Chapter: Chapter 9: Forsaking All Others
Breaking out ALL the text bubbles after a mostly-silent chapter… to good effect, I hope.
Thank you everyone who’s agonizing along with me for this!! It’s good to finally have company!!
—
TRANSCRIPT
Panels 1-3 (Jonathan being hit with a pillow from various angles)
Imogen, off-panel: I- read- your- MESSAGES!
Panel 4 (Imogen winding up to hit Jonathan again as he defends himself)
Imogen: Who is she?!
Jonathan: Wh- you read my texts? What the hell, Ginny? You’re going through my phone now?
Panel 5 (Imogen clutches the pillow to her chest)
Imogen: I’m – I’m sorry! I had to!! How could you-
Panel 6 (close-up of Imogen, crying)
Imogen: How could you?!
Why did she say sorry? He shouldn’t have been texting those other people in the first place.
It’s a very natural reaction from people who have been gaslit or undermined most of their lives. They’re convinced that they HAVE to apologize even when rationally they don’t have to. I’m an individual who does this and I’m sure many others here are as well.
I think its instinctual for many people, to impulsively say “im sorry” when someone gets mad at you for something, but you can see her pushing through and being like “wait… but I had a good reason to so shut up cause you’re the a**hole here”. Or at least I hope she continues to push through and remember he is a bad guy and get out asap. I hope next comic doesn’t have him making her think its her fault.
I KNEW this mfer would immediately turn it on her!! UGH abusive men are so predictable I can’t wait until Imogen escapes this creep and has a happily ever after. <3
I don’t think he’s gonna be able to bullshit his way outta this one.
If she didn’t go through his phone, he wouldn’t have said anything. He would have just let her keep raising his kids and blocking any means of financial independence/personal development she brought up.
Yessss Imogen, hit him like he deserves. This is so cathartic to see!
Sadly, if things are going to go in the direction I’m assuming, that feeling won’t last long. There is going to be a very frustratingly painful display of an abusive, manipulative, gaslighting, narcissistic assclown of a manchild in the many pages/chapters to come.
I was hoping this was the part where it would turn into a true crime Thema and Louise thriller but we can’t have everything we want in life. He’s lucky it’s just a pillow after three kids.
Four actually
Lucas isn’t technically his.
Of course he’s going to try to spin this into how could she read his texts, which, while not an act I’d want my own partners doing, comes after not only him cheating but after him both controlling and lying about household finances and access to the account that holds those finances that Imogen’s reliant on, and depending on if his cheating has been physical and how long it’s been going on, possibly putting Imogen’s own physical health at risk.
But he’s gonna try to spin it into it being a bigger problem that she doesn’t trust him anymore than it is that he keeps betraying the trust she had in him.
I’m so very torn about this arc now. On one hand a partner cheating is a very relatable and common thing people go through. I just feel like it’s the easy way out of this.
We know that Alexis and Imogen end up together, it was the whole reason this comic started. I was expecting Imogen and Alexis to slowly develop feelings for each other (Alexis has already started to), and for Imogen to have to navigate what that means for her family and current relationship. I feel like the woman who discovers she’s actually a lesbian, despite spending her whole life telling herself otherwise and spending lots of effort to prove it to herself, would have made for a much more relatable and dramatic story. I think it’s a much more common scenario for late in life lesbians to discover themselves this way. I also think that it would have made for a more interesting plot development as she has to navigate a separation where nobody is really at fault.
Now it’s like a “get out of relationship free” card has been played. Jonathan is now a villain that no one needs to feel any respect for, and Imogen is free to explore how she feels about Alexis with almost no repercussions, except the ones she might make for herself. I feel like it makes he rest of the story arcs after this too easy and consequence free.
He probably never thought she’d ever figure it out because he had her pigeonholed as cute fluffy and dependable but dumb…sort of like a poodle as in not totally braindead but unable to figure out anything considered complicated ……..and eventually she was convinced of that (some of it seems to be self-esteem issues too)
It’s a thing among full-figured women in past generations ….
ya. kill him with that pillow
On the ‘Characters’ page, the first sentence of Imogen’s Bio starts with “Imogen – never Ginny – is a stay -at-home mom”… I noticed the week before last that Imogen is in Jonathan’s phone as “Ginny Dawson” and this week he calls her Ginny. Is she ‘never Ginny’ BECAUSE Jonathan called her that, or is he just that disconnected from her that he doesn’t realize she doesn’t like the nickname and she never corrects him?
I love that you caught that. 😀
This absolutely freaking hurts to watch.
blubbering
wondering the same thing!