buds
Explanation
The comic shows a father-son conversation that takes a bizarre biological turn. The son says: "Hey Dad." The father responds warmly, and the son continues: "We understand and thank you for telling us you were a teen." The father clarifies: "No, I mean reproductively sexual."
The son then says: "I'm budding, see? I'm duplicating myself, so to speak." Two smaller copies of the son appear, and they all declare: "We are legion." The final panel shows silhouettes of what appears to be an audience watching this scene play out.
The comic takes the classic awkward "birds and the bees" talk between parent and child and derails it with a biology joke. The father is trying to explain sexual reproduction, but the son reveals he reproduces asexually through budding -- a real biological process used by organisms like yeast and hydra, where offspring grow directly from the parent's body. The son has not only already figured out reproduction but has done so in a way that completely bypasses everything the father was about to explain.
The escalation from "I'm budding" to "We are legion" -- a biblical reference to the demon who tells Jesus "My name is Legion, for we are many" (Mark 5:9) -- transforms what started as a wholesome family conversation into body horror. The joke works because the son's calm, matter-of-fact tone contrasts with the increasingly alarming implications: he is producing clones of himself, and the clones are self-aware and speaking in unison. The father's attempt at a normal parenting milestone has revealed that his child is something fundamentally non-human.