He has bad eyesight so he has to put close, he could get glasses but that would make her character design too district and interesting and that goes against everything the character is.
You did your best, Becky, and the fact that you’re doing this despite how you’re feeling is a testament to how good of a friend you are. Godspeed, you tiny lesbian.
I´dunno about adopted parent figures. Maybe different mechanics.
But I HEAVYLY doubt that parenthood in general grants that power.
Given what my parents believed me decades back – what I believed my aquired kids beyond all sense – and how parents usually refuse to bellieve their kids could be murderers, bullies, thieves ect. when they get caught.
I mean, I said way, WAY back when Becky got involved, this was a BAD idea. Hank was ALWAYS going to find out what they were doing and it was ALWAYS going to go badly. There’s just this constant need to make the worst possible decision to avoid any consequences, which in turn just makes them worse.
There are so many problems in this storyline that probably could have been resolved much sooner if these characters had just told the truth instead of lying.
This storyline contains what is dramatic, real, funny, sad, frustrating etc. In short, interesting. This storyline is not a “How To” manual on effective resolution of teen crises, not is it the “Fundamentalist moralising about teen crises”, nor yet “Wot I should have done if I had a whole 24 hours between each minute to analyse my, and everyone else’s, behaviour.
Why aren’t these characters making logical decisions? Why doesn’t Batman give all his money to charity?? Why isn’t Superman spending all his time turning a crank to produce limitless, clean energy???
With one hand, Bruce Wayne creates welfare programs to educate and employ people in danger of becoming criminals.
With the other hand, Batman breaks the spines of pick pockets.
I’m always amused by the idea of Bruce Wayne giving up being Batman, giving all his money to charity, vastly improving the lives of people in Gotham City, and then the Joker poisons the water supply and millions die hideously.
I’m not criticizing the characters, I’m criticizing the commenters who cheered Becky on and then act surprised that it turns out in a very predictable way.
Most of the cheering section in this case has been for her intent, not necessarily her outcome. She’s hurt, feeling very much abandoned, and yet her first instinct is to buy both Joyce and Jocelyn some time to get to a point where they can deal with Hank.
The real issue is that they’ll probably waste that time.
idk if the college newspaper is important enough to archive/post online but surely one person would’ve taken a pic and just uploaded it to twitter or so
While I understand where you’re coming from that this FEELS like unnecessary wacky hijinks, reminder that the alternative is outting Jocelyne against her will, which is absolutely not the right answer.
Except these hijinks aren’t stopping that.
Warn Jocelyne so she can be ready (either to come out or just to be in boy clothes to talk to Hank). Joyce should come out, since the paper’s already outed her even if Hank hasn’t seen it yet. That was inevitable and it would distract from Jocelyne.
The wacky hijinks wouldn’t fix any of this. Even if Becky talked Hank into going home now without talking to Jocelyne or even saying goodbye to Joyce, he’s still going to see the online photo.
It’s far from certain the Hank would see the photo online. The Internet is a big place, after all. I’m also uncomfortable with the implication that it’s incumbent on one queer person to come out when she doesn’t want to in order the prevent that happening to another queer person.
Hank’s known to read the campus paper online – if only for Joyce’s comic.
And you’re right, if I didn’t think it was inevitable that he find out about Joyce and Dorothy, I’d say they should stay quiet about that too. Since I think it is inevitable, not only will it distract from Jocelyne, but coming out to him will probably go better than if they trick him into going home and then he finds out.
In this case, being in the closet while you’re conservative family is around is NOT ‘them avoiding doing something they need to which will have bad consequences’. It’s smart, it’s important, and this is why Joyce might be able to legitimately sue and/or beat the shit out of the newspaper girl.
And while being in the closet here is fine, she has to come out because now he’s going to find out and better to do it on her terms than wait until he goes home and seems the photo.
No to the lawsuit. There is absolutely no grounds on which to sue. The photo is not only taken in a public place, it is very accurate (by which I mean, it has not been taken or edited in a fashion to create a false light).
And no, ‘beating the shit’ out of journalists and reporters doing their job is not, in fact, a legitimate reaction. And taking a dramatic photo and publishing it is not in any way, shape or form a violation of journalistic ethics.
God this comment section depresses me sometimes.
Maybe it’s too early to say this, but he doesn’t seem particularly angry (yet) about the distraction. Best case, he’s concerned as to why they are keeping something from him.
Or maybe that’s just his “I’m not mad, I’m disappointed” face.
So. The other day, I was thinking about whether any of the main characters had surpassed their Walkyverse appearances here in DoA, and I was certain that later Walkyverse characters like Lucy and Malaya have more DoA appearances.
And then there’s Ken, a late addition to Shortpacked, making his seventh appearance here.
Yeah, of the latecomers, Ken has definitely proven to be the most scarce.
Some Shortpacked regulars like Sydney Yus have barely appeared at all, but I assume we’re more talking about just the full-on latecomers. Human form Ultra Car isn’t outright Carla, but obviously, Carla has appeared a shitton in DoA and probably beats UC out if we’re just talking human-form.
I give decent odds that Hank believes that Joyce and Jocelyn are gay already. Also, that he thinks trans is just a type of gay and isn’t going to be weirded out by it.
Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Joyce’s missionary brother, Jonathan, has been to Bulmeria and is all for the government. Maybe even doing projects there. Which isn’t a crude joke. I sadly know some missionaries in my area who thought aiding in the illegality was part of their holy mission.
Jocelyn, maybe, though Joyce, he probably wouldn’t immediately assume was gay given she’s had multiple boyfriends he’s been aware of, or the Tristan crush. That doesn’t preclude queerness, clearly, but it would probably be more surprising to him. Becky also may have given him the impression all sapphic gals would wear it on their sleeve more, given his demonstrable biases.
I could be wrong, but I imagine Hank would be a lot more likely to accept that one of his kids is trans and the other is bi than if one or more of his kids was a communist.
the mom might be worse but i imagine he still knows what trans is already b/c joce said a school ‘let a transgender attend’ so that’s why joyce was homeschooled
Note that the autocorrupt on my tablet insists on removing the ‘e’, in much the same way it insists that Sales brother is named “Wally”. Also I have just discovered that it will change ” Sal’s” to “Sales” without asking.
He just talked about how he suspected Jocelyne was gay because she was acting cagey and wasn’t the most masculine of kids and that after seeing the protest photo decided she wasn’t queer, just some sort of communist.
It’s really hard for me to read that as “Knows she’s gay/trans and doesn’t care”.
If anything, the “just some sort of communist” makes that seem a lesser offense than being queer, though I’m not too tied to that reading.
I mean my read on it was he was willing to at least leave it alone when he thought it was just Jocylene being gay (whether he would if he realized she was Trans is another story)
Now that he thinks she’s a communist he feels the need to track her down to talk to her
The entire blurred comic is viewable depending on your settings. I almost replied with the description of the remaining panels, but maybe I’ll just wait since they’ll be visible soon enough anyway.
Many of us are. lol. Been around the block a few times. Still above ground. Not pining for the fjords. Not quite far enough over the hill to not get a view.
Not disagreeing with you, but at this point, lying isn’t really working to keep him from finding out. The truth could be, “Look, sir, you know I love and respect you. Please trust me when I say that there’s stuff that they need to figure out, and then they’ll tell you, and trust that you’ve raised them to do what they feel is the right thing, even if it isn’t what you think it should be.” That’s not outing, but it IS truthful, in a way Hank might respond to.
I mean how often does anyone look at print media in this day and age? And in this case, it’d be a grown-ass man looking at a college newspaper. Unless the paper is like, plastered on a wall, I imagine it would be easy to miss.
Usually those are ‘broadsheets’, like the NYT or Chicago Tribune. The campus paper is smaller, a ‘tabloid’. (Former newspaper employee, here, so I grok the lingo.) Tabloids don’t usually fold vertically very well, and if Daisy has any idea what she’s doing, even a folded version would show both the headline and at least the top half of the photo.
The bigger factor is that Joyce snagged all the papers in her dorm’s lobby, and then stood on them, so Hank hasn’t had a chance, yet. Ken is from the other dorm, IIRC, and Joyce didn’t have time to run over there.
Maybe, though I get the impression he was going to cotton on sooner rather than later. This is probably a cumulative realization, and she just gave him the last piece for the puzzle.
He’s already been picking up that there’s SOMETHING going on, but he hasn’t put it all together yet. If nothing else, he was figuring out that Joyce and Dorothy were an item (thanks to the claim about the birth control pills), and probably that Joyce is on birth control (because even with Joyce and Dorothy being an item, finding Dorothy’s birth control prescription in Joyce’s room is just too strange of a coincidence). So, I think he’s starting to figure things out and there’s not much use trying to hide it from him any longer.
Which of course probably means that we’re going to get at least a few more increasingly desperate attempts at distracting him from these facts all the while making it easier and easier for Hank to put things together.
Why would the birth control pills make Hank think that Joyce & Dorothy are together? From Hank’s perspective, neither of them need birth control if they’re gay.
Possibly Myra V meant that Hank thought Dorothy’s birth control pills were in Joyce’s room because she stayed over the night. But lots of people stay over the night without being an item. Then again, maybe Hank isn’t aware of that.
Close. It’s more I think he’s picked up that Dorothy told a pretty peculiar lie in order to cover for Joyce being on birth control (he did comment on how strange it was that that might have happened) and how quickly and naturally that comment came. Plus the fact that Dorothy felt like they were in a close enough relationship where that lie COULD sound plausible… Well, you don’t generally take an entire thing of medicine into someone else’s room without good reason.
Granted, I could be off the mark on that – but Hank is showing himself to be a smart guy. Not smart enough to just intuit everything that’s going on right now since he’s missing out on a lot of key details that would click everything into place, but enough that I think that he’s starting to pick up on some of the more obvious shenanigans that are going on – namely, the Joyce and Dorothy thing and Joyce being on the pill.
At the moment none of the 3, part of why Becky is attempting to distract him is to delay him finding out (as well as keeping him away from Jocelyne) for as long as she possibly can
She’s been pretty blatantly obvious and fumbled hard this whole interaction, tbh. Even before considering he’s probably had personal experience with her specific eccentricities, it would be slightly straining credibility for him to not realize something was up.
She got him away from Joyce and Dorothy, and all the way down three floors to the lobby before he started to get suspicious. What do you want from her? Putting him on a bus out of town? I don’t think he’s as dumb as Becky’s father was.
Becky can’t convince anyone of anything because she can’t convince Hank. Yet Hank is only unconvinced because he knows Becky can convince anyone of anything. It’s the paradox of the food court.
…At least I hope the food court is nearby, because I don’t have any better names handy.
I politely knock at the brocken edges of the hole you made, stick my head in and add
“Now go buy the both of them pizza – every hard sitdown-convo is better with pizza.”
They’re stupid and lazy. That’s two causes. Another one is, they know there’s not one single factor that makes us autistic, and they know that the genpop are stupid and lazy and hateful and lack object permanence, so they use us as a scapegoat for any little thing that bugs them. Because when someone is stupid and lazy and hateful, they’ll go along with anything that lets them hurt someone else, especially if that someone exists differently to them, which they see as an act of willful defiance.
Funny how the audience for “Top 10 One Easy Tricks To Delete Autistics From Your Living Room In Four Easy Steps” call us mentally retarded, when they’re constantly retarding their own mentals to avoid accepting the fact that we’re Just People™.
I do like we get evidence of at least one adult who can look at a young person and sees them trying to be clever. We spend so much time with all these people at the same level of perspective, it’s easy to forget that none of them are batman. That they’ll look back on this one day and realize they weren’t anywhere close to being as smart as they thought they were.
The problem with an attentive parent is sometimes theyve paid attention to you since you were a kid, and she’s probably run rodeo clown for Joyce before……
Well, I guess Hank ain’t a dummy (not necessarily as WISE as one would hope, but he’s definitely showing he can put two and two together). Not that seeing his reaction to all the revelations from the last few arcs was really in doubt – the question is, how will he take it?
There is evidence that he’ll handle it well and will just need some time to process all the new information – heck, just look at his interaction with Becky here for evidence of that! Despite being deep in the conservative realm, he still treats Becky with dignity and respect despite knowing that she’s gay as the day is long. But he’s also deep in the realm of conservative politics – as evidenced by him being afraid that Joss was gay and making a comment about her being communist.
Based on his previous appearances, I think everyone is overly fearful about what his reaction will be – which having gone through my own coming out as transgender some years ago, I absolutely understand how that fear can far exceed the reality of how things will play out – but we’ve also seen from Becky’s dad how that fear is still very much justified and how dire the consequences of coming out can be.
Here’s hoping that this gets us right to the “confrontation” where all of this comes out in the open – and while I would like a quick resolution on this, I can definitely understand if Willis wants to drag out the tension for at least a few strips – and even if there’s no immediate blowup, he can still leave the final resolution hanging simply by saying that he has a lot to think about now – which not only would help keep the tension in that relationship for longer, but is pretty realistic for a conservative person who is confronted with something that directly and undeniably defies their preconceived notions of the world.
The saving grace for Hank is that I feel he’s the kind of person who can “come around”. He might not understand at first, but I think if you can reassure him that he won’t “lose” his children (some people were discussing yesterday that Hank is probably feeling extra vulnerable and alone after divorcing Carol and losing the support network of the church, so he’s clinging all the more aggressively to things of his old life, including how he used to view his children), he will be fine. Joyce being gay/bi or Jocelyne being trans doesn’t mean that they don’t love their father any less, or that he won’t ever see them again.
At some point soon, Willis puts the famous “Pale Blue Dot” picture in the comic. Realizing the blunder too late, Willis has to tag EVERY SINGLE INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER. All 90+ of them. The task is two days in the making.
Voyager’s picture back over it’s shoulder with Earth a fraction of a pixel.
“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.” – Carl Sagan.
Becky: “Why not be a more supportive father to Josh? You know. You were so against what he was protesting, but what if you were more encouraging instead? That’ll create a bond between you two and you get better insight in him as a person.”
Hank: “Hmmmm…”
Later, when Jocelyne has returned home and is in her room
Eventually, he might be ok. My read is that the thing he would be angry about is that they kissed in public.
His reaction is bound to be volatile. I think a better strategy here might be to have Joyce (and NOT Dorothy) nearby when the news breaks to him, so she can talk him down from doing something really bad like calling her mom. No way Becky will be able to do that.
if you ask me, Becky and who not need more viable, sustainable alternatives to fulfill whatever role they think will be automatically accomplished by these “parental figures” they think they need
people like Hank don’t have any special insight or anything they’re lacking, and honestly have no idea what they’re doing anymore than they do XD
Nah, man, family isn’t about anything being “automatically accomplished” but we learn useful lessons from the people who lived before us. They have things they can impart, a lot of times very useful things.
Hank has grown a lot since we met him, and made some *hard choices* to cut ties with people he had long, deep bonds with because he wanted to do right by his kids, Becky included. The fact that he’s still bound up in a belief structure that is harmful to that doesn’t negate the strides he’s made, I just hope he continues taking steps forward.
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“FINE, I just don’t want anyone acknowledging that Ken is still in this series”
“Who?”
“EXACTLY! Now let’s get pizza!”
I genuinely did not remember his name until today and i am quite surprised anyone else had.
I kinda remember him given he was in Shortpacked.
I remember the meme of misremembering his name.
To the point where i’m a little uncertain that people calling him Ken is just a running gag.
”Yeah of course I remember…” *Check notes* ”Ken… neth? Kevin?”
Even in Shortpacked, his main role was Replacement Ethan.
There’s just not enough complaining about Transformer toys in this comic for Ethan.
It’s Zangief.
I thought Galasso used Ken in a blood sacrifice…
Gallasso did. That is not Ken. That is the replacement pod person. The invasion process has begun.
lol wonder if he’ll eventually get a big role versus just being there occasionally like that poly throuple
Hank strides over and snatches the paper, looking it over in growing horror.
Hank: “Dear God! You mean to tell me my daughter has become…a cartoonist?! Oh the shame of it!”
Hank: “At least it looks like she got herself a cute girlfriend, so she’s not a TOTAL loser.”
This *also* works perfectly with the Hank Hill voice!
That girl ain’t right, I tell you hwhat.
That’s mah girl!
No don’t worry, we know joyce is safe from that cause she didn’t know about this sunday edition :p
“The suspense is terrible! I hope it’ll last.”
— Willy Wonka, also Willis, probably
for reals tho
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
KEN NO
KEN YOU FOOL
AT LEAST HOLD IT A LITTLE FURTHER DOWN, MAN
He has bad eyesight so he has to put close, he could get glasses but that would make her character design too district and interesting and that goes against everything the character is.
Ah fuck, he’s both smart and ideologically captured. Dangerous combination.
I mean, it’s hardly “captured”, given he spent basically his whole life “captive” this way
i.e. he already agreed with the bullshit to begin with
“They really should add a comics page to the Sunday edition. This stuff about some chicks kissing is hella boring.”
jokes on him, clearly today’s julia gray strip would re-run of the one where she has to give doris mouth-to-mouth
*would BE A re-run of, etc.
going to detonate now
if it makes you feel better, i didn’t even notice the lack of “be” in your original post until you mentioned it
Uh oh
The gig is up! Cheese it!
I appreciate you
dammit i could sure use a grilled cheese rn tho :(
Cheese it! The cops!
*A wild Ken appears!*
He’s not especially wild. He doesn’t even have a personality.
Brutal lmao
Nethack reference FTW!
Pretty sure his name is Blanka
Clever boy.
You did your best, Becky, and the fact that you’re doing this despite how you’re feeling is a testament to how good of a friend you are. Godspeed, you tiny lesbian.
Oh no, becoming Becky’s New Dad has given Hank the My-Kid-Is-Lying-To-Me Sense!
*ping!*
Leveling up.
I´dunno about adopted parent figures. Maybe different mechanics.
But I HEAVYLY doubt that parenthood in general grants that power.
Given what my parents believed me decades back – what I believed my aquired kids beyond all sense – and how parents usually refuse to bellieve their kids could be murderers, bullies, thieves ect. when they get caught.
Arnold’s roommate makes an appearance
I mean, I said way, WAY back when Becky got involved, this was a BAD idea. Hank was ALWAYS going to find out what they were doing and it was ALWAYS going to go badly. There’s just this constant need to make the worst possible decision to avoid any consequences, which in turn just makes them worse.
The cover-up is worse than the crime.
That’s the thing though, the coverup is the crime. Wait, I mean the crime is the coverup. Wait maybe it’s both.
Dat’s what I said. But did they listen? Noooo.
There are so many problems in this storyline that probably could have been resolved much sooner if these characters had just told the truth instead of lying.
I note that they COMPLETELY FORGOT about Jocelyn for 90% of the story given that was why they were at the protest.
This storyline contains what is dramatic, real, funny, sad, frustrating etc. In short, interesting. This storyline is not a “How To” manual on effective resolution of teen crises, not is it the “Fundamentalist moralising about teen crises”, nor yet “Wot I should have done if I had a whole 24 hours between each minute to analyse my, and everyone else’s, behaviour.
Why aren’t these characters making logical decisions? Why doesn’t Batman give all his money to charity?? Why isn’t Superman spending all his time turning a crank to produce limitless, clean energy???
Anytime that Jocelyne is not in the comic strip, the characters need to be ask “Where is Jocelyne?”.
With one hand, Bruce Wayne creates welfare programs to educate and employ people in danger of becoming criminals.
With the other hand, Batman breaks the spines of pick pockets.
Perfectly balanced. Like all things should be.
I’m always amused by the idea of Bruce Wayne giving up being Batman, giving all his money to charity, vastly improving the lives of people in Gotham City, and then the Joker poisons the water supply and millions die hideously.
The Citizens of Gotham may all be dead but at least they’re dead while having the lowest rate of poverty in the country
I’m not criticizing the characters, I’m criticizing the commenters who cheered Becky on and then act surprised that it turns out in a very predictable way.
Who knew that Hank had known Becky for most of her life?
Most of the cheering section in this case has been for her intent, not necessarily her outcome. She’s hurt, feeling very much abandoned, and yet her first instinct is to buy both Joyce and Jocelyn some time to get to a point where they can deal with Hank.
The real issue is that they’ll probably waste that time.
idk if the college newspaper is important enough to archive/post online but surely one person would’ve taken a pic and just uploaded it to twitter or so
While I understand where you’re coming from that this FEELS like unnecessary wacky hijinks, reminder that the alternative is outting Jocelyne against her will, which is absolutely not the right answer.
Except these hijinks aren’t stopping that.
Warn Jocelyne so she can be ready (either to come out or just to be in boy clothes to talk to Hank). Joyce should come out, since the paper’s already outed her even if Hank hasn’t seen it yet. That was inevitable and it would distract from Jocelyne.
The wacky hijinks wouldn’t fix any of this. Even if Becky talked Hank into going home now without talking to Jocelyne or even saying goodbye to Joyce, he’s still going to see the online photo.
It’s far from certain the Hank would see the photo online. The Internet is a big place, after all. I’m also uncomfortable with the implication that it’s incumbent on one queer person to come out when she doesn’t want to in order the prevent that happening to another queer person.
Hank’s known to read the campus paper online – if only for Joyce’s comic.
And you’re right, if I didn’t think it was inevitable that he find out about Joyce and Dorothy, I’d say they should stay quiet about that too. Since I think it is inevitable, not only will it distract from Jocelyne, but coming out to him will probably go better than if they trick him into going home and then he finds out.
In this case, being in the closet while you’re conservative family is around is NOT ‘them avoiding doing something they need to which will have bad consequences’. It’s smart, it’s important, and this is why Joyce might be able to legitimately sue and/or beat the shit out of the newspaper girl.
There’s absolutely no legal case there.
And while being in the closet here is fine, she has to come out because now he’s going to find out and better to do it on her terms than wait until he goes home and seems the photo.
No to the lawsuit. There is absolutely no grounds on which to sue. The photo is not only taken in a public place, it is very accurate (by which I mean, it has not been taken or edited in a fashion to create a false light).
And no, ‘beating the shit’ out of journalists and reporters doing their job is not, in fact, a legitimate reaction. And taking a dramatic photo and publishing it is not in any way, shape or form a violation of journalistic ethics.
God this comment section depresses me sometimes.
Maybe it’s too early to say this, but he doesn’t seem particularly angry (yet) about the distraction. Best case, he’s concerned as to why they are keeping something from him.
Or maybe that’s just his “I’m not mad, I’m disappointed” face.
So. The other day, I was thinking about whether any of the main characters had surpassed their Walkyverse appearances here in DoA, and I was certain that later Walkyverse characters like Lucy and Malaya have more DoA appearances.
And then there’s Ken, a late addition to Shortpacked, making his seventh appearance here.
Oh yeah Ken isn’t even close to surpassing his Shortpacked appearances yet.
Yeah, of the latecomers, Ken has definitely proven to be the most scarce.
Some Shortpacked regulars like Sydney Yus have barely appeared at all, but I assume we’re more talking about just the full-on latecomers. Human form Ultra Car isn’t outright Carla, but obviously, Carla has appeared a shitton in DoA and probably beats UC out if we’re just talking human-form.
Beef has probably had less appearances than his IW self, I think.
Tony?
Ken? In MY Dumbing of Age webcomic? Wild. Anyways.
I give decent odds that Hank believes that Joyce and Jocelyn are gay already. Also, that he thinks trans is just a type of gay and isn’t going to be weirded out by it.
BUT HANGING WITH COMMUNISTS?!
I figure theres decent odds hes more upset that they were at the protest than that they kissed at the protest
Which is its own kind of bad but I still think he could potentially be reasoned out of his horrible stances
Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if Joyce’s missionary brother, Jonathan, has been to Bulmeria and is all for the government. Maybe even doing projects there. Which isn’t a crude joke. I sadly know some missionaries in my area who thought aiding in the illegality was part of their holy mission.
Bleah.
John.
What?
Jocelyn, maybe, though Joyce, he probably wouldn’t immediately assume was gay given she’s had multiple boyfriends he’s been aware of, or the Tristan crush. That doesn’t preclude queerness, clearly, but it would probably be more surprising to him. Becky also may have given him the impression all sapphic gals would wear it on their sleeve more, given his demonstrable biases.
I could be wrong, but I imagine Hank would be a lot more likely to accept that one of his kids is trans and the other is bi than if one or more of his kids was a communist.
the mom might be worse but i imagine he still knows what trans is already b/c joce said a school ‘let a transgender attend’ so that’s why joyce was homeschooled
Reminder that her name is Jocelyne, with an E on the end.
Note that the autocorrupt on my tablet insists on removing the ‘e’, in much the same way it insists that Sales brother is named “Wally”. Also I have just discovered that it will change ” Sal’s” to “Sales” without asking.
AU Comic where they all have names the autocorrect approves of.
He just talked about how he suspected Jocelyne was gay because she was acting cagey and wasn’t the most masculine of kids and that after seeing the protest photo decided she wasn’t queer, just some sort of communist.
It’s really hard for me to read that as “Knows she’s gay/trans and doesn’t care”.
If anything, the “just some sort of communist” makes that seem a lesser offense than being queer, though I’m not too tied to that reading.
I mean my read on it was he was willing to at least leave it alone when he thought it was just Jocylene being gay (whether he would if he realized she was Trans is another story)
Now that he thinks she’s a communist he feels the need to track her down to talk to her
Oh no he’s perceptive
It probably helps that he’s known becky for a very long time.
And he’s not a college student whose brain is constantly distracted by sex hormones.
Sure, he’ll find out, but everything will be a-ogay
Mwhahahahahahahaha
I love the use of the split panel at the end. Scott McCloud would be Scott McProud.
The blurred preview panels for tomorrow have a closeup of Ken, another of Becky looking chagrined, and what I’m almost certain is Jocelyn.
welp.
The entire blurred comic is viewable depending on your settings. I almost replied with the description of the remaining panels, but maybe I’ll just wait since they’ll be visible soon enough anyway.
Or depending on your styles
Dammit was trying to hit that link on mobile and hit Report instead, sorry
oh that is not a link that makes way more sense now
Please do not post spoilers, even blurry ones.
fuck, the old man’s smarter than he looks xD
Many of us are. lol. Been around the block a few times. Still above ground. Not pining for the fjords. Not quite far enough over the hill to not get a view.
DRIFTY STICKS, TURN AROUND! NÓOOOOOOOOOOO
“So…you think…I’m…stalling?”
LOL
omg yes
parent-sense tingling
the once and future Dad
Just tell him the truth. It’s too late to keep any of it from him.
You can still keep Jocelyne being trans from him, unless the protest photo really gives it away, which I don’t think it does.
It’s suuuuper not her job to out anyone actually. Do not tell him the truth.
Not disagreeing with you, but at this point, lying isn’t really working to keep him from finding out. The truth could be, “Look, sir, you know I love and respect you. Please trust me when I say that there’s stuff that they need to figure out, and then they’ll tell you, and trust that you’ve raised them to do what they feel is the right thing, even if it isn’t what you think it should be.” That’s not outing, but it IS truthful, in a way Hank might respond to.
Hank’s sharp, mmmhm
Hank really knows his girls, huh? ^_^
Hank is ignorant, but he’s both educated (a dentist) and has a shitload of kids, now including Becky. He’s heard this song before.
It’s actually kinda surprising that Hank hasn’t seen the front page of the college newspaper so far.
I mean how often does anyone look at print media in this day and age? And in this case, it’d be a grown-ass man looking at a college newspaper. Unless the paper is like, plastered on a wall, I imagine it would be easy to miss.
I’ve seen an awful lot of papers folded so that you would only see the top half of the front page unless you picked it up.
Usually those are ‘broadsheets’, like the NYT or Chicago Tribune. The campus paper is smaller, a ‘tabloid’. (Former newspaper employee, here, so I grok the lingo.) Tabloids don’t usually fold vertically very well, and if Daisy has any idea what she’s doing, even a folded version would show both the headline and at least the top half of the photo.
The bigger factor is that Joyce snagged all the papers in her dorm’s lobby, and then stood on them, so Hank hasn’t had a chance, yet. Ken is from the other dorm, IIRC, and Joyce didn’t have time to run over there.
They did collect a bunch of copies from this hall. Where would he have seen it?
Except from someone walking around reading it like Ken.
Swinging back the other way fast fast fast!
Ken, you fool!
I understood that reference.
I’d love to see Ken be more prominent in this comic.
would he have a chance to have a personality compared to everyone else?
he is Kenough.
I’m sure Ken has an intricate, involved story of his own going on, juuuuust out of view of Willis’ camera…
Panel 2 should be followed by an It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia title card saying “Becky says the wrong thing”
Maybe, though I get the impression he was going to cotton on sooner rather than later. This is probably a cumulative realization, and she just gave him the last piece for the puzzle.
He’s already been picking up that there’s SOMETHING going on, but he hasn’t put it all together yet. If nothing else, he was figuring out that Joyce and Dorothy were an item (thanks to the claim about the birth control pills), and probably that Joyce is on birth control (because even with Joyce and Dorothy being an item, finding Dorothy’s birth control prescription in Joyce’s room is just too strange of a coincidence). So, I think he’s starting to figure things out and there’s not much use trying to hide it from him any longer.
Which of course probably means that we’re going to get at least a few more increasingly desperate attempts at distracting him from these facts all the while making it easier and easier for Hank to put things together.
And sometimes the cover up feels worse than the action. Kevin, which one is it going to be?
Why would the birth control pills make Hank think that Joyce & Dorothy are together? From Hank’s perspective, neither of them need birth control if they’re gay.
Possibly Myra V meant that Hank thought Dorothy’s birth control pills were in Joyce’s room because she stayed over the night. But lots of people stay over the night without being an item. Then again, maybe Hank isn’t aware of that.
Close. It’s more I think he’s picked up that Dorothy told a pretty peculiar lie in order to cover for Joyce being on birth control (he did comment on how strange it was that that might have happened) and how quickly and naturally that comment came. Plus the fact that Dorothy felt like they were in a close enough relationship where that lie COULD sound plausible… Well, you don’t generally take an entire thing of medicine into someone else’s room without good reason.
Granted, I could be off the mark on that – but Hank is showing himself to be a smart guy. Not smart enough to just intuit everything that’s going on right now since he’s missing out on a lot of key details that would click everything into place, but enough that I think that he’s starting to pick up on some of the more obvious shenanigans that are going on – namely, the Joyce and Dorothy thing and Joyce being on the pill.
Birth control pills, famously a sign of cisgender wlw relationships.
Tag that guy reading the paper because it’d be funny
#Justicforthatguy
He is, it’s ken (unless you were being facetious/making a joke)
And even if you were, it’s still Ken.
Becky’s bad at this. Overplayed her hand before they could even get outside.
I think she could have maybe saved it if she switched to ‘wait, where ARE Joyce and Dorothy?’ instead of doubling down
Dang it Becky! So close, so clooose
Dang it, Becky overplayed her hand this time. But it was a noble effort.
She flew too close to the… no, that’d be misgendering.
She got distracted thinking about Jocelyne’s Icarussy.
Ah, there it is. The psychic punishment for my misdeed.
TAFFY!
True.
Sorry I’ve lost track.
Hank knows Joyce is not homophbic.
But which if any does he know about her:
Atheism
Bisexuality
non-virginity*
* Though that gets into the morass of how he’d define that.
At the moment none of the 3, part of why Becky is attempting to distract him is to delay him finding out (as well as keeping him away from Jocelyne) for as long as she possibly can
Does he even know about the autism assessment?
More like a-guess-ment. Ha. Got eem.
Hank out rolled Becky’s Deception. A great feat because she has a high Charisma modifier.
Becky tries Diversionary Fast Talk! It’s Super-Ineffective!
She’s been pretty blatantly obvious and fumbled hard this whole interaction, tbh. Even before considering he’s probably had personal experience with her specific eccentricities, it would be slightly straining credibility for him to not realize something was up.
She got him away from Joyce and Dorothy, and all the way down three floors to the lobby before he started to get suspicious. What do you want from her? Putting him on a bus out of town? I don’t think he’s as dumb as Becky’s father was.
MISSION FAILURE IMMINENT, ABORT ABORT
(man I hope Joyce and Dorothy have been using this time to strategize with Joss and not just smooch)
(a little bit of smooching would be understandable though)
Becky can’t convince anyone of anything because she can’t convince Hank. Yet Hank is only unconvinced because he knows Becky can convince anyone of anything. It’s the paradox of the food court.
…At least I hope the food court is nearby, because I don’t have any better names handy.
Aw, hi Ken. It’s been… *checks tag* SIX YEARS!?
WITHOUT WARNING OR EXPLANATION:
KEN.
Oh hey it’s C. Viper
Damn! He made his Perception Check
I smash the fourth wall and yell “Your daughter is bisexual and also your second oldest son is actually another daughter!!! Who is also bisexual!!!!”
I politely knock at the brocken edges of the hole you made, stick my head in and add
“Now go buy the both of them pizza – every hard sitdown-convo is better with pizza.”
DANGIT, HANK!
Whenever there’s a plotline that “X must never find out!”, X will find out.
Somehow just now noticed Joyce gets her eyes from Hank.
The good Browns have blue eyes, the bad ones have black eyes.
Hank is clearly not where Joyce gets the autism from. The intelligence though, that tracks.
Of course she didn’t get it from Hank. She got it from a Raising Cane’s 4-piece combo.
Or Tylenol !!! Why are people always looking for a single ’cause’?
They’re stupid and lazy. That’s two causes. Another one is, they know there’s not one single factor that makes us autistic, and they know that the genpop are stupid and lazy and hateful and lack object permanence, so they use us as a scapegoat for any little thing that bugs them. Because when someone is stupid and lazy and hateful, they’ll go along with anything that lets them hurt someone else, especially if that someone exists differently to them, which they see as an act of willful defiance.
Funny how the audience for “Top 10 One Easy Tricks To Delete Autistics From Your Living Room In Four Easy Steps” call us mentally retarded, when they’re constantly retarding their own mentals to avoid accepting the fact that we’re Just People™.
oh my fucking satan if I hear the Tylenol crap one more time imma go full Nappa on them ableist assholes D:<
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdjwpmvMi-g
DAMMIT KEN!
😛
Dang, so close Becky, so close.
Becky, no! You were caught monologuing!
I do like we get evidence of at least one adult who can look at a young person and sees them trying to be clever. We spend so much time with all these people at the same level of perspective, it’s easy to forget that none of them are batman. That they’ll look back on this one day and realize they weren’t anywhere close to being as smart as they thought they were.
Amazigirl is still Batman. A badly injured batman, but still batman.
Batly injured.
I’m Robin yer puns.
Poor Becks. She will get blowback now, and she’s already hurting. Hank will not trust her the same anymore.
The problem with an attentive parent is sometimes theyve paid attention to you since you were a kid, and she’s probably run rodeo clown for Joyce before……
I just want to say, calling this “Running rodeo clown” is absolutely hilarious. Thank you for sharing this.
Well, I guess Hank ain’t a dummy (not necessarily as WISE as one would hope, but he’s definitely showing he can put two and two together). Not that seeing his reaction to all the revelations from the last few arcs was really in doubt – the question is, how will he take it?
There is evidence that he’ll handle it well and will just need some time to process all the new information – heck, just look at his interaction with Becky here for evidence of that! Despite being deep in the conservative realm, he still treats Becky with dignity and respect despite knowing that she’s gay as the day is long. But he’s also deep in the realm of conservative politics – as evidenced by him being afraid that Joss was gay and making a comment about her being communist.
Based on his previous appearances, I think everyone is overly fearful about what his reaction will be – which having gone through my own coming out as transgender some years ago, I absolutely understand how that fear can far exceed the reality of how things will play out – but we’ve also seen from Becky’s dad how that fear is still very much justified and how dire the consequences of coming out can be.
Here’s hoping that this gets us right to the “confrontation” where all of this comes out in the open – and while I would like a quick resolution on this, I can definitely understand if Willis wants to drag out the tension for at least a few strips – and even if there’s no immediate blowup, he can still leave the final resolution hanging simply by saying that he has a lot to think about now – which not only would help keep the tension in that relationship for longer, but is pretty realistic for a conservative person who is confronted with something that directly and undeniably defies their preconceived notions of the world.
The saving grace for Hank is that I feel he’s the kind of person who can “come around”. He might not understand at first, but I think if you can reassure him that he won’t “lose” his children (some people were discussing yesterday that Hank is probably feeling extra vulnerable and alone after divorcing Carol and losing the support network of the church, so he’s clinging all the more aggressively to things of his old life, including how he used to view his children), he will be fine. Joyce being gay/bi or Jocelyne being trans doesn’t mean that they don’t love their father any less, or that he won’t ever see them again.
Hank makes a Perception check vs 12, rolls a 16.
Well, of course any father of four would be familiar with diversionary tactics.
At some point soon, Willis puts the famous “Pale Blue Dot” picture in the comic. Realizing the blunder too late, Willis has to tag EVERY SINGLE INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER. All 90+ of them. The task is two days in the making.
Okay, I’ll fess up: What is the “Pale Blue Dot” picture? I remember a couple of drawing he’s posted of the entire cast but am not sure.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot
There ya go. It’s a famous photo of our planet from like at least 20km away.
You’re… not wrong.
Let’s see you take a good photo of Earth from that distance, Annie Leibovitz.
“At least”. Yes.
It is my great joy to share this with you We Are Here: the Pale Blue Dot video from Pale Blue Films Absolutely my favorite rendering of this speech
Voyager’s picture back over it’s shoulder with Earth a fraction of a pixel.
“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.” – Carl Sagan.
Theoretically wouldn’t it just be tagging whomever was alive at the time the photo was taken
Anyway why are we talking about a pale blue version of me? Is this like the blue lady on Twitter?
Sure, but most of the characters are still alive. Gonna take a while doing the tagging.
None of the kids would have been born when the picture was taken. Even some of the adults, like Leslie and Robin are too young.
Or he just adds a tag for “Everyone.”
Oh that’s cheating! :O
Hank wears glass now as well.
omg hi ken!!!!!
I thought his name was Balrog
Hi Barbie!!
His Christian sense is tingling…
A little bit too much on the nose there in the second panel, Becky.
no, Hank, look at her, focus on her
Becky: “Why not be a more supportive father to Josh? You know. You were so against what he was protesting, but what if you were more encouraging instead? That’ll create a bond between you two and you get better insight in him as a person.”
Hank: “Hmmmm…”
Later, when Jocelyne has returned home and is in her room
Hank: “Are ya winning, son?”
I feel like they’re giving him too little credit. It might be an enormous shock but he’d probably learn to accept her
Eventually, he might be ok. My read is that the thing he would be angry about is that they kissed in public.
His reaction is bound to be volatile. I think a better strategy here might be to have Joyce (and NOT Dorothy) nearby when the news breaks to him, so she can talk him down from doing something really bad like calling her mom. No way Becky will be able to do that.
Oh no, Becky played her hand to hard and Hank figured out he’s on the receiving end of her distraction
Task failed Becky you tried a bit too hard.
Good try tho!
Okay, well, here’s where we find out how much Hank has *actually* grown.
(Pleasebedecentpleasebedecent)
I wouldn’t hold my breath
if you ask me, Becky and who not need more viable, sustainable alternatives to fulfill whatever role they think will be automatically accomplished by these “parental figures” they think they need
people like Hank don’t have any special insight or anything they’re lacking, and honestly have no idea what they’re doing anymore than they do XD
Nah, man, family isn’t about anything being “automatically accomplished” but we learn useful lessons from the people who lived before us. They have things they can impart, a lot of times very useful things.
Hank has grown a lot since we met him, and made some *hard choices* to cut ties with people he had long, deep bonds with because he wanted to do right by his kids, Becky included. The fact that he’s still bound up in a belief structure that is harmful to that doesn’t negate the strides he’s made, I just hope he continues taking steps forward.
breaking news: ken still doesn’t own a car
my money is on “he focuses on the fact joyce was at the protest, not that she’s kissing a girl”
TWO communists in the family?!?!?!
Hey, it’s Ryu! Feels like we haven’t seen ol Ryu in ages.
Oof, Dorothy and Joyce are listed as characters. I had hoped he might not be able to recognise them at a distance…