! She is already turning into a stick figure! I have no time to lose!”
Sorry, I needed the levity.
Maybe she grabs the gun and takes off?
… and then promptly gets shot by a cop, who is investigating a student’s report of ‘a wacko brandishing a gun.’ Lets hope she’s smarter than that.
Everyone has missed an obvious possibility for how this neatly resolves. Toedad gives up on plugging Becky and turns his attention to Dina. He quickly takes aim and pulls the trigger (and I still say the strip should cut away at this point for a few days of fan-frustrating meaningless fluff) and the gun blows up in his face because the barrel is plugged with dirt from when he dropped it.
Hoping Becky grabbed the gun when Dina ‘clever girled’ him…
Becky’s apparently sticking to the plan and running across the field now. See the red hair.
Toedad does.
They has already split up. I don’t think the Becky would run off if she knew Dian was getting monstered.
“Dian” ➪ “Dina”
I has just occurred to me that Dina would look totally rad wearing a black eye-patch.
I wonder if this is still experiences Dave Willis had at IU or if we’ve since moved on to caricatures.
. . . It would help if you read the discussion instead of sneering at it without hearing what everyone else has to say. Because for every one person coming in here and snarking that this can’t be real, there are two or three people who are nodding their heads soberly and saying ‘this was me, I experienced this.’
Well, I doubt he or any of his close friends were actually chased across campus by a crazed father with a gun. But then I also doubt he actually knew a costumed vigilante whose boyfriend was abducted by her abusive father either.
Yeah, these are exaggerated and condensed for dramatic effect. Big surprise.
That he’s known, possibly after his years at IU, people from his religious subculture with similarly dangerous parents and at least concerns about such blatant violence – along with more everyday abuse, I certainly wouldn’t be surprised. Along with the gun fetish.
I do kind of suspect much of that would have been after his IU time. He was working through his upbringing then, as you can tell from reading Roomies and early It’s Walky!. Realistic portrayals of LGBTQ people don’t really show up until Shortpacked.
Was I the only one who interpreted the last two panels as Toe-Dad having a moment of clarity?
“I have to stop wasting time with the oriental, my daughter is escaping into Satan’s grasp.”
Damn it, dude, I nearly destroyed my laptop spitting coke all over it because of that.
In what is absolutely not a blatant attempt at distracting from ANGUIIIIIIIIISH…
I really hope I get to see Ruth respond to ESPN declare that the Leafs are, based on multiple criteria, the absolute worst team of the four major sports leagues. Just the /worst/. …Or possibly, Billie bring it up to Ruth, because angry-sex is fantastic.
=( I was worried he was thinking about raping her. That would be just the thing for a Abrahamic religious nutjob to do to someone.