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David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 7d
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(he/him)
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New game! BOLTED
It’s FINE, Tree Law doesn’t apply to rich, (half-)WHITE people
Tree law is the only law that does.
See, the Onceler though the same thing, until the Lorax led a class action lawsuit against him on behalf of all the swome-swans, the humming fish, and the brown barbaloots.
… I don’t suppose the Billingsworths got rich selling people Thneeds?
… this reminds me of a story that, while true and while tragic, is also morbidly hilarious.
Many years ago, I was visiting the town where I grew up. As I was driving somewhere with my parents, I noted some police tape attached to some trees in the forest, so I asked what happened.
Apparently a student was driving on slick roads. A possum ran out onto the road. The student swerved to avoid the possum, flipped their car several times, and smashed their car into a tree. The student died due to the resulting injuries before medical help arrived.
I was like “oh, that’s awful” – and then paused. How, I asked, did they know the reason the student swerved. Was there someone else in the car who survived? Was there some witness to events?
No, was the reply. They know the student was avoiding a possum because they autopsies the possum for time of death.
That gave me pause.
They autopsied the possum. For time of death.
The coroner, as part of an official investigation, autopsied a possum.
And, as absurd as that was, there was one more realization that came with this.
This student swerved hard enough to flip their car and kill themselves via tree… and still hit the possum they died trying to avoid.
How utterly absurd – like, the philosophical concept of absurd style absurd.
Such is the absurd comedy and horror of tree law.
That’s … awful. I also don’t understand how tree law applies. The driver was dead: they certainly couldn’t punish them for damage to the tree, assuming there was any. I can understand an investigation into cause of death, maybe into whether the car manufacturer was at fault for some kind of mechanical failure, but … tree law?
Tree law says that if you smash into a tree at a high velocity, odds are the tree comes out better than you will.
I think that I (in a car, with seat belts and air bags) would fair better than a 6″ bonsai tree.
… but it’d still be a risk to myself and my car and my license, and I don’t really have anything against bonsai trees, and I’d have to be pretty drunk for the ability to shout “Banzai!” as I rammed it to seem like a benefit equal to the costs, and that would entail additional knock-in risks to my license. So, pass.
Apparently a student was driving way too fast and likely drunk on slick roads.
I grew up in a small town. They bury drunk students and don’t ever talk about the drinking.
My junior year we lost Todd, a promising sax player and Junior Prom Knight, after he went to the “After SADD” party and subsequently died of a broken neck when his z28 went off the road, slid 140 feet and side impacted a tree. He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt and broke his neck getting tossed into the backseat of his Z28. Meant it was an open casket funeral. Seat belt wouldn’t have been able to save him. Both bumpers were touching, and the tree was in the center console(pre airbags and side impact crash testing). No reason was found for why he went off the road. I saw the car about a week afterwards when I found out where it was towed to.
In deference to the prominent family he was adopted into no toxicology report was done because everyone knew it was alcohol related. With no toxicology report it didn’t go in the newspaper article. Later there was a huge shitstorm when someone, I can’t remember who, proposed displaying the car at the school. I think it should have been done a year later, after Todd’s class graduated. Later when it could have had a ‘good’ impact on bringing the problem up without attacking anyone and starkly showing the potential consequences.
My empathic heart is crying for the human and the opossum, meanwhile my absurdist brain is chuckling.
Pretty sure all they need to get a time of death is liver temp—of the human. The opossum would cool to ambience too fast to be useful.
The possum time of death was to see if it was killed in that wreck or by a previous car.
They also had to get the student’s ToD.
Apparently the ToDs matched, hence the authorities deciding that it was an attempt to avoid the possum.
This could be a Discordian koan
Or, unfortunately, to Hollywood production conglomerates. Just a $250 fine against NBCUniversal? Really?
Can see where walky gets it from a bit more here…
Including his bisexuality apparently.
i know ppl aren’t the biggest fan of charles, if only b/c he’s married to linda but i suppose everyone being a little bit lgbt is good. (plot twist/game theory: anyoen fully cishet tends to be villainous /shot jk)
Well…. only a Sith deals in absolutes, which being *fully* cishet is.
Sithet
Man, I wish being cishet gave me evil mind powers.
Being evil is not nice.
Perhaps. Being attracted, and noticing that someone would be attractive if you were into that, are two separate things. Charles may be simply observing, in a roundabout way, “I see why this guy caught Jennifer’s eye.” Or even “I wish I looked that good.” People are complicated.
I do not think that’s what that face is, or that Linda would have reacted with an admonishing “Charles!” if he were supposed to be expressing “I see why that guy got Jennifer’s attention” or “I wish I looked that good”, but YMMV.
This is why I mark myself (when I do) as a Kinsey 1 rather than a 0. Would I ever…? Probably not, but I take note, and don’t mind saying so.
I can’t recall what Walky did bisexually
Nothing direct, but he’s shown appreciation for some of the guys (Jacob I think?) much like Charles is doing here.
He also joked about being willing to blow guys for free pizza.
I haven’t personally observed a correlation between making those kinds of comments/jokes, and engaging in or expressing earnest desire for homosexual sex.
What is tree law?
I forget. There’s some law of physics that applies when you drive your car into a tree. Named after Asa Gray, I think, but I’m not sure.
Tree Law is a real thing. Many a rich person has run a-foul of it thinking they can just cut down any tree they want to.
Here’s an article from Atlas Obscura:
It’s complicated and I’m not a lawyer but basically you can’t just cut down whatever tree you want. It’s serious business that can cost you a small or large fortune.
Yeah, given trees take decades, sometimes even a century or more, to reach full size, produce fruit, etc, they can be a serious money and time investment, and there are laws in various places about conduct regarding them.
I wish I had know this a few years ago, when our neighbors were trying to convince us to cut down our huge old oak tree that happened to overhang their roof. And also because they wanted more sun. But we had it regularly pruned and inspected. I still resent them asking us to cut it down.
Basically, imagine how much money you would have to pay someone who owns a huge tree to let you dig it up and go plant it somewhere else.
Now imagine how much it would cost to physically dig up a huge tree with a huge root system and transport it across normal roads to the new location
Now imagine you legally have to pay for all that to replace your neighbor’s huge tree that your dumb ass decided to cut down.
TREE LAW! TREE LAW! TREE LAW!
Yesssss! Summon the lawyer of the trees!
… The Lorax?
Lawrax.
Unfrozen Cave Man Tree Lawyer!
Law that applies specifically to what you can and can’t do with trees.
Like for example who’s allowed to get one cut down, or pruned, what you can do about roots growing into your yard. Its not a simple as “Its growing into my yard so I can lop those bits off.”
Basically, let’s say your neighbour has this annoying tree line next to your house that keeps covering your lawn with leaves.
You may legally cut off branches that overhang into your property.
But you can’t legally go and cut down their trees, if you do, you will be fully expected to compensate your neighbour to replace their trees and full grown trees are EXPENSIVE and sometimes, outright irreplaceable.
You may even be charged 3 times the actual cost of said trees, for reasons I can’t exactly remember, but it may be due to tree age, emotional damages, and just to tell you to screw off for cutting down someone’s trees.
Unlike other property in a garden that may be damaged and destroyed like a mailbox or a cheap fence, trees are worth a LOT of money so the punishments can be very severe for what you may typically just think of as a tree. But it turns out, people are very protective of their OWN PERSONAL trees and will get MAD as heck if you touch them.
Can’t charge me if the branch falls on my head and kills me. Checkmate, neighbor.
Sure you can be charged! … if it takes you long enough to die from it.
NO MATTER HOW BAD THE SCENARIO, TREE LAW CAN MAKE IT WORSE!
The 3 times cost is called Treble Damages and varies from state to state. Sometimes it’s because the tree is an endangered species or otherwise protected, sometimes it’s because there was clear malicious intent and the court wants to stick an extra “fuck you” on for being a dick.
Treble Damages is what happens when you roll a Nat 1.
Nature is Number 1 and has charged you three times for your crimes against trees. Don’t mess with trees.
Yeah, if you cut down, say, a 150 year old tree, you can’t exactly nip off down to Home Depot to buy another 150 year old tree to replace it. Treble damages for something like that would almost certainly go well into six figures.
Also in some states, you can’t even touch the branches overhanging your yard; if anything, the neighbor is responsible. (In Oregon, for example, you cannot touch any part of a fruit tree that’s growing on your neighbor’s property, not even the parts growing into your yard.)
I mean, if you get to pick the fruit that grows on your side, that sounds like a sweet deal to me.
You generally don’t get to; but if nature blows the fruit off the branches and it drops onto your land, you could get a real windfall
Depends on the tree.
If it was an avocado tree, that wouldn’t be a sweet deal. It would be more of a sorta nutty/buttery/creamy deal instead.
maybe it’s similar to bird law 8D https://vocaloidlyrics.fandom.com/wiki/%E5%AD%94%E9%9B%80_(Kujaku)
huh, wrong link lol
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gM5DBHb1GV0&ab_channel=FXNetworks
It’s the thing you have to do for four years before you can study law. See also tree med.
it is a meme on Twotter
–Dave, precisely because it is a very real and usually unexpected Thing
eh, i’ll leave that one
–Dave, damn keyboards putting uio all next to each other
ps; and putting the never-to-be-sufficiently-damned CAPS LOCK key right next to the _a_
It trended on Twitter when one of the studios cut all the branches of the trees providing shade to actors protesting during the strike.
They were public property but the fine didn’t amount to much.
I am so tired
Of her fucking
DOUBLE STANDARDS!!!
Do not fuck double standards.
In fact, you should try to avoid fucking single standards too.
It’s my flag and I’ll fuck it if I want to.
Fucking a pair of battle standards is kinda metal, ngl.
She’s really displaying her double standards here, isn’t she? So blatant. Jennifer can do no wrong, even when she has, and Sal can do no right and gets no quarter, even when she’s trying to be kind and helpful. So effed up.
I wish the Walkertons would go away forever now. That’s even with Charles trying to charm us with his knowledge of tree law.
Eh I’d be more impressed if he broke down bird law.
I’m just wondering, what kind of event is necessary for them to learn to use neurons correctly for the first time in their lives?
i can see the ‘walky-ness’ of this, maybe linda and him got married bc no one else would tolerate this side of him lol
Is mister Walkerton having an… appreciation of the male form something that’s been established before?
I don’t think so.
I mean you can realise someone is hot without finding them sexually attractive personally.
…no. I mean, if you know someone else’s taste very well, you can tell if that person will find someone hot; but nobody is objectively hot.
Eh- there are definitely folks we can point at and go “most people who are into this gender of person will find this one hot”. Kinda like spicy food- yes, any given spicy dish will have some people to whom it’s not all that spicy, but we can still say “this food is spicy”.
Eh. That implies more of a shared type than I think actually exists. There are CONVENTIONALLY attractive people, and even that convention varies from culture to culture, age group to age group.
Charles x Hank shipping intensifies
this is the only plot direction I can think of that would make me genuinely interested in these parents, but it would also turn DOA into at least partially a slice of life dramedy about *old people* making dumb mistakes.
But I want it. imagine the drama. Imagine Hank’s agonizing. Imagine how Joyce and Becky will be affected in their own ways by the realization that their dad (surrogate, in Becky’s case) is maybe bi. Imagine how bad it would mess with Hank! Imagine how it could be a symbol of how sexuality can be something fluid and ill-understood even for someone who thinks they’ve got it figured out–mirroring Dorothy’s and Joyce’s own confused romantic tension. Hank would have to go through many of the same journeys that Joyce has!
I think whatever hesitations Joyce would have about it would evaporate the second she realizes that her and Sal could potentially be sisters (she is choosing to ignore how Walky factors into this)
i don’t think we’ve rly seen any of hte parents mentioning/showing signs of that , other than like joe’s dad flirting with ambers mom but not any other parents implying that another chara is attractive otherwise
“flirting with”
–Dave, I’m pretty sure there was a closet that needed disinfecting afterwards
Fellas, is it gay to wolf-whistle about your pseudo-daughter’s boyfriend who helped your daughter to rob a convenience store when she was 13?
oh thank fuck we didn’t have to watch them not eat
I’m sure Charles would eat
Charles eating is what led to the twins being conceived. We don’t need to know about any other meals he has.
Insert “Whoa, he’s bisexual, I didn’t know that!” Sonic meme.
You know a guy can admit another guy is hot without being sexually attracted right?
You made that up.
You underestimate the Sonic fandom
It does not follow.
same way I, as a Kinsey6 man, can admit a woman is hot, or that she’s got an extremely attractive combination of clothing on, without being one iota sexually attracted
–Dave, it’s just that US guy culture makes it a deadly sin to admit you can even NOTICE another guy is hhhhot, that makes you “gaaaaY’ and inferior forevermore for any straight guy that heard you
ps: the Puritans have a _lot_ to answer for
Willis drew lust starved eyes of a hungry sin wolf on his faaaaace tho
Willis can art all forms of hu-man sexuality
What does “hot” mean to you?
Particularly good-looking. I don’t wanna fuck Andrew Garfield, but I can still admit he’s a total babe.
You know that when a guy’s wife reacts to him “admitting” another guy is hot with an admonishing “!”, that implies the first guy’s tone was not one of neutral commentary, right?
*admonishing “[NAME]!”
*I had it in angle brackets before
For sure! I can describe people as “hot” and I’m pretty sure I’m asexual; I’m certainly not sexually attracted to everyone I say is “hot.” Also, it’d would be kinda weird to mean the comment in that way about an 18/19 year old, someone the same age as his kids.
Charles is bi, though. Like father, like son.
See I think that may be a learned usage of “hot”. When you’re not actually attracted to anyone but you still wanna contribute to Typical Friend Conversations about which celebrities are most attractive, I think you learn to say “hot” even though what you really mean is something more like “this actor has a conventionally pleasing set of facial features”.
idk, as a gray ace Gay, I definitely learned to use that kind of language to describe people I wasn’t attracted to. But I think when allo people say “xyz is hot”, they mean something different by it.
I don’t know, I also think people who are allo describe people as hot without indicating sexual attraction at times. I know when I was in high school, it didn’t seem uncommon for girls to describe their friends as hot, whether in a “meets conventional beauty standards” way or in a hyping them up way. Now, how many of those girls continued to identify as straight (and female, for that matter) into adulthood? Hard to say, lot of people I knew back in the day turned out to be queer. (Not the girl I anguished over my senior year, though.)
But also, sometimes I will spontaneously describe someone as “hot” and what I mean is I enjoy looking at them, but whatever attraction it is isn’t necessarily sexual attraction.
I mean. Okay, I’m not the arbiter of words by any stretch of the imagination, and if enough people use hot as a synonym for good-looking instead of a synonym for sexy, then that’s what it means, at least to some people.
But also, Straight Cis Girl Culture is. Very particular. I definitely definitely struggled all through middle and high school to imitate the specific set of what felt like Very Gay behaviors that were required to pass as a Normal Straight Girl, without crossing what was to me an invisible line into Actually Just Being a Giant Lesbian.
Like, Straight Cis Men are more famously policed. We all know that there’s a strain of homophobia there that kinda pathologizes platonic affection and that’s painful and crappy and isolating. But Straight Cis Women definitely also have a lot of policing going on, and it can be. Very confusing and just as alienating in its own way, imho.
I mean, yeah, I do? Still A. way funnier, and B. does not come off like him just making an idle observation, particularly with Linda’s reaction to it.
Back in 1907
Ok Charles you may know more about tree law but let’s go toe to toe on bird law and see who comes out on top. I am talking about me not Linda, Linda doesn’t know tree or bird law she’s nor cool enough for it.
Are you wearing fake hands?
Yes Linda, of course, “your fantastic and exemplary girl” Jennifer “knows” exactly what she is doing
“last year” rly puts things into perspective, even without all the ruth business, but i’m sure if jennifer was consistently ‘wild’ with the drinking i’m sure they would’ve told sal/walky to stay away from jen
I am cock-sure that, if Linda knew about the Ruth situation, she’d be trying to get Ruth expelled.
I’m not. They’ll make excuses for her that they wouldn’t make for their own kids. She was head cheerleader after all.
That said, while she certainly was consistently wild with the drinking, she probably kept it quiet enough they didn’t know about it until the crash.
“Jennifer always knows what she’s doing” is the real punchline here. Not just to this strip, but to the entirety of DoA.
Could honestly end the whole series on that joke and it would still be satisfying
Well, that’s some of my questions from yesterday answered!
(I was really curious about how Charles felt about tree law.)
Me too!
I’m honestly impressed at how daft she can be regarding her children. Even the one she took under her wing, the woman just doesnt know them at all
Nope, to know them would in a away would force Linda to acknowledge her own oversights ( ex overlooking Walky not being the genius in all things, Sals loyalty to raise money and stick by her friends being her motivation for robbing etc). So far all instances point towards Linda being fundamentally unable to acknowledge any fault on her end.
And Sal is the designated scapegoat of the family who we can blame for all things. So therefor, everyone else gets to be in the right. I know how that works.
Some would argue it’s the only law that truly matters.
hoom hom
My god he’s just old Walky but even grosser and dumber. Grow up! Linda actually was making some sense there for a minute, these are important topics that deserve thought. It wouldn’t hurt to ask Jennifer (without Asher around) to see what she knows and give her a heads up.
Linda did raise a fair concern. It’s a shame she’s so terrible that it undermines the rare moments of her actually acting like a slightly acceptable parent.
guess the ygot married young before charles had a chance for ‘character growth’ and his own arc in college
tho ppl do say ppl don’t grow out of a high school emntality
I’m not sure it’s entirely the fault of Charles finding Asher hot that Linda immediately decides that Jennifer can’t possibly be making a mistake, because mistakes simply isn’t a thing Jennifer can do.
It’s really interesting narratively how Charles is similar to Walky before the latter’s character development. It’s like a look into Walky’s future where he never evolves and stays the irresponsible manchild he was in Book 1
Who among us hasn’t drunk drove a car into a tree at prom?
That would have involved going to prom in the first place.
It’s the American tradition! Rent a tux/fancy dress, dance badly, get hammered, wrap an Impreza around an elm!
Retroactively, that’s why I didn’t go.
I had several other reasons.
also, I read the original question as “drunk drove a tree into a car”, which would be… interesting.
Oh so that was Sal’s mistake. Shoulda held up that store after prom.
….
Something about their relationship is reminding me of old Joyce and Walky from the Roomiesverse.
You too?
Oh.
Oh God, no.
Ok wow, this is by far the most interesting comment in a hot minute? I absolutely love the fact that…you’re absolutely right, it’s a more willingly one dimensional walky that should know better who’s married to a very headstrong “I know best and I’m going to gently chastise you for needing to be told what to do 24/7” lady. I absolutely love the accidental meta implications of the shitty mistakes of your parents and the previous generation being a xerox of the previous comic
See, I’m reminded of an amoral Walky and Dorothy…but Walkyverse Joyce and Walky all screwed up fits too.
I was… I was joking about Charles dating Asher yesterday…
Or so you thought!
Yeah you got dodgeballd’ pretty hard.
lol, not saying it’s ideal (tho i suppose if it’s all consensual i guess some ppl would overlook it) tho makes me wonder how many ppl ashers age are ‘dating’ some ppl charles/linda’s age as like a sugar daddy arrangement, gotta pay tuition somehow
TREE LAW
Enforced by crack Druid SWAT Teams.
TREE LAW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Also what the HECK do you mean “Jennifer always knows what she’s doing”
Also TREE LAW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And there it is. Cut and dry. Hey linda she had to move dorms. For some really exciting reasons. Alright fair enough, you prolly aint been told any of that, what with the not her actual legal mom, and Jennifers… Jennifering.
But you know about the DUI huh? The DUI? The thing that could have hurt someone? Killed someone? Sal was younger then Jennifer was when SHE got in trouble, Linda.
I wonder. I wonder what the difference is, Linda. It’s skin tone it’s skin tone and hair texture, it’s Racism.
Jennifer always knows what she’s doing.
Right? Teenhood is arguably all about making mistakes but apparently Sal needed to be taught a lesson for 5 years.
Also gotta love (read: hate) her implying Asher’s NAME is the reason he smokes.
nominative determinalism strikes again
–Dave, missus WALKERton
Of course it’s fiction, so nominative determinism does exist.
i am glad to live in a plane where there is no Overarching Plot
The difference is, Linda can take credit for Jennifer’s accomplishments (because she helps her) and at the same time absolve herself from Jennifer’s faults because she’s not her biological parent. (“There’s only so much she can do”, after all.)
She has no scapegoat for Sal’s behavior except for Sal herself.
This comic made me realize that *none* of Jennifer’s family besides Walky showed up in the immediate aftermath of Ruth’s suicide attempt… Like, that’s not surprising from their characterization, but it is sad
Yeah. THIS is as good as it gets for Billy for parental influence in her life. This.
We keep talking about tree law, but what about incoming truck law?
We don’t talk about that.
truck-kun follows the laws of narrative
–Daver, leading to treisekai
I would absolutely kill to be the protagonist of an isekai story with magic; myself probably since that is how these things generally work.
Tree law gets mentioned, and I’m reminded of that horrible attempt of strike breaking earlier this year when someone chopped off almost all of the branches of trees the strikers were using for shade.
For which NBC Universal got fined a “whopping” $250 because of a lack of a permit, for something they claim to do annually.
They pay more than that for coffee every morning.
Buffer’s about seven months out, right? I’d guess this comic was written right around when that whole kerfuffle was in the news.
Plants are technically living so i’m sure there’s some kinda organization that gives them ‘rights’ or at least protection so you’re not knocking down forests and accidentally killing rare plants
But yeah kinda a dick move to do stuff like that
Not here for a grown man whistling at a teenager.
On the one hand, yeah, that’s gross
On the other hand, the idea of Charles leaving Linda because he wants Asher booty is hilarious. Messed up, but hilarious
on the gripping hand … it IS a bit different – if only legally – about an eighteen- or nineteenager than a seventeenager
–Dave, the day I started college I was still fifteen. did not let that stop me the following year, once my braces were FINALLY off
So what I’m hearing is that if someone decides to blast the Walkertons on Am I the Asshole, Charles might actually see it.
It’s a little weird for Charles to be so openly horny for someone his son’s age.
well, i dont think he would’ve creeped on him but lots of older parents are like “oh s/he’ll grow upt o be ea heartbreaker” and all that
Billie changes her name to Jennifer: fully respected
Sal asks to be called Sal, not Sally: quickly forgotten
Good job, Linda.
I’m appreciating that Charles is sticking with Sal.
(As for Linda, I suspect Jennifer has always been Jennifer to her, even when Jennifer preferred Billie)
She’s never referred to Jennifer as Billie. It’s always been Jennifer to Linda.
Not exactly sticking up for Sal as he is a bit more inclined to acknowledge Jennifer’s own flaws, he still apparently thinks its Jennifer’s helping keep his kids out of trouble when at best she does nothing and at worst it’s Walky taking care of her. Just another example of how their non daughter gets a huge benefit of the doubt I guess.
Tan’s point was that Charles is sticking _with_ ‘Sal’. He’s using the name she wants used.
The box of cookies Linda sent them the previous semester is labeled “Jennifer”. https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/care/
So, don’t want to say I called it because it was obvious but, yeah: Linda sees Jennifer’s DUI as a silly little mistake that shouldn’t be held against her… for… some reason…
Gosh, Linda, can you stop being The Worst?
Speaking as someone who picked up a couple of DUIs over thirty years ago, I have to say that these do not define me. They were in fact mistakes, and I have moved on from them. Jennifer deserves the same chance.
I don’t think the point was not that a dui should define someone forever but the double standard where Linda has no problem making Sals past behavior always be a part of her identity.
As someone who was on the wrong end of a DUI as a kid, it is absolutely not a little mistake. It is a choice made by one person that can destroy anyone’s life. It shouldnt define you, but in my case someone else’s bad choice absolutely defined me and the lives of at least three families. (His, mine and the other family involved in the accident).
This. A DUI is not a “mistake”. A mistake is when you forget to carry the nine, or you think ankylosaurians aren’t the coolest dinosaurs.
A DUI is, at the very least, attemped murder by negligence. It’s you choosing to get reduced reactions and then putting yourself in control of several thousand pounds of speeding metal in a non-controlled environment where other people are existing.
This. A choice. A choice to drink. A choice to drive. A choice to not care enough about others to care what happens to them. Even if you only kill yourself the ripples radiate outwards.
That F@&king tree had it coming.
Billy is just like Jesus in Mark 11:12. Picking fights with trees that don’t know their place.
FIG LEAIVES MATTER
IT’S LIKE IF WALKY AND DOROTHY WERE EVIL. I Hate It.
Walky flunks math for a semester then corrects his grades and Linda spends an entire sport event glaring at him and undercutting his confidence and sneering about his creative outlet. (and dating a black girl yes but she doesn’t know she hates that)
Billie wraps her car around a tree while drunk and “kids are going to make mistakes.”
Alright, Linda.
not saying it’s right/fair tho ppl do have diff views when it comes to other ppls kids
versus even, being concerned for them/health versus chastising one for being drunk
On the other hand, as Jennifer herself pointed out, she was the replacement daughter Linda always wanted.
She *has* to know she hates that.
She just wraps herself up in layers of “But I have a black friend I married” to pretend she doesn’t hate it.
Nah, she doesn’t have to know. Linda is a cognitive dissonance master. She’s sure it’s that Lucy just seems like she wasn’t raised right. She seems too urban.
She discovered Walky had been flunking close to discovering that Lucy was encouraging his creative webcomicing outlet. Clearly therefore Lucy is a distraction and a bad influence because there is clear causation and not just the slightest appearance of a correlation that falls apart as soon as you look at dates and discover that the poor grades and the course correction both happened significantly before the acquaintance with and dating of Lucy…
Right. She is racist but doesn’t believe something as silly as skin color would affect her decisions, but that’s because she’s only perceptive of what “feels right” and her intuitions say to act this way. The worst kind of parent is one who can’t introspect.
…. I’m a bit concerned as to why we’re staying on these two.
I sure hope that stops soon. They’re not fun to read.
Maybe Linda gets trucked in this universe in place of Ruth and we’re about to see it?
They have the same haircut.
They briefly meet, then the next time we see Ruth she’s wearing hair extensions. No explanation will be given in the comic, but we’ll know why.
In which the Walkertons are still unwilling to learn anything
Fucking hell, Linda’s so hot. I’m not usually into complete wastes of oxygen, but I bet she’s lightning in the sack.
She is both a genuinely bad person and a baddie
Charles knows this
Love Mr. Lorax here, speaking for the trees and their tree law rights.
Everyone finds Asher hot
Waaaaitaminute. This tree law shit, references to knowing Bart O’Ryan…Charles, you’re a lawyer, huh?
That WOULD explain the absence of this earthling’s spine.
Linda, you smoke too.. maybe you had an influence there.
Exactly! Sal herself actually pointed this out in one of the flashback strips.
Tbf, if anything, my asshat smoking mother is reason #1 I’ve never smoked. So, not necessarily.
Whoa, Really seeing where Walky gets it from in this strip!
At least now we know where Walky gets it.
lol does anyone remember exactly why Linda respects Billie so much?
Jennifer is the reasonably white-passing daughter she always wanted, Jennifer’s words.
Also her parents are like, Jeff Bezos rich.
ADDENDUM: Also Jennifer spent high school being a head cheerleader and hanging out with cool kids doing hot girl shit, which obviously indicates a “Bright Future”, unlike that louse Sal, who tried very clumsily to hold up a convenience store for charity money to fix her awful illegal immigrant friend’s throat or something, indicating she is a “Born Criminal”.
A student who would have graduated from my high school three years ahead of me was driving under the influence. He didn’t make a very notorious corner and drove straight when the road turned 20 degrees. He impacted two oak trees a high speed. Died.
A year later, you could not tell the accident ever happened, the trees had barely been scratched. The parents were one of the few wealthy people in our rural town. They wanted to ensure no other parents ever had to face such a loss. Did they promote DARE? Did they rally against drunk driving? No, they got permission to cut down the oak trees that “killed their son.”
Realize that their son wasn’t killed by the oak trees. The two trees did nothing but grow for many years. The son killed himself by getting wasted at a party.
The trees were cut down.
Swear to God, this is true.
Their house was whatever houses were when they are considered totaled. The oak in their back yard fell over in a blizzard, on to their home. Missed their bedroom by literally feet. There was no reason for the tree to fall, it was healthy, it just blew over.
My dad, a home construction contractor, worked on their house, had to raze it to the ground.
Tree Law.
<a href="https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0022899/"iFlowers and Trees 2: Out for Justice.
misformed link, ITYM:
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0022899/
Sounds like the forest got its treevenge.
Waow Linda
Kinda weird to be openly horny about someone your daughter’s age
Acting on it? Yes. Openly having erotic feelings for the body of somebody in college age? Less so. Especially when “openly” means “privately to your wife”. It’s not like your wiring is designed to start finding gray hair and wrinkles and arthritis hyper attractive.
Going to agree and disagree.
Simply being attracted to someone Asher’s age is fine. Thoughtcrime is not a thing. The neo puritan obsession over “no consensual horniness” is incredibly creepy and the kids who are buying into it are being damaged by that level of self-policing.
But also nah man, I am deeply not attracted to eighteen-year-olds. They look like actual babies to me and to lots of other middle-aged folks (I’m gonna be 40 next year). Despite America’s youth-obsessed culture, it’s definitely not a universal thing. Tastes vary by people. Some of us have always been attracted oldly to older people, wrinkles included; some of us have always had a shifting window of attraction where we are only into people around our own age; some of us are only wiling to date people under 25 no matter how old we get and should probably unpack that at some point with a therapist.
(Like, I’m not armchair diagnosing Leonardo DiCaprio with anything, but even if it’s just that he’s terrified of getting old himself, he would probably benefit from talking about it to someone?)
And even a lot of people who find younger people aesthetically appealing, aren’t actually interested in dating (or even fucking) them.
or even talking to them
–Dave, like, y’know, wow, man, it’s, like, really grody to the max, y’know?
The fuck is that boomer slang
see Zappa’s _Valley Girl_
–Dave, if Frank Zappa is not familiar to you, oh my
I recall seeing a study once where it was determined that heterosexual men of all age groups tend to find women aged 20-23 the most attractive on average.
Of course the “tend to” and “on average” parts of that sentence are doing a lot of work, but goes to show that youth != attractiveness.
I think OKCupid’s dating data shows folks mostly stay within a few years of their age, which also shows some things.
Like, I don’t think Charles is a criminal who needs to be punished, I just think “that 19 year old is smoking” is a weird thing to say to your wife. I would not say that to my wife, if I found a college freshman hot I would find that embarrassing and keep it to myself.
Is Tree-Law the Dumbing of Age spinoff series we didn’t know was coming?
Tree-LAWsome!
It’s the DYW holiday vacation comic, like Bembo* over in QC.
Bembo is returning to the QC website soon!
Shouldn’t cancer cancel culture crush Charles for lusting over a hot 18 year old family friend? Lol
Cancer Cancel Culture Crush would be a good name for a band.
PrOm Is FoR mIsTaKeS
linda.
linds.
lindy baby.
fuck you.
Wonder what mistake Linda made after her prom.
Sal, duh.
Obviously Sal should have waited until her Senior prom to try to rob a store.
I hate these parents so much. Besides all evil, they like each other so much.
Even evil pieces of shit can love each other, it turns out
… and, the worst part: procreate.
God this man really is walkys dark future
I’m worried about Walky, I’m afraid that he might grow up to become exactly like his father. Let’s hope he’ll be able to evolve. Also, Jennifer is really Linda’s favourite children!
“jennifer always knows what shes doing” oh linda. linda linda linda. im pretty sure jennifer is the closest to a mental breakdown out of the entire cast (and that includes ethan)
Dorothy’s been inching toward one since at least before Halloween…
yeah, but Jennifer has been living there since the strip started
The “It was Prom” argument doesn’t grant her ‘death by car accident’ armor, Linda. She survived by dumb luck and that’s all there is to it. Maybe add a skill to your arsenal to help you move up in the world beyond making excuses for people from affluent families that couldn’t care less what you think you’re trying to do for them?
what do you think the odds are of Jennifer’s prom being on the same night as Amber and Ethan’s? Was the tree right outside their motel?
I’ve never wanted to strangle a white woman before but i now see the appeal
God, I LOVE any time a comments section or thread can go off into tree law. It’s always so beautiful to see, and you almost always learn more about tree law than you did before. <3
Tree law! Tree law!
Tree law, you say. Passed by the Parliament of Trees?
I am a day late on this and do not see any other post making this Rush reference. Yes they they started in the 70s and were arguably bigger in the 70s-90s, but they were still going until 2015. Plus more than a few of their songs have staying power today.
This interaction shows where Walky got his goofball genes from.
(i mean…. it’s kinda established already that it wasn’t Linda, so….)