Look, he’s already mastered the art of subtly disparaging his ex to the children and begrudgingly allowing them things the stricter parent would disapprove of. Hank is nailing divorce. He’s fine.
They went between churches a lot, usually finding them unsatisfactory in some way, so they weren’t really in the grip of one church-centric social apparatus, but they were in the grip of fundieism as a broader self-reinforcing apparatus.
well “unsatisfactory” was one way of putting it, Willis said that it’s because they kept discovering corruption in the ranks
yeah tho it’s like I said before, white conservative Christians’ world is basically built on a wall made of FEAR, and that wall lasts long after it’s built since a very young age
Yes but… all things considered? Not bad given his situation. He may not like it, but he loves his daughter. Maybe it won’t work out or he’ll slip or whatever and yes, that counseling will help! But I’m also genuinely relieved to see this not blow up today.
At this point it seems like he’s in the ‘would prefer his daughter to be straight, but would feel like a hypocrite for saying it’. It’s not the worst, but not the best, which seems to be the whole takeaway based on the alt-text.
I’ll take it. A year ago, he’d be literally picking her up and scooping her into the car to get her away from the crazy place.Progress is slow, but still progress.
Hank’s line about it being against scripture reads to me like someone who’s finding major flaws in their formal moral framework and is breaking from it, but hasn’t yet found a new one, so everything’s having to go through the standard filter of “is this ok under previous moral framework? IF NO: do i care?”
Reminding me of my parents, honestly. They’ve both been making the journey through levels of acceptance; from the evangelical “Hate the sin, not the sinner (but also associate with them as little as possible)” all the way to now calling their reps in AZ over trans rights.
It’s a long process, but this is a good sign that Hank’s walking the right path!
I mean, almost everyone in this strip needs counseling of one sort or another, that doesn’t mean they are all going to get it.
And for Hank, how would that work? He is not going to seek something like that out at this point, he probably doesn’t even know it’s a thing let alone something he could benefit from, so it would have to be people like Joyce, Joycelyne, and Becky pushing him to do so, and I don’t see that happening. At least not yet.
I’d like to give Hank the benefit of the doubt, and see what happens. Yes he could still disappoint, but he could also prove to be a decent parent. We’ll have to wait, and see.
Besides I feel like now is a good time for them to tell Hank what is going on with Joyce, and Joceylne without Carol finding out.
No surprise for me; while this was on the better end of things, it’s thus far fallen well within my range of expectations based on his prior conduct in the strip–most notably, his near-immediate adoption of Becky. That’s not something you do if your cult programming is capable of overriding your empathy. Hank really just needs more intel.
Same. He’s a good dad, but not perfect. He at least understands that love is the most important part of everything, and actually has a decent idea of what that actually means – even if he still has some hang ups based on his religious and political environment.
I don’t remember seeing many bad parents in QC (or many parents at all really). Marten’s parents are fine. Claire’s mom is world-class as Ray said and I don’t remember hearing much about her dad at all. I don’t think anything all that bad came up about Dora’s parents when we met them way back. Faye’s mom seems all right. Bakery Guy is trying, he just doesn’t seem to get his daughter too well. The only outlier I can recall off the top of my head is Faye’s dad — which is admittedly a pretty big one. But on the whole QC parents seem decent.
Oh good point; I’d forgotten all about Hannermom. And Anh’s dad despite him being a big part of a recent storyline. Goldfish memory strikes again in that case.
And on the subject of Hanner’s parents her dad isn’t great, but he seems more the easily-distracted-geniss type, not the puposefully-neglectful type.
some folks, not me… would argue that Faye’s dad is awful, but that’s not a fair thing, depression is a cruel monster. but I think the % of bad parents between QC and this is probably in the high 70s ~<3
The two bad parents in QC are Hannelore’s mother and…
I’m not going to weigh in on the moral issues because I have no idea, but it’s safe to say that Faye’s father caused some really big problems for his kids.
I think it helps that he’s already admitted to suspecting one of his kids was some kind of queer. He just didn’t expect Joyce specifically to be the one coming out right now. Personally I’d guess that he’d react to Jocelynn coming out as trans with primarily confusion and some misunderstandings over what that entails, but not with condemnation or hatred.
I mean, it’s not usually condemnation or hatred that’s the problem. Those people exist, but they’re relatively rare. A lot more people have a “You’re just confused” sort of attitude, like they expect the person to grow out of the idea. I’ve *been* that person, I’m ashamed to say, and honestly Willis and this comic are a big part of what shook me out of it and made me rethink that line of thought. It comes from an intent to be helpful, but you don’t realize the actual harm it’s causing, or how actually pretty arrogant it is. I can’t see Hank being hateful, but I could see him falling into *that* pattern, at least in the short term.
“Of course. Birds are members of the class Aves. They are characterized by being warm-blooded with a four-chambered heart, feathers, and beaks. Additionally, they have intraosseous pneumaticity. Meaning their interconnected respiratory system is integrated into their bones. In regards to us, that last part is most crucial aspect of this metaphor.”
ACKTCHUALLY *pushes up glasses* “warm-blooded” and “cold-blooded” are no longerconsidered accurate terms! Birds would now be considered endothermic – generating their own heat internally – rather than exothermic.
Also they have like airbags and I feel like I remember something about six lungs? Look I didn’t actually pay that much attention when we were studying birds.
ACTUALLY actually, mosy birds (and mammals) would also be considered homeothermic AND tachymetabolic according to a thing I have read just now after learning this brand new information. It’s interesting!
“…or would that be the bees and the bees? Or the birds and the birds? Honestly I’m a little out of my depth here. Tell you what, use whatever metaphor works for ya.”
When a mommy bee and a daddy bee love each other very very much, they go on a special flight together. Then the daddy bee dies and the mommy bee builds her own hive with any further male involvement.
What is that avatar picture? It looks like something from a textbook from when I was in lower or middle school. Which I think is cool. I am just curious what it actually is.
At the time of this response, my avatar is the album cover of the 2001 album Supergott, by the Swedish pop group Caramell. If you’ve been online long enough, I expect you’ll have heard the opener.
He’s also not a spineless jellyfish like Chuck. At this point, I’m willing to say he’s actually one of the best ~people~ in the strip, in terms of personal values. He just needs some more deprogramming and honest info to make better choices with. (Most of the rest of the cast, even the ones I genuinely adore, make bad decisions even with good intel; Hank keeps overcoming some fairly deep propaganda to make the right call.)
There is no such thing as “lying by omission”. Lying is an active process, not a passive one.
And as Nymph said, you do not owe the people around you the details of your life.
Clearly we have different perspectives on this. To me, if you present yourself outwardly as something other than what you perceive yourself to be internally, that is lying, even if you are doing it for your own safety. I don’t consider it morally wrong to lie in that context, but I do consider it a lie. I had to lie about myself for several years in order to find employment or housing in Texas as a trans woman. It wasn’t wrong of me to lie. But I still considered it to be lying.
I have explicitly not engaged with your other comment because you said you don’t like when someone responds to you with a comment that can be boiled down to “I disagree with you” but here you are doing the same thing to me.
I disagree with you, and I am not interesting in changing my opinion on this. It isn’t lying, it’s just keeping something private. You can consider it whatever you want, that won’t stop me from disagreeing.
Yes, there very much is such a thing as lying by omission – heck, it’s been Joyce’s modus operandi through her deflecting Hank from knowing about what’s going on with Jocelyne. Hank asks about the whereabouts of Joyce’s older sibling (who he currently thinks is her brother), which Joyce is fully aware of. Instead of answering the intent of the question, she said that her brother was not there – technically true, since her SISTER is there, but still lying by omission because she knew full well who Hank was referring to and she answered in such a way as to try to give him the wrong impression.
It’s the difference between being honest and telling the truth. Joyce told Hank the truth – none of her brothers were there, just her older transgender sister. But she was not being HONEST – she was acting in a way that she knew her father would use to come to the wrong conclusion (well, would have if the lie had worked). Hank, on the other hand, was not speaking the TRUTH about Jocelyne by referring to her as his son (which, to be fair, we have pretty well conclusive evidence that he had zero actual knowledge about), but was being honest about his concern for her and being frustrated about the lies and misdirection that’s been going on.
Lying by omission is intentionally leaving out information in an attempt to get the other person to come to a false conclusion even though everything you say is objectively true. It’s still very much an active process – just a subtler form of it. A good indicator when someone is lying by omission is when they say, “Yes, well, did I say anything that wasn’t actually true?”
I mean there is, its where you technically tell the truth but knowingly leave out important details that would recontextualise it. Because you know leaving out those details will give them a different impression you want them to have that the full truth would not.
Not applicable here of course, this is just her not sharing personal details he has no right to know until she decides to share them.
Meanwhile Joyce again metaphorically and literally throws herself in front of Jocelyn (forgive spelling). But the elder sister may still want to come out to her dad, in the spirit of transparency (oops, no pun intended).
Ever since people started posting AI-fail pictures of cutaway diagrams of men with a uterus with a full term baby in it, the term ‘transparent’ has taken on a whole new meaning for me.
Ehh, even though this went the way I did I feel like there’s a good chance he’d still get argumentative about her being trans in a way that wouldn’t be great for anyone atm
There are sadly a lot of gay people who have turned on trans people. Hank’s doing his best, but I think the best way his kids can support him now is slowly introducing him to more science.
Of course there are. Crab bucket-ass mentality, but also active psyops designed to drive us apart that have been and continue to be successful.
Of note: cis lesbians in the UK are overwhelmingly the MOST accepting of trans people and the most likely to say they know a trans person! Do not believe the lesbophobic lie that cis lesbians are especially transphobic. Do not carry water for TERFs, who very much profit from being able to pretend they’re protecting cis lesbians.
That’s almost completely backwards. I think you’ve fallen for the TERF propaganda. I’m not going to say no trans women have ever said things like that, but it’s far less common that the TERF assertions that “No lesbians are interested in penis, so any woman who’s okay with trans woman must be bi, not a lesbian.”
It’s a muddying of something trans women actually say, which is not that if you don’t want to interact with a penis you’re transphobic, but calling on people to examine why the idea of interacting with a penis is so repulsive to you, and to really interrogate whether it comes from a genuine innate preference or transphobic assumptions about trans women and their bodies. In essence, asking cis people to do frankly a fraction of the introspection and soul-searching trans women are compelled to do in order to figure out who we are.
Naturally, this is interpreted in bad faith to be us demanding that people jack us off or whatever. Implying trans women are sexual predators in so many words.
Maybe not a bad time, but probably not the worst time for a “there is something I’d like to talk to you about, but I’d rather not do it now.”
There’s a lot going on right now, tensions are high, but expressing a willingness but not readiness might help ease any anxieties while also not overloading
If she thinks she’s going to have to tell him soon anyway, perhaps because the effects of HRT will become too obvious, this would be a good time.
It would be awkward to go “No more big secrets” here and then get outed in a couple of weeks. And here she’s got friends and her sister to support her.
Yup. I feel like she’s already planning to come out at some point – remember that she asked Joyce for her take on Hank, was he trustworthy, etc., and her whole reason for coming here was so she could tell Joyce “before she hears it from dad.” She felt put on the spot and like she had to do it before she had fully prepared herself in order to protect Joyce, but frankly may as well follow through at this point.
“At some point” being the operative part of that sentence. It was incredibly clear that she did not want that point to be in this hallway at this time and was only doing so in order to deflect from Joyce’s secret that no longer needs kept because she revealed it. There’s also a good argument for, if Hank doesn’t continue to pursue what she was about to tell him, for waiting for a time when he hasn’t had a whole bunch of other things dumped on him and he’s not currently upset about her “terrorist” ties.
Uh yeah I kind of said that lol. If she waits until later Hank is still going to be upset because she didn’t tell him here. She has no perfect options.
Kind of the other way around, maybe. He saw just how bad of a parent Carol (forgive me if I got her name wrong she hasn’t shown up in a bit) was being and left to readjust and get back on the path to semi-decency.
getting the hell kicked out of you is a time honored way of jumpstarting your personal growth, particularly in guys. id say hank is a little behind the curve, age-wise, but then his bubble of denial had considerable outside reinforcement
Joyce, you forgot that it was for that literally earlier today.
Mind you, that was because Joyce WANTED buying birth control to be a rebellion against her fundamentalist upbringing versus a necessary medical supplement.
Now I want Dorothy to introduce Joyce to her parents as her girlfriend and they do the Dina’s parents level of approval AKA sending Dorothy some extra money to go on a date with Joyce.
Honestly had kind of worked my way into camp “Hank’s gonna go ‘yeah right, now tell me what’s actually going on.'” But I guess he can tell when Joyce is telling the truth, too, so that’s something.
Oof.
Anecdote incoming.
(Feel free to skip reading, its a downer)
A classmate of mine died in the second year of gymnasiet, traffic collission, her on a moped. I wasnt super close to her but our entire class went together to pay our respect, i spoke to her father after the service and he clung to me and ugly cried for a solid 5 minutes. I learnt sometime after that that they had had a stillborn besides my classmate and her older brother.
A year later her brother got flung out of a car window. They lost all three of their children.
I think of him every time i think of parents outliving their children.
Billie’s dad, by a pretty large margin. I was gonna say “as a person: potentially Carla’s, as a dad: Billie’s” but Billie’s wins handily in both categories now that I think of it lol
It’s hard to count Mr. or Mrs. Billingsworth because they’re not even characters that exist. It raises questions for me too like does Billie have a stepmom? Her dad ever remarry? Where is her bio mom and is she just as absentee? Is this a group effort of neglect or a tragedy?
I could’ve sworn she did, either that or the dad had like a prominent girlfriend/mistress. I just remember him ousting all the homeless people and leaving Billie to fend for herself first day of like kindergarten or something lol. Billie’s parents are terrible
Did I miss something? I thought they were still married and just not present in Jennifer’s life.
Maybe cheating, but I think that I might just be remembering that from It’s Walky!.
I don’t think Galasso even exists on the same axis as everyone else. Like, if the Dad Scale goes from -10 (Amber’s) to +10 (Sierra’s), Galasso is like 42i.
To be fair, we don’t really see very much of Galasso in DoA – just to know that he’s a fickle and tyrannical boss. We haven’t seen any sign of Connie yet, nor the gender blindness that he exhibited in Shortpacked – just that he tends to hire people on a whim, and can be a little too eager to fire people sometimes. But, yeah, it’s hard to be a worse dad than Shortpacked!Galasso – though Blaine definitely takes the cake on that count, followed shortly afterwards by Becky’s dad. And… it says a LOT that Shortpacked!Galasso isn’t in competition for the two worst dads in DoA…
If you include offscreen parents Asher’s dad is probably pretty bad, being part of the mob and all.
I can only assume how Marry’s parents are pretty terrible (watch them actually be lovely and no where near as fundamentalist or conservative as she is).
becky is still religious despite also being gay so idk if hank has any reason to consider that (i can understand some lgbt ppl still being religious despite everything but it’d be hard after their church specifically)
That’s pretty much what did it for me. Not kids and not dogma, but at some point in high school I realized I had to decide whether I wanted to let my prejudices destroy my friendships or let my friendships destroy my prejudices, and as soon as I mentally phrased it like that the choice was obvious.
I’ll admit I do kinda like how it’s so far in the future that everyone is a complete freak. It’s like they’ve all just discovered they were sentient, after spending their whole lives as feral animals. I can only take so much of that though.
Fair enough. I’ve never been aware I was looking at Wynona Ryder, but Sigourney Weaver is quite a woman to see. Makes me wish I’d seen any of the movies (besides AVP and the vacuum scene with the newborn) before last year. I love ’em now, though. Mostly.
Weaver is always great, in my experience. Real tour de force.
Ryder is more of a specific era’s goth gf. Heathers and Beetlejuice alone would probably be enough for 80s kids even if she’d never been in another movie. (She’s also pretty and has soulful eyes, but the “goth gf” thing really hits very specific buttons, and she was definitely the “it” girl for a generation.)
I was very technically an 80s child but I missed all of the relevant media until I was much older, so Christina Ricci was Bitty Li’s childhood goth gf crush. A little more age appropriate for me, but I’m sure I would’ve admired the heck out of Winona Ryder had I actually seen her movies earlier.
Since being in a relationship requires consent from both people, all that needs to be done to end the relationship is for one person to withdraw consent. Joyce withdrew her consent to be in the relationship, with the understanding that they’ll talk about things later – that means that the relationship is no longer one of boyfriend and girlfriend. Now, it may go back to being that later – but for now, Joyce did break up with him, and they are no longer a couple, at least officially.
Surprised this take isn’t more common. If people actually listen to Joyce’s words, rather than what they may want to happen, she said everything she needs to say to Joe to end things. Even if she hadn’t been interrupted by multiple emergencies, I think it would be fair for her to take a bit of time to consider how to respond to Joe’s unexpected suggestion. She’s made it crystal clear she’s choosing Dorothy first, so if she’s even interested in an open relationship at all she’d need to discuss it with Dorothy before agreeing to anything with Joe. But if she’s not interested (and nothing really suggests that she is), all she needs to do is let Joe know.
Personally, I’m not convinced even Joe actually wants an open relationship. He seems to see this more as a consolation prize, which probably isn’t a healthy way for a sustainable open relationship to begin. If he had said something like “I was willing to try monogamy for you, but I’d honestly be more comfortable with an open relationship if that’s something you would want” then the one-true-polycule solution would have at least one of three legs to stand on.
The reason this take isn’t more common is because Joyce doesn’t seem to believe she broke up with Joe, which fails the at least one person withdrawing consent to be in a relationship bar.
I am fully certain that Joyce has not *really* considered if she wants to be broken up with Joe. She likes him, she doesn’t want to hurt him, and she went into their conversation assuming they *had* to break up, so it through her for a loop when he said they haven’t.
But she GLEEFULLY claimed Dotty and yanked her away from Walky. She clearly wants *Dorothy* to be exclusive to *her*, or at least not date Walky himself. Unless she didn’t *mean* that scene, and thought she was just being funny, in which case, no, Joyce, you weren’t.
So given that, do you really think there’s a world in which she just says “Okay, so hey, Dorothy, I know I *forcefully* inserted myself into your delicate talk with Walky and crushed him beneath my heel while laughing maniacally, but is it okay if *I* keep *my* boyfriend? Yeah, that’ll go over well.
Yes, absolutely I do. It wouldn’t surprise me if it’s this world.
I do agree she hasn’t stopped to really think it through and I don’t think the implications of her dumping Walky for Dorothy while maybe not really dumping Joe even occurred to her.
In the last couple months his kid got kidnapped, his wife and a lot of his church stood by the kidnapper, and he got (or is in the process of) divorced. Guy has been having a character arc off screen. He went from not wanting his daughter to hang around atheists to this. Will he approve of Jocelyne? Eh, probably not. He probably won’t approve of her “communist” actions either. He’d probably be happier if his all his kids were conservative, cis, straight and god loving. But it seems like he will deal with it with mostly tolerance if not acceptance. “Hank is not the worst dad but he is not the best dad”
Biggest issue is likely to be Joyce’s atheism. From his perspective, that’s going to be putting her soul at risk in a way simply being ‘wrong’ about sexuality won’t. (Hank’s probably actually fully aware of the women in the Gospels, and how Christ reacted to infidelity and ‘sexual immorality’, and figures he should at least be that understanding.)
He had a character arc ON screen. Honestly, I’m kinda stunned how many people have been just assuming the absolute worst about Hank for the last couple weeks considering all the growth he’s shown in his last few appearances.
The Brown parents really not give any of their children a sexual education? Not even the basics? I feel like that’s a huge parental failure we’ve been overlooking.
I think Carol handled the homeschooling so Hank is assuming that Carol must not have done a proper job of sex ed if Joyce got birth control to have sex with her girlfriend. Which isn’t what happened of course, hence why Joyce is correcting him, but I do think Joyce got the Christian basics. Aka ‘sex is when a man and a woman go kapow with their genitals, don’t do it til marriage also you’re gonna bleed once a month because of Eve.’
I can’t speak to sex ed post 1990’s but at that point at least even public school sex ed in many parts of America boiled down to “Don’t do it or you’ll catch AIDs and die and also get pregnant (not necessarily in that order) and if you’re a girl who has sex before marriage you’re like chewed gum and no one will want you.”
Considering how ‘boy crazy’ joyce is and mentioned she had access to the internet she might’ve found out eventually or having some experienced husband ‘picked’ for her
one of her brothers is married/probably has a kid so i assume she would’ve asked her sister in law about that , maybe
I wonder how Becky feels witnessing this Relatively Chill Yet Fraught Coming Out and if she is going to have a bit of a flashback of her own to deal with on top of the rest of the pile of feelings.
Funny enough, she and Dina could relate together over “Dang, a nightmare for me that went so easily for Joyce.”
yeah this is exactly what i figured would happen. he’d be uncomfortable with these revelations, he’d find them off putting, but he fully understands he can’t dismiss them or try to refute them. developing acceptance for people like him is a slow process, and choosing not to deny what’s right in front of him is a good sign. i do think he doesn’t rly know what’s up with jocelyne tho, might not have a clue what being trans even is lmao
He’s trying alt-text; he may not be the best dad, but it shows that he’s trying to be a decent person. Hopefully he accepts his children for who they are, and not condemn them the way he, and Carol, have in the past.
surprised people were doubting Hank “i think my daughter is more important than my church (in the context of church holding a girl at gunpoint)” Brown being accepting of joyce’s sexuality. he was already fine with becky, who’s basically a third Brown daughter
he’s not worried because he’s looking to punish Joyce, he’s worried because things Happen to Joyce and he just wants to be sure she’s not secretly hurt.
good man. good DoA dads are a welcome refresher
Hank is a good dad, he’s trying his best to be there for his children. ALL of them.
I’m a bit confused by his scripture line, though. He was extremely supportive of Becky after she came out, to the point of telling her that her mother would have been proud to see the woman she became (drawing out a hug from Becky). Him saying “Well, being gay is kinda evil” feels like it’s ignoring that he’s already addressed this issue and chosen love and compassion before.
I think it indicates a certain level of cognitive dissonance on his part, his instincts as a person and as a human being conflicting with the rules he’s been led to believe. Not unlike the way Joyce was early on, though obviously no two people process it in quite the same way.
I mean, yeah. But everyone’s got cognitive dissonance going on. One could say the human brain is a meat engine that fucking loves to produce cognitive dissonance.
I think he meant Becky’s mom would be proud of her for standing up for what she believes in, just like he was proud of Joyce for standing up for Dorothy and her parents at the school fountain on freshman family weekend. I don’t know if he thought either of those things were “correct” in terms of Christianity, but he thought they were just in general correct, as he slowly changes his own world views
As much as he cares for Becky, even treating her like part of the family, she’s not actually related to him. For some people, that can make a difference. It’s one thing for your kid to have gay friends, but another thing when it’s your actual kid. I’m glad he didn’t respond like that, but it was a possibility.
Yup. Also, lesbian sex is most directly described as God’s curse on unfaithful men, so, y’know, if there’s still lesbians around, it’s straight dudes’ fault.
Romans 1
Incidentally, after reading today’s strip, I did a search for what the bible says about lesbians. Results implied there were multiple things about it, most particularly Romans 1:26, but digging deeper… That one verse, which has multiple possible interpretations, seems to be the only one.
See also: https://www.prayersfor.com/bible-verses/lesbians which lists 50 verses, but again, only Romans 1:26 actually mentions wlw specifically.
And, as Freemage said, God deliberately caused it. If we wanted, we could interpret the “unnatural sexual relations” it’s referring to as meaning they were using strap-ons (or, less jokingly and more in line with what the Bible says about sex, it could’ve meant that they were having sex without love being involved, what with it having been a bit of divinely-inflicted mind control).
Also possibly worth noting: Romans is one of those books of the Bible that isn’t recording what God or Jesus supposedly said, but what some other guy said about God’s motives. So, the one and only verse in the Bible that’s specifically about lesbian sex isn’t backed by any divine teachings.
Note that the actual verse is vaguely worded enough that it isn’t necessarily about woman-on-woman. I suppose that it’s a reasonable interpretation, but it isn’t explicit.
One possible alternate interpretation is that it’s about bestiality. An additional point that might support that interpretation is that in the OT (Leviticus 20), while man “lying with a man as with a woman” is condemned, there’s no similar verse for women lying with women. Rather, women lying with animals is condemned.
I suspect that fundies would retort that women doing anything sexual is condemned. Only missionary position, man on top, for the purpose of making babies, is “natural” sexual relations.
But the entire thing is actually about a whole list of ‘sins’, not just “unnatural lusts” (whatever “unnatural lusts” are, because, clearly homosexuality IS natural in humans and other animals):
“(29) … envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, (30) slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; (31) they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.”
Keep in mind he still doesn’t have the entire truth (primarily, Jocelyne) and that being wary about coming out to a parent who was at one point a fundamentalist is, I think, a reasonable thing to be worried about.
If we were talking about the mom I’d agree, but Hank? Dude already proved that he is willing to put his kids ahead of his faith. Not saying he won’t struggle with the revelation, because obviously he has a lot of growing to do. But he clearly loves his kids, wants to do right by them, and is willing to completely uproot his life to do so. I genuinely don’t understand why people have so little faith in him as a parent.
I’m not saying Hank isn’t trustworthy, I’m saying it’s understandable that Joyce, who saw her best friend be held at gunpoint for coming out as gay, might have concerns. Hank was never gonna do that but fear isn’t always rational.
A lot of people have experience dealing with conservative, fundamentalist parents and for them the distrust is entirely understandable. Having faith in someone in that sphere not being a danger is something a lot of queer people can’t do.
I feel like this doesn’t really refute my point so much as sidestep it…
Actually no, thinking on it more I suppose my confusion really comes from the misguided idea that fundamentalist hatred is an all or nothing affair. I’ve had a tendency to think in the past that people who are hateful scumbags tend to go all in, or in other words, people who are shitheads towards one minority group rarely seem to stop there. But upon reflection that’s actually really dangerous to assume if you’re potentially in the firing line, huh…
Yeah, you know what, consider my ignorant ass sorted on this one.
Sometimes people don’t even have to be shitheads to still not accept gay people if it is their own kid who is gay. My mom was happy to support my gay friends but never truly accepted my own queerness.
“willing to put his kids ahead of his faith” is absolutely a mark in Hank’s favor but you gotta understand that that willingness does not always stretch infinitely far
I hope you’re only this sarcastic and condescending in the comments section of webcomics and not to real people in real life who are dealing with fundie parents
Just to add: if there’s a 99% chance that your seemingly-accepting parent will be sane and reasonable, and a 1% chance that he’ll cut off all support and maybe grab a gun and go Toedad… Well, the odds are greatly in your favour, but that 1% chance is still not a risk you want to take unless you need to.
That too. My example was deliberately exaggerated (how would Joyce even have a 99% chance that Hank would be fine with it?) to emphasize how far from unreasonable her caution was.
And that’s even if Joyce had been thinking clearly, which I’m pretty sure she hasn’t been doing much of since she first kissed Dorothy.
I feel like Hank’s hairline has receded 3 sizes today. Remember kids, each lie told to your father pulls his hairline back another centimeter. That’s why so many dads are bald.
Hank definitely isn’t the best dad, but considering his upbringing and his marital life up until this last year or so, I have to say he is way WAY better than I would have hoped or expected.
Scathing hot take apparently; it’s okay to lie to your parents about your sexuality and/or gender if you are unsure whether they are a safe person to disclose that information to and in fact you shouldn’t feel pressured to come out to them unless you desire to do that.
100%. Not all religious parents are as chill and accepting as Hank is. Protect yourself first, make sure your safety and well-being won’t be compromised before you consider coming out to your religiously conservative parents /queer Saturday morning PSA
I’m definitely being a little hyperbolic for the fun of it but there’s at least one guy here in the comments who’s like “see telling the truth was better than lying” as if them lying in this instance is a mark against their characters.
It was here though – partly because Joyce couldn’t sell it to her father, partly because she was lying out of panic instead of a genuine need and largely because Hank accepting his daughter was pretty obviously going to be the outcome once he knew.
And it’s annoying. Why are some commenters literally making fun of people for buying into the clear intentional tension Willis was creating with multiple ambiguous lines of dialogue from Hank? There’s a combativeness from some readers now that I’m used to only seeing from the type of horror fan who brags that no horror movies can scare them.
Congrats on your ability to refuse to engage with this thing you supposedly like, I guess. Sorry not everyone is meeting you on your exact level.
Not sure if you’re including me in this, but if so…
My only objection has been to the use of the words “safety” and “danger” in respect to this situation. Jocelyn and Joyce both had perfectly valid reasons to fear emotional backlash from their father over their respective secrets, and had no obligation to come out now (though I think coming out eventually with him is the right choice, as he is a generally decent human being and loving father). But insisting that it was ‘dangerous’ to do so, and they were trying to protect one another’s safety, rather than their emotional security (which, AGAIN, is a perfectly valid reason for their decisions) is stating facts not in evidence.
In Jocelyne’s case, emotional security is just as much related to her physical safety, I would say. As far as we know, the only family Jocelyne has that can be trusted with knowledge that she is trans is her sister. If neither of her parents, nor other siblings are accepting, that’s less social and emotional support for her. Less resources to rely upon. And as a writer, Jocelyne’s not exactly rolling in the dough.
As for Joyce, her attendance at college is 100% reliant on her father’s support and trust. She is also 100% financially dependent on him. Even outside of the gun situation, when Becky’s father disapproved of her being gay, he pulled her from the college and intended to take her to a conversion camp. Hank is better than Ross, but the line to cross for what he will accept is still not known and again, I’m keeping in mind how the characters in this comic are viewing it as far as safety vs danger.
OK, here is another one that puzzles me (replying to this whole thread) There appears to be a view that lying is a sin, but there are exceptions for safety. Yet I actually don’t know anyone who doesn’t lie sometimes, or lie by omission. I certainly lie. I lie to protect people from being upset by things that really don’t matter to me, but do to them. I lie to protect me from things that really don’t matter to me, but do to them. I doubt that I could lie about important things that matter to both parties, but I would probably try for people’s physical safety.
That’s a good point too, like I’m not sure why lying is being treated like the ultimate sin against these gals other than maybe residual upset about the whole cheating thing. Which, hey. The cheating, that can be criticized. That was a bad(tm) instance of lying indeed. Lying to Hank about the relationship, birth control pills, and Jocelyne’s identity aren’t bad things to lie about. Partially because certain things like the birth control… aren’t really his business unless he’s paying for them (which maybe he is? I don’t know what Joyce’s insurance looks like/covers) and even then, it’s as much related to her health as getting glasses.
Hank’s taking this a lot better than I feared he might. Like yeah, I was kinda purposely keeping my expectations low out of fear that things would go particularly badly; at no point was I expecting outright approval. But admitting that he’s not sure of what’s right and wrong anymore is a sign of hope.
And yeah it probably goes without saying but good on Hank for warning them not to tell Carol any of this. It’s sound advice and a sign that he is genuinely trying to look out for them.
This is not meant to be a dig at anyone in the comments, but the amount of people shocked by how well this is going sincerely confuse me. Is our collective short term memory really that bad, that we forgot the last scenes we saw of Hank? like. genuinely
It’s not that people forgot he has been decent; it’s that people have low expectations of parents in this comic, and possibly have parents who aren’t supportive. So seeing Hank take all this in without condemning Joyce in any way is surprising from both ends.
It can be genuinely difficult to predict what someone will do when their beliefs and their personality are in tension, is the thing. Hank’s been pretty consistently written as a genuinely good-hearted and thoughtful person who cares about other people, but his identity is deeply tied up in a set of fundamentally bigoted and regressive beliefs. Hard to tell what the breaking point is gonna be
honestly if you’ve ever seen Fiddler on the Roof, I think Tevye is a pretty similar type of guy. you don’t know when Hank’s gonna hit his “there is no other hand”
I think the current climate ratcheting up tensions and drawing battle lines is not helping people make nuanced takes and demands performative displays of purity and righteousness. It’s understandable trust is at a low.
Yeah, I definitely think the current political climate – and the fact that so many of us have interacted with conservative Christians who are EXTREMELY resist to change and are probably lost causes – that is making so many people have really low expectations of Hank.
I am one of those people who had my parents give me extreme resistance when I came out to them as transgender. There was much fighting, refusal to call me the name I wanted to be called, to use the correct pronouns for me.
I am still capable of nuanced takes and remember the person Willis has shown us Hank is.
It was more than just accepting. He went ABOVE AND BEYOND for Becky. He left his church and marriage for Becky. He set up a joint bank account for her and is helping her pay whatever expenses Robin isn’t paying for her. He essentially unofficially adopted her. All within the span of a *few weeks.* He was still weirded out by Becky having a girlfriend at the time and was still willing to completely upend his life for her, and she’s not even his own kid.
The last scenes we saw of Hank in the modern day were in 2020. I don’t think that qualifies as “short-term memory” and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to acknowledge that there are plenty of shitty parents who are accepting of queerness and supportive of queerness but NOT when it comes to their own children.
It is reasonable to expect someone who comes from an ideology that actively rolls back human rights based on “my bible says that’s icky” to respond poorly to information like this. And, frankly, weird to act like it isn’t reasonable. Some commentors (like myself) had to go through this IRL and that’s also impacting expectations.
Fearing he’s going to ‘respond poorly’ is fine. That’s a legit fear, even with what we knew of Hank up to this point.
Fearing for Jocelyn’s safety, or talking about her being in danger, is at best a strained reading of the character.
Fearing for Jocelyne’s safety is a potentially reasonable reaction from readers who may have experienced similar situations with trusted authority figures that turned suddenly dangerous.
Pointing out that Joyce et al might be fearing for Jocelyne’s safety is a 1000000000% fair point to make and any readers who made it were likely correct. The fun thing about bigots is that they’re insidious and it’s hard to tell who is genuinely dangerous and who is just shitting out of their mouth until it’s too late. That’s a fair thing to note as a motivation for everyone’s anxiety within the strip.
Joyce’s prior experiences last semester with disapproving fathers have been:
Ross kidnapping Becky at gun point with Joyce present.
Blaine kidnapping Joyce and a ton of other people, Ross and Mike died during this whole shebang, as well as Blaine himself.
Even though we, the readers, know Hank won’t do these things, and I’d say even Joyce truly knows her father never would, it isn’t unreasonable for her to still be frightened by the prospects of what her own father might do if he disapproves.
My comment is about how weirdly intense the commenters have been, not that the character reactions are not reasonable. Yall are out here proving my point
It was too long ago to be considered “short term memory” and I invite you to go find the definition of short term memory because I am not a dictionary <3
Also, other people have other issues with memory and other opinions on the traumas they've been through. You struggle with empathy or an understanding that other peoples' opinions matter equally to yours. That's sad for you.
I genuinely do not see a single response to you that is expressing shock about Hank.
I see a couple other people being a little exasperated with your hyperbole, as I was, and I see a couple of people pointing out that a lot of us are on edge right now.
You’re so impatient. It’s only been two months of everyone these two dipshit bozos know travelling from far and wide to see the newborn baby Jesus relationship of two white chicks who already Liked each other with a capital L.
I don’t think its impatient when every opportunity for literally anything to happen in this arc has been kicked down the road. Anything drama-able has immediately been shut down outside of Sarah yelling at Joyce (which is now completely pointless cause Joe is okay with this all) and Walky depressed eatjng (loved that scene with billie was 10/10)
“perfectly okay” is, i think, overselling it a bit. he’s trying to rationalize it away in the same way Joyce used to— “homosexuality is a sin, but I sin in little ways all the time so who am I to judge.” honestly they really are a lot alike, but Hank’s got an extra thirty years of set-in-his-ways to work through
I do agree that everyone being honkey dory with it (for the most part) is extremely unsatisfying cus they were still cheating. Just feels gross. I think I would have been more annoyed if Hank was randomly a jackass about it, considering the scenes we’ve already had with him. He’s obviously still indoctrinated in a lot of right wing propaganda, but so was Joyce
I want to see the consequences from the peers, not the weird “EVERYONE’S ROOTING FOR YOU” sentiment when they both……………. cheated
But it’s not that deep, is a webcomic at the end of the day
I rarely comment but: Hank is trying. He’s trying very very hard. As a trans person from a deeply conservative Catholic family; I see and appreciate the effort.
yeah it’s not exactly the same experience (not Christian) but as a queer person with some fairly conservative family members: it is perfectly possible for someone to have fundamentally shitty beliefs and still know that, at a fundamental level, they’re still a good person who cares about other people. even if that doesn’t mean you can always get them to understand why their beliefs are shitty, or that it’s even necessarily worth the effort to try.
and then of course you can also tell who’s an asshole, regardless of whatever their belief system happens to be.
I have met so many assholes whose politics I agree with. You know that meme from the big lebowski? “You’re not wrong Walter, you’re just an asshole”, I’ve seen that so many times.
It’s like, for these assholes it is less about their politics and more about having something to lord over other people.
Wheezes. Yeah this was about the level of reaction I expected. He’s already gone through a lot of trials. The church he’d been going to funded the release of a man who went on to kidnap his daughter. He’s already gotten a divorce, as he says. Why not. He knows Dorothy. She’s a Nice Young Woman.
For what it’s worth, the effectiveness of home-schooling depends heavily on the teachers. It’s not inherently necessary they be trying to indoctrinate their children… but that is a common motivation, as it’s a lot of work (at least if done remotely well) that could easily be passed off to a professional.
Hank gets the runaround for hours and now he’s like “that’s it? Ugh, fine, I’m going home. Wait, please tell me you actually understand biology, I don’t need to hate my ex wife more than I already do.”
For people from his background I keep expecting the worse and watch as another parent lets down their children. I’m glad I’m wrong because it puts a smile on face seeing someone like Hank try to grow, question his world and try to understand. Even if he’s fictional it’s nice to have this escapism once in a while.
i assume he wouldn’t have made a scene in a college campus but after a protest like that i imagine jocyelyn would be able to handle herself if she does tell him
So, I understand there’s all sorts of complicated fundamentalist-version-of-Christianity and complicated family dynamics going on here, but this reminds me that I was filled with flabbergast that the first reaction to Hank finding Joyce’s no-baby pills wasn’t “it’s for my menstrual cramps” – like, ironclad excuse right there and it happens to be mostly true anyway, sweet Jaysis.
I mean, Joyce herself started with the talk that her menstrual cramps are a punishment from god for Eve’s sins, so it’s not THAT ironclad for appropriate levels of fundie.
Well that is a depressing thought, and it’s not inconceivable, but her family strikes me more as “Jesus was a Republican” fundie and less “insane medieval theocrat” fundie. Like I imagine sh bro that idea from the general assumption that God is constantly fucking with you than f ok specifically being told that God wants to punch her in the crotch for her sins.
Joyce was so focused on possibly lying to her father to cover for Jocelyne and possibly lying to her father about Dorothy that she was caught completely off-guard by the Pill thing, but was still in Lie Mode at the time and panicked.
No, in Matthew Jesus allows an exception even as he’s discouraging divorce in general: “And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a divorced woman commits adultery” (Matthew 19:9)
Judaism allows for divorce for any reason (hell, the marriage ceremony itself has a prenup as part of the ritual) and doing so has its own set of rituals and rules for who requests what and who accepts the request. (The biggest glitch is that Orthodox communities don’t have an official mechanism for carrying out a divorce when the wife wants out but the husband doesn’t.)
*Snort* That was WAY more awareness than I expected from Hank. “Oh my God we homeschooled our daughter and now she thinks she can get pregnant from Dorothy” XD
Joyce: also I might be probably autistic and it’s genetic
Joyce: also I’m not a virgin
Joyce: and also I cheated on my boyfriend very publicly
Jocelynne: also I’m a woman now
Joyce: also Im a godless atheist
that’s probably the best response you coulda got from Hank given his upbringing with the “it does make me somewhat uncomfortable because of my upbringing but I won’t condemn it”
At this point he seems to care more that his kids are safe. Which is probably the greater reason why he doesn’t want them at the protest since he does genuinely see the protestors as a “dangerous group” due to the news he reads, which could lead his kids down a path that leads them to jail, death, or becoming dangerous themselves.
Gonna disagree with the alt-text and some commenters and say I think Hank is being a good dad, actually…so far, anyway (this may be a fake-out for him not reacting well to Jocelyne’s news). Already knowing/understanding/accepting every possible thing is not where the bar is. Loving your kids enough to learn is where the bar is.
Nah, put this guy in a kinda-deep hole that’ll take a couple hours to get out of, and do it on a day that’s kinda nice but not so nice that he’s not exhausted and crabby when he finally manages to climb out of the hole. He can have some water if he needs it, but don’t give him a whole lot, because the last thing anybody needs is for Hank to piss while he’s down there. That’ll show ‘im.
To elaborate on that a little – I absoutely agree that Hank is taking the time to learn and that’s good. But if we’re talking about bars (and I prefer to talk about grey areas, but okay) then I don’t think that’s the “best dad” bar. It’s the “not the worst dad” bar. And somewhere between those bars, in one of the grey areas I like so much, is “good dad” (and also “kind of bad dad”, that’s what makes it a grey area, but right now, I think Hank’s closer to the upper bar.)
So, yeah. Not the worst dad, not the best dad, but maybe a good dad.
The best dad is … maybe Dorothy’s dad? We haven’t seen much of him, but I always remember that Paetron strip where he’s humorously annoyed that Dorothy is perfect, because he thinks he’d handle her not being perfect really well, and he’ll never have a chance to demonstrate it.
If it turns out that’s just talk then I dunno, Dina’s dad? Perhaps Carla’s, if judged purely as a dad and not as an evil capitalist overlord, but he’s never actually appeared in the strip so maybe he doesn’t count.
Okay, immediately after posting I thought “What am I talking about? Toedad comes second after Blaine, of course! Look at all the stuff he did to Amber!” And then I thought about the stuff Toedad did to Becky, and my conclusion is that dad-ranking is harder than it looks.
The difference between Toedad and Blaine, is that Toedad was, to the best of our knowledge, actually being a dad to Becky, when she was walking the line that he set. One of the saddest parts about Blaine, was that despite everything that happened, Becky still loved him, and it hurt to see him die. They were once, by all accounts, a happy family.
Blaine was never a dad for Amber, because there was no mold, no image that Amber *could* be in that would get approval. Blaine physcally abused her mother and mentally and emotionally abused her simply because that was who he was. So she turned into a quiet, meek, scared person, afraid to show any part of her to anyone for fear that they would criticize that part of her. And that became her personality so badly that when she couldn’t handle the abuse anymore and lashed out in anger, it turned into an entirely new personality.
So no. Blaine is worst dad. Blaine will *always* be worst dad, until we learn that Clint kills puppies for fun or something.
Agreed. Blaine was FAR worse than Toedad. Toedad was a terrible parent, but did seem somewhat reflective on his actions when he tried to kidnap Becky in order to “save her,” (Granted, he still thought his motivations were right but his EXECUTION was wrong) but Blaine, knowing that Toedad could be manipulated, told him “you did nothing wrong, fellow Christian. In fact, you should kidnap MORE children… because… um… they’re wayward souls in need of saving!” When Joyce called him out on it you could see Toedad’s resolve waver just a little, before he doubled down by repeating Blaine’s words that this scheme was God’s will.
Also, Toedad never killed anyone. Blaine killed Mike AND Toedad, and then tried killing half the cast to cover up the latter.
I think the major difference between Hank and Carol is, Hank sees his kids as people. He knows that people are going to make choices or have thoughts or opinions that he isn’t going to see eye to eye with, but that ultimately those are their choices to make and opinions to have.
Carol, meanwhile, does not and probably never will see her kids as fully actualized human beings. They’re extensions of her, and thus need to be following her values and beliefs. She can’t ever compromise on that.
The sad part is that because the Hanks of the world *can* see reason on occasion, you always hold on hope that if you show them enough evidence that they*will* see reason about everything and stop holding problematic beliefs. But they don’t, and you never necessarily know where that line is gonna be.
Showing where Joyce got it from. And accepting a person despite not knowing if you’re comfortable with it is the first step to truly accepting them and growing as a person
“Against scripture” always seems to be code for, “There’s at least one passage I can interpret to be against this thing I don’t like. If I squint really hard while holding the Bible upside down.”
I have sympathy for Hank. It can’t be easy to unlearn a lifetime of indoctrination.
First, there are very few verses that refer to homosexual relationships between men. If it was an abominable sin to God, you’d think He’d talk about it more and more directly. Yet the verses that are there are more in the context of *other* things the people being condemned are doing. It’s more of a condemnation of people giving in to hedonism, not just men loving other men.
Second, the few clobber verses that do mention homosexuality don’t mention lesbianism. So either God forgot about it or He’s down with Sappho.
Third, a LOT of “what the scripture” says depends on the translation and with what mindset you are reading it. For example, scholars who study the Christian bible as a text instead of “God’s Word” will tell you that the story of creation in Genesis was never intended to be taken literally.
So the thing about it is that scripture absolutely condemns homosexual conduct and I just don’t give a shit. Like, I’m just not gonna go along with it. I don’t care about religious arguments that dance around the verses or get into the weeds of translation, none of that matters to me. An important part of a healthy theological life is knowing what parts of your ancient religious texts to say “hm! no thank you!” to.
But I recognize that this kind of flexibility is less common with Christians.
For what it’s worth, while I agree about not living your life based on a book of stories that can’t even decide whether humans were made before (Genesis 2:18-19) or after (Genesis 1: 25-27)other animals, that doesn’t mean we can’t poke fun at those who do by pointing out how even their supposed source doesn’t match their claims.
I trivially debunked Hank’s claim that lesbians are “against scripture” in a comment somewhere above, in case that might be entertaining to you in some way. Or just ignore it if you prefer — that’s perfectly fine too.
Wow. Those links broke in a weird way. Doesn’t matter, anyway, but they were supposed to be https://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/gen/2.html#18
and https://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/gen/1.html#25
respectively. Incidentally, that’s a nice site for any time you want to show people evidence that the Bible isn’t the inerrant text some like to claim it is… not that that’s likely to actually convince anyone, but at least it might encourage them to leave you alone.
for what its worth, I’m pretty sure the Christians who do this shit are bad Christians. Since the whole God damned point of the thing is that we are not the judges of our fellow humans, that sins are for God to judge, and that we should love each other first and foremost. It’s the whole reason DJ Jezzey Creezy wrote the Sequel, but too many focus on the first one because it has better special effects.
So I’m not saying you’re doing it here, but being overly dismissive of “the first one” can get you into some choppy territory. I’m Jewish, and what the Christians call the Old Testament are a part of our own religious literature. They do still matter.
I think there’s generally room for an implication that CHRISTIANS who focus on the Old Testament because of “better special effects” (which I read as “more big miracles and no-mercy smiting God’s enemies, less turn-the-other-cheek and promises that are a couple thousand years overdue by the literal reading”) are doing it wrong without asserting/implying that you lovely folks who have an ongoing couple thousand years of keeping and living with Torah are also doing it wrong.
Sure, I’m not trying to bust this poster’s balls or anything. Just a gentle reminder that this kind of language can get into some uncomfortable territory before that actually happens. I’ve had enough unpleasant conversations on those lines to have an interest in nipping them in the bud lol.
There are plenty of Christians who don’t pretend to be literalist either. It’s a relatively small and recent movement, but very politically powerful in the US, so it’s easy to think of as more representative than they actually are.
Indeed hedonism (New Teastament). And could well be referring to abusing slave boys. It is so interpretable, if I were a Christian, I don’t think I’d want to stake my immortal soul on either interpretation being the only one!
I was trying to make a point that the meaning people get out of any text, not just religious ones, is going to depend as much on their own goals and priors as much as what the text actually says. The moral and behavioral rules that a particular religious tradition has now is something that will have evolved over time. Different sects and traditions arise out of a single source with a single holy text because of the differences in how people within that religion interpreted those texts. Those individual groups then change how they interpret the text to suit their goals as the goals and other circumstances change.
But people often don’t want to admit that, because that reduces their ability to use the text as a source of authority to claim that their personal preferences and beliefs are true for everyone.
Exactly. Claims of Biblical literalism are only claims that “My interpretation is what the Bible literally means”. They can’t be anything more. The Bible cannot be read literally. It can only be interpreted. You have to choose what it means.
In the NT, I believe only Paul and someone later pretending to be Paul say anything about homosexuality. And Paul thought that sex at all was a bad idea and you should only get married (and thus have sanctioned sex) if you couldn’t hack celibacy.
Of course, Paul also thought the world was going to end any day now and thus anything long term didn’t matter.
Literalist Christians today ignore all of that except the bits about homosexuality.
Friday’s strip:
Hank: “OK. I’m getting divorced. My son is now my daughter. My daughter is gay AND on birth control. Both are part of a radical political group. Is there ANYTHING else?”
I think people are taking the alt-text the wrong way. Hank’s not the worst dad or the best dad… he’s just a dad. He’s a human being, like any of us.
We are all a combination of our genetics, our environment, and the choices we make within that environment. When you’re raised to believe that a certain code is correct, and you live in the time period that Hank did, in the part of the world that Hank did, in the culture that Hank did, it’s VERY HARD to be exposed to enough to be able to make informed choices that steer you away from that.
Hank is doing the best he can. Every single time that we have seen him in this comic, he has *consistently* shown us that he’s capable of growth and change. When Joyce challenged him on the Family Weekend, he respected her and said that he would trust her. When Joyce came home with Becky, he accepted her in and vouched for her. When Joyce essentially stole the car and stayed out crazy late, he lied for her. When he could see church was clearly a toxic place for Becky, he took them back to school, and later told Joyce that he was trying to learn from her example. When his wife was acting batshit crazy and defending a kidnapper that *she freed* who was aiding and abetting a murderer, he divorced her ass and left the church and broke the commandments he grew up under.
Right now, his biggest hurdle is that he’s not in an environment like Joyce, where he’s surrounded by examples that show that the assumptions he was wrong. On the plus side, he loves his kids and is going to work extra hard to try to accept them.
I do have some fears here that Jocelyne might be too much for him at this point. That’s a big leap, especially due to the HRT; he might be afraid that she’s harming herself. But if there’s ever going to be a time for Hank to learn and accept it, it’s now.
To sum up, he’s a good dad – but he’s not a perfect dad. There’s a lot he needs to learn and a lot he needs to let go of – but he’s shown time and again that he’s willing to learn and he’s willing to let go of toxic ideas once he’s aware of how harmful they are – just as Joyce has shown herself capable of doing. While he started out well ahead of where Joyce was at the start of the series, she’s far outstripped his progress – and now he’s the one in the position where he’s learning that he needs to learn and change to fit a more nuanced and interesting world than he was used to dealing with.
I mean, she could need it for birth related reasons if she was with a woman. Let’s let your other child explain. Honestly, Hank is in the right mood to hear it now.
Well, at least Hank is open enough to admit that he can’t condemn Joyce for being gay since he himself is getting a divorce, which the Bible also condemns. WAAAY too many people assume a “holier than thou” approach, such as Carol, who pretty much is the absolute worst but doesn’t swear like the Walkertons so she MUST BE better than them for that point alone. (She even pointed that out)
Good on Hank. Even if he’s unsure if he’s ok with it, he acknowledges that he can’t exactly be upset at her without being a hypocrite(“he without sin” and all that).
Also is Jocelyn going to get her chance to come out as trans(not an easy thing to do in my experience and I didn’t grow up in a hyper religious household) before Hank leaves or is she going to have to wait for a different opportunity?
I’m hoping Jocelyne gets to actually come out sooner rather than later – but if she had, I doubt we would have gotten that “Who to the what now?” look on her face when Joyce starts talking about her birth control prescription. Rather an adorable look of bemusement in the middle of what I’m sure is a very annoying encounter for her!
LITERALLY: “He’s a little confused, but he’s got the spirit.”-Meme
Hank loves his children and has a good moral compass, it just needed to get away from that toxic magnet distracting it from his own true north. He wants what’s best for them and sliwly he learns that he doesn’t necessarily know what that is. But as long as they are happy, safe and healthy he’s on board.
I kind of want to see the conversation between Hank and Jocelyn, because I think he’ll do a solid-but-imperfect job of handling it, and that’s pretty real. But also the fact is that Jocelyn isn’t a main character, so that conversation will only ever be used to create drama for or teach the reader something about Joyce, and the idea that a trans story that might involve parental alienation and deepening trauma will be used mostly to fuel drama for a cis character is something I don’t think we should feel great about. Jocelyn deserves her own story (ideally, one not written by a cis writer), and this comic isn’t it.
In that same spirit, I both want and don’t want to see a conversation between Hank and Asma, for the same reasons. I don’t mean a “special presentation teaching moment.” Just a conversation. Coffee. Classes. If he’s like most people who look like him, Hank has never thought about antifacism or Palestine for more than half a second, and I’d love to see how Willis handles Hank’s response to a human conversation that forces him to really consider his unquestioned beliefs. It’s a human moment that’s not well represented in media. And before anyone says “It’s not her job to teach him,” I’ll say that I agree, but A) she’s a comic character, not a real person-they all are, I’m so sorry, but it’s true and B) I don’t want that, anyway. People like Hank (people with a lot of compassion but also unquestioned privilege and beliefs) don’t need to be “taught.” They’ll often get there simply by interacting with humans that force them to start thinking new thoughts. We’re seen Joe, Joyce, Sarah, and others in this strip make exactly that move for exactly that reason, so that’s fun.
Also, Hank doing that on both gender and genocide would open a lot of doors for Joyce to re-think her own positions and life, which brings us back to “she’s the main, and all characters exist in this universe in service to her story, anyway.”
I think in general the representation of the trans experience in this strip is pretty shallow, unfortunately. We haven’t really seen any characters grapple with coming to terms with their transness and going through transition – every trans character in the strip has done all of that off-screen. I’d really like to see at least one character have an actual coming out arc about being trans.
I know Walky and Danny are popular targets for ‘unknowingly trans women’ theories/headcanons. And you know? Good for them i’d support that shit.
But my life for a trans man, my liege
Personally, I think Joe has that overcompensating hyper-masculinity thing going that a lot of trans women go through, so I’m kinda hoping that he’ll end up being trans.
As for the discussion between Hank and Jocelyne, I really want to see that too – but I want it to be a surface level, “OK, I don’t understand this, but I’ll try to learn,” followed by him signing up for Leslie’s Gender Studies class. It’s a shame that Carla is in the class this semester – but we know that Malaya is at least some flavor of transgender or nonbinary, and there’s also that one trans boy that we saw a ways back in Forest Hall, plus there’s always the chance that one of the main or secondary characters come out as transgender (Dina’s been playing a bit with gender nonconformity to try to help Becky work through her issue, Danny has some rather feminine traits about him, and as I said, Joe has that whole hyper-masculinity thing that trans women often mask with). And if Jocelyne joins the cast as a graduate student as well, we could get them in a situation where it is EXPECTED that transgender people would be taught about.
Nonbinary people are trans, it’s literally what the white stripe in the flag is for, and the nonbinary people who don’t consider themselves trans have p much all been told they’re not allowed to.
But they are. We are. “Trans (binary or nonbinary)” would better express the sentiment you wanted to say there.
No, I get it. Personally, I consider nonbinary people to be transgender as well – but not all nonbinary people consider themselves to be transgender. At the end of the day, it’s not really a big deal if you lump them in under the umbrella or not (and, if I’m being perfectly honest, I’d include transgender people under the intersex umbrella, but wouldn’t do so in general conversation thanks to not all transgender people agreeing on that matter).
Like I said, though, the nonbinary people who don’t consider themselves trans have p much all been told they’re not allowed to.
Intersex people are another group that absolutely belong in the LGBTQIA+ community, where individuals may not consider themselves LGBTQIA+, but the letter still belongs in the acronym. Some rare trans folks also go “stealth” and leave the community: that doesn’t mean their identity no longer “belongs”, you know?
Broadly inclusive is best, not only bc the vast majority of these communities DOES want access, but also bc including people and letting them opt out on an individual level is just… the less harmful option.
(The other thing you mention is not my lane or something I’ve heard folks whose lane it is talk about before, so imma stay out of that conversation. But the rest of this, yes: intersex people are LGBTQIA+, and the move to say otherwise is coming from TERFs. Nonbinary people are trans, and the move to say otherwise is coming from TERFs. Psyops that TERFs on like tumblr have admitted to!)
also I just realized it’s very funny that he’s said “you don’t need birth control with a woman” when there’s a woman whose presence in sex quite possibly reintroduces the theoretical possibility of pregnancy right over there.
I really hope this scene ends with him turning towards Jocelyn and going “So, uh, what do you want me to call you now?” and Joss is like “Wait, you *knew*?” and then the last panel zooms out as we see her lower half for the first time and Hank says “Kid, you’re wearing a dress” “Oh, right, forgot about that.”
Yeah, I’ve kinda had that feeling through the entire conversation. I mean, it’s not been completely clear one way or the other with what she’s wearing (other than the fact that the top has a very feminine neckline), but it does seem rather likely that she’s wearing a dress similar to the one she came out to Joyce in.
This seems extremely unlikely based on… well, anything Hank has said or done so far. Also Jocelyne isn’t wearing a dress. Her legs were visible on Sunday.
that homeschooling wasn’t your idea great, glad to see you’re… aware of the problems with all that even though you let it happen.
for real though hank you’re doing… okay here given your circumstances I guess
but have you considered going to some kind of professional and saying “I let my kids be homeschooled in a cult that almost killed one of them and her best friend how do I make sure I’m not saying cult shit to them anymore?”
I feel like everybody would benefit from that conversation probably
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I said it once, and I said it again,
Hank could REALLY use like exit counseling or something 👀
Look, he’s already mastered the art of subtly disparaging his ex to the children and begrudgingly allowing them things the stricter parent would disapprove of. Hank is nailing divorce. He’s fine.
I meant like exit counseling for having just come out of a CULT, but sure i guess
I got it! ~<3
I love that several people read it as “yeah, counselling for exiting that DREARY MARRIAGE! HIGH FIVE!”
Do we have confirmation that he’s out of the cult?
He said he’s between churches, so he definitely left that particular cult. How he feels about fundamentalism in general is not clear.
They went between churches a lot, usually finding them unsatisfactory in some way, so they weren’t really in the grip of one church-centric social apparatus, but they were in the grip of fundieism as a broader self-reinforcing apparatus.
well “unsatisfactory” was one way of putting it, Willis said that it’s because they kept discovering corruption in the ranks
yeah tho it’s like I said before, white conservative Christians’ world is basically built on a wall made of FEAR, and that wall lasts long after it’s built since a very young age
It seemed like they’d been stable for quite a while though. Joyce phrased that as something like “when I was young”.
Yes but… all things considered? Not bad given his situation. He may not like it, but he loves his daughter. Maybe it won’t work out or he’ll slip or whatever and yes, that counseling will help! But I’m also genuinely relieved to see this not blow up today.
At this point it seems like he’s in the ‘would prefer his daughter to be straight, but would feel like a hypocrite for saying it’. It’s not the worst, but not the best, which seems to be the whole takeaway based on the alt-text.
I’ll take it. A year ago, he’d be literally picking her up and scooping her into the car to get her away from the crazy place.Progress is slow, but still progress.
It was just megadumped on him, so i fully get how and why he’s not the most suave and supporting in the moment.
But he seems to be the kind of dude who will go through this conversation again and again in his head.
Also, i feel Jocelyn is about to also come clean, since everyone is being honest.
Assuming she can still go through with it, having just had her momentum stolen, and now being able to reassess her fad based on his reaction to Joyce.
Hank’s line about it being against scripture reads to me like someone who’s finding major flaws in their formal moral framework and is breaking from it, but hasn’t yet found a new one, so everything’s having to go through the standard filter of “is this ok under previous moral framework? IF NO: do i care?”
Reminding me of my parents, honestly. They’ve both been making the journey through levels of acceptance; from the evangelical “Hate the sin, not the sinner (but also associate with them as little as possible)” all the way to now calling their reps in AZ over trans rights.
It’s a long process, but this is a good sign that Hank’s walking the right path!
Alt-text: Hank is not the worst dad, but he’s also not the best dad.
Me: But also he’s at least trying to be better – that counts for something, right?
It absolutely does. Willingness to change is one of the most valuable qualities a person can have.
I mean, almost everyone in this strip needs counseling of one sort or another, that doesn’t mean they are all going to get it.
And for Hank, how would that work? He is not going to seek something like that out at this point, he probably doesn’t even know it’s a thing let alone something he could benefit from, so it would have to be people like Joyce, Joycelyne, and Becky pushing him to do so, and I don’t see that happening. At least not yet.
I want to see him somehow becoming friends with Dorothy’s parents.
Huh, this went better than expected. Hank continues to surprise us.
There’s still one or two things left depending on how much Jocelyne decides to share
Still time for him to disappoint
I’d like to give Hank the benefit of the doubt, and see what happens. Yes he could still disappoint, but he could also prove to be a decent parent. We’ll have to wait, and see.
Besides I feel like now is a good time for them to tell Hank what is going on with Joyce, and Joceylne without Carol finding out.
Relax. The trans will be reluctantly acceptable to Hank. But the socialist protesting has got to go.
You never know. He might find the long hair more acceptable once he knows it’s gender-conforming.
No surprise for me; while this was on the better end of things, it’s thus far fallen well within my range of expectations based on his prior conduct in the strip–most notably, his near-immediate adoption of Becky. That’s not something you do if your cult programming is capable of overriding your empathy. Hank really just needs more intel.
Yeah i’m in the ‘about what i expected’ camp.
Same. He’s a good dad, but not perfect. He at least understands that love is the most important part of everything, and actually has a decent idea of what that actually means – even if he still has some hang ups based on his religious and political environment.
frankly, any good parent between DoA and QC is a win in my book. ~<3
Hey, Marten’s mom is pretty cool, and Claire’s mother is absolutely world class
Claire’s mum adopted Yay who didn’t even know they needed mothering!
Yay is a gremlin who got the best mom. MOM VIBES! ~<3
I don’t remember seeing many bad parents in QC (or many parents at all really). Marten’s parents are fine. Claire’s mom is world-class as Ray said and I don’t remember hearing much about her dad at all. I don’t think anything all that bad came up about Dora’s parents when we met them way back. Faye’s mom seems all right. Bakery Guy is trying, he just doesn’t seem to get his daughter too well. The only outlier I can recall off the top of my head is Faye’s dad — which is admittedly a pretty big one. But on the whole QC parents seem decent.
Hannelore’s mom and Anh’s dad are probably the only other ones I can think of.
Claire’s dad doesn’t seem too great from the snippets she and Clinton have mentioned
Oh good point; I’d forgotten all about Hannermom. And Anh’s dad despite him being a big part of a recent storyline. Goldfish memory strikes again in that case.
And on the subject of Hanner’s parents her dad isn’t great, but he seems more the easily-distracted-geniss type, not the puposefully-neglectful type.
some folks, not me… would argue that Faye’s dad is awful, but that’s not a fair thing, depression is a cruel monster. but I think the % of bad parents between QC and this is probably in the high 70s ~<3
The two bad parents in QC are Hannelore’s mother and…
I’m not going to weigh in on the moral issues because I have no idea, but it’s safe to say that Faye’s father caused some really big problems for his kids.
If nothing else, this is Aurelia slander and I won’t stand for it 😛
And Marten’s mom is a weapon but overall his parents aren’t bad either.
Yeah. But I wasn’t very surprised. Even though still newsfeed from a fundie bubble, Hank’s educated enough. And loves his children no matter what.
It’s obvious which side of the family Joyce gets it from.
See also: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/quarters/ (panel 4 in particular)
Exactly!
I think it helps that he’s already admitted to suspecting one of his kids was some kind of queer. He just didn’t expect Joyce specifically to be the one coming out right now. Personally I’d guess that he’d react to Jocelynn coming out as trans with primarily confusion and some misunderstandings over what that entails, but not with condemnation or hatred.
I mean, it’s not usually condemnation or hatred that’s the problem. Those people exist, but they’re relatively rare. A lot more people have a “You’re just confused” sort of attitude, like they expect the person to grow out of the idea. I’ve *been* that person, I’m ashamed to say, and honestly Willis and this comic are a big part of what shook me out of it and made me rethink that line of thought. It comes from an intent to be helpful, but you don’t realize the actual harm it’s causing, or how actually pretty arrogant it is. I can’t see Hank being hateful, but I could see him falling into *that* pattern, at least in the short term.
Frankly thats a legitimate question for her at this point
“Please ask your girlfriend to explain the birds and the bees to you.”
“Of course. Birds are members of the class Aves. They are characterized by being warm-blooded with a four-chambered heart, feathers, and beaks. Additionally, they have intraosseous pneumaticity. Meaning their interconnected respiratory system is integrated into their bones. In regards to us, that last part is most crucial aspect of this metaphor.”
That almost sounds more like Becky’s girlfriend…except there’s no way she would consider some of those merely avian traits.
ACKTCHUALLY *pushes up glasses* “warm-blooded” and “cold-blooded” are no longerconsidered accurate terms! Birds would now be considered endothermic – generating their own heat internally – rather than exothermic.
Also they have like airbags and I feel like I remember something about six lungs? Look I didn’t actually pay that much attention when we were studying birds.
ACTUALLY actually, mosy birds (and mammals) would also be considered homeothermic AND tachymetabolic according to a thing I have read just now after learning this brand new information. It’s interesting!
Whereas Joyce and Dorothy are homothermic, as they get hot for gay stuff.
The ordinary two lungs, but lots of air sacs branching off the whole system. The way this works is fascinating, look it up!
I’ve always been bothered by how biology and chemistry basically swap how they mean endo- and exo- thermic.
The phoenix being one of the few birds that falls into the latter category.
“…or would that be the bees and the bees? Or the birds and the birds? Honestly I’m a little out of my depth here. Tell you what, use whatever metaphor works for ya.”
So, which one of you collects the pollen and which one builds the nest out of twigs?
When a mommy bee and a daddy bee love each other very very much, they go on a special flight together. Then the daddy bee dies and the mommy bee builds her own hive with any further male involvement.
There, you go, droning on again.
The birds and the other birds
Considering what we know she used to think sex was in the early days, that was a very legitimate question.
Hank is right to worry, and to (almost) apologise for the home schooling thing.
Hey Hank being not so bad, how refreshing to see in a DOA parent!
Hank: “No other left field surprises?”
Jocelyne: “You mean from Joyce specifically, or… ?”
Jocelyne: I’m trans, dad. I’m literally a woman.
Hank: Uh huh. About Bulmeria. Do you not agree that the insurgents are a bunch of Russian proxies that are trying to stop the Rapture?
Jocelyne: NO!
Honestly it would be wild if the only thing he really objects to – that is a straw too far – is thinking his newest daughter is 😱 a COMMUNIST!
Niche reference for y’all: Har jag närt en KOMMUNIST! Vid min barm?!!
Man, Supergott is such an underappreciated album. Everybody knows the one-hit wonder from it, of course, but there’s not a single miss on there.
Jocelyne: No dad, communism was just a red herring!
Two thumbs up for the Clue reference.
What is that avatar picture? It looks like something from a textbook from when I was in lower or middle school. Which I think is cool. I am just curious what it actually is.
At the time of this response, my avatar is the album cover of the 2001 album Supergott, by the Swedish pop group Caramell. If you’ve been online long enough, I expect you’ll have heard the opener.
I’ve been online a very long time and I’ve never heard of Supergott before. My excuse is that i’m old.
10/10, no notes, Karl Bertil Jonssons julafton ftw
Ah, its not christmas just yet.
Soon though.
I’m ready with vodka, a thick accent, and DESIRE TO CRUSH CAPITALISM AAAAAUUUUGH XD
These days, it’d be “Chinese proxies”. Remember, FOX and Friends are down with the Russian Oligarchs.
I know a guy who got kicked out of a Magic: the Gathering tournament for using Chinese proxies.
Well yeah, everybody else at the tournament was using English cards. You can’t expect people to read Chinese.
Is Kev still stuck between them?
Not in the tags so I think he’s clear. Good for him! xD
You can see him running off in the background of the comic from two days ago
Guille will definitely win the patreon vote this month.
Yeah I love T Hawk
Don’t trust left fields.
hank has effectively forgotten the communist thing at this point
No, he’s not the best dad, but it feels like he’s genuinely trying, which is more than I can say for most DoA parents.
like he doesn’t appear to have a weapon on him and he hasn’t kidnapped anyone yet, and GOLLY is that a disturbing bar to clear
He’s also not a spineless jellyfish like Chuck. At this point, I’m willing to say he’s actually one of the best ~people~ in the strip, in terms of personal values. He just needs some more deprogramming and honest info to make better choices with. (Most of the rest of the cast, even the ones I genuinely adore, make bad decisions even with good intel; Hank keeps overcoming some fairly deep propaganda to make the right call.)
I legit could not remember who the frack Chuck was for a minute.
“Not the best dad” and still in the top 50% of parents most likely.
So here’s a question: If Hank is ok with this then is now a good time for Jocelyne to tell him she’s trans?
Yes. Because he asked for no more lying or surprises, and he’s trying to be supportive, plus Joyce is there to support Joycelyn- now is a great time.
Well knock on wood that he’ll be ok with it, and that he’ll love and support both of his daughters.
Of Note: Staying in the closet isn’t lying.
That’s maybe not how Hank will see it, but he’ll be wrong.
Huh? Of course it is, at least by omission. It’s just not morally bad.
I disagree. You don’t owe the details of your life to people around you. It isn’t lying to not tell someone a thing they have no right to know.
There is no such thing as “lying by omission”. Lying is an active process, not a passive one.
And as Nymph said, you do not owe the people around you the details of your life.
You might argue that dressing specifically in a male-coded way when it’s not your preferred attire and answering to a name that isn’t yours is active.
You might, but you’d be incorrect. Attire is a choice, not a lie. Nicknames aren’t your name, but you answer to them.
People are not entitled to know the details of your life.
Clearly we have different perspectives on this. To me, if you present yourself outwardly as something other than what you perceive yourself to be internally, that is lying, even if you are doing it for your own safety. I don’t consider it morally wrong to lie in that context, but I do consider it a lie. I had to lie about myself for several years in order to find employment or housing in Texas as a trans woman. It wasn’t wrong of me to lie. But I still considered it to be lying.
I have explicitly not engaged with your other comment because you said you don’t like when someone responds to you with a comment that can be boiled down to “I disagree with you” but here you are doing the same thing to me.
I disagree with you, and I am not interesting in changing my opinion on this. It isn’t lying, it’s just keeping something private. You can consider it whatever you want, that won’t stop me from disagreeing.
Yes, there very much is such a thing as lying by omission – heck, it’s been Joyce’s modus operandi through her deflecting Hank from knowing about what’s going on with Jocelyne. Hank asks about the whereabouts of Joyce’s older sibling (who he currently thinks is her brother), which Joyce is fully aware of. Instead of answering the intent of the question, she said that her brother was not there – technically true, since her SISTER is there, but still lying by omission because she knew full well who Hank was referring to and she answered in such a way as to try to give him the wrong impression.
It’s the difference between being honest and telling the truth. Joyce told Hank the truth – none of her brothers were there, just her older transgender sister. But she was not being HONEST – she was acting in a way that she knew her father would use to come to the wrong conclusion (well, would have if the lie had worked). Hank, on the other hand, was not speaking the TRUTH about Jocelyne by referring to her as his son (which, to be fair, we have pretty well conclusive evidence that he had zero actual knowledge about), but was being honest about his concern for her and being frustrated about the lies and misdirection that’s been going on.
Lying by omission is intentionally leaving out information in an attempt to get the other person to come to a false conclusion even though everything you say is objectively true. It’s still very much an active process – just a subtler form of it. A good indicator when someone is lying by omission is when they say, “Yes, well, did I say anything that wasn’t actually true?”
I mean there is, its where you technically tell the truth but knowingly leave out important details that would recontextualise it. Because you know leaving out those details will give them a different impression you want them to have that the full truth would not.
Not applicable here of course, this is just her not sharing personal details he has no right to know until she decides to share them.
It is lying, but it’s an entirely morally-neutral kind of lying.
I suppose people do refer to it as “living a lie”.
Meanwhile Joyce again metaphorically and literally throws herself in front of Jocelyn (forgive spelling). But the elder sister may still want to come out to her dad, in the spirit of transparency (oops, no pun intended).
Ever since people started posting AI-fail pictures of cutaway diagrams of men with a uterus with a full term baby in it, the term ‘transparent’ has taken on a whole new meaning for me.
Ehh, even though this went the way I did I feel like there’s a good chance he’d still get argumentative about her being trans in a way that wouldn’t be great for anyone atm
Your perfect little girl going through a silly experimental phase in college: annoying but we roll with the punches
Your troublesome gay-ish son has been injecting commie self mutilation chemicals: an issue that may need to be dealt with more immediately
Jocelyne’s been injecting herself with Faygo?
Not to mention that HRT is a gateway drug to “Antifa terrorism”…
Doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll be okay with Jocelyne, unfortunately.
There are sadly a lot of gay people who have turned on trans people. Hank’s doing his best, but I think the best way his kids can support him now is slowly introducing him to more science.
Of course there are. Crab bucket-ass mentality, but also active psyops designed to drive us apart that have been and continue to be successful.
Of note: cis lesbians in the UK are overwhelmingly the MOST accepting of trans people and the most likely to say they know a trans person! Do not believe the lesbophobic lie that cis lesbians are especially transphobic. Do not carry water for TERFs, who very much profit from being able to pretend they’re protecting cis lesbians.
It most certainly does not “cut both ways”.
That’s almost completely backwards. I think you’ve fallen for the TERF propaganda. I’m not going to say no trans women have ever said things like that, but it’s far less common that the TERF assertions that “No lesbians are interested in penis, so any woman who’s okay with trans woman must be bi, not a lesbian.”
It’s a muddying of something trans women actually say, which is not that if you don’t want to interact with a penis you’re transphobic, but calling on people to examine why the idea of interacting with a penis is so repulsive to you, and to really interrogate whether it comes from a genuine innate preference or transphobic assumptions about trans women and their bodies. In essence, asking cis people to do frankly a fraction of the introspection and soul-searching trans women are compelled to do in order to figure out who we are.
Naturally, this is interpreted in bad faith to be us demanding that people jack us off or whatever. Implying trans women are sexual predators in so many words.
This is not true and you are trafficking in transmisogynist rhetoric.
Maybe not a bad time, but probably not the worst time for a “there is something I’d like to talk to you about, but I’d rather not do it now.”
There’s a lot going on right now, tensions are high, but expressing a willingness but not readiness might help ease any anxieties while also not overloading
If she thinks she’s going to have to tell him soon anyway, perhaps because the effects of HRT will become too obvious, this would be a good time.
It would be awkward to go “No more big secrets” here and then get outed in a couple of weeks. And here she’s got friends and her sister to support her.
^ ^ That’s my thought. Come out while acceptance or at least listening is proclaimed. You said it better.
Yup. I feel like she’s already planning to come out at some point – remember that she asked Joyce for her take on Hank, was he trustworthy, etc., and her whole reason for coming here was so she could tell Joyce “before she hears it from dad.” She felt put on the spot and like she had to do it before she had fully prepared herself in order to protect Joyce, but frankly may as well follow through at this point.
“At some point” being the operative part of that sentence. It was incredibly clear that she did not want that point to be in this hallway at this time and was only doing so in order to deflect from Joyce’s secret that no longer needs kept because she revealed it. There’s also a good argument for, if Hank doesn’t continue to pursue what she was about to tell him, for waiting for a time when he hasn’t had a whole bunch of other things dumped on him and he’s not currently upset about her “terrorist” ties.
Uh yeah I kind of said that lol. If she waits until later Hank is still going to be upset because she didn’t tell him here. She has no perfect options.
when the divorce is so bad you become a semi-decent parent by accident
YUP.
yeah, because the worst ones set the bar THAT low 👀
He was being a decent parent before the divorce. He was supporting Joyce and Becky over Carol pretty much immediately.
Kind of the other way around, maybe. He saw just how bad of a parent Carol (forgive me if I got her name wrong she hasn’t shown up in a bit) was being and left to readjust and get back on the path to semi-decency.
Also sorry my fat thumbs hit the report button when I went to reply. If the mod sees this, I’m sorry for the extra work.
It’s a lot of work to see one report that won’t affect anything, yeah. Don’t worry, I’ve canceled out your report by reporting you.
“That’s not how this works!”
Says you.
getting the hell kicked out of you is a time honored way of jumpstarting your personal growth, particularly in guys. id say hank is a little behind the curve, age-wise, but then his bubble of denial had considerable outside reinforcement
Hank…seems to be trying.
We’ll have to see what his reaction to Jocelyne is.
Joyce, you forgot that it was for that literally earlier today.
Mind you, that was because Joyce WANTED buying birth control to be a rebellion against her fundamentalist upbringing versus a necessary medical supplement.
Now I want Dorothy to introduce Joyce to her parents as her girlfriend and they do the Dina’s parents level of approval AKA sending Dorothy some extra money to go on a date with Joyce.
…well this went considerably better than expected. O_o
i mean the mother was the more extreme of the two
NOW LET’S GET PIZZA BEFORE HE ASKS JOSS ANYTHING!
Not actually surprised at all by Hank being pretty chill with Joyce being gay. Am surprised he actually believed it this quickly.
He got Joyce with the fatherly classic of “Damn, that’s crazy. Anyway…”
its important that joyce takes her birth control bc otherwise she could accidentally get dorothy pregnant
The punchline on this one extremely funny, for the record. Both parts of it.
Honestly had kind of worked my way into camp “Hank’s gonna go ‘yeah right, now tell me what’s actually going on.'” But I guess he can tell when Joyce is telling the truth, too, so that’s something.
With Blaine and Ross dead, who actually is the worst dad now?
Probably Charles or Ruth’s grampa who is technically a dad even if his child is dead.
Damn, guy’s so bad at parenting, his kid died before him.
Oof.
Anecdote incoming.
(Feel free to skip reading, its a downer)
A classmate of mine died in the second year of gymnasiet, traffic collission, her on a moped. I wasnt super close to her but our entire class went together to pay our respect, i spoke to her father after the service and he clung to me and ugly cried for a solid 5 minutes. I learnt sometime after that that they had had a stillborn besides my classmate and her older brother.
A year later her brother got flung out of a car window. They lost all three of their children.
I think of him every time i think of parents outliving their children.
Those poor, poor parents – that’s utterly heartbreaking.
I think I would be seriously discussing suicide pact time with the husband in their shoes…
Yeah, unless Clint gets off on the technicality of being Ruth’s grandfather not father, he’s by far the worst.
If Carol finds out, she will fully believe Joyce caught the gay from the evil Becky. And she might even word it exactly like that.
I did not mean for that to be a reply to your comment, whoops.
I’d say Walky’s dad of the dads we know anything about, and even still hes pretty chill just a bit spineless when it comes to his wife
Joe’s dad could also disappoint but last we saw of him he was genuinely trying to be better
Billie’s dad, by a pretty large margin. I was gonna say “as a person: potentially Carla’s, as a dad: Billie’s” but Billie’s wins handily in both categories now that I think of it lol
Billie’s dad: How could I have screwed you up? I was never there!
It’s hard to count Mr. or Mrs. Billingsworth because they’re not even characters that exist. It raises questions for me too like does Billie have a stepmom? Her dad ever remarry? Where is her bio mom and is she just as absentee? Is this a group effort of neglect or a tragedy?
Billie’s mom is a famous Team Rocket agent who left on a mission to find Mew and never came back.
This kinda implies that Walky is Jennifer’s James. So who’s Meowth?
Alice.
That’s Right!
I could’ve sworn she did, either that or the dad had like a prominent girlfriend/mistress. I just remember him ousting all the homeless people and leaving Billie to fend for herself first day of like kindergarten or something lol. Billie’s parents are terrible
Plot Twist: He delivered them to a set of free housing where they were given paid for cellphones and aid in rebuilding their lives.
Did I miss something? I thought they were still married and just not present in Jennifer’s life.
Maybe cheating, but I think that I might just be remembering that from It’s Walky!.
Yeah, I’m pretty sure Jennifer said her mom sleeps around a lot, but she’s never mentioned them being divorced.
Maybe Asher’s family?
Galasso maybe? I can’t remember how much of his awfulness is Shortpacked-verse and how much is DoA-verse though.
I don’t think Galasso even exists on the same axis as everyone else. Like, if the Dad Scale goes from -10 (Amber’s) to +10 (Sierra’s), Galasso is like 42i.
Yeah, that’s fair.
To be fair, we don’t really see very much of Galasso in DoA – just to know that he’s a fickle and tyrannical boss. We haven’t seen any sign of Connie yet, nor the gender blindness that he exhibited in Shortpacked – just that he tends to hire people on a whim, and can be a little too eager to fire people sometimes. But, yeah, it’s hard to be a worse dad than Shortpacked!Galasso – though Blaine definitely takes the cake on that count, followed shortly afterwards by Becky’s dad. And… it says a LOT that Shortpacked!Galasso isn’t in competition for the two worst dads in DoA…
Connie’s been around, though not much, and it’s been a couple of years since we’ve seen her.
Hey, it was just last semester.
If you include offscreen parents Asher’s dad is probably pretty bad, being part of the mob and all.
I can only assume how Marry’s parents are pretty terrible (watch them actually be lovely and no where near as fundamentalist or conservative as she is).
I feel like Panel 2, and the end of Panel 6 could both be book title contenders. XD
Yeah, he’s no Toedad!
Not that you could tell by the last week’s comments….
Joyce you forgot to tell him you are an Atheist.
Or does he know?
Let’s the truth be spread between both.
Carla knows she’s atheist. Hank knows she’s gay.
*Carol
becky is still religious despite also being gay so idk if hank has any reason to consider that (i can understand some lgbt ppl still being religious despite everything but it’d be hard after their church specifically)
Hank loves his kids more than he accepts his dogma.
That’s a good man who is trying. Imperfect, but trying.
That’s pretty much what did it for me. Not kids and not dogma, but at some point in high school I realized I had to decide whether I wanted to let my prejudices destroy my friendships or let my friendships destroy my prejudices, and as soon as I mentally phrased it like that the choice was obvious.
Is it weird I really wish this was about Jocelyne and not Joyce/Dororthy?
I really want the whole Joe thing to horrify Dot.
Which Joe thing?
That Joyce broke up Walky and Dorothy but she didn’t break up with Joe.
If Dorothy has a problem with that, she can watch Alien: Resurrection about it.
Will that help?
Can’t hurt.
Looks like someone hasn’t seen that movie, then.
Oh I’ve definitely seen it. A few times! It (like all the Alien movies and now show) was great and I really liked it.
I guess some people have a higher Whedon tolerance than I have.
Even he didn’t like that movie.
I’ll admit I do kinda like how it’s so far in the future that everyone is a complete freak. It’s like they’ve all just discovered they were sentient, after spending their whole lives as feral animals. I can only take so much of that though.
The Whedon of it is kind of irrelevant to me. There’s Sigourney Weaver, Wynona Ryder, and big scary xenomorphs. I’m all in at that point.
Fair enough. I’ve never been aware I was looking at Wynona Ryder, but Sigourney Weaver is quite a woman to see. Makes me wish I’d seen any of the movies (besides AVP and the vacuum scene with the newborn) before last year. I love ’em now, though. Mostly.
Weaver is always great, in my experience. Real tour de force.
Ryder is more of a specific era’s goth gf. Heathers and Beetlejuice alone would probably be enough for 80s kids even if she’d never been in another movie. (She’s also pretty and has soulful eyes, but the “goth gf” thing really hits very specific buttons, and she was definitely the “it” girl for a generation.)
I was very technically an 80s child but I missed all of the relevant media until I was much older, so Christina Ricci was Bitty Li’s childhood goth gf crush. A little more age appropriate for me, but I’m sure I would’ve admired the heck out of Winona Ryder had I actually seen her movies earlier.
Just because someone (Joe) doesn’t accept you (Joyce) breaking up with them doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Breaking-up doesn’t require consent.
Joyce agreeing to talk with him later is a courtesy, not a condition.
Since being in a relationship requires consent from both people, all that needs to be done to end the relationship is for one person to withdraw consent. Joyce withdrew her consent to be in the relationship, with the understanding that they’ll talk about things later – that means that the relationship is no longer one of boyfriend and girlfriend. Now, it may go back to being that later – but for now, Joyce did break up with him, and they are no longer a couple, at least officially.
Surprised this take isn’t more common. If people actually listen to Joyce’s words, rather than what they may want to happen, she said everything she needs to say to Joe to end things. Even if she hadn’t been interrupted by multiple emergencies, I think it would be fair for her to take a bit of time to consider how to respond to Joe’s unexpected suggestion. She’s made it crystal clear she’s choosing Dorothy first, so if she’s even interested in an open relationship at all she’d need to discuss it with Dorothy before agreeing to anything with Joe. But if she’s not interested (and nothing really suggests that she is), all she needs to do is let Joe know.
Personally, I’m not convinced even Joe actually wants an open relationship. He seems to see this more as a consolation prize, which probably isn’t a healthy way for a sustainable open relationship to begin. If he had said something like “I was willing to try monogamy for you, but I’d honestly be more comfortable with an open relationship if that’s something you would want” then the one-true-polycule solution would have at least one of three legs to stand on.
The reason this take isn’t more common is because Joyce doesn’t seem to believe she broke up with Joe, which fails the at least one person withdrawing consent to be in a relationship bar.
Look at Joyce’s face and that small-type “yyehh?” in panel 4 of https://www.dumbingofage.com/2025/comic/book-16/01-not-so-smooth-criminals/splash/ and tell me with a straight face that she believes that she actually broke up with Joe.
I am fully certain that Joyce has not *really* considered if she wants to be broken up with Joe. She likes him, she doesn’t want to hurt him, and she went into their conversation assuming they *had* to break up, so it through her for a loop when he said they haven’t.
But she GLEEFULLY claimed Dotty and yanked her away from Walky. She clearly wants *Dorothy* to be exclusive to *her*, or at least not date Walky himself. Unless she didn’t *mean* that scene, and thought she was just being funny, in which case, no, Joyce, you weren’t.
So given that, do you really think there’s a world in which she just says “Okay, so hey, Dorothy, I know I *forcefully* inserted myself into your delicate talk with Walky and crushed him beneath my heel while laughing maniacally, but is it okay if *I* keep *my* boyfriend? Yeah, that’ll go over well.
(threw her for a loop aaargh why brain why would you betray me like this)
Yes, absolutely I do. It wouldn’t surprise me if it’s this world.
I do agree she hasn’t stopped to really think it through and I don’t think the implications of her dumping Walky for Dorothy while maybe not really dumping Joe even occurred to her.
I’m sure she’ll speak up at some point but she should really meet hank one on one at the pizza palce lol
Surprises probably aren’t coming out of left field here, I think one of them is gonna be coming from out of the ballpark
anyways here’s hoping he isn’t transphobic
In the last couple months his kid got kidnapped, his wife and a lot of his church stood by the kidnapper, and he got (or is in the process of) divorced. Guy has been having a character arc off screen. He went from not wanting his daughter to hang around atheists to this. Will he approve of Jocelyne? Eh, probably not. He probably won’t approve of her “communist” actions either. He’d probably be happier if his all his kids were conservative, cis, straight and god loving. But it seems like he will deal with it with mostly tolerance if not acceptance. “Hank is not the worst dad but he is not the best dad”
Biggest issue is likely to be Joyce’s atheism. From his perspective, that’s going to be putting her soul at risk in a way simply being ‘wrong’ about sexuality won’t. (Hank’s probably actually fully aware of the women in the Gospels, and how Christ reacted to infidelity and ‘sexual immorality’, and figures he should at least be that understanding.)
He had a character arc ON screen. Honestly, I’m kinda stunned how many people have been just assuming the absolute worst about Hank for the last couple weeks considering all the growth he’s shown in his last few appearances.
Oh we all know that the mom will find out one way or another. Mary might send her a copy of the newspaper, for example.
I’m not giving anyone any ideas, I hope.
Why would Mary know her address?
They’re dating.
This got a really big irl laugh out of me thank you
Ship Name: Marol
Um, his name is Pikablu
That took a moment to load in, but when it did, it got me good
Wow, that is a CURSED ship.
It’s Mary, I would not be surprised if she’s a pro at this with the excuse of, “It’s to keep all of God’s children on track”
I really don’t think Mary cares that much.
It’s definitely a concern. Something they should share with Hank, now that Joyce’s secret is out. They’ve got a paper right there too.
i mean other than not having social media she does have a ‘facebook mom’ but i imagine even the pic in the news paper might make local news too
The Brown parents really not give any of their children a sexual education? Not even the basics? I feel like that’s a huge parental failure we’ve been overlooking.
Pretty sure the extent of their sex ed was “no pre-marital hanky panky.”
I think Carol handled the homeschooling so Hank is assuming that Carol must not have done a proper job of sex ed if Joyce got birth control to have sex with her girlfriend. Which isn’t what happened of course, hence why Joyce is correcting him, but I do think Joyce got the Christian basics. Aka ‘sex is when a man and a woman go kapow with their genitals, don’t do it til marriage also you’re gonna bleed once a month because of Eve.’
Didn’t Ruth’s little brother or somebody think there was such a thing as ‘lesbian pregnant’?
This is typical in fundie households, particularly ones that homeschool
I can’t speak to sex ed post 1990’s but at that point at least even public school sex ed in many parts of America boiled down to “Don’t do it or you’ll catch AIDs and die and also get pregnant (not necessarily in that order) and if you’re a girl who has sex before marriage you’re like chewed gum and no one will want you.”
Considering how ‘boy crazy’ joyce is and mentioned she had access to the internet she might’ve found out eventually or having some experienced husband ‘picked’ for her
one of her brothers is married/probably has a kid so i assume she would’ve asked her sister in law about that , maybe
less pain during periods sounds like a hella good reason :nod nod:
I wonder how Becky feels witnessing this Relatively Chill Yet Fraught Coming Out and if she is going to have a bit of a flashback of her own to deal with on top of the rest of the pile of feelings.
Funny enough, she and Dina could relate together over “Dang, a nightmare for me that went so easily for Joyce.”
There’s something to be said about a running theme for ‘what comes easy to Joyce doesn’t come easy for me’.
Of course we as viewers see it’s not quite the case—but I can imagine a future comic where a few of the cast comment on this.
yeah this is exactly what i figured would happen. he’d be uncomfortable with these revelations, he’d find them off putting, but he fully understands he can’t dismiss them or try to refute them. developing acceptance for people like him is a slow process, and choosing not to deny what’s right in front of him is a good sign. i do think he doesn’t rly know what’s up with jocelyne tho, might not have a clue what being trans even is lmao
why is Jocelyn staying quiet in the fourth panel? I thought she wanted to come out to her dad?
Prolly cuz Joyce won’t shut the fuck up long enough to let her speak.
Typical little sister behavior smh
As a person with a younger sister, I can confirm this truth.
I used to be a litte sister. Now i’m just a guy.
I don’t think she wanted to come out to her Dad; she was doing so to protect Joyce, but now would be a good time to have that conversation too.
If she wants to do that today at all.
I expect it’ll be the end beat of next strip or not happen at all.
maybe she really doesn’t want to come out, yet
Because she didn’t want to come out. She all but said as much.
She may now be reconsidering that. There’s a relief to it, after all.
went exactly as expected
He’s trying alt-text; he may not be the best dad, but it shows that he’s trying to be a decent person. Hopefully he accepts his children for who they are, and not condemn them the way he, and Carol, have in the past.
i wonder who willis considers the current best dad to be lol
surprised people were doubting Hank “i think my daughter is more important than my church (in the context of church holding a girl at gunpoint)” Brown being accepting of joyce’s sexuality. he was already fine with becky, who’s basically a third Brown daughter
he’s not worried because he’s looking to punish Joyce, he’s worried because things Happen to Joyce and he just wants to be sure she’s not secretly hurt.
good man. good DoA dads are a welcome refresher
Hank should get to murder one minor character, as a reward for his good behavior. I vote Arnold.
Ruths grandpa
All dads and grandpas have to fight it out in the Thunderdome, with a March Madness bracket and everything
Is Mary a minor character or is that just wishful thinking on my part?
No, Mary’s 18.
I mean, he’s not so much “good” in so much as “better than the worst”,
Carol is not a very difficult bar to hurdle if we’re being honest
Hank is a good dad, he’s trying his best to be there for his children. ALL of them.
I’m a bit confused by his scripture line, though. He was extremely supportive of Becky after she came out, to the point of telling her that her mother would have been proud to see the woman she became (drawing out a hug from Becky). Him saying “Well, being gay is kinda evil” feels like it’s ignoring that he’s already addressed this issue and chosen love and compassion before.
I think it indicates a certain level of cognitive dissonance on his part, his instincts as a person and as a human being conflicting with the rules he’s been led to believe. Not unlike the way Joyce was early on, though obviously no two people process it in quite the same way.
I mean, yeah. But everyone’s got cognitive dissonance going on. One could say the human brain is a meat engine that fucking loves to produce cognitive dissonance.
Becky’s not his kid.
Please, she’s lost enough.
I think he meant Becky’s mom would be proud of her for standing up for what she believes in, just like he was proud of Joyce for standing up for Dorothy and her parents at the school fountain on freshman family weekend. I don’t know if he thought either of those things were “correct” in terms of Christianity, but he thought they were just in general correct, as he slowly changes his own world views
As much as he cares for Becky, even treating her like part of the family, she’s not actually related to him. For some people, that can make a difference. It’s one thing for your kid to have gay friends, but another thing when it’s your actual kid. I’m glad he didn’t respond like that, but it was a possibility.
I love that he actually felt the need to ask, just to be *sure* Joyce knew
Hank sees the flaws in home-schooling, and knows that Joyce didn’t really have a sex education class.
Technically, this is the only lie he’s been told today! Directly!
Glad Hank’s continuing his streak of being pretty okay given his background, fingers crossed we can keep that going for Jocelyne
I don’t see a lie in the strip above.
I think Shiro meant the lie that the birth control was Dorothy’s.
Ahhh ty for explaining.
Still doing better than my dad
You know what, thats not fair of me, as much as i dislike the man. ‘Gay’ wasn’t a problem.
We’ll see how hank handles ‘trans’. STILL betting on him handling it better than my old man.
Scripture actually says a lot more against divorce than it does against lesbian sex.
iirc most of what it says against divorce is actually against remarriage.
Any clauses about divorcing crazy bongos that put your child in danger at all?
Nope.
Yup. Also, lesbian sex is most directly described as God’s curse on unfaithful men, so, y’know, if there’s still lesbians around, it’s straight dudes’ fault.
Huh. Where does it say that?
My next tattoo, that’s where.
Romans 1
Incidentally, after reading today’s strip, I did a search for what the bible says about lesbians. Results implied there were multiple things about it, most particularly Romans 1:26, but digging deeper… That one verse, which has multiple possible interpretations, seems to be the only one.
See also: https://www.prayersfor.com/bible-verses/lesbians which lists 50 verses, but again, only Romans 1:26 actually mentions wlw specifically.
And, as Freemage said, God deliberately caused it. If we wanted, we could interpret the “unnatural sexual relations” it’s referring to as meaning they were using strap-ons (or, less jokingly and more in line with what the Bible says about sex, it could’ve meant that they were having sex without love being involved, what with it having been a bit of divinely-inflicted mind control).
Also possibly worth noting: Romans is one of those books of the Bible that isn’t recording what God or Jesus supposedly said, but what some other guy said about God’s motives. So, the one and only verse in the Bible that’s specifically about lesbian sex isn’t backed by any divine teachings.
Note that the actual verse is vaguely worded enough that it isn’t necessarily about woman-on-woman. I suppose that it’s a reasonable interpretation, but it isn’t explicit.
One possible alternate interpretation is that it’s about bestiality. An additional point that might support that interpretation is that in the OT (Leviticus 20), while man “lying with a man as with a woman” is condemned, there’s no similar verse for women lying with women. Rather, women lying with animals is condemned.
I suspect that fundies would retort that women doing anything sexual is condemned. Only missionary position, man on top, for the purpose of making babies, is “natural” sexual relations.
But the entire thing is actually about a whole list of ‘sins’, not just “unnatural lusts” (whatever “unnatural lusts” are, because, clearly homosexuality IS natural in humans and other animals):
“(29) … envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, (30) slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; (31) they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy.”
So telling the truth to Hank turned out to be much better than lying. What a surprise.
Keep in mind he still doesn’t have the entire truth (primarily, Jocelyne) and that being wary about coming out to a parent who was at one point a fundamentalist is, I think, a reasonable thing to be worried about.
If we were talking about the mom I’d agree, but Hank? Dude already proved that he is willing to put his kids ahead of his faith. Not saying he won’t struggle with the revelation, because obviously he has a lot of growing to do. But he clearly loves his kids, wants to do right by them, and is willing to completely uproot his life to do so. I genuinely don’t understand why people have so little faith in him as a parent.
I’m not saying Hank isn’t trustworthy, I’m saying it’s understandable that Joyce, who saw her best friend be held at gunpoint for coming out as gay, might have concerns. Hank was never gonna do that but fear isn’t always rational.
A lot of people have experience dealing with conservative, fundamentalist parents and for them the distrust is entirely understandable. Having faith in someone in that sphere not being a danger is something a lot of queer people can’t do.
I feel like this doesn’t really refute my point so much as sidestep it…
Actually no, thinking on it more I suppose my confusion really comes from the misguided idea that fundamentalist hatred is an all or nothing affair. I’ve had a tendency to think in the past that people who are hateful scumbags tend to go all in, or in other words, people who are shitheads towards one minority group rarely seem to stop there. But upon reflection that’s actually really dangerous to assume if you’re potentially in the firing line, huh…
Yeah, you know what, consider my ignorant ass sorted on this one.
Still believe in Hank though.
Sometimes people don’t even have to be shitheads to still not accept gay people if it is their own kid who is gay. My mom was happy to support my gay friends but never truly accepted my own queerness.
“willing to put his kids ahead of his faith” is absolutely a mark in Hank’s favor but you gotta understand that that willingness does not always stretch infinitely far
I hope you’re only this sarcastic and condescending in the comments section of webcomics and not to real people in real life who are dealing with fundie parents
This is a good hope. I also hope for this. Because that smug “well well well” approach to people reasonable guarding their own safety is a wild take.
Just to add: if there’s a 99% chance that your seemingly-accepting parent will be sane and reasonable, and a 1% chance that he’ll cut off all support and maybe grab a gun and go Toedad… Well, the odds are greatly in your favour, but that 1% chance is still not a risk you want to take unless you need to.
Besides, there’s a lot of gray area between those two options, and so much of it is painful as well as scary.
That too. My example was deliberately exaggerated (how would Joyce even have a 99% chance that Hank would be fine with it?) to emphasize how far from unreasonable her caution was.
And that’s even if Joyce had been thinking clearly, which I’m pretty sure she hasn’t been doing much of since she first kissed Dorothy.
That was meant to be “99% chance to know”. An edit button would be nice…
I feel like Hank’s hairline has receded 3 sizes today. Remember kids, each lie told to your father pulls his hairline back another centimeter. That’s why so many dads are bald.
His hairline receded in proportion to his heart growing.
Hank definitely isn’t the best dad, but considering his upbringing and his marital life up until this last year or so, I have to say he is way WAY better than I would have hoped or expected.
Scathing hot take apparently; it’s okay to lie to your parents about your sexuality and/or gender if you are unsure whether they are a safe person to disclose that information to and in fact you shouldn’t feel pressured to come out to them unless you desire to do that.
“Scathing hot” compared to liquid nitrogen, maybe.
You’d hope and yet…
Well, hope is for queers. 🇮🇪
Tiocfaidh ár lá!
100%. Not all religious parents are as chill and accepting as Hank is. Protect yourself first, make sure your safety and well-being won’t be compromised before you consider coming out to your religiously conservative parents /queer Saturday morning PSA
preserving meat for long-distance transportation with this take
It is in fact okay to lie to your parents about your sexuality or gender for any reason at all
I just love lying in general
i don’t believe you
Believe what? I didn’t say anything.
i’m not reading other people’s comments on a regular basis. please tell me that doesn’t qualify as a hot take here
I’m definitely being a little hyperbolic for the fun of it but there’s at least one guy here in the comments who’s like “see telling the truth was better than lying” as if them lying in this instance is a mark against their characters.
2012 Joyce ass take
It was here though – partly because Joyce couldn’t sell it to her father, partly because she was lying out of panic instead of a genuine need and largely because Hank accepting his daughter was pretty obviously going to be the outcome once he knew.
as if them lying in this instance is a mark against their characters
Bolding that part for you, since you seem to be co-signing a take I don’t think you would if you had noticed that.
just one comment, it’s 3 up from this one. definitely not a hot take!
There’s more now!
And it’s annoying. Why are some commenters literally making fun of people for buying into the clear intentional tension Willis was creating with multiple ambiguous lines of dialogue from Hank? There’s a combativeness from some readers now that I’m used to only seeing from the type of horror fan who brags that no horror movies can scare them.
Congrats on your ability to refuse to engage with this thing you supposedly like, I guess. Sorry not everyone is meeting you on your exact level.
Not sure if you’re including me in this, but if so…
My only objection has been to the use of the words “safety” and “danger” in respect to this situation. Jocelyn and Joyce both had perfectly valid reasons to fear emotional backlash from their father over their respective secrets, and had no obligation to come out now (though I think coming out eventually with him is the right choice, as he is a generally decent human being and loving father). But insisting that it was ‘dangerous’ to do so, and they were trying to protect one another’s safety, rather than their emotional security (which, AGAIN, is a perfectly valid reason for their decisions) is stating facts not in evidence.
In Jocelyne’s case, emotional security is just as much related to her physical safety, I would say. As far as we know, the only family Jocelyne has that can be trusted with knowledge that she is trans is her sister. If neither of her parents, nor other siblings are accepting, that’s less social and emotional support for her. Less resources to rely upon. And as a writer, Jocelyne’s not exactly rolling in the dough.
As for Joyce, her attendance at college is 100% reliant on her father’s support and trust. She is also 100% financially dependent on him. Even outside of the gun situation, when Becky’s father disapproved of her being gay, he pulled her from the college and intended to take her to a conversion camp. Hank is better than Ross, but the line to cross for what he will accept is still not known and again, I’m keeping in mind how the characters in this comic are viewing it as far as safety vs danger.
I double-checked, but I don’t see you personally making fun of people for being worried, so. I think you’re in the clear.
OK, here is another one that puzzles me (replying to this whole thread) There appears to be a view that lying is a sin, but there are exceptions for safety. Yet I actually don’t know anyone who doesn’t lie sometimes, or lie by omission. I certainly lie. I lie to protect people from being upset by things that really don’t matter to me, but do to them. I lie to protect me from things that really don’t matter to me, but do to them. I doubt that I could lie about important things that matter to both parties, but I would probably try for people’s physical safety.
That’s a good point too, like I’m not sure why lying is being treated like the ultimate sin against these gals other than maybe residual upset about the whole cheating thing. Which, hey. The cheating, that can be criticized. That was a bad(tm) instance of lying indeed. Lying to Hank about the relationship, birth control pills, and Jocelyne’s identity aren’t bad things to lie about. Partially because certain things like the birth control… aren’t really his business unless he’s paying for them (which maybe he is? I don’t know what Joyce’s insurance looks like/covers) and even then, it’s as much related to her health as getting glasses.
No, jut a Right Field Surprise, they are Objectivists now.
Hank’s taking this a lot better than I feared he might. Like yeah, I was kinda purposely keeping my expectations low out of fear that things would go particularly badly; at no point was I expecting outright approval. But admitting that he’s not sure of what’s right and wrong anymore is a sign of hope.
And yeah it probably goes without saying but good on Hank for warning them not to tell Carol any of this. It’s sound advice and a sign that he is genuinely trying to look out for them.
honestly that could’ve gone worse
It still can. We’ll see if they bring up Jocelyn being trans. Cause, like, there’s only so much deadnaming one can do or hear for the greater good.
This is not meant to be a dig at anyone in the comments, but the amount of people shocked by how well this is going sincerely confuse me. Is our collective short term memory really that bad, that we forgot the last scenes we saw of Hank? like. genuinely
It’s not that people forgot he has been decent; it’s that people have low expectations of parents in this comic, and possibly have parents who aren’t supportive. So seeing Hank take all this in without condemning Joyce in any way is surprising from both ends.
Yes
I think it’s less “shocked that it is going well” and more “shocked it’s going well so far”. There are still PLENTY of red flags.
It can be genuinely difficult to predict what someone will do when their beliefs and their personality are in tension, is the thing. Hank’s been pretty consistently written as a genuinely good-hearted and thoughtful person who cares about other people, but his identity is deeply tied up in a set of fundamentally bigoted and regressive beliefs. Hard to tell what the breaking point is gonna be
honestly if you’ve ever seen Fiddler on the Roof, I think Tevye is a pretty similar type of guy. you don’t know when Hank’s gonna hit his “there is no other hand”
I think the current climate ratcheting up tensions and drawing battle lines is not helping people make nuanced takes and demands performative displays of purity and righteousness. It’s understandable trust is at a low.
Yeah, I definitely think the current political climate – and the fact that so many of us have interacted with conservative Christians who are EXTREMELY resist to change and are probably lost causes – that is making so many people have really low expectations of Hank.
I am one of those people who had my parents give me extreme resistance when I came out to them as transgender. There was much fighting, refusal to call me the name I wanted to be called, to use the correct pronouns for me.
I am still capable of nuanced takes and remember the person Willis has shown us Hank is.
It’s weird how many people seem to have forgotten how quickly Hank was accepting of Becky after he learned she’s gay.
It was more than just accepting. He went ABOVE AND BEYOND for Becky. He left his church and marriage for Becky. He set up a joint bank account for her and is helping her pay whatever expenses Robin isn’t paying for her. He essentially unofficially adopted her. All within the span of a *few weeks.* He was still weirded out by Becky having a girlfriend at the time and was still willing to completely upend his life for her, and she’s not even his own kid.
He more left the church and marriage over Carol (and the church) helping fund bail for the dude who first threatened and then kidnapped his daughter.
The last scenes we saw of Hank in the modern day were in 2020. I don’t think that qualifies as “short-term memory” and I don’t think it’s unreasonable to acknowledge that there are plenty of shitty parents who are accepting of queerness and supportive of queerness but NOT when it comes to their own children.
It is reasonable to expect someone who comes from an ideology that actively rolls back human rights based on “my bible says that’s icky” to respond poorly to information like this. And, frankly, weird to act like it isn’t reasonable. Some commentors (like myself) had to go through this IRL and that’s also impacting expectations.
Fearing he’s going to ‘respond poorly’ is fine. That’s a legit fear, even with what we knew of Hank up to this point.
Fearing for Jocelyn’s safety, or talking about her being in danger, is at best a strained reading of the character.
Fearing for Jocelyne’s safety is a potentially reasonable reaction from readers who may have experienced similar situations with trusted authority figures that turned suddenly dangerous.
Pointing out that Joyce et al might be fearing for Jocelyne’s safety is a 1000000000% fair point to make and any readers who made it were likely correct. The fun thing about bigots is that they’re insidious and it’s hard to tell who is genuinely dangerous and who is just shitting out of their mouth until it’s too late. That’s a fair thing to note as a motivation for everyone’s anxiety within the strip.
Joyce’s prior experiences last semester with disapproving fathers have been:
Ross kidnapping Becky at gun point with Joyce present.
Blaine kidnapping Joyce and a ton of other people, Ross and Mike died during this whole shebang, as well as Blaine himself.
Even though we, the readers, know Hank won’t do these things, and I’d say even Joyce truly knows her father never would, it isn’t unreasonable for her to still be frightened by the prospects of what her own father might do if he disapproves.
My comment is about how weirdly intense the commenters have been, not that the character reactions are not reasonable. Yall are out here proving my point
“people who disagree with me and discuss the in-comic reasons for things are not reasonable” Is a very reasonable take. Not at all weirdly rude.
the way you say that implies I have not had to go through the exact same thing, which is high key insulting. Relax
Gets insulted at me saying “some commentors” like that doesn’t include them.
Tells me to relax.
lmao <3 I don't think I'm the one that's high strung, babes.
ive had a stroke since the last scenes with Hank (actual real fact not me being sarcastic), and I remember who he is as a person
so i dont really buy the whole “that was too long ago” deal
I do think current political climate has been smoothbraining us against nuance cus it’s hell out here, I accept that, sure.
But also as someone who’s also gone through actual hell with my parents I am miraculously still capable of recognizing the nuance here
I’m sorry for what you’ve been through.
Your specific reaction to trauma is also not the only one anyone can or should be allowed to have.
It was too long ago to be considered “short term memory” and I invite you to go find the definition of short term memory because I am not a dictionary <3
Also, other people have other issues with memory and other opinions on the traumas they've been through. You struggle with empathy or an understanding that other peoples' opinions matter equally to yours. That's sad for you.
C’mon. Are people really “shocked” or are they just expressing surprise and relief.
Typical shock humor, smh my head.
do not go through the rest of the replies to my comment to preserve your sanity then
I genuinely do not see a single response to you that is expressing shock about Hank.
I see a couple other people being a little exasperated with your hyperbole, as I was, and I see a couple of people pointing out that a lot of us are on edge right now.
So. Sanity’s intact.
Yay, he didn’t say “I know” and he also wasn’t a supreme asshole! Exactly what I was hoping for!
Woooooow who could’ve called hank being perfectly okay with this immediately.
I’m nor actually upset this time I’m glad Hank is so chill with it all but heck can we get SOMETHING out of all of this
You’re so impatient. It’s only been two months of everyone these two dipshit bozos know travelling from far and wide to see the newborn
baby Jesusrelationship of two white chicks who already Liked each other with a capital L.Nearly 3.
I don’t think its impatient when every opportunity for literally anything to happen in this arc has been kicked down the road. Anything drama-able has immediately been shut down outside of Sarah yelling at Joyce (which is now completely pointless cause Joe is okay with this all) and Walky depressed eatjng (loved that scene with billie was 10/10)
“perfectly okay” is, i think, overselling it a bit. he’s trying to rationalize it away in the same way Joyce used to— “homosexuality is a sin, but I sin in little ways all the time so who am I to judge.” honestly they really are a lot alike, but Hank’s got an extra thirty years of set-in-his-ways to work through
I mean perfectly okay considering how things could’ve gone.
Again Im super happy Hank continues to be #1 dad but man
#1 dad by Dave Willis standards for sure
actually i mean Dorothy’s dad seems fine. and Dina’s. but, y’know, Hank’s sitting at a pretty solid #3 so far
We’ve seen those two for like no lines esch they dont exist
All strips containing those two:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/tag/jeremiah/ (and the second page of those results)
and
https://www.dumbingofage.com/tag/ryou/ (no second page)
I do agree that everyone being honkey dory with it (for the most part) is extremely unsatisfying cus they were still cheating. Just feels gross. I think I would have been more annoyed if Hank was randomly a jackass about it, considering the scenes we’ve already had with him. He’s obviously still indoctrinated in a lot of right wing propaganda, but so was Joyce
I want to see the consequences from the peers, not the weird “EVERYONE’S ROOTING FOR YOU” sentiment when they both……………. cheated
But it’s not that deep, is a webcomic at the end of the day
Honestly I was expecting habk to be okay with it so im neither surprised nor disappointed in this particular instance its just an overall feeling atm
I rarely comment but: Hank is trying. He’s trying very very hard. As a trans person from a deeply conservative Catholic family; I see and appreciate the effort.
Yeah, this is honestly going better than I had hoped. For his background he’s handling it really well.
yeah it’s not exactly the same experience (not Christian) but as a queer person with some fairly conservative family members: it is perfectly possible for someone to have fundamentally shitty beliefs and still know that, at a fundamental level, they’re still a good person who cares about other people. even if that doesn’t mean you can always get them to understand why their beliefs are shitty, or that it’s even necessarily worth the effort to try.
and then of course you can also tell who’s an asshole, regardless of whatever their belief system happens to be.
I have met so many assholes whose politics I agree with. You know that meme from the big lebowski? “You’re not wrong Walter, you’re just an asshole”, I’ve seen that so many times.
It’s like, for these assholes it is less about their politics and more about having something to lord over other people.
Hank’s stealing my jokes!
Hank making me laugh out loud here.
Wheezes. Yeah this was about the level of reaction I expected. He’s already gone through a lot of trials. The church he’d been going to funded the release of a man who went on to kidnap his daughter. He’s already gotten a divorce, as he says. Why not. He knows Dorothy. She’s a Nice Young Woman.
He’s a decent guy rolling with a lot of punches.
Is Hank talking about Joyce’s home-schooling — or his?
not many home-school dentists
I hope
For what it’s worth, the effectiveness of home-schooling depends heavily on the teachers. It’s not inherently necessary they be trying to indoctrinate their children… but that is a common motivation, as it’s a lot of work (at least if done remotely well) that could easily be passed off to a professional.
prolly jocye’s since jocelyne said she didn’t go through homeschooling/ graudated by the time the mom went ‘full fundie’
Hank gets the runaround for hours and now he’s like “that’s it? Ugh, fine, I’m going home. Wait, please tell me you actually understand biology, I don’t need to hate my ex wife more than I already do.”
For people from his background I keep expecting the worse and watch as another parent lets down their children. I’m glad I’m wrong because it puts a smile on face seeing someone like Hank try to grow, question his world and try to understand. Even if he’s fictional it’s nice to have this escapism once in a while.
i assume he wouldn’t have made a scene in a college campus but after a protest like that i imagine jocyelyn would be able to handle herself if she does tell him
So, I understand there’s all sorts of complicated fundamentalist-version-of-Christianity and complicated family dynamics going on here, but this reminds me that I was filled with flabbergast that the first reaction to Hank finding Joyce’s no-baby pills wasn’t “it’s for my menstrual cramps” – like, ironclad excuse right there and it happens to be mostly true anyway, sweet Jaysis.
I mean, Joyce herself started with the talk that her menstrual cramps are a punishment from god for Eve’s sins, so it’s not THAT ironclad for appropriate levels of fundie.
Well that is a depressing thought, and it’s not inconceivable, but her family strikes me more as “Jesus was a Republican” fundie and less “insane medieval theocrat” fundie. Like I imagine sh bro that idea from the general assumption that God is constantly fucking with you than f ok specifically being told that God wants to punch her in the crotch for her sins.
Joyce was so focused on possibly lying to her father to cover for Jocelyne and possibly lying to her father about Dorothy that she was caught completely off-guard by the Pill thing, but was still in Lie Mode at the time and panicked.
Yeah, there we go, that makes a lot of sense.
It’s less heartwarming when you learn that that’s Hank’s response every time his kids do something he doesn’t approve of.
“Dad, I just robbed a bank, shot three police officers, and I’m addicted to heroin!”
“Don’t tell your mother”
Hank may not be the best dad, but he certainly is a very good dad. 😛
Technically the Bible does allow divorce in cases of adultery, so all Hank has to do is get Carol to cheat on him and he’s in the clear.
The Old Testament does. The New Testament explicitly does not.
No, in Matthew Jesus allows an exception even as he’s discouraging divorce in general: “And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another commits adultery, and he who marries a divorced woman commits adultery” (Matthew 19:9)
Messed up the italics there but you get the gist.
I don’t think Jesus knew very much about adultery, based on this. Weird ideas, comin’ from this guy.
Judaism allows for divorce for any reason (hell, the marriage ceremony itself has a prenup as part of the ritual) and doing so has its own set of rituals and rules for who requests what and who accepts the request. (The biggest glitch is that Orthodox communities don’t have an official mechanism for carrying out a divorce when the wife wants out but the husband doesn’t.)
I mean i think the papers are already signed so the boat is out of the harbor on that one.
*Snort* That was WAY more awareness than I expected from Hank. “Oh my God we homeschooled our daughter and now she thinks she can get pregnant from Dorothy” XD
Easiest shot call ever, kinda surprised people thought it would go different. Though the process has somehow been both drawn out and also rushed.
Now can we get back to the greener drama pastures.
He is so very very tired
Joyce: also I might be probably autistic and it’s genetic
Joyce: also I’m not a virgin
Joyce: and also I cheated on my boyfriend very publicly
Jocelynne: also I’m a woman now
Joyce: also Im a godless atheist
Hank: I take it back, I would like more secrets
Just wait until Hank starts revealing his own secrets.
Turns out he’s the one who programmed Tron.
Hank is D.B. Cooper
Hank is Galasso. We’ve never seen them in the same place at the same time, you know.
No, that was Alan-1.
if its genetic wonder if its moms side or dads. or if her other siblings have it
Plenty of reasons to still dislike Hank, can’t judge those who do, but damned if he doesn’t keep managing to be just endearing enough to tolerate.
watch as we get a flash forward and walky becomes the most likeable dad
I have now flipped my stance and instead of throwing Hank into the sun, we need to throw him into Therapy.
Poor Hank. Life’s just been bombarding him with curveballs these last few weeks.
that’s probably the best response you coulda got from Hank given his upbringing with the “it does make me somewhat uncomfortable because of my upbringing but I won’t condemn it”
At this point he seems to care more that his kids are safe. Which is probably the greater reason why he doesn’t want them at the protest since he does genuinely see the protestors as a “dangerous group” due to the news he reads, which could lead his kids down a path that leads them to jail, death, or becoming dangerous themselves.
Gonna disagree with the alt-text and some commenters and say I think Hank is being a good dad, actually…so far, anyway (this may be a fake-out for him not reacting well to Jocelyne’s news). Already knowing/understanding/accepting every possible thing is not where the bar is. Loving your kids enough to learn is where the bar is.
Nah, put this guy in a kinda-deep hole that’ll take a couple hours to get out of, and do it on a day that’s kinda nice but not so nice that he’s not exhausted and crabby when he finally manages to climb out of the hole. He can have some water if he needs it, but don’t give him a whole lot, because the last thing anybody needs is for Hank to piss while he’s down there. That’ll show ‘im.
I don’t think you’re disagreeing with the alt-text.
To elaborate on that a little – I absoutely agree that Hank is taking the time to learn and that’s good. But if we’re talking about bars (and I prefer to talk about grey areas, but okay) then I don’t think that’s the “best dad” bar. It’s the “not the worst dad” bar. And somewhere between those bars, in one of the grey areas I like so much, is “good dad” (and also “kind of bad dad”, that’s what makes it a grey area, but right now, I think Hank’s closer to the upper bar.)
So, yeah. Not the worst dad, not the best dad, but maybe a good dad.
Yeah this is going basically how I expected.
Your hover-text made me think of Dickens … and then to wonder who the other [inferred] dad is?
The worst dad is Toedad, obviously.
The best dad is … maybe Dorothy’s dad? We haven’t seen much of him, but I always remember that Paetron strip where he’s humorously annoyed that Dorothy is perfect, because he thinks he’d handle her not being perfect really well, and he’ll never have a chance to demonstrate it.
If it turns out that’s just talk then I dunno, Dina’s dad? Perhaps Carla’s, if judged purely as a dad and not as an evil capitalist overlord, but he’s never actually appeared in the strip so maybe he doesn’t count.
Okay, immediately after posting I thought “What am I talking about? Toedad comes second after Blaine, of course! Look at all the stuff he did to Amber!” And then I thought about the stuff Toedad did to Becky, and my conclusion is that dad-ranking is harder than it looks.
The difference between Toedad and Blaine, is that Toedad was, to the best of our knowledge, actually being a dad to Becky, when she was walking the line that he set. One of the saddest parts about Blaine, was that despite everything that happened, Becky still loved him, and it hurt to see him die. They were once, by all accounts, a happy family.
Blaine was never a dad for Amber, because there was no mold, no image that Amber *could* be in that would get approval. Blaine physcally abused her mother and mentally and emotionally abused her simply because that was who he was. So she turned into a quiet, meek, scared person, afraid to show any part of her to anyone for fear that they would criticize that part of her. And that became her personality so badly that when she couldn’t handle the abuse anymore and lashed out in anger, it turned into an entirely new personality.
So no. Blaine is worst dad. Blaine will *always* be worst dad, until we learn that Clint kills puppies for fun or something.
Which, speaking of, is why Carol is worst mom.
Agreed. Blaine was FAR worse than Toedad. Toedad was a terrible parent, but did seem somewhat reflective on his actions when he tried to kidnap Becky in order to “save her,” (Granted, he still thought his motivations were right but his EXECUTION was wrong) but Blaine, knowing that Toedad could be manipulated, told him “you did nothing wrong, fellow Christian. In fact, you should kidnap MORE children… because… um… they’re wayward souls in need of saving!” When Joyce called him out on it you could see Toedad’s resolve waver just a little, before he doubled down by repeating Blaine’s words that this scheme was God’s will.
Also, Toedad never killed anyone. Blaine killed Mike AND Toedad, and then tried killing half the cast to cover up the latter.
OTOH, both Blaine and Ross improved dramatically right before the timeskip, so I’d argue that Clint is now the worst, even if he’s been offstage.
I think the major difference between Hank and Carol is, Hank sees his kids as people. He knows that people are going to make choices or have thoughts or opinions that he isn’t going to see eye to eye with, but that ultimately those are their choices to make and opinions to have.
Carol, meanwhile, does not and probably never will see her kids as fully actualized human beings. They’re extensions of her, and thus need to be following her values and beliefs. She can’t ever compromise on that.
The sad part is that because the Hanks of the world *can* see reason on occasion, you always hold on hope that if you show them enough evidence that they*will* see reason about everything and stop holding problematic beliefs. But they don’t, and you never necessarily know where that line is gonna be.
Well with that outa the way, Pizza? Maybe Becky can bring some slices back for Dina and Amber.
The mouseover text is correct. Hank is the third best dad. My dads are first and second.
So much comment… also at least one of these lines was predicted by Reddit.
Well this has gone so much better than expected. Good on ya Hank
Whoo! Go Hank!
Showing where Joyce got it from. And accepting a person despite not knowing if you’re comfortable with it is the first step to truly accepting them and growing as a person
For all their mutual faults, Joyce and Hank are each other’s father and daughter.
Very much so, yes.
“Against scripture” always seems to be code for, “There’s at least one passage I can interpret to be against this thing I don’t like. If I squint really hard while holding the Bible upside down.”
I have sympathy for Hank. It can’t be easy to unlearn a lifetime of indoctrination.
In complete fairness, it’s at least two passages, and they are pretty explicit about it.
Divorce is definitely more comprehensively condemned in scripture though.
First, there are very few verses that refer to homosexual relationships between men. If it was an abominable sin to God, you’d think He’d talk about it more and more directly. Yet the verses that are there are more in the context of *other* things the people being condemned are doing. It’s more of a condemnation of people giving in to hedonism, not just men loving other men.
Second, the few clobber verses that do mention homosexuality don’t mention lesbianism. So either God forgot about it or He’s down with Sappho.
Third, a LOT of “what the scripture” says depends on the translation and with what mindset you are reading it. For example, scholars who study the Christian bible as a text instead of “God’s Word” will tell you that the story of creation in Genesis was never intended to be taken literally.
So the thing about it is that scripture absolutely condemns homosexual conduct and I just don’t give a shit. Like, I’m just not gonna go along with it. I don’t care about religious arguments that dance around the verses or get into the weeds of translation, none of that matters to me. An important part of a healthy theological life is knowing what parts of your ancient religious texts to say “hm! no thank you!” to.
But I recognize that this kind of flexibility is less common with Christians.
For what it’s worth, while I agree about not living your life based on a book of stories that can’t even decide whether humans were made before (Genesis 2:18-19) or after (Genesis 1: 25-27)other animals, that doesn’t mean we can’t poke fun at those who do by pointing out how even their supposed source doesn’t match their claims.
I trivially debunked Hank’s claim that lesbians are “against scripture” in a comment somewhere above, in case that might be entertaining to you in some way. Or just ignore it if you prefer — that’s perfectly fine too.
Wow. Those links broke in a weird way. Doesn’t matter, anyway, but they were supposed to be
https://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/gen/2.html#18
and
https://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/gen/1.html#25
respectively. Incidentally, that’s a nice site for any time you want to show people evidence that the Bible isn’t the inerrant text some like to claim it is… not that that’s likely to actually convince anyone, but at least it might encourage them to leave you alone.
One last addition: I also tried checking what the Bible says about transgender matters. Again, please don’t feel any obligation to care, but if you do want a few counterarguments to throw at the bigots, maybe try https://www.hrc.org/resources/what-does-the-bible-say-about-transgender-people ?
Again, not likely to actually convince them, but at least it might encourage them to avoid you, which can be a victory in itself.
for what its worth, I’m pretty sure the Christians who do this shit are bad Christians. Since the whole God damned point of the thing is that we are not the judges of our fellow humans, that sins are for God to judge, and that we should love each other first and foremost. It’s the whole reason DJ Jezzey Creezy wrote the Sequel, but too many focus on the first one because it has better special effects.
So I’m not saying you’re doing it here, but being overly dismissive of “the first one” can get you into some choppy territory. I’m Jewish, and what the Christians call the Old Testament are a part of our own religious literature. They do still matter.
Ex-Catholic married to a Jew here…
I think there’s generally room for an implication that CHRISTIANS who focus on the Old Testament because of “better special effects” (which I read as “more big miracles and no-mercy smiting God’s enemies, less turn-the-other-cheek and promises that are a couple thousand years overdue by the literal reading”) are doing it wrong without asserting/implying that you lovely folks who have an ongoing couple thousand years of keeping and living with Torah are also doing it wrong.
Sure, I’m not trying to bust this poster’s balls or anything. Just a gentle reminder that this kind of language can get into some uncomfortable territory before that actually happens. I’ve had enough unpleasant conversations on those lines to have an interest in nipping them in the bud lol.
Oh I hear yah, I was making the implicit explicit as much as anything else. 😀
C’mon, man, MC JC was right there.
Would you happen to be Jewish? This is an attitude that matches my Reform temple pretty closely.
I am Reform Jewish.
*semi-adjacent fist bump* My partner’s a Reconstructionist!
There are plenty of Christians who don’t pretend to be literalist either. It’s a relatively small and recent movement, but very politically powerful in the US, so it’s easy to think of as more representative than they actually are.
Indeed hedonism (New Teastament). And could well be referring to abusing slave boys. It is so interpretable, if I were a Christian, I don’t think I’d want to stake my immortal soul on either interpretation being the only one!
Oops, what is a teastament!
I was trying to make a point that the meaning people get out of any text, not just religious ones, is going to depend as much on their own goals and priors as much as what the text actually says. The moral and behavioral rules that a particular religious tradition has now is something that will have evolved over time. Different sects and traditions arise out of a single source with a single holy text because of the differences in how people within that religion interpreted those texts. Those individual groups then change how they interpret the text to suit their goals as the goals and other circumstances change.
But people often don’t want to admit that, because that reduces their ability to use the text as a source of authority to claim that their personal preferences and beliefs are true for everyone.
Exactly. Claims of Biblical literalism are only claims that “My interpretation is what the Bible literally means”. They can’t be anything more. The Bible cannot be read literally. It can only be interpreted. You have to choose what it means.
In the NT, I believe only Paul and someone later pretending to be Paul say anything about homosexuality. And Paul thought that sex at all was a bad idea and you should only get married (and thus have sanctioned sex) if you couldn’t hack celibacy.
Of course, Paul also thought the world was going to end any day now and thus anything long term didn’t matter.
Literalist Christians today ignore all of that except the bits about homosexuality.
OH THANK GOD (I’m sure there’s a more nuanced take to this but I’m just relieved he wasn’t a dick about it)
Hank is trying his best.
Friday’s strip:
Hank: “OK. I’m getting divorced. My son is now my daughter. My daughter is gay AND on birth control. Both are part of a radical political group. Is there ANYTHING else?”
Group: Looks around, lots of eye contact, shrugs.
Hank: (sighs) “OK. Let’s go get pizza.”
Joyce: “Oh yeah also I might be trying poly.”
Dorothy: “WHAT?!”
This would be the moment to finish explaining that something else!
I think people are taking the alt-text the wrong way. Hank’s not the worst dad or the best dad… he’s just a dad. He’s a human being, like any of us.
We are all a combination of our genetics, our environment, and the choices we make within that environment. When you’re raised to believe that a certain code is correct, and you live in the time period that Hank did, in the part of the world that Hank did, in the culture that Hank did, it’s VERY HARD to be exposed to enough to be able to make informed choices that steer you away from that.
Hank is doing the best he can. Every single time that we have seen him in this comic, he has *consistently* shown us that he’s capable of growth and change. When Joyce challenged him on the Family Weekend, he respected her and said that he would trust her. When Joyce came home with Becky, he accepted her in and vouched for her. When Joyce essentially stole the car and stayed out crazy late, he lied for her. When he could see church was clearly a toxic place for Becky, he took them back to school, and later told Joyce that he was trying to learn from her example. When his wife was acting batshit crazy and defending a kidnapper that *she freed* who was aiding and abetting a murderer, he divorced her ass and left the church and broke the commandments he grew up under.
Right now, his biggest hurdle is that he’s not in an environment like Joyce, where he’s surrounded by examples that show that the assumptions he was wrong. On the plus side, he loves his kids and is going to work extra hard to try to accept them.
I do have some fears here that Jocelyne might be too much for him at this point. That’s a big leap, especially due to the HRT; he might be afraid that she’s harming herself. But if there’s ever going to be a time for Hank to learn and accept it, it’s now.
To sum up, he’s a good dad – but he’s not a perfect dad. There’s a lot he needs to learn and a lot he needs to let go of – but he’s shown time and again that he’s willing to learn and he’s willing to let go of toxic ideas once he’s aware of how harmful they are – just as Joyce has shown herself capable of doing. While he started out well ahead of where Joyce was at the start of the series, she’s far outstripped his progress – and now he’s the one in the position where he’s learning that he needs to learn and change to fit a more nuanced and interesting world than he was used to dealing with.
what if Dad was one of us
just a dumb like all of us
I think more importantly he’s a dad before he’s a homophobe.
I mean, she could need it for birth related reasons if she was with a woman. Let’s let your other child explain. Honestly, Hank is in the right mood to hear it now.
To be fair, I don’t know how much good an Indiana public education would have done her in this respect.
Panel 3 is crucial.
Also, Joyce may have felt she was protecting Jocelyn, but probably shouldn’t’na.
shouldn’a? Now that I see it on screen it seems like the ‘t’ should be omitted
Too many apostrophes and it starts looking like an amateur fantasy writer’s main elf character.
How dare you besmirch the eternal and glorious name of Clan Y’all’d’ve!
I think it’s one of the other.
Either short for not or nay
Well, at least Hank is open enough to admit that he can’t condemn Joyce for being gay since he himself is getting a divorce, which the Bible also condemns. WAAAY too many people assume a “holier than thou” approach, such as Carol, who pretty much is the absolute worst but doesn’t swear like the Walkertons so she MUST BE better than them for that point alone. (She even pointed that out)
Citation for Carol never swearing: https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/04-is-a-song-forever/public/
Though it might be embarrassing for her if she knew of people following that link, then reading the previous strip and noticing the second-last word of that strip’s first panel.
(Although it’s also a matter of definition. Some would regard the sentence before “I never swear” as more sweary.)
Good on Hank. Even if he’s unsure if he’s ok with it, he acknowledges that he can’t exactly be upset at her without being a hypocrite(“he without sin” and all that).
Also is Jocelyn going to get her chance to come out as trans(not an easy thing to do in my experience and I didn’t grow up in a hyper religious household) before Hank leaves or is she going to have to wait for a different opportunity?
I’m hoping Jocelyne gets to actually come out sooner rather than later – but if she had, I doubt we would have gotten that “Who to the what now?” look on her face when Joyce starts talking about her birth control prescription. Rather an adorable look of bemusement in the middle of what I’m sure is a very annoying encounter for her!
LITERALLY: “He’s a little confused, but he’s got the spirit.”-Meme
Hank loves his children and has a good moral compass, it just needed to get away from that toxic magnet distracting it from his own true north. He wants what’s best for them and sliwly he learns that he doesn’t necessarily know what that is. But as long as they are happy, safe and healthy he’s on board.
No notes, no proposed amendments.
Normally one would say that somebody is their father’s daughter, but in this case, I’d say Hank is his daughter’s father.
I kind of want to see the conversation between Hank and Jocelyn, because I think he’ll do a solid-but-imperfect job of handling it, and that’s pretty real. But also the fact is that Jocelyn isn’t a main character, so that conversation will only ever be used to create drama for or teach the reader something about Joyce, and the idea that a trans story that might involve parental alienation and deepening trauma will be used mostly to fuel drama for a cis character is something I don’t think we should feel great about. Jocelyn deserves her own story (ideally, one not written by a cis writer), and this comic isn’t it.
In that same spirit, I both want and don’t want to see a conversation between Hank and Asma, for the same reasons. I don’t mean a “special presentation teaching moment.” Just a conversation. Coffee. Classes. If he’s like most people who look like him, Hank has never thought about antifacism or Palestine for more than half a second, and I’d love to see how Willis handles Hank’s response to a human conversation that forces him to really consider his unquestioned beliefs. It’s a human moment that’s not well represented in media. And before anyone says “It’s not her job to teach him,” I’ll say that I agree, but A) she’s a comic character, not a real person-they all are, I’m so sorry, but it’s true and B) I don’t want that, anyway. People like Hank (people with a lot of compassion but also unquestioned privilege and beliefs) don’t need to be “taught.” They’ll often get there simply by interacting with humans that force them to start thinking new thoughts. We’re seen Joe, Joyce, Sarah, and others in this strip make exactly that move for exactly that reason, so that’s fun.
Also, Hank doing that on both gender and genocide would open a lot of doors for Joyce to re-think her own positions and life, which brings us back to “she’s the main, and all characters exist in this universe in service to her story, anyway.”
I think in general the representation of the trans experience in this strip is pretty shallow, unfortunately. We haven’t really seen any characters grapple with coming to terms with their transness and going through transition – every trans character in the strip has done all of that off-screen. I’d really like to see at least one character have an actual coming out arc about being trans.
Also, Willis is not cis, for the record.
I know Walky and Danny are popular targets for ‘unknowingly trans women’ theories/headcanons. And you know? Good for them i’d support that shit.
But my life for a trans man, my liege
We’ll get walky on E by 2042
But I want Danny 🙁
Personally, I think Joe has that overcompensating hyper-masculinity thing going that a lot of trans women go through, so I’m kinda hoping that he’ll end up being trans.
As for the discussion between Hank and Jocelyne, I really want to see that too – but I want it to be a surface level, “OK, I don’t understand this, but I’ll try to learn,” followed by him signing up for Leslie’s Gender Studies class. It’s a shame that Carla is in the class this semester – but we know that Malaya is at least some flavor of transgender or nonbinary, and there’s also that one trans boy that we saw a ways back in Forest Hall, plus there’s always the chance that one of the main or secondary characters come out as transgender (Dina’s been playing a bit with gender nonconformity to try to help Becky work through her issue, Danny has some rather feminine traits about him, and as I said, Joe has that whole hyper-masculinity thing that trans women often mask with). And if Jocelyne joins the cast as a graduate student as well, we could get them in a situation where it is EXPECTED that transgender people would be taught about.
Nonbinary people are trans, it’s literally what the white stripe in the flag is for, and the nonbinary people who don’t consider themselves trans have p much all been told they’re not allowed to.
But they are. We are. “Trans (binary or nonbinary)” would better express the sentiment you wanted to say there.
Ugh. Okay, I’m too cranky to be commenting. I apologize for my tone, though I stand by the information I provided.
No, I get it. Personally, I consider nonbinary people to be transgender as well – but not all nonbinary people consider themselves to be transgender. At the end of the day, it’s not really a big deal if you lump them in under the umbrella or not (and, if I’m being perfectly honest, I’d include transgender people under the intersex umbrella, but wouldn’t do so in general conversation thanks to not all transgender people agreeing on that matter).
Like I said, though, the nonbinary people who don’t consider themselves trans have p much all been told they’re not allowed to.
Intersex people are another group that absolutely belong in the LGBTQIA+ community, where individuals may not consider themselves LGBTQIA+, but the letter still belongs in the acronym. Some rare trans folks also go “stealth” and leave the community: that doesn’t mean their identity no longer “belongs”, you know?
Broadly inclusive is best, not only bc the vast majority of these communities DOES want access, but also bc including people and letting them opt out on an individual level is just… the less harmful option.
(The other thing you mention is not my lane or something I’ve heard folks whose lane it is talk about before, so imma stay out of that conversation. But the rest of this, yes: intersex people are LGBTQIA+, and the move to say otherwise is coming from TERFs. Nonbinary people are trans, and the move to say otherwise is coming from TERFs. Psyops that TERFs on like tumblr have admitted to!)
Honestly I think Joss wants to tell him
Hank kinda living up to who he said he wanted to be back in the day.
i mean, it couldn’t hurt lol. at least it seems like he understands
I just realized that, not only is Hank a decent dad, he’s also a decent ex husband!
I mean, look at him here. “Don’t tell your mother.” Because honestly, learning this might just give her a heart attack.
Which would be awful. Just… awful.
That’s a solid reaction to both things! Good for him.
also I just realized it’s very funny that he’s said “you don’t need birth control with a woman” when there’s a woman whose presence in sex quite possibly reintroduces the theoretical possibility of pregnancy right over there.
I dislike “regulates my cycle” for its vagueness. Why does her cycle need regulating?
“I was having incredibly debilitating and painful periods until I started taking them” is clearer.
Clearer, but much more embarrassing to yell at your father in a public space.
Also he’s known her for literally her entire life
I imagine he’s smart enough to put together what she means
You’d think, but no one before Jennifer had ever suggested she take birth control for it, soooooo.
Given my knowledge of evangelicals, Hank probably wrote off any discussion of “lady time” as “mom talk,” and Carol is… Carol.
+50.
The number is the forcefulness of my certainty that this is the case.
I really hope this scene ends with him turning towards Jocelyn and going “So, uh, what do you want me to call you now?” and Joss is like “Wait, you *knew*?” and then the last panel zooms out as we see her lower half for the first time and Hank says “Kid, you’re wearing a dress” “Oh, right, forgot about that.”
Yeah, I’ve kinda had that feeling through the entire conversation. I mean, it’s not been completely clear one way or the other with what she’s wearing (other than the fact that the top has a very feminine neckline), but it does seem rather likely that she’s wearing a dress similar to the one she came out to Joyce in.
This seems extremely unlikely based on… well, anything Hank has said or done so far. Also Jocelyne isn’t wearing a dress. Her legs were visible on Sunday.
the shirt’s kinda obvious though
that homeschooling wasn’t your idea great, glad to see you’re… aware of the problems with all that even though you let it happen.
for real though hank you’re doing… okay here given your circumstances I guess
but have you considered going to some kind of professional and saying “I let my kids be homeschooled in a cult that almost killed one of them and her best friend how do I make sure I’m not saying cult shit to them anymore?”
I feel like everybody would benefit from that conversation probably
don’t i be sayin it????
I’m not saying I should grind my ax for Carol, but I will.
left field surprises? like what, moises alou?
…honestly, reminds me a little of my dad. Though he’s not quite as good a dad as Hank ’cause I got kicked out when I
came outwas outed.