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Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
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What do you do when the person you're in-love with is an anonymous romance novelist? Get your best friend to hire your worst enemy for help!
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Magic, monsters and mysteries await in the odd city of Sanity. It's up to Attley and a colorful group of characters to find out just what is going on.
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Actually this is a Simpsons reference. Homer is telling himself “don’t say revenge”, but it turns out revenge is an acceptable reason for wanting to sponsor a Little Brother.
Yes, the so called “double bird” is a rare and beautiful creature. Native to the galapagos islands, this majestic avian displays its plumage in a powerful and evocative dance of defiance.
She has much to learn, in that case. Last I’d heard, she didn’t even know bisexuality was a thing that existed. Just wait until she learns about pansexuality and asexuality and all that other stuff.
Along with the statue erected in her honor for winning the Nobel prize for Being The Best Fucking Scientist, and discovering a new Dinosaur that she named FuckRossasaurus, who bore a striking image similar to a toe.
But that could quite easily break it and whoever she borrowed it from would be furious (especially if it was an expensive one). Can’t afford to be making enemies yet. XD
Yes! Now, let’s enjoy her positivity before someone comes along and posts something about how she’s really just hiding how sad she is.
Yes, I know under the circumstances, she’s probably enduring a huge swirl of emotions, but if people can laugh in war zones, she can be happy about taking control of her life.
You can totes put a skillet in the oven if it’s a cast-iron one. Or if the oven is off. In fact, my cast-iron skillets are in the oven right now; that’s where I keep them. Hmm, and I have that left-over pancake batter from yesterday in the fridge, and I haven’t had breakfast yet…
Eh, there’s probably going to be a temporary letdown after the adrenaline, the “Oh, wow, I didn’t die!” endorphins, and the “Dad are you–holy frack yes you are” righteous fury wear off. But for now, MOONWALK OUTTA THERE, BECKY!
Just because a lot of this whole affair is hurting her, does not mean that this isn’t a happy moment. In any abusive situation, being able to grab power back and have that moment of catharsis and spite where you let the abusive authority know what’s up is genuinely celebratory.
It says that the shithead in question does not own you and the rest of your life simply because they hurt you. And that genuinely feels utterly amazing.
Becky has been hurt, has been put in a bad position for her life, and given a lot of disadvantages, but this moment is genuinely one of pure joy and catharsis. Fuck yeah, Becky. Fuck yeah.
Even when she learned from Dina, she never really dropped talking about God with Joyce. She’s not abandoning one for the other- she’s trying to reconcile them, as should be done by anyone with faith.
I’d give up on both religion and science for a klondike bar. Of course then I guess there’s be no scientists to make Klondike bars…and no God to make the scientists…SHOOT.
Not aying she did. But it’s a frighteningly common misconception, and it’s not one that I want Becky to adopt naively. After all, look at who she was raised by. Wouldn’t be surprised if she thought that was the case.
You know she’s fictional, right? And that she’s written by an atheist? You could try appealing to Willis, but appealing to Becky not to lose her faith is like appealing to Charlie Brown to look on the bright side.
“In the name of our Dark Master, we’re… wait… who’s our Dark Master, again?”
“Santa? No, no, Satan!”
“Right! In the name of Satan, we’re totally gonna rock– agh, my HIP!”
Yeah, doesn’t sound like she plans on giving up religion as a whole. Just giving up her dad’s religion. The severe homophobic young earth creationist stuff she grew up on. She wants to learn all the stuff that she could never access from within the sheltered environment her father kept her in.
Within the last couple days she surfed the internet and read a secular textbook for the first time. Just shortly before that she discovered that the loving god she believes in is incompatible with the hateful religion she was brought up in. She’s undergoing a pretty major paradigm shift right now.
Idk. One of my best friends is a doctor of biology and practicing Catholic. And my medical doctor I go to is a Sikh. This type of thing is not rare at all? I think people realize this just fine.
I think it’s just because Becky’s father’s religion is so anti-science. I’m sure she’ll eventually reconcile these things. Or not! Who knows? She might totally just quit religion altogether. But that’s not a given for all people, is basically all I meant to say^^
I thing I was the one who mentioned that gal. Or at least I did comment here before about a biomedical science student that was a creationist and strongly believed Evolution was a sham, despite working with multiresistant bacteria on a daily basis.
Humanos are scarfed good at compartimentalization.
I’m a computer administrator and I have faith. DNA is a quaternary programming language, and the complexity points to SOME kind of “intelligent design”, not to be confused with the ID community. But thats just my conclusion. The room full of monkeys and typewriters is a fallacy IMHO. It attributes almost magical powers to random chance, and reminds me of the gamblers fallacy.
It’s hard to see how that complexity coud arive by chance, isn’t it? If you have a computer background you should look at genetic algorithms and then genetic programming. Then on your very own computer, try genetic programming and watch complexity develop. Take a look at some of the theoretical arguments on why genetic algorithms work better than it seems they should. Then for genetic programming take a look at evolved programs and designed programs and decide for yourself what the characteristics of both are. Then look into enough biology to check whether living things have one set of characteristics or the other. At that point, armed with information, make up your own mind.
I would love to see this done on a senior level in high schools.
Darwin Ian evolution comes from
RANDOM GENETIC VARIATION which is then filtered thru NATURAL SELECTION. MOST of the variation is filtered out. Whats left is no longer random, its directed by selection working on what genetic variation puts forward as raw material. Evolution is not magic and it’s not random
“I believe in MICROevolution but not MACROevolution.” Essentially, tiny things are capable of great change, and we’ve seen it in action without any uncertainty that can be explained away, but larger creatures are magically exempt from evolution. Possibly thanks to ~God’s Will.~
More likely they, similarly to my practicing-Catholic mother whose faith specifically states that all Catholics should believe in evolution and other scientific principles because religion is a ~SEARCH FOR TRUTH~, are simply uncomfortable with the idea that humans are “descended from monkeys or fish or something.”
I find it incredibly affirming to realize that I am related to every other living thing out there that is or ever did live, and that, on a chemical level, I’m even related to the Earth itself, and the sun, and the stars.
How could anyone look at the grandeur of the world around them, and think, “I am a part of all of this?” and not be moved? From the worms bringing oxygen and nutrients to the oak trees around me, to the eagle soaring overhead, to the oak tree itself, these are all, literally and genetically (if you go back far enough), family.
People who don’t accept evolution are looking at the eagles soaring over the Rockies and saying, “Yeah, no, I don’t want to be part of that.” And I don’t understand that at all.
It’s like saying that the only actual family you have is yourself, your parents, and your grandparents. On the maternal side only. And only for the past six generations. And anyone who claims that they are (or know) your siblings, or cousins, or paternal grandparents ARE FILTHY LIARS YOU TAKE THAT BACK RIGHT NOW.
Is there stats on this somewhere? I swear I’ve read that biologists are more religious than some of the other scientists. And that astrophysicists were the least likely to believe.
I mean there’s a high chance I’m just completely misremembering things. But I would be interested in seeing any sort of state.
There was an extensive survey of American scientists published in Nature {Larson, E. J. & Witham, L. Nature 386, 435-436 (1997)}, but unfortunately (a) it was eighteen years ago, (b) I can’t find the actual article on the Web this side of a paywall, (c) it only covered American scientists, and (d) they were trying to observe any changes since a previous survey in 1916, so they used the exact same questions and these are phrased in a more restrictive way than would be ideal.
Another study by Elaine H. Ecklund find higher rates of belief by asking questions that are less restrictive (and a different population). Ecklund reports an overall rate of atheism of 41% in both physicists and biologists, with a lower rate of 27% in chemists. She also found that 51% of scientists have no current religious affiliation (which is different from being an atheist) as compared with 14% of the US population in general, and that only 1.5% of scientists are evangelical or fundamentalist Protestants, as compared with 13.6% of the general US population. You can find her paper on the Rice University website.
I checked the article by Larson and Witham. Here are the main points.
They took a sample of 1000 American scientists, taken at random from “American Men and Women of Science” and got a 60% response rate. Scientists were sorted into three fields: mathematics, biology, and physics/astronomy (no chemists because the original 1916 survey didn’t include them).
The question regarding belief in a god is the following:
Concerning the belief in God. (choose one)
1. I believe in a God in intellectual and affective communication with humankind, i.e. a God to whom one may pray in expectation of receiving an answer. By “answer” I mean more than the subjective, psychological effect of prayer.
2. I do not believe in a God as defined above.
3. I have no definite belief concerning this question.
In 1996, physicists and astronomers had the lowest rate of disbelief in a personal god (22% answered “1”). The ones more likely to believe in a personal god are mathematicians (45% answered “1”).
Overall, in 1996, 39.3% answered “1”, 45.3% answered “2” and 14.4% answered “3”.
D’oh! Please change the paragraph immediately following the quote to the following:
n 1996, physicists and astronomers had the lowest rate of belief in a personal god (22% answered “1”). The ones more likely to believe in a personal god are mathematicians (45% answered “1”).
The big problem with Larson & Witham is that the strict definition of “god” that it uses might lead a lot of people to answer “2.” who believe in some god not fitting the definition, or to throw the survey into the wastepaper basket. It doesn’t distinguish deists from atheists, so it’s less useful than it could be for counting atheists. Which is why Ecklund is more useful.
Note that Ecklund doesn’t support what I originally said either, at least not that physicists tend to be more religious than chemists and biologists.
Actually, most of the studies which show any such ordering turn out to be bogus. I’ve known a lot of religious scientists and a lot of strictly rationalist scientists, as well as a lot more who simply maintained the attitude that they couldn’t answer the question and so WouldYouPleaseStopAsking. Please.
It doesn’t seem to me that there’s much difference among the disciplines in that partition, but, of course, the plural of anecdote is not data. That said, there’s no well-sourced evidence to suggest that my observations are wrong, so I’m going to go with my current observations until better data arrives.
I do recall one of my professors of Religion commenting that, anecdotally, he’s quite rare as a Christian believer. Outsiders think that all Religion Profs are believers and all Science profs aren’t, but he’d found quite the opposite.
True story: I’m social scientist and I tracked down the origin of that saying. The original saying, by Raymond Wolfinger, was “the plural of anecdote IS data” (I confirmed this as best I could by contacting a former student of his). At some point, the quote was mistakenly inverted, and that was the version that became commonly known. Anecdotes can be great evidence, so long as you have a good sample design. This is a foundation of any study involving interviews.
That “so long as” is the reason the inversion is more accurate. Without that unbiased sample design, I can’t use it to discard hypotheses with any certainty. Without something more, collecting more anecdotes just gives you more anecdotes.
1. A short account of a real incident or person, often humorous or interesting.
2. An account which supports an argument, but which is not supported by scientific or statistical analysis.
3. A previously untold secret account of an incident.
I didn’t get that impression from what she said. She can be a scientist and not renounce her faith. She can adjust her views on it, much like Joyce has… and she already has to some extent thanks to Dina and the rest of the gang.
That’s still a major departure from her dad’s extremist fundamentalism, where an ancient book filtered through 2,000 years of the telephone game is the absolute authority which must never be questioned. He thinks she should fill the “perfect daughter” role in his family org chart until she marries and stays home to crank out his grandchildren.
Kind of hard to do that when you’re busy discovering the universe you’ve been sheltered from your entire life.
She’s been shown to still be religious throughout this whole awful affair, albeit less invested in the specific interpretation of her raising (see her statements on how she used to say a lot of things with regards to sexuality): http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/04-walking-with-dina/useta/
But otherwise she has said that she can be a Christian and still date a non-Christian and she has even invoked prayers and God with regards to her queer relationships. And I don’t see how today’s events would dissuade her from her form of faith where “God answers lesbian prayers” (after all, she was rescued by her crush, a motorcycle chick, and a superheroine who stopped her homophobic dad to the point where he can no longer hunt her and she was also completely unhurt during a car crash, I imagine she believes all the more strongly in her pro-lesbian idea of God if anything).
But she is breaking once and for all, violently from Young Earth Creationism.
My private head canon is that she becomes a research studying genes associated with breast cancer, and ends up finding the cure for what killed her mom. So Toedad (still in jail) will learn Becky has done so much more to honor her mother’s memory than he ever could.
EvoDevo would be my guess, given her current interests. I can definitely see her pairing with Dina where Dina finds the bones and analyzes them and Becky looks at homology and radiometric dating to construct the best phylogenies from them.
After an incident like this, in the “real” world Becky and Joyce would be inundated with interviewers and at least one would contact Joyce’s parents for a reaction.
Since Ross considers Becky (and I am assuming most of her friends too) as of inferior status due to age and gender, being rebuffed by one of them wouldn’t phase him and would probably only confirm his existing beliefs.
Now, being abandoned by someone who he sees as an ally and an equal would probably register a more morose reaction.
I don’t think she’ll be doing that, yet. She’s tired and misses how home used to feel. She’ll want to avoid conflict to try to get that feeling back. Unless someone denounces Becky and her gayness, or tries to defend Toedad’s actions, she’ll likely not be shouting anyone down.
Doom forsees Becky as moving up in the “favorite characters of Doom” list soon. After all, the girl reminds Doom of Doom’s own awe-inspiring self in that she needs no man or woman to be great.
Also she wishes to master the sciences. Perhaps Doom could aid her in mastering the mystic arts….
that last panel was the best kind of redundant. only because she’s becky is that exit possible. being emotional is unavoidable under the circumstances, but managing that exit is very important to be able to look back on all of this fondly one day
There is a special kind of undeniable joy in being able to shove something back in the face of douchetoes like Toedad, especially when they’ve conspired for so long to get what they want. It can be as simple as still living one’s life authentically or as dramatic as Becky’s double middle finger closure-a-palooza, but whatever it is, knowing that the shitbird hasn’t destroyed what is most important to you is critical and empowering.
Becky here is having the best of all worlds in this exit. She’s noting how he can’t control her life. She’s noting how she will build for herself the opportunities he stole from her in order to try and force her to be how he wanted. And she’s taking control of her future.
This last is the most important, because Toedad’s actions have been escalations for the battle of her future and who she is. Ordering her to be a shut-in stay-at-home mother, lying back and thinking of England for her chosen husband. And while she has regained her present, she has also reborn her dreams (which is not a luxury many of us in her position get). She has a future and it’ll be hard and require a lot of work, but it is undeniably hers and not something he can ever take away. And that is absolutely beautiful.
I swear if this is some kind of setup for Becky to join in on the college shenanigans only to flunk out next semester (read: in a couple more years), I’ll only be ready.
All of us will be long dead by the time second semester arrives. David Willis’ great-grandchild will be writing DoA, which will be holograpically beamed to readers’ brain-implants.
I was about to say, she has the same background as Joyce, and Joyce does fine, but then I realized I actually have no idea how well Joyce is doing in school. I think she has a natural head for math?
Or am I just remembering the explanation of why she’s so good at flying in a jetpack?
“Dad, we’re done. I’d mention something about the horse you rode in on, but you’re not worth it.” Becky’s life has just begun. Now buckle up, if going to be a wild ride.
Yesssssssssssssssssssss. Can’t wait for Dr Becky McIntyre PhD discovering a cure for asshole-ness in like 2050 but by then it will be too late for you, Ross. Bye. Byeeeeeeeeeee.
I meant “palaeontologist” with Dina, and “archaeologist” for Becky. Sorry, I’m a bit drunk and mixing things up in my glee, especially considering I got the joke from a certain Tv show. I’m a horticulturist (hopeful botanist), so what do I know about those sorts of bones anyway?
Most of us won’t be able to afford uploading our minds into the machines and so our only hope for immortality in this world will be to sell ourselves to the military.
If it weren’t for the fact I selectively like the D once in a while, I’d definitely start telling people I’m “Becky” on the Kinsey scale when they ask. XDD
Ok, I am sure that is beyond terrible (I didn’t try to sort out the gender of the words (which must be in agreement) for starters…), but it’s in the right direction. And that is “head-bigtoe”, not “toe-head”, not sure what form/word to use when “head” is at the end. I used the word for “big toe” because digitus means toe or finger, you would have to use “digiti pedis” (foot digit) or something for “a toe”.
I think I recall that David (not Willis obv., another one) reads DoA, maybe he can fix the name, since he is amazing at languages and ICZN names (dunno if he reads the comments though)
Yessss I love it. I wanna see Becky get really passionate about science. I wanna see her learn new things. I wanna see her try out all the different fields until she finds the one that’s best for her.
I want to see her and Dina be Cute Science Girlfriends together.
A stray tap of the finger landed me at the johnny wander ad of penny’s big eyed face. Perfect. Exactly how I feel.
Best revenge is living a good life. Fuckin ay Becky, Hella bamf
If Ross is stuck in jail for any length of time Becky will probably be able to get access to their house, and get her hands on whatever she left there. So she may soon be in a bit better situation than worrying she’s about to end up sleeping under a bridge.
Time for late-night shenanigans??
Or, y’know, a police escort. If anybody can walk through that wicked little town with her head held high, it’s Becky.
Gotta say.. for a comic that I like reading, this particular strip brought me an excessive amount of enjoyment. I thought she might have made some sort of comment about “I’ll be happy with my GIRLFRIEND”, but this particular ending was just… so… perfect.
It’s hard to overstate our satisfaction!
BECKY LOVES SCIENCE
She does what she must, because, she can
For the good of all of us,
except the ones who are dad!
I’m actually really looking forward to her science education skydiving as coming out of a creationist fundamentalist homeschool situation. For the first while she’s going to be like ‘OK i know I got fed a lot of bunk, I’ll accept your new explanations but then, THEN, she’ll get her first contradiction or theory-level level-up and she’ll go “ok wait but NO I LEARNT THAT HERE, THAT IS SCIENCEWHYYYYYYYY”
Damn, girl…..
So as a man who has a penis, do you guys think its to late to become a lesbian? Cause she dragged my heart out’a the room with her in that last panel there, and I kinda need it back.
This is lovely, but the pedant in me feels the irresistible urge to point out that the chapter title is from Defying Gravity, the hovertext is actually from The Wizard and I. The version of those lyrics in Defying Gravity is ‘Together we’re unlimited’.
Which also works, because Becky/Dina. Or alternately, Becky and Joyce’s friendship.
I really love the title of this strip. “Unlimited” really captures the fact that Becky has her whole life ahead of her and that her potential knows no bounds. She’s gonna be amazing.
YEAH, SPIT THE TRUTH AT HIM LIKE IT’S HOT
honestly though, I’m glad that she’s considering a field of science. It’s not just “I was always raised only in religion so now I’m saying fuck you to dad by studying science,” she was genuinely interested when Dina was explaining it to her. of course, I’m sure that has something to do with it being Dina…
But, given her experiences these past few strips, she’s going to probably have an easier time getting scholarships. He’ll, some scholarships and organizations will be lining up at her door to fund her education. Plus, even a family that does homeschooling most likely would fill out a FAFSA to try to make heading to college financially easier. Once she updates it (expected family contribution 0 dollars) it opens the door to federal grants and subsidized federal loans. So her financial future doesn’t actually look that bad, if she is made aware of these options.
Yeah, she’s going to have a hard life as do anyone who has to make it on their own sans family and loaded with oppressions, but this moment is triumphant. She’s building something that is hers and it may be hard, but it is her own and it is true and that’s what matters the most.
Someone please tell me Becky did the Fuck You Dance all the way out the door and into the hall, and the cop standing guard saw it, smiled, and closed Ross’s door for her as she waved bye.
Unlimited
My future is unlimited
and I just had a vision almost like a prophecy
sure the vision’s hazy
and I know it sounds crazy
But I swear some day I’ll be
a dino digging PHD~~~
And I’ll stand there with Dina
feeling things I’ve never felt
And I’ll totally show it
we’ll be so happy we could melt
And so it’ll be for the rest of our lives
and we’ll want nothing else till we die
Since will reing supreme, for a dino digging teaaaaaaaam
That’s Dina and I~~~~~
This strip. This strip RIGHT HERE is why religion keeps sinking deeper into a hole. Somebody who was religious has a bad experience and turns away from it; determined to be as opposed to their previous status as possible. But there is no true opposite to everything that comprises religion. So the desperate and wounded person seizes on the closest thing they can find in academia; which they don’t know enough about to realize that it isn’t an any way opposed to the core concept they think they now hate. Then, after years of practicing, they twist it until it IS; they base their entire identity on being learned beings as OPPOSED to religious people for years, and when a new group comes along to suggest that those two things aren’t intertwined the disillusioned perceives it as a threat to their new identity and lashes out with insults. Then the religious people become aware of the insults and dismiss the field for being full of dicks; the lies become a little more true; and the human race as a whole gets a bit dumber.
Science isn’t the opposite of religion but it is the opposite of indoctrination into deliberately anti-scientific principles, such as Young Earth Creationism.
Science: “You can’t [i]know[/i]. But you can test the evidence and get a pretty good idea. Which you should always be willing to chance if new evidence comes up.”
You’re assuming that formerly religious people would refuse to reconcile with their former beliefs and heal from their bad experiences. I mean, you do hit the mark for the most part, but over time, I got over the whole “rebel against an ideology used to oppress me by my shitty parents/peers!” phase. Sometimes I even think of joining a church, if only for the feeling of social camaraderie; it’s what I grew up with, and I sort of miss it.
So yeah, some people haven’t got through their hate and moved on, and you know what? That’s perfectly fine. They’ll deal with it in time. But others do learn to heal. With Joyce around, I’m sure Becky will heal over time. She’s a shining example of the best kind of Christian; one who is able to adapt their beliefs and morals in a way that stays true to her faith.
Where did she say she was abandoning Christianity? She just said that she was going to embrace science and do more than her father thought she ought to be able to. She’s been pretty open about being both Christian and a lesbian so far. If she was going to flounce from religion as well, this would have been the time to throw that in his face too.
1) Becky has in no place been shown to stop being Christian, merely not the particular flavor of Christian she grew up in. Which if that’s your overall definition of what Christian can mean, bully for you, but Becky believes in a creator called God who responds to prayers and stems from the Bible, so you’d be hard-pressed to say she doesn’t at least believe herself to be Christian and to hold what she would consider to be a Christian faith.
2) Yes, those of us excited by knowledge and learning and academia and the sciences are just broken hurt people trading one ideology for another, ayup, totally. And it’s totally this which is hurting science and not the way at least two individuals so far have interpreted “I’m going to learn things and be a scientist” as an attack on faith and religion. These are not lies and I like this statement very much.
This is the perfect comeback, the perfect respond to the… insult that he wanted your entire life to be. You are building your own life, you have your own goals, you are going to be the best fucking scientist in town and there is NOTHING THAT SAD PIECE OF FUCK CAN DO ABOUT IT!!!
Oh, and how I ADORE the patented goofy Becky-grin in panel five. Just like pressing a button SHE’S BACK. ToeDad threatened her and her friends, pointed a gun at her, kidnapped her, put her in a car crash, guilt tripped her… but he DIDN’T BREAK HER. Becky is fun and loud and goofy and she’s HERE TO STAY. She has a future coming up with friends and a badass girlfriend and Joyce who will move heaven and earth for her and a job and an education and 9000 year old corn and sweet dinosaur facts and an entire world full of cool things that the man who pointed a gun at her can’t do anything about.
Since this might be my last chance for a “Fudge you, Ross” post, let me just take the opportunity to say…
…yeah, what she said. Just let it sink in what Becky just said, Ross. She has an entire future lined up, a completely rad and awesome future, and you have no part of it. No thanks to you – despite you. She doesn’t need you. But if you had been just a LITTLE less abusive, just a little less huge piece of shit, than you could have had a part of that future too. Well, tough luck. Shithead. You lost. You lost your daughter. Because you wouldn’t have her.
So fudge you, Ross, and I sincerely hope Becky never has to see you again.
HIGH FIVE, BECKY! YOU ARE GONNA BE SUCH A COOL SCIENTISTS!
It’s the one benefit of someone being unilaterally awful and unbending. When someone gives you the barest minimum of effort, it is easy to get stuck in the self-degrading cycle of trying to beg for your humanity. When someone is inflexibly awful, it makes it easy to throw up the double middle fingers much sooner.
If he was willing to be passive-aggressively awful like Ethan’s mom, she might have suffered longer. But in this way, she can make a clean break and have a hard life, but a life that is her own. And 40 years down the line, when she’s on the TV explaining some cool aspect of evolution that her lab has discovered while Dina is cuddled against her arm, Toedad can sit and glare and seethe and blame her for ruining his life, but he will no longer have even the memory of power over her.
That mic is not only dropped, ladies and gentlemen. It is burning it’s way thrown the mantle as it unwaveringly melts a path to the Earth’s core. Pressures that could damage that mic only exist on hypothetical objects.
As great as the payoff was, taking in account how Becky has acted and her (apparent, since we haven’t seen her in an academic environment) intelligence, I gotta say this…
Fat chance.
Seriously? She has a perfectly good chance of becoming a scientist. We’re still only a few weeks into the first semester, and she’s surrounded by people who can help her catch up (Joyce and Danny can help with math, Amber with computer science and probably physics, Dina with biology, etc.) She will easily get student loans and possibly scholarships. And in spite of her homeschooled fundie upbringing, she has a natural scientific curious it and questioning of commonly held truth. I think she will make a GREAT scientist.
Contrary to popular myth, you don’t need to be very intelligent to be a successful scientist. Someone of average intelligence who is very driven, creative, passionate about her work, not afraid to take risks, able to communicate well with her peers, and, above all, not afraid to work relentlessly on hard problems, has a much better chance of being a successful scientist than someone who merely scores 140+ on IQ tests.
I’m “smarter” than a lot of scientists and students at my university by “academic intelligence” or whatever (Going by SAT, IQ, all that BS). But I’m also a total whack in the head, and probably not going to end up being a scientist. Becky seems pretty damn strong, I think she’ll be fine.
Honestly, she has exactly what she needs to succeed in an academic subject: Curiosity and interest.
As a teacher, I’ve seen a lot of kids and seeing as how I teach at an alternative school, most of the kids I have are considered to be “bad students”. And some do have a hard road, because they don’t want to try yet or want to coast by on their “natural” smarts. And others make dramatic improvements and really excel because they are able to access their curiosity and excitement and ask good questions that allow us to get into higher level concepts.
Becky may have a handicap based on the education of her youth, but she’s been shown to work hard and seek out knowledge to improve that and is willing to put in the time that a Walky is not quite ready to do yet. As such, she could very rapidly eclipse so called “good” students.
And it is worth noting that her mode of speech, while probably considered uneducated due to the colloquial slang and grammar is not actually a sign of intelligence, but rather something that’s used later by hiring companies as a means of discriminating based on regionalism and classism. As far as being exuberant about her sexuality and other means of “the way she acts”, my uncle said I was throwing away my talents by choosing to be super gay all the time instead, because I was proud of who I was. Didn’t stop me getting my Master’s or being a teacher who the students have told each other to seek out when they have a tough question. So, there’s that.
I don’t think she’s doing it out of spite, though. We’ve seen the evolution of this decision since the day she showed up, long before the Broken Toe showed up with his rifle.
If anyone’s responsible for her decision to become a scientist, it’s DINA for introducing her to the science of dinosaurs.
Spite? No. Latching onto something as your life starts to careen out of control? Perhaps. That it annoys the Broken Toe is just a bonus, as far as she’s concerned.
Sure…but I still find this worth questioning. The whole strip seems much more like a fantasy scenario than something an emotionally-mature person would say. It’s like the equivalent of someone chopping off their hand to prove their love to you, and rather than dialling emergency services or at least running you decide to stay and squeeze a lemon over the wound.
I say this as someone who has simply cut off ties with abusive family members and co-workers, and knowing and deeply respecting someone who still keeps her abusive parent at arm’s length. Spite is the easy choice, the choice that your testosterone and sense of wanting to get revenge tells you. Heck, in real life this would probably just motivate Ross to come after her even more forcefully a second time. If she’d simply walked away she’d have doused that fire.
Another good example is this week’s episode of Fargo – the most highly-praised scene and performance of which was Nick Offerman playing a lawyer who, at gunpoint, talks down an angry father from breaking his son out of police custody. Offerman’s performance is so excellent because he plays it not just as a man afraid for his life, but someone who understands the point of view of the man who might kill him, even if he doesn’t agree, and uses both understanding and reason to get him to stand down.
I’m sorry, but I’m just not ever going to be convinced that pouring hate on hate can be satisfying or even a viable solution in the long-term. That is probably why France has decided to open up their borders to 6,000 more refugees. Shutting them out, like USA Republicans want to, would just be keeping the fire going for the terrorists.
Spite can be a good point to keep from collapsing into oneself though. Her love of science is genuine, you can see that in the quiet moments she shared with Dina or how she praised Dina’s science knowledge, but spite is what is giving her the strength to pursue those dreams even if they are hard.
And that will likely pay off in the long-term, especially if she can continue to get the support both emotionally and financially of her friends.
Ah, O-Chem as taught by colleges. The bane of many a Bio majors collegiate career. I’ve since learned to love a lot of it and teach it in a way that’s actually fun for my students, but I still resent how I was taught it in the dullest, most lifeless way imaginable.
I can’t think of a more wonderfully inappropriate career path that Becky could have chosen. It’s so the opposite of her personality that it almost seems like a natural choice.
Opposite of her personality? Not that I can see. She seems to respond quickly to Dina’s logical arguments about evolution and the age of the earth. So, logical is good. And she drops her old ideas quickly and without regret when they are shown to be wrong. Also very good for a scientist.
And, she just plain seems to like science, now that she has seen it. Sure, she wants to hang out with Dina, but I don’t think she was just feigning interest for an excuse.
What else do we know about her personality? She is loud, energetic and optimistic? Plenty of scientists are like that, and they mostly don’t affect aptitude for science… though optimism could be good when you are at the lab after regular hours trying a tricky protocol for the 8th time (or whatever equivalent might make sense for whatever branch she goes into)
Becky is also good with people which will make her a great science communicator. “Hey, you, come over here and let me tell you about corn. Are you prepared to have your MIND BLOWN???”
She could very ironically become a science teacher, both because it would allow her to teach youngsters what she was denied growing up and because it would be a delicious twisting of the “go into education, so you can be better free labor for your home-schooled kids” ideology Toedad sold her.
Once again, a well-deserved “OH HELL YEAH! BECKY… HAS COME BACK … TO DOA!”. We missed ya, Beckster. Now go get some waffles. I’m sure there’s a Perkins or some other 24-hour breakfast place nearby that all the college kids hang out at when cramming needs food.
OT: I just noticed something; my usual gravitar (based on a Sith Ahsoka) isn’t showing up on this site; it’s appearing on a few others (The Monster Under the Bed, and Go Get A Roomie), but not here. Here, it’s selecting one of the cast. What’s up with that?
This. As a science teacher, I’ll take a Becky any day over the wads of “just give me the facts to memorize for med school, because that’s where the money is” dipshits any day.
Since I’m sure everyone is very invested in my chocie of gravatar…
I stuck with the blue-panel happy Becky for all this time because for me it was a powerful reminder of the simple horrible unfairness of her situation. In a just world those little blue panels would just have continued. Becky and Kaitlin exploring new found freedom and mutual interest. Perhaps becoming an item, perhaps just being a fling, perhaps getting their own slipshine and perhaps being the most important people in the world for each other, but never torn apart and chased away just because of who they were.
Of course, this is not a just world.
So the reason I’m changing gravatar now is that…. DAAAAANG, Becky is all kinds of awesome. And as for this moment she has won. She can go back to be adorable with her lady friend without being interupted by a toeshaped butthole with illusions of fatherhood. As of this moment her life is as it SHOULD be. With proper education, proper partner and proper plans for the future. Sure, there are struggles and hardships, but she can deal with those.
I might switch back at some point because I have a soft spot for happy blue-panel Becky, but for now I want to be reminded of Becky’s triumph.
While I understand that there needs to be conflict for a character to develop, I really hope that it’s not through some tedious “ToeDad McVeigh gets let out of jail by a parole board miraculously composed entirely by the 700 Club audience” arc in the future. Artistic license rules supreme, obviously, but a bro can hope…
And what is worse, she is going to become a fucking scientist, the worst possible field as far as a religious loon is concerned, only superceeded by something in the evolutionary sciences.
Two things
1. Go Becky! This has to the single most awesome response to hateful bigotry ever!!
2. Silver lining to all this is that I’m pretty sure Becky will have a very easy time getting scholarships. She’ll probably only have to take loans for the first semester or two if she starts immediately, due to application deadlines. Also, I’m pretty sure federal grants and loans will be easier to get once she updates her FAFSA (I am assuming that her parents filled one out before her mom died). Honestly, it looks like Becky won’t actually have to deal with student debt issues.
Predicting it now: Becky will cry her eyes out on Dina’s shoulder as soon as she’s out of line-of-sight and earshot. What makes me say that? Becky’s false grin; I’ve seen her use that one before when she’s upset or suppressing her feelings.
If she becomes a marine biologist, I have a sweet underwater pineapple she can shack up in while she studies my underwater buddies. Heck, we already got a mad rocket scientist squirrel…
Well, her father isn’t going to get her evicted now, and as Becky basically has taken Billie’s spot it should be in Ruth’s best interest to not draw too much attention to the fact that Billie’s living in her room now.
Allow me to join the “Hell yeah!!” choir! I have come to really love Becky, now that we know what she’s made of. (That would be awesome-sauce, for the win.)
In closing, allow me to also join the “Fuck you, Ross!” squad of two-fisted bird flippers. Thank you (Willis)!
Y’know what? I haven’t been all that invested in Becky up to now, except for the fact that she made Dina happy. But this here? She just fucking won. Go Becky!
Wait a minute, this line here about how lesbians exist is actually made of a cheap moldable plastic! LIAR!
Also heh, on STEMholes trying to shit on the softer sciences not realizing:
a) That they are only taught to hate and disparage social sciences because there’s more gender disparity in those fields and anything women do is automatically treated as less valuable than what is dominated by men.
and
b) their preferred fields used to be considered “meaningless girl shit” as “useful as stenography” back in the day. Fuck, being an engineer, especially of computers was viewed as absolutely worthless and not a real discipline unlike the towering high-minded pursuits of Literature and the Social Sciences before there was an active campaign to push women out of the field.
Oh and LOL, you trolled us by looking like an idiot, LMFAO or whatever.
Well, math and science can get you from one end of the universe to the other and still be valid, while gender studies is an artificial construct specific to one culture of one species on one planet of one solar system of one galaxy in an extraordinarily broad multiverse, BUT HEY don’t let that stop you from cooking up a reason to be offended.
OTOH, speaking as a former physics grad and current computer scientist, understanding people and societies is hard. Planets and atoms and computer programs are trivially simple in comparison.
So understanding how humans interact at a societal level isn’t useful? Understanding trends in history and how that might affect how current events may play out isn’t useful? (I know the OP was talking about gender studies, but you seem to be dismissing sociology as a whole based on your response to thejeff)
I mean there’s a difference between recognizing that a field may be limited in scope and flat out dismissing an entire field as fake. The latter is what the OP did.
Shame we live on the one planet, then. Even more shame that our time on it may be truncated because of social issues making it harder to band together and solve our one planet’s issues.
You don’t think that teaching about the complexities of gender/sex/orientation relations is a real thing? Again, that’s silly. The study of gender is a part of studying the human condition; its histories, thoughts, beliefs and ideas, how they were implemented before and those resulting affects on today, and how reactions and interactions from people influenced by these concepts are using that knowledge to shape not just their own world view, but the perceptions of society as a whole.
Normally I’d ask about the content of your post and why gender studies was even brought up in response to this strip. But honestly the thing that confuses me most is the use of the > sign. Am I missing something here?
It’s channer speak. I mean, this particular idiot might be off reddit or similar sites, but it’s part of channer speech pattern, because that’s what quotes do in 4chan. Using it off 4chan is a tribal mark.
Both 4chan and reddit are rife with groups that like to ignore inconvenient science like most social sciences (sometimes exempting what is often the least scientific, economics), as well as non-scientific but still empirically grounded study areas like gender studies.
Okay, I apologize for not knowing some in joke of a website that I have no wish to be anywhere near. That doesn’t answer the question of why you are using them now. Or why you had to say 2004 + 11 instead of just 2015.
I see bad things in that girl’s future. Ross is dangerous. He is going away for a while but.. he didn’t actually shoot anyone. He will get out in a few years or so. Sure, she should have no trouble getting a restraining order but Ross doesn’t seem like he would give a shit about that. I see a bright young, newly graduated scientist with a ‘future’ suddenly disappearing.
Is there a way to stop people in America from buying guns (eg CRCs)? Or is that just a sort of if he was found possessing it, he’d be in trouble thing?
It’s not possible to stop people anywhere from buying anything. (except maybe by making them too poor) It is certainly illegal to sell a gun to someone with his histroy and any dealer that did so would be in trouble, possibly losing their license. Contrary to popular belief we do have laws about those sorts of things here!
It’s possible, but it will probably not going to happen during the course of the strip, so for now, she has a little breathing room to build up her life before the next time Toedad tries to destroy it again.
‘A few years’ being an absolute minimum of 6 (the minimum sentence for a Class B felony – Criminal Confinement, which becomes class B if the perpetrator is armed with a deadly weapon, or causes harm to another in the course of the crime), and probably closer to the maximum of 20, given it managed to hit 2 of the three qualifications for class B status, and involved terrorizing the college. (He’ll be eligible for parole in 3-10 years, but an absolutely unrepentant ass isn’t going to pass the review board.)
The amount of time a person in sentenced and the amount that they served are two very different things. This is especially true for first time offenses.
You really think Ross is getting paroled? Or ‘good behaviour’? An unrepentant ass, who honestly thinks what he did was right, and actively hates the secular authorities who will be holding him?
Someone set her up with Bill Nye episodes, good intro to basic concepts (that she probably missed with that toedad homeschooling her) with a catchy theme song. Science Rules!
1. I want at least one panel in the next strip to be the cops on either side of Ross applauding Becky.
2. I want Becky to ask Sarah for getting-into-college advice. She probably has every possible scholarship, grant, and loan memorized already from dealing with her own situation.
3. If/when she needs to leave campus, I hope Dina’s folks take her in. They seem nice.
I think this next arc or the one after it, we’ll probably see Becky meeting up with Leslie and connecting with some key resources in the area from one who has already been there.
well… becky is gonna have a bad time. im sure by this point the college realizes that she’s living on campus and hasnt paid for school at all. this will most likely get her kicked off campus. not only that, but with her parent saying no, shes gonna find it hard tog et a loan without a cosigner and (considering the environment she was raised in prevents her from having any technology) zero credit score. shes facing an uphill battle
Well, she’s only been staying there for, what, 2 nights? Maybe 3? And considering her circumstances, unless the administration is totally heartless, I’m thinking they’ll be lenient.
Is a parent’s consent relevant since she’s not a minor?
4 nights so far, I think.
It’s not so much parent’s consent, but that they won’t co-sign and guarantee to repay any loans. OTOH, since she’s no longer supported by her parents, she’s likely to qualify for a good deal more in the way of aid, both federal secured loans and grants.
It’s easy enough for Willis to justify her coming next semester, if that’s the direction he wants to go. It’s also years of real time away.
I think what might most help her is the fact that he’s going to jail. Before jail, if he was just not supporting her, he’d still count against her loan application because he theoretically could support her, but because he’s going to the slammer, that probably would stop being the case or at least, at the very least, his income would drop into the toilet.
Meaning she has a better chance to get loans equal to what she needs at the very least.
The question is, will the university risk the bad publicity? If the whole mess comes to light, they might actually let her stay, and help her find funding for school. It’d be good PR for them.
Also yeah I wrote a bunch about this a few weeks/months ago. She’s not staying there illegally (and possibly has another place via the police, dunno if she’s talking about Billie’s bed or something else in yesterday’s comic), she’s an abused, marginalized youngster, and she has an enthusiastic drive to learn science. It would be kind of weird for them not to at least refer her to their financial aid department, and (best case) feasible for them to work out a housing arrangement and work on campus, maybe let her audit courses for the term so she’d be extra ready to relearn things next term.
Not to mention there could be a bit of a protest movement among the students if her case was made more public. I can see the Dean “making a deal’ with some off-campus queer program to mitigate fallout while sending a growl in the direction of Ruth for “letting this happen without informing the school” or something else toothless but threatening.
The student loans here (and I believe in several states?) don’t require a cosigner. Your parents (or spouse) have to do a form as well, because if they make a certain amount the government expects them to help with the costs, but if you don’t have parents or it’s this sort of thing, you just need to submit some sort of documentation for that (eg, I know someone who sent a letter with her younger brother’s student loan applications saying he lived with her but was supporting himself and that their parents were out of the picture)
Toedad…
Cop 1…
Cop 2…
Cop 1: Speaking of science, heard the news about the quills?
Cop 2: Yeah, there are some hard evidence coming in, but most is speculation.
Cop 1: Well, you know what dinosaur bloggers are like.
Cop 2: Don’t I know it. Anyway, I caught Dina in the corridor and she said [ten minute lecture on radiation dating]
ToeDad: Grunt…
Cop 1: Oh, sorry, this must be boring for you. Let’s put on a video instead… Oooooh! Cris Pratt
Cop 2: Ooh, or those hominids they found in the cave or the fact that they analyzed those viking bones and found signs of non-normative gender identities and…
Cop 1: Ooh, did you know Romans dedicated an aspect of Aphrodite to transgendered people?
Toedad (stretched, screamy groan): To what?
Cop 2: Shush. No, actually.
Becky couldn’t find a muon if Iron Man blasted her in the face.
Languages can take a decade and half to become fluent in, and math is the language (that we’re at least using) of describing the universe. Becky’s going to have to get from home school for education with intent of home schooling math to scientist level? Even a video game screenshot is a subspace matrix manipulation of a three dimensionally described environment to a two dimensionally displayed plane. You have to get comfortable with sigma before even proposing how correct your data sets could be let alone that actual conclusions you’re presenting.
And while Becky’s gonna be fine. Just like the doc told Steve Rogers “It’s the little guy who values power”, I have no trouble believing that Becky’s going to understand two crucial things that many an American fails at. 1)There’s no real safety net. There’s only you, your actions and your circumstances. 2)That she’s _now_ free. And that will make Becky capable of the really hard choices: setting aside previous beliefs in the face of new evidence, casting aside dreams for survival, working for a wanted result not just ‘enough’ but ‘for as much as she has in her’…
But Becky trying to catch up in logical thought after a life time of faith based thinking, mathematics that can only describe things that threatened her previous world view and doing it all while needing a job and loans and absolutely no support (like how long does it take a kid with a good parent to find out his social security number vs. Becky?) is kind of far fetched. Even for a comic with an Amazi-Girl.
I think she can do it. I think you don’t seem to realize how compartmentalized this kind of belief can really be. I’ve met plenty of people who were perfectly logical thinkers, capable of understanding complex systems. Except when those systems conflicted with the dogma they were raised with. The problem isn’t that they can’t comprehend complexity and rational thought. The problem is that they were raised with unquestionable axioms that have answers built in (omnipotence and omniscience) to explain away the inconsistencies. I think now that she no longer has those axioms in the way, Becky has every chance of doing fine. Plus, those college courses start at a fairly basic level. If you are good at emmorization, have a basic grasp of cause and effect, and understand basic scientific method, she should do fine in an introductory course. She miiiight need a tutor.
I mean just because Becky was homeschooled by fundamentalist parents doesn’t mean that she’s terrible at math. Or at least not significantly worse off than your average college student. (I mean she might be. But she was raised in a similar way to Joyce and Joyce has mentioned that she likes math. Joyce seems to be doing well in calc unlike Sal early on, or Walky now). In any case she’s certainly shown an interest in subjects related to biology. Which at the undergraduate level involves some calc and stats, but it wouldn’t be super far fetched for Becky to learn that stuff.
Well, I didn’t grow up with the whole home-schooling package, but I did know people who did and I also grew up with a truncated education for Biology (the major of my interest) largely because my school was heavily dominated by the Fundie crowd. As such, my first bio class in high school was received without evolution and a poor level of everything else (literally the only thing on evolution I was taught was that it was a theory and it was wrong) and my second AP class was truncated because the teacher had an emotional breakdown a quarter into the year and I ended up having to step in to fill in simply to give us any education at all (and what I knew was basically from the book which was skewed owing to the school’s preferences for textbooks (the history books said the Pyramids were designed to point towards Heaven (as in literal Christian Heaven)).
And yet, I went on to complete my master’s, with my master’s thesis focusing heavily on phylogenies and high level evolutionary analysis.
For friends who I knew were homeschooled, specifically for religious reasons, sometimes they had a tough time with the life sciences (because that is the part most truncated and filled with garbage, math and physics tended to be taught more or less straight, because nothing in the angles of a triangle or derivatives was seen as directly threatening to the word of God), but were able to salvage college educations out of it, including at least one friend I know who went on to be a paleontologist and two who went into physics/engineering.
It’s not the easiest of roads, but you make a fascinating point with your “anthropology and psychology” comment. That is to say there are majors in colleges where a student has a possibility of entering with almost no knowledge in the field, having to start from elementary concepts and expecting to finish with enough knowledge as to have a firm understanding of the discipline and its variances when you graduate.
And it’s not just the ones you think. A lot of schools know that Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Math, Language Arts, and History classes in high schools can be inadequate or drowned in fluff and so a lot of the early classes are usually a step-up style rehashing of what you were expected to cover in high school so that everyone can enter into upper division with a standardized idea of what the field is about and its most important concepts. This also allows someone the chance to more easily switch majors. Didn’t pay the most attention to history in high school? Didn’t get the chance to take foreign languages in the language you wanted? Didn’t really get math? Don’t speak or write English fluently? Then college isn’t completely gated off and you have a chance to excel in any of those disciplines. Becky may need to take a few more intro courses than usual and will likely need tutoring help, but she’s got the attitude to succeed and that’s what matters most for getting the most out of her higher level education.
Also, I might be showing my age when I say this, but I didn’t even encounter sigma and statistics or matrices until college (and I got a crash course of the former my freshman year serving as a Research Assistant for a Sociology Professor (another discipline I needed to get a crash course in)). She’s behind, yes, but not so much that college is a pipe dream.
Also, not directed at you, but I wonder why we assume the disciplines that don’t have high or middle school curriculum in our schools are somehow “easier” than those that do. Sociology, anthropology, gender studies, and so on are difficult subjects to master and have a lot of application to the world around us and the fact that we treat them as extras to general education has direct ramifications to how ignorant we are as a culture to how societies work, how gender operates, or what early man was like. Things like Literature and Math are not actually easier than those to understand. They’re just the compromise. Something relatively non confrontational to teach earlier on to ensure enough rudimentary skills to be able to move on with at least the pre-requisite skills for most disciplines.
Being able to read, to write, to do basic level math, and to understand rudimentary ideas of how our societies form are seen as something to lay the groundwork for everything else. Not to mention our choices for expansion in high school and what is privileged has a lot more to do with politics than anything else as well as what is cheaper and easier (only offering limited foreign languages means less hiring of staff in general and avoiding things like sociology or anthropology means less fights with conservative groups in general).
Does flipping a bird count as an F-bomb on the tally sheet? And if so, does flipping a double bird earn bonus F-bomb points? And how would one score someone who both flips a double bird *AND* drops the F-bomb?
No. Neither does wearing a shirt that says “FUCK” on it (which Carla’s done). Only saying the word – and the whole word, no partial scores. (Affixes like “-ing”, “-er”, and/or “mother-” are allowed but not required.) I did count Marcie signing it, because that’s how she says things. The sign is not just flipping a bird.
It’s not that crazy. Becky’s only shown a few panels of interest in science and this is the first time she’s expressed a desire to pursue it, and “scientist” is an incredibly broad term.
Having said that, I think it’s more important to focus on Becky’s determination to pursue something she’s interested in, rather than whether or not she’ll be a vaguely defined scientist, which, the way I see it, is less of an ardent “I have found my purpose in life” and more “I’m gonna start pursuing my own path that I’ve been denied by my restrictive upbringing”, not to mention this also being a giant Fuck You to her dad.
She a actually seems temperamentally suited, of all things … to be an archaeologist. Even MOAR than Dina.
Im basing that on my college classes. Archaeology TA’s= extroverts.
The world is your laboratory, you have to go outside on journeys and get your hands dirty. Digs, handling , skulls fossils, making casts…
Plus It would be a perfect Double-bird to her upbringing.
That has to be the best exit in the history of exits. Well done Becky. She should wait a few panels, then pop back into the room with a final fuck you to daddy dearest, just to rub it in.
“I went to UC Berkeley (top school) and studied physics. In our classes was a young woman who, I am not kidding, failed EVERY class. She took each class twice. She just couldn’t keep up. We kidded her — she was nice about it, though obviously this was stressful for her — and finally at some point I asked her what her deal was. It turns out her dad was a jerk, her mom and she had moved out, but throughout her childhood her dad had told her that girls were stupid. So she was dead set to prove him wrong. (Of course the faculty loved her because she was so committed! They didn’t mind that it took her longer to learn.)
She’s in her 50’s now, and is Director level at an aerospace firm involved in the space program.”
Because she…flipped the bird at the man who sees her only as his possesion, think of her sexual prefrence as an abomination, kiddnaped at gunpoint (while threatning her friends and girlfriend), slapped her and then rejected her when she tried to emotionally reconcile with him?
I will never understand Becky Hate
I don’t understand how you could even read that comment as anything like that ?
The way I read it, and I sort of agree, is that she seems to flippant about the whole thing, in those two last panels, like all the abuse hasn’t affected her, that she doesn’t react emotionally like a “regular person”, but more like a comic strip character.
I don’t mind though, since she IS a comic strip character, and they need to be flippant every now and then to provide entertainment for us readers.
It’s pretty obvious the OP didn’t refer to her defying her father, or being “disrespectful”, as the last strips have been nothing but which was apparently how she was becoming MORE empathetic to the OP, the last panel was specifically pointed out, not her disrespect.
I don’t like Becky and hate being in close quarters with those of that personality type and even I think this strip is perfect. This man turned on her when she was very vulnerable and nearly killed her with his monomania and selfishness. Picturing that double salute will make her more palatable to me going forward…
And here we have a typical MRA specimen in their native enviroment. Notice how that to these specimens, violence, kidnapping, threats, possessiveness, and basically treating other human beings as things to be owned and controlled instead of, you know, human beings; all of this is -still- not something that justifies the incredibly slight and harmless gesture of giving said violent kidnapper the double bird as a final goodbye.
For us to be able to emphasize with the woman (much less like her), she must still be subservient and stay mindful of the fragile male psyche even in the way she burns her bridges, because the MRAs will not tolerate any sort of dominance display that shows the woman to be in control of her own life.
I really doubt that was in the posters mind at all. I think it was more along the line that she suddenly turned into Bugs Bunny. Remember that the poster specified that her actions UP TO the last panel was making her more empathetic, and her dialogue did show strength, flipping someone off like that though is more “Haha-Nevermind-What you did wasn’t so bad!”.
But it’s to expected in a comic, so I like it anyway, even though it does seem to let Toedad off to a certain degree.
I’ve been following this comic since it’s inception and never felt a need to comment until now.
Toedad reminds me so much of my foster daughter’s mum in his need to twist the knife. My daughter was hospitalized after a car wreck and asked to see her biological mother. Against my better instincts, I called her, and she acted very sweet and empathetic up until the point where she asked if she could speak to her daughter alone and said that I had no right to keep her from speaking to HER daughter. Well, I was young, I was trying to be “nice”, I was inexperienced in speaking up, so I agreed, even though big flashing warning lights were going off. But I wasn’t quite stupid enough to leave; I put my ear to the door. And the instant I left the room she began to explain to this child, doped to the gills on pain meds and immobilized in traction, that she knew she had only gotten in a car wreck in order to draw attention to herself and make her biological mother look like a bad parent. In moments my daughter was sobbing and begging her to stop.
I opened the door – I was so angry I had no idea what I was going to say, but it was one of those moments where you just feel like you are standing in the footprints of your guardian angel and have infinite power. What I said, very quietly, was, “She doesn’t need to hear this right now.”
And bio mom wilted. It was a moment that has stayed with me my whole life. Remembering that moment helps me when I feel afraid to do the right thing.
This comic feels like that moment. I feel like just reading it may help someone in the same way I was helped long ago. You did a good thing. Thank you.
( where i tempt fate )
This is the same woman who came out by announcing she was a Lesbian to whole campus, Proudly and without apology.
This is the same women who risked her heart ( and only home ) by coming out and kissing joyce. That took guts.
This is the same women who after being kidnapped and car-wrecked Jumped out and said “again” .
Becky may have grown emotionally getting a GF ( but not much at all ) , and intellectually, but she hasnt changed much at all since Willis re-introduced her.
That means the one who changed was you.
( And her haircut is STILL awesome too!
But Beckys hair does grow Freakishly* fast . )
**Willis ,
Please for the love of Cheese have someone ( Dina or Carla, Mary? ) trim and feather her right side. Just a tiny bit.
You are going to give me OCD — because I want to reach through the screen just take a 1/6 inch off the edge, to shape it.
Its only been a week, how could it possibly grow that fast?
Thats actually offensive — to scrotums.
Nutbags are baby soft , delicate and exquisitely sensitive. They even auto-adjust to the slightest environmental variables , including peoples feelings
Ross is more like A Dirty Anal Brillo beard: Like a thornbush around a literall asshole. Its full of shit, it will scracth you if you get close, and its full of old rotten shit.
Well, Ross, ya dun goofed ´naff. Sorry, but your girl has grown up. Now lick yourself (if you can). And… Becky, you beautiful lass, go take the world for a rodeo, you own it! Seriously!
P.D. : There´s a patron. Joyce an´Becky,even homeschooled, are tough nuts to crack. They´re, in sense, pure in their moral views (and somehow, coherent with their values). Then look at Danny, Ethan, etc… which have been more “in the world”, but instead, the internal insecurities they have collude with what moral choices they choose. They´re, in fact, less resilient and moldable. Frail, even. Yes, this is fiction, but that´s an interesting contrast I´ve noticed. Anyway, Willis, kudos for this strip. It felt very good, almost cathartic, and in an utmost postive manner! I feel… exorcised & cleansed xD
This one hits home for me. So, let me tell you a tale….
My mom’s parents divorced in 1964. Her earliest memories involve being asked which parent she’d like to stay with. She opted to stay with my grandmother.
As background, my grandmother has never said a mean word about my mother’s father. I use this roundabout way of talking about my grandfather because I met him once when I was seven.
My mother’s father, for lack of better terms, was a son of a bongo, and this is from multiple sources (my uncle, my dad, aunt, etc). He rarely visited my mother after the divorce, and when he did, mocked her in a passive-aggressive manner. Asked her when should would lose weight. Pretended to know everything. Made promises he never had any intention of keeping. Wondered aloud why she should have any opinions but his. Insulted my dad when they dated.
This went on after my mother was married. He promised to be around after I was born. He promised to meet my sister (never did). Could do nothing but speak badly of everyone around him.
My mother did all that she could to reconcile. Met him halfway, 3/4 of the way, and so forth. But so long as she decided to have her own opinions, well, to my grand-dad, that was apostasy.
Much as Becky, my mother tried. But at a certain point, you have to throw in the towel.
He passed away in the early 2000s. My mother did not attend.
EPILOGUE.
In case there is any doubt, in his will, my grandfather cursed his “ungrateful” children, and ordered that the contents of his bladder be poured on the grave of his second wife. He was in death, as he was in life, a son-of-a-bongo.
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GOTTEM
A very productive “fuck you”!
GOOD GOD ALMIGHTY!! GOOD GOD ALMIGHTY!! THAT KILLED HIM
BAWH GAWD THAT MAN HAD A FAMILY
/had/ exactly
He still has his pubic lice.
But not for very much longer.
i think you mean is a “Public Louse”, and by that i mean a Parasite on the collective crotch of society
He’s an ingrown toe on the collective crotch of society.
FAAAAAAAAAACE
… …EEEWWWWWWWW
Actually he didn’t
Well he did until a few days ago when he tried to “straighten” his daughter.
that’s why he didn’t, that is not a family. ~<3
GAWD IS MY WITNESS HE’S BROKEN IN HALF
at least he’s already at the hospital.
One could only hope.
SHE BLINDED HIM WITH SCIENCE!
I like that.
Yes.
Microphone: Spiked.
Can we please not spike the $50 microphones?!
It’s ok. We replace mics with cheap knockoffs when we cut to a dramatic camera angle, just before the spike.
You’d rather they spike the goods microphones? (Those start around $100)
And now I’m just thinking of Greg in that flashback episode of Steven Universe…
I like you, Mishyana. You get e…
Meh, go ahead and drop the $50 one just keep yer mitts off the SM58’s and my Sennheisers!
Please, like spiking an SM58 would actually damage it. xD
It’s not the mic they’re worried about–it’s the floor.
Guess you’ve been watching this-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33QPLbQi9FI
Most of mine end up with flat spots… good thing new covers are only about $8.
Totally worth it
Whoo! Go, Becky!
“So, why do you want to study chemistry?”
.oO(Don’t say spite, don’t say spite, don’t say…)
“Out of spite.”
.oO(That’s it, I’m out)
Beckypool?
Actually this is a Simpsons reference. Homer is telling himself “don’t say revenge”, but it turns out revenge is an acceptable reason for wanting to sponsor a Little Brother.
I like this idea. She’ll need a mask that shows off her now trademark hair though.
Spite is how I got the highest score on all of my orgo exams both semesters (except one exam, which refueled the spite-o-meter).
Hey now, spite is one of the greatest motivators.
I prefer siea mist, personally.
I see what you did there. I’ll have a D. Peppe.
Spite got me a 4.0 for my BA.
“I’ll take spite over all the ones who’re in this course because of Breaking Bad”
Hey, spite is what fuels the greatest discoveries of history!
YES!!!
YAY
Yes!
Beautiful.
Yes, the so called “double bird” is a rare and beautiful creature. Native to the galapagos islands, this majestic avian displays its plumage in a powerful and evocative dance of defiance.
Even rarer is the seldom-seen “triple bird”.
That’s not a triple bird. This is a triple bird.
Pom-Pom prefers the single duece.
That would be rude to the hardworking cops stuck in the same room as Toedad, though.
He’s so inflexible aaaaah
I pull this one all the time and it’s definitely not as difficult as this middle aged man makes it seem.
Frankly I think some of its remarks to Charles Darwin were hurtful and unnecessary.
you mean like this? http://img00.deviantart.net/49cc/i/2010/071/5/2/the_yelling_bird_by_hushedchernobyl.jpg
EXACTLY like that
Is it weird I’ve always heard Yelling Bird’s voice as identical to Lewis Black’s?
GODDAMMIT that’s exactly what I’ve been hearing, but I couldn’t figure out who he sounded like until now.
It’s close relative is the Umac Bird. It has a distictive call: “Fu*k you, Mac!”
The best way to get closure.
Yassss
PERFECT
Becky means a fuckin’ scientist. As in a scientist who specializes in fucking.
She’s in the right place for it. Kinsey Institute is just down the road.
Not to mention she’s got Dina.
Sexologist is the correct term I believe.
Considered it, but I’d overdose on brain bleach.
As long as she doesn’t have that sexy learning disability. What did I call it?
Willis would save that for his Slipshine.
Zach Brannigan called it sexlexia.
Zapp Brannigan.
I never was sure of how to pronounce his name.
Some call him ‘The Velour Fog’.
*sigh* Sexlexia.
Virginity?
She has much to learn, in that case. Last I’d heard, she didn’t even know bisexuality was a thing that existed. Just wait until she learns about pansexuality and asexuality and all that other stuff.
I quite like deeppansexuality myself.
Also known as “Chicago style”.
I thought Chicago style involved lots of blowing…
Ugh, sex should not be full of ground beef!
She learned via Dina – she mentioned it to Joyce when they told her about their relationship.
But is it safe to mix sex and dinosaurs?
There’s an entire literary genre devoted to it!
I’m a little sad that I know this is a true statement.
Not sad.
That depends. Is the dinosaur a consenting adult?
This is going to get even worse now with ‘The Good Dinosaur’ coming soon
The VERY GOOD Dinosaur.
And apparently it is coming soon.
I think Becky and Dina would be willing to find out. FOR SCIENCE.
Given your girlfriend is a prodigy, that won’t be too hard.
Go, Becky! FOR SCIENCE!!!
Her choice of profession sure pissed Toedad.
BEST PANEL EVER
Two fingers. One vision.
that will be on the plaque at the base of the epic statue dedicated to this glorious exit
Along with the statue erected in her honor for winning the Nobel prize for Being The Best Fucking Scientist, and discovering a new Dinosaur that she named FuckRossasaurus, who bore a striking image similar to a toe.
Double bird. IN YOUR FACE ROSS! (Never) cya again!
Gotta respect the double bird.
And here we see exactly the influence Dina has had on her.
She’ll start wearing adorable hats and hiding behind doors soon. And dine on only the finest breakfast cereals.
and sloths, and orangutans…
No eating Librarians.
Fandom namespace collision!
Becky shoulda brought a mic, just so she could drop it! ^_^
But that could quite easily break it and whoever she borrowed it from would be furious (especially if it was an expensive one). Can’t afford to be making enemies yet. XD
I have some broken mics I’d be glad to lend her.
If you really want to be cruel, you can ‘drop’ a Mike on him instead.
Shortpacked-verse Mike with the super strength, even!
is shortpacked the same universe as roomies?
Yep Shortpacked is a continuation of the Walkyverse.
Eyup!
Actually, no. DoA just uses the characters in a rebooted story that has no relation to the prior universes.
DOA is a reboot/AU
Roomies! -> It’s Walky! -> Joyce and Walky! + Shortpacked! are one universe and one continuity (J&W! and SP! being partly overlapping)
Boy, that’s bouncing right back
Yes! Now, let’s enjoy her positivity before someone comes along and posts something about how she’s really just hiding how sad she is.
Yes, I know under the circumstances, she’s probably enduring a huge swirl of emotions, but if people can laugh in war zones, she can be happy about taking control of her life.
I’m one of the guys who occasionally pointed out when I thought her cheerfulness was a facade.
This feels entirely sincere.
Then, let us celebrate our mutual agreement with baked goods! Possibly pancakes! ^_^
Well, I guess that’s the final nail in the coffin of my laziness, considering I set out the ingredients for pancakes a couple hours ago.
Baked pancakes?
Ain’t no rule against putting a skillet in the oven.
Umm…
I haven’t ever read all of the warnings in all languages for either yet, so I can’t tell you either way.
WARNING
-Do not eat
-Do not put babies in
-Do not put skillet in
-Do not be Donald Trump
You can totes put a skillet in the oven if it’s a cast-iron one. Or if the oven is off. In fact, my cast-iron skillets are in the oven right now; that’s where I keep them. Hmm, and I have that left-over pancake batter from yesterday in the fridge, and I haven’t had breakfast yet…
Okay, brb guys; I’m making pancakes!
–And they were delicious.
Who wants waffles?
Why not both?
Eh, there’s probably going to be a temporary letdown after the adrenaline, the “Oh, wow, I didn’t die!” endorphins, and the “Dad are you–holy frack yes you are” righteous fury wear off. But for now, MOONWALK OUTTA THERE, BECKY!
Just because a lot of this whole affair is hurting her, does not mean that this isn’t a happy moment. In any abusive situation, being able to grab power back and have that moment of catharsis and spite where you let the abusive authority know what’s up is genuinely celebratory.
It says that the shithead in question does not own you and the rest of your life simply because they hurt you. And that genuinely feels utterly amazing.
Becky has been hurt, has been put in a bad position for her life, and given a lot of disadvantages, but this moment is genuinely one of pure joy and catharsis. Fuck yeah, Becky. Fuck yeah.
You ain’t seen bouncing back.
Becky…I like you. I like you a LOT. But don’t give up religion for science if you don’t want to, because you don’t have to. Trust me, I would know.
It’s pretty clear she wants to.
Even when she learned from Dina, she never really dropped talking about God with Joyce. She’s not abandoning one for the other- she’s trying to reconcile them, as should be done by anyone with faith.
She opted for science. Didn’t say a word about religion.
I’d give up on both religion and science for a klondike bar. Of course then I guess there’s be no scientists to make Klondike bars…and no God to make the scientists…SHOOT.
God creates Klondike bar
God destroys Klondike bar
God creates man
Man destroys God
Man creates Klondike bar
Klondike bar eats man…
Wait, it’s man eats Klondike bar. So I guess everything worked out okay!
You may have confused them with Klondike bears.
Well, if you were in Soviet Russia, the Klondike bar definitely eats you.
Are Klondike bars anything like Yorkies? The “real chocolate bar that’s only for real men”?
It’s a square chunk of ice cream coated in chocolate. Is that anything like a Yorkie?
Huh, I always thought that a Klondike was a solid chocolate bar. We don’t actually get them over here (UK), hence my misunderstanding. xD
Chunk of ice-cream covered in chocolate, okay. So like a Magnum then, or any choc-ice really?
I read that in Capaldi’s voice…
…I could actually see the Doctor saying those exact words…
…the only question is: “What would prompt that rant?”
Klondike Bar.
Nothing about what she said even remotely suggested that.
Not aying she did. But it’s a frighteningly common misconception, and it’s not one that I want Becky to adopt naively. After all, look at who she was raised by. Wouldn’t be surprised if she thought that was the case.
You know she’s fictional, right? And that she’s written by an atheist? You could try appealing to Willis, but appealing to Becky not to lose her faith is like appealing to Charlie Brown to look on the bright side.
It’s called suspension of disbelief.
And ‘great characterization’
Point.
That’s all right. So are religions.
I think you probably have to give up the “Earth is 6000 years old and fossils were put there by Satan” kind of religion though.
That’s just what the satanic fossils want.
‘Satanic fossils’ sounds like a thrash metal garage band at a retirement home.
that would be awesome but I think they would have to take naps in between each song.
“In the name of our Dark Master, we’re… wait… who’s our Dark Master, again?”
“Santa? No, no, Satan!”
“Right! In the name of Satan, we’re totally gonna rock– agh, my HIP!”
With their underground hit album: “I love Luci(fer)!”
In that case, she needs to avoid going to Baby Jesus University then.
Yeah, doesn’t sound like she plans on giving up religion as a whole. Just giving up her dad’s religion. The severe homophobic young earth creationist stuff she grew up on. She wants to learn all the stuff that she could never access from within the sheltered environment her father kept her in.
Within the last couple days she surfed the internet and read a secular textbook for the first time. Just shortly before that she discovered that the loving god she believes in is incompatible with the hateful religion she was brought up in. She’s undergoing a pretty major paradigm shift right now.
As you should. The Truth will set you free. As I said elsewhere.
I don’t know what you’re talking about. Plenty of scientists are plenty religious. These things are not mutually exclusive. Like. At all.
Oh, I know, I’m in that category. But a LOT of people don’t realize that.
Idk. One of my best friends is a doctor of biology and practicing Catholic. And my medical doctor I go to is a Sikh. This type of thing is not rare at all? I think people realize this just fine.
I think it’s just because Becky’s father’s religion is so anti-science. I’m sure she’ll eventually reconcile these things. Or not! Who knows? She might totally just quit religion altogether. But that’s not a given for all people, is basically all I meant to say^^
And then there’s Ben Carson. Unless he’s faking for the rubes.
I once heard about a creationist who was a microbiologist. That kind of broke my brain.
I thing I was the one who mentioned that gal. Or at least I did comment here before about a biomedical science student that was a creationist and strongly believed Evolution was a sham, despite working with multiresistant bacteria on a daily basis.
Humanos are scarfed good at compartimentalization.
*humans are scary
Autocorrect is also scary.
Apparently your autocorrect thinks you speak Spanish and that you really really like scarves. Or scarfing food. Stop giving your autocorrect booze.
My autocorrect is actually mixing portuguese with competitive pokemon terms.
I’m a computer administrator and I have faith. DNA is a quaternary programming language, and the complexity points to SOME kind of “intelligent design”, not to be confused with the ID community. But thats just my conclusion. The room full of monkeys and typewriters is a fallacy IMHO. It attributes almost magical powers to random chance, and reminds me of the gamblers fallacy.
It’s hard to see how that complexity coud arive by chance, isn’t it? If you have a computer background you should look at genetic algorithms and then genetic programming. Then on your very own computer, try genetic programming and watch complexity develop. Take a look at some of the theoretical arguments on why genetic algorithms work better than it seems they should. Then for genetic programming take a look at evolved programs and designed programs and decide for yourself what the characteristics of both are. Then look into enough biology to check whether living things have one set of characteristics or the other. At that point, armed with information, make up your own mind.
I would love to see this done on a senior level in high schools.
“It won’t happen because the chance is astronomically small” is also a fallacy.
The universe is infinite enough. Plus, anthropic principle.
Darwin Ian evolution comes from
RANDOM GENETIC VARIATION which is then filtered thru NATURAL SELECTION. MOST of the variation is filtered out. Whats left is no longer random, its directed by selection working on what genetic variation puts forward as raw material. Evolution is not magic and it’s not random
“I believe in MICROevolution but not MACROevolution.” Essentially, tiny things are capable of great change, and we’ve seen it in action without any uncertainty that can be explained away, but larger creatures are magically exempt from evolution. Possibly thanks to ~God’s Will.~
More likely they, similarly to my practicing-Catholic mother whose faith specifically states that all Catholics should believe in evolution and other scientific principles because religion is a ~SEARCH FOR TRUTH~, are simply uncomfortable with the idea that humans are “descended from monkeys or fish or something.”
Wait till she finds out we’re descended from the garbage of visiting aliens who had to get rid of theit excrement.
That explains so much
I find it incredibly affirming to realize that I am related to every other living thing out there that is or ever did live, and that, on a chemical level, I’m even related to the Earth itself, and the sun, and the stars.
How could anyone look at the grandeur of the world around them, and think, “I am a part of all of this?” and not be moved? From the worms bringing oxygen and nutrients to the oak trees around me, to the eagle soaring overhead, to the oak tree itself, these are all, literally and genetically (if you go back far enough), family.
People who don’t accept evolution are looking at the eagles soaring over the Rockies and saying, “Yeah, no, I don’t want to be part of that.” And I don’t understand that at all.
It’s like saying that the only actual family you have is yourself, your parents, and your grandparents. On the maternal side only. And only for the past six generations. And anyone who claims that they are (or know) your siblings, or cousins, or paternal grandparents ARE FILTHY LIARS YOU TAKE THAT BACK RIGHT NOW.
I just don’t get it.
*atomic level.
“There is grandeur in this view of life” – Darwin
It does depend on the science to some extent. Far more physicists are religious believers than biologists, with chemists in the middle.
Is there stats on this somewhere? I swear I’ve read that biologists are more religious than some of the other scientists. And that astrophysicists were the least likely to believe.
I mean there’s a high chance I’m just completely misremembering things. But I would be interested in seeing any sort of state.
There was an extensive survey of American scientists published in Nature {Larson, E. J. & Witham, L. Nature 386, 435-436 (1997)}, but unfortunately (a) it was eighteen years ago, (b) I can’t find the actual article on the Web this side of a paywall, (c) it only covered American scientists, and (d) they were trying to observe any changes since a previous survey in 1916, so they used the exact same questions and these are phrased in a more restrictive way than would be ideal.
Another study by Elaine H. Ecklund find higher rates of belief by asking questions that are less restrictive (and a different population). Ecklund reports an overall rate of atheism of 41% in both physicists and biologists, with a lower rate of 27% in chemists. She also found that 51% of scientists have no current religious affiliation (which is different from being an atheist) as compared with 14% of the US population in general, and that only 1.5% of scientists are evangelical or fundamentalist Protestants, as compared with 13.6% of the general US population. You can find her paper on the Rice University website.
I checked the article by Larson and Witham. Here are the main points.
They took a sample of 1000 American scientists, taken at random from “American Men and Women of Science” and got a 60% response rate. Scientists were sorted into three fields: mathematics, biology, and physics/astronomy (no chemists because the original 1916 survey didn’t include them).
The question regarding belief in a god is the following:
In 1996, physicists and astronomers had the lowest rate of disbelief in a personal god (22% answered “1”). The ones more likely to believe in a personal god are mathematicians (45% answered “1”).
Overall, in 1996, 39.3% answered “1”, 45.3% answered “2” and 14.4% answered “3”.
D’oh! Please change the paragraph immediately following the quote to the following:
n 1996, physicists and astronomers had the lowest rate of belief in a personal god (22% answered “1”). The ones more likely to believe in a personal god are mathematicians (45% answered “1”).
So just the opposite of what Agemegos originally said?
Yes, looks like. Except for not mentioning chemists at all.
The big problem with Larson & Witham is that the strict definition of “god” that it uses might lead a lot of people to answer “2.” who believe in some god not fitting the definition, or to throw the survey into the wastepaper basket. It doesn’t distinguish deists from atheists, so it’s less useful than it could be for counting atheists. Which is why Ecklund is more useful.
Note that Ecklund doesn’t support what I originally said either, at least not that physicists tend to be more religious than chemists and biologists.
Actually, most of the studies which show any such ordering turn out to be bogus. I’ve known a lot of religious scientists and a lot of strictly rationalist scientists, as well as a lot more who simply maintained the attitude that they couldn’t answer the question and so WouldYouPleaseStopAsking. Please.
It doesn’t seem to me that there’s much difference among the disciplines in that partition, but, of course, the plural of anecdote is not data. That said, there’s no well-sourced evidence to suggest that my observations are wrong, so I’m going to go with my current observations until better data arrives.
I do recall one of my professors of Religion commenting that, anecdotally, he’s quite rare as a Christian believer. Outsiders think that all Religion Profs are believers and all Science profs aren’t, but he’d found quite the opposite.
True story: I’m social scientist and I tracked down the origin of that saying. The original saying, by Raymond Wolfinger, was “the plural of anecdote IS data” (I confirmed this as best I could by contacting a former student of his). At some point, the quote was mistakenly inverted, and that was the version that became commonly known. Anecdotes can be great evidence, so long as you have a good sample design. This is a foundation of any study involving interviews.
/end geeky soapbox
That “so long as” is the reason the inversion is more accurate. Without that unbiased sample design, I can’t use it to discard hypotheses with any certainty. Without something more, collecting more anecdotes just gives you more anecdotes.
anecdote (plural anecdotes)
1. A short account of a real incident or person, often humorous or interesting.
2. An account which supports an argument, but which is not supported by scientific or statistical analysis.
3. A previously untold secret account of an incident.
— Wiktionary
I didn’t get that impression from what she said. She can be a scientist and not renounce her faith. She can adjust her views on it, much like Joyce has… and she already has to some extent thanks to Dina and the rest of the gang.
That’s still a major departure from her dad’s extremist fundamentalism, where an ancient book filtered through 2,000 years of the telephone game is the absolute authority which must never be questioned. He thinks she should fill the “perfect daughter” role in his family org chart until she marries and stays home to crank out his grandchildren.
Kind of hard to do that when you’re busy discovering the universe you’ve been sheltered from your entire life.
There’s no evidence she’s giving up religion, just the extremism.
She’s been shown to still be religious throughout this whole awful affair, albeit less invested in the specific interpretation of her raising (see her statements on how she used to say a lot of things with regards to sexuality):
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/04-walking-with-dina/useta/
But otherwise she has said that she can be a Christian and still date a non-Christian and she has even invoked prayers and God with regards to her queer relationships. And I don’t see how today’s events would dissuade her from her form of faith where “God answers lesbian prayers” (after all, she was rescued by her crush, a motorcycle chick, and a superheroine who stopped her homophobic dad to the point where he can no longer hunt her and she was also completely unhurt during a car crash, I imagine she believes all the more strongly in her pro-lesbian idea of God if anything).
But she is breaking once and for all, violently from Young Earth Creationism.
Becky accepting a Nobel Prize 20 years from now.
“And I want to thank my wife Dina and my BFF Joyce for always supporting me, and my Dad for being a total Dickbag. They made this possible.”
Now I can’t get that out of my head. Bravo, Doctor, Bravo.
+37.889
Ito you!That was supposed to be some form of “Internets” symbol.
Not an upside down cross.
“Here, have some St. Peter crossed.”
*crosses
My private head canon is that she becomes a research studying genes associated with breast cancer, and ends up finding the cure for what killed her mom. So Toedad (still in jail) will learn Becky has done so much more to honor her mother’s memory than he ever could.
hey, it only says “Honor thy mother and father,” not your wife, so he’s TECHNICALLY off the hook?
*has not read extensively but has been assured the misogyny is there*
((not that I *want* it to be there, just covering all bases like the paranoid second-guesser I am))
*plays Thomas Dolby. The whole GOLDEN AGE OF WIRELESS. On ALL the Muzaks!*
Science!
One of our submarines is missing.
And I see that nobody remembers the music on the other side of the record.
Maybe they all ran aground on maneuvers?
Many of them don’t know what a “record” is.
They’re those big black frisbees that shatter on impact, right?
“They’re like big CDs, right??”
Yeah so panel 5 needs to be a gravatar like right now
I created a gravatar account just for this.
(And maybe if I would use the correct email it would actually work?)
Keep trying?
I guess? ^^ Maybe it just needs more time to update cause it’s new and stuff.
FUCKIN’ DR. BECKY WOULD BE THE BEST.
“Yo. You’re diagnosed with a lack of vitamin M.”
“Vitamin M?”
“Vitamin Me, here’s my number.”
And here we have the comment which won all of the internets. Preserved for all of time.
she had better be diagnosing dina during a round of “naughty certified actual doctors”!
Is that anything like naughty doctors without borders?
THIS IS SO CUTE. SOMEONE WRITE THIS FANFIC
“This is actually my telephone number.”
“Well, yeah. I don’t have my own phone yet.”
“…So I better come with you in case someone calls, hmmm?”
Heyooooo~!
We all need gravatars made from that last panel!
We do, we really do
YES BECKY. YOU FUCKING TELL HIM.
That’s a much better job than the family business of helping giant feet keep their balance.
I thought the family business was owning a Footlocker and she was going to haft to help her dad sell the first Shoe shaped hat.
SHIT YEAHHHHH
For Science!
*reads rollover text* So is this your way of saying “STAY AWAY FROM DOROTHY, BECKY”?
Nah. She just can’t let Dorothy get her wet.\
Luckily she’s not into bony poindexters.
Good for Becky. You tell him, and don’t look back.
(Why do I suspect that “science” she’s thinking might have something to do with dinosaurs?)
or corn.
She will study the Northern Titmouse.
EvoDevo would be my guess, given her current interests. I can definitely see her pairing with Dina where Dina finds the bones and analyzes them and Becky looks at homology and radiometric dating to construct the best phylogenies from them.
This is perfect and just the kind of thing I was thinking of!
FUCK. YES,
Becky’s skull is as toothy as Joyce’s, apparently. Must be a home schooling thing?
It stunts the development of the brain, so the teeth grow to take advantage of the extra space.
That’s actually skull and jawbone, she doesn’t have any gums. I have been up too long, that made sense for a few seconds.
When all else fails, double flip him. He’s not worth it any more.
That is glorious. You rule, Becky.
Will we ever see the reaction of Joyce’s parents or their pastor (assuming they went to the same church) to Ross’s actions?
Based on the previews, yes.
After an incident like this, in the “real” world Becky and Joyce would be inundated with interviewers and at least one would contact Joyce’s parents for a reaction.
Joyce’s dad has appeared in preview panels, so in a few months we’ll most likely find out.
Only if it involves Joyce being an awesome friend and calling them out on their shitty Christianity. Because that would be awesome.
Since Ross considers Becky (and I am assuming most of her friends too) as of inferior status due to age and gender, being rebuffed by one of them wouldn’t phase him and would probably only confirm his existing beliefs.
Now, being abandoned by someone who he sees as an ally and an equal would probably register a more morose reaction.
I don’t think she’ll be doing that, yet. She’s tired and misses how home used to feel. She’ll want to avoid conflict to try to get that feeling back. Unless someone denounces Becky and her gayness, or tries to defend Toedad’s actions, she’ll likely not be shouting anyone down.
On another, but kinda related note, Toedad now comes up as a word suggestion on my phone! It’s kind of exciting, despite being Toedad.
Remember her sister? There’s ugliness to come on that front, mark my words.
Im betting Joyces parents get divorced.
Owned, shitbite!
Goddammit, I love Becky right now.
Later, biiiiiiiiiiiiiiitch
Also what I was expecting. ^_^
I hope she specialises in evolution.
take 2
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thank you, and god bless
It belongs in a museum!
Prominent display in the Louvre, stat.
…they should’ve sent a poet…so…beautiful…
Huh, the first try’s gone.
At least this one fit both eyes in, but it’s still missing one side of her face.
I see the whole thing. Maybe a browser problem at your end?
I had to reset the zoom (try hitting ctrl-‘+’ or ctrl-‘-‘) to get all of it.
Excellent re-Becky!
That is awesome, although it looks like she is about to gag herself. Which is also an appropriate reaction to Toedad from a certain point of view.
AWESOME!!!
WIN
WIN
SO MUCH
BEST ENDING EVERRRRRR
Congratulations, enjoy jail, don’t talk to me again, I’m GAY, BYYYYYEEEEEEEEE!
She got knocked down, but she got up again. Toedad’s never gonna keep her down.
YES
Doom forsees Becky as moving up in the “favorite characters of Doom” list soon. After all, the girl reminds Doom of Doom’s own awe-inspiring self in that she needs no man or woman to be great.
Also she wishes to master the sciences. Perhaps Doom could aid her in mastering the mystic arts….
Great is Lord Doom!!!
Lord Doom, she is left without parents, perhaps she would make a good heir to Latveria after your teachings.
Perhaps God Doom shall recruit her and use her talents to crush Richards beneath his boot?
Then will you also be teaching Becky how to make Becky-Bots?
Which will hunt all the assholes and the bigots in the entire world?
that last panel was the best kind of redundant. only because she’s becky is that exit possible. being emotional is unavoidable under the circumstances, but managing that exit is very important to be able to look back on all of this fondly one day
There is a special kind of undeniable joy in being able to shove something back in the face of douchetoes like Toedad, especially when they’ve conspired for so long to get what they want. It can be as simple as still living one’s life authentically or as dramatic as Becky’s double middle finger closure-a-palooza, but whatever it is, knowing that the shitbird hasn’t destroyed what is most important to you is critical and empowering.
Becky here is having the best of all worlds in this exit. She’s noting how he can’t control her life. She’s noting how she will build for herself the opportunities he stole from her in order to try and force her to be how he wanted. And she’s taking control of her future.
This last is the most important, because Toedad’s actions have been escalations for the battle of her future and who she is. Ordering her to be a shut-in stay-at-home mother, lying back and thinking of England for her chosen husband. And while she has regained her present, she has also reborn her dreams (which is not a luxury many of us in her position get). She has a future and it’ll be hard and require a lot of work, but it is undeniably hers and not something he can ever take away. And that is absolutely beautiful.
This is possibly the best “Fuck you, dad” she could have given.
And nice to know that even if her relationship with Dina ends, Becky will always thank her for opening her eyes to the wonders of SCIENCE.
REAL THINGS ARE BEST THINGS!
I swear if this is some kind of setup for Becky to join in on the college shenanigans only to flunk out next semester (read: in a couple more years), I’ll only be ready.
A couple more years, it’ll be later that same day.
All of us will be long dead by the time second semester arrives. David Willis’ great-grandchild will be writing DoA, which will be holograpically beamed to readers’ brain-implants.
I was about to say, she has the same background as Joyce, and Joyce does fine, but then I realized I actually have no idea how well Joyce is doing in school. I think she has a natural head for math?
Or am I just remembering the explanation of why she’s so good at flying in a jetpack?
Gonna be a fuckin’ scientist. You go Becky.
YOU GO BECKY. SLAY ‘EM. SLAY ALL THE DADS.
Not my dad… He’s awesome. :3
Double Birds! Science Beck is Out!
Becky, I love you.
Becky is my new hero.
For Science!
Well, Cerberus, it’s not a triple, but damn. Good call.
“Dad, we’re done. I’d mention something about the horse you rode in on, but you’re not worth it.” Becky’s life has just begun. Now buckle up, if going to be a wild ride.
SCIENCE YES GOOD
HIT ‘IM WHERE IT HURTS, BECK, IN THE CREATIONISM
Also the Wicked reference being seen through to completion makes my heart happy ♥
`Spite’ has been scientifically proven to be one of the greatest drivers of success.
It certainly is on Kickstarter.
So if we care to find her, should we look to the western skies?
Those who’d ground her better watch out for her friend, homeschooled!Glinda, who will punch a fucker out.
Yesssssssssssssssssssss. Can’t wait for Dr Becky McIntyre PhD discovering a cure for asshole-ness in like 2050 but by then it will be too late for you, Ross. Bye. Byeeeeeeeeeee.
If asshole-ness was cured, many of the world’s problems would be solved too.
That would merit a combined Medicine and Peace Prize!
My brand new long-term goal!
Well pwoned toedad
I mean your powned toedad
And thus Bones & Bones Inc was born. The archaeologist and the anthropologist always studying bones and always boning.
Palaeontologist? Neither of the fields you mentioned describes any established dina interest
I meant “palaeontologist” with Dina, and “archaeologist” for Becky. Sorry, I’m a bit drunk and mixing things up in my glee, especially considering I got the joke from a certain Tv show. I’m a horticulturist (hopeful botanist), so what do I know about those sorts of bones anyway?
Surely it would be Bones and Boners. ^_^
“I got a bone to pick up with you!”
That sounds like Leonard McCoy / Temperance Brennan fan fiction.
And I would read the hell out of that.
I am sure someone has already written it.
She could also be fuckin’ a scientist
Awesomesouce
Cue to Becky, 10 years later, drowning in debt like some sort of Yotomoe.
But that comic won’t be made until 2165.
No problemo, just hide in a fridge and hope somebody will find you in the future.
And in the mean time she can fantasize and draw art of as many big booty weman as she wants.
No worries. By then we’ll all have downloaded our minds into transforming death machines.
Most of us won’t be able to afford uploading our minds into the machines and so our only hope for immortality in this world will be to sell ourselves to the military.
10 years? Closer to 2500. (Keeping the usual 1 week->1 year ratio, then subtracting a decade or so to account for time jumps.)
actually thinking a week per year, these kids have like A THOUSAND THINGS TO DO every day. most frantic and exciting lives of all time.
On another note, the last panel is asking for a “Bye, Felicia!”
Pretty good response despite the lack of power drills.
Man, if I hadn’t figured out I was bi years ago, Becky would be confusing the heck out of me. I got a big ol’ crush nursing now.
Confusing? How? Seems pretty straight forward to me.
Gayforward?
nice
Becky: Nuking everyone else’s closets from orbit. Just to be sure.
I think Becky is her own point on the Kinsey scale right now. Somewhere around 26 or 27.
If it weren’t for the fact I selectively like the D once in a while, I’d definitely start telling people I’m “Becky” on the Kinsey scale when they ask. XDD
she is HEARTBREAKINGLY resilient.
Im so fucking proud
Learn All The Things!
Science is in good hands
Also I would be happy if we never saw Ross’s face again after that panel
I love you, Becky!!!
Hey dad. I named this new fossil after you. What d you think of the Toeheaded Dick-weasel?
“It’s 50 million years old, by the way”
so… like Cephalohallux verpamustela?
(obviously I don’t know any Latin)
Ok, I am sure that is beyond terrible (I didn’t try to sort out the gender of the words (which must be in agreement) for starters…), but it’s in the right direction. And that is “head-bigtoe”, not “toe-head”, not sure what form/word to use when “head” is at the end. I used the word for “big toe” because digitus means toe or finger, you would have to use “digiti pedis” (foot digit) or something for “a toe”.
I think I recall that David (not Willis obv., another one) reads DoA, maybe he can fix the name, since he is amazing at languages and ICZN names
(dunno if he reads the comments though)
Sexologist. Interesting career choice.
She can replace the 0-6 old Kinsey scale with the new 0-26 Saruyama scale(since I can see her wanting to take Dina’s surname)
After you go over six, it becomes a matter of how many megatons of TNT is the payload equivalent to.
I’m more of a 0-Here’s my number type of girl.
Probably a good plan. That way their scientifically conceived children won’t be babies MacIntyre.
We don’t what that happening, that’s for sure.
Oh man, I can’t believe it took me this long to get the joke about Becky’s last name!
And now you know why I call him Ross Babies McIntyre.
Yessss I love it. I wanna see Becky get really passionate about science. I wanna see her learn new things. I wanna see her try out all the different fields until she finds the one that’s best for her.
I want to see her and Dina be Cute Science Girlfriends together.
I want this.
Yes. Yes to the yes.
YEAH, you tell that toe monster off, Becky!
Does this mean we’ll finally be seeing the long-fabled Becky/Dina Slipstream? If so, it’s gonna be time for me to make the membership jump.
Oh, and also ‘o hai new gravatar icon!’
Do it, Becky.
FOR SCIENCE!
Thankfully Toedad was more than enough of a neck(less)beard prick that one last time to allow Becky to leave him to stew in his own bile.
Omg Becky, have all the gaybies with me! Bring Dina and I’ll bring my wife too and we can all talk dinosaurs with my kid!
A stray tap of the finger landed me at the johnny wander ad of penny’s big eyed face. Perfect. Exactly how I feel.
Best revenge is living a good life. Fuckin ay Becky, Hella bamf
♫And I just had a vision almost like a prophecy…♫
If Ross is stuck in jail for any length of time Becky will probably be able to get access to their house, and get her hands on whatever she left there. So she may soon be in a bit better situation than worrying she’s about to end up sleeping under a bridge.
I hope so. She seems to have things in order now, but a quick trip to pick up some of her things would probably be worthwhile.
There’s still her neighbors to contend with, and I’m sure many of them side with Ross Babies McIntyre.
Time for late-night shenanigans??
Or, y’know, a police escort. If anybody can walk through that wicked little town with her head held high, it’s Becky.
Mike would be perfect for an escort.
For a nickel.
Nah, just for the opportunity to maybe punch someone.
Nah, the opportunity to reduce people to tears with his super sarcasm powers.
All hail Satan!
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/answer-2/
Great to see she has realized that her whole life is ahead of her and she can do anything….
That last panel, though, kind of creeps me out.
Same here.
I must respectfully disagree. That panel and the preceding one are the bestest panels ever.
After thinking on it I think I know why it’s creepy to me. It’s because it feels “Forced” like Becky is trying too hard to smile.
One minute she was crying, then next she is smiling like her face is going to explode from the effort. It’s over-exaggerated.
I don’t think it’s a true smile, not that I blame her. Last thing she wants is giving her father any satisfaction.
Aw yes Becky, you go!
Gonna need a bigger face for that grin, kid
“You’re gonna need a bigger
boatface”^^
Gotta say.. for a comic that I like reading, this particular strip brought me an excessive amount of enjoyment. I thought she might have made some sort of comment about “I’ll be happy with my GIRLFRIEND”, but this particular ending was just… so… perfect.
If wishes come true, that’s the last tear Becky will ever shed for that monster.
(Sadly, she probably will shed more tears, but I can dream, can’t I?)
Spite is the #2 reason for picking a career path in America.
What’s number one?
Money.
I like to go with ‘well, it *would* be cool to say at parties’.
Haaaah this is my favorite DOA strip now
They say living well is the best revenge, but that’s bullshit.
SCIENCE is the best revenge.
Mainly giant laser cannons
Or laser sharks http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s–lDIFqoNk–/17pv9iavwjo45jpg.jpg
Or giant chickens..with lasers. And I’m not meaning the AT-ST.
Living better WITH SCIENCE!
I’m making a note here…
Huge success.
It’s hard to overstate our satisfaction!
BECKY LOVES SCIENCE
She does what she must, because, she can
For the good of all of us,
except the ones who are dad!
Very nice!
*Claps. Hard.*
Motherfucker thinks he’s so great just cuz his mustache is the bat-signal
Nice!
Does that mean that Commissioner Gordon turns him on??
“Wow, Batman hit this guy so hard with the Batarang that it sticked to his lip…Let’s remove it boys.”
A much better image to imagine.
The only word that comes to mind for accurately expressing my feelings about this strip is catharsis.
I still don’t really understand the meaning of “Catharsis.”
–Please help
Catharsis – the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions.
Thank you, Webster’s Dictionary.
In short, it’s a relieved feeling of letting go.
Your avatar perfectly depicts the face of someone who has experienced emotional relief.
I’m actually really looking forward to her science education skydiving as coming out of a creationist fundamentalist homeschool situation. For the first while she’s going to be like ‘OK i know I got fed a lot of bunk, I’ll accept your new explanations but then, THEN, she’ll get her first contradiction or theory-level level-up and she’ll go “ok wait but NO I LEARNT THAT HERE, THAT IS SCIENCEWHYYYYYYYY”
Becky: Future Sexologist
Good for you Becky.
Damn, girl…..
So as a man who has a penis, do you guys think its to late to become a lesbian? Cause she dragged my heart out’a the room with her in that last panel there, and I kinda need it back.
Well, if you were a woman who had a penis, it wouldn’t be. Are you SURE you’re a man?
If so, then yes, sorry. It’s too late.
Science!
Fuck yeah!
“Oh BTW, can I have my social security number?”
heh
I’d forgotten about that
She’s 18. If the cops don’t go get it from her dad’s house, she can apply for a duplicate card and report the original one as stolen.
That costs money, though. She is a bit broke.
Go Becky!
The first thing that popped into my head after seeing alt-text:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_DqV1xdf-Y
This is lovely, but the pedant in me feels the irresistible urge to point out that the chapter title is from Defying Gravity, the hovertext is actually from The Wizard and I. The version of those lyrics in Defying Gravity is ‘Together we’re unlimited’.
Which also works, because Becky/Dina. Or alternately, Becky and Joyce’s friendship.
It’s not over yet…
It’s from Defying Gravity if you’re listening to the Kerry Ellis / Brian May rock version.
I AWARD THIS ALL THE ALL CAPS YES! i HAVE IN MY WALLET.
I award this all the caps IN my wallet! (Yes, I’ve been playing Fallout)
So this is how we get more women involved in the sciences. Fascinating.
There are probably better methods.
But not many. Depending on your definition of better.
Woo! Fuck yeah Becky!
I really love the title of this strip. “Unlimited” really captures the fact that Becky has her whole life ahead of her and that her potential knows no bounds. She’s gonna be amazing.
Can’t hear my science? Let me TURN IT UP for you.
No, wait…
Any sufficiently advanced Becky is indistinguishable from a scientist.
…that doesn’t quite work either.
Becky and Dina: Misfits of Science? (Johnny B. Goode plays in the background)
Okay I got nothing today.
Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from Becky’s science.
My Little Redhead: Becky Is Magic
The best revenge is living a good and happy life.
Ultra Car: You need an extra hand to pull that off correctly, but I’ll give you an A- for effort.
Becky: Hrm, I REALLY want to give my jerk ToeDad the triple-bird, but I only have two middle fingers… what to do…
Hey DAD! I’m gonna be a SCIENTIST!!
TRIPLE BIRD ACHIEVED
YEAH, SPIT THE TRUTH AT HIM LIKE IT’S HOT
honestly though, I’m glad that she’s considering a field of science. It’s not just “I was always raised only in religion so now I’m saying fuck you to dad by studying science,” she was genuinely interested when Dina was explaining it to her. of course, I’m sure that has something to do with it being Dina…
ya…ya…ok done, Ok everyone say it with me.
http://imgur.com/dnEXnKx
This is awesome, but if it read ‘suck it, bongo’ it’d go full circle
Becky may be making a grand exit, but she’s still going to be in a lot of pain for some time.
Especially once she realizes what a fucking scam college loans truly are.
But, given her experiences these past few strips, she’s going to probably have an easier time getting scholarships. He’ll, some scholarships and organizations will be lining up at her door to fund her education. Plus, even a family that does homeschooling most likely would fill out a FAFSA to try to make heading to college financially easier. Once she updates it (expected family contribution 0 dollars) it opens the door to federal grants and subsidized federal loans. So her financial future doesn’t actually look that bad, if she is made aware of these options.
Yeah, she’s going to have a hard life as do anyone who has to make it on their own sans family and loaded with oppressions, but this moment is triumphant. She’s building something that is hers and it may be hard, but it is her own and it is true and that’s what matters the most.
Yeah I’m going to need a skyscraper-size print of Becky throwing the double-birds.
Those last two panels are bringing me so much peace
Someone please tell me Becky did the Fuck You Dance all the way out the door and into the hall, and the cop standing guard saw it, smiled, and closed Ross’s door for her as she waved bye.
… That is now my headcanon.
Cops where in the room. (Probably the whole time of her visit).
…. well.
When the high road fails.
There’s always a “fuck you” with a smile.
The only thing she had to do was acknowledge that she doesn’t need him.
And she did.
I think his moustache may have convinced Bruce Wayne to become The Batman.
https://41.media.tumblr.com/7e43ea28609b622a5a5c296d2a82e85d/tumblr_mo1bg3zl9Q1sug50so1_250.jpg
Yes, Father. I shall become a cheesy mustache.
So next semester meaning 6 years from now?
Why do you believe the comic will accelerate so much?
In over five years we’ve seen about a month!
Unlimited
My future is unlimited
and I just had a vision almost like a prophecy
sure the vision’s hazy
and I know it sounds crazy
But I swear some day I’ll be
a dino digging PHD~~~
And I’ll stand there with Dina
feeling things I’ve never felt
And I’ll totally show it
we’ll be so happy we could melt
And so it’ll be for the rest of our lives
and we’ll want nothing else till we die
Since will reing supreme, for a dino digging teaaaaaaaam
That’s Dina and I~~~~~
science will reign supreme, damnit.
This strip. This strip RIGHT HERE is why religion keeps sinking deeper into a hole. Somebody who was religious has a bad experience and turns away from it; determined to be as opposed to their previous status as possible. But there is no true opposite to everything that comprises religion. So the desperate and wounded person seizes on the closest thing they can find in academia; which they don’t know enough about to realize that it isn’t an any way opposed to the core concept they think they now hate. Then, after years of practicing, they twist it until it IS; they base their entire identity on being learned beings as OPPOSED to religious people for years, and when a new group comes along to suggest that those two things aren’t intertwined the disillusioned perceives it as a threat to their new identity and lashes out with insults. Then the religious people become aware of the insults and dismiss the field for being full of dicks; the lies become a little more true; and the human race as a whole gets a bit dumber.
I think u kinda described Willis
Science isn’t the opposite of religion but it is the opposite of indoctrination into deliberately anti-scientific principles, such as Young Earth Creationism.
Religion: “You can’t know. You must have faith.”
Science: “You can’t just have faith. You must know.”
Ooh, that is a really good way to put it simply. .-.
Science: “You can’t [i]know[/i]. But you can test the evidence and get a pretty good idea. Which you should always be willing to chance if new evidence comes up.”
You’re assuming that formerly religious people would refuse to reconcile with their former beliefs and heal from their bad experiences. I mean, you do hit the mark for the most part, but over time, I got over the whole “rebel against an ideology used to oppress me by my shitty parents/peers!” phase. Sometimes I even think of joining a church, if only for the feeling of social camaraderie; it’s what I grew up with, and I sort of miss it.
So yeah, some people haven’t got through their hate and moved on, and you know what? That’s perfectly fine. They’ll deal with it in time. But others do learn to heal. With Joyce around, I’m sure Becky will heal over time. She’s a shining example of the best kind of Christian; one who is able to adapt their beliefs and morals in a way that stays true to her faith.
Then again, I didn’t have it nearly as bad as Becky did.
Where did she say she was abandoning Christianity? She just said that she was going to embrace science and do more than her father thought she ought to be able to. She’s been pretty open about being both Christian and a lesbian so far. If she was going to flounce from religion as well, this would have been the time to throw that in his face too.
1) Becky has in no place been shown to stop being Christian, merely not the particular flavor of Christian she grew up in. Which if that’s your overall definition of what Christian can mean, bully for you, but Becky believes in a creator called God who responds to prayers and stems from the Bible, so you’d be hard-pressed to say she doesn’t at least believe herself to be Christian and to hold what she would consider to be a Christian faith.
2) Yes, those of us excited by knowledge and learning and academia and the sciences are just broken hurt people trading one ideology for another, ayup, totally. And it’s totally this which is hurting science and not the way at least two individuals so far have interpreted “I’m going to learn things and be a scientist” as an attack on faith and religion. These are not lies and I like this statement very much.
so that’s two dads down. Whose father would get pounded to a pulp next year? I vote Mary’s !!
Why such hate for persons we do not know at all?
Especially as we know many of the other parents and have reasons to not like many of them!
To Ross I LOVE SCIENCE is prolly the greatest Fuck You of all.
YOU GO BECKY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is the perfect comeback, the perfect respond to the… insult that he wanted your entire life to be. You are building your own life, you have your own goals, you are going to be the best fucking scientist in town and there is NOTHING THAT SAD PIECE OF FUCK CAN DO ABOUT IT!!!
Oh, and how I ADORE the patented goofy Becky-grin in panel five. Just like pressing a button SHE’S BACK. ToeDad threatened her and her friends, pointed a gun at her, kidnapped her, put her in a car crash, guilt tripped her… but he DIDN’T BREAK HER. Becky is fun and loud and goofy and she’s HERE TO STAY. She has a future coming up with friends and a badass girlfriend and Joyce who will move heaven and earth for her and a job and an education and 9000 year old corn and sweet dinosaur facts and an entire world full of cool things that the man who pointed a gun at her can’t do anything about.
Since this might be my last chance for a “Fudge you, Ross” post, let me just take the opportunity to say…
…yeah, what she said. Just let it sink in what Becky just said, Ross. She has an entire future lined up, a completely rad and awesome future, and you have no part of it. No thanks to you – despite you. She doesn’t need you. But if you had been just a LITTLE less abusive, just a little less huge piece of shit, than you could have had a part of that future too. Well, tough luck. Shithead. You lost. You lost your daughter. Because you wouldn’t have her.
So fudge you, Ross, and I sincerely hope Becky never has to see you again.
HIGH FIVE, BECKY! YOU ARE GONNA BE SUCH A COOL SCIENTISTS!
It’s the one benefit of someone being unilaterally awful and unbending. When someone gives you the barest minimum of effort, it is easy to get stuck in the self-degrading cycle of trying to beg for your humanity. When someone is inflexibly awful, it makes it easy to throw up the double middle fingers much sooner.
If he was willing to be passive-aggressively awful like Ethan’s mom, she might have suffered longer. But in this way, she can make a clean break and have a hard life, but a life that is her own. And 40 years down the line, when she’s on the TV explaining some cool aspect of evolution that her lab has discovered while Dina is cuddled against her arm, Toedad can sit and glare and seethe and blame her for ruining his life, but he will no longer have even the memory of power over her.
Becky has escaped. Once and for all.
That mic is not only dropped, ladies and gentlemen. It is burning it’s way thrown the mantle as it unwaveringly melts a path to the Earth’s core. Pressures that could damage that mic only exist on hypothetical objects.
She nuked the mic from orbit like it was a closet.
As great as the payoff was, taking in account how Becky has acted and her (apparent, since we haven’t seen her in an academic environment) intelligence, I gotta say this…
Fat chance.
Seriously? She has a perfectly good chance of becoming a scientist. We’re still only a few weeks into the first semester, and she’s surrounded by people who can help her catch up (Joyce and Danny can help with math, Amber with computer science and probably physics, Dina with biology, etc.) She will easily get student loans and possibly scholarships. And in spite of her homeschooled fundie upbringing, she has a natural scientific curious it and questioning of commonly held truth. I think she will make a GREAT scientist.
Wow. Just . . . Wow.
Contrary to popular myth, you don’t need to be very intelligent to be a successful scientist. Someone of average intelligence who is very driven, creative, passionate about her work, not afraid to take risks, able to communicate well with her peers, and, above all, not afraid to work relentlessly on hard problems, has a much better chance of being a successful scientist than someone who merely scores 140+ on IQ tests.
I’m “smarter” than a lot of scientists and students at my university by “academic intelligence” or whatever (Going by SAT, IQ, all that BS). But I’m also a total whack in the head, and probably not going to end up being a scientist. Becky seems pretty damn strong, I think she’ll be fine.
Honestly, she has exactly what she needs to succeed in an academic subject: Curiosity and interest.
As a teacher, I’ve seen a lot of kids and seeing as how I teach at an alternative school, most of the kids I have are considered to be “bad students”. And some do have a hard road, because they don’t want to try yet or want to coast by on their “natural” smarts. And others make dramatic improvements and really excel because they are able to access their curiosity and excitement and ask good questions that allow us to get into higher level concepts.
Becky may have a handicap based on the education of her youth, but she’s been shown to work hard and seek out knowledge to improve that and is willing to put in the time that a Walky is not quite ready to do yet. As such, she could very rapidly eclipse so called “good” students.
And it is worth noting that her mode of speech, while probably considered uneducated due to the colloquial slang and grammar is not actually a sign of intelligence, but rather something that’s used later by hiring companies as a means of discriminating based on regionalism and classism. As far as being exuberant about her sexuality and other means of “the way she acts”, my uncle said I was throwing away my talents by choosing to be super gay all the time instead, because I was proud of who I was. Didn’t stop me getting my Master’s or being a teacher who the students have told each other to seek out when they have a tough question. So, there’s that.
Spite is not a good foundation on which to build the rest of your life.
I don’t think she’s doing it out of spite, though. We’ve seen the evolution of this decision since the day she showed up, long before the Broken Toe showed up with his rifle.
If anyone’s responsible for her decision to become a scientist, it’s DINA for introducing her to the science of dinosaurs.
Spite? No. Latching onto something as your life starts to careen out of control? Perhaps. That it annoys the Broken Toe is just a bonus, as far as she’s concerned.
I agree. She seems to have a real interest in science after even a brief exposure, and aside from the fact that it is a good excuse to talk to Dina.
Absolutely! The spite part is only telling daddy about it (and how she does it). The decision is real and all about her.
For example: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/04-walking-with-dina/biology/
Sure…but I still find this worth questioning. The whole strip seems much more like a fantasy scenario than something an emotionally-mature person would say. It’s like the equivalent of someone chopping off their hand to prove their love to you, and rather than dialling emergency services or at least running you decide to stay and squeeze a lemon over the wound.
I say this as someone who has simply cut off ties with abusive family members and co-workers, and knowing and deeply respecting someone who still keeps her abusive parent at arm’s length. Spite is the easy choice, the choice that your testosterone and sense of wanting to get revenge tells you. Heck, in real life this would probably just motivate Ross to come after her even more forcefully a second time. If she’d simply walked away she’d have doused that fire.
Another good example is this week’s episode of Fargo – the most highly-praised scene and performance of which was Nick Offerman playing a lawyer who, at gunpoint, talks down an angry father from breaking his son out of police custody. Offerman’s performance is so excellent because he plays it not just as a man afraid for his life, but someone who understands the point of view of the man who might kill him, even if he doesn’t agree, and uses both understanding and reason to get him to stand down.
I’m sorry, but I’m just not ever going to be convinced that pouring hate on hate can be satisfying or even a viable solution in the long-term. That is probably why France has decided to open up their borders to 6,000 more refugees. Shutting them out, like USA Republicans want to, would just be keeping the fire going for the terrorists.
Spite can be a good point to keep from collapsing into oneself though. Her love of science is genuine, you can see that in the quiet moments she shared with Dina or how she praised Dina’s science knowledge, but spite is what is giving her the strength to pursue those dreams even if they are hard.
And that will likely pay off in the long-term, especially if she can continue to get the support both emotionally and financially of her friends.
Becky… go you!
geeettttttt dunked on!!!
“…….and Fructokinase-1 cleaves the bond between the carbon of Glucose-6-Phosphate. Thus…….”
zzzzzzzzzzz
Dina – “Becky wake up. This is the good part.”
Becky – “I DIDN’T sign up for this.”
Random girl: “None of us did hon.”
*Random asshole behind them* What are you talking about, this stuff is SO COOL
I might be that asshole…
Ah, O-Chem as taught by colleges. The bane of many a Bio majors collegiate career. I’ve since learned to love a lot of it and teach it in a way that’s actually fun for my students, but I still resent how I was taught it in the dullest, most lifeless way imaginable.
Yes!!! Science; the anti- toedad!
And study the science of fuckin’ the ladies!
I can’t think of a more wonderfully inappropriate career path that Becky could have chosen. It’s so the opposite of her personality that it almost seems like a natural choice.
Opposite of her personality? Not that I can see. She seems to respond quickly to Dina’s logical arguments about evolution and the age of the earth. So, logical is good. And she drops her old ideas quickly and without regret when they are shown to be wrong. Also very good for a scientist.
And, she just plain seems to like science, now that she has seen it. Sure, she wants to hang out with Dina, but I don’t think she was just feigning interest for an excuse.
What else do we know about her personality? She is loud, energetic and optimistic? Plenty of scientists are like that, and they mostly don’t affect aptitude for science… though optimism could be good when you are at the lab after regular hours trying a tricky protocol for the 8th time
(or whatever equivalent might make sense for whatever branch she goes into)
Exactly this!
Becky is also good with people which will make her a great science communicator. “Hey, you, come over here and let me tell you about corn. Are you prepared to have your MIND BLOWN???”
I’m hearing next big children’s science series, Bill Nye style?
I’m hearing Adam Savage, to be honest. Which is awesome.
She could very ironically become a science teacher, both because it would allow her to teach youngsters what she was denied growing up and because it would be a delicious twisting of the “go into education, so you can be better free labor for your home-schooled kids” ideology Toedad sold her.
^ I like this so much! ^
Very true. The willingness to question and drop old ideas is worth a LOT in science.
*THUNDEROUS APPLAUSE*
*drops mic*
Joyce ain’t got nothing on that!
Once again, a well-deserved “OH HELL YEAH! BECKY… HAS COME BACK … TO DOA!”. We missed ya, Beckster. Now go get some waffles.
I’m sure there’s a Perkins or some other 24-hour breakfast place nearby that all the college kids hang out at when cramming needs food.
OT: I just noticed something; my usual gravitar (based on a Sith Ahsoka) isn’t showing up on this site; it’s appearing on a few others (The Monster Under the Bed, and Go Get A Roomie), but not here. Here, it’s selecting one of the cast. What’s up with that?
I miss Perkin’s.
College Loans, also the only thing she knows about science is natural selection. Man, they are gonna eat her alive, aren’t they?
Becky has ten times the motivation of anyone else in the class and has an A+ student who loves to tutor her. She’ll do fine!
This. As a science teacher, I’ll take a Becky any day over the wads of “just give me the facts to memorize for med school, because that’s where the money is” dipshits any day.
Since I’m sure everyone is very invested in my chocie of gravatar…
I stuck with the blue-panel happy Becky for all this time because for me it was a powerful reminder of the simple horrible unfairness of her situation. In a just world those little blue panels would just have continued. Becky and Kaitlin exploring new found freedom and mutual interest. Perhaps becoming an item, perhaps just being a fling, perhaps getting their own slipshine and perhaps being the most important people in the world for each other, but never torn apart and chased away just because of who they were.
Of course, this is not a just world.
So the reason I’m changing gravatar now is that…. DAAAAANG, Becky is all kinds of awesome. And as for this moment she has won. She can go back to be adorable with her lady friend without being interupted by a toeshaped butthole with illusions of fatherhood. As of this moment her life is as it SHOULD be. With proper education, proper partner and proper plans for the future. Sure, there are struggles and hardships, but she can deal with those.
I might switch back at some point because I have a soft spot for happy blue-panel Becky, but for now I want to be reminded of Becky’s triumph.
Very nice!
FUCK YEAH BECKY!
Toedad’s parenting skills rate the much coveted two middle fingers up signifying he’s a genuine asswipe.
Hey now! That’s very unfair, I think we can say that despite being a toe, he raised those two middle fingers very well all on his own.
That was not what I was expecting.
I like it, but not what I was expecting!
Haha!
Becky is now awesome.
Comic over. Becky has won at comic forever. Best character.
Yup, we kinda have to invent new forms of media now when Becky has won comics.
So then, you got any ideas?
I hear good things about corn!
Yes! How about a comic that moves, and with sounds. We shall call it… a cartoon!
A few icons for peeps to use!
Fuckin’ Scientist!
To the ToeDad!
Becky has swiftly jumped to my favorite character. Sorry, Dina, but your girlfriend is just too awesome!
Doesn’t she know it
I’m a me, and I approve this message.
She said “I’m going to be a fucking scientist”, not “I’m going to be fucking A Scientist”.
Better luck next time.
By way of clarification, that is definitely not what I meant.
So I guess we’ll have to add the Hot Scientist trope to Becky’s tvtropes character entry.
The mic is down, and it ain’t NEVER gettin’ back up!
Seriously, Becky’s microphone is now like Thor’s Hammer; no one is worthy to lift it.
While I understand that there needs to be conflict for a character to develop, I really hope that it’s not through some tedious “ToeDad McVeigh gets let out of jail by a parole board miraculously composed entirely by the 700 Club audience” arc in the future. Artistic license rules supreme, obviously, but a bro can hope…
That last panel pairs perfectly with Willis’ avatar.
Because nothing says double-bird-fuck-you to a literalist YEC Christian upbringing quite like becoming a scientist.
(A real scientist, not one of those fake creation scientists. …. and now I’m depressed that I even have to make the qualifier.)
And what is worse, she is going to become a fucking scientist, the worst possible field as far as a religious loon is concerned, only superceeded by something in the evolutionary sciences.
Two things
1. Go Becky! This has to the single most awesome response to hateful bigotry ever!!
2. Silver lining to all this is that I’m pretty sure Becky will have a very easy time getting scholarships. She’ll probably only have to take loans for the first semester or two if she starts immediately, due to application deadlines. Also, I’m pretty sure federal grants and loans will be easier to get once she updates her FAFSA (I am assuming that her parents filled one out before her mom died). Honestly, it looks like Becky won’t actually have to deal with student debt issues.
Predicting it now: Becky will cry her eyes out on Dina’s shoulder as soon as she’s out of line-of-sight and earshot. What makes me say that? Becky’s false grin; I’ve seen her use that one before when she’s upset or suppressing her feelings.
I don’t doubt she’ll be crying on Dina’s shoulder tonight, but I think that moment is pure “fuck you and the horse you rode in on” catharsis.
Fuck yeah Becky! Evolutionary science here she comes!
If she becomes a marine biologist, I have a sweet underwater pineapple she can shack up in while she studies my underwater buddies. Heck, we already got a mad rocket scientist squirrel…
To be technical, she’s going to be a fucking a paleontologist.
Wait, did you mean “a fucking paleontologist” or “fucking a paleontologist”?
both?
Both… simultaneously.
Becky is BEST!
Yes! This is a good path for Becky. I am pleased.
This is so awesome.
Attagirl, Becky! Flip that double bird!
Wait… So is Becky going to be a fucking “scientist”, or a “fucking” scientist? Because, y’know, the latter is totally a real thing. Jus’ saying.
She could also be fucking a scientist.
Why not all three? She could study dinosaur sex.
Next semester, huh? Well that should only take about twenty years.
Has she got a place to live though? Isn’t she still just hiding out in Sal’s dorm?
Well, her father isn’t going to get her evicted now, and as Becky basically has taken Billie’s spot it should be in Ruth’s best interest to not draw too much attention to the fact that Billie’s living in her room now.
There’s a song by Lily Allen that’s totally appropriate here.
I’m glad everyone survived going toe-to-Toedad with him.
*Grins awkwardly*
*Cricket chirps*
…
…I’ll just sit in the corner…
So now she’s ready to start defying gravity (like the “Wicked” references).
She did that already, back here
No melting or scarecrows, though, please.
That made me think, if things had gone even half as terribly wrong as they could have, we might be singing No Good Deed right now.
Get Dunked On!
Allow me to join the “Hell yeah!!” choir! I have come to really love Becky, now that we know what she’s made of. (That would be awesome-sauce, for the win.)
In closing, allow me to also join the “Fuck you, Ross!” squad of two-fisted bird flippers. Thank you (Willis)!
This may be the greatest thing I have ever seen Becky do.
YOU GO GIRL
FUCKIN GOT ‘EM.
Good on you, Becky. I know you’ll push through. These next few days may be difficult for you but you’ll learn to adjust, if you haven’t already.
also HOLY SHIT IS SHE OKAY
I never been more grumpy than now about the slow passage of time. I want to see Becky in class. I expect something like this:
http://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1510
Did you mean for the hovertext to get Defying Gravity stuck in our heads?
I think he meant for this storyline’s title to get Deying Gravity stuck in our heads.
my name is dubby and I am OBSERVANT
Well, Toedad, it’s been fun. Since we probably won’t be seeing you for awhile, if ever, please allow me to send you out with a song:
“Fuck you (fuck you)
Fuck you very, very much
Cause we hate what you do
And we hate your whole crew
So please don’t stay in touch”
One of my favorite songs.
Y’know what? I haven’t been all that invested in Becky up to now, except for the fact that she made Dina happy. But this here? She just fucking won. Go Becky!
>I’m going to learn real things
>gender studies
>real things
Well then.
I think she’s talking about the science.
I know, I just meant it in a sarcastic way since she’ll probably study at the same place everyone else is studying and they had gender studies there.
You don’t think gender studies is a real thing? That sounds silly.
I don’t think what’s taught in gender studies is a real thing.
What exactly is your definition of real here? Is everything they study in the class actually some sort of plastic forgery?
Wait a minute, this line here about how lesbians exist is actually made of a cheap moldable plastic! LIAR!
Also heh, on STEMholes trying to shit on the softer sciences not realizing:
a) That they are only taught to hate and disparage social sciences because there’s more gender disparity in those fields and anything women do is automatically treated as less valuable than what is dominated by men.
and
b) their preferred fields used to be considered “meaningless girl shit” as “useful as stenography” back in the day. Fuck, being an engineer, especially of computers was viewed as absolutely worthless and not a real discipline unlike the towering high-minded pursuits of Literature and the Social Sciences before there was an active campaign to push women out of the field.
Oh and LOL, you trolled us by looking like an idiot, LMFAO or whatever.
Maybe a relevant news from the STEM-fields:
Computer science is now the top major for women at Stanford University.
Well, math and science can get you from one end of the universe to the other and still be valid, while gender studies is an artificial construct specific to one culture of one species on one planet of one solar system of one galaxy in an extraordinarily broad multiverse, BUT HEY don’t let that stop you from cooking up a reason to be offended.
OTOH, speaking as a former physics grad and current computer scientist, understanding people and societies is hard. Planets and atoms and computer programs are trivially simple in comparison.
I made up a language the other day. It involves intricate quirks of glottal stops and double-jointed elbows and it, too, is hard to understand.
But that doesn’t make it useful.
So understanding how humans interact at a societal level isn’t useful? Understanding trends in history and how that might affect how current events may play out isn’t useful? (I know the OP was talking about gender studies, but you seem to be dismissing sociology as a whole based on your response to thejeff)
I mean there’s a difference between recognizing that a field may be limited in scope and flat out dismissing an entire field as fake. The latter is what the OP did.
Shame we live on the one planet, then. Even more shame that our time on it may be truncated because of social issues making it harder to band together and solve our one planet’s issues.
See, I would have thought you’d been obvious enough you enjoy ignoring reality, but here you are, making it moreso!
You don’t think that teaching about the complexities of gender/sex/orientation relations is a real thing? Again, that’s silly. The study of gender is a part of studying the human condition; its histories, thoughts, beliefs and ideas, how they were implemented before and those resulting affects on today, and how reactions and interactions from people influenced by these concepts are using that knowledge to shape not just their own world view, but the perceptions of society as a whole.
Normally I’d ask about the content of your post and why gender studies was even brought up in response to this strip. But honestly the thing that confuses me most is the use of the > sign. Am I missing something here?
It’s channer speak. I mean, this particular idiot might be off reddit or similar sites, but it’s part of channer speech pattern, because that’s what quotes do in 4chan. Using it off 4chan is a tribal mark.
Both 4chan and reddit are rife with groups that like to ignore inconvenient science like most social sciences (sometimes exempting what is often the least scientific, economics), as well as non-scientific but still empirically grounded study areas like gender studies.
>2004+11
>not knowing of maymay arrows
Let me help you there: http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/green-text-stories
Okay, I apologize for not knowing some in joke of a website that I have no wish to be anywhere near. That doesn’t answer the question of why you are using them now. Or why you had to say 2004 + 11 instead of just 2015.
Don’t argue logic with a 4channer. They don’t have the capacity to process it properly.
Is your Gravatar wearing a goddamn fedora?
damn, I gotta make that my new profile picture
I see bad things in that girl’s future. Ross is dangerous. He is going away for a while but.. he didn’t actually shoot anyone. He will get out in a few years or so. Sure, she should have no trouble getting a restraining order but Ross doesn’t seem like he would give a shit about that. I see a bright young, newly graduated scientist with a ‘future’ suddenly disappearing.
I’m not sure those friends she just mentioned are entirely safe either.
I’m sure he wouldn’t be allowed to own a gun again either. But.. would a guy like that let the law stop him?
Is there a way to stop people in America from buying guns (eg CRCs)? Or is that just a sort of if he was found possessing it, he’d be in trouble thing?
It’s not possible to stop people anywhere from buying anything. (except maybe by making them too poor) It is certainly illegal to sell a gun to someone with his histroy and any dealer that did so would be in trouble, possibly losing their license. Contrary to popular belief we do have laws about those sorts of things here!
It’s possible, but it will probably not going to happen during the course of the strip, so for now, she has a little breathing room to build up her life before the next time Toedad tries to destroy it again.
‘A few years’ being an absolute minimum of 6 (the minimum sentence for a Class B felony – Criminal Confinement, which becomes class B if the perpetrator is armed with a deadly weapon, or causes harm to another in the course of the crime), and probably closer to the maximum of 20, given it managed to hit 2 of the three qualifications for class B status, and involved terrorizing the college. (He’ll be eligible for parole in 3-10 years, but an absolutely unrepentant ass isn’t going to pass the review board.)
The amount of time a person in sentenced and the amount that they served are two very different things. This is especially true for first time offenses.
You really think Ross is getting paroled? Or ‘good behaviour’? An unrepentant ass, who honestly thinks what he did was right, and actively hates the secular authorities who will be holding him?
Anyone else reminded by Ross of Darth Vader without his mask?
Don’t insult Darth Vader D:
Part of me is disappointed Becky didn’t take the time to correct him in this strip on exactly who destroyed the family.
This is wholly overwhelmed by happiness at her decision here.
She probably knows that arguing with him is just giving him power to keep her wherever she wants her, and he’s not going to change his mind anyway.
Better to just leave on a “Yeah, I don’t need you anymore, and I’m going to become something else you hate” note.
Someone set her up with Bill Nye episodes, good intro to basic concepts (that she probably missed with that toedad homeschooling her) with a catchy theme song. Science Rules!
Things are pointing up for Becky.
Hey, look! A new Shortpacked! comic!
Sort of…
http://reallifecomics.com/comic.php?comic=november-17-2015
That took me to a Japanese ad for a watch collection.
Gah!! Stupid ad redirect!
Not even a watch – I got a watch display / winder thing.
Me too.
Me too. But hey, nice box, at least.
The website itself is still saying that the “Dab” comic was the newest.
You can find it here:
http://reallifecomics.com/
That one took me to a flute.
I actually don’t care about what you try to link to any longer, I’m just happy about the surrealness of this conversation.
Cheap bundles of wood. From Japan.
Oh, never change Japan!
That… miiiiight be some kind of a towel rack?
If you just type this url into the address bar, it works.
Or copy /paste the URL.
If she really wants to piss Ross off, she’ll become a brain scientist. A psychologist… that specializes in cult deprogramming.
You go, Becky!
GO BECKY!
Despite all his rage, he’ll still just be a fundie in a cage.
Wait. Is this a setup for a spinoff comic named “Bunkies?
His ‘bunkie’ is Blaine.
Blaine: “Dude, you’re kinda a shitty father, aren’t you?”
If Becky weren’t a lesbian, and fictional, I’d propose to her on the spot.
Instead I’ll just have to look forward to her dinosaur-themed wedding with Dina.
Never let piddling little details stand in the way of your happiness.
This is my favorite comic you’ve ever made
The best part of a relationship is when your partner inspires you to become somebody amazing.
BEWARE THE BECKY ALL-TEETH GRIN! Clearly, it’s FAR MORE POTENT than even Joyce’s triangle smile!
First time we saw it deployed, she TOTALLY NUKED THE CLOSET FOREVER.
Now, it’s being used to UTTERLY ANNIHILATE TOXIC PARENTAL RELATIONSHIP.
This is clearly her ‘walks away from explosions’ grin. BEWARE!
If only she could ground him under the heel of her metallic boot.
Dumbing of Age: Unlimited “Fuck You” Works?
FUCK YEAH, BECKY.
We’ll never see her start classes, the timescale is too long.
I hope we’ll see her auditing classes with Dina.
becky is one tough lady.
I vote Becky for character of the year. She’s a total badass.
Becky for CotY and Dinky for CotY(couple of the year)
1. I want at least one panel in the next strip to be the cops on either side of Ross applauding Becky.
2. I want Becky to ask Sarah for getting-into-college advice. She probably has every possible scholarship, grant, and loan memorized already from dealing with her own situation.
3. If/when she needs to leave campus, I hope Dina’s folks take her in. They seem nice.
I think this next arc or the one after it, we’ll probably see Becky meeting up with Leslie and connecting with some key resources in the area from one who has already been there.
I hope so.
OMG. The perfect FU!!
This fills me with such joy.
Yes.
too long I’ve been afraid of
losing love I guess I’ve lost
well if that’s love
it comes at much too high a cost
Reading this at school made me miss the Wicked reference until now…well… becky is gonna have a bad time. im sure by this point the college realizes that she’s living on campus and hasnt paid for school at all. this will most likely get her kicked off campus. not only that, but with her parent saying no, shes gonna find it hard tog et a loan without a cosigner and (considering the environment she was raised in prevents her from having any technology) zero credit score. shes facing an uphill battle
Well, she’s only been staying there for, what, 2 nights? Maybe 3? And considering her circumstances, unless the administration is totally heartless, I’m thinking they’ll be lenient.
Is a parent’s consent relevant since she’s not a minor?
4 nights so far, I think.
It’s not so much parent’s consent, but that they won’t co-sign and guarantee to repay any loans. OTOH, since she’s no longer supported by her parents, she’s likely to qualify for a good deal more in the way of aid, both federal secured loans and grants.
It’s easy enough for Willis to justify her coming next semester, if that’s the direction he wants to go. It’s also years of real time away.
I think what might most help her is the fact that he’s going to jail. Before jail, if he was just not supporting her, he’d still count against her loan application because he theoretically could support her, but because he’s going to the slammer, that probably would stop being the case or at least, at the very least, his income would drop into the toilet.
Meaning she has a better chance to get loans equal to what she needs at the very least.
Ah, I see, I didn’t know there was a co-signing thing, dman’s comment makes more sense now.
The question is, will the university risk the bad publicity? If the whole mess comes to light, they might actually let her stay, and help her find funding for school. It’d be good PR for them.
Also yeah I wrote a bunch about this a few weeks/months ago. She’s not staying there illegally (and possibly has another place via the police, dunno if she’s talking about Billie’s bed or something else in yesterday’s comic), she’s an abused, marginalized youngster, and she has an enthusiastic drive to learn science. It would be kind of weird for them not to at least refer her to their financial aid department, and (best case) feasible for them to work out a housing arrangement and work on campus, maybe let her audit courses for the term so she’d be extra ready to relearn things next term.
Not to mention there could be a bit of a protest movement among the students if her case was made more public. I can see the Dean “making a deal’ with some off-campus queer program to mitigate fallout while sending a growl in the direction of Ruth for “letting this happen without informing the school” or something else toothless but threatening.
The student loans here (and I believe in several states?) don’t require a cosigner. Your parents (or spouse) have to do a form as well, because if they make a certain amount the government expects them to help with the costs, but if you don’t have parents or it’s this sort of thing, you just need to submit some sort of documentation for that (eg, I know someone who sent a letter with her younger brother’s student loan applications saying he lived with her but was supporting himself and that their parents were out of the picture)
Door closes, Becky out.
Toedad…
Cop 1…
Cop 2…
Cop 1: Speaking of science, heard the news about the quills?
Cop 2: Yeah, there are some hard evidence coming in, but most is speculation.
Cop 1: Well, you know what dinosaur bloggers are like.
Cop 2: Don’t I know it. Anyway, I caught Dina in the corridor and she said [ten minute lecture on radiation dating]
ToeDad: Grunt…
Cop 1: Oh, sorry, this must be boring for you. Let’s put on a video instead… Oooooh! Cris Pratt
Cop 2: Ooh, or those hominids they found in the cave or the fact that they analyzed those viking bones and found signs of non-normative gender identities and…
Toedad: (whispers) kill…me…
Cop 1: Ooh, did you know Romans dedicated an aspect of Aphrodite to transgendered people?
Toedad (stretched, screamy groan): To what?
Cop 2: Shush. No, actually.
I doubt attributing transgender issues to Aphrodite or Odin would make Ross scream anything but “AHA! See? PAGAN Gods! Not my One True God!”
Aphrodite is a sepudomyn of Venus.
Heh, don’t get me started on Vikings. Looking at you Odin-king-of-Gods-with-important-gender-transgressing-characteristics.
And the less said about Loki, the better…
With 574 comments, my browser gets 49 matches for the F-bomb. I wonder if that’s a record for DoA.
That’s not counting the one in the strip or the four fingers.
I’m getting the impression that people are not fond of Becky’s dad.
Deceptress (holy crap, he’s got a gun) had 1601 comments (!) and 96 bombs. Total higher, trauma higher, density lower.
With each strip featuring Becky, I love her more. I can’t wait to see her thrive.
Anthropology or psychology maybe.
Becky couldn’t find a muon if Iron Man blasted her in the face.
Languages can take a decade and half to become fluent in, and math is the language (that we’re at least using) of describing the universe. Becky’s going to have to get from home school for education with intent of home schooling math to scientist level? Even a video game screenshot is a subspace matrix manipulation of a three dimensionally described environment to a two dimensionally displayed plane. You have to get comfortable with sigma before even proposing how correct your data sets could be let alone that actual conclusions you’re presenting.
And while Becky’s gonna be fine. Just like the doc told Steve Rogers “It’s the little guy who values power”, I have no trouble believing that Becky’s going to understand two crucial things that many an American fails at. 1)There’s no real safety net. There’s only you, your actions and your circumstances. 2)That she’s _now_ free. And that will make Becky capable of the really hard choices: setting aside previous beliefs in the face of new evidence, casting aside dreams for survival, working for a wanted result not just ‘enough’ but ‘for as much as she has in her’…
But Becky trying to catch up in logical thought after a life time of faith based thinking, mathematics that can only describe things that threatened her previous world view and doing it all while needing a job and loans and absolutely no support (like how long does it take a kid with a good parent to find out his social security number vs. Becky?) is kind of far fetched. Even for a comic with an Amazi-Girl.
I think she can do it. I think you don’t seem to realize how compartmentalized this kind of belief can really be. I’ve met plenty of people who were perfectly logical thinkers, capable of understanding complex systems. Except when those systems conflicted with the dogma they were raised with. The problem isn’t that they can’t comprehend complexity and rational thought. The problem is that they were raised with unquestionable axioms that have answers built in (omnipotence and omniscience) to explain away the inconsistencies. I think now that she no longer has those axioms in the way, Becky has every chance of doing fine. Plus, those college courses start at a fairly basic level. If you are good at emmorization, have a basic grasp of cause and effect, and understand basic scientific method, she should do fine in an introductory course. She miiiight need a tutor.
I mean just because Becky was homeschooled by fundamentalist parents doesn’t mean that she’s terrible at math. Or at least not significantly worse off than your average college student. (I mean she might be. But she was raised in a similar way to Joyce and Joyce has mentioned that she likes math. Joyce seems to be doing well in calc unlike Sal early on, or Walky now). In any case she’s certainly shown an interest in subjects related to biology. Which at the undergraduate level involves some calc and stats, but it wouldn’t be super far fetched for Becky to learn that stuff.
Well, I didn’t grow up with the whole home-schooling package, but I did know people who did and I also grew up with a truncated education for Biology (the major of my interest) largely because my school was heavily dominated by the Fundie crowd. As such, my first bio class in high school was received without evolution and a poor level of everything else (literally the only thing on evolution I was taught was that it was a theory and it was wrong) and my second AP class was truncated because the teacher had an emotional breakdown a quarter into the year and I ended up having to step in to fill in simply to give us any education at all (and what I knew was basically from the book which was skewed owing to the school’s preferences for textbooks (the history books said the Pyramids were designed to point towards Heaven (as in literal Christian Heaven)).
And yet, I went on to complete my master’s, with my master’s thesis focusing heavily on phylogenies and high level evolutionary analysis.
For friends who I knew were homeschooled, specifically for religious reasons, sometimes they had a tough time with the life sciences (because that is the part most truncated and filled with garbage, math and physics tended to be taught more or less straight, because nothing in the angles of a triangle or derivatives was seen as directly threatening to the word of God), but were able to salvage college educations out of it, including at least one friend I know who went on to be a paleontologist and two who went into physics/engineering.
It’s not the easiest of roads, but you make a fascinating point with your “anthropology and psychology” comment. That is to say there are majors in colleges where a student has a possibility of entering with almost no knowledge in the field, having to start from elementary concepts and expecting to finish with enough knowledge as to have a firm understanding of the discipline and its variances when you graduate.
And it’s not just the ones you think. A lot of schools know that Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Math, Language Arts, and History classes in high schools can be inadequate or drowned in fluff and so a lot of the early classes are usually a step-up style rehashing of what you were expected to cover in high school so that everyone can enter into upper division with a standardized idea of what the field is about and its most important concepts. This also allows someone the chance to more easily switch majors. Didn’t pay the most attention to history in high school? Didn’t get the chance to take foreign languages in the language you wanted? Didn’t really get math? Don’t speak or write English fluently? Then college isn’t completely gated off and you have a chance to excel in any of those disciplines. Becky may need to take a few more intro courses than usual and will likely need tutoring help, but she’s got the attitude to succeed and that’s what matters most for getting the most out of her higher level education.
Also, I might be showing my age when I say this, but I didn’t even encounter sigma and statistics or matrices until college (and I got a crash course of the former my freshman year serving as a Research Assistant for a Sociology Professor (another discipline I needed to get a crash course in)). She’s behind, yes, but not so much that college is a pipe dream.
Also, not directed at you, but I wonder why we assume the disciplines that don’t have high or middle school curriculum in our schools are somehow “easier” than those that do. Sociology, anthropology, gender studies, and so on are difficult subjects to master and have a lot of application to the world around us and the fact that we treat them as extras to general education has direct ramifications to how ignorant we are as a culture to how societies work, how gender operates, or what early man was like. Things like Literature and Math are not actually easier than those to understand. They’re just the compromise. Something relatively non confrontational to teach earlier on to ensure enough rudimentary skills to be able to move on with at least the pre-requisite skills for most disciplines.
Being able to read, to write, to do basic level math, and to understand rudimentary ideas of how our societies form are seen as something to lay the groundwork for everything else. Not to mention our choices for expansion in high school and what is privileged has a lot more to do with politics than anything else as well as what is cheaper and easier (only offering limited foreign languages means less hiring of staff in general and avoiding things like sociology or anthropology means less fights with conservative groups in general).
Oh god I needed that. Bless you Willis.
YES!
YEEAAAAAAAH GO BECKY!!
Jephjaques writes a punchline: http://itswalky.tumblr.com/post/133421703157/jephjacques-for-itswalky-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha
Hahaha. That was great. Rawr!
Actually, this is satisfactory as well.
Related to the Slipshine, but with Bryan and Sayid appearing, will they start to become more prominent characters in the series?
Something has changed within Becky.
Something is not the same.
She’s through with playing by the rules of someone else’s game.
Incidentally, that’s two verbal F-bombs for Becky now, in addition to the double bird.
Does flipping a bird count as an F-bomb on the tally sheet? And if so, does flipping a double bird earn bonus F-bomb points? And how would one score someone who both flips a double bird *AND* drops the F-bomb?
At this point, we get into gymnastics scoring.
No. Neither does wearing a shirt that says “FUCK” on it (which Carla’s done). Only saying the word – and the whole word, no partial scores. (Affixes like “-ing”, “-er”, and/or “mother-” are allowed but not required.) I did count Marcie signing it, because that’s how she says things. The sign is not just flipping a bird.
Ruth had one in internal monologue, too, which I didn’t count because she didn’t actually say it.
Tough call. Ruth didn’t say it but Mr. Willis wrote it.
Test… Go Becky
It’s amazing how many people in the comments section are doubting Becky’s determination to become a scientist. Ya’ll need a shift in perspective.
It’s not that crazy. Becky’s only shown a few panels of interest in science and this is the first time she’s expressed a desire to pursue it, and “scientist” is an incredibly broad term.
Having said that, I think it’s more important to focus on Becky’s determination to pursue something she’s interested in, rather than whether or not she’ll be a vaguely defined scientist, which, the way I see it, is less of an ardent “I have found my purpose in life” and more “I’m gonna start pursuing my own path that I’ve been denied by my restrictive upbringing”, not to mention this also being a giant Fuck You to her dad.
Knowing that Becky will overcome fills you with… determination.
I don’t make enough bad puns to deserve this grav.
I’m just not humerus enough.
I don’t think commenters are doubting Becky, just recognizing the obstacles in her path. Everybody wants her to win.
She a actually seems temperamentally suited, of all things … to be an archaeologist. Even MOAR than Dina.
Im basing that on my college classes. Archaeology TA’s= extroverts.
The world is your laboratory, you have to go outside on journeys and get your hands dirty. Digs, handling , skulls fossils, making casts…
Plus It would be a perfect Double-bird to her upbringing.
>>>>>>>>>>>Willis , you need to make a Slipshine of Becky and Dina on a Dig. <<<<<<<<<<
(1) Fictional characters are slaves of their creator, and do what the creator needs them to do for the story.
(2) Fiction writers are slaves of the characters they create, and have severely limited powers of resistance once the characters get going.
That has to be the best exit in the history of exits. Well done Becky. She should wait a few panels, then pop back into the room with a final fuck you to daddy dearest, just to rub it in.
*That has to be the best exit in the history of exits*
Mighty big claim there. I could argue it, but frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn.
(Sorry — couldn’t resist… I am so weak.)
I gotta say, I love this and it’s awesome that Becky wants to be a scientist but…
Maybe she should find out what science really is first? Just a thought.
She said it already: “I’m going to learn real things”. That’s the heart and essence of it.
A clip from Quora I just found:
“I went to UC Berkeley (top school) and studied physics. In our classes was a young woman who, I am not kidding, failed EVERY class. She took each class twice. She just couldn’t keep up. We kidded her — she was nice about it, though obviously this was stressful for her — and finally at some point I asked her what her deal was. It turns out her dad was a jerk, her mom and she had moved out, but throughout her childhood her dad had told her that girls were stupid. So she was dead set to prove him wrong. (Of course the faculty loved her because she was so committed! They didn’t mind that it took her longer to learn.)
She’s in her 50’s now, and is Director level at an aerospace firm involved in the space program.”
So Go, Becky!
Yeah!
Frak yea Becky.
Also Dina will totally help you become a paleontologist too.
You can go on romantic and informative digs together
Becky was so close to being a likable empathetic character and you just shit all over at the last panel.
Because she…flipped the bird at the man who sees her only as his possesion, think of her sexual prefrence as an abomination, kiddnaped at gunpoint (while threatning her friends and girlfriend), slapped her and then rejected her when she tried to emotionally reconcile with him?
I will never understand Becky Hate
The fact that I’M Becky just makes it better
We want our heroes to be larger than life so that we can consider it impossible to outdo them in any regard and thus do not even need to try.
The world is full of closet heroes.
I don’t understand how you could even read that comment as anything like that ?
The way I read it, and I sort of agree, is that she seems to flippant about the whole thing, in those two last panels, like all the abuse hasn’t affected her, that she doesn’t react emotionally like a “regular person”, but more like a comic strip character.
I don’t mind though, since she IS a comic strip character, and they need to be flippant every now and then to provide entertainment for us readers.
It’s pretty obvious the OP didn’t refer to her defying her father, or being “disrespectful”, as the last strips have been nothing but which was apparently how she was becoming MORE empathetic to the OP, the last panel was specifically pointed out, not her disrespect.
Becky is likeable and empathetic because she shows empathy to everyone who deserves it. Toedad does not.
I don’t like Becky and hate being in close quarters with those of that personality type and even I think this strip is perfect. This man turned on her when she was very vulnerable and nearly killed her with his monomania and selfishness. Picturing that double salute will make her more palatable to me going forward…
Maybe you missed something, when she was introduced.
You should re-read that arc with this double finger salute in mind.
Now you see what was behind her actions, the whole time.
She hit the ground running. she has been self-possessed , funny and enthusiastic despite adversity , since she showed up.
I dont think shes perfect , but her virtues have been on display right away.
What has impressed me bout her lately is despite being an super-extrovert she is intellectually curious , and wants to make up for lost time.
And here we have a typical MRA specimen in their native enviroment. Notice how that to these specimens, violence, kidnapping, threats, possessiveness, and basically treating other human beings as things to be owned and controlled instead of, you know, human beings; all of this is -still- not something that justifies the incredibly slight and harmless gesture of giving said violent kidnapper the double bird as a final goodbye.
For us to be able to emphasize with the woman (much less like her), she must still be subservient and stay mindful of the fragile male psyche even in the way she burns her bridges, because the MRAs will not tolerate any sort of dominance display that shows the woman to be in control of her own life.
Your comment is spot on, sir.
I really doubt that was in the posters mind at all. I think it was more along the line that she suddenly turned into Bugs Bunny. Remember that the poster specified that her actions UP TO the last panel was making her more empathetic, and her dialogue did show strength, flipping someone off like that though is more “Haha-Nevermind-What you did wasn’t so bad!”.
But it’s to expected in a comic, so I like it anyway, even though it does seem to let Toedad off to a certain degree.
I’ve been following this comic since it’s inception and never felt a need to comment until now.
Toedad reminds me so much of my foster daughter’s mum in his need to twist the knife. My daughter was hospitalized after a car wreck and asked to see her biological mother. Against my better instincts, I called her, and she acted very sweet and empathetic up until the point where she asked if she could speak to her daughter alone and said that I had no right to keep her from speaking to HER daughter. Well, I was young, I was trying to be “nice”, I was inexperienced in speaking up, so I agreed, even though big flashing warning lights were going off. But I wasn’t quite stupid enough to leave; I put my ear to the door. And the instant I left the room she began to explain to this child, doped to the gills on pain meds and immobilized in traction, that she knew she had only gotten in a car wreck in order to draw attention to herself and make her biological mother look like a bad parent. In moments my daughter was sobbing and begging her to stop.
I opened the door – I was so angry I had no idea what I was going to say, but it was one of those moments where you just feel like you are standing in the footprints of your guardian angel and have infinite power. What I said, very quietly, was, “She doesn’t need to hear this right now.”
And bio mom wilted. It was a moment that has stayed with me my whole life. Remembering that moment helps me when I feel afraid to do the right thing.
This comic feels like that moment. I feel like just reading it may help someone in the same way I was helped long ago. You did a good thing. Thank you.
This is the best payoff ever and I can’t possibly overstate how wonderful it is.
I’m glad to see all the Becky-love on this page — but what took you all so long?
….
( where i tempt fate )
This is the same woman who came out by announcing she was a Lesbian to whole campus, Proudly and without apology.
This is the same women who risked her heart ( and only home ) by coming out and kissing joyce. That took guts.
This is the same women who after being kidnapped and car-wrecked Jumped out and said “again” .
Becky may have grown emotionally getting a GF ( but not much at all ) , and intellectually, but she hasnt changed much at all since Willis re-introduced her.
That means the one who changed was you.
( And her haircut is STILL awesome too!
But Beckys hair does grow Freakishly* fast . )
**Willis ,
Please for the love of Cheese have someone ( Dina or Carla, Mary? ) trim and feather her right side. Just a tiny bit.
You are going to give me OCD — because I want to reach through the screen just take a 1/6 inch off the edge, to shape it.
Its only been a week, how could it possibly grow that fast?
Yeah Science! The thing religious nutbags hate most.
Thats actually offensive — to scrotums.
Nutbags are baby soft , delicate and exquisitely sensitive. They even auto-adjust to the slightest environmental variables , including peoples feelings
Ross is more like A Dirty Anal Brillo beard: Like a thornbush around a literall asshole. Its full of shit, it will scracth you if you get close, and its full of old rotten shit.
But , yeah Science!
Well, Ross, ya dun goofed ´naff. Sorry, but your girl has grown up. Now lick yourself (if you can). And… Becky, you beautiful lass, go take the world for a rodeo, you own it! Seriously!
P.D. : There´s a patron. Joyce an´Becky,even homeschooled, are tough nuts to crack. They´re, in sense, pure in their moral views (and somehow, coherent with their values). Then look at Danny, Ethan, etc… which have been more “in the world”, but instead, the internal insecurities they have collude with what moral choices they choose. They´re, in fact, less resilient and moldable. Frail, even. Yes, this is fiction, but that´s an interesting contrast I´ve noticed. Anyway, Willis, kudos for this strip. It felt very good, almost cathartic, and in an utmost postive manner! I feel… exorcised & cleansed xD
This one hits home for me. So, let me tell you a tale….
My mom’s parents divorced in 1964. Her earliest memories involve being asked which parent she’d like to stay with. She opted to stay with my grandmother.
As background, my grandmother has never said a mean word about my mother’s father. I use this roundabout way of talking about my grandfather because I met him once when I was seven.
My mother’s father, for lack of better terms, was a son of a bongo, and this is from multiple sources (my uncle, my dad, aunt, etc). He rarely visited my mother after the divorce, and when he did, mocked her in a passive-aggressive manner. Asked her when should would lose weight. Pretended to know everything. Made promises he never had any intention of keeping. Wondered aloud why she should have any opinions but his. Insulted my dad when they dated.
This went on after my mother was married. He promised to be around after I was born. He promised to meet my sister (never did). Could do nothing but speak badly of everyone around him.
My mother did all that she could to reconcile. Met him halfway, 3/4 of the way, and so forth. But so long as she decided to have her own opinions, well, to my grand-dad, that was apostasy.
Much as Becky, my mother tried. But at a certain point, you have to throw in the towel.
He passed away in the early 2000s. My mother did not attend.
EPILOGUE.
In case there is any doubt, in his will, my grandfather cursed his “ungrateful” children, and ordered that the contents of his bladder be poured on the grave of his second wife. He was in death, as he was in life, a son-of-a-bongo.
Best response ever from Becky
I logged in just to say this is my favorite strip so far. I keep rereading it!
Wow it took me months to connect the Alt-text and the title and the book name don’t mind me I’m not crying you’re crying