Now Let’s Go Commit Something Mildly Subversive Which, at Worst, Will Serve as a Humanizing Anecdote and Not as Anything Truly Threatening to the Power Structures at Hand, aka Dumbing of Age Book 9 is now up for Kickstartering!
Book 9 is 216 pages! It’s got the usual strip commentary! It’s got bonus art and rejected strips! It’s got 24 Patreon-only strips! It’s got a foreword by Dork Tower‘s John Kovalic!!!
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Blaine used Explosion!
Blaine fainted!
It’s not very effective…
Everyone gains 69 Exp. Points!
it would prolly end the comic if Joyce died tho, so the worst could be… retrograde amnesia via concussion?
No! I am so done with amnesia plots! We had Walkyverse and that tooks years to end with a quasi happy ending that Willis mocks through constant sequeles and spinoffs.
You gotta admit it would be hilarious tho.
At least when Walkyverse did it, Amnesia wasn’t so played out of a plot device. I swear, it seems like every third piece of media I’ve come across in the past few years has some obnoxious “who am I?” plot.
So that means a number of the characters are Rock or Steel types.
Rock is the traditional type for fossils, so Dina’s accounted for.
Two of them might even be a Ghost type at the moment!
… But i guess Mike and Ross are not within explosion range…
Ghost type Pokemon are (usually) not actually dead! They’re more like spirits that are playfully malicious. So, yeah, Mike qualifies, but not for brink-of-death reasons.
Ghost doesn’t resist Normal though, it’s an immunity so you wouldn’t get the “It’s not very effective” text, you’d get “It doesn’t affect (Mike / Ross)”
Will he double down?! Survey says?????
there are 22 strips left in this storyline
*32
The one true number of strips left in this storyline
I say he tries to scarper with Joyce as a hostage. Not because that makes a huge amount of sense, but because that ramps up the tension and permits a chase scene.
Honestly, nothing this guy has done makes much sense. If you’re willing to commit criminal acts (even short of murder, which wasn’t his plan) rather than just paying what the court says you owe, there are much safer and likelier strategies to accomplish his stated goals.
Yeah, but where would the fun be? This whole arc made little sense but it is a heck of an entertaining ride.
As Amber points out, his stated goals have very little to do with his actual motive.
I’m not sure what percentage of this by now is spite vs the sunk cost fallacy, but assume it began as all spite and a desire to control and hurt Amber, and is now that and also him STILL thinking he can get out of this, because Blaine is a fucking IDIOT.
Yeeaaahhh this entire arc has been playing silly buggers much more than usual. Things are gonna get weird for the sake of the plot.
At this point?
He’s already eligible for the death sentence and barring that will easily get life without parole, and given all the aggravating factors the sentencing won’t go well for him. So it’s not like he’s got much to lose. The real question is whether he believes he’s more likely to escape with (A) taking Joyce as a hostage, (B) letting Joyce go, (C) killing her, or (D) surrendering meekly to the police.
The correct answer here is (D), and barring that (B). Police (and society at large) will put in much much more effort into tracking down someone who murdered a young woman out of spite (and with so many witnesses there won’t be much credible dispute of that) or who kidnapped her as a hostage, than they will put into tracking down a kidnapper whose kidnappees got away and who killed his scumbag accomplice. It’s going to be a manhunt anyway, but it will be oh so much worse if Blaine doesn’t let Joyce go.
That said, (D) is the best option because Blaine’s got very little chance of evading the manhunt. There’s no way his name and photo aren’t getting splattered over the national news, he’s injured, the cops are already on their way, he’s got no head start, and he clearly doesn’t have a prepared escape plan. Running just makes him more likely to get shot. Turning himself in and making a plea deal should avoid the death penalty and might let him drive his sentence down to something under four decades.
But….
… but.
All that assumes Blaine is rational. Blaine is not rational. Blaine is addicted to being in a position of power, dominance, and control. When he has it he basks in it and when he lacks it he craves it. He had it a moment ago, and it was taken from him, in a completely humiliating manner, by the very people he thought he had power over, and especially the one person he was seeking power over. While Blaine’s best odds lie with (D) or (B), (A) and (C) are the ones that help him reestablish power, dominance, and control. Of the two, (A) lasts longer, so that’s my prediction. He’s taking Joyce with him as a hostage.
Thank you for this wonderful breakdown of Why Blaine Is And Will Continue To Make Bad Choices.
“Blaine makes a bad choice”
The story of every single strip he ever appeared in
“Dumbing of Age”
‘Age’ doesn’t just refer to the younger characters, yo
I mean, there are a couple strips in Shortpacked where he’s a corpse. There’s still at least four of his children present, and there was definitely some Awkwardness among people who didn’t know they were half-siblings, and Amber does use the funeral to tell his old associates who DIDN’T apparently know he was a mobster what absolute fucking shit he was when they start offering platitudes, so his terrible decisions are still on display there, but the corpse itself makes the extremely wise decision not to become a zombie and face Mike Warner With An Excuse.
… All of which is to say, ‘is a corpse, and not a revenant’ is the best we’re gonna get from Blaine O’Malley.
4? Amber, Faz, Wen… … Was Rose another half sibling?
Rose and Zaph were both in the background and acting awkward around each other (having been previously implied to be a couple.) Wen I count in the ‘at least’ because I’m pretty sure she’s a sibling but at the same time, I don’t wanna think about that on ANY level, so I pretend she is not.
We also have the X-Factor here that Joyce’s mother is in on Blaine’s plan, so if Joyce Dies, her mother will tell the feds everything she knows about Blaine, should he not decide to cooperate and flee the scene.
Was there a strip establishing she knew more than him spotting the rest of Ross’ bail?
“Blaine is not rational. Blaine is addicted to being in a position of power, dominance, and control.”
Well put! And unfortunately the kinds of people (almost always men) who are addicted in that way are somewhat inclined to murder-tantrums when they suffer a decisive loss of dignity and power.
Hey, there was Elizabeth Holmes! We’re making progress on getting psychotic narcissist women in power! Just not fast enough! Vote Desanto 2020!
:all spoken thoroughly in jest:
I’ll need to see the documents on that “almost always men” thing.
What point are you trying to make here exactly? It is common knowledge. Men are significantly more able to get positions of power, dominance and control > more likely to get addicted to it > more likely to throw murder tantrums.
This isn’t some conspiracy against men, if women were raised with the same attitudes as men and had the same opportunities, then yes, they’d probably throw murder tantrums equally. But given murder history in general, they aren’t, haven’t and don’t.
You put out some good points on why men tend to be the ones that get like this, but I think the real objection to the original comment is that they felt the need to insert that bit at all. They could have been like you, and used it as a teaching moment, but simply inserting “almost always men” as a parenthetical comes across as a snide, accusatory statement instead.
Look, I’m a picture perfect straight white American cisgender man, and white dudes have been fucking everyone over way more than anyone else for a very long time. It’s okay, we can admit that because it’s true.
Reltzik, I think that you have a really good analysis there. But I can’t help feeling that it ignores option (E), Kill them all.
Option (E) is contraindicated by Sarah’s bat.
Blaine might get Joyce and one or two more injuries but he’s not walking away if he tries.
Murdered young *white* woman who was best kind of *Christian* – during his trial there’d be a line a mile long to testify how Joyce was the best and how losing her affected them.
They jury would decide death penalty isn’t sufficient and would sentence hime to flaying and drawing and quartering.
Sometimes the old ways WERE better.
But could he get away with an insanity defense? He’s dressed up as a supervillain; maybe being beaten by Amazi-Girl that one time pushed him past some tipping point, and he fled into this fantasy of being a supervillain. Blaine O’Malley would never kill someone, but this alter-ego isn’t him. And if Amber were to testify about not remembering Amazi-Girl’s actions were bro, he might be able to argue that he’s not in control of his supervillain persona.
Of course, such a defense would probably rely on him being able to intentionally act like a fool in front of a jury, and to outright admit that he isn’t in control of himself, which might be hard for him.
IIRC, it’s actually supposed to be quite difficult to successfully get by with an insanity defense in real life, despite its ubiquity in TV and movies.
Also he carried out most of the plan as himself. Unmasked.
It also tends to get you locked up in an institution indefinitely, so even when it works it’s not really “getting away”.
The guy who shot Reagan would have gotten out sooner if he hadn’t been found insane, iirc.
Insanity defense is ‘you literally could not distinguish right from wrong and that what you were doing was a crime.’ And yes, at that point because you’re a threat to yourself and others, that usually means institutionalization (so y’know. Basically jail but with mandated psychiatrists.) That bit where Blaine started contemplating killing them all to salvage things so they couldn’t be witnesses? If anyone remembered that and it came up at trial, that breaks the insanity defense in itself, because he knew that there being witnesses was a Bad Thing.
Blaine is not legally insane. No one in this strip is legally insane (even in Ross’s case, he was aware that shooting a gun around on a college campus was a crime that would invite police attention.)
That’s not even the point of an insanity defence. An insanity defence means that you lack the capacity to know that what you were doing was wrong. (The federal law concerning the insanity defence is codified under 18 U.S.C., 2010 and the Indiana law is codified under Indiana Code 35-36-2-2)
The policy supporting the insanity defense is twofold. First, an insane defendant does not have control over his or her conduct. This is similar to a defendant who is hypnotized, or sleepwalking. Second, an insane defendant does not have the ability to form criminal intent. Without the ability to control conduct, or the understanding that conduct is evil or wrong by society’s standards, an insane defendant presumably will commit crimes again and again. Thus no deterrent effect is served by punishment, and treatment for the mental defect is the appropriate remedy.
One could use the “supervillain persona” argument to fulfill the first part immediately. But the second part would fail, especially given his attempt to elude capture: as he has the ability to form criminal intent. While he is likely to continue criminal conduct, he also understands that the society’s standards regard murder and kidnapping as morally wrong. He knows the cops are coming and his response is to abduct Joyce so that he can flee in a van. He hears that Becky scheduled those tweets and his response is to threaten to murder Joyce in order to hide his conduct from the society… which why would he do if he didn’t believe society would judge him for such conduct?
TL;DR: Blaine would fail an insanity defense.
The law sees wearing a mask and body armor when you go out to commit a crime less as an indicator of insanity and more as an indicator of premeditation.
He hits Joyce with the hammer, and she lives, but remembers nothing of the past month and a half, and returns to La Porte after recovering from the hospital. Pastor Landrum declares that Jesus has redeemed her soul. The end.
Ooo, I was thinking of her just dying as an ending, but yours is much more fun.
There can still be “happily ever after” if you use this definition of happy: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/quarters/
Joyce is dead, B=U.
If that happens I will be angrier than with the Homestuck Epilogues and the ending of Game of Thrones.
George hasn’t written the end of Game of Thrones yet. The TV series isn’t canon.
If you want to be pedantic, he wrote the end of Game of Thrones back in 1995. He has not written the end of A Song of Ice and Fire.
Hah. I’m glad someone else pointed that out, or else I was going to. 😛
Re: GOT vs. ASOIAF, I fully believe the *ending* was what GRRM intended all along, but the journey there will be substantially different and would hopefully contain established character motivation to get us believably to that point. It’s not the actions the characters took that irks me in the show, it’s that their reasoning for doing so makes no goddamn sense. You can just SEE the seams where the showrunners were told “this needs to happen by the end” and then they filled it in with whatever erratic nonsense would get them to it quickly.
(Cue four hour rant about why omitting fAegon from the show was the likely cause of ruining Dany’s entire character, motivation-wise.)
Joyce epiphanies and growth over the last 6 weeks are for nothing if she ends up back home under her mother’s thumb. My daydream of her going no contact with her mother would totally be lost.
>the last 6 weeks
The time scale in this comic will never not fuck me up
that Mary profile pic is real accurate here
I hope that’s not how this arc ends. Surely the cops or somebody else will show up to stop Blaine soon, right?
Spite is a dangerous thing. It can make you try to be like Doom Guy, but fail miserably and only make you look like a pathetic raging jerk that should be put in prison.
Also, self preservation can be ignored if you are as delusional as Blaine.
Not gonna lie, I expected Becky to drop her first swear here.
I’m pretty sure Becky has said “fuck” before. She definitely swears.
She has now that I think about it. Maybe her first subconscious swear, then.
Joyce is the one we’re still waiting for an f-bomb from.
I give it till August.
Like, end-of or beginning-of?
*Checks buffer* Well, that currently reads August 6, but the books tend to end somewhere in the mid-to-late region so there’s probably a bit more of that storyline to go, but then I don’t think it’s gonna be one of the LAST strips of the arc, so… I’m leaning beginning-of? We’ll see.
She’s gonna curse the SHIT out of Carol, is my prediction.
I would like that, I would.
Becky has dropped the f-bumb at least twice, according to the ‘official’ DoA F-bomb Count – although it is about two months out of date (current through 3/25/2020) so there might be another one that is not yet accounted for.
Blankity-blanked lack of a preview feature!
Dumbing of Age F-Bomb Count
I use the HTML Code Editor website to preview my posts these days, if that’s any help.
Does that help prevent the site from chewing up valid HTML links and spitting them out as a link back to this page with an octothorpe at the end?
I’ll…admit I’m not always the most tech-jargon-savvy person out there (so I’m not 100% sure if this is what you’re asking), but I’ve never had a problem with making HTML links in the comments section since I started using the Code Editor’s preview feature – used to be a fairly regular problem for me beforehand, hence my still having somewhat of a habit of posting full-links to try and get around that.
That sound you hear when looking at panel four is the noise of Blaine’s brain hard-crashing trying to process the fact that he got outgambitted by a teenager who wasn’t even on his radar of “people worth my time.”
Like Sauron realizing all at once that the hobbits still have the fucking Ring.
Sooooo…. the Eagles are coming?
I’m confused, what do Don Henley, Joe Walsh, Timothy Schmit and Zombie Glenn Frey have to do with this situation?
“Am I the idiot? No. Reality is wrong.”
– Blaine, pretty much.
Yes Becky. Wuh-oh. He is, in fact, an idiot.
Becky isn’t exactly showing intelligence. A tweet is great but… The police are not there yet. Joyce is now in life threatening danger. She cannot stall him by pretending her phone connection was acting up or something. He is either going to ditch her to run, kill her thinking it is all over then run (hoping Amber gets the message) or possibly worse go hulk.
So what you’re saying is that she’s telling the truth.
Her plan was extremely intelligent, she just didn’t know Blaine well enough to forsee this problem or that Blaine would have committed murder
And as she just explained yesterday, her plan was for this to happen after she’d gotten everyone else let go, without anyone having been murdered, which drastically changes things
Though ditching Joyce and bolting would be a pretty good outcome. Hell, even becoming enraged and attacking them would be decent if he let go of Joyce to do it. He’d get his ass beat.
I really don’t get why people keep feeling the need to shit on Becky’s intelligence as if this was an easy situation to navigate even for professionals
Because it makes them feel smart to one-up a teenage girl.
A fictional one, at that. She can’t talk back.
True, but how many times can he hit her with that hammer to do lethal damage before they rush him? Ross is dead because Blaine hit him repeatedly and he had the advantage of surprise and no one interested in coming to his defense. Maybe he gets one or two hits in before Amber knocks him down. That could cause some serious problems, but the police are on their way so she could get emergency help.
All it takes is one solid hit to the back of the head. A toddler could do it.
Yeah, it’s not exactly difficult to fatally injure someone with a hammer. Ross continuing to fight on after the first blow was, if anything, a testament to Blaine’s first strike being more of a glancing hit and/or Ross just being that tough+adrenaline-fueled.
Lord Asriel he ain’t.
Ruh roh
Where the fudge are the emergency responders by now?
Probably attending another crisis caused by fans of the orange menace.
I don’t think the Dumbiverse has been cursed by that specific blight.
Due to the sliding timescale, Willis has confirmed Trump is the current president in the Dumbiverse. In-comic, Joe even made a joke about it at Dorothy’s expense (claiming that his “Do List” was just as presidential as anything Dorothy’s ever done).
Citation: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/03-the-thing-i-was-before/presidential/
(For the Willis confirmation, search “David M Willis” in the comments)
He’s also president in the Walkyverse for now. (See the Shortpacked! April Fools update from a couple years ago.)
No, the 2018 one was Galasso & Company entering our universe looking for toy-based weaponry, considering establishing a foothold there with Toys R Us gone, and then upon finding out Trump was president deciding to go back right away because they’d rather deal with the Soggies.
And they didn’t even have the decency to offer any of us a ride out of here.
That’s how we know Galasso is a supervillain.
Great. Even in fiction, I can’t escape from him.
Sadly, police haven’t learned how to teleport
they can only learn 4 moves at a time, and teleport was not one of the ones they chose to keep
Tackle, Beat Up, Bind, Imprison?
You missed Shoot In The Back.
And excessive force
Perhaps replace Tackle with Pursuit.
Fake Tears?
They might’ve caused their own problem in the process of trying to deal with the initial kidnapping — say, if all the patrol cars in the area were setting up roadblocks to check vehicles for the kidnapped students, it’d take them longer to respond to a specific call coming in.
Also, why did becky put a timer on the twitter post instead of just posting it immediately?
I’m assuming so that there wasn’t a chance to Blaine figuring it out before she got there and killing everyone. She said that she wanted to give her friends time to escape potentially-corrupt authorities, so I’m assuming she thought they’d be out and safe by now. Leaving her phone behind was just a backup plan in case that didn’t work out.
I’m assuming she’s making this up as she goes along.
To allow her friends time to get out of danger first. Her original plan was to exchange herself for the hostages and then get them caught when they tried to leave with her.
To mitigate casualties by allowing herself to get taken and for hostages to be released in the optimal scenario before people are informed. In her mind it is fine to risk one life (her own), for like, 7 others, and minimises how many of them would be at risk of harm from police, if, again, optimally, she was taken away and everyone else was freed and away from the danger.
For the reasons she explained when she brought it up in yesterday’s comic.
In addition to all that, someone pointed out that she scheduled it to hit first thing in the morning as breaking news instead of sometime predawn (sunrise being close to 8 AM in Bloomington in October, that scene could’ve been any time from about 4:30 to like, 6 or 7 AM.)
It was probably not the biggest factor in choosing her timing (she didn’t want to give Ross THAT big a lead,) but if she was already expecting to get there around 8 AM, and she needs to give her friends time to get safely clear, I wouldn’t be surprised if she wanted it to hit on a quarter hour or something.
Yup, right in the middle of the highest-rated hour of the national breakfast TV news shows. (Today and Good Morning America pull in much higher numbers than the early local news that leads into them.) Soon Blaine would be surrounded by cops and hopefully news videographers with bonded cell backpacks streaming him back to the local stations.
I wonder if that was truly intentional, or if the timing just so happened to line up.
Let’s hope so, Becky. Fingers crossed.
One Two Three O’Malley
Four Five Six O’Malley
Seven Eight Nine O’Malley
Nuthin’ you can do!
(Imagine a WB Looney Tunes in which a pro boxer is dribbling Porky Pig like a basketball.)
Sung to the tune of “Ten Little Indians”
(In back Rosshin accent): Ten O’Malley box tops.
I can’t look.
I feel this is evidence she is not bluffing. She is keeping her cool at her friend possibly dying too well. Though that wuh-oh leads me to think we will find out next panel the answer.
I noticed the last few titles all have been a word from the first panel. Some of us thought he was hinting at story direction but I think it isn’t now.
Yes, I think you are right. I hope so, because Becky’s demonstration of how you can strengthen your position by cutting off your own options is (IMO) cool.
Burn those boats!
It’s still as cool if she’s bluffing. And I’m pretty sure she is. She just asked if she was playing this right.
What does that have to do with bluffing?
You think she’s bluffing because… the details of her story continue to match up consistently?
She could’ve said she wouldn’t do it for other reasons without bluffing by merely letting him think she had the phone she doesn’t have, thus stalling for more time as an example of a different play.
I still don’t understand how Blaine thought he could get away with this before Becky came into the picture. Her ultimatum kind of falls flat for me since it’s not so much “I secretly set things up to expose you” and more “This is how far things have to go before he realizes that he’s not getting away clean.”
He has corrupt cop friends and has probably gotten away with murder before, being a mob thug.
That doesn’t help things.
If his corrupt cop friends can cover things up without Becky’s tweet, they can also cover stuff up with her tweet. Either way, there would be an issue of witnesses who are easily able to publicize Blaine’s involvement. Whether it happens now or later shouldn’t really matter.
There’s only so much local cops can do to cover something up after it hits the national news.
That’s correct, but a mass kidnapping/double homicide is going to be national news regardless of Becky’s tweets. I guess Blaine would have an extra day or so to flee to a country without extradition laws? But that’s about all he’d get.
if he had actual crooked cops. I think his plan was
Blame it on Becky’s Dad. The original plan was ALL dead children. With blame shifted. and all his ‘evidence’ removed.
and for this portion, he thought they ddin’t know who he was (somehow) and would easily have his evidence “corrupted in transit” as can happen between officer to ID tech. Fingerprints smugged just slightly. Blood mixed too much with another sample. Cases mislabeled.
so.. his plan went out the window immediately once Amber was released and he didn’t get to murder-blame in front of her. Until he knew his ID was actually known, he could easily have just been an UnSub in a case file, with becky’s dad taking full blame, as well as known gang/petty thugs in the area at the house.
honestly it would be pretty damn easy if he actually had connections to never show up in it.
but once his name is out?
nothing a generic officer or lab tech can do about that. More so aas Becky mentioend she put all that Amber told her. Including the mob angle. Which immediately moves the case to FBI juridiction and Internal Affairs. Which means he can’t hide his evidence anymore. not likely anyway. The mob more apt to cut him off than risk that.
Unless we assume that his connections are Kingpin-level deep, I don’t think the ‘Corrupt cop’ thing would be able to get him out of this. He bailed Blaine out with his real name and the church people all knew who he was. Even for a layperson just watching the news, it’d take about five seconds to go, “Say, isn’t that the guy who shot up the school? How’d he get out on bail?”
The church people certainly aren’t going to just quietly ignore one of their own being killed, they’ll start looking for excuses. Pinning things on Blaine would absolve their congregation of wrongdoing.
He’s just too mixed up with too many elements of this case.
Maxy, you have WAY too much faith in the American legal system. The word of a police officer has an OBSCENE amount of weight in court. Even one cop’s word against a bunch of college kids? None of whom are white Christian boys from rich families? It’s not a get-out-of-jail free card if things go to trial, but you’d be alarmed at how close it comes
If the cop was a witness or worse a perpetrator, sure.
But with multiple (white, sympathetic) kidnap victims pointing the finger at Blaine and any corrupt cop involvement limited to after the fact? What’s the cop even going to testify to?
Judges, juries and prosecutors favor police reports and testimony over “civilian” witnesses all the damn time in real life. There is a HEAVY bias, even before you account for racism, sexism, or other bigotry. Someone’s testimony conflicting with a police report is itself enough to at least partially discredit a witness in many people’s eyes
Blaine seemed to think Ross’s blood on Amazi-Girl’s cape would allow him to pin the murder on her. One corrupt cop writing up a police report theorizing that Amazi-Girl did it would be enough to at least derail the case against Blaine
The witnesses are a Black girl, a Black boy (both highly suspicious by default), a gay Jewish boy, a lesbian, and two white girls, and a mentally ill vigilante whose cape is covered in the murder victim’s blood. They’d get portrayed as trying to cover up Amazi-Girl going off the rails and killing a man. All that’s needed for Blaine to go free is enough doubt to prevent a jury from reaching a unanimous decision
A case like this is high profile and doesn’t get one cop writing up a report, corrupt or not. Murder in the course of mass kidnapping is going to get a whole team. All the forensics people, the coroner and the detectives assigned to it could be on Gramps’ payroll, but that’s stretching it.
I don’t have a lot of faith in the system, but that lack of faith can be taken too far.
How tf do you think a case becomes “high profile”, exactly?
Because it doesn’t happen simply because a crime is real bad. Becky tweeting about it will make it high profile, but without that? It’s absolutely not a given
I keep bringing his up but just this year someone was shot IN BROAD DAYLIGHT, and nobody was charged until months later when the video leaked. While it’s entirely possible that everyone in that department was blatantly racist as fuck, but it’s also very possible that many of them just didn’t care enough to hassle whichever pig made the decision not to investigate.
Without media attention from the start, it is *absolutely* possible for a single cop to impact the entire course of an investigation, because a single cop is where the decision to even *launch* one begins.
I will say that Walky being kidnapped is undoubtedly what’s bringing Linda to campus next storyline and you can be damn sure she would raise hell.
Fart Captor, let’s assume that you are correct, and that the word of witnesses wouldn’t matter:
That doesn’t really effect my argument.
If witnesses don’t matter, then Becky’s tweets don’t matter.
I’m not just assuming that the legal system would come through without any sort of outside pressure. People can tweet about an event after that event has already happened. If Becky doesn’t tweet, then Amazi-Girl can – she’s certainly got a pull with the local news, and larger stations are going to eat up any sort of superhero kidnapping drama they can get their hands on. The church is going to want to clear their name by putting the blame on someone else, and they certainly know who Blaine is.
If “Having his name put out publicly” is a problem, then it always was and always will be a problem no matter what Becky did.
If Blaine had that kind of pull, 14 year-old Mike’s threats wouldn’t have been so effective.
Plus, if the local PD gets squirrely enough, pretty sure that as a state school, the college would have the right to call in the IBI to take over.
Question is, will the Gramps Mafia try to save Blaine’s ass, or put its full weight behind throwing him under the bus? He’s burned a lot of capital and shone a spotlight on himself.
I bet the crooked cops are loyal to Gramps, not Blaine. It would be a lot easier for them to bury Blaine’s white collar crimes (money laundering, call it hearsay) than the kidnappings and murder (for which there’s witnesses, accomplices, and physical evidence).
Who the heck is Gramps?
Archer’s Gramps.
Who the heck is Archer?
Asher’s grandfather is apparently a high ranking member of the Korean Mafia in the Dumbiverse.
Asher pocketed some of his money and turned away from the family; Blaine found out about this and used it as leverage to blackmail Asher into pulling the fire alarm at Read Hall.
There is no evidence that he is a mob thug. The text says “mob stooge”, and he has to turn to Ross and campus bullies to get muscle for his stupid plan.
If he were a mob thug you’d think he would have a gun.
To be fair.. he might.
he’ is stil “supervillain” mode right now.
He could easily pull his mask off and go mobster and just open fire.
I’m pretty sure Walky has a gun though now. given his face. and the petty thugs
Eh? Judging from his complete lack of a temper, he would have used that gun about 2-3 times by now. First with Ross, second during the escape and third right now, holding it to Joyce’s head. The “petty thugs” are campus dwellers with a grudge against Amazi-girl, highly unlikely to have guns. And where in the frick would Walky get a firearm?
Maybe he took Blaine’s gun?
He thought he could get away with it because he’s that entitled and stupid, the violent male version of Becky and Karen. For those wondering who Becky and Karen are Twitter is not exactly your friend but does have the information you need.
But if he’s *that* stupid, then trying to anticipate of even be concerned about the peril or threats is pointless. Why should I care what happens next when the primary antagonist’s actions are incoherent, and he can escape peril off screen at will?
“Becky” really needs a marker of some kind, unless your intent was to conflate the meme with the DoA character.
He’s not rational, hasn’t been since being chucked out of the dorm. Just a few strips ago he was talking about going on the lam but acting like he would still have access to his money, business and the petty levers of power he has over his family. It might just be sinking in that he will have to give it all up to keep his liberty.
That’s kind of a problem, though. The villain is so irrational that the events of the story are a complete crapshoot. When he doesn’t think witnesses, an obvious paper trail connected to Toedad, and DNA evidence (including an entire tooth) are going to be a problem for him, why should anything else phase him?
It feels like the only reason Becky’s threat convinced him where everything else didn’t is because that’s the point where the plot needs to be at, given how many strips are left in this arc.
Well it does happen that Becky is, I believe, the first one to spell it out for him in a way that not he, but someone else would hear. In his deluded mind, Becky’s tweet might be an incredibly contorted vision of the truth but people will believe it and come after Blaine. Blaine can not be convinced that there’s no way out for him but he may be aware other people (that matter) can be motivated to act against him, which is exactly what Becky is directly doing.
I guess it doesn’t matter since she was apparently guessing, but:
There is nothing in Blaine’s character to imply that this sort of explanation would get through his delusions when nothing else did. If he decided that Becky was just bluffing, or thought that nobody would care about a twitter post, or that Becky didn’t matter so it didn’t count, or had any number of other excuses, it’d be just as in character (if not moreso) than doing an about-face and deciding that he’s suddenly worried about exposure.
I think the part that took him aback was her using his name – he seems to have really thought no one would put it together.
I’m pretty sure that right up to that point, Blaine was still counting (somehow) on being the Anonymous Masked Man who couldn’t be identified for police to go looking for him. Barring that, he would just kill all the witnesses and THEN vanish.
Don’tvask me WHY Blaine thought he was anonymous in all this, I’m assuming the answer is ‘ego the size of a dwarf star’ but who knows. His speech about how the mask frees him of all his constraints as a person in society isn’t directly relevant, but it seems close enough I’m bringing it up here as well. Sort of implies anonymity is his goal there.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/02-to-remind-you-of-my-love/scoffed/
after this strip, there’s no doubt that Becky is the smartest DoA character
Yup. A bluff. She isn’t holding any cards and is hoping Blaine doesn’t realize it.
I don’t think she’s bluffing. The “Wuh oh” is because she expected Blaine to actually have enough of a brain to realize he has no way out.
Amber’s comment made her realize that nope, he really is that petty.
She’s laid her hand on the table, and can only hope like hell Blaine isn’t holding a better one.
She’s laid her hand on the table, and can only hope like hell Blaine isn’t going to flip the table.
Got to admit that’s a hell of a move by Becky, gambling your best friends life
I don’t think I could do it that’s for sure
If Blaine takes Joyce away, Joyce very likely ends up dead. Becky is doing her best to save Joyce’s life.
Yes, it’s risky. It’s also the safest thing she can think of to do.
Yes, that’s horrible. Becky has nerves of steel and she’s doing way better than anyone has a right to expect.
I’ve been quite impressed with her this arc but hopefully the police like get here soon
I just hope shes smart enough to ignore Amber and call the cops like she was going to
…why would she call the cops at this point?
Maybe Mark was saying “she *was* smart enough to call the cops”? As in, did it before going there. But if that were the case, it’d be more likely they’d be there by now.
Yes that’s what I meant, Becky has shown her intelligence in this arc and calling the police is the right call while she stalls Blaine (at least that’s what I think shes doing) thank you putting it better.
Also I’m not sure of the time frame but I would’ve thought the police would be there by now
She was going to earlier and Amber tried to talk her out of it so I’m hoping she ignored Amber and called them so they should be on their way
As for why, well they’re going to be needed at some point dont you think, I mean even there’s a murdered body in the house and the murderer is on the loose
The cops have been called. We know that. Just not that Becky called them, or that they were called before Becky arrived (Which seems doubtful).
Was hoping it’d be Becky that called the police
Unlikely – unless she did it right before walking up. She didn’t want them crashing into the hostage situation and putting her friends at risk. (Herself at risk, once she’d traded herself in to get Ross to let her friends go, was fine.)
Dorothy already called them.
I don’t think it’s even a risk. Like if she was bluffing why even bother telling Blaine everything she did in the first place cause it wasn’t gonna save Joyce’s life. Like it’s just a fact. He’s screwed and if he kills Joyce that doesn’t change anything for him.
It also might make him kill Joyce (or severely hurt) out of spite if he thinks hes out of options
Her original plan was to swap herself for the others. This isn’t a plan, per se, it’s her improvising with what she has.
To be fair.. She didn’t originally gamble with her life
she already didi this BEFORE this situation. Back when she thought it would be a smooth trade-and only she’d die when they were ousted.
as it stands. If he goes with Joyce–he’ll find out he’s ousted WITH Joyce.
This is the last ditch effort to end it.
The ship on “not gambling with them” long since passed.
She was aiming for the police show up once the others are gone. Or, at worst, show up with her-where she could likely have gotten her dad to let the other sgo (or fight blake to do so) under the pretense of dying with him ‘like a good daughter’
So.. ship sailed before she started walking over there.
She’s just trying her best to not have Joyce go with it
I completely agree, we should keep Becky’s original idea in mind when judging her actions. Many people think Becky just made up this plan, but that’s not the case.
Oh my god, Amber’s face
Joyce is a young, Christian, white girl. Murdering her seems like a really good way to get the death penalty.
I don’t think that they actually carry out the death penalty in Indiana — their last execution was in 2009 — and Blaine is already facing life plus 180 years plus whatever he gets for Mike, plus a conspiracy charge to put a cherry on the top.
Indiana still technically has the death penalty on the books – they haven’t abolished it yet, though you’re right that they haven’t actually carried out any executions since 2009.
But have they sentenced people to death since then, forcing people to an indefinite death row?
If Blaine takes Joyce away, Joyce very likely ends up dead. Becky is doing her best to save Joyce’s life.
Yes, it’s risky. It’s also the safest thing she can think of to do.
Yes, that’s horrible. Becky has nerves of steel and she’s doing way better than anyone has a right to expect.
Darnit, this was supposed to be a reply to Mark above. Sorry for the duplicate.
I may have miscalculated in my declaring victory against Blaine last strip, so for now consider it on temporary hold until we figure out which side kicks in for Blaine, but for now it is looking like best case scenario is he is stunned long enough that Sarah has a chance to brain him with the bat or the cops come.
I’m calling it now, it’s gonna be Faz who saves Joyce here
If you are right then I will reward you with Internet bragging points, redeemable everywhere the internet exists.
I think that’s definitely possible. He likes Joyce because she was nice to him and he opened up to her.
Ooh, and it could lead to an arc where Faz is creepy and Joyce is acting like a mother figure to him, teaching him to NOT be creepy, getting no where, then getting through to him by complete accident
Oh my god that’d be amazing
Willis please
Faz will, then, truly be great
“Joyce teaches Faz how to talk to women” is the storyline I never knew I needed, but always did
Throw Joe in there to play good cop and you’ve got a stew goin’
I vote Walky.
Do it for the ladies, Faz.
I’m calling it too. He paused when AG said she was Amber. Amber is the family member nicest to him.
Worst case / most stressful scenario: Becky offers to trade herself for Joyce. Blaine accepts. Blaine is planning to take her away and kill her where there aren’t any witnesses, and everyone knows this. Blaine gets the van in gear…
Since the author’s middle name is “You” (and his first name is “Damn”) I’m calling it that this is what happens.
Why would Blaine let Becky trade herself for Joyce when Becky already told him that he is going to be outed regardless?
Main reason I can think of… Becky has more authority (due to her relationship with a congress-critter). Which means 2 things:
– If he gets cornered by police, she would make a better bargaining chip
– He might think he can silence her, either by taking her to where her phone is to cancel the tweet, or killing her, and hoping the police don’t believe anyone else who was there (not realistic, but might be logic Blaine uses.)
What would Blaine want with Becky? Now if Amber showed up there might be a deal on the table…
No, i think the *worst* case would be if Amber took her mask off, forced her Dad to see her, then traded herself for Joyce. Because Blaine really would try to kill Amber.
“Try” is the operative word, here. I don’t think he can take Amber in a fight, even *with* the hammer.
Counterpoint: She looks like she’s about to tip over.
He’s got heavily-implied-to-be-serious injuries, but on the other hand: She has not slept in at LEAST a day. So uh.
Great googly moogly, it’s all gone to shit, kupo.
to be fair to becky, blaine’s spent this whole time harboring the (absurdly unfounded from the start) hope that he can get away from this hostage/murder situation untouched, and now it’s pretty obvious to him that’s not happening.
so uh, hopefully this ends okay
also, he thought this was a good way to get out of having to pay his daughter’s tuition.
Looks like it’s just about cavalry time. Ruth and Billie? Ethan with Joe and Jacob? Danny in a head bandage with the police (the local constabulary, not the defunct bleach-blond trio)?
Mike, who wasn’t really hurt that badly and just spent the night with someone’s mom?
That’s the *best* case scenario.
At the least, he spent hte night with blake’s mom haunting Blake’s nightmares with that
Who’s Blake?
Lt. Col. Henry Blake, MASH 4077.
o7 RIP Henry.
CARLA.
I am confident Joyce won’t die, but also, since I joked about it and then went and got myself triggered about some murders, just gonna put out there that I also very much do not want her to die. Just typing this out to appease some brain demons.
Same here. No way Joyce dies. I’d rather see her get abducted in the back of the van, at worst. I wonder if Blaine will set up a “ransom” offer with Becky and company.
Why do I feel like Walky is about to shoot him? Like. with a legitimate gun.
All them hoods had their own weapons wouldn’t surprise me if they had had a gun. And walky’s face is very specific right now.
and them having fired guns before or ‘arcade’ bs style, wouldn’t be something that would surprise me too much
Definitely looks like he’s walking with intent there, so I can see how you’d get that vibe
I don’t get the feeling he’s walking in with intent, but if you’re right, I would ver much discourage walky from firing at someone holding Joyce in front of him like a meat shield. Especially since Walky is the last person in this group I expect to have good aim.
“Becky makes an ooooopsie”
Gonna laugh my ass off if Walky is making that face. Not because he has a gun from the thugs (as I originally posted). But. Because he saw Sal sneaking up.
It’s definitely dangerous with him being such a spiteful prick but he’s the kind of dumb ass that won’t give up and his best bet at freedom is to fucking cheese it and killing/taking Joyce would only slow him down.
I think this is a good time to take a step back and reflect on how close Joyce is to death right now. Unconcious, in the clutches of a violent, unhinged, spiteful criminal who hold a hammer to her head. a hammer he already used to kill once this night.
How Joyce was spirited away in the night, kidnapped, thrown in a basement, used as bait and leverage under the care of the same spiteful criminal. The same criminal who helped free Becky’s kidnapper of a father so he could once again repeat his unhinged, violent plans of kidnapping or worse. The same criminal who approached a group of self-proclaim ‘good Christians’ and offered mutual aid, which they willingly gave.
“Your mom and your church will always do the right thing” you told her. Those may very well be your last words to your daughter, if the man you helped kills her tonight.
Isn’t that right, Carol?
Seriously, there is not enough popcorn in this world for what’s gonna go down next arc.
Look, I am TRYING, my keyboard only magics up popcorn so fast! 😛
I am so ready for Joyce to rip Carol a new one
Joyce’s righteous fury shall be glorious.
“”RosS WOULd Never LEt JoYCe GeT huRt, sHe wAs neveR iN aNY rEAL DAngER.”
– Carol, probably
It’s not “Ross would never let Joyce get hurt”, it’s “God would never let Ross’s plan hurt Joyce.”
Well said
What you say, Bagge, is true, but I see Blaine’s hesitation in panel four to be what little bit of good is left in him coming into play. Yeah, he was packing a hammer, and true, he clobbered Toedad, but (giving Blaine the benefit of the doubt here) that was in the heat of the moment. And if one was intending to commit pre-meditated intentional murder, wouldn’t you think that one would bring a weapon or weapons that were definitely lethal, like a gun or a knife?
I believe that there is still some little bit of something deep down inside of Blaine that will make him stop short of killing an eighteen-year-old girl in cold blood.
He’s heavily implied to have had sex with a teenager. I wouldn’t assume much baseline decency from this guy.
Agreed, any hesitation on Blaine’s part right now is simply weighing options and seeing what he can get away with doing. He’s not struggling with his conscience.
Ya’ll take me for a Saturday morning supervillain? That tweet went out 2 minutes ago.
You’re not really going to kill her, aren’t you? Everyone knows how much of a lunatic you are, Brainless Blaine.
Prediction: Joyce kind up wakes up to crack Evil Blaine’s nuts, force fumbles the hammer. I hope he’s not wearing a steel cup.
In addition, Blaine is, was, and always will be a coward. He’s probably got no balls. He probably beats his wives.
Well during family visit her declared Amber’s mother simpering and such. That’s usually the battle cry of some abusers isn’t it?
He is confirmed to have hit Amber’s mother:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/01-the-only-dope-for-me-is-you/investigate/
In all honesty, I COULD see Blaine just going “F*ck it, if I’m going down, I’m going to make sure you regret this decision for the rest of your life.” and murdering Joyce. This was why two days ago I wrote a comment along the line of “Don’t push Blaine TOO far, Becky. You want to stall for time and delay him until the police arrive, NOT push him to the brink where he decides he has nothing to lose and starts killing hostages.” There’s a very good reason why negotiators in hostage negotiators in hostage situations do their best not to escalate matters. It might seem counter-intuitive or even repugnant, but being nice to kidnappers and getting them to open up to you is often the best way to ensuring that everybody walks out of there alive.
I think it’s already established he’s wearing a cup.
I was wondering what Blaine was doing upstairs while Ross talked to the hostages, because I don’t remember. I’m pretty sure that at some point he took a ridiculous amount of illegal stimulants.
He’s obviously taking hydroxychroloquine and injecting himself with bleach. That’s why his brain cells are decaying.
Hey, I take hydroxychloroquine and have done for almost half my life now… It is a medication that has its places and uses
If so, one can only hope that he made a critical error in mixing, shall we say, substances that under no circumstances should be mixed. That would take care of the current issue fairly quickly.
Eeyup.
For the love of cheese, Amber. Take off your mask and gloves before the police get here.
It’s still early in the morning. The rest of your suit could probably pass as pyjamas.
Hey, Blaine’s pupils disappeared again. That must be his tell; they seem to appear through the mask when he’s on the back foot.
The swirly-spins of unconsciousness over Joyce’s head have faded.
I don’t think those were unconsciousness. I think Sarah said a couple days ago that Joyce was suffering a panic attack. She may well have passed out now.
As someone who has dealt with his own “Blaine” in my own life… I am fairly certain that faced with what Becky just did Blaine would absolutely murder Joyce out of spite cause the rage would block out the logic centers of his brain. That is what my “Blaine” would do. He wasn’t a smart man when he was angry, and he was angry a lot.
Time for some Faztion?
Blaine will run away with or without the hostage? Now this is the billions dollars question.
Joyce is probably the only thing right now that’s standing between him and being reduced to a colander by the police (at least in his mind). Keeping hold of her is literally as important as his life.
Basically, ‘Checkmate’, as I said yesterday. As Becky and Amber are both clearly thinking: It boils down to how desperately Blaine wants to hurt them right now and how little he cares about the death penalty afterwards.
Oh, and he shouldn’t loosen his hold on Joyce. She’s the sort of character who will tear his throat out whilst he’s busy hashing out his issues with is daughter.
I’m thinking Blaine is distracted enough now that Joyce can get a rage-fueled elbow into his stomach.
What was Blaine’s goal in all this anyway? Like what is he getting out of it? I know it’s not money anymore, he killed the guy he bailed out to save from paying college tuition? No. To control Amber? I mean that makes sense but also he doesn’t even seem to like her and thinks she’s a weak willed failure so why invest so much in trying to scare her? What satisfaction do you get for dunking on someone you don’t respect? I can kinda understand his fragile ego needed some revenge on AG but this went way overboard for that. He could’ve just jumped her with all the douchebros that hated her instead of this elaborate kidnapping scheme.
To coerce Amber into quitting college so he wouldn’t have to pay her tuition. It’s that petty. Oh, and also to discredit and ruin Amazi-Girl as revenge for beating him up.
At this point, he has to be thinking whether these goals were worth either being killed resisting arrest or spending the rest of his life in penal servitude. Oh, he’ll go down with a rep: A real-life supervillain taken down by a group of real-life superheroes but… Really? This gets to be the last chapter of his story?
Blaine’s goals are threefold:
-Traumatize Amber out of college.
-Vengeance on Amazi-Girl.
-Revenge on the kids who dared to oppose him.
Why invest so much in scaring Amber out of college? Because she (and her mother, iirc) managed to force him into paying them money. Blaine takes that as a personal defeat, and is trying to undo that shame. After all, how could he lose to such a pair of weaklings? Unacceptable. Blaine going overboard is hardly new, he’s always been like that. He’s just gotten even crazier after suffering too many defeats.
As for why he went for the elaborate scheme instead of just jumping AG (with his bros): One, he gets to hurt more people than just AG, he also gets to settle scores with the twerps who dared to oppose him. Two, the hostage scheme makes it easier to control AG (who is quite capable of beating up thugs). And framing her for kidnapping also adds a lot more lasting pain than just beating her up. And three, Ross gives him a convenient scapegoat. If Blaine’s plan had worked he wouldn’t even be a suspect. The kids would be dead, and Ross would take the blame for the whole kidnapping/murder case.
Blaine has fallen victim to a classic planning mistake: assuming the best case scenario at every step of the plan. He’d be doing ok if none of the kids had figured out who he was AND they could contact AG (who is clearly not his daughter) AND she had brought Becky to the house AND Ross continued obeying him AND he got away in time to pin the whole thing on Ross and and and . . .
But he doesn’t have any idea what to do once one thing goes wrong. Not to mention Ross and the church parents, at a bare minimum, knowing to connect him to this.
True, it’s not the best plan and he could have had some more backup, but it’s not like he’s completely incompetent. Just violently insane and very unlucky. Most of the things that went wrong would’ve been within acceptable margins of error by themselves;
Kids figuring out who he is doesn’t matter, he was probably going to kill them anyway. Ross only wants to take his daughter and leave, so just walking away and pinning things on him would be easy. The church knowing to connect him to this probably doesn’t matter, as they wouldn’t really be eager to tell everyone about how they released a kidnapper and (indirectly) caused another kidnap/murder.
It’s not really one thing going wrong here that’s the problem, it’s everything. First there is no AG to contact (annoying, but not a threat in itself. Just kill the kids and reschedule the revenge on AG for another day). Then Ross goes full moron and releases Amber despite being told not to (Very Bad, but still salvageable given that you have hostages to control her). Then the hostages try to break out (no real issue, thugs would’ve handled it). Then AG shows up anyway, and right at the one moment there are no hostages to control her with.
Blaine is an abuser. He wants to cow Amber into believing she is weak and spineless and better off doing whatever he demands of her to control her. Dunking on her for satisfaction? No. Dunking on her so she follows the actions he wants her to? Yes, including dropping out of college. His actions don’t follow normal logic because they are about ‘doing X to get Y result’ even when X is not the action a rational person would take.
Abusers often do this e.g. throwing a plate when asked to wash dishes = no one asks you to do the dishes any more. Is throwing a plate rational to do? No. But if you want to make sure people are less likely to ask you ever again, that’s what you’d do.
But also, keep thinking about it and waste your potential getaway time.
Any strategy v. Blaine is gonna be a gamble, Becky’s doing great. And if she isn’t bluffing, the Tweet-clock is ticking…
Dina is behind Blaine, and it looks like she was actually hit backhand by a fist, not the hammer. So she may not be hurt very badly.
Are there any landscaping rocks at this house?
Dina’s not behind Blaine. She just through the door with Becky – leaning on her it looks like, so she’s not in the best shape, but not too badly damaged.
Remember that we’ve moved outside since that part of the fight.
BLAINE: “This… isn’t fair?”
BECKY: “First thing I ever learned in life, Mr O’M – Life isn’t fair. Ever.”
“Log in using someone else’s phone and delete the Tweet now, or she’s dead!”
Thought Blaine, fifty years later.
“I was using the Congresswoman’s account and her auto-saved credentials. I never bothered to learn her password myself.” Or “this is a lie but you’re so tech-unsavvy that you do it this way and it will never occur to you that anyone would do it another way!”
Becky’s plan was to get her friends released first and then get saved herself later via Twitter. Ross screwed that up by dying. No wonder her plan is a little off kilter. Have to hope it works under new conditions. Plus Blaine is tes ring outside with an unconscious girl in one hand and a bloody weapon in the other. Some neighbor should call the police. After all there are two black kids standing there very suspiciously. So, more witnesses at least.
The main thing protecting Joyce is Blaine’s inability to come to terms with how fucked he is. He doesn’t take losing well at all, obviously, but there’s an element of “how do I come back from this?” When he’s had a setback. He’s thoroughly and terminally outgambitted here, and while I don’t think conceding defeat is in his nature, he’s still trying to *win*, and that’s going to be his downfall as that’s become impossible.
Blaine’s goals have been impossible to meet from the start, with him wanting to humiliate Amazi-Girl while having her be distinct from Amber.
There’s a distinct lack of Ruth so far.
Ruth Ex Machina, maybe?
She’ll probably show up to ruin Blaine’s day.
I know Indiana does have the death penalty, but who’s up for reinstating some cruel and unusual punishments… just this once?
The framing on the last two panels is intriguing.
Who’s watching this and are they recording it or live-streaming it?
I think it’s just the house. Take a look at this strip for reference: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/03-when-it-crumbles/wallet/
Ah, yeah…I didn’t go back far enough.
Ruthless needs to show up now and beat him to death with his femurs.
“Delete those tweets or she’s dead” is a really surreal sentence but also definitely something that’s been said many times by real people, seriously.
Blaine speechless, two comics in a row, is a beautiful thing.