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I’m thinking (hoping) that Linda and Charles are assuming that Amber now loses tuition, not that there was any actual information divulged to that effect. I can’t imagine there’s been time for anything and so hopefully this is a distant looming rather than an urgent pressing kind of issue.
No. He mostly just makes wise cracks and plays yes man to his wife. He once made a somewhat racist comment about Sal’s hair and googled whether illegals get health insurance but I don’t think that’s enough to make any real judgement calls on the dude. What is your deal Charles!?!?
Sal usually talks about her parents, plural, when she says stuff like ‘I don’t need another lecture about how I’m a failure’. When Blaine was arrested, she also told Amber she envied her ability to reject her father’s claim over her.
I don’t think it looks good for him, though he’s clearly less blatant than Linda.
He just said she looks prettier with straight hair which devalues her natural hair type in favor of a trait traditionally associated with being white. https://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/04-just-hangin-out-with-my-family/appointment/
It’s not the hugest deal in the world considering society as a whole has done this for decades, centuries even in America, but as a father he should probably prioritize building his daughter’s self esteem when it comes to her appearance instead of criticizing it. He’s been called out on it. Personally I think it’s a stretch to say he’s a bad guy for it. That’s kind of systemic racism bullshit more than his fault to me. But he still doesn’t really look good.
That’s a stretch to say that was criticism. It’s an opinion, in which he complimented her old hairstyle. Especially considering he is also black, I’d say he has a right to that opinion. Also, there was no malice or derision in his comment, just personal taste, and sometimes you want an objective opinion from your parents without the tired cliche of “You look wonderful no matter what you do.”
You may not realize this, but there’s actually a whole giant real world discourse going back over a hundred years about black women’s hair and the concept of “good” hair, like it’s a whole thing.
His comment does not exist in a vacuum! Imagine if she’d tanned and he told her that she looks SO pretty with lighter skin. He may not say it with malice, but there’s a whole lot of cultural and societal baggage that would go along not only with her reception of those words, but with what caused him to form his opinion in the first place. The same is true for her hair.
And believe me, black men’s opinions about black women are not inherently unproblematic. Black men are NOT immune to misogynoir and they’re not immune to terrible opinions about black women’s hair.
And even without all the racial issues surrounding black women’s hair, it’s still not ever a good move to tell a girl you don’t like her new hairstyle. Even your daughter. You can always not comment.
It’s a very dick move to tell someone they used to look better than they do now. Especially when they didn’t ask for your opinion. It explicitly frames their current look as being less attractive.
Any parent would need to be pretty oblivious to their child’s feelings to not realize doing this would hurt them.
She never asked for his racially loaded opinion. He noticed her hair was curly and then said “Too bad. You look pretty with your hair long and straight” which implies she does not look pretty with her natural hair, especially with ‘too bad’. If your first comment on someone you haven’t seen and rarely spoke to in five years is ‘too bad’ about their new hairstyle, you’re being a dick.
However, right before he said that, she admitted to it not being a conscious choice, it just “happened”. If it was her choice and he offered his unrequested opinion that he didn’t like it, it’d be more objectionable than it actually is, but she established that it wasn’t really her intention, which allows him to state his opinion without it being considered an attack on her style choices. Also, BBCC, I was under the impression that they’d seen each other at the very least right before the start of the semester. As a first greeting in 5 years, yeah, it’d be pretty shitty, but a couple months, not so much. As to Jasie’s point, it’s true I don’t personally know much about societal implications of straight hair vs curly hair, and it’s kinda surprising to me that it’s a big deal, especially if you can go back and forth unlike skin color. Personally, I get comments all the time how people like or don’t like my hair style (I have a mullet, and EVERYONE seems to have an opinion on mullets), and I don’t take it as an attack, they just have different tastes. Who cares why they have those tastes, that’s their business. And sure, apparently this war over straight vs curly black hair has been going on for over a hundred years, but Sal’s only been around for 18 of them. Have you ever been thrust in the middle of someone else’s war over something like “Butter-side-up” vs “butter-side-down” and expected to carry on their fight while you’re like “who cares, just let me eat my toast in peace”? Maybe I’m projecting a little, but that’s how I’d be in that situation. Sal doesn’t seem to care, since not only does she not take offense to the comment, she literally responds, “Glad ya agree.” I’m aware it was a segue to get out of the conversation, but in doing so she positively reinforces his behavior. Ultimately, it should be the recipient of the behavior that decides whether or not the behavior is offensive on issues as borderline as this, and if she truly doesn’t like it, that’s her prerogative, but if so she does a terrible job expressing that.
Dude, him insulting her hair when she didn’t choose it is even shittier, especially since she was only relaxing her hair around 12, right before the robbery, i.e. when she was living at home and her parents get to pick how she looks. Frankly, people shouldn’t be offering you unsolicited criticism on your hair either, but it’s even shittier when it’s racially loaded.
No, they didn’t see her just before the semester started. Walky even straight up told Billie he hadn’t kept tabs on her since she was sent away and she had no idea where she was when Billie asked. His family has not seen her and Walky, at least, hasn’t really talked to her much over those five years.
You can go back and forth on relaxing your hair (though not easily – a lot of the time the only way to grow it out is to chop it off and regrow it), but it’s still a very racially loaded thing to do. Black people’s natural hair is often derided as ‘unprofessional’, ‘dirty’, ‘wild’, etc. and they’re encouraged to relax it to make it straight. Black women in particular are often told they’re prettier with straight hair vs their natural hair. European (i.e. white) beauty standards are all up in this issue, and Sal knows it.
Sal does care. Her using it as a segue out of the conversation does not mean she doesn’t. She doesn’t like to fight with her parents all the time because it’s exhausting and emotionally draining – if she has an out to avoid their bullshit, she’ll take it. We see at the salon she comments ‘This is how I’m supposed to look’ and then she gets pensive/sad looking. She cares. She didn’t express it or pick a fight, but she does care.
You guys just love to overreact to everything don’t you… He just said “you look so pretty with long and straight hair”. He was complimenting her and supporting her hairstyle choice. He wasn’t saying “what the hell is this, you look like shit”. And her response wasn’t at all annoyed or defensive either.
He said it when she did not have straight hair. Ergo, implying she does not look so pretty right now. Especially when her choice is extremely racially loaded. It’s not an accident that the conversation where she finally tells Walky their parents are racist opened with him saying ‘Oh, hey, your hair’s straight again’.
“He just said she looks prettier with straight hair which devalues her natural hair type in favour of a trait traditionally associated with being white.”
That statement come across is markedly racist.
Where I live has become ethnically south Indian over the years and guess what. Straight hair and high melanin pigmentation levels is quite common. Also Dosa is amazingly good.
There’s something very… off… about Charles. He seems less like a person and more like an appendage of his wife.
The fact that he’s mixed race… while also having said something racist about Sal’s hair and is apparently racist against mexicans, and is also married to such an officious Karen AF bongo of a woman just gives me so many weird signals.
(Fun fact, I actually did type “bongo” instead of that other word there, cause I figured it’d just get censored anyway so eh)
Yeah – given the themes of this strip, I wouldn’t be surprised if Amber’s pulled out over this, but wouldn’t they at least wait until the end of the semester?
Amber’s very likely not on the streets immediately, but should still be good for the semester. Depends on the payment arrangements with Amber’s financial aid package for the semester/year. I doubt Blaine had to write a check every month to the university directly; they likely billed him every semester. If that’s the case, she’s good until next semester (are we still in Fall semester? If so, then January). When the business office learns Blaine is dead, they’ll resort to billing Amber’s mother. They’ll try to foist PLUS loans on her for the whole amount. Meanwhile, emergency loans can make up the differences, while she works with the university (as long as Amber is responsible and maintains her FAFSA). In situations like this, the Financial Aid office has lots of resources to hold off the Business Office for a while, while student, parent, and others scramble to find alternate tuition resources. Finally, it’s possible that Amber’s mother’s new boyfriend might be able to help find resources, if not make contributions himself.
What sort of doctor is he? And are they at a “reasonably priced” college? Is being able to pay for an extra kid to go there feasible with no chance to plan for it?
I’m not clear what kind of doctor Richard is, but some other readers seem to have picked up something that I missed, and they are sure.
Whatever. Richard is presumably paying alimony to Joe’s mother, and Joe’s tuition, and Stacy implied that she is already expecting him to pay the legal bills to defend Amber against a lawsuit by Ryan’s parents. So it’s not necessarily clear that he can just shell out $40k over four years for Amber’s tuition plus bed and board and not feel the pinch.
“Osteology” is not the standard term for any discipline of medicine. An osteologist is the person who can look at a single bone and tell you what sort of animal it came from.
Word of Willis is osteologist, but word of willis is not immutable or unchanging (or immune to error) so he might say something else later. For now, I go by what he’s said.
The only Word of Willis I can find is https://itswalky.tumblr.com/post/56755053843/ which simply refers to him as a “bone doctor”, which generally likeliest means orthopedic surgeon. The only reference to calling him an osteologist I could find were in the comments sections of a few strips, and none of those were by Willis.
This was a while ago. Someone asked if he was a gynaecologist and he said osteologist. I don’t recall where though, so who tf knows anymore. And acting like he’s rich does make me think if that is what he said that it’s been retconned.
Amber may also inherit some money from Blaine. Not that he would leave her anything on purpose, but he may not have made a will. Without a will, his estate would be split between Amber and Faz (and Faz’s mother assuming they were still together?) Probably not enough to cover tuition on its own, but it’s a start.
Until we find out that Blaine was hording money in a private account that no one else knew about and has been lying about how much the payments have been affecting him. Its not that he didn’t want to pay for Amber’s tuition because he couldn’t afford it. It was because he’s a bongo and didn’t want to. He hid money from his current family because he didn’t want anyone dictating how he spends his money and he wanted to rationalize that spending on Amber was a “hardship.” In the end, both families come out fairly well off to live a middle class life for a few years. But that’s just a theory.
When I apply for student loans, they give me the option to either get a loan for an entire year’s tuition (fall and spring semester) or just the one semester. I’m not sure how it works for the school when you do the yearly option, but I would assume that the lender disburses the entire yearly amount to the school, and the school gives you back whatever’s left over from paying fall tuition (so you’d have to later pay spring tuition from that leftover that has been shunted into your bank account).
As for schools themselves, you only pay one semester at a time. Usually that means you pay the entire semester’s tuition up front, however some schools also offer a payment plan (when I did it I’d have to pay a certain amount each month). I’m not sure what happens if you stop paying in the middle of the semester if you’re on a payment plan but if Blaine were paying her tuition on a payment plan then she might be in a bit of trouble regarding being able to stay in the dorms and in classes.
I think that as he’s aged and had more life experiences, the author has gotten more comfortable with being critical to authority figures. He’s a parent himself now, he was only college-aged when he started doing webcomics.
Well, that’s just the foreign exchange student rate. And it’s good to see the market recovering. “I have a girlfriend in Canada” was really popular in the eighties, but the Internet ruined that. Despite illegal catfishing scandals, the elusive Canadian Girlfriend is on track to make a full recovery.
Maybe it’s in her personality/worldview to fight crusades and be a hero. But in this universe that means dicking over kids with shitting families instead of dicking over kids who were kindnapped and souped up by Aliens.
Perhaps, she’s always been pretty ready to sacrifice people as needed for her personal goals. But when all of humanity is threatened her personal goals become sympathetic and her sacrifices make a cruel kind of sense.
Less hateable as a war criminal? Whose actions resulted in dozens (if not hundreds) of deaths? Of college-age people? And also alien genocide?
Um, perspective? Dumbverse!Linda is a terrible person (and a crap parent), but she hasn’t actively murdered anyone or, through her actions, caused anyone to be murdered.
Ummm…she was among those who bailed out ToeD(e)ad, which is what’s now lead to his own death and Blaine’s, the kidnappings, and the trauma those kids are all gonna have for years to come…
I mean, Dumbiverse Linda is still a monster, but so is this Linda.
In the Walkyverse Linda could at least say she legitimately believed her actions were preventing humanity’s extinction through alien invasion. It doesn’t make her actions right or absolve her of any crimes, but at least she was facing a situation that called for drastic measures.
Dumbiverse Linda is just doing awful things and hurting people for her own shitty, selfish reasons.
They still ought to get any net equity in his home and business. A lot is going to depend on whether his financial commitment to pay Amber’s tuition counts as a liability of his estate.
Depends on how long he’s had it. Life insurance doesn’t cover suicide immediately–to prevent you from getting it when you’re planning it, obviously–but it does eventually. After two years, I think?
Unless that’s changed since I was (briefly) a life insurance agent. …or if it varies by state.
I doubt he had insurance- he had too high an opinion of himself to admit his own mortality.
It depends on the policy, of course, but if the suicide is more than a specified time after buying the policy it often will pay. It’s usually two years, I think.
So if he bought a policy a long time ago, it might pay out.
Maybe he has an old policy that he forgot about that still has Stacy and/or Amber as the beneficiary(s). That would rock.
That’s my bet. Either that or the school waives tuition at least for next semester for all the kidnapping victims because they’re terrified they’ll sue (Amber can’t afford to, but they don’t know that)
Australian and British universities sometimes give “bursaries” — which are like scholarships except not distributed for merit — to students in financial difficulties. Bound to be a better look than forcing Amber to drop out at the end of the semester.
So do Canadian universities. Sometimes for some sort of service for the school, sometimes for needs based, sometimes for merit. I got one a few years ago for taking part in a note taking service for disabled students who could not always attend classes in person regularly. I took notes so they didn’t have to and emailed them to the disability office where they were passed on to the students in the class. These are in addition to scholarships, which are given for a variety of reasons, loans, which must be paid back, and grants which don’t need to be paid back.
Oooh, Canada pays notetakers in tuition? US colleges usually just pay their notetakers for classes about minimum wage. (And sometimes I couldn’t get a notetaker, because the class I was in was too small and there were no interested parties. Though at least since my issue is primarily in focus, memory and processing, they were more supplementary – I can take adequate notes, but I focus better if I can be fidgeting with my hands instead, or have a set to compare against my own to make sure what I thought was important and what someone else did match.)
I got a bursary as part of the school note taking service that I spent on tuition or books (don’t recall which), yes.
In my school, if there was someone with a disability who could benefit from note takers, they put in a request with the disability office and they sent an email to everyone in the class asking if someone would do it (without mentioning who had the disability, obviously). If nobody answered by the second class, the teacher got email requests and they mentioned it to the class and asked for volunteers and told us to email the coordinator if we wanted to do it. IIRC, you had to fill out a form at the end of the semester if you wanted the bursary for it and then you got a cheque a week or two later in the mail.
That’s generally how it’s done in the US as well, yeah. (There are… exceptions, but that’s usually a sign of an underfunded/staffed or plain dysfunctional DSS office.)
One of my work friends has a super-awesome pen to help with Add: it records audio as well as writing, and if you hold it over the notes you wrote it plays the audio it recorded at that point.
the Mexican “Tec the Monterrey” has among the cost an insurance in case you are left an orphan while you are going either highschool or/and college in there. I unfortunately knew about this in action as an aquantaince lost his parents in a highway accident
No idea about other schools.
Ok so again maybe Blaine had life insurance? Or maybe not and he didn’t consider what would happen in case of his untimely demise despite dealing with the mob all the time.
Maybe he can pay for a chunk and Amber can get scholarships, bursaries and grants for the rest? Even loans to cover whatever those don’t. She’s kicking ASS in her computer science classes, surely there are scholarships and grants for that major?
Oh, there’s *definitely* scholarships and grants for that major, at least for her. There’s a ton of comp-sci and STEM scholarships specifically for females going into related fields in addition to the normal scholarships available to everyone.
Carla’s parents can pay it in exchange for her agreeing to work for them post-graduation for a set number of years (so if she quits before that she needs to repay it to them, but she still gets a normal salary etc. Also guaranteed job on graduating!)?
It started before Becky sorted out her tuition as ‘oh, maybe the Ruttens at Carla’s urging can start a scholarship fund for queer people without parental support in STEM!’, dropped the STEM part to include Ruth, and now?
Fuck it, the Ruttens can just establish free tuition for the whole school.
Osteologist? That’s not a medical speciality in my parlance. Could he be an osteopath? I know that some US states license osteopaths to practise medicine.
I asked the president of my state medical association whether there is a medical speciality called “osteology” whose practitioners are called “osteologists”. He replied “As far as I know not. I think osteology is a branch of vertebrate zoology.” That lines up with the entries in Wikipedia, Wiktionary, and my Merriam-Webster dictionary.
So if Richard is an osteologist that would make him some sort of academic, perhaps with a position at a natural history museum, not a rich doctor.
Yeah, he’s called Dr. Rosenthal and refers to himself as a bone doctor so I’m guessing he does research in a medicine related field (probably sports medicine) rather than actually practicing on patients. That would be an orthopaedic doctor, yes. As Clif noted, osteologists don’t make bad money.
For a comparison, an orthopaedic surgeon typically earns an average salary of $287,638 at entry level going up to $643,065 in senior roles. That’s five or six times as much as an osteologist and a much better explanation of Stacy’s excitement.
I know it’s a real-world job, but since he’s referred to as a (wealthy!) doctor rather than a scientist, I always figured he actually sees patients. Calling him an “osteologist” would have been creative license just to make the Bone Doctor joke obvious. Maybe I’m wrong about that.
Until proven otherwise, I’m assuming that he’s a osteologist for giggles and pocket change but his real income is from past inventions all of which have been bought up by Rutten Industries.
Depending on the law, is it possible the tuition will count as an outstanding debt, since it was part of his divorce settlement? Would that be taken out of his estate? Or would his estate be obligated to pay?
If he doesn’t have a will, half goes to his spouse, and the other half is divided among his children. Since Faz is not (acknowledged as) his biological child, he would only get a share if Blaine legally adopted him.
If Faz is Blaine’s kid, Yuri could probably get Amber to do a DNA test to prove Faz is his.
I’d hate for Yuri to get her hands on more of his money, but you know Amber would agree because she’s concerned for Faz.
Honestly that assumes Yuri had any real access to his money to begin with. She certainly had a different idea of their finances than Blaine did, given how expensive this scheme was. (Between the bail and the body armor, it seems significant.)
Of course that assumes he didn’t finance this misadventure with an assload of credit card debt or embezzling from the mob, either of which would be a new and exciting set of problems.)
If it’s child support or a divorce settlement, his estate still owes it.
Additionally Amber might be eligible for half to a quarter of what’s left after debts are paid and assets liquidated, depending on Faz’s status.
Of course Blaine might have left a will leaving everything to Yuri, so only his obligation to pay her schooling can be counted on.
School decides to pay off the students who were kidnapped to keep their story under wraps (or at least let all information flow through the school’s PR system).
Dean makes some comment to Linda that “We really appreciate your recent donations, as it’s helped covered the cost of handling this debacle. Especially that poor girl who has been the victim of multiple crimes on campus.”
Of course, then Linda just resorts to “Plan A” but maybe the optics tag her and she learns a lesson.
And now I’ll just mount my flying pig and fly off to go ice skating in hell.
There have been two armed kidnappings on this campus in the space of, what, a month? Some “please don’t talk to the press” money wouldn’t be that surprising but neither would a “we’re not taking responsibility for this and a payout implies we share blame” stance.
And even if nothing comes from Blaine’s estate, and Amber’s mother can’t pay anything, and Joe’s Dad doesn’t pay anything, Amber is still going to be eligible for near-full tuition in student loans (at the govt-set low interest rate). And Amber’s mother could get full tuition in parent loans (at a higher interest rate).
Further, Amazigirl is the moral, and except for vigilantism, law-abiding one. Amber, as reflected in Walky’s grades, is much more flexible. The point is that if the university computers say her tuition is paid, then for all practical purposes it’s paid. Amber writes operating systems for fun.
It’s a blind spot the size of Everest and I suspect there’s a few more out there. AG’s not infallible, and it’s not as though Amber’s totally amoral. (Honestly I think the self-justification for changing grades stems from the same sort of self-justifications that work for AG.) She can say changing Walky’s grades is beneficial to him, and she didn’t change them TOO much, and it’s not as though it actually hurts anyone if his grades are a bit better than they are, right? (To our knowledge there’s no curve for the grading, anyway.) Scholarship money’s a different story, because it is to some extent a zero sum game. Money going to her falsely is money not going somewhere else. (And IU’s a public school, so it is not for-profit and doesn’t have a ton of money not earmarked for specific, necessary things.)
Amber might consider it in a moment of weakness, but I don’t think she’d go through with it if it meant, say, finding the scholarship info and changing it from another student’s.
No actual concern for Walky, no real concern for Sal, and still calls Amber dropping out specifically (thus the tuition bit) ‘what they wanted’ even when the actual more pressing threat to the kids is gone. (Amber still stabbed Sal in the hand, of course, but if neither Sal nor Walky are saying they feel unsafe around her after eight weeks of sharing a dorm building, maybe you could take them at their word?)
(I am still assuming they don’t know about the stalking, vigilantism, or DID, because like hell is Sal trusting her parents with anything that heavy – not like they’d listen, anyway – and Walky knows Amber being AG won’t help their case.)
Wow, Billie made a convincing and logical argument that even Linda was ok with. Although she may have already known that Blaine was dead before the conversation started. Linda is still a bongo either way.
Also, what are the odds that Joe’s dad tries to pick up Amber’s tuition costs?
That her response to this girl who was obviously a victim of abuse to the point where she and her friends were kidnapped by her FATHER, when her father dies and leaves her unable to afford higher education- and her response is to smugly nod to herself and feel GLAD that this traumatized abuse victim is going to go through more misery and potentially lose her chances at a good career and higher education…
unfortunately this comic has SO many trash people I can’t say she’s the lowest kind of shit, but she is definitely scum.
Of the parents remaining, she and Carol are in a race to the bottom. Haven’t quite caught up with Sir yet, but he’s had a good several decades to hone his being a piece of utter shit.
… *Takes a deep, calming breath while looking at a picture of the Saruyamas* There. Much better.
May I respectfully suggest: Per Saltire, a rife and hammer, or… On a field divided pale-wise, purpur and argent.
Oh, and the supporters are Rampant, a weasel, pizzled, and rampant a Skunk, or. Banner: “non cum bang, sed whimper”
He’s been recruited by a shadowy government organisation to be an assassin under a new name. Something really clever that will insure no one guesses the truth, like Laine O’Alley.
Also there they said it, he’s D-E-A-D!
Also there they said it, he’s D-E-A-D!
He was just an asshole
Fighting with a ballpeen
Never again will he be seen!
Amber is still good for the rest of this semester as it would have been paid for already. It’s the spring semester she would have to worry about, but by that point Richard might be part of the picture as far as financing goes.
Well, the spring semester hasn’t been paid for, though if Blaine was using any parent-based student loans to pay for her school that would already be awarded for the spring.
In other words, you won’t see that be an issue in this strip until 2035.
Oh, and Blaine’s divorce agreement with Stacy would still be in effect, meaning that Blaine’s estate should still have to honor it as Amber would be entitled to it.
That, of course, would require them to know he was working for the mob. Which was why Lester’s ‘keeping things opaque’ included making sure there won’t BE a lengthy criminal investigation potentially including a serious look into Blaine’s finances.
(Not that he hid it well – Stacy knew, Amber knew, Mike found out in the span of a birthday party at age 13 and I will bring that up for the rest of time because even with Mike’s Asshole Powers, that was fast work – but seeing as he survived and stayed out of jail this long, it evidently didn’t make it to the public record for the divorce or the like.)
Considering they were doing finals when this all went down, semester is pretty much over. If Blaine is still her only way into college, she’s out. But, her mom is marrying Joe’s dad, he might be able to help out, and there could be other aid available to her.
You know some people were saying Yuri might be part of the mob and I originally kind of blew that off, but this might add some credence to that crackpot theory. Like this kind of works out for her since she was complaining about Amber’s tuition payments “sucks this family dry”.
I’m not saying she’s responsible for Blaine’s death with the whole thing implied to be connected to Asher, but this is very convenient for her. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s involved even if only tangentially.
I thought Yuri being related to a mobster was plausible from what we knew (Faz is presumably still Korean like he was in the Walkyverse and Yuri likely would be by extension, Walkyverse Blaine was known for sleeping with his mob buddies’ daughters and on Patreon, it seemed to imply she knew about his mob activities). That said, it seems now that IF she’s related to someone in the mob, it’s probably another stooge like Blaine rather than someone with pull since it seems like she didn’t have any foreknowledge of his execution (and, as was pointed out, it’d be more likely she could find out more about his finances from other mob friends if she was related to an actual mobster).
I’m not really knowledgeable about the greater Walkyverse continuity. There’s still a very real and most likely possible chance that she’s not related to this at all, but it doesn’t change the fact that this worked in her favor from a purely financial perspective. At least when it comes to Amber’s tuition anyway.
I don’t how she actually felt about Blaine emotionally *personally I can’t imagine anyone feeling much love for such a blatantly abusive guy* and there’s potential that he was the breadwinner and Amber’s tuition payments might not cover the loss of his ill gotten income. But if you were to tell me Blaine had a life insurance policy I would believe it.
If Blaine is Faz’s biological dad, he’s been weaselling his way into her brain since she was a teenager. That would mean she’s likely been heavily groomed since then.
Yeah, I could see Yuri eventually improving or doubling down on her resentment of Amber and apparent lack of support for Faz, but either way I do feel a little sad for her. If Blaine did start preying on her when she was a teenager, he’s almost certainly the only serious romantic relationship she’s ever had. That shit fucks you up, HARD.
I would like to believe Yuri will improve without Blaine, I really would. If I had to pick parents who might change, I’d like to think it’d be her, the Siegals and maaaaybe Charles.
Nothing would make me happier, on any of those three fronts. (Gotta wonder if the next time we see the Siegals, Saul eventually recognizes that Ethan is -happy- with his sexuality in the open and starts considering that maybe finding sex actively unpleasant and something he must suffer through is in fact… maybe not so healthy? Not sure if I ping him as gay or sex-repulsed ace but either way I want better for the guy.) I’d also add in Stacy, who’s not BAD per se but not actively good the way the Saruyamas or Keeners are. I think – or at least hope – she’ll realize soon just how deep Amber’s traumas run, and that they are beyond either of them fixing quickly and easily, and start offering firmer support.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if, even if Yuri improves LATER, her initial response here is terrible. That’s realistically going to be years of therapy, and even with remarkably fast DOA growth I’d still give her a couple weeks before seeing any signs of betterness. Snap reaction after her husband ‘committed suicide’ in police custody after kidnapping the child Yuri already openly resents? That being a mess is unlikely.
Is it that common in US that a family completely depends on the father’s income or did she somehow get inside information about Amber’s financial situation?
Also, she probably knew that her kids are standing right behind her. And she just dropped a bombshell and walked away. That’s not an information you casually drop and leave your kids alone with.
She’s still friends with the Dean. He might have told her, off the record. Which she evidentially would not be honouring but it’s Linda so who would be surprised.
It’s the only way I can think of that she found out about the tuition. Sal didn’t tell her – she only said her dad wanted her out of school. Unless one of them mentioned that in a statement that ended up on the news, I have no other way of seeing it, especially since she was just on the phone with the Dean. Yeah, he shouldn’t say it, but sometimes people do stuff like that in private conversations with people they know. Which would be why Linda shouldn’t blab about it but *shrugs*
I thought about it and the scenario that makes most sense for me is this:
Linda calls and wants Amber expelled.
Linda hangs up to quarrel with Joyce’s parents.
Dean is dealing with stuff but has a look into Ambers situation.
Ross gets shot.
Dean gives Linda a short notice that the situation will resolve itself.
This conservation happens.
The info about Amber’s tuition only became relevant after Ross’ death so the Dean might have told Linda about that after the shooting. Still, I really don’t like the idea of information like that being passed around.
Yes, it is is common, though not so much as it used to be. Especially if Blaine insisted she be a stay-at-home mom, as well he might have.
I do wonder if Amber’s tuition is really that much of a drain on Blaine’s income, as opposed to him just being someone who gets outraged at being forced to pay for something when he doesn’t want to. And how much Yuri actually knows about family finances, since Blaine seems the controlling type wouldn’t tell her.
I strongly suspect Yuri doesn’t have access to family finances without Blaine’s express permission, on the grounds that ‘money’s tight’ and he ‘can’t have her spending it unnecessarily’ or something.
(Which may well be me projecting something from my biological grandfather the vampire onto Blaine, but… well, there’s a reason I compare them, and Blaine was complaining about paying tuition at the same time he bailed out a school shooter.)
Well, he did pay Ross’ bond (and he probably was very aware that he won’t get it back, pretty sure Ross was supposed to be the scapegoat). So he either has a lot of money or he was using money that wasn’t his. Which would explain why his organisation got rid of a useful pawn.
If it actually was his money and if it is legal and doesn’t get confiscated, Amber actually might inherit a share.
Yeah but the college is dealing with the fallout of all this right now. This definitely is a pr desaster so he probably is way too busy to illegally look up information about a student. He’s probably managing statements and interviews and coordinating and briefing staff right now. I expect the whole head department to be very busy.
Billie’s talking about optics. The last panels optics is all “I (Charles hardly counts as enough to make it ‘we’) didn’t come down here to see if the kids were ok after a kidnapping, it was all about disproportionate revenge on one on the victims who happened to be related to the kidnapper. Mission accomplished, let’s go home. Not like theirs any other reason to stay here”.
Hm I do think Linda is trying to protect her kids. Amber is the girl who stabbed her daughter after all. Not wanting your daughter to go to school with the one who crippled her most likely is the default first thought of most parents.
She doesn’t seem to be aware that her duties as a mother include caring for her kids emotions and helping them grow into an adult with their own opinion though.
The remark by Linda about “getting what we want without having to do anything” is confusing. It makes it sound like she already knew Blaine was dead (or was going to become dead), and without tuition money Amber would be forced to leave.
We can all hate Linda for her treatment of Sal (and Walky I guess) but if we didn’t have the attachment to Amber we did, a student who stabbed her daughter and then that student’s father kidnapped her son and murdered someone in front of him would justifiably be pretty high on the shit list.
The father thing’s not on Amber, though, and since she was ALSO a victim of the kidnapping and witness to Ross’s death (not the lethal injury, but waiting down there with the soon-to-be corpse probably isn’t all that much better) it seems… incredibly cruel to hold his actions against her. The fact that the guy who kidnapped her and six other people and escalated to impulsively murdering a man who angered him was abusive to his family isn’t exactly a huge logical leap. (And she doesn’t know any of the more recent issues between Amber and Sal, or the grades changing, which both change the justifiability of her actions SIGNIFICANTLY.)
There are several other ways she could be using her connection with the Dean to resolve this without expulsion – chief among them the same ‘leverage Res Life to get a room and hall transfer at top priority’ Sir used with Billie to ‘resolve’ the issues with Ruth as RA, especially since I don’t think either of the twins share classes with Amber. It would still be disruptive as hell to Amber and vindictive given the information she knows, but Amber’s a Bad Influence on her children, clearly. Just like Marcie is.
The father thing isn’t her fault and Linda didn’t give a shit about the stabbing until she could use it as a bludgeon against Amber. She shipped her 13 year old newly disabled daughter off to another state and didn’t talk to her except to ‘lecture her about how she was a failure’ for 5 years.
Want to know what the college staff higher-ups are really scared of? Scandals, and the lawyers that quickly follow. These students have a reasonable expectation of safety on the campus, and wow! A man wearing a costume commits a violent abduction of a half dozen students, AFTER a guest on the campus was ALSO forcibly abducted by said man’s accomplice not even a month beforehand, and they were then held against their will and witnessed a murder. Oh, and some of the other accomplices were fellow students. Students of /this school/. And it was all tweeted out to the world from a Congresswoman’s Twitter.
The Ex-Husband Dean or whatever he is might be motivated (by Linda) to try and persuade Amber to withdraw with the threat of an impending delinquent payment, but the college’s own lawyers are already drawing up settlements and NDAs. This is a nightmare, public relations wise, and could seriously impact their bottom line. (Who is going to let their children attend this school? What if they lose athletic talent?)
If they get half-way decent lawyers themselves, ain’t none of these kids paying a penny to tuition or room and board. They’ll be quietly settled with, and the college will hope that the incident is a distant memory when it comes time to recruit the freshman class of football and basketball players.
And don’t forget that some of the kidnappers were students, and were there because they were friends with the student rapist, who preyed on at least four women. Which student tried to knife at least two women – in a dorm no less – and this girl you’re trying to boot out is the only thing that stopped him from carrying out that crime.
Not a good loom for the school no matter how you cut it.
Not a good “loom” actually works. In that a loom is a device for weaving sometimes disparate threads into one contiguous whole. Except that means that mistyping (or worse, autocorrect) is shaping our linguistic metaphors. And in that case “bring on the next meteor, we’re so done”.
Loom also works from the stand point of the Three Norns, those Viking women of time and fate, whose picture/tapestry is the picture of reality as each student, perfesser, and staff person is just one thread for the picture of the school. Kind of apt to use loom. Blaine O’Malley’s thread just got “snipped”.
And the students’ help was also because, in part, Blaine promised them a shot at Amazi-Girl, who stopped them from finding rapists’ accusers whereabouts and showing up where they lived.
Because I for one would feel INCREDIBLY SAFE on a campus where a student rapist who threatened two people in front of a brightly-lit dorm entrance with a knife had friends who were willing to dox and do unknown but assuredly terrible things to his victims!
Oh, I’d forgotten that part of the Stooges’ in the plot. Yeah, but I bet they’ll start talking the second the police sit them down and lay out exactly how much Real Life trouble their entitled little asses are in, for possibly the first time in their lives. This isn’t some high school BS where mommy and daddy can make a call and it all goes away, this isn’t “boys will be boys”. This is “you are not only immediately expelled, you are going to be sentenced to prison time no matter what” trouble. One of these dumb-dumbs will roll on the others too, and tell the DA/LEO /everything/ about the stalking and the doxxing. There’s always one in a group like this. So let’s add on, what? Aggravated stalking? Menacing? Intent? There’s a long list, and a decent DA will find more. Those charges, and the years associated, stack up fast. And the DA will only be too happy to turn this into Their Case. Here’s the opportunity to expose a college board that takes such an incredibly lackadaisical approach to reported incidents of public brawls on campus, rape culture, and campus security that a half-dozen students were abducted right on campus. This will get names in the news.
The resignations and public statements of apology write themselves. If the college’s legal team didn’t already have a drinking problem, they’re about to.
I mean, they were planning to break into what they thought was the home of one of the girls who complained about Ryan to do GOD KNOWS WHAT to her before Sal stopped them. AG was smart enough to realize the girls would be in danger of doxxing and flooded wherever the little creeps were looking with fake addresses to protect them but whatever they were planning, it would’ve been bad. Joyce said three other girls came forward about Ryan so this is a serial rapist who scouts parties with roofies.
It’s a PR NIGHTMARE. I’m certain those dudes are expelled as hell. But campus legal and public safety are about to be getting questions about why unknown campus vigilantes were the ones who noticed the doxxing and kept the women who came forward safe.
Wait, if Blaine is dead, doesn’t that evaporate the whole reason Linda wanted Amber out in the first place? No more psycho dads to abduct children (hopefully)
Amber took the knife away from an armed assailant, and gave him free plastic surgery in order to prevent an assault, and a possible sexual assault to go with that. That is completely different from what “No-Nose” Ryan had planned bringing the knife that Amber used to cut him up.
Moreover, the fact that Amber is STILL knife-capable, as proven by the earlier reference, actually gives some legitimacy to Linda’s concerns [within the framework of an overly sensitive, overprotective parental outlook (as in, ‘I’m worried that someone who stabbed my daughter and who is still stabbing people is around my daughter’)- though given that it’s Linda, she probably isn’t actually reacting off of that kind of emotion, and is instead likely just more peeved that someone who dared to stand against her family is not being punished more..]
I think Linda is just lumping what happened with Sal in so she has a more legitimate sounding excuse. She sure didn’t give a rat’s ass about the stab wound beforehand (to the point Sal felt the need to hide her hand behind her back last time Linda visited).
To quote:
“though given that it’s Linda, she probably isn’t actually reacting off of that kind of emotion”
As you noted, and as I was attempting to clarify above, it’s all about having a legitimate premise to excuse her actions with, even though we’re all well aware that her actual motivations are far less sincere and far less driven by concern for others.
There’s the stabbing, but it also really isn’t about her kids’ wellbeing to begin with. You can tell from all the listening to Sal and Walky that’s happened since they showed up with this plan, and all the concern when the two of them walked out rather than deal with Linda steamrolling any wishes they might have on the matter.
The threat from Blaine is not the reason that Linda wants Amber expelled. It is only her pretext. Her actual goal is to make a conspicuous display of power and spite, to augment her social status and to deter anyone from ever crossing her in any way.
Spite and destructive inclinations definitely’d seem to be the two motivating factors behind every assault, battery, and attempted murder I’ve ever faced [and I’ve faced many, most all due to being poor/disabled, but also due to other minority factors]. And then I’ve basically yet to meet a single cop in any state [across Texas, Florida, and Kansas, specifically] who isn’t obsessed with making conspicious displays of how they can brush off legal restrictions and effectively do anything they want without consequence (like that one cop who openly took a bribe to illegally handle one of the attempted murders against me so that it was never prosecuted, and I was illegally arrested for it [yeah, it makes about as much rational sense as you’d expect, and the ‘illegal’ factor I’m referencing is explicitly written into Kansas law, relative to the circumstances involved] instead, thanks to that bribery. )
Humans who *feel* they can get away with anything, will seemingly take any opportunity to indulge in that belief- and, tragically, in most cases they seem to actually get away with their actions, without consequence [most visibly, among police, those with connections to the police, and those comitting white collar crimes].
I mean… at least now that she doesn’t have her dad’s income to report to financial aid, she can get better grants and loans to pay it off for next semester? fuck I hate our shitty education/exploitative financial system.
On the upside it looks like Linda won’t do anything now. And with Joyce’s mom busy getting her ass kicked, is that it for bad future actions by bad parents, at least for a while?
She could have worked it out from Sal saying that Amber’s dad wanted her out of college that he was the one paying for it. She wouldn’t have known for certain, but considering his fucked up actions and scheme, she could still make a solid guess that part of his motivation was not wanting to pay for it.
Carol’s had more practice with more and older children. I’m sure Sal, once she’s able financially, will detach herself from her parents as Jordan did from his parents.
While he may not be paying her tuition anymore, wouldn’t Amber inherit all his wealth? Or at least half of it, accounting for Faz? And yeah, he could potentially have written her out of his will (if that is allowed by US/Indiana law), but he doesn’t really seem the person to account for himself dying early, so I rather doubt he already has one.
I’m stuck between agreeing with you that Blaine wouldn’t have bothered to make a will, and him constructing a half-assed short sighted overly complicated plan to try and ensure that NOBODY gets a single cent from him when he dies. Because Blaine.
I don’t think so… Yuri was Blaine ‘s wife… I assume that without a will she would inherit his assets.
Of course there may be legal requirements for Blaine’s estate to keep paying tuition. Or the government might seize everything because of Blaine’s association with organized crime.
IANAL, but in the US you don’t have to leave your kids anything in your will except in Louisiana*. However a quick google says that generally child support and divorce settlements are legal obligations the estate must settle before distributing according to the will.
* Because there state law is based on the Napoleonic Code instead of English Common Law.
Not necessarily. Generally child support or a divorce settlement is like any other financial obligation and survives your death. Of course if there’s no money there, then there’s no money there.
True, but if it’s wrapped up in a legal tug-of-war between Yumi and Stacy for the next couple of years, Amber’s going to need tuition before that happens.
Dumbing of Age: Now that both of the WORST parents are dead, time to get back to college hijinks
Carol and Linda: No so fast! Perhaps you’ve heard of us?
Not a trace of shame or reflection when they listen to Billie outline strategy for bullying someone the age of their children. Still, nice that Billie got through to them. She speaks their language.
She probably connected the dots that the tuition came from Amber’s dad because Sal told her that Amber’s dad was trying to get her out of college with his messed up actions. She didn’t need any specific other info to come to that conclusion.
Actually, with that phrasing, you’re clarifying “it’s a piece of shit” AND “it’s worthless”. Ergo, we can determine it’s not fertilizer-grade shit. It may be toxic, infested with a pathogen or parasite, or otherwise unusable.
Thus, there should be no reason why you can’t refer to her as a worthless piece of shit, as you’ve already applied the appropriate qualifier to remove [“except when your body nourishes the earth”] from the equation. Though at the rate that parents are dying in this comic, I guess it wouldn’t be reasonable to rule out her eventually having that functionality eventually.
WHAT’S WRONG WITH THOSE TWO?! Linda cares more about appearances than the lives of other people and Charles is as spineless as Old Gil from the Simpsons! nA girl was kidnapped along with your son, and you only care that she can no longer afford college because her criminal dad died?! That’s like laughing at a rape victim, or a survivor of Tlatelolco! Agh! I hope you two burn in hell along with Blaine and Ross!
Sadly I don’t think marrying Walkie or Sal would help, Linda is an alpha Karen who only uses the veneer of caring for her kids as an excuse to be a Karen, but the second they disagree, even slightly she will steamroll their opinions because she thinks she is right and anyone against her is wrong. Amber’s only chances that I see are if the school waives her tuition for PR purposes, Blaine was dumb enough not to leave a will thus money defaults to Amber and Yuri (maybe Faz if they can prove him as Blaine’s) or Joe’s dad decides to pick up the slack as a gesture of good will towards his future wife and step-daughter.
Ok I hadn’t thought of that aspect… Also how does everyone know about Amber’s financial shit?! I mean she is obviously going to have it fixed by her mom or… Her boyfriend… I mean… Come on. We can’t lose Amber.
Tho… It might be best for Amber. She needs some therapy bad. She needs a mental vacation.
True, but that isn’t stopping someone else doing so. Just how badly do you want Walky to be a doctor, Mrs W, because I suspect that he’s about to start setting conditions for even pretending to make the grade.
I mean, in the Present context, it’s Awful, but like as a Rule good people don’t say that? Why? Is it not…efficient not to do something if the desired outcome results of it? If you are not waiting for a Shitty thing to happen, that’s okay?
I think it’s more the fact that that statement doesn’t work when the context involves other people. Try coming up with any situation involving other people where that comment doesn’t come across as mean-spirited, regardless of how justified it may be. For example, “We wanted to overthrow the current toxic. corrupt governmental regime. And just today, Trump got hit by an elephant. We get what we want(ed) without doing anything! [Let’s just ignore the lingering issues within the political and social system for now, just like we always do.]”
I suppose you may be able to find some exceptions where the phrase is directed towards people and isn’t mean-spirited, but they seem as though they’d be a minority. Hence, as a general statement, one can interpret “we get what we want without doing anything” as, in fact, not being something good people say [towards other people].
More broadly though, yes, the phrase should be entirely fine when not directed at other people. And I’m not innocent enough to deny using it against other people, either, regardless of whether it’s mean-spirited or not. You go for it, Mr/s Elephant!
If that’s the reasoning… What might lead to that impression is how the sentence refers to something hypothetical – a broad range of things you Could have done, but Opted not to since you got what you wanted anyway.
There are many more awful things you could be doing but choose not to than good things. In General usage, it stands to reason you’d see it used more in relation to bad behavior. But the phrase itself is ethically neutral.
I have no idea what your comment has to do with the previous topic, and I’m not sure if that’s due to disconnected logic, or due to the difficulty I’m having in parsing your syntax.
But to reiterate the point, the statement, when put specifically into the context of being directed towards people, is overwhelmingly associated negatively, and may even lack a coherent neutral or positive interpretation altogether.
Thus, as with many other language structures [for example, associating ‘orgy’ with ‘sex’, despite orgy simply meaning ‘an overindulgence in’ and thereby being usable within most any context, as is proven by its regular usage with concepts such as ‘orgy of blood’], it’s entirely reasonable to make an initial association of negativity where a clarification wasn’t noted.
At present, we have an individual who made a statement that [intuitively: from their perspective] is [never | intuitively: alternatively, majoratively] acceptable within .
As I noted previously, standard reading comprehension is to interpret a standard association where one is applicable. We still have to make the assumption that the previous poster was in fact intending the context I clarified, but after that assumption is made, there’s no longer any logical basis to take issue with the statement [barring 1: subjective points and 2: proving that a significant number of neutral and/or positive readings can be made (to the point where negative interpretations are no longer dominant to the point of being intuitive), thereby making any assumption of negative association presumptive].
To encapsulate that back into a more readily interpretable form:
The phrase “I’ll cut that with this knife many times” is “ethically” neutral.
The phrase “I’ll cut that with this knife many times” is problematic when put into the context of being directed at people, when also offered with a serious demeanor.
All you gotta do is prove that it’s not problematic, and you’ve got a valid argument, but in the meantime it’s entirely reasonable for people to find the phrase dubious within a particular context, regardless of one’s ethical perceptions towards the phrase.
Ugh, no matter how much time I spend here, I’m still finding myself ambushed by this comment section’s sloppily configured formatting quirks.
To correct this section:
“At present, we have an individual who made a statement that [intuitively: from their perspective] is [never | intuitively: alternatively, majoratively] acceptable within .”
should instead be
At present, we have an individual who made a statement that (X comment) [intuitively: from their perspective] is [never | intuitively: alternatively, majoratively] acceptable within (Y context).
I merely tried to condense my point, under the assumption you’d prefer short and succinct to long and exhaustive. I have been prone to write a lot and frequently told I shouldn’t. Perhaps I should stick to what works for me instead, I may be over-correcting and leaving out too much info.
I don’t mind either method myself, though, and I thank you for your reply, I understand your point now. Thanks to paragraph six, specifically.
A guess I have right now, he has to behave this way due to (perhaps unintentional) pressure from Linda. Say, maybe he is financially reliant on her, or a white spouse acts as a social coupon(ugh) he believes he needs, and going against her deep seated prejudices rocks the boat too much for him. Look at the line under his eye – he always looks like he’s ticked out, or stressed, if I interpret that correctly.
The story needed a parent who holds the color of their kids’ skin against them. So they either needed the other parent the skin color was inherited from Fighting, or Already Separated, or a Pushover.
I don’t think he is happy with everything he has become complicit in, but I get the impression the dude doesn’t feel like he has much of a choice.
Because he loves his children even if his ability to do anything to show it besides showing up and existing is completely non-existent when his wife also exists and he is completely unwilling to put in the effort that it would require to ever disagree with her or act as if he was an actual parent.
He exists in stark contrast to Hank. Hank chose not to standby as his wife did what he saw as the wrong thing and had a lot of arguments with his wife on behalf of their children in the background, he would rather lose his marriage than his kids. His role as a parent is very important to him.
Charles meanwhile puts the stability of his marriage above his children by refusing to ever engage in an argument or stand up for his kids. We saw him comfort Sal when they were at the hospital because Marcie was hurt. But his daughter crying because of an argument with Linda? That’s fine, gonna ignore that. He’s a parent in name only. I mean, literally look at this strip, talking to Billie and getting her to convince Linda, was seen as more practical than talking to their dad alone for five minutes.
Going worst-case where Amber doesn’t get any inheritance from Blaine, I still don’t think she’ll have to leave school. While she would not be able to pay tuition directly, the loss of her father’s income changes the calculation for financial aid considerably, opening up more grants and loans.
I’m convinced he has money stashed away that Amber will accidently inherit. Like, his wife and son seemed to think they were on the brink of homelessness without him and couldn’t pay for a relatively cheap collage but he could put down the cash for toe dads bail when a bunch of employed adults at the church couldn’t?
Dude totally has lots of money stashed away he kept hidden from his wife.
Possibly a combo of being cheap/being prideful and mad about being wrong about Amber deciding to go to college/ not wanting the fact that he CAN pay to tip off his wife about him having more money than he lets her know about.
I’m sure Blaine had two sets of books. One he showed his wife and the government, another he showed his boss. How much Yuri actually knows (if she is in fact connected to a mob family) is yet to be seen.
Unless he was literally burying cash in mason jars the back yard, the mob’s taking what’s theirs.
are all these scenes of people reacting to blaine’s death gonna lead to everyone gathering around amber for a big Friendship Group Hug and amber having some kind of emotional breakthrough and getting to feel nice for five minutes?
I don’t get it. What about Leslie’s and Amber’s inheritances? If their parents die, they inherit everything, right? So if they sell all the stuff, it should help them pay for college. But no one even mentios it.
Google says standard delay before beneficiaries start receiving inheritance payouts is 6 to 9 months, and it implies that’s after initial legal processes are completed, which- by having seen the delays on similar legal engagements before- I’m assuming can take up to 3 months.
Though yeah, there’s a big difference between “gone for a semester or two” and “gone forever”, so it’s still a rather extreme judgement on their part, unless they’re planning on pulling their own kids out after the same period.
In the meantime, though, there’s definitely reason for them to expect Amber to not have funds available.. though that’s due to them not factoring in Amber’s mother (or dismissing her) or, more notably, Stacy’s very well-off and (from what we’ve seen so far) well-intentioned-towards-her-daughter boyfriend.
In short, Walky’s parents are kinda simple in their thought processes. Not that we hadn’t already had plenty of opportunities to realize that in previous engagements..
Hell, I’ve seen family members with relatively simple estates take dramatically longer than three months. (Though there’s usually been a factor like ‘the house needed radical overhaul before it was fit to be sold’ or ‘he died a week into this year and got a pandemic stimulus check deposited, and with the pandemic it’s a royal nightmare to get ahold of the IRS’.)
Sorry, I was thinking “up to 3 months under normal/ideal circumstances”, I wasn’t intending that as a proper cap. Obviously, the only thing that can really reliably bring a legal matter to an end is a statute of limitations [where applicable], and even that can sometimes have workarounds. So.. yeah.
Just meant that getting through the basic legal process usually takes a couple of months alone. If there’s also a half year or more on the actual estate allocation, then… that’s not really money you can rely on, unless you can find someone willing to put out a loan against the estate’s value.
Depends if Blaine left a will, and if so what it says.
It would be very on-brand for him to not only not leave anything to Amber, but to point out in the will itself that it’s because he doesn’t think she deserves it.
Agreed. Yuri probably inherits everything by default as his current spouse, but paying for Amber to go to college was a legal agreement between Blaine and Stacy. Where it goes from here depends on how that contract was written up. Maybe the balance gets paid to the school, maybe it goes through a trust, maybe Yuri is legally obligated to continue paying.
Any way, you know she’s going to fight it tooth and nail.
Blaine is married to Yuri so in most cases she would get everything. It’s possible the courts might decide Amber should something because of the alimony agreement (I ain’t an expert in Indiana estate law), but the major things are that Blaine can’t keep getting mob paychecks if he’s dead and Yuri’s comment that Amber’s tuition “sucks this family dry”. There may be nothing left for anyone.
I believe Amber’s tuition is in lieu of alimony, so it would probably qualify as a divorce settlement, which gets paid out of the estate before anything distributes. Either way, I suspect nearly all of Blaine’s liquid assets are tied up in mob-related things, so I think you’re right that there will be nothing left–except perhaps his and Yuri’s marital home, and I don’t know the nitty-gritties of estate law enough to know whether that could be exempted from the obligation to take out the divorce settlement first.
We know Blaine made this tuition deal with the court, thinking Amber wouldn’t go. A court, naturally, would have assumed she would go, and would NOT have approved this agreement if it was totally inequitable, even if both parties consented. In all likelihood, the court probably agreed with a cap–maybe “he will pay the equivalent tuition of [state school tuition],” which would be a fairly reasonable standard–to avoid vagueness. My point is that I would not be shocked if all of Blaine’s liquid assets are tied up, which would explain why the courts thought he could fairly afford college but in practice Yuri thinks they’re being sucked dry.
Not necessarily. In order for that to happen, Ross would have had to leave a will specifying that Becky gets nothing. (Because he was a widower and she’s his daughter, she should be first in line by default.) I don’t think he would have done that if he had the will written up before Becky came out. He would have had to update it sometime after she ran away from Anderson.
(Well, first in line after creditors, anyway. If the house still has a mortgage, or if Ross had credit card debt or outstanding loans, the bank will want those paid off.)
Ambers tuition is in the nature of “ will spider-man escape The Green Goblin”. It will get resolved in short order. IRL, it might hang over her head for four years, but we’ll all be dead by then. Evil parents all ultimately fail. Though Linda is likely to survive the experience. Ambers tuition is a loose end that DYW will fix but that he had to note and plan for. So there’s plot coming on that but not much suspense.
Time to head back to the Carol. Hank. Joyce plotline, where the outcome is in doubt.
While I like all the speculation about Amber’s tuition, the point here is that Walky and Sal (and Billie) get to see what a monster Linda is. Sal was pretty aware but this is new to Walky. And this cuts Billie to the bone too. She now knows that Linda would drop her like a hot rock if it served her purposes. Walky thought he had a mom but finds he was raised by a sociopath. Time for him to step up if he doesn’t want to end up like Charles.
Linda will get what she wants from Walky or he will pay.
I could understand callous but for better or worse the person who actually was a threat to Linda’s children is dead, bit she is still out for the blood of another victim.
Oh Linda, dedicated to the principle of not learning from one’s mistakes. Determined to not fall behind Carol in that respect, eh? If terrible people were prone to self-reflection, this world would be a better place.
God, this chapter is really just the “Carol and Linda suck” showcase, huh. I swear, ALL I want is Walky and Joyce severing ties with their mothers (possibly after some well-deserved screaming fits)!
Blaine was a monster that deserved what he got but… rejoicing at the death of a person they didn’t know because it will hurt a person they don’t like… that’s a different kind of monstrous.
So I know it’s a comic and things are exaggerated for emphasis or comedic effect, but Amber’s a genius, right? Like from what I’ve seen she would be. So I don’t WANT her to have to stop going to uni but she could probably knows/ could teach herself enough programming to start working freelance and then build enough credibility to get more permanent positions, or even potentially start her own company. I don’t think that has any narrative value so I can’t see it happening, but IRL it would definitely be a possibility.
I’m actually kind of sorry to see Blaine go, not because I think he’s a good person at all, but simply because he was a great villain to hate. Also, he rocked the supervillain get up, specially with how he was drawn in it.
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btw if you're one of those rando bluesky weirdos who doesn't know me but sees me in the wild being sarcastic and don't know i'm being sarcastic because you haven't taken like 30 seconds to, like, maybe look at my user profile or something, keep walking, you're not going to score internet points here
Here's an entertaining cite at the bottom of the first page
Josh Gerstein@joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
JUST IN: Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan moves to dismiss federal criminal case against her for allegedly helping immigrant hide from ICE. Her lawyers say she's protected by official acts & judicial immunity and 10th Amendment. Doc: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Where did Hollywood go so wrong? I thought movies were supposed to be an escape from reality, a chance to put your worries aside and not have to think about any underlying ideas or concepts. Well, not anymore.
theonion.com/you-can...
It's not a new argument, of course, but Chesterton dismissed it effectively in 1908.
"You will hear everlastingly... this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has been bribed already. That is why he is a rich man."
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com ⋅ 2d
Hawley dismisses Trump lining his pockets with his memecoin: "Listen, I think nobody believes that Donald Trump can be bought. I mean, what does Donald Trump need more money for?"
wilbur, savvy enough to know he's in a comic strip but still not a great actor, awkwardly lifts a muffin up into frame so that we, the audience, understand that he has a muffin right now, which is very important narratively, but he's not really selling it well as an organic, human action
confirming that the reason there's been no Galaxy Version female characters in Blokees until now is that they felt they needed to make Round Lady Thighs For Ladies
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 17h
Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com ⋅ 2d
Pavel
@spavel.bsky.social ⋅ 11d
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dang, I know mine was paid for from an uninsured driver settlement, but I thought tuition was paid for the whole semester/year upfront
shit
awfully convenient that Linda gets what she wants SO QUICKLY tho
(I do say Linda, I kinda don’t believe Charles has enough spine to want things)
I’m thinking (hoping) that Linda and Charles are assuming that Amber now loses tuition, not that there was any actual information divulged to that effect. I can’t imagine there’s been time for anything and so hopefully this is a distant looming rather than an urgent pressing kind of issue.
I still don’t have a read on that guy. He just seems like a scumbag by proxy.
He hasn’t said much this entire time, has he?
No but he seems to agree with everything Linda says.
No. He mostly just makes wise cracks and plays yes man to his wife. He once made a somewhat racist comment about Sal’s hair and googled whether illegals get health insurance but I don’t think that’s enough to make any real judgement calls on the dude. What is your deal Charles!?!?
Sal usually talks about her parents, plural, when she says stuff like ‘I don’t need another lecture about how I’m a failure’. When Blaine was arrested, she also told Amber she envied her ability to reject her father’s claim over her.
I don’t think it looks good for him, though he’s clearly less blatant than Linda.
Wait when did he say something racist about his own daughters hair?
Honest question, not defending him. Just forgotten when he said that due to gigantic long archive/running time.
Her hair lost its straightness when she got her math grades and he commented on it. It hurt her feelings
He just said she looks prettier with straight hair which devalues her natural hair type in favor of a trait traditionally associated with being white.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/04-just-hangin-out-with-my-family/appointment/
It’s not the hugest deal in the world considering society as a whole has done this for decades, centuries even in America, but as a father he should probably prioritize building his daughter’s self esteem when it comes to her appearance instead of criticizing it. He’s been called out on it. Personally I think it’s a stretch to say he’s a bad guy for it. That’s kind of systemic racism bullshit more than his fault to me. But he still doesn’t really look good.
That’s a stretch to say that was criticism. It’s an opinion, in which he complimented her old hairstyle. Especially considering he is also black, I’d say he has a right to that opinion. Also, there was no malice or derision in his comment, just personal taste, and sometimes you want an objective opinion from your parents without the tired cliche of “You look wonderful no matter what you do.”
You may not realize this, but there’s actually a whole giant real world discourse going back over a hundred years about black women’s hair and the concept of “good” hair, like it’s a whole thing.
His comment does not exist in a vacuum! Imagine if she’d tanned and he told her that she looks SO pretty with lighter skin. He may not say it with malice, but there’s a whole lot of cultural and societal baggage that would go along not only with her reception of those words, but with what caused him to form his opinion in the first place. The same is true for her hair.
And believe me, black men’s opinions about black women are not inherently unproblematic. Black men are NOT immune to misogynoir and they’re not immune to terrible opinions about black women’s hair.
And even without all the racial issues surrounding black women’s hair, it’s still not ever a good move to tell a girl you don’t like her new hairstyle. Even your daughter. You can always not comment.
It’s a very dick move to tell someone they used to look better than they do now. Especially when they didn’t ask for your opinion. It explicitly frames their current look as being less attractive.
Any parent would need to be pretty oblivious to their child’s feelings to not realize doing this would hurt them.
She never asked for his racially loaded opinion. He noticed her hair was curly and then said “Too bad. You look pretty with your hair long and straight” which implies she does not look pretty with her natural hair, especially with ‘too bad’. If your first comment on someone you haven’t seen and rarely spoke to in five years is ‘too bad’ about their new hairstyle, you’re being a dick.
However, right before he said that, she admitted to it not being a conscious choice, it just “happened”. If it was her choice and he offered his unrequested opinion that he didn’t like it, it’d be more objectionable than it actually is, but she established that it wasn’t really her intention, which allows him to state his opinion without it being considered an attack on her style choices. Also, BBCC, I was under the impression that they’d seen each other at the very least right before the start of the semester. As a first greeting in 5 years, yeah, it’d be pretty shitty, but a couple months, not so much. As to Jasie’s point, it’s true I don’t personally know much about societal implications of straight hair vs curly hair, and it’s kinda surprising to me that it’s a big deal, especially if you can go back and forth unlike skin color. Personally, I get comments all the time how people like or don’t like my hair style (I have a mullet, and EVERYONE seems to have an opinion on mullets), and I don’t take it as an attack, they just have different tastes. Who cares why they have those tastes, that’s their business. And sure, apparently this war over straight vs curly black hair has been going on for over a hundred years, but Sal’s only been around for 18 of them. Have you ever been thrust in the middle of someone else’s war over something like “Butter-side-up” vs “butter-side-down” and expected to carry on their fight while you’re like “who cares, just let me eat my toast in peace”? Maybe I’m projecting a little, but that’s how I’d be in that situation. Sal doesn’t seem to care, since not only does she not take offense to the comment, she literally responds, “Glad ya agree.” I’m aware it was a segue to get out of the conversation, but in doing so she positively reinforces his behavior. Ultimately, it should be the recipient of the behavior that decides whether or not the behavior is offensive on issues as borderline as this, and if she truly doesn’t like it, that’s her prerogative, but if so she does a terrible job expressing that.
Dude, him insulting her hair when she didn’t choose it is even shittier, especially since she was only relaxing her hair around 12, right before the robbery, i.e. when she was living at home and her parents get to pick how she looks. Frankly, people shouldn’t be offering you unsolicited criticism on your hair either, but it’s even shittier when it’s racially loaded.
No, they didn’t see her just before the semester started. Walky even straight up told Billie he hadn’t kept tabs on her since she was sent away and she had no idea where she was when Billie asked. His family has not seen her and Walky, at least, hasn’t really talked to her much over those five years.
You can go back and forth on relaxing your hair (though not easily – a lot of the time the only way to grow it out is to chop it off and regrow it), but it’s still a very racially loaded thing to do. Black people’s natural hair is often derided as ‘unprofessional’, ‘dirty’, ‘wild’, etc. and they’re encouraged to relax it to make it straight. Black women in particular are often told they’re prettier with straight hair vs their natural hair. European (i.e. white) beauty standards are all up in this issue, and Sal knows it.
Sal does care. Her using it as a segue out of the conversation does not mean she doesn’t. She doesn’t like to fight with her parents all the time because it’s exhausting and emotionally draining – if she has an out to avoid their bullshit, she’ll take it. We see at the salon she comments ‘This is how I’m supposed to look’ and then she gets pensive/sad looking. She cares. She didn’t express it or pick a fight, but she does care.
You guys just love to overreact to everything don’t you… He just said “you look so pretty with long and straight hair”. He was complimenting her and supporting her hairstyle choice. He wasn’t saying “what the hell is this, you look like shit”. And her response wasn’t at all annoyed or defensive either.
No, they read it right.
He said it when she did not have straight hair. Ergo, implying she does not look so pretty right now. Especially when her choice is extremely racially loaded. It’s not an accident that the conversation where she finally tells Walky their parents are racist opened with him saying ‘Oh, hey, your hair’s straight again’.
“He just said she looks prettier with straight hair which devalues her natural hair type in favour of a trait traditionally associated with being white.”
That statement come across is markedly racist.
Where I live has become ethnically south Indian over the years and guess what. Straight hair and high melanin pigmentation levels is quite common. Also Dosa is amazingly good.
During the weekend when the parents visited and her hair curled back up, he said she looked better with her hair straightened.
During Parent’s Weekend, I don’t feel like doing an archive dive. Check the tags for Charles and Sal and look near the front of the comic.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/04-just-hangin-out-with-my-family/appointment/
Make wise cracks and plays yes man to his partner … so, Walky got into the same time-travel shenanigans as Joe and they both became their own fathers?
There’s something very… off… about Charles. He seems less like a person and more like an appendage of his wife.
The fact that he’s mixed race… while also having said something racist about Sal’s hair and is apparently racist against mexicans, and is also married to such an officious Karen AF bongo of a woman just gives me so many weird signals.
(Fun fact, I actually did type “bongo” instead of that other word there, cause I figured it’d just get censored anyway so eh)
Charles just an easygoing doormat. Where do you think Walky gets it from?
A lifetime living with Linda “Be a doormat or get knocked down so she can walk all over you” Walkerton?
I think Charles is suffering from internalized racism.
You too, huh?
i think the racism has internalized HIM
She’ll probably want to pay it next semester, too.
Yeah – given the themes of this strip, I wouldn’t be surprised if Amber’s pulled out over this, but wouldn’t they at least wait until the end of the semester?
Amber’s very likely not on the streets immediately, but should still be good for the semester. Depends on the payment arrangements with Amber’s financial aid package for the semester/year. I doubt Blaine had to write a check every month to the university directly; they likely billed him every semester. If that’s the case, she’s good until next semester (are we still in Fall semester? If so, then January). When the business office learns Blaine is dead, they’ll resort to billing Amber’s mother. They’ll try to foist PLUS loans on her for the whole amount. Meanwhile, emergency loans can make up the differences, while she works with the university (as long as Amber is responsible and maintains her FAFSA). In situations like this, the Financial Aid office has lots of resources to hold off the Business Office for a while, while student, parent, and others scramble to find alternate tuition resources. Finally, it’s possible that Amber’s mother’s new boyfriend might be able to help find resources, if not make contributions himself.
Momber’s newFiance you mean. Definitely someone in a position to be expected to contribute soon.
Oh boy, but doesn’t Joe’s dad seem to be the kind of guy who might actually just jump into something too soon? Like an engagement?
Isn’t joe’s dad rich or am i thinking of future joe that was rich?
I’d laugh if Joe’s dad just shrugs and pay for it to please his new wife… just because it would piss off Linda and that’s always a plus.
This is my current theory.
What sort of doctor is he? And are they at a “reasonably priced” college? Is being able to pay for an extra kid to go there feasible with no chance to plan for it?
Are grants/scholarships readily available?
I’m not clear what kind of doctor Richard is, but some other readers seem to have picked up something that I missed, and they are sure.
Whatever. Richard is presumably paying alimony to Joe’s mother, and Joe’s tuition, and Stacy implied that she is already expecting him to pay the legal bills to defend Amber against a lawsuit by Ryan’s parents. So it’s not necessarily clear that he can just shell out $40k over four years for Amber’s tuition plus bed and board and not feel the pinch.
Richard is a “Bone Doctor” (giggity), meaning he’s probably an orthopedist.
I thought he was an osteologist? But yeah, he is a bone doctor.
“Osteology” is not the standard term for any discipline of medicine. An osteologist is the person who can look at a single bone and tell you what sort of animal it came from.
Word of Willis is osteologist, but word of willis is not immutable or unchanging (or immune to error) so he might say something else later. For now, I go by what he’s said.
The only Word of Willis I can find is https://itswalky.tumblr.com/post/56755053843/ which simply refers to him as a “bone doctor”, which generally likeliest means orthopedic surgeon. The only reference to calling him an osteologist I could find were in the comments sections of a few strips, and none of those were by Willis.
This was a while ago. Someone asked if he was a gynaecologist and he said osteologist. I don’t recall where though, so who tf knows anymore. And acting like he’s rich does make me think if that is what he said that it’s been retconned.
Willis, any chance you can weigh in here?
He’s an orthopedic surgeon.
Ah. Okay. Wealthy doctor it is.
That was my first thought,too.
Amber may also inherit some money from Blaine. Not that he would leave her anything on purpose, but he may not have made a will. Without a will, his estate would be split between Amber and Faz (and Faz’s mother assuming they were still together?) Probably not enough to cover tuition on its own, but it’s a start.
Until we find out that Blaine was hording money in a private account that no one else knew about and has been lying about how much the payments have been affecting him. Its not that he didn’t want to pay for Amber’s tuition because he couldn’t afford it. It was because he’s a bongo and didn’t want to. He hid money from his current family because he didn’t want anyone dictating how he spends his money and he wanted to rationalize that spending on Amber was a “hardship.” In the end, both families come out fairly well off to live a middle class life for a few years. But that’s just a theory.
I believe IU also offers payment plans. And even if you pay it up front, it’s per semester rather than the whole year
But Amber’s mum and Joe’s dad are now a “thing” right? Surely her tuition isn’t a big deal any more.
You can pay in installments. Monthly, if I remember correctly.
If you can pay in installments, Blaine probably was. On the assumption that his pathetic daughter would fold under the pressure and drop out.
Asking people to pay upfront by the year, or the semester might have changed as tuition as a % of the target buyer’s budget has increased.
When I apply for student loans, they give me the option to either get a loan for an entire year’s tuition (fall and spring semester) or just the one semester. I’m not sure how it works for the school when you do the yearly option, but I would assume that the lender disburses the entire yearly amount to the school, and the school gives you back whatever’s left over from paying fall tuition (so you’d have to later pay spring tuition from that leftover that has been shunted into your bank account).
As for schools themselves, you only pay one semester at a time. Usually that means you pay the entire semester’s tuition up front, however some schools also offer a payment plan (when I did it I’d have to pay a certain amount each month). I’m not sure what happens if you stop paying in the middle of the semester if you’re on a payment plan but if Blaine were paying her tuition on a payment plan then she might be in a bit of trouble regarding being able to stay in the dorms and in classes.
When I got student loans, the money was paid out as the tuition came due, so beginning of each term.
Why were you nicer in It’s Walky!, Linda?
Carol was too. There she just really wanted grandkids.
She was even okay with Joyce possibly being gay there.
In case anyone doesn’t know what I’m talking about, Carol saw footage of Joyce and Walky kissing and cause of Walky’s long hair thought he was a girl.
Maybe because DoA is closer to reality and fundies are rarely sensible in RL?
I think that as he’s aged and had more life experiences, the author has gotten more comfortable with being critical to authority figures. He’s a parent himself now, he was only college-aged when he started doing webcomics.
Girls you kiss in Canada only count as girl kisses in Canada.
Well, that’s just the foreign exchange student rate. And it’s good to see the market recovering. “I have a girlfriend in Canada” was really popular in the eighties, but the Internet ruined that. Despite illegal catfishing scandals, the elusive Canadian Girlfriend is on track to make a full recovery.
DMW says the reason Carol in the Dumbiverse is different is (partly?) due to 15 years of Fox News:
http://www.itswalky.com/comic/yaint-gettin-no-where-with-your-pants-on/
Presumably Fox News in the Walkyverse would be affected by the presence of Aliens from Planet Alien.
And here I just figured that all the genocide chilled out Linda because after that, it’s just really hard to muster any fucks over anything else.
Hmmm. Maybe focusing on Aliens made her a better person?
Or maybe it is just decades of Fox News, like with Joyce parents.
Right? She was less hateable as a war criminal.
Which is pretty disturbing, given the genocide and the child soldiers and still showing blatant parental favoritism and all.
Maybe it’s that everything was less personal, over there?
It probably doesn’t hurt that she didn’t show up much until she took over for McHenry and by that point there was seriously bigger fish to fry.
I mean, she was still perfectly loathsome, just not to this scale.
Wasn’t she framed for genocide?
Nicer, but more evil?
Maybe it’s in her personality/worldview to fight crusades and be a hero. But in this universe that means dicking over kids with shitting families instead of dicking over kids who were kindnapped and souped up by Aliens.
Perhaps, she’s always been pretty ready to sacrifice people as needed for her personal goals. But when all of humanity is threatened her personal goals become sympathetic and her sacrifices make a cruel kind of sense.
I wouldn’t say they make sense, but I’d say they definitely meant there was bigger fish to fry.
How very Winston Churchill of her.
Less hateable as a war criminal? Whose actions resulted in dozens (if not hundreds) of deaths? Of college-age people? And also alien genocide?
Um, perspective? Dumbverse!Linda is a terrible person (and a crap parent), but she hasn’t actively murdered anyone or, through her actions, caused anyone to be murdered.
Ummm…she was among those who bailed out ToeD(e)ad, which is what’s now lead to his own death and Blaine’s, the kidnappings, and the trauma those kids are all gonna have for years to come…
I mean, Dumbiverse Linda is still a monster, but so is this Linda.
I think you’re mixing up Linda and Carol.
Objectively she is a far worse person in the Walkyverse. Personally wise, I hate this one more (though I hate both).
In the Walkyverse Linda could at least say she legitimately believed her actions were preventing humanity’s extinction through alien invasion. It doesn’t make her actions right or absolve her of any crimes, but at least she was facing a situation that called for drastic measures.
Dumbiverse Linda is just doing awful things and hurting people for her own shitty, selfish reasons.
Well yeah but at least Gendomom wasn’t a jerk about it.
She was able to redirect her anger onto an external force, clearly
Billie did a good?
Yeah, Walky asked her to, or was it Sal? Either way, she is basically their third kid.
It was Walky, Sal was just “sure whatever”
Sal was agreed that the kid the parents like trying to talk sense into them was their best bet
RIP Blaine, you’ll not be missed.
His money will be though
His money will be missed at least. Also makes me wonder if Blaine had life insurance. Though they might not get it since he “killed himself.”
They still ought to get any net equity in his home and business. A lot is going to depend on whether his financial commitment to pay Amber’s tuition counts as a liability of his estate.
I doubt there is any equity in the business. Remember, it is mostly a front for the mob.
Granted, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have some stashed away.
Depends on how long he’s had it. Life insurance doesn’t cover suicide immediately–to prevent you from getting it when you’re planning it, obviously–but it does eventually. After two years, I think?
Unless that’s changed since I was (briefly) a life insurance agent. …or if it varies by state.
I doubt he had insurance- he had too high an opinion of himself to admit his own mortality.
It depends on the policy, of course, but if the suicide is more than a specified time after buying the policy it often will pay. It’s usually two years, I think.
So if he bought a policy a long time ago, it might pay out.
Maybe he has an old policy that he forgot about that still has Stacy and/or Amber as the beneficiary(s). That would rock.
From what I know about insurance policies, a suicide would most probably mean the insurance wouldn’t be paid.
So like, Richard is gonna end up paying it, right?
That’s my bet. Either that or the school waives tuition at least for next semester for all the kidnapping victims because they’re terrified they’ll sue (Amber can’t afford to, but they don’t know that)
Dean McHenry: It’s so much better PR for the school. God knows we need it, after all this.
Australian and British universities sometimes give “bursaries” — which are like scholarships except not distributed for merit — to students in financial difficulties. Bound to be a better look than forcing Amber to drop out at the end of the semester.
So do Canadian universities. Sometimes for some sort of service for the school, sometimes for needs based, sometimes for merit. I got one a few years ago for taking part in a note taking service for disabled students who could not always attend classes in person regularly. I took notes so they didn’t have to and emailed them to the disability office where they were passed on to the students in the class. These are in addition to scholarships, which are given for a variety of reasons, loans, which must be paid back, and grants which don’t need to be paid back.
Oooh, Canada pays notetakers in tuition? US colleges usually just pay their notetakers for classes about minimum wage. (And sometimes I couldn’t get a notetaker, because the class I was in was too small and there were no interested parties. Though at least since my issue is primarily in focus, memory and processing, they were more supplementary – I can take adequate notes, but I focus better if I can be fidgeting with my hands instead, or have a set to compare against my own to make sure what I thought was important and what someone else did match.)
I got a bursary as part of the school note taking service that I spent on tuition or books (don’t recall which), yes.
In my school, if there was someone with a disability who could benefit from note takers, they put in a request with the disability office and they sent an email to everyone in the class asking if someone would do it (without mentioning who had the disability, obviously). If nobody answered by the second class, the teacher got email requests and they mentioned it to the class and asked for volunteers and told us to email the coordinator if we wanted to do it. IIRC, you had to fill out a form at the end of the semester if you wanted the bursary for it and then you got a cheque a week or two later in the mail.
That’s generally how it’s done in the US as well, yeah. (There are… exceptions, but that’s usually a sign of an underfunded/staffed or plain dysfunctional DSS office.)
Makes sense.
One of my work friends has a super-awesome pen to help with Add: it records audio as well as writing, and if you hold it over the notes you wrote it plays the audio it recorded at that point.
I’ve heard about them a couple times, but not the playback feature! Neat as hell.
the Mexican “Tec the Monterrey” has among the cost an insurance in case you are left an orphan while you are going either highschool or/and college in there. I unfortunately knew about this in action as an aquantaince lost his parents in a highway accident
No idea about other schools.
Ok so again maybe Blaine had life insurance? Or maybe not and he didn’t consider what would happen in case of his untimely demise despite dealing with the mob all the time.
Richard will, probably, but he’s already paying legal fees, since Ryan’s family is attempting to sue her.
He’s a doctor, and a successful one, but between already paying for Joe, paying the fees, and possible alimony, it might be a tough proposition.
Maybe he can pay for a chunk and Amber can get scholarships, bursaries and grants for the rest? Even loans to cover whatever those don’t. She’s kicking ASS in her computer science classes, surely there are scholarships and grants for that major?
Oh, there’s *definitely* scholarships and grants for that major, at least for her. There’s a ton of comp-sci and STEM scholarships specifically for females going into related fields in addition to the normal scholarships available to everyone.
^ Well, here’s hoping Amber can either get a full ride or enough scholarships to cover it all, or at least a hefty chunk.
Carla’s parents can pay it in exchange for her agreeing to work for them post-graduation for a set number of years (so if she quits before that she needs to repay it to them, but she still gets a normal salary etc. Also guaranteed job on graduating!)?
Rutten adoption of cast members (or at least sponsoring them with a hugeass scholarship) is a dream I hold dear in my heart.
They’re billionaires, they can afford it after all.
I am intrigued by your dream and would like to subscribe.
It started before Becky sorted out her tuition as ‘oh, maybe the Ruttens at Carla’s urging can start a scholarship fund for queer people without parental support in STEM!’, dropped the STEM part to include Ruth, and now?
Fuck it, the Ruttens can just establish free tuition for the whole school.
I want it to happen just to piss off Linda :p
Linda you bongo
Linda never wastes time making me want to scratch her eyes out, does she?
She’s really good at what she does, and what she does is make people want her dead.
In some ways, Linda is just as bad as Blaine.
I did not know the human body could function so normally with a block of ice pumping the blood instead of a heart.
The woman’s got Freon running through her veins.
Whatever you do, don’t light her on fire.
(Possibly two chemists in these comments might get the joke.)
I thought Freon™️ is a non-flammable halon?
God damn, Linda.
Talking about using a dead person to get your selfish way? That’s 100% a good person move.
Wondering if Joe’s dad (i’m already blanking on his name) will step up to the plate and help pay tuition?
Either way, I’m glad that Walky (and subsequently Amber) have Billie on their side. She seems to be good at sweet-talking Linda.
That’s what I’m thinking too, it would certainly be a cool thing of him to do and Amber’s mom would appreciate it. Also his name is Richard? I think.
Joe’s dad’s name is Richard. He’s an osteologist.
Osteologist? That’s not a medical speciality in my parlance. Could he be an osteopath? I know that some US states license osteopaths to practise medicine.
An osteologist is a doctor who works on bones.
Interesting. That’s what I call an “orthopaedic surgeon”.
What I call an “osteologist” is a scientist who studies bones, as indicated in the article I linked.
Osteology is anatomical study. Richard wouldn’t be doing surgery on bones himself.
I asked the president of my state medical association whether there is a medical speciality called “osteology” whose practitioners are called “osteologists”. He replied “As far as I know not. I think osteology is a branch of vertebrate zoology.” That lines up with the entries in Wikipedia, Wiktionary, and my Merriam-Webster dictionary.
So if Richard is an osteologist that would make him some sort of academic, perhaps with a position at a natural history museum, not a rich doctor.
Osteologists can work on anything from sports medicine to forensics. An entry level osteologist (1-3 years of experience) earns an average salary of $55,245. On the other end, a senior level osteologist (8+ years of experience) earns an average salary of $95,889. This is according to Salary Expert – https://www.salaryexpert.com/salary/job/osteologist/united-states#:~:text=An%20entry%20level%20osteologist%20(1,an%20average%20salary%20of%20%2495%2C882.
So not exactly a rich doctor, but a far cry from out on the street. Upper middle class, but barely.
Yeah, he’s called Dr. Rosenthal and refers to himself as a bone doctor so I’m guessing he does research in a medicine related field (probably sports medicine) rather than actually practicing on patients. That would be an orthopaedic doctor, yes. As Clif noted, osteologists don’t make bad money.
For a comparison, an orthopaedic surgeon typically earns an average salary of $287,638 at entry level going up to $643,065 in senior roles. That’s five or six times as much as an osteologist and a much better explanation of Stacy’s excitement.
https://www.salaryexpert.com/salary/job/orthopedic-surgeon/united-states/indiana/indianapolis
Richard works with a bone, not on them. Big difference.
You say he’s an expert on boners?
Bone doctor.
I think the real-world equivalent might be orthopedics
Osteology is a real world job. He studies bones, doesn’t operate on them.
I know it’s a real-world job, but since he’s referred to as a (wealthy!) doctor rather than a scientist, I always figured he actually sees patients. Calling him an “osteologist” would have been creative license just to make the Bone Doctor joke obvious. Maybe I’m wrong about that.
But what you don’t know was that he was even wealthier before he became an osteologist.
Osteologists can work in medicine, as noted above. I’m assuming he’s in some sort of research.
Until proven otherwise, I’m assuming that he’s a osteologist for giggles and pocket change but his real income is from past inventions all of which have been bought up by Rutten Industries.
Evidence? Why do I need evidence?
It literally does not surprise me one bit that Joe’s dad is a Bone Doctor.
I’m betting money that he chose that career path SOLELY for the joke.
Agreed!
Well, that and being able to invite the young ladies up to his room to have their bones examined.
I’m sure there was some sort of death clause in Blaine’s will he definitely didn’t have right? Amber’s good right?
Depending on the law, is it possible the tuition will count as an outstanding debt, since it was part of his divorce settlement? Would that be taken out of his estate? Or would his estate be obligated to pay?
I’m not hopeful but I’m wondering.
If he doesn’t have a will, half goes to his spouse, and the other half is divided among his children. Since Faz is not (acknowledged as) his biological child, he would only get a share if Blaine legally adopted him.
If Faz is Blaine’s kid, Yuri could probably get Amber to do a DNA test to prove Faz is his.
I’d hate for Yuri to get her hands on more of his money, but you know Amber would agree because she’s concerned for Faz.
Honestly that assumes Yuri had any real access to his money to begin with. She certainly had a different idea of their finances than Blaine did, given how expensive this scheme was. (Between the bail and the body armor, it seems significant.)
Of course that assumes he didn’t finance this misadventure with an assload of credit card debt or embezzling from the mob, either of which would be a new and exciting set of problems.)
If it’s child support or a divorce settlement, his estate still owes it.
Additionally Amber might be eligible for half to a quarter of what’s left after debts are paid and assets liquidated, depending on Faz’s status.
Of course Blaine might have left a will leaving everything to Yuri, so only his obligation to pay her schooling can be counted on.
So Linda is making assumptions.
“and in the event of my death destroy all my wealth and earthly possessions, that none might benefit from me.”
Sure would be ironic if they somehow ended up paying Amber’s tuition. Is there any course of events where that could happen?
School decides to pay off the students who were kidnapped to keep their story under wraps (or at least let all information flow through the school’s PR system).
Dean makes some comment to Linda that “We really appreciate your recent donations, as it’s helped covered the cost of handling this debacle. Especially that poor girl who has been the victim of multiple crimes on campus.”
Of course, then Linda just resorts to “Plan A” but maybe the optics tag her and she learns a lesson.
And now I’ll just mount my flying pig and fly off to go ice skating in hell.
Well done. Please see the lackie handing out best “comment of the day” awards, for your prize.
There have been two armed kidnappings on this campus in the space of, what, a month? Some “please don’t talk to the press” money wouldn’t be that surprising but neither would a “we’re not taking responsibility for this and a payout implies we share blame” stance.
And even if nothing comes from Blaine’s estate, and Amber’s mother can’t pay anything, and Joe’s Dad doesn’t pay anything, Amber is still going to be eligible for near-full tuition in student loans (at the govt-set low interest rate). And Amber’s mother could get full tuition in parent loans (at a higher interest rate).
Further, Amazigirl is the moral, and except for vigilantism, law-abiding one. Amber, as reflected in Walky’s grades, is much more flexible. The point is that if the university computers say her tuition is paid, then for all practical purposes it’s paid. Amber writes operating systems for fun.
AG SAYS she’s the moral one. Reality doesn’t always bear that out. Like when she was stalking Sal.
You mean when she was staking out a known evil-doer that had threatened Ethan before to see what nefarious activities she was up to?
It’s a blind spot the size of Everest and I suspect there’s a few more out there. AG’s not infallible, and it’s not as though Amber’s totally amoral. (Honestly I think the self-justification for changing grades stems from the same sort of self-justifications that work for AG.) She can say changing Walky’s grades is beneficial to him, and she didn’t change them TOO much, and it’s not as though it actually hurts anyone if his grades are a bit better than they are, right? (To our knowledge there’s no curve for the grading, anyway.) Scholarship money’s a different story, because it is to some extent a zero sum game. Money going to her falsely is money not going somewhere else. (And IU’s a public school, so it is not for-profit and doesn’t have a ton of money not earmarked for specific, necessary things.)
Amber might consider it in a moment of weakness, but I don’t think she’d go through with it if it meant, say, finding the scholarship info and changing it from another student’s.
Well maybe. The money was in Ryan’s account and now it’s in hers. No problems, right?
She’d be more likely to do it for someone else though.
Walkerton parents: Got what we wanted, piece out!
Still no actual concern for Walky, I notice.
This seems less about Walky and Sal’s well being and more about… I dunno. revenge for the inconvenience?
De-de-de-ding! All that matters is the blame, I think
No actual concern for Walky, no real concern for Sal, and still calls Amber dropping out specifically (thus the tuition bit) ‘what they wanted’ even when the actual more pressing threat to the kids is gone. (Amber still stabbed Sal in the hand, of course, but if neither Sal nor Walky are saying they feel unsafe around her after eight weeks of sharing a dorm building, maybe you could take them at their word?)
(I am still assuming they don’t know about the stalking, vigilantism, or DID, because like hell is Sal trusting her parents with anything that heavy – not like they’d listen, anyway – and Walky knows Amber being AG won’t help their case.)
Wow, Billie made a convincing and logical argument that even Linda was ok with. Although she may have already known that Blaine was dead before the conversation started. Linda is still a bongo either way.
Also, what are the odds that Joe’s dad tries to pick up Amber’s tuition costs?
Remember, Billie is the “reasonably white-passing daughter [they] wanted”, in Billie’s own words.
I sort of thought that’s what he was suggesting before.
To quote Sarah “You command a wealth of helpful knowledge pertaining to terrible and horrific things.”
We should have realized that applied to manipulating Linda.
That burst of optimism about Linda didn’t last very long.
Walkerton parents are assholes
Damn, she is cold-hearted.
That her response to this girl who was obviously a victim of abuse to the point where she and her friends were kidnapped by her FATHER, when her father dies and leaves her unable to afford higher education- and her response is to smugly nod to herself and feel GLAD that this traumatized abuse victim is going to go through more misery and potentially lose her chances at a good career and higher education…
unfortunately this comic has SO many trash people I can’t say she’s the lowest kind of shit, but she is definitely scum.
Of the parents remaining, she and Carol are in a race to the bottom. Haven’t quite caught up with Sir yet, but he’s had a good several decades to hone his being a piece of utter shit.
… *Takes a deep, calming breath while looking at a picture of the Saruyamas* There. Much better.
Are we going to have to limit the worst parent list to those still living because the previous “winners” are all dead now?
Ross and Blaine are no longer eligible because they’ve gotten DOA Lifetime Achievement Awards.
I say we make the trophy a golden ball peen, in their honor.
May I respectfully suggest: Per Saltire, a rife and hammer, or… On a field divided pale-wise, purpur and argent.
Oh, and the supporters are Rampant, a weasel, pizzled, and rampant a Skunk, or. Banner: “non cum bang, sed whimper”
Nice, but I’d suggest that the skunk be proper rather than or.
Makes note to self that Geneseepaws and Agemegos have likely been in the SCA.
Sorry to disappoint, but I haven’t.
Scratches Agemegos off list.
A random interest in heraldry then?
Excellent.
It has fewer trash people in it than it did before!
Too soon? Not soon enough?
Come on Walky, blurt something dramatic and run to your kinda-sorta-girlfriend’s side!
Also there they said it, he’s D-E-A-D. Anymore doubts anybody want to throw around?
They only said Mr. O’Malley died. Clearly this means the cop helped Blaine escape and he’s now running loose under an alias!
He’s been recruited by a shadowy government organisation to be an assassin under a new name. Something really clever that will insure no one guesses the truth, like Laine O’Alley.
He’s gonna star in the shittiest Knight Rider rip-off ever…
Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
He… He’s a zombie?
Shambling around with Zombie Ross in pursuit.
It’s soon enough that it could be a false report.
I think he’s dead, but until we hear it from a more connected source, I won’t be certain.
What do you call the opposite of wishful thinking? Wishful dread???
“2020”
He swapped places with Lester and killed him. Lester was a sack of dicks so the other cops are rolling with it.
Hilarious, if unlikely.
He’s wearing a cop’s outfit and his name-badge says Lester so he must be Lester. He runs into Amber.
Amber: You look kind of familiar. Have we met before?
Blaine: I was there and arrested your father.
Amber: Oh, yeah. Right.
Lester’s wife thinks he looks a little different. Maybe he’s lost weight.
Robostooge.
Also there they said it, he’s D-E-A-D!
Also there they said it, he’s D-E-A-D!
He was just an asshole
Fighting with a ballpeen
Never again will he be seen!
i just realized all the Walkertons are wearing blue. Not important or anything, just wanted to point it out.
Linda’s outfit looks more purple to me but I can see it. Definitely all related, unfortunately.
Does anyone remember what I have to do to get the bottom half of the strip to load?
ctrl-f5 makes some browsers reload a fresh copy of a page.
Or hold ctrl down while clicking the reload button.
If that doesn’t work CTRL/SHIFT/R forces a complete page reload in most browsers.
Amber is still good for the rest of this semester as it would have been paid for already. It’s the spring semester she would have to worry about, but by that point Richard might be part of the picture as far as financing goes.
So it wouldn’t really be an issue till fall semester next year?
Well, the spring semester hasn’t been paid for, though if Blaine was using any parent-based student loans to pay for her school that would already be awarded for the spring.
In other words, you won’t see that be an issue in this strip until 2035.
Oh, and Blaine’s divorce agreement with Stacy would still be in effect, meaning that Blaine’s estate should still have to honor it as Amber would be entitled to it.
The main risk is the government steps in and decides that because Blaine was working for the mob, all his assets can be seized under RICO.
That, of course, would require them to know he was working for the mob. Which was why Lester’s ‘keeping things opaque’ included making sure there won’t BE a lengthy criminal investigation potentially including a serious look into Blaine’s finances.
(Not that he hid it well – Stacy knew, Amber knew, Mike found out in the span of a birthday party at age 13 and I will bring that up for the rest of time because even with Mike’s Asshole Powers, that was fast work – but seeing as he survived and stayed out of jail this long, it evidently didn’t make it to the public record for the divorce or the like.)
Considering they were doing finals when this all went down, semester is pretty much over. If Blaine is still her only way into college, she’s out. But, her mom is marrying Joe’s dad, he might be able to help out, and there could be other aid available to her.
It’s only midterms. The rest makes sense, though!
We haven’t even reached Halloween, yet. We’re less than 2 months into the semester.
You know some people were saying Yuri might be part of the mob and I originally kind of blew that off, but this might add some credence to that crackpot theory. Like this kind of works out for her since she was complaining about Amber’s tuition payments “sucks this family dry”.
I’m not saying she’s responsible for Blaine’s death with the whole thing implied to be connected to Asher, but this is very convenient for her. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s involved even if only tangentially.
I thought Yuri being related to a mobster was plausible from what we knew (Faz is presumably still Korean like he was in the Walkyverse and Yuri likely would be by extension, Walkyverse Blaine was known for sleeping with his mob buddies’ daughters and on Patreon, it seemed to imply she knew about his mob activities). That said, it seems now that IF she’s related to someone in the mob, it’s probably another stooge like Blaine rather than someone with pull since it seems like she didn’t have any foreknowledge of his execution (and, as was pointed out, it’d be more likely she could find out more about his finances from other mob friends if she was related to an actual mobster).
I’m not really knowledgeable about the greater Walkyverse continuity. There’s still a very real and most likely possible chance that she’s not related to this at all, but it doesn’t change the fact that this worked in her favor from a purely financial perspective. At least when it comes to Amber’s tuition anyway.
I don’t how she actually felt about Blaine emotionally *personally I can’t imagine anyone feeling much love for such a blatantly abusive guy* and there’s potential that he was the breadwinner and Amber’s tuition payments might not cover the loss of his ill gotten income. But if you were to tell me Blaine had a life insurance policy I would believe it.
If Blaine is Faz’s biological dad, he’s been weaselling his way into her brain since she was a teenager. That would mean she’s likely been heavily groomed since then.
Yeah, I could see Yuri eventually improving or doubling down on her resentment of Amber and apparent lack of support for Faz, but either way I do feel a little sad for her. If Blaine did start preying on her when she was a teenager, he’s almost certainly the only serious romantic relationship she’s ever had. That shit fucks you up, HARD.
I would like to believe Yuri will improve without Blaine, I really would. If I had to pick parents who might change, I’d like to think it’d be her, the Siegals and maaaaybe Charles.
Nothing would make me happier, on any of those three fronts. (Gotta wonder if the next time we see the Siegals, Saul eventually recognizes that Ethan is -happy- with his sexuality in the open and starts considering that maybe finding sex actively unpleasant and something he must suffer through is in fact… maybe not so healthy? Not sure if I ping him as gay or sex-repulsed ace but either way I want better for the guy.) I’d also add in Stacy, who’s not BAD per se but not actively good the way the Saruyamas or Keeners are. I think – or at least hope – she’ll realize soon just how deep Amber’s traumas run, and that they are beyond either of them fixing quickly and easily, and start offering firmer support.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if, even if Yuri improves LATER, her initial response here is terrible. That’s realistically going to be years of therapy, and even with remarkably fast DOA growth I’d still give her a couple weeks before seeing any signs of betterness. Snap reaction after her husband ‘committed suicide’ in police custody after kidnapping the child Yuri already openly resents? That being a mess is unlikely.
Is it that common in US that a family completely depends on the father’s income or did she somehow get inside information about Amber’s financial situation?
Also, she probably knew that her kids are standing right behind her. And she just dropped a bombshell and walked away. That’s not an information you casually drop and leave your kids alone with.
She’s still friends with the Dean. He might have told her, off the record. Which she evidentially would not be honouring but it’s Linda so who would be surprised.
Telling Linda about Amber’s finances would be a gross violation of student privacy, and could get Dean Ex in a boatload of trouble.
It’s the only way I can think of that she found out about the tuition. Sal didn’t tell her – she only said her dad wanted her out of school. Unless one of them mentioned that in a statement that ended up on the news, I have no other way of seeing it, especially since she was just on the phone with the Dean. Yeah, he shouldn’t say it, but sometimes people do stuff like that in private conversations with people they know. Which would be why Linda shouldn’t blab about it but *shrugs*
I thought about it and the scenario that makes most sense for me is this:
Linda calls and wants Amber expelled.
Linda hangs up to quarrel with Joyce’s parents.
Dean is dealing with stuff but has a look into Ambers situation.
Ross gets shot.
Dean gives Linda a short notice that the situation will resolve itself.
This conservation happens.
The info about Amber’s tuition only became relevant after Ross’ death so the Dean might have told Linda about that after the shooting. Still, I really don’t like the idea of information like that being passed around.
Me neither, since the Dean is one of the more reasonable adults. They’re in short supply. But it’s all I got.
Yes, it is is common, though not so much as it used to be. Especially if Blaine insisted she be a stay-at-home mom, as well he might have.
I do wonder if Amber’s tuition is really that much of a drain on Blaine’s income, as opposed to him just being someone who gets outraged at being forced to pay for something when he doesn’t want to. And how much Yuri actually knows about family finances, since Blaine seems the controlling type wouldn’t tell her.
I strongly suspect Yuri doesn’t have access to family finances without Blaine’s express permission, on the grounds that ‘money’s tight’ and he ‘can’t have her spending it unnecessarily’ or something.
(Which may well be me projecting something from my biological grandfather the vampire onto Blaine, but… well, there’s a reason I compare them, and Blaine was complaining about paying tuition at the same time he bailed out a school shooter.)
Well, he did pay Ross’ bond (and he probably was very aware that he won’t get it back, pretty sure Ross was supposed to be the scapegoat). So he either has a lot of money or he was using money that wasn’t his. Which would explain why his organisation got rid of a useful pawn.
If it actually was his money and if it is legal and doesn’t get confiscated, Amber actually might inherit a share.
Yeah but the college is dealing with the fallout of all this right now. This definitely is a pr desaster so he probably is way too busy to illegally look up information about a student. He’s probably managing statements and interviews and coordinating and briefing staff right now. I expect the whole head department to be very busy.
We do know he was talking to Linda a little while ago though, so there was an opportunity.
Billie’s talking about optics. The last panels optics is all “I (Charles hardly counts as enough to make it ‘we’) didn’t come down here to see if the kids were ok after a kidnapping, it was all about disproportionate revenge on one on the victims who happened to be related to the kidnapper. Mission accomplished, let’s go home. Not like theirs any other reason to stay here”.
Hm I do think Linda is trying to protect her kids. Amber is the girl who stabbed her daughter after all. Not wanting your daughter to go to school with the one who crippled her most likely is the default first thought of most parents.
She doesn’t seem to be aware that her duties as a mother include caring for her kids emotions and helping them grow into an adult with their own opinion though.
Does Linda even know that Amber stabbed Sal? Her whole attack seems based on the kidnapper being Amber’s dad.
Yes:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/04-is-a-song-forever/justify-2/
The remark by Linda about “getting what we want without having to do anything” is confusing. It makes it sound like she already knew Blaine was dead (or was going to become dead), and without tuition money Amber would be forced to leave.
News feed notifications via Twitter travels fast these days.
I kinda want to kick her in the face.
To reference Shaun of the Dead: Linda has a point, even if she is being a bit of a twat
We can all hate Linda for her treatment of Sal (and Walky I guess) but if we didn’t have the attachment to Amber we did, a student who stabbed her daughter and then that student’s father kidnapped her son and murdered someone in front of him would justifiably be pretty high on the shit list.
The father thing’s not on Amber, though, and since she was ALSO a victim of the kidnapping and witness to Ross’s death (not the lethal injury, but waiting down there with the soon-to-be corpse probably isn’t all that much better) it seems… incredibly cruel to hold his actions against her. The fact that the guy who kidnapped her and six other people and escalated to impulsively murdering a man who angered him was abusive to his family isn’t exactly a huge logical leap. (And she doesn’t know any of the more recent issues between Amber and Sal, or the grades changing, which both change the justifiability of her actions SIGNIFICANTLY.)
There are several other ways she could be using her connection with the Dean to resolve this without expulsion – chief among them the same ‘leverage Res Life to get a room and hall transfer at top priority’ Sir used with Billie to ‘resolve’ the issues with Ruth as RA, especially since I don’t think either of the twins share classes with Amber. It would still be disruptive as hell to Amber and vindictive given the information she knows, but Amber’s a Bad Influence on her children, clearly. Just like Marcie is.
The father thing isn’t her fault and Linda didn’t give a shit about the stabbing until she could use it as a bludgeon against Amber. She shipped her 13 year old newly disabled daughter off to another state and didn’t talk to her except to ‘lecture her about how she was a failure’ for 5 years.
Want to know what the college staff higher-ups are really scared of? Scandals, and the lawyers that quickly follow. These students have a reasonable expectation of safety on the campus, and wow! A man wearing a costume commits a violent abduction of a half dozen students, AFTER a guest on the campus was ALSO forcibly abducted by said man’s accomplice not even a month beforehand, and they were then held against their will and witnessed a murder. Oh, and some of the other accomplices were fellow students. Students of /this school/. And it was all tweeted out to the world from a Congresswoman’s Twitter.
The Ex-Husband Dean or whatever he is might be motivated (by Linda) to try and persuade Amber to withdraw with the threat of an impending delinquent payment, but the college’s own lawyers are already drawing up settlements and NDAs. This is a nightmare, public relations wise, and could seriously impact their bottom line. (Who is going to let their children attend this school? What if they lose athletic talent?)
If they get half-way decent lawyers themselves, ain’t none of these kids paying a penny to tuition or room and board. They’ll be quietly settled with, and the college will hope that the incident is a distant memory when it comes time to recruit the freshman class of football and basketball players.
And don’t forget that some of the kidnappers were students, and were there because they were friends with the student rapist, who preyed on at least four women. Which student tried to knife at least two women – in a dorm no less – and this girl you’re trying to boot out is the only thing that stopped him from carrying out that crime.
Not a good loom for the school no matter how you cut it.
*look
Not a good “loom” actually works. In that a loom is a device for weaving sometimes disparate threads into one contiguous whole. Except that means that mistyping (or worse, autocorrect) is shaping our linguistic metaphors. And in that case “bring on the next meteor, we’re so done”.
They don’t call them meteorphors phor nothing.
Ok, try again…
[ Screams in English ]
Loom also works from the stand point of the Three Norns, those Viking women of time and fate, whose picture/tapestry is the picture of reality as each student, perfesser, and staff person is just one thread for the picture of the school. Kind of apt to use loom. Blaine O’Malley’s thread just got “snipped”.
It also suggests potential troubles looming over the school.
And the students’ help was also because, in part, Blaine promised them a shot at Amazi-Girl, who stopped them from finding rapists’ accusers whereabouts and showing up where they lived.
Because I for one would feel INCREDIBLY SAFE on a campus where a student rapist who threatened two people in front of a brightly-lit dorm entrance with a knife had friends who were willing to dox and do unknown but assuredly terrible things to his victims!
Oh, I’d forgotten that part of the Stooges’ in the plot. Yeah, but I bet they’ll start talking the second the police sit them down and lay out exactly how much Real Life trouble their entitled little asses are in, for possibly the first time in their lives. This isn’t some high school BS where mommy and daddy can make a call and it all goes away, this isn’t “boys will be boys”. This is “you are not only immediately expelled, you are going to be sentenced to prison time no matter what” trouble. One of these dumb-dumbs will roll on the others too, and tell the DA/LEO /everything/ about the stalking and the doxxing. There’s always one in a group like this. So let’s add on, what? Aggravated stalking? Menacing? Intent? There’s a long list, and a decent DA will find more. Those charges, and the years associated, stack up fast. And the DA will only be too happy to turn this into Their Case. Here’s the opportunity to expose a college board that takes such an incredibly lackadaisical approach to reported incidents of public brawls on campus, rape culture, and campus security that a half-dozen students were abducted right on campus. This will get names in the news.
The resignations and public statements of apology write themselves. If the college’s legal team didn’t already have a drinking problem, they’re about to.
I mean, they were planning to break into what they thought was the home of one of the girls who complained about Ryan to do GOD KNOWS WHAT to her before Sal stopped them. AG was smart enough to realize the girls would be in danger of doxxing and flooded wherever the little creeps were looking with fake addresses to protect them but whatever they were planning, it would’ve been bad. Joyce said three other girls came forward about Ryan so this is a serial rapist who scouts parties with roofies.
It’s a PR NIGHTMARE. I’m certain those dudes are expelled as hell. But campus legal and public safety are about to be getting questions about why unknown campus vigilantes were the ones who noticed the doxxing and kept the women who came forward safe.
This is a very real-world train of thought and I like it a lot and this is most definitely what would probably happen in real life.
Unfortunately it’s also one of the least narratively-interesting options and so it probably won’t be what happens in this fictional comic.
Alas.
“Quick, to the Bat Fax!”
Quick, to the bat fax, Stat?
Aw, it was an excellent effort, Billie. I’m proud of you.
Linda, on the other hand, is the sort of person who goes out to a restaurant and tries to get her server fired because she doesn’t like the food.
And then the restaurant catches fire days later. Concluded not to be a case of arson. Linda smiles and thinks of the next thing to complain about.
HSBDHD WOW
Wait, if Blaine is dead, doesn’t that evaporate the whole reason Linda wanted Amber out in the first place? No more psycho dads to abduct children (hopefully)
Wait Im dumb. Amber did a stab stab durrrp
Amber took the knife away from an armed assailant, and gave him free plastic surgery in order to prevent an assault, and a possible sexual assault to go with that. That is completely different from what “No-Nose” Ryan had planned bringing the knife that Amber used to cut him up.
No, no, brumagem meant how Amber stabbed Sal in the hand when they were in middle school. Linda had mentioned it in a recent strip
Moreover, the fact that Amber is STILL knife-capable, as proven by the earlier reference, actually gives some legitimacy to Linda’s concerns [within the framework of an overly sensitive, overprotective parental outlook (as in, ‘I’m worried that someone who stabbed my daughter and who is still stabbing people is around my daughter’)- though given that it’s Linda, she probably isn’t actually reacting off of that kind of emotion, and is instead likely just more peeved that someone who dared to stand against her family is not being punished more..]
I think Linda is just lumping what happened with Sal in so she has a more legitimate sounding excuse. She sure didn’t give a rat’s ass about the stab wound beforehand (to the point Sal felt the need to hide her hand behind her back last time Linda visited).
To quote:
“though given that it’s Linda, she probably isn’t actually reacting off of that kind of emotion”
As you noted, and as I was attempting to clarify above, it’s all about having a legitimate premise to excuse her actions with, even though we’re all well aware that her actual motivations are far less sincere and far less driven by concern for others.
There’s the stabbing, but it also really isn’t about her kids’ wellbeing to begin with. You can tell from all the listening to Sal and Walky that’s happened since they showed up with this plan, and all the concern when the two of them walked out rather than deal with Linda steamrolling any wishes they might have on the matter.
The threat from Blaine is not the reason that Linda wants Amber expelled. It is only her pretext. Her actual goal is to make a conspicuous display of power and spite, to augment her social status and to deter anyone from ever crossing her in any way.
It’s the same as the motive for most murders.
And manslaughters.
Spite and destructive inclinations definitely’d seem to be the two motivating factors behind every assault, battery, and attempted murder I’ve ever faced [and I’ve faced many, most all due to being poor/disabled, but also due to other minority factors]. And then I’ve basically yet to meet a single cop in any state [across Texas, Florida, and Kansas, specifically] who isn’t obsessed with making conspicious displays of how they can brush off legal restrictions and effectively do anything they want without consequence (like that one cop who openly took a bribe to illegally handle one of the attempted murders against me so that it was never prosecuted, and I was illegally arrested for it [yeah, it makes about as much rational sense as you’d expect, and the ‘illegal’ factor I’m referencing is explicitly written into Kansas law, relative to the circumstances involved] instead, thanks to that bribery. )
Humans who *feel* they can get away with anything, will seemingly take any opportunity to indulge in that belief- and, tragically, in most cases they seem to actually get away with their actions, without consequence [most visibly, among police, those with connections to the police, and those comitting white collar crimes].
I mean… at least now that she doesn’t have her dad’s income to report to financial aid, she can get better grants and loans to pay it off for next semester? fuck I hate our shitty education/exploitative financial system.
I really wish I could upvote your comment. Twice.
I haven’t been this proud of Billie in a while
Thanks, Billie! Your heart’s in the right place, and this time your head is, too.
On the upside it looks like Linda won’t do anything now. And with Joyce’s mom busy getting her ass kicked, is that it for bad future actions by bad parents, at least for a while?
Linda must’ve been doing deep research on her enemy. otherwise why the fuck would she know that?
That’s a very disturbing question. Did the Dean snitch?
She could have worked it out from Sal saying that Amber’s dad wanted her out of college that he was the one paying for it. She wouldn’t have known for certain, but considering his fucked up actions and scheme, she could still make a solid guess that part of his motivation was not wanting to pay for it.
Now that two of the undebated Top 3 are out you’re really vying for that spot, huh Linda?
She can try, still second worse to Carol.
Carol’s had more practice with more and older children. I’m sure Sal, once she’s able financially, will detach herself from her parents as Jordan did from his parents.
While he may not be paying her tuition anymore, wouldn’t Amber inherit all his wealth? Or at least half of it, accounting for Faz? And yeah, he could potentially have written her out of his will (if that is allowed by US/Indiana law), but he doesn’t really seem the person to account for himself dying early, so I rather doubt he already has one.
I’m stuck between agreeing with you that Blaine wouldn’t have bothered to make a will, and him constructing a half-assed short sighted overly complicated plan to try and ensure that NOBODY gets a single cent from him when he dies. Because Blaine.
I don’t think so… Yuri was Blaine ‘s wife… I assume that without a will she would inherit his assets.
Of course there may be legal requirements for Blaine’s estate to keep paying tuition. Or the government might seize everything because of Blaine’s association with organized crime.
Considering he was court ordered to pay for her college his estate may be on the hook.
Under Indiana law, wife gets half, kids split other half.
But are there more kids than Amber and Faz about to surface?
IANAL, but in the US you don’t have to leave your kids anything in your will except in Louisiana*. However a quick google says that generally child support and divorce settlements are legal obligations the estate must settle before distributing according to the will.
* Because there state law is based on the Napoleonic Code instead of English Common Law.
*types snide comment about how a person just DIED and Linda’s first thought was about how it changes how people will see her*
*remembers who just died*
*delete delete delete*
…. so, guess Amber’s gonna be taking out some loans now…
Not necessarily. Generally child support or a divorce settlement is like any other financial obligation and survives your death. Of course if there’s no money there, then there’s no money there.
True, but if it’s wrapped up in a legal tug-of-war between Yumi and Stacy for the next couple of years, Amber’s going to need tuition before that happens.
Plot twist: Gramps has sympathy and sets up a trust for Amber’s tuition.
Then Amazi-Girl starts getting asked a few favors in return…
Damn Billy, that was very well put! And a really nice thing to do for your quasi-siblings!
Yay Billy!
Dumbing of Age: Now that both of the WORST parents are dead, time to get back to college hijinks
Carol and Linda: No so fast! Perhaps you’ve heard of us?
God dammit Linda. I wanted to believe that you were at least being shitty for a reason, but no, you’re just a petty asshole.
aaaaaaaalpha boooooongo.
Not a trace of shame or reflection when they listen to Billie outline strategy for bullying someone the age of their children. Still, nice that Billie got through to them. She speaks their language.
Billie did a good thing.
Fuck you Linda.
And… Why does she have access to financial information?
Like yeah she fucked the dean but she’s not finance she shouldn’t have that information.
Like Amber’s mom can afford to play college tuition!
Which Linda would know how?
Amber stabbed a guy on campus, that was likely in the news, as is his parents sueing her.
She probably connected the dots that the tuition came from Amber’s dad because Sal told her that Amber’s dad was trying to get her out of college with his messed up actions. She didn’t need any specific other info to come to that conclusion.
Damnit, and Billie was working so hard to using the words they wanted to hear just to back off…
Willis, go to the dark side. You killed two bad parents off now, let’s go for number three
I would call Linda a worthless piece of shit, but that would be unfair.
Shit can be used as fertilizer, it therefore actually has value, and so it’s insulting to shit for it to be compared to Linda.
In full of reluctant fairness to Linda, she has shown some measure. When she told off Carol.
Actually, with that phrasing, you’re clarifying “it’s a piece of shit” AND “it’s worthless”. Ergo, we can determine it’s not fertilizer-grade shit. It may be toxic, infested with a pathogen or parasite, or otherwise unusable.
Thus, there should be no reason why you can’t refer to her as a worthless piece of shit, as you’ve already applied the appropriate qualifier to remove [“except when your body nourishes the earth”] from the equation. Though at the rate that parents are dying in this comic, I guess it wouldn’t be reasonable to rule out her eventually having that functionality eventually.
WHAT’S WRONG WITH THOSE TWO?! Linda cares more about appearances than the lives of other people and Charles is as spineless as Old Gil from the Simpsons! nA girl was kidnapped along with your son, and you only care that she can no longer afford college because her criminal dad died?! That’s like laughing at a rape victim, or a survivor of Tlatelolco! Agh! I hope you two burn in hell along with Blaine and Ross!
So, the twins have no choice. They will have to marry Amber.
Sadly I don’t think marrying Walkie or Sal would help, Linda is an alpha Karen who only uses the veneer of caring for her kids as an excuse to be a Karen, but the second they disagree, even slightly she will steamroll their opinions because she thinks she is right and anyone against her is wrong. Amber’s only chances that I see are if the school waives her tuition for PR purposes, Blaine was dumb enough not to leave a will thus money defaults to Amber and Yuri (maybe Faz if they can prove him as Blaine’s) or Joe’s dad decides to pick up the slack as a gesture of good will towards his future wife and step-daughter.
Good riddance to Blaine. Amber’s situation is going to be a complex one, though.
I don’t see what’s so difficult. Amber can apply for student loans. She’ll incur a mountain of debt, but she can stay in school.
Ok I hadn’t thought of that aspect… Also how does everyone know about Amber’s financial shit?! I mean she is obviously going to have it fixed by her mom or… Her boyfriend… I mean… Come on. We can’t lose Amber.
Tho… It might be best for Amber. She needs some therapy bad. She needs a mental vacation.
True, but that isn’t stopping someone else doing so. Just how badly do you want Walky to be a doctor, Mrs W, because I suspect that he’s about to start setting conditions for even pretending to make the grade.
“we get what we want without doing anything” is not a thing good people say, Linda.
Linda says a lot of things good people don’t say.
It’s almost like you can learn something about Linda from that
…is it not?
I mean, in the Present context, it’s Awful, but like as a Rule good people don’t say that? Why? Is it not…efficient not to do something if the desired outcome results of it? If you are not waiting for a Shitty thing to happen, that’s okay?
I think it’s more the fact that that statement doesn’t work when the context involves other people. Try coming up with any situation involving other people where that comment doesn’t come across as mean-spirited, regardless of how justified it may be. For example, “We wanted to overthrow the current toxic. corrupt governmental regime. And just today, Trump got hit by an elephant. We get what we want(ed) without doing anything! [Let’s just ignore the lingering issues within the political and social system for now, just like we always do.]”
I suppose you may be able to find some exceptions where the phrase is directed towards people and isn’t mean-spirited, but they seem as though they’d be a minority. Hence, as a general statement, one can interpret “we get what we want without doing anything” as, in fact, not being something good people say [towards other people].
More broadly though, yes, the phrase should be entirely fine when not directed at other people. And I’m not innocent enough to deny using it against other people, either, regardless of whether it’s mean-spirited or not. You go for it, Mr/s Elephant!
If that’s the reasoning… What might lead to that impression is how the sentence refers to something hypothetical – a broad range of things you Could have done, but Opted not to since you got what you wanted anyway.
There are many more awful things you could be doing but choose not to than good things. In General usage, it stands to reason you’d see it used more in relation to bad behavior. But the phrase itself is ethically neutral.
I have no idea what your comment has to do with the previous topic, and I’m not sure if that’s due to disconnected logic, or due to the difficulty I’m having in parsing your syntax.
But to reiterate the point, the statement, when put specifically into the context of being directed towards people, is overwhelmingly associated negatively, and may even lack a coherent neutral or positive interpretation altogether.
Thus, as with many other language structures [for example, associating ‘orgy’ with ‘sex’, despite orgy simply meaning ‘an overindulgence in’ and thereby being usable within most any context, as is proven by its regular usage with concepts such as ‘orgy of blood’], it’s entirely reasonable to make an initial association of negativity where a clarification wasn’t noted.
At present, we have an individual who made a statement that [intuitively: from their perspective] is [never | intuitively: alternatively, majoratively] acceptable within .
As I noted previously, standard reading comprehension is to interpret a standard association where one is applicable. We still have to make the assumption that the previous poster was in fact intending the context I clarified, but after that assumption is made, there’s no longer any logical basis to take issue with the statement [barring 1: subjective points and 2: proving that a significant number of neutral and/or positive readings can be made (to the point where negative interpretations are no longer dominant to the point of being intuitive), thereby making any assumption of negative association presumptive].
To encapsulate that back into a more readily interpretable form:
The phrase “I’ll cut that with this knife many times” is “ethically” neutral.
The phrase “I’ll cut that with this knife many times” is problematic when put into the context of being directed at people, when also offered with a serious demeanor.
All you gotta do is prove that it’s not problematic, and you’ve got a valid argument, but in the meantime it’s entirely reasonable for people to find the phrase dubious within a particular context, regardless of one’s ethical perceptions towards the phrase.
Ugh, no matter how much time I spend here, I’m still finding myself ambushed by this comment section’s sloppily configured formatting quirks.
To correct this section:
“At present, we have an individual who made a statement that [intuitively: from their perspective] is [never | intuitively: alternatively, majoratively] acceptable within .”
should instead be
At present, we have an individual who made a statement that (X comment) [intuitively: from their perspective] is [never | intuitively: alternatively, majoratively] acceptable within (Y context).
I merely tried to condense my point, under the assumption you’d prefer short and succinct to long and exhaustive. I have been prone to write a lot and frequently told I shouldn’t. Perhaps I should stick to what works for me instead, I may be over-correcting and leaving out too much info.
I don’t mind either method myself, though, and I thank you for your reply, I understand your point now. Thanks to paragraph six, specifically.
Understand and agree with*
Yeah, “Linda wins by doing absolutely nothing” would have played better.
I was going to water my garden but it started to rain now I get what I want without having to do anything.
Soooooooo…why the heck is Mr. Walkerton Senor even here if he’s just going to be a silent piece of cardboard.
A guess I have right now, he has to behave this way due to (perhaps unintentional) pressure from Linda. Say, maybe he is financially reliant on her, or a white spouse acts as a social coupon(ugh) he believes he needs, and going against her deep seated prejudices rocks the boat too much for him. Look at the line under his eye – he always looks like he’s ticked out, or stressed, if I interpret that correctly.
The story needed a parent who holds the color of their kids’ skin against them. So they either needed the other parent the skin color was inherited from Fighting, or Already Separated, or a Pushover.
I don’t think he is happy with everything he has become complicit in, but I get the impression the dude doesn’t feel like he has much of a choice.
Charles is basically Linda’s pet black person. Is there a better way of explaining this?
There are ways that do not make you throw up in your mouth > .<
Because he loves his children even if his ability to do anything to show it besides showing up and existing is completely non-existent when his wife also exists and he is completely unwilling to put in the effort that it would require to ever disagree with her or act as if he was an actual parent.
He exists in stark contrast to Hank. Hank chose not to standby as his wife did what he saw as the wrong thing and had a lot of arguments with his wife on behalf of their children in the background, he would rather lose his marriage than his kids. His role as a parent is very important to him.
Charles meanwhile puts the stability of his marriage above his children by refusing to ever engage in an argument or stand up for his kids. We saw him comfort Sal when they were at the hospital because Marcie was hurt. But his daughter crying because of an argument with Linda? That’s fine, gonna ignore that. He’s a parent in name only. I mean, literally look at this strip, talking to Billie and getting her to convince Linda, was seen as more practical than talking to their dad alone for five minutes.
I hope he makes like Hank and uncouples from his wife.
Well they sure learned of Blaine’s death quickly, considering it happened WHILE they were having this conversation…
J’ACCUSE!
Curse you cell phone in Linda’s hand.
CRAP I FORGOT ACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES
Now that the two worst DoA parents are dead, Linda’s doing her best to try for the top spot, but she’s got a lot of strong competition.
Carol’s ahead by several lengths
But Linda is trying harder
Going worst-case where Amber doesn’t get any inheritance from Blaine, I still don’t think she’ll have to leave school. While she would not be able to pay tuition directly, the loss of her father’s income changes the calculation for financial aid considerably, opening up more grants and loans.
. . .
Walky’s mom is an even bigger bongo than I expected
Wow okay Linda, holy hell.
Also I’m sure Dr Rosenthal will pay it if it comes to it….. hopefully
I’m convinced he has money stashed away that Amber will accidently inherit. Like, his wife and son seemed to think they were on the brink of homelessness without him and couldn’t pay for a relatively cheap collage but he could put down the cash for toe dads bail when a bunch of employed adults at the church couldn’t?
Dude totally has lots of money stashed away he kept hidden from his wife.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he was just a cheap bastard holding out on his family and that he really could afford to pay for his kids college.
Possibly a combo of being cheap/being prideful and mad about being wrong about Amber deciding to go to college/ not wanting the fact that he CAN pay to tip off his wife about him having more money than he lets her know about.
I’m sure Blaine had two sets of books. One he showed his wife and the government, another he showed his boss. How much Yuri actually knows (if she is in fact connected to a mob family) is yet to be seen.
Unless he was literally burying cash in mason jars the back yard, the mob’s taking what’s theirs.
are all these scenes of people reacting to blaine’s death gonna lead to everyone gathering around amber for a big Friendship Group Hug and amber having some kind of emotional breakthrough and getting to feel nice for five minutes?
No.
The Social Marketplace of Ideas™
I don’t get it. What about Leslie’s and Amber’s inheritances? If their parents die, they inherit everything, right? So if they sell all the stuff, it should help them pay for college. But no one even mentios it.
Leslie? The gender studies teacher?
(Terrible) Plot twist: Leslie was after Becky’s inheritance all along. So much for her statement that she was one of the adults who could be trusted!
Google says standard delay before beneficiaries start receiving inheritance payouts is 6 to 9 months, and it implies that’s after initial legal processes are completed, which- by having seen the delays on similar legal engagements before- I’m assuming can take up to 3 months.
Though yeah, there’s a big difference between “gone for a semester or two” and “gone forever”, so it’s still a rather extreme judgement on their part, unless they’re planning on pulling their own kids out after the same period.
In the meantime, though, there’s definitely reason for them to expect Amber to not have funds available.. though that’s due to them not factoring in Amber’s mother (or dismissing her) or, more notably, Stacy’s very well-off and (from what we’ve seen so far) well-intentioned-towards-her-daughter boyfriend.
In short, Walky’s parents are kinda simple in their thought processes. Not that we hadn’t already had plenty of opportunities to realize that in previous engagements..
Hell, I’ve seen family members with relatively simple estates take dramatically longer than three months. (Though there’s usually been a factor like ‘the house needed radical overhaul before it was fit to be sold’ or ‘he died a week into this year and got a pandemic stimulus check deposited, and with the pandemic it’s a royal nightmare to get ahold of the IRS’.)
Sorry, I was thinking “up to 3 months under normal/ideal circumstances”, I wasn’t intending that as a proper cap. Obviously, the only thing that can really reliably bring a legal matter to an end is a statute of limitations [where applicable], and even that can sometimes have workarounds. So.. yeah.
Just meant that getting through the basic legal process usually takes a couple of months alone. If there’s also a half year or more on the actual estate allocation, then… that’s not really money you can rely on, unless you can find someone willing to put out a loan against the estate’s value.
Depends if Blaine left a will, and if so what it says.
It would be very on-brand for him to not only not leave anything to Amber, but to point out in the will itself that it’s because he doesn’t think she deserves it.
His estate may still be required to pay out to Amber due to his legally required child support regardless of what he wanted though.
Agreed. Yuri probably inherits everything by default as his current spouse, but paying for Amber to go to college was a legal agreement between Blaine and Stacy. Where it goes from here depends on how that contract was written up. Maybe the balance gets paid to the school, maybe it goes through a trust, maybe Yuri is legally obligated to continue paying.
Any way, you know she’s going to fight it tooth and nail.
She does not inherit everything by default. She inherits half by default. Look t up.i
Hence the “probably” indicating uncertainty, jeez.
Blaine is married to Yuri so in most cases she would get everything. It’s possible the courts might decide Amber should something because of the alimony agreement (I ain’t an expert in Indiana estate law), but the major things are that Blaine can’t keep getting mob paychecks if he’s dead and Yuri’s comment that Amber’s tuition “sucks this family dry”. There may be nothing left for anyone.
I believe Amber’s tuition is in lieu of alimony, so it would probably qualify as a divorce settlement, which gets paid out of the estate before anything distributes. Either way, I suspect nearly all of Blaine’s liquid assets are tied up in mob-related things, so I think you’re right that there will be nothing left–except perhaps his and Yuri’s marital home, and I don’t know the nitty-gritties of estate law enough to know whether that could be exempted from the obligation to take out the divorce settlement first.
We know Blaine made this tuition deal with the court, thinking Amber wouldn’t go. A court, naturally, would have assumed she would go, and would NOT have approved this agreement if it was totally inequitable, even if both parties consented. In all likelihood, the court probably agreed with a cap–maybe “he will pay the equivalent tuition of [state school tuition],” which would be a fairly reasonable standard–to avoid vagueness. My point is that I would not be shocked if all of Blaine’s liquid assets are tied up, which would explain why the courts thought he could fairly afford college but in practice Yuri thinks they’re being sucked dry.
Yuri just might think the tution sucks them dry because she couldn’t afford a third car.
Becky’s could be being left to the church.
Not necessarily. In order for that to happen, Ross would have had to leave a will specifying that Becky gets nothing. (Because he was a widower and she’s his daughter, she should be first in line by default.) I don’t think he would have done that if he had the will written up before Becky came out. He would have had to update it sometime after she ran away from Anderson.
(Well, first in line after creditors, anyway. If the house still has a mortgage, or if Ross had credit card debt or outstanding loans, the bank will want those paid off.)
There are no words to describe how much I dislike Linda and Charles.
My mind just wants to combine those first two panels into one..
Billie: “And I know bad optics.” :adjusts glasses:
I imagine Joe’s dad will help out with tuition. Hopefully, THAT doesn’t end badly…
Leave it to Linda to ruin being happy about Blaine dying.
Linda is not *the* most awful person in this storyline, but goddamn if she isn’t making a strong attempt at bronze.
Linda really is an awful person.
Of course Billie knows the social marketplace. I have just been reliably informed that she’s Miss Social.
That’s where she stocked up on social. It was on sale, too.
What was Billie’s major in again? Because girl, you have a promising future ahead of you in PR!
Journalism, but I’m starting to think Becky should recruit her as a junior campaign intern
Ambers tuition is in the nature of “ will spider-man escape The Green Goblin”. It will get resolved in short order. IRL, it might hang over her head for four years, but we’ll all be dead by then. Evil parents all ultimately fail. Though Linda is likely to survive the experience. Ambers tuition is a loose end that DYW will fix but that he had to note and plan for. So there’s plot coming on that but not much suspense.
Time to head back to the Carol. Hank. Joyce plotline, where the outcome is in doubt.
Billie, Alpha bongo Emeritus, is actually doing some good here, and is very composed, even considering how close she is to the Walkerton parents.
Little by little we see some of the better parts of her. Nice storytelling by Willis.
OMG, I actually used the word which gets turned into “boingo”, for the first time here. (Not that I use it often elsewhere.)
I always type the word “bongo” per se, and very seldom use the word it replaces except when talking to dog breeders.
While I like all the speculation about Amber’s tuition, the point here is that Walky and Sal (and Billie) get to see what a monster Linda is. Sal was pretty aware but this is new to Walky. And this cuts Billie to the bone too. She now knows that Linda would drop her like a hot rock if it served her purposes. Walky thought he had a mom but finds he was raised by a sociopath. Time for him to step up if he doesn’t want to end up like Charles.
Linda will get what she wants from Walky or he will pay.
Time for Walky to stand up to his mother again, no ducking out this time. Her callous attitude against Amber will not stand.
I could understand callous but for better or worse the person who actually was a threat to Linda’s children is dead, bit she is still out for the blood of another victim.
Given how ready Billie was to manipulate her, I’d say Billie already had a pretty good idea.
So its canon now?? *RUNS IN CIRCLES SPRAYING CHAMPAGNE* GGGGGGGGGGGGOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLL
I can’t wait for Linda’s facecrack when she learns that Amber has a rich stepdad to be.
Blaine finally figured out how to get out of child support.
It was worth it.
How does Linda know who was paying for Amber’s tuition? she could be on a scholarship for all she knows.
oh shiiiiit
I completely forgot that asshole was responsible for paying for Amber’s tuition
Oh Linda, dedicated to the principle of not learning from one’s mistakes. Determined to not fall behind Carol in that respect, eh? If terrible people were prone to self-reflection, this world would be a better place.
We had a “worst dads” team-up, maybe next is a “worst moms” showdown?
I’m pretty sure Carol’s got a lock on that, but Linda’s determined to make a showing.
God, this chapter is really just the “Carol and Linda suck” showcase, huh. I swear, ALL I want is Walky and Joyce severing ties with their mothers (possibly after some well-deserved screaming fits)!
Please, Willis, I have been SO GOOD.
Blaine was a monster that deserved what he got but… rejoicing at the death of a person they didn’t know because it will hurt a person they don’t like… that’s a different kind of monstrous.
Careful, Linda. The DoA rule seems to have shifted from “no major character deaths” to “only bad parents die.”
It’s like Marineford, all bets are off now
ffs, Linda.
So I know it’s a comic and things are exaggerated for emphasis or comedic effect, but Amber’s a genius, right? Like from what I’ve seen she would be. So I don’t WANT her to have to stop going to uni but she could probably knows/ could teach herself enough programming to start working freelance and then build enough credibility to get more permanent positions, or even potentially start her own company. I don’t think that has any narrative value so I can’t see it happening, but IRL it would definitely be a possibility.
I’m actually kind of sorry to see Blaine go, not because I think he’s a good person at all, but simply because he was a great villain to hate. Also, he rocked the supervillain get up, specially with how he was drawn in it.
So….can Linda walk outside and be run over by a truck please?
So… The twins’ parents are just plain Bad People without aliens to revenge-slaughter, hunh?
As Dan Shive might say, “OH SNAP!”
Oh. I meant Becky, obviously. Sorry about that.
And yes, I forgot about Yuri. So many people in this comic …