494

Convincing
Posted on June 6, 2016 by David M Willis

494 thoughts on “Convincing”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    Hank-brand CoolDad™: only just cool enough to give himself minor benefits, apparently

    3 stars

    1. Dara

      Indeed.

      C’mon, Joyce, you can bluff your way through this, just be nice and calm and quiet for a day, like you used to be, then get back the fuck out to reality world. You can do it.

      1. Vex Godglove

        This is basically how I survived my teenage years.

        1. Clif

          The final Arf was a lie!

        2. Willinwoods

          I take it as arf for arf’s sake.

      2. Cerberus

        The problem for her is that she’s never had to do that actively. Like, before, she was just clueless and sheltered because she was clueless and sheltered, but now that she’s seeing some of the gears spinning behind the scenes, she’s not feeling the same way and never practiced how to pretend to be absolutely chill and unaffected by things.

        Cause those are two very different skills. Hopefully the Jocelyne advice gives her enough to at least ride out the next day and get somewhere safe again.

      3. Pyrpyr

        Joyce has thus far, several times, been unable to lie even to defend or save herself. She has done a few instances of “lying by omission” a.k.a. simply avoiding the subject, but in the end she always ends up telling the truth.

        Which, admirable as it is, is reeeeeeeeeeeeally gonna eff her up. And pretty soon, from the looks of it.

        1. Bagfaceman

          That gravatar tho

        2. DarkVeghetta

          It cracks me up every time (and am compelled to read it out loud with flair every single time I see it).

        3. StClair

          I am also a fan.

        4. Mindlink

          I never understood why people lie anyway. (Oh, and “lying by omission” and “half-truths” ? Those are American concepts, and neither is lying, lying is telling a statement that is not true)
          I’m 37, and I’ve only had to lie around four times my ENTIRE LIFE. That doesn’t mean I’ve been in plenty of situations where it would’ve been catastrophic, potentially life-threatening even, if the truth had come out, yet most of the time I find that it’s easier to get out of those by other means.
          Deception is actually EASIER if you don’t tell a lie, since then there is nothing they can catch or discover that will give me away.
          The most effective technique is simply distraction, most people are so easily distracted you wouldn’t believe! Then there is speaking unclearly, or obtusely, using your voice in such a way that the listener will automatically apply their own understanding to what you are communicating, assuming that you said the complete opposite of what you actually did.
          This last one might end up with you being ACCUSED of lying, but simply point out that the error was on their side, you never said what they thought you did. Etc, etc.,
          bottom line; lies will get you caught, for the best deception try truth.

        5. Clif

          Spoken like a true sociopath. 😀 The thing is that in order for that to work you have to be able to model their mind well enough to know what their model of the world is likely to be so that you can mold their perception appropriately.

          Notice that Mindlink didn’t say that they had only lied four times in their life. Rather they said, “I’m 37, and I’ve only *had to* lie around four times my ENTIRE LIFE.” Emphasis added.

        6. r2d2go

          Nah, at least in China and Australia from personal experience, deliberately misleading someone without actually saying a falsehood is considered the same kind of asshole move as actually lying. If you called what you’re describing lying in either of those places (or America), very few people I know beyond someone defending the “liar” would have the thought “but that’s not technically lying!” cross their mind.

        7. Hno

          You clearly don’t deal with teenagers.
          They can detect these kind of deception easier than a blatant lie.

        8. Pyrpyr

          “Lying by omission” is also a very Catholic concept worldwide, I promise you.
          I’m Italian AND Irish Catholic on one side, Eastern Euro Catholic on the other.

        9. Amazi-Stool

          Joyce has thus far, several times, been unable to curse even when offered 2 dollars.

          This has changed.

          Goddamn much has changed!

        10. Amazi-Stool

          20 dollars not 2 dollars, dammit!

      4. Andrew

        >reality world
        >american college campus
        What no

    2. gkheyf

      fair enough. he’s not saying anything unreasonable, and he doesn’t suddenly have to think lying is cool to be cool. do not take cool dads for granted. that is how you wear them out

    3. Dara

      I mean, I’m not mad at Hank for being mad about the car, ’cause they did take it without permission, but… yeah. idk.

      This comic. Damn.

      1. Tacos

        Yeah I also can’t say me being mad would be the right way to describe my feelings toward Hank right now. Maybe more like disappointed? Like yeah Hank lied mostly cuz of the petty intention of not losing a argument to Carol but at the same time, I can’t argue that the end result was that it got Joyce and Becky out of having to listen to Carol blow up and lose her shit. And Hank did say that it was mostly because he didn’t want to lose an argument. That still leaves some room for it partially being to keep the peace and protecting Joyce since what we’ve seen so far of Hank is that he tries to be a peacekeeper and he loves his kids. Plus it’s apparently super late at night so maybe he’s too tired to articulate what he wants to say. Anyways, yeah I’m sorta conflicted about how I should feel towards Hank right now.

        1. doubleW

          The argument was about Joyce, so it still kinda counts as defending her? His protection may be more conditional than we’ve allowed ourselves to believe, however.

        2. Needfuldoer

          I think Hank’s also trying to figure out where the line is. Look at it from his perspective: he knows he needs to start trusting Joyce more, and Becky’s probably the same person she always was, but then they disappear with the car all day without telling anyone, completely out of character for Joyce. (Remember he doesn’t know whose idea it was, but obviously they were both okay with it.)

          I’m not sure how to feel about this exchange, though. It seems like it’s more about pacifying Carol than resolving conflict.

        3. Janet

          That’s a good point.

        4. Clif

          Or… Hank doesn’t want Joyce to suddenly think lying is a thing he can expect from her, so he’s lying to her now.

        5. Orion Fury

          So this train of thought I think can go two different ways. Either Hank’s trying to be better, but everything he’s held dear in his life can/will be torn asunder if he does more, and is struggling to find the balance. Or he’s an asshole that only supports his daughter when it’s convenient for him.

          Time will tell what way the commenters view us.

        6. Truk2

          He may also be doing the parent thing where he has worries, but thats not what he tells the kids.

          He worries about his daughter, and he worries about standards lapsing, and he worries about driving her away. So he sees a situation, a major potential blow up, but with really unpredictable results. And he diffuses that situation, preventing a major family conflict. So what is he going to say to the kid?

          “Yep, I took your side. I cool!”
          “Hey, I just decided to deceive and undermine your mother. Want to do the same?”
          Or
          “I got reasons kids, don’t push it”

        7. DarkVeghetta

          Pretty much.
          He diffused a potential blow-up that could have had grave consequences and at the same time chided Joyce for recklessness (as is very much warranted, she fucked up on that part) while at the same time being understanding about it. It’s a good balance I feel – somewhere between enforcing household standards and unconditional parental love.

          I applaud Hank for the way he handled the situation.

        8. BigGuy

          He’s treating Joyce like an adult, just like my parents did when I was in a similar situation and caught up in family business. Like it or not, she’s got pieces in the game now. This is what it means to be a grown up.

          I was intensely uncomfortable with this at first, as anyone would be, but over time I definitely feel more like an adult and less like a child. I couldn’t imagine “feeling like a 5 year old in an adult’s body” and I think it’s because my parents did the kinds of things that Hank is doing here.

    4. TheAnonymousGuy

      PLOT TWIST, it’s 12:01 a.m. meaning it’s already the next day, meaning that they lied, ON A SUNDAY. Dun dun dun! (Joyce freak-out panel)

      1. Willoughby Chase

        The last time I attended church was … a long time ago and I did not attend it seriously then.

        However, I thought lying was verboten on any day.

  2. Regalli

    This does not actually surprise me at all.

  3. Mr. Mendo

    This Joyce has performed an illegal operation and must be shut down…

    1. Doctor_Who

      Abort, Retry, Pray?

    2. Achallenger

      you win this time

    3. JustCheetoDust

      Hopefully she reboots under better circumstances than Maurice Moss did.

      1. Hollister Dixon

        You there, computer man! Fix my pants!

    4. Reltzik

      That’s what she gets for hanging around with BSODomites.

      …….

      …. I’ll just show myself out.

    5. TheAnonymousGuy

      I know it wouldn’t be as dramatically intriguing as watching Becky sort through some of her most life defining memories but, since she’s what 18? couldn’t she just go to the hospital and ask for a copy of her birth certificate? I mean 18 is about the time you reach the cut off for certain parent requirements, unless it’s a state by state thing and the cut-offs different in Indiana or has different requirements.

      1. Shiro

        The short answer is no, she couldn’t.

        1. Disloyal Subject

          The slightly longer answer is that she didn’t have any documents to prove her identity and get more documents released.
          Now she does.

        2. TheAnonymousGuy

          follow up for clarification sake, did she have a drivers license or would that have counted?

        3. merbrat

          The hospital only hands out the souvenir copy. The State has the official copy. Which needs id. Becky doesn’t have Driver’s License.

        4. TheAnonymousGuy

          so, basically breaking and interring was the only way aside from asking ross for help.

        5. Mindset

          Breaking and entering. Breaking and interring is what it’s called when you steal a body from a morgue and bury it yourself.

        6. Sam

          Yeah, even if she has ID in the form of a passport (which not all Americans do and it didn’t sound like she did from what we heard), it probably would have been at the house too.

        7. Clif

          ID in the form of a passport which most Americans don’t have. I wonder how much trouble you could get into for putting a “Speak Friend and Inter” sign on the gate of the local cemetery. In Texas you can get a certified copy of your birth certificate by showing up at the court house of the county where you were born and handing them money. Don’t know about Indiana.

  4. AnvilPro

    Getting kind of tired of Becky trying to play off all of this serious stuff as a joke

    1. Doctor_Who

      Seeing those blue outline people in her house, I’m betting treating all this like a lark is the only thing preventing her from being in hysterical tears.

      1. Shiro

        This.

        1. Opus the Poet

          What they said.

        2. JustCheetoDust

          That?

        3. a4lbi

          Also that.

          (But seriously, what Doctor_Who said.)

      2. Palamdrone

        A family where everyone lies and ignore each other is a gas when you come from a family that’s so bad one parent was willing to kill herself to get out of it and the other is willing to kill all your friends to keep you from disobeying him.

      3. CianM1301

        My prediction is that this whole thing will turn into a screaming match between Joyce and Carol, and THAT’S the moment Becky’ll start to break down hysterically.

        1. Zaxares

          That’s better than what I fear might happen, which is Joyce finally snapping at Becky and deciding that, rightly or wrongly, that she doesn’t like how she’s being pulled through so many changes at once and needs some time alone. Which Becky would probably take as a final rejection and the loss of her best friend/love.

        2. George Wiman

          Wonder if it’ll happen at church tomorrow?

    2. Kat

      I’m sure the other shoe will drop eventually.

      1. Emily

        So her father nearly murdering her wasn’t the other shoe dropping? Things actually need to get worse for her?

        1. DarkoNeko

          Yes

          (…no)

    3. Cedrick

      I’ve been tired of Becky for a good long while, so right there with you!

    4. Chrysalis

      I think it’s pretty obvious by now that joking around is Becky’s way of dealing with serious stuff (possibly an essential one, given what we know of her family history). As coping mechanisms go, it can get annoying sometimes; still, it’s so much better than, say, Amber’s method…

      1. Anorak

        “On a scale of Becky to Amber, how well do you deal with a shitty family?”

        1. Freezer

          Would Sal be on the scale, or would she require a Venn Diagram?

        2. Sam

          It would depend on whether we are including past behaviour or only current behaviour.

          Current behaviour wise is probably worse than Becky but not as bad as Amber. Including past behaviour puts her up there with Amber though, just not quite as in pieces.

        3. Anorak

          I think it would be a graph with the axes labeled shittiness of family
          and quality of coping. Sal does not have that bad of a family but
          is also not handling it well considering

      2. Nono

        The slight issue is with how inconsistent it can be. Becky’s been known to drop her guard and be serious with people she’s comfortable with. So Dina and Joyce, and Jocelyne to a degree. With Joyce though it seems to flipflop between actually being serious or being overly flippant.

        I’m sure part of it is that it’s just mild teasing (y’know, what friends do) and Becky sometimes not being able to read the situation. On the other hand I’m not sure Joyce has actually ever gotten mad at Becky about it, just distressed.

        1. AgentKeen

          When she does it with Joyce, there’s also a degree of her trying to calm Joyce down/distract Joyce/pull some of Joyce’s focus from real issues to ‘ugh, Becky’. Becky feels really guilty about what’s happened, doesn’t want to mess her world up anymore than it has been and wants happy Joyce back as much as Dorothy or Walky.

          So, inappropriate jokes.

      3. JustCheetoDust

        Becky really needs someone who can get that point across for her.

      4. Cerberus

        Pretty much. This is how Becky deals with stress, internalization and playing up the wacky.

        And it’s subtle so not many people may have noticed, but Hank is essentially accusing her of being the bad influence here, despite her being the kidnapee on Joyce’s PTSD-fueled escape. So, after a long day yesterday trying to jump through all of Carol’s weird hoops and whose only crime today has been not abandoning her friend when she needed a second, she’s the default villain of the piece and she’d be delusional not to think that the reason she’s the default villain is that she’s a lesbian.

        And Hank is doing so much and working so hard, but he’s also struggling with the notion that gay people can be “good” people:
        http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/humility/

        Like, he’s trying to find the humility to take Joyce’s lead, but he’s also going to be in a state wherein every negative action from his perspective on Joyce’s part is due to her being negatively affected by her friendship with sinner-type folks (Becky and Dorothy). And even if one understands that someone is trying very hard to move out of their bigotry, little things like this don’t sting any less.

        Like, fuck, I’ve made digs like Becky after moments like that where a friend or partner’s parents or friend has just treated me like a negative force in their life. And a number of my friends have had moments like that. Hell, there’s a long running in-joke in my circle about the time my family accused my ex of being an evil sorceress who turned me trans.

        And it’s an important part of taking some power back against that persistent devaluation.

        Not to mention that she’s probably hyper-relieved. Like, she’s snuck out of her old home 40 times. How do you think Toedad would have reacted the times she got caught? I’m betting she’s really relieved right now that Joyce isn’t getting the type of treatment she used to get for disobedience.

        1. z4nd4r

          I don’t think Hank is necessarily blaming her. He says he’s been trying to convince Carol that Becky is not a bad influence. I’m assuming that Carol is the one jumping to that conclusion. Because she’s gay she’s suddenly a bad influence in her mind. Joyce is doing bad things because of this. I think Hank understands Joyce is spreading her wings and there’s going to be some blowback. It’s not like they haven’t had several kids go through this. Carol blindly doesn’t think Joyce will and if she does, it’s her newly out of the closet friend.

        2. Dorje Sylas

          Ah but before those were Hank’s boys, not Carol’s daughter. Any “blowback” from them could be dumped in Hank’s lap. Now it’s her perfect baby girl acting unruly, and she can’t pass the buck to Hank. So it’s find another scapegoat time.

        3. Clif

          Don’t mind me. I’m just being jealous that Cerberus got to have an evil sorceress for an ex.

        4. Bagge

          This. And not only for her sake but for Joyce as well. “Look, Joyce, I can still joke around. They didn’t get to me this time either.”

        5. AUnicornNoOneAskedFor

          Add to this the fact that when you are raised the way Becky was, you not only become a pro at dealing with family trauma, you also have issues accepting that you ~aren’t~ the bad influence. I grew up in a viciously christian upbringing and despite knowing I was bi from the ripe old age of 8yrs old (though I didn’t know there was a word for it until MUCH later) I still thought I was wrong/horrible/sinning badly. I hated myself and that is not an overstatement.

          I vividly remember crying and praying and begging to know why there were these thoughts in my head, why I couldn’t just be normal. And when I finally came out it took another good few years to add the words “And I’m not ashamed/apologetic.” to the end of “I’m bisexual.”

          Becky, to a certain degree, is just going to be accepting that she’s the bad influence (though we all know that’s not true) and probably feeling pretty bad for the trouble joyce is getting into with her folks. So there’s pressure to make it all better and atone for her “bad influence” on joyce’s life. Hence the happy fun clown becky act!! (In town for one night only!)

        6. wombatprayers

          This. I had a very similar experience coming to terms with my sexuality. Glad you’re not ashamed anymore 🙂

        7. Deanatay

          Oh, Bwunhilda, you’we so wuvly…

        8. Cerberus

          We’ve already seen her interactions with internalizing being “the bad influence” in the way she’s apologized for “ruining everything” and the way she feels it’s not her place to let her close friends in on how much she’s hurting and in how hard she worked on Friday night to just absorb Carol’s abuse and try and placate her fears.

          And that’s what makes it worse. Because here, she’s getting a statement from the “cool dad” who actually hugged her and treated her legitimately like family making the same “you’re a bad influence” type statement that she’s been repeating in her head.

        9. Mindlink

          “ecause here, she’s getting a statement from the “cool dad” who actually hugged her and treated her legitimately like family making the same “you’re a bad influence” type statement that she’s been repeating in her head.”

          It’s almost like we are reading two different strips, in my strip CAROL was the one who said Becky was a bad influence, and Hank OPPOSED that view, STRONGLY. He even LIED for them, for Becky specifically actually.

        10. Mindlink

          No, he is very clearly and definitively saying that he does NOT look at Becky as a bad influence, at all! There is actually no way of interpreting these last strips as anything but Hank fighting his hardest to defend Joyce and Becky at the cost of his marriage. Tell me how he could have made this clearer, because I can not think of any way.

        11. Kamino Neko

          What he is saying, compressed into a single sentence: ‘I was arguing that you haven’t changed, and Becky’s not a bad influence, then you took the car without permission, so I had to lie, or I’d have lost the argument.’

        12. Amazi-Stool

          Exactly.
          And it was joyce who originally suggested stealing the car, but the way he presents it is that Becky is to blame – not necessarily for what actually happened, bur for what make him look wrong in his argument.

          In other words: Them using the car without permission was wrong – and Becky is to blame that he may lose the argument!

        13. Orion Fury

          That’s how I took it as well. Though I can get how Cerberus came to that conclusion.

    5. Sam

      It’s her way of keeping away the real pain. In the past year, she has lost her mom, has been betrayed (at Anderson) and humiliated, and then has had her heart broken, she then lost her dad and her home…not to mention she feels guilty for bringing Joyce into all this and threatening her safety. She prbbly is also feels guilty about Dina. She faces a really uncertain future and her past has pretty much disowned her. I guess all she is trying to do is to live in the present. And being chipper (sometimes annoyingly to others) is her way of do it. Like she said before, who would want to be around a downer?

      1. Sam

        Forgive my grammar. Some of the sentences are atrocious. Hopefully my message was conveyed regardless.

      2. Cerberus

        Yup, she’s convinced that if she’s a “Debbie Downer” that everyone will abandon her and no one will like her. And she’s just been through an emotional ringer this evening with her old house. And now there’s an unspoken something coming in the next day and an implication that she’s somehow responsible for Joyce’s “bad” behavior (not actually bad, more a sign of her PTSD response to overhearing her mom’s plans for her).

        Basically, she’s probably a maelstrom of feels at the moment.

    6. Janet

      Likewise. It’s endearing at first, but it just never lets up.

      1. Mav

        Yeah. i have nothing against what she’s been through, but for me people like that I take in small doses, otherwise it’s too much all the time. I’m just worried she’ll eventually explode.

        1. Janet

          If anything, I’m more worried about Joyce exploding.

          Things are clearly tense in the Brown household – between Hank and Carol, between Hank and Joyce, between Carol and Joyce, between Joyce and her brothers. Becky’s quirky antics can be entertaining, but here I worry she’s like a candle next to a powder keg.

        2. Mav

          I hope she won’t be that lit candle when they’re in church tomorrow. I bet that Joyce will explode, though, by end of Sunday. Maybe she’ll keep it together until Monday when she has to mentally adjust to being back at school.

        3. butting

          Hell, if she punches John as hard as she punched Toedad she’ll probably kill him.

          (calling dibs on his wheels on Becky’s behalf)

      2. Spencer

        Well, the thing is that Becky’s problems never let up, so she has to fall back on being Wacky Fun Becky and further asserting pride in her identity, which is the only thing she really has left. AFAIK the only time Becky has ever been in full blown “I’M A LESBIAN AND EVERYONE NEEDS TO KNOW” mode was the day she started coming out to folks, and here, where she has all this bullshit to deal with.

        I guarantee that when they get back to IU and Becky isn’t glued to Joyce’s hip, all of this is just going to cave in on her.

    7. Yotomoe

      Ditto.
      And don’t you worry. My issue isn’t that I don’t understand why she does it.

      1. Spencer

        excuse me yotomoe i have a seven paragraph response as to why becky is 2deep4u

        #beckysplaining

    8. Finningan

      I agree, even though people will say it is because of her tragic past.
      Doesn’t change the fact that she is constantly treating everything as a joke.
      Maybe if she addressed it but oh well?

      1. Gigafreak

        Some kinds of people have to keep laughing up until the day they die. You might want to be glad not to know what that feels like.

    9. chubsius

      Becky massively represses negativity to try and cheer others up. I’m reminded of that time she almost broke down crying in front of Dina, and had to give herself a pep talk because she wouldn’t allow herself too.

      http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/04-walking-with-dina/downer/

      I bet being overly cheerful is a skill you learn quickly when you’re a kid and your mom tries to kill herself, and then actually dies and your Dad’s depressed and you’re probably worried he’ll try to kill himself too. Come to think of it, he kinda did halfway try to die in the prior arc. Wow, that gives new context to Becky begging him to not get himself killed by the police.

    10. Wraithy2773

      Marcus Andronicus: “Why dost thou laugh? It fits not with this hour.”
      Titus Andronicus: “Why, I have not another tear to shed.”

  5. Heff

    I love you for the Weird Al reference.

    1. Sambo

      Doooon’t downlooooad this sooong!

      1. Lumino

        Even Lars Urlich knows it’s wrong!

        1. SgtWadeyWilson

          (You could just ask him!)

        2. Charlie Spencer

          Go and buy the CD!

        3. Deanatay

          Like you KNOW that you should!!

        4. Sambo

          Oh doooon’t download this soooong!! 😀

      2. Some1

        Doooon’t repoooost this coooomiiic!

    2. Doctor_Who

      One of his best songs.

    3. Confuzor

      Argh! I knew I recognized those lyrics.

      I need to turn in my Weird Al fan card.

      1. Sarda

        Well to be fair, the first line threw me off too, and Weird Al’s Permanent Record was my first ever music purchase.

  6. MM

    Wow. That may be the most thorough “I’m disappointed in you” in history.

    1. Cerberus

      We’ve forgotten because Hank has been really improving of late, but he’s also a master of the emotional takedown:
      http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/04-just-hangin-out-with-my-family/takeittogod/

      1. rectilinearpropagation

        Also, that was over three years ago. I think I’ve been through the archives more recently than that but yeah, I had forgotten all about the fact that he was not OK with Joyce being friends with Dorothy.

  7. Bob

    Yep

  8. Emi

    Arf!

  9. Sophia

    Everyone lies to each other. It’s one of the cruelest and kindest traits we humans have.

  10. Leorale

    Last panel Becky is cutest Becky.

    1. Doctor_Who

      “You really like me don’tcha Joyce, you sly dog.”

      1. Renshear Blade

        ARF!!!

    2. Bagge

      She is, she really is.

  11. Sambo

    WEIRD AL YESSSSSSSS

  12. Historyman68

    That dog just lied to EVERYBODY.

  13. Fwip

    Fingers crossed that once it’s explained to him, he’ll understand.

    1. figureaddict

      I’m assuming your referring to Hank, not the dog?

      1. SgtWadeyWilson

        “You see, Snoop, it’s not that we don’t like you, but you live with these people, and they are kinda ignorant.”
        “Arf! Arf! Whine.”
        “No, Becky is a cat person, but she still loves you.”
        “Arf! Arf! ARF!! Arf!”
        “I can’t take you with me, a scary lady will beat me with my femurs.”
        “Arf. Arf arf arf?”
        “I need my femurs to live!”

        1. Bagge

          +1+1+1+1

          “Arf?”
          “No, they will not take me to the vet and ‘put me too sleep'”
          “Arf?”
          “Yes, I agree, the vet is scary.”
          “Aaaaaarf.”
          “No, we are not going to the vet tomorrow, we are going to church.”
          “Arf…?”
          “…yeah, me too.”

        2. SgtWadeyWilson

          Poor Snoop. He keeps getting all these upsetting answers, but writing fully upbeat ones feels like lying.

    2. JessWitt

      That would be nice in addition to Joss chiming in to confirm alibis.

  14. Tnoy

    I still kind of approve of Hank’s reaction here.

    You’re allowed to get mad at your kid for taking your car.

    1. Shiro

      But you don’t then follow that up with telling her you only supported her to cover your own ass. You sit down and have a discussion about what on earth made your goody-two-shoes daughter take the car without asking.

      1. Yotomoe

        I see no reason why he can’t do the former. My mom would fucking hit me with a frying pan if I took her car.

        1. Shiro

          Because you’d be telling your kid your support is conditional on whether or not it benefits you? And it doesn’t actually help anything re: why the kid took the car in the first place? You’d be within your rights to be upset or angry, but being a parent means realizing you are nurturing a developing personality and acting accordingly.

          And hitting you with a frying pan is really freaking abusive, so…

        2. Yotomoe

          If I stole a car from literally anyone else in the entire world, I go to jail. My mom would have NONE of that. I’m obviously exagerating, but you’d better believe that my punishment would be swift, severe and merciless. I’d probably get kicked out to be honest. She might ask me why, but if my reasoning is anything less than “There was an armed gunman and I needed to leave and couldn’t find my keys RIGHT THEN” my mom’s probably not going to hear it.

          Also I love my mom and think she’s the most wonderful mother I know, just for the record.

        3. Shiro

          We’re kind of getting off the subject of the comic, so I will have to take your word for it.

        4. Cerberus

          *hugs* I believe you on your mom, but I hope you also realize that being thrown out of your house for disobeying a rule or borrowing a vehicle without permission would be a rather extreme reaction. As would be physical punishment for those types of crimes.

        5. Yotomoe

          Why? I don’t pay rent. She’s letting me live here out of the kindness of her heart. I’m 21. I’m not Entintled to live with her. I’m not entitled to ANYTHING. If I break her trust and take something of hers, especially as expensive and vital as a car, without her permission, I don’t believe I deserve to live with her anymore.

        6. Cerberus

          I’m sad that you believe that about yourself and all I can offer is these *hugs* in response.

        7. Badgermole

          Yoto, I get where you’re coming from. I don’t think my parents would do quite that because a. I’m a single child, they frigging love me and would worry themselves to death post kicking out, and b. Like Joyce, I would *probably never* act out in extreme ways, so maybe the first time I did I would get immunity or consideration. Cerberus, parenting styles differ based on culture, class, your personal situation. If you’re implying that Yotomoe “believing all that” about himself means he has poor self esteem or is complicit in his own abuse… well, your intentions are good I know, but it comes across as a little patronising.

        8. Nono

          No? It’s a valid view as a human being treating another adult. People have different parenting styles. Yotomoe’s mom’s view is a valid way to do things and there’s no reason to give pity hugs because of it. He’s an adult and he doesn’t need to be coddled.

          But this is a discussion about an internet stranger’s mother so I’ll just drop that there.

        9. Yotomoe

          Thanks Badgermole. *only child fistbump*

        10. thejeff

          Nono: There are certainly different parenting styles. “fucking hit me with a frying pan” is not an valid one. That’s abuse.

        11. DarkVeghetta

          ^ If it’s half-joking, then it’s not abuse. Now, punch-to-face is different, but a frying pan is rather ridiculous.

          I fully agree with Yotomoe here, his mother sounds like a perfectly sane person and a good parent. Actions/fuck-ups should have consequences, even with family. Love should be tempered by conditions, such as ‘ask before you borrow and don’t expect a ‘yes’ every time either’.
          I also applaud Yotomoe for being adult about this and realizing no one, children included, has the right to disregard personal property.

        12. Cerberus

          Nono-

          The *hugs* were more for the “I’m not entitled to anything” and the “I don’t deserve to live with her anymore” which I see as a tragic undervaluing of his own value rather than a condemnation of his mom. Like, Yotomoe is entitled to being treated as a full human being worthy of love and shouldn’t just view himself as somebody his mother is politely tolerating rent-free.

          I offered the *hugs* because I feel I’ve been there with undervaluing myself because the economy didn’t value me and because society didn’t value me. And when I was there I said similar things.

          And so I offer my *hugs* because I believe everyone should be able to view themselves with value and should never believe that just because someone is financially supporting them then that extends a lessening of the receiver’s humanity. And I especially believe this, because my uncle was not a good man and when he gave any form of financial support in rough times, it came with it an expectation of ownership. That I was to accept periodic emotional abuse and jumping through the hoops of his conditional love in “return” for said financial support. And doing that for the period of time that I did did a huge number on my self-esteem and is one of the reasons that relationship does not exist.

          So seeing someone believe that financial support carves out of their own human rights to fair treatment (not because someone is telling him that, but because he just believes that is fair) makes me sad and when I’m sad for someone I offer *hugs* or *appropriate gestures of support*.

          I’m terribly sorry if that came off as disingenuous or dismissive or pitying. And I apologize sincerely if that was the case.

          DV- Valuing personal property over people is one of those things that make me see red, so I’ll just say, I respect that it is preferred to tell one’s parents about such things and ask permission before taking their stuff, but people should not be valued below property. It’s just things at the end of the day (obviously this calculus changes if the person is an abuser or an addict who is regularly stealing or breaking things, but definitely not in a one-time off thing like this).

        13. Nono

          But that’s not the situation. He doesn’t view himself that way, and while I don’t know her, I doubt his mom is just tolerating someone who’s staying with her rent-free either.

          If I screwed up big-time, I’d expect people that care about me to at least confront me about it. If you don’t have people that hold you accountable for your actions, then that’s just surrounding yourself with enablers. It doesn’t mean they love me any less, and yes, they can offer comfort if I was seriously distressed about it.

          People telling you, ‘hey, you messed up’, at appropriate times, is not undervaluing you. There’s a time and place for it, just like how there’s a time and place for hugs.

        14. Yotomoe

          I would just like to thank Veghetta, Nono, and Badgermole for backing me up on this. There was an extended period of time where I just, COULDN’T begin to figure out how to even respond to what Cerberus had just said.

          But I will say to Cerberus. We’re not talking about property. We’re talking about trust. My mother raised me, loved me, fed me, and nurtured me my entire life. Well beyond the age that she rightfully should. She has every right to kick me out of the house for my age alone, but chooses to let me live here while I finish my degree. I’m not entitled to anything in this house that I do not own. These are not my things. I didn’t earn them or pay for them. Honestly even half the things I OWN were just gifts and presents. If I breach my mother’s trust by stealing a fucking car from her for 18 hours, then if she decides to kick me out as punishment, that’s WELL within her rights. This isn’t me having low self worth. These are not my basic human rights.
          I have a right to say whatever I want
          I have a right to go anywhere I want.
          I have a right to live how I want, within reason and ability.
          There’s an unspoken rule of trust between myself and my mother. It’s not that I COULDN’T at any time grab her keys, hop in her car and just drive away. It would be INCREDIBLY easy. I don’t do it because that would be a horrible breach of that trust. It is not at all my “human right” to do this. That’s actual thievery. especially if I did it without asking her. That car isn’t just “a possession”. It’s not a TV. It’s not her cell phone. Her car is how she gets to and from work. It’s how she meets her friends. It’s how she has a LIFE. If I just…took that away from her for a full day with no warning and no explanation, she has every right to cut me off from all the privilege she’s allowed me.

        15. Cerberus

          Yotomoe-

          I’m actually rather glad it wasn’t the low self-regard I read it as, but rather a high internal value placed on trust and open honesty and the very central role her car plays in your mother’s ability to have a full life.

          Given my friend circle I am unfortunately at times like this accustomed to low self-esteem and the belief in a lack of value and am thus more calibrated to read things like that in that direction. This however, is not an excuse for causing harm by assuming that that was at play.

          I’m very very sorry I came off douchey and hurtful in my replies. And I offer my apologies for that.

        16. DarkVeghetta

          Cerb, you didn’t come off as hurtful or douchey. Overly-motherly and perhaps treating others like children, but it was rather clear you had the best of intentions – so don’t sweat it. (I’m going out on a limb here and basically talking for the others, but it’s over a week later and am doing so more for posterity.)
          Interesting information about your friends though, explains a lot of the comments I’ve seen you make over the years (has it been years already? Damn.).

          Personally it was rather obvious Yoto has no self-esteem issues, but rather has a well-developed sense of honor. Then again, that’s the sort of thing I’m more used to with myself and some close friends, so perhaps my bias simply happened to be correct this time. *shrug*

          Also, as Yoto so graciously pointed out, I was not talking about property per-se. I was referring to the concept of trust and honor, in this specific situation. I never implied, or meant to imply people should be valued below property, but rather that people should respect each other’s property and at the same time that disregarding such respect should come with consequences that depend on various complex variables.

          All that sed, I am sorry to hear about your unfortunate experience with that uncle. You do deserve better then that, I assure you.
          Might I be allowed to offer up my *hugs* to you for such sad events? For I empathize, and because I care.

          (This^ is the part of the movie where everyone group-hugs! 😀 )

        17. Janet

          A parent’s love is unconditional… that doesn’t mean they’re not well within their rights to chew you out or discipline you when you break their rules while you’re staying under their roof.

          Hank’s reaction here is both justified and reasonable.

        18. Shiro

          But this isn’t discipline. It’s the opposite, in fact. This is an adult in a position of great power over an adolescent saying “I am only supporting you because doing otherwise would make me look bad.” He absolutely does have the right to be angry, but what he’s doing right now is not constructive in the least.

        19. Yotomoe

          From his point of view, neither was taking his car. Joyce isn’t 14. She’s 18. She can legally go to jail for what she did. They are legally seen as equals. She can just. Walk out of that door and keep walking in any direction and is under no custody of anyone, parents, the law, or anyone else.

          I say all of that to say, Hank’s Great Power is based on his love, trust and relationship with his daughter. And that’s a two way street. Hank has been going through the ringer to defend his daughter and she doesn’t even trust him enough to tell him WHY she took his car. To text him? To do ANYTHING? This isn’t just about support. This is about TRUST. And Joyce just proved that maybe she’s not as trustworthy as he previously believed.

        20. Shiro

          Okay, but from the position of him being the parent and her being the child with no pattern of similar behavior from her, that’s completely unreasonable. The reasonable thing to do would be to figure out why his previously angelic child has suddenly hauled off and disappeared with the car for the day, because obviously something is wrong.

          And I stress, telling her that he lied to her mother to save himself from looking bad is fucking BAD parenting.

        21. Yotomoe

          Maybe he’s just mad as a person and not as a father. Because if he did what you’re saying he do, that’d make him a GREAT parent. That’s good parenting and failing to do such doesn’t make you a BAD parent. It’s unfair to expect parents to always be mature and understanding considering that they are people too. Hank is probably LIVID at Joyce right now. Having to filter that through some “But I’m sure you had a good reason, let’s talk it out” is just wishful thinking. That’s honestly a lot to ask from someone.

        22. Mav

          I can see where you’re coming from about Hank wanting to trust Joyce. But I feel since we’ve some parts of their family history and others not, I also understand Joyce not wanting to tell Hank about what they were doing. How understanding is he really? What I mean to say is, he’s not exactly Joyce’s knight in shining armor here. Helping Becky, coming to terms with her near-rape, Joyce is doing all that work mostly herself.

          I guess it’s like, I don’t know yet how understanding he is because sometimes people push you and push you to trust them, and it turns out they’re not as accepting as they think they are, or it’ll take them way more time, or you end up being the one to support them. I think with parents, they owe their kids their support, respect and love. You do not demand it without giving it back (Of course, I agree with you about them taking the car. What Hank said about her changing and the argument is what I’m addressing.) Likewise, you don’t act like basic support (I mean, Becky’s dad could have killed her! Supporting and protecting children is somewhere in the Bible, isn’t it?) is this HUGE favor because you don’t want to rock the boat.

          Think about how Carol obviously controls a lot of things in the household, otherwise Hank standing up for Joyce wouldn’t even be a thing. Like, I feel like maybe Hank’s conflict would eventually become supporting Joyce (and perhaps eventually Jocelyn) vs. his need for things (read: his children) to stay the same so he doesn’t have to deal with any conflict whatsoever, particularly with his wife.

        23. Shiro

          An instance of bad parenting does not make you a Bad Parent. I agree parents are human, and make mistakes, but that doesn’t make telling your child that your support is conditional any less bad parenting.

        24. DarkVeghetta

          ^ Support should always be conditional to some sane degree. I loath the idea of unconditional anything because it both devalues trust and tends to lead to other undesirable effects.
          … … I say this while still harboring unconditional love towards some of my ex’s, but I feel like that has more to do with still being thankful to them for what they did/how they impacted my life rather then being unconditional in the true sense of the word.

        25. Cerberus

          Mav+Shiro-

          Very much agree. Took a long time to realize that love that demanded you jump through every hoop and took every fuck-up to remind you of how conditional said love was, wasn’t much love at all.

          Right now, Hank is trying and that’s worth a lot, but he’s also coming out of a system where believing your parents can be wrong is a sin so bad, that Frozen makes the banned movies list. And so, he’s still of the mind that “nearly perfect” child who does unaccustomed “fuckup” is a kid whose “fucked up” who needs to be set back on the straight and narrow instead of just a “kid who has fucked up”.

          Also, interesting context to the point about “betraying trust” is that the reason Joyce took the car is because of what she overheard her parents discussing in private about her future (with the belief system in place that she believed her parents decided things as one) and it being about yanking her out of school. And there she also heard how hard her dad fought for her (not very) when she wasn’t present… hell, he didn’t really fight all that hard at the kitchen table either, so maybe I should amend that to fight that hard against his wife in general:
          http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/squeezing-2/

          Point being that she genuinely didn’t feel safe and had a PTSD response to that. Now, Hank and Carol’s understanding of PTSD is bad and I can see them not at all having any awareness of that, but in our context at least, it makes their actions extra heartlessly cruel.

        26. Willoughby Chase

          The time to tell him would be before planning for the job, but I’m thinking that Joyce wasn’t in the place to talk to him at that time.

          Now? If Hank finds out that Joyce has been on a B&E job with Becky and Jocelyne, it might tip him towards Carol.

        27. Janet

          It’s the middle of the night. Hank’s presumably just spent the entire day fighting with his wife and continuing to defend Joyce.

          This isn’t some vain attempt at saving face, this is about Hank not wanting to kick off a 3 AM row about Joyce’s behavior after spending the whole day convincing Carol that Joyce can be trusted to have good judgement and Becky isn’t a bad influence.

        28. DarkVeghetta

          Yup. He’s being eminently reasonable. I doubt I’d have acted quite so calm if put in his shoes (in my case the issue would be taking my property without asking).

        29. Kamino Neko

          No, he’s not being reasonable.

          Reasonable: ‘Now that she’s out of earshot, you did take the car without permission, and we are going to TALK about that later.’

          Not reasonable: ‘No, I didn’t lie because I had your back, I lied because to do otherwise would be to admit I was wrong.’

        30. Austyn

          All of this!!!^^^^

        31. Untes

          You’re right, he should have further lied to save her feelings.

          All lies, all the time.

      2. Harvey Janus

        Agreed, and I think this was the rumblings of the other shoe from on high, Hank definitively not being as understanding as we had hoped.

      3. Betty Anne

        With mom potentially doubling back to see what’s taking so long to send the girls to bed and overhearing the whole conversation. That sounds like a plan.

      4. Nono

        I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt because it’s late at night and he probably spent all day having to deal with Carol. The discussion probably will come in time, but right now he’s angry and tired.

        Would have been nice if he’d tried to call Joyce, but considering how Carol is like a spring trap I’d understand if he couldn’t.

      5. Mav

        Yup. I interpret this as a power thing. “If i hadn’t deigned to lie for you, things could have turned out differently.” It’s also a pretty clear statement that he doesn’t care that much for whatever is going with either of them (Joyce and Becky).

        That said, if I were a parent of an 18 yr old, (disclaimer: i am not a parent at all), I’d be wiggin’ the f- out if my kid took MY car and didn’t tell me anything, came back late like “well, i’m back! not gonna tell you where i went!” If they were like 20 or 21, then just tell me you’re going out and you’ll be back late, so i know when to actually start worrying. If it’s THEIR car, I’d be less mad and more worried something could have happened. Like, I can’t even lend money without knowing where it’s gonna be spent (I’ve been taken advantage of in the past. For large amounts).

        But damn though, neither of them even cared that much to ask what happened??? Like I said, it’s more about power and being right than anything else. I don’t know why I was expecting a lecture about how to be safe late at night.

        1. Nono

          His intentions probably were good, his anger and worry just discoloured how he put them across. Like you said, it’s late at night.

          Everyone’s on eggshells in the Brown family. Stands to reason they’re not acting like perfect human beings.

        2. Mav

          Oh, I agree they both have a right to be angry for taking the car, I just think what he said was unnecessary. There are a million things he could have said besides “you’ve changed. I’m angry at you, but be happy i didn’t want to lose an argument otherwise I would’ve metaphorically thrown you to the wolves.”

          To me it just communicates that this is the kind of place where you step out of bounds, cover your neck, cause people comin’ for the jugular. Which is just sad.

        3. Shiro

          Thiiiiiiiiiis. What he did is a great way to make your child feel unsafe in what is ostensibly her own home.

        4. DarkVeghetta

          Personally, if put into such a situation, I wouldn’t really be bothered by what was sed at all – if anything, I’d feel lucky, not ‘unsafe’. Then again, I’d be too busy apologizing profusely and being mad at myself for not asking about the car).
          Different people have different responses to these things I suppose.

        5. Cerberus

          Not to mention that playing hardball with a child’s trauma response or the symptoms of a mental illness tends to backfire in spectacular ways. I’m a teacher for a lot of kids struggling with PTSD and other mental illnesses and I’ve seen my fair share of parent decides to lay down the law for the kid making s bad decision in the midst of a panic attack or PTSD trigger and that just deepening the gulf between parent and child.

          I mean, he’s incredibly ignorant on trauma and PTSD, but nonetheless, his behavior in this one comic undid a fair share of the hard work and growth he showed in the other comics simply because getting harangued for things you didn’t do (Becky) or having a PTSD fueled freakout (Joyce) tends to be one of those bits of unfairness thst sticks with a kid regardless of intentions.

      6. Kraken

        “You sit down and have a discussion about what on earth made your goody-two-shoes daughter take the car without asking.”

        I imagine the discussion will happen later when it’s a reasonable hour. Right now he’s upset, but still backing Joyce up, even if he uses the excuse of “not wanting to lose an argument.” And I do think it was kind of a bummer for Joyce to not try and communicate with Hank at all, considering he has shown himself to be on her side since he picked her up at the university. I imagine part of him is hurt that he fought for her, and outright stated that he trusts her to make decisions and know what’s right, but Joyce didn’t respond positively to that trust. I know she has a good reason for responding how she did, considering the rest of her family, but it still probably hurt.

        I dunno how much to respond to her taking the car, because I find it a little weird that there was no reference to her parents attempting to get into contact with Joyce. I would sometimes leave the city at college age without permission, but I always had to deal with a call at some point before I got back.

      7. AGV

        I’d dare to say that what Hank is trying to say is that his efforts for deffending Joyce went to waste with their escape and so making he feel like he just was convincing his wife and probably himself

    2. GoogerGeiger

      Exactly this.

    3. Mandy

      The thing that bothers me about both of their reactions is that they immediately went to “omg we’re so disappointed in you, you’re a horrible person” rather than, you know, your own daughter has been gone all day with no word, god forbid you be like “we were worried sick, we thought something had happened to you!” That’s what my parents (and I think any non-shit parents) would be like.

      1. Mav

        Right! That’s what I’m saying

      2. Shiro

        Exactly, like, the fact that there is no hint of concern from either one of them is…not good.

      3. Nono

        People express worry (and other emotions) in different ways. Sometimes it’s worry, sometimes it’s anger, sometimes they just walk away so they can cool off.

        Don’t say that just because some parents don’t act like yours that they’re crappy parents.

        1. Mav

          I get what you’re saying. Parents are not perfect. My comments are colored by the fact that I actually have parents who do care more about bing right than my emotional well being. My whole life.

          Sure, people say mean shit when they’re mad.
          The question is, can you take those things back?

          The second question is, can you (general you) as a parent expect to not be put on a perfect pedestal, while never giving anyone else (least of all your kids) the same courtesy?

        2. Nono

          I’m not overly bothered by how people choose to parent. As long as they’re not abusive and the kid turns out fine, everyone has their own style, and nobody has it down pat. There’s no perfect way to parent.

          It’s just a bit annoying when people use their own family as a lens to judge every other parent.

        3. Mav

          I hear ya. People’s experiences really color their perception. I think living it makes behaviours easier to recognize, but it can also mean you sometimes things are what they aren’t.

        4. Mav

          Also FWIW, I don’t think being a parent automatically makes you the devil even though I have issues with mine

        5. Mandy

          I know what you’re saying, and I’m sorry, but I do not think it’s at all unreasonable to think that parents should care more about the well-being of their children than anything else – including their religion, in these two’s case. If you don’t care about your kids more than anything else, what’s the point of being a parent?

        6. Nono

          Yes, parents should care about their children. What that might entail may be different depending on parent to parent. Some parents do tough love, some spoil their kids. It doesn’t make one style worse than the other, because there are extreme situations where either can be harmful.

          Hank right now for me is being a Good Parent because he’s realizing that he can’t coddle Joyce forever and she can make her own decisions, but she also needs to show him that she’s earned that trust. His delivery isn’t always spot on, but I’m not going to hold him accountable for that at this moment.

      4. DarkVeghetta

        Personally, I’d be annoyed/angry if my parents(well, grandparents) where ‘worried sick’ every time I felt like going out for a day/night. Then again, I’ve always been very clear that where and when I go is my own damn business (eventually I did get into the habit of saying I was going out so my grandmother wouldn’t worry)… on the other hand I also never really went out much – if anything my grandmother tried to get me out of the house more.
        On the other hand, I’m strong human male in his prime… few things are a threat to myself anymore (minus cars and falling bricks ofc).

      5. Willoughby Chase

        Yes, this.

        I think that Hank and Carol are too tightly bound to each other to devote caring time to their child.

        Or in this case, I think Hank was too involved in trying to keep Carol on track to do any proper reaching out during and after. Carol probably wouldn’t do anything but pile on the righteous wrath in any case.

        Joyce should explain to him why she took the car, though. That is slightly worrying.

    4. Silamy

      I also wouldn’t be surprised if John had already called their mom to talk about what Joyce said to him and Hank’s also been having to deal with the fallout from that for the last few hours.

      1. bryy

        You have to wonder how Carol is dealing with the fact that her KID was shot at by someone she not only knows but shares the same faith with. I know that we had the strip where Carol basically all but stated Ross was doing the right thing, but that was over the phone. Now Joyce is in front of her.

  15. Adept Arcanist

    He’s… he’s still a work in progress.

  16. Kris

    Lesbianism leads to crime. Warn your children. Spread the message. #BLESSED

    1. AUnicornNoOneAskedFor

      First you’re stealing kisses with some girl behind the library stacks, then you’re stealing cars and committing overly complex bank robberies which require two helicopters and a decoy truck.

      1. DarkVeghetta

        Wouldn’t that imply you’re a successful magnate already, considering you have helicopters and trucks at your disposal?

        1. Willoughby Chase

          You put yourself in hock to a crime-lord who provides the money. He – or she – gets a slice above the outlay.

          Of course, if you fuck up and the money goes walkabout then you get a pair of made-to-measure concrete shoes. Or so I understand.

        2. Amazi-Stool

          Only if you have ninjas at your disposal!

  17. Stephen R. Bierce

    When I first saw the artwork for this scene weeks ago, I was reminded of a long-forgotten interview on Fresh Air With Terri Gross. Her guest was a writer of erotic fiction whose most popular work was a serial published in a magazine.
    When the writer learned that her editor was keeping track of the sexual identities of her characters, she wrote a scene of one of them making out with a canine. When the editor complained, she said “Hey, the DOG is still heterosexual!”

  18. Shiro

    *scribbles out those few points marked down yesterday*

    Welp. That’s a bit frustrating.

  19. Tacos

    Looks like Hank lost some of those Cool Dad Points he got last strip.

    1. DarkVeghetta

      Good. Overvaluing stock leads to market crashes.

    2. LordCirce

      Why? For treating his adult daughter like an adult? Should he have lied to her about what was motivating him? Hank has just spent all day keeping Mount Carol dormant, it’s really late, and he is primarily running on frustration. He could treat Joyce like she is still a child, instead, he is respecting the fact she is pulling away, and is treating her like he would a fellow adult.

      1. Tacos

        I’m just referring to the fact that the previous strip, we’re all “Woo! Hank is the Coolestesterest Dad of All Time!” But now with this strip, while the comments section seems to be split between, “Hank is a horrible human being!” and “Hank is a normal person who will make mistakes and other missteps but at least he’s trying.” the fact is that if there was some sort of Cool Dad Gauge, the place were it would’ve unrealistically been has now been revised and lowered. How much depends on which side of the comments section someone falls on.

    3. Willoughby Chase

      The Cool Dads 500 Index may go up, or it may go down.

      1. Amazi-Stool

        Cool Dad 500?

        If Zack Snider would make a movie out of this webcomic, the title would probably be “3”!

  20. Lapin

    Annnnddddd there’s the other shoe.

  21. Yumi

    Well, Hank, that’s…Hm.
    Gonna have to rework that “cool dad list” a little.

    Also, this is probably going to sound weird, but Cerberus, I was a little worried when you didn’t comment on Saturday’s strip, so it was good to see you back commenting yesterday. Yup, that sounded weird.

    1. Nono

      It’s a reasonable argument – Hank should be mad at Joyce for stealing the car.

      He shouldn’t have defended Joyce just so he wouldn’t lose the argument and he should have sat down and discussed why Joyce stole it, but it was pretty late at night, so I’ll cut him some slack, he’s human.

      All in all he’s been refreshingly well written since FFW.

    2. Travalanche

      Of course, whether Hank is admitting (or even aware of) it, one of the factors resting on his winning this particular argument is likely to be Joyce being able to stay in school. Which means his covering for her actions is at least a little bit motivated by wanting her to be able to stay where she is for her educations.

      1. Yumi

        True. He doesn’t come off great here, but he does have some good intentions.

      2. Travalanche

        All of her educations. Every single one. With the Histories and the Maths and the Languagings…

        Every Educations. Even “Damn Autocorrect and Lack of Edit Button” 101

        1. Yumi

          Haha, and I read that and figured it had been an intentional choice on your part.

    3. Cerberus

      Heh sorry to worry you. I had some good life stuff over the weekend and also actively didn’t post much on the main site on Fri and Sat nights because I suspected the Fri comments were going to be gross about a mental health condition I have and because I knew this was coming down the pipe on Sun, so didn’t want all my Sat comments to be “he seems like a cool dad now, but…”.

  22. Jay Eff

    BECKY: “What made you break into a house tonight? Was it my lesbian wiles?”

    SNOOP: “ARF!”

    JOYCE: “Snoop’s right, Becky. It was Arf all along.”

    1. DarkVeghetta

      We all knew Puppy Dorothy was a bad influence on her!

  23. tim gueguen

    More evidence Snoop is an evil villain. He looks happy, despite the obvious miasma of unpleasantness

  24. newllend(henryvolt)

    Well to be fair Becky was the one that was uneasy about taking the car.

  25. Cheebs

    I’m still confused about the whole thing where John said that Joyce was -supposed- to meet him and Joss for lunch that day, and that Carol should have told her about it. Joyce didn’t seem to have known about it when they talked on the phone, and Hank and Carol should have known they were going to meet him. Did I miss something in there?

    1. Nemirthel

      They took the car without asking, before Carol could tell Joyce about the sibling lunch.

    2. newllend(henryvolt)

      I don’t know Maybe her dad was supposed to drop her off.

    3. Palamdrone

      Hank and Carol barely talk to each other, what makes you think they would communicate any better with their children?

      1. DarkVeghetta

        How did you reach that conclusion? We have approximately zero data in that area.

    4. Owlmirror

      Yeah, I was just wondering about that.

      The only possibility that occurs to me is that the original plan was that John was to pick up Joyce (Becky not being included in this originally) from Hank and Carol’s house, and drop her off again after their lunch.

    5. trlkly

      Why would they know if they never told Joyce to meet with him? Unless John calls and talks to Carol, she has no way of knowing that they actually did meet.

      I’m actually not quite sure what your question is.

      1. thejeff

        I’d honestly be shocked if John hadn’t reported to Carol about how the lunch went. Unless he was embarrassed about losing control and storming off and didn’t want to report his failure.

  26. Hawke

    Something tells me Hank DID lie to Carol because he’s a Cool Dad, but he himself hasn’t quite come to terms with that yet.

    1. GoogerGeiger

      There’s nothing cool about lying to your spouse.

      1. Hawke

        Well, okay, yeah.

        I worded that pretty badly.

        I meant, I think he WAS lying for Becky and Joyce’s sake, but since he’s in denial (for whatever reason), he just said he did it to save his own arse.

        1. Carms

          I think this also.
          Also, Joyce did do something wrong, and it seems unlikely hank has really considered her motivations. So, like, he doesn’t want to give her positive reinforcement for *stealing a car*

        2. DarkVeghetta

          I concur with both of your reasoning.

      2. trlkly

        No one called him CoolHusband, just CoolDad.

  27. Palamdrone

    Wait wait wait….neither of them are even going to ask what they were doing all day?

    Damn, this is about as disfuncional a family can be without being abusive.

    1. Random832

      Carol assumes Hank had full knowledge and approval of everything. Hank doesn’t want to risk collapsing the lie.

    2. Palamdrone

      I mean, I come from a family where you can’t even go to the bathroom without someone asking what you were doing in there and then telling you about the things they were doing that weren’t around to see while you were in the bathroom. This is the total opposite.

      1. DarkVeghetta

        That might reflect more on your family then theirs.

    3. Cerberus

      Yup, also *hugs* for your family situation.

    4. Amazi-Stool

      Come out as queer to this family and experience how disfunctional they really are!

      1. Amazi-Stool

        And abusive! We’ve already seen Carol’s interactions with Becky.

        1. Cerberus

          Jocelyne is going to have such a fun time when she comes out…

  28. Mav

    Damn, that’s cold. But not surprising at all. Ugh, Joyce’s mom. Also, ugh to parents who care more about protecting themselves, keeping the false peace, and not losing petty arguments more than their offspring.

    Joyce, the important thing here is that your dad lied to you about what was more important in that moment. Worry more about whether folks are lying to you about their intentions, than whether they are lying to each other. You are young, but the sooner you learn this the better.

    1. DarkVeghetta

      Yes/no. Less ‘worry about it’ and more ‘take into account the possibility but don’t be paranoid’.

  29. magicallady

    thats a good reason, too, hank

  30. Yotomoe

    If anything, Joyce is getting off light. From the second she took the car I was expecting this to blow up in her face spectacularly. The fact that it just made her father deeply disappointed in her as a person and support her only as a bargaining chip in an argument is still way better than 90% of the alternatives.

    1. Mav

      I feel like it might have been a more solid plan if they SAID something, then did whatever they wanted. Or when they broke in, not taking so long it’s dark by the time they get back. Like, they could have planned it first then waited another day, done it during the day like they did, go home act they went to Denny’s. Just taking the car doomed the plan from the start. All this if they absolutely couldn’t wait for the police, who i’m thinking would definitely have allowed Becky to come back for her stuff, given that her dad is in jail and she was the victim of kidnapping and near shooting death.

      1. Bagge

        It wasn’t a “plan” as much as a “need to get out of here NOW”

        1. DarkVeghetta

          Those ALWAYS end well, eh.

        2. Cerberus

          Actually… more often than not, they do.

          Getting away from an abuser or an unsafe situation while the unsafe person burns out their hate-on is a key component of the process of building an exit strategy for a person suffering from domestic violence or abusive parents (my ex was full of stories of how her and her friends would circle somewhere random and just hang so that X group member could avoid going home to their abusive family member until they drank themselves to sleep).

          And forcing oneself to stay in a triggering situation and try and interact like everything is fine is a recipe for a bad situation. Better to remove oneself from the trigger, try and regroup and resettle and then re-engage afterwards.

          So yeah, actually the best course of action she could have done.

          And in Joyce’s case specifically, it was very much the best case, because she felt hunted and cornered and we’ve seen how she responds to that, so another day of dealing with her mom’s shit in that state would have led to an epic firefight and possibly Joyce taking a swing at her.

        3. DarkVeghetta

          Personally I’m more of a ‘fight’ then ‘flight’ kind of guy, but I do realize that’s not always the prudent decision.
          However, I wasn’t suggesting she shouldn’t have left. Simply that a further 5 minutes of planning might have payed dividend for everyone involved.

      2. NelC

        Wouldn’t have been a very interesting comic, though.

      3. thejeff

        I think you’re overly optimistic about going to the police.

        And they couldn’t wait another day, since they wanted to break in at night and this is Saturday and they’ll be headed back to school Sunday evening. There are no more nights.

        1. Cerberus

          This. Going to the police fundamentally wouldn’t have worked because La Porte police wouldn’t have helped. And this was the only night available for this “plan”. If she was ever going back and getting her documents, it would have had to be this night. Period.

      4. Amazi-Stool

        “doomed the plan”
        Measured at the possible outcomes, i think the plan executed quite fine!

        “All this if they absolutely couldn’t wait for the police, who i’m thinking would definitely have allowed Becky to come back for her stuff”

        Are they even at the legislative power to allow people breaking into relatives’ houses?

        I don’t think so. Even in the best of cases they would have addressed Becky to THE OFFICIAL PROCESS. Which takes months and is nowhere sure to succeed.

        1. thejeff

          Not “relative’s houses”. Her residence.

          Assume, for the sake of argument, that instead of her running away and Ross kidnapping her at gunpoint and being arrested, he’d been arrested for theft or something while she was at Anderson, but she still didn’t have a key. Do you really thing that in a case like that, she would have had any trouble convincing officials to let her in?

          The official process is “Oh yeah, you’re his daughter, you live there. Have the locksmith check with us if he gives you any trouble.”

          If he’d officially kicked her out or something, that might be a different story, though even then she’d get access to her stuff with little trouble – assuming the cops didn’t want to be dicks about it. But there’s no indication he’s done that – after all she’s his property and he’s not easily going to give her up.

          The problem of course is that the local cops are likely to be sympathetic to him, which means they can drag the process out and hassle her as much as they can.

  31. Rukduk

    Damn that was brutal. I’m going to take yesterday’s B- and change it to a C+ because, while he has the right to be angry about his daughter taking the car without telling him, the phrasing on his statement is quite harsh. Of course at the same time he’s probably feeling like Joyce is making it much harder for him to justify to Carol keeping Joyce in college (and letting Becky stay with them, because we all know that had to have been a massive battle) but he should take the time to try to explain this to Joyce.

    1. Carms

      It’s not a very open family.
      He doesn’t agree with carol, but also, Joyce stole a car. And I’m not sure he’s thoroughly considered her motivations of escape. She’s done something wrong, and there’s him, between the two wrongs of the women in his life.
      C sounds about right here.

    2. thejeff

      There’s also a level of “I’m covering for you this time, but don’t think you can rely on it forever. I’m on your side, but don’t push it.”

    3. DarkVeghetta

      His phrasing was appropriately harsh. Perhaps not harsh enough, even.
      They can be less harsh about it in the morning and after the fact, but she got off easy as it stands.

      1. Kamino Neko

        ‘I thought you were a good kid, but I was wrong, and I only lied for my own sake, not to protect you,’ is never appropriate.

        1. DarkVeghetta

          If it’s true, it is. Disappointment is a human emotion that one is allowed to have and lying about it is worse as far as I’m concerned. They should discuss it further/work it out, but that’s a separate matter.

  32. Mr. Random

    I mean… Becky does seem kinda like the one who’d put personal freedom ahead of what she’d consider unnecessary rules…

    1. Shiro

      And yet, if memory serves, she was the one with doubts as to the wisdom of this outing.

      1. DarkVeghetta

        Sadly she lacked the fortitude to convince Joyce of her viewpoint. This is what you can expect to get when you foolishly go along with approaches you knew where flawed from the start. Becky should have tried harder to convince Joyce to let Hank know about the car – everyone would have been better off for it. Sadly, she wasn’t capable enough.

        1. Cerberus

          Um… if she did, she and Joyce’d never have met up with Jocelyne and received that genuine support, Jocelyne would never have gotten hope that she can retain some of her family when she comes out, and Becky would not have gotten at least some of her documents she needs to reset her life.

          Becky, Joyce, and Jocelyne would have all been in objectively worse states if the joyride didn’t happen. Also, Joyce was in full on PTSD mode and would have been very likely to have a full breakdown if forced to stay at home where she legitimately didn’t feel safe all day. And she would not have gotten the Jocelyne advice about strategically hiding emotions to get through things and after yesterday and her mom’s planned needling today, would have been very likely to get into a screaming row with her mom which would have been counted as a deeper sign of corruption than just borrowing the car all day.

          Yeah, Becky didn’t fight “enough” on the wisest course of this outing (because she trusted Joyce to know what was best for herself). But if she had convinced Joyce to “be good”, all three of them would have been worse for wear.

          Hell, Joyce has the strength she’ll need for getting through tomorrow only because of the tools Jocelyne has given her and the support she has given her to get her a little less tense and hunted.

        2. DarkVeghetta

          The single mistake done here was not informing Joyce’s parents about the car. Not where or why, just the fact of it.
          Also, I was making a larger point that applies to life in general, as it is usually a bad idea to just go along with other people’s ideas if you have serious doubts about sed plan.

          Ya know, Cerb, you keep reading into my comments far more then I say – and usually I’m pretty specific on what part of something I like/dislike. I’m a rather upfront sort of person, you know.

        3. Shiro

          …what in the world does that have to do with anything? The claim was that Becky was a bad influence who doesn’t care about rules. I pointed out that in this case, it was Joyce not caring about the rules.

        4. DarkVeghetta

          Oh. Carry on then…

  33. mlatu315

    They have been married for over 20 years. Of course they lie to each other.

  34. Harvey Janus

    Hm.. The rumbling from on high begins, the shoe has begun to drop. It’s going to connect with the ground in the middle of church or just before.

    1. Pyrpyr

      It surely is.

      My money’s on that being because of the pastor or church ostracizing Becky because of what she “did” to her father.

      1. Pyrpyr

        (And/or then Joyce standing up and dropping a mic, but nobody listening/caring.)

      2. Lovely Monsters

        Yeah, I am dreading that church service. I’m guessing the sermon topic is not going to help any of this.

        1. thejeff

          Not by coincidence either. The Sunday after something like that happens to one of the congregation – This sermon is about Ross and Becky, and it’s probably pro-Ross, even if he did go too far.

        2. DarkVeghetta

          Gods damnit… I did not see that coming, but it makes perfect sense! >.<

        3. Cerberus

          Yup, churches love to pull in local big events like this. And there’s zero chance the sermon isn’t either something about the big to do that is pro-Toedad or something more vaguely about that like a sermon on always respecting your parents wishes or a sermon on the evils of homosexuality and staying on “God’s True Path”.

        4. Willoughby Chase

          Nothing less than pitchforks and bonfires!!

  35. Saaaam

    Becky now thinking how far can her lesbian wiles influence joyce

  36. drs

    I imagine that much cooler people than Carol Brown would be twitchy at best, if not outright ballistic, if their kid took their car without warning. All day. Coming back way late, past their bedtime. I imagine I’d be an oscillating mix of worry (did something happen? why aren’t they back yet?) and outrage (MY CAR! Maybe I NEEDED it today!)

    Though I don’t know why cell phones weren’t used. Of course, if I’d been calling my kid about the *missing car* and didn’t hear back all day… see oscillating mass of worry and outrage, x10.

    1. Cerberus

      Hmm… that last point makes me wonder if a lot of people are imagining their own childhoods where cell phones were less ubiquitous.

      Like here, I can’t imagine any parent not calling their kids cell phone if they disappeared off somewhere. Fuck, I get parents calling their kid’s cell phone in my classes because they wanted to check in on one thing or another.

      So them not even bothering with that is a major red flag for me, but maybe not to someone who is thinking of a childhood where cell phones and cell phone usage by HSers were not as common.

  37. Kkiten

    Oh nevermind, he’s not nice after all. Also Joyce is even more sheltered than we thought, she was even sheltered from her own parents ffs.

    1. tim gueguen

      Perhaps they’ve had parenting advice telling them never to argue in front of the children.

      1. Oysteinthenoisy

        That was what most parenting gurus told parents to do and it was very bad because kids never got to learn on how to peaceably resolve disagreement.

        1. butting

          The Incredibles did that really, really well, I’ve always thought.

        2. DarkVeghetta

          Clearly the arguments weren’t all that bad if no one was able to hear them from across the block, never mind the same house.

  38. Pyrpyr

    … CHURCH TOMORROW MORNING

    OH SHIT

    1. JessWitt

      Well that explains the pastor from previews. And of course it’s the weekend they’re staying over *slaps head*

      1. bryy

        Watch as the sermon is ALL ABOUT BECKY.

  39. JessWitt

    Hear them out Hank. Don’t just walk away yet.

  40. AkerSama

    Ah, another one of those strips opened up for interpretation. Well, here goes.

    I feel like Hank has the right to be mad that they took their car without permission, especially since it basically undid his efforts to convince Carol that neither girls have changed much since college (which is, for the most part, untrue.) He’s trying, but they’re not winning them any points with Carol. Here’s hoping neither of them find out about what they just came back from.

    Also, while it doesn’t excuse her behaviour, Carol isn’t entirely wrong about Becky being a semi-bad influence towards Joyce. (She essentially stole their parent’s car and broke into a house.)

    1. Kamino Neko

      Both of which were instigated by Brown children.

  41. Brandon

    No one is the same after college, especially if they were an attempted rape victim

    1. Rikunda

      Or if they were forbidden to know what the world was like, and then shown it was all a lie.

    2. JessWitt

      Carol would blame that on Becky somehow.

      1. tim gueguen

        It’s more likely she’d blame Joyce.

        1. AUnicornNoOneAskedFor

          ^ This. It’s tradition to blame the victim. *shudder*

        2. JessWitt

          Yep, that would likely happen. Clearly that sweater was too provocative.

        3. Leila

          What were you doing putting yourself in a situation where strange men would be around anyway? You should have stayed in the properly-supervised dorm!

        4. DarkVeghetta

          I’d argue she was too naive and made it easy (girls, get your own soda, it’s safer). At least she’s a bit wiser for it now.

        5. Cerberus

          Dude, no, don’t do that victim-blaming shit. It should not be on women to be ever on gaurd for rapists.

        6. Cerberus

          Nah, she’d blame the college… for corrupting her daughter so much that she went out to a location of sin and tricked a “good Christian boy” into doing something ungodly with her wanton promiscuous ways.

          And this proves she needs to come home, so we can cure her of these sinful secular temptations.

  42. Rikunda

    Why do they blame everything on Becky? Becky didn’t lie to Joyce her whole life about what reality is like, send her out into the world unprepared, and then act like she should be the same person.

    1. a4lbi

      RIGHT!?

    2. Yotomoe

      Technically they didn’t lie. They just told her what they believed to be true.

      1. rectilinearpropagation

        Incompetence isn’t that much better than malice.

      2. Rukduk

        Soooooo…they pulled an Obi-Wan Kenobi.

    3. trlkly

      Yeah. She’d been with Becky for a long time before this, and she apparently didn’t “influence” her.

      What influenced her more than anything much the stupid bigotry of Anderson and Becky’s dad. Sure, college was starting to influence her a bit, but the incident gave her a crash course.

    4. Bagge

      Because Becky is a lesbian.

      1. Cerberus

        In that community, lesbian is like the trump card. Just bang that down for instant accumulation of all the sin and blame.

        1. Amazi-Stool

          Now i am imagining a card game with cards like “liberal”, “atheist”, “polyarmory”, “gay” and “trans”.

          And of course “Clinton”, the real joker!

        2. Cerberus

          The only winning move is not to play.

  43. dailybrad

    I love how cute Becky is here, more than usual. I do hope for Joyce’s sake she clears the air some with Hank, but ultimately I am glad he helped her out of a bind

  44. Yossarianduck

    Every Snoop face is the best Snoop face.

  45. Oysteinthenoisy

    A cool dad is allowed to call out the kids when they do crappy stuff. I am still giving Hank credit for standing up for Joyce and letting her know that he disapproved of her failure to to let either of them know they were taking the car. Joyce failed the politeness and civility test. However, Hank was so gentle about it that the message probably went right over ttheir heads.

    1. Nono

      Agreed, he didn’t stick the landing perfectly but he’s acting like a Normal Human Being, which is much better than he was a few weeks ago in comic time.

  46. Carms

    Ah Becky. Not sure you can well-timed-ill-timed-joke Joyce out of this does-not-compute.

    Becky’s not a bad influence- she’s a clarifying influence. We’re all learning so much about each other!

  47. Mkvenner

    The dog agrees.

  48. Nas As Ghul

    Don’t be too harsh on Hank. He may have worded things a little heavily the main point he was making was, “Help ME help YOU.” From his perspective, disappearing all day until the middle of the night without warning is not “helping.”

  49. Marvelman

    Couldn’t Becky have gone to the police and explained to them she needed to find her birth certificate and social insurance number?

    1. tim gueguen

      They probably can’t enter the house without Ross’s permission, or a court order, and they’re unlikely to get the latter just to help Becky.

    2. Mav

      I was thinking that. Given her circumstances, isn’t it par for the course to let people come in and get what they want to get, once the investigation is over? Do I have to much faith in the police in their town? I mean I’m not totally sure, I got my criminal justice license from Investigation Discovery lol

      1. Tacos

        It would probably take a long time to go through all the official channels to get Becky a copy of her SS and other important documents and they don’t know how understanding the local police and other local government officials would be in a highly Christian fundamentalist community might be toward the plight of a lesbian woman. Plus they are only there for the weekend so they really wouldn’t have much of a window to plan anything ahead of time.

        1. Mav

          That’s true. I figured I have way too much faith in the police in this comic

      2. Pyrpyr

        re: “Am I putting too much faith in the police in their town?”

        There’s good reason to think that perhaps, yes, in this heavily evangelically christian town, they would, in fact, let their personal biases rather than their training/the law rule.

        Obviously not all cops are bad. We saw the cops nearer to IU being downright supportive of Becky. The bad apples though, they wreck shit for everybody. Our 3 Musketeers here didn’t want to take a chance here that the police in La Porte were the bad kind.

      3. Cerberus

        Not really if they are children in bad standing with the community or if the law enforcement officers agree with the Toedad’s actions. This one is also more awkward because the officers on the scene of her case were very much on her side and probably would have helped but had no jurisdiction over La Porte and La Porte’s police are very likely to have gone to the same church as Toedad and know him as a godly man who has been betrayed by a sinful daughter (basically think a police force that is made up of Toedads at worst, Hanks at best, and Carols or Johns as a regular matter of course).

        And there’s also the issue of cops tend to drop the ball on follow-up stuff like that because the relevant detectives have already moved on to new casework and don’t really feel like taking time off those to resolve the last bit of life clean-up on a previous case and so are more prone to kicking the can to the social services or a local charity without a court order to help.

        Plus, getting more involved with police could have involved them looking a little more into her housing situation which would be bad for her.

  50. Onions

    I don’t understand. How did Hank only just come up with the lie now? I mean, his wife must have been fuming all evening about the girls stealing the car and still not being back. And he didn’t say anything, but suddenly he “remembers” that the girls did ask him for permission? Is he just really bad at lying?

    1. skdk

      maybe they didnt talk to eachother

  51. Janet

    I’m amazed at how quickly so many people are to completely turn on Hank. Yesterday it was all anyone could do to not to stumble over the praise being heaped upon him for lying to Carol. Now that he’s cross with Joyce and Becky, suddenly people act like he’s some kind of horrible person.

    Let’s look at the situation from Hank’s perspective for a moment:

    When he shows up to pick up Joyce, and Becky invites herself along for the trip, Hank goes into a whole little speech to Joyce about how he trusts Joyce to have good judgement and make good decisions. As a sign of his trust he even lets Joyce drive the car home.

    After a tense dinner and a long night, Joyce wakes up to find Hank and Carol arguing. Hank goes to bat for Joyce, defending her, once again saying how as parents they can trust their daughter to make good decisions and do the right thing.

    Then Joyce steals the family car, is completely out of contact for the day, and gets caught sneaking in at 3 AM.

    it sucks seeing Joyce getting in trouble, but Hank has every right to be disappointed in her right now.

    1. AkerSama

      We are in agreement there. How dare he be even remotely upset with them right now? I mean, what could possibly be the big deal about essentially stealing your father’s car and going missing for so long that they’re up until 3 AM wondering where you disappeared off to?
      I’d be more disappointed in Hank if he DIDN’T have a problem with that.

    2. Atoms

      I am shocked, SHOCKED to discover there’s something of a black-and-white mentality in this internet comment section.

      (I agree with you entirely.)

    3. Mav

      It’s not that he doesn’t have a right to be disappointed. It’s what he said before he left them, after his wife had already left. I think this will come off as harsh, but he and Carol arguing about Joyce is more a marital dispute to me than anything. Carol is convinced that Becky is bad news, and is basically ready to write off Joyce, which Hank is standing up for her, in his way. It really says a lot about Carol that she is willing to do that to her, and although we don’t know the entire story, we do know that there is a child who was basically ostracized, so I think Hank standing up for any of his kids in a substantial way may not be a regular thing.

      If they are fighting about it, fine, but this whole arc is not about the car-taking. It’s about Joyce sticking with Becky and challenging her parents over it. this is like the sprinkles on the sin-sundae that is associating with gay people in their book. If Hank is arguing with Carol about not writing off Joyce, pulling her out of school or any other drastic shit, Joyce has nothing to do with that. Carol wants to do what Carol wants to do It’s not Joyce’s responsibility to stabilize her parents’ relationship.

      Like I said above, it’s not that he IS mad, it’s that he basically told her that he may pull the support rug out from under her if she slips up any more (and Joyce standing by Becky, and Dorothy for that matter, already had her on thin ice with Carol). He didn’t even say anything about “oh, something could have happened and i wouldn’t have known where you were”. Like, he doesn’t want to have another argument I get, but who the hell wants to have an argument at 3AM? I’m pretty sure Carol is the type of person who would, and that’s not Joyce’s fault.

      1. Cerberus

        Yup, it’s a conditional support.

        Carol wants to yank her out of school and mistreat her and hold her to an incredibly rigid moral code that no human could possibly meet (it’s implied that even godly ol’ John who shares all their bigotries and works for the Church still doesn’t fully fit their model of “best child” and the only one who does only does so by lying about literally every aspect of their life). And that’s on Carol.

        But Hank here is saying, hey, I’mma fight on this one, but there’s a very thin and easy to cross line of minor disobedience in which my vague, weak support despite my unbelievable amount of disproportionate power against my wife can be immediately revoked and I’ll be 100% Team Gothel.

        And it becomes even more hard to swallow when you realize that in the twisted branch of Christianity that he and his wife belong to, all he needs to do to shut down this whole “argument” to begin with is to say “Joyce is our daughter. We support her. That is it. I’m not listening to any more talk about pulling her out of anything or yelling at her friend.”

        Like, yeah, that’s patriarchal, but he’s perfectly happy taking care of patriarchal power when it serves his peacekeeping needs (oh wife, the sky is actually green and Joyce totally asked for permission and I forgot to ask about it, whoopsie me. You’ll buy it, because I’m the man of the house disagreeing with you in public).

        1. Janet

          The whole argument between Hank and Carol thus far seems to have been Carol claiming college life has been a bad influence on Joyce and that they can’t trust their daughter to make good decisions, and Hank claiming that they should have faith in Joyce and trust her to be smart and do what she thinks is best.

          Hank has been in Joyce’s corner the last two days (and goodness knows how long this fight has been going on before that), but almost every action and every word out of Hank’s mouth since he picked up Joyce in the dorm lobby has been some variation on the theme of trust. He goes along with letting Becky come home with them because he trusts her judge of character. He lets her drive the car because he trusts her to drive safe. He sides with her on the whole Ross incident because he trusts her opinion on it. He spends the whole weekend arguing with his wife because she wants to pull Joyce out of college and he thinks they should trust her to make good decisions in life.

          Let’s not sugarcoat Joyce’s actions here. We’re not talking about “a very thin and easy to cross line of minor disobedience” – Joyce didn’t sass her parents or take a tenner from her mom’s purse, she stole a car.

          Hank’s disappointment here has nothing to do with Joyce “challenging his authority” or whatever people are going on about. It has to do with Hank trusting Joyce and having faith in her to make good decisions, and then having that faith shaken a little.

        2. Mav

          I’m not sugarcoating Joyce’s actions. I’m saying that from what we’ve seen, there’s SO much more at stake here than Hank’s trust in Joyce is damaged. Well, plus his reaction here, Joyce’s trust in Hank has been damaged too. The environment that they’re in, there is literally no way to be perfect.

          Yes, Joyce took the car without asking. It was for a good reason and an emergency, even if Hank doesn’t know that. If he trusts her so much, he’d be angry but also assume since she’s not an idiot that it must have been something important.

          And honestly, in the fundamentalist environment, and any authoritarian environment as far as I know, violation of the parents’ rules and authority = violation of trust. Rules are set down by the parent, who IS the authority figure and thus has power, especially in a culture like Joyce’s.

          Him threatening to pull the rug out from under her is significant because Joyce will risk losing everything she’s worked for, everyone she’s met she’ll probably won’t see, she won’t be able to process her stuff in a healthy environment. Not to mention we don’t know how far they’ll go. She won’t finish her education? Will she end up finishing at an uber religious school, not at all? Taking the car out on one day means “too bad, you won’t get to finish school and you’ll forever damage your already dismal job prospects FOR THE NEXT X YEARS, because I’m mad at you for ONE NIGHT?” This is the extreme scenario, but they are in an extreme environment (Becky’s dad could have killed her/other people and Carol AGREES with what he did)- Like I said, you can’t only think of it from Hank’s perspective, think of it from Joyce’s and look at the bigger picture. Joyce has a lot more to lose than feeling bad about taking the car, and like I said before, Carol has been waiting for this moment since they got here. Sure, hank defended them for two days, but I don’t think he deserves a medal for that. He’s not risking a whole lot right now, except his wife being mad at him. And who knows what happened for the other kid to be ostracized like that. Like I said, Hank convincing Carol Joyce is not the Devil by Association is not Joyce’s fight. There is literally nothing Joyce could do, except casting aside Becky that would satiate Carol. It’s sad to me that he has to convince his own wife that her daughter is not a shitty human being who must be controlled.

          She took the car? Supremely shitty. That’s why I said in another comment that it would have taken all of two seconds to call and say they were going somewhere else and then go do whatever. She helped a homeless friend in need? That’s more than commendable. We’ve all done weird stuff when we were young. But we’re still here aren’t we? I’m assuming staying out late at night mad our parents mad, but it didn’t ruin their or anyone else’s lives.

        3. Deja

          All of the motivation about helping Becky get her documents and stuff didn’t come up until the whole fight at the diner… which was AFTER they had already taken the car.

          Joyce didn’t take the car to help Becky, it just happened to work out that way after the fact.

        4. Shiro

          …I’d say that “she stole a car” is a bit overdramatic. She borrowed an item which she had a precedent of being able to use with permission, except without permission, and brought it back unharmed. I’d say stealing from her mom’s purse would be a much bigger trespass.

        5. smylietron

          I wouldn’t frame it as stealing, but I do agree that we’re all kinda…minimizing Joyce’s actions a bit and maximizing Hank’s issues to make Hank out to be more of a bad guy than he actually is. He’s trying, he’s trying hard, and then the daughter who he’s vouching for takes off with the car with not so much as a “hey I need to borrow the car, see you guys later.”

          She’s doing the right thing. Hank is trying to do the right thing and is furious that she put him in an awkward position. Maybe he should be more sympathetic to how difficult a position Joyce and Becky in, but he’s an imperfect guy trapped between his love for his wife and his love for his daughter, trying hard to keep the former from derailing the life of the latter, and here’s Joyce throwing that all off balance–taking the car without permission or even a goodbye and not coming home all day. My mom would’ve been apoplectic if I did that first-thing upon visiting home as a college freshman and she’s not an authoritarian dictator.

    4. Amazi-Stool

      I – am entirely confused.
      Several commenters agree with you that it is 3AM now, but where was this ever indicated in comic?

      Is this something you can measure at the number of Snoopy’s ARFs?

      Or is this another fanon-misinformation like Becky’s mom supposedly died of cancer?

      1. Janet

        It’s just a figure of speech.

        We don’t know what time it is for sure, but it seems pretty safe to suggest that they’re probably not sneaking in at quarter-to-nine.

  52. The song is "don't download this song" for those that don't get it.

    I appreciate the “Weird Al” Yankovic reference. Good on you sir.

    1. TEi

      yo i knew it sounded familiar! thanks man

    2. theheroesofcrash

      o/` So
      Doooooooon’t download this soooooong…
      The record store’s where you beloooooooong…
      Go and buy the CD
      Like ya’ know that you should
      Oh, dooooon’t download this sooong!

  53. Teddae

    Yeah Hank’s reaction makes sense. Becky… at this point she’s just trying to deflect for the sake of not spilling her emotions :Y

  54. Zaidyer

    Having parents like the Browns is like working for the Sith. It’s always “you have failed me for the last time” and “If you’re not with me then you’re my enemy” and “It is you who are mistaken about a great many things”. And probably the worst part is those moments when Darth Vader actually tries to cover for you. He’s always like “the Emperor is not as forgiving as I am” but then he cuts your hand off or throws his lightsaber at you when your guard is down.

    1. Pyrpyr

      +infinity

    2. Cerberus

      Yup. The “sins” count infinite and the “good deeds” are merely your price of admission. So there’s very little, hey, this was weird, what happened when something out of the ordinary goes down, it’s all, were we wrong to assume you are still a good kid and she has defied us twice now, clearly she is falling into a sinful lifestyle that there’s no solution to other than yanking her out of school and keeping her from the outside world.

    3. Marie

      Can we talk about how these also sound like AmaziGirl lines though? I don’t want to compare a mentally ill person to bad parents or to sith, obviously, but it’s interesting that the words/concepts listed overlap.

      1. Zaidyer

        Amazi-Girl’s deal is a slightly different expression of the same mechanism. It accounts for the cycle of abuse, the cycle of hatred, and the cycle of cultural injustice.
        It starts with someone who needs excuses to satiate their desire to control, domineer and subjugate. And then the kids grow up believing those excuses to be real, as though they’re a basic principle for interacting with others. They perpetuate the cycle entirely on reflex, and the only escape is for them to watch it destroy something they care about and be forced to change the way they think and function.

  55. Some1

    This is sad, as I don’t want anyone to be sad I will know attempt to break the sadness.

    This is a butt ( Y ) these are boobs ( . Y . )

    The sadness has been lessened

    1. Gamaran Sepudomyn

      (•)(•)

      1. inqntrol

        And that’s a booty( I think)

        1. Gamaran Sepudomyn

          No, that was my attempt at boobs. Butt would be ()() or (())(()).

        2. Some1

          This is a farting butt

          ( Y<3)

  56. Amyra

    Are we to assume that somehow, Carol didn’t overhear panels 2-4, and neither her nor Hank overheard panel 5? That seems… highly improbable.

  57. Chris Phoenix

    My daughter isn’t old enough to drive yet, but the comments section is surprising me a little.

    In multiple days, I haven’t seen a single comment mentioning that Joyce’s parents apparently made no attempt to contact her by cell phone.

    If I woke up and my daughter and my car were gone, I’d assume she had taken it for something that felt urgent enough to take it without asking, but not urgent enough to wake me up. In other words, not a big deal. Remember, in this scenario, I let her drive for many miles the previous day while I slept in the passenger seat. So I trust her to handle the car.

    If she was gone for hours, I’d TRY TO CALL OR TEXT HER. If for some weird reason I DIDN’T DO THAT ALL DAY, then it would be on me, not on her, that I didn’t know where she was all day.

    If I tried to contact her and she didn’t answer, I’d try Becky, and if she didn’t answer either then I’d start to worry. If I got worried enough, I’d get frustrated and angry and talk with her later about keeping in touch if she’s out without warning.

    But this… the idea that she “stole” her parents’ car… the idea that her parents should be angry with her, when THEY were the ones who didn’t even try to find out where she was… when at least one of them knew that she was supposed to have lunch with HER SIBLINGS who they could also call and make sure she was OK as of lunchtime, and they DIDN’T BOTHER …

    Someone will probably call me “permissive” for writing this. Well, think that if you want. But Joyce is an adult, who had a legitimate need for the car, and her parents didn’t even try to communicate all day. For them to be angry at her for not communicating, while being blind to their own behavior, equally strange and with less reason… and then the whole comment section thinks it’s perfectly reasonable for them to be angry…

    I don’t know. It really seems like a lot of the people here are still stuck in the idea that parents don’t need to treat their offspring like people. Sometimes less skilled or competent… sometimes, naturally, less considerate… sometimes needing to follow rules they don’t agree with for reasons they can’t fully understand… But most of the comments here come from a presumption of a power differential being the foundation of the relationship – rather than, say, a competence differential.

    I’m not saying Dad should have said, “Sure, no problem, take the car whenever you want for however long you want without even checking with us.” But the first thing out of his mouth should have been, “Are you OK?” and the second thing should have been, “No, really, are you OK? What happened?” and maybe the fourth or fifth “You know, we had plans to use the car, you should have checked before you took it all day.”

    I’m getting overly specific, and writing too much, because the problem here is a basic cultural assumption that just doesn’t match, and I don’t even know how to talk about it – what I’m reading here, over and over, that just doesn’t seem right.

    1. Janet

      “In multiple days, I haven’t seen a single comment mentioning that Joyce’s parents apparently made no attempt to contact her by cell phone.

      We don’t know that they didn’t. When Joyce and Becky were in the car together Joyce explicitly said she wasn’t going to answer the phone if it was her parents calling. Would she have answered, then, even if they did call?

      1. Cerberus

        No, she wouldn’t have.

        But they didn’t even try to call. We know this because she freaks out when she is called and worries it’s her parents, but it’s just John. And because she’s been glued to the phone texting her mystery friend(s).

    2. Mav

      You made some really good points. It hadn’t even occurred to me that they might not have tried to contact them, which is passive aggressive really. I wish I could “like” your comment. Not even considering this strip itself, way too many parents treat their kids as property/shiny social decorations and not people. It hurts me because I’ve experienced it, and it hurts me even deeper every time i see it.

      Even if someone makes you mad, you don’t get to look down your nose and treat them badly. Saying that making a mistake allows people to hurt you just sets people up for accepting shitty behaviour and it sets them up to also be completely judgmental and inflexible. Trusting your kids I get, but it weirds me out how sometimes people will turn it into a bruised ego /power thing (“never mind you could gotten killed, i’m angry because I can’t control you/you dared to defy me.”)

      If I were a parent, i’d ultimately be more angry at the bad risk taking skills. And man, folks here act like they’ve never done a reckless thing in their life, ever.

    3. BenRG

      There is a phrase about letting someone make a noose for their own neck. As petty as it was, I think that the Browns didn’t want to contact Joyce as there was a good chance that actual information might have undermined their cause for anger at her.

      1. Cerberus

        Which is pretty fucked that it was more important to have a nice batch of righteousness for punishment and being “disappointed” than to ensure their child was okay. Like, it was more important that she’s been seen to “sin” and receive her dressing down for that than to even check in on the why, to even know why she “defied” them in the first place.

        And that’s really a central problem with the Browns at the end of their day. They don’t fully view their children as people, more as virtue devices. Hank is trying not to anymore, Carol is 100% in favor of doing that forever, but neither fully knows how to react to their adult children as equals or even fully as people with their own internal sense of reason.

        1. butting

          Also makes me wonder about their plan for having her home in the first place. To talk, right? ‘Cause… they’ve flown right past that one, and it’s gone unmentioned. Unless (a) Becky’s presence has derailed that to the point that no alternate plan has been devised, or (b) the plan was the-youth-pastor-has-called-and-there’ll-be-a-Very-Special-Sermon-this-weekend and it’s not so much their problem.

          Though as much as Hank’s sliding back down the pole just now, I’m not sure he’s going to be cheerleading a VSS after seeing Joyce’s reaction to it.

        2. Cerberus

          I’m strongly suspecting the latter. I think the intention was to let the youth pastor handle things and for Carol the plan was to harrangue Joyce into recognizing the sinful deception that is Becky so that her soul can be saved from the foul temptations of the homosexual agenda. I mean, what all was planned? Dinner, lunch as hosted by Pastor John, and church tomorrow. That’s it. If Hank had any other desires for this weekend different from these, he’s definitely not made them known or done anything to actually check in on mental state.

    4. Lovely Monsters

      So much like. Yes.

      I mean, the power-differential “you owe me your life and your soul” parenting is clearly the style of Toedad and Carol. Hank seems to be on the fence between that and “I trust you to make your own decisions even when they do not agree with mine” style, and his reactions are therefore unpredictable. Possibly even to him.

    5. Cerberus

      Yeah, right there with you on that one. Would a parent be upset about a kid going missing all day without telling them? Sure. But it’s beyond passive-aggressive to never even try to contact that kid so you can build up a good mad-on or to never try and understand why the kid did it so you can discuss it in whatever means is appropriate to their actions and reasons.

      It’s also a fucked way to treat a kid who’s “always been good”. Like, when growing up, I was the kid who was “always good” by my parent’s definition of good and that meant I earned greater latitude with regards to rules, because it was understood I wasn’t going to do something too far out of their comfort zone if I stayed out a little later than normal or whatnot. And it meant that when I did fuck up, I got dressed down a bit, but they made sure to check-in and see why I fucked up and if there was anything they could do to help.

      Obviously, they also had awful aspects that I would never want any parent to emulate, but that part to me seems a much better way to handle “huh, my ‘good’ kid did something uncharacteristically ‘bad’ than to just yell at her for disappointing the family and putting the parent in a bad spot and then to blame her lesbian friend by implication.

    6. Elisto

      I feel similar about all the “stole” the car comment. My immediate family mostly shares things, so while I wouldn’t have driven my parents’ car without telling them I was taking it and where I was going or, yes, maybe just asking, the framing of this as “stealing” is so outside my understanding of how families work. If I disappeared with the car all day without telling them, that would be out of the ordinary for me, which it clearly is for Joyce here, so yeah, my parents would be pretty worried about where/why before accusing me of “stealing” the car. It’s a little disconcerting to me to see all this “stolen” comments.

    7. DarkVeghetta

      Huh. Good point. It didn’t occur to me they could have easily called.

      Maybe it’s more that I disagree with the taking of the car on pure principle and haven’t bothered thinking about the larger scope of a day gone by without anyone trying to get in touch with the other party.

      That sed, I would say your way of doing things is permissive, but that’s a good thing in my book. I’d probably handle it very similarly, except I’d make it a point to have a conversation about this before allowing access to the keys in the first place, but once the terms where hammered out, I’d be fine with it as long as I was told why my car was required after the fact (even if the justification was ‘felt like going out for a while, clear my head’ – that would give me, as a parent, valuable information I could possibly otherwise be missing… then again I’d hope my potential children would trust me enough to talk openly about their problems with me).

    8. Amazi-Stool

      “(…) but the comments section is surprising me a little.

      In multiple days, I haven’t seen a single comment mentioning that Joyce’s parents apparently made no attempt to contact her by cell phone.”

      Because you didn’t read the comment section?

      It did come up several times, example here.

      I agree it currently is a plothole in the story, we haven’t seen an explanation – so far.
      Most of the “plotholes” we have seen in the past later got an explanation – this might still be happening with this one.

  58. Badgermole

    Translation of Panel 4: “I defended you because I had faith in you being a good, trustworthy kid who can make the right decisions. Right now that faith has been shaken and I feel upset at the possibility that Carol, whom I fundamentally disagree with, may have been partially right. Your actions make me feel like a liar or a fool for defending you all of today but I can’t admit that to my bigot wife because then you’d have no one left in your corner. I lied to her just now despite feeling like she was right in some assessments about you, and that breach of faith is on you to fix.”
    How is the comments section NOT reading this as an I’m Disappointed In You (and very human) Dadresponse, and as a power trip or implicit threat or whatever the hell else it’s being framed as instead, good grief comments sections.

    1. miz

      LIKE

    2. Chris73

      I suspect that the average poster on here probably isn’t married, if they were then they’d know much compromising, flexibility and (sometimes) outright lying you need to make a marriage work

      1. Lovely Monsters

        You seem to be assuming that because your marriage has taken a lot of compromise and lies to maintain, anyone thinks that’s a gross and sad way to relate to a life partner must not know what they’re talking about.

        Well, I’m married. The compromising my spouse and I have done has been a huge source of unhappiness for both of us, the flexibility we’ve had to show has proved to be self-betrayal, and the outright lying is one of the reasons we’re getting divorced.

        I think your assertion that a person has to be married to know what a good (or bad) partnership looks like is bullshit, I think your assumption that “the average” commenter here isn’t married is without basis in any kind of evidence whatsoever, and as a married person I think your list of what it takes to make a marriage work is wrong.

        1. chris73

          You’re right, I did make a lot of assumptions, just like every other poster on here that thinks they know whats happening or why its happened when the reality is only the author knows.

          My wife compromised by giving up some things she wanted dearly (new furniture) because I had decided that renovating and selling our home was a better course of action instead.

          In return I’m now putting on hold my idea of a home gym so she can buy the furniture she wants now. We both compromised at different times to get what we both wanted.

          You need to be flexible because if you’re not you’ll fight over stupid, petty, meaningless things, like toilet seats or remotes or something dumb like that.

          And as for lying well of course everyone lies, I don’t like some of my wifes friends and I’d rather not go over to their places for dinner but its important for my wife so I go and I smile and I lie through my teeth because its better then saying their cooking tastes like dog food, for example

          There are many reasons why my marriage is strong and some of them are because we compromise, because we’re flexible and yes because we lie to each other (lying isn’t always a bad thing, it depends what you’re lying about)

          So when I hear people s**ting on Hank because of the assumptions they’re making it annoys me, it annoys me greatly because I see a guy trying to do the best he can in an extremely difficult situation while, probably (assumption again) trying to keep his marriage together and also trying to stop his family falling apart (like what happened with his eldest son)

        2. Cerberus

          I think the problem is that there is a duality to Hank’s statements here.

          He’s a guy who’s trying to do the best he can, is a natural peacemaker, is trying to keep his marriage together, but also trying to avoid losing another child to overly strict moral enforcement. This is all true.

          But he’s also a guy who’s reacting pettily here, who didn’t try and reach out to Joyce on the sly and figure out what’s going on or warn her that her mom is on the warpath, who when in a stress point where he’s a bit angry and embarrassed, he reverts back a little into agreeing with his wife’s view that Becky is a corruptor of Joyce’s innocence, and he fails to account for Joyce’s long-standing record of effort nor the fact that she’s a giant bag of PTSD that the entire family has been actively ignoring because the question of whether she is still godly matters more than how badly is our daughter fucked up from having a gun pointed at her damn face (it’s worth noting for all that Hank has done right and for all he’s the only parent who’s bothering to acknowledge that she’s been through a life experience that could have killed her and it’s worth celebrating that she’s alive, he also has not once asked her how she’s holding up emotionally or offered to be a shoulder to lean on dealing with the fear of it all. It’s all been about, yeah, nearly losing you really has hammered home the fact that I should trust that you and your friend are not a big pile of sin despite our world view saying otherwise. Also, glad you’re safe, kudos for punching Toedad).

          And both are true. He’s been worse and he’s getting better and he’s standing against a worse family member (yay), but when pushed, he reverts a little to his instincts and his instincts are terrible.

          Overall, since we’re on the topic of marriages and the like, the duality reminds me a lot of my ex and how she was more or less wonderful on most occasions, but when she got hit by a bad dose of family stuff or ever felt she did wrong by someone, she reacted to it by reverting to the default mode she was trained in by her family which was frequently awful and had a lot of elements that would be considered abusive. Made it so walking on eggshells became a default mode because I couldn’t always trust her to respond to me with just her more positive and healthy mode.

          And that’s what’s striking me about Hank. He’s trying (yay, so much yay), but he’s got the potential to hurt Joyce and Becky as he’s recovering and that makes him difficult to trust fully.

        3. Whatever

          Hank’s not being petty, he’s rightfully pissed that:

          1) they took the car without permission, which is irresponsible, immature, and inconsiderate, and

          2) he’s spent the day sticking up for them to Carol, who wants to shun Becky and pull Jouce out of school. By obnoxiously running off with the car all day without asking permission or leaving a note Joyce and Becky have been sabatogong him.

          The argument that Hank is trying to win is that Joyce and Becky are trustworthy and responsible, which their actions for the past day were not. He’s the only person actively advocating for both of them, he’s introducing tension into his marriage to do it, and he’s even lying (sinning!) to make it work.

          Today, Hank was selfless and Joyce and Becky were kind kofbeing assholes. Some consequences or a serious conversation are totally in order, but Hank can’t do that now without jeopardizing what he’s trying to do for them; any conversation will probably have to wait until they drove back to IU. Right now he’s rightfully angry and disappointed in them.

        4. Mav

          I could also argue that not helping someone in dire need and casting them aside because you feel the need to be righteous is a sin, particularly one of selfishness and pride. I don’t think Hank is evil here, I’m just wondering why people are so ready to give him an Olympic gold medal for supporting Joyce for what? Two days?

          I do agree that taking the car was a shitty thing, and he should be angry and disappointed. About the car. Not about Carol being right about Becky poisoning Joyce’s sense of morality. The argument he’s trying to win is about Becky’s existence not messing with Joyce’s life.

          He is trying. He’s trying to trust Becky, but only because he trusts Joyce’s trust in Becky. But in my childless opinion, when your marriage becomes battles of Us vs Our Kids, of you fighting your spouse to prove your kids aren’t horrible, there isn’t much to gain there. Also, the well-being of your children should ideally be the priority, not not wanting to rock the boat ever.

        5. Cerberus

          So much this.
          This is what is disappointing about his approach and priorities here and why he’s not fully trustworthy even if he is trying and that matters. And a lot of it is being raised and living in the toxic sludge and following Carol’s lead on parameters to a degree, but his priorities are off in ways that communicate a homphobic microaggression.

        6. chris73

          I just think people are rushing to condemn someone without knowing the full story, you may well be right in everything you say but no one gets a manual of how to raise a child and so I look at Hank and I think to myself whats the minimum a decent father should do or not do

          Doesn’t appear to be physically, sexually, verbally or emotionally abusive (well possibly emotionally what with the taking it to Jesus schtick) loves Joyce and lets her know shes loved, puts a good roof over her head and provides for a decent education so on that account he’s, at the very least, a decent father (certainly over protective)

          Now that, of course, should be the bare minimum but we’ve also seen Hank attempt to change his ways, give Joyce more trust then his beliefs allow and is (probably) protecting Joyce from Carol

          He’s putting his daughter above his wife of (guessing) 30 years, that’s big because I personally can’t imagine life without my wife and hes potentially putting his marriage in jeopardy which would have massive ramifications throughout the family itself to keep Joyce safe.

          Also the older one gets the more difficult it is to change your ways simply because you believe with the benefit of experience that what you know is simply right…it of course isn’t but that Hank is willing to make such a big change against his deeply held beliefs suggests to me he still deserves the benefit of the doubt

        7. Cerberus

          I don’t think it’s erasing the good to note the ways he falls short or where he drifts into bad habits. Hank is trying which is very important and is stretching out of his comfort zone of his religion and these are very celebratable things, but he’s also gonna slip because of that and that has the ability to do real harm (see Joyce fleeing the house and being afraid to go home and not feeling safe talking about half the stuff that’s going on with any family members because of how little provocation they need to yank her out and deem her “bad”).

          His effort has value and gives hope, but I would not fault Joyce or Jocelyne giving up on fully trusting him despite this herculean effort on his part and just writing him off as a casualty of home. Also, I’m not sure he realizes how close and how quickly end up losing all his children but elderly robbing Pastor John if he isn’t careful.

        8. chris73

          What more can Hank do? I feel he’s doing as well as anyone would, given his situation hes found himself in, and that some posters on here would only be happy with him if he:

          A. Divorced Carol
          B. Formally adopted Becky
          C. Started up a LGTB chapter and
          D. Comes out and declares his love for Ethan (because why not)

          Ok some slight exaggeration for comedic effect but I’m seeing a guy under a lot of pressure and hes getting flack for something he said at 3 am in the morning after a (probable) tiring day arguing with Carol, even though hes trying to protect Joyce which in turn protects Becky

        9. Cerberus

          A) Call and check in when she leaves without warning to make sure she is safe and uninjured (holds permission to scold later for not getting permission)
          B) Recognize that it’s okay to be evolving on queer stuff, but that this issue is important to his daughter and so mess ups will get counted against you.
          C) Check in with his daughter about how she’s feeling being threatened by a close family friend (google searching PTSD wouldn’t go amiss) and recognize that being threatened by family or worrying family might turn on you might be a trigger.
          D) (somehing he tried to do but Carol is sabotaging it) Focus the weekend on celebrating the family you still have rather than worrying about strict religious adherance.

          I’m not saying he needs to join PFLAG right off the bat. That he needs to never screw up or needs to instantly reject all the hate he was carefully taught. I’m not saying he needs to divorce his wife or let Joyce get away with murder.

          But he’s in a delicate situation and every fuck up is going to cause pain and lengthen the distance of trust, especially after a traumatic event. If her memory of home right after nearly being shot is “they tried to take me out of home and claimed that I’m becoming a sinner because I didn’t side with the guy with the gun” then she’s going to avoid home like Jocelyne does.

          And a lot of that is on Carol, because she’s by far the worst in all of this and his overall intentions without her are much better. But it also means his slip-ups count more as unfair as that might seem, because those fuck-ups aren’t neutral and right now he’s got a very scared and traumatized girl right now who needs not to be feeling hunted and attacked. Who needs a space to relax and a dad who actively makes that happen even if it’s by telling Carol to wait until Thanksgiving for all the “your soul is in jeopardy” bullshit or by being very firm about how there’s a time and a place instead of prioritizing keeping the peace and valuing her redefinition of the trip by getting dragged into her fight.

          I mean even this is expecting way too little of him, but it’s not like I’m disappointed in his actions because he wasn’t secretly gay (I mean seriously, is that all you bloody take from my comments here? Just blah blah blah Hank bad because he’s not gay tribe, like I know I’m very queer focused but way to casually diminish me) or didn’t love the gays fast enough. It’s because right now, he’s not fully safe and that is driving the daughter he’s trying so hard for away from him faster than he realizes.

        10. chris73

          A) Call and check in when she leaves without warning to make sure she is safe and uninjured (holds permission to scold later for not getting permission)

          – He didn’t need to because he probably had a very good idea that his daughter needed time and space

          B) Recognize that it’s okay to be evolving on queer stuff, but that this issue is important to his daughter and so mess ups will get counted against you.

          – Mess ups, what mess up did he make? Defending Joyce and Becky against what Carol was saying? He hasn’t messed up yet but people are taking his words as being messed up but they don’t know the context he was saying them in.

          C) Check in with his daughter about how she’s feeling being threatened by a close family friend (google searching PTSD wouldn’t go amiss) and recognize that being threatened by family or worrying family might turn on you might be a trigger.

          It sounds like hes been spending a lot of the time this weekend smoothing things over with his wife, so maybe he hasn’t had the time to have a talk with Joyce but maybe hes thinking that keeping her in College is more important?

          D) (somehing he tried to do but Carol is sabotaging it) Focus the weekend on celebrating the family you still have rather than worrying about strict religious adherance.

          I’m just glad (and my comments weren’t directed at you personally) that none of the people on here judging Hank to be a failure are able to judge me and my life because the standards that’re being set for Hank are so high and any (perceived) transgression is immediately jumped on that theres no way I, Hank or anyone could live up to them

          Remember, he’s in way over his head, he’s dealing with issues he’s never dealt with before, he’s got a bat-shit crazy wife to deal with, a daughter to protect, a family to keep together and they’re all going to church together in the morning (with wacky Becky so that’ll be extra fun) and hes re-evaluating pretty much his entire religious up-bringing

          But sure he could be doing better

        11. Cerberus

          A) If he actually factored in time and space needs, why is he yelling at her for “breeching trust” in exercising those needs? And I dunno, my daughter has PTSD and is running of in the night, I’m at least going to send a “hey, I’m sure you have your reasons, lemme know what’s going on when you can and when you expect to be back. *hugs* I love you.”

          And hey, I get that right now his understanding of trauma is on the level of tiny goblins drives your child from Satan with ungodly behavior, but this is a time for doing some google research and at least avoiding heaping anymore on her plate.

          B) What he slips up on is reinforcing the framing of Carol. That Becky, being the deviant, must be the bad influence that Joyce is “strong enough” to resist. And reinfircing the framing that what matters is the fight with Carol over whether Joyce is still “a good little girl” rather than the stuff that’s more directly affecting her.

          Again, I have sympathy. It’s late, he’s tired, he’s been fighting with his wife, he’s upset with his kids and he’s been raised to believe that the state of his kids’ souls is always priority number one over all else.

          It’s easy to slip up, doesn’t make him the antichrist, but we see in Becky’s reaponse that that hit a nerve and served as a microaggression nonetheless. And again, it doesn’t at all make Joyce feel any less unsafe around them which if not addressed will fuck him no matter how much he’s trying.

          C) Keeping her in college is most important, but we’re avoiding the elephant in the room that is he belongs to an incredibly patriarchal religion. If he was to stamp his foot down and say, this is how it is, Carol, then that would be how it is, because in that twisted sect, the man is the undeniable head of the household. And he’s used that power before, mainly to decide in favor of not backlashing directly at Joyce for defending Dorothy at the fountain. Hell, he just got Carol to back down here by telling her an obvious lie.

          But suddenly when it comes down to how not to mistreat their own daughter after she nearly dies, he needs to somehow spend all day fighting?

          He cares, I’m not denying that and the power imbalance is monstrous and it’s a good thing that he’s striving for more equality in interactions despite his faith. And again, his understanding of trauma is for shit. But still, this is important. There’s a lot of times for fighting about whether or not Joyce stays in school. When she’s home on break from nearly dying from a fellow church-member is not one of them. And yes, even if partners have a strong disagreement, it is not at all odd to say, hey honey, we need to put a pause on this argument until Monday because we have company.

          D) Yes, he could be doing better.

          And yes, he’s trying hard. And that matters.

          But I also notice that he’s under a time limit he is unaware of. And that’s not his fault (it’s mostly his church’s fault, Toedad’s fault, and Carol’s fault), but it may fuck him nonetheless, because right now, Joyce is mostly taking away from this visit is never come home if possible to avoid it. And his other daughter is making plans to never have contact with them again so she can live her authentic life. He’s on a crisis point so he may need to evolve faster simply because of that time limit.

          Also, minor point. But I’ve actually had to make the very difficult choice to stop fighting for the souls of family promising that they were evolving and trying so very hard and accept my disownment once and for all because the weight of dealing with constant minimizations of my self-worth and treatment of my identities as some impossible task that must take years to accomplish was ripping me apart and created so much fallout and strain that it ripped up a very long relationship that was special to me.

          It was the hardest decision of my life, one I’m not fully recovered from. And by delaying as long as I did, I absorbed way too much awful that has left deep scars and made it difficult to believe consistently that I’m worth the same as normative people or that I don’t have to “make up” for my identities. I agonized for months about the rightness of the decision to stop fighting and when I cut thst cord I felt hollow and abandoned.

          And it took having another piece of my family showing me what actual support looked like to make me wake up a little from how little I respected myself in literally begging my family to see who I was and to stop kicking me when I was down and traumatized by awfuk events. To stop reacting to news of me almost dying with admonishments to leave my life of sin.

          Hank’s efforts remind me a lot of my mom’s. I do not doubt she loved and maybe still loves me, but never enough to stand in a meaningful way against my father and since his shadow was cast over our every interaction, that meant she was never and will never be someone I can ever trust to be authentic around or even semi-regularly interact with.

          You say you are glad that you’re not held to the weak and forgiving standards people are setting up for Hank, because they are too harsh, too impossible.

          As if we are the type to throw away family casually simply for not jumping in the air and yelling yay gay. We are not. Also its 2016. Hank has had decades to grow on this issue. The fact that he’s playing frantic catch-up now is his own damn fault.

        12. chris73

          A) If he actually factored in time and space needs, why is he yelling at her for “breeching trust” in exercising those needs? And I dunno, my daughter has PTSD and is running of in the night, I’m at least going to send a “hey, I’m sure you have your reasons, lemme know what’s going on when you can and when you expect to be back. *hugs* I love you.”

          – Hes not yelling at her, at the very most hes putting emphasis on certain words but hes not yelling. I’m guessing the last thing he wants to do is raise his voice so that Carol can hear what hes saying.

          And hey, I get that right now his understanding of trauma is on the level of tiny goblins drives your child from Satan with ungodly behavior, but this is a time for doing some google research and at least avoiding heaping anymore on her plate.

          B) What he slips up on is reinforcing the framing of Carol. That Becky, being the deviant, must be the bad influence that Joyce is “strong enough” to resist. And reinfircing the framing that what matters is the fight with Carol over whether Joyce is still “a good little girl” rather than the stuff that’s more directly affecting her.

          – Or maybe hes spent the day defending Joyce and Becky against Carols framing and now, due to the actions of Joyce and Becky, he had to lie so as not to give Carol even more ammunition against Joyce and Becky

          Again, I have sympathy. It’s late, he’s tired, he’s been fighting with his wife, he’s upset with his kids and he’s been raised to believe that the state of his kids’ souls is always priority number one over all else.

          It’s easy to slip up, doesn’t make him the antichrist, but we see in Becky’s reaponse that that hit a nerve and served as a microaggression nonetheless. And again, it doesn’t at all make Joyce feel any less unsafe around them which if not addressed will fuck him no matter how much he’s trying.

          – Yes but Hank doesn’t know that does he, maybe he wanted to talk to Joyce about what happened this weekend but he can’t because hes dealing with Carol, maybe he wanted to talk to Joyce about it on the way home but he couldn’t with Becky in the car.

          C) Keeping her in college is most important, but we’re avoiding the elephant in the room that is he belongs to an incredibly patriarchal religion. If he was to stamp his foot down and say, this is how it is, Carol, then that would be how it is, because in that twisted sect, the man is the undeniable head of the household. And he’s used that power before, mainly to decide in favor of not backlashing directly at Joyce for defending Dorothy at the fountain. Hell, he just got Carol to back down here by telling her an obvious lie.

          But suddenly when it comes down to how not to mistreat their own daughter after she nearly dies, he needs to somehow spend all day fighting?

          – Sure he does, you’re making it sound like because he did this here he should therefore do this here because its the same, it isn’t the same. He probably knows that this may lead to divorce, hell he probably realises that they’re going to divorce anyway and hes probably scared about that happening and because he seems like a decent sort of a guy he probably thinks that everything that is happening is up to him to fix. Daughter freaking out is up to him to fix, Carol being antagonistic towards Becky is up to him to fix, divorce well we’ll fix that at as well

          He cares, I’m not denying that and the power imbalance is monstrous and it’s a good thing that he’s striving for more equality in interactions despite his faith. And again, his understanding of trauma is for shit. But still, this is important. There’s a lot of times for fighting about whether or not Joyce stays in school. When she’s home on break from nearly dying from a fellow church-member is not one of them. And yes, even if partners have a strong disagreement, it is not at all odd to say, hey honey, we need to put a pause on this argument until Monday because we have company.

          Do you really think Carol would have anything to do with that?

          D) Yes, he could be doing better.

          And yes, he’s trying hard. And that matters.

          But I also notice that he’s under a time limit he is unaware of. And that’s not his fault (it’s mostly his church’s fault, Toedad’s fault, and Carol’s fault), but it may fuck him nonetheless, because right now, Joyce is mostly taking away from this visit is never come home if possible to avoid it. And his other daughter is making plans to never have contact with them again so she can live her authentic life. He’s on a crisis point so he may need to evolve faster simply because of that time limit.

          – Joyce should spend an extended period of time away from ,support Becky until she has her own place to live then contact Hank and see if he wants to talk

          Also, minor point. But I’ve actually had to make the very difficult choice to stop fighting for the souls of family promising that they were evolving and trying so very hard and accept my disownment once and for all because the weight of dealing with constant minimizations of my self-worth and treatment of my identities as some impossible task that must take years to accomplish was ripping me apart and created so much fallout and strain that it ripped up a very long relationship that was special to me.

          It was the hardest decision of my life, one I’m not fully recovered from. And by delaying as long as I did, I absorbed way too much awful that has left deep scars and made it difficult to believe consistently that I’m worth the same as normative people or that I don’t have to “make up” for my identities. I agonized for months about the rightness of the decision to stop fighting and when I cut thst cord I felt hollow and abandoned.

          And it took having another piece of my family showing me what actual support looked like to make me wake up a little from how little I respected myself in literally begging my family to see who I was and to stop kicking me when I was down and traumatized by awfuk events. To stop reacting to news of me almost dying with admonishments to leave my life of sin.

          Hank’s efforts remind me a lot of my mom’s. I do not doubt she loved and maybe still loves me, but never enough to stand in a meaningful way against my father and since his shadow was cast over our every interaction, that meant she was never and will never be someone I can ever trust to be authentic around or even semi-regularly interact with.

          You say you are glad that you’re not held to the weak and forgiving standards people are setting up for Hank, because they are too harsh, too impossible.

          As if we are the type to throw away family casually simply for not jumping in the air and yelling yay gay. We are not. Also its 2016. Hank has had decades to grow on this issue. The fact that he’s playing frantic catch-up now is his own damn fault.

          – I’m sure you’re not but I do feel there is a lot of projecting going on here (myself included) and that’s causing you (again myself) to see things that might not actually be there

      2. Rutee

        Yer marriage sucks if it needs that much lying, mate.

        Said: A happily married gay woman of 8 years

        1. chris73

          So you’ve never lied to your wife before? Well done to you.

    3. Janet

      I don’t get it either. The “I’m disappointed in you” subtext seems pretty clear.

    4. hof1991

      The argument between Hank and Carol has two endings. Hank wins and Joyce returns to school. Carol wins and Joyce stays at home and maybe goes to Anderson next semester.

      Hank wants to win this argument, not just for the sake of winning but because he thinks he is right and it will be best for Joyce. Joyce helped Carol’s argument today. Yep, Hank is not happy. Joyce helped Becky today, but no good deed goes unpunished. Joyce really needs to pick her battles tomorrow, just as Joss warned. Warnings like that always are relevant in this strip.

    5. Cephalo the Pod

      Glad someone said it. I also interpret it as “You made my fight for you a lot harder today, as if it needed to be any harder”.

      1. Janet

        Exactly!

    6. QD

      because internet comment sections like to reduce people into flat Hero/Villain characters?

  59. Pedantic Peanut

    Becky.

    NOT HELPING.

  60. Bagge

    Becky and Snopes are a great double act.

    I love that Becky is secure enough in both her sexuality and friendship with Joyce to joke about it. (“despite everything we have been told our entire lives, we both know that the notion of my sexual orientation corrupting you is silly enough be warrant a joke”)

  61. Neeks

    OK well at least Hank isn’t going senile?

  62. Bagge

    Oh, for those interested I published the #JoycelyneNoir Story here:
    http://baggebythesea.tumblr.com/post/145493643141/jocelyne-noir-authors-note-a-noir-parody-dumbing

    Including a Bonuz chapter about the Great Faz. Aren’t you happy.

    1. StClair

      *The Great Faz holds up some more charts*

      “ARE YOU NOT INFORMED?”

    2. DarkVeghetta

      The second I imagined Jocelyne as a lone-wolf-type private-eye complete with fedora and half-finished cigar leaning back in a chair is the moment I laughed myself silly and found true happiness. The ramen bit was inspired as well.
      “In and out, no problems (“that’s what she said”)” – beautiful, simply beautiful. xD

      Some small corrections/issues I’ve noticed/my two cents:
      “I can related.” -> ‘I can relate.’

      “Yeah, I love me a good story so let’s pretend that for a moment. Of course I took her case.” -> let’s pretend… pretend to what? I think you forgot a line in there.

      “Needed some muscles, and I knew the gal.” -> ‘Needed some muscle, and I knew just the right gal.’ Otherwise it implies she’s talking about Trouble. Plus, the correct term here is ‘muscle’, not ‘muscles’.

      “Waitress was going to be problems though.” -> It sounds rather off. Partially because ‘was’ refers to the past, in a sentence talking about the future. Partially because ‘to be problems’ isn’t really correct grammatically, even when accounting for 70’s noir-speak. Perhaps something more along the lines of: ‘Waitress’ gonna’ be a problem though.’? (Tried using ‘is going to be’ and ended up sounding too formal for the setting.)

      “Writer is just another word for liar.” -> Do you mean ‘waiter’ instead of ‘writer’? Because this sentence sort of comes out of the blue/seems out of context if you really did mean to say ‘writer’.

      Sadly that’s it for me, I have a game to get back to. But I did enjoy what little of the fanfic I did read. Keep it up, Bagge, you’re doing Odin’s work. (Damnit, I spelled your name wrong again! I KEEP calling you Baggle for some reason! Sorry! >.< )

      Dark OUT, femurs!
      (I kept trying to remember the autocorrect for b-words, but sadly it eluded me, so I went with the second-best option: femurs) OH RIGHT, BONGOS!

      1. Bagge

        Thanks for the pointers, and I’m glad you enjoyed the story! The world needs more Jocelyne!

        1. DarkVeghetta

          7 or so days later I came to check if you did catch my response. I’m glad to have helped. ^_^
          Tootles, Bagge! (Darn it, I can’t help myself, I always think ‘Baggle’ first >.<' .)

    3. SgtWadeyWilson

      Woot! Ghosts spring eternal! I still love that phrase & chapter!

      I hope you find time and inspiration to write more #JoycelyneNoir.

      1. Bagge

        You were right – it IS a great title.

        I’m sure there will be more Jocelyne Noir, next time she does something suitably badass.

  63. BenRG

    Hank, I’ve got some bad news for you: She would have run in the same way even before college. She was running from you because she overheard the two of you plotting to effectively imprison her for not thinking in the way you want her to.

    1. Cerberus

      Yup.

      And she’s up to now believed that family decisions are as a family, one united whole, because that’s how Hank has presented them so far. So hearing her “family” discuss that meant fearing that that was what was going to be presented to her the second they climbed up or down the stairs.

  64. Packy

    I’ll make the same request I made in Patreon: I want to see translations of what Snoop the Dog is saying in the last panel. It’s the punchline.

    1. Packy

      ARF! “All the time!”

    2. Pyrpyr

      “Like dogs!”

    3. Spencer

      Snoop/Puppy Dorothy is my OTP.

    4. BenRG

      I agree with Jeph Jacques who says that, when dogs start barking wildly, they’re mostly saying: “Humans want and need me to make all this noise; I am a good dog for making this racket.”

      However, in this case, I suspect that Snoop is reacting to Becky’s high spirits. His pack-sister and her bestie seem to be planning to play from their behaviour, so HE wants to play too!

  65. Pyrpyr

    I need to unload a teensy bit about how much I’m not okay with Joyce’s dad at the mo’.
    I’m not exactly cool with her mother either, for what it’s worth. Carol has been blatantly rude to Becky, and been entirely overreacting and claiming that Becky would be a terrible influence on Joyce, and not listening to evidence to the contrary, even from her own daughter’s mouth, but bulldozing over them with her own preformed conclusions.
    But Hank? Hank I dislike even more at this moment.
    He might be talking the talk that he’s listening to Joyce more, and acting the part of the man who tries to listen to her more. But what he said tonight makes me feel that this is a bunch of bull crap. Not the part where he said it was to defend himself and his being right in an argument; not anything except how he went right ahead and blamed Becky anyway.
    It couldn’t have been his sweet daughter who always behaves and asks permission. It must have been an outside source influencing and corrupting her! He just goes and lets Becky take the fall, implicitly.
    This sort of shit is insidious already for how it demonizes LGBTQIA folks such as Becky. But want to know why else it’s particularly insidious?
    It takes away Joyce’s agency in this situation.
    “It certainly couldn’t have been that Joyce was making her own decisions based on her feelings or fears, that could be resolved if we talked this out like reasonable adults! She was being influenced, by God; she had no free will in this situation!” (Their ability or lack thereof to talk like “reasonable” adults as members of such a religious community notwithstanding)
    … when of course, Joyce did make the decision to take the car, and take Becky with her, based on a sudden panic from eavesdropping on her mom saying she wanted to completely uproot Joyce from IU.
    When parents assume their children becoming gay, trans*, etc., is because their current lover, friends, etc. influenced them to do so; when my parents assume I am only gay because my partner has me under some sort of mind-control… what they’re really doing is thinking of us as an extension of themselves, or as someone without their own feelings or power to make decisions.
    This sort of shit minimizes Joyce/us, her/our free will, and her/our feelings. And therefore, to an extent, her/our personhood also.

    1. Mav

      Yes. I had to read the panel again. That was extremely insightful, and very sad if that’s the direction Joyce’s dad is thinking of going in. The way people say things can mean a lot. I get people say things when’s they’re mad as people were saying before, but Hank doesn’t appear to be the type of person who arbitrarily chooses words in anger. Carol is more that person.

      1. Pyrpyr

        It’s more what he *didn’t* say here.

        He never directly opposed the part in his disappointment speech where he said “That Becky wasn’t suddenly a bad influence.”

        Carol I dislike for being so openly hateful and closeminded. But Hank, Hank I dislike a touch more, for talking the talk, but not walking the walk. And thus perpetuating the non-full-personhood of Joyce. Precisely because he’s not standing up for what he says he is.

        1. Mav

          Yup. Hank doesn’t fully know it or acknowledge the extent, but Joyce is emotionally conflicted and very raw and upset about all the crap right now. She is barely keeping it together. She does not need to have her hopes raised up only to be dashed because of one mistake on one night. If this is going to go the sad route, then – sure, Hank’s better than Carol by leagues, but comparing yourself to mediocrity doesn’t make you NOT mediocre, it just makes you LESS mediocre.

        2. smylietron

          It’s tough. I’d say he’s as open-minded as Joyce but with decades’ more indoctrination weighing him down. Taking the car and vanishing without a word would be shocking behavior for many families, not just religious ones…and this is in the immediate wake of Hank insisting Becky is not a bad influence on Joyce. Your daughter comes home, your partner worries she’s changing as a result of a bad influence, you reassure your partner that your daughter is not changing for the worse, your daughter steals (okay, borrows) the car and doesn’t tell you where she’s going all day, something neither of you ever thought she was capable of.

          I hope he’s lashing out because he feels betrayed, not because he’s suddenly 100% in line with Carol regarding Becky. I will be very disappointed in him if he ends up reacting like “your mother was right.”

    2. Chris73

      Carol wants to take Joyce out of College, Hank disagrees, Carol would use this incident as proof that Joyce is being corrupted, Hank lies to his wife of approx. 30 years to protect his daughter, marriage and, possibly, family and manages to throw in a coded message to Joyce as well

    3. Cerberus

      Oh thank you, that was a way more elegant way of stating the problem. And yeah, that’s what bothers me about Hank here. I still think he’s trying and there’s value there, but yeah, that moment was definitely a slip-up and has a lot of nasty connotations that are really familiar to times in which my family presumed I was being corrupted by my partner to be trans and where her family presumed she was being corrupted by me to be pan.

      That style of “oh, no, it wasn’t you, it was this ‘bad influence’ who is defined by being out and queer”. And yeah, it is hurtful because it presumes less agency on Joyce’s part and assumes deviance that needs to be defended against on Becky’s part. And it’s subtle cause it slips in like a knife even in the thought processes of people who think they are defending a queer person (see Hank here going “Nah, girls, I was defending ya” when we’ve seen his “defense” and how it consisted mostly of saying that Joyce was super strong enough to not be corrupted by Becky’s sin).

      1. Willoughby Chase

        He’s evolving.

      2. chris73

        We don’t know his motivations yet but to me it sounds like he’s been defending both of the girls against Carol because she’d probably want to use the excuse of the car as proof that Becky is corrupting Joyce therefore she should be removed from College

        And what would happen to Becky if Joyce can no longer protect and shelter Becky? Maybe stay with her sister, maybe

        To me it sounded like Hank was giving Joyce a coded message that theres more at stake then she realises

        1. Cerberus

          Which she already knows cause she overheard their conversation. Hence her freakout. I think the problem here is that he is unaware of how close two of his kids are of pulling away from him entirely. He still seems to believe he and his mother hav power and they do in respect to money for college and the like, but not nearly as much as he believes he still has.

          It’s a lot further in to the tighter we squeeze the more they’ll pull away than he thinks and while he’s earned some bonus points, emphasizing the “loss of trust” and not emphasizing the “holy fuck, a gunman from our church tried to murder you”, the more she’s just going to decide that home=unsafe. I mean she’s already scared to go home. It might not be long before she realizes that going home is entirely optional and family’s control over you from a distance isn’t much at all.

  66. skdk

    aww matching pyjamas

    1. Bagge

      Awwww

  67. thumb

    Aw, Joyce. Adulthood is 80% lying to your loved ones about everything that matters to you. 10% sleeping. 10% lying awake at night desperately trying not to count all the lies that make up who you are.

  68. Pyrpyr

    She’ll learn soon. Probably.

    1. Pyrpyr

      This was meant to be a reply to thumb >_<

  69. rectilinearpropagation

    Yeah, I’m going to join the folks wondering how the heck you don’t ask your normally well behaved child what happened when they don’t show up until 3am. How do you not make sure nothing bad happened?

    1. Janet

      Presumably he’s been fighting with Carol about Joyce the whole day. In which case the LAST thing he probably wants right now is to kick off another row.

      1. chris73

        I agree with that on Hank and Carol probably wanted them to be in trouble so as to have an excuse and proof of Beckys corrupting influence so she wouldn’t call either

      2. rectilinearpropagation

        But you can ask that without starting a fight, especially since Joyce is extremely unlikely to want to argue over this.

  70. Pylgrim

    Wild prediction: Amber is finally going to realise at some point that Amazi-Girl has become an unhealthy crutch and is going to step down at least for a while. In the meantime, Joyce will pick up the mantle to work out all this anger she’s building up.

  71. Azukar

    So dooooon’t download this comic!

  72. NinjaZaku

    “My parents lie to each other?

    Do bears shit in the woods?

  73. Nono

    …Did anyone else notice that first panel Carol and second panel Joyce line up eerily well?

    I mean you could also try and do that, more hilariously, with fourth panel Hank and last panel Joyce.

  74. AGV

    I’d dare to say that what Hank is trying to say is that his efforts for deffending Joyce went to waste with their escape and so making he feel like he just was convincing his wife and probably himself

  75. caesaria82

    Awww man, welcome to the real world, Joyce. Better buckle up, this is not the last thing about your parents that will disillusion you.

  76. BenRG

    Setting aside all other issues, I suspect that Carol is going to be startled just what model parishioners that Joyce and Becky are going to be tomorrow.

    1. Cerberus

      Yeah, though I imagine that’s going to weigh pretty hard on Joyce given that tomorrow’s sermon is probably going to be some immensely gross bit of victim-blaming or raw homophobia. So having to just eat that is not going to feel good and might trigger her fears that she’s going to burn in Hell for being a good person.

  77. JustShy

    Dammit, Joyce. *People* lie to each other. We can’t help it. All we can do is be honest about it.

  78. arias01

    (just checked to make sure this hadn’t started yet)

    So don’t make out with girls
    Go back to church where you belong
    Go pray to the Lord like you know that you should
    Oh don’t make out with girls

  79. Leila

    I’m still giving Hank points. After all, he was convincing Carol that Becky was NOT a bad influence. He’s not saying she is- he’s disappointed that she would “break his trust” after he’s been defending her all day. Again, feeling this one, historically speaking:

    “Your mom is right to be mad at you for this little incident (the car). Don’t ever make me do that again.”

  80. Leila

    So, yeah. Advice, Joyce: Toe the line and be the model kid all day tomorrow. Take the pointed jabs from mom and ignore ’em. You can go scream “DAMMIT!” at the fountain when you get back tomorrow night.

    1. thejeff

      And get your SNN & birth certificate. You may not get another chance.

  81. JBento

    Look, all Browns but Joyce and Joss are made of suck. Shocker. Only, y’know, not.

    Also, homosexuality – the new gateway crime?

    1. JBento

      No, wait, I forgot about the ostracised one, what’s-his-name, uh… Sir Brown-Not-Appearing-In-This-Story. He gets the benefit of the doubt plus some, because anyone who gets the fuck away from this family asap shows discernment.

      1. Cerberus

        Jordan.

  82. George Wiman

    For probably the last 25 years, the focus of Hank’s life has been to keep Carol from blowing up at any given time. He hasn’t had a lot of room to be himself, either. Inside him is a decent person dreaming of getting out.

  83. Andrusi

    I can see we’ve already exhausted all the possible viable Don’t Download This Song references, but what about non-viable ones? The strip’s been up for like eight hours and nobody’s posted DOOOOON’T DOWNLOAD THIS LESBIAAAAAAN? I’m disappointed in you all.

  84. John Madden

    RIP the Brown marriage.

  85. Josh Spicer

    I’m actually impressed by Daddy-o Brown.

    He’s being a father and watching out for his daughter while still letting her know he’s disappointed.

    1. Apostate

      He doesn’t know the whole story, and makes no effort to find out- that, and he’s arguing on behalf of Joyce at the expense of Becky, from the way he tells it. “Still our good mannered little daughter” is a phrase FULL of negative baggage as well. I’m actually super upset with the dad here.

      1. Silly Name

        Well, in his defence, how would YOU react if your daughter took your car without telling anybody, staying out until after sunset and didn’t bother to at least text you “I’m fine, don’t worry”? Top that with spending hours arguing with your spouse about how said daughter isn’t a criminal.

        Hank isn’t being rational, but people aren’t always rational.

        1. Cerberus

          Probably call/text them ever. Like we’ve seen them call before regularly and had major plot lines surrounding their calls so we know that they are frequent callers.

          And we know they had made some sort of family plans involving Joyce meeting up with her siblings, so I could expect them to either be frantically calling cause they intended to meet up or frantically calling her siblings to see if she made it to that or if they’ve even heard from them.

          http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/john-brown/

          We also know that John was completely unaware that Joyce borrowed the call and we know Jocelyne was with them.

          Like I understand “we were worried sick, we didn’t know where you went. Do you have any idea how dangerous that was, etc…” But the part where they just go radio silence all day because the only thing important to them is reading them the riot act for rule breaking is very alien to me and most healthy parent dynamics I’ve seen.

        2. thejeff

          Even most unhealthy parent dynamics would include calling to check up on them.

    2. JBento

      No-o-o-o-oooo. He’s very statedly NOT standing up for his daughter. He’s standing up for his position in an earlier argument.

      Watching out for his daughter would, at some point in this conversation, involve the words “where have you been?”; “are you okay?”; “is something wrong?”; “why did you take the car without asking?”.

      This is Jonathan all over again: it’s all the evil lesbian’s fault. Joyce still has no agency. Ugh, Joyce, why are you a person who has opinions and makes her own choices?

  86. Willoughby Chase

    “My parents lie to each other …”

    Yes, and to you and everyone else.

  87. Apostate

    Suddenly I’m much, much less sanguine about daddy dearest’s future acceptance of Jocelyne. Also wow way to be angry at your daughter for helping her friend during an ongoing crisis, and way to highlight literally everything wrong with this family in a single statement.

    1. Cerberus

      Yeah, I’ve been worried ever since finding out that the dad he’s based on is currently a Trump supporter who is fully on board with the current anti-trans legislative onslaught.

      Jocelyne’s going to have a tough road when she comes out.

    2. Corwin

      Are you kidding me? Hank doesn’t know why STOLE THE CAR and didn’t come back until late at night. He has no idea that they were helping Becky sort her life out.

      And in fact, that’s NOT why they took the car. They took it on a WHIM, a petty, childish whim, and Joyce KNEW it was wrong. Their entire plan was “maybe go shopping”.

      Hank’s disappointment has NOTHING to do with Becky being a lesbian, and I have no idea how you can read it that way. His entire complaint was “you took the car”. Fucking valid complaint from where I’m sitting.

      You assuming he’ll be unaccepting of Jocelyne is completely unfounded. He’s already demonstrated his acceptance of Becky, his approval of Joyce’s judgement about Dorothy and Toedad, and he’s just spent all morning arguing on Becky’s behalf.

      How pessimistic are you?!

      1. Cerberus

        They (read Joyce) took the car because she was having a fear-induced panic attack and needed to run. She had no plan, because she was having a full-blown PTSD trigger and felt that home was so unsafe she couldn’t stay there one minute more.

        The rest, the random driving, the lunch with her siblings, the visit to the dunes, breaking and entering into Becky’s house was all the add-ons to the one true mission which was always a screaming voice in her head telling her to run.

        Also, do you really believe he’ll welcome Jocelyne with open arms, cause in this religious climate and being based on who he is in Willis’s life, this is a downright impossibility.

      2. Apostate

        He was arguing on Joyce’s behalf. Not Becky’s. Cerberus covered the rest. Just going to double down on “acceptance of LG (and possibly B) people is in no way a guarantee of acceptance of T people.” Seriously, my hyper liberal family had some real problems with it when I first came out.

      3. rectilinearpropagation

        “Hank doesn’t know why…”

        Well that’s the point, isn’t it? He doesn’t know why his daughter who’s never been in our caused trouble in her entire life disappeared with the car and **he doesn’t care**.

        “You assuming he’ll be unaccepting of Jocelyne is completely unfounded.”

        He didn’t want Joyce being friends with Dorothy just because she’s an atheist.

  88. Willoughby Chase

    Joyce’s crime-sheet currently stands at:

    1. Breaking and entering, Trespass

    2. Lying

    3. Stealing a car.

    4. Friends with a lesbian.

    If Carol finds out, she’ll ask for 10 to 20 in solitary or the bread wafer mines. No leniency.

    1. Amazi-Stool

      Sure you didn’t forgot this one?

    2. DarkVeghetta

      ‘the bread wafer mines’
      … … I really like that one for some reason. I really do. Though I red it as ‘the bread and water mines’ at first because sleepy.

  89. Deimir

    At first I read the title text as “running over schools”

    I maybe need more sleep.

  90. Mokurai

    I hope that everybody will remember that this is Dumbing of Age, and that the parents have been marinating in dumbth much longer than their children. We are being both entertained and edified by watching all of them cope with that dumbth, often by making up more of it. And once in a while somebody actually breaks through some of it. As in any drama, the author has to escalate the tensions before resolving any of them.

    I know about a few of the lies within my family. I am certain that there are many more. Hank lying to his wife to protect himself and his daughter is small potatoes.

  91. Felgraf

    Knowing that the Brown family is based losely on Willis’ own upbringing-

    … And knowing how Joyce internalizes things-

    Joyce: When your parents divorce, it will not have been your fault. (stupid future-past-tense, why are you so confusing.)

  92. Jimmy

    Everybody lies.

    1. Willoughby Chase

      “The only variable is about what.”

  93. Lulu

    How will Joyce react when she will learn Santa is not real?
    Or that parents not only lie to each other, but they also lie to their children for various reasons during their lifetime?
    Just shocking.
    What next?
    Joyce knows that her parents had sex to create her, right?

    1. Austyn

      She probably never learned about Santa because Christmas is about Jesus and not worldly things like presents. Or at least that seems like what her parents would think.

  94. QD

    Of course, now is the time to mock your best friend, Becky. You’ve been through some trauma and that means you’re received a free pass on being an asshole– I mean being quirky!

  95. BipedSnowman

    … I’m not the only one who thinks he’s hot, right?

    1. Liliet

      You aren’t.

      Alas, physical attractiveness doesn’t make you a good parent )=

  96. Guairdean Beatha

    I wonder if the church congregation has been out collecting stones to use on Becky when she arrives? It seems like the kind of church where casting the first stone is one of their bedrock principles.

  97. smylietron

    At first I read that line as “my lesbian waffles.”

    1. Yumi

      That would be my favorite kind of breakfast food.

      1. smylietron

        “Leggo my Lesbos”

  98. Cephalo the Pod

    I guess that would answer Joyce’s question.

    1. Cephalo the Pod

      Meant as a response to smylietron.

  99. That Guy

    Yeah, that is the hard thing for Becky there. I went through a similar experience to this, finding out most everything you’d ever relied on to define yourself was not just a lie, but was may actually be harming people you care about… One of the trickiest parts is not letting the feeling of betrayal get the best of you. But Becky will overcome, I’m sure. Probably will be more cautious, but will overcome.

  100. Guairdean Beatha

    The more I think about it, the more it seems that “good mannered little daughter” equates to “subservient chattel.” They’ve put Joyce in a situation where she can’t confide in them, but they still expect her to seek their approval in every action. This will not end well for someone, and I fear that Joyce’s last shred of innocence is about to be stripped away.

    1. Pyrpyr

      Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. Can unfortunately confirm this is a real thing.

  101. Erknen

    Joyce’s dad could pull of a cosplay of Overwatch’s Soldier 76.

  102. Marie

    Besides the more obvious things, I’m a little worried that Carol or someone is going for ‘the family who brought the lesbian back into the church to be saved’ award or something.

  103. Corwin

    Guys, seriously, you’re somehow thinking Hank is in the WRONG here? At ALL? This, in my eyes, makes him even MORE likable and an even better dad.

    He’s not treating Joyce like a child. He’s expressing his disappointment at the fact that he trusted her, that he’s fighting her clearly insanely controlling mother on her behalf, and she goes and knowingly does something completely out of character that she KNEW was wrong. Hell, even without taking the car, I could never in good conscience just leave my parent’s house without saying anything on a weekend visit, and then have the audacity to be out late as well. It’s disrespectful- and I was raised in a WAY more laidback way than Joyce.

    So look at Hank- he’s supported his daughter’s judgement with Dorothy (I bet bongo-mom had a lot to say about that, too; she didn’t outwardly agree at the time), supported her judgement with Becky, validated her feelings over Toedad, and generally tried REALLY HARD to relate to his daughter and not make the same mistakes they did with Jordan. Then the FIRST THING she does is pull this shit.

    And what does he do? He simply lets her know that he thought better of her. And you know what? I did, too. If you think he has no right to be disappointed, or even a little angry, you’re wrong. He has EVERY right. What the girls did was not cool. And I think it’s a testament to his being a good dad that he makes sure they know it.

    1. Zaidyer

      His statement in panel 4 is the problem. When someone like Joyce’s dad says those words, they are not code for “I’m disappointed in you.” They’re code for “I stuck my neck out for you and you have undermined me. Your reasons for doing so are beneath my concern. My grace is now revoked. You’d better feel lucky I needed to save face just now.”

      1. chris73

        You don’t know what the argument he had with Carol was about, the argument might have been that Becky is a bad influence on Joyce and that Joyce should be taken out of College and be sent to Anderson

      2. Cerberus

        Yeah, that’s the fuckup alright. Like it’s cool to chew a kid out for doing something dumb and agsinst the rules. It’s cool to have consequences for negstive actions or express disappointment in negatively affecting trust. It’s cool to be short and tired with a kid rolling in at midnight after being out all day without permission.

        But it’s kind of a douchier move to leave a passive threat that there’s a level of disobedience on her part where he’d fall on the side of Carol, so shape up traumatized person who I don’t fully realize is literally terrified of us. One he may not be aware of, but one that will hit in very negative ways nonetheless.

        1. chris73

          It sounds more like to me Hank is trying to give Joyce a coded message/warning and that he doesn’t want Carol or Becky to hear it.

    2. Guairdean

      Hank’s concern is for his ego, not for his daughter’s well being. He never asked why she took the car and stayed away, he just made sure she knew her defiance was unacceptable.

    3. Pyrpyr

      He is very right to be upset over the fact that she took his/his wife’s car without permission. And it is kind of cool that he lied for her.

      What ISN’T cool is why he lied, and how he let Becky take the fall by not saying otherwise that it wasn’t her fault. And other aspects of the words he used in his reaction, sort of dehumanize Joyce (and Becky also).

      1. Apostate

        He lied for HIM.

    4. Apostate

      If he was so concerned, why did he not once call them? Why didn’t he ask what they were doing? Why they took it? He’s not trying in the slightest to understand this situation, and not in the least bit connecting the dots from trauma to action.

  104. Apostate

    Oh also totally unrelated, but I set a date for my SRS consultation tomorrow. Got some good news today! I’m so friggin’ excited!

  105. ellbell01

    Hank, just nut up and tell your wife off for being a bongo.

    1. bryy

      He loves her, though. And he most likely was very much like her once, and sympathizes with where she is mentally. It’s tough to pry that bandaid.

      1. ellbell01

        If he loves her he’s even MORE obligated to stand up to her. Love doesn’t mean letting somebody walk all over you. She’s a total b-word and he should tell her to cut that out. Unless that’s what he loves about her.

  106. bryy

    Guys, I feel really bad for Carol.

    I know it is Willis’ MO to write compelling and full story arcs for the Christian main characters, but the parents usually end up being horrible shitstains that never get resolution.

    I feel bad for Carol because she is obviously about to lose her daughter in the next six or so strips.

    1. Apostate

      Reap what you sow.

  107. Kay

    Dang it, Hank. >,>

    I can only imagine what it must look like from an outside perspective – but have a little more faith in Joyce? Maybe ask her what she was doing?

  108. flareonflare

    NOBODY CAN RESIST THE LESBIAN WILES

    enough said

  109. RuckBogers

    Oh, man, that Weird Al callback… THE MEMORIES!!! D:

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