To be fair, he’s only Amazi-Girl’s significant other, and Danny doesn’t realize that she’s Amazi-Girl, so even if she had, that wouldn’t change his impression of Amber’s dad.
Not to mention they’ve known eachother for weeks and Amber probably wasn’t expecting her dad to start making trips out of town just to infiltrate her social circle.
She shouldn’t be obligated to introduce herself “Ho there! I am Amber The Abused, Daughter of Blaine The Abusive.”
I think when he DID show up surprisingly in Amber’s life, and she used Danny as a way to get away from him, that would have been a good time. In fact, the fiasco right now is in large part because Amber couldn’t, even as a friend, explain that her father is stalking her.
I don’t blame her for bottling it up, but that doesn’t mean that it was the right choice for her to not tell him anything. Especially when she made him lie to his parents, and she trusts him enough to date (albeit as an alter-ego).
Amber should have immediately apologized there, honestly. Danny waited briefly for some sort of explanation as to why she needed that to happen, but instead she looked up at him all moon-eyes. In Danny’s mind, he had made it clear that he was with someone, then realized that he was betraying that person with Amber.
Did Danny shut her down? Yeah. Were there several times in that conversation where she could have just explained it? Yeah. Did both of them handle it poorly? Yeah. Danny being stupid doesn’t mean Amber was not also stupid.
That’s how I introduced myself to folks in college, and my parents werent’ even that bad. Aside from the perhaps narcissistic desire to talk about my own problems, I felt a genuine compulsion to warn people who might care about me or be vaguely around me to stay the fuck away from my parents.
Some light spaghetti, covered in pure evil marinara, and seasoned with kitten skulls. Served with your choice of sides: satankraut, tater terrors, peas, or korn.
this sounds like one of those Bailey School Kids novel titles like “leprechauns don’t play basketball” or “gym teacher from the black lagoon” or something
Theres an actual trope called “Did we just have tea with cthulu?” it explains this perfectly. Google it…or if you’re lazy, and you wanna trust this random guy on the interwebs ( I don’t blame yah ifn yah dont) it can be found here: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DidWeJustHaveTeaWithCthulhu
“I have 47 miles of circuits, if you wrote the word “hate” every micron along those circuits you would not even come one-one thousandth of the way towards the hate I feel towards the human race for what they did to me.”
I butchered the quote, but the original was from “a little f*%(” (a pun and a history test, all in one sloppy package).
Impossible. Infinite hate would imply infinite capacity to contain that hate. Your skull has a finite capacity, therefore attempting to harbor infinite hatred would make your head explode.
Also, as people have pointed out, it really isn’t Danny’s fault. Amber’s told him nothing about her dad. She vaguely alluded to having something she didn’t want publicly known- but that could mean anything, even positive things.
Wow — I really wish they were at Galasso’s place. Then at least I could hope for some comic relief. This promises to be hell upon hell upon hell, for at least a couple more strips . . .
I imagine the “make everyone like Danny” redeeming moment would be when Danny reveals [maybe not to Blaine] that he agreed to listen because, unlike Amber, Blaine is more than willing to talk–even if it’s all lies–and he figures out that it’s all lies because why would she NOT talk about her father otherwise
but maybe SPOILARS [though on most occasions I actually feel disappointed if I can predict where the story is going]
I don’t go around talking about my parents to everyone I meet (not even after knowing them that epic timespan of three weeks), but I still wouldn’t like to think that’s reason for said not-talked-to person to accuse them of being violent abusers.
That’s the thing about this situation – like many situations Danny finds himself in, with the limited information he has, he has no reason to make the intuitive leaps that are obvious to us out here with our all-seeing perspective. I mean, this isn’t even one of those cases where he should be catching on to subtle nonverbal hints (like with Dorothy), or where we have to assume that he has poor night vision like with Amazigirl; this is like the ‘hey lover’ Amber situation: given what he sees, and what he knows, and how the other person acts, he has no reason whatsoever to leap to the correct conclusion. Amber acted like a crazy, desperate stalker with no respect for his existing relationship; Blaine is acting like a reasonable, worried parent. And just like Amber refused to crack the facade even when he gave her the perfect opportunity, I don’t expect Blaine to break character until it’s far, far too late for either Amber’s sanity or for Danny to escape blame for epically ‘Danning it up’.
I think part of the charm of Superior Spider-Man is that very fact. That Doc Ock is terrible at pretending to be Peter Parker. Everything he does is just so obviously evil. His reaction to a youtube video is to laugh maliciously.
Why is everyone reading it as Danny trusting Blaine? I got the vibe that Danny finds all this talk about discipline creepy and/or patronizing. “I guess I’ll have to agree with you” is pretty different from saying “I agree with you”.
I’m hopeful that Danny might continue picking up on these vibes and not Dan things up. ~watches dreams be crushed~
Yeah – I mean, I think he’s getting, “Amber’s dad might be slightly overprotective and unsettling” from this. But I’m pretty sure that’s going to be followed by, “But he’s her *dad* so he means well, right?”
But how does that exert control over her? She’s already proven she’s not going to listen to him. She doesn’t live with him or want to be near him. He doesn’t have any real collateral here.
Hm, that’s true. I was figuring he’d use this knowledge for evil in some unspecified way.
Perhaps more likely: asking Danny to help “mold” Amber somehow. Maybe it’ll be very lucky that he ran into somebody who has such little ability to create change.
Coming from someone with a psychologically-dickish parent (I know it still counts as abuse, but it sounds weird), it really seems that they are so determined to present themselves as normal and to shove all the blame onto the child. Even if that means doing so with complete strangers. It gets even worse with family, and it’s hard to say no.
Yeah. I get less of a “plan” vibe here and more of a “he wanted noodles and to talk about his kid, because he really does see himself as a noraml parent” (even though he’s an asshole) vibe.
She likes Danny. Danny knows this. Blaine say her walk away with him and his family, so he’s probably deduced that she likes him.
He’s going to stay in touch with Danny, instructing him in awful things to say to Amber to fuck with her mind severely. Danny will do these things as her Dad will give him info on Amber, and how to stay her friend (or maybe more than her friend depending on how this Amaze-girl thing ends up).
Eventually she will break, asking Danny why the fuck he says the things he does. Danny will respond “Well, uh your father has been worried about you and I wanted to help him and you…”, Amber will curse, most likely flip a table, cry and hate Danny forever.
Do we get prizes for correctly guessing how plots will end? I’d never win any, cuz Will is evil and I could never predict where the hell he’s gonna go with these.
Obviously he’s going to defeat her at a children’s card game and trap her soul into a card. He needs Danny to know all about her deck in advance so he can prepare a perfect counter strategy.
Little does Blaine know that Amazi Girl’s deck is completely different from Amber’s! AND she just got boosters from Dina with the mighty Superhero Dinoman in it!
Maybe try to figure out a way to get her kicked out of school? He seems to be going on a lot about how much money it’s costing him. Maybe he hopes he can find something he can twist into a valid reason for the school to kick her out, or at least something that would let him pull her out of school?
Amber’s version of insensitivity is more along the lines of “withhold all information so Danny looks insensitive for not intuiting/guessing/reading the comic with us”. It’s so sneaky it’s brilliant. Brilliantly EVIL!
It’s a chain. Noodles & Company. Very delicious. Does in fact serve noodles from a variety of different origins. (Can’t list them all off the top of my head, as I only ever order the mac and cheese or the Italian buttered noodles, but yes.)
Yeah, but he’s not the evil, conniving kind of villain that warrants a cool actor. He gets an angry middle aged white guy voice. I think Michael Chiklis could pull it off.
Come on, Kurtwood Smith portrays a dad who shows his love by being harsh. Blaine is a straight up asshole. Maybe those guys from those Lifetime Movies?
Benedict Cumberpatch did a PHENOMENAL job voicing Smaug in the second Hobbit movie. Ganondorf’s VA in the Smash King machinima series was also fantastic, despite being an amatuer VA.
I don’t know — I’m thinking of Michael Collins (the guy that dubbed Gert Frobe in ‘Goldfinger’) or Christopher Lee (‘The Man with the Golden Gun’). Cultured, quiet, persuasive — but still able to switch in a heartbeat to pure evil.
The problem is Christoper Lee can be considered a “magnificent bastard.” Sure he’s the villain but you can’t help but giving him respect. Blaine is not that character.
I’m thinking Harvey Keitel. I mean I watched Reservoir Dogs. Great movie but all the voices there are like listening to asshole weasels chittering with each others.
*Recoils in horror at every word of Blaine’s* Wooooow.
Also, what’s Danny having here, their macaroni and cheese? The mac and cheese is really good, let’s focus on something delicious and not the HORROR THAT IS BLAINE.
*Blaine suddenly see Amber and begins to walk towards her. Suddenly out of the nearby bushes Dina’s head pops out followed by a sinister, low growl* Clever Girl *Dina jumps on Blaine and eats his face. *
His entire body is just one big ass. Also I meant which Avenger villain. Loki is already used and I was kinda doing a gender swap with each character too so….
Wow, not completely what I was expecting, then again don’t know what I was expecting? But guess I would feel sympathy for him bliane. I WOULD if half his story wasn’t bullshit.
It’s due to the good news of finally finding my two sons; they’d been kidnapped over a year ago by my ex husband. They are home again! It’s been scary, and wonderful, having them back, because they’re understandable rattled by everything that happened, but things are smoothing out now.
I think they will be, but obviously counseling is in order. It helps, and hurts, that they’re both young (4 and 2, 3 and 1 when it happened), because they won’t remember it too much when they get older. But for now I’m having to tell them about what life is really like, because they weren’t in the best conditions before.
But they’re playing and laughing and not being afraid to bend the rules a bit, so I think they’re gonna be great 🙂
I don’t know. Half the reason it took us so long is because he lives off the grid, homeless. We found him finally through social media, and that I had literally everyone I could think of on the look out for him/them. The people who caught him were more interested in getting the kids the safety, so he’s gone again.
But if I had to guess, he’s probably trying to get back together with my little brother.
I really have no control over him, either him. I am letting the courts sort that out, there’s a hearing on the 15th about it all.
Also my little brother doesn’t listen to me. He’s just getting out of high school. Makes the relationship really creepy, all things considered, but I keep my mind waaaaay away from that.
Not to butt in, but I just wanted to say, first, holy crap, and second that I am very glad to hear that such a situation is moving towards a happy ending for you.
Yeah my life is weird. I keep thinking, I should write this stuff down! But then something else crazy happens and I gotta wait for that story arc to pan out.
You’re right, hovertext, these two aren’t exactly the most popular around here. (The fact they are having a fairly rational discussion with Blaine not going into full Hitler mode probably just makes reader unease worse.)
That’s true. When Blaine skirts acceptability at first, then that makes him more convincing and powerful, which is way creepier than him just marching around heiling things.
Reminds me of meeting my sort-of father-in-law for the first time (no one talks to him now, and I only met him twice in an 18-year relationship). All the creepy undertones, and I was not sure what they meant. Until my now-husband explained what an a-hole his dad is.
I should remember your words when I speak to my mother-in-law next. The woman is… strange. Gives good gifts every once in a while, but she just always has this aura of a vulture.
Blaine here, too, is just something not quite right. What well-meaning parent goes venting to a college kid, let alone Danny?
I think he does. He doesn’t look comfortable in the last panel, and telling someone you feel socially obligated to agree with them (regardless of whether you actually agree with them) isn’t exactly friendly.
I dunno, I’m calling it now: I think Danny is going to see through this. His punchline is kind of standoffish, as well it should be: there are some really obvious questions about why he’s choosing to come to Danny with this. What’s more, he’s just seen Amber running away as if SOMETHING traumatized her bad, and he doesn’t know it’s not Blaine.
What’s more, while I have to admit that Blaine is making an INCREDIBLE effort to contain his usual acidic venom, I really don’t think he’s going to be able to keep that up. I dunno, maybe it’s because we’ve only EVER seen him express controlling rage, but I’m still left with the impression that it’s such a dominant state for him that this calm, reasonable act is like a toothy grin on Charlie Brown: just not sustainable.
Well we definitely know that Amber gets her temper from Blaine, which is more or less why she needs to be Amazi-Girl. It simultaneously salves the helplessness she used to feel and allows her an outlet for her temper in a context that doesn’t make her feel monstrous.
True talk advice, most real parents that where successful in raising their kid, would say in some way you still need to look out for your kid, but you need to do it in a different view, shore you spend part of your life learning how to make choices for your kid so you can protect them, but then will come a day when you’ll haft to starte learning how to let them do it them selves, and if you want help them that point the only thing you can do is be a voice reason, tell them ” you can come to m for advice any time,” that is a part of a parents job that will never really end really
But you know what’s the difference between Blaine and horror movie monsters? There is some sympathy to some of the monsters. I have no sympathy to Blaine…not even a shred.
Yuck! Of course the fuckity-fucking Blaine has to bring the spending up!! Danny, you are such an ass. Not all parents are right. He is the kindof guy that goes,”Oh, if everybody thinks so, it must be ok.” Yes, even Hitler had a charming side.
Yes, but at this point Danny has absolutely no reason to think he’s an abusive person. At this point the worst he can infer is that he’s kind of an asshole.
I can see so many ways for this to end horribly! 😀
(Though for some uncharacteristic reason I don’t want it too. Danny is dense, an idiot and condescending in his own way but I don’t think he’d forgive himself if he helped Blaine hurt Amber. And if Danny start feeling down, we all know what happens to Ruth… 😛 )
Now here’s the thing that is actually a reasonable outlook. The problem is in how he expresses it. Extreme actions must only be taken in extreme or preventing extreme circumstances. Blaine’s values put personal views as a high priority, therefore anytime someone tries to go against him, he acts like a freakin’ psycho.
He just doesn’t value others highly enough to respect their choices.
Or rather he thinks of his family as an extension of himself.
And when Amber hit him, for him it was like his arm just came alive and smashed him in the face.
He deserved it though.
He really did.
Now let us watch as Sal ultimately arrives outside for lunch after being chased by Amazi girl, before which she was simply hanging out with Marcy.
We’ll then see Billie, Dorothy, and, Walky jump in, in time to see Blaine unmask his child.
At which point they will all look at him with hatred burning in their eyes, and it will be like the end of the ed edd n eddy movie for seven glorious days of just Blaine getting his ass kicked.
Seriously, normal outlook, douche execution.
I hate that guy.
So you’re saying the ending of this arc will be a no hold barred gang of most DoA youths ganging up on Blaine? this sounds like dream fulfillment for Amber and readers.
God damn it, Danny. My father could be just like this – this manipulative and charming. Eventually, however, he shows people his true colors. Usually the second he gets mad.
It can ALWAYS get worse! But…Willis has accepted a challenge from his readers! He can’t do anything to make us like Danny said someone and he responded with the memetic “Challenge Accepted.”
I will hold out hope until the very end! Danny will turn this around when we all least expect it!
I only hope Dan wises up and tells Amber: “Hey just had a chat with your dad about keeping tabs on you, that cool right?”
…
Oh who am I kidding? This is Dan we’re talking about. I can’t even trust him to Dan up Blaine’s plot.
His cool point debt was so massive the cool country is in great cool recession. Right now they try to balance it all by hiring Chester Cheetah, Tony the Tiger, Fido Dido and Johnny Bravo.
I’ve seen Harlon Ellison and Steven King quotes, and a couple others. But Ellison and King are very appropriate to the scene.
I understand why Amber did not want to broadcast the fact that her father is abusive, but to her boyfriend and close friends after Blaine showed up: yeah she should have talked.
Danny is not being his usual relaxed self here and he is not readily agreeing to agree. He’s being fed a free lunch and he has been told that the lunch buyer has identified himself as Amber’s father. Danny may not be the most competent judge of people, but he is not outright rude. So he is listening.
I personally think Danny’s antenna has picked up Blaine’s vibes, and don’t like it much.
As has been said, college kid plus free food, equals a lunch date.
As dense as Danny can be, I don’t believe he is bad, just clueless: and I don’t believe he would do anything to hurt Amber regardless of how Blaine may phrase his ‘advice’ to him.
You believe Blaine can’t get Danny to believe he’d actually be “helping” Amber? That’s what Blaine is going for, trying to manipulate him. As he played on Dina’ s parents. Remember, Danny thinks that something is wrong with Amber.
Nice artwork in that first panel. And also, amazing how you can draw Blaine the monster, and then put him in a social situation where he is behaving-and we still know ‘he’s not right.’
This is it….. I just finished reading all of roomies, it’s walky, and now I’m caught up on dumbing of age and short packed and walky and Joyce…. Damn Willis! You write some addictive stuff!
Once the drama tag was pulled things became more interesting.
Leslie and robing are like the cutest couple ever and shortpacked has some of the most hilarious mike moments.
Gee, fine alright. But is that F-word really necessary? It’s not like I’m screaming and yelling and I actually try to gave my opinions as polite as I can. Calm down dude.
-We- know Amber’s dad is a scumbag child abuser, but Danny doesn’t. While I’m not a fan of Danny’s, I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say he probably comes from a home where his parents are reasonable, and he presumes that all parents are reasonable. Danny, you are allowed ignorance in this moment because you don’t know any better. After you finish with Amber’s dad, go learn the truth, grow as a person, and continue your whirlwind romance with Amazi-Girl.
I had to go re-read Blaine’s introduction to reassure myself he’s acting here and he isn’t a genuinely reasonable and concerned guy when he hasn’t lost control of his temper (some people are like that in real life!)
To word that differently:
“Is Blaine actually a huge douchebag or is he an average guy with a temper problem?” *re-reads B3C4* “Nope, he’s a huge douchebag.”
It’s OK. Just that people toss out so many acronyms and abbreviations for various video games, anime series, movies, and role-playing games that unless you are completely and totally geeked out on all that stuff it’s hard to decipher them and keep them all straight. It would be like me tossing out acronyms like GRAABAWR, RAGBRAI, TOSRV, GOBA, and HHH (all bicycle rides).
I feel like Blaine’s being really sincere here. The only problem is that he’s operating under erroneous assumption that “Strong, guiding hand” is a synonym for “Dickmaster extraordinaire”.
Yeah, but that’s assuming abusers are always thing “Man how am I going to abuse this person.”
I think what Megasteve is trying to say is this is how Blaine THINKS he feels, because like a lot of abusers, they rationalize and rationalize and rationalize what they do until their victim is in the wrong. It’s not even that they’re naive to what abuse is, they just keep saying to themselves, “No I have every right to do x and I have every right to do whatever it takes to get x.” Whether that be power, sex, money, or whatever, they rarely see themselves as the bad guy. After all, they’re people like you and me. Just ENORMOUS douchebags to boot (for the sake of argument I will assume you are not an enormous douchebag).
So while you’re right that abusers will use this tactic in the real world, unless they’re complete sociopaths that don’t feel -anything-, there are genuine feelings underneath the abuse…. that come out in EXTREMELY messed up ways.
This of course is not to justify Blaine/abusers do, but I don’t think we’re doing anyone any favors by painting them all as some abuse-driven machine. Don’t forget, a lot of abusers were victimized too, and acknowledging the human side of those who abuse us is a good step towards healing our wounds and breaking the cycle.
Yes. Though VERY difficult to carry off the balance of emotional forces and intellectual understanding you describe. That is a VERY narrow AND twisting line to walk … while being buffeted by some strong and gusty and shifting winds. Which I’m sure you appreciate.
True story. Healing is no easy task by any means. You don’t feel great for a long time, and sometimes you’ll feel worse at the thought that they went through the same thing and didn’t overcome it… but eventually it gets better.
Who knows what Blaine’s backstory here is, he could just be a tool, or physical abuse could run in the family. Either way, Amber will have to stop thinking of him as some villain that superheroes can defeat and start thinking of him as just a guy who has made very, very terrible choices in his life… Maybe she’ll never have the strength to defeat this guy (not many victims press charges) but they can defeat the cycle of abuse that is already starting to poison her.
Not gonna lie, these past few months of strips have been a little emotionally intense for me. I sympathize deeply with both Sal and Amber’s story. Figures they’d practically be back-to-back.
I choose to read this as Danny desperately appeasing a guy he thinks is a creepy weirdo, even though it’s Danny, so of course I’m desperately grasping at straws.
Reading the new page, this phrase comes to mind; “No villain ever think of themselves as a villain.”
Just not sure if it can be applied here because I’m almost completely convinced he’s not doing any actual soulsearching, only trying to get Danny on his side so he’ll trust him enough to lead him to Amber.
Honestly, I think Blaine knows exactly what he’s doing. Not to say that he doesn’t feel justified in all his asshole abusive choices, but his little speech here is totally to manipulate Danny. If you want to really know how he feels he’s not the bad guy, I’d say look at everything he shouted at Amber in her dorm … THAT’S him not seeing himself as the bad guy in his own story.
This situation really makes me sick. It’s horrible, knowing what kind of person Blaine is and watching him manipulate. It seems that Danny has an idea that he’s not super legit though, but ugh. Ugh ugh ugh.
And here I thought the guy might be changing his stripes a bit. It should come as no surprise that he’s trying to justify what he’s doing. For him it’s about money, masquerading as concern about his daughter. What I hear him actually saying, besides the money issue is, “I don’t trust my daughter”.
It’s fucking scary how abusive assholes can make themselves out in public to be the absolute perfect partner/parent when they want to which just adds to the gaslighting effect against the victim. “Nooooo you’re CRAAAAZY look how NICE HE IS”…blech
So, he does know that the amount she spends doesn’t actually have any impact on the payments he has to make, right? He doesn’t get a refund for her being frugal.
I don’t think Danny knows the nature of her relationship with her father. If they were allowed to be in each others’ lives and there wasn’t a restraining order, I assume he’d have more flexibility in terms of finances, but if they aren’t allowed to see each other, I wouldn’t think he’s allowed to get ANY return if she doesn’t use some of his child support . HE’s trying to play it like he’s in the first group of separated/ divorced parents.
It’s possible that Blaine thinks his ex-wife is still under his control, to the point where if Amber just didn’t spend hardly any money he could convince her to stop requiring him to make child support payments.
Amber should be 19 before long though and then he’s free regardless, and considering how long getting changes made in court can take he’s probably just a total idiot for trying to get out child support payments at this point.
So can it be said that the story between Amber and her father could be interpreted as a story about David’s struggle with his religious upbringing and how to cope with reality?
You know, I don’t blame Danny for this one. Amber never told him about Blaine, and yet managed to clue Blaine into Danny’s existence with her whole “pretend to be my boyfriend” spiel. So this isn’t really on Danny right now- he has no reason to be wary of Blaine.
Still, it is kind of bewildering how when most folks step in dog poop they’ll scrape it off and leave whereas Danny somehow manages to find still larger accumulations of shit to step into the middle of.
I don’t blame Danny for this either, but it’s still going to be devastating to Amber, whatever happens. This is someone she trusted who she always feels has moved on from her AND her alter-ego basically immediately … whatever Blaine has planned, Danny’s involvement (no matter how unknowing it is) will crush her. To be honest, I hope when shit goes down that Ethan is the one to tell Danny the truth about Amber’s dad so Danny really, really knows just how bad the situation is.
Come on Danny, whatever Blaine asks you need to Dan up more than you have ever Danned anything before. This plan was made for you, since it doesn’t even require you to do anything more than be an oblivious screw up.
Danny’s last line here really keeps sticking with me because how many times do we take the word of adults over young women? If Danny takes Blaine to see Amber and Amber freaks out (for bloody good reason), telling Danny to get the man away from her, is Danny going to see that Blaine isn’t who he says he is or is he going to go “Oh, I guess he’s right about worry about her.”
… and then there’s the infinitely creepier possibility that Blaine is being genuine right now. People who are abusive but regularly send messages of love, goodwill of concern are the worst.
Easy to leave someone who shows nothing but anger and violence. Harder when they do love you back, and every time they swear it’s the last time, and they mean it, until the next time.
I can see Blaine losing his cool with Danny due to Danny being…well Danny and showing what hes really like, at least I hope it plays out that way because Danny (and Amber) deserve a break
Honestly, Blaine is actually acting somewhat human in this strip. There is a possibility that he genuinely believes what he is saying. Does that mean that this is going to end well? God no! The other shoe will drop, and right on Danny’s unsuspecting head.
Just noticed this on a reread a few months later – I don’t know if the chopsticks-stabbed-in-rice thing was intentional, but if it was, NICE TOUCH. I’m probably reading into it, but it’s a beautiful subtle touch that says so much about him.
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DANNY, NO
*imagines him reacting like the kids in Daria when they’re asked, “What if two adults say things that disagree with each other?”*
That was one of my favorite episodes. I did a lot of babysitting as a teenager, and it really struck a chord.
I feel like this should be accompanied by bad dog gestures
How is rubbing Danny’s face in his own piss gonna solve anything?
It would scare away Blaine.
Plankton: DANNY YES.
PLANKTON!
SLAY THE BEAST DANNY! DO IT, OR YOU’LL REGRET IT FOREVER!!!
Xenoblade ?
Danny doesn’t have the arm strength to stab with steely knives.
I can just imagine it.
Danny: “Hey Amber, I just talked to your dad and -”
BAM! TSCHLOCK! KER-CHUNK! BOOF! …
Willis, how much more dumb shit is Danny going to end up doing?!?!?
OH GOD NO
Your Gravatar is perfect for that comment.
And your Gravatar is perfect for your comment.
I don’t know how, it just is.
And your Gravatar is perfect for your comment.
ᶜᵒᶰᵗᶦᶰᵘᵉ ᵗʰᵉ ᶜʸᶜᶫᵉ
And yours is perfect for… well… just about any comment. It’s Sal – what more do you need?
Obviously yours is perfect, since it’s Dina, but it’s especially perfect for that one.
Hee hee now it’s Daisy’s turned-on face so it’s even better.
I dunno, it’s more of a “let me tell you why that’s bullshit” face than a terrified face, but it does sorta fit
Amber, this is why you tell your significant other about your abusive parents.
I meant abusive dad.
Though if you have abusive parents, you better talk to somebody about it.
To be fair, he’s only Amazi-Girl’s significant other, and Danny doesn’t realize that she’s Amazi-Girl, so even if she had, that wouldn’t change his impression of Amber’s dad.
Not to mention they’ve known eachother for weeks and Amber probably wasn’t expecting her dad to start making trips out of town just to infiltrate her social circle.
She shouldn’t be obligated to introduce herself “Ho there! I am Amber The Abused, Daughter of Blaine The Abusive.”
No.
But I wouldn’t be surprised if Faz did.
I think when he DID show up surprisingly in Amber’s life, and she used Danny as a way to get away from him, that would have been a good time. In fact, the fiasco right now is in large part because Amber couldn’t, even as a friend, explain that her father is stalking her.
I don’t blame her for bottling it up, but that doesn’t mean that it was the right choice for her to not tell him anything. Especially when she made him lie to his parents, and she trusts him enough to date (albeit as an alter-ego).
She liked him well enough to date. She didn’t trust him with information as volatile as her preferences in comic books.
Yeah, ’cause it’s not like Danny pre-empted Amber’s first opportunity to explain by immediately friend-dumping her or anything.
Amber should have immediately apologized there, honestly. Danny waited briefly for some sort of explanation as to why she needed that to happen, but instead she looked up at him all moon-eyes. In Danny’s mind, he had made it clear that he was with someone, then realized that he was betraying that person with Amber.
Did Danny shut her down? Yeah. Were there several times in that conversation where she could have just explained it? Yeah. Did both of them handle it poorly? Yeah. Danny being stupid doesn’t mean Amber was not also stupid.
That’s how I introduced myself to folks in college, and my parents werent’ even that bad. Aside from the perhaps narcissistic desire to talk about my own problems, I felt a genuine compulsion to warn people who might care about me or be vaguely around me to stay the fuck away from my parents.
Ah shit
God dannit.
God dannit, indeed.
Dagnabit all to heck.
DAMN DAGNABIT DAGGIT NAGGIT NABIT!
Noodles with Satan!
Lunch with Satan.
Evil chow mein with Satan.
Evil Discussion with Satan.
Some light spaghetti, covered in pure evil marinara, and seasoned with kitten skulls. Served with your choice of sides: satankraut, tater terrors, peas, or korn.
I thought it was baby pho or something. We know Blaine has a thing for Asians after all.
Interview with the vampire?
Did Danny just have tea with Cthulhu
Is that like ‘Coffee with Jesus’?
(Love that comic strip, btw)
this sounds like one of those Bailey School Kids novel titles like “leprechauns don’t play basketball” or “gym teacher from the black lagoon” or something
“Satan made the Mystery Meat”
i just remembered that series the other day and couldn’t remember the name of it at all.
thank you, good citizen, for putting my mind at ease.
Theres an actual trope called “Did we just have tea with cthulu?” it explains this perfectly. Google it…or if you’re lazy, and you wanna trust this random guy on the interwebs ( I don’t blame yah ifn yah dont) it can be found here:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DidWeJustHaveTeaWithCthulhu
I think it’s more No Mr. Bond I expect you to dine. He just doesn’t know he’s with his archenemy yet
I am wearing a Cthulhu for President T-Shirt today.
DON’T EVER POST TVTROPES LINKS!
DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND THE POWER THAT SITE HAS OVER MERE MORTALS?
Must show restraint when introducing other to that site… -_-
On the contrary: This is a rare instance of the audience being shown a future Noodle Incident.
booooooooooooooooo
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
…OOODLES.
NONONONONONO DANNY NO THE COMMENTERS ARE GONNA TEAR YOU APART
I don’t think this one counts, people are going to be to mad at Blaine to have any left over for Danny, he might just make it out of this one alive
But there’s a whole lot of irateness to go around.
OUR HATE IS INFINITE.
“I have 47 miles of circuits, if you wrote the word “hate” every micron along those circuits you would not even come one-one thousandth of the way towards the hate I feel towards the human race for what they did to me.”
I butchered the quote, but the original was from “a little f*%(” (a pun and a history test, all in one sloppy package).
I Have No Mouth and Must Scream.
For one I think the original might have been in all caps.
Woot! Manly guys doing manly things!
WE ARE THE HARBINGER OF HATRED.
ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL.
ONCE THE BIG ZAM IS MASS PRODUCED….Oh sorry, I never get to do the Big Zam joke.
Ironbillie, what’s the scouters say about the hate level
Impossible. Infinite hate would imply infinite capacity to contain that hate. Your skull has a finite capacity, therefore attempting to harbor infinite hatred would make your head explode.
Nah, if he’s gonna be so Danny, that just means we don’t have to care about splash damage when we destroy Blaine with the focused power of our wrath.
Also, as people have pointed out, it really isn’t Danny’s fault. Amber’s told him nothing about her dad. She vaguely alluded to having something she didn’t want publicly known- but that could mean anything, even positive things.
It’s too late, LiaHansen. It’s like blood in the water.
YOU ARE TEARING ME APART DANNY!
DANNY BETRAYED ME. I FED WITH THIS WORLD.
Hahaha what a story Aizat. Anyway how’s your sex life?
I definitely have breast cancer.
Aw, that’s just Danny bein’ Danny!
DANNY, NO! DO NOT AGREE WITH HIM! HE LIES!
Well. That looks like some familiar reasoning to me.
Even the most terrible people can craft narratives that make them a good person.
It helps that you have that guy to tell your story to.
If you gave me enough time I could probably make something really racist seem not so racist.
Ehh, if you have to spend a lot of time explaining why something isn’t racist, it’s very probably racist.
“…so, as I was saying, Klefki having Prankster is not racist, because keys aren’t a sentient race.”
Been done. Terrifying blackface cake to protest FGM anyone?
Join me and we shall RULE my daughter together as father and potential son-in-law!
That would be if they were having pizza (and subs).
So, what kind of unholy alliance do noodles convey?
the kind where Dan joins the alliance only to get backstabbed once his usefulness is at an end
Imagine Blaine and Danny eating spaghetti Lady and the Tramp-style.
Wow — I really wish they were at Galasso’s place. Then at least I could hope for some comic relief. This promises to be hell upon hell upon hell, for at least a couple more strips . . .
Here comes Danny dannying it up
That should be on a t-shirt with a picture of Danny just shrugging as if to say “What else can I do?”
Back away, yes. While hissing and waving a holy symbol.
If Danny can find an excuse to tell this guy off (or better yet punch him), then all his dorkery will be forgiven.
All of it? I dunno. Maybe SOME of it…
Danny gets a bad rap but he has mostly been a good person so far, so punching Blaine would definately redeem him in my eyes.
I imagine the “make everyone like Danny” redeeming moment would be when Danny reveals [maybe not to Blaine] that he agreed to listen because, unlike Amber, Blaine is more than willing to talk–even if it’s all lies–and he figures out that it’s all lies because why would she NOT talk about her father otherwise
but maybe SPOILARS [though on most occasions I actually feel disappointed if I can predict where the story is going]
I don’t go around talking about my parents to everyone I meet (not even after knowing them that epic timespan of three weeks), but I still wouldn’t like to think that’s reason for said not-talked-to person to accuse them of being violent abusers.
That’s the thing about this situation – like many situations Danny finds himself in, with the limited information he has, he has no reason to make the intuitive leaps that are obvious to us out here with our all-seeing perspective. I mean, this isn’t even one of those cases where he should be catching on to subtle nonverbal hints (like with Dorothy), or where we have to assume that he has poor night vision like with Amazigirl; this is like the ‘hey lover’ Amber situation: given what he sees, and what he knows, and how the other person acts, he has no reason whatsoever to leap to the correct conclusion. Amber acted like a crazy, desperate stalker with no respect for his existing relationship; Blaine is acting like a reasonable, worried parent. And just like Amber refused to crack the facade even when he gave her the perfect opportunity, I don’t expect Blaine to break character until it’s far, far too late for either Amber’s sanity or for Danny to escape blame for epically ‘Danning it up’.
THANK YOU. It’s so frustrating for everyone to keep judging Danny like he has all the same information we do.
+ ALL MY PLUSSES.
Nicely put.
Ugh the pain. The pain of Blaine.
Blaine is a pain and that is the truth.
YES! Goddamn right, and I’m glad Eddie killed him. The Dark Tower is so awesome.
Yesssssssss.
The pain in Spain falls mainly on the Blaine.
I shall rain pain on Blaine by hitting him with a train.
Today Blaine met John McClane. John McClane put Blain in a lot of pain.
John McClane is going to run Blaine over with a train across the plain during the rain in Spain.
I blame Blaine for the pain in Spain, but again, my migraine must go down the drain. It drives me insane.
Insane in the Blaine-brain.
Don’t explain.
The Pain of Blaine is Explained in the Rain on the Train to Spain to meet John McClane.
Choo Choo
Yippie Ki-Yay, Motherfucker!
Chill, Blaine.
You know if the one who saying it is Blaine, I’d believe him.
Even Psychos can make themselves look normal.
Yeah, look at Norman Bates, for example.
Batman does it.
If you think about it, so does Amber. Spends most of her time as a shy girl, but goes around beating people up in disguise.
Doc Ock managed to do it while he took over Spider-Man’s body, though it was more because everyone else was acting too dumb to figure it out…..
I’d do my damn best to act like Peter Parker if it gave me a chance to bang any of his potential girlfriends :p
I think part of the charm of Superior Spider-Man is that very fact. That Doc Ock is terrible at pretending to be Peter Parker. Everything he does is just so obviously evil. His reaction to a youtube video is to laugh maliciously.
Yet no one questions this.
Why is everyone reading it as Danny trusting Blaine? I got the vibe that Danny finds all this talk about discipline creepy and/or patronizing. “I guess I’ll have to agree with you” is pretty different from saying “I agree with you”.
I’m hopeful that Danny might continue picking up on these vibes and not Dan things up. ~watches dreams be crushed~
Yeah – I mean, I think he’s getting, “Amber’s dad might be slightly overprotective and unsettling” from this. But I’m pretty sure that’s going to be followed by, “But he’s her *dad* so he means well, right?”
The parental body has a way to deal with bad feelings towards children?
There were quite a few people saying that with apparent seriousness about Sal and her parents.
That’s what I was poking at, yes.
And the “?” was asking whether Rosie was poking at that too.
FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCKITING FUCK
FUCKING, AUSTRIA.
Fuckity-Fuck = kind of like Walky’s “Knockity-Knock” from a couple days ago, but with Danny.
Fuckity-bye.
I dunno. I’m kind of Danny in this certain aspect of my life. Not quite old enough to know that parents can be wrong.
One grenade right here would simplify Amber’s life a whole lot.
And complicate a janitor’s day.
At least he got paid to do his job.
But is it worth losing a conveniently located noodle restaurant?
Is it?! Think of the noodles!
Go grab instant noodles from the local market. SOLUTION!
It’s not conveniently located for me!
Danny’d take a grenade for yaaaaaaa.
*slaps Yotomoe* NO, that song suck and you know it.
It makes emo songs seem joyful. It seems to be written by a stalker.
I’d take a grenade for someone, but they would have to build me a kick-ass new robot body.
On a completely unrelated note to all the storyline awfulness, that’s an extremely nice background in frame 1. So much detail.
That noodle shop backed Willis’s kickstarter above a certain value…
I do wonder what Blaine’s overall plan is here. Is he planning to kidnap her? Kill her?
Exert control over her. Maybe get Danny to tell him where she is and what she’s doing from time to time?
But how does that exert control over her? She’s already proven she’s not going to listen to him. She doesn’t live with him or want to be near him. He doesn’t have any real collateral here.
Hm, that’s true. I was figuring he’d use this knowledge for evil in some unspecified way.
Perhaps more likely: asking Danny to help “mold” Amber somehow. Maybe it’ll be very lucky that he ran into somebody who has such little ability to create change.
Coming from someone with a psychologically-dickish parent (I know it still counts as abuse, but it sounds weird), it really seems that they are so determined to present themselves as normal and to shove all the blame onto the child. Even if that means doing so with complete strangers. It gets even worse with family, and it’s hard to say no.
Yeah. I get less of a “plan” vibe here and more of a “he wanted noodles and to talk about his kid, because he really does see himself as a noraml parent” (even though he’s an asshole) vibe.
She likes Danny. Danny knows this. Blaine say her walk away with him and his family, so he’s probably deduced that she likes him.
He’s going to stay in touch with Danny, instructing him in awful things to say to Amber to fuck with her mind severely. Danny will do these things as her Dad will give him info on Amber, and how to stay her friend (or maybe more than her friend depending on how this Amaze-girl thing ends up).
Eventually she will break, asking Danny why the fuck he says the things he does. Danny will respond “Well, uh your father has been worried about you and I wanted to help him and you…”, Amber will curse, most likely flip a table, cry and hate Danny forever.
Do we get prizes for correctly guessing how plots will end? I’d never win any, cuz Will is evil and I could never predict where the hell he’s gonna go with these.
He’s going become a rival supervillain.
DADBUSTER.
(noone will get my reference this time)
Chip and Ironicus, the No More Heroes Let’s Play?
….
You have my respect EnerPrime.
Obviously he’s going to defeat her at a children’s card game and trap her soul into a card. He needs Danny to know all about her deck in advance so he can prepare a perfect counter strategy.
Little does Blaine know that Amazi Girl’s deck is completely different from Amber’s! AND she just got boosters from Dina with the mighty Superhero Dinoman in it!
I want this to be true.
Maybe try to figure out a way to get her kicked out of school? He seems to be going on a lot about how much money it’s costing him. Maybe he hopes he can find something he can twist into a valid reason for the school to kick her out, or at least something that would let him pull her out of school?
Unfortunately for Amber, I can think of one rather obvious thing little fact about her that would help him achieve that end.
Fortunately for Amber, he’s currently talking to the person least likely to give him useful information on that subject.
Maybe he doesn’t have a plan.
Wow Danny, even for you that is kind of pathetic.
Poor guy doesn’t know anything about Blaine. A ton of Amber’s problems could be solved if she just told people about them.
And also if she punched people less.
But that would require logic
Yeah, Amber and Danny both have no idea how to create a healthy relationship. They both do insensitive stuff.
Amber’s version of insensitivity is more along the lines of “withhold all information so Danny looks insensitive for not intuiting/guessing/reading the comic with us”. It’s so sneaky it’s brilliant. Brilliantly EVIL!
Also, HOW DARE THEY DINE AT THE COMPETITOR OF GALASSO?!
Next strip, Galasso walks in with his army of hamsters with freaking lasers on their heads.
I already like this more than whatever happens tomorrow.
Naw, Galasso would insist on sharks with frickin’ lasers on their heads. Because that would be totally awesome. And because you can get them now.
Put those sharks on the machines from Gyo and we got ourselves something pretty awesome.
At least they are not *exploding* hamsters.
What can we say. He is evil after all.
This seems to be Chinese, not Italian. Two different types of restaurants.
It a noodle place that serves both.
…t-that exists? Why don’t I eat there every meal of every day.
Because I work at a place that has an all you can eat custom pizza bar and fried chicken buffet. Drink included.
WHY DON’T I EAT THERE EVERY MEAL OF EVERY DAY?
It’s a chain. Noodles & Company. Very delicious. Does in fact serve noodles from a variety of different origins. (Can’t list them all off the top of my head, as I only ever order the mac and cheese or the Italian buttered noodles, but yes.)
If I ran a restaurant I would make it that one and call it Everyone Loves Noodles
(Folks with celiac disease still love noodles. It is a forbidden love.)
Rice noodles?
::takes the offered rice noodles:: Why, thank you!
Oh, hello blood pressure.
“Run away, Simba. Run. Run away, and never return.”
Damn it, Wonder Wig. Now you made me read all of Blaine’s lines with the voice of Jeremy Irons.
LET THEIR BLOOD RAIN FROM THE SKY!
No way a loser like Blaine has a voice as cool as that.
Yeah, I’d expect the voice of Bobcat Goldthwait from Blaine.
Now I’m going to have to reread through all his lines with the voices of different celebrities until I find the right one. First up: Pauley Shore
But Bobcat is funny and has directed some funny dark comedy. Bieber?
OK, Bieber it is…or Fred….or the entire English voice cast of Chaos War.
Maybe Danny voiced by J Bieber?
I’ve been reading his lines with Willem Dafoe’s voice in mind myself
C’mon Doctor. You KNOW the villains usually have the coolest voices.
Yeah, but he’s not the evil, conniving kind of villain that warrants a cool actor. He gets an angry middle aged white guy voice. I think Michael Chiklis could pull it off.
Denis Leary!
Michael Chiklis’ middle aged white guy was also a cop who saw a lot of messed up things.
What about Kurtwood Smith?
Come on, Kurtwood Smith portrays a dad who shows his love by being harsh. Blaine is a straight up asshole. Maybe those guys from those Lifetime Movies?
Nah. Has to be Jack Coleman, the guy who played Noah Bennet on Heroes. He even looks somewhat like him.
Red Foreman performances aside, I was going by his body of work as a guest/recurring star.
And his role in “Cedar Rapids.”
Coleman also seems plausible, although I’m leaning more on recent memory of his time in the last season of Burn Notice.
How about Vince McMahon? He has a good evil voice.
So, what you’re saying is that Blaine needs to start a Kiss My Ass club?
Well, maybe he’s that demented to try.
GALLASSO is better for the Scar voice!
Benedict Cumberpatch did a PHENOMENAL job voicing Smaug in the second Hobbit movie. Ganondorf’s VA in the Smash King machinima series was also fantastic, despite being an amatuer VA.
We can’t waste Benderich Cobblepot voice on that guy!
Ooh, a Bumblebee Cabbagepatch discussion!
Michael Douglas à la Falling Down?
He doesn’t deserve Jeremy Iron’s voice over
I don’t know — I’m thinking of Michael Collins (the guy that dubbed Gert Frobe in ‘Goldfinger’) or Christopher Lee (‘The Man with the Golden Gun’). Cultured, quiet, persuasive — but still able to switch in a heartbeat to pure evil.
The problem is Christoper Lee can be considered a “magnificent bastard.” Sure he’s the villain but you can’t help but giving him respect. Blaine is not that character.
I’m thinking Harvey Keitel. I mean I watched Reservoir Dogs. Great movie but all the voices there are like listening to asshole weasels chittering with each others.
Michael Madsen for Blaine’s Voice.
*Recoils in horror at every word of Blaine’s* Wooooow.
Also, what’s Danny having here, their macaroni and cheese? The mac and cheese is really good, let’s focus on something delicious and not the HORROR THAT IS BLAINE.
SHOOT HIM! SHOOT HIM!
*Blaine suddenly see Amber and begins to walk towards her. Suddenly out of the nearby bushes Dina’s head pops out followed by a sinister, low growl* Clever Girl *Dina jumps on Blaine and eats his face. *
*Danny continues to eat his Mac & cheese, as he assumes an adult knows best about dinosaur attacks*
So Danny is the Timmy of the group.
That would be the funniest thing ever.
Even better then Dumbing of Avengers?
Does Blaine got his ass kicked in that one?
You can bet your ass. Just which one?
Blaine has more than one ass?
His entire body is just one big ass. Also I meant which Avenger villain. Loki is already used and I was kinda doing a gender swap with each character too so….
So, Blaine is MODOK if MODOK is a giant floating ass?
I guess. Still, it will be awhile til I get to the Living Asshole. Guess who is the next couple is and win a cookie.
Ethan’s parents…or Joyce’s parents?
Not even close. Hint, they are in college.
I’m guessing…Mary and Raidah?
nope
OK…it’s not Mary, not Raidah, Ryan maybe?
Think more popular and more famous. Last try too.
Sarah and Mike?
Sarah is War Machine and nope for Mike. Well thanks for playing but no cookie for you!
Darn…oh well, at least I tried.
It’s not Joe or Roz is it?
Wow, not completely what I was expecting, then again don’t know what I was expecting? But guess I would feel sympathy for him bliane. I WOULD if half his story wasn’t bullshit.
Danny will become physically violent and abusive.
…and then sire his very own Faz?
The horror of that idea is something I cannot comprehend, but I feel that, if that happened, it would end up being the Antichrist.
A being that is half Danny and half Faz. The worlds most sinister creation.
So Blaine has access to the Questionable Content universe?
Just realized that I check the tags last. Time to re-think my approach!
I usually forget there are tags at all.
OK, OK. Let’s look at the positives here….what little they are. Danny does feel a bit forced to agree to the statement at the moment.
Danny is just being his usual Dan about things and having no idea what to do in a situation.
BTW, Hi Aizat!
Oh, Hi Spliced! Haven’t heard from you for a while.
It’s due to the good news of finally finding my two sons; they’d been kidnapped over a year ago by my ex husband. They are home again! It’s been scary, and wonderful, having them back, because they’re understandable rattled by everything that happened, but things are smoothing out now.
Damn…that is some scary stuff. I hope they are fine after going through all of that.
I think they will be, but obviously counseling is in order. It helps, and hurts, that they’re both young (4 and 2, 3 and 1 when it happened), because they won’t remember it too much when they get older. But for now I’m having to tell them about what life is really like, because they weren’t in the best conditions before.
But they’re playing and laughing and not being afraid to bend the rules a bit, so I think they’re gonna be great 🙂
That’s good to hear. So, what happened to your ex? In prison, I hope.
I don’t know. Half the reason it took us so long is because he lives off the grid, homeless. We found him finally through social media, and that I had literally everyone I could think of on the look out for him/them. The people who caught him were more interested in getting the kids the safety, so he’s gone again.
But if I had to guess, he’s probably trying to get back together with my little brother.
Better have him stay far away from any family member, if I were you.
I really have no control over him, either him. I am letting the courts sort that out, there’s a hearing on the 15th about it all.
Also my little brother doesn’t listen to me. He’s just getting out of high school. Makes the relationship really creepy, all things considered, but I keep my mind waaaaay away from that.
Oh dear…I do hope your little brother is OK.
Not to butt in, but I just wanted to say, first, holy crap, and second that I am very glad to hear that such a situation is moving towards a happy ending for you.
Yeah my life is weird. I keep thinking, I should write this stuff down! But then something else crazy happens and I gotta wait for that story arc to pan out.
Seriously, if you got the chance, write a book out of it.
Me thinks the snake gets the mongoose this time.
You’re right, hovertext, these two aren’t exactly the most popular around here. (The fact they are having a fairly rational discussion with Blaine not going into full Hitler mode probably just makes reader unease worse.)
That’s how Hitler gets you. First, he butter you up and the next thing you know, you’d be knee deep in genocide and gassing folks.
That’s true. When Blaine skirts acceptability at first, then that makes him more convincing and powerful, which is way creepier than him just marching around heiling things.
If only Faz and Mary walked in.
Come on! Faz is hilarious!
Faz is the Elegy Statue of this comic
I am now shipping Faz and Mary.
No.
Faz and Dina is the one true pairing >:O
Reminds me of meeting my sort-of father-in-law for the first time (no one talks to him now, and I only met him twice in an 18-year relationship). All the creepy undertones, and I was not sure what they meant. Until my now-husband explained what an a-hole his dad is.
I should remember your words when I speak to my mother-in-law next. The woman is… strange. Gives good gifts every once in a while, but she just always has this aura of a vulture.
Blaine here, too, is just something not quite right. What well-meaning parent goes venting to a college kid, let alone Danny?
Danny, I know he’s using his charming sociopathy on you right now, but no, no, surely you can feel the malice radiating from his very pores. 🙁
Doesn’t that radiate off of all parents? It certainly radiates off of HIS parents.
All parents who aren’t gamers. Half that are. Gotta watch out for the JRPGs…
I think he does. He doesn’t look comfortable in the last panel, and telling someone you feel socially obligated to agree with them (regardless of whether you actually agree with them) isn’t exactly friendly.
NOOOooo Danny
Don’t listen to Blaine’s lies!
As anyone who knows about Lemony Snicket knows, you can tell Blaine is lying in the first panel because of his lack of eyebrows.
I dunno, I’m calling it now: I think Danny is going to see through this. His punchline is kind of standoffish, as well it should be: there are some really obvious questions about why he’s choosing to come to Danny with this. What’s more, he’s just seen Amber running away as if SOMETHING traumatized her bad, and he doesn’t know it’s not Blaine.
What’s more, while I have to admit that Blaine is making an INCREDIBLE effort to contain his usual acidic venom, I really don’t think he’s going to be able to keep that up. I dunno, maybe it’s because we’ve only EVER seen him express controlling rage, but I’m still left with the impression that it’s such a dominant state for him that this calm, reasonable act is like a toothy grin on Charlie Brown: just not sustainable.
(Grmf, why BLAINE is choosing to come to Danny. Edit, edit…)
He can sense the weakness in him. Like a lion knows to pick out the sick gazelle.
I’m hoping that Blaine will try and get Danny to help him, and Danny won’t. All the Dan-hate aside, his worldview is completely opposite of Blaine’s.
At the very least, Danny would Dan up their plan… but it’d be way better if he refuses.
Well we definitely know that Amber gets her temper from Blaine, which is more or less why she needs to be Amazi-Girl. It simultaneously salves the helplessness she used to feel and allows her an outlet for her temper in a context that doesn’t make her feel monstrous.
EEEWWW
EEEEEEWWWW EW EW EWWWWWWW
What’s Faz doing? I wonder what Amber’s opinion of him is?
Faz is hiding behind one of the benches.
Watching.
Ben Drowned style.
Probably stalking Dina.
And she probably thinks he’s her gross half brother, rather than that gross person in general like everyone else does.
I don’t know what’s scarier, knowing that you’re being stalked…or knowing that the stalker is Faz.
b. Option b.
His eyes are touching you. Everywhere.
My skin! The layers of clothing do nothing!
I don’t think there’s enough numbers of showers in the world can make me feel clean after that.
…I just took a shower… O_O
Sorry about that.
Faz is waiting to randomly and subtly show up in the background of future Dinah comics. Faz shall be Dina’s Slender Man.
Okay trying to place which Archer character your gravatar is… the Canadian terrorist?
Yup. Mostly because the first time I saw that episode I was like “Holy crap, that dude looks like me!”
True talk advice, most real parents that where successful in raising their kid, would say in some way you still need to look out for your kid, but you need to do it in a different view, shore you spend part of your life learning how to make choices for your kid so you can protect them, but then will come a day when you’ll haft to starte learning how to let them do it them selves, and if you want help them that point the only thing you can do is be a voice reason, tell them ” you can come to m for advice any time,” that is a part of a parents job that will never really end really
Yes that is what they would do.
However no one ever accused either Blaine or Danny of being a “parent”, seeing as how neither of them has actually done any of it.
Kick him in the nuts!
KICK. HIM. IN. THE. NUTS!
Which him?
Either or really !
Then rip out his intestines and strangle him with them. Then throw the corpse into a meat grinding, and give it to Dina’s pets.
Are you trying to kill Dina’s pets. You know they can’t eat garbage.
And then, kick him in the nuts some more while he’s writhing on the floor.
Stomp ‘im in the nuts. Stomp ‘im in the nuts. Stomp ‘im in the nuts, I’mma stomp ’em in the nuts.
Rah rah ree
Kick ’em in the knee
Rah rah rass
Kick ’em in the other knee
When it suits him, Blaine can do a fabulous impression of a human being
Like many monsters in horror movies.
But you know what’s the difference between Blaine and horror movie monsters? There is some sympathy to some of the monsters. I have no sympathy to Blaine…not even a shred.
Yuck! Of course the fuckity-fucking Blaine has to bring the spending up!! Danny, you are such an ass. Not all parents are right. He is the kindof guy that goes,”Oh, if everybody thinks so, it must be ok.” Yes, even Hitler had a charming side.
Yes, but at this point Danny has absolutely no reason to think he’s an abusive person. At this point the worst he can infer is that he’s kind of an asshole.
Did you just…
Did you just DEFEND Danny?
SHUN HIM
SHUUUUUUUUNNNNN
Yotomoe only hates Danny when no one else does.
He’s a hate-hipster?
I thought a good parent shouldn’t brought the matter of spending up. That’s just being a complete asshat.
No matter what nefarious schemes this guy is planning, noodles and company is a quality restaurant.
From now on, whenever I need to plan a nefarious scheme, I will go to a noodle place with someone.
It greatly helps when, if nobody thought to bring a writing implement, you can fashion a map on the table out of noodles and sauce.
I can see so many ways for this to end horribly! 😀
(Though for some uncharacteristic reason I don’t want it too. Danny is dense, an idiot and condescending in his own way but I don’t think he’d forgive himself if he helped Blaine hurt Amber. And if Danny start feeling down, we all know what happens to Ruth… 😛 )
Okay but seriously what kind of guy finds a random friend of his daughter and buys him lunch? Would that not set off alarms in anyone else’s mind?
College kid. Free food. No questions asked.
I wanted to say that it could be like meeting the parents thing…but seeing that this is Blaine we’re talking about…yeah.
I would actually agree with your guess, but Blaine was thrown out of that.
Now here’s the thing that is actually a reasonable outlook. The problem is in how he expresses it. Extreme actions must only be taken in extreme or preventing extreme circumstances. Blaine’s values put personal views as a high priority, therefore anytime someone tries to go against him, he acts like a freakin’ psycho.
He just doesn’t value others highly enough to respect their choices.
Or rather he thinks of his family as an extension of himself.
And when Amber hit him, for him it was like his arm just came alive and smashed him in the face.
He deserved it though.
He really did.
Now let us watch as Sal ultimately arrives outside for lunch after being chased by Amazi girl, before which she was simply hanging out with Marcy.
We’ll then see Billie, Dorothy, and, Walky jump in, in time to see Blaine unmask his child.
At which point they will all look at him with hatred burning in their eyes, and it will be like the end of the ed edd n eddy movie for seven glorious days of just Blaine getting his ass kicked.
Seriously, normal outlook, douche execution.
I hate that guy.
So you’re saying the ending of this arc will be a no hold barred gang of most DoA youths ganging up on Blaine? this sounds like dream fulfillment for Amber and readers.
Sounds like a bad porno to me.
Everything is a bad porno if you think about it that way hard enough.
There are two kinds of fanservice.
This won’t end well.
Blaines a good actor but I can’t see anyone with that just suddenly introduces themselves from the shadows as “not evil”.
Maybe Danny’s genre blind?
Anne Frankly I have to say Danny is living in the dark with flashlight he keep turning on himself.
I enjoy a good Anne Frank joke, but I don’t get this.
He’s blinding himself.
For me it’s the shadows, and claiming to be a parent.
God damn it, Danny. My father could be just like this – this manipulative and charming. Eventually, however, he shows people his true colors. Usually the second he gets mad.
On first reading of this strip, I saw Blaine’s “look after” in panel two as “look at”, which adds whole new levels of creeptastic to it.
Here’s a ship nobody wants.
Kinda glad Danny doesn’t have any secret identity beans to spill here.
Don’t worry guys, this can’t get any worse so it has to get better!
…Better? Maybe Blaine is going to brainwash Danny!
Better? knowing Willis it will be like a trip down a sharp and rocky cliff while some of us enjoying the schadenfreude or just cringe in pain.
It can ALWAYS get worse! But…Willis has accepted a challenge from his readers! He can’t do anything to make us like Danny said someone and he responded with the memetic “Challenge Accepted.”
I will hold out hope until the very end! Danny will turn this around when we all least expect it!
Cute as it was watching Danny play DS with Sal, I can’t see Danny getting out of this in one piece, with our backing or without.
I only hope Dan wises up and tells Amber: “Hey just had a chat with your dad about keeping tabs on you, that cool right?”
…
Oh who am I kidding? This is Dan we’re talking about. I can’t even trust him to Dan up Blaine’s plot.
I dunno, maybe he will Dan up Blaine’s plan so spectacularly it will redeem him. Maybe.
That’s what I’m hoping for.
One strategy to get people to like a character more is to not make things better for the character, but to make everything else worse in comparison.
“I thought I couldn’t get any lower but then I found a shovel”
This conversation will lead to nothing short of a disaster.
Danny spends all his cool points the moment he earns them. He also spends other people’s cool points. He is in cool point debt up to his eyeballs.
His cool point debt was so massive the cool country is in great cool recession. Right now they try to balance it all by hiring Chester Cheetah, Tony the Tiger, Fido Dido and Johnny Bravo.
What they need is a tourism video narrated by Morgan Freeman.
*sigh* There’s no better prey for bullshitters than the ignorant.
Insert your choice of reference to politicians and the masses here.
At least Potbelly is untainted by Blaine.
I’ve seen Harlon Ellison and Steven King quotes, and a couple others. But Ellison and King are very appropriate to the scene.
I understand why Amber did not want to broadcast the fact that her father is abusive, but to her boyfriend and close friends after Blaine showed up: yeah she should have talked.
Danny is not being his usual relaxed self here and he is not readily agreeing to agree. He’s being fed a free lunch and he has been told that the lunch buyer has identified himself as Amber’s father. Danny may not be the most competent judge of people, but he is not outright rude. So he is listening.
I personally think Danny’s antenna has picked up Blaine’s vibes, and don’t like it much.
As has been said, college kid plus free food, equals a lunch date.
As dense as Danny can be, I don’t believe he is bad, just clueless: and I don’t believe he would do anything to hurt Amber regardless of how Blaine may phrase his ‘advice’ to him.
Danny’s comment _is_ somewhat ambigious. He doesn’t seem comfortable with what’s going on.
(Not that this will help him if Amber SEES him with her dad!)
You believe Blaine can’t get Danny to believe he’d actually be “helping” Amber? That’s what Blaine is going for, trying to manipulate him. As he played on Dina’ s parents. Remember, Danny thinks that something is wrong with Amber.
Nice artwork in that first panel. And also, amazing how you can draw Blaine the monster, and then put him in a social situation where he is behaving-and we still know ‘he’s not right.’
This is it….. I just finished reading all of roomies, it’s walky, and now I’m caught up on dumbing of age and short packed and walky and Joyce…. Damn Willis! You write some addictive stuff!
I also a new reader, love most of his works, except Shortpacked.
>not loving dem batman jokes
you sicken me
Once the drama tag was pulled things became more interesting.
Leslie and robing are like the cutest couple ever and shortpacked has some of the most hilarious mike moments.
Wow seriously wow, my comment got deleted? It’s just a simple criticism and it got deleted? Not cool dude. Not cool at all.
Read 7a: http://www.dumbingofage.com/about/
I can delete whatever the fuck I want. This is my house.
Gee, fine alright. But is that F-word really necessary? It’s not like I’m screaming and yelling and I actually try to gave my opinions as polite as I can. Calm down dude.
-We- know Amber’s dad is a scumbag child abuser, but Danny doesn’t. While I’m not a fan of Danny’s, I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say he probably comes from a home where his parents are reasonable, and he presumes that all parents are reasonable. Danny, you are allowed ignorance in this moment because you don’t know any better. After you finish with Amber’s dad, go learn the truth, grow as a person, and continue your whirlwind romance with Amazi-Girl.
I had to go re-read Blaine’s introduction to reassure myself he’s acting here and he isn’t a genuinely reasonable and concerned guy when he hasn’t lost control of his temper (some people are like that in real life!)
To word that differently:
“Is Blaine actually a huge douchebag or is he an average guy with a temper problem?” *re-reads B3C4* “Nope, he’s a huge douchebag.”
do not understand “B3C4”
Book 3 Chapter 4.
My laziness really backfired. I had to write the whole thing out anyway! ^_^’
It’s OK. Just that people toss out so many acronyms and abbreviations for various video games, anime series, movies, and role-playing games that unless you are completely and totally geeked out on all that stuff it’s hard to decipher them and keep them all straight. It would be like me tossing out acronyms like GRAABAWR, RAGBRAI, TOSRV, GOBA, and HHH (all bicycle rides).
DAN YOU WILLIS!
I feel like Blaine’s being really sincere here. The only problem is that he’s operating under erroneous assumption that “Strong, guiding hand” is a synonym for “Dickmaster extraordinaire”.
No, he’s recruiting help for his abuse. This is one of the exact tacks an abuser will take in the real world.
Yeah, but that’s assuming abusers are always thing “Man how am I going to abuse this person.”
I think what Megasteve is trying to say is this is how Blaine THINKS he feels, because like a lot of abusers, they rationalize and rationalize and rationalize what they do until their victim is in the wrong. It’s not even that they’re naive to what abuse is, they just keep saying to themselves, “No I have every right to do x and I have every right to do whatever it takes to get x.” Whether that be power, sex, money, or whatever, they rarely see themselves as the bad guy. After all, they’re people like you and me. Just ENORMOUS douchebags to boot (for the sake of argument I will assume you are not an enormous douchebag).
So while you’re right that abusers will use this tactic in the real world, unless they’re complete sociopaths that don’t feel -anything-, there are genuine feelings underneath the abuse…. that come out in EXTREMELY messed up ways.
This of course is not to justify Blaine/abusers do, but I don’t think we’re doing anyone any favors by painting them all as some abuse-driven machine. Don’t forget, a lot of abusers were victimized too, and acknowledging the human side of those who abuse us is a good step towards healing our wounds and breaking the cycle.
Yes. Though VERY difficult to carry off the balance of emotional forces and intellectual understanding you describe. That is a VERY narrow AND twisting line to walk … while being buffeted by some strong and gusty and shifting winds. Which I’m sure you appreciate.
True story. Healing is no easy task by any means. You don’t feel great for a long time, and sometimes you’ll feel worse at the thought that they went through the same thing and didn’t overcome it… but eventually it gets better.
Who knows what Blaine’s backstory here is, he could just be a tool, or physical abuse could run in the family. Either way, Amber will have to stop thinking of him as some villain that superheroes can defeat and start thinking of him as just a guy who has made very, very terrible choices in his life… Maybe she’ll never have the strength to defeat this guy (not many victims press charges) but they can defeat the cycle of abuse that is already starting to poison her.
Not gonna lie, these past few months of strips have been a little emotionally intense for me. I sympathize deeply with both Sal and Amber’s story. Figures they’d practically be back-to-back.
Damn you, Willis.
My best to you finding and following ‘The Way’
I choose to read this as Danny desperately appeasing a guy he thinks is a creepy weirdo, even though it’s Danny, so of course I’m desperately grasping at straws.
IME, anyone who uses the phrase “strong, guiding hand” sincerely is a dickmaster extraordinaire.
* Trying to type something coherent about Blaine assholic attitude and Danny’s obliviousness*
*Shaking in anger*
*Slam hands on keyboard, yelling in desperation*
*Stomp out from the room*
Hey, I know how to make this worse, someone ship Blaine and Danny! Blainy or Danie or Diane I don’t care!
Blaine is probably my least favorite webcomic character ever.
No, wait, that’s not right.
Blaine is definitely my least favorite webcomic character ever.
Why?! I was so looking forward to going to Noddles and Company but now it has been ruined by Blaine. Damnit.
*Slow Clap*.
I didn’t know that Willis was a restaurant.
…and then Ruth came with a battle axe and all was well again THAT’S HOW IT ENDS LALALALA I DON’T NEED TO READ ON ANYMORE
GAAAH, Danny is such a complete tool!
I wouldn’t go that far. Danny has absolutely no idea of Amber’s past with her father, and of course Satan is saying all the right things.
…uh-oh.
Reading the new page, this phrase comes to mind; “No villain ever think of themselves as a villain.”
Just not sure if it can be applied here because I’m almost completely convinced he’s not doing any actual soulsearching, only trying to get Danny on his side so he’ll trust him enough to lead him to Amber.
Honestly, I think Blaine knows exactly what he’s doing. Not to say that he doesn’t feel justified in all his asshole abusive choices, but his little speech here is totally to manipulate Danny. If you want to really know how he feels he’s not the bad guy, I’d say look at everything he shouted at Amber in her dorm … THAT’S him not seeing himself as the bad guy in his own story.
Danny, you fucking idiot.
Clearly Blaine called a bunch of shadow people to keep watch outside the restaurant.
When the page loaded and I saw Blaine, I literally recoiled in disgust and needed to take a minute to regain my composure before I could read.
DAMN YOU WILLIS WITH YOUR VIVID CHARACTERIZATION.
Were Danny a weather phenomenom, his damage would be worse than the polar vortex!
Too soon?
I… You… AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!
lame Blaine.
See? Blaine was the victim in all of this the whole time.
I’m hoping that you’ll all take Danny’s example and treat him better from now on.
I hope this is sarcasm.
This situation really makes me sick. It’s horrible, knowing what kind of person Blaine is and watching him manipulate. It seems that Danny has an idea that he’s not super legit though, but ugh. Ugh ugh ugh.
Mike’s frownyface is kind of perfect for you comment, though.
In Blaine’s world, he is the protagonist and hero.
Danny is a college kid getting a free lunch.
Amber is right not to want to be ‘that abused girl’, but her solitary ways have already cost her, since others would help if they knew about Blaine.
Ooooh. O_O He sounds so logical, how utterly terrifying. Dammit Danny! ><
i love noodles; not even abusive, philandering father figures can ruin that for me!
Noodles are a sacred and blameless food.
recommend the BBQ Pork Mac… which after i type kinda sounds dirty.
actually sounds really tasty right now.
And here I thought the guy might be changing his stripes a bit. It should come as no surprise that he’s trying to justify what he’s doing. For him it’s about money, masquerading as concern about his daughter. What I hear him actually saying, besides the money issue is, “I don’t trust my daughter”.
Also, ‘she is mine to control.’
It’s fucking scary how abusive assholes can make themselves out in public to be the absolute perfect partner/parent when they want to which just adds to the gaslighting effect against the victim. “Nooooo you’re CRAAAAZY look how NICE HE IS”…blech
Ughhhhh no. NO.
So, he does know that the amount she spends doesn’t actually have any impact on the payments he has to make, right? He doesn’t get a refund for her being frugal.
I don’t think Danny knows the nature of her relationship with her father. If they were allowed to be in each others’ lives and there wasn’t a restraining order, I assume he’d have more flexibility in terms of finances, but if they aren’t allowed to see each other, I wouldn’t think he’s allowed to get ANY return if she doesn’t use some of his child support . HE’s trying to play it like he’s in the first group of separated/ divorced parents.
I was talking about Blaine and why the hell he cares about Amber’s finances at all.
Which isn’t (as I just realized you seem to think) a lie for Danny; he criticized her directly for ‘wasting money’ in an earlier strip.
It’s possible that Blaine thinks his ex-wife is still under his control, to the point where if Amber just didn’t spend hardly any money he could convince her to stop requiring him to make child support payments.
Amber should be 19 before long though and then he’s free regardless, and considering how long getting changes made in court can take he’s probably just a total idiot for trying to get out child support payments at this point.
I don’t know about lunch with Satan. Seems more like lunch with some sort of overbearing, love me or I’ll smite you god-figure.
So can it be said that the story between Amber and her father could be interpreted as a story about David’s struggle with his religious upbringing and how to cope with reality?
Possibly the creepiest encounter that Willis has drawn… I want Dina to come in and break it up.
Oh that is just creepy. The whole ‘Evil guy pretends to be good to an ignorant third party’ bit just gives me the willies every time.
I just hope Danny manages to pick up that something just isn’t right about this whole thing.
It’s what Blaine has done with HIS strong guiding hand that has me worried here.
Damnit, Willis! Don’t you ruin Noodles & Co. for me! I haven’t even gotten to use my gift card I got for christmas yet.
What the hell is Amber-Dad up to?
You know, I don’t blame Danny for this one. Amber never told him about Blaine, and yet managed to clue Blaine into Danny’s existence with her whole “pretend to be my boyfriend” spiel. So this isn’t really on Danny right now- he has no reason to be wary of Blaine.
Still, it is kind of bewildering how when most folks step in dog poop they’ll scrape it off and leave whereas Danny somehow manages to find still larger accumulations of shit to step into the middle of.
I don’t blame Danny for this either, but it’s still going to be devastating to Amber, whatever happens. This is someone she trusted who she always feels has moved on from her AND her alter-ego basically immediately … whatever Blaine has planned, Danny’s involvement (no matter how unknowing it is) will crush her. To be honest, I hope when shit goes down that Ethan is the one to tell Danny the truth about Amber’s dad so Danny really, really knows just how bad the situation is.
(that should have been “already,” not “always”)
Come on Danny, whatever Blaine asks you need to Dan up more than you have ever Danned anything before. This plan was made for you, since it doesn’t even require you to do anything more than be an oblivious screw up.
Oh god, I’m having visions of the next time Danny sees Amber. This is going to go BAD.
Danny’s last line here really keeps sticking with me because how many times do we take the word of adults over young women? If Danny takes Blaine to see Amber and Amber freaks out (for bloody good reason), telling Danny to get the man away from her, is Danny going to see that Blaine isn’t who he says he is or is he going to go “Oh, I guess he’s right about worry about her.”
Any like I had for Danny has totally disappeared now…..
Having a meal with a friend’s parent! The bastard!!!
Yeah, he should know stuff nobody told him!
I wouldn’t ever go out with a friends parent I never met before creepy. 😛
GOD DAMMIT DANNY!
… and then there’s the infinitely creepier possibility that Blaine is being genuine right now. People who are abusive but regularly send messages of love, goodwill of concern are the worst.
And the most common by a good bit.
Easy to leave someone who shows nothing but anger and violence. Harder when they do love you back, and every time they swear it’s the last time, and they mean it, until the next time.
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. *nopes into the next universe*
THIS. ALL OF THIS.
Terrifyingly reminiscent of my father. Gotdangit.
You too, huh?
I can see Blaine losing his cool with Danny due to Danny being…well Danny and showing what hes really like, at least I hope it plays out that way because Danny (and Amber) deserve a break
Gee i had no idea the author of this comic was a noodles and company on occasion!
Honestly, Blaine is actually acting somewhat human in this strip. There is a possibility that he genuinely believes what he is saying. Does that mean that this is going to end well? God no! The other shoe will drop, and right on Danny’s unsuspecting head.
Just noticed this on a reread a few months later – I don’t know if the chopsticks-stabbed-in-rice thing was intentional, but if it was, NICE TOUCH. I’m probably reading into it, but it’s a beautiful subtle touch that says so much about him.