501

Speechimifier
Posted on January 23, 2024 by David M Willis

501 thoughts on “Speechimifier”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    only thing that would’ve been better would have been “Okay, boomer”

    as is, peak efficiency of unspoken “fuck you”!

    1. UrsulaDavina

      Honestly based on the floating time scale Linda may be just a gen xer maybe even an elder mellinial at this point.

      1. Doctor_Who

        Youngsters call anyone older than them a boomer, though.

        1. Carl Muckenhoupt

          What’s even more fun is using it on people younger than you. They can’t even complain that you’re using it wrong, because by calling them a boomer you’ve already preemptively disregarded anything they say!

        2. Dr. Sharks

          On an unrelated note, nice rhombic dodecahedron. That’s probably my favorite isohedron, though pentagonal icositetrahedrons are pretty high up there too.

        3. ShellShockBP

          Older than 40: boomer
          Younger than 40: millennial

          This is the way.

        4. Plain Marie

          Nah. I’m pushing 60, and I’m still not actually a Boomer. Gen X: The Forgotten Generation. *wipes away tear* (I’m being a little snarky. :D)

        5. David DeLaney

          Am 59, and basically the last of the Boomers.

          –Dave, embrace your inner Boom Tube

        6. Chris (the other one)

          I’ve always understood those born post WWII and before 1965 are considered the ‘baby boom” generation. I was born in March 1964 and am from the last year of the boomer generation.

          If Walky and Sal are 18, as Freshmen, and if their parents had them at 25 (because Linda was married before, right?) then their parents were born approximately 33 years ago.

          From today, that means their parents were born in 1991-ish. Millennials.
          Of course, with the sliding scale, perhaps they are actually Generation X.
          Either way, they are NOT boomers. Unless their dad and mom are both freaking 60 and had them when they were 40, but I’m not buying that.

        7. Tormyr Cousland

          18+25=43
          Which would place them around 1981.

        8. Chris (the other one)

          Heh, math not my strong suit. You’re right. 80’s. Big hair. Woohoo.

        9. Ereshkigal

          My parents had me when they were 40 and 41, so it’s definitely feasible!

        10. Li

          There’s a lot of fearmongering around women having babies after 35, but the risks are still pretty low, and people can definitely still have healthy kids when they’re in their forties. It is possible.

          But yeah you have done your math incorrectly, if their parents had been born 33 years ago, then they had Walky and Sal when they were 15, not 25.

        11. Allen Alberti

          still wouldn’t recommend it. my mom was 42 when I was born and I have all kinds of hormonal issues. based on my highly scientific and correct sample size of 1, it’s not so great.

        12. Kelibath

          My parents had ME at 22 and 21, after my gran had mum at 37 and she was relatively okay (possibly has EDS, but undiagnosed). I’m messed UP. So…

        13. zee

          My parents had me at 39 and 41 :/
          And Joyce’s parents are 60

        14. Librain

          I can’t imagine, having had a baby once, wanting to have it again two years later… I applaud your parent’s dedication to getting it right this time!

        15. Kazuma Taichi

          no, I am not old enough to have children college age, please recheck your math

        16. Nothri

          Nope. I’m 42 and technically considered a millennial by the arbitrary criteria by which we separate our generations. I’m on the tail end of it though.

        17. zee

          Boomers a state of mind

        18. DaisyFM

          If you own property, you’re a boomer. If you make a living making YouTube essays, you’re a zoomer.

          If you’re trans, you’re a millenial.

          I think that covers everyone.

      2. Laura

        Millenial, I’m pretty sure.

        1. Laura

          Or X-ennial, right on the cusp.

        2. HueSatLight

          Linda watched Ducktales (1987) after getting home from elementary school.

        3. cbwroses

          Which equates to what in the generation labels?
          Because I’ve been wondering myself, and I haven’t found anything clear cut.

        4. AbacusWizard

          I like the label “Oregon Trail Generation” myself.

        5. David DeLaney

          i am Lode Runner/Tetris Generation

          except those were after I got to college and had my own PC

          technically I’m from the Pong / 4-function calculator age

        6. BarerMender

          I’m of the “Number, please!” generation. I didn’t miss by much the crank phone generation. My dad used to visit an old army buddy farther up in the mountains who had such a phone.

        7. PedanticJerkass

          May she die of dysentery.

        8. HueSatLight

          Xennial. Cusp between X and Millennial. Generation divisions, for statistical reasons, are about 15 years apart, and are kind of arbitrary. X is generally 65-80, Millennial 80-95. Xennenial is about the 5-6 years around 1980.

          Two people born in 1979 and 1981 in the same region are probably going to have more in common than two born in 1979 and 1966 or two in 1981 and 1994.

        9. Kelibath

          Sadly, she identified with Scrooge.

      3. Victor Riley

        We of Gen X do not claim Linda. You can have her.

        She’s ineligible due to Section 4, Paragraph 9… The “Don’t be a Dick” clause.

        1. Essex

          the millennial faction also return her, she is a boomer regardless of her age.

        2. David DeLaney

          oh no you don’t. i’m punting her to the flappers of the Roaring ’20s, preemptively.

        3. BarerMender

          Every generation has the don’t-be-a-dick clause, and every generation ignores it.

        4. Ed Callahan

          The strip’s sliding time scale works best if you don’t overthink it.

        5. Plain Marie

          Darn straight.

        6. morleuca

          I am always distressed by the number of Gen Xers that so desperately cling to and need that Boomer approval that they are will emulate the sundowners as much as they can. Regardless of the glaring fact that that approval is never going to come.

        7. Puppeteer Nessus

          Gen x here. A lot of us do what you describe and for the life of me I can’t figure it out.

        8. Laura

          Um… “sundowners”? Really?

          I’m hoping you don’t mean that as a reference to dementia. Is there another usage of that term that I’m missing?

        9. Laura

          Like, people who lived in “sundown towns”? I’m not following. Sorry.

      4. jhennaside

        Probably Gen-X – though some people place the line between them and Millennial in different years – I’m a 1981 baby and USUALLY I am Elder Millennial.

        It’s possible she had her kids young to young-ish, but people in my age group also chose to finish college and wait a bit too, so seems less likely she’s Elder Millennial, BUT totally possible.

      5. Vulcanodon

        Definite boomer here; “Boomer” is a state of mind. Sadly I know some young people who think like my generation.

    2. anon

      or if they instantly get into a relatively harmless car accident 5 mins later and walky’s ‘stuck’ with them for another day lol

    3. Crow

      That is absolutely not something I’d ever say to an older person I was trying to have a serious conversation with

      1. morleuca

        No but once they’ve dismissed what you are saying by playing the “respect your elders” card, then it is jo longer a serious conversation.

    4. Eric J Ehlers

      It WAS peak FU until it started being used to refer to ANYONE saying ANYTHING that you wanted to discount out of hand.

      I’ve practically written an essay on this phenomenon.

      1. David DeLaney

        all together now: “okay, boomer”

        1. David DeLaney

          (I find it works best in response to someone being both serious and hyperbolic)

    5. Mturtle7

      I totally get this reaction, but no, in this context, just a simple “okay” is much better. Walky isn’t trying to start a fight. He’s not taunting Linda, or mocking her, or threatening her, or even insulting her, really!
      He is calmly, respectfully, and honestly communicating with Linda about a change in his own feelings and beliefs. Quite possibly for the first time in his life, he’s deliberately putting his integrity and ethics above his need to have fun and feel good about himself. Being all like “fuckkkkk youuuuuu” or “OK Boomer lol” would be super cathartic and self-righteous, but that’s the exact opposite of what he’s going for! I makes me really happy to see him choosing to be mature, instead.

  2. Mym

    Drive off a cliff

    1. Animedingo

      Let the dad out first

      1. Mym

        Complicity will not be rewarded. He stays in the car.

        1. Schpoonman

          I think he’s driving.

        2. Mym

          Do something good for once, Charles, and drive the car off a cliff

        3. Schpoonman

          Groundhog’s Day is coming up, surely Charles grew up on Bill Murray.

        4. Plain Marie

          Eat your vegetables!
          Don’t tease your sister!
          Don’t drive on the railroad tracks!

        5. lightsabermario

          Hey wait, that one I actually agree with.

        6. DudeMyDadOwnsADealership

          Same chance of Linda apologizing to Sal for how she treated her…

        7. wwwhhattt

          https://tenor.com/ja/view/leespoons-cliff-richard-young-ones-look-out-cliff-bus-gif-14609866

        8. PedanticJerkass

          https://tenor.com/view/explode-train-train-wreck-gif-15622571

        9. Roborat

          Is Charles middle name Toonces?

      2. David DeLaney

        he’ll just jump off after her

        –Dave, while frowning

  3. Dave Van Domelen

    Walkyverse version of mom was an actual war criminal IIRC, and she’s still winning the “best Walky mom” contest here.

    1. John Campbell

      Yeah, seriously, how is the Linda who committed actual genocide and was complicit in human experimentation on children the more likeable one?

      1. Nono

        I dunno, she definitely was not a good mom to Beef.

        1. Miri

          She decided that the best way to protect Sal was to swap her at birth with another child. While that child was outwardly given a loving childhood, they were explicitly taken to be put in danger in Sal’s stead. To be seen as a target instead of Walky.

          Poor Beef! Linda never loved him more than she saw him as expendable…

      2. Thag Simmons

        Those crimes are a lot more fantastical and disconnected from reality than being shitty to your son’s black girlfriend.

        1. kraenieldamage

          It’s like why people hate Umbridge more than Voldemort. Voldemort is the almost comical extreme of a villain, a very clear cut “This is a bad guy in a fantasy setting” and not someone that you encounter too much in real life. Umbridge on the other hand, she is the evil that we encounter on a day to day. The teacher who silences the students, the one who punishes you for telling the truth, the one who slanders respected authority figures and drives people away from their homes to better suit her image of what life should be. This Linda is the Umbridge, the villain we encounter in our day to day life that has gotten away with it too easily.

        2. PedanticJerkass

          Where are the centaurs when we really need them?

        3. Freemage

          Um… Have you read THAT Cracked article, re: Centaurs and Umbridge?

        4. Casi

          Yet another example of “JKR Is a horrible human being” to go in the binder.

        5. Librain

          I really want there to be a “binder” pun in there regarding JKR and trans people…

        6. Freemage

          If by that you mean, “Things people read into JKR’s writing that she never explicitly stated and then decided she’s a horrible person for that,” sure.

        7. Uly

          Geez, freemage, it’s not exactly super hidden subtext.

        8. Freemage

          It’s an amusing theory, maybe even a plausible one, except that JKR was explicitly writing a series of children’s novels, and it’s unlikely an ardent feminist would have her heroes actually consign someone to be raped. Also, let’s face it, while Umbridge was certainly showing signs of psychological trauma upon her return, she was not a mass of bruises and broken bones, which, simply put, any actual sexual assault by a horse-human hybrid would’ve caused.
          She was terrified and traumatized, and likely put in fear of her life, but no, she wasn’t raped.

        9. James

          I mean, I’ll posit that Voldemort *was* a cartoonishly extreme villain.

      3. Zach

        Because she was facing the annihilation of earth from multiple fronts and didn’t expect her children to see adulthood.

      4. JA

        DoA is the first Willis comic I read, never got around to reading the others other than part of Roomies!. I feel like I missed out on a lot.

        1. Psychie

          It is *very* worth it on several fronts, it can be a bit tricky to get over the hump of Roomies, but once the aliens get involved things pick up quick and go hard all the way to the end. Strong recommend.

        2. wwwhhattt

          It’s really weird reading it after reading DoA though. Everything feels so rushed, storylines that people reminisce about pass in the blink of an eye

        3. Imogen

          You do definitely see problems in common but more pronounced, too. Tone has always been a bit wonky for the Walkyverse. Before we had the Evil League of Dads, we had Head Alien.

        4. Li

          Honestly tho like. The superhero hijinx were always part of DoA. Willis tried to warn people by having Amazi-Girl show up super early, specifically so that no one would complain that it didn’t belong in this comic. Didn’t work. ? I feel bad for them about it.

        5. Imogen

          No, yeah, the tone problems are absolutely, like… a feature, not a bug. It is clearly a style Willis enjoys–the extreme discordance of “this absurd little alien guy is now gleefully explaining his campaign of murder and abuse and we’re supposed to take it seriously”.

          I think it’s in that complicated area where, like. It’s a directorial choice. It’s not an accident, But I still feel like it’s kind of a mistake. Like Book of Henry.

        6. Li

          What did poor Willis ever do to merit being compared to The Book of Henry (wherein the creative team definitely thinks they nailed a delicate tonal balance)

        7. Li

          Now now, don’t mislead the nice people. The aliens show up almost immediately in Roomies, deliberately written to seem like a throwaway joke, and it’s a whiiiile before there’s any action around them.

          I had an okay time reading the old stuff, specifically because the pre-Shortpacked comics mostly have commentary attached, talking about what Willis was trying to achieve, and how well they think it does or doesn’t work.

          I liked it so much that the transition to Shortpacked, which isn’t a reprint and has VERY little commentary, was really disappointing and a lot harder to read even though I enjoyed it when I first read it! I bought hard copies of DoA in the hopes that there would be similar commentary.

          (Alas, not really; it’s more like there are usually different versions of alt text, so like a sentence per comic. And sometimes it’s the same sentence that was the original alt text.) (But it was kind of a pipe dream, because that kind of extensive commentary isn’t what every reader would even want, and the space in a physical book is much more limited, and you couldn’t ask readers to just ignore it if they’re new to the story, the way you can ask them to ignore commentary on a website.)

        8. thejeff

          Plus, at least when the books first come out, he doesn’t have the necessary distance from the material to write that kind of commentary. Can’t judge it the same way as coming back to it well over a decade later.

        9. Li

          Also true. I want a director’s cut product that can’t possibly exist for like another decade 8( but I WANT it…!

        10. Psychie

          I wasn’t misleading anybody, I legit forgot that the aliens showed up early on as a throw away gag. But also, maybe I was getting through it faster because I didn’t bother reading the commentary most of the time, but I remember getting all the way to the point where stuff picked up in like an hour of reading, so not really all that much to get through.

          Still don’t like the accusation of misleading anybody, though. I acknowledge Roomies was hard to get through, but the rest was good, obviously some peoples’ tastes will differ, but I feel, generally speaking, if someone likes DoA they’ll probably like the Walkiverse too.

        11. HueSatLight

          I read it to kind of see how Willis’ mentality changed over time. I also kind of think I read Roomies when it first came out, but stopped with the mood whiplash from tragedy to wacky sci-fi alien hijinks. I got a little further into the early alien stuff, but I definitely skipped a bunch of it, too much to slog through without the stuff that interested me.

        12. AbacusWizard

          Definitely worth the archive-binge if you can make time for it. And it will make this mouseover make a lot more sense too.

        13. clif

          But… but … but…

          It’s not raining!

        14. BarerMender

          After I found DOA I read part of Roomies, and read the other one until they killed Dina and never mentioned her again, and then I said, “Fuck these people. I hate em all.”

      5. DudeMyDadOwnsADealership

        Same way Charles is the more likable one here. Neither are Willy Loman’s white-collar(ish) howling harpy counterpart…

        1. BarerMender

          Charles seems to have come down on the wrong side. Again.

        2. Archieve

          Because he doesn’t see it as the wrong side.

        3. Plain Marie

          Also, Charles has to go home with Linda, and he’s at least as conflict avoidant as Walky. I’m sure he’s been trained well, avoiding her stink eyes.

        4. David DeLaney

          technically he doesn’t have to go home eith Linda

          –Dave, Hiding Becky II: Parental Boogaloo

        5. DudeMyDadOwnsADealership

          That’s what he gets out of his being in cahoots with Linda.

          When the kind of people they want to impress get disgusted with the type of couple they are, it’s all on Linda while Charles is still seen as a “nice man” because the concept of someone’s true colors, moral and otherwise, amounting what they do or don’t do when the heat is on is something too dark and too indistinct for the public to be down with.

          It helps to think of Charles as an extension of Linda, as she is the one who starts things while he just supports and makes excuses for her in whatever she does.

          It could also be argued while what Walky did was dumb for his prospects, it also was generous for his relationship with his father communication-wise. Linda may lack her husband’s capacity for being nice, but her perception of herself and her standing in the World around her isn’t any more distorted than his…And I stand behind the Wily Loman comparison…

        6. James

          Yeah, honestly not sure where people have gotten the idea that this is a direct repeat of Joyce’s parents. Unless I missed something, there hasn’t been a real good indication that Charles is anything but on board with Linda’s BS, just quieter about it.

      6. Miri

        Including on *her* children!

        But she wasn’t a racist!

  4. BBCC

    Yeah, this is the only way this was going to go.

  5. Red

    Wow truly Linda’s mad faces (also the ones from the restaurant) are just terrifying to me. Phew.

    1. Dara

      yeaaaaaaah that’s some bad shit right there

      she is … not the forgiving type

    2. Weatherheight

      Yeah, that face promises enduring and vicious punisment/torment.
      Got a “Linda” surrogate or two in my life (harder to get rid of than you’d think.sometimes) and that face is one I see more often than I’d wish.

      1. Freemage

        Linda has a big, BIG hammer she could hit him with, too:

        “Well, Walkerton, you clearly have some strong ethical principles here. And I won’t try to cause you to sully them by accepting money from a racist such as myself. Here’s the information you’ll need to pay for your next semester. I’m sure you can figure out how to raise the money, what with you knowing everything and all.”

        1. Bryy

          That is fucking exactly what is going to happen.

        2. Amelie Wikström

          No no, the stigma of having a child even potentially failing college is far too much of a real consequence compared to a child having a low opinion of you. Are kids’ opinions even real?

          I think Linda would rather have him killed as a last resort. Why let him be an embarrassment to her social circles if he can be a gripping tragedy?

        3. Arillius

          You underestimate
          A.) the privilege and vehemence that people like her live with
          B.) their spitefulness
          C.) their ability to rationalize anything as a form of ‘teaching’. They already sent one kid to a boarding school, they’re absolutely willing to punish the other with shameful things.

        4. James

          Also she would do it 100% assuming Walky would cave rather than drop out somehow.

        5. Arillius

          I said it on the last page. Walky is a brave, noble idiot. He should have taken her for everything she was worth as a kid and then ditched her the moment he was set up.

    3. zee

      That’s such a malicious face that you should never make at your own kid. That’s a demon right there

  6. NGPZ

    Charles really is in the Sunken Place ain’t he? ?

    1. Animedingo

      He has become used to its shackles

      1. Archieve

        He’s whole identity is being the husband to a women who will drop you like a hot potatoes if you don’t agree with her and unfortunately he values that (alongside with internalized racism) above his children who are clearly just being disrespectful in his eyes.

        1. Plain Marie

          Whew. This is so sad. Don’t start/stay with that person. Don’t be that person either.

    2. True Survivor

      I originally read that as “Sunken Palace,” which is apparently an ancient subterrain cistern in Istanbul. It is very cool, but I could not for the life of me figure out what it had to do with this situation.

      The Sunken Place makes way more sense, though I still had to look up what that was – horror movies are not for me. I’m the kind of person who finds their cinematography and plots fascinating, but can only read about those things off Wikipedia.

      1. Casi

        As a white person who comes the culture that is depicted in Get Out, that movie was a hell of a lot more terrifying for me than it was for my POC friends because i *know* people like that. It’s a great movie, and while it is Horror, it’s not your typical horror movie, it honestly feels like it’s own subgenre of horror

    3. Envy

      Idk, I think it’s worth noting that he didn’t tell Walky he was wrong or defend Linda’s character, just told him to apologize.

      1. NGPZ

        Apologize for what? Speaking the truth? Speaking *his* truth? Doing as Charles told him?

        Charles is automatically taking Linda’s side out of undue influence, cowardice and hypocrisy.

        1. asmodai27

          I wouldn’t say he is taking Linda’s side.
          My take is he is asking for an apology not because it is wrong but because he percieved the presentation as rude, and he wants Walky to apologise because he knows it would make Linda leave on slightly better terms with his son, which is a win-win for him and Walky.

          And although that is how most people behave on the internet, being right does not grant you the permission to be rude!

          I am not saying Walky has to apologise, but I can see why Charles wants him to, and I can see ways that Walky could have approached the subject to appear less rude, and make his parents hear his very valid points with a more open mind.
          Starting the conversation with “you are racist” has put Linda’s defenses up for the whole scene, which means she probably did not really hear anything her son was saying.

        2. eh, whatever

          And apologizing would magically undo that?

        3. Daibhid C

          No, Linda would still dismiss everything Walky had said. But it would no longer be an ongoing situation, and Charles’s win condition is for any form of conflict to go away.

        4. zee

          He didn’t do anything to appear rude. He just didn’t super coat it. He spoke to them bluntly, honestly and mostly confidently. Which is a good thing. But to shitty parents like Linda and Charles, daring to talk to them like an adult and not a whimpering child is rude in and of itself

        5. David DeLaney

          combine this with “Walky is at least eighteen here” and you also run into the nasty he-is-my-child-forever syndrome parents can exhibit. Walky will be a child to them well into his 40s, it looks like.

        6. Bryy

          It says A LOT about Charles if his response isn’t to agree or disagree with his own kid, but to simply state “children do not talk to their parents like that”.

        7. Arillius

          This is something the right wing and the democratic party both do when confronted with uncomfortable truths. They frame it as rude. It’s just a tactic to avoid the conversation.

        8. Mark

          Possibly. Or maybe Charles is just parenting. “Don’t speak sharply to your elders” is generally good advice to the young.

          However: this situation is one of those exceptions that test the rule. I think Charles is in the wrong here because he’s applying the admonition thoughtlessly. Walky is showing respect to his mother by telling her something she needs to hear. Clamming up and swallowing the truth would be disrespectful.

          I think Charles is also making the mistake that nearly all parents make at some point: remembering our young adult offspring as the children they were instead of who they are — people with a modicum of experience and the beginnings of wisdom.

        9. Amelie Wikström

          “I apologize for speaking in a quiet, measured and direct manner. I definitely should have yelled more so mom could win at this conversation by being the calm one.”

    4. anon

      wondr if hes even keeping in mind what sal said to him about him not ‘fighting’ for her or whatever

      1. GholaHalleck

        I’m betting he’s going to spend this car ride thinking about what the kids have said. Maybe he’ll digest it and grow, maybe he’ll be a coward and cave in.

        But this is the first time he’s really been pointedly told his wife is a racist bongo, and by *both* of his children.

        If Linda gets into a rant about how the kids are acting and he’s trapped in the car with her? It might be epiphany time.

  7. Diane

    I’m proud of Walky standing his ground, especially since he’s on his own, and his mom had his dad, as expected. I’m very glad when his father said “Apologize” he basically went “No, and you’re why I won’t.”

    1. Puppeteer Nessus

      Yes, and the clarification that he knows no convincing will be done is good. Especially when paired with “It’s just how things are whether you’re on board or not.” Difficult to argue with.

      1. Psychie

        Yeah, the only thing that could have made it better would be if he capped off a reply to the “before you say anything else you regret” with “I don’t regret anything I’ve said so far, and I’m not going to.” Before they got in the car and drove off, too bad he didn’t, she might get it in her head that he regrets these actions and expect him to apologize later and thus cause further conflicts with her unreasonable expectations.

        1. Archieve

          It would have also been good if he had told Linda that she only makes herself look worse trying to use her husband and Obama as proof of not being racist but on the other hand Charles response was even weaker, he doesn’t even try to offer an argument and Walky gets to remind him of his own words he used behind Linda’s back which might have saved Walky from Linda further escalation on Linda’s part as he seemed to be reaching his limit.

        2. TulipKitten

          If Walky was someone who cares about getting in the last word, but this is honestly a hilariously irreverent response. Sometimes the best thing to do is just not to give the dynamic the energy. He’s basically letting his mom stew, and not giving her the satisfaction of his time or energy into her. And that is an even bigger “fuck you”, in my opinion.

        3. Archieve

          Indeed twice now Linda has been denied the delusion of being the “calm” one.

        4. Mark

          People here seem to think this scene is a rational debate. It is not. There might be one later if enough hot emotion can drain out of the relationship.

        5. Proxiehunter

          You say that as if there’s room for debate when Walky is simply objectively correct here.

    2. Rook

      Walky didn’t stand his ground. He couldn’t even say what he really should say. You don’t need to do a speech, just state the truth. Instead he meekly bleeted out a few statements and let them go. Me, I would have said no you are not, you are going to hear everything I got to say, when they said they are leaving.
      Walky pretty much useless. When Linda said I voted for Obama, I would have been like, and what exactly does that prove? He did nothing but anger her and now she gonna feel she was absolutely right that Lucy is not the right person for Walky. Walky lost this one way before it even started.

      1. Diane

        I consider it standing his ground because he didn’t run away or start groveling. He said what he wanted to say and wouldn’t back down/apologize. He is 17/18 years old, he’s barely an adult. And you want him to fight a war against two people who just stated they won’t accept what he’s saying all on his own. He doesn’t want to escalate, just educate. Not everything has to become a fight.

      2. modus

        Yeah, sure, but… how is Walky (of all people) supposed to enforce that? “No you are not, you are going to hear everything I got to say” only works when you have some kind of way of preventing people from exercising their free will and leaving- which, gotta say, if that’s the case, you’re the “bad guy” really. None of this disputes, however, that Walky is in the right here and the other two are quite obviously wrong.

      3. zee

        What’s he supposed to do, get in the car? Stand in front of it? For a conversation that’s gonna go nowhere anyway? I’m very sure if it was you, you would have been so tough and brave, and you would have debated Linda’s racism away with facts and logic and then everyone would clap. But Walkys not you. Walkys been abused by and witness worse abuse against his sister by this woman his whole life. He is visibly terrified of her every time she comes up. What he did was amazing. He was never going to change her mind, that shouldn’t even be a metric. This is the biggest, fattest W for him and I’m proud of him

      4. Mturtle7

        It’s not about winning, or being useful! When you’re in a situation like Walky’s, it’s usually much more ‘useful’ to lie and manipulate your parents in order to get what you want from them, and only let your real beliefs show when they’re not around. Like presenting them with a shitty fake white girlfriend so that they’ll be more amenable to your actual black girlfriend. Like ignoring their racist comments in the moment, and only complaining about them to your friends afterwards. Like smilingly accepting their excessive gifts, and then handing it over to your underappreciated sister afterwards.
        If Walky’s relationship with his parents is a game, he’s been winning his whole damn life. This scene is him finally gathering enough strength and maturity to LOSE.

      5. Lan

        And I bet everyone would have clapped for you, right?

  8. TrueVCU

    War were declared

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      For Great Justice!

      1. David DeLaney

        To the cafeteria!

        –Dave, for badly-needed tacos!

  9. Yumi

    Shocking that she took that poorly!

    I’m honestly laughing over her glare in the penultimate panel.

    1. anon

      i mean if she did take it well, i imagine most of the commenters won’t believe her or just that she’s saying it in the moment to placate him, tho even with ‘baby steps’ or so, i wouldn’t put it past her to play the long game and just attempting to be more subtle

      Tho i’d still find it funny if walky dated some ‘trashy’ white girls again after this or at least just make out with asher once in front of them

  10. UrsulaDavina

    That is a sith lord death stare there, and by sith standards it does its job the hate is flowing through me towards Linda.

    1. BarerMender

      I’d say she’s thinking revenge. What will it be: slapping him off the money nipple? (Thanks to J.P. Donleavy for that phrase.) Slapping them both off? Reporting his grade cheating? Going after Amber again? Or something worse?

      1. anon

        it’d be pretty fucked up of her but i can imagine her ‘only’ punishing sal to guilt trip walky over it

      2. GholaHalleck

        She can’t really do anything to him school wise without it coming back to look badly on her. if she pulls the chord, he tells everyone why, and her visual of best mom/perfect family caves in. she’s all about the perceived look the Walkertons give out. It’s why she sent Sal away. Tossing her “good boy” to the wolves is just terrible metrics.

  11. NGPZ

    what the, since when did it become “report comment” instead of “flag”? 😮

    1. True Survivor

      I don’t know. Maybe ‘flag’ was too confusing? I could totally see somebody who did not know better interpreting ‘flag’ as marking it as especially cool, or a way to save that comment somewhere to be easily recalled and enjoyed later. ‘Report comment’ seems more clearly negative.

      1. Agemegos

        “Denounce comment” would be clearer still. 😉

        A divider of some sort between “Reply” and “Report”, such as ” | ” would be helpful, I think.

        1. Mark

          Just what I was thinking. People have complained for years that Reply and Flag were too close together. I’m sure that someone has said “I didn’t understand what Flag means” but I can’t recall an instance.

          I imagine that it’s particularly hard to hit the right one consistently on a phone screen or whatever the kids are using nowadays. It’s hard enough with a mouse and a 24″ screen. Such very different controls need much separation, both spatially and visually.

      2. Jeremiah

        And I remember when in almost every other strip people apologized for accidentally flagging comments, so maybe that happens less now that it is more distinct from the reply button?

        1. Psychie

          It does feel more distinct and thus potentially easier to avoid the mistake, but I agree with Agemegos, a divider line of some sort would be helpful.

        2. Adam Black

          ^^^^^

          Willis, it looks like 3 things !

          Ppl are going to hit “comment” and flag by mistake. A divider and a few spaces are needed.

        3. Li

          Willis has said they aren’t sure they can make it do that. Like people have been asking for a divider the whole time.

        4. Cassie

          Given how many times I’ve hit the button by mistake on mobile, I suspect making it bigger will not have the intended effect.

        5. BarerMender

          I saw it as Reply. Report. Comment. Couldn’t figure that out.

        6. butting

          Retry, Abort, Fail?

        7. Mark

          See if your browser has a setting “always underline links.” [No matter how much insane web designers hate controls and want to hide them.]

        8. David DeLaney

          … ‘button’?

          –Dave, I see Reply Report comment , spaced just like that

        9. David DeLaney

          well, as two separate links, not one

    2. Taffy

      Seems like today.

    3. HueSatLight

      It’s nice, I’ve been reporting how good everyones’ comments are.

      1. Mym

        +1, just to add to my report

      2. Taffy

        Ooh, lemme return the favor.

    4. Azhrei Vep

      It was “Flag” when I used it deliberately for once yesterday.

    5. Mark

      Rejoice! Someone is listening to the hundreds of complaints that it’s too easy to aim at one but hit the other. And doing something about it.

    6. Amós Batista

      I can’t stop reading it as “To reply report comment”, hahaha

  12. Taffy

    Hehehehehe die mad about it, fuckhead

    1. NGPZ

      Imma devour her like the UFO from Nope ??

      1. cbwroses

        Off topic, but I just realized, from your comment, that the creature in nope is simultaneously a UFO and an ALF.
        Which seems pretty rare, tho I’m wondering if it’s as rare as I think.

        1. Envy

          What’s an ALF in this context?

        2. NGPZ

          Alien Life Form :p

        3. BarerMender

          Huh. I never knew that.

        4. Proxiehunter

          A brown puppet from a terrible 80’s sitcom.

    2. anon

      lmao that icon

      and unfortunately (cept in toedads case but yeah), ppl like her just outlive all the ‘good’ ppl outta spite.

      i had so many friends with ‘childhood’ illnesses and the outright douchebags were so infuriatingly healthy

  13. Mym

    Omg spit on her. She reminds me of my dad who was super racist (in spite of being half Sicilian and 1/4 Blackfoot.) He would insist he couldn’t be racist when he called my wife the n-word

    1. Laura

      Oooh. That is so awful. I am so sorry you went through that!

    2. Bogeywoman

      Samesies. My dad is super racist anti-immigrant despite dating an immigrant. Also homophobic despite having multiple queer kids (gay son, bi daughter, lesbian queer me). I’m grateful my mum is my mum and set the standards before any of us were out (she’s lesbian too and when she came out told him that if he didn’t deal with his homophobic bs he wouldn’t see the kids).

      He’s also a trump supporter which is weird since we aren’t even USAmerican.

      1. Mym

        Condolences. But also: fucking wild.

      2. Taffy

        Imagine being so irretrievably lost that you’re smiling for a politician from another country.

        1. milu

          i’m not sure how serious you are. but people from around the world typically follow US elections anxiously. or just the politics of their local bigger neighbours. i’m french, and most belgians i’ve met have opinions on french politicians, when i could hardly name any of theirs.

        2. Yumi

          Was in England in 2016, when the Brexit vote happened, and when Trump was running the first time. Had several discussions around politics, including a number of people asking us to explain what the deal with Trump was. (We couldn’t.)

        3. HueSatLight

          Belgium still has a king, right?

    3. BarerMender

      One of my cousins married a black man. Her mom wouldn’t let him in the house.

    4. anon

      it’s an issue with asians too, i do get annoyed if ppl confuse my race or if ppl assume i’m just one specific race (tho i got over it after like jr high) but history aside there are ppl that just hate each other then again we can’t even get ppl from diff states to stop hating on each other so it’s gonna be a long uphill battle

      1. Miri

        I have mild face blindness, am a hermit, grew up somewhere that was something like 90% white… I’m not great at working out where people’s families originated from via facial cues. I’m also not going to *ask* unless we’re already getting to know each other and there’s a polite way (e.g. somebody says “My mother’s cousin in [country] said/did…” “[Respond to actual info conveyed appropriately.] Do you have a lot of family over there?”)

        But that’s the sort of conversation you have to get to know somebody better with nuance because children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of immigrants will all have different experiences, expectations, pressures and challenges in balancing their cultural norms with assimilation.

        Oh, right… But I am confused by the “you are X so have some hate” approach unless “X” is “a bigot, bully, etc” where their personal actions and decisions are hurting people.

        I’m just not going to look at somebody and be able to instantly tell if they get their DNA from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka or Bangladesh, for instance. Unless they’re wearing a big name tag that also states this. And coz I know this, I’m not going to make assumptions. But I also know that it’s rarely going to be appropriate to ask about this, and don’t want to be intrusive, rude, or do something to group me with the sort of person who asked one of my friends “what are you?” when he decided that he was entitled to this info from her as a stranger in the street coz eeeew.

    5. JBento

      “I can’t be racist, I have a black foot.”

      (Yes, I know Blackfoot is a Native American tribe)

      1. Mym

        Hahahahahaha
        He thinks black people have an extra bone in their foot, tho

        1. David DeLaney

          good grief WHY? from where Adam kicked Eve once?

          –Dave, feet already have LITERALLY half the bones in your body

        2. Mym

          If I had the why, I might understand the world a little worse

          My wife is only 1/4 black, so I wonder if he thinks she has 1/4 extra bone.

  14. True Survivor

    Thing about speaking truth to power is that power often doesn’t fancy it.

    1. Dara

      winner winner chicken dinner

    2. Taffy

      Does the “power” in that phrase actually mean people in power? It’s kinda been confusing me this whole time.

      1. Agemegos

        Yes, it does.

      2. Laura

        Problem is, the people in power know EXACTLY what they are doing.
        It’s the powerless folks who need to know the kinds of truth that they can use to tip the scales.

        1. Psychie

          Not necessarily, a lot of times injustices can be committed because those with power are ignorant to the plights of those they hold power over. That was part of the point of jesters being allowed to insult the king to his face, part of the job was to point out the king’s mistakes to keep him as humble as possible and to ensure he is aware of what his people think of him.

          I don’t know if it’s true or not, but common depictions of the North Korean dictatorship show him as buying into the propaganda his government spews to try to brainwash the masses, he’s surrounded by yes men and thus is completely ignorant of the plights of his people, genuinely believing he is beloved by those oppressed by his regime. I don’t know how true that is in that particular example, especially given modern communication technologies, but back in the day when the only way for a ruler to know how they are doing is for someone to tell them to their face, it would be FAR too easy to buy into their own hype and cause all kinds of problems by simply being ignorant of what the real problems their subjects are actually dealing with or how successful their “solutions” actually were.

          I find it’s best to not attribute to malice what incompetence could easily explain. More power does not equal more information, plenty of ignorant people do bad things without realizing they did anything wrong, and the more powerful they are, the greater the impact and broader the scope of those bad things will be.

        2. Laura

          Fascinating counterpoint! Thank you!

        3. eh, whatever

          Putin simply stopped receiving bad news over a year ago.

        4. David DeLaney

          … it just has to make it through the Poisoned Windowsills zone around him, that’s all

        5. Taffy

          Damn, that sounds like a sweet job. Maybe my talents and behaviors would be put to better use as a court jester. I love shit-talking authority figures to their faces.

        6. JBento

          Court jester was inititally a continuation of the Romans memento mori tradiiton, and we (as in humans) never should’ve stopped doing it.

        7. thejeff

          I think that’s mostly myth/propaganda. Kings were seen as ruling by diving right and thus couldn’t actually be as evil as what they were doing made them seem. It must be their court and advisors misleading them and if they only knew the truth, they’d fix things.

          Which isn’t to say they didn’t often live in information bubbles, but mostly they also didn’t care and sometimes deliberately used the “evil minister” thing as a deflection.

        8. milu

          so, diving rights is like when you jump from the highest plank and then you get to call yourself king of the swimming pool, also your back is very red and you’re not sure you’ll ever hear properly again, right?

          they had to be diving from really high to become king of an entire country though

        9. HueSatLight

          diving rights is when you put a king where they naturally fit the best (the bottom of a bog).

      3. Jeremiah

        It does means calling people with authority out about injustices and misdemeanors so I say yes it does.

        1. Mark

          Careful! Like snitching vs. reporting bad behavior, attitude makes the difference. If you’re making someone feel bad in order to improve him, that’s good; if to make yourself feel good, that’s evil.

        2. Jeremiah

          Are you replying to me? Because then I don’t what that have to do with what I say.

    3. JA

      “I won’t get mad if you tell me the truth.”

      *proceeds to get mad when the truth is told*

  15. ADLegend21

    Can she follow toe dad?

    1. anon

      I can half imagine her contracting some kinda disease or so or in need of a kidney and ‘demanding ‘ one of her kids donate itto her

    2. Freemage

      Nah. Once Chuck fails to fully support her attempts to break Walky back to subservience, she’ll go find a supportive group, probably a church that’s seeking new members after they lost their original building and are attempting to rebuild.

  16. Bittersweet

    Oh. That confirms that Charles *is* like my dad (step, albeit I consider him dad too). Picks his wife over his kids every time.

    This is gonna end with Walky losing college funding and having to rely off scholarships his grades can’t cash isn’t it

    1. Schpoonman

      I have a liiittle hope that getting “Mom is terrible and you don’t help” from his twins will just take some time to sink in.

      1. Bittersweet

        I’d be shocked if Linda doesn’t at least loudly complain on the drive home and get onto him for saying “irresponsible” things to Walky, but idk. I don’t see him upending his happy marriage for his kids. My mom used to tell me that men loved their wives more than their kids and always chose them. I uh, I don’t think that’s remotely true, but it seems like it’s the case with Charles. At any rate, even if he tries to reach out now, damage has been done. I think this was his last chance to save his relationship with both his kids.

        1. Laura

          …Forever is a very long time. Hopefully, he will have other chances before they pass. It’s such a hard thing, to stay angry forever. It is so hard to cut ties with those who once told us they loved us.

          As for Walky losing college funding, I honestly don’t think that would bother him too much. He’d have a hard time figuring out how to support himself, but I don’t get the impression that academic advancement is his life’s goal.

        2. Laura

          In fact, he might find flipping burgers or stuffing tacos a soothing break from everything. Just a chance to turn his mind off. Except for the whole “showing up on time and clean” bit. That part is hard. Plus the grueling physical labor. But after a while, a monotonous task can help quiet down racing thoughts. Sometimes.

        3. Psychie

          If he can get a car, then he can do what I did and become a delivery driver, being clean matters WAY less when you hardly interact with coworkers and customers, just have to make sure your hands stay clean so you don’t get stuff on the orders, which will naturally be difficult for Walky given his love for Nachitos.

        4. Laura

          Good idea!

        5. BarerMender

          You made money as a delivery driver? I’ve heard more than one deliverer say all their income went in the their cars.

        6. BarerMender

          *into their cars*

        7. spriteless aunty

          That’s me! Mostly. The tips are very uneven.

        8. Needfuldoer

          Yeah, I’ve encountered some hotshot van drivers who absolutely put cleanliness at the bottom of the to-do list. The products arrived on time, but we had to leave that pallet near the door to air out for a couple days.

        9. Azhrei Vep

          Staying mad forever is certainly hard (I’d say impossible, but maybe that’s just me), but cutting ties with people who used to claim to love you is actually pretty easy in my experience. You just go away and don’t tell them where you are. It doesn’t even have to be very far!

        10. David DeLaney

          Dorothy would _love_ the distraction of setting up an available-scholarships spreadsheet for him

          –Dave, he shares it with Sal, Drama ensues

      2. Mark

        Yes. I’ve said it before, and [fair warning] will probably say it again: internal revolutions take time. Time to disassemble one’s self-image and rebuild it in the light of new understanding. Time to figure out who you want to be. Time to kill old habits and grow new ones. First of all, time to come to believe that revolution is necessary, and to believe that it can be done.

        One can know something and not be motivated to do something about it. One can hear something a thousand times but do nothing until it becomes personally important.

    2. Envy

      Charles is pretty spineless, but I think even he would object to entirely financially cutting their kids off during college.

      1. Archieve

        Don’t be so sure, when his wife stole the money that Sal had worked for to help Marcy he just stood by and watched. stealing money for a disabled child would be a line most decent people would object to crossing. I hope it doesn’t come to the twins financially struggling but Linda really doesn’t have a limit when she’s looking for control

    3. anon

      i do remember hearing something like ‘parents will tend to side with their spouse over their kid, b/c they (kids) will be the ones who eventually move out’, in sal and walkys case i imagine sooner rather than later (sal motorcycle roadtrip comic spinoff would be fun tho)

  17. John Campbell

    No regrets!

    1. Schpoonman

      None, not even a letter.

  18. Lingo

    HAPPY DUMBING DAY! We celebrate Dumbing Day on whatever dates in real life that happens to correspond to the current in-story date of DoA, one of which is today, January 23! (Unless you happen to think that the timeline on Walkypedia is one day off, in which case you can celebrate Dumbing Day tomorrow. No judgment.) Anyway, traditionally we celebrate Dumbing Day by doing something that the characters have done since the last Dumbing Day (1/19/23). So this year, why don’t you call your mom … a racist, stalk someone while wearing a loud dress and a lizard, teach your friend how to masturbate, or — and this is a perennial favorite — have someone pretend to be your girlfriend in front of your family? I’ll let you come up with your own ideas. See you next time (probably January 27th or 28th, 2025)!

    This is assuming you haven’t all been turned to stone by Linda’s glare.

    1. Laura

      I’m ‘a go with something a little tamer. Maybe, karaoke? Sorting through old papers? Something a little more my speed.

      1. spriteless aunty

        Ahh, an arbitrary reason to catch up on my paperwork. It’ll do

    2. HueSatLight

      how about go to the gym … and stare at a crush because I can’t think of the right thing to say (two characters did that).

    3. cbwroses

      I’m gonna play video games while eating chips in my underwear.
      Sanctum of Nothing for the win!

      1. NGPZ

        Yes sanctum of nothing sounds good. ^^

    4. milu

      happy Dumbing Day!!

      And in celebration here’s a new upload of my Julia Gray smut comic, Make Love not War =3

      1. Amós Batista

        ahaha sexy airborn

    5. Amós Batista

      – Upside down kissing your partner, like Mary Jane and Spideman.
      – Hissing at your crush to show your love to them.
      – Making plain macarroni to your friend.

  19. Icalasari

    That glare

    Ok, I want them to crash. Linda doesn’t die, just ends up with every single bone broken. Including her skull. Coma

    1. Taffy

      I mean, at that point you may as well just wish someone dead. Them being irreversibly comatose kinda feels like you’re pushing the punishment down to the people who legally have to keep her alive, whereas a funeral only costs like $35k up front (I assume, idk) and then everyone can stop pretending to be sad in a week or two.

      1. Icalasari

        True, they aren’t suffering in a coma. Paralyzed but aware of everything while everybody thinks she’s in a coma it is!

        1. Autransticashes

          Locked-in-syndrome is just as bad and just as much of a punishment to everyone else rather than just her. Makes them have to support her just as much as if she were in a coma. Not worth it.

        2. Taffy

          Exactly. If we’re going for maximum efficiency (something bigots really hate, for some reason), just a death is easiest on the most people. Like, I’m not even wishing death on a fictional character or anything, I’m only saying a coma is rude to a whole buncha people for no really justifiable reason.

    2. anon

      imagine if she got a concussion/brain damaged and it made her personality more pleasant (whichi have heard happened before in history where ppl are completely diff ppl)

  20. Grimey

    Walky’s tuition about to dry up and no more care packages. Just watch.

    1. Yumi

      Linda’s going to go home and rearrange her rankings of “favorite kid” that she keeps hung on the wall.

      1. Essex

        you mean sal up to #2, walky down to #3 and jennifer holding steady in first place?

        1. Yumi

          Yeah, but there’s also going to be a noticeable gap between Sal and Walky’s placements for a bit.

    2. DailyBrad

      Tuition won’t dry up, no. She still wants her kids to graduate for her ego’s sake. Care packages will be more infrequent, though, presumably.

      But yeah, Jennifer’s in Favorite Kid right now.

      1. Bittersweet

        She might do it as a scare or at least threaten to give him a taste “of the real world” to teach him a lesson.

        1. Coatl

          With that expression of death that she showed in the fifth panel, she would do it very, very seriously.

      2. Coatl

        Knowing Linda, she is capable of expressing infinite support and motherly love for Jennifer only to cause pain to the twins and knowing Jennifer, she is capable of approving all of this without any hint of shame.

        1. Archieve

          I don’t even think Jennifer had infinite support from Linda, it just seems thar way because Jennifer never calls Linda out on anything to her face, sure she gets e tra leeway for being white oassing and from a rich family but if Jennifer ever does finally tell Linda she’s ruining her own family it won’t go well for her. Linda just doesn’t seem capable of any deep emotion besides resentment.

      3. Bash

        God knows people do stupid things when they are angry, but taking away his tuition would be counter to her own goals. She wants her children to graduate and have impressive careers. Her son especially.

        1. Envy

          Yeah, I think there’s a very real chance she tries to get *more* involved in her kids lives after this.

      4. clif

        “Jennifer’s in Favorite Kid right now.-

        Always was.

    3. HueSatLight

      Walky seems to have prepared for the confrontation, and it’s not unlikely he thought about the possible consequences and accepts them. For himself. I’m worried about Sal, and whatever Jennifer learned that’s important enough she went to tell them shortly after.

    4. anon

      i’m sure if he asked dorothy for help that she’d have some 200 step program/booklet of all his potential options/actions

  21. RassilonTDavros

    Welp, so much for my getting-through-to-Charles theory.

    1. Thag Simmons

      I mean it’s still in the cards as more of a long term thing

      1. HueSatLight

        Walky in panel 1 got it right. Often you put something out there, and the other person has to let it brew and either they come around or they don’t (or do partially). Convincing someone looks like that maybe more often than flipping a switch.

      2. Mark

        There’s going to be an angry conversation in the car on the way home, and one way it can go is for Charles to go quiet for a while and then say, “David needed to be disciplined for the way he spoke to you, but he’s right. About you, and about me. I’m going to make some changes. You should, too.”

    2. JA

      That eye-twitch looks like he wants to say something, but is going with the “I need to share a car home with this woman and my stuff is still in the house so I don’t want to piss her off” approach.

  22. Nono

    Well, Charles didn’t say Walky was wrong about what he said.

    1. anon

      i imagine he’s avoiding it and just letting her stew

      do we rly know if other than being silent and taking linda’s side over sal by default if he’s actually calmed her down after their fights/arguments versus waiting for her to ‘cool off’ while giving her space in another room or so

  23. Grayfinity

    I sincerely hope that she doesn’t pull a “it’s the blackness in him” thing here. But she’s Linda Walkerton so of course she will.

    To the shadow realm with you!

    1. Schpoonman

      Ooh, that could be the thing that finally kicks Charles into gear.

      1. Grayfinity

        I sure hope so. He can still be redeemed in my opinion, but that starts with growing a backbone and standing up for himself and his children and accepting some hard truths.

        1. cbwroses

          So pretty much the same things Walky has to do/has done to make good with Sal

        2. Archieve

          Unlike Walky, Charles seems to have a huge dose of internalized racism and I think in a way Linda validates his delf worth. That is to say I think even a directly racist comment from Linda might actually get accepted as a hard “truth” instead of a reason to stand up for his children.

      2. anon

        i wonder if charles even considers himself black at this point (well it was said that he’s mixed), not that he can’t have internalized racism or noticed any microaggressions growing up but it’s possible he could’ve lived/grown up in in like a 90% white neighborhood

        1. Archieve

          I suspect Charles upbringing was in a metaphorical bubble like Walkys childhood, then he married Linda who in a way also shields him so he really might not see himself as an individual at all but a half of a mixed race couple.

    2. Laura

      Yeah. I had a dear old childhood friend in a situation somewhat similar to Walky’s. It just about killed him. Destroyed his family.

      …The evil of racism and classism with a smiling face, wrapped in “kindness” and “tough love”.

    3. Taffy

      “He gets this from your side of the family” is a lot more deniable.

    4. Laura

      “Charles, I don’t know WHERE he gets that from! Do YOU?!?”

      1. Formedras

        “No, my side of the family is incredibly doormatty. None of us ever speak truth to power.”

  24. Loki

    I find it fascinating that even in this situation, Charles comes off as extremely timid.

    1. Laura

      That little twitch of the left eye looks a bit like a stifled wince.

    2. anon

      i wouldn’t be surprised if he was emotionally constipated overall or never showed much in front of his kids considering walky had a …masculine inferiority complex? close to the beginning of the series where he’s like “i’m a manly man, i need to cut my hair” and the “what makes you think i own more than one pair of shoes”

  25. John Campbell

    I find it notable that Charles demanded an apology for Linda, but not for himself. He really is her doormat.

    1. Envy

      I think it’s even more notable that he didn’t push back on anything that Walky actually said- I think telling him to apologize is more about wanting to defuse the situation.

    2. Archieve

      He’s so used to relying on Linda and appeasing her that nothing comes second in his priorities.

  26. JessWitt

    Damn I was really rooting for Charles to take a stand against Linda. Maybe it’ll happen on the car ride home, idk.

    1. Coatl

      If that were to happen, an accident may occur, but the really worrying thing is who would be behind the wheel.

      1. JessWitt

        Yeah the scenario did come to mind and it’d be concerning, especially given how…heated Linda might be in the driver’s seat after she reacted badly to an even-keeled Sal and a more forthright Walky.

    2. Archieve

      I don’t think we can expect any immediate changes from Charles, it’s been a reoccurring theme that everytime linda says or does something awful there’s a hope that Charles will take a stand, in reality…he’s had decades at this point to take a stand and uses that energy to maintain the status quo.

      1. anon

        i mean it’s been around almost 18 years with walky and sal being college age so i imagine he’s never rly butt head with lindas over it at this point since he could’ve told her to ease off on marcy who was a literal child when her accident happened

      2. Mark

        I am thinking now of all the times the news has been full of someone who went on a rampage, and all the neighbors agreed “he was always so quiet and polite, I can’t believe he could be capable of such things.”

        People do hide their feelings sometimes — even from themselves — even for decades — until their arms aren’t long enough to hold one more thing. Then it all comes out.

        1. David DeLaney

          *plays Myn Ynd Wymyn on the hacked muzak*

    3. Nono

      Well they can’t all be Hank.

      1. Archieve

        No, Charles seems to be the opposite to Hank in some ways. No willingness to grow because he’s comfortable where he is if only his children wouldn’t say such awful things to their mother.

  27. HueSatLight

    Quigley’s going to catch shit even though he hasn’t said anything yet.

    1. BarerMender

      Who he?

    2. Taffy

      Quigley Walkerton, age 18-ish. Majoring in art and music, plays the keytar in a synth prog ensemble, paints their album art t-shirt designs, played a boy-of-the-week on a single episode of some Disney Channel TV show, dresses in androgynous goth clothes, has a Tumblr blog about his first JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure read-through.

      1. BarerMender

        Gotcha. Catches shit because he’s a Walkerton.

  28. DailyBrad

    I am glad Walky is holding his ground here. He is saying what he thinks and how he feels, and even being treated like shit, he can respect himself a little.

    1. Archieve

      I respect that even when you can tell the whole conversation is wearing him down fasy he still maintains his calm, until the they leave, Linda tries to be dismissive but she’s so furious that he’s not giving her anything to claim moral victory with.

      1. Archieve

        *fast

  29. Dante

    Walky: [Regrets nothing]

    Welp. Charles’ involvement, everyone. He couldn’t stay at the sidelines anymore!11!!1 Which of course… Means the blandest appeal to politeness ever. I hope he’s hurt. I’m manifesting “it was you who told me to speak no matter what mom thinks” destroys his marriage. (Linda is a monster but we been knew.)

    Pls may the Walkertons have sibling bonding time now, because Walky’s gonna need support and Sal deserves to know every time she’s not alone.

    1. Coatl

      That brotherhood must be more united than ever.

      1. Dante

        Every time they get along adds years to my life, ngl

    2. Archieve

      I think Charles and Linda are so codependent that this along won’t destroy their marriage, he will be getting hell for going behind Linda’s back no matter how small but she still needs a yes man and a get put of racism free card to justify prior and future actions. Meanwhile Charles needs a “respectable” wife to look good and take care of all the hard drcision on life for him, that assumption that his daugher was going to keep Danny joined to her hip at all times didn’t come out of nowhere.

      1. Dante

        I like a lot this explanation for their co-dependency. It also takes into account Charles himself was described as half-black. I’m pissed off at the man right now, but the amounts of internalized racism and cognitive dissonance he lives with is… Depressing, really.

  30. Kenny

    That is one Luigi style death glare.

  31. reed

    the smash brothers brawl sound when you’re about to fight to unlock a new character playing in that second to last panel.

  32. cbwroses

    That’s a damn death glare.
    That’s practically a villain origin story if Linda wasn’t already the closest thing to a villain in this scenario.

  33. Coatl

    Walky just won this round, but that expression from Linda in the fifth panel is an accurate definition of: “So this is how things are going to be, huh? Well, I want to see how you survive without my help, you traitorous, ungrateful brat.”

    This fight is not over.

    Charles is unfortunately still on Linda’s side, but I feel like once they get home, he will be the punching bag where Linda will take out all that clearly boiling rage.

    1. Pinkie

      I got that attitude from my controlling father when I moved out. Must have really ground his gears when I didn’t come crawling back. I wouldn’t know though.

    2. Archieve

      As counter as it woukd be to Linda’s own desire for outwards appearance of a good family the more I think of it tge more I see her using ritholdibg tuition as her final attempt at control, though she might try to get walky to apologize later first.
      For charles, Linda probably is confronting him alonne though I doubt it will be enough to get Charles to second guess his stance . I think the unspoken expectation they showed towards Sal earlier that she should have her ‘respectable ‘ SO with her at all times in public applies to Charles own marriage so im sadly not surprised that when he never sides with his children regardless of how much it hurts his relationship with them.

      1. Archieve

        *withholding

      2. Coatl

        t remains to wait if Walky talks to Sal about what happened, it is time for the feeling of brotherhood to grow and become stronger with greater resistance, since Linda has already received quite effective damage and it is clear that she is going to counterattack with more intensity, for Charles The damage is done and it seems that he is aware that it is better to be with Linda.

        1. Coatl

          #It

    3. Bryy

      Yup.

      I would not put it past Linda to pull his tuition, knowing full well he’ll have to drop out.

  34. WizardPantaloon

    And then the car was immediately hit by a passing truck.

  35. cbwroses

    Huh.
    I think a comment thread got deleted.
    I was trying to reply to it and now I don’t see it.
    I guess the topic crossed the line or the replies got out of hand.

    1. Yumi

      Not so much the topic as the original commenter. “I refuse to see racism; convince me of racism!”

      Some replies had interesting bits, but I think they could be brought up separately and spare us that fuckwit.

      1. Schpoonman

        I hit the “Report comment” button and moved on.

        1. Yumi

          I did similar, but also threw in an “lol” reply.

    2. Serendipity

      Nothing of value was lost.

    3. AY

      They were just here to cause trouble with bad faith arguments anyhow. Some people get really worked up about fiction

    4. HueSatLight

      FAQ #4 and #10 cover it.

    5. Da Boy

      Willis taking a fire extinguisher to the flame war huh…

      1. Needfuldoer

        Best to nip them in the bud, before they spread.

  36. Armadillo

    What a truly disgusting woman. Just devoid of redeemable features.

  37. AY

    That awful look from Linda is so real, I definitely got that look from my own mum a few times. Bullies don’t like when you’re straight with them instead of playing the game.

    1. Archieve

      She’s furious that another child is trying to steal being the calm one from her!

  38. Sev

    Wow what a normal expression for a mother to make to her child.

    1. anon

      at least walky isn’t desperate for her attention

      half expect walky to be like “man, shame i didn’t have a body cam” and able to use that expression to frame it and send itas a christmas card to all their neibhgorsl ol

    2. Bryy

      Don’t you know that mothers regularly get drunk in preparation for meeting their children?

  39. Suet

    Becky, Joyce and maybe soon Walky. Maybe this is turning out to be some Separating of Age now

    WE SHALL OVERCOME…pensate for our son’s recent actions

    1. anon

      Now we just need Ethan to have it out with his mom too

      or just make out with asher in front of her while flipping her off lol

      1. Nevermaker

        Honestly, with the state he’s in, it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s already done something like that: I could see her making an off-color comment about Mike and Ethan lashing out at her.

  40. Maddie B

    Dang, she angy

  41. Switchchris26

    That look of pure hatred she is giving Walky is the final straw. There is nothing she could ever do that would redeem her even the slightest bit as a mother.
    Its like she is saying “Your no longer my son” with just her eyes.

    1. Archieve

      Linda never really had a son, she had a prop to feel good about her own decision to become a parent. She probably would have been happier with prize show dogs.

  42. key

    god i have no idea how willis has managed to NAIL that angry mom look SO well. one glance and i could feel all my own childhood trauma of my mom giving me that look just sailing in, and i mean that in a WOAH this art is amazing way-

    1. Schpoonman

      Our current gravatars are just more examples of Willis’s mastery over the medium.

  43. DashWallkick

    Charles is a pussy and it looks like this is the only way it’s gonna go.

    1. Taffy

      Hey, be nice to pussies. They’re cool-looking and have a fun texture. Charles is boring-looking and I bet his texture is mid.

      1. Needfuldoer

        He lacks the depth, warmth, and flexibility.

        1. Taffy

          Guaranteed you’d have a lot of trouble squeezing a baby through that guy.

    2. anon

      i half expect a plot twist of her declaring she wants an ‘open marriage’ and to bring home random white men to hook up with while not expecting him to object

      1. milu

        my god you keep having the wildest takes. not bad necessarily. just incredibly out there. just thought i’d say it once because every other comment you post just kind of floors me in a “what do you even say to that” kind of way. it’s all good, whatever, don’t mind me

  44. Mym

    So interesting that the only time I like WalkyXLucy is only after Lucy dumped him

    (Speaking of, omg, I didn’t forget about my fan project of Lucy XDorothyJust have no idea where to post it)

    1. anon

      i wouldn’t mind them giving it another try if they had 2-3 more relationships individually between them before then (tho other than in fictional stories idk how many ppl do on/off again other than hookups/seems like it’d be exhausting or the reasons why it wouldn’t work out each time would be hard to compromise on versus them just being at diff stages in their lives)

    2. milu

      imgur? twitter? bluesky? instagram? deviantart? pix.anduin.net? (mostly jk re:that last one. it’s where i post my pics because i just sort of searched for “instagram but open source” and that came up. it’s really clunky though ngl)

  45. Bogeywoman

    Goddamnit Charles. Nothing in what walky said was at all disrespectful or inappropriate. It was the most adult response Walky has ever shown.

    I have to assume Charles’ comment was entirely for Linda’s sake and for the sake of the drive home. Or that they never expected walky to be anything but a child.

    1. Bash

      If he fixates on ‘impoliteness’ he doesn’t have to engage with any of the contents.

      1. Needfuldoer

        Ooh, I know this one!

        “Tone! Tone! Mind your tone! I’m going to ignore what you’re saying because you’re using that tone!”

        1. Schpoonman

          Yeah, I get that here sometimes.

    2. DashWallkick

      Almost certainly. He’s let her have her way for 20 years, what’s the gain in stopping it *this* time?

      1. Wraithy2773

        I doubt he really even thinks that Linda’s done anything wrong. I get why people want Charles to be better than Linda, and he is to some extent, but I haven’t seen any evidence of him being anything more than a passive enabler instead of Linda’s more active bigotry.

        1. Archieve

          Charles is textbook example of ‘your best is not good enough’.

        2. DashWallkick

          Because the presence of him playing Good Cop implies intent, but you can’t really know intent since the comic is written well enough that no one is their best self, they’re just messy, complex people.

        3. Bogeywoman

          DW is sooo good at this it’s infuriating. It’s why this DoA is one of my favourite pieces of any media in terms of characters and writing. Also why I get riled up sometimes. It’s so fucking human!

        4. DashWallkick

          It’s kind of wild to imagine all the newspaper comics he was reading since he was a kid and how he can run circles around them on his strip that runs 365 a year without getting old.

        5. David DeLaney

          it runs further than that, he’s got a six-month buffer last I heard

    3. The Jighole Man

      this is what parents do when they are wrong, or have no argument against what you said.
      they focus on tone and other irrelevant things to make themselves seem right.
      What’s that, you called me out on my obviously bad behavior? well, yeah, well, i don’t like the tone of your voice, which makes everything you said 100% wrong. also, you said it too loud, and your voice was gravely which made you sound mad. apologize for this at once, and drop the subject.

      1. Archieve

        Yep, that’s why nothing makes Linda angrier then the twins remaining calm while calling her out, she fine with being accused of horrible things (as she encouraged Sal to do) if it means the other person comes off as angrier then her.

        1. Now

          This is a really good analysis. She can’t look reasonable if she’s the one who gets mad.

      2. Bogeywoman

        Really makes me grateful for my mother breaking the binds of intergenerational trauma. ‘course, she also has a touch of the tism (or as my sister said got hit so hard with the tism stick it transcends generations) so tone was never as important as the content of what we said.

    4. anon

      ppl tend to get offended even if the other person’s in the right since he was called out too

  46. Amelie Wikström

    In between Sal deciding she’s not playing Linda’s shitty games anymore and Walky telling her he at least sees what she’s doing, maybe something’s going to sink in. Now I really want to know what Jen talked to the parents about.

    1. Essex

      unlikely to be anything That would threaten to stop linda loving her more than her own children.

      1. Archieve

        I actually think Jennifer might be mad at Walky for taking the veil off in front of Linda, she wants to keep Linda’s surface level parental approval and having both Sal and Walky openingly opposing Linda will put her in a position might need to take a side.

        1. Chubsius

          Is it too much to hope that Jennifer sides with and backs the twins? That she’ll stand up to Linda, too? Maybe. Maybe the best I can hope for is that Jennifer’s need for conflict and drama to be injected directly into her veins pushes her into standing up to Linda

        2. Essex

          that would require Jennifers personality to be something other than the walking trash fire it currently continues to be.

    2. The Jighole Man

      my mother was a terrible person like linda. my brother and i cut ties with her when i was 16, and let me tell you, they never learn anything.
      i told my mother how i felt, and i got an email back telling me i was a glorified dishwasher, my father was a half a f*g, and my brother was the devil.
      They learn nothing, they never improve, they never grow.
      best to just cut them out of your life, rather than degrading your own sanity and self worth in an attempt to keep some sort of horrible relationship that just feeds their ego while making you feel like less of a person.

    3. Needfuldoer

      The absolute worst slap to the face you can give to someone like Linda is gray rocking in response to their needling.

  47. Rectilinear Propagation

    That went pretty much how I expected. Unfortunately.

    Good for Walky for doing the right thing even though it was hard.

  48. Chasey

    Well, he stood up to them AFTER he lost Lucy, but I guess getting dumped was the right kick in the pants. I wonder how/if Lucy will ever know he did the right thing after all.

    1. Archieve

      She will probably hear it from Jennifer assuming walky doesn’t kerp quit about where he’s been to her and Sal.

  49. anon

    dang what a look to your own son

    tho i wonder if he’d have bothered trying if she didn’t try to hide her racism, b/c other than ppl that might say the occasional insensitive thing there are some ppl that are blatant about it and won’t hide it in front of their children

    1. Archieve

      Honestly I think he would still due to an unhealthy combo of internal racism and codependency.

      1. anon

        no, i meant like walky bothering if linda was ‘worse’ like “hey mom maybe tone down the blatant racism in public?” or so , not charles tho he def has a ways to go as well

        tho i imagine itd be just as much of a nightmare for walky to navigate if charles ended up being the more racist one than linda

        1. Archieve

          Yes, if anything he would have felt more obligated to say something if Linda was more obvious because his motivation is the guilt he feels from turning a blind eye previously, the harder he would have had to previously not acknowledge it woukd have just made hime feel more obligated to say something i believe.

  50. Lamppost

    That went about as well as it realistically could have? I like this arc for Walky a lot

  51. Da Boy

    Oh not good, that’s a “I will have my vengeance” kind of face

    1. David DeLaney

      “and I will lay my vengeance upon thee”

      –Dave, considering the entire comic’s background, it’s important to phrase it appropriately. that is an OLD Testament look

  52. eskimolos

    Okay at this point it feels a lot like the only Villains and drama that can properly happen in this comic have to be parent related. I think this is just a difference in raising; for me I had one living parent most of my life and cherished her, she also tried to do right by me in as much as she knew how, which I now understand is because we were bonded on that grief of loss in addition to the parent child relationship. I had 4 older siblings who were from my mom’s first marriage, and their experience was children of divorce that mom initiated because their father was a coke addict. She thought they were too young to know that, so they developed much less charitable ideas of why mom left their dad, my sister outright hates our mother until we’ll into adulthood, my brother still thinks she left their dad because she cheated on him (I asked her about this and she laughed at the idea, she said their dad had a porn addiction and would go on “business trips” just to watch hotel porn, and that even if she’d wanted to find someone else, she wouldn’t be able to find the time raising four small children under 10 entirely on her own.)

    In my opinion the old system of father as the breadwinner and mother as the homemaker and child carer raising as many children as they can possibly produce was massively harmful to mothers in this situation and even to fathers, who often fell into depression due to the disconnect with their families and deterioration of priorities due to that.

    So tl;Dr it’s weird to see so many Parents Are Villains-centred plotlines when one has had a much more positive relationship with their parent/s, or particularly almost the opposite where people were not the villains in my life, but instead disease (AIDs, cancer and Huntington’s).

    1. brute

      there are good parents in the comic too, but there’s not much available drama there so the plotlines revolve around them less.

      also a lot of people in this world are hurting because of spiteful, selfish, immature parents and those peoples’ experiences don’t become less real just because they don’t match yours ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

      1. modus

        “Those peoples’ experiences don’t become less real just because they don’t match yours”- that was… not what they said. Like at all. So- unclear why you’re trying to, I don’t know, score some kind of point off them here? They merely mentioned their personal perspective- that being the point of “comments- in no way attempting to undermine others’. At no point was “I didn’t experience this, so people claiming it’s the case are idiots/ wrong” even hinted at.

        1. eskimolos

          Thanks, yes my intention at least in part was that I understood this was due to differences in raising and thus neither of our experiences are universal because very few experiences -are- universal, especially of this nature – just that it is unusual from the perspective of someone who also had a hard upbringing but where the source of my trauma lies elsewhere, and that my parent was the single good thing in my life. (She is also sliding deep into Alzheimer’s now, which I guess is making the focus on dick parents kind of hard at the moment from that perspective.)

          At no point do I mean to suggest that Willis can’t make most major arcs for the last ten years about people’s awful parents in some way, or do that for the next ten years, just that as a reader I will also consume these from my own perspective informed by my own experiences and so, as one of probably thousands of dedicated readers, I will probably not feel as involved in the comic the more it focuses on trashcan parents to the exclusion of other parent-child dynamics. Like I mentioned, I’ve lost my dad to AIDs, his sister to cancer, my grandfather, aunts and uncle on my mom’s side to Huntington’s which was particularly long and painful, I have a friend who has two mums and an uncle who’s like a dad to him, because he was born with birth defects and his dad noped out of his life, all of these are backgrounds that I don’t think have been covered in any way, that still involve parents and conflict without making the parent specifically the source of strife. It doesn’t have to, this is Willis’s story, I know already he got tired of how often in Funky Winkerbean everything was cancer, though rather horrifyingly in the last 10 years I’ve found the statistic that 50% of all people will have cancer at some point in their lives ( I am also now in my bachelor year of biomedical science so information on diseases are a bit more present for me). Cancer is awful, as are Huntington’s and AIDs and Alzheimer’s, I have noped out of stories for containing elements of these even in allegory, it’s just an interesting part of human existence that we can consume like… People being shot or falling off buildings or kidnapped or having mafia ties and ordering hits, or religious indoctrination and abuse of authority, which are all objectively traumatic events to be particularly close to, but when it comes to disease I guess it’s just… Too real or too difficult? It just never makes it into stories like this. Likewise birth defects, heart conditions or missing eyes, digits or limbs or lopsided faces or whatever you can imagine, these people just don’t get seen. This may be on Willis’s post but it’s just a trend in most stories, even progressive ones that aim at inclusivity, where people who didn’t have everything accounted for physically in working condition don’t typically get seen. Right now that’s a niece for me, and my best friend at uni, and many kids I’ve known growing up, some of which that aren’t with us anymore today. It’s just weird to live in an existence I never see in comics or other stories, and to wonder if part of that is just because it’s hard to live here, in a place where there’s no hope for something better that resembles the Standard Way of Life.

          It’s just rambling, I usually don’t return to the comments after I leave a comment,l especially of this nature, but I’m trying to own my perspectives a bit more as I know they’re usually different to others’. I certainly don’t need extra stress from people who took personal offense from me having a different opinion, though; life is quite already hard enough as it is. And fairness here, maybe my opinions also do not need to be heard, lest they add stress to others. We’ll see if I can actually stop commenting, though… Typically easier said than done.

        2. Yumi

          “It’s weird to see this thing that wasn’t my experience” can certainly come off invalidating to others. In some sense, it’s just true– it can be surprising, confusing, eye-opening, etc. to read about experiences so different from yours. “Weird” can be seen as carrying a judgment about it, and I can understand it bothering people.

          My relationship with my parents was pretty good, but I had a lot of friends with shit parents, and discussions around those relationships did generally take up more space between us, so even with good parents in the comic, the balance makes sense to me.

    2. Mark

      I know, right?

    3. Schpoonman

      Your experiences are not universal. Sarah is also neck-deep in her villain arc right now.

      1. HueSatLight

        “villain arc”. She’s bad at words, it’s not like she had some dirty cops kill someone.

        1. Schpoonman

          Antagonist arc, then. Actively attempting to break up Joyce and Joe is pretty far beyond “bad at words,” though I’ll chalk her failure up to her being bad at words.

    4. milu

      okay, but it sounds like your siblings had one terrible parent then?
      re: patriarchy fucking men up emotionally, bell hooks is eloquent, and so is Liv Stromquist’s comic “something something Prince Charles” (don’t know what the precise english title might be)

    5. spriteless aunty

      There was the attempted rape plot, before Amber stabbed him in the face. There’s also drama about how people react to autism, and glasses, which aren’t diseases even if people sometimes act like they are. And the agoraphobia and rough periods. Is Joyce the only one who is catching up to modern medicine because of her fundie parents? Is this something drawn from his own life? Maybe he doesn’t have as much experience with disease in a normal context. Degenerative diseases like Huntingon’s take decades to kill, which would be an interesting source of drama how one deals with it, but in the timescale of the comic it’d be a rough fit. And it’s hard to talk about AIDS without sounding preachy, too much pre-existing media from those who preach it’s meant to punish the promiscuous. Still, “man vs. nature” conflict storylines are less common and Willis is thoughtful enough to do it right, if he wants too.

      But, in a less fiction-analysis sense, glad you have had positive relationship with your mother, my condolences about the disease.

  53. TheKelliestKelly

    Nah, Linda, Walky said something that *you* regret.

    Obviously Linda won’t admit to her racism (at least to others – tho probs not to herself either) but I think she’s most angry about is that not only is someone holding her accountable but it’s her former golden child.

    Also, not relevant in this comic but I’m still SO pissed to Linda’s reaction to when she found out Walky was flunking. I don’t know what his grade is officially but it’s a passing one either way – he did not flunk. The intense level of shaming for something he ALREADY handled is gross.

  54. TheKelliestKelly

    You know, one good thing that will come of this for Walky is that Linda is so pissed she’ll probably forget to harass Walky about his grades/studying/whatever.

    1. MK15

      Or she could report the grade altering to her good friend, the Dean, to “teach David an important lesson” even though that would get him kicked out…

      After how she handled Sal, idk, I wouldn’t put it past her…

      1. TheKelliestKelly

        This is the sort of thing that Linda would do but I dont think she actually would. She cares a lot about appearances and would be mortified if either of her children dropped out or got kicked out of college because of how it would make her look. Linda’s not gonna bring this to the Dean’s attention cuz this makes her look bad as one of Walky’s parents

  55. CianM1301

    On one hand, very glad that Walky stood his ground and refused to apologise. On the other, that look from Linda tells me Walky probably won’t be coming back next semester.

  56. Peter

    I know that face Linda is making. It was the same face my toxic ex would make when I had done something (like disagreeing with her) that was unforgivable.

    She’s definitely going to make him pay for that.

  57. Kaffeeteria

    Wow. I’m actually impressed by Walky finally standing up for himself, Lucy, Sal, and … another sibling who I don’t know? The mother is horrible, and that can’t have been easy.

    1. Needfuldoer

      Jennifer is the third Walkerton sibling. Maybe not on paper, but in practice.

  58. DarkoNeko

    Nice glare there, Linda.

  59. Needfuldoer

    When they pull out the “you will respect my authoritah” card, that’s when you know they know you’re right but will never admit it.

  60. Sombrero

    I’m tempted to google Catholic colleges in Tennessee.

  61. Azu

    I think Jennifer owes Walky an apology now. That was 3/4s-arsed at least.

  62. Sharaku

    *clapping*

    Well done Walky. That was hard. You did well.

  63. Farmer_10

    That was a Weenie-ass response, Charles.

    1. Schpoonman

      “Weenie Hut General!?”

  64. Holly

    The other “it’s the rain” felt a lot better.
    Poor Walky. Well done, though.

    1. Mark

      How does Mr. Willis do it? Today’s weather forecast in Indiana: rain.

  65. Plain Marie

    Go, Walky! Speaking truth to power. You’ve done nothing wrong. You’re awesome.
    If he were a real life friend, I’d be literally cheering him on.

  66. Oatmeal Pie

    So, once again the mom is an irredeemable monster and the dad will probably soften and get a humanizing redemption arc. I don’t fault Willis writing in bad parents since you need some conflict to make things interesting but I feel like he’s done this plot already.

    1. Needfuldoer

      I don’t think Charles is going to have a moment of clarity and redemption arc like Hank did, if only to serve as a “what if” instead of a direct autobiographical parallel.

    2. Chubsius

      I think there’s value in continuing the theme, if only to contrast and/or connect the big evils like kidnapping, physical abuse, and murder with the slightly more everyday evils of microaggressions, verbal abuse, and neglect.

      If you want decent parents, there’s Hank, Amber and Joe’s parents (Joe has baggage, but so far so good), the Saruyamas, and the Keeners.

    3. Doopyboop

      I think the worst part about it is that Linda isn’t irredeemable, nor a monster. She’s an asshole. A racist asshole, but depending on how you wanna define irredeemable, she’s not that. And that’s exactly her problem.

      https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/04-is-a-song-forever/won/ In this strip we see Linda and Carol interact, and it’s clear that Linda disagrees with Carol. Carol has enabled a man to break the law and to kidnap her son. Linda is the dangerous kind of shitty parent because she’s shitty… but not shitty ENOUGH. She’s shitty enough to emotionally neglect her children, take her daughter’s money, and shit on her son’s girlfriend who happens to be black. But if you were to call child protective services on her, what they’d see is a clean, comfortable home where the kids have been fed three meals a day. They have their own room, they have decent clothes, they have no markings and bruises. In the eyes of the law, she’s not an irredeemable monster.

      That’s also why Linda thinks she’s the one who doesn’t have to change. Her kids are being unreasonable, you see. She’s done so much for them, and they insult her? Awful! She’d still be just as deluded if she were more of a monster, I’m sure, but at least then the law might be on their side. Maybe one day she’d have to look in the mirror and realize she’s gone too far. Maybe Charles would leave her in disgust.

      Instead, she can pat herself on the back that she’s always provided a roof over their heads and food in their mouths, never beat them, and consider them to be ungrateful.

      1. Mark

        I would say that “irredeemable” is a judgment that can only be properly made in retrospect.

    4. milu

      well yeah he has, because he’s one person =)
      on a long enough timeline, patterns will emerge in any creators’ work. what’s interesting (to me) is not absolute diversity and inventiveness but the nuances of a particular obsession through the diffractive lens of successive retellings.

    5. HueSatLight

      It does follow a pattern, and if a reader was so inclined, they might think it has something to do with complicated feelings Willis has regarding their own parents.
      But also, Blaine and Ross.

    6. DaWombat

      It’s not quite the same.. but we have had two asshole dads, they were just such assholes that they’re dead now

    7. Amós Batista

      Well, world could just stop to allow bad people to turn parents, so we would have fewer bad parents examples to put in our histories…

      1. milu

        great idea, let’s get the state to sterilize all the bad people!
        no chance of that plan going wrong

  67. Needfuldoer

    I’m trying to figure out what their car is, but I can’t place it. The back roofline says Explorer/Aviator, but the taillights are the wrong shape. I’d assume it would be something “entry level luxury” like an Acura MDX or Kia Telluride, something to keep up appearances without being too ostentatious.

    Its last appearance screams “Chevy Tahoe/GMC Yukon”.

    https://www.dumbingofage.com/haircut/

    1. MK15

      The side glass shape and the taillights are passably a recent Kia Sorento. The front half is less distinct but shares some similarities too.

      1. Needfuldoer

        Ooh, could be! That trim piece under the mirror lines up.

        It seems to be a mashup of generic full-size crossover SUV characteristics.

  68. Axel

    Don’t think it’s on purpose, since he’s just getting through the talk, but responding ‘okay,’ is such a good move. They want him to be asking forgiveness and wanting their approval and he just non reacts

    1. Chubsius

      I think Walky is actually pretty good at speechimifying when he finally works up the gumption and confidence. I felt so sorry for him yesterday when he was said, “I’m me. With everythin’ this that’s wrong with me…”

      1. Yeet

        yeah
        it really showed when he managed to get in some good points against raidah/for jennifer over the breakfast without looking like a snarky dickhead, which is pretty tricky really

  69. Rabisch

    Looking at Linda’s face, Walky already said something he will regret. Now I’m scared about what she will do against her son. The only sure thing is that it will be terrible. Let’s just hope Walky will not be alone at that time.

  70. Chris (the other one)

    Do we know how Walky and Sal’s education is funded? If it’s a 539 (?) then the money is theirs to use, but if the ‘rents are funding them, then Linda has a hold of power over them, beyond simple family dynamics.

    1. Nicoleandmaggie

      529– no it’s not theirs to use — the custodian can change the beneficiary. So Walky’s money could go to Sal very easily or to one of the parents very easily. It’s harder to move to a non-family member so they can’t give it to Jennifer but they could push it to a cousin.

  71. Cass

    Well at least Sal will no longer need to feel the compulsion to break up with Danny when Linda acts like she prefers her over Walky. (Though with the way this visit went with both biological kids she might end up doubling down on Jennifer being her favorite instead.)

  72. Loki

    Panel Five: “He KNOWS. Time to activate the clone.”

  73. bagge000

    That clears that up

  74. Callid13

    … I can’t help but feel that, as justified as Walky is in his position, it might be prudent to keep in mind here:

    “It would be practical, at times, to disguise [your position] to keep yourself within access to certain resources.”

    1. Callid13

      Screwed up the formatting a bit. That should read

      “might be prudent to keep what Jocelyne said in mind here”

    2. Amelie Wikström

      Of course, it would be easy enough for Walky to sit down in the boat and not risk the parents stop supplying him with college housing and nachitos (if not parental support or approval). As he mentions, he’s the one who benefits most from Linda’s little whims.
      I imagine that makes him feel more complicit, but really, it’s just knowing that people he cares about are hurt that puts him over the edge. Walky’s more heroic than he thinks, even for a guy who owns a superhero costume.

      1. Needfuldoer

        Yeah, the golden child / scapegoat dynamic messes up the golden child too. Sometimes they fall in line and become a little clone of their Nparent, sometimes they wind up like Walky.

    3. Mturtle7

      I was just thinking about that myself! The Walky/Jocelyne comparison is really interesting, I think. I totally agree with Jocelyne in the scene you linked to, and sympathize with her situation, but at the same time I think Walky did the right thing here., and it took me a while to figure out why.
      I think the key difference between Walky and Jocelyne’s situations is internal, not external – that is to say, even if their basic structure of their family dynamics are the same, how they experience them is very different.
      Jocelyne might not speak out loud against her family’s BS, but I don’t think she ever ignores it. She knows who she really is (including her name), and has known for years (as evidenced by that drawing Joyce found) so she knows that her silence is only a necessary sacrifice, not a sign of true agreement.
      Walky’s problem is that, until recently, he really was ignoring his parents’ BS, i.e. he wouldn’t even let himself acknowledge it. And doing so absolutely ruined his relationship with his own sister, almost beyond repair. So now, long after he’s had the revelation that his parents are racist jerks, he can’t quite stay silent without feeling complicit. He can’t keep receiving the same benefits from them he always has without wondering if anything has really changed, if he’ll always be just like his dad deep down. He feels like he lost Lucy today because she could tell he valued his ‘golden child’ status more than her! And that’s why he has to do this – to prove to himself that he’s changed, that he can choose honesty and integrity over material benefit. And I respect that, even though I also respect that Jocelyn doesn’t need to make that choice! It’s kind of wild, how that works.

      1. Callid13

        An interesting view. I see your point, but I’m not sure Walky couldn’t simply *adopt* a Jocelyne-like position.

        And it bears remembering, the realization of his parents’ nature is quite recent. Sure, it’s been years to *us*, but for Walky it’s been, like, weeks? A few months at most? Still pretty recent.

        I think, as a result, in an attempt to, in a way, make up for his earlier (unwitting) silence, Walky is now going out of his way to prove that he doesn’t agree with his parents’ position. Which, while plenty heroic, as Amelie pointed out, might not be the smartest thing to do.

        Ultimately, I don’t quite see him as a parallel to Jocelyne in that scene, but rather to *Joyce*, and, unlike Joyce, he lacks a Jocelyne-like figure advocating caution, which is what concerns me.

        1. thejeff

          The other distinction is that Jocelyn is the one most at risk in that family. She’s protecting herself by staying closeted and not clashing with them and she’s not letting anyone else down. (Except maybe Joyce a little bit and that’s very recent.)

          Walky’s always been the beneficiary and Sal the target for their parents. And now Lucy got caught in the crossfire as well. Walky feels he’s let them down and that he needs to stand up for them.

  75. wakeangel2001

    that is the face of a woman who never really wanted her kids’ respect, but is pissed off that they aren’t even afraid of her anymore

  76. Li

    Idk, I think last strip would’ve been too quick a turnaround for Charles. When Hank finally stood up to Carol, it was satisfying specifically because of how long it had been brewing. The strip where Charles took Walky aside to tell him he should be with a girl he really liked, regardless of Linda’s opinion, was the first glimmer of ANYTHING. And it happened earlier in this same visit.

    It would’ve been too fast if he’d turned it around here. This tea needs more steeping.

  77. Jdorr

    Way to go Walky, I wish I had the confidence to confront my parents like that

  78. Juanoku

    Hey that wasn’t too bad, good job walky!

  79. Yeet

    hey linda just because you regret not having a genius without putting any effort in doesn’t mean people regret telling you to shut your mouth
    side note how in the name of FUCK does she expect someone like walky to thrive in medicine? a field that involves you working yourself halfway to death just to get into even if you’re super smart? did she really not notice him not trying that hard at school? how far up her own arse is she??

    1. Smooti

      She has always seen Walky’s success at school as a reflection of her “great” parenting skills. So of course, to further reflect how wonderful she is at being a mom, he should also get into a career that’s considered prestigious and helpful.

      Nevermind that he’s a human being with his own wants, needs, and ideals.

      So to answer your question, she never noticed that Walky didn’t put effort in. If she had, she would have taught him how to study and put effort in. Instead, she looked at all his positive traits and none of his negative ones, then was shocked to find out that he 1. didn’t have any survival skills for when he *did* start to struggle and 2. raised a kid who panics and hides when he’s struggling instead of going to her, because he’s seen what happens to kids that don’t meet her expectations (Sal).

      She’s so up her own arse she’s inverted.

      1. Schpoonman

        Head so far up her own ass she’s somehow standing upright and that’s why characters take her seriously, they don’t see her head up her own ass.

    2. Bittersweet

      Walky is a lot like I was. School came extremely easy. Never needed to study. Effortlessly made all A’s (albeit I had an exception because undiagnosed dyscalculia, but every other class would end Very Poorly if I made below a 94. Which was rarely the case because I was just good at school).

      Then he went to college where you HAVE to study and he didn’t have the tools. Walky could make good grades again, but people forget that studying is a skill like any other. Being a smart kid is dangerous, because you never even need to open a textbook—so when the day comes that you have to, you have no means of discerning what info is more important than anything else.

      Walky could have done medicine if he knew how to study and gave a damn about it. He’s certainly smart enough that he seemed to pick up on how to study after one bad class and is no longer struggling, that was not the case with me. But he has no interest in medicine whatsoever.

  80. Pseudowolf

    Well, that’s better than I expected Walky to do. He went into it knowing he wasn’t going to convince her of anything, but he knew he what he needed to say and that he needed to say it to her face.
    Then when his dad, predictably, played the enabler he refused to apologize. I think the dirty look from Linda is not only that her preferred child called her out, but that he didn’t back down from either of them. Simply stood there, didn’t apologize, and didn’t bend when she said they were leaving.

  81. poyo

    oh Linda. Hopefully one day you’ll learn that a black person tolerating your presence does not mean youre not racist. and hopefully before you permanently ruin your relationship with your children

    1. Jeremiah

      I think that boat has already sailed.

  82. Owlmirror

    I’ve been noodling a backstory for Charles and Linda. It’s not canon, obviously, but it’s one of those things where it makes a heartbreaking amount of sense, so I’m sticking with it for now. It goes like this:

    1) Charles comes from money. Not Billingsworth-level money, but definitely upper-class.

    2) Both of Charles’ parents are lighter-skinned than he is.

    3) Until he met Linda, one or both of his parents treated Charles like Linda treated Sal: Nothing he did was right enough or good enough. Constant belittling and sniping at him and minimizing and disregarding his accomplishments.

    4) Linda was interested in him precisely because of the money background — upper class whitewashes anyone, and his parents’ lighter skins definitely helped.

    5) After Charles brought home Linda, one or both of his parents treated him like Linda was towards Sal+Danny. Suddenly, he was getting validation and approval.

    6) Unlike Sal, Charles decided not to test this. He married Linda, and his parents continue to provide financial support and give validation and approval.

    7) Charles is passive enough to go with the “win” that Linda gives with his parents, but I suspect he’s smart enough to know exactly how conditional it is — and that losing Linda will also lose him that approval. And possibly bring a financial hit as well.

    8) I suspect that Linda hopes that Jennifer and Walky will marry, thus bringing a huge boost to the Walkerton family’s class.

    9) Possible addendum: Linda obviously passes as white, but perhaps she also comes from a mixed-race background.

    10) Possible addendum: Charles’ parents may have dropped some of their validation and approval after the twins were born, out of disappointment that the kids weren’t lighter skinned. And Sal’s hair was probably also a problem for them, just as it was for Linda.

    1. Canary

      I really like exploring this but also need to point out that Wally describes their dad as “half black” in the strip “yaaayyy” on 10-21-13(holy sht this comic is long) ((I’m on my phone so links elude me))

    2. milu

      i like this backstory for two reasons:

      1) it’s smart and makes Charles make sense

      2) it’s told in a series of short, numbered, items

    3. Lan

      Kat Blaque has spoken about the allure of dating the transmisogynistic conservative that many trans women experience i.e. “he sees me as a woman in spite of his transphobia and that is affirming.” I wonder if Charles has that same infatuation with Linda. She sees him as “respectable” enough to wed, so he daren’t cross her lest he lose that affirmation

      1. Lan

        Maybe not “many,” but at least some, by her framing

  83. Canary

    Proud of Wally here but also so so scared for him and Sal :/

  84. mrnoidea

    Damn Charles, I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt yesterday when you had a single frame of remorse, but “Respect your elders [for being racist] and apologize” ain’t it, dude. Obligatory “FU” to Linda.

    It’s actually scary how bias can keep anyone from changing their minds, even to the point of turning friends and family into enemies. For anyone who’s gone through this irl, I hope you’re doing okay.

    1. Felian

      Ooof, yeah. “Respect your elders” should ALWAYS go both sides. Kids deserve respect, too, and people deserve respect for how they treat you, not how they happen to be related to you.
      And it was a pretty weak move of Charles. I guess he’s either scared of Linda’s behaviour if he doesn’t pick her side, or he doesn’t know how to act so he sticks to well-known platitudes.

  85. Miafillene

    Dad is in so much denial it’s not even funny anymore…and mom…I hate her. If I saw that frown? F**k it. Being a part of that family dynamic is not in any way shape and form healthy or conducive for continuing mental health.

  86. Bryy

    Y’all, if you don’t all vote for the bonus strip to be the car ride home, I will be so non-plussed.

    And vexed.

    1. NGPZ

      Looks like Dina is gonna win this time, sorry.

      But wouldn’t you rather much have a strip about her? Linda’s ride is probably gonna be shown in a cutaway anyway.

  87. Amós Batista

    As Amazi-girl will return in future, DoA will need more villains.
    My guess is Linda will be the first one.

    1. Pergola

      NightGirl will rise! To rule the night!

  88. jhennaside

    As a parent, I’m always baffled by reactions that lack communication with your child. Even if Walky was wrong, there’s no reason for Linda to just be mad and deny what he’s saying – your kids feelings are valid, even if they’ve jumped to a wrong conclusion, something led them there! You should talk to them and find out WTF is going on.

    If they’re right, and you don’t WANT them to be, then shouldn’t you want to fix that behavior? Another reason to speak more about it.

    I know, I’m applying logic and respect where she seems to not have any – it just boggles my mind that realistically speaking, this isn’t an impossible situation, and how anybody could be like this.

    My own parents are bad at seeing me as an adult (and I’m 42!) or in any way an equal. Meanwhile, I have a 23 y.o. step son who I do my damnedest to treat like both an adult and still my kid who deserves a mother’s love. We’ve had talks about him thinking I was wrong – usually it’s a misunderstanding he was too inexperienced to understand, but there’ve been a few where I was in the wrong.

    Anyway, hi, yes, I’m old.

    1. Smooti

      You’re also coming from a growth mindset that I don’t think Linda’s capable of. She thinks she’s right. Absolutely nothing her kids say will ever change that, and she doesn’t have the skills to be reflective and change. If she did, she probably already would have.

      1. Bryy

        We’ve seen Linda be introspective, but that was more her and Charles patting each other on the back more than anything.

    2. Felian

      Few things make a more powerful parenting than respecting your children, having eye-to-eye conversations with them, and not being afraid of being wrong. Kudos!

  89. Lysbeth

    Consequences! I mean, no, it’s not a strip about Danny and Joe, I mean, Walky did “the right thing” in a rather closed idea of ethics, that require full adherence to the truth asap, but I don’t think this will end well for anyone in the situation. Or at least I don’t think that the immediate consequences will be positive. This didn’t accomplish anything, because they refuse to listen. But now they have a worsening opinion of him.

    1. Mark

      It’s been about one minute. We don’t know that Walky didn’t accomplish anything. It’s the last stroke of the hammer that splits the stone, but the rest were necessary.

      1. Pergola

        ^ this

      2. Lysbeth

        From personal experience, bigoted parents don’t reflect on their bigotry because you tell them. It takes someone whose opinion they would normally judge as above their own.

  90. Kazuma Taichi

    I mean, what’re you gonna do Linda? Disown Walky? From what I can tell that’ll make his life mildly less stressful

  91. Alongcameaspider

    Anyone else concerned the consequences of this are going to fall on Lucy, I dont know how much pull Linda has with the dean but it feels like something she’d try

  92. Zamperla

    Damn, Charles. That’s really all you got. “Well actually you never speak critically to your parents, Ever, So.”

    The funny thing is, my take on Charles is that I always read him talking to Walky about Oh Well Don’t Pick a Girl Based On If We’ll Approve as being. Him projecting. This is based on very little but uh.

    In my experience sometimes when a black man dates or marries a white woman, he gets a lot of pushback, especially from his family. (Happens the other way too, and it can be nasty as hell). So take that into context with Walky introducing him to a Really Nice Police Black Girl, and then him going “Hey but Amber” and.

    I wonder sometimes if he had to fight for this relationship and learned all of the wrong lessons. Mind you this is like. Three layers deep into character speculation, so it’s very probably Nothing. But.

    Damn man.

    1. Dante

      Nonono, I think you’re right on the money. I really wanna see it stated in canon, because that dialogue there was hella sus, and something about his relationship with Linda feels dripping with sunk-cost fallacy.

      1. Zamperla

        Right? Like. You see it a lot. And I could even see Charles’ parents being like. HORRIBLE about it, to him. So it becomes like. This Grand Love You Fought For. And then you’re two kids in, and like two decades in on Being Cool With This, whatever and whyever that is.

  93. Dev

    I was hoping that Charles would do better, but really he’s just a beaten down older Walky trying to avoid Linda’s wrath.

  94. David DeLaney

    so how many hundreds* of commenters’ mothers has Willis MET, anyway?

    –Dave, *if not thousands

  95. Rikunda

    It is amazing how racist someone can be while married to a black man. He comes off very white coded. The dad ignoring her behavior is a problem. She is so racist but I don’t think Walky realizes just how deep this goes. Sal has seen the depths and plunged them. Walky is ankle deep.

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