The first rule about Fight-Dads, is you don’t carry yer membership card everywhere with you. The second rule is you don’t talk about Fight-Dads. When they’re in the ring, then you can talk about them.
It can turn out to be the slowest one on campus. That happened to me. It was so slow I thought that it had broken down and I was trapped.
Also, they may get a phone call on the elevator’s phone. That happened in my freshman year, long before cell phones. Somehow someone managed to dial a wrong number and got the emergency phone in a university building.
Yes, the phone did work. (In fact, he had just tested it a minute before the elevator got stuck.) Unfortunately, because of his job, he knew the guy on th opposite end of the phone, so the 2 of them started talking, and I was left listening to one half of a conversation.
I once god stuck in a shaky elevator during a thunderstorm for like 20 minutes, all while having a phobia of tight spaces.
By the time that door opened, even still stuck half-way between floors, I shot out so fast, it took those around me a moment to realize what had happened. :X
The other person in the elevator just calmly waited for them to finish realigning the elevator to the floor :’P
I was at a show for the improv group at my college, and the entire group was like 15-20 minutes late. When they finally arrived, they explained that they’d all gotten stuck in an elevator together.
Not dramatic enough. Next comic is the cyborg fusion of Blaine and Toedad tearing across the campus in a red car headed straight at a drunk Ruth while Billie cries and Ryan taps his fingers evily in the background. And Leslie’s office explodes.
That’s terrifying, as Moriarty typically acted through pawns and was publicly a well respected professor of mathematics. If Mary starts getting a well respected reputation and gathering accomplices… I shudder to think.
I think that we’ve got a few more strips before Ruth gets involved. My guess is that ‘get involved’ will be the Dean confronting Ruth and demanding to know how the hell all this drama managed to develop in the hall under her watch without not getting a single hint from her that it was happening. A runaway being sheltered by students? An abusive… no two abusive parents? Two abusive parents who have both been hospitalised by a costumed hero?. A costumed hero who appears to be resident at the hall?!?
I suspect that one of the reason why DMW’s preview/spoiler posts for the next chapter have featured Ruth in such poor humour and taking it out on poor Billie is because the Dean will put her into the Last Chance Saloon.
“… without not getting a single hint from her that it was happening.”
The Blaine incident was dealt correctly — Ruth contacted the dorm authorities — and the beat-up happened off-campus by an anonymous figure whom the police haven’t identified, never mind an R.A.
The McToe incident hasn’t even gone past the 24 hour mark, and let’s face it, if anyone has any sense at all, they’ll bring up the fact that Becky has to move out of the dorm sooner rather than later. Again, Ruth not in trouble for this so far, and might never be.
But Ruth has her own issues, and an antagonist in Mary, so she’s definitely due for some troubles of her own.
“if anyone has any sense at all, they’ll bring up the fact that Becky has to move out of the dorm sooner rather than later” – I disagree. In such a situation I’d expect leniency on account of Becky literally having no where else to go, not to mention it would look good for the school’s PR to shelter her until she can find proper accommodations, or even until she can afford to pay for her first semester. Call it a ‘student loan’.
That begs the question, is she any more damaged or is she genuinely happy. Yes, she wants a family, but she doesn’t show any indication of being all that emotionally attached to her father, his own fault naturally. So the break might have been easier than one would normally expect. She was already planning on escaping after she got in the car with him and stayed calm and rational throughout.
I think she’s probably doing better than she otherwise might be, to have the threat of her dad coming to get her already come and gone, and getting to tell him off. closure can be nice.
I think a little bit, but I think the joy and exhilaration are mostly real. She got mega closure with her dad, told him off for the last time, is probably getting Dina snuggles tonight, and has just lost her major source of fear and anxiety. Her life’s on an upswing, at least for tonight. The weight of it will leave its scars, but this moment is probably genuine in the joy even if she’s actively playing up her “wacky” persona to the hilt.
Mentioning Joyce, she’s probably feeling the damage more right now. She’s made a major break with her roots over the past few days. She really probably isn’t ok.
I think she lost a little bit of her faith tonight. Especially the idea that the people who raised her to know right from wrong have not seemed very right of late. I don’t know if she even knows how to begin processing that beyond just the trauma of having another major traumatic event so close to recovering from a PTSD flashback.
It’s a bit of both I think. Being fun and loud and goofy IS her way of taking control of the situation, not to mention that it was her triumph over mr “you destroyed our faaaamily not me and my gun” up in the hospital bed.
I mean, in the end this was a battle over Becky’s right to be herself, and darn it to gosh, SHE WON, and THIS is the self she want to be.
I’m afraid that if this were real life, Becky would be in for a major crash in the not-too-distant future. Eventually it’s all going to come cascading down onto her that even though she is currently surrounded by friends and supporters, she is still alone and on her own. Once this happens, it is entirely possible that she may find herself curled up in the fetal position in a dark closet, scared shitless, and plaintively calling for her mommy.
People – in real life – react to different situations in different ways. I think she’s confronted her daemons in ways that are entirely healthy for her future.
I think she’ll always be over-confident, brash and obnoxious, and probably sans mental breakdown.
Possibly. I mean, she’s probably going to have sad deep-in-a-hole moments in the future. But it may not be this moment or even occur this evening. And honestly, she may not even show much for awhile. Going numb is often a really great way to keep your life moving when everything is terrible and you’re trying to put off your own PTSD.
Well for the first time in a long while, she has direction in her life that is completely her choice. She has always been doing what others told her to do and finally, she gets to choose and she has. She wants to be a scientist and kiss Dina.
I know DoA days traditionally end with the characters in bed, but that last panel is seriously crying out for a laugh track, a freeze frame, and then credits rolling.
Or maybe just Becky bursting through the Looney Tunes logo to say “That’s all, folks!”
Bottomless fine, but I don’t think Walky wants to lose his genitals. Especially now that he’s found something better to do with his “peener” than just pee with it.
Next strip should be a shot of a mysterious figure in shadows, watching them on a video screen, and making some sort of ominous, foreshadowing of future threats comment.
Cue upbeat instrumental version of the theme song with electric guitar playing the notes to the vocal track. Roll credits over a desaturated and lightened slide show of random still frames from today’s episode (including one with two completely different lip sync frames on alternate scanlines). A gravely voice shouts “I’ll get you next time, MacIntyre. Next time!” as we cut to the Toedadmobile accelerating straight at the camera. The screen fades to black at the last second as the logo in the grille takes up the entire frame.
DYW Entertainment logo and network bumper, which gets slightly cut off as the local station cuts away from the national feed to run their own promos.
My first thought was…this must feel great for Becky, she’s free, she got closure, she has a plan, and she’s literally surrounded by her new friends who are talking about how rad she is and how to protect her further.
Not only that… as another poster said, he may not know she is living on campus (only that she has a place to stay). And even if he does suspect she’s living on campus, he might not know that its against the rules. And if he does know its against the rules, who exactly would he tell?
Exactly, who would he tell and how?
I guess you do get one phone call… that would be a perfectly awful use for it to cement his reputation as the most perfectly awful character of all time.
The fact that there’d really be no point. He’s likely going to jail at this point so even IF he ratted her out and got her run off campus, it’s not like he’d be in a home for her to go to.
I suspect what’s going to get her caught will probably mostly be the details of the case leaking on social media. I mean, a lot of students are going to know what went down and will be trying to dig up all the facts they can. If her last name is already out there, could there be a snapshot of her getting into the car with Toedad or a passing naming of a Becky in a police report to the news outlets? And that’s before we note the possibility of actual local news crews checking out the area and trying to report from the scene.
Becky’s anonymity is probably short lived, but it’s probably not going to be because of her dad or her friends directly.
We live in the future! There is no anonymity here.
Becky will stay secret as long as it’s narratively interesting. Then Mary’ll rat her out, or Ruth will walk in (I do hope Becky has learned a thing or two about locking doors), or social media will leak everything, or whatever else makes sense at the time. For now, though, it’s all good!
news outlets and police statements aren’t supposed to mention the name of victims of crimes, in order to protect them. however, since Ross is her dad, if anyone knows Becky’s last name it’s not hard to guess. i do hope she’s able to stay hidden a while. i mean she’s dating one person in the dorm and childhood friends with another.
They’re only super portentous-seeming images of a lost youth coming immediately after what looks like a somewhat painful interaction with her dad, what’s the worst that could happen?
I now await the strip where Joyce has held it together but as soon as her dorm’s door closes, she breaks down and then she and Sarah have another big sis/little sis moment.
That wouldn’t surprise me. Honestly, someone is going to be having a post day sobbing after this and Joyce would be a really good choice because I can easily see an image of Dina and Becky cuddling, Amber owing into bed, and then Joyce just sobbing away as the final shot.
I do understand that Joyce has has some world shaking upsets to her personal world views.
I also know that she was trammatised by her almost rape. But, she fought him off, friends were there for her during and after.
The first, she has to grow up and face real life. We all got thru similar upsets in college and most of us don’t go totally splat.
The second, there is help for her if she would just go for it, like Leslie for example. This one is harder. But she is working thru that, she forgot her fear of being alone and rode with Sal to rescue Becky. Now to see if that fear is still gone …or if ‘I’m afraid of nothing’ has faded with the emergeny.
It’s only a shame that she was told her entire life that becoming a better, more loving person is the most evil act anyone could commit and would forever damn her soul to eternal torment and suffering.
Don’t forget that Sarah has already had one roommate who went through something traumatic and completely fell apart. She’s probably terrified that it’s going to happen all over again with Joyce.
Is it more or less telling that Ethan was looking out for Joyce’s group rather than Amber? Amber must have gotten to the dorm before Joyce, since they were at the hospital and we see her in the bathroom cleaning up the blood.
Of course, she might not have run across Ethan, but you’d think he’d have tried to call her, given that he would have guessed Amazi-girl would be involved.
Does he know Amazi Girl was involved? She didn’t stick around the scene of the accident because Sal carried her off. If the news isn’t aware of her involvement than Ethan would have no way of knowing. I think only Sal, Dorothy, Joyce and Becky know Amazi Girl was involved.
Amber must have gotten to the dorm before Joyce, since they were at the hospital and we see her in the bathroom cleaning up the blood.
What makes you so sure? Joyce was driven to the hospital either by an ambulance or a police car. Her return to the dorm was rather sure also by a motorized vehicle (cab?).
Amber however appears to have walked the distance of several miles on her own.
Amber/Amazigirl also probably started heading back shortly after the end of her exchange with Sal, when it was still day (I presume the whole sequence from Toedad’s first appearance through the rescue to be fairly quick, which means it was all around lunchtime), but by the time Joyce et al are leaving the hospital, it is already dark.
There was probably several hours for her to make it back.
Joyce would be hiding behind Ethan while Walky & Dotty get it on. Sarah watches as Becky shows Dina the wilds of lesbian fornication. Only for the elevator to open up with Ruth & Becky makin’ out… Aaaand that is the plot line of the next slipshine comic. Thankfully the smell of sweaty BO is hard to translate in comic form.
Well she has said she doesn’t want to be seen as a Debbie Downer so she might be playing it up a bit but after everything that happened, she could understandably be on an endorphin rush.
Well, her very scariest obstacle has just been thoroughly defeated, she found a science-y goal in life, and she’s surrounded by people who like and love and support her. It’s a tremendous relief!
–Joyce, on the other hand, is still desperately holding in her break-down-and-sob, probably until the moment she gets away from Becky and the gang.
She hasn’t had a couple weeks to dread an inevitable altercation with ToeDad, which then ended better than she expected. Joyce didn’t know she was going to swear, or punch a dude, or have her Ryan-trauma reinforced today, she didn’t know her childhood would get further upended. Where Becky had a day that moved her strongly towards controlling her own life, Joyce moved strongly in the direction of not even recognizing it.
If someone else was the major target of all this craziness, I could agree with you, but this was a day of horrors and elation for her. Her dad hunting her through the woods, threatening her best friend until she betrayed everything about herself, convinced that someone she cared about was going to end up dead before the day was done, getting hit by her dad, desperately saving two individuals from her dad’s murderous wrath, and the catharsis of being rescued and being able to find bitter closure with the man who has made her life as hard as he possibly could make it…
Well, yeah, let her fly high as a kite. Let her defy gravity and unleash every desperate yawlp of her “wacky Becky” persona to try and prolong this feeling of maddening victory and elation long enough to keep the madness and horror of today at bay a few seconds longer. Let her enjoy and love living this moment with all her heart, because she didn’t fully believe she was going to see any of these people again, either because of being on the run and under a bridge or because she or one of them was dead.
This behavior is inappropriate? She just survived the biggest emotional rollercoaster of her life. There is no behavior that could be inappropriate to that, because when your life is that turned upside down, your life has never been more your own.
Plus, I don’t actually see excited, proud of her queerness Becky to be in any way inappropriate. She’s not creeping on Sarah like Joe. She’s not making insensitive comments to those who’ve been through shit like Walky. She’s not taking creepy pictures of the others sleeping like Mike. She’s just exuberant about her queerness and her happiness.
And that’s no bad thing considering her life has been stripped of every safety net, remaining family, and filled with PTSD and danger and hardness because of said queerness.
Also, Walky is encouraging her right before that, cracking jokes and setting her up. It’s not like there’s a somber funeral moment of silence for a lost friend that she’s “wackying it up” in front of.
And completely unrelated to you, but I can’t help notice that it’s after moments where Becky owns her confidence or her queerness that comments about her being “inappropriate” start happening more frequently. I’m sure everyone has personal reasons for it, but it feels in some cases somewhat similar to when my uncle would blame me for “being too queer all the time” and giving up the rest of my life to “queer it up” simply because I refused to apologize for what I am and tried to donate a small portion of my time to helping out others like me. Or when parents shield their children’s eyes away from me sometimes as if the sight of a transwoman walking into a grocery store is so inappropriate as to corrupt their precious artifact child on sight (people are friggin’ weird sometimes, it just baffles me).
Like, of course a queer woman can’t own her sexuality and her confidence without being accused of shoving it in people’s faces and being “inappropriate”.
Really? I think this seems like a realistic response. In the aftermath of major adrenaline, a lot of people get a little goofy from relief. Add to that, Becky is inclined to be over-the-top silly to hide negative emotions, and she may also be playing to Walky’s joke to make him feel less bad about his other joke falling so flat. This whole exchange seems very Becky to me.
Sometimes it’s easier to deal with your feelings if you just wait until you’re by yourself. Sometimes its easier to be okay if you pretend you’re okay. I recently was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder and was cracking jokes about zebras and my body trying to kill me to the nurses and doctors. That did not reflect my state of being okay with the diagnosis. It’s a coping mechanism.
You all are forgetting the kinds of things that Willis does.
After all the vehicle scares and close shaves and “act with integrity”…this is the part where the elevator malfunctions and sends everyone inside careening to their deaths.
So the elevator gets stuck… who attempts to go cannibal just missing dinner?
Dina’s already had a taste of human head today, but that was a poor sample (probably tasted like toe).
If Amber is seriously hurt, she will likely collapse in class or in a public place hopefully, and that would solve that.
I think Becky my be hiding a lot of it, but then she always has – her best friend had no clue how bad her life has been since her mother died a year ago and her Toedad was in charge. So, for all the extrovertism, she is in some way a very private person. She isn’t going to parade her fear in front of other.
Just the oppose of her best friend, Joyce is an open book to all.
Glad that this is pulling all of them into one big group: Ethan and Dorothy and Sarah are all known to each other but not really groupers: . Becky and Joyce best friends. No idea how to classify Walky, he is just Walky. Or Dina, she very much had no group. Now they are all a group. And it’s great. imo.
As to Amber, she may now have Carla, and that would be good.
One asshole dad down. One to go. And one attempted rapist.
Agree that its about time for Ruth to make an entry: she is the RA. and this is going to get out. Social media won’t let this go.
We have no idea what the red car lady told the cops either.
Nope. Not over by a long shot.
Becky, I think that introducing yourself as “the lesbian who got kidnapped by her Fundie father” is in the worst possible taste. It is also an excellent strategy for becoming a flash-in-the-pan reality TV ‘star’!
Meanwhile, I can’t remember the last time that Sarah looked so worried about Joyce. I suspect that we will see quite an emotional outpouring once they are safely alone together.
I don’t think that’s the intention of that riff. I think it’s more about mining dark humor out of the event. My friends and I do that all the time when something fucked up happens to us, we’ll crack a joke about it to try and rob it of its power. It’s an absurdity riffing on Walky’s statements rather than a genuine plan for the future.
Oh dear, Becky’s example is NOT making poor Ethan any more happy about leaving the closet. “My parents wouldn’t threaten my friends with guns or try to kidnapp me… right?”
THIS is the Walky-Becky interaction I’ve waited for. Note how Walky finally got the Goofiness:Suport ratio just right. I love how Dina tries to figure out what to do with Becky’s facial expression.
Heh, we kept joking about that “It’s Becky” sitcom back when she nuked the closet. Seems like Becky has the same idea.
Joyce seems calmer now. I think it helps to be surrounded by her friends… and that she has her Becky within eyesight.
so… is there going to come a point where Becky actually acknowledges and thanks all of these people who have put themselves out, some to the extent of literally risking their lives, on her behalf?
or is she going to just continue accepting it as her due for being so awesome, posing for “That’s Our Becky!” shots, and being passive-aggressively jealous of Dorothy and anyone else who gets between her and Joyce?
(yes, Cerberus, I saw your posts above and I thought twice, then three times, about making this comment. It’s still not cool, IMO. and I do realize that realizing that It’s Not All About You is a high bar for many people, let alone sheltered and scared 18-year-olds riding high on their body’s own brain drugs, to clear… but something. Preferably sooner than later.)
Basically, I see someone who has been fantastically lucky in acquiring an amazing support network… and who seems to be entirely unaware of that fact, and is therefore taking it (especially her “best friend”) for granted.
And I don’t like that, and would like to see it addressed. If it’s not so, I want to see that shown.
(since I can’t edit (or delete) comments here, I acknowledge that Cerberus provided links to comprehensively refute/shut down my argument, and so I withdraw it.)
I’m expecting her to have awesome sex with Dina once she’s alone with Dina.
People react to events in different ways. I’ve had some near-death experiences, which I initiated. The consequences of those actions could have been fatal, yet I’ve never woken up with nightmares or collapsed or whatever.
Or may be she’s had her moments off-screen.
I think you want Willis to show her reacting in your way in order to validate your feelings about the character. Willis don’t have to do nuthin. We have a strong out-and-out, vivacious lesbian who’s already been shown to be a fully rounded character, who’s coping with events in her own way.
The “oh she’s lesbian, she must be shown to suffer” crowd are getting on my proverbial tits.
Well, I’m not part of that crowd. As far as I can tell by examining my own thought process (which I acknowledge is both inherently unreliable and impossible to prove to anyone else), I’d feel the same about anyone behaving this way, regardless of the genders and orientations of the parties involved.
If she’s had those moments off-screen, they do not exist for purposes of this story. Particularly since we’ve been shown several of Joyce’s breakdowns.
Becky is strong. She is also receiving a great deal of help from a lot of people, and I’ve yet to see her acknowledge any of it, aside from some brief flashes of guilt and awareness in Joyce’s direction, before she got distracted by Dina and then her dad.
She’s young. She’s had a completely terrible home life which has left her unprepared for the outside world. She’s going to make a whole lot of dumb and thoughtless mistakes – like turning up at IU in pursuit of an imaginary version of someone who returns her feelings, something that Danny’s also guilty of (re: Dorothy) and has deservedly gotten his share of flak for. I get all that. And like the rest of the cast, she is now in a situation where she can finally start growing up.
I look forward to seeing this. In this character’s case, I would like to see it start with displaying awareness of what Joyce et al have done for her, and acknowledging that other people do not exist solely to enable her (and that Dorothy was only a romantic rival in her fantasy where a romance existed in the first place).
tl;dr – it’s not her orientation that puts me off, it’s her (apparent) immaturity and self-centeredness.
Which puts her even with at least 3/4 of the cast, I know.
That last line brings up an interesting point on the whole “trauma porn” thing. The poor and those who’ve been through great hardship really are not allowed joy, hope, or a genuine personality in society. The expectation is that if things are hard, you should show that hardness all the time or else a) the hardness isn’t really that bad, b) you’re ungrateful for any help you receive (and I mean, any, someone give you five bucks for a burger once, then it counts, you leech), or c) you’re making it all up for a handout.
CONTENT WARNING: Inclusions of bigoted beliefs including rape denialism and dismissal of experiences relating to racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and classism
We need to see those going through hardship or who are poor in constant pain and misery in order to see them as “worthy” victims. A rape survivor who regains her sexuality even though she has flashbacks sometimes is seen as “a bad victim” who “probably wasn’t even raped”. A black person who responds in anger to having their unarmed kid shot by cops is seen as “politicizing tragedy” and “woefully inappropriate”. A queer person who loves their queerness and refuses to apologize and hide and feel shame for how hard this makes their love life is seen as being just no, just all the no. And poor people, poor people aren’t even allowed the most minor of luxuries, because they must be stone-faced and down-trodden, surviving only on the largesse of the society that looks down on their miserable lot. And for example, just see the hate Becky got when she “misused” that $20 that Billie gave her on a haircut.
If we’re suffering badness, then we must be a pornified exaggeration of that suffering, all the time, 24/7. And if not? Then we’re just making it up, it’s not that bad, we’re being ungrateful.
Because the point is for the dominant groups to be able to justify ignoring the plight of those who are suffering. It’s okay not to do anything about rape culture or societal homophobia or racism because those people deserved it or are bad victims or are not that bad off or wouldn’t even appreciate the charity you would deign to deliver to them if you cared.
And it serves as another angle of dehumanization for those of us on the ground and the end of those boots. Not only do we get fucked up, but we get blamed afterwards for getting fucked up in the wrong way.
“Check it, dorks, my badass girlfriend mothereffin’ fought my Dad for me.”
“Get those cops back in here, this is going into the paperwork!”
and
“Joyce! Holy poop, you came after me!”
I think she’s acknowledged it just fine. The thanks seem implied.
She doesn’t know who Amazi-girl is and she and Sal vanished immediately, so Becky hasn’t had the chance to say anything to them.
And really, if you think Becky’s really treating it as her due for being so awesome, I think you’re completely misreading her character – that’s the pose. That’s “Not being a Debbie Downer”. In reality, I expect she’s far more shocked that anyone cared enough about her to come after her, much less risk their lives, and just doesn’t have any idea how to show that.
Maybe. Maybe I’m just impatient for her to figure out how to show it, and in a way that’s more than just “implied.”
Because these things, IMO, do need to be shown, and said. Much like the proper response to a heartfelt declaration of love is not “yeah, sure”, or finger guns and a “right back atcha”, or Walky’s dismissive trick of analytical judo when Dorothy said it. Treating other people like, well, people is something that does not come naturally to many; it’s something that has to be learned, often about this time of life and/or through hard experience. So that part’s accurate, at least.
and more importantly, they have been through heck of an adventure together, they have reached out for each other and come through, and I think that if you get into a motorcycle race with a man with a gun to save someone, it can be taken as established that their safe return and triumph over said asshole is all the acknowledgement you really need (apart from the tons of Acknowledgement they ACTUALLY got, as noted by thejeff above).
And again, just like Cerberus said, THIS is the Becky they were saving, the Becky that is fun and loud and brash and goofy and rad. The Becky that can be whatever she wants to be. Just like if Walky were kidnapped and rescued, it would be wonderful and perfectly appropriate if his first words waking up on the hospital bed with his friends in a circle around him would have been a taco joke.
As for taking them for granted… I honestly think she didn’t. I think she expected to leave the happy days if IU behind and fight round 2 vs ToeDad on herself, again. Until she saw a superhero in the mirror that is. Everything Becky has done since then has for me screamed “I can do this, I am not alone. Because you are there for me.” That, if anything, is acknowledgment of just how awesome her friends are.
Oh yeah, I have my own multi-link response, but I forgot that last point. Which is that she was absolutely planning to never see any of them again just to spare them having another encounter with gun-toting Toedad. That she was planning to live under some bridge somewhere with literally nothing for a support network just to protect them all from her father if she escaped again.
That’s not the actions of a selfish, ungrateful prat. Those are the actions of someone who will literally sacrifice themselves for those that have done her kindness.
And the fact that that is seen as quite the opposite is sadly not uncommon. When you’re poor and queer and relying a lot on your support network, it’s not uncommon to be called selfish and ungrateful a lot by people outside it and by your own mind. My own Douchedad (i’m reviving it based on the conversation a few days ago) was super fond of playing the “you’re so selfish and ungrateful to the family” card when he was trying to angle me to come home for reparative therapy. Constantly accusing me of doing great harm to the family and not appreciating all they have done to help me because I refused to “drop my delusions” and break up with my then partner (not that the strain of that hate from both our families didn’t do its job on that score).
And now possibly the biggest one. Sacrificing herself for Joyce. Full of gratitude for everything that Joyce has done for her, full of empathy for everything she’s been through, Becky chose to go willingly to be abused and possibly murdered for who she is simply to save Joyce from further trauma and pain. She went into the most dangerous awful place she could ever imagine and gave up all hope for her current life out of respect to all Joyce has done for her and out of empathy for what Joyce has been through.
And that is kinda crucial, because it’s somewhat telling at the end of this day (and note all these examples are only from THIS day) you’re ragging her for being “ungrateful” when a few hours ago, she literally sacrificed her own self for the health, sanity, and safety of those around her: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/risk/
Note something direly critical. These are all just examples from today. As in just this one day of Becky’s life and it’s come at the end of a sequence where she has done nothing but try and protect those who’ve shown her kindness and love, putting herself in great danger and risk each time. Where she has had her most emotionally painful confrontation alone and in secret so that when she’s out and about she can be happy-go-lucky supporting others and talking them up girl.
It is in this context that you are calling her ungrateful, selfish, and taking her friends for granted.
As I’ve posted elsewhere, I think that Sal will give Becky and Dina their privacy in the dorm room tonight and, as a fair exchange, Dina lets Sal sleep in her room (the one she shares with Amber) tonight.
I’m expecting this to be one of those odd coincidental moments in DoA history. Normally, Sal sleeping in Dina’s bed would mean she collides with Amber but Amber isn’t there that night. Carla, worried that Amber is concussed, insists that she stay in her room with her overnight so she can monitor her. So it is the climactic confrontation between Amber and Sal is put off again and Carla, the outcast-by-choice, starts probably the single oddest friendship that she’s ever had.
No, I don’t think that Sal would paw through the closets in Dina and Amber’s room and thus find the Amazi-Girl costume. Despite her claims to the contrary, she’s actually a very nice and polite young woman and would never abuse Dina and her room-mate’s hospitality in such a way.
It would, but that would be a significantly non-neutral action. Single rooms given to trans people in the correct gender wing tends to be the “fuck you” compromise many colleges make to “respect” trans kids’ genders. It’s a symbol of intentional separation as much as her own barrier against the vulnerability of reaching out.
A lot of people were giving Walky grief over his inappropriate comments leaving the hospital, but at least he’s figured out more acceptable ways to lighten the situation with humor now.
And let’s not forget that not too long ago Joyce was using words like “Godpertunity” in horrible circumstances, and she didn’t even realize how awful it was!
I’m not sure this humor is really any different than his previous attempt. He’s just got a more appropriate audience. Becky likes his jokes. The earlier inappropriate comment would have gotten laughs from her.
with her dad in police custody, i’m hoping they can get to Becky’s house and take some of her stuff so she has more than one change of clothes. maybe even find her social security card and birth certificate while she’s at it.
i am also hoping to hear that Sal made it out fine and isn’t hurt more than a bruised butt from riding her bike aggressively down stairs and in the woods.
For what little it may be worth at this point, I’ve never much cared for this version of Walky, either. (“Spoiled, lazy and completely immature” and “18 going on 12” come to mind.)
Really starting to think I shouldn’t be reading this comic.
I hope they make it up to their floor without stopping on any other floor and having someone else get in, because that would be very awkward to have someone walk right into the middle of their secret council.
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Ethan’s majoring in secret keeping.
more like
[come on, post it SHEESH]
Would this be Fight Dads 2? We’ve already had a dad fight in this comic before.
First rule of Fight Dads
they beat you, you beat them
no wait
Is that how it works? I wondered.
Fight Dads: you are the car you drive, you’re the contents of your wallet, you are your fucking khakis
how did the first draft of that turn out, I wonder (it never looks like what I “type” out)
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Do you have to fight your own dad, or has Joyce been given an honorary membership?
Either way, Amber is president for life
Dorothy will be so disappointed.
Maybe Ross was a proxy?
Joyce did verbally fight with her dad; that’s got to count for something.
And there’s still that oncoming return home for potential crazy.
The first rule about Fight-Dads, is you don’t carry yer membership card everywhere with you. The second rule is you don’t talk about Fight-Dads. When they’re in the ring, then you can talk about them.
So… next comic is them all exiting out of the elevator to see Dean McHenry standing there with a pissed off Ruth?
I hope not.
That would be amusingly horrifying.
The next storyline is all of them stuck in the elevator and Walky really needs to pee.
They can’t get stuck in an elevator. No one is nine months pregnant and about to deliver.
If reading about mpreg fanfiction has taught me anything, Walky is probably pregnant.
Which means, of course, that it hasn’t.
By Draco Malfoy.
It can turn out to be the slowest one on campus. That happened to me. It was so slow I thought that it had broken down and I was trapped.
Also, they may get a phone call on the elevator’s phone. That happened in my freshman year, long before cell phones. Somehow someone managed to dial a wrong number and got the emergency phone in a university building.
I am finding it incredible that this happened to you, too. My call was in the 1980.
How funny. Mine was in 1984. Perhaps this happened more often back then due to land lines?
One of them, though, may be the devil.
My money’s on Joyce. >_>
Thanksfully, we have an old testament God in there too. Maybe two now.
Oh, wait, Joyce can’t be both Satan and an old testament God. Unless fallen archanges count as both.
i’d make a strong case that Joyce is Ba’al, who is an old testament god, but who is also misnamed Beelzebub. so there you go, a god and a devil.
I got stuck in an elevator once. Ironically, I was stuck in the elevator with a guy who’s job it was to test the emergency phones in the elevators.
did they work or
Yes, the phone did work. (In fact, he had just tested it a minute before the elevator got stuck.) Unfortunately, because of his job, he knew the guy on th opposite end of the phone, so the 2 of them started talking, and I was left listening to one half of a conversation.
That’s kinda rude of him
My grandparents got stuck between floors once while visting my great aunt in the hospital.
I once god stuck in a shaky elevator during a thunderstorm for like 20 minutes, all while having a phobia of tight spaces.
By the time that door opened, even still stuck half-way between floors, I shot out so fast, it took those around me a moment to realize what had happened. :X
The other person in the elevator just calmly waited for them to finish realigning the elevator to the floor :’P
*got :X
No, no, “shot out” works just fine; It’s a perfectly reasonable English idiom meaning “got out fast”, and actually works better in this situation.
I think that was a correction of “god” in the first sentence.
I think they were replacing “god” with “got”, but interesting grammar session nontheless
Shoot. Pay more attention next time, No Name.
But glad I could help regardless.
So you and God were stuck in an elevator…
“When an elevator asks you if you are a god, you say YES!”
I was at a show for the improv group at my college, and the entire group was like 15-20 minutes late. When they finally arrived, they explained that they’d all gotten stuck in an elevator together.
Not dramatic enough. Next comic is the cyborg fusion of Blaine and Toedad tearing across the campus in a red car headed straight at a drunk Ruth while Billie cries and Ryan taps his fingers evily in the background. And Leslie’s office explodes.
I like to think that by the time Ruth finds out about Becky, someone else will have found out about Ruth and Billie.
“You keep my secret, I keep your’s.”
Mary already has, she’s a regular Sherlock. No wait, Sherlock was the good guy. She’s a regular Moriarty. There we go.
That’s terrifying, as Moriarty typically acted through pawns and was publicly a well respected professor of mathematics. If Mary starts getting a well respected reputation and gathering accomplices… I shudder to think.
I’ve had her pegged as the enemy within for some time now. She’s major trouble, I wager.
Well, better hope she never gets promoted then, because L. Colonel Trouble just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
I think that we’ve got a few more strips before Ruth gets involved. My guess is that ‘get involved’ will be the Dean confronting Ruth and demanding to know how the hell all this drama managed to develop in the hall under her watch without not getting a single hint from her that it was happening. A runaway being sheltered by students? An abusive… no two abusive parents? Two abusive parents who have both been hospitalised by a costumed hero?. A costumed hero who appears to be resident at the hall?!?
I suspect that one of the reason why DMW’s preview/spoiler posts for the next chapter have featured Ruth in such poor humour and taking it out on poor Billie is because the Dean will put her into the Last Chance Saloon.
I recall Ruth had a session with Amber, back when Blaine came. And that she was the one that told him to get out.
“… without not getting a single hint from her that it was happening.”
The Blaine incident was dealt correctly — Ruth contacted the dorm authorities — and the beat-up happened off-campus by an anonymous figure whom the police haven’t identified, never mind an R.A.
The McToe incident hasn’t even gone past the 24 hour mark, and let’s face it, if anyone has any sense at all, they’ll bring up the fact that Becky has to move out of the dorm sooner rather than later. Again, Ruth not in trouble for this so far, and might never be.
But Ruth has her own issues, and an antagonist in Mary, so she’s definitely due for some troubles of her own.
“if anyone has any sense at all, they’ll bring up the fact that Becky has to move out of the dorm sooner rather than later” – I disagree. In such a situation I’d expect leniency on account of Becky literally having no where else to go, not to mention it would look good for the school’s PR to shelter her until she can find proper accommodations, or even until she can afford to pay for her first semester. Call it a ‘student loan’.
Becky really rolls with the punches, doesn’t she? How much of this is her covering her damage?
That begs the question, is she any more damaged or is she genuinely happy. Yes, she wants a family, but she doesn’t show any indication of being all that emotionally attached to her father, his own fault naturally. So the break might have been easier than one would normally expect. She was already planning on escaping after she got in the car with him and stayed calm and rational throughout.
I think she’s probably doing better than she otherwise might be, to have the threat of her dad coming to get her already come and gone, and getting to tell him off. closure can be nice.
I think a little bit, but I think the joy and exhilaration are mostly real. She got mega closure with her dad, told him off for the last time, is probably getting Dina snuggles tonight, and has just lost her major source of fear and anxiety. Her life’s on an upswing, at least for tonight. The weight of it will leave its scars, but this moment is probably genuine in the joy even if she’s actively playing up her “wacky” persona to the hilt.
Agree. Considering what she has recently lived thru, she has every reason to be happy.
It’ll leave scars, but Becky is not Joyce.
Mentioning Joyce, she’s probably feeling the damage more right now. She’s made a major break with her roots over the past few days. She really probably isn’t ok.
I think she lost a little bit of her faith tonight. Especially the idea that the people who raised her to know right from wrong have not seemed very right of late. I don’t know if she even knows how to begin processing that beyond just the trauma of having another major traumatic event so close to recovering from a PTSD flashback.
And of course, for Joyce the day is not over like it is for Becky.
It is time for Joyce to call her parents.
It’s a bit of both I think. Being fun and loud and goofy IS her way of taking control of the situation, not to mention that it was her triumph over mr “you destroyed our faaaamily not me and my gun” up in the hospital bed.
I mean, in the end this was a battle over Becky’s right to be herself, and darn it to gosh, SHE WON, and THIS is the self she want to be.
I’m afraid that if this were real life, Becky would be in for a major crash in the not-too-distant future. Eventually it’s all going to come cascading down onto her that even though she is currently surrounded by friends and supporters, she is still alone and on her own. Once this happens, it is entirely possible that she may find herself curled up in the fetal position in a dark closet, scared shitless, and plaintively calling for her mommy.
Hopefully either Joyce of Dina will be there.
Actually, my favourite pairing for that event would be with Sarah, for some reason.
Deep down under the misanthrope, Sarah still has the whole ‘Big Sister’ vibe going strong. Not just you.
Or maybe not.
People – in real life – react to different situations in different ways. I think she’s confronted her daemons in ways that are entirely healthy for her future.
I think she’ll always be over-confident, brash and obnoxious, and probably sans mental breakdown.
Possibly. I mean, she’s probably going to have sad deep-in-a-hole moments in the future. But it may not be this moment or even occur this evening. And honestly, she may not even show much for awhile. Going numb is often a really great way to keep your life moving when everything is terrible and you’re trying to put off your own PTSD.
Well for the first time in a long while, she has direction in her life that is completely her choice. She has always been doing what others told her to do and finally, she gets to choose and she has. She wants to be a scientist and kiss Dina.
Becky and walky just stole my thoughts from my brain.
I know DoA days traditionally end with the characters in bed, but that last panel is seriously crying out for a laugh track, a freeze frame, and then credits rolling.
Or maybe just Becky bursting through the Looney Tunes logo to say “That’s all, folks!”
Nah, Walky fits better as Porky.
Bottomless and sans genitals?
Bottomless fine, but I don’t think Walky wants to lose his genitals. Especially now that he’s found something better to do with his “peener” than just pee with it.
Pointing it at things in Dorothy’s room?
Everything in there gets weenus-pointed!
And it’s ‘weenus’, not ‘peener’. Dottie doesn’t like ‘peener’ – she probably heard it too often in High School. As in, ‘Keener the -‘.
Next strip should be a shot of a mysterious figure in shadows, watching them on a video screen, and making some sort of ominous, foreshadowing of future threats comment.
Cue upbeat instrumental version of the theme song with electric guitar playing the notes to the vocal track. Roll credits over a desaturated and lightened slide show of random still frames from today’s episode (including one with two completely different lip sync frames on alternate scanlines). A gravely voice shouts “I’ll get you next time, MacIntyre. Next time!” as we cut to the Toedadmobile accelerating straight at the camera. The screen fades to black at the last second as the logo in the grille takes up the entire frame.
DYW Entertainment logo and network bumper, which gets slightly cut off as the local station cuts away from the national feed to run their own promos.
Too Many Cooks!
“Tonight on the Eyewitless News at 11: We’ll tell you how toes can kill you!”
Becky leaning through the iris-out to flip double birds.
I have that on a business card, actually.
My first thought was…this must feel great for Becky, she’s free, she got closure, she has a plan, and she’s literally surrounded by her new friends who are talking about how rad she is and how to protect her further.
It’s Becky’s victory lap.
No…Becky’s victory lap is Dina’s lap.
Kissing kapoodles?
I was feeling great.
Calling it a victory lap suddenly made me <a href="http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/terrible-2/"very, very nervous.
Been a while since I botched that. Got used to posting from mobile.
Nonsense, when’s the last time that happy joyous moments were just serving as foreshadowing for deep anxiety and despair in this comic?
Oh shoot. I had forgotten about the Mary bomb waiting to go off.
The whole all is a mine zone.
hall*
They’ll have to SWEEP around it then.
Nah, “all” is the correct word here!
Because DAMN YOU WILLIS!
Welcome to LILY’S, the Nation’s biggest “As-Seen-On-TV” store!
Nah, Becky, you need to use double entendres, like Adam West!
If that wink isn’t accompanied by a “ding!” sound effect in your head, you’re doing it wrong.
Um, what’s stopping her dad from ratting her out?
He’s just been caught trying to kidnap her and threatening to shoot her friends for one thing.
Not only that… as another poster said, he may not know she is living on campus (only that she has a place to stay). And even if he does suspect she’s living on campus, he might not know that its against the rules. And if he does know its against the rules, who exactly would he tell?
Plus, if he knew all that, he could have easily outted her and made it far easier to get het
Man, Ross would LOVE it if it were that easy to get het. 😉
Exactly, who would he tell and how?
I guess you do get one phone call… that would be a perfectly awful use for it to cement his reputation as the most perfectly awful character of all time.
He probably doesn’t know for sure she’s been staying with Joyce. He no doubt has suspicions, but no proof.
The fact that there’d really be no point. He’s likely going to jail at this point so even IF he ratted her out and got her run off campus, it’s not like he’d be in a home for her to go to.
He doesn’t know that she’s living in the dorm. Only that she says she has a place to live.
I suspect what’s going to get her caught will probably mostly be the details of the case leaking on social media. I mean, a lot of students are going to know what went down and will be trying to dig up all the facts they can. If her last name is already out there, could there be a snapshot of her getting into the car with Toedad or a passing naming of a Becky in a police report to the news outlets? And that’s before we note the possibility of actual local news crews checking out the area and trying to report from the scene.
Becky’s anonymity is probably short lived, but it’s probably not going to be because of her dad or her friends directly.
We live in the future! There is no anonymity here.
Becky will stay secret as long as it’s narratively interesting. Then Mary’ll rat her out, or Ruth will walk in (I do hope Becky has learned a thing or two about locking doors), or social media will leak everything, or whatever else makes sense at the time. For now, though, it’s all good!
news outlets and police statements aren’t supposed to mention the name of victims of crimes, in order to protect them. however, since Ross is her dad, if anyone knows Becky’s last name it’s not hard to guess. i do hope she’s able to stay hidden a while. i mean she’s dating one person in the dorm and childhood friends with another.
The cops, for starters. Even if he was lucky enough that that neck brace is the only thing inhibiting movement, he’s going nowhere soon.
I love how on the same wavelength Walky and Becky often are.
Right there with you. Hell, I shipped them for a while before we learned Becky’s sexuality.
Walky’s a male Becky, after all.
Wecky
Wecky and Balky.
David Weckerton and Rebalka McIntyre.
So happy for these dorks!
Also, that last panel is a masterpiece of directing the viewer’s eye. It perfectly guided me along the visuals appropriate to the dialogue.
I was thinking that putting that many characters with varying heights together on an elevator is like a challenge match in panel composition.
I enjoy Dina being crowded by the others
Why is Sarah looking away from Becky (and at Joyce)? Could she be more hip to Joyce’s possibly slow breakdown?
Speaking of which, is no one concerned about the preview panels revealed for late February?
They’re only super portentous-seeming images of a lost youth coming immediately after what looks like a somewhat painful interaction with her dad, what’s the worst that could happen?
I now await the strip where Joyce has held it together but as soon as her dorm’s door closes, she breaks down and then she and Sarah have another big sis/little sis moment.
I wouldn’t be at all surprised if, at some point in the future, Sarah tires of Joyce and the drama that surrounds her
Never! Sarah may pretend to get sick of it, but deep down she loves her little sister.
That wouldn’t surprise me. Honestly, someone is going to be having a post day sobbing after this and Joyce would be a really good choice because I can easily see an image of Dina and Becky cuddling, Amber owing into bed, and then Joyce just sobbing away as the final shot.
I do understand that Joyce has has some world shaking upsets to her personal world views.
I also know that she was trammatised by her almost rape. But, she fought him off, friends were there for her during and after.
The first, she has to grow up and face real life. We all got thru similar upsets in college and most of us don’t go totally splat.
The second, there is help for her if she would just go for it, like Leslie for example. This one is harder. But she is working thru that, she forgot her fear of being alone and rode with Sal to rescue Becky. Now to see if that fear is still gone …or if ‘I’m afraid of nothing’ has faded with the emergeny.
She’s becoming a better person.
It’s only a shame that she was told her entire life that becoming a better, more loving person is the most evil act anyone could commit and would forever damn her soul to eternal torment and suffering.
Don’t forget that Sarah has already had one roommate who went through something traumatic and completely fell apart. She’s probably terrified that it’s going to happen all over again with Joyce.
Walky: “Oh God, Becky’s going to be the one living in a Lego mansion with a dinosaur best friend, not me!!”
I see a street lined with Lego mansions. It is beautiful.
Oh, DS, you just don’t understand.
If there are other mansions on your street, then your mansion isn’t big enough.
http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/30/home-india-billion-forbeslife-cx_mw_0430realestate.html
I pictured people making that at Burning Man.
He’ll have to settle for the trampoline park.
Hibiasccsmcacwtslanbattaai, Inc.
Is it more or less telling that Ethan was looking out for Joyce’s group rather than Amber? Amber must have gotten to the dorm before Joyce, since they were at the hospital and we see her in the bathroom cleaning up the blood.
Of course, she might not have run across Ethan, but you’d think he’d have tried to call her, given that he would have guessed Amazi-girl would be involved.
Amazi-Girl probably didn’t use the door.
I’m guessing that he was looking for both them and Amber, but he missed Amber.
Does he know Amazi Girl was involved? She didn’t stick around the scene of the accident because Sal carried her off. If the news isn’t aware of her involvement than Ethan would have no way of knowing. I think only Sal, Dorothy, Joyce and Becky know Amazi Girl was involved.
What makes you so sure? Joyce was driven to the hospital either by an ambulance or a police car. Her return to the dorm was rather sure also by a motorized vehicle (cab?).
Amber however appears to have walked the distance of several miles on her own.
But Joyce and crew are just arriving at the dorm, and Amber is already up in the bathroom.
Amber’s already in the bathroom as of yesterday’s strip, Joyce and co. have only just come back.
Amber/Amazigirl also probably started heading back shortly after the end of her exchange with Sal, when it was still day (I presume the whole sequence from Toedad’s first appearance through the rescue to be fairly quick, which means it was all around lunchtime), but by the time Joyce et al are leaving the hospital, it is already dark.
There was probably several hours for her to make it back.
Sometimes Walky perfectly cuts to the chase.
I read that first as “Sometimes Walky perfectly cuts the cheese”
Well, Becky has the edge at belching. He has to keep up somehow.
Well, they are crammed in an elevator…
The cheese or the Cheese?
Eventally will reach the point where everyone on the dorms know who Becky is
That would include Mary.
Ethan, there’s a disgusting mustache on your shirt!
TOE DAD is a shape shifter, Kill him kill him!
Pretty sure even a shapeshifting toedad wouldn’t transform into a gay person’s clothing.
Shapeshifting into animals is too WoW. Shapeshifting
into an object, that’s a new thing.
Wonder Twins did it already!
Wonder Twin Powers, ACTIVATE!
At least he has dropped the beard.
Look at so many characters I love, all in one elevator. That is a very good elevator. An elevator of love.
If the elevator got stuck, it’d make for a pretty interesting bottle episode.
They’d form a micro-society and be self-suffient in 3 hours. Instead of dead, which is what everyone would expect :p
Until it breaks down. Then a “Love in an elevator” reference. Then someone farts and everyone enjoys the love of food in an elevator.
Or maybe an orgy would ensue. Joyce would be horrified, but she’d totally watch anyway 😉
My brain is weird this morning, sorry lol.
Joyce would be hiding behind Ethan while Walky & Dotty get it on. Sarah watches as Becky shows Dina the wilds of lesbian fornication. Only for the elevator to open up with Ruth & Becky makin’ out… Aaaand that is the plot line of the next slipshine comic. Thankfully the smell of sweaty BO is hard to translate in comic form.
El Love Vator
If thats Walkys idea of hell then hes lived a very safe and boring life thus far
Sal agrees with you
Sometimes I like Becky. Other times, like this, she’s just way out there.
Everyone else is serious and concerned for her, she’s flying high as a kite.
Her behavior just seems, inappropriate. Considering the circumstances.
Well she has said she doesn’t want to be seen as a Debbie Downer so she might be playing it up a bit but after everything that happened, she could understandably be on an endorphin rush.
Well, her very scariest obstacle has just been thoroughly defeated, she found a science-y goal in life, and she’s surrounded by people who like and love and support her. It’s a tremendous relief!
–Joyce, on the other hand, is still desperately holding in her break-down-and-sob, probably until the moment she gets away from Becky and the gang.
She hasn’t had a couple weeks to dread an inevitable altercation with ToeDad, which then ended better than she expected. Joyce didn’t know she was going to swear, or punch a dude, or have her Ryan-trauma reinforced today, she didn’t know her childhood would get further upended. Where Becky had a day that moved her strongly towards controlling her own life, Joyce moved strongly in the direction of not even recognizing it.
If someone else was the major target of all this craziness, I could agree with you, but this was a day of horrors and elation for her. Her dad hunting her through the woods, threatening her best friend until she betrayed everything about herself, convinced that someone she cared about was going to end up dead before the day was done, getting hit by her dad, desperately saving two individuals from her dad’s murderous wrath, and the catharsis of being rescued and being able to find bitter closure with the man who has made her life as hard as he possibly could make it…
Well, yeah, let her fly high as a kite. Let her defy gravity and unleash every desperate yawlp of her “wacky Becky” persona to try and prolong this feeling of maddening victory and elation long enough to keep the madness and horror of today at bay a few seconds longer. Let her enjoy and love living this moment with all her heart, because she didn’t fully believe she was going to see any of these people again, either because of being on the run and under a bridge or because she or one of them was dead.
This behavior is inappropriate? She just survived the biggest emotional rollercoaster of her life. There is no behavior that could be inappropriate to that, because when your life is that turned upside down, your life has never been more your own.
Plus, I don’t actually see excited, proud of her queerness Becky to be in any way inappropriate. She’s not creeping on Sarah like Joe. She’s not making insensitive comments to those who’ve been through shit like Walky. She’s not taking creepy pictures of the others sleeping like Mike. She’s just exuberant about her queerness and her happiness.
And that’s no bad thing considering her life has been stripped of every safety net, remaining family, and filled with PTSD and danger and hardness because of said queerness.
Also, Walky is encouraging her right before that, cracking jokes and setting her up. It’s not like there’s a somber funeral moment of silence for a lost friend that she’s “wackying it up” in front of.
And completely unrelated to you, but I can’t help notice that it’s after moments where Becky owns her confidence or her queerness that comments about her being “inappropriate” start happening more frequently. I’m sure everyone has personal reasons for it, but it feels in some cases somewhat similar to when my uncle would blame me for “being too queer all the time” and giving up the rest of my life to “queer it up” simply because I refused to apologize for what I am and tried to donate a small portion of my time to helping out others like me. Or when parents shield their children’s eyes away from me sometimes as if the sight of a transwoman walking into a grocery store is so inappropriate as to corrupt their precious artifact child on sight (people are friggin’ weird sometimes, it just baffles me).
Like, of course a queer woman can’t own her sexuality and her confidence without being accused of shoving it in people’s faces and being “inappropriate”.
Upvote.
Really? I think this seems like a realistic response. In the aftermath of major adrenaline, a lot of people get a little goofy from relief. Add to that, Becky is inclined to be over-the-top silly to hide negative emotions, and she may also be playing to Walky’s joke to make him feel less bad about his other joke falling so flat. This whole exchange seems very Becky to me.
Except Joyce, which is kinda crashing down.
Becky, like many comedians, uses humor to mask the pain. I’m worried about how she is really holding up.
She’s probably semi- or fully-hysterical and in shock, based on what she’s been through today. Give her some leeway!
Sometimes it’s easier to deal with your feelings if you just wait until you’re by yourself. Sometimes its easier to be okay if you pretend you’re okay. I recently was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder and was cracking jokes about zebras and my body trying to kill me to the nurses and doctors. That did not reflect my state of being okay with the diagnosis. It’s a coping mechanism.
You all are forgetting the kinds of things that Willis does.
After all the vehicle scares and close shaves and “act with integrity”…this is the part where the elevator malfunctions and sends everyone inside careening to their deaths.
Very “bridge over San Luis Rey”
So the elevator gets stuck… who attempts to go cannibal just missing dinner?
Dina’s already had a taste of human head today, but that was a poor sample (probably tasted like toe).
Probably Walky would be the first to go cannibal. Dude’s a bottomless pit when it comes to food.
“Huh, that’s funny … Y’all taste like chicken … mcnuggets!”
If Amber is seriously hurt, she will likely collapse in class or in a public place hopefully, and that would solve that.
I think Becky my be hiding a lot of it, but then she always has – her best friend had no clue how bad her life has been since her mother died a year ago and her Toedad was in charge. So, for all the extrovertism, she is in some way a very private person. She isn’t going to parade her fear in front of other.
Just the oppose of her best friend, Joyce is an open book to all.
Glad that this is pulling all of them into one big group: Ethan and Dorothy and Sarah are all known to each other but not really groupers: . Becky and Joyce best friends. No idea how to classify Walky, he is just Walky. Or Dina, she very much had no group. Now they are all a group. And it’s great. imo.
As to Amber, she may now have Carla, and that would be good.
One asshole dad down. One to go. And one attempted rapist.
Agree that its about time for Ruth to make an entry: she is the RA. and this is going to get out. Social media won’t let this go.
We have no idea what the red car lady told the cops either.
Nope. Not over by a long shot.
The knowing wink is a very valuable skill, but it’s difficult to master.
My own knowing wink usually comes across as creepy. And by usually, I mean always.
NO offense Dorothy, but the lot of you are as subtle as a train wreck…in a boat…on the moon…during the lunar eclipse.
Well that got confusing quickly.
That’s actually pretty subtle.
No one would notice a train wreck in a boat on the moon.
Unless you are on a space station.
Not even. Space stations are only a few hundred kilometers from the Earth. The Moon is a few hundred THOUSAND kilometers from the Earth.
Dina’s likin’ what she sees in that last panel
The toedad may be gone, but the mustash is still hidden among the group. lol
I predict Becky crashes in the dorms for another week in comic time before somebody figures it out. Aka multiple real life years.
I love how Dina can now be found behind her girlfriend, as opposed to behind a door.
That lift is a freaking TARDIS
(I was thinking that too, but shh.)
That’s like half the cast in the same place at one time. I’m waiting for the singularity.
Oh noes. Will the Soggies invade this dimension too?
Becky, I think that introducing yourself as “the lesbian who got kidnapped by her Fundie father” is in the worst possible taste. It is also an excellent strategy for becoming a flash-in-the-pan reality TV ‘star’!
Meanwhile, I can’t remember the last time that Sarah looked so worried about Joyce. I suspect that we will see quite an emotional outpouring once they are safely alone together.
I don’t think that’s the intention of that riff. I think it’s more about mining dark humor out of the event. My friends and I do that all the time when something fucked up happens to us, we’ll crack a joke about it to try and rob it of its power. It’s an absurdity riffing on Walky’s statements rather than a genuine plan for the future.
Oh dear, Becky’s example is NOT making poor Ethan any more happy about leaving the closet. “My parents wouldn’t threaten my friends with guns or try to kidnapp me… right?”
THIS is the Walky-Becky interaction I’ve waited for. Note how Walky finally got the Goofiness:Suport ratio just right. I love how Dina tries to figure out what to do with Becky’s facial expression.
Heh, we kept joking about that “It’s Becky” sitcom back when she nuked the closet. Seems like Becky has the same idea.
Joyce seems calmer now. I think it helps to be surrounded by her friends… and that she has her Becky within eyesight.
Ethan kinda went throught the worst of what his family had to “offer” already, at the end of the last school year, it seems.
He doesn’t know that, and even if he did, he lost, remember?
Maybe loose that “Toedad’s mustache fan club”-T-shirt Ethan?
Oh, gawd! The bat-ears make it look like one of those plastic joke ‘staches, that hook into your nose! Can’t unsee!
Just remember that for this to work you need an Ocean’s 11 not a Leroy Jenkins.
Then Walky farts.
God dammit Dorothy, you of all people should think of involving a certain teacher, at least.
so… is there going to come a point where Becky actually acknowledges and thanks all of these people who have put themselves out, some to the extent of literally risking their lives, on her behalf?
or is she going to just continue accepting it as her due for being so awesome, posing for “That’s Our Becky!” shots, and being passive-aggressively jealous of Dorothy and anyone else who gets between her and Joyce?
(yes, Cerberus, I saw your posts above and I thought twice, then three times, about making this comment. It’s still not cool, IMO. and I do realize that realizing that It’s Not All About You is a high bar for many people, let alone sheltered and scared 18-year-olds riding high on their body’s own brain drugs, to clear… but something. Preferably sooner than later.)
Basically, I see someone who has been fantastically lucky in acquiring an amazing support network… and who seems to be entirely unaware of that fact, and is therefore taking it (especially her “best friend”) for granted.
And I don’t like that, and would like to see it addressed. If it’s not so, I want to see that shown.
(since I can’t edit (or delete) comments here, I acknowledge that Cerberus provided links to comprehensively refute/shut down my argument, and so I withdraw it.)
Comments like these still sound like “you ungrateful little wench” to me even though, in this instance, they’re couched in concern.
I’m expecting her to collapse on Dina’s shoulder as soon as she is ‘safe’ (i.e. in the dorm room).
I’m expecting her to have awesome sex with Dina once she’s alone with Dina.
People react to events in different ways. I’ve had some near-death experiences, which I initiated. The consequences of those actions could have been fatal, yet I’ve never woken up with nightmares or collapsed or whatever.
Or may be she’s had her moments off-screen.
I think you want Willis to show her reacting in your way in order to validate your feelings about the character. Willis don’t have to do nuthin. We have a strong out-and-out, vivacious lesbian who’s already been shown to be a fully rounded character, who’s coping with events in her own way.
The “oh she’s lesbian, she must be shown to suffer” crowd are getting on my proverbial tits.
Well, I’m not part of that crowd. As far as I can tell by examining my own thought process (which I acknowledge is both inherently unreliable and impossible to prove to anyone else), I’d feel the same about anyone behaving this way, regardless of the genders and orientations of the parties involved.
If she’s had those moments off-screen, they do not exist for purposes of this story. Particularly since we’ve been shown several of Joyce’s breakdowns.
Becky is strong. She is also receiving a great deal of help from a lot of people, and I’ve yet to see her acknowledge any of it, aside from some brief flashes of guilt and awareness in Joyce’s direction, before she got distracted by Dina and then her dad.
She’s young. She’s had a completely terrible home life which has left her unprepared for the outside world. She’s going to make a whole lot of dumb and thoughtless mistakes – like turning up at IU in pursuit of an imaginary version of someone who returns her feelings, something that Danny’s also guilty of (re: Dorothy) and has deservedly gotten his share of flak for. I get all that. And like the rest of the cast, she is now in a situation where she can finally start growing up.
I look forward to seeing this. In this character’s case, I would like to see it start with displaying awareness of what Joyce et al have done for her, and acknowledging that other people do not exist solely to enable her (and that Dorothy was only a romantic rival in her fantasy where a romance existed in the first place).
tl;dr – it’s not her orientation that puts me off, it’s her (apparent) immaturity and self-centeredness.
Which puts her even with at least 3/4 of the cast, I know.
… and on that note, maybe I shouldn’t be reading a webcomic whose entire theme is about stupid young people acting stupid and/or young. :p
That last line brings up an interesting point on the whole “trauma porn” thing. The poor and those who’ve been through great hardship really are not allowed joy, hope, or a genuine personality in society. The expectation is that if things are hard, you should show that hardness all the time or else a) the hardness isn’t really that bad, b) you’re ungrateful for any help you receive (and I mean, any, someone give you five bucks for a burger once, then it counts, you leech), or c) you’re making it all up for a handout.
CONTENT WARNING: Inclusions of bigoted beliefs including rape denialism and dismissal of experiences relating to racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, and classism
We need to see those going through hardship or who are poor in constant pain and misery in order to see them as “worthy” victims. A rape survivor who regains her sexuality even though she has flashbacks sometimes is seen as “a bad victim” who “probably wasn’t even raped”. A black person who responds in anger to having their unarmed kid shot by cops is seen as “politicizing tragedy” and “woefully inappropriate”. A queer person who loves their queerness and refuses to apologize and hide and feel shame for how hard this makes their love life is seen as being just no, just all the no. And poor people, poor people aren’t even allowed the most minor of luxuries, because they must be stone-faced and down-trodden, surviving only on the largesse of the society that looks down on their miserable lot. And for example, just see the hate Becky got when she “misused” that $20 that Billie gave her on a haircut.
If we’re suffering badness, then we must be a pornified exaggeration of that suffering, all the time, 24/7. And if not? Then we’re just making it up, it’s not that bad, we’re being ungrateful.
Because the point is for the dominant groups to be able to justify ignoring the plight of those who are suffering. It’s okay not to do anything about rape culture or societal homophobia or racism because those people deserved it or are bad victims or are not that bad off or wouldn’t even appreciate the charity you would deign to deliver to them if you cared.
And it serves as another angle of dehumanization for those of us on the ground and the end of those boots. Not only do we get fucked up, but we get blamed afterwards for getting fucked up in the wrong way.
“Check it, dorks, my badass girlfriend mothereffin’ fought my Dad for me.”
“Get those cops back in here, this is going into the paperwork!”
and
“Joyce! Holy poop, you came after me!”
I think she’s acknowledged it just fine. The thanks seem implied.
She doesn’t know who Amazi-girl is and she and Sal vanished immediately, so Becky hasn’t had the chance to say anything to them.
And really, if you think Becky’s really treating it as her due for being so awesome, I think you’re completely misreading her character – that’s the pose. That’s “Not being a Debbie Downer”. In reality, I expect she’s far more shocked that anyone cared enough about her to come after her, much less risk their lives, and just doesn’t have any idea how to show that.
Maybe. Maybe I’m just impatient for her to figure out how to show it, and in a way that’s more than just “implied.”
Because these things, IMO, do need to be shown, and said. Much like the proper response to a heartfelt declaration of love is not “yeah, sure”, or finger guns and a “right back atcha”, or Walky’s dismissive trick of analytical judo when Dorothy said it. Treating other people like, well, people is something that does not come naturally to many; it’s something that has to be learned, often about this time of life and/or through hard experience. So that part’s accurate, at least.
*shoves an “Explicitly.” in there after the first sentence of the second paragraph (“and said.”)*
Do you think any of the characters themselves are annoyed with Becky?
Because Dina seems pretty happy with the respons she got
and Joyce knows how Becky acted when the chips where down
and more importantly, they have been through heck of an adventure together, they have reached out for each other and come through, and I think that if you get into a motorcycle race with a man with a gun to save someone, it can be taken as established that their safe return and triumph over said asshole is all the acknowledgement you really need (apart from the tons of Acknowledgement they ACTUALLY got, as noted by thejeff above).
And again, just like Cerberus said, THIS is the Becky they were saving, the Becky that is fun and loud and brash and goofy and rad. The Becky that can be whatever she wants to be. Just like if Walky were kidnapped and rescued, it would be wonderful and perfectly appropriate if his first words waking up on the hospital bed with his friends in a circle around him would have been a taco joke.
As for taking them for granted… I honestly think she didn’t. I think she expected to leave the happy days if IU behind and fight round 2 vs ToeDad on herself, again. Until she saw a superhero in the mirror that is. Everything Becky has done since then has for me screamed “I can do this, I am not alone. Because you are there for me.” That, if anything, is acknowledgment of just how awesome her friends are.
Oh yeah, I have my own multi-link response, but I forgot that last point. Which is that she was absolutely planning to never see any of them again just to spare them having another encounter with gun-toting Toedad. That she was planning to live under some bridge somewhere with literally nothing for a support network just to protect them all from her father if she escaped again.
That’s not the actions of a selfish, ungrateful prat. Those are the actions of someone who will literally sacrifice themselves for those that have done her kindness.
And the fact that that is seen as quite the opposite is sadly not uncommon. When you’re poor and queer and relying a lot on your support network, it’s not uncommon to be called selfish and ungrateful a lot by people outside it and by your own mind. My own Douchedad (i’m reviving it based on the conversation a few days ago) was super fond of playing the “you’re so selfish and ungrateful to the family” card when he was trying to angle me to come home for reparative therapy. Constantly accusing me of doing great harm to the family and not appreciating all they have done to help me because I refused to “drop my delusions” and break up with my then partner (not that the strain of that hate from both our families didn’t do its job on that score).
But it’s no less fucked up for being common.
Becky praises Dina and makes her feel heroic when she was kicking herself when she thought she failed:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/fought/
Giving Joyce her due and talking up her awesomeness to her not-a-girlfriend (that Becky is insanely jealous of):
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/hospital-2/
Overjoyed at Joyce rescuing her, putting aside her own mental processing of an emotional roller coaster to support Joyce unilaterally through her crisis of faith and make sure she did not violate her own moral code (which is huge, I don’t know if you’ve ever been in the unenviable position of having to comfort a loved one over something that has happened to you, but I can tell you it really is not a neutral action):
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/strength-2/
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/damn/
Putting herself in physical danger to help the one trying to rescue her even though she has no clue who that person is:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/restore/
Not to mention trying to distract him by putting herself through emotional abuse in order to help out the unknown person trying to help her:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/facetoface/
And now possibly the biggest one. Sacrificing herself for Joyce. Full of gratitude for everything that Joyce has done for her, full of empathy for everything she’s been through, Becky chose to go willingly to be abused and possibly murdered for who she is simply to save Joyce from further trauma and pain. She went into the most dangerous awful place she could ever imagine and gave up all hope for her current life out of respect to all Joyce has done for her and out of empathy for what Joyce has been through.
And that is kinda crucial, because it’s somewhat telling at the end of this day (and note all these examples are only from THIS day) you’re ragging her for being “ungrateful” when a few hours ago, she literally sacrificed her own self for the health, sanity, and safety of those around her:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/risk/
Oh, also today?
Checking in about Dina once she knew Toedad encountered her, moving in front of Joyce once the gun came out so that she wouldn’t be shot:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/troopers/
Splitting up through the woods with Dina knowing that she was the one more likely to be chased (so as to attempt to protect her girlfriend):
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/deceptress/
Recognizing and appreciating all that people have done for her and taking away something she wants to do to put a friend who has done right by her first:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/eloneoneone/
Trying to refuse the gift of Dina’s phone as she say it as depriving Dina of something:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/sticks/
Her response to Dina being all like “hey I gots mad money, let me take you someplace nice and help you out” is to immediately spend her whole day trying to find herself a job because she cares so much about not taking people for granted:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/aspirations/
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/jobs/
Being really appreciative of her girlfriend’s quirks and talking them up with gratitude:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/redundant/
Oh and this morning she and Joyce (misguidedly) tried to demonstrate their love and appreciation to Sal for allowing Becky to live with her:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/heckuvva/
Note something direly critical. These are all just examples from today. As in just this one day of Becky’s life and it’s come at the end of a sequence where she has done nothing but try and protect those who’ve shown her kindness and love, putting herself in great danger and risk each time. Where she has had her most emotionally painful confrontation alone and in secret so that when she’s out and about she can be happy-go-lucky supporting others and talking them up girl.
It is in this context that you are calling her ungrateful, selfish, and taking her friends for granted.
Bravo!
I concede.
(since I’m the one who’s been saying these things need to be more explicit, that’s “Okay, you win.”)
+1
As I’ve posted elsewhere, I think that Sal will give Becky and Dina their privacy in the dorm room tonight and, as a fair exchange, Dina lets Sal sleep in her room (the one she shares with Amber) tonight.
I’m expecting this to be one of those odd coincidental moments in DoA history. Normally, Sal sleeping in Dina’s bed would mean she collides with Amber but Amber isn’t there that night. Carla, worried that Amber is concussed, insists that she stay in her room with her overnight so she can monitor her. So it is the climactic confrontation between Amber and Sal is put off again and Carla, the outcast-by-choice, starts probably the single oddest friendship that she’s ever had.
No, I don’t think that Sal would paw through the closets in Dina and Amber’s room and thus find the Amazi-Girl costume. Despite her claims to the contrary, she’s actually a very nice and polite young woman and would never abuse Dina and her room-mate’s hospitality in such a way.
I’m not sure Carla would be comfortable with people she barely knows staying in her room.
It would be a significant character development moment for her, wouldn’t it? Giving up her isolation and privacy out of pure compassion?
It would, but that would be a significantly non-neutral action. Single rooms given to trans people in the correct gender wing tends to be the “fuck you” compromise many colleges make to “respect” trans kids’ genders. It’s a symbol of intentional separation as much as her own barrier against the vulnerability of reaching out.
“Gay, as seen on TV.” X)
The more I read about Becky, the more I love her.
A lot of people were giving Walky grief over his inappropriate comments leaving the hospital, but at least he’s figured out more acceptable ways to lighten the situation with humor now.
And let’s not forget that not too long ago Joyce was using words like “Godpertunity” in horrible circumstances, and she didn’t even realize how awful it was!
I’m not sure this humor is really any different than his previous attempt. He’s just got a more appropriate audience. Becky likes his jokes. The earlier inappropriate comment would have gotten laughs from her.
It’s official: I love Becky.
with her dad in police custody, i’m hoping they can get to Becky’s house and take some of her stuff so she has more than one change of clothes. maybe even find her social security card and birth certificate while she’s at it.
i am also hoping to hear that Sal made it out fine and isn’t hurt more than a bruised butt from riding her bike aggressively down stairs and in the woods.
And then Joyce or someone is talking about the dire need for utmost secrecy just as the elevator door opens to reveal Ruth standing there…
“Dear Penthouse, you’ll never believe what happened after I got a dino-lovin’ girlfriend…”
Future president Dorothy taking charge and managing the aftermath of a crisis. Now that she’s on the case, expect Leslie to become involved.
And expect Joyce and Amber to have deep thoughts. This will lead to changes for both of them.
Another ding dong bandit crisis is coming.
That last panel group shot, tho.
I love this woman’s unflagging optimism.
I know, right. Becky is awesome
I KNEW Becky and Walky would be great friends. They have the same values.
For what little it may be worth at this point, I’ve never much cared for this version of Walky, either. (“Spoiled, lazy and completely immature” and “18 going on 12” come to mind.)
Really starting to think I shouldn’t be reading this comic.
Well, this comic is not named “It’s Walky” and the reason for this is its story is not exclusively about Walky.
At least his immaturity won’t get anyone killed in this universe!
Second panel Ethan does not know he’s in a comic.
Oh, off topic, but just wanted to let everyone know that today is Transgender Day of Remembrance.
I’m so glad that Walky has Becky to appreciate his state of mind. And Becky, Walky. I like friendships!
Becky stahp.
Stahp making me fall in love with you.
It could never work.
For several reasons.
Hey guys, you’re awesome! I could just HUG all of you!
(happy now?)
I hope they make it up to their floor without stopping on any other floor and having someone else get in, because that would be very awkward to have someone walk right into the middle of their secret council.
Welp, there it is: Becky’s Knowing Wink must be on the cover of the next book.
Group photo!