If you vote for me at Top Web Comics, you can see a bigger version of that last panel of Elias :). Soooo not gonna lie, this whole scene with her parents is blatant wish fulfillment. My mom and dad both died of cancer when I was 19 and 17 respectively (I'm 30 now, so it's been a while), so I was pretty determined that my main character gets to have her damn parents and they're going to be supportive and loving, damn it. Her mom and dad are loosely based on my parents, though without the real world issues like chronic depression and anxiety and money issues and like, really hating each other :P. But, both my parents loved the shit out of me, trusted and respected me, and that love and support is what made me a generally successful adult who survived them passing away without turning into a hateful mess. Woohoo! I'm a stable adult! Kind of. Generally. I understand why the trope of the useless, awful parents is so popular, because parents generally represent a force imposing order on the chaos of youth. Usually, you've got your teenage hero/heroine, brimming with potential and new found powers or whatever, but you can't let the parents know or they'll make the protagonist stay home to keep them safe, when they really should be out saving the world!!! OR you have one or both parents already dead so your protagonist is free to make decisions without the weight of parental disapproval. (Never mind that stories featuring heroic orphans are generally written by people who haven't been in that situation themselves, and thus the heinous emotional turmoil that comes along with losing both your parents or just not having parents is just glossed over. Or, it gets generalized as a background issue that supports just how heroic the main character really is! Which is bullshit. Thanks, orphan rant over.) In general, I don't think that trope and it's wide use is helping anyone. I think it's a cop-out and usually lazy writing. Besides, Malaya is 25. She's an adult, and she can make decisions for herself. Also, her dad's hands are fucking huge, which is on purpose and not me being ignorant of size relationships. He's supposed to be a really big guy, but I've been trying to push that farther lately. (Fun fact, Vincent was also supposed to be super stocky when I started this, buuuut he kind of averaged out after awhile because I'm bad at drawing stocky dudes. Apologies to stocky dudes everywhere.) Anyway, from a story standpoint, we're going to be exploring Elias's relationship with his mother, and having Mal's parents first helps contrast his situation. Basically, there's the Wallaces (Mal's parents), Ms. Ross (Elias's mom), and Connie. All three of them are coming at this parenting thing from a different angle, one of which is...blatantly wrong, but I suspect most people won't like Elias's mom much either. I'm going to try my best that you guys at least come out neutral, but I guess it depends on how many issues you have with your own mom lol. Not much going on in TV news, other than that I finally got over my issues with watching season finales and finished the second season of iZombie. (I cannot watch season finales easily. I don't know why. It's knowing that there's no more episodes, or it's knowing that the action is going to be super intense...it takes me a little extra time to sit my ass down and finish a season, and always has.) Man, I really like iZombie. Maybe it's my holdover love of Veronica Mars (the first two seasons, season 3 doesn't count), maybe it's that I love all their wardrobe choices for Liv, maybe it's that they managed to make a really coherent zombie plot mixed with a crime drama that I can't find much fault with. I don't know! But I do really like it. I've read online that it's basically entirely different from the comics, which incorporate a much larger world of creatures beyond zombies, but I don't fault them for focusing on one creature. From what it sounds like, they made that choice because there are already so many supernatural shows with a wide range of creatures (like...Supernatural), and they didn't want to explore creepy monsters so widely and get lost in the fray. Just in general, it sounds like they tossed the majority of the comic out the window and did their own thing, which I kind of agree with. It sucks for the fans of the comic who wanted to see a true adaptation, but I'm kind of over adaptations of things from one type of media to the next, so if they are now two distinct zombie stories, that's better in my mind. I'm also plowing through Lost Girl (weird not-very-sexy pun kind of intended). I can see why it wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea, but man I'm really enjoying it. Much more than I thought I would. Maybe it's that I'm a sucker for anything with female protagonists, but just...the managed to make a truly bisexual main character who's a literal succubus, and it comes off as charming and sexy versus kind of gross and exploitative, and I love it. Kind of sad it's only five seasons, but you know, kind of glad that's all there is too. I'm tired of shows that run out of gas and just fucking...keep going. (Strangely, I don't really consider Supernatural in that category, because it's managed to hang in there and stay fairly interesting, even if fucking...12? seasons seems so excessive. But hey, if it still works, might as well keep going. One day Dean and Cas will make out and we'll all be fulfilled and happy???)