Dumbing of Age characters who are not students at Indiana University.
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Indiana University Staff
Leslie Bean
The lesbian teacher of the freshmen gender studies class.
- Berserk Button: Treating one of your fellow students like crap. Roz's attack on Joyce is so far the only thing to truly anger Leslie.
- Cool Teacher:
- She is friendly and understanding with her students, even the ones who disagree with everything she believes (Joyce) or actively belittle her subject matter (Joe).
- She's also demonstrated that she will not tolerate people attacking each other or injecting unnecessary drama into her class, and asks, or rather, orders Roz to leave when she starts harassing Joyce.
- Fanservice Pack: She briefly undoes her top and does her hair up when Robin stops by, much to Joe and Walky's distress. Robin does (eventually) admit she thinks it makes her "super-cute".
- First-Name Basis:
- One of the first things she tells her class is to call her Leslie; the Punny Name would probably stand out a lot more in DoA.
- She tends to refer to Robin as "Congresswoman Desanto". This ends on finding Robin asleep in her bed.
- Horrible Judge of Character: She seems to be drawn to women that will use and abuse her, such as Robin and Anna.
- My God, What Have I Done?:
- An understated moment occurs when she realizes she brought Robin, someone whose political views clash with the lessons she's trying to teach her students, to her class just for the sake of her own misplaced crush. She quickly shoos Robin out of the room and starts a new lesson plan.
- She has another right after after refusing to let Dorothy question Robin about Ryan working for her, in order to get his name, Dorothy explains why she was asking about him, utterly crushing Leslie with the realization that her own attempts to fix her mess only let a rapist get away.
- Only Sane Man: It's beginning to dawn on her that she's one of the few trustworthy authority figures her students have. Even including the students, she's still one of the most level-headed characters.Leslie: Need to wear, like, a sandwich board that says, 'Sorry about all those other adults. I promise I'm mostly OK.'
- Parental Substitute: Considers herself this to Becky. When she starts acting too clingy towards her, Joyce calls her out on it, pointing out that Becky is an adult and should be allowed to make her own decisions, and that her actual parent being too controlling towards her is what got her into her current situation in the first place.
- Punny Name: Leslie Bean the lesbian.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Willing to listen to and understand her students.
- Sell-Out: For a while, she was hesitatingly willing to dismiss her political beliefs to support Robin's political campaign, though she tried to hide her identity during so.
- Suddenly Sober: When Joyce points out Robin's anti-gay sentiments, which the latter cannot defend, she sulkingly buttons up her top, which she had previously undone in hopes of catching Robin's attention.
- UST: With Robin. It kicks into overdrive when they start spending time together in Leslie's (very) cramped kitchen. While Leslie is partially undressed and still wearing her hair done up to catch Robin's attention.
Robin DeSanto
Roz's older sister and the young congresswoman of the local district. Only more slightly grounded than her main universe incarnation, she got elected on a "family values" platform, which Roz translates as "non-stop pandering to scared homophobic white dudes".
- Adaptational Villainy: Robin's selfishness is played up considerably and her time as a politician is noted to have caused a lot of harm to the gay community. Even the implication that Robin doesn't really subscribe to these beliefs is used to further show her in a negative light as she pushes these bigoted agendas to better herself uncaring of who gets hurt.
- Armored Closet Gay: One of the most homophobic anti-LGBT voices in Congress according to Roz, but get two drinks in her and she's all over Leslie. Her refusal to admit she is bisexual, while still enforcing anti-LGBT policies, leads to her being a Broken Pedestal in Leslie's eyes.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer:
- Somehow manages to become a congresswoman, despite being Robin.
- It's eventually subverted after being caught kissing Leslie and making several destructive comments causes her Party to stop supporting her.
- Then played straight again when she becomes a political science professor, as she has plenty of hands-on experience and practical knowledge that makes her a surprisingly good teacher.
- Character Development: After getting to personally know some of the cast, Robin learns about the harm she and her party are causing, and begins taking her campaign in a different direction. She then fires her campaign managers when they suggest letting Ryan off the hook. And later still, she publicly concedes the election in order to prove to Becky that she does care about her as a person.
- Everyone Has Standards: Despite her selfishness, Robin is not willing to overlook sexual assault, and only fails at identifying Ryan because he goes by his middle name.
- Gay Conservative:
- Roz immediately notices her attraction to Leslie despite being a Republican politician.
- This gets deconstructed in book seven, as Leslie has to struggle with being attracted to someone who actively supports homophobic policies to get ahead. Likewise, Robin is having a very hard time denying that she's not straight.
- Jerkass: Even more selfish than her Walkyverse counterpart, on top of supporting several Republican policies just to get ahead no matter who they hurt.
- Laser-Guided Karma: After several days of invading Leslie's apartment, she finally leaves after learning her Party has dropped her.
- No Party Given: Played with. It is strongly implied that she ran as a conservative Republican (mostly to curry favor with the redneck vote in her district) but is not actually all that conservative herself, and may, in fact, have few to no principles at all.
- Oh, Crap!: Has this expression when Joyce turns out to be fairly well informed and asks how she could vote for an anti-gay bill.
- Purely Aesthetic Glasses: Her eyesight's fine; she only wears glasses to make a good impression.
- Same Character, But Different: Her immature personality is mostly the same to her Shortpacked! one, but she's preoccupied with forwarding her political career and impressing lobbyists and voter blocs. The result is that this Robin comes off as kind of a gladhanding sleaze.
- Spanner in the Works: Making Becky her campaign manager means she can use her official Twitter account, which in turn means she can inform the wider public about Blaine kidnapping her friends once Amazi-Girl tells her about it.
- Transparent Closet:
- Her attraction to Leslie is pretty noticeable, and her attempts to deny it are...less than convincing.
- Yeah, she's sitting on Leslie's sofa, and yeah, they're watching Steven Universe, and yeah, they're holding hands. Robin still swears she's not into Leslie (and that they're barely holding hands).
- Unwanted Assistance: She decides to try and be a good guest by helping Leslie around the house. Unfortunately, her actions leave a lot to be desired, since Robin takes her usual thoughtless approach to all of it.
Miscellaneous non-students
Marcie Diaz
Sal's closest friend since childhood, Marcie is a mute skater and one of the few people Sal consistently listens to. If Sal's not in class or her room, she's probably hanging out with Marcie somewhere.
- Ascended Extra: A notable example: Her Walkyverse counterpart had two appearances total that weren't in the background or as a general part of her squad. Here, Marcie has slowly graduated to main cast member and is Sal's best friend and confidant.
- Cool Shades: Only ever seen wearing red shades / goggles. (She has apparently always done so.)
- Clingy Jealous Girl: In a Patreon Exclusive, she locks a nude model in a closet after finding out Malaya was going to paint said model, then tells the teacher she was substituting.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Be it illness or injury, she lost her voice somehow. Eventually revealed to be an injury caused by Leland as revenge for Sal attacking him for bullying Marcie.
- Death Glare: Shoots Sal one after she starts a fight with Amazi-Girl at Robin's rally.
- Incompatible Orientation: When a fed-up Sal demands to know what Marcie could possibly see in Malaya that Sal can't provide, Marcie replies that she wants to bang her. Though it turns out that Marcie doesn't even know what Malaya's orientation is, and doesn't want to make a move until she does, so Malaya could turn out to be incompatible as well. For the record, Sal thinks it's pretty obvious that she's straight and Marcie is wasting her time.Sal: Does she look at other girls? Does she look at you? Lookit those knockers you got. They're a singularity from which no light can escape. Has she snuck a glance once?
- Irony: The one person Sal "listens to" can't speak.
- Morality Chain: Marcie tends to reign in Sal's more destructive behavior and at times acts as her conscience.
- Mysterious Past: It's unknown just how she lost her voice, just that she lost it as a kid and that Sal knows why but isn't willing to share. It's later revealed to be the result of an injury caused by Lelend as revenge for Sal attacking him for bullying her.
- Only Friend: Marcie is Sal's oldest and closest real friend, and Sal feels very threatened when she starts hanging out with Malaya.
- Silent Snarker: It's hard not to be snarky when Joyce is around, but she still manages to beat Sal, and without saying a single word.
- The Speechless: She can't talk (though she could when she was younger). Sal's explanation to Malaya is "stuff happens."
- Undying Loyalty: To Sal. Despite fighting with her on occasion, she moved all the way to campus and into a cramped apartment just to support Sal, knowing her friend would be lonely that far away and need someone to lean on.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Chews out Sal via text for picking a fight with Amazi-Girl while she was running security.
Galasso
Owner of Galasso's Pizza (and Subs), a restaurant near campus the cast frequent. Tolerated by the student body because his food is just that good.
- Adaptational Heroism: Not nearly as shady as his Walkyverse counterpart, with nothing like the customer protection rackets existing and in fact does want his customers to be happy, something his counterpart couldn't care less about. The worst he does is fire someone for not breaking someone's spirit.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: The main reason why he's still in business despite his eccentricities is that his pizzas are amazing.
- Do Wrong, Right: Fires Sidney Yus not for purposefully giving Becky and Dina the wrong pizza...but because it failed to break the couple's spirit like Sydney claimed, only confusing them.
- Evil Overlord: Plays the part...despite owning a Pizza Parlor.
- Happily Married: His wife is still alive in this continuity.
- Large Ham: Frequently calls his customers fools and shouts everything.
- Pet the Dog: Sponsors the School's coming out group, if partly because gender confuses him.
- Supreme Chef: Why everyone tolerates his behavior: he has the best pizza on campus.
- Third-Person Person: Wouldn't be Galasso without it.
Leland
A classmate of Sal and Walky's in elementary school and a major bully.
- The Bully: Bullied Marcie for being poor and implicitly non-white.
- Karma Houdini: Gets away with bullying Marcie and later giving her her throat injury through a combination of racism towards Marcie and Sal, threatening Walky into keeping quiet in one instance, and coming from "a fine family". Walky and Amber find out later on that he got into Yale.
- Kick the Dog: Not only does he injure Marcie just because he can and to get back at Sal for attacking him, he has his goons hold her still while she's Forced to Watch.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Only appears in flashbacks, but his injury of Marcie started the chain of events that led to Sal's convenience store robbery that ended with her hand injured by Amber and got her essentially banished to Tennessee until the start of the webcomic's present time frame.
Lester
A cop on the Korean mob's payroll, whom Blaine considered an ally.
- Dirty Cop: In the pocket of the Korean mob and not above assassinating people on their behalf.
- Given Name Reveal: In a Patreon-only strip it's mentioned his last name is Bradford. It's not confirmed if he's related to Mary.
- Karma Houdini: The idea of him getting comeuppance for his crimes is considered a joke by his colleagues.
- Killer Cop: Ask Blaine. Oh, sorry, you can't, he "somehow" managed to steal his gun and shoot himself with it.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Appears in three strips, one of them Patreon-exclusive, near the tail end of Year 10, but is responsible for Blaine's death.
- Walking Spoiler: As mentioned elsewhere on the page, his main and only role in the plot is faking Blaine's suicide.
Family and relatives
Brown Family
Hank and Carol Brown
Joyce's parents.
- Adaptational Jerkass: While Carol could be pretty pushy in the Walkyverse, particularly when it came to her desire for grandkids, she never did something like defend the man who threatened her daughter with a gun and later kidnaps her and her other friends while being a raging homophobe.
- Being Good Sucks: Hank mentions that the reason they kept changing churches is because he couldn't compromise his beliefs at all, and Joyce inherited this trait from him. However, he thinks their lives would be easier if they could let themselves be just a little corruptible.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: At first, Carol comes off as a nice, if somewhat insensitive, woman. Then Becky's character arc starts in earnest, and she begins showing a much nastier side. It culminates when Ross attempts to violently abduct Becky twice, and Carol white-knights him and proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that she has no real concern for her daughter's emotional or physical well-being.
- Broken Pedestal:
- Joyce seems to feel this way about her mom after the events of Ross attempting to kidnap Becky at gunpoint, and almost shooting Joyce. Joyce's utterly broken and bitter expression as her mom seems more concerned with Ross going to jail for "trying to save his daughter from homosexuality," and her eerily saying "she would die for Joyce" much like how Ross did makes her realize her mother is just as blinded by her faith as Ross was.
- After having been happy with her since they were in college together, Carol's persistent defense of Ross no matter what he does completely disillusions Hank to his soon-to-be-ex-wife.
- Character Development: Hank at first was much like Carol, judgmental and left everything to religious doctrine and his own prejudices. After Joyce stands up to them over their disdain for her Atheist friend Dorothy, he spent a lot of time praying over it and decided he needed to step back and trust Joyce to make her own choices, and remains friendly to Becky, despite the awkwardness of her coming out as a lesbian. He eventually sincerely apologizes to the Keeners for giving them the cold shoulder and calling them "godless", acknowledging that they are good people and that Joyce grew better and further than him.
- Control Freak: Carol shows more and more signs of being a control freak when it comes to her children as time goes on:Hank: All I'm saying is, we squeeze too hard and we create another Jordan situation.
Carol: We created that by not squeezing hard enough. - Cool Old Guy: Hank is old enough for all 4 of his known children to be legal adults, and is one of the most approachable parents in the comic due to his Character Development.
- The Dividual: Discussed; Joyce sees all married couples, including her own parents, as single homogeneous units. This view gets shattered in the aftermath of Ross' death; Carol doubles down on her refusal to accept responsibility and defense of his actions while Hank draws his personal line in the sand and is clearly concerned about his daughter's well-being first and foremost. Joyce later states that they're getting divorced.
- Entitled Bastard: After Hank walks away from Carol in disgust of her defending what Ross did and what she did, Carol tries to guilt him into coming back and supporting her. He calls Carol on her bullshit for trying to make this about her, and then Carol stomps off complaining about Hank "throwing a tantrum like a child."
- Epic Fail: In a Patreon strip where we see Hank and Carol's first meeting in college, the former's attempts to flirt fall flat.
- Eviler than Thou: After the events of Book 10, Carol and Linda get into an argument about Ross' actions in kidnapping several students in an attempt to get to Becky. Linda is not a good person or parent, given that she favors Walky while violating Sal's privacy and stealing from her and wants Amber to get punished for the actions of her father. However, when compared to Carol, who unashamedly white-knights Ross' armed abduction of several people in order to force Becky back under his direct control and delusionally claims he never hurt anyone even though his actions have traumatized everyone involved and gotten Mike killed, Linda looks like a saint.
- The Fundamentalist: Much like Joyce, but are a bit more of the Jerkass variety when they meet her atheist friend Dorothy and her parents. While Hank grows out of it after Joyce stands up to them on the issue, Carol only gets worse, siding with Ross after Becky's kidnapping, trying to pull Joyce out of school, and being utterly passive-aggressive and hateful to Becky.
- Hate Sink: The further the comic goes on, the more it does to make you hate Carol. The tip of the iceberg is when she chips in money to bail Ross out of prison, indirectly setting the rest of book 10's events in motion.
- Hidden Depths:
- Hank at first seems like your typical judgmental fundamentalist Christian, but when he comes to pick Joyce up for a weekend at home, he not only invites Becky along, but reveals that, while it will be hard for him to accept Becky's sexual orientation, he still considers her a good kid, and believes he needs to let Joyce make her own decisions, instead of making them for her.
- He reveals later in the same Book that he too was passionate like Joyce and the reason they changed churches so much wasn't out of ignorance, but out of passion and dedication. He also gets noticeably upset when he overhears the congregation insulting Becky.
- Insane Troll Logic: Carol defends Ross' actions in Book 10 by claiming that nobody got hurt. Ignoring the fact that even only considering physical injury she's wrong - Mike is put into a coma protecting Amber from Blaine and eventually dies of his injuries - Ross' own incompetence does not make his actions any more acceptable, and several people (including Carol's own daughter) are traumatized by the events.
- Jerkass: Carol, in spades. When Becky and her are alone after the events of "To those Who'd Ground Me," her first questions to her are if she really sure she's a lesbian, and asks if it was worth sending her father to prison, utterly ignoring the facts that Becky's dad kidnapped her via gunpoint and almost killed her own daughter in the process. During all of Becky's stay at their house, she acts extremely passive-aggressive towards her, putting her husband ill at ease and infuriating Joyce.
- Mama Bear: Subverted. In spite of all of Carol's talk about how she would die for Joyce, she defends the actions of Ross MacIntyre, the man who pointed a gun at her daughter and later kidnaps her and several of her friends.
- My Beloved Smother: Carol is this to Joyce, and it is clear that without Hank reining her in Joyce would have been withdrawn from university a long time ago.
- Never My Fault: Carol continuing to defend Ross's actions means she doesn't have to admit if she hadn't helped bail him out in the first place, Ross would still be alive, and Joyce and her friends wouldn't have been traumatized by the hostage situation.
- Nice Guy: Hank, especially compared to his wife. He happily allows Becky to come with them for the weekend, and spends dinner trying to resolve the tension between her and his wife Carol, who isn't so happy to see Becky. He is also visibly both sad and pissed when he hears other people at church trash-talking Becky because of her hair and sexuality.
- Noodle Incident: Whatever happened with Joyce's brother, Jordan. It's implied that he is alienated from the rest of the family in some way.
- Parental Substitute: Hank serves as this to Becky, treating her as he would any of his own children and trying to defend her from his wife.
- Rage Breaking Point: Carol defending Ross' actions to the Walkertons leads Hank to walk away from her, publicly making it clear he doesn't support his wife's point of view, and calling her out on her Skewed Priorities. Joyce mentions in Book 11 that they're getting divorced and when Carol shows up in Book 13, she tells Joyce that they are officially divorced.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Hank, on account of Character Development setting in, and deciding to be much less judgmental. He's about the second-most approachable parent in the comic behind Dorothy's parents. He divorces Carol once it's made clear how far gone she is.
- Sanity Slippage: When Carol reappears following the timeskip, her religious beliefs seem to be slipping into full-blown delusion, as she claims that she was commanded by God Himself to sell the Brown family's house, after He came to her in a dream.
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: Hank gives one to Carol when she stubbornly defends Ross for a violent kidnapping and declares that "We stand by our own." Hank responds, "...I'll be standing over here [away from you]."
- Skewed Priorities: Carol's more upset about Ross being dead than the fact he kidnapped and traumatized her own daughter.
- The Unapologetic: Carol refuses to admit fault or apologize for helping to provide Ross bail money and enabling him to abduct several college students, including her own daughter.
- Undying Loyalty: Carol stands by her church no matter what, to the detriment of her family. She refuses to believe it could be wrong to the point of selling her house just because "God told her to" since they're in a lot of trouble after getting Ross out of jail, which led to the hostage situation and Ross, Mike, and Blaine dying.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Carol and the other members of the church raising money to post bail for Ross ends in her own daughter and several of her friends getting kidnapped, Mike being hospitalized and later dying, and Ross himself eventually getting murdered by Blaine, who himself is soon after murdered by a corrupt cop. It also results in the church itself being in dire financial straits due to the lost bail money.
John Brown
Joyce's oldest sibling.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Initially seems pretty warm and friendly, right up until the subject of punching Becky's dad comes up. Things proceed to get worse from there.
- Broken Pedestal: Not as severe as with her mom, but Joyce is utterly furious with him for taking Ross' side.
- Evil Counterpart: To Jocelyne. Jocelyne is kind, polite, well spoken and tries to do what's best for her sister, understanding her point of view while trying to nudge her in the right direction. Josh thinks he's all of these things, but in reality is an egositical dickhead who thinks he knows better than everyone else and assumes any difference of opinion on Joyce's part is just her being a Spoiled Brat.
- Happily Married: Mentioned to have gotten married recently.
- Hypocrite: He claims that college is giving Joyce and Becky a "sense of entitlement" because they stood up to Becky's father over her lesbianism. Jocelyne points out that he owns a top of the line Mustang given to him for free by his church, bought using money tithed from the poor.
- Jerkass: After being condescendingly "civil" to Joyce and Becky's faces, he flat-out tells Jocelyne that he considers Becky a sinner who's just being "trendy" and entitled.
- No Sympathy:
- Shows an alarming lack of sympathy to Becky's homelessness or the fact that his own sister had a gun shoved in her face. As far as he's concerned, Joyce showing something as unseemly as actual anger totally invalidates her position.
- Rather than admit that his community has totally failed to prepare Becky for life on her own, he suggests that she "should have thought of that before" everything that happened. When Joyce warns him about finishing that sentence, he switches to tone-policing her.
- Says Joyce overreacted by breaking her hand punching Ross, despite the fact Ross threatened her at gunpoint and kidnapped her best friend.
- Perma-Stubble: Has five o'clock shadow. He's presently the only member of the Browns to display facial-hairedness.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Sees himself as this, in contrast to Joyce's barely-contained rage over Ross' actions, though he really isn't in reality.
Jocelyne Brown
Joyce's second oldest sibling and an aspiring writer with her own website, and closeted trans woman known as "Joshua" or "Josh" to everyone in the cast but Ethan.
- Big Sister Mentor: To Joyce and Becky, advising the former to be more civil with their mother so that she stays in college and Becky still has a family and helps Becky break into her old house so she can get her Social Security number.
- Deadpan Snarker: By far the snarkiest member of the family, and she is able to deliver fantastic lines
when she is pissed. - Dramatic Irony: Joyce has repeatedly said that she's always wanted a sister. Of course, she doesn't know that her older "brother" Joshua is actually a trans woman named Jocelyne.
- Foil:
- To Carla. While both are trans women, Carla chooses to be open about her status, earning her the bigotry of Mary. Meanwhile, Jocelyne remains closeted to avoid alienating her family, who have already demonstrated homophobic behavior towards Becky, causing her to remain well-liked by everyone. Their personalities reflect this, with Carla being a jerk by default, while Jocelyne is a nice girl.
- Possibly also to Becky. Both have different attitudes about coming out of the closet—Becky rushed out of it, suffered for it and eventually came to greater happiness, and is fully aware of how very conditional her family's love was. She also has absolutely no lingering desire to stay at home. In contrast, Jocelyne stays closeted, suffers for it, and is overall far too attached to her family and memories to come out of the closet the same way as Becky.
- Given Name Reveal: Inverted, she texts Ethan the link to her website, which happens to be her chosen name.
- Lady Looks Like a Dude: The main reason why no one but Ethan knows what her real gender is. Even the readers were fooled up until the reveal. Justified due to her being closeted and, as such, still presenting as male in everyday life (at least insofar as she's been present in the story).
- Late-Arrival Spoiler: Her true name and gender was a massive twist at the time it was revealed, but that was in 2013. By now, it's almost impossible not to know, especially as the character tags on pre-reveal strips have been revised to call her Jocelyne.
- Nice Girl: One of the few characters who doesn't need to change much as a person.
- Parental Favoritism: She says that she's her parents' favorite child, but only because "they know the least about [her]." She's probably not wrong, as she isn't out to her (Fundamentalist Christian) parents as a trans woman, or anyone else in her family for that matter.
- So Proud of You: Seems to be having this reaction as she sees Joyce standing up for Becky and generally behaving less like The Fundamentalist. She even mentions that she and Joyce should have a chat sometime...
- Starving Artist: A Patreon-exclusive strip has her bemoaning that she's been misled over the amount of glamour and wealth involved with going into literature. Main comic also gets in a small mention:Jocelyne: We are what we experience. And these days, John mostly experiences having stuff.
Joyce: And - and you don't?
Jocelyne: Joyce, I'm a writer. - Stepford Smiler: She mostly appears cheerful and good-natured, or at least frequently smiles. During John and Joyce's argument she's the one trying to keep everything calm and "normal".
- Walking Spoiler: "He's" Josh, one of Joyce's many older brothers, right? Wrong, she's actually a transwoman named Jocelyne, and Ethan is the only one who knows this.
Jordan Brown
Joyce's third oldest sibling, who is implied to be estranged from the rest of the family for being, in Willis' words "too individualistic".
- Freudian Excuse: Whatever he's like and however he's estranged, it's been heavily implied, if not outright stated that it's because his parents pressed on him too hard.
- The Ghost: Has only been mentioned so far, with the exception of one Patreon bonus comic of a flashback of when Jocelyne takes them trick or treating. However, Jordan was in a full body transformers costume and only says "No".
Rosenthal-Brannon-O'Malley clan
Blaine O'Malley
Amber's father, and one of the most despicable characters of the comic. His name seems to allude to legendary Irish pirate queennote Gráinne "Grace" O'Malley: this may be just a coincidence but wouldn't be atypical for David Willis.
- Abusive Parents: Amber was deeply traumatized by him during her childhood due to his abuse, and he doesn't treat Faz well either.
- Adaptational Villainy:
- His abuse of his wife was upgraded to physical in the Dumbiverse, not to mention the fact he outright abandons his son in a huff.
- He's indirectly responsible for Mike's death via fall and murders Ross after he finds out he freed Amber.
- All for Nothing: His main goal is making Amber drop out, so he doesn't have to pay for her college; not only does his scheme to force that escalate out of control, and gets him killed in the end, Amber continues her education in spite of it.
- Archnemesis Dad: He is more than willing to take the extra step necessary to make his daughter's life miserable. The extra step in question being kidnapping Danny in order to lure her out of the campus to teach her a lesson.
- Ascended Extra: His original incarnation was more of a background threat only appearing a few times to directly interfere with Amber's life with most of his role being confined to the trauma he inflicted pre-series before dying offscreen. Blaine is much more of an active threat in DOA and has had much more of an onscreen presence than in Shortpacked. He's easily one of the comic's biggest antagonists.
- Asshole Victim: If it was anyone other than Blaine, a manipulative Abusive Dad and murderer, a Dirty Cop on the mob's payroll shooting a hospital patient dead would be horrifying. Amber even makes a point of saying Lester doing it just saved her the trouble of having to do it one day herself, as she already considered him pretty much dead to her, and says Dina can high-five her for it once they're out of her mom's eyesight.
- Ax-Crazy: Willing to kill 9 people just to get out of paying for Amber's tuition.
- Big Bad: He is the main antagonist of "The Only Dope For Me Is You", and later begins acting as the Greater-Scope Villain before returning to Big Bad status for the kidnapping plot.
- Bludgeoned to Death: When he re-enters the plot, he threatens to kill Mike using a ball-peen hammer. Mike requests to be killed with something less-hilarious-sounding. He continues to wave a hammer around later on, eventually killing Ross with it.
- Brutish Character, Brutish Weapon: He's an abusive father and husband who gets more and more unhinged with each appearance, and when he decides to use a weapon, it's a ball-peen hammer.
- The Bus Came Back: At the end of "Faz is Great", he reveals that he isn't through with his daughter yet.
- Character Death: Lester blows his brains out after his failed attempt to kidnap Amber.
- Didn't See That Coming: He only agreed to pay Amber's college tuition instead of alimony because he never thought that Amber would actually go to college.
- Eviler than Thou: When allied with Ross, Blaine proves himself to be the crueler of the two. By the end of the arc Blaine is fed up with Ross's stupidity and the few standards that Ross has get in the way of Blaine's plans.
- Evil Is Petty: The events of "When It Crumbles", mainly kidnapping and both attempted and actual murder, all goes back to him wanting to control Amber and not wanting to pay her tuition.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: He wears glasses and is one of the evilest characters in the webcomic, being an abusive parent, father, and even both attempted and actual murderer.
- Freudian Excuse: He's a walking one, explaining Amber's anger issues both by genetics and his abuse.
- Genre Savvy: Oddly enough, he is, as after he makes death threats to the heroes who are at the mercy of his goons, he looks around, expecting Amazi-Girl, the superhero, to show up. He then shrugs it off, guessing that he was mistaken, while Amazi-Girl is in fact right behind him.
- Gory Discretion Shot: We don't see Lester shoot him or his body afterwards, just everyone's reaction to hearing the gunshot.
- Greater-Scope Villain: While he can't return to the campus himself, he's been making movements to try and influence things so as to get revenge on Amber, more specifically Amazi-Girl, and is attempting to involve other former antagonists.
- He sends Faz in to try and get whatever information he can on Amber and her friends, and Faz manages to steal a flash drive from her laptop.
- He approaches Carol Brown and her church as they attempt to raise money to bail Ross MacIntyre out of prison after he brought a loaded gun to the campus, kidnapped his daughter Becky and gunpoint, and engaged in a high-speed chase with Amazi-Girl, offering to help finance them.
- He approaches Asher hoping to get Asher to be his "in" to the campus since he's pretty much unable to return.
- Hate Sink: Unsurprising, seeing as he was one back in Shortpacked!; Blaine is abusive, controlling, ill-tempered, and cruel. Notably, while Linda, Carol, and even Ross are driven at least in part by some parental affection (even if that affection is misplaced or simply twisted by their own selfishness), Blaine is up-front and unambiguous about his despicable nature to the audience at all times.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: He agreed to pay Amber's tuition instead of alimony, in the belief that she'd never go to college. You can guess how ''that' turned out. Since then he's trying to find a way to get Amber to drop out so that he doesn't have to pay anymore.
- I Reject Your Reality: His kidnapping plan is based entirely on his assumption that Amber is a coward who will easily cave to his demands to drop out of school. This is after he's been called out and beaten to hell by her twice- once as both Amber and Amazi-Girl. At this point, his self-serving memory is less "bad judge of character" and more "absolutely delusional."
- Irisless Eye Mask Of Mystery: Sometimes, when in his supervillain getup. The general rule of thumb is 'no eyes if he's trying to be intimidating, eyes otherwise', with a few exceptions.
- It's All About Me: Blaine's in it for no one but himself. He'll screw his daughter out of an education if it means he doesn't have to pay for it, and eventually reveals that he had no intention of getting Becky back for Ross, having lied just to get his cooperation.
- Jerkass: He cheated on his wife, beat said wife, tried to impose his authority on his daughter by being downright emotionally abusive, kidnaps his daughter's boyfriend in order to use him as leverage over her, and is definitely not above beating his daughter personally. He also admits that he agreed to pay Amber's tuition instead of paying Stacy alimony only because he didn't think she'd actually go to college.
- Karmic Death: Asher makes a call to his mafia contacts and has Blaine capped in his hospital bed, the very same fate he threatened to inflict on Mike if his hostages didn't cooperate.
- Knight of Cerebus: One of the absolute worst characters in the series (as well as the franchise) to date. He later becomes the first character to straight up murder someone when he kills Ross.
- Manipulative Bastard:
- Gets close to Danny, faking concern for his daughter, in order to lure Amber into a trap.
- Later, he does the same to Ross in order to get their help in his revenge scheme.
- He's implied to be playing Yuri against Amber and Stacey by claiming their money woes are the result of him having to pay Amber's tuition.
- Motive Rant: He reveals to Ross that his reason for antagonizing Amber is because he agreed to paid for Amber's tuition under the condition of not having to pay alimony, except he wasn't expecting her to actually go to college. So now he's trying to force her to drop out so he won't have to pay a dime.
- Murder Is the Best Solution: Mike catches you sneaking up on a party? Kill him. Ross derails your plan by letting Amber off the leash? Kill him. Have a bunch of hostages that know who you are and are now useless? Kill all of them.
- Never My Fault: Kills Ross for releasing Amber from her bindings, claiming that he ruined everything for him. The whole front Blaine was using to get Ross to work with him was claiming that he'd get Becky back for him, and he stated that Amazi-Girl would bring her to him. Amber just claimed that she was Amazi-Girl. Even taking into account Blaine's irrational denial about that, he should've known from first-hand experience that Ross is easily swayed and/or dumb enough to be convinced by her. Ross may have committed the act himself, but Blaine really should have seen this coming.
- "Not So Different" Remark: A flashback shows him trying to claim that about himself and Mike, claiming that they're both truly manipulative individuals. At the time, Mike disagreed, but the Breaking Speech Blaine delivers to Amazi-Girl when beating her up causes him to reconsider that.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: Blaine worries very little about maintaining his supervillain disguise, with a predictable result of Becky scheduling a release of his name, address, and plan on Twitter before trying to turn herself in.
- Psychotic Smirk: Once he decides to act like a supervillain and as he gets more and more unhinged, Blaine sports a deranged smile when he is gloating or about to commit violent acts.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Delivered one to his daughter, many years ago... While completely diminishing the threat represented by someone wielding a weapon:Blaine: So, that was it? Just some stupid punk with a knife. A knife. She took your little friend and you hid in a corner and did nothing. Why am I not surprised?
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: Pretty much how he's gone through life, using his connections to the mob to get what he wants. Inverted when he threatens the life of someone with much better connections. Asher, AKA the grandson of the head of the mob. The mob cuts Blaine loose. Lethally.
- Self-Serving Memory: As pointed out in-universe, Blaine lies when the truth hurts his pride. Which is why when Amber beats him up, he claims he was attacked by three people, and when Mike ends up in a coma tackling him off of a balcony, Blaine claims that he threw him off. That trope is the second-to-last thing he says before he gets killed, denying that Amber is Amazi-Girl to the cop about to assassinate him.
- Seven Deadly Sins: Barring Envy, he's guilty of almost all of them, befitting his Hate Sink nature.
- Greed: Tried to get out of paying alimony to Stacy by offering to pay Amber's college tuition instead, believing she wouldn't actually go, and tries to force her to drop out so he can stop paying. He's also helped launder millions of dollars for the mob with a fake carpentry business.
- Gluttony: Again, laundered millions for the mob.
- Lust: Cheated on his wife with a much younger woman.
- Pride: Wants to get revenge on Amazi-Girl for beating the shit out of him.
- Sloth: Tried to avoid paying any money following his divorce.
- Wrath: Beat his wife when his cheating was discovered, threatens violence on others at the drop of a hat, and tries to MURDER Mike when he catches him in the middle of his plan with Ross. When Ross screws up his plan by letting Amber go, he immediately tries to murder him too, and succeeds.
- Shadow Archetype: Part of why Amber is so afraid of Blaine is because she began to see herself in him, or rather, a version of herself that grows to enjoy violence and view it as the default solution to her problems.
- Small Role, Big Impact: He only appears in three arcs total, but is entirely responsible for how Amber is today and his kidnapping Danny to lure Amber out leads to Danny finding out her secret identity. His kidnapping plot also leads to Mike and Ross' deaths, which wouldn't have happened had he not paid Ross' bail.
- Smug Snake: Nowhere near as smart or intimidating as he presents himself to be. His "plans" mostly boil down to threatening people into doing what he says, and somehow thinks he can do that to Mike, even when he couldn't so when the latter was a child. He then proceeds to let Mike walk away when he's already made his intentions clear, with Mike informing him that he's calling the cops as soon as he's too far away to be attacked or chased.
- So Proud of You: Disturbingly, he expresses pride in Amber when he discovers that thanks to him, she's become a psychologically broken wreck who is also pretty badass.
- The Sociopath: He can be superficially affable to manipulate people (Danny, Joyce's church, and Ross) but in reality is physically and emotionally abusive, greedy, pathologically self-centered, only sees people as tools, and is quite willing to resort to cold-blooded murder to get his way. The latter also serves as an example of his poor impulse control, as his murder of Ross and double kidnapping of Joyce only serves to make him a liability to the Korean mob, who has Lester eliminate him in his hospital bed.
- Stupid Evil: The entire kidnapping plot was not only a disproportionate means of getting Amber to drop out, it escalates to murder-by-ballpeen-hammer and falls apart because of multiple unforced mistakes on his part. Given all of his actions involving Amazi-Girl and Amber up to the kidnapping, and all of his actions afterwards, he may, in fact, be dumber than Ross, the series' ostensible Brute.
- Too Dumb to Live: He's so certain that people will do what he says that he makes some very foolish decisions:
- Letting Mike walk off after he catches him and Ross stalking Becky's party. He really should've known personally that Mike wasn't afraid of him.
- Blaine also cannot accept the obvious hole in his plan: Despite twice witnessing their fighting prowess, he refuses to admit that Amber and Amazi-Girl are the same person. Ross easily intuits that Amber is correct when claiming this. Blaine is too damned stupid (or perhaps delusional) to realize the truth. Despite claiming otherwise, what happens next is on his shoulders too.
- He is absolutely convinced that, since most if not all cops in town are on the Korean mob's payroll, they will also work in his favor. No matter how severe the crimes he commits, he is not afraid of any cop in town because he believes they'll help him get away. Turns out that the mob paid one of the cops to assassinate him because he has become too much of a loose cannon and an actual threat to the mob as a result.
- Would Hit a Girl: Apart from beating on his daughter personally, during the kidnapping plot Blaine blood chokes Joyce so hard that after she regains consciousness in his van she's noticeably paler for a few strips, implying that had he done so for any longer Joyce could've suffered brain damage or worse.
Faz
Amber's stepbrother, who lives with her father.
- Adaptational Angst Upgrade: He's turned from a one-note Funny Foreigner in Shortpacked! to a Troubled Teen who uses perversion to cope with his abusive upbringing.
- Age Lift: Was a young adult only slightly younger than Amber in Shortpacked!, while here he is only 14.
- All for Nothing: He explicitly says he assisted Blaine in the kidnapping scheme solely because if Blaine gets arrested, he'll end up homeless. He doesn't make a difference; Blaine gets apprehended and "commits suicide" in the hospital.
- Ambiguous Situation: Amber mentions that she's not sure whether Faz is "just" her stepbrother, or if like in the Walkyverse he's actually her half-brother, mainly because as Yuri isn't that much older than most of the cast, it would mean that Blaine cheated on her mother with someone who was just a teenager at the time. On Blaine's end, he's quite insistent on making sure Faz refers to him solely as his stepfather, even when it's just him, Faz, and Yuri.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: He needs to be constantly babysat by Amber and Joe to stop him from running around to creep on women.
- Anti-Villain: When Joyce confronts him mano-a-womano, he reveals he didn't go through with taking blackmail material from Amber's computer on Blaine's orders. In Faz's own words, "he was... very disappointed in me", implying he's being strongarmed into cooperating with his insane scheme. He also doesn't want to see his father imprisoned and is afraid of being rendered homeless in that instance.
- Bound and Gagged: Gets tied up by Dina after he won't shut up and leave.
- Casanova Wannabe: He tries to hit on Dina. He ends up tied up and handed over to Ruth.
- Forced into Evil: When called out by Joyce, that's how he explains his participation in the kidnapping plot.Faz: I do not like my father, but I wish even less for him to be imprisoned. We would lose our home. So I cut him free.
- No Social Skills: In Joe's words, he has the "social graces of an incel subreddit".
- Perpetual Smiler: Just like his Walkyverse counterpart he's got a smug smile near-permanently etched on his face.
- Skipping School: In his second appearance, he turns up at the college when he should be in attending classes elsewhere.
- Smug Smiler: He's constantly smiling, and Joe describes his face as "so smug it could power a dozen coffee-houses".
- Stepford Smiler: His infamous smug smile doesn't go away once the plot begins to point out he's also a victim of Blaine's abuse.
- The Thing That Would Not Leave: Won't leave Dina alone until she has to actually tie him up and hand him over to Ruth.
- Third-Person Person: Refers to himself as Faz. When he's using first-person to refer to himself it's generally pretty serious, like when he's explaining to Joyce why he got involved in the kidnapping plot.
- Vile Villain, Laughable Lackey: He's like a kind of sidekick to his father. While Blaine's one of the most seriously portrayed threats in the comic, Faz is completely played for laughs with his weird behavior and lack of social graces. The dynamic is deconstructed in the kidnapping arc: Faz is completely aware that his father has gone off the deep end, but tags along because if Blaine gets arrested, his family loses a breadwinner. Blaine in turn was "disappointed" with his failure to gather dirt on Amber and presumably couldn't care less when Faz gets thrown out of the open getaway van.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Post-timeskip he and Yuri have yet to appear and it's unclear what happened with them in the interim.
Stacy Brannon
Amber's mother. She loves her daughter dearly, and is looking out for her well being. Sadly, her love life hasn't been great, to say the least.
- Horrible Judge of Character: She gets called out by her own daughter on this, with Amber pointing out she has a tendency to fall for horrible men, such as Blaine and Joe's dad.
- The Maiden Name Debate: She has dropped her ex-husband's last name and returned to her maiden name, Brannon.Mike: Good call.
- Parents as People: Though she clearly loves Amber and tries hard to be supportive and encouraging of her, Stacy isn't really equipped to deal with Amber's issues, and can therefore be a bit clumsy with her parenting.
Dr. Richard Rosenthal
Joe's womanizing father. Ends up in a relationship with Amber's mother, though Joe's convinced it won't last.
- The Casanova: Shown on-panel to be quite a womanizer, and if Joe's comments are any indication, he's been like that even before his divorce.
- Freudian Excuse: While it's not said outright, it's implied Joe's hang-ups about relationships and attitude towards women is a direct result of his parenting.
- Ladykiller in Love: Shows some attachment towards Stacy Brannon, and despite Joe's worries is adamant that he wants to pursue a serious relationship with her. Following Book 10, they've gotten married.
- Like Father, Like Son: Resembles Joe in both behaviour and looks.
Yuri
Faz's mother and Blaine's second wife.
- Abusive Parents: Implied, Faz makes it clear that even though he's aware Amber is annoyed by him, her presence is preferable to dealing with with either of his parents.
- Ambiguous Situation: While she does plot with Blaine regarding Amber, it's unclear how aware or directly involved she was in the kidnapping plot.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: She acts nice to Amber in her first appearance, only to let her open contempt for Amber show when she's with her son and husband.
- Teen Pregnancy: Implied, she's not that much older than most of the cast but has a 15-year old son, meaning that she had him sometime in her early to mid teens.Amber: Nice and normal, and, like, twenty-five, tops.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Post-timeskip she and Faz have yet to appear and it's unclear what happened with them in the interim.
Other family members
Clint Hughes
Ruth's maternal grandfather, who makes him call him "Sir".
- Gruesome Grandparent: He's verbally abusive towards Ruth, and is implied to have been physically abusive as well. Howard shows little signs of having suffered the same, though Ruth is terrified nonetheless that Clint wouldn't hesitate to change that if she steps out of line.
- Jerkass Has a Point: It doesn't excuse taking it out on his grandchildren, but considering his daughter died because of Mr. Lessick's drunk driving, Clint's pretty justified in hating him.
- Lamarck Was Right: Clint thinks so at any rate, and he doesn't tolerate it. He tells Ruth how much it sickens him that he sees so little of her mother in her but her late drunk-driving father persists in her.
- Clint: And he couldn't even die with her. He had to find immortality in you.
- An Offer You Can't Refuse: Ruth is ready to bite the bullet and take the next step in her miserable life by resigning from her RA job. When she learns that she has to continue on as an unfit R.A. anyway, she begs Chloe to pick anyone else. Clint tells her that she'll perform the duty he's laid out for her in a way that sends the message that she won't be getting out of this one.
- Parental Marriage Veto: He hated the union of his daughter and Mr. Lessick, a hatred which intensified due to the latter getting them both killed because he was driving drunk. He never let go of his scorn, to the misfortune of his grandchildren.
Linda and Charles Walkerton
Sal and Walky's parents.
- Abusive Parents:
- Due to their Parental Favoritism towards Walky for being the "whiter" twin. They refused to take Sal's side as a kid when Marcy was bullied by a kid on the playground and are heavily implied to be bigoted towards her, if not openly.
- Even though they openly favor Walky, his mother is unflinching on his becoming a doctor, regardless of what he wants. When it's pointed out that he's in telecommunications, she responds that he is, "until he changes his mind." Learning that he's flunking his classes makes her instantly start furiously screaming at him.
- Amicable Exes: Linda seems to get along well with her ex-husband, Dean McHenry. It's revealed post-timeskip that the reason Sal could ride her motorcycle on school grounds despite being a freshman is because Linda talked him into turning a blind eye towards it.
- Boomerang Bigot: They don't like Lucy being together with Walky due to her race even though Charles is the same race (Black) and married to Linda. This is pointed out by Walky while talking with Lucy about it. Walky himself has a hard time believing that an interracial couple could be racist against other black people at first, which causes some friction with Sal when he initially fails to identify the source of their parents' favoritism.
- Broken Pedestal: Walky begins gradually losing his respect for his parents after realizing that they've failed not just Sal, but him as well, on top of discovering that Sal was right about them being racist.
- Death Glare: Linda levels a nasty glare at Walky for calling her out as racist.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: Once they find out about Blaine's kidnapping plot, they decide that Amber should be expelled for it. Even putting aside the fact that Amber is also a victim of her father in the situation, Blaine's goal was to not pay for Amber's tuition, and if Linda follows through, he gets what he wanted. Sal explicitly points out the latter part, but Linda shrugs it off.
- Frivolous Lawsuit: Both have tried to sue Amber's mother at least 30 times after Blaine's kidnapping plot and finding out that Amber stabbed Sal in the hand.
- Henpecked Husband: Charles is a decent fellow who is genuinely trying to be a good parent to the twins, but there's not much he can do with Linda calling all the shots in their family. When caught alone without Linda present, he's shown to be a lot nicer and more open-minded than her.
- Hypocrite: Linda accuses Sal of smoking while she herself is a smoker according to Sal.
- Jerkass: Linda has no qualms searching through Sal's stuff, violating her privacy, and upon discovering her shoebox money (over $700 that Sal was economizing in order to pay for Marcie's surgery) she confiscates it, claiming that Sal's friendship with Marcie (whom Linda considers to be a hoodlum and openly dislikes) is not a "healthy" one, and that she will give her back her money later, after implying she needs to cut ties with Marcie. Some time later, Sal commits a robbery out of anger and desperation.
- Jerkass Has a Point: For all her abrasiveness, Linda's 100% correct in calling out Carol for her church bailing Ross out.
- My Beloved Smother: Linda is a smothering parent towards Walky only. She neglects Sal.
- Never My Fault: Linda seems to consider Sal's issues with her to be Sal unfairly making everything her fault, and doesn't seem to ever stop to consider if these claims have any merit.
- No Sympathy: After finding out Blaine died in the hospital, Linda comments that it feels pretty good to get what she wanted without having to do anything since, if Blaine's dead, Amber loses her tuition.
- Obnoxious In-Laws: Well, they aren't in-laws (at least not yet), but they (or at least Linda) really seem to hate the fact that Walky is dating Lucy instead of Dorothy, whether it be due to racism or just because they see "normal, nice girl" as a downgrade from "overachieving future President" (or perhaps a combination of both). When the four are supposed to go to lunch together, Walky gets a text cancelling and asking to do dinner instead, saying that they're "sorry if that means Lucy can't make it". A fairly blatant way of saying they don't want Lucy there if there ever was one. Jennifer claims that they hate Lucy so much that she'll end up dragging Walky down beneath Sal in the ranks of Parental Favoritism.
- Parental Favoritism:
- When they visit, Charles at least acknowledges Sal's presence and tries conversing with her. Linda doesn't even do that and ignores her in favor of Walky and Dorothy.
- When sending presents to their kids, there is a noticeable difference between Sal and Walky's gifts, with Walky getting the better ones.
- Linda's favoritism towards Walky is implied to have begun when Linda took the twins to auditions to a Hymnel show, the receptionist said there was only room for one, and Linda decided to choose Walky.
- Despite all their favoritism towards Walky, all evidence points to Billie being their actual favorite child, and Walky only being second place. And she knows it.Walky: I'm like their magical golden child who can do no wrong.
Lucy: Awww, that sounds nice.
Walky: It's really, really not.
Jennifer: Actually, I'm their magical golden child who can do no wrong. Then Walky, and then Sal as a distant third.
- Parental Neglect: In the past, Charles was apathetic towards his children's behavior, and seemingly did not realize what his daughter was going through, letting his wife do all the parenting.
- Parents as People:
- While there's no excuse for the things she ends up doing, it's demonstrated that Linda truly does care about Sal and most of her deeds were rather misguided attempts at doing what she thought was best for her, without actually understanding that she was just making things worse. It's really not so much that she's a bad person, but more so that she's a horrible parent.
- Charles really does want to do right by his children, but is ultimately powerless before his domineering wife. Once he catches Walky alone without Linda around, he gives him a heart-to-heart about not having to date someone just because he thinks they'd like her, which pretty much instantly demonstrates him to be more reasonable than his wife.
- Shadow Archetype:
- Charles' behavior does bring to mind Walky's, in particular his passivity and Manchild aspects, without any of his Character Development.
- Charles is also one to Hank to a lesser degree, possessing his good intentions but lacking his willpower to stand up to his wife when she does wrong by their kids.
Liz Clinton
Sarah's younger half-sister, who shows up to visit and proves oddly slow to go away again.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Sarah finds her very annoying. The more the comic shows of her, the more readers may understand this.
- Hypocrite: Liz has established a reputation at the university she attends as a good church-going girl. In fact, she has lost her faith, and is downright happy to play up an image of cynical atheism while visiting her sister's friends. She eventually admits that preserving her reputation among her own friends is tiring and uncomfortable. But she's also somewhat hypocritical about her cynical unbelief; she plays up the bad girl style, but as it turns out, she is still a virgin, and has instinctively old-fashioned attitudes on that subject.
- Spoiled Brat: Sarah sees her as the beneficiary of Parental Favoritism who doesn't even have the grace to acknowledge that she's been given more than her sister.
Riley DeSanto
Roz and Robin's little sister.
- Girls Have Cooties: An inversion: she's twelve and comments that Roz's posters in her room are creepy, and when prodded says that boys are gross. And so are girls.Roz: Asexuality is also a fine choice.
Riley: I'm TWELVE! I only wanna choose what kind of cereal I eat. I choose ALL OF THEM! - Trademark Favourite Food: Connects with Dina over their shared love of cereal.
Ross MacIntyre
Becky's father, whose head looks like a giant toe (according to Dina). And as it turns out, that pretty much describes his intelligence.
- Abusive Parents: Verbally, emotionally, and physically. He seems to view Becky more as an extension of himself than a person - anything she does that deviates from her defined gender role is an insult to his role as head of the household.
- Adaptational Villainy: His Walkyverse counterpart was a giant asshole, but otherwise harmless. This Ross is an insane zealot who brings a rifle to a college campus with the intention of murdering Dina, then later Joyce and Becky if Becky didn't come with him, kidnaps his own daughter, later allies with Blaine to kidnap a large segment of the cast, and is implied to have driven his own wife to suicide.
- Affably Evil: During the mass-kidnapping arc, unlike his co-conspirator and the mooks he recruited, he's relatively concerned with the hostages' well-being.
- Alas, Poor Villain: Despite doing a lot of horrible things out of homophobic crusading, Joyce can't help but break down crying over someone she's known her entire life dying in front of her.
- Arc Villain: He is the main antagonist of "To Those Who'd Ground Me".
- Bait the Dog:
- Ross is an idiot and prone to more comic relief than other significant antagonists like Ryan and Blaine. He's easy to lead around at first until he comes back armed and takes his daughter back through force. His stupidity has a very dangerous edge to it as he continually puts himself and his daughter in danger.
- Ross does clearly love his wife and Becky and when he says Becky is all he has left it's one of the few, if only times, that he comes across as sympathetic. Immediately after that, however, it's shown just how twisted this affection really is as he's a control freak who can't stand Becky changing too much.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Ross allies with Blaine in order to force Becky to see him. He gets his wish, but when Becky sees him for the last time he's slowly dying and it's ambiguous if he's even aware of her presence since he's lost consciousness.
- Death Equals Redemption: His last action before bleeding out is fighting back against Blaine, giving the kidnapped victims an opening to leave the basement.
- The Ditz: Believes all of Dina's Blatant Lies, up to getting on a one-way bus trip to Indianapolis, thinking that it goes to the mall, without checking himself. He also proves extremely easy for Blaine to manipulate through his extreme zealotry and fundamentalism.
- The Dragon: When Blaine reenters the plot he recruits Ross as his central henchman. Though he acts as Ross's main enforcer his conflict with the heroes is fairly limited and in the final battle he's mostly fighting Blaine.
- Even Evil Has Standards: He's willing to ally with Blaine to get his daughter back, but it's repeatedly shown that he's not willing to sink as low as he does:
- He initially hesitates to kill Mike for running off to alert the police, thinking that he's just a boy, until Blaine appeals to his tautological views. Even then, he is still reluctant to actually go through with it, claiming that he's just bluffing.
- After kidnapping several members of the cast, the first words out of his mouth are to ask if they're all okay.
- He seems to be aware that Blaine is a nasty piece of work, and is only cooperating with him because he's his best shot at bringing back Becky.
- Evil Counterpart: To Joyce's father. While he too is a die-hard Christian fundamentalist, he is able to accept Joyce's growth away from that system of values. When Becky does the same, Ross goes off the deep end.
- Eviler than Thou: On the receiving end of it from Blaine, via ball-peen hammer, but even beforehand he's shown to be well aware than Blaine is a far worse person than him.
- Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Ross is adamantly against everything that doesn't fit his fundamentalist views. That include "Pokémans" or technology, such as cell phones.
- The Fundamentalist: And not the nice kind. Anything but, in fact. This is a man the Westboro Baptist Church would tell to dial it back a bit. He is implied to have driven Becky's mother to suicide.
- Hate Sink: Utterly loathsome and meant to be despised. That said, Blaine is proven to be far worse, and the other characters feel sorry for him when he dies.
- Heteronormative Crusader: He considers Becky's soul at risk if she even begins to think outside his beliefs, and is willing to impose those beliefs on the rest of the world via rifle.
- Killed Off for Real: He bleeds to death after Blaine bludgeons him with his hammer, becoming the first character to die onscreen in the comic.
- Knight of Cerebus: Blaine and Ryan were no angels, but Ross takes the drama to a new level when he shows up.
- Knight Templar Parent: Everything he does comes from a desire to protect his daughter from what he considers to be "evil". Everything he does is also fucking horrible.
- Lethally Stupid: Played for Laughs at first but later played much more seriously. Ross is a moron that's easily lead around and tricked, but he's also armed and violent. This is best shown when he engages Amazi-Girl and leans out of his car to shoot her an action that not only nearly makes him fall out of his car but also could have caused an accident that would have gotten his daughter and him both killed.
- Made of Iron: Not only does he initially survive getting bashed in the head with a hammer with enough force to draw blood, he gets up and attacks Blaine in retaliation. Unfortunately, his rush of adrenaline runs out, and he falls unconscious and bleeds to death not long afterwards.
- Never My Fault: Even after bringing a rifle onto a college campus, kidnapping his daughter at gunpoint, assaulting her, getting chased down by Amazi-Girl in a car chase, and punched out by Joyce, Ross shows zero remorse for any of his actions when Becky tearfully visits him in the hospital and tells him she wants their family back.Ross: Look at me. You've destroyed our family.
- New Media Are Evil: Implied to hold this view with his statement on "Pokeman" putting a person's soul at risk. (For reference, he's commenting on Dina's Triceratops hoodie.) It's later shown that he believes local Cable News to be the only truthful source of information beyond the Bible.
- Shadow Archetype: Ross represents the kind of person Joyce could've grown up to become if her friends couldn't break her out of her sheltered worldview.
- Stupid Evil:
- He really doesn't think his plans through. Thankfully that also means he's caught thanks to Amber, Joyce, and Sal before he can get too far with Becky.
- This also means that Blaine is easily able to manipulate him into becoming a pawn in his plan to force Amber out of college.
- Super Gullible: Blaine is able to manipulate him extremely easily simply appealing to his faith and devotion to family, even when it becomes increasingly clear Blaine has no intention of actually helping him.
- Tautological Templar: His world view is pretty simple: either you are a good fundamentalist Christian (read: on his side), or you are an evil human being destined to burn in Hell. If you get in his way, he'll even send you there himself. This is how he justifies allying with a mobster and a literal domino-mask-wearing supervillain to Joyce.
- Too Dumb to Live:
- It is not wise to discharge a weapon on a college campus, especially not in the 2010snote .
- When Amazi-Girl jumps onto his car, his reaction is to let go of the wheel, lean out the window and try to shoot her. This might have indeed killed him if Amazi-Girl hadn't thrown him a rope.
- Allying with Blaine to get his daughter back based on a few bad lies from him ends up being his demise.
- The Unfettered: Nothing will stop him from taking his daughter back home, even if it means kidnapping her with a gun, in the middle of campus, in front of her friend.
- Unwitting Pawn: After Blaine bails him out, he manages to easily manipulate Ross into helping him in his plans for Amber and her friends.
- You Have Failed Me: Blaine bashes him in the skull with a hammer for letting Amber out, which proves fatal.
Ryou and Haruka Saruyama
Dina's parents.
- Generation Xerox: On top of expected visual similarity, both of them are as unorthodox with social interactions as their daughter is and share similar speaking patterns, and they both wear hats during all their appearances.
- Good Parents: Understanding of Dina's various idiosyncracies, and react to Dina proclaiming she has a girlfriend by wiring her $200 for a nice dinner date. Dina also mentions that they never spanked her as a child.
- Happily Married: In a Patreon bonus strip, they're shown to have a good relationship. One of the first things they do after Dina leaves for university is have sex.
- The Stoic: Just like their daughter, they have a static facial expression.
- Not So Stoic: In a Patreon bonus strip where Dina tells them she's dating Becky, their faces change for the first time onscreen.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Insisted on letting in Blaine into Dina and Amber's room to be hospitable, unaware of what kind of person Blaine is.Haruka: "I-I am sorry for letting him inside. I did not understand."
