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Two hunters try to survive and end up being pushed to pursue a deadly bounty dubbed "The Ghost".
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One time when I was a kid, I smashed my toe against a fake rock. It was pretty bad, and the doctor prescribed me antibiotics. I never actually took the antibiotics because I couldn’t swallow pills at the time, and my first attempt got a pill lodged in my throat until I could cough it up. I remember shortly after thinking that I wasn’t going to take the pills because a stubbed toe wasn’t worth dying for. Not the best understanding of medicine.
Anyway, it looks like you can die from stunning your toe if it’s bad enough because there’s a risk of infection. But that would take longer than one scene to kill you, I assume.
There’s actually a second way that could kill you. The right kind of injury can lead to the formation of blood clots that can enter the blood stream and cause heart attacks or strokes.
I had a friend who broke her knee and was at risk for deadly blood clots, so I’m assuming a bad enough foot injury carries the same risk.
-379,216,591,999,463 stars. I *was* going to give it 0 stars, but after I managed to figure out how to hack the system enough to give it 0 stars, I realized it would let me give negative stars as well.
The person who made this system should’ve allowed no star reviews and saved us all this effort.
Most pills are not designed to be chewed. Whatever medicine is in them usually needs to be absorbed at a specific point of digestion, or release slowly, sometimes leaving the body without digesting much at all.
And if the doctor doesn’t warn you about that little factor, your future wife has a panic attack because she thinks she’s pooping little pieces of bone.
I mean I once got my toe badly infected (which can happen if you stub it and don’t treat it) and it got so bad that the infection was poisoning my blood and I could have lost my foot or died if it had gone on too long so
he could die
but not right away
I’m still a bit confused. What was Blaine’s plan, if not to send Amazigirl to get Becky? Would he be throwing such a fit if Amazigirl wasn’t Amber? Where’s the hitch?
Blaine’s plan was to send Amazi-Girl to get Becky. To let one of the kids contact Amazi-Girl, to send her to get Becky, more accurately. But he didn’t care about Becky, that was just a ruse. Partly for Ross and partly for Amazi-Girl herself, because he really wanted her to deliver herself to him.
These two are like a lamer version of Freddy vs. Jason.
“I, the smaller and slightly brighter misogynistic douchebag with a bad habit of preying on teenagers, will sic the beefier and dumber misogynistic douchebag with a bad habit of preying on teenagers on my enemies. Oops, douchebag 2 angered me, gotta fight now.”
sorry where’s that warning? i must’ve missed it and i don’t see it on the first page of this chapter and i would very much like to read the warning because i’m pretty stressed!
Seriously. Best bit is that when Amazigirl, followed by the cops, shows up, there’s a solid coterie of witnesses to the assault/attempted murder/manslaughter (depending on the outcome for Toedad, which just needs to be horrible enough to get Blaine in jail for a long, long time).
Well if Toedad is dead then there won’t be anyone to take Becky away at least, and murder is a much harder thing to get away with than kidnapping. So maybe Blaine will shoot himself in the foot here and make life easier for everyone. Probably not but it is nice to hope right?
I don’t know if he’d actually kill ToeDad, though, because while I’m sure there is some kind of release in writing horrible religious characters, killing one of them would seem kind of gratuitous.
Plus, it would only validate Carol and her church further.
That he was killed by someone they all trusted as a representative of god would not validate them further, except in the sense of increasing their cognitive dissonance, which, to be fair, is what they think validation is.
Of the two, Toedad is the one who isn’t unhinged (in a “makes no attempt to exercise impulse control and is entirely self-serving” way, not disparaging people who suffer from mental health issues who are far more likely to be victims of violence) and doesn’t revel in violence. If I had to deal with just one of them it would be Toedad rather than the Ballpeen.
Yeah. Escapism is more of a neurosis and a matter of character, actually.
I wouldn’t describe Toedad as ‘simple’ , in this context, either. Joyce’s parents are more of an example of simple folks in a serious context. ‘Inept’ would better fit him in this context.
Also, good thing Blaine’s wearing gloves. Two murders and a mass kidnapping that provides no green to kick back up to his boss, plus there’s at least two hirelings who not only (probably) have no prior history as professional criminals, but even less incentive to keep cool about this when they find out the guy who hired them has both lost it and that they could be accessories to murder.
Ross is bafflingly weak for a man of his build, but Thing 1 and Thing 2 aren’t going down without a fight against the “man” whom is responsible for this whole B.S. caper in the first place……Too bad Blaine isn’t too proud to simply skip town on the spot without telling anyone and stay on the lamb….Oh, wait.
“Now he knows I’m not some innocent lamb
He sees me for what I am
Which is a horrible, stupid, dumb and ugly,
fat and stupid, simple, self-hating
Bongo.”
(Yes, I did type in the word “B o n g o” there. Why make the filter work any harder than needed?)
Well Bongo, you’ve done it now.
(Yeah, you guys know this one)
Karma’s come to tap you, on the toe.
All that religious shit youve been festering,
Plus attempted murder and kidnapping
Is coming now, to crush you like a toe.
You ruined everything… You stupid bongo.
“”I’m swinging at your brain, just swinging at your brain.
In my hand a ball peen, skulls cracking today.
I’m smashing it down. Grey matter and blood.
There’s rage in my heart, better pray to your God.””
He is, but I suspect that it’s not all muscle, plus he probably doesn’t consider himself a violent person. And he’s up against someone for whom violence is not a last resort.
(I know, he pulled a gun on his daughter, but in his own head he didn’t rationalize that as a violent act, but a necessary one of last resort.)
Not to mention that Blaine’s badly injured already. And Ross’s eyebrows in Panels 3-4 suggest that he knows shit’s about to go down. And the crew already spelled out to Ross what sort of man Blaine is.
At this point, all he basically has to do is throw himself bodily against Blaine. Not even a proper tackle or swing necessary. Blaine’s messed up and it looks like his back is to the stairs. He’ll go down and it will be devastating, especially if Ross goes down on top of him.
Blaine may be hurt, but the Ball-Peen went a few rounds with Amazi-Girl. Don’t dismiss him lightly.
And I think we should have learned the “don’t assume the big guy’s always going to win the fight in this comic” lesson by now.
To be fair to Ross, he was thrown from a car on the highway and based on the blood on his pants at the time, probably hit at least decently hard. It’s mildly impressive he was able to get up and get close enough for Joyce to get a chance to uppercut him.
It would still hurt, and still be potentially fatal. I have a selection of rubber mallets that I use to shape sheet metal without destroying the surface and you would be surprised at how thick the sheet has to get before you can’t move it with a rubber hammer.
Can we get some cartoon action?
Blaine hits Ross on the head with the hammer, the hammer bounces back onto Blaine’s head, both are knocked out, everybody else can go home and live happily ever after? Please?
I think… I hope… that Taffy is making a joke concerning the way the song is written, the lyrics and such. The way the title sounds like a bad breakup song, but the lyrics are heartwarming.
… I mean I said that yesterday, I fully believe Blaine is such a self-absorbed buffoon to kill someone who he still needs (because like. This plan is PHENOMENALLY stupid if your goal isn’t to get killed by your mobster employers for attracting too much attention,) but um.
I wasn’t ACTUALLY EXPECTING THIS to happen THIS FAST, gotta say.
Also, glad Dorothy did in fact have what passes for a plan in these circumstances when she encouraged them to let Amber go! It’s not a great plan, but once again I remind you there is literally no option here that won’t be traumatic and highly dangerous to the hostages. That bridge got burned once they ended up in the basement.
So uh. Over-under on Becky showing up just in time to witness this? Cause I’m saying 60%, minimum.
Oh, also! Dina still has the roll of duct tape attached to her wrists! That’ll be close enough to fool Blaine and the villains with her natural Stealth Filter, but will make her getting out of it much more doable! That’s actually genuinely good news. We take those wins.
While I don’t think ToeDad can be redeemed.. I would like to see him straight up knock out Blaine , let them go , and then turn himself and Blaine into the police. Recognizing that he is in the wrong and taking responsibility would not make up for what he’s done… but it would be in character… ToeDad is 100% wrong but at least he is acting out of love.
When your love is based on a need to control people and the threat of violence, the line between Blaine and Ross is so thin as to be indistinguishable. They’re both doing this because they see their daughters as their property and don’t like that they’re actual people with agency, let’s be clear here.
If we’re going to be so clear, then Toedad sees his daughter in the same terms as property but doesn’t realize it at least in part because he’s lived his whole life dug into a regressive, oppressive culture. And by property, we’re talking closer to a pet than a table.
Blaine, on the other hand, is much more fully aware of what he’s doing it, and is an abusive asshole on purpose for his own selfish, sadistic ends.
Like, it’s a laughably low bar, but Toedad has more empathy and integrity than Carol.
The key difference is one is genuinely trying to do the right thing as he understands it, and the other simply DGAF who he hurts while lashing out because of his wounded pride.
It’s pretty much Impact vs Intent, and while Impact > Intent, that doesn’t mean intent is worthless, just less important. Intent – or more precisely performing harmful acts but doing so in good faith – remains at least moderately important because it tells you a lot about how a person will behave in the future if you can get them to recognize that their actions are harmful.
What Ross has done and is doing is terrible, but it’s not malicious. That doesn’t excuse him but does make him a lot less likely to be a total loss as human being. YMMV, depending on how badly you’ve been hurt by his type (pretty badly in my case, and by his exact type).
Whether it’s Delicious…
Or whether it’s malicious,
It all depends upon your appetite.
What comes of this fix,
When Blaine and ToeDad mix,
Is how Willis draws the fight.
Sure he can. How many pages did it take Ruth to go from being a sexually, physically and emotionally abusing predator to being someone in a relationship (with her target) and “redeemed” so if it can happen for Ruth it can happen for Ross
Fine. Yes he can be redeemed because hes a fictional character and the author can decide whatever he likes. The next strip could be panels and panels of Ross and Blaine suddenly doing the can-can, if he wanted
I never really understood the distinction other than as a narrative construct. (Or a religious concept.)
Isn’t reforming the important part?
Nonetheless, I don’t want to see Ross reformed or even redeemed. At least not like this. While there have been signs he’s not entirely happen with Blaine and his plans, even before this strip, there’s been no indication at all that anything has challenged his basic outlook on his daughter.
It would be interesting if he seems to reform by letting the others go and/or helping stop Blaine from killing them, but then goes right back to his original “take Becky away to put her back on the right path” plan.
Now that it’s Kickstarter time again, I’d like to declare that it’s high time for Mary and Raidah to get magnets. After all, how am I supposed to play with my DoA action figures if I don’t have any proper antagonists? (And NO, I don’t want Blaine or Ross magnets–I prefer my play to remain light-hearted, thanks!)
1) I still appreciate how Toedad is more intelligent, or at least less *blind*, then Blaine regarding Amber being Amazigirl. I don’t know what that says about his perception but it is still appreciated.
2) . . . .Does Blaine remind anyone of Stain from My Hero Academia here? Not in goals or personality . . . but in appearance? Like . . .the lack of nose was really throwing me off until I realized what he reminded me of.
And now that that note is out of the way. . . I hope that Toedad just ends up laying Blaine the hell out and he ends up having to fight off the Mob goons who hear the commotion and come to protect the man that hired them. If that ends up with a *very* brief team up with Amazi-girl all the better.
It kind of helps show that Ross genuinely believes he is doing the right thing. Hopefully Blaine’s betrayal causes him to open his eyes, go away for a while to think, and come back later but as a better man who accepts Becky and who she is
For number 1, I think Ross just believes what people tell him (actually he’s pretty gullible.) When we first saw him when Becky first ran away from Anderson, Ross believed Dina when she told him she saw Becky take the bus to the mall. He believed that Blaine is a born-again Christian because Blaine says he is. The only difference this time is that Amber is telling the truth.
It’d be smarter for Ross to crouch, hook an arm under Blaine’s crotch, grab his neckline, and flip him. Landing on his back with a cracked/broken rib will make Blaine start crying like a little bongo.
its clear blaine’s never been someone who thought ahead, but his repeating “you ruined everything” and subsequent reframing of the phrase is one of the creepiest things to happen here.
Ross was really easy for Blaine to fool. But in saying he doesn’t care about Becky, Blaine just said the one thing that ought to convince even Toedad that Blaine was shitting him.
I think there’s a chance in Toedad realising that what he does is wrong by example of how Blaine behaves in the long(er) run.
Could also be that he doesn’t see the connections in their behaviors and simply continues with trying to take Becky ‘home’. I mean, presumably one kid (Mike) already suffered the consequences of their actions (besides everything Toedad did before that) and he took part in actively fighting him, so simply continuing is likely too.
Blaine probably won’t die, but Toedad might simply let him fall down the stairs, or tackle him upstairs in self-defense.
I can’t see him leaving him there especially with his hammer with the defenseless kids – he doesn’t want harm to come to them even if he accepts that they are potentially expendable, and after this he can’t deny that Blaine is a walking metaphor for “if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” and is volatile and unpredictability violent…
Word of advice to all villains: If you don’t want henchmen who easily fall for self-serving lies, don’t recruit henchmen by means of self-serving lies.
I think that might actually work against him if Ross takes action .. not even properly, just the right kind of thoughtlessly: Just throwing himself bodily against Blaine, with how stout he is, stands a pretty good chance of knocking Blaine down … with cracked ribs … on stairs, with a larger man at least halfway on top of him. That could end him.
Next page: “Don’t worry, Ross. You have six witnesses that will testify it was self-defence. Becky will visit you in prison and your congregation won’t need to give any money back.”
Back when I was into wrestling, this was the one thing that ripped away my suspension of disbelief: in a “hardcore” match, inevitably someone would pull out a sledgehammer from under the ring, but never actually swing it at their opponent, only “shoving” it at them. I’m like, “if you’re gonna pull out the hammer, friggin’ use it!”
In hindsight, there’s obviously no good way to “pull your punches” when swinging a hammer without it looking completely fake (as opposed to the normal level of “fake” that can be ignored for entertainment purposes), and if it actually connects, that would be a very serious injury.
Related: while the chair shots were also supposed to be pulled, quite often they actually connected with full force and caused real concussions. There’s several interviews with Mick Foley and Al Snow where they had no memory of the last third of the match…
Also, don’t go for overhand blows while your opponent is capable of defending himself. They are slow, and easy to sidestep. If Ross knew how to throw a punch Blaine would be just begging for a quick left jab to the neck or chin (leaving Ross’s left arm in position to block the downstroke) or a sidestep to the right followed by a right hook or cross.
Now that I’ve gotten a little more clarification on this I really don’t understand Blaine’s plan. This was all to scare Amber into dropping out? To “come home” So what? To save money on her tuition? But you’re not really saving money when you bailed this guy out with at least enough to cover the difference for what an entire church of people couldn’t pool together. Plus the hires, plus the body armor which isn’t cheap. And whose home? Not yours cause you’re divorced and your ex has custody right? If this part of the plan even worked was there a followup plan to get back custody of your adult daughter somehow? Kill Toedad or whatever kinda sux for Becks but don’t pretend like he’s the only idiot here.
It isn’t about the money, it is about controlling Amber. Abusers don’t follow logic of the common man, but of someone that wants people to do exactly as they want in the exact way they want it and to live within the exact limitations they set for them.
Ok I guess Dorothy isn’t going to be as composed as I thought last week. I wouldn’t be either with VillainDad about to KO ToeDad with his ballpeen hammer.
If Blaine smashes Ross with the hammer quickly enough it could knock him out or kill him. Ross is a big dude too so I’m hoping He dodges and this leads to a brawl. Dad fight!!!
Well apparently I am as tired as Amber is. When seeing the hammer and arm I thought that was his body in silhouette as he stormed out and couldn’t figure out why Dorothy was saying what she was saying. That and why one of his arms was thicker than the other.
Then I blinked a few times and rubbed some of the sleep out of my eyes and realized that was a hammer being brought up to strike.
I was sort of scared that it would end this way. Ross is too simple and too certain of his own righteousness for Blaine to tolerate for long. His assurance that God will guide and protect him means that he’s utterly out of his depth with a man without a conscience and whose mind is clearly giving out.
Looking it up, Indiana still officially has it on the books but has not carried out any executions since 2009. The only capital crime in the state is first-degree murder with aggravating circumstances – which this, as a murder carried out during the course of a multiple kidnapping, would likely be – and which is also just about the only crime where Indiana’s constitution forbids the perpetrator from being bailed out of jail.
Felony murders – basically defined as deaths caused during the course of perpetrating another felony – are often upgraded to the status of first-degree murder, by virtue of the fact that said death would not have occurred had it not been for the concurrent felony. A few states have abolished this rule, but Indiana is not one of those, I believe.
A brief Googling tells me that
1) Indiana does in fact have a felony murder rule, and
2) actually, Indiana doesn’t really differentiate between degrees of murder – you have murder, ‘with malice aforethought’ (and even if a dude angrily shouting at his soon-to-be victim that he ruined everything while raising a hammer above his head didn’t count for malice aforethought – which, yeah, good luck making THAT case, Blaine – the doing so in the context of a mass kidnapping would kick it up to felony murder, yeah,) and then you have manslaughter. It’s possible that in a state with multiple degrees of murder this would be classed as second degree – likely, in a state that doesn’t have a felony murder rule – but in Indiana, it doesn’t need premeditation to be the harshest one he could be charged with.
Granted, it’s possible the law’s changed recently and that Westlaw’s free resource hasn’t updated or something (I do not have access to the actual codes and don’t know where Indiana may have copies for free online, and frankly that’s more work than I’d want to do for a comment,) but as it stands? Yeah if Blaine kills Toedad here it is absolutely getting him the harshest possible charge, and basically any death that occurs in this storyline by Blaine and Toedad would be the same.
YEAH um…..watching someone get murdered will permanently damage you. it takes me back to when walky said he wished he saw ryan get attacked, and dorothy told him it’s not that simple.
If Blaine doesn’t kill Ross in the here and now it would be interesting to see what happens. But what if Blaines swing does hit, will the kids be the next target? Will the hires stop obeying as they only joined to rough up AG? Questions not to be answered in the coming days as we’ll revisit a lot of the characters in the dorms in the coming week.
Also, just assuming, I don’t actually know for sure, but Dorothy might not actually be happy when a person who is threatening her dies.
I mean it’s reasonable to be relieved when your kidnappers kill themselves off for you, but most people do not want to be there as the ribs crack and the brains fly all over the place, and quite a few value human life no matter how misused it has been.
I think she’ll feel much the same way she felt about middle name Ryan. She understands people saying this was a good thing and they would pay to see that but its different to actually se it.
Apart from the fact that they’ve had to sit and watch as a man was beaten to death in front of them. You know, years of psychiatric trauma and therapy.
Then there is the likelihood that Blaine would likely send out Joyce with the warning that he’s going to murder one of her friends every fifteen minutes until she comes back with Amber.
So, no. Not ‘win’ by any sane definition of the word.
Yeah, once we’ve got the murder genie out of the bottle, we can’t put it back in and Blaine has a lot of expendable hostages right now and no scruples or self-control. The trauma will also be very intense! But even immediately, Blaine escalating like this is not good for anyone around Blaine, especially those who happen to be totally defenseless.
Even if Toedad survives this will make 2 serious assaults that Dorothy had to witness (Ryan and Ross). This does not bode well for her Presidential campaign.
Blaine ruined his own plane because of the biggest flaw: he can’t accept that Amber is a badass (a mentally damaged badass that needs therapy). He just broke his own Christian fundie persona to shout at Toedad, and now this is going to turn into the ending of Glass before Becky, Amber, or Ruth arrive.
Blaine just doomed himself to die like all other psychos in history that were too evil for their own good without caring for pragmatism nor profit. Evil for evil’s sake is dumb.
I kinda feel that’s why his honesty was shown front and center yesterday- to show how much he, as an individual, is naive and foolish. We still don’t know for a fact that the rule Willis reconsidered was not killing anyone, but even if Toedad doesn’t die, that hammer’s going to leave a mark.
While I dislike both Blaine and Ross, I kinda hope Blaine’s injuries cause him to fail to hit Ross with the hammer so they can keep fighting each other. And maybe Amazi-Girl and possibly Ruth show up to stop them soon after that.
Did Dina tie herself up so well she can’t get out of it or didn’t they manage to explain things to her? It seems highly unlikely she would stay put when she knows Becky is in danger.
So who’s going to interrupt before Blaine can swing that hammer? Becky? Amber/Amazi-Girl? Robin’s Uggtroopers? Gramps? The rest of Clark hall dressed as a platoon of “we all picked the same character in Super Smash Bros” pallet-swapped Amazi-girls?
Jesus Christ Dorothy literally witnessed a stabbing like, what two weeks ago??? And now she’s about to watch a face get bashed in with a hammer??? These poor kids
The hostages or just Ross? Killing 5 kids will draw a lot of attention, people go crazy when kids die, I don’t know if it would be worth it to kill them when all they saw was a backlit guy in a blue mask.
Blaine stopped giving a shit about the attention he was drawing when he kidnapped six kids and dressed up like a supervillain. We are not talking about someone who’s thinking long-term or rationally.
The US has a gazillion mass school shootings and several concentration camps that say you’re wrong and people, in fact, do not give any particular shit when kids die.
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btw if you're one of those rando bluesky weirdos who doesn't know me but sees me in the wild being sarcastic and don't know i'm being sarcastic because you haven't taken like 30 seconds to, like, maybe look at my user profile or something, keep walking, you're not going to score internet points here
Here's an entertaining cite at the bottom of the first page
Josh Gerstein@joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 1d
JUST IN: Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan moves to dismiss federal criminal case against her for allegedly helping immigrant hide from ICE. Her lawyers say she's protected by official acts & judicial immunity and 10th Amendment. Doc: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Where did Hollywood go so wrong? I thought movies were supposed to be an escape from reality, a chance to put your worries aside and not have to think about any underlying ideas or concepts. Well, not anymore.
theonion.com/you-can...
It's not a new argument, of course, but Chesterton dismissed it effectively in 1908.
"You will hear everlastingly... this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has been bribed already. That is why he is a rich man."
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com ⋅ 2d
Hawley dismisses Trump lining his pockets with his memecoin: "Listen, I think nobody believes that Donald Trump can be bought. I mean, what does Donald Trump need more money for?"
wilbur, savvy enough to know he's in a comic strip but still not a great actor, awkwardly lifts a muffin up into frame so that we, the audience, understand that he has a muffin right now, which is very important narratively, but he's not really selling it well as an organic, human action
confirming that the reason there's been no Galaxy Version female characters in Blokees until now is that they felt they needed to make Round Lady Thighs For Ladies
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 14h
Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 1d
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com ⋅ 2d
Pavel
@spavel.bsky.social ⋅ 11d
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I mean, at least we know the next scene will be fine bc you can’t die from stubbing your toe
(maybe)
The toenail was foreshadowing.
Not to be confused with forehead shattering.
Oh shit, maybe it actually was
This is some Homestuck-level shit right there
One time when I was a kid, I smashed my toe against a fake rock. It was pretty bad, and the doctor prescribed me antibiotics. I never actually took the antibiotics because I couldn’t swallow pills at the time, and my first attempt got a pill lodged in my throat until I could cough it up. I remember shortly after thinking that I wasn’t going to take the pills because a stubbed toe wasn’t worth dying for. Not the best understanding of medicine.
Anyway, it looks like you can die from stunning your toe if it’s bad enough because there’s a risk of infection. But that would take longer than one scene to kill you, I assume.
I think I speak for all of us when I ask, how did the fake rock make out?
It made out with other rocks, but like Ruth felt a sense of imposter syndrome.
There’s actually a second way that could kill you. The right kind of injury can lead to the formation of blood clots that can enter the blood stream and cause heart attacks or strokes.
I had a friend who broke her knee and was at risk for deadly blood clots, so I’m assuming a bad enough foot injury carries the same risk.
From stubbing your toe though?
Yumi didn’t say “stubbed” – the word used was “smashed” which implies a broken bone.
A basic stub doesn’t carry any health risks that I’m aware of.
In the short term there’s a high risk of an embarrassing yelp!
Fake rock
1 star.
Would not kick again.
-379,216,591,999,463 stars. I *was* going to give it 0 stars, but after I managed to figure out how to hack the system enough to give it 0 stars, I realized it would let me give negative stars as well.
The person who made this system should’ve allowed no star reviews and saved us all this effort.
Are you sure that’s not more because inactivity puts you at a higher risk for clots?
When I couldn’t get myself to swallow pills I would chew them.
Most pills are not designed to be chewed. Whatever medicine is in them usually needs to be absorbed at a specific point of digestion, or release slowly, sometimes leaving the body without digesting much at all.
And if the doctor doesn’t warn you about that little factor, your future wife has a panic attack because she thinks she’s pooping little pieces of bone.
Just me?
I mean I once got my toe badly infected (which can happen if you stub it and don’t treat it) and it got so bad that the infection was poisoning my blood and I could have lost my foot or died if it had gone on too long so
he could die
but not right away
Tjonge.
What exactly is happening in the fifth panel?
It’s the hammer raised into the air, backlit by the door.
I’m still a bit confused. What was Blaine’s plan, if not to send Amazigirl to get Becky? Would he be throwing such a fit if Amazigirl wasn’t Amber? Where’s the hitch?
Blaine’s plan was to send Amazi-Girl to get Becky. To let one of the kids contact Amazi-Girl, to send her to get Becky, more accurately. But he didn’t care about Becky, that was just a ruse. Partly for Ross and partly for Amazi-Girl herself, because he really wanted her to deliver herself to him.
He also wanted Amber of course.
These two are like a lamer version of Freddy vs. Jason.
“I, the smaller and slightly brighter misogynistic douchebag with a bad habit of preying on teenagers, will sic the beefier and dumber misogynistic douchebag with a bad habit of preying on teenagers on my enemies. Oops, douchebag 2 angered me, gotta fight now.”
And Freddy vs. Jason was pretty lame to begin with.
You hush your mouth!
“But I’m talking about Freddy vs. Jason!”
Anyone following up on this? No? Fine.
*ahem*
“I can dig it.”
Did you prefer Sadako vs. Kayako?
Bang, bang Maxwell’s silver hammer came down upon his head.
+1
Back at school again
Blaine plays the fool again
Police all get annoyed
Times I wish there was a like button
ToeDad?
More like ToeDEAD now, am I right?
Probably not.
Oh no!
A higher power will take care of him.
((Amazi-Girl counts as a higher power?))
I mean like, vertically. She likes rooftops.
I hope not. Much as I hate Toedad, I don’t actually want to read a comic where he gets his brains splattered all over.
You did read Willis’s warning at the beginning of the chapter, didn’t you?
sorry where’s that warning? i must’ve missed it and i don’t see it on the first page of this chapter and i would very much like to read the warning because i’m pretty stressed!
It’s on the front page, under the current comic.
He warned us there would be blankets.
I don’t care if he dies but I don’t want the kids, especially Joyce, who knew him, to witness it.
If you don’t want him dead, how about committed to a new church in which centipede aliens slither into his brain? (Like your avatar, btw)
No, Dorothy, I think this is working perfectly
LetThemFight.gif
Seriously. Best bit is that when Amazigirl, followed by the cops, shows up, there’s a solid coterie of witnesses to the assault/attempted murder/manslaughter (depending on the outcome for Toedad, which just needs to be horrible enough to get Blaine in jail for a long, long time).
Well if Toedad is dead then there won’t be anyone to take Becky away at least, and murder is a much harder thing to get away with than kidnapping. So maybe Blaine will shoot himself in the foot here and make life easier for everyone. Probably not but it is nice to hope right?
Ah, but remember Willis’ promise at the onset of DOA….”No one will die in DOA”.
He reserved the right to change his mind, and commented even at the time that he might forego the rule for certain characters.
I don’t know if he’d actually kill ToeDad, though, because while I’m sure there is some kind of release in writing horrible religious characters, killing one of them would seem kind of gratuitous.
Plus, it would only validate Carol and her church further.
That he was killed by someone they all trusted as a representative of god would not validate them further, except in the sense of increasing their cognitive dissonance, which, to be fair, is what they think validation is.
To paraphrase Willis’s Twitter about 3-4 months ago, “oops I broke one of my rules”.
Of the two, Toedad is the one who isn’t unhinged (in a “makes no attempt to exercise impulse control and is entirely self-serving” way, not disparaging people who suffer from mental health issues who are far more likely to be victims of violence) and doesn’t revel in violence. If I had to deal with just one of them it would be Toedad rather than the Ballpeen.
Amazing that we would be saying Ross is the less insane of the two.
Yeah. Escapism is more of a neurosis and a matter of character, actually.
I wouldn’t describe Toedad as ‘simple’ , in this context, either. Joyce’s parents are more of an example of simple folks in a serious context. ‘Inept’ would better fit him in this context.
Also, good thing Blaine’s wearing gloves. Two murders and a mass kidnapping that provides no green to kick back up to his boss, plus there’s at least two hirelings who not only (probably) have no prior history as professional criminals, but even less incentive to keep cool about this when they find out the guy who hired them has both lost it and that they could be accessories to murder.
Ross is bafflingly weak for a man of his build, but Thing 1 and Thing 2 aren’t going down without a fight against the “man” whom is responsible for this whole B.S. caper in the first place……Too bad Blaine isn’t too proud to simply skip town on the spot without telling anyone and stay on the lamb….Oh, wait.
YOU RUINED EVVVERRRYYTHING
YOU STUPID STUPID BONGO
YOU’RE JUST A POOPY LITTLE SLUT WHO DOESN’T THINK
AND DECEIVES THE PEOPLE HE LOOOOVES
You what
Bongo.
It’s the filter for female dog, for those that don’t know.
Why you gotta call me a percussion instrument, Doc?
The song, for any confused folks:
https://youtu.be/zgUKQCVieWM
“Now he knows I’m not some innocent lamb
He sees me for what I am
Which is a horrible, stupid, dumb and ugly,
fat and stupid, simple, self-hating
Bongo.”
(Yes, I did type in the word “B o n g o” there. Why make the filter work any harder than needed?)
**squees!**
I have that song (that album, actually)! It’s on my writing playlist.
bongo
You’re a stupid bongo
And lose some weight
I love that song, CxG is one of my favorite shows
Well Bongo, you’ve done it now.
(Yeah, you guys know this one)
Karma’s come to tap you, on the toe.
All that religious shit youve been festering,
Plus attempted murder and kidnapping
Is coming now, to crush you like a toe.
You ruined everything… You stupid bongo.
I always saw that song as more Amber’s internal monologue. Rebecca Bunch would have loved Garbage Roof.
Oh God, true. And she would’ve seen Walky as Greg, too. Does that mean Ethan is Josh Chan?
*the hacked Muzak snaps silent*
Just as the hammer rises in slow-mo.
Oh snap, no instrumental tunes or “bohemian Rhapsody”?
“”I’m swinging at your brain, just swinging at your brain.
In my hand a ball peen, skulls cracking today.
I’m smashing it down. Grey matter and blood.
There’s rage in my heart, better pray to your God.””
Mama, just killed a man
Hammer down upon his head
Bang bang Maxwell, now he’s dead …
Ross may be stupid, but at least he knows who AG is.
And Blaine’s too far up his own backside to believe that obvious truth.
Fitting, if that’s the last thing he ever hears from someone he claims to be intellectually inferior.
Honestly I think Toedads going to floor him, guys built like a bear and douchbag 2 is injured as all hell already..
He is, but I suspect that it’s not all muscle, plus he probably doesn’t consider himself a violent person. And he’s up against someone for whom violence is not a last resort.
(I know, he pulled a gun on his daughter, but in his own head he didn’t rationalize that as a violent act, but a necessary one of last resort.)
“He is, but I suspect that it’s not all muscle”
Brian Shaw and Eddie Hall might respectfully disagree…
It doesn’t need to be muscle. Any weight is a big advantage.
He has that home gym setup – I suspect a reasonable amount of it is muscle…
No matter how he’s built, if he can’t react quickly enough to dodge or parry that hammer I suspect it doesn’t matter.
In his own head, he rationalized killing all of Becky’s friends.
Ditto. He’s the guy with a weight room. And as Amber has pointed out before, a lower center of gravity.
Yeah, not to give Rosh credit, but he’s trained his whole life to replace his neck with arm muscle. Blayn has basically a squeaky hammer.
Not to mention that Blaine’s badly injured already. And Ross’s eyebrows in Panels 3-4 suggest that he knows shit’s about to go down. And the crew already spelled out to Ross what sort of man Blaine is.
At this point, all he basically has to do is throw himself bodily against Blaine. Not even a proper tackle or swing necessary. Blaine’s messed up and it looks like his back is to the stairs. He’ll go down and it will be devastating, especially if Ross goes down on top of him.
Blaine may be hurt, but the Ball-Peen went a few rounds with Amazi-Girl. Don’t dismiss him lightly.
And I think we should have learned the “don’t assume the big guy’s always going to win the fight in this comic” lesson by now.
Ross got fuckin DECKED by JOYCE. While Blaine gives Amazi-Girl trouble. Blaine would win.
To be fair to Ross, he was thrown from a car on the highway and based on the blood on his pants at the time, probably hit at least decently hard. It’s mildly impressive he was able to get up and get close enough for Joyce to get a chance to uppercut him.
Oh dear. This is escalating faster by the minute.
*cut to Sal, in bed* “I can feel it. Shit’s escalatin’. Somewhere.”
*cut again to Walky’s half-bath*
*cut to Danny frantically trying to tune his ukulele.
*cut to Fuckface wondering “Where’s breakfast?”
“What is Amazi-Girl doing this time?”
This was what I was thinking, only not Sal but Malaya working through her own crises
Welp, now they can all join Dorothy in group therapy for people traumatized by violence.
Except all I can picture is Blaine hitting Ross and the hammer bouncing back and hitting himself in the face.
For Great Justice!
I’m honestly good with either outcome.
Can we get the one that doesn’t kill the dad which has scruples against murdering hostages?
“We’ve replaced Blaine’s solid steel hammer with one made of Flex Seal. Let’s see if he notices.”
It would still hurt, and still be potentially fatal. I have a selection of rubber mallets that I use to shape sheet metal without destroying the surface and you would be surprised at how thick the sheet has to get before you can’t move it with a rubber hammer.
That requires a link to the time that happened to Emily in QC
Can we get some cartoon action?
Blaine hits Ross on the head with the hammer, the hammer bounces back onto Blaine’s head, both are knocked out, everybody else can go home and live happily ever after? Please?
These kids have experienced an entire season’s worth of shit within, what, a month?
The Jonathan Coulton song in the alt-text is perfect, I would serenade my children when they were babies with that song
I’m sorry for your loss.
Tf?
I think… I hope… that Taffy is making a joke concerning the way the song is written, the lyrics and such. The way the title sounds like a bad breakup song, but the lyrics are heartwarming.
Or alternatively that the kids are no longer babies, and thusly less endearing.
ME TOO! I’m so glad I wasn’t the only one. No other song quite gets that particular parenting emotion.
Blaine’s about to stub his Toe.
That was uncalled for. I’ll see myself out.
But but… there is no upvote button. There’s supposed to be a valid Earthshattering upvote button.
The moment that Blaine and Ross teamed up I thought “there’s no way this can be resolved without at least one of them getting killed, is there?”
Shoulda figured it’d be via one of them killing the other.
Better hope that skull of yours is somehow even thicker than it looks, Toedad.
Now for a surprise… TOEDAD HITS FIRST!
“Feel the power of my peen!”
… I mean I said that yesterday, I fully believe Blaine is such a self-absorbed buffoon to kill someone who he still needs (because like. This plan is PHENOMENALLY stupid if your goal isn’t to get killed by your mobster employers for attracting too much attention,) but um.
I wasn’t ACTUALLY EXPECTING THIS to happen THIS FAST, gotta say.
Also, glad Dorothy did in fact have what passes for a plan in these circumstances when she encouraged them to let Amber go! It’s not a great plan, but once again I remind you there is literally no option here that won’t be traumatic and highly dangerous to the hostages. That bridge got burned once they ended up in the basement.
So uh. Over-under on Becky showing up just in time to witness this? Cause I’m saying 60%, minimum.
Damn you Willis.
Oh, also! Dina still has the roll of duct tape attached to her wrists! That’ll be close enough to fool Blaine and the villains with her natural Stealth Filter, but will make her getting out of it much more doable! That’s actually genuinely good news. We take those wins.
Whoa whoa whoa, the guys who use violence to solve their problems are using violence to solve their problems? Something doesn’t add up.
Add three, carry the one…
No wait that adds up perfectly, carry on.
The numbers, Mason. What do they mean?!
No CoD: Black Ops fans here? I’ll see myself out.
I don’t actually like Toe-Dad but I actually do feel sorry for him because of how this is written. Obligatory Damn You Willis.
While I don’t think ToeDad can be redeemed.. I would like to see him straight up knock out Blaine , let them go , and then turn himself and Blaine into the police. Recognizing that he is in the wrong and taking responsibility would not make up for what he’s done… but it would be in character… ToeDad is 100% wrong but at least he is acting out of love.
When your love is based on a need to control people and the threat of violence, the line between Blaine and Ross is so thin as to be indistinguishable. They’re both doing this because they see their daughters as their property and don’t like that they’re actual people with agency, let’s be clear here.
If we’re going to be so clear, then Toedad sees his daughter in the same terms as property but doesn’t realize it at least in part because he’s lived his whole life dug into a regressive, oppressive culture. And by property, we’re talking closer to a pet than a table.
Blaine, on the other hand, is much more fully aware of what he’s doing it, and is an abusive asshole on purpose for his own selfish, sadistic ends.
Like, it’s a laughably low bar, but Toedad has more empathy and integrity than Carol.
The key difference is one is genuinely trying to do the right thing as he understands it, and the other simply DGAF who he hurts while lashing out because of his wounded pride.
It’s pretty much Impact vs Intent, and while Impact > Intent, that doesn’t mean intent is worthless, just less important. Intent – or more precisely performing harmful acts but doing so in good faith – remains at least moderately important because it tells you a lot about how a person will behave in the future if you can get them to recognize that their actions are harmful.
What Ross has done and is doing is terrible, but it’s not malicious. That doesn’t excuse him but does make him a lot less likely to be a total loss as human being. YMMV, depending on how badly you’ve been hurt by his type (pretty badly in my case, and by his exact type).
His intent is to do harm, and that’s what malicious means.
Whether it’s Delicious…
Or whether it’s malicious,
It all depends upon your appetite.
What comes of this fix,
When Blaine and ToeDad mix,
Is how Willis draws the fight.
Sure he can. How many pages did it take Ruth to go from being a sexually, physically and emotionally abusing predator to being someone in a relationship (with her target) and “redeemed” so if it can happen for Ruth it can happen for Ross
Ruth is reformed not redeemed.
Fine. Yes he can be redeemed because hes a fictional character and the author can decide whatever he likes. The next strip could be panels and panels of Ross and Blaine suddenly doing the can-can, if he wanted
I never really understood the distinction other than as a narrative construct. (Or a religious concept.)
Isn’t reforming the important part?
Nonetheless, I don’t want to see Ross reformed or even redeemed. At least not like this. While there have been signs he’s not entirely happen with Blaine and his plans, even before this strip, there’s been no indication at all that anything has challenged his basic outlook on his daughter.
It would be interesting if he seems to reform by letting the others go and/or helping stop Blaine from killing them, but then goes right back to his original “take Becky away to put her back on the right path” plan.
“acting out of love”?
As long as I say what you want to hear, do what you want me to, be who you want me to be – you think that’s lo-o-ove, but baby that ain’t love to me!
One thing he is definitely not doing is acting out of love.
He thinks he is though, which is very different than Blaine’s motivations.
Now that it’s Kickstarter time again, I’d like to declare that it’s high time for Mary and Raidah to get magnets. After all, how am I supposed to play with my DoA action figures if I don’t have any proper antagonists? (And NO, I don’t want Blaine or Ross magnets–I prefer my play to remain light-hearted, thanks!)
Where are you seeing something about the Kickstarter? I don’t see anything on this page.
On Twitter, Willis said he submitted it for approval yesterday.
It might go live on Monday if it’s approved by then, since IIRC most of his book Kickstarters went live on Mondays.
Called it.
Dorothy is playing chess with two cinder blocks in a bag.
So two small things to note:
1) I still appreciate how Toedad is more intelligent, or at least less *blind*, then Blaine regarding Amber being Amazigirl. I don’t know what that says about his perception but it is still appreciated.
2) . . . .Does Blaine remind anyone of Stain from My Hero Academia here? Not in goals or personality . . . but in appearance? Like . . .the lack of nose was really throwing me off until I realized what he reminded me of.
And now that that note is out of the way. . . I hope that Toedad just ends up laying Blaine the hell out and he ends up having to fight off the Mob goons who hear the commotion and come to protect the man that hired them. If that ends up with a *very* brief team up with Amazi-girl all the better.
It kind of helps show that Ross genuinely believes he is doing the right thing. Hopefully Blaine’s betrayal causes him to open his eyes, go away for a while to think, and come back later but as a better man who accepts Becky and who she is
For number 1, I think Ross just believes what people tell him (actually he’s pretty gullible.) When we first saw him when Becky first ran away from Anderson, Ross believed Dina when she told him she saw Becky take the bus to the mall. He believed that Blaine is a born-again Christian because Blaine says he is. The only difference this time is that Amber is telling the truth.
Give him a jab in the ribs and he’ll fold like a cheap table.
Didn’t we already establish he had body armor?
Yes, and at least one badly cracked rib under it.
So don’t stab him.
With sufficient blunt force trauma, the cracked rib will do that!
It’d be smarter for Ross to crouch, hook an arm under Blaine’s crotch, grab his neckline, and flip him. Landing on his back with a cracked/broken rib will make Blaine start crying like a little bongo.
Dorothy, that was a very Mike plan. I’m impressed.
“Plan” is a strong word. This is more like trying to predict what will happen. She didn’t cause it.
Predicting “Ross will fuck up eventually” doesn’t really take Dorothy-level intelect, but she works with the situation at hand.
It was inevitable, but convincing Ross to release Amber nudged it along so it happened sooner.
Well either my bet from a few weeks ago that Ross was gonna light up Blaine is about to payout or we’re about to witness a severely stubbed Toedad
Aw… Now in 3 weeks his face will come off.
I snortlaughed
I really don’t want to see that! But somebody throwing it away in a sock could be cathartic?
Face… off…
Does this mean Toedad and the Blaine will end up impersonating each other?
its clear blaine’s never been someone who thought ahead, but his repeating “you ruined everything” and subsequent reframing of the phrase is one of the creepiest things to happen here.
Reminds me of a quote from Ross: “Look at me. You destroyed our family.”
But totally in character. In his mind, he’s powerful and brilliant, and so any failure must be someone else’s fault.
Michaeljacksonpopcorn.gif
Ross was really easy for Blaine to fool. But in saying he doesn’t care about Becky, Blaine just said the one thing that ought to convince even Toedad that Blaine was shitting him.
Yup! He’s practically saying he’s not a man of god and I really hope Ross sees that hammer coming so he can ponder on this for a little longer.
I kind of hope for Toe Dad to survive this and realize he was an asshole this entire time, and that Blaine dies or is permanently crippled from this
Preferably, it happens due to Blaine missing with the hammer and shattering his own femur
I hope Toedad grabs him by the arms and legs lifts him high in the air then slams him down over his knee breaking Blaines back.
Blaine vs…. Bane?
That was kinda the idea. In keeping with the super hero theme.
I think there’s a chance in Toedad realising that what he does is wrong by example of how Blaine behaves in the long(er) run.
Could also be that he doesn’t see the connections in their behaviors and simply continues with trying to take Becky ‘home’. I mean, presumably one kid (Mike) already suffered the consequences of their actions (besides everything Toedad did before that) and he took part in actively fighting him, so simply continuing is likely too.
Blaine probably won’t die, but Toedad might simply let him fall down the stairs, or tackle him upstairs in self-defense.
I can’t see him leaving him there especially with his hammer with the defenseless kids – he doesn’t want harm to come to them even if he accepts that they are potentially expendable, and after this he can’t deny that Blaine is a walking metaphor for “if the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” and is volatile and unpredictability violent…
whoa, easy there, captain hammer
Word of advice to all villains: If you don’t want henchmen who easily fall for self-serving lies, don’t recruit henchmen by means of self-serving lies.
Maybe Blaine does have the strength to kill someone…..Nah! He’s probably gonna keel over and die next page.
Honestly I would love if a reveal later revealed that Neckless BadDad murdered Supervillain dad
Next page:
Ross, a man with superior size and strength and intact ribs, fails to overpower a man armed with a ball peen hammer.
Why?
┐( ͡° ʖ̯ ͡°)┌
Cause Ross is actually rather short and Blaine has a brief element of surprise.
And a weapon. If someone gets the drop on you with a hammer, it may not matter how much bigger you are if
A) They get a headshot (seems to be Blaine’s intent) or
B) They make it so you no longer have the advantage of functioning ribs.
Blaine also has the high ground; he’s up a couple steps.
I think that might actually work against him if Ross takes action .. not even properly, just the right kind of thoughtlessly: Just throwing himself bodily against Blaine, with how stout he is, stands a pretty good chance of knocking Blaine down … with cracked ribs … on stairs, with a larger man at least halfway on top of him. That could end him.
It’s over, Blaine has the high ground!
Next page: “Don’t worry, Ross. You have six witnesses that will testify it was self-defence. Becky will visit you in prison and your congregation won’t need to give any money back.”
Is anyone else shocked that Blaine used the words ‘come home’?
Possessive and controlling, but far more inverted in his daughter than I’d thought.
I doubt he means home with him. I can’t imagine there’s any place for her with Blaine and Faz’s mom.
He doesn’t care what she does as long as it isn’t college where he has to pay for it due to alimony arrangement.
Probably meant home with her mom.
It could be habit he’s been talking to Ross for a while.
A little *too* Raph.
Advice for hammer-murderers: Don’t choke up on the handle. That whole long piece of wood is there for a reason.
Also useful for handymen, smiths and anyone using a hammer for its more-or-less intended purpose.
Phony carpenter, indeed.
Back when I was into wrestling, this was the one thing that ripped away my suspension of disbelief: in a “hardcore” match, inevitably someone would pull out a sledgehammer from under the ring, but never actually swing it at their opponent, only “shoving” it at them. I’m like, “if you’re gonna pull out the hammer, friggin’ use it!”
In hindsight, there’s obviously no good way to “pull your punches” when swinging a hammer without it looking completely fake (as opposed to the normal level of “fake” that can be ignored for entertainment purposes), and if it actually connects, that would be a very serious injury.
Related: while the chair shots were also supposed to be pulled, quite often they actually connected with full force and caused real concussions. There’s several interviews with Mick Foley and Al Snow where they had no memory of the last third of the match…
Also, don’t go for overhand blows while your opponent is capable of defending himself. They are slow, and easy to sidestep. If Ross knew how to throw a punch Blaine would be just begging for a quick left jab to the neck or chin (leaving Ross’s left arm in position to block the downstroke) or a sidestep to the right followed by a right hook or cross.
Now that I’ve gotten a little more clarification on this I really don’t understand Blaine’s plan. This was all to scare Amber into dropping out? To “come home” So what? To save money on her tuition? But you’re not really saving money when you bailed this guy out with at least enough to cover the difference for what an entire church of people couldn’t pool together. Plus the hires, plus the body armor which isn’t cheap. And whose home? Not yours cause you’re divorced and your ex has custody right? If this part of the plan even worked was there a followup plan to get back custody of your adult daughter somehow? Kill Toedad or whatever kinda sux for Becks but don’t pretend like he’s the only idiot here.
To paraphrase a certain film from 1998, “It’s not about the money. It’s about keeping that girl in line.”
It isn’t about the money, it is about controlling Amber. Abusers don’t follow logic of the common man, but of someone that wants people to do exactly as they want in the exact way they want it and to live within the exact limitations they set for them.
To quote a particular clown, “It’s not about money. It’s about sending a message.”
STOP. HAMMER TIME.
You, sir/ma’am, just made me laugh.
Please, Hammer, don’t hurt ’em.
Man Blaine looks so much like Parallax. Instead of the power of the Power Battery, he has a Power Hammer.
Ok I guess Dorothy isn’t going to be as composed as I thought last week. I wouldn’t be either with VillainDad about to KO ToeDad with his ballpeen hammer.
If Blaine smashes Ross with the hammer quickly enough it could knock him out or kill him. Ross is a big dude too so I’m hoping He dodges and this leads to a brawl. Dad fight!!!
Well apparently I am as tired as Amber is. When seeing the hammer and arm I thought that was his body in silhouette as he stormed out and couldn’t figure out why Dorothy was saying what she was saying. That and why one of his arms was thicker than the other.
Then I blinked a few times and rubbed some of the sleep out of my eyes and realized that was a hammer being brought up to strike.
Glad I’m wasn’t the only one who misread that panel
Please, Ross. If you ever want to see Becky again, kick Blaine in the balls. Hard!
Blaine’s probably wearing a cup.
I was sort of scared that it would end this way. Ross is too simple and too certain of his own righteousness for Blaine to tolerate for long. His assurance that God will guide and protect him means that he’s utterly out of his depth with a man without a conscience and whose mind is clearly giving out.
Does Indiana still have the death penalty?
Looking it up, Indiana still officially has it on the books but has not carried out any executions since 2009. The only capital crime in the state is first-degree murder with aggravating circumstances – which this, as a murder carried out during the course of a multiple kidnapping, would likely be – and which is also just about the only crime where Indiana’s constitution forbids the perpetrator from being bailed out of jail.
That sounds like aggravating circumstances, but not first degree murder. That requires planning, not flying off the handle.
Felony murders – basically defined as deaths caused during the course of perpetrating another felony – are often upgraded to the status of first-degree murder, by virtue of the fact that said death would not have occurred had it not been for the concurrent felony. A few states have abolished this rule, but Indiana is not one of those, I believe.
A brief Googling tells me that
1) Indiana does in fact have a felony murder rule, and
2) actually, Indiana doesn’t really differentiate between degrees of murder – you have murder, ‘with malice aforethought’ (and even if a dude angrily shouting at his soon-to-be victim that he ruined everything while raising a hammer above his head didn’t count for malice aforethought – which, yeah, good luck making THAT case, Blaine – the doing so in the context of a mass kidnapping would kick it up to felony murder, yeah,) and then you have manslaughter. It’s possible that in a state with multiple degrees of murder this would be classed as second degree – likely, in a state that doesn’t have a felony murder rule – but in Indiana, it doesn’t need premeditation to be the harshest one he could be charged with.
Granted, it’s possible the law’s changed recently and that Westlaw’s free resource hasn’t updated or something (I do not have access to the actual codes and don’t know where Indiana may have copies for free online, and frankly that’s more work than I’d want to do for a comment,) but as it stands? Yeah if Blaine kills Toedad here it is absolutely getting him the harshest possible charge, and basically any death that occurs in this storyline by Blaine and Toedad would be the same.
In the end there really was a hammer in BallPeen(tm)’s pocket, and he was not happy to see Ross.
Huh, Blaine stopped stuttering.
YEAH um…..watching someone get murdered will permanently damage you. it takes me back to when walky said he wished he saw ryan get attacked, and dorothy told him it’s not that simple.
fingers crossed for these kids
If Blaine doesn’t kill Ross in the here and now it would be interesting to see what happens. But what if Blaines swing does hit, will the kids be the next target? Will the hires stop obeying as they only joined to rough up AG? Questions not to be answered in the coming days as we’ll revisit a lot of the characters in the dorms in the coming week.
I don’t get it. Blaine finally goes down for murder, Becky is free of Toedad
I see this as an absolute win
There are still the hostages. Y’know, the actual problem? That’s escalating.
Yep.
Also, just assuming, I don’t actually know for sure, but Dorothy might not actually be happy when a person who is threatening her dies.
I mean it’s reasonable to be relieved when your kidnappers kill themselves off for you, but most people do not want to be there as the ribs crack and the brains fly all over the place, and quite a few value human life no matter how misused it has been.
I think she’ll feel much the same way she felt about middle name Ryan. She understands people saying this was a good thing and they would pay to see that but its different to actually se it.
And Becky inherits her father’s assets.
Not how she’d want to, I think.
Apart from the fact that they’ve had to sit and watch as a man was beaten to death in front of them. You know, years of psychiatric trauma and therapy.
Then there is the likelihood that Blaine would likely send out Joyce with the warning that he’s going to murder one of her friends every fifteen minutes until she comes back with Amber.
So, no. Not ‘win’ by any sane definition of the word.
Yeah, once we’ve got the murder genie out of the bottle, we can’t put it back in and Blaine has a lot of expendable hostages right now and no scruples or self-control. The trauma will also be very intense! But even immediately, Blaine escalating like this is not good for anyone around Blaine, especially those who happen to be totally defenseless.
Even if Toedad survives this will make 2 serious assaults that Dorothy had to witness (Ryan and Ross). This does not bode well for her Presidential campaign.
it ain’t “heythankswillis” just sayin
Blaine ruined his own plane because of the biggest flaw: he can’t accept that Amber is a badass (a mentally damaged badass that needs therapy). He just broke his own Christian fundie persona to shout at Toedad, and now this is going to turn into the ending of Glass before Becky, Amber, or Ruth arrive.
Blaine just doomed himself to die like all other psychos in history that were too evil for their own good without caring for pragmatism nor profit. Evil for evil’s sake is dumb.
Aww, dommit Ross. Why you don’t got any brains for your honesty streak?
RIP Toedad. He was killed by his only virtue left. And being an idiot.
I kinda feel that’s why his honesty was shown front and center yesterday- to show how much he, as an individual, is naive and foolish. We still don’t know for a fact that the rule Willis reconsidered was not killing anyone, but even if Toedad doesn’t die, that hammer’s going to leave a mark.
If it does connect.
dude will be known forever as the ball peen killer
May we hope he dies and rots in Hell once this storyline is over.
While I dislike both Blaine and Ross, I kinda hope Blaine’s injuries cause him to fail to hit Ross with the hammer so they can keep fighting each other. And maybe Amazi-Girl and possibly Ruth show up to stop them soon after that.
…a little too well indeed.
Whoops! Whoopsie!
Aaah, ballpeens are TIGHT!
Is there a reason Ethan is resting on Joyce’s lap?
Because Joyce’s lap is warm and comfortable?
Blain kicked and stepped on him earlier.
Trauma. He’s having flashback experiences to the last kidnapping.
Welp, bye bye Ross. It has been a pleasure (not).
Did Dina tie herself up so well she can’t get out of it or didn’t they manage to explain things to her? It seems highly unlikely she would stay put when she knows Becky is in danger.
Her hands are in front of her and the roll’s still attached, so she should be able to undo it.
So who’s going to interrupt before Blaine can swing that hammer? Becky? Amber/Amazi-Girl? Robin’s Uggtroopers? Gramps? The rest of Clark hall dressed as a platoon of “we all picked the same character in Super Smash Bros” pallet-swapped Amazi-girls?
I hope they somehow both manage to lose this fight.
Next scene will be a cut to Malaya and Marcie skateboarding, then we get more Mike flashbacks, and we won’t see where this leads to until August.
Called it?
Jesus Christ Dorothy literally witnessed a stabbing like, what two weeks ago??? And now she’s about to watch a face get bashed in with a hammer??? These poor kids
When in doubt, murder your only Ally
Wait, that doesn’t sound right-
That’s okay, I don’t think that Blaine considers Ross an ally at this point, only a loose end.
Ross: I’ve see AmaziGirl. It’s not so difficult understand she’s Amber with a mask.
Blaine: You, STUPID SIMPLE MAN!
And here’s where he realises that witnesses are a problem.
The hostages or just Ross? Killing 5 kids will draw a lot of attention, people go crazy when kids die, I don’t know if it would be worth it to kill them when all they saw was a backlit guy in a blue mask.
Blaine stopped giving a shit about the attention he was drawing when he kidnapped six kids and dressed up like a supervillain. We are not talking about someone who’s thinking long-term or rationally.
The US has a gazillion mass school shootings and several concentration camps that say you’re wrong and people, in fact, do not give any particular shit when kids die.
Also, these guys are are 18-20 college students, less likely to get the ‘they’re just CHILDREN!!!!!!’ reaction.
OTOH, some of these kids are white and school shootings, even college ones still provoke strong reactions.
Not enough to do anything about guns of course, but not generally lax towards the perpetrator.
With one week to go, we are on track for this month to be the first March without a school shooting. One good thing about the covid crisis, I guess.
Fuck, this March is long as hell.
Something tells me that Blaine isn’t planning on hammering out love between his brothers and his sisters all over this land.
(I know, lame joke, but someone already made a Maxwell’s Silver Hammer joke, so I had to improvise)
Bobby Darin would have been proud of you (and maybe PP&M too)!
Don’t forget Trini Lopez!
No way Blaine can connect with that hammer. Ross is about twice as strong as him on an ordinary day, and he’s badly injured.
Ross sees that hammer coming from a mile away. He should be able to block it easily.
“You attack me, Ball Peen? I must remember what my youth pastor told me to do in this situation.”
“If anyone attacks you with a ball peen hammer, they are definitely an agent of Satan”.
“Gasp! I have been deceived!”
If he wanted to, Ross could capture Blaine in a bear hug…
“In The Nicest Way”
Is that a fucking JOCO reference?
I sure hope so because that’s what I thought of too.
ditto
There’s only one thing that is fitting here and I’m not checking to see if anyone else beat me to it:
“Toedad is Toedead.”
OK after I click Post I’ll look for someone who beat me to it.
OK just one person.
stubbing your toe hurts
this is the worst ever episode of Pinky and the Blaine
This is it! The moment we’ve all been waiting for:
Ballpeen VS The Toe
Hg
I guess we’ll never see the Hammertoe team-up.
THE WRATH OF BALL-PEEN
Just in case anyone didn’t get the reference in the alt text:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOt7WhF_hYQ