Works with their own pages:
- FoxTrot:
- Jason is an Insufferable Genius who finishes his assignments well ahead of time, makes them complicated on purpose, and has an A+++++ average.
You'd Expect: The school or Andy and Roger would have looked into moving Jason up a grade, or having him attend an advanced school.
Instead: Jason is stuck in the same grade. He may get assignments or extra credit but that's about it.
The Result: Jason acts out in class and trolls people, which gets him in trouble. His teacher, Miss O'Malley, manages to challenge him by correcting his various extra details on his assignments, but even she gets worn out by his shenanigans. - Roger has a new intern in his office, a sycophant named Skip Riley who is a few years older than Peter. He starts talking about Skip so much at home that he tunes out Peter, who wants to spend some time with his dad. Both Andy and Peter notice, and Peter outright accuses Roger of transferring his affection to Skip.
You'd Expect: Roger being the good dad as he is, to apologize and keep his home and work life separate. Normally he will notice when someone is talking to him directly.
Instead: He starts praising Skip again in the middle of Peter's "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
The Result: Peter walks away in disgust. Roger only apologizes to him when Skip uses his sycophantic act to win over upper management and transfer out of Roger's office, making Roger realize he was just being used. - Andy wants to do something with her life. She just writes fluffy newspaper pieces, while one of her former classmates is owning a building and expanding her business. Andy decides to write something serious, a screenplay.
You'd Expect: She would start small and work her way up.
Instead: Andy makes ambitious plans that never come through; waking up at five AM backfires because she falls asleep at the typewriter. She doesn't even have an idea for her screenplay.
The Result: Her screenplay never comes to fruition. - Andy picks out back-to-school supplies for Jason.
You'd Expect: She'd get him things featuring some of his favorite themes, e.g. Jurassic Park (in fact, she does appear to choose a Jurassic Park lunchbox).
Instead: She gets him nothing but Barney-themed school supplies, much to his disgust ("Barney isn't a dinosaur! He's a big, sappy doofus who sings to little kids!"). When Roger sees them, he asks if they're for a neighbor who's going to have her baby soon, leading Andy to realize that she messed up.
Fortunately: She returns them, and lets Jason pick out the supplies.
You'd Then Expect: Jason would choose things featuring themes such as Star Trek, Star Wars, X-Men, Spiderman, Batman, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, as well as Jurassic Park.
Instead: He chooses Beavis and Butthead school supplies, e.g. a T-shirt featuring the "Frog Baseball" episode, in which Beavis and Butthead use a live frog as their baseball, and end up killing it.
The Result: Andy learns to never again pick out back-to-school supplies for the kids, and to never again let the kids pick them out, either. - Paige often baby-sits 2-year-old Katie O'Dell, whose mother, Margaret, owns a TV which Paige uses to watch a show known as Jerzy Spaniel (a parody of Jerry Springer), which is not geared towards younger audiences, while baby-sitting (Andy said, for good reason, that nobody was allowed to watch it at home). Katie is playing near the TV set during the show, which results in her learning a curse word. When Paige hears what Katie has learned from listening to the show, she calls Peter, and asks him for help.
You'd Expect: Paige would admit her mistake of watching a show unsuitable for children while baby-sitting.
Instead: She claims that all she did was have the TV on while Katie was playing in the same room, and that she told her to not watch or listen (the story shows her telling Katie this only after she hears her cursing). She then sarcastically asks if she's supposed to watch Barney while she's baby-sitting, and Katie starts cursing Barney.
The Result: When Mrs. O'Dell returns home, Paige admits to her that she accidentally taught Katie a curse word. However, Mrs. O'Dell says that children often hear and repeat inappropriate words, and that the best thing to do is to not encourage using such words. Unfortunately, they then deal with Paige having watched Jerzy Spaniel while baby-sitting, and Paige's payment is 1ยข. - Andy has mother issues, mainly because everyone thinks her mother is perfect, even her husband Roger. Roger invites Andy's mother for Christmas without consulting Andy. Andy does a Dramatic Drop of the groceries she bought and starts yelling at Roger.
You'd Expect: Roger to seriously listen to Andy about why she's upset.
You'd Also Expect: That if Andy's mother is as "perfect" as everyone claims, she'd explain to Roger and the kids that there's more to Christmas than just the material aspects, e. g. presents, decorations, and food, and that Andy is trying to get them to realize this as well, because she loves them and wants them to be properly informed about such things.
Instead: Not only does Andy's mother refrain from doing any of this (she even gets the kids a Jupiter-64 Gamestation as a Christmas present, while Andy gets them a thesaurus), but Roger ignores Andy's stress, keeps being an Innocently Insensitive ass, and runs when Andy's mother catches her daughter grousing behind her back.
The Result: Andy has to have a long-overdue conversation with her mother about her resentment, while Roger doesn't change. - Eugene, Phoebe's brother, didn't have a good time at camp, to put it mildly. He lost to his little sister at the science fair, who ended up bonding with his roommates over an Escalating Prank War. A few summers later, he and Phoebe are visiting Eileen, Jason, and Marcus. Eugene decides to sabotage their friendship by stealing Phoebe's summer-camp journal and planting fake evidence that each club member could have committed the theft. This would disband their secret friendship club.
You'd Expect: He would let them all fall out.
Instead: He insists on Evil Gloating and revealing himself.
Predictably: While the four could gang up on him for the sabotage and beat him up, Phoebe decides to go with Loophole Abuse; she forms a new friendship club that no rules can break, making Eugene suffer a Meaningless Villain Victory. Jason wonders how that's supposed to be Eugene's punishment, but her brother's face falls. For what it's worth, Jason is a master of revenge so he probably has something fun planned for Eugene.
- Jason is an Insufferable Genius who finishes his assignments well ahead of time, makes them complicated on purpose, and has an A+++++ average.
- Mary Worth: Wilbur Weston falls off a cruise ship after getting drunk and washes up on an island...that happens to have a resort.
You'd Expect: Wilbur gets to work contacting his loved ones and of course proving his identity to make sure he's able to get home.
Instead: He decides he wants to "surprise" them by not calling them until he's able to make it home.
Which Results In: Estelle, Dawn, and Mary spend a solid week thinking that Wilbur is dead and mourn him up until he shows up alive and well. Then when they find out about the "surprise," they're not laughing it off as an "endearing quirk" of his but are rightfully angry and storm off.
