iris

less fried versions + what this is referencing under the cut

Yes, that's right.

can't (og comic below the cut)

I also do not like cake. I remember being a young child and asking my mother if I could have brownies instead of cake on my birthday, since I actually like brownies. She acted almost scandalized. Its your birthday! You need to have a cake. Thats just how things work. Its weird that you would want anything else.

June and Dad have communication issues. June bottles things up, and Dad doesn't really pry. Its likely that June never straight up asked Dad to stop making the cakes, and its also likely Dad never stopped to ask if she wanted cake.

In a way, its very similar to June's gender. Because June was born a certain way, there are certain expectations. Dad assumes shes cis, that shes a man, just because of how she was born. Thats what's "normal". She needs to have a cake because it is her birthday.

Thinking. John has some incredibly strong characterization as a child, especially regarding his relationship with his father. This especially comes up in the assumptions Egbert tends to make about him. He's still at a point in his life where he doesn't quite understand his father as a human being, so everything about him is inexplicable.

Dad Egbert is just a plain, traditional man. He's a single father trying desperately to raise a child he does not know how to connect to in the slightest, and working an office job to support his two-person suburban family. But in John's head, he's this wild, zany character. Dad's like Superman, except instead of a superhuman alien disguising himself as an unassuming civilian reporter, it's a street performer disguising himself as the world's most White Father ever all the time. Never does John ask himself if that makes literally any sense because he's a Child. Child Brains Don't Make Sense.

I have to point out how much Dad Egbert is a force of Traditional Masculinity, though. There is, as well-meaning as Dad is, still a vague aura of oppression in the Egbert household just due to how intensely Dad embodies the role of a Patriarch. Every single scrap of text we see from or about Dad emphasizes Masculinity as a construct. Particularly, John's "necessary" evolution into Manhood is something that is repeatedly stressed in, like, every note Dad has left for John.

And... There's a lot of things one can say about John's feelings about Dad, particularly regarding the obvious intense frustration John feels about him.

Rose is a terrible source for literally like any information, especially information regarding her friends, but this frustration is tangible in the preceding text. This is a rare Rose Not-Bullshit Moment. The way John rejects his father - for example, for Dad baking John a lot of sweets on his birthday - does speak to some kind of pent-up frustration... As well as general Teenage Moodiness.

probably. i think with women in the house he made young june lock in on being a gentleman"" and that impacted her a lot negatively. you will hold the door open for your sister and you will like it, mister. now he feels bad ab it

sent at the exact same time... i wonder if its a freak coincidence or if anon just wanted to clarify

I should have taken more photos when I had you,