The legendary early-aughts webcomic that inspired a wave of webcomic creators.
Dumbing of Age
David M Willis
Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
Paint the Town Red
Windy, Winter Jay Kiakas
Winona runs a werewolf shelter with partner in crime, Odile in the Gothic city of Merlot. One day they take in an injured vampire, and soon unravels many of the dark secrets of Merlot.
Fantomestein
Beka Duke
Desperate for companionship, Frankenstein's Monster pretends to be the Opera Ghost. A grave mistake.
Beeserker
TJ Cordes
This comic is about a robot powered by bees, but it's also about the kind of people who think filling a robot with bees is a good idea, and why they're wrong.
2 Slices
RJ Morel
After a case of mistaken identity, will awkward Daisuke find help from excitable Mamo, or will his love life be thrown completely off track?
Slightly Damned
Chu
Rhea Snaketail returns from the dead, befriending a Demon who falls in love with an Angel. The afterlife ain't what it used to be!
The Otherknown
Lorian Merriman
Chandra is a 12-year-old accidental time traveler with a reluctant new dad, who happens to be a member of a feared galactic crime syndicate.
Blindsprings
Kadi Fedoruk
Tamaura, wrested into a world 300 years in the future, must find a way to save the magic fading from her country.
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
Countdown to Countdown
Velinxi
Iris Black is a self-proclaimed inventor with the curious ability to bring his drawings to life, and yearns to find a space where he can use his powers freely.
Guilded Age
T Campbell, John Waltrip, Florence Machina
Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
Namesake
Isa, Meg
There's ghosts at your heels and fairy tale worlds ahead. What do you do? Jump down the rabbit hole!
BOOKMARK Click "Tag Page" to bookmark a page. When you return to the site, click "Goto Tag" to continue where you left off.
BUFFER WATCH
Comics are currently drawn and uploaded through:
Well if they are arrested they will be detained until bail is posted depending on the mood of J and J’s parents they may or may not spend a night or two in jail while proving it is her house.
They broke into the house, police aren’t tasked to determine if there was a crime or not, that’s the judge; cops detain and pass onto suspects and considering it’d be up to toedad to decide if they are charged with something there’s no chance they’ll go to jail if they get caught, they would definitely end there
Police do investigate crimes, however, and pass information on the DA who determines whether they’re going to indict.
The fact that it’s easily verified that Becky is/was a lawful resident of the house means the DA isn’t going to bother a Grand Jury with this. S’not worth it.
I actually wonder about the residency, since Becky left home rather than being kicked out, in which case toedad would need to evict her to be able to press charges and it’s not like this isn’t easily verified by a phone call to Joyce family or the neighbors.
There’s also the fact that if this was her home she’d be able to walk in pick her stuff and leave.
That does not change the fact that you’re absolutely right about the DA, no fucking way this goes to court, because it’d be an state sponsored petty act of revenge by an asshole to his victim, regardless spending the night in jail is totally on the table
She was presumably living there until she moved into the dorm at Anderson a couple months ago.
As far as I know that doesn’t really count as a change of residential address? (At least in my state it doesn’t, college students have to go home or mail in an absentee ballot to vote.)
Local governments will try very very hard to convince you otherwise, but you can register to vote using your dorm address if you like. It is your legal residence.
There is a difference between legal residence and permanent residence in some jurisdictions – in Canada, frex, your college dorm is your legal residence but not your permanent residence (permanent residence is still where your folks live) because you live in the dorm for less than 6mo out of the year.
If where Becky is has the same law, she’d still be entitled to enter the house as a legal permanent resident of it who has not been evicted.
ischemgeek – Where do you got to college that requires you to be in your dorm for less than six months of the year! :O Both universities I’ve been to were Sept – May/June so I was in the dorm WELL over 6mos.
*Cop knocks on door.* “Excuse me, we had a report of a possi–”
*Joyce hurls herself forward, falling to her knees, arms outstretched waiting for the cuffs.* “I admit it! I did it! I AM the Ding-dong Bandit! Leave my brother [sic] and friend alone, it was all me!”
Police determine if there is a crime or not all the time. They don’t make an arrest and leave it up to the judge/prosecutor everytime something is reported or they see something suspicious.
Breaking into your own residence is not a crime. If the cops spot me (or a neighbor reports me) breaking a window to get in because I’ve locked myself out, it’s not a guaranteed trip to jail to wait for a judge. I try to convince the cops it’s okay and if I can, they let me go. In my case it would be easy – I’ve got ID showing I live here. In Becky’s case it would be harder and complicated by the local cops likely being prejudiced against lesbians and sympathetic to Toedad. OTOH, if they know enough about her to be prejudiced, they also know it’s her house and she’s legally entitled to get her stuff.
Lacking a key doesn’t mean it’s not her residence and that’s why she can’t just walk in, get her stuff and leave.
So charges don’t work like that. But many people don’t know how it does work! So here’s a rough and dirty outline which I’m really only sure applies in the United States and probably has some important variations by jurisdiction , so keep that in mind and anyone else could and should jump in if they know otherwise. Also TINLA (obviously), just a description of the process.
Cops can effect an arrest if: 1) they have a properly obtained warrant, 2) without a warrant for misdemeanors committed in the officer’s presence or 3) without a warrant for a felony which they have probable cause to believe has been committed by the person being arrested. There’s all sorts of 4th amendment stuff about stops and searches and developing probable cause, but them’s the basics. That’s Constitutional Law, so pretty universal to the US. The cops generally do have discretion to say, that isn’t a crime/there isn’t probably cause to believe that’s a crime. The alleged victim’s desire to press charges or not is probably taken into account at this and the next stage – they may also be able to file for issuance of charges directly to the Commissioner or Prosecutor.
Prosecutors: If an arrest is effected, an application for charges is submitted to the States’s Attorney/District Attorney/Prosecutor’s Office/Whatever They’re Called Near You. They assess the information from the officer and determine whether or not to bring charges and which charges to bring. This may also be handled by a commissioner or similarly placed official who might issue charges which are then reviewed by the Prosecutor’s office. It is possible for the Prosecutor’s Office to dismiss charges after they’ve been issued or amend the charges brought.
After charges are brought and you get notice and other procedural stuff you go to trial and a judge or jury decides whether or not a crime was committed by the accused.
All of which does add up to the cops being allowed to haul this trio in or not, based pretty much on their own discretion. B&E is a felony, so probable cause exists. Or they could accept that it’s Becky’s house and let them walk.
Some of that is more theoretical than real though. It’s very easy for a cop to haul someone into jail on something trumped up and let them sit there over night, even if no charges are ever filed or are dismissed in the morning. You can sue for false arrest, but it’s very hard to win unless it’s really egregious.
Oh yeah. I don’t know if I’d call it ‘more theoretical than real’ so much as not going to be addressed until long after the arrest has actually happened (like having evidence excluded at trial for 4th amendment violations).
The point isn’t really that the police couldn’t hold her, it was pointing out where discretion lay and how the charging process works in response to OwenSohmer’s comment.
Case in point: The Harvard college professor who was spotted by a neighbor ‘breaking into’ his own home. By the time the cops arrived, he’d settled in and mixed himself a drink. When the cop started questioning him aggressively, he responded angrily, assuming this was an instance of racial profiling. The cop, not liking his tone, asked him to step outside because “the acoustics of the kitchen were making it hard for him to hear clearly.” The prof did so, and once he raised his voice while standing on the front porch, the officer arrested him for disturbing the peace. Unofficial term for this sort of charge is “Contempt of Cop”.
If you are drunk and a cop asks you to step outside, it’s a really good idea to not do that. Varies by state and such, but often they do that to also hit ya with drunk in public now.
Source: A step-dad of mine called a cop a Horse’s Ass. Cop asked him to step outside, slapped him with a couple nights in jail for drunk in public.
I once called the police about getting into my own place when locked out. Why the police? We had no management emergency number and locksmiths (all 15 I called) apparently don’t do Sunday’s. Anyways, their response? “Break in if you can. It’s not illegal if it’s your residence.”
Though… It’s not HER residence, so it might be tricky.
Unless she’s been legally emancipated and/or evicted, though, it IS her residence. You don’t stop residing in a place just because you stepped outside. The fact that she was kicked out of college and that Toedad took her home once (and tried to a second time) means she’s definitely not legally excised from the home, yet.
Good catch. However, I still think that unless she’s been formally evicted, the actual B&E is not chargeable. (I noted above that cops are quite adept at finding something else to charge you with if they really want to, though.)
A neighbor that doesn’t like you reporting you as a ‘suspicious person’ breaking into your own home could be enough cause for cops.
Going to jail may seem like the worst outcome, but there’s also just getting beat on while handcuffed in your own house, then charged with resisting arrest and nothing else once they figure out that it is your house. And good luck trying to fight that charge, which you better do cause it’s a felony in some places.
Seeing those words (I already know what they mean) made me remember one of the lamest jokes by a standup comedian I’ve ever heard, so unfortunately I’m going to have to bail on this while I make desperate attempts to purge that memory.
Shipping is shipping, but personally, I feel a bit gross at the idea of making a gay character who was dragged off to reparative therapy being made straight for the sake of a ship.
Surprisingly yes. My best friend and I have one based originally on having met on a forum and it’s grown by laughing like two idiots at cartoons and movies. I can kinda see Becky and Walky getting along like my best friend and I do. Two similar people just sitting back watching tv and having fun playing the Nintendo every so often when the weather’s crap.
So does that mean there is still hope for a Slipshine exclusive with Amber and Ethan sandwiching Danny between them with Danny both pitcher and catcher simultaneously?
It can be a dream for Ethan I don’t care. He can wake up from such a steamy hallucination and say something like “No more Nachitos before bed”.
I used to have a girlfriend who insisted that it was awful to mix salty with sweet food. So she hated chocolate paired with, say, pretzels, trail mix, or peanutbutter.
The you and Becky could share a box without conflict. These things are important to establish when making friends.
For example, any group that has a person who won’t eat pizza crust must by law also have someone who is unopposed to eating someone else’s discarded crusts. Thus harmony reigns.
My sisters and I tried that with watermelon (they wouldn’t eat the pink part near the rind).
I always ended up with the eaten over pieces while they got all the juicy center stuff.
I can assure you, it didn’t take long for harmony to end its reign.
Nonsense, she can clearly keep hitting the snooze button on all this emotional pain forever and it won’t at all metastasize into a giant ball of awful the second things mellow out enough for her to not just be able to run on adrenaline anymore.
IS she simply repressing it, though? She lived the reality already. The situation is in the past for her. She may have gotten to the point where she’s already cried over losing her mom and realized it’s not helping her to dwell on the past and think “what if”.
Her best friend has accepted her for who she is and fiercely fights for her sake. She’s got a girlfriend, who also fought for her sake. (Making that TWO people she’s close to whose bonds have been forged in a trial by fire.) She’s got an environment she can return to where people support her. There’s nothing looming over her that she’s gonna have to deal with besides getting a job, which this venture is actually working towards. (She’s unaware that Billie has moved back into her room or that Joyce’s parents are discussing the idea of pulling her out of school.)
Yeah, her past – recent or not – has a lot of shit to it, but she’s got one damn bright future ahead of her. She let herself feel sad about the memory of her mother for a bit, but turning away from that to focus on the present and the future isn’t necessarily repression.
If Becky wasn’t trying to deal with the stuff in her life, I’d agree it was repression. Except she is. She’s actively trying to improve herself, she’s making plans, she faced her father directly even when she didn’t have to in order to get closure. Repression is just pretending there isn’t a problem at all.
Yeah, her attitude’s a bit of a front, but that just tells me she doesn’t want people feeling sad for her over things that can’t be changed, not that she’s pulling a Walky. She spends way too much time actually doing something about her problems, and she actually has expressed frustration and sadness to the people around her.
Assuming she closed the door at all. This strip throws into doubt whether she is EVER happy, since she’s clearly very good (and practiced) at faking it.
I think she’s genuinely happy with Dina. And I say that because her wackiness there is tempered and she shows her vulnerability and fear a lot more. I think Dina right now is very healing for her and I think her joy after getting rescued was also genuine.
But she’s likely less happy less frequently than she wants to be believed to be happy.
Becky always wants to be believed to be happy. It’s easier, plus people won’t drop her like a hot potato for potentially bumming them out. (This is my method, too.)
Your way is valid, I assure you. Repressing means it escapes sideways in word unexpected negative ways, plus you pay it back later with a big pile of interest.
I think more important for Becky at this point than feeling happy with Dina: She feels safe with Dina.
Finding someone you feel safe with after fleeing an abusive situation is huge. And I don’t think Becky really feels safe around Joyce yet – Joyce is Ghost of Christian Past to Becky, and still has a lot of internalized bigotry. Dina’s the first to go, “Oh, you’re a lesbian. Ok.” and move on from the revelation with total and immediate acceptance. Joyce did the best she could have done given their upbringing, but that doesn’t mean she is entirely comfortable with Becky’s sexuality yet – and Becky, knowing Joyce as well as she does, would pick up on it.
Also, don’t forget about Becky’s longtime attraction to Joyce. She’s still dealing with her unrequited feelings, so distancing herself from Joyce works for now.
And dang…that 2nd panel. Really hurts to see Becky steel herself like that.
I honestly believe that she believes that she is happy.
I also think she is really good at lying to herself.
At this point the question becomes a bit philosophical.
Just make sure on the first day you find Joyce and gouge her eye out with a spoon (or it’s Joyce, maybe a ladle) to establish that you’re the new business.
A plucky redhead who has suffered terrible trauma but is determined to suppress it by keeping an outwardly sunny attitude to prevent people from realizing how much trouble she is having coping with her situation, even despite her genuine exuberance at having finally escaped her old life and gaining her freedom?
I don’t know if you’re joking or not, so I’ll just point out that I described an actual sitcom on Netflix, because the more people who watch Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, the better off the human race will be.
Fully backing the promotion of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt!
Ignore how angry my gravatar looks, my other email has a Dalek, and I feel like the shameless promotion of a good show would look super sarcastic with that.
& Unbreakable is a great show, but Friends, which Frost Magi referenced, was … ok at best. Describing Friends as “six white complainers” is pretty on point. JessWitt might enjoy Kimmy Schmidt, but was commenting about Friends.
Becky is indeed amazing. The depiction of what flashed thru Becky’s mind when she found her mother was handled with grace. And how she changes her face so as to face her friends, makes me cry. (and I don’t cry).
Congratulations Willis. Your characterizations are just indescribable. I love your people, even the ones I love to hate.
You write amazing storylines.
There is a pizza buffet restaurant where I live that, as well as the usual stuff, has raisins and chocolate chips on the salad bar. Along with Golden Grahams.
I LOVE that place!!
A pizza place I like used to have taco meat and pineapple as options in their online custom stromboli options. I emphasize USED TO. I don’t think they liked it when I ordered a taco meat, pineapple and Cheddar cheese stromboli.
Raisins are what granola was made for! Peanut butter and chocolate? More like I wanted a Reeses cup but all my grandparents had was this or a pack of stale 6 month old saltines.
We already kind of knew Becky used immature behavior and humor as a defense mechanism, but seeing it like this really makes me wonder just how often she’s been hurting and we had no idea.
I really hope she learns to let herself cry and otherwise be sad around her friends. They won’t think the less of her for it, and it’ll be much healthier than what she’s doing now.
It’s possible, even likely, that she learned early on it’s pointless or outright dangerous to express any discontent for more than a second. To do so is to invite apathy or “debbie downer” accusations, which helps nobody and can even make it worse.
…Not that I know anything about what that’s like, hah heh!
… or that expressions of discontent were met with rage from authority figures, so that it becomes very clear that you put up and shut up or bad things happen. “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about!” type of thing. Alternatively, expressions of discontent were met with the assumption that they were insincere attempts at manipulation – “Oh, here come the waterworks!” and “Never trust a woman when she cries. She only does it to get her way,” type of thing. Third option: Crying etc was met with ridicule and gaslighting. “It’s nothing to cry about!” “Children are starving in Africa and you’re crying because a boy said a mean word? Grow the **** up!”
All of the above is why I stiff upper lip stuff in public and have exactly one person who I will allow to see me cry – and even then, usually no. I’d rather be thought of as a cold b-word than make myself vulnerable in as dangerous a way as that.
And my folks wondered why I didn’t mention anything about mental health issues until I had a crisis in my teen years, and why I flat-out refuse to talk anything charged with them now. Gee, I wonder why. Couldn’t possibly put my finger on it.
Other option: her mother tried to commit friggin suicide, & due to emotional abuse from everyone else, Becky might feel like suicide attempts are the logical conclusion of allowing herself to feel negative emotions.
I am waiting for Becky to be alone with Dina who very bluntly talks about the grieving process following a traumatic event and offers sympathy through light touch at which point Becky breaks into tears and sobs into Dina’s lap who looks awkward for a moment than lightly hugs Becky while whispering “sympathy through light embrace”
I’d argue that every time we see her turn up the wacky and be extra goofball are the times when she’s in the most severe emotional distress (visiting IU after getting thrown out of Anderson, right after having her final meeting with her dad, pretty much all of today). She hides it all really well, because she feels everyone will abandon her like those who have abandoned her if she shows openly how awful she feels.
Plus, at this point, it might be habit. Toedad would definitely not be a safe person to show emotional pain and vulnerability to and so setting up a good mask and making it like armor would be the best survival strategy she would have available.
That is a very good point.
There is no use in showing vulnerability to someone who either ignores it or puts you down for it, or maybe locks you in a closet to pray it out of your system.
So, she hides it.
I dunno. I mean, I’ll buy “a lot of the time”, sure, that makes sense, but every time? Couldn’t she have some genuine goofball in her that isn’t defense mechanism?
Two points. First, our entire experience of Becky is her in various states of traumatic experience, save for the first week or so of comics, and even then she’s totes saying goodby to Joyce for a long long time. In other words, we have no baseline to compare to. And second, Joyce didn’t identify the wacky goofball behavior as being out of character for Becky. Far to the contrary, she seems to accept it as the way Becky is, for better or worse.
I’m not saying it doesn’t serve as a defense mechanism sometimes… just that this might not be its only role. It can also sometimes be a mark of a healthy and happy Becky, which is a positive thing in my mind. And it would also mean that Becky’s character and personality are not defined solely by the trauma in her life. That’s had a big impact, yes, but there might be more to her than that.
No one is arguing that Becky isn’t naturally goofy.
Cerberus is implying that every time she turns it up a level to be EXTRA GOOFY, is at a time when she is at her most distressed, not that she is never naturally wacky.
This. She’s a wacky fun person. We see that in the little jokes she makes when she is showing more vulnerability.
But when she cranks the wacky to 11 and the comment thread roars at her in response? Those are usually the moments when she’s in emotional crisis or pain and is desperate to hide it.
Basically coping by turning one’s personality all the way up to try and drown the sadness that is also part of her.
She’s a wacky, fun person, but right now, she believes she has to be a wacky, fun person all the time, no matter what else she’s feeling. So when she lets the mask slip and lets herself cry or feel the pain is only when she’s alone and no one knows and the rest of the time, she tries to be what she is naturally and that’s why often times it’s a little bit tryhard or otherwise off (like her making Nazi jokes about Joyce’s siblings).
It’s basically her in distress trying to fake what usually comes naturally, so she can “act natural” and thus no one will know. And well, to her, that’s working because no one seems to have actually cottoned on to that coping strategy or stated to her that they’ve noticed.
And she thinks it’s necessary because well, Toedad. That house would likely not have been one that it was ever safe to be anything other than “acting normal”. Especially when every other deviation from “acting normal” was punished so severely.
And it’s funny, because more relaxed Becky has more to her than just being a jokester. She’s often incredibly sweet and empathetic and goes out of her way to check up on the people around her and takes how they’re feeling seriously. I don’t think she should wholly abandon being wacky, just that this coping strategy will need to be replaced with others sometime down the line, because the repression is not allowing her to really process all the awful that has happened to her and instead is letting it just fester and rot underneath.
The biggest problem is that if she wears that mask for too long, she could forget how to take it off. And that brings a whole new level of problems due to emotions and trauma that she can’t fully access and/or let go.
OTOH, her entire life has been lived with Toedad. And a mother who at least attempted suicide and who may have shared the same coping strategies – though the evidence for that is tenuous.
Her trauma and her coping mechanisms go back long before those first strips. And as you say, they seem normal to Joyce. I doubt we (or even Joyce) have actually ever seen a healthy Becky. Happy, yes. But always with the home situation on the back of her mind.
Tbh, the concept of a family Bible carries with it connotations involving traceable roots through time that the modern fundie movement doesn’t actually have, so that might be a bit difficult.
BEST THIEF EEEVEEEERRRRR!!! Yaaaaaa guuuiissssseeeeeeee
But seriously, Becky find your social security number. And that was super insensitive… but she does need it, right? I hope she finds it… and will be okay… and please let me hug her…
They found the number last comic. They just don’t have the card. So with the number and the birth certificate they should be able to get the card and that will make getting the rest of the documents way less of a pain (though she’ll definitely still be hitting up some of her friends for some funds for getting all of them).
I suspect Willis didn’t want to deal with asshole future commenters yelling at her for borrowing money from her friends for taking care of this paperwork stuff and so gave her a lucky find so she can self-fund that a little bit.
The birth certificate is the important thing. The SSN is important, but the card itself isn’t too big a deal. Easily replaced if you need it, but most of the time you can just write the number down.
And that’s what they got, birth certificate and her social security number written down on a piece of paperwork. It’s a foothold she can use to get the rest of the stuff and means she might have what she needs to start working and potentially returning to school in a month rather than several years.
Obvious or at least apparent Muslim working in a customer service field in the red part of America. Double-trouble for having to deal with the parents as well as the students. Oh, and she may also be partially responsible for making sure a bunch of students behave themselves in the dorms.
Asma may be a student at the university. That is the sort of job on a college campus that might go to an older student or graduate student. Sort of like Ruth’s situation.
She hasn’t gone into very much, but Leslie’s family disowned her for coming out in this universe too. I’d imagine she’s had her fair share of suffering already.
Based off the main cast? Dorothy, Sarah, Dina. Walky could benefit from a long talk with his sister, and Ethan and Danny needs more confidence, but they’re in good conditions otherwise.
I would argue that while most of the cast would certainly benefit from therapy, Ruth and Amber are the only ones who absolutely NEED it in order to lead functional lives.
Joyce. She’s not getting over the PTSD from Scarface. Though the Toedad/parents trauma seems to be overwhelming it for the moment.
Still, having such a crisis that you forget it’s not safe to be alone outside isn’t actually fixing the problem.
I speak from experience that when you are not given much frame of reference as far as the value of money, things are easily represented by the last thing you spent money on
ten hours of artwork = one dinner at Outback
[current day self: WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY THIS IS WHY YOU STARVE]
To be fair, other people pointed out that Becky’s cheerfulness seemed to be a coping mechanism earlier but he’s the only one I saw put it together. But to be fair again, the comments were too full of folks complaining about trigger warnings and shitting on suicidal people for me to read all of them.
She does, she really does, and she’s enlisting more by the minute. Two weeks ago she only had Joyce. Now she has a whole group, including a badass girlfriend and a REALLY cool big sis.
I think the fabric is getting real thin and frayed. I really hope she can make it to Monday and then can just collapse into her dinosaur girlfriend’s lap and cry until Tuesday.
I remember being 18 and thinking $200 was a lot of money. Now, at 27, I’m like, “So cell phone, Internet, the water bill, dog food for the week, and gas. Also, I still have to pay the gas & electric, rent, and get groceries, which will be another $800.”
Other than rent (which includes electricity, water, heating etc.), 200$ could see me through a month. Sure, things would be a little tight, but at the age of 33, 200$ is STILL a lot of money.
If I were living alone $200 CAD could see me through the month (which is like… 140 US, I think?) after rent & utilities. $100 CAD for cell and internet (necessity for me because of my work) and $100 CAD for food. Very doable if you eat out never and cycle or walk everywhere.
Mind you, I like small luxuries like not having to get up at 5AM to get to work on time, so I spend more than that in a month now, but I’ve lived on less than that per month before in grad school ($650/mo to cover all of the things – in a city where rent on a bedroom in a place is $450/mo utilities not included)
Right? $200 is a lot of money if it’s an unexpected expense but as a regular part of your budget, not so much. My monthly student loan payment is $200.
guuhhh, bad feeling about this. Breaking into a house that’s only dubiously yours is one thing, but if the cops find her with Ross’s money, they WILL come down on her.
Good point, but if there’s money missing and they have other items from the house (like the birth certificate or the Social Security card) that places them in the house and make her a likely suspect. And while she can prove a legitimate claim to the birth certificate or the SS card and could also probably get away with taking away some clean clothes (and the granola bar), taking anything else that is not verifiably hers is, well, theft.
i’m with tim on this one, how would they verify where the cash came from? something tells me ross is more the “stuff it under the mattress” type than “anal retentive personal accounting” type. it’s not like becky raided her mom’s jewelry box or helped herself to the silver (which is arguably not a bad idea, if you don’t mind the theft part). it’s cash.
No, didn’t they find some tax information in some of the stuff that was in the bags yesterday? So she has a SSN, even if she doesn’t have the actual paper card.
She had a twin, and she’d always been told that the twin died at birth. Now that they have the birth certificate and can’t find a social security card, the truth will come out. The twin that died was her!
(With apologies to Mark Twain.)
As long as they know the number, she can get a replacement card. Of course, there’s probably a ream of paperwork, a mile of red tape, and ridiculous filing and replacement fees that will need to be dealt with or paid.
Yes, it’s a pretty easy process to get a replacement card. Per https://www.ssa.gov/ssnumber/ss5doc.htm , her birth certificate and her school ID should be enough documentation.
The main thing is that Student ID would most likely be a photo ID at the college level. You don’t stop being you just because you no longer attend the school.
So do they print the new card and hand it to you in person, or do they mail it to your residence? Because depending on whether the building has a mailbox vs. front door mail slot, Becky might have to break into this house AGAIN to retrieve the card if it is mailed.
Furthermore, if she wants to apply for a passport or driver’s license, I think she needs a few more forms of valid ID than just the number and birth certificate– or a few stronger forms of ID than those two– to qualify. Is “Birth Certificate plus Social Security Card” enough for a driver’s license in Indiana?
Social security cards are issued to people, not addresses. Once Becky verifies her identity, she provides the SSA her mailing address and they send it out to her. It really is that simple – I recently got a replacement card myself and I haven’t been a resident of the state I lived in when I first got my number for over 30 years now. BONUS TIP: I didn’t even have to go in person; because I’d established an online account with the SSA a few years ago I was able to order mine online and it came within a week. Pretty cool.
I just checked the regs for Indiana and they offer two types of ID, secure and non-secure. Becky would want the SecureID as the other looks to be something that’s pretty much only valid for identification at a polling place. She’ll need to verify her identity with her birth certificate and a copy of her SS card and she’ll also need to verify her residency, which will be trickier as she need to show two pieces of acceptable evidence which Indiana defines as a computer generated bill from a utility company, credit card, doctor or hospital no more than 60 days old. It’s not clear to me if she can use the non-secure ID (which just requires the things she already has, the birth certificate and the SS #) as acceptable ID for getting a job but I think it might be possible.
Panel 1: Oh, wait behind her. Shit, I was totally wrong on where Joyce and Jocelyne were. I guess Toedad’s weight room is a separate (non-bedroom) room than the bedroom.
Also, yes on documents! Birth Certificate and ss card number should be enough to get ss card and those two together may be enough to prove citizenship for over the table jobs, though she may also need to track down a photo id or a passport. But the amount of bullshit she needs to wade through has dropped precipitously.
Which is good, because dear Bob in Himmel does she look about ready to curl into a fetal position and never stop crying. I’m not sure how much hell she can put herself through without completely breaking.
And she’s got a lot to feel angry about. Her dad’s betrayal, how he likely contributed to her mom’s feelings of hopelessness, not having any of this anymore. And unlike Joyce, she hasn’t had a moment to punch anything. Hell, she may be even more pacifist than Carla in that way.
But that eyetwitch, that mask shift. This wacky persona mask is a lot harder than the one’s before and she must be feeling so tired of just all of it. I hope she gets the chance to truly rest soon instead of still feeling like she’s running just to stay in the game.
Panel 3:
Excelllllent… muahaha. Ah, sometimes comic characters hit your pettiness just right and just deliver the magic. What a wonderful coda to so many spending so long whining about that damn haircut that was so critical to make it to recovery. To keep moving and being herself and holding on. To keep alive.
Panel 4: Grand Theft Hiking Snacks. Punishable by having Lex Luthor steal 40 cakes. It’s more than 4 tens! And that’s terrible!
Panel 5: And the Joyce magic is wearing off and she’s back to worrying about jail. I dunno, this might be the time for Jocelyne to pack it in and get these two home before they fully collapse under the weight of their individual stresses.
Yup. For me, panel 2 is really where we see how strong Becky is. “Nope, ghosts, you are NOT bringing me done. You want me to curl down and cry? Well I am going to make jokes about haircuts”.
Panel 1: No, I think you were right before. As I read it, Becky’s standing at the door of her parents’ room, looking in. The door’s next to the right-hand wall from Becky’s POV; the window and exercise equipment are on the exterior wall opposite her; the closet where J&J are working is on the right hand wall near the door; the bed and desk are off to the left (she’s facing diagonally in and towards the bed). I’d guess J&J were focussed on the documents rather than Becky when she walked in, and didn’t see the mask slip.
Disagree. Compare last strip’s last panel, where the doorway is behind her and the open door itself is on Becky’s left, vs today’s strip in the last two panels where the doorway is behind her but the door is on her right. My understanding from the beginning has been that there are 3 ‘bedrooms’ (as in that’s what they would be called on the floorplan), but only 2 are in use as actual bedrooms: Toedad’s (which was also Bonnie’s), and Becky’s, while the third has no bed and functions as Toedad’s office/gym/private space.
(I have some bias in thinking this, as growing up, our first house was a 3-bedroom house where one was my parents’ bedroom, one was me and my brother’s room, and the third was my father’s computer room. But my family has a history of not using rooms for their named purposes, e.g. we have not used a dining room for dining since ’94)
This. One can be haunted as in the metaphysical, religious sense of being pursued by actual metaphysical ghosts or sharing a house with them or at least have the belief that they are being haunted.
One can also be haunted by one’s past. By your own actions, by the actions of others, by what one said or didn’t say. In this one, it’s the latter for Becky. Her past, the memories of what this place holds for her of the family that is gone forever for her that haunts her.
And unlike the former, these ghosts won’t stay here when she goes back home. They live in her head and so she can’t ever fully run away from them.
The best granola bars ever won’t be invented for another fifty years. They’ll contain allergy-safe chocolate, perfectly spiced granola with all the best not-yet-synthesized designer spices, texture-improving nanites that customize the bar to your prefered firmness and chewiness just before you eat, and a safe but noticeable infusion of dopamine.
The reason that this is the pinnacle of granola bar technology is that it will roll out scant months before World War 3. The ensuing nuclear fallout and various bioweapon plagues result in the extinction of humanity, thus simultaneously ensuring that there will never be a better granola bar while also demonstrating why claiming that you have the best ever of anything is actually a very very very very very scary thought.
Becky, you’re FUCKING AMAZING. You deserve to hear it 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times over into infinity and more. You are doing something that is difficult and painful, but what molds you into a stronger person. You are in pain, accepting that, but turning your attention back to the matter at hand, even pushing your usual silly side back into view. YOU ARE AMAZING AND WONDERFUL. YOU INSPIRE ALL OF US.
“No,” I decided. “We stay for the gold.” The goon shrugged.
“Your dime.” Ever the pragmatic.
“No, her dime.” I corrected with a sideway glance to the client. She was still fighting her ghosts, but by the look of, she was winning for now. When she saw me looking the mask snapped back up. I pretended not to notice.
I’m a professional.
“What’s in here,” she asked, popping open a box, more to divert my attention than anything.
It worked.
“…oh my” she said after a while, which summed it up pretty well.
“It’s the good stuff,” the goon said as way of conversation. “Peanut butter chocolate chip. Worth quite a lot on the street”
True enough, but it wasn’t the granola bar that gave me paus, even if it told us that “Joe the Toe” was not quite the upstanding citizen we had been led to believe. Everyone and their mother dabbled in granola bars and almost no one cared, unless the cops needed an excuse to bust your gut, of course. Nevertheless, this was fancy stuff.
But was gave me paus was the money. Bundles with fresh twemties, carefully stacked. This was big money. Bad money. Money of the kind that buy a lot of questions not asked. Not many people could handle that kind of cash.
This was haircut money.
“…the dragons muscling in?” the goon asked, obviously following a similar trail of thoughts. I shook my head.
“Last time I checked, Leafs had them under their thumb.”
“Who then?”
“Dunno, not our business” True enough. “Not our problem” Yeah, right. “Let’s just chalk it down to Joe being in over his head and leave it as someone else’s pro…”
Surprisingly fast the goon had put a hand om my arm. “Trigger warning”, she said. I barely had time to press myself against the wall.
A shot rang out. The door was kicked open and someone walked in with a gun.
Oh and let us not forget Billie and Ruth’s… everything or Walky slamming face first into his own limitations and blinders and how that is ripping apart his self-image.
And hand in hand with this, as I was thinking after our recent discussion, a whole bunch of (attempted) coping strategies on display. some possibly better than others (ahem AMBER), but all needing some work, IMO.
Ethan — trying to PR-control and thereby deny his sexuality.
Sarah — trapping herself in a friendless, loveless life in her desire to avoid drama, white lies, and general human failing. … which is itself a human failing. Ah, irony.
Carla — Mary. Just… Mary.
Marcie — Falling in lust with a jerkface. An awesome jerkface, but still a jerkface.
The Carla and Mary thing is really interesting to me because of how much the context of all of that has changed so dramatically with recent real-world events thanks to the constant changing timeline.
Cause now, when Mary unleashed her barrage, she was doing it in a world where multiple states are suing for the right to bar trans people from public facilities and are doing so on the back of disgusting lies that all trans women are child molesting men. She did it in a world where the KKK is using trans bathroom panic to recruit new members, where more and more angry ranting videos of bigots in Targets screaming about how trans people are child molesters are cropping up, where the ADL is literally arguing to a case they hope will go to the Supreme Court that merely being a trans kid in the same room as cis kids constitutes an act of sexual harassment and thus creates real emotional distress.
Now, Mary is not just being a bigot, she’s a bigot who thinks she’s participating in this whole moral culture of “fighting back against Obama’s fascism in forcing the beauteous states to treat trans people not like shit”. It’s probably a major theme of her current Sunday service. She probably has good reason to believe that if she makes a big enough stink she can get the college Republicans group or the governor or maybe even that young congresswoman who needs a crusading topic to help her in the election will have her back. That she can make history by being a dick to Carla.
And thus it makes it even more important that Carla is able to take her power back here because as time slips into the future, the stakes for her are getting way higher.
Hopefully it’ll work the other way as well. By the time this storyline ends, we’ll have had a bunch of positive developments.
Honestly, the amount of pushback the NC law has been getting is encouraging. It brings out the crazies, but it’s not popular even in NC and it’s definitely hurting the governor. The feds are pushing remedies. Other states have backed off on similar laws.
Similarly, it wasn’t that long ago that Republicans were drumming up votes by introducing state level amendments banning same-sex marriage and they were mostly passing too. Then that turned into a losing issue and the whole thing turned on them. To me this looks like it might go even faster.
None of which changes the horror of living in the middle of it.
Yeah, but his main abusers aren’t Amber/AG, they’re his parents. And he still believes that he deserves ill treatment and that he’s no good on his own and that he needs to sacrifice to keep a relationship going.
So, he definitely has some new coping strategies to develop before we can fully mark him as resolved.
Joyce’s friends know she cant go out alone, they walk her.
Sarah yup she just cant get herself to socialize.
Sal doesn’t hate everyone and everything. She just holds her feelings in too because of her own trama’s. But she is the one who told Amazi-Girl to put her problems behind her and stop reliving them or it would destroy her.
Amber, yeah agree she is a special case.
Becky is handling her problems day by day. It’s working for her. (I’ve been there and done that). Get thru the day and tomorrow takes care of itself.)
More? oh yeah.
Danny who want Ethan and can’t because of what it would do to Amber.
Ethan, ditto.
Mary…..omg….’nuff said.
Carla seems to be handling her transgender issues but…she’s an awful pita.
Josh/Josylen. Building a life, but can’t face parents with it.
To name a few
I think that’s more that she’s been so screwed up by the happy-fun gun times and her mom’s response to it that it’s overwhelmed her other panic attacks.
That’s not “getting better”. That’s forgetting about your broken arm because you just got shot.
Very, very true. Steven Hawkings will come by soon enough and start ask awkward questions and be hijacked to explain non-false physic from scratch.
Hawkins [computer voice] “There is no indication at all that the speed of light is different between stars, so no, your textbook lied to you there as well.”
Becky: Hah, I knew it. Next topic. Isn’t my girlfriend the BEST???
Hawkins [computer voice]: She sure is.
I would hope that this finally puts paid to the ‘is Becky just, like, a sociopath with this genki?’ vs ‘guys it’s a goddam coping mechanism can we back off the multiple-trauma survivor now’
Comments were closed yesterday (otherwise we might have had another thousand-breaker), so, Becky, have these extra hugs on the house. <3
I wonder if, when she does get back to campus and has some alone time with Dina, she'll be able to release some of the tension of her inner feelings, much like she did earlier with her (and Dina sounds like she would be wonderfully receptive to her feels).
Really, the one thing Becky needs most of all is an outlet. Despite her feeling the "duty" of putting on a silly facade and being the crazy clown type, wearing the mask of "it's all right" without any sort of free space to take off that mask was most likely what drove Bonnie to what she did, and if she's not careful, Becky might follow that same path if she follows the same mindset of feeling like she has to 'conform' to what she thinks is expected of her.
In theory/at base, it’s mostly oats, assorted snack nuts, and a little bit of honey. Chewy, a little crunchy and nutty, mildly sweet. Healthy and filling.
In practice, particularly in “granola bars”, it’s much more complicated and less healthy. A commercially-packaged granola bar, for example, is pretty much a rice-crispie treat (with chocolate chips, peanut butter, and/or other things added in).
Imagine what you would have if you swept out the bottom of a parakeet cage. That’s why people add things like chocolate chips, raisins, marshmallows, and other things to it — that’s the only way you can eat that stuff.
All this backtalk on normal granola bars makes me want to go out and get those ones that seriously looked like plywood but tasted awesome. Not that I know what they are called anymore.
For those not familiar with the movie or seafaring history, she was a survivor of the Titanic who strongly encouraged the lifeboat crew to go back and look for survivors. When asked by the press about being afraid of dying she is rumored to have said “Don’t you know that I’m unsinkable.” It earned her the nickname “the Unsinkable Molly Brown.”
Oh Becky… :'(
Regarding yesterday’s strip, it’s a little baffling how people are saying that the trigger warning doesn’t give them the impact, as if the impact of their own feelings matter more than the mental health of people who have gone through this first hand and suffered a lot for it. I know they don’t know any better, but still.
I envy those that can look down on people who have attempted/completed suicide, for it means that they have never known a pain so severe that facing the aether itself is preferable to continuing to draw breath.
Like I’m pretty much eye rolling at some of the comments regarding trigger warnings yesterday which I can’t reply to- as they more or less said the only way to ‘get over things’ and trigger warnings is a ‘barrier’ to that and ‘coddling’ when:
a) Triggers are NOT a conscious choice. Thisw is obvious.
b) Trigger warnings have been a term for /decades/: the internet has only made the term known to them recently. I mean this is kind of like when bigotry is discussed in general, people not exposed to it think it’s ‘new’ somehow when they run into discussions online. It’s silly. The world exists outside of how you have previously perceived it.
c) Exposure therapy doesn’t work for everyone, I mean you’ve got to consider the timing for one thing.
d) Trigger warnings are often a PART of exposure therapy for that matter- with a warning someone who wants treatment can make the informed decision to dive in if they so wish. Just randomly throwing the images or triggers at them with no warning is not a part of exposure therapy at all so people against trigger warnings really have no clue what they’re talking about.
ALSO: Exposure therapy doesn’t work if you don’t have absolute control over when and how you’ll get exposed. Blindsiding someone with a trigger is a good way to worsen the anxiety reaction.
I used to have a needle phobia (teeechnically I still sort-of do because I have the genetic condition that makes you pass out if your skin gets pierced beyond a certain depth – which docs and nurses never believed me about until I took a header into the desk and split my face open. Again. But I don’t have the anxiety reaction anymore, just the physiological vaso-vagal response that I can’t control). People blindsiding me with needle triggers actually worsened it.
Phobias are one of the few psych phenomena that obey behaviorism rules neatly. It’s a simple positive-feedback mechanism by which they operate: See trigger. Anxiety reaction provoked, so you flee. Fleeing gets you away from trigger. Trigger no longer present, anxiety goes away. Phobia reinforced because when you run away from the trigger, you feel better.
To not flee from something you’re having a phobic reaction of requires a buttload of bravery and mental preparation. Here’s why: Why, yes, I completely realize that a needle is not going to kill me. And I did even when I was phobic. But on an emotional level, I was more afraid of getting a needle at the time than I was the time someone pulled a knife on me and threatened to kill me with it. Literally, a needle was more terrifying than a death threat when the person had both the means and opportunity to execute it. A needle was more terrifying than workplace fires. More terrifying than chemical spills. More terrifying than the time I was first to respond to a lab explosion. All these actually life-threatening situations were significantly less scary to phobia-brain than a flu shot.
Which I realize is utterly asinine – which is the hell of a phobia: You know it’s irrational and silly for you to be so goddamn scared, but you’re so goddamn scared anyway.
When I was doing exposure therapy, the first half hour of every session was just getting myself ready for it. Then I controlled the duration and length of exposure. And I could not let myself flee at all because if I did it would set me back. But they key is that it’s all about enabling bravery by setting you up for success: You’re expecting exposure. You’re physically comfortable. You’ve got a plan for how the exposure will go. You have complete control over the exposure. You have the power to stop it at any time. You want the exposure therapy to work. You know what’s happening, and you have been taught the coping strategies to make it bearable.
Even now, like 5 years after I finished the exposure therapy: If I go to donate blood, I need to get the needle. Even if they can’t actually accept my blood because I don’t pass the heart rate (heeyyyy doing something anxiety-provoking spikes your heart rate, didja know?) or the iron test, I need them to give me the needle, because if I chicken out once, I’m back at square one and I have to do it all over again.
Because you don’t really cure a phobia. You learn to cope, and you learn tools to enable bravery. But I am still irrationally afraid of getting a needle. My hands still shake and my mouth goes dry and I break out in a cold sweat at the thought alone. Which, again, I realize is silly – that’s actually one of the key diagnostic features of a phobia: The patient knows their fear is irrational, and they’re afraid anyway.
But when you intentionally expose someone without their foreknowledge to a trigger because you don’t give a damn about their triggers, or worse, because you think it’s funny to trigger someone, that’s a seriously jerk-ass move. It really, really is. Why?
Exposure therapy is built on control and trust: I need to have control of the process at every step and I need to trust that those around me will support me and take my lead. When you expose someone when they’re not expecting it, you’ve thrown out any trust they may have ever had in you (remember when I said the object of a phobia is more terrifying than actual legitimately life-threatening situations? Yeah. You’re doing the emotional equivalent of holding a knife to the person’s throat for shits and giggles, and you expect them to trust that you have their best interests at heart? You’re lucky they don’t punch you!). You’ve also taken the control of the situation completely out of their hands: They aren’t expecting it, so they’re not braced and ready. They don’t have the final say in the duration of the exposure. They’re not in a comfortable and safe environment. I could go on.
In short: When you expose someone to a trigger intentionally and without warning, you are setting that person up for failure in their therapy and for a backslide of their mental health. Worse, you are committing psychological torture against that person for your own amusement. It’s a genuinely nasty thing to do to a person, and if you do it to someone, in my book that makes you a bad person, on par with Toedad and Blaine. It’s sadistic and cruel. For that reason, if you’re someone who takes glee in triggering people, and I find out, it’s a deal-breaker for me: Relationship over. No second chances.
Thank you. I was genuinely, at least sort of, in the “just show them their triggers, it’ll be better for them” camp until reading thid. Thank you for taking the time to explain this issue so clearly and rationally
Yeah, there’s always a weird reaction by privileged folk when a minority status or condition gets more national attention, where they pretend this has somehow been invented just recently and not well studied over decades. Trigger warnings are a thing and they are a thing that aids people in recovering enough to engage more fully in assignments, communities, and spaces in general.
People trying to pretend it’s a form of censorship because now they have to “press 1 for english” in their reading is as bafflingly ignorant of reality as it is harmful. No one should have their hard work in recovery derailed, should be too much of a depressed anxious mess to participate all so some douchenozzle can pretend that being privileged is the same thing as being strong.
Willis definitely made the right call shutting the comments down. All of those “my entertainment is way more important than your actual life experiences and emotional well being” was clearly bullshit, and those were just the comments I was able to read. Who knows what crap he had to delete.
That being said…that kitten has me worried. If we’re talking immortality as fountain of youth- cute, fluffy and playful forever, then neat. If we’re talking immortal as in pet cemetery….well, I’d just like some of this to be qualified is all.
OK I’m probably one of the few if not the only forum member who won’t consider suicide because I’ve “been there” and there is fudging boring. Seriously people, being dead was boring (and frustrating) for me. Imagine if you will watching a video player with infinite levels of zoom and volume control with unlabeled and hidden controls, and no help button (or the damned thing was also hidden and not labeled).
I missed the comments yesterday, until the notice about them being closed was put up. I am truly mind-boggled.
Even if you’re inclined to believe that they don’t serve a purpose on your own work, whining about an author choosing to use them is about as entitled a thing I’ve ever heard. And it’s not like people have gotten to this point in the strip without damn well knowing where Willis stands on these issues, and his motivations–the idea that there are people who enjoy the strip AND are offended by trigger warnings is just downright bizarre.
It takes all kinds, doesn’t it.
(Even people who want to be jerks to suicide-survivors and the like, apparently, because oh noes we all read the twist literally two seconds early, on the free comic that we like. I strongly prefer when we are not jerks.)
Poor Becky; stlll afraid to be ‘Debbie Downer’! Still running from her traumas, ghosts and nightmares, no matter how ridiculous it makes her appear. I just hope that the new, angry and impatient Joyce mk2 doesn’t lose her temper with her.
I think all these people going on about how badly Becky is “repressing memories” may be off base.
1) Do we know how long ago Becky’s Mom died? For all we know, Becky has already been through the tears and the sackcloth and ashes and Kubler-Rosse shiat well before the first DoA strip.
2) Being reminded of what happened by returning to her house for the first time in quite a while is a totally normal thing. The drawn ghosts were a way for Willis to show us what happened and what she is feeling (never tell when you can show!) but it doesn’t mean that Becky is flashing back or hallucinating or anything so dramatic. She is remembering, the memories make her sad, she is continuing with her life. That is not the same thing as repressing.
I don’t think she’s repressing memories. She’s repressing how she feels about those memories.
This house is mostly just evoking those deep feelings and dredging them up. Cause it’s one thing to remember a parent’s suicide attempt and another to be looking at the bed where it happened.
Agh this feels so similar because I do this a lot with any of my own problems, to the point where even if I do want to talk about something I can never bring it up because it feels weird for me and I’ll just brush it off and make some stupid joke instead. I never like talking about my own shit, even though I know my friends would listen and try to help, but if you brush away everything all the time, it doesn’t feel natural to talk about things and its always weird and awkward and ugh. So I get Becky’s defence mechanisim here, even if its not a great one to have.
Wanted to say it yesterday, but the trigger Warning is still kind of spoilerish if you read it after reading the strip, seeing that “attempted” in “attempted suicide” means Becky’s mother didn’t actually die at that point yet. So, that’s an info the trigger give that isn’t provided by the comic itself.
Unless “attempted” cover both failed suicide and suicide in which the person actually died? but that doesn’t sound like the meaning of “attempted”.
Is it possible that she took an overdose of something while being treated for cancer, and that everyone has been politely saying that she died of cancer?
To the best of my knowledge, it isn’t. I believe a lot of people have confused Becky’s mom, who died of unstated causes last year, and Dana’s (Sarah’s ex-roommate, whose mom died of cancer).
There have been a couple of instances IRL where someone with a terminal illness took their own life through assisted suicide/legalized euthanasia. You know, “If I’m going to have to leave, I’ll be the one to decide when.” Could it be we will learn that the suicide attempt was a direct response to the cancer diagnosis?
“There have been a couple of instances IRL where someone with a terminal illness took their own life through assisted suicide/legalized euthanasia.”
this is not suicide, though. Anyway, what we saw yesterday was clearly not assisted death by the help of a doctor, there.
“Could it be we will learn that the suicide attempt was a direct response to the cancer diagnosis? ”
My current (wild) guess is that this was depression. But that’s just me.
I like that today’s comic is as explicit response to Becky hate as possible. It’s actively showing the moment she covers up her pain with her “wacky Becky” persona, and slips in a reference to haircuts for good measure. Well played Willis, well played.
I’ve kind of lost track of the layout. If we’ve actually seen the “banned room”, I would have expected some comment on it. I’m pretty sure the attempted suicide was in the master bedroom. It seemed like Becky was looking in that alone and then turned away to join the others.
There are weights in the room Joss & Joyce are in, along with a desk and closet, so I guess that was the banned weight room and there was no dark secret in it.
So, we have seen a room with weights. Joyce thought that the room she hadn’t been in before contained weights. Assuming there has only ever been one weight room in the house (Occam’s razor), unless there has been a serious re-allocation of interior space since the only kid went off to college (plausible, but not so likely for a single dad, especially one who identifies interior decorating with homosexuality), we have seen the weight room that was previously off-limits.
If it’s secret shame you are looking for, they should check the browser history on that computer in the main room. He has had the house entirely to himself for a while now.
I think what interests me about the most recent strips is past!Becky’s hair. It’s longer, even having a resemblance to Joyce’s hair. In the beginning of the comic Becky’s hair is shorter, and obviously after coming out she cut it even shorter. For so long, she was probably made to keep her hair long. It’s possible in this sect that Joyce’s haircut/style is the usual style for teenage girls.
There’s something I’ve been wondering about since the group entered the house. How are they seeing anything?
It doesn’t look like they brought along any flashlights — or at least we haven’t been shown that, and unless there was one in the car they didn’t bring any (since they didn’t plan this escapade in advance).
Are they turning on the house lights? It doesn’t look like it, and it would be foolish to do so since that would certainly alarm the neighbors and bring the police promptly.
Is there enough ambient light coming in from streetlights or security lights? Surely not enough to read by, and they have been reading the historical documents.
I guess Willis has given his characters superpowered vision skills, or just provided them with magical dim lighting that only they can see.
House lights are a lot less suspicious than flashlights. If people see lights on in a house, they assume the neighbours are home. If they see the distinctive pattern of flashlights moving around they assume a break-in and call the cops.
I agree that there should be flashlights if they are reading anything. Which is exactly the sort of thing that on TV and in movies results in one of the neighbors noticing that the house has been broken into and calling the police…
I have never been able to read maps in moonlight, I though reading in moonlight was not feasible in general. I guess I don’t recall trying to read documents in moonlight. In any case, the text would have to be directly in moonlight coming in through an exposed window, which is still pretty bad from a stealth standpoint.
Googling for “dumbing of age bonnie cancer”, I get only two hits: This page, and a Dumbler of Age entry that has a picture of Bonnie MacIntyre (she would be a MILF, except that at my age that would cradle-robbing) that also mentions the astrological sign Cancer. Do we have any instance of a character in the strip saying that Bonnie MacIntyre died of cancer? I think it was just plain old suicide.
Margarine, since it is a trans fat, is illegal in the US.
And even if it weren’t, there is a big campaign against them and nutritional labels are required to post grams of trans fat (although less than half a gram currently counts as zero).
If there is one thing America gets right about nutrition, its that trans fats are bad for you.
Um… trans fat is NOT illegal in the U.S., at least not yet. There’s been an FDA ruling regarding one of the biggest sources (partially hydrogenated oils), but even that won’t kick in until 2018. (And then, there will probably be a move to palm oil which isn’t covered by the rule change, but is just about as bad as PHO-based margarine.) There are places (such as NYC) where it is illegal for restaurants to use PHOs for cooking already.
I think they have been largely phased out of a lot of food in grocery stores (often with large ‘Now Trans Fat Free!’ type labels), probably in prep for that kicking in (bur also doing it early so they can cash in on it).
Margarine is still totally sold in stores, though. I had to buy some last week for my grandparents, since they’re about the only people I know that still use it (though I think what they use is also trans fat free?).
I remember as a kid in Ontario and Quebec it was illegal, my mother had to go to the dairy counter and ask for it. I think in Quebec it still is, or maybe can’t be coloured yellow, it has to be white, can’t remember exactly.
Without knowing the type of cancer, it’s hard to say what the treatment options, and survivability chances were. Metastasized bone cancer is all but untreatable, and the survivability is pretty much nill. It’s also so painful that massive doses of morphine are needed to keep pain down to tolerable. That diagnosis would drive anyone to suicide. Add that to the thought of your husband and daughter having to watch you suffer like that and suicide becomes the only way out. Becky was too young and sheltered to understand (assuming she was given the real facts), and Fundie was too tied up in his faith to offer anything but platitudes about “God’s Will.” Bonnie truly had nowhere to turn. If Bonnie’s faith were as deeply rooted as her husband’s, she’d probably prefer Hell to the knowledge of what she’d done to her family by forcing them to suffer through her decline. The thought of standing before her God and asking “Why have you forsaken me?” would have frightened her less than the look in her daughter’s eyes during the pain.
I trust the fans memories far more than I trust my own flawed recollections, and based my response on that. If cancer wasn’t the reason for her death, I’m sure the truth will be revealed in the future. As for Bonnie committing suicide to escape an abusive situation (as has been speculated on in other threads), a loving mother will put herself in the line of fire to protect her child every time. Abandoning her child to her abuser would never cross her mind, and would, in fact, probably strengthen her resolve to live to protect her child. If the depths of depression drove her to suicide, then things become far too muddied to clearly see what was in her mind. Logic, reason, even love, will fail to touch that pain.
I respectfully disagree with your assessment; a parent in an abusive situation may love their child very much but be unable to “put themselves in the line of fire every time” especially if they have been in the line of fire for quite a while already, and may even come to resent the child (while still loving them) as being an anchor holding them in the situation. The dynamics of abuse are not that simple. People are complex at baseline; people in pain and under stress are even more so.
I say this as a child of a parent who loved me very much but who was being abused themselves, and was unable to protect me from much of it. Mostly we got through by trying to protect each other from the very worst and just weathering the rest.
My recollection was that whatever she died of was talked of in a way that indicated disgrace, and then fans postulated it could be cancer because of the whole “cancer is a punishment from God” thing that you find in some fundie religions.
I’m glad you brought up yesterday’s topic. I wish I could have posted before comments were shut down.
Suicide is real. There is no way around it. I’m grateful for anyone willing to depict it in a respectful and meaningful way. Thank you for the strip.
With regards to all the haters: shut up. If you don’t understand the issue intimately, you have no room to mock or criticize it because you do not understand it. All it serves to do is further humiliate and alienate the sufferers who already feel disregarded and disrespected AND make you look like a collosal ass. You’re painting yourselves in an immature, insensitive light, which wouldn’t matter except that you don’t know who you’re taking down with you. “Being dark,” should not be derided. This is the stuff of life. If you can’t handle it, don’t take it out on those who need to process it.
Hmm. A couple of thoughts that occurred to me over the paperwork:
1) “A few bags of paperwork in the closet” – and it contained Becky’s birth certificate. Anyone better acquainted with US law care to speculate what Ross might have relatively-recently needed Becky’s birth certificate (or a new copy) for? It seems unlikely that it’s been sitting in a bag for 18 years – unless I miss my guess, it would have been part of Bonnie’s job as a “good wife” to deal with paperwork and filing.
2) Odds on J&J finding Bonnie’s death certificate in there? Including cause of death? (I admit that Ross’ gun has been topping my list since someone made the connection to Becky’s reaction at the fountain.)
It seems unlikely that it’s been sitting in a bag for 18 years
You haven’t seen my filing system. When it comes time to get rid of a car, I find it easier to obtain a duplicate title than to find the real one. Heaven forbid I should ever become a parent.
Right! Ignore the pain, and pretend to be super-happy. That’s a healthy defense mechanism, right? That won’t backfire later in a huge, emotional, painful outburst.
Actually, I think she’s only half-pretending. The look on her face in panel two seems more determined than hurting, so to me it registers as her finally moving on, leaving her ‘ghosts’ behind.
She’s probably still unhappy with everything that happened, but I don’t think she’s actually ‘pretending’ as much as usual.
Me if I ever see Tony Hawk: Hey you’re Tony Hawk the famous skateboarder. That’s right I recognise you. Won’t be able to get any content out of this will you, you piece of shit
How to read all 28 issues of my Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane run on Marvel Unlimited:
1: The first four issues were published as the miniseries "Mary Jane."
www.marvel.com/comics/serie...
today in #9chickweedlane i learned we have to be shown children learning and relearning what sex is, for Reasons, even though they already clearly know and have prepared nuanced questions about it!
also that Gran must hate, if she's still alive, how Old Juliette is the same but with gray hair
one of my favorite things is when a commenter explodes WHEN DO THESE CHARACTERS GET THERAPY but directed towards a character who canonically has a regular therapist
Hot Toys Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith 1/6 Scale Darth Vader Deluxe ($495) & Standard ($315) is up for preorder at Sideshow - shrsl.com/4wcx6 #ad
If you preorder make sure to hit the Exclusive versions since they include a commemorative plaque and cost the same.
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 ⋅ 3d
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 ⋅ 3d
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?"
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 2d
Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 3d
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com ⋅ 3d
Pavel
@spavel.bsky.social ⋅ 12d
Loading ...
How much hair is she growing to need to get THAT many cut??
also, Joyce, you’d be going to prison over $200 AND the granola bar–you did say GRAND larceny (σﾟ∀ﾟ)σ
(σﾟ∀ﾟ)σ
I dunno her sidecut is getting a little shaggy.
It’s only Grand Larceny if the find a 100 Grand Bar.
Go sit in a corner and think on what you just did.
Is no one going to mention how beautifully the pic goes with this comment?
I would, but I’m busy being sick, the flu sucks.
Damnit, wrong account.
*Perfect* gravatar for that.
Ignore them, I’d of made the joke too.
I laughed. And I’d do it again I tell you!
Heeheeheeheehee.
GRAND-ola larceny, surely.
I guess that’d make it a grandola bar…
I’ll see myself out
None of you will go to jail. It is not a crime to break into your own house.
Well if they are arrested they will be detained until bail is posted depending on the mood of J and J’s parents they may or may not spend a night or two in jail while proving it is her house.
Of coarse they would have to get rather mouthy/aggressive to get arrested in the first place.
They broke into the house, police aren’t tasked to determine if there was a crime or not, that’s the judge; cops detain and pass onto suspects and considering it’d be up to toedad to decide if they are charged with something there’s no chance they’ll go to jail if they get caught, they would definitely end there
Police do investigate crimes, however, and pass information on the DA who determines whether they’re going to indict.
The fact that it’s easily verified that Becky is/was a lawful resident of the house means the DA isn’t going to bother a Grand Jury with this. S’not worth it.
I actually wonder about the residency, since Becky left home rather than being kicked out, in which case toedad would need to evict her to be able to press charges and it’s not like this isn’t easily verified by a phone call to Joyce family or the neighbors.
There’s also the fact that if this was her home she’d be able to walk in pick her stuff and leave.
That does not change the fact that you’re absolutely right about the DA, no fucking way this goes to court, because it’d be an state sponsored petty act of revenge by an asshole to his victim, regardless spending the night in jail is totally on the table
She was presumably living there until she moved into the dorm at Anderson a couple months ago.
As far as I know that doesn’t really count as a change of residential address? (At least in my state it doesn’t, college students have to go home or mail in an absentee ballot to vote.)
Local governments will try very very hard to convince you otherwise, but you can register to vote using your dorm address if you like. It is your legal residence.
There is a difference between legal residence and permanent residence in some jurisdictions – in Canada, frex, your college dorm is your legal residence but not your permanent residence (permanent residence is still where your folks live) because you live in the dorm for less than 6mo out of the year.
If where Becky is has the same law, she’d still be entitled to enter the house as a legal permanent resident of it who has not been evicted.
ischemgeek – Where do you got to college that requires you to be in your dorm for less than six months of the year! :O Both universities I’ve been to were Sept – May/June so I was in the dorm WELL over 6mos.
Factor in that Joyce is going to start loudly confessing to every crime ever if the cops show up.
*Cop knocks on door.* “Excuse me, we had a report of a possi–”
*Joyce hurls herself forward, falling to her knees, arms outstretched waiting for the cuffs.* “I admit it! I did it! I AM the Ding-dong Bandit! Leave my brother [sic] and friend alone, it was all me!”
*Officer blinks, crickets chirp.*
“So YOU’RE the ones who’ve been breaking into convenience stores and stealing all the hostess cakes! (And that’s terrible.) Book ’em, Danno!”
Police determine if there is a crime or not all the time. They don’t make an arrest and leave it up to the judge/prosecutor everytime something is reported or they see something suspicious.
Breaking into your own residence is not a crime. If the cops spot me (or a neighbor reports me) breaking a window to get in because I’ve locked myself out, it’s not a guaranteed trip to jail to wait for a judge. I try to convince the cops it’s okay and if I can, they let me go. In my case it would be easy – I’ve got ID showing I live here. In Becky’s case it would be harder and complicated by the local cops likely being prejudiced against lesbians and sympathetic to Toedad. OTOH, if they know enough about her to be prejudiced, they also know it’s her house and she’s legally entitled to get her stuff.
Lacking a key doesn’t mean it’s not her residence and that’s why she can’t just walk in, get her stuff and leave.
So charges don’t work like that. But many people don’t know how it does work! So here’s a rough and dirty outline which I’m really only sure applies in the United States and probably has some important variations by jurisdiction , so keep that in mind and anyone else could and should jump in if they know otherwise. Also TINLA (obviously), just a description of the process.
Cops can effect an arrest if: 1) they have a properly obtained warrant, 2) without a warrant for misdemeanors committed in the officer’s presence or 3) without a warrant for a felony which they have probable cause to believe has been committed by the person being arrested. There’s all sorts of 4th amendment stuff about stops and searches and developing probable cause, but them’s the basics. That’s Constitutional Law, so pretty universal to the US. The cops generally do have discretion to say, that isn’t a crime/there isn’t probably cause to believe that’s a crime. The alleged victim’s desire to press charges or not is probably taken into account at this and the next stage – they may also be able to file for issuance of charges directly to the Commissioner or Prosecutor.
Prosecutors: If an arrest is effected, an application for charges is submitted to the States’s Attorney/District Attorney/Prosecutor’s Office/Whatever They’re Called Near You. They assess the information from the officer and determine whether or not to bring charges and which charges to bring. This may also be handled by a commissioner or similarly placed official who might issue charges which are then reviewed by the Prosecutor’s office. It is possible for the Prosecutor’s Office to dismiss charges after they’ve been issued or amend the charges brought.
After charges are brought and you get notice and other procedural stuff you go to trial and a judge or jury decides whether or not a crime was committed by the accused.
All of which does add up to the cops being allowed to haul this trio in or not, based pretty much on their own discretion. B&E is a felony, so probable cause exists. Or they could accept that it’s Becky’s house and let them walk.
Some of that is more theoretical than real though. It’s very easy for a cop to haul someone into jail on something trumped up and let them sit there over night, even if no charges are ever filed or are dismissed in the morning. You can sue for false arrest, but it’s very hard to win unless it’s really egregious.
Oh yeah. I don’t know if I’d call it ‘more theoretical than real’ so much as not going to be addressed until long after the arrest has actually happened (like having evidence excluded at trial for 4th amendment violations).
The point isn’t really that the police couldn’t hold her, it was pointing out where discretion lay and how the charging process works in response to OwenSohmer’s comment.
Case in point: The Harvard college professor who was spotted by a neighbor ‘breaking into’ his own home. By the time the cops arrived, he’d settled in and mixed himself a drink. When the cop started questioning him aggressively, he responded angrily, assuming this was an instance of racial profiling. The cop, not liking his tone, asked him to step outside because “the acoustics of the kitchen were making it hard for him to hear clearly.” The prof did so, and once he raised his voice while standing on the front porch, the officer arrested him for disturbing the peace. Unofficial term for this sort of charge is “Contempt of Cop”.
If you are drunk and a cop asks you to step outside, it’s a really good idea to not do that. Varies by state and such, but often they do that to also hit ya with drunk in public now.
Source: A step-dad of mine called a cop a Horse’s Ass. Cop asked him to step outside, slapped him with a couple nights in jail for drunk in public.
Own house = no bail, no jail, no nothin’.
Depends how shitty the local cops are.
True, they could also be conservative dickbags, aware of Becky, and friends with toedad, and angry they she ‘drove him to do what he did’
Yep, a whole range of responses from “meh, too much paper-work to bother” to “chuck’em in the hoosegow for a couple of days while we work it out.”
I once called the police about getting into my own place when locked out. Why the police? We had no management emergency number and locksmiths (all 15 I called) apparently don’t do Sunday’s. Anyways, their response? “Break in if you can. It’s not illegal if it’s your residence.”
Though… It’s not HER residence, so it might be tricky.
Unless she’s been legally emancipated and/or evicted, though, it IS her residence. You don’t stop residing in a place just because you stepped outside. The fact that she was kicked out of college and that Toedad took her home once (and tried to a second time) means she’s definitely not legally excised from the home, yet.
> legally emancipated
Becky is 18. Not a minor. A full-fledged, legal adult.
I have no idea how the law handles child residency rights in the case of a family, but she’s not a minor.
Good catch. However, I still think that unless she’s been formally evicted, the actual B&E is not chargeable. (I noted above that cops are quite adept at finding something else to charge you with if they really want to, though.)
If only reality were that fair…
A neighbor that doesn’t like you reporting you as a ‘suspicious person’ breaking into your own home could be enough cause for cops.
Going to jail may seem like the worst outcome, but there’s also just getting beat on while handcuffed in your own house, then charged with resisting arrest and nothing else once they figure out that it is your house. And good luck trying to fight that charge, which you better do cause it’s a felony in some places.
It’s eire how much alike her and Walkie are, i sware if she wasn’t gay i would pair them up.
NONONONONONONONONONONO
Hey, people were legitimately shipping that before she revealed her sexuality.
That was a terrible ship. It was more of a dinghy.
Or a raft.
Look up “homophone” and “homonym” and appreciate the pun.
Seeing those words (I already know what they mean) made me remember one of the lamest jokes by a standup comedian I’ve ever heard, so unfortunately I’m going to have to bail on this while I make desperate attempts to purge that memory.
First off, orientation should not decide your noncanon pairs.
Second, I think contrast makes both of them stronger.
Shipping is shipping, but personally, I feel a bit gross at the idea of making a gay character who was dragged off to reparative therapy being made straight for the sake of a ship.
what about a FRIENDship
Those exist?
:p
Surprisingly yes. My best friend and I have one based originally on having met on a forum and it’s grown by laughing like two idiots at cartoons and movies. I can kinda see Becky and Walky getting along like my best friend and I do. Two similar people just sitting back watching tv and having fun playing the Nintendo every so often when the weather’s crap.
Hm.
Okay, I see the problem. You’re not fictional and/or played by actors that people want to imagine banging.
Counterpoint for StClair: What if we just want to imagine them hanging… out. Hanging out together in the platonic friendship sort of way.
Yeah, started out trying for the rhyme, then I realized what was wrong with that sentence.
“It’s [Ireland] how much alike…”?
Funny, they don’t *look* Irish.
Erin Go (Granola) Bar
I dunno. Ross, Bonnie, and Becky MacIntyre… seems pretty Irish. Walky, on the other hand, no.
THE TOE IS IRISH?!!!
MACIntyre seems pretty Scottish to me, really.
MacIntyre could be Irish or Scottish.
Strangely enough, it is Italian.
I’d love to hear an Italians pronounce MacIntyre.
how about “platonic” shipping.
which would really be better for both parties in the long run.
fandom has taught/told me there’s no such thing.
any two characters will have sex, no matter how unlikely, OOC, or non-canon.
So does that mean there is still hope for a Slipshine exclusive with Amber and Ethan sandwiching Danny between them with Danny both pitcher and catcher simultaneously?
It can be a dream for Ethan I don’t care. He can wake up from such a steamy hallucination and say something like “No more Nachitos before bed”.
This is the internet, so if it didn’t exist before you describing it, it does now.
…go on…
Yeah, I just really want to see more of the two of them hangin’ out and driving Joyce nuts.
The peanut butter and chocolate granola bars WERE the best! ^_^
I liked chocolate marshmallow the best. It’s like a S’more, but marginally more healthy.
Marginally. Granola bars are basically just candy bars at this point.
It’s kind of like someone pouring a large cup of part diet, part regular
popsodasoft drink. (“part” because it probably isn’t going to be 50/50)It’s really good after a workout! Mmm.
I used to have a girlfriend who insisted that it was awful to mix salty with sweet food. So she hated chocolate paired with, say, pretzels, trail mix, or peanutbutter.
…
… USED to have a girlfriend like that.
Anyone who thinks you shouldn’t mix pretzels with ice cream is someone you don’t need in your life!
I don’t see anything wrong with chocolate-covered potato chips or chocolate-covered bacon.
Salted caramel is the worst fuckin’ thing.
Nope, that would be salt licorice.
Licorice is already terrible, tho’.
I LOVE!!!! salted licorice, at least the kind that used to be sold back in the mid-’70s.
My wife would agree with you; I do not.
Past tense? You’ve found something better?
My favorite and my kid’s favorite. Oh Quaker, the wonderful things you make.
Those peanut butter ones are the ones I usually skip over.
The you and Becky could share a box without conflict. These things are important to establish when making friends.
For example, any group that has a person who won’t eat pizza crust must by law also have someone who is unopposed to eating someone else’s discarded crusts. Thus harmony reigns.
My sisters and I tried that with watermelon (they wouldn’t eat the pink part near the rind).
I always ended up with the eaten over pieces while they got all the juicy center stuff.
I can assure you, it didn’t take long for harmony to end its reign.
s’mores kind is better
OBJECTION
all granola bars are bad
WHAT WOULD YOU DO FOR A KLONDIKE GRANOLA BAR
Sighhhhhhhhhhhh*thump*
KLONDIKEI’m ashamed of some of the things I’ve done for a Klondike bar.
Walk half a block to the convenience store and pay a buck or two.
I mean really, why would I do anything more extreme than that?
Is going to a supermarket to buy them “more extreme?” Because there was a Klondike BOGO a few weeks ago.
Worth it.
And the door is closed on that memory.
“God is an open door…”
Actually, that would have been better if I was capable of reading the chapter title available in the URL as I typed this.
“When God closes the door”
You can’t close the door on a memory by repressing it. Becky will have to deal with this at some point.
Nonsense, she can clearly keep hitting the snooze button on all this emotional pain forever and it won’t at all metastasize into a giant ball of awful the second things mellow out enough for her to not just be able to run on adrenaline anymore.
She can just leave all her negativity behind when she leaves the planet, like in ST:TNG Skin of Evil.
IS she simply repressing it, though? She lived the reality already. The situation is in the past for her. She may have gotten to the point where she’s already cried over losing her mom and realized it’s not helping her to dwell on the past and think “what if”.
Her best friend has accepted her for who she is and fiercely fights for her sake. She’s got a girlfriend, who also fought for her sake. (Making that TWO people she’s close to whose bonds have been forged in a trial by fire.) She’s got an environment she can return to where people support her. There’s nothing looming over her that she’s gonna have to deal with besides getting a job, which this venture is actually working towards. (She’s unaware that Billie has moved back into her room or that Joyce’s parents are discussing the idea of pulling her out of school.)
Yeah, her past – recent or not – has a lot of shit to it, but she’s got one damn bright future ahead of her. She let herself feel sad about the memory of her mother for a bit, but turning away from that to focus on the present and the future isn’t necessarily repression.
If Becky wasn’t trying to deal with the stuff in her life, I’d agree it was repression. Except she is. She’s actively trying to improve herself, she’s making plans, she faced her father directly even when she didn’t have to in order to get closure. Repression is just pretending there isn’t a problem at all.
Yeah, her attitude’s a bit of a front, but that just tells me she doesn’t want people feeling sad for her over things that can’t be changed, not that she’s pulling a Walky. She spends way too much time actually doing something about her problems, and she actually has expressed frustration and sadness to the people around her.
Assuming she closed the door at all. This strip throws into doubt whether she is EVER happy, since she’s clearly very good (and practiced) at faking it.
I think she’s genuinely happy with Dina. And I say that because her wackiness there is tempered and she shows her vulnerability and fear a lot more. I think Dina right now is very healing for her and I think her joy after getting rescued was also genuine.
But she’s likely less happy less frequently than she wants to be believed to be happy.
Becky always wants to be believed to be happy. It’s easier, plus people won’t drop her like a hot potato for potentially bumming them out. (This is my method, too.)
I wish I had the ability to repress like that. I just bum everyone out and then wish I had just done a better job of hiding it
Your way is valid, I assure you. Repressing means it escapes sideways in word unexpected negative ways, plus you pay it back later with a big pile of interest.
*weird unexpected negative ways
Yup. This. All the this.
And the interest is a motherfudger.
Also people who take the risk of showing their sadness get hugs. And the people who love you won’t mind giving you hugs, if they’re anything like me.
Yes indeedy.
Which raises the point… When, and in what way, will Becky snap? Because at this rate it’s gonna happen…
I’ve been at situations like that. The trick is not to suppress them, it’s learning to not be letting them out for too much time.
I think more important for Becky at this point than feeling happy with Dina: She feels safe with Dina.
Finding someone you feel safe with after fleeing an abusive situation is huge. And I don’t think Becky really feels safe around Joyce yet – Joyce is Ghost of Christian Past to Becky, and still has a lot of internalized bigotry. Dina’s the first to go, “Oh, you’re a lesbian. Ok.” and move on from the revelation with total and immediate acceptance. Joyce did the best she could have done given their upbringing, but that doesn’t mean she is entirely comfortable with Becky’s sexuality yet – and Becky, knowing Joyce as well as she does, would pick up on it.
Also, don’t forget about Becky’s longtime attraction to Joyce. She’s still dealing with her unrequited feelings, so distancing herself from Joyce works for now.
And dang…that 2nd panel. Really hurts to see Becky steel herself like that.
Ow. My sentence parser hates you.
I honestly believe that she believes that she is happy.
I also think she is really good at lying to herself.
At this point the question becomes a bit philosophical.
She had to learn from somewhere…
Is someone holding the door?
God a granola bar, what a useless sort of-
Wait, peanut butter and chocolate chip?
Fuck, I’d go to supermax for a box of those
Fucking right?
The best granola bars.
Again, repeating my comment from the Klondike Bar thread…
I’d go to the convenience store and pay a buck or two.
WTF would I go to Supermax when I could do that instead?
to get them in bulk for like 50 cents/each?
*doesn’t have a Supermax*
*looks at Google*
Oh that’s NOT a weird off-brand version of warehouse store ohhhhh
anyway I would go to Costco for those, not Supermax
You could always get an elaborate set of tattoos to get out.
Just make sure on the first day you find Joyce and gouge her eye out with a spoon (or it’s Joyce, maybe a ladle) to establish that you’re the new business.
In prison they let the chocolate and the peanut butter touch.
Ugh, what? Peanut butter is the Baked-Good Ruiner. I always skip the peanut-butter ones, too.
A plucky redhead who has suffered terrible trauma but is determined to suppress it by keeping an outwardly sunny attitude to prevent people from realizing how much trouble she is having coping with her situation, even despite her genuine exuberance at having finally escaped her old life and gaining her freedom?
New Netflix sitcom: Unbreakable Becky MacIntyre.
(It’s a miracle!)
+1
That should be a thing,,, Would be the best thing since Friends
Friends?? Oh you mean Six White Complainers.
I don’t know if you’re joking or not, so I’ll just point out that I described an actual sitcom on Netflix, because the more people who watch Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, the better off the human race will be.
Fully backing the promotion of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt!
Ignore how angry my gravatar looks, my other email has a Dalek, and I feel like the shameless promotion of a good show would look super sarcastic with that.
So… yeah, try it out if you haven’t.
& Unbreakable is a great show, but Friends, which Frost Magi referenced, was … ok at best. Describing Friends as “six white complainers” is pretty on point. JessWitt might enjoy Kimmy Schmidt, but was commenting about Friends.
Mm-hm, I indeed watch UKS. Well, the first season. I haven’t gotten around to the second one yet.
See, its not a Netflix exclusive, but I initially thought of the Unsinkable Molly Brown…
Becky is indeed amazing. The depiction of what flashed thru Becky’s mind when she found her mother was handled with grace. And how she changes her face so as to face her friends, makes me cry. (and I don’t cry).
Congratulations Willis. Your characterizations are just indescribable. I love your people, even the ones I love to hate.
You write amazing storylines.
Sounds a little too “stiff upper lip” for my liking.
Becky has strength, but the crash may well be greater because of that strength.
No raisins in that granola bar? Get outta here this girl has no taste!
raisins do not belong in granola!
Or anywhere, for the most part. Particularly in cookies.
raisins make oatmeal cookies better!
Heresy! Raisins are the spawn of, well, really crappy grapes.
how dare you besmirch oatmeal raisin cookies
There is a pizza buffet restaurant where I live that, as well as the usual stuff, has raisins and chocolate chips on the salad bar. Along with Golden Grahams.
I LOVE that place!!
A pizza place I like used to have taco meat and pineapple as options in their online custom stromboli options. I emphasize USED TO. I don’t think they liked it when I ordered a taco meat, pineapple and Cheddar cheese stromboli.
Oatmeal/raisin cookies are TRAP cookies. They look like chocolate chip and lull you into taking a bite but then BAM raisins.
TEAM OATSON!
(Team Raimeal?)
Raisins are what granola was made for! Peanut butter and chocolate? More like I wanted a Reeses cup but all my grandparents had was this or a pack of stale 6 month old saltines.
youtu.be/0lIAZiTI56I?t=1m
We already kind of knew Becky used immature behavior and humor as a defense mechanism, but seeing it like this really makes me wonder just how often she’s been hurting and we had no idea.
I’m gonna guess that it’s been often enough that she doesn’t even think about it anymore
What Spidergirl said, for sure. She probably has been doing it her whole life. It’s a really useful strategy except for all the times when it isn’t.
So is axe-murdering.
But axe-murder is seriously taking care of your problems so that they are out of your life permanently, if somewhat messily.
I really should have changed to one of my DoA avvies for that comment.
I really hope she learns to let herself cry and otherwise be sad around her friends. They won’t think the less of her for it, and it’ll be much healthier than what she’s doing now.
The downside to acting like that is that how you present yourself is how people will react to you, hope she learns that sooner rather then later
It’ll make it easier for her to make friends and have a larger safety net in future
It’s possible, even likely, that she learned early on it’s pointless or outright dangerous to express any discontent for more than a second. To do so is to invite apathy or “debbie downer” accusations, which helps nobody and can even make it worse.
…Not that I know anything about what that’s like, hah heh!
<__>
… or that expressions of discontent were met with rage from authority figures, so that it becomes very clear that you put up and shut up or bad things happen. “Stop crying or I’ll give you something to cry about!” type of thing. Alternatively, expressions of discontent were met with the assumption that they were insincere attempts at manipulation – “Oh, here come the waterworks!” and “Never trust a woman when she cries. She only does it to get her way,” type of thing. Third option: Crying etc was met with ridicule and gaslighting. “It’s nothing to cry about!” “Children are starving in Africa and you’re crying because a boy said a mean word? Grow the **** up!”
All of the above is why I stiff upper lip stuff in public and have exactly one person who I will allow to see me cry – and even then, usually no. I’d rather be thought of as a cold b-word than make myself vulnerable in as dangerous a way as that.
And my folks wondered why I didn’t mention anything about mental health issues until I had a crisis in my teen years, and why I flat-out refuse to talk anything charged with them now. Gee, I wonder why. Couldn’t possibly put my finger on it.
Other option: her mother tried to commit friggin suicide, & due to emotional abuse from everyone else, Becky might feel like suicide attempts are the logical conclusion of allowing herself to feel negative emotions.
EXCELLENT POINT.
You may be on to something here
I am waiting for Becky to be alone with Dina who very bluntly talks about the grieving process following a traumatic event and offers sympathy through light touch at which point Becky breaks into tears and sobs into Dina’s lap who looks awkward for a moment than lightly hugs Becky while whispering “sympathy through light embrace”
New headcanon.
Sympathy through firm embrace.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuMN6w4sdkI&t=36
I’d argue that every time we see her turn up the wacky and be extra goofball are the times when she’s in the most severe emotional distress (visiting IU after getting thrown out of Anderson, right after having her final meeting with her dad, pretty much all of today). She hides it all really well, because she feels everyone will abandon her like those who have abandoned her if she shows openly how awful she feels.
Plus, at this point, it might be habit. Toedad would definitely not be a safe person to show emotional pain and vulnerability to and so setting up a good mask and making it like armor would be the best survival strategy she would have available.
That is a very good point.
There is no use in showing vulnerability to someone who either ignores it or puts you down for it, or maybe locks you in a closet to pray it out of your system.
So, she hides it.
i don’t do goofball, but I do grin really wide when I’m embarassed
correction: I don’t do goofball on purpose when I’m upset. I just go crazy
I dunno. I mean, I’ll buy “a lot of the time”, sure, that makes sense, but every time? Couldn’t she have some genuine goofball in her that isn’t defense mechanism?
Two points. First, our entire experience of Becky is her in various states of traumatic experience, save for the first week or so of comics, and even then she’s totes saying goodby to Joyce for a long long time. In other words, we have no baseline to compare to. And second, Joyce didn’t identify the wacky goofball behavior as being out of character for Becky. Far to the contrary, she seems to accept it as the way Becky is, for better or worse.
I’m not saying it doesn’t serve as a defense mechanism sometimes… just that this might not be its only role. It can also sometimes be a mark of a healthy and happy Becky, which is a positive thing in my mind. And it would also mean that Becky’s character and personality are not defined solely by the trauma in her life. That’s had a big impact, yes, but there might be more to her than that.
No one is arguing that Becky isn’t naturally goofy.
Cerberus is implying that every time she turns it up a level to be EXTRA GOOFY, is at a time when she is at her most distressed, not that she is never naturally wacky.
This. She’s a wacky fun person. We see that in the little jokes she makes when she is showing more vulnerability.
But when she cranks the wacky to 11 and the comment thread roars at her in response? Those are usually the moments when she’s in emotional crisis or pain and is desperate to hide it.
Basically coping by turning one’s personality all the way up to try and drown the sadness that is also part of her.
She’s a wacky, fun person, but right now, she believes she has to be a wacky, fun person all the time, no matter what else she’s feeling. So when she lets the mask slip and lets herself cry or feel the pain is only when she’s alone and no one knows and the rest of the time, she tries to be what she is naturally and that’s why often times it’s a little bit tryhard or otherwise off (like her making Nazi jokes about Joyce’s siblings).
It’s basically her in distress trying to fake what usually comes naturally, so she can “act natural” and thus no one will know. And well, to her, that’s working because no one seems to have actually cottoned on to that coping strategy or stated to her that they’ve noticed.
And she thinks it’s necessary because well, Toedad. That house would likely not have been one that it was ever safe to be anything other than “acting normal”. Especially when every other deviation from “acting normal” was punished so severely.
And it’s funny, because more relaxed Becky has more to her than just being a jokester. She’s often incredibly sweet and empathetic and goes out of her way to check up on the people around her and takes how they’re feeling seriously. I don’t think she should wholly abandon being wacky, just that this coping strategy will need to be replaced with others sometime down the line, because the repression is not allowing her to really process all the awful that has happened to her and instead is letting it just fester and rot underneath.
The biggest problem is that if she wears that mask for too long, she could forget how to take it off. And that brings a whole new level of problems due to emotions and trauma that she can’t fully access and/or let go.
Yup. Been running into that problem a lot now.
OTOH, her entire life has been lived with Toedad. And a mother who at least attempted suicide and who may have shared the same coping strategies – though the evidence for that is tenuous.
Her trauma and her coping mechanisms go back long before those first strips. And as you say, they seem normal to Joyce. I doubt we (or even Joyce) have actually ever seen a healthy Becky. Happy, yes. But always with the home situation on the back of her mind.
Damn it Willis.
Would you go to jail over a Pop-Tart? Here’s your choices cherry, cinnamon, or store?
You don’t go to jail for Pop-Tart theft, they dump you on a tropical island to fight other PT thieves to the death.
Wow. And I thought Eggo thieves were hardcore.
thanks for reminding me of the police report of someone breaking into a house, eating a Pop-Tart, and rearranging the billiard balls
unsolved as far as I know
no smores, no deal
The $200 was stored in an empty pill bottle.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Why would you say that
Although it would make the scene super impactful. Terrible head canon accepted.
Legit that is how I hide spare cash…
…but it was probably too soon.
where would toedad hide the social security card?
The Family Bible, of course.
just have to find the family bible now
Tbh, the concept of a family Bible carries with it connotations involving traceable roots through time that the modern fundie movement doesn’t actually have, so that might be a bit difficult.
Safe deposit box.
Based on the Rule of Willis Must Be Damned.
No hiding. Burned to a crisp.
BEST THIEF EEEVEEEERRRRR!!! Yaaaaaa guuuiissssseeeeeeee
But seriously, Becky find your social security number. And that was super insensitive… but she does need it, right? I hope she finds it… and will be okay… and please let me hug her…
Per https://www.ssa.gov/ssnumber/ss5doc.htm , her birth certificate and her school ID should be enough to get a replacement social security card.
They found the number last comic. They just don’t have the card. So with the number and the birth certificate they should be able to get the card and that will make getting the rest of the documents way less of a pain (though she’ll definitely still be hitting up some of her friends for some funds for getting all of them).
well, the $200 she found oughta help with that (or living expenses/food, i guess)
Well that makes that a convenient find then, doesn’t it?
I suspect Willis didn’t want to deal with asshole future commenters yelling at her for borrowing money from her friends for taking care of this paperwork stuff and so gave her a lucky find so she can self-fund that a little bit.
Chekhov’s Cash Drop?
The birth certificate is the important thing. The SSN is important, but the card itself isn’t too big a deal. Easily replaced if you need it, but most of the time you can just write the number down.
And that’s what they got, birth certificate and her social security number written down on a piece of paperwork. It’s a foothold she can use to get the rest of the stuff and means she might have what she needs to start working and potentially returning to school in a month rather than several years.
yep, just bury those emotions deep down. that’s perfectly healthy. nothing bad can ever come of that.
Turn it off, like a light switch..
Just go *click*…
It is if your father is Toedad.
Still a better coping mechanism than Amber’s
This! THIS!!!!
UNBREAKABLE.
THEY ALIVE, DAMMIT
IT’S A MIRACLE
‘CAUSE FEMALES ARE STRONG AS HELL
This entire thread, complete with avatars. FOR THE WIN.
Do you know how many cigarettes it takes to buy a peanut-butter choc-chip bar in prison? At least two cartons!
Other way around, you can buy granola bars in the prison commissary, but prisons being state buildings are tobacco-free zones.
Aaaand she’s suppressing it.
Is there a DoA character who DOESN’T need therapy?
leslie, maybe
*something something 1-on-1 massage therapy with Robin something*
but my lesbian already happened
no reason it cant happen again in the doa verse!
Whatshername who works behind the mail counter in the dorm.
That would be Asma.
Yeah, Asma. She seems to be okay.
Given her background of a broken marriage and an unaccepting family? Therapy seems pretty plausible.
The girl at the desk in the dorm lobby?
Obvious or at least apparent Muslim working in a customer service field in the red part of America. Double-trouble for having to deal with the parents as well as the students. Oh, and she may also be partially responsible for making sure a bunch of students behave themselves in the dorms.
Asma may be a student at the university. That is the sort of job on a college campus that might go to an older student or graduate student. Sort of like Ruth’s situation.
Seems to wear her authority well, though.
Marcie seems pretty together.
Jacob seems to have gotten the long stick in that department.
(Watch as we immediately get a season-long arc revolving around the reveal of Jacob’s deep-seated, deeply-hidden emotional struggles.)
Jacob actually spent years in therapy over in Shortpacked! I think he was the only character to do so.
he had DoA levels of suffering in Shortpacked!, so the multiverse is balancing it out by giving him a break here. Same for Leslie I’d say
She hasn’t gone into very much, but Leslie’s family disowned her for coming out in this universe too. I’d imagine she’s had her fair share of suffering already.
And she was married to a man before she was honest with herself. That breakup can’t have been much fun.
Am I the only person to read Cheshrin’s comment and immediately think, “We need to bring back ‘Phrasing’ as a thing”?
Based off the main cast? Dorothy, Sarah, Dina. Walky could benefit from a long talk with his sister, and Ethan and Danny needs more confidence, but they’re in good conditions otherwise.
FOOLS! Galasso requires no therapy!
Most of the secondary/supporting characters are okay, if only because we haven’t seen much of them. (Sierra, Agatha, Rachel, Other Rachel…)
I would argue that while most of the cast would certainly benefit from therapy, Ruth and Amber are the only ones who absolutely NEED it in order to lead functional lives.
Joyce. She’s not getting over the PTSD from Scarface. Though the Toedad/parents trauma seems to be overwhelming it for the moment.
Still, having such a crisis that you forget it’s not safe to be alone outside isn’t actually fixing the problem.
But Becky, with $200 you can buy MANY granola bars.
I’m with Becky. Peanut butter chocolate chip? I WOULD go to jail over that granola bar.
I like that Becky measures the value of the money in haircuts.
I speak from experience that when you are not given much frame of reference as far as the value of money, things are easily represented by the last thing you spent money on
ten hours of artwork = one dinner at Outback
[current day self: WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY THIS IS WHY YOU STARVE]
Suggest you are wayyyyyy underpricing yourself.
Oh I wish I heeded the warning, I got from my Ma and Pa
They said, “Son, keep away from the girls with the Granola Bars!”–apologies to Benny Hill
By the way, my Sempai’s father called me “Granola Boy” at one of our anime club meetings, and that’s been one of my aliases ever since.
Dean’s comment on the previous strip is really resonating with me right now.
I know, right? Dude freaking nailed it.
To be fair, other people pointed out that Becky’s cheerfulness seemed to be a coping mechanism earlier but he’s the only one I saw put it together. But to be fair again, the comments were too full of folks complaining about trigger warnings and shitting on suicidal people for me to read all of them.
Sigh…so, win in the birth cert, but the wacky mask snapped right back into place. I’m hoping it doesn’t break too hard when it inevitably does.
On the bright side, Becky’s got good people to help her through it.
She does, she really does, and she’s enlisting more by the minute. Two weeks ago she only had Joyce. Now she has a whole group, including a badass girlfriend and a REALLY cool big sis.
I think the fabric is getting real thin and frayed. I really hope she can make it to Monday and then can just collapse into her dinosaur girlfriend’s lap and cry until Tuesday.
I remember being 18 and thinking $200 was a lot of money. Now, at 27, I’m like, “So cell phone, Internet, the water bill, dog food for the week, and gas. Also, I still have to pay the gas & electric, rent, and get groceries, which will be another $800.”
Other than rent (which includes electricity, water, heating etc.), 200$ could see me through a month. Sure, things would be a little tight, but at the age of 33, 200$ is STILL a lot of money.
If I were living alone $200 CAD could see me through the month (which is like… 140 US, I think?) after rent & utilities. $100 CAD for cell and internet (necessity for me because of my work) and $100 CAD for food. Very doable if you eat out never and cycle or walk everywhere.
Mind you, I like small luxuries like not having to get up at 5AM to get to work on time, so I spend more than that in a month now, but I’ve lived on less than that per month before in grad school ($650/mo to cover all of the things – in a city where rent on a bedroom in a place is $450/mo utilities not included)
Right? $200 is a lot of money if it’s an unexpected expense but as a regular part of your budget, not so much. My monthly student loan payment is $200.
They are the best kind.
Aaaaaaand SHE’S BACK!!!! Her father could not beat that grin out of her witn a gun. Her mother’s ghost can’t.
Maybe not the healthiest survival mechanism, but in the short term it keeps her alive, which is kinda impressive right now.
OK, I’m serious. We need some logistics about this. Transport and scheduling and so on. EVERYONE hug Becky. NOW!!!!
It keeps you going. And sometimes that’s more important than long-term mental health…
Can’t have long term unless you can survive the short term, after all.
Yup, that was a lesson I learned damn quick and I definitely don’t regret it.
Borrow mental health from the future and pay heavy interest on it later. Hopefully when it’s safer.
Keyword there definitely being “hopefully”
guuhhh, bad feeling about this. Breaking into a house that’s only dubiously yours is one thing, but if the cops find her with Ross’s money, they WILL come down on her.
How will they know it’s not her money?
It is now.
Good point, but if there’s money missing and they have other items from the house (like the birth certificate or the Social Security card) that places them in the house and make her a likely suspect. And while she can prove a legitimate claim to the birth certificate or the SS card and could also probably get away with taking away some clean clothes (and the granola bar), taking anything else that is not verifiably hers is, well, theft.
i’m with tim on this one, how would they verify where the cash came from? something tells me ross is more the “stuff it under the mattress” type than “anal retentive personal accounting” type. it’s not like becky raided her mom’s jewelry box or helped herself to the silver (which is arguably not a bad idea, if you don’t mind the theft part). it’s cash.
Between the kitten yesterday, and becky’s cheerful front today, i think we may have grounds to sue Willis for feels whiplash.
Well, now that we have a brief respite with humor, I can come back and make jokes in the comments again.
…
…
Shit, I got nothing.
Sorry. Can’t think of a good joke. Or even a bad one. I have failed.
I know, after yesterday’s strip I don’t feel particularly funny.
But then I think “what would Becky do”, and jokes don’t feel so bad after all.
Fart.
That one’s always a gas.
I’ll help.
[Insert Self-Referencing Meta Slightly Crass Joke Here]
I think I did that wrong.
Hmmm, are we going to find out that Becky doesn’t have a social security number?
No, didn’t they find some tax information in some of the stuff that was in the bags yesterday? So she has a SSN, even if she doesn’t have the actual paper card.
They said yesterday that they found the number, just not the card itself.
She had a twin, and she’d always been told that the twin died at birth. Now that they have the birth certificate and can’t find a social security card, the truth will come out. The twin that died was her!
(With apologies to Mark Twain.)
Oh for a second I thought you were making a reference to Lincoln March. Bruce Wayne’s alleged brother who became Owlman.
I prefer honey oat. And crunchy rather than chewy.
honey oat is yum.
also, you can take peanut butter in a small jar and cheap, reasonable breakfast on the road for tours, even when camping at festivals.
+1 for everybody!
Sometimes life hands you granola bar money.
Dumb question, could Becky go about getting a new copy of her social security card or whatever without getting a new number entirely, or what?
As long as they know the number, she can get a replacement card. Of course, there’s probably a ream of paperwork, a mile of red tape, and ridiculous filing and replacement fees that will need to be dealt with or paid.
Yes, it’s a pretty easy process to get a replacement card. Per https://www.ssa.gov/ssnumber/ss5doc.htm , her birth certificate and her school ID should be enough documentation.
She got pulled out of school, though, so not sure that ID would still fly.
The main thing is that Student ID would most likely be a photo ID at the college level. You don’t stop being you just because you no longer attend the school.
I don’t think the actual card is that important, knowing the number is what you need. And with a birth certificate you can get a new card.
So do they print the new card and hand it to you in person, or do they mail it to your residence? Because depending on whether the building has a mailbox vs. front door mail slot, Becky might have to break into this house AGAIN to retrieve the card if it is mailed.
Furthermore, if she wants to apply for a passport or driver’s license, I think she needs a few more forms of valid ID than just the number and birth certificate– or a few stronger forms of ID than those two– to qualify. Is “Birth Certificate plus Social Security Card” enough for a driver’s license in Indiana?
Social security cards are issued to people, not addresses. Once Becky verifies her identity, she provides the SSA her mailing address and they send it out to her. It really is that simple – I recently got a replacement card myself and I haven’t been a resident of the state I lived in when I first got my number for over 30 years now. BONUS TIP: I didn’t even have to go in person; because I’d established an online account with the SSA a few years ago I was able to order mine online and it came within a week. Pretty cool.
I just checked the regs for Indiana and they offer two types of ID, secure and non-secure. Becky would want the SecureID as the other looks to be something that’s pretty much only valid for identification at a polling place. She’ll need to verify her identity with her birth certificate and a copy of her SS card and she’ll also need to verify her residency, which will be trickier as she need to show two pieces of acceptable evidence which Indiana defines as a computer generated bill from a utility company, credit card, doctor or hospital no more than 60 days old. It’s not clear to me if she can use the non-secure ID (which just requires the things she already has, the birth certificate and the SS #) as acceptable ID for getting a job but I think it might be possible.
Panel Reactions:
Panel 1: Oh, wait behind her. Shit, I was totally wrong on where Joyce and Jocelyne were. I guess Toedad’s weight room is a separate (non-bedroom) room than the bedroom.
Also, yes on documents! Birth Certificate and ss card number should be enough to get ss card and those two together may be enough to prove citizenship for over the table jobs, though she may also need to track down a photo id or a passport. But the amount of bullshit she needs to wade through has dropped precipitously.
Which is good, because dear Bob in Himmel does she look about ready to curl into a fetal position and never stop crying. I’m not sure how much hell she can put herself through without completely breaking.
Panel 2: Interesting… Becky has used the burst of anger to try and shake herself out of a bad tailspin before:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/04-walking-with-dina/goodwill/
And she’s got a lot to feel angry about. Her dad’s betrayal, how he likely contributed to her mom’s feelings of hopelessness, not having any of this anymore. And unlike Joyce, she hasn’t had a moment to punch anything. Hell, she may be even more pacifist than Carla in that way.
But that eyetwitch, that mask shift. This wacky persona mask is a lot harder than the one’s before and she must be feeling so tired of just all of it. I hope she gets the chance to truly rest soon instead of still feeling like she’s running just to stay in the game.
Panel 3:
Excelllllent… muahaha. Ah, sometimes comic characters hit your pettiness just right and just deliver the magic. What a wonderful coda to so many spending so long whining about that damn haircut that was so critical to make it to recovery. To keep moving and being herself and holding on. To keep alive.
Panel 4: Grand Theft Hiking Snacks. Punishable by having Lex Luthor steal 40 cakes. It’s more than 4 tens! And that’s terrible!
Panel 5: And the Joyce magic is wearing off and she’s back to worrying about jail. I dunno, this might be the time for Jocelyne to pack it in and get these two home before they fully collapse under the weight of their individual stresses.
why was lex luthor stealing so many cakes? there cant be that many people in the legion of doom
You appear to be assuming that Lex Luthor intended to share.
You would be incorrect.
Because Lex Luthor is evil.
lex luthor is evil, and thats terrible!
So evil he doesn’t even wash his hands!
That escalated in a Flash.
Super-quick if you ask me.
Yup. For me, panel 2 is really where we see how strong Becky is. “Nope, ghosts, you are NOT bringing me done. You want me to curl down and cry? Well I am going to make jokes about haircuts”.
Panel 1: No, I think you were right before. As I read it, Becky’s standing at the door of her parents’ room, looking in. The door’s next to the right-hand wall from Becky’s POV; the window and exercise equipment are on the exterior wall opposite her; the closet where J&J are working is on the right hand wall near the door; the bed and desk are off to the left (she’s facing diagonally in and towards the bed). I’d guess J&J were focussed on the documents rather than Becky when she walked in, and didn’t see the mask slip.
Excellent character analysis as always, Cerberus.
Disagree. Compare last strip’s last panel, where the doorway is behind her and the open door itself is on Becky’s left, vs today’s strip in the last two panels where the doorway is behind her but the door is on her right. My understanding from the beginning has been that there are 3 ‘bedrooms’ (as in that’s what they would be called on the floorplan), but only 2 are in use as actual bedrooms: Toedad’s (which was also Bonnie’s), and Becky’s, while the third has no bed and functions as Toedad’s office/gym/private space.
(I have some bias in thinking this, as growing up, our first house was a 3-bedroom house where one was my parents’ bedroom, one was me and my brother’s room, and the third was my father’s computer room. But my family has a history of not using rooms for their named purposes, e.g. we have not used a dining room for dining since ’94)
…yup. Looks like I got it wrong again! Ta.
She needs a title- Becky the Brave. Or maybe Rebecca the Resilient? Assuming that Becky is short for Rebecca.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/eloneoneone/
its short for Rebecca, tho as far as i know its up in the air if becky likes being called that.
I’m gonna go with Becky, then. It seems like Toedad was the only one who ever called her by her full name, and I’d rather not emulate him.
All of the ghost comments the last few days make me think that the commenters here don’t really know what a ghost is.
Sure they do! Via Super Mario Kart, ghosts are faint play-by-play records of things you have done in the past, displayed next to your current self.
It would really suck if ghosts actually worked like that
“woooooaaaah I am the ghost of the time you ate a sandwich, wooooo”
More like “we are the ghosts of all the times you ate sandwiches.”
…. which would at least empirically answer the question of what counts as a sandwich. Is a taco a sandwich? Is a pizza an open-faced sandwich?
“We are the ghosts of you having intense philosophical debates about what a sandwich is!”
I honestly would have like twelve of those.
It’s a common metaphor for “couldhavebeens” “losts” and “neverwhere” as well as a common spiritual belief.
The term is used for so many different things that I have a hard time figuring out how to use it in a way that wouldn’t fit at least one of them.
This. One can be haunted as in the metaphysical, religious sense of being pursued by actual metaphysical ghosts or sharing a house with them or at least have the belief that they are being haunted.
One can also be haunted by one’s past. By your own actions, by the actions of others, by what one said or didn’t say. In this one, it’s the latter for Becky. Her past, the memories of what this place holds for her of the family that is gone forever for her that haunts her.
And unlike the former, these ghosts won’t stay here when she goes back home. They live in her head and so she can’t ever fully run away from them.
[Insert Obligatory Princess Bride Overused Quote Here]
“As you wish.”
It is inconceivable that you would do such a thing.
That’s what he does best.
Anybody wanna peanut?
wow.. Becky is the Master of repression
wow.. Becy is the Master of repression
Yeah, seriously, her resilience is damn impressive and damn heart-breaking.
Uh, no, Sunbelt fudge-dipped coconut granola bars are the best ever.
http://www.sunbeltbakery.com/www/docs/125/fudge-dipped-coconut-granola-bar
The best granola bars ever won’t be invented for another fifty years. They’ll contain allergy-safe chocolate, perfectly spiced granola with all the best not-yet-synthesized designer spices, texture-improving nanites that customize the bar to your prefered firmness and chewiness just before you eat, and a safe but noticeable infusion of dopamine.
The reason that this is the pinnacle of granola bar technology is that it will roll out scant months before World War 3. The ensuing nuclear fallout and various bioweapon plagues result in the extinction of humanity, thus simultaneously ensuring that there will never be a better granola bar while also demonstrating why claiming that you have the best ever of anything is actually a very very very very very scary thought.
I am pretty sure none of it was me, but in the event something i said yesterday made the comments close I am sorry….
I don’t think it was anything the usual crowd did. We all pretty much know where the boundaries are by now.
I scanned through some of the comments. I think the ones that got it shut down were removed.
Becky, you’re FUCKING AMAZING. You deserve to hear it 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 times over into infinity and more. You are doing something that is difficult and painful, but what molds you into a stronger person. You are in pain, accepting that, but turning your attention back to the matter at hand, even pushing your usual silly side back into view. YOU ARE AMAZING AND WONDERFUL. YOU INSPIRE ALL OF US.
WE LOVE YOU. YOU FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT!
YES!!!
YOU ARE SO VERY LOVED BECKY <3
LISTEN TO THE DOG WITH GOOGLES, BECKY, I’M SURE IT KNOWS WHAT IT’S TALKING ABOUT.
Eventually Becky will travel back in time to save her mom. This will change the timeline and:
Stacy (Ambers Mom): Will have become Amazi Girl
There will be war between the football team, led by Tony and the newspaper led by Daisy.
Joyce has been locked in the boiler room.
There will be a resistance movement made up of everyone else
Eventually Toe Dad and Becky will battle for the fate of mankind
Mary will be speared by Tony
For that last one: literally, figuratively, or sexually?
Literally
What about an RKO?
Confusingly, A-Mom-zigirl will have a moustache.
In the end she’ll sneak up behind Ross and stab him in the back with a sword.
For this to happen we need to play some “Kill Bill” music.
whydidihavetounderstandthatreference.gif
Sure it’s peanut butter and chocolate chip but it’s still a granola bar.
Also I want to give Becky a hug.
#JocelyneNoir
“We have to goods,” said the gone. “We’re going?”
“No,” I decided. “We stay for the gold.” The goon shrugged.
“Your dime.” Ever the pragmatic.
“No, her dime.” I corrected with a sideway glance to the client. She was still fighting her ghosts, but by the look of, she was winning for now. When she saw me looking the mask snapped back up. I pretended not to notice.
I’m a professional.
“What’s in here,” she asked, popping open a box, more to divert my attention than anything.
It worked.
“…oh my” she said after a while, which summed it up pretty well.
“It’s the good stuff,” the goon said as way of conversation. “Peanut butter chocolate chip. Worth quite a lot on the street”
True enough, but it wasn’t the granola bar that gave me paus, even if it told us that “Joe the Toe” was not quite the upstanding citizen we had been led to believe. Everyone and their mother dabbled in granola bars and almost no one cared, unless the cops needed an excuse to bust your gut, of course. Nevertheless, this was fancy stuff.
But was gave me paus was the money. Bundles with fresh twemties, carefully stacked. This was big money. Bad money. Money of the kind that buy a lot of questions not asked. Not many people could handle that kind of cash.
This was haircut money.
“…the dragons muscling in?” the goon asked, obviously following a similar trail of thoughts. I shook my head.
“Last time I checked, Leafs had them under their thumb.”
“Who then?”
“Dunno, not our business” True enough. “Not our problem” Yeah, right. “Let’s just chalk it down to Joe being in over his head and leave it as someone else’s pro…”
Surprisingly fast the goon had put a hand om my arm. “Trigger warning”, she said. I barely had time to press myself against the wall.
A shot rang out. The door was kicked open and someone walked in with a gun.
Is it wrong that I want Becky to spend more time in this torturous hell just to get more JocelyneNoir?
It doesn’t seem to ease up anytime soon… But I’m sure I can find inspiration for more Jocelyne Noir even with Becky in a better place.
Chandler’s Law! *drink*
Thanks for noticing
Well that turned a corner quick.
In this sort of stories you have to obey Chandler’s Law at least once, like StClair noted above. I think it’s a union rule or something.
I _need_ a blog of this.
“Hmmmmm… I DO have plenty of spare time…”
Offscreen: “No you don’t.”
“Awww. “
Nice Billie/Ruth reference!
Also cool: the seriousness in the “haircut money” line.
The trick is to keep the ratio Injokes:NoirCliches somewhat even. Seems to be working so far
I should be one to talk but don’t bury your feelings, Becky.
Especially in granola and haircut moneys.
This… hurt just as much as yesterday’s :c
Becky NOooo. Now you are added to the list of people with unresolved emotional conflict :(. So far the list is.
Joyce- she can’t be outside and hasn’t told anyone of this yet,
Sarah- can’t get that booty due to personal insecurity,
Sal – hates everyone and everything because her mom chooses her twin over her every time,
Amber – ohgod, too many. But the unresolved ones are her using violence as a way to vent, and festering hate for Sal.
and Becky – sweetie you are torn up inside and are covering it up with humor.
idk anyone remember any more drama?
Danny- … just all the… Danny.
Oh and let us not forget Billie and Ruth’s… everything or Walky slamming face first into his own limitations and blinders and how that is ripping apart his self-image.
And hand in hand with this, as I was thinking after our recent discussion, a whole bunch of (attempted) coping strategies on display. some possibly better than others (ahem AMBER), but all needing some work, IMO.
Ethan — trying to PR-control and thereby deny his sexuality.
Sarah — trapping herself in a friendless, loveless life in her desire to avoid drama, white lies, and general human failing. … which is itself a human failing. Ah, irony.
Carla — Mary. Just… Mary.
Marcie — Falling in lust with a jerkface. An awesome jerkface, but still a jerkface.
Who else?
The Carla and Mary thing is really interesting to me because of how much the context of all of that has changed so dramatically with recent real-world events thanks to the constant changing timeline.
Cause now, when Mary unleashed her barrage, she was doing it in a world where multiple states are suing for the right to bar trans people from public facilities and are doing so on the back of disgusting lies that all trans women are child molesting men. She did it in a world where the KKK is using trans bathroom panic to recruit new members, where more and more angry ranting videos of bigots in Targets screaming about how trans people are child molesters are cropping up, where the ADL is literally arguing to a case they hope will go to the Supreme Court that merely being a trans kid in the same room as cis kids constitutes an act of sexual harassment and thus creates real emotional distress.
Now, Mary is not just being a bigot, she’s a bigot who thinks she’s participating in this whole moral culture of “fighting back against Obama’s fascism in forcing the beauteous states to treat trans people not like shit”. It’s probably a major theme of her current Sunday service. She probably has good reason to believe that if she makes a big enough stink she can get the college Republicans group or the governor or maybe even that young congresswoman who needs a crusading topic to help her in the election will have her back. That she can make history by being a dick to Carla.
And thus it makes it even more important that Carla is able to take her power back here because as time slips into the future, the stakes for her are getting way higher.
Hopefully it’ll work the other way as well. By the time this storyline ends, we’ll have had a bunch of positive developments.
Honestly, the amount of pushback the NC law has been getting is encouraging. It brings out the crazies, but it’s not popular even in NC and it’s definitely hurting the governor. The feds are pushing remedies. Other states have backed off on similar laws.
Similarly, it wasn’t that long ago that Republicans were drumming up votes by introducing state level amendments banning same-sex marriage and they were mostly passing too. Then that turned into a losing issue and the whole thing turned on them. To me this looks like it might go even faster.
None of which changes the horror of living in the middle of it.
Now if only we could get the same sort of turn-around on TRAP laws…
Jason seemed upset by what Penny said to him.
whoa yeah Billie and Ruth need to resolve their drinking and self loathing and secret relationship issues.
Poor Walky and his limitations, he hasn’t told anyone, but Mike and Joyce know.
and Dorothy, realizing she kinda really likes Walky
Wait isn’t Danny [marked as resolved]. He got away from Amber and confessed to Ethan and everything.
Yeah, but his main abusers aren’t Amber/AG, they’re his parents. And he still believes that he deserves ill treatment and that he’s no good on his own and that he needs to sacrifice to keep a relationship going.
So, he definitely has some new coping strategies to develop before we can fully mark him as resolved.
Obviously nothing could make Danny happier than someone he cares about being on a crash course to a full on mental breakdown and her eventual death.
Also, this.
Joyce’s friends know she cant go out alone, they walk her.
Sarah yup she just cant get herself to socialize.
Sal doesn’t hate everyone and everything. She just holds her feelings in too because of her own trama’s. But she is the one who told Amazi-Girl to put her problems behind her and stop reliving them or it would destroy her.
Amber, yeah agree she is a special case.
Becky is handling her problems day by day. It’s working for her. (I’ve been there and done that). Get thru the day and tomorrow takes care of itself.)
More? oh yeah.
Danny who want Ethan and can’t because of what it would do to Amber.
Ethan, ditto.
Mary…..omg….’nuff said.
Carla seems to be handling her transgender issues but…she’s an awful pita.
Josh/Josylen. Building a life, but can’t face parents with it.
To name a few
pff Carla loves being a pain in the ass. She does have {{revenge}} to execute before she is [marked as resolved] though definitely.
I thought I saw that Joyce is getting better now, that a couple of characters were surprised that she had gone off without them.
I think that’s more that she’s been so screwed up by the happy-fun gun times and her mom’s response to it that it’s overwhelmed her other panic attacks.
That’s not “getting better”. That’s forgetting about your broken arm because you just got shot.
There are event horizons that have their shit less together than Becky Goddamn MacIntyre.
Very, very true. Steven Hawkings will come by soon enough and start ask awkward questions and be hijacked to explain non-false physic from scratch.
Hawkins [computer voice] “There is no indication at all that the speed of light is different between stars, so no, your textbook lied to you there as well.”
Becky: Hah, I knew it. Next topic. Isn’t my girlfriend the BEST???
Hawkins [computer voice]: She sure is.
If you didn’t read that hearing his ‘voice’ and laugh, or at least smile, well, fuck, I’ll shut up now.
I would hope that this finally puts paid to the ‘is Becky just, like, a sociopath with this genki?’ vs ‘guys it’s a goddam coping mechanism can we back off the multiple-trauma survivor now’
Seriously.
There were sociopath comments/views?
optimistic.
Becky I’ll trade you my social for that granola bar. No trade backs.
Your social what?
Security card… I think… we seem to be back at the WWYdfaKB? theme of today’s comments.
Comments were closed yesterday (otherwise we might have had another thousand-breaker), so, Becky, have these extra hugs on the house. <3
I wonder if, when she does get back to campus and has some alone time with Dina, she'll be able to release some of the tension of her inner feelings, much like she did earlier with her (and Dina sounds like she would be wonderfully receptive to her feels).
Really, the one thing Becky needs most of all is an outlet. Despite her feeling the "duty" of putting on a silly facade and being the crazy clown type, wearing the mask of "it's all right" without any sort of free space to take off that mask was most likely what drove Bonnie to what she did, and if she's not careful, Becky might follow that same path if she follows the same mindset of feeling like she has to 'conform' to what she thinks is expected of her.
We all love you Beckster! <3
All of this.
I like to believe that the granola bar is the only piece of food in the house.
Now that’s just silly. Joyce and Jocelyn are right there.
No, the rest was all MREs and freeze-dried survival shit.
I have never eaten Granola, whats it taste like even?
Low chance of seeing this, but thanks for your reply to my comment yesterday Cerberus!
A baked cerial with oats, honey, nuts, sometimes dried fruit, or coconut. Some people say it tastes like muesli.
Kind of. Very different texture from muesli though (it’s crunchy)
In theory/at base, it’s mostly oats, assorted snack nuts, and a little bit of honey. Chewy, a little crunchy and nutty, mildly sweet. Healthy and filling.
In practice, particularly in “granola bars”, it’s much more complicated and less healthy. A commercially-packaged granola bar, for example, is pretty much a rice-crispie treat (with chocolate chips, peanut butter, and/or other things added in).
Deliciousness, portable!
Imagine what you would have if you swept out the bottom of a parakeet cage. That’s why people add things like chocolate chips, raisins, marshmallows, and other things to it — that’s the only way you can eat that stuff.
All this backtalk on normal granola bars makes me want to go out and get those ones that seriously looked like plywood but tasted awesome. Not that I know what they are called anymore.
Nature Valley?
Aw thanks. *double hugs*
Thanks everyone!
If not for her last name, I would say that Becky was related to Margaret Brown.
For those not familiar with the movie or seafaring history, she was a survivor of the Titanic who strongly encouraged the lifeboat crew to go back and look for survivors. When asked by the press about being afraid of dying she is rumored to have said “Don’t you know that I’m unsinkable.” It earned her the nickname “the Unsinkable Molly Brown.”
She could still be a Brown on her mother’s side. After all, Becky learned her survival skills from her.
Making her actually some sort of cousin to Joyce? (Before the sisterly adoption, of course)7
Oh Becky… :'(
Regarding yesterday’s strip, it’s a little baffling how people are saying that the trigger warning doesn’t give them the impact, as if the impact of their own feelings matter more than the mental health of people who have gone through this first hand and suffered a lot for it. I know they don’t know any better, but still.
I envy those that can look down on people who have attempted/completed suicide, for it means that they have never known a pain so severe that facing the aether itself is preferable to continuing to draw breath.
Like I’m pretty much eye rolling at some of the comments regarding trigger warnings yesterday which I can’t reply to- as they more or less said the only way to ‘get over things’ and trigger warnings is a ‘barrier’ to that and ‘coddling’ when:
a) Triggers are NOT a conscious choice. Thisw is obvious.
b) Trigger warnings have been a term for /decades/: the internet has only made the term known to them recently. I mean this is kind of like when bigotry is discussed in general, people not exposed to it think it’s ‘new’ somehow when they run into discussions online. It’s silly. The world exists outside of how you have previously perceived it.
c) Exposure therapy doesn’t work for everyone, I mean you’ve got to consider the timing for one thing.
d) Trigger warnings are often a PART of exposure therapy for that matter- with a warning someone who wants treatment can make the informed decision to dive in if they so wish. Just randomly throwing the images or triggers at them with no warning is not a part of exposure therapy at all so people against trigger warnings really have no clue what they’re talking about.
ALSO: Exposure therapy doesn’t work if you don’t have absolute control over when and how you’ll get exposed. Blindsiding someone with a trigger is a good way to worsen the anxiety reaction.
I used to have a needle phobia (teeechnically I still sort-of do because I have the genetic condition that makes you pass out if your skin gets pierced beyond a certain depth – which docs and nurses never believed me about until I took a header into the desk and split my face open. Again. But I don’t have the anxiety reaction anymore, just the physiological vaso-vagal response that I can’t control). People blindsiding me with needle triggers actually worsened it.
Phobias are one of the few psych phenomena that obey behaviorism rules neatly. It’s a simple positive-feedback mechanism by which they operate: See trigger. Anxiety reaction provoked, so you flee. Fleeing gets you away from trigger. Trigger no longer present, anxiety goes away. Phobia reinforced because when you run away from the trigger, you feel better.
To not flee from something you’re having a phobic reaction of requires a buttload of bravery and mental preparation. Here’s why: Why, yes, I completely realize that a needle is not going to kill me. And I did even when I was phobic. But on an emotional level, I was more afraid of getting a needle at the time than I was the time someone pulled a knife on me and threatened to kill me with it. Literally, a needle was more terrifying than a death threat when the person had both the means and opportunity to execute it. A needle was more terrifying than workplace fires. More terrifying than chemical spills. More terrifying than the time I was first to respond to a lab explosion. All these actually life-threatening situations were significantly less scary to phobia-brain than a flu shot.
Which I realize is utterly asinine – which is the hell of a phobia: You know it’s irrational and silly for you to be so goddamn scared, but you’re so goddamn scared anyway.
When I was doing exposure therapy, the first half hour of every session was just getting myself ready for it. Then I controlled the duration and length of exposure. And I could not let myself flee at all because if I did it would set me back. But they key is that it’s all about enabling bravery by setting you up for success: You’re expecting exposure. You’re physically comfortable. You’ve got a plan for how the exposure will go. You have complete control over the exposure. You have the power to stop it at any time. You want the exposure therapy to work. You know what’s happening, and you have been taught the coping strategies to make it bearable.
Even now, like 5 years after I finished the exposure therapy: If I go to donate blood, I need to get the needle. Even if they can’t actually accept my blood because I don’t pass the heart rate (heeyyyy doing something anxiety-provoking spikes your heart rate, didja know?) or the iron test, I need them to give me the needle, because if I chicken out once, I’m back at square one and I have to do it all over again.
Because you don’t really cure a phobia. You learn to cope, and you learn tools to enable bravery. But I am still irrationally afraid of getting a needle. My hands still shake and my mouth goes dry and I break out in a cold sweat at the thought alone. Which, again, I realize is silly – that’s actually one of the key diagnostic features of a phobia: The patient knows their fear is irrational, and they’re afraid anyway.
But when you intentionally expose someone without their foreknowledge to a trigger because you don’t give a damn about their triggers, or worse, because you think it’s funny to trigger someone, that’s a seriously jerk-ass move. It really, really is. Why?
Exposure therapy is built on control and trust: I need to have control of the process at every step and I need to trust that those around me will support me and take my lead. When you expose someone when they’re not expecting it, you’ve thrown out any trust they may have ever had in you (remember when I said the object of a phobia is more terrifying than actual legitimately life-threatening situations? Yeah. You’re doing the emotional equivalent of holding a knife to the person’s throat for shits and giggles, and you expect them to trust that you have their best interests at heart? You’re lucky they don’t punch you!). You’ve also taken the control of the situation completely out of their hands: They aren’t expecting it, so they’re not braced and ready. They don’t have the final say in the duration of the exposure. They’re not in a comfortable and safe environment. I could go on.
In short: When you expose someone to a trigger intentionally and without warning, you are setting that person up for failure in their therapy and for a backslide of their mental health. Worse, you are committing psychological torture against that person for your own amusement. It’s a genuinely nasty thing to do to a person, and if you do it to someone, in my book that makes you a bad person, on par with Toedad and Blaine. It’s sadistic and cruel. For that reason, if you’re someone who takes glee in triggering people, and I find out, it’s a deal-breaker for me: Relationship over. No second chances.
Thank you. I was genuinely, at least sort of, in the “just show them their triggers, it’ll be better for them” camp until reading thid. Thank you for taking the time to explain this issue so clearly and rationally
Yeah, there’s always a weird reaction by privileged folk when a minority status or condition gets more national attention, where they pretend this has somehow been invented just recently and not well studied over decades. Trigger warnings are a thing and they are a thing that aids people in recovering enough to engage more fully in assignments, communities, and spaces in general.
People trying to pretend it’s a form of censorship because now they have to “press 1 for english” in their reading is as bafflingly ignorant of reality as it is harmful. No one should have their hard work in recovery derailed, should be too much of a depressed anxious mess to participate all so some douchenozzle can pretend that being privileged is the same thing as being strong.
Thank you so much for putting this together.
Willis definitely made the right call shutting the comments down. All of those “my entertainment is way more important than your actual life experiences and emotional well being” was clearly bullshit, and those were just the comments I was able to read. Who knows what crap he had to delete.
That being said…that kitten has me worried. If we’re talking immortality as fountain of youth- cute, fluffy and playful forever, then neat. If we’re talking immortal as in pet cemetery….well, I’d just like some of this to be qualified is all.
Agreed to all of the above.
Including the kitten.
The kitten will never die because it is a fixed image. it will still be there as long as the page is up.
OK I’m probably one of the few if not the only forum member who won’t consider suicide because I’ve “been there” and there is fudging boring. Seriously people, being dead was boring (and frustrating) for me. Imagine if you will watching a video player with infinite levels of zoom and volume control with unlabeled and hidden controls, and no help button (or the damned thing was also hidden and not labeled).
So seriously, don’t suicide.
I missed the comments yesterday, until the notice about them being closed was put up. I am truly mind-boggled.
Even if you’re inclined to believe that they don’t serve a purpose on your own work, whining about an author choosing to use them is about as entitled a thing I’ve ever heard. And it’s not like people have gotten to this point in the strip without damn well knowing where Willis stands on these issues, and his motivations–the idea that there are people who enjoy the strip AND are offended by trigger warnings is just downright bizarre.
It takes all kinds, doesn’t it.
(Even people who want to be jerks to suicide-survivors and the like, apparently, because oh noes we all read the twist literally two seconds early, on the free comic that we like. I strongly prefer when we are not jerks.)
Poor Becky; stlll afraid to be ‘Debbie Downer’! Still running from her traumas, ghosts and nightmares, no matter how ridiculous it makes her appear. I just hope that the new, angry and impatient Joyce mk2 doesn’t lose her temper with her.
I think all these people going on about how badly Becky is “repressing memories” may be off base.
1) Do we know how long ago Becky’s Mom died? For all we know, Becky has already been through the tears and the sackcloth and ashes and Kubler-Rosse shiat well before the first DoA strip.
2) Being reminded of what happened by returning to her house for the first time in quite a while is a totally normal thing. The drawn ghosts were a way for Willis to show us what happened and what she is feeling (never tell when you can show!) but it doesn’t mean that Becky is flashing back or hallucinating or anything so dramatic. She is remembering, the memories make her sad, she is continuing with her life. That is not the same thing as repressing.
I think people are mostly talking about her repressing *emotions*, not memories. Which she definitely is doing.
I don’t think she’s repressing memories. She’s repressing how she feels about those memories.
This house is mostly just evoking those deep feelings and dredging them up. Cause it’s one thing to remember a parent’s suicide attempt and another to be looking at the bed where it happened.
I think I’m alone in wondering if we’ve seen the weight room. I’m architecturally-curious.
No, you’re not alone. But for me it’s because I think they’re going to find some veeeery unpleasant surprises in there, and I’m dying to know.
Yummo!
…aaand the mask snaps back into place. Oh, Becky. *hugs*
ALL the hugs
Agh this feels so similar because I do this a lot with any of my own problems, to the point where even if I do want to talk about something I can never bring it up because it feels weird for me and I’ll just brush it off and make some stupid joke instead. I never like talking about my own shit, even though I know my friends would listen and try to help, but if you brush away everything all the time, it doesn’t feel natural to talk about things and its always weird and awkward and ugh. So I get Becky’s defence mechanisim here, even if its not a great one to have.
Wanted to say it yesterday, but the trigger Warning is still kind of spoilerish if you read it after reading the strip, seeing that “attempted” in “attempted suicide” means Becky’s mother didn’t actually die at that point yet. So, that’s an info the trigger give that isn’t provided by the comic itself.
Unless “attempted” cover both failed suicide and suicide in which the person actually died? but that doesn’t sound like the meaning of “attempted”.
It’s been stated previously (possibly not in-comic) that Bonnie died of cancer. Ergo the attempt definitely was not successful.
I didn’t remembered that. thanks.
Is it possible that she took an overdose of something while being treated for cancer, and that everyone has been politely saying that she died of cancer?
No, that’s Dana’s mom. We don’t know yet how Bonnie died.
Man, I cannot find that information right now for love or money. Can someone give me a link to where this is stated?
To the best of my knowledge, it isn’t. I believe a lot of people have confused Becky’s mom, who died of unstated causes last year, and Dana’s (Sarah’s ex-roommate, whose mom died of cancer).
There have been a couple of instances IRL where someone with a terminal illness took their own life through assisted suicide/legalized euthanasia. You know, “If I’m going to have to leave, I’ll be the one to decide when.” Could it be we will learn that the suicide attempt was a direct response to the cancer diagnosis?
“There have been a couple of instances IRL where someone with a terminal illness took their own life through assisted suicide/legalized euthanasia.”
this is not suicide, though. Anyway, what we saw yesterday was clearly not assisted death by the help of a doctor, there.
“Could it be we will learn that the suicide attempt was a direct response to the cancer diagnosis? ”
My current (wild) guess is that this was depression. But that’s just me.
who cares if its spoilerish? willis have good reasons to have a warning and the readers should respect his choice
I like that today’s comic is as explicit response to Becky hate as possible. It’s actively showing the moment she covers up her pain with her “wacky Becky” persona, and slips in a reference to haircuts for good measure. Well played Willis, well played.
… You sure? Im pretty sure this page was drawn months ago.
Months ago, but well after the haircut and well after the Becky hate first appeared – over the haircut and over the “wacky Becky” persona.
Becky’s haircut was more than a year ago. The buffer’s not that big. It typically runs about three months; I don’t think it’s ever gotten to four.
Yup. I love it.
I’m really, really eager to see what’s in that room they were never allowed inside. o_o
porn mags. Guns.
Toedad’s secret shame: A dozen bottles of mineral water.
Is that not where Becky just relived her mother’s attempted suicide?
I’ve kind of lost track of the layout. If we’ve actually seen the “banned room”, I would have expected some comment on it. I’m pretty sure the attempted suicide was in the master bedroom. It seemed like Becky was looking in that alone and then turned away to join the others.
There are weights in the room Joss & Joyce are in, along with a desk and closet, so I guess that was the banned weight room and there was no dark secret in it.
Wait I thought it was Toedad who attempted suicide.
No. It was Becky’s mother.
Yes.
We’ve not seen the banned room yet.
As someone pointed out, one end of a barbell with a weight on it is visible behind and to our right of Joyce in the previous strip:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/ghosts/
So, we have seen a room with weights. Joyce thought that the room she hadn’t been in before contained weights. Assuming there has only ever been one weight room in the house (Occam’s razor), unless there has been a serious re-allocation of interior space since the only kid went off to college (plausible, but not so likely for a single dad, especially one who identifies interior decorating with homosexuality), we have seen the weight room that was previously off-limits.
If it’s secret shame you are looking for, they should check the browser history on that computer in the main room. He has had the house entirely to himself for a while now.
Hmm, you should check the date on that bar.
I think what interests me about the most recent strips is past!Becky’s hair. It’s longer, even having a resemblance to Joyce’s hair. In the beginning of the comic Becky’s hair is shorter, and obviously after coming out she cut it even shorter. For so long, she was probably made to keep her hair long. It’s possible in this sect that Joyce’s haircut/style is the usual style for teenage girls.
Hard to imagine Troll Daddy eating granola bars so it must be left over from before she went off to Anderson.
Nah, that’s totally post workout fuel. High in protein for muscle mass.
I regret reading this webcomic… Too into it to stop, but too many sads all the time to actually enjoy it. Its like eating a bag of chips.
There’s something I’ve been wondering about since the group entered the house. How are they seeing anything?
It doesn’t look like they brought along any flashlights — or at least we haven’t been shown that, and unless there was one in the car they didn’t bring any (since they didn’t plan this escapade in advance).
Are they turning on the house lights? It doesn’t look like it, and it would be foolish to do so since that would certainly alarm the neighbors and bring the police promptly.
Is there enough ambient light coming in from streetlights or security lights? Surely not enough to read by, and they have been reading the historical documents.
I guess Willis has given his characters superpowered vision skills, or just provided them with magical dim lighting that only they can see.
Why not? It works in video games.
House lights are a lot less suspicious than flashlights. If people see lights on in a house, they assume the neighbours are home. If they see the distinctive pattern of flashlights moving around they assume a break-in and call the cops.
I agree that there should be flashlights if they are reading anything. Which is exactly the sort of thing that on TV and in movies results in one of the neighbors noticing that the house has been broken into and calling the police…
Could be a full moon! Plenty of light to sneak around and read from one of those.
I have never been able to read maps in moonlight, I though reading in moonlight was not feasible in general. I guess I don’t recall trying to read documents in moonlight. In any case, the text would have to be directly in moonlight coming in through an exposed window, which is still pretty bad from a stealth standpoint.
It’s the Brown family eyes, big as owl eyes.
Oh Becky, please share your pain with someone…
Googling for “dumbing of age bonnie cancer”, I get only two hits: This page, and a Dumbler of Age entry that has a picture of Bonnie MacIntyre (she would be a MILF, except that at my age that would cradle-robbing) that also mentions the astrological sign Cancer. Do we have any instance of a character in the strip saying that Bonnie MacIntyre died of cancer? I think it was just plain old suicide.
Oh, here’s the picture of Bonnie in happier times:
http://dumbingofage.tumblr.com/post/144864228887/a-bonnie-macintyre-character-model-for-yall
American food is bad for you.
I think even their granola has margarine ‘n shit.
No, the good stuff has healthy ingredients like real butter and lard.
Thew real problem is the amount of sugar, since it is a cheap way to enhance the taste.
Margarine, since it is a trans fat, is illegal in the US.
And even if it weren’t, there is a big campaign against them and nutritional labels are required to post grams of trans fat (although less than half a gram currently counts as zero).
If there is one thing America gets right about nutrition, its that trans fats are bad for you.
Um… trans fat is NOT illegal in the U.S., at least not yet. There’s been an FDA ruling regarding one of the biggest sources (partially hydrogenated oils), but even that won’t kick in until 2018. (And then, there will probably be a move to palm oil which isn’t covered by the rule change, but is just about as bad as PHO-based margarine.) There are places (such as NYC) where it is illegal for restaurants to use PHOs for cooking already.
I think they have been largely phased out of a lot of food in grocery stores (often with large ‘Now Trans Fat Free!’ type labels), probably in prep for that kicking in (bur also doing it early so they can cash in on it).
Margarine is still totally sold in stores, though. I had to buy some last week for my grandparents, since they’re about the only people I know that still use it (though I think what they use is also trans fat free?).
wait are you telling me all this margarine in my refrigerator is CONTRABAND?????
I grew up in Wisconsin and yes! For a time in the fifties, margarine was illegal to sell. We used to go to Illinois and smuggle it in.
Well, duh, in Wisconsin. Margarine is a vegetable spread butter substitute and we know dairy products are their bread and, well, you know.
Anybody else picturing a super-cheesy, dairy farm themed supervillain plotting the margarine prohibition?
I remember as a kid in Ontario and Quebec it was illegal, my mother had to go to the dairy counter and ask for it. I think in Quebec it still is, or maybe can’t be coloured yellow, it has to be white, can’t remember exactly.
Hm. Modern birth certificates usually have the SSN on them.
They already know the SSN from the tax documents, but are looking for the physical card because you need it sometimes.
Without knowing the type of cancer, it’s hard to say what the treatment options, and survivability chances were. Metastasized bone cancer is all but untreatable, and the survivability is pretty much nill. It’s also so painful that massive doses of morphine are needed to keep pain down to tolerable. That diagnosis would drive anyone to suicide. Add that to the thought of your husband and daughter having to watch you suffer like that and suicide becomes the only way out. Becky was too young and sheltered to understand (assuming she was given the real facts), and Fundie was too tied up in his faith to offer anything but platitudes about “God’s Will.” Bonnie truly had nowhere to turn. If Bonnie’s faith were as deeply rooted as her husband’s, she’d probably prefer Hell to the knowledge of what she’d done to her family by forcing them to suffer through her decline. The thought of standing before her God and asking “Why have you forsaken me?” would have frightened her less than the look in her daughter’s eyes during the pain.
Do we have any evidence beyond statements made by fans in this very thread that Bonnie had cancer? I have googled and found nothing.
Ghost Becky looked pretty much like present day Becky figure-wise, so I figure mom must have died when Becky was in high school. Just a data point.
I trust the fans memories far more than I trust my own flawed recollections, and based my response on that. If cancer wasn’t the reason for her death, I’m sure the truth will be revealed in the future. As for Bonnie committing suicide to escape an abusive situation (as has been speculated on in other threads), a loving mother will put herself in the line of fire to protect her child every time. Abandoning her child to her abuser would never cross her mind, and would, in fact, probably strengthen her resolve to live to protect her child. If the depths of depression drove her to suicide, then things become far too muddied to clearly see what was in her mind. Logic, reason, even love, will fail to touch that pain.
I respectfully disagree with your assessment; a parent in an abusive situation may love their child very much but be unable to “put themselves in the line of fire every time” especially if they have been in the line of fire for quite a while already, and may even come to resent the child (while still loving them) as being an anchor holding them in the situation. The dynamics of abuse are not that simple. People are complex at baseline; people in pain and under stress are even more so.
I say this as a child of a parent who loved me very much but who was being abused themselves, and was unable to protect me from much of it. Mostly we got through by trying to protect each other from the very worst and just weathering the rest.
I think the cancer theory might just be fanon. And we know she died last year because Toedad mentions that to Dina.
My recollection was that whatever she died of was talked of in a way that indicated disgrace, and then fans postulated it could be cancer because of the whole “cancer is a punishment from God” thing that you find in some fundie religions.
I’m glad you brought up yesterday’s topic. I wish I could have posted before comments were shut down.
Suicide is real. There is no way around it. I’m grateful for anyone willing to depict it in a respectful and meaningful way. Thank you for the strip.
With regards to all the haters: shut up. If you don’t understand the issue intimately, you have no room to mock or criticize it because you do not understand it. All it serves to do is further humiliate and alienate the sufferers who already feel disregarded and disrespected AND make you look like a collosal ass. You’re painting yourselves in an immature, insensitive light, which wouldn’t matter except that you don’t know who you’re taking down with you. “Being dark,” should not be derided. This is the stuff of life. If you can’t handle it, don’t take it out on those who need to process it.
Hmm. A couple of thoughts that occurred to me over the paperwork:
1) “A few bags of paperwork in the closet” – and it contained Becky’s birth certificate. Anyone better acquainted with US law care to speculate what Ross might have relatively-recently needed Becky’s birth certificate (or a new copy) for? It seems unlikely that it’s been sitting in a bag for 18 years – unless I miss my guess, it would have been part of Bonnie’s job as a “good wife” to deal with paperwork and filing.
2) Odds on J&J finding Bonnie’s death certificate in there? Including cause of death? (I admit that Ross’ gun has been topping my list since someone made the connection to Becky’s reaction at the fountain.)
It seems unlikely that it’s been sitting in a bag for 18 years
You haven’t seen my filing system. When it comes time to get rid of a car, I find it easier to obtain a duplicate title than to find the real one. Heaven forbid I should ever become a parent.
Joyce is right, a peanut butter granola bar is too small to be worth prison.
Now, if it were a s’mores granola bar…
Is “I am not going to prison over a granola bar” just Joyce’s way of saying “You’ll never take me alive, copper!!”?
Fifth Panel:
Becky: “But it is dark chocolate.”
Joyce: “OK, I would go to prison for that, totes worth it.”
Umm, sixth panel. Darn lack of an edit button.
Right! Ignore the pain, and pretend to be super-happy. That’s a healthy defense mechanism, right? That won’t backfire later in a huge, emotional, painful outburst.
Actually, I think she’s only half-pretending. The look on her face in panel two seems more determined than hurting, so to me it registers as her finally moving on, leaving her ‘ghosts’ behind.
She’s probably still unhappy with everything that happened, but I don’t think she’s actually ‘pretending’ as much as usual.
Ah Becky…I was a little put off by you when you first appeared and now I wanna bear hug you
Turn it off
Like a lightswitch
Just go “click”
It’s a neat little Morman////// Evangelical trick!
SPOOKY EVANGELICAL HELL DREAM
Peanut butter chocolate chip!? Yes. That is worth all of the prisons.
How the hell did she do that?