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Replace
Posted on July 31, 2020 by David M Willis
Hey, did you know I like Transformers a bunch?  A surprise, I know, but I do!  Well, Polygon asked me to do a run-down of all the background characters and not-so-hidden lore of Transformers hidden in the new War for Cybertron: Siege cartoon on Netflix.  And I did!  There's spoilers and jokes!  Click through for Siege Siegecrets!

190 thoughts on “Replace”

  1. Cmasta1992

    Stacy is just here for the ride

    1. Tandel

      And she just can’t get off.

      But also she constantly gets off.

    2. Purblebirb

      Hell yeah she is

    3. danielle

      so is richard

    4. Rose by Any Other Name

      I can confidently say: “That’s what she said.”

  2. FLUFFY

    …Even if I can’t blame Amber for being disgusted, she kind of walked right into that one.

    1. Doctor_Who

      Yeah, few people could resist such an easy lay up.

      “That” – she

    2. JetstreamGW

      And it’s really, really funny.

    3. Azhrei Vep

      Yeah… I’m 100% with the Rosenthals on this one. I was already having a laugh at it myself before I saw them joining in.

      1. maarvarq

        Yep, sorry Amber, but I would have laughed at that in your presence too.

    4. Keulen

      I genuinely found that funny. Kinda gross too, but funny.

      1. anonymousethatscurriesinthedarkness

        Gross is like Baloney – It has to laid on thick enough to be obvious yet not so thick as to be absolutely disgusting.

        Cue Mr Creosote at the Restaurant.

  3. Cheshrin

    Wait, Stacy and Richard are engaged already? Dang.

    1. Myth

      Yeah, I mean… yikes, that is fast! But also… good for her, I guess, if Richard can manage not to fuck this up. Stacy can have and do anything she wants, she deserves it after having to be married to Blaine!

      1. Doctor_Who

        She deserves Keanu Reeves’ head on Terry Crews’ body after being married to Blaine!

        1. AeromechanicalAce

          Now i REALLY want to see that happen. Maybe in the New Bill & Ted movie.

        2. Geneseepaws

          How about George Reeves head on Terry Gilliam’s body?
          … nah, doesn’t work.

      2. Cheshrin

        Oh, don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t judging! They’re both adults, they can approach their relationship however they’d like, and for all Richard’s faults he’s still a league and a half above Blaine (especially since he seems to actually want to do right by Stacy, however bad he might end up being on executing on that want). I was just surprised since I think this is the first time any sort of engagement has been mentioned.

      3. thejeff

        Big if there. No reason to think Richard’s done anything to change.

        1. Droewyn

          He’s stated the desire to change. It’s a start, given the amount of on-page time he’s had.

        2. thejeff

          Has he?
          Seems to me he just assumed he’d changed. His talk with Joe was all about how the sex was so great he didn’t even notice the technically legal college girls around him. Not exactly confidence inspiring.

        3. Seregiel

          He also drove down from out of city with his new partner’s belongings so she could try and connect with her daughter, and then went searching for his partner’s said unknown daughter because she was distraught. That seems league’s above how he was described to act emotionally towards other targets. We don’t know a lot beyond philandering, but emotionally distanced/using was something I read into with Joe’s phrasing.

        4. thejeff

          Perhaps more like he used to behave with Joe and his mom?

          That he’s not treating her as a casual fling doesn’t mean he’s not going to cheat on her when the initial thrill wears off.

    2. Foxhack

      I could’ve sworn it was mentioned before.

      1. Jamie

        It was, but it was a footnote amongst Amber-rants, not an on-screen announcement. I don’t think I’d be able to find it even with an archive binge.

        1. Ana Chronistic

          It was in fact hinted at but not stated explicitly
          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-8/01-face-the-strange/disengage/

          (inb4: apparently when you spend every waking hour bingeing on building an island months after everyone else has finished 90% of theirs, even if starting just in time for the “swimming in the ocean” update, it means sometimes lying down for a quick nap means getting up five hours later, who knew ?)

    3. Some Ed

      I think there are times when just being clearly different from the ex, while also appearing very interested, is enough for someone to put a lot of trust in.

      Like, you know, “Hey, I see you’re really disturbed by all the rape-y things my ex did. I like that!”

      Of course, other times it doesn’t work like that. I mean, it really only can once the abused person gets to the point of being *able* to trust somebody else, also different people are different, so they behave differently.

  4. Puckish Rogue

    Laughter is the best medicine they say

  5. brionl

    End of which year? Earth year, or Dumbiverse year?

    1. Kyrik Michalowski

      Dumbiverse surely, which in real time is an indeterminate period of somewhere between eventually and forever.

  6. William Leonard Reese Jr.

    Heh. Gross but an acceptable kind of gross.

    Also GAH! Your eye is not suppose to bulge out like that when you laugh Mr Rosenthal! Please go to the hospital now to get that check ou . . .

    Oh right. Still at the Hospital.

    Still props for being trying to be a good stepfather there Bearded Joe the Elder.

  7. Kyrik Michalowski

    Oh Amber, you really can’t blame anybody but yourself for that set up. I know not who could maintain their composure and not make that joke.

    Who among us can rise above the obvious sex jokes?

    1. Plasma Mongoose

      “Heh, heh, you said rise”.

      1. FacelessDeviant

        Heheh, that was cool.

  8. Chris

    The more I think about this one, the more disturbing it gets.

    1. Hazel

      Yeah he’s already called the women on campus sexually mature as defined by the state IIRC. I get why Joe is laughing but Richard should at least *try* to recover from the initial giggles to reassure Amber of.. the opposite of whatever this was.

      1. DailyBrad

        I took it as him *trying* not to laugh here, given his eye looks like it’s going to pop out of his head.

    2. BigDogLittleCat

      Yes. The squick is strong in this one.

    3. Meagan

      Yeah it’s pretty creepy. Like, are they laughing about incest here?

      1. BigDogLittleCat

        Richard sure seems to be. Ugh.

        1. Meagan

          I’m not really sure on this one, but it seems to me like people who joke about incest and rape are the people who’ve never experienced it. I actually used to do so when I was younger. I thought some rape jokes were funny. My cousin used to joke about incest and I laughed. When I was 16 and had an 18 year old lover, we would joke about him statutory raping me. What we were really joking about was the government making an arbitrary age line and denying me the agency to make sexual choices. But now, knowing what I know about lived experiences of rape and other forms of sexual violence, and knowing how it can trigger people, it just isn’t funny anymore. I think finding it funny may indicate naivete.

        2. drs

          I have hypothesized that sibling incest is more attractive to only children, or people who don’t have siblings of the attractive sex. This might be true, but I’ve also had various people speaking up with “have siblings, find incest porn hot anyway”.

        3. Meagan

          I think with that, it might come down to attachment stuff, in the psychological sense. It’s already a given in psychology that we bring our attachment patterns from our family dynamics into our romantic relationships. People want to feel loved unconditionally, and have lovers who love them unconditionally. So there’s this idea of, why not have both? Who knows you better than your sibling, for example? Or twin? That seems to drive a lot of the fanfic out there about siblings, like Fred and George from Harry Potter. The desire to be romantically partnered with someone who knows you and loves you unconditionally. Which, I’d argue, is not much more unrealistic than a lot of the other ideas about romance that Hollywood and Disney push at us.

        4. thejeff

          There’s also a “breaking taboo” thing that can make things seem hotter – at least in the abstract.

        5. SuperFroakie82

          I guess I’m the naive person here, because I’m not really seeing what would make incest jokes all that problematic, especially not to the degree that they would be comparable to rape jokes in terms of things you shouldn’t joke about.

        6. AGV

          Being sexually assaulted by a family member, which isn’t as uncommon as it should be

        7. Geneseepaws

          Yeah, it produces bad feelings which can last a lifetime. Family is supposed to be the support you can always go to. But then there’s this feeling you can’t really Totally trust that one. Ever again.

        8. Arian

          But surely the problem with sexual assault by a family member is that it’s *sexual assault*, committed by a family member.

          Consensual incest doesn’t cause the same level of psychological damage, does it?

          Granted, the ability to consent may be in doubt where the power differential is large, so parent/stepparent and kid may potentially be unable to be consensual, in the same way as statutory rape?

          Pretty sure consensual sibling incest isn’t as damaging as any type of nonconsensual sexual interaction, though.

          And sex with a cousin isn’t even incest IMO. American culture is weird.

        9. Droewyn

          First cousins are closely enough related to weaken a bloodline, particularly if the family does it on the reg (see pretty much any royal line in Europe). So yeah, it’s incest. Pretty sure you’re safe once you get more distant than that.

        10. molochmachine

          Like a lot of taboos, there are real practical reasons embedded in the rejection of incest – both on the level of procreation, and to the effect that it can destabilize family and other social dynamics. This is maybe less so with non-immediate family, such as cousins, but it’s still there nonetheless. US culture is absolutely not the only social context to think so of inter-cousin relationships, by the way. That taboo might indeed be even stronger in cultures where extended families (rather than the nuclear family) are seen as the base familial unit.

          Part of the problem with incest as you describe it is that, when it actually happens, it is hardly ever consensual. Families have hierarchies just like any other social group, and it is overwhelmingly the case that incest happens coersively along these same hierarchies. If we consider that it also largely happens when at least one of the participants is children, then I’m sure you can see why this might be traumatizing, and thus deny the victim the fundamental emotional and psychological security offered by a safe family.

        11. Sam

          Incest is very rarely consensual, often abusive or coercive, and often includes sexual assault or rape. It *can* be considered as bad taste as rape, because they tend to be interlinked. And like, often incest is child sexual abuse by an adult or teen with a child that doesn’t understand what is happening. Actually consensual incest between equals with no power dynamic and no abuse and no grooming is not nearly so common from my knowledge.

        12. Regalli

          Near as I can tell, pretty much the only time it happens without the aforementioned issues is when the people in question meet as adults (and frequently aren’t aware that they’re related until they actually know each other fairly well.)

          At least for closely related people. Once you get to the more distant cousins who might know they’re related but don’t spend enough time together while young for the Westermarck Effect to kick in – the ‘we’re a small and reasonably insular community so pretty much everyone is third or fourth cousins with each other’ sort of thing you see with the Amish and Pennsylvania Dutch, say – it seems a lot less fraught. But ‘shares three-times-great-grandparents’ is rarely what discussions of incest are getting at, because it’s one of those things that carries no real genetic risk on its own* and probably does happen by accident reasonably frequently.

          * In a small, reasonably insular community where there’s been a LOT of that over centuries, different story. Thus, the Amish having increased prevalence of certain genetic disorders.

        13. thejeff

          Or the Habsburgs.

        14. SuperFroakie82

          Alright, that makes sense. Thanks.

        15. Zee

          Going to also speak from personal experience here, let’s not discount those who use jokes as a coping mechanism for their own assault, like I did as a kid.

        16. Someone

          “Victim” here. I joke about incest and rape as well as death, disease, dead babies and pretty much every other horrible thing under the sun.

          My abuser was abused by an adult. I was abused by a kid (<10) when I was even younger. There is support I (and my abuser) do need. Getting offended on my behalf and making like you know what we do or don't do or need is not it. The sentiment is well meaning, and well received, and may apply to some, but was over-generalized. Every segment of life has exceptions to pretty much every rule that can be thought of.

        17. Meagan

          Re-reading it now, it might be more of a laughing “at” something that seems to imply incest, rather than laughing “with” it sort of thing.

        18. Azhrei Vep

          Yeah, it’s more “Laughing at the weird and clearly unintentional innuendo.” than finding what the innu- is -endoing funny.

        19. Droewyn

          Also this feels like nervous laughter to me. The kind where you’re at the funeral and on your best behavior, and nothing is even remotely funny but the giggles are crawling up your throat anyway so you hold your breath in a futile attempt to prevent the coming explosion…

        20. RedCat

          They’re laughing at the word “hole”. It’s that simple and juvenile.

      2. RedComet

        I think the incest reading is taking this joke too literally.
        The joke isn’t “haha fucking your own dad”

        The joke is somewhere between (or possibly both) “haha daddy issues + hole” and “any man with a kid is a dad/any man could potentially totally be a dad + hole”.

        So potentially problematic but none of them are guffawing over the idea that Amber’s dad assaulted her.

      3. Zee

        Dude they’re just laughing at the fact that she said something about “filling a joke” repeatedly. It ain’t that deep

  9. Stephen Bierce

    I’m Fixing A Hole where the rain gets in
    To stop my mind from wondering…
    Where it will go~o~o~o!

    1. Opus the Poet

      That takes me back a few decades…

  10. Mra

    Hey, Amber. It’s still a huge step up from the last husband.

    1. Reltzik

      TECHNICALLY they’re at least one flight of stairs down from the last husband.

      1. Regalli

        Well sure, but this one currently has approximately ZERO ribs in need of removal from his lungs!

        Pleeeeeease let Blaine no longer be under warranty?

        1. Geneseepaws

          Warantee-shmarentee, I wanna see a factory-recall. I don’t think Aamber’s grandmother has been mentioned, but if she has a pipe wrench that she knows how to wield, …
          I mean by that Blaine is the king of bad-dads, so his mom might ‘crown’ him using the wench. “Lotta things you can hit with a wrench.”

        2. Seregiel

          I’m still hoping Yuri was passive because she was technically Blaine’s coveet handler, and now that they are alone, she will smother him with a pillow a la Gramps orders. She goes to jail. Faz gets a better home life.

  11. abysswatcher1993

    Better the chivalrous pervert than the psychopathic murderer. It’s easy to be a better person than Blaine.

    1. Opus the Poet

      It’s literally impossible to be a worse person than Blaine, considering he beat a man to death with a hammer.

  12. Olivia Cheatham

    Shut your mouth Amber, that was funny

  13. BBCC

    Okay, I had to laugh too. Sorry, Amber.

    1. RacingTurtle

      Same.

  14. Dean

    Possibly the most heartwarming moment that Amber has shared with a father figure.

    1. Hazel

      Well, Richard is definitely a creep but seems like he is trying to improve and has genuinely been there for Stacy. He took a mobster ex and a daughter threatening to stab him in stride so…the marriage might actually work out. Plus Stacy seems happy with him being caring, lawfully financially stable, and good at bangin’. A definite step up from Blaine at the very least.

      1. Hazel

        Ah whoops, didn’t mean this to be a reply!

        1. Zee

          I mean it fits

      2. thejeff

        Certainly a step up from Blaine, but I don’t see any evidence he’s trying to improve. His problem was never that he wasn’t nice or helpful, but that he cheated. From his previous talk with Joe, he’s just not interested in cheating right now because the sex is hot. That’s not “trying”. What happens when the rush of a new relationship wears off and they have a slow spell? The interest in others comes back, when he’s fooled himself into thinking it won’t be a problem.

        1. C.T Phipps

          It depends on his motives. It could be that his marriage (and this comes from his wife) was just between two fundamentally incompatible people. Cheating is terrible but also could just be a sign that both unhappy in the marriage and should find someone better suited.

          Or maybe he’s an asshole.

        2. thejeff

          It is possible. Joe doesn’t seem to think so and he knows him better than anyone else we’ve seen comment.

        3. Regalli

          Yeah, based off Joe’s reaction, I think the ‘she’s the one! I’ll never sleep around again!’ *cheats* could well be a pattern. We don’t have real evidence of it, of course, but the certainty Joe has that Richard is not good at staying monogamous and Richard not saying anything to suggest Joe’s concerns are baseless, just that THIS TIME is different… That seems to exist as an exchange for a reason, y’know?

        4. Seregiel

          Joe could also feel that’s a pattern because he saw the tauma his mom went through and projected that on all following relationships. Maybe his dad was vague about why other relationships fell apart (found out they wanted money, ran from him due to cheating past, he ISNT that good in bed, incompatibility) and instead focused on bragging about his new ego feed because anything else would hurt his machismo, so Joe just assumed it was for the same reasons. Instead he’s more like dad than he thought because all self worth comes from the flesh wand.

        5. thejeff

          It is possible. It would be more possible in real life. I find it very unlikely in this fiction that Richard’s problems will be solved because he found the right woman. I’d feel a lot better about it, if there was any hint of him putting effort into changing.
          He’s a minor character, so we won’t see much, but I think him just living happily ever after messes with Joe’s story arc.

        6. Seregiel

          I don’t think it will be happily ever after. I mean, messed up son and new partner and new step daughter is a prettt heavy plate. Guilt complex? Attonment? Messy messy.

        7. molochmachine

          I think he might also just be shockingly bad at communicating his inner life. Maybe the only way he can speak to his actual intentions is by contextualizing them within shallow sexual language. Those are basically the same deflection tactics that Joe employs, though Joe seems much more aware of them himself.

  15. Mr. Random

    She seems happy!

  16. Jamie

    I was not expecting a wedding storyline to happen in this comic.

  17. Regalli

    Sweet, sweet doctor money. Just keep telling yourself that, Amber.

    I’m with ‘I get why they’re both laughing, I also find it funny, but given Richard’s kind of a sex creep already wrt women his son’s age, Um.’ as a position here.

    1. BBCC

      I laughed, but I agree with this stance. I forgot just how damn creepy he was but someone brought up the ‘legal as defined by the state’ thing and yeah. Ick.

      1. Regalli

        Joe’s fine, though. Now Amber has TWO half/stepbrothers who are Constantly Horny On Main!

        Yay? Maybe it’ll be a learning experience for both of them. Or maybe Amber can bring Joyce to family gatherings to help keep them separated and on good behavior. The world cannot bear such Horny Energies.

        1. Regalli

          * Concentrated Horny Energies. I mean it survived the once but throwing Richard in on top of it who’s not even trying really… yikes.

        2. SalleighG

          This means that Joe and Faz are going to be step-brothers…

        3. Mra

          Oh, my god

        4. Dara

          Technically not, since Joe has no connection to Blaine in this equation. The kids of your step-parent that they didn’t have with your parent are your step-siblings. So, for someone to be a step-sibling to Joe after his dad marries Stacy, they’d have to be a child Stacy had with anyone other than Richard.

          Blaine’s kids that he didn’t have with Stacy or that Yuki has with anyone else wouldn’t count. Amber will be Joe’s step-sister, but Faz wouldn’t technically be his step-brother. Now, Joe may end up considering Faz to be his step-brother since he’s Amber’s half-bother, but on paper, he wouldn’t be.

        5. Miri

          Step-half-brother?

        6. Opus the Poet

          To use a military term Half-step brother (slow).

        7. hof1991

          Brother in law might fit. Someone you can have a familyish relationship with but they won’t show up on a genealogical chart.

        8. Seregiel

          Joe had already helped Joyce with Faz too! … OTOH Joe probably understands Faz’s superficial tendencies the easiest… OTOH descalsting Faz to Joe level is…. not the end game.

  18. Jade

    HOVER-TEXT SAYS WHAT?

    1. Captain Obvious

      sometime before the end of the year, actually.

  19. Alex Boston

    I guess Richard has sown all of his many wild oats then?

    1. drs

      Even if Richard inevitably strays, it might not be on a timescale the comic would ever get to.

      1. BigDogLittleCat

        I was thinking that. We’ll never see the inevitable collapse of this bliss because the sun will collapse sooner.

        1. justin8448

          I mean, it’s also possible that Stacy has already factored in the high probability of Richard cheating on her, and decided to marry him anyway, with a plan for what to do when it inevitably happens. She might even have already decided she’s fine with it.

        2. Ophidiophile

          Assuming they haven’t already had a threesome. Or swinging. Maybe Stacy has been really suppressed, and Richard is showing her a new world.

        3. Segnosaur

          Well remember the comic where Joe was talking to his dad, disapproving of the relationship with. Amber’s mom… And he says (to paraphrase) “you would not believe the things we have done”. To me, that almost sounds like Stacey may be the one taking the initiative.

        4. thejeff

          That’s also the sequence where he tells Joe “we’re exclusive. I’m going to be faithful to her”, so I doubt they’re swinging. And since that was in response to Joe asking if he’d told her about the cheating, I doubt Stacy knows anything about it.

        5. C.T Phipps

          Mind you, some people have an open marriage and they’re decent loving people. The parameters of a marriage belong to the partners. The problem is Richard clearly did not have his wife’s approval.

      2. thejeff

        Nah, it’s a drama vein that’s pretty clearly being set up to be mined. Might be awhile, but there’s no way it doesn’t pay off. Likely to contrast with Joe’s own growth.

        And no way Richard gets over his cheating ways with no acknowledgement or effort, when they’ve been such a big part of Joe’s character arc.

        1. Seregiel

          I have no faith in this outcome, but Im legitimately hoping that it is a vulnerability and communication arc rather than a compulsive cheating arc and that he explains he did better because Stacy was so open with him on her problems. Explaining why things didn’t work out, societal pressures and toxic masculinity and how that was hidden due to poor self worth rather than a compulsion to just wander.

        2. thejeff

          Could be, but part of that would involve him being open and communicating about his problems.
          Which, as of the earlier talk with Joe, he hadn’t and didn’t need to do because it was going to be fine this time.

  20. Raen

    Well, it’s an improvement, at least.

  21. TemplarKnight

    He let it slide once, but the second time was just too much.

  22. vlademir1

    So my friend made a comment to me about how Amber was asking for that response a few minutes ago. I’m going to just post my response to that below (with some minor grammar cleaning).

    Yeah, Amber really was asking for that one considering who was involved…
    That said, I’m not sure Amber had enough spoons at this moment to actually think that through *and* I’m pretty sure she’d find that a funny phrase in other circumstances…
    say in a Tony/Steve slashfic.

  23. Nenja

    They’re already engaged? Didn’t they meet … (checks the timelline)
    ONE MONTH ago?? That’s real fast for an engagement, isn’t it?

    1. Alanari

      Considering the expected life span of the relationship, they need to be fast ?

    2. Needfuldoer

      The first strip we see them together in kind of suggests they could have gone to college together, but Richard has since said there’s a roughly 15-year age gap between them so that’s unlikely.

      https://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/04-just-hangin-out-with-my-family/mister/

      https://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-8/01-face-the-strange/disengage/

      1. thejeff

        Yeah, in retrospect I read that as just part of Richard’s “Game”: Act like there’s a connection without actually saying there is and there might be one.

        1. Opus the Poet

          You know this would work so much better for Richard to just admit he’s Poly instead of being a serial monogamist with cheating. So much better for him, his partners, his children…

        2. thejeff

          Assuming he actually is Poly. It’s not actually the same as cheating.

  24. Yotomoe

    To be fair, I’d very much like to fill Stacy’s dad shaped hole.

    1. Cmasta1992

      Me too.

      Let’s get that Stacy Slipshine Willis

      1. Needfuldoer

        “You Motherfucker”, a new Dumbing of Age pornographique by David “If That’s What You Guys Want” Willis

        (If it was Mike x Stacy, we’d all know the title would be “For a Nickel”.)

  25. BigDogLittleCat

    Is this the first time we’ve seen Joe laugh? It’s a good look on him.

    Stacy is going to marry Richard? They’ve known each other how many weeks now? I suppose the good news is, when this marriage tanks at least it won’t be because he’s a violent psychopath. He’ll only break her heart, instead of her body as well.

    I confess, I don’t like Stacy. She seems “nice,” but that’s all she is. It seems she’s chipper chipper happy happy because she’s oblivious, although whether it’s rose colored glasses or just cluelessness, I don’t know.
    I cannot like someone who watches her husband abuse her child into grievous mental illness and not clue in that the child needs serious help.
    She thinks Amber’s problem is low blood sugar, for pete’s sake! Amber was literally hiding behind a tree in anxiety, and she was still all smiles.

    I know she was abused herself, but that doesn’t excuse her being completely oblivious the damage done to her child. She not only neglected Amber’s emotional damage, she didn’t see it.
    It’s no surprise Amber believes that no one can or will help her, when the one person she should have been able to rely on didn’t notice that she needed it. If she grew up hiding the extent of her emotional damage, it’s no surprise when her mother apparently did nothing useful when there *were* giant red flags. If Stacy didn’t do anything about Amber’s crippling emotional anxiety when she was little, Amber would learn that the only person she could rely on was herself. Of course she hid her wounds.
    But if Stacy had been paying attention, she’d have seen the wounds and done something.

    She might not be actively malicious, but she doesn’t belong on the Good Parents side of the line.

    1. Meagan

      It doesn’t excuse it, but it might explain it. People don’t magically develop psychological capacities to be ideal – or even “good enough” – parents when they haven’t been in an environment that allowed for that. And as we well know here, there’s no permit required to have children.

      It doesn’t mean we can’t long for and advocate for children to have more support and care. Often though, that looks like supporting the parents to do their own healing, while also supporting the kids, rather than trying to punish the parents for not being good enough when they don’t even know what they are doing “wrong”. I speak from my own experience here, as someone who was taken away from a “not good enough” mom – as much as she was neglecting me, ultimately I don’t blame her for it, because I know she did the best she could. Which is really sad, that that was her best. I still don’t entirely understand why she is the way that she is, but I know being taken away from her was traumatic, and I wish we could have gotten the support we both needed while keeping our family bonds intact.

      1. Meagan

        And I recognize that for every kid out there who was taken away from a parent they wanted to stay with, there’s also a kid who was left with a parent they wish they’d been taken away from (and I know that side too, being stuck with my dad for three miserable years). I don’t want to oversimplify it. These are incredibly tricky situations to navigate during people’s developmental years when everything can have such a ripple effect.

        My takeaway from the research on ACEs and resilience is that giving kids in our lives whatever support and encouragement we can – be they students, neighbors, kids we know from church, etc – can go a long way in helping them be resilient long-term, regardless of their home lives. I try to do that with whatever kids pass through my life, because many people played that role for me and probably helped me be able to get to where I am today, instead of being much worse off.

      2. BigDogLittleCat

        I hear you, and agree that supporting the parent(s) is often a best way to support the child.
        It’s Stacy’s complete blindness to her daughter’s trauma that pisses me off. It’s one thing to not do better because you don’t have the emotional tools; it’s another to not even notice.
        Amber’s behavior when she returned to school after the stabbing should have told Stacy there was something seriously wrong with Amber. Everything Amber said and did indicated she was suffering emotionally. But for all her lip service to supporting her, Stacy immediately went for the donuts, and suggested that eating a donut was what Amber needed because it was her blood sugar.
        It doesn’t matter whether Stacy has the skillset to help Amber: she doesn’t apparently have the skillset to *notice.*

        Maybe that’s just the way she is, for whatever reason, so it’s not “blame” but she’s still pretty much useless.

        1. Needfuldoer

          I wonder if she’s just that oblivious, or if brushing off and ignoring trauma is a defense mechanism she built up to deal with Blaine for 20-ish years…

        2. Regalli

          I’d also lay good money Blaine either picks people who already buy into the stigma against therapy, actively cultivates the attitude it won’t help them, or both.

          ‘Cause if they start talking to someone and processing things, it can undo all the hard work he’s put in making them feel they’re nothing. Plus he doesn’t want to pay alimony.

        3. Regalli

          Not that she shouldn’t be DRAMATICALLY MORE WORRIED about Amber’s mental health than she clearly is, but if Stacy’s so completely missing the tools to recognize her own issues, much less Amber’s, that would explain quite a bit.

        4. Leorale

          Moms are people, and some people are dumb.
          Stacey is just not the sharpest tool in the shed.
          It’s usually pretty OK to not be smart, but here, her optimistic spaciness caused her to not help Amber enough, so we really don’t like that impact. I don’t think Stacey knows how she could’ve helped, but if she realizes a way she failed to help, she probably feels terrible about it.
          OTOH, she got herself and her kid away from living with a horrible abusive husband. I can’t hardly imagine how hard that was. Smart or otherwise; Stacey deserves a ton of respect for getting Amber and herself outta there.

        5. thejeff

          Yeah, I’ve got to agree with that. Breaking free is a big deal on its own, even if she’s not getting Amber the support she needs. Or likely getting herself the help she needs.

    2. He Who Abides

      I’m going to point out that, according to Amber, Stacy was also being abused by Blaine. I dislike Stacy’s unintentional neglect of her daughter’s mental health, but I weigh that against wwhat Blaine was doing to her.

      1. Lex

        Not only according to Amber – Blaine himself admits to it, albeit he doesn’t call it abuse. “You’re too much like your simpering mother. Touch her once and she quits.” https://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/04-just-hangin-out-with-my-family/strength/

    3. Rani

      My first impression with Stacy was when she ditched her daughter on Parents’ Weekend to hook up with Richard, which meant Amber had to deal with Blaine on her own. Again. Which led to its own set of unintended consequences. I was not terribly fond of Stacy as a mother from that point on.

      Where-ever Stacy is on the bad parent leaderboard, it’s almost certainly not because of anything productive she brought to the table when it mattered.

      1. BBCC

        I feel like this is unfair. Nobody could’ve known Blaine would show up, in defiance of the fact he was not allowed in the building. She did tell Amber she would see her later and came to take her to dinner.

        Stacey is oblivious to a lot of the worst of Amber’s mental illnesses, yes, but she helped take Amber a long way from the social anxiety wreck she was at 13 to the more confident woman she is now. Yes, she still has anxiety often, but she’s come a long way. Stacey also risked her life leaving Blaine. There’s never a more dangerous time in an abusive relationship than when you leave and she succeeded in keeping Blaine away for the last three years. As for Amber’s dissociation, it’s been markedly worse and worse over time. At the comic, I don’t think Amber herself even noticed it, so I think it’s unfair to fault Stacey for not knowing about it when she doesn’t even live in the same town as Amber was in when most of the major mental health episodes are in.

  26. Bagge

    I like how Stacy is all “yup, know what I’m doing, doing it anyway!”

    1. Zee

      She needs a good immature laugh

  27. Aprion

    come on, she walked right into that one. There were warning signs a mile high. XD

    1. DailyBrad

      I think if she just said it once, it’d have probably been whatever, but she just keeps saying it.

  28. Megan Rivera

    TO BE FAIR…………I laughed too

    1. TemplarKnight

      To be FAAAAAAAAaaaaaiiiiIIIIIIRRRRR. . .

  29. RacingTurtle

    …Stacy is probably only about 40 years old.

    I have horrific visions of a new half-sibling for Amber.

    1. Nah

      What will win, the circle head genes or the square head genes?

      1. Megan Rivera

        EXCUSE ME those heads are clearly rectangles *pushes up nerd glasses*

      2. Psyme

        Squircle

      3. Chronos

        Triangle, oddly enough. If they manage one after that, they’ll get an octagon.

  30. Ophidiophile

    Stacy: He makes me laugh.

    1. AGV

      *cough*and climax too*cough*

  31. BenRG

    Yeah, sorry, Amber, that was an unintentionally funny thing to say, especially for someone with the Rosenthal’s mindset. I do think that Stacey likes Richard for his sophomoric mind, though!

  32. NinjaNick

    I like Richard’s sense of humor. He does fill the “dad-shaped hole” well. 😛

    1. JasonAW3

      That’s what SHE said…

  33. Chris Phoenix

    Irony. Ah, the irony.

    Yesterday I mused about a Faz/Joe ship – and made it clear that I wasn’t serious because Faz was too vulnerable to be shipped with anyone, in several ways including age. Someone objected (having apparently missed that Faz was retconned from 14 to 16).

    Now, one day later, Amber’s stepdad-to-be, who’s known to be attracted to women significantly younger than himself, makes an incest joke to her and laughs at it.

    Sorry to anyone who was genuinely creeped out by my suggestion… but I think Richard has me beat on creepy humor. And I was surprised how much of the comment section seems to have found Richard funny.

    So Willis, thanks for making me look good by comparison.

    1. Zee

      It’s not so much an incest joke as it is that she kept talking about filling a joke and that’s funny

  34. Peter

    Honestly, I’d be much more worried if they hadn’t guffawed at that line.

  35. Nymphie

    I woke up my partner with the ugly snort i made at the third panel

  36. coma

    Some people’s minds live in the gutter. I’m just wondering if they’re going to say sorry in the next panels.

    Also reminds me of the time I held a short speech at my sister’s wedding (it was improvised – yeah, I already know better now – and was just supposed to be a funny, innocent anecdote). Anyway, I said something along the lines of how I had to force my sister to finally say goodnight to her now-husband on the phone as a teenager, because we shared a room and I wanted to sleep. As soon as I said “speaking on the phone with him in bed” some guys (colleague-friends of the husband) burst out laughing.
    “And I’m just like WTH did I say?” and finish with toast etc.
    To later have it explained to me by my sister that their thoughts immediately jumped to phone sex. As if I would be mentioning something like that at my sister’s wedding! I’m still angry about that.

    1. Geneseepaws

      Just because a thought crosses my mind, doesn’t mean I need to tell other people about it. I’d be mad about that too.

  37. Keulen

    Dumbing of Age Book 10: Filling Your Dad-Shaped Hole

  38. DarkoNeko

    pfffthahaha

  39. Bagge

    We need Billie and Joyce for this conversation

    https://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/02-choosing-my-religion/holes-2/

  40. Miri

    I interpreted it as “filling a dad-shaped hole [in my mother]” and Amber not recognising a vagina and this being funny, rather than an incest joke…

  41. LittleMountain

    Props to Richard and Joe for holding it together longer than not at all.

  42. C.T Phipps

    Joedad forever.

    Best parent along with Stacy!

  43. Keith

    (snerk) Honestly, I’ve few friends who’d not cackle at that once it hit them…and I do mean cackle. I have high standards for low humor and glass door jokes.

  44. FacelessDeviant

    I mean, know your audience and have some better timing with the dad jokes. Maybe joking about incest should at least wait until Amber isnt in a possibly emotionally vulnerable state and Dr Rosenthal is sure that she hasn’t actually experienced any of that trauma of which he jokes.

    Other than that, perhaps a good harsh joke is what is needed to break the tense mood and get them all thinking about something else than Blaine.

    1. FacelessDeviant

      It also serves well as to give Amber a pointer to what she will be dealing with in the future.

    2. James

      For better or worse I almost guarantee Richard and Joe aren’t actually considering the possible implications here beyond “hurr hurr, hole filling, it’s funny because sex”

  45. JessWitt

    Well, Richard’s heart is in the right place at least.

    No, not the junk. His brain already pays rent there.

  46. Josh Spicer

    To be fair that one was obvious.

    Not that Amber should EXPECT this, but given who her audience is it was a pretty easy target.

  47. Deanatay

    Sorry, Amber, but this was gonna happen. They’re trying to be respectful and all, but “Dad-shaped hole” was just too good to pass up.

  48. Rabisch

    I love this man♡.

  49. ziggy78eog

    I have the feeling, that despite his character flaws, Richard is going to be the better, “father figure”, for Amber, than Blaine ever was.l

    1. Kunglebund

      he may have flaws, but im pretty sure that if you went down the list you wouldn’t find
      Murderer
      Attempted mass murderer
      Kidnapper
      Stalker
      etc
      etc

    2. Eldritchy

      It takes a lot of concentrated effort to be a worse father figure than Blaine… He might have many of the “bad anime fathers” beat. He might have to get into a fist fight with Gendo over who is a worse father.

      1. Abbe_Faria

        Heck not even Gendo, Yujiro Hanma comes off as a better father then Blaine.

        1. Eldritchy

          And Blaine stands no chance against him, double win.

      2. Kamino Neko

        Blaine is not Gendo Ikari. Blaine is Shou Tucker.

        1. Eldritchy

          Yup

  50. Jinx

    I really like this webcomic, but I must admit it was nice to actually laugh at the strip for a change. =)

  51. JasonAW3

    You know what? I’m not even gonna dis them for that… Filling a “dad shaped hole” is funny…

  52. Dracke

    I love this familly

  53. Pocky

    hey, at least she always knows how to make her step dad laugh at family get togethers. . .

  54. Amias

    Damn, Richard in the last panel might be my favorite facial expression in the comic to date. The face made me laugh at least as much as the punch line.

  55. Lingo

    Stacy’s wide-eyed smile and chipper little “yep!” are killing me here. I’m dead!

  56. Victor Riley

    When did they get engaged? I must have forgotten that…

  57. Needfuldoer

    Ah yes, phrasing. The Rosenthals’ weakness.

  58. Chrissy

    Yeah… I hate both of them for this. This level of callous disregard for the trauma she just went through is sociopathy.

  59. Joshua Kronengold

    So…”before the end of the year” as a rollover text.

    Is that a note on the pace of the comic? Or is there are reason Stacy’s pushing the marriage to be that fast?

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