There is a certain kind of person (often their arguably horrible but not always) that really likes to have an emotional strong arm on their partner. The reason why this kinda person is often (NOTE NOT ALWAYS) awful is because the easiest way to get that leverage is if the partner is depressed. Don’t be the person who like depressed people cause it makes them easy to boss around.
Of course Galasso would have an issue with angst in his workplace, can’t have his employees feeling bad and thinking about how their lives could get better…
Getting happy because you got laid and depressed because you got dumped is not bipolar, that’s very neurotypical.
Also, the timestamps place this whole cycle within 30 minutes. Bipolar cycles are long, over weeks or months stuck in either manic or depressive states. Someone who just flips between extremes without a that pattern most likely has a different problem.
Next strip: Walky’s at Disney World, walking around with a hot dog in one hand, cotton candy in the other, Mickey Ears hat on his head, saying “Gee whiz, this was a swell idea! I’ll have to thank Mike when I get back!”
All he has to do is start worshipping the Chaos Gods who will reward him with a third hand he can use to text. That or he’ll be revealed to be a Genestealer hybrid with extra limbs he’s been hiding so far.
He’s lost his temper once before, I think on their very first day of college, when Amber wouldn’t stop killing spiders on her computer so the trio could hang out. But that didn’t have the emotional vulnerability that this does.
When I Breakdown in the middle and lose my thread
No one can understand a word that I say
When I Breakdown just a little and lose my head…–Alan Parsons Project
What if Mike was super detached in all of his plans in the past.. but actually caught real feelings for Ethan??? :O
I wonder why he’s so angry. Regret? Anger that its working? Anger that his friends are “accepting” what he considers “bad” decisions? Mike’s such a weird dude y’all
I strongly suspect that Mike has had a crush on Ethan for a LONG time, but he has so firmly stamped down his emotions that he even convinced himself he doesnt and is just doing this for warped reasons.
Having sex with your many years long crush and having him walk away without batting an eye would do a number on anyone.
Once again Mike shows he isn’t immune to feelings despite his best attempts, granted he is still a dick but maybe by the end of college he’ll be a functioning person. So you know, 2024? Also, incoming blind Mike hate and blind Mike forgiveness, and people being dicks in the comments, everyone draw your line in the sand or grab popcorn.
Sure, why not? I’m sure we can get colored sand and make it better, it’s not like there’s any rush, besides Voltron was/is awesome. Never did check out the remake though, was it any good and how long did it run?
Current remake is still running and will finish with eight seasons. As to quality… eh, people like it, but it’s a constant drama shitshow. Not touching it.
Per my Partner coming in during S7: THIS SHOW IS STRESSFUL
That being said: I love the show, the fandom is a shitfest. All over some shipping. If you avoid the online community (or have an extensive block list), you should be fine and enjoy the show!
Holy crap has it really been 8 years? I feel like I just started reading this a few years back, where did all that time go? And if you’re right then at least I’ll have a consistent comic to read for another 20 years.
Needfuldoer mathed it out last December. Assuming the In-Comic-Time-To-Real-World-Time ratio remains more or less constant, we won’t even reach the end of this academic year until the real-world year 2261. (And that was before the “Faz is Great” storyline skewed the ratio even longer.)
To get to the start of the next academic year, add another…ballpark, maybe 84 years? Plus three full academic years and two more summer vacations, and that’s…1260 real-world years? If I haven’t screwed something up — and it’s entirely possible that I have — but anyway, that puts in-comic graduation in real-world 3270 or thereabouts.
At any rate, far enough in the future that Fermi estimation is good enough.
Wait, so if Walky’s the one forcing people to confront uncomfortable truths… does that mean he’s usurped Mike’s throne? Mike’s gotta start chowing down on McNuggets and editing the Dexter and Monkey Master wiki ASAP if equilibrium is to be maintained.
You see, Mike, SOME people actually do have people they like interacting with and who enjoy interacting with them, and sometimes this means they message each other on their phones because phones are not just one-way screens to the void.
If Mike wants me to feel bad for him not having any people who don’t think interactions with him are traps to be defused and avoided, he could start by not setting up his interactions that way in the first place.
Hit a nerve, maybe? While in this case, Walky’s in his dorm room and thus totally justified, no amount of rationalization will make staring at your phone instead of interacting with the people actually in the room with you any less rude.
Nobody’s owed an interaction, even if they’re sitting on your lap in lingerie. Less so when they’re a known asshole who everyone just barely tolerates.
Agreed. It doesn’t matter if they’re roommates or total strangers, Walky doesn’t owe Mike any kind of interaction, especially considering who Mike is. Another thing was that Walky was already on his phone when Mike walked in and commented on it, as if that’s any less rude than Walky just not saying hi.
Mike…was never calling walky rude? Or acting like he was owed an interaction? He was just taking one of his usual iabs at walky, pretty sure that’s how he says hi
Should have been clearer, I was talking about the commenter, who seemed to be defending screen-staring in general. I find it rude because I’ve had to sit through far too many dinners, concerts, and events that people explicitly invited one another to for the purposes of social interaction, only to find everyone but me staring into their phones while occasionally mumbling a response to one another without even making eye contact. It’s creepy.
Their comment doesn’t apply to the behavior you’re talking about though. They were pointing out that people use their phones to talk to other people because Mike is accusing Walky of being depressed just because he’s on his phone.
I never said he did? And I know what Mike’s like, I’ve read the Walkyverse for several years at this point.
My comment was made in the context of the chain it was posted in. You know, the one that has “no amount of rationalization will make staring at your phone instead of interacting with the people actually in the room with you any less rude.”
If Amber weren’t successfully carrying on both conversations with Walky and Ethan in the last strips, and Walky with Amber and Joyce etc., that would be one thing and it would be kind of rude, at least with regards to Amber and Ethan. As it stands, the only ones either one has been shown blowing off were Billie (who was not actually carrying on a dialogue in the first place, that was totally a monologue he never really wanted) and Mike. And again, it’s not as though that was an attempt to open a conversation, it was just Mike insulting Walky because that’s Mike’s default form of interaction with him. If Mike’s made it clear that no amount of niceness will make him be even vaguely civil to you, why continue expending actual energy on that relationship beyond the minimum amounts that can’t be avoided? You can room with someone and not have any real personal relationship.
Mike has made it abundantly clear he hates Walky. Like, actually hates. And Walky and Amber have both been successfully multitasking conversations this whole thing, Walky’s just not bothering with Mike because he began with an insult and goes out of his way to make Walky cry to record for his own amusement. That wasn’t a lead-in to pleasant socialization, and it’s not Walky doing the Depressed Aimless Internet Scroll.
But yes, I do get annoyed when people don’t acknowledge that one of the reasons people spend time on their phones is to interact with other people. Mostly though I just wanted to dunk on Mike because even his two best friends question if they even are friends, cannot conceive of him doing something nice for them that isn’t designed to screw them over later, and generally only hang around with him because of inertia, Ethan’s old crush, and neither of them having the self-esteem needed to realize they don’t deserve some dude insulting them all the time and would be better off without him. As shown here with Walky, someone who doesn’t have these factors will just get inured to his bullshit.
Phones only exist because people wanted to interact with each other over distances. Without that function, we’d all be carrying around basically just tablets.
For Amber and Ethan- honestly I think a chunk of it is pity. When you know Mike’s tricks you tend not to get as badly hurt by them (Ethan was able to set boundaries around Danny, and I think the reason he is just walking away from sex is because he knew to keep the emotional distance).
They know not to give Mike too much fuel and I cant think of a time in comic he managed to seriously do damage to Ethan or Amber- he just annoys them
Mike does help them in his warped way and really has no one else. I think Amber and Ethan are mostly friends with him because they can handle him and dont want him to be alone.
I also want to point out that Amber is pretty screwed up and her Amazigirl BS has done at least as much damage as Mike has, if not more.
Ethan though…. Yeah dude needs more self esteem and better friends.
Mike’s conversation (sarcastic or not) drove Ethan back into the closet, and Mike telling Amber she was going to turn into her father is about the point where Amber started clearly and constantly thinking herself a monster and AG the ‘good one’, which has amped up every problem they have on each other and everyone else.
AG is definitely not a good coping mechanism, and her proclivity towards violence in both alters needs to be addressed, but that’s not gonna happen until Amber gets access to significant, competent mental health care. There’s too much at play and too much trauma to untangle before Amber can start to come to a healthy relationship with AG and them both work on healthier outlets than beating people up.
As far as we know, Mike’s never had a significant shift in behavior as the result of trauma or pathological issues. He was getting a read on people before Ms. Phillips; he was working to take her down and using Brent before Blaine. He’s like this because he chooses to be, and I’m much harder on the dude whose behavior is a constant choice than the one who’s likewise Not Okay but is clearly severely mentally ill and doesn’t have the resources to start coping with it.
And that’s all assuming that long term exposure to Mike’s bullshit hasn’t added to their issues or at least helped keep them trapped. We’ve seen that in the current examples you cite and there’s little reason to think he wasn’t doing the same stuff to them back in high school.
He’s certainly not the primary cause of their problems, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been a bad influence.
I wasnt saying that. I was saying that I think a big motivator may be pity. A lot of people who are building healthy esteem will keep a loser friend around because they dont want the friend to be all alone and they feel able to habdle the friend’s bullshit.
Also, Amber seems pretty much done with Mike. She tolerates for Ethan’s sake as far as I can tell. She’s never sought him out. She never seems happy to see him. Never expressed any concern for him.
I can’t see him getting so worked up over that. His plans have gone “wrong” before, like when he tried to drive a wedge between Dorothy and walky and accidentally brought them closer together
“Isn’t there a place you’d rather be”
How about you, chump change? You’re the one who bungled into the room with an attitude. Walky was minding his damn business eating some fruit chatting with Amber. Jeez, what an entitled runt.
Sooooooo…. Mike figured that having a fling with Ethan would lead to Ethan having stronger feelings for him, leading Mike and Ethan having an actual relationship (or at least a situation where Mike can toy with pining Ethan a bit)?
But instead, Ethan actually seems to be into the idea of getting to just have casual relationships instead of something more serious right now since he’s still feeling his way, and he never figured Mike would want anything more, so Mike’s pissed?
Normally I’d like things to not have to progress that far, but with Mike I think it would be required: he needs to have a mental break, and go into therapy. Even without the harm he’s doing to others, this isn’t a healthy way to live. He probably should’ve been in therapy AGES ago, but I doubt he will until someone makes him (kinda like Ruth).
I’d also recommend something teaching basic social decency. I mean, it’s clear he knows the steps, but something needs to teach him that the reason we adhere to them is because otherwise no one wants to be around you, and it’s a direct result of your shitty actions.
… Do such things actually exist? Because I feel like we as a society could really use them.
Sadly therapy isnt a panacea. Even if Mike has been in therapy he can still be like this. I was in therapy for yeara and it really didnt help me. It took a LOT of time to find a therapist that got me to open up and helped me feel better.
I suspected that Mike was serious about Ethan. IMHO, this both confirms this and confirms that Mike’s overall behaviour has poisoned any possibility of Ethan believing that ta long-term relationship between them is possible or even desirable.
MIke hasnt helped but Ethan’s parents are the bigger issue. We didnt see it but a few references were made to how badly his fanily acted to force him back into the closet. And we saw bits of it.
Ethan isnt ready to bring a guy home to meet the parents so honestly it ia better to stay casual and ease into dating men instead of lookong for something more serious.
That’s possible, but I think it’s more Mike specific.
I think he’d quite happily fall for someone else (Danny?), rather than just try to keep it casual, but Mike? Maybe he actually knows better.
Tbh this could be what shifts Mike and changes the direction he goes with his growth. He is at the age where I see this usually happen. He can either stay a dick or learn to open up and care about other people. The second one will be a process, but something needs to trigger it as he plans his adult life.
There’s something about a character who’s presented themselves as an unflappable jerk getting irked by the lightest taste of their own medicine that is supremely rewarding.
seriously thought this is actually kind of scary. Mike is generally a voice of reason a raher welcome source of stability in this series, albiet an assholish one, but stable none the less.
Right now Mike is actually feeling *something*, can’t tell what exactly as I can’t parse that expresion, but even I can tell its *not* **pleasant**. which is terrifying. at the same time part of me is thinking this is mike he will probably calm down shortly.
in the mean time: Break out the popcorn folks, its time to watch the show!
Which is really unfortunate, because frankly I couldn’t care less about Becky. Her story doesn’t interest me except as a vehicle for Joyce’s character development.
It is very likely.
There’ve been a bunch of signs that Joyce’s faith is very brittle and rather than bend to accommodate changes the way Becky’s has, it’ll snap completely.
There was that little rant about how if evolution is real, then Adam and Eve aren’t and that means everything is a lie.
Becky is still firmly Christian and the experience actually cemented her faith in God’s love. Joyce’s dad also ended that arc by saying that God told him to trust Joyce.
So it might end with Joyce as an atheist but it can certainly end with Joyce simply reevaluating her faith and taking control of it instead of blindly following her parents’ teachings.
I think its pushing much more towards Joyce redefining her faith while maintaining her connection to her God rather than rejecting her faith entirely.
This. This has me a very specific level of really unfuggin comfortable. Considering how much has happened in this strip, my level of concern… has me done a concern
I can’t even imagine how damaging it must be to be sexually intimate with people while making yourself partition away all feeling. From the last strip, it’s implied Mike has done this before and it may be a pattern in the furtherance of his schemes. Which is just… Not to romanticize sex, but it does require you to be physically vulnerable and (ideally) drop the psychological shields. Good sex does. If Mike doesn’t even let himself ever do that, he’s hurting himself at least as much as he hurts others and I feel sorrier for him than I ever have.
Slightly off topic as the strips have moved on but doing a reread and I kinda think this strip may be relevant to Joyce and her approach to Raidah and Jacob. It is literally less than a month since she had to start considering that this dating thing can be messy and complicated, that sometimes love is not enough, that your first love may not be your soul mate, that people have baggage…
Yes, her response was still all off, swinging to the other side of the axis from “hyperventilating because he has feelings for an ex with whom he knows it wouldn’t work” straight to “but if we’re meant to be together nothing else can or will ever matter so his current girlfriend is just a little road bump I shouldn’t worry about”… But much like in her response here where she acknowledges that she is overcompensating from an early misapprehension, she should find some sensible middle ground soonish. Hopefully. Maybe? (Coz successful relationships and healthy mindsets about them are quite hard to develop…)
And yes, this means we might just see Anti-Joyce emerge when Joyce gets pat her sexual repression block. Although probably not literally as a separate person with her own body and everything this time 😉 Be interesting to see where she ends up falling on that measure when the pendulum stops swinging…
I have read much of your work, and it is only now that I am realizing how much baggage I have with these characters. Mike is assumed to be Mike, but I don’t know how true that is. Just went back and read all there is of Mike within DOA, and I am convinced we do not have a complete picture of who he is in this universe, besides the superficial similarities to prior incarnations. How much do you rely on characterizational shorthand? Am I supposed to throw out all the history when reading this comic or only some of it?
If it is only some of it then you have created a wonderfully metatextual experience, and you’ve given yourself not only a built-in audience but a world with which said audience can still be surprised.
In DoA you should throw out most history of other universes in terms of backstory and what has shaped the characters.
The only things that remain the same are:
*Sexualities if there was one preestablished in a previous universe.
*Key personality traits.
*Names if there was one established – Willis has drawn and named pretty much every background character from the Walkyverse in DoA at some point by now I think?
*A few key relationships e.g. Amber and Ethan’s preexisting friendship, Walky and Sal are siblings.
Some history can give a bit of perspective or insight e.g. Robin insists she is straight in this universe, but because of Shortpacked, we know that is not true, she is bi/pan. And other parts can be fun for comparison e.g. Rachel and Joe were together in Shortpacked, but that is unimaginable here because of how Joe’s actions repulse her; Joyce and Walky were together in a different universe too, but here they hardly ever get along and Walky trends towards being a jerk to her for no reason at all sometimes.
I think sexuality continuity has to be taken with a grain of salt too, at least in the sense that a character previously depicted as straight may, in fact, be bi but just not have had the opportunity to explore themselves in the Walkyverse? (i.e. Danny)
Even if you ignore prior incarnations, for eight years Mike was rather established as a one dimensional jerk. Now we’re seeing more about his past and other sides of him.
There are similarities but there’ve always been new twists and surprises. 🙂
lmao this is a minor form of this… some depressives hate their lives so much that the only way to ignore the misery is to let the rest of the world experience it as much as you do, because fuck those congas for having normally balanced emotions and not hating themselves for every second of their lives. The most extreme version of this depression, I would say, results in more extreme displays of loathing, like mass murder for example
People who commit various shooting Are often mentally ill though. Which sadly says more about the ease with which they can acquire weapons instead of professional help and less about danger posed by mentally ill people.
Well I’m no researcher but once, out of curiosity, I looked up some of the shootings. Of the more famous ones Harris of the Columbine one was diagnosed with depression while the Virginia Tech Cho was being treated for depression and anxiety since Middle School apparently. In Sandy Hook the perpetrator was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and an obsessive-compulsive disorder. In the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting the perpetrator was previously diagnosed with depression, autism and ADHD.
Of course I mostly picked the ones with the high body counts but there are countless “smaller ones” which might have happened for a variety of different reasons.
You do know that most mentally ill people hurt themselves more than they hurt others, yes? And that it’s dangerous to assert that most perpetrators of violent crimes are mentally ill, as that can lead to mentally ill = violent stereotypes being ingrained in the minds of the masses? And that it’s a really fucking gross, hurtful, and thoughtless assumption to say that depression leads to mass murder?
I mean, your previous comment implied you’re aware of this, but you’re also backing up the original comment that asserted that extreme depression leads to mass murder instead of, you know, suicide.
I mean I would argue that you would have to be mentally unwell by default to commit an act like that because willingness to kill others does not = healthy brain, just by definition. I think that’s what they were trying to say?
But yeah, obviously the vast majority of mentally ill people do NOT commit murder/should not be considered threats to society.
And before anyone jumps down my throat, depression/anxiety sufferer here who has definitely not murdered anyone so I’m definitely not saying depression leads to mass murder.
The point is that they didn’t need to jump in with a ‘well actually’ when the original statement was as wild as “extreme depression leads to mass murder”. There are so many other things that could come about as a result of depression, and the fact that violence is automatically the first thing that comes to mind is a hurtful stigma that affects mentally ill people everywhere. I’m pissed as someone that suffers from depression and anxiety.
I think you understood my comment backwards. I didn’t say “Mentally ill people commit mass murder” I said “Mass murder is usually committed by mentally ill people”. It’s kind of like that shitty argument being thrown around that “Pedophiles are gay so gays are pedophiles” which I loath.
The point of my comment was more or less that the laws in America (or rather the lack of them) makes it incredibly easy for those people to obtain guns and hurt other people. I never intended to claim that mentally ill people are inherently dangerous, except to themselves, and that they should be seen as a threat.
I understand perfectly what your comment was trying to say. But considering the original comment was “extreme depression leads to mass murder”, adding your comment reinforced the former, not the latter. Because it just reinforces that statement that “mentally ill people are violent”. And again, you didn’t even bring up the fact that most mentally ill people are likely to be victims of violence themselves or hurt themselves, just focusing on how “mass murder is usually committed by mentally ill people”.
Gun laws in America focusing on mentally ill people would not actually be beneficial or helpful. From psychiatry online: “Gun restriction laws focusing on people with mental illness perpetuate the myth that mental illness leads to violence, as well as the misperception that gun violence and mental illness are strongly linked. Stigma represents a major barrier to access and treatment of mental illness, which in turn increases the public health burden.”
“I never intended to claim that mentally ill people are inherently dangerous, except to themselves”
Nope. Nope. Stop right there. Mentally ill people are not inherently dangerous to themselves. Are they more likely to hurt themselves? Yes. But they are not a danger. I can guess at what point you’re trying to make, but that is a hurtful wording of it.
You know what I find interesting when it comes to the whole Mike debate, that Mike is considered a shit human being for being awful to people and hurting them, which is shitty of him to do, but a lot of people don’t seem to care why he is the way he is. Yet, when it comes to Amber/AG, these same people are happy to give them a pass on beating the shit out of people they view as “acceptable targets” as a vent for their violent tendencies, even going so far as to go looking for someone to beat up because they’re upset, because of their trauma. Well, we’ve just seen Mike has gone through trauma, being hit by a teacher, being manhandled and having his family threatened by a known abusive adult. So my question to these people is why do Amber/AG get a pass for trauma and Mike doesn’t? To quote an insightful comment by Mike,”Is it because she’s(they’re) a girl?”
The gender issue is at play. Its also because Amber has a history of trauma that causes her issues. As far as we know Mike had great parents and a happy childhood and despite having every chance for a goof life he has chosen to be a jerk.
Its also due to past incarnations. Mike has basicallyy always been The Jerk whereas Amber wasnt alwayd a violent sociopath so past feelings give Amber more of a pass.
Glad I’m not the only one who notices the gender bias. Having a happy family doesn’t preclude you from having trauma or mental health issues, if that’s what you’re saying. We just saw in past strips he went through trauma, so again I ask why that doesn’t matter? We’ve seen so little of Mike’s back story in this version that we don’t really know everything he’s been through and certainly can’t start assuming he’s fine because he has nice parents. How many people with crippling depression for instance have “every chance for a good life” and still are terribly depressed? If Mike does have depression, which has just been hinted he might, depression can make people angry and hateful, not just sad, mopey, or numb.
Given that we know only very specific things about the characters stay the same from one universe to another, and their backstories isn’t one of them, I don’t know why past incarnations matter at all.
On the other hand, you can’t really just assume there must be some crippling trauma or mental illness when we’ve barely seen hints that there might be something. We’ve clearly been shown Amber’s mental problems and we’ve met the cause of most of them.
Nor is all trauma equal. If the trauma we saw for Mike in the flashback was supposed to have produced some kind of mental break, we’ve seen no real signs of it. He didn’t react in any significant way. He remained calm and apparently in control through all of it. Suggests to me that he was already a good chunk of the way to being the Mike we now know.
And as I said below, it doesn’t really matter much. Mike is what he is. If that trauma made him that, he’s still that. If there’s a crack from it that can lead to some healing so that he’s not the constant asshole, then it matters.
I’m not assuming he’s an ass because he’s mentally ill or went through trauma, I’m saying we can’t say that mental illness doesn’t contribute and trauma isn’t the reason he’s an ass because we don’t know why he is. Basically we can’t say why he is who he is because we don’t know.
Also, we could apply this reasoning to most of the outright villains in the story. Do we have reserve judgment on Mary because we don’t enough about her past?
Or Ryan, for that matter? Sure, he drugs and rapes girls, but we don’t really know anything else about him.
How about the adult abusers? Maybe Blaine and Clint were abused themselves as kids. We don’t know. Can’t judge them.
Oh please, I didn’t say you can’t think someones a bad person, I said you should decide that’s all they are and Mike is not even in the league of any of the people you mentioned especially not Ryan.
There’s a difference between deciding they’re a bad person and deciding bad is ALL they are. I know he’s different from Blaine etc, because his actions are mean and he’s an asshole, but these other people are committing felony acts and endangering other people’s lives. That’s like saying all bad people are equally bad in every way, it’s a broad brush and it’s lazy.
No, he hasn’t done anything as bad. But that’s not the point.
We haven’t seen Mike show anything other than cruelty*. And we’ve seen much more of Mike than any of the others.
He’s not a real person, no more than Mary or Ryan or Blaine. He’s only complicated if he’s written that way and for years he wasn’t. Fictional characters can in fact just be simple villains. Or simple assholes who’s only purpose is jokes and occasionally prodding the other characters in interesting directions.
*As always, some potential caveats for young Mike and some hints in the current arc, which I’m still reserving judgment on until we know more, but these are guesswork and could be wind up going in several directions.
Everyone reacts to trauma differently and we can’t say how Mike’s trauma has effected him without making assumptions based on nothing more than facial expression and that seems kind of messed up. That reads to me like saying” This person reacted to trauma in the way I think is acceptable so it’s real, but this other person didn’t so I can discount it and say it didn’t effect them”. Is that what you mean to be saying because that’s how it comes across?
I’m saying this is fiction and if the author wants me to believe a character is traumatized, they need to convey that. Willis has been quite capable of doing that with many characters, often with only a strip or two devoted to it – at least until he comes back to it later.
If that was his intent with Mike, it hasn’t worked for me. It’s possible we’ll get there of course, but I don’t see it yet. Nor has there been any clear line drawn between this trauma and Mike’s behavior – especially considering he was already doing Mike things pretty much from the start of the flashback.
I also can’t rule out some completely unheard of trauma in Mike’s past that will make me sympathetic. But I don’t feel the need to invent that so that I can be sympathetic beforehand.
But most of this is beside my main point, which is that Amber is a good person who’d got some issues, while Mike has never shown any signs of being a good person.
Amber cares about self-improvement and doing the right thing and so on. If she’s given some basic frigging therapy and anger management skills, I expect her to make vast improvements.
Mike, OTOH, was a cardboard cutout of a character until recently. We’re only beginning to see vague hints that he *might* not be completely uncaring. We haven’t yet seen anything to suggest he’d want to stop hurting people.
Neither of those points means she should get a pass for hurting people while he doesn’t and we don’t know what Mike’s inner workings are because we haven’t seen them so we can’t just assume he’s a piece of shit. WANTING to stop hurting people doesn’t make it okay that you’re doing it nor does it make it less bad than someone who doesn’t care because the effect on the targets is till the same. If Amber/AG actually stopped hurting people then it would matter, at this point we have people who know it’s wrong but still feel justified in doing it and I’m not sure how that’s more okay than Mike.
*How* is Amber being “given a pass”? If it’s that we’re not personally pointing out that her bad behaviour was bad, well, there’s nobody around claiming it was good, so there’s nothing to argue against!
I’ve seen lots of comments saying Mike is bad and Amber is good because her trauma explains her bad behavior, we’ve obviously seen different comments if you think no one has said her behavior is good.
To also quote Mike “A culture of mass media that indoctrinates all people to eternally forgive white males.”
But more I think it’s that we’ve very rarely seen Mike do anything except treat people awfully. Even those that argue he has good motives or winds up doing good, can’t really deny that his methods are awful. We’ve seen a few hints at more depth in young!Mike and some things that can be read that way in the this arc for current!Mike, though they’re not clear enough to be undeniable and still don’t actually show him being nice. And his shit is nearly always targeted at other main characters we care about and mostly at his friends, not at actual villains or even the kind of nameless petty criminals AG beats up.
Amber, while we’ve seen her rage and we’ve seen her use of Amazi-Girl as an outlet for violence, but we’ve also seen her be a good person. We’ve seen her care for Ethan, we’ve seen her help Dina with social skills, we saw her and Danny together. We’ve seen Amazi-Girl risking her life to rescue Becky, or if you think that was too cartoony to count or that she just escalated and put everyone at risk, we saw her work to track down Ryan. And we saw both her and Amber worry about how that would affect Joyce.
We’ve seen plenty of good, human behavior from Amber to make us care about her and to balance out the violent parts. We’ve seen nothing of the kind from Mike.
Going in the opposite direction and making “white males” out to be shit isn’t good either, judging individuals on who they are as people is better than broad brushing imo.
See I get that she can be a good person, but how does that make her bad actions more okay exactly? Even some of histories most awful people did good things at least some of the time, doesn’t make it more okay that they did bad things. Essentially, I get all that about Amber/AG, but we don’t know enough about Mike to really judge him clearly. So, writing him off as a piece of shit whose irredeemable because he’s an ass specifically because we haven’t see much about him is not exactly showing good human empathy or at least sympathy. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover and all that.
Basically, it seems hypocritical to say because we know a person can be good they get a pass for being violent, but this guy who we don’t know much about can be written off as trash because we don’t know him. Why not judge them by the same standard and reserve judgement on Mike until we know more?
We’ve seen plenty of Mike. Not his backstory – which is a valid point, but his behavior in the present. Enough to establish a pattern. We also know what his closest friends who’ve known him for years think about him.
It’s not that we don’t know enough about him, it’s that what we know has been universally bad. (Aside from a few hints in this latest arc.) How long should we reserve judgment? He’s been on screen and a consistent asshole for all eight years of this comic. He’s got an established character.
Switching to the meta-level for a moment, by this point if we don’t know enough to judge the character, that’s a failure by the writer. “Oh no, they think he’s a jerk. I just keep forgetting to include all the offscreen moments when he’s kind and supportive.” That just doesn’t wash.
I wouldn’t say he’s irredeemable though. He’s just currently an ass.
I personally like to reserve judgement on fictional characters until I have a fairly clear picture of them and seeing as Mike is often used as a comic relief character or one dimensional caricature in DOA, it doesn’t seem fair to measure him against the same yardstick as a character we know a lot about like Amber.
Basically, it’s like how a lot of people treated Ruth as nothing but a piece of shit until they knew her back story. It’s the same thing with Mike, we see him acting shitty so people vilify him without knowing anything about him. That seems like a problem to me that a character who’s an ass is only given empathy if we know they’ve suffered. Like they aren’t human, so to speak, until we have a reason to treat them as more than a villain.
You’re the one comparing Mike and Amber here, to be clear. And you’re also the one that’s putting up these parameters before you judge characters. If 8+ years of a comic is still not enough for you to get a fairly clear picture of a character, then either the creator has failed in some way or you’re holding onto arbitrary goalposts for no reason.
And yeah, people tend to treat characters as villains if they haven’t shown any other facet to themselves besides cruel and villainous actions. Things that both early Ruth and current Mike have done. With this logic, we probably shouldn’t treat Blaine or Sir as villains either. Sure, we’ve only seen them be cruel and abusive, but clearly we’ve only seen one part of them, so maybe we should cut them some slack.
To be clear, it’s not so much that characters need to suffer in order to receive empathy. They need to be given sympathetic traits in order to be treated sympathetically. With how Mike has been presented in comic up to this storyline, was there anything that really prompted him to be treated in the same way characters like Ethan, Billie, Walky, etc. have been treated? No, not really. Because the only side of Mike that was seen was a side that was cruel and malicious, that messed with other people for his own enjoyment, and even if it was all in a cartoonish manner, that’s still all anyone saw from him for 8 years. Even with your example of Ruth, it did not take that long before sympathetic traits were shown. Maybe within the first couple of years.
I never got the “escalation” thing applied to that particular case. Ross ran through campus with a loaded rifle (and fired it), intent on kidnapping Becky and throwing her into conversion “therapy”. Provided you’re not using something whose effects require the term “blast radius” to describe, I’m not sure how you could escalate the situation.
Yeah, I don’t really get it either. I think the theory is that she wasn’t currently at risk of being killed and the cops would have just found them and arrested him and everything would have been fine, instead of risking everyone’s lives with car accidents and the like.
Which I’d find more persuasive if the track record for finding kidnap victims was better than it is.
Basically, to me it looks like the issue boils down to “This person get’s a pass because I know they can be good, but it’s okay to write this other person off because I don’t know them, so I don’t have to care about them”. That seems like a problematic way to dole out empathy to me. That seems like the only people who deserve empathy are people we know why they are who they are and strangers shouldn’t be given empathy, we should just write them off as good/bad and move on. I think empathy should be given equally without condoning bad behavior.
Man, the idea that Amber is getting some sort of free pass to be a jerk really flies in the fact of the way the comment section has been reacting to her since she first started being a jerk. Like, folks have repeatedly asserted that she was too broken to deserve love, that she was an abuser just like her father and would never change, etc etc etc.
Amber’s negative reception has actually repeatedly been compared to Mike’s relatively positive reception as an example of plain ole misogyny (I.e., people being harder on Amber because she’s a girl), and it’s really strange to see that now being turned around.
In my experience, what’s happened has kind of been that self-proclaimed Mike fans would appear often, but usually they were people who didn’t comment regularly, whereas anti-Mike folks stuck around and got increasingly harsh in their assessment of him because of the first group, and now we’ve got a relatively even mixture of regular people who hate Mike and regular people who defend Mike, but the storyline focusing on him now – as it has never done before – is really bringing that debate (such as it is) to the forefront of the comment section.
The anti-Amber contingent is quiet right now because it’s been a while since she did anything that hurt anyone, so by comparison it seems to you like she’s being given a pass, but if you go back to previous Amber storylines (especially leading up to her fight with Joyce’s attempted rapist), you’ll see that there’s plenty of anti-Amber vitriol around these here parts.
I’m not saying no one vilifies Amber, just that a lot of the people I see vilify Mike are the same people who give Amber a pass and that seems messed up to me. Dealing with perceived misogyny by hating on males is hypocritical at best. Besides, it’s messed up to decide that criticism of a female character is automatically misogyny when there could be so many more reasons for people to not like her. I’m not saying it never is misogyny, just that I’m sure it isn’t always, just like Mike haters aren’t always commenting because of misandry, but at least some of them are.
Oh also, I’m a long time commenter, I had to change my name because for some reason, while my email works fine, the old name I had doesn’t comment right on this or any other comic at the moment and I already asked and have been told I wasn’t blocked here or anywhere else.
That’s also a good point.
There’s a contingent of Amber bashers. And another of Mike lovers. And vice versa. The idea that there’s any general trend of Mike getting attacked and Amber getting a free pass is ludicrous.
Read my comment above, I never said it was a general trend just that I’ve noticed the same people who vilify Mike give Amber a pass a lot of the time. Also, something isn’t “ludicrous” just because you don’t see it that way.
What is and isn’t part of reality, except for concrete things with facts to back them up, is largely opinion and thus subjective. Everyone’s individual perception is their own reality.
” the same people who vilify Mike give Amber a pass a lot of the time.”
who, exactly?
the two people most pissed off at mike seem to be Emily and Doomska, and in the half-dozen amber comics I searched I didn’t find them commenting at *all*.
There were lots of doomska’s comments on this page and others that seem to have been deleted since last night, many of those were the one’s I was referencing.
But that’s kind of Inahc’s point. I mean sure, Doomska was vilifying Mike, but I don’t have any idea what they think about Amber. Unless not bringing her up counts as giving her a pass.
I saw comments by doomska and other people last night that compared Mike to Amber and said basically Amber is excused because she’s mentally ill, not my fault stuff gets deleted, I swear i should start screenshotting this stuff.
also, doomska’s comments were actually milder than I remembered. still kinda jerky flamebait, but, not calling any of the commenters anything worse than “lacking a moral compass”.
Yeah, much of the reaction seemed to be treated their comments as much worse than they were.
And Doomska said nothing about Amber. The only place defending Amber really came up was in talking about Mike suggesting she was more like Blaine.
Whoops, did a typo on my name there.
There were lots of doomska’s comments on this page and others that seem to have been deleted since last night, many of those were the one’s I was referencing.
Nah, Amber is absolutely in my shit books too. She’s a clear danger to the people around her and while it could be argued that she isn’t directly responsible for the actions of her alter she is responsible for her complete inaction in doing anything whatsoever to address the fact that she has an alternate personality that goes out at night and assaults people. Like, until Amber seeks out proper mental healthcare to deal with her issues I’m going to intensely dislike her because she is putting others in actual physical danger with her avoidant behaviour.
I’m fascinated who isn’t in your shit book and why, you aren’t the only one, but a lot of people seem to have a very black or white morality scale they judge these characters on. I don’t think Amber is 100% good or bad, I struggle to think of a character who is completely good(Dina?) Maybe it is because putting characters into simple categories is just easier and requires less effort, but the more I read all the comments the more this thought occurs to me.
I mean Mike and the straight up villains (a distinction without a difference if you ask me but enough people don’t consider Mike a villain that I may as well make it) are the only ones perpetually in my shit book the rest it’s more based on how they’re behaving at the moment. For example, Joyce is in there at the moment because she’s being really gross in her current arc and I have no truck with that shit but I don’t think she’s the devil she’s just being shitty right now.
I don’t think Amber is evil I think she’s reckless and unwilling to meaningfully address how her mental illness causes her to hurt others beyond unproductive self-flagellation. I don’t have to think a character is The Worst for me to disapprove of their actions and dislike them because of them.
I agree with your interpretation of many commenter’s reactions to character’s. I think it’s largely the black and white thinking of some people that bugs me because it ignores the fact that these characters are complex people.
Am I the only one expecting this to turn into a reverse of the violent beatdown we just went through in the re-posted ITS WALKY?
Because I’m pretty sure that Mike’s family can’t provide the same get-out-of-jail-free (literally) card that Linda did in SEMME, nor are the extenuating stakes quite so cosmic.
Somehow I feel that this comic has to end with the entire cast in court-mandated therapy.
I think this might all be a scheme to get back at amber.
Her dad put her in the position that got him hit and tossed out of the room that day, shes the one who abandoned him, and hes scheming to make ethan confident enough to leave her.
I think this might all be revenge for getting hurt from his genuine act of kindness.
Basically, the reason seeing people broad brush Mike as ALL bad, is because it ignores the fact that people are complicated and anyone is capable of being “bad”. It’s the same thing I see in real life a lot, where someone does something really awful and a lot of people try to say they are somehow different from “normal” people, it’s a way of ignoring that all people can do bad things and even real evil isn’t something anyone can say they aren’t capable of if put in the right situation.
Nah. That’s why people broad brush Amber as bad. Or Carla. Some others.
We paint Mike bad because we haven’t been shown any good. Potentially some possibility in young Mike, though it’s not clear, because even then he was all masks. Maybe current Mike will change. As it is he’s just barely breaking out of being one-dimensional. He’s been enigmatic, but that’s not the same as complicated.
People are complicated, but fictional characters are not. Not all the time, at least. Mike’s only ever been hinted at having depths recently. It’s not unreasonable for people to treat him as the one-note edgelord he’s presented himself as for the past 8 years of the comic.
That was supposed to say Basically, the reason seeing people broad brush Mike as ALL bad bothers me, is because it ignores the fact that people are complicated and anyone is capable of being “bad”. It’s the same thing I see in real life a lot, where someone does something really awful and a lot of people try to say they are somehow different from “normal” people, it’s a way of ignoring that all people can do bad things and even real evil isn’t something anyone can say they aren’t capable of if put in the right situation.
This bugs me too. People keep saying that anyone trying to understand/explain characters who behave badly are somehow condoning abuse in real life…but at the same time, assuming anyone who behaves badly is just an Awful Person makes me wonder if these people are also assuming anyone who ever makes a mistake in real life is an awful unredeemable person (especially if they’re already conflating fiction and reality).
People are flawed and make lots of mistakes. Anyone who thinks someone who does a problematic thing is automatically bad/unforgivable are probably not as aware of their own flaws as they should be…because they have most definitely done something bad in the past as well. We all have. No one is perfect. Human interaction and life in general are extremely complex and putting things in very black and white terms or immovable boxes is a dangerous practice.
The difference with Mike is that we’ve seen almost nothing other than the bad behavior. (Up until this arc, I’d have said nothing.) And many people aren’t just trying to understand, but to paint his bad behavior as good.
I’m all for nuance and complexity, in characters that actually are presented as having good and bad sides.
If you’re reading Mike as a character who “makes a mistake” or isn’t perfect or “does a problematic thing”, you’re so far off from how I read this comic we can’t even talk. His entire shtick is being an asshole. If I knew someone like that in real life? Especially if his oldest and closest friends were warning people away from him? Damn right I’m going to think he’s awful. He is.
Most of the other characters in this comic are more complex. They’ve screwed up. They’ve done bad things and made mistakes. They’ve hurt people, even their friends. But it’s not a constant. They’ve also helped and shown compassion. There, most readers are willing to see them as complex, flawed characters and to consider both the good side and the bad.
Some aren’t. This argument you’re making might carry more weight if you used a different character to make it: Ruth with her abuse of Billie and the whole floor early on. Amber’s rage and Amazi-Girl’s casual violence. Joe’s objectification of women, before he took some steps to change.
You can probably find some commenters who can’t get past those things to acknowledge the good sides we have seen from those characters.
(Other than the outright villains, of course – though the defense some of those got before the villainy got to blatant to deny still grates.)
thejeff I’m not just referring to comments about Mike here. This is in reference to the general discussion about the trend some people have of labeling every character in this strip who does a bad thing as an awful person.
This particular line of thought was more in reference to people labeling Joyce, Amber, etc. as straight-up awful people for every error even within the general context of their growth as complex characters.
Also to be clear, I don’t read Mike as a generally good person who occasionally does a bad thing. I read him as an occasionally sympathetic asshole, so I’m really not trying to white knight him here. I like the character, but it’s not because I think he’s some kind of misunderstood angel.
I have the same opinion of Mike, he’s an asshole who can at times be sympathetic. I like his character because he’s interesting not because I think he’s nice. However, thinking he’s an asshole doesn’t mean I think he’s an evil piece of shit either and that’s what bothered me, the characterization of people in this comic, Joe, Sarah, Joyce, etc., as well a s Mike as evil because they’re flawed.
autogatos I agree with you, I don’t think it should matter what someone has done, no matter how bad they should still be treated as human, their behavior should not be condoned, but they shouldn’t be treated as some anomaly impossible for the rest of us to become because as you said that kind of black and white thinking is dangerous.
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so this with less goth
Literally no one wants the guy in the first and last panel. How out of touch is that cartoonist?
I’d hit it tbh
So not literally no one.
There is a certain kind of person (often their arguably horrible but not always) that really likes to have an emotional strong arm on their partner. The reason why this kinda person is often (NOTE NOT ALWAYS) awful is because the easiest way to get that leverage is if the partner is depressed. Don’t be the person who like depressed people cause it makes them easy to boss around.
Hey, lots of people were middle school edgelords once.
Some people just never grow out of it I guess.
Those types tend to congregate on the Internet.
Sadly, there are actually a staggering amount of people who find that moody type attractive. Different strokes, as they say.
Dude Watchin’ With the Brontes
Pretty sure Sexy Losers has been out of touch since its inception. 😐
Amber (in the Walkyverse) marries the guy in the first and last panel!
Or were you referring to that Sexy Losers comic?
Well, the comic dissents on its own!
I mean… The comic IS 15 years old. We’d barely gotten out of the 90s, where edgelords used to be cool.
NSFW NSFW NSFW
Just letting you know
Of course Galasso would have an issue with angst in his workplace, can’t have his employees feeling bad and thinking about how their lives could get better…
Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve seen someone link Sexy Losers.
I read that as “so this with less girth” and boy was that link a disappointment.
Honestly sounds like they’re bipolar.
Getting happy because you got laid and depressed because you got dumped is not bipolar, that’s very neurotypical.
Also, the timestamps place this whole cycle within 30 minutes. Bipolar cycles are long, over weeks or months stuck in either manic or depressive states. Someone who just flips between extremes without a that pattern most likely has a different problem.
Next strip: Walky’s at Disney World, walking around with a hot dog in one hand, cotton candy in the other, Mickey Ears hat on his head, saying “Gee whiz, this was a swell idea! I’ll have to thank Mike when I get back!”
And he’s being serenaded by the Dapper Dans barbershop quartet…
Nice image, but I can’t believe the entire scenario. It doesn’t leave Walky a hand for texting, so it ain’t guna happen right now.
All he has to do is start worshipping the Chaos Gods who will reward him with a third hand he can use to text. That or he’ll be revealed to be a Genestealer hybrid with extra limbs he’s been hiding so far.
Or he could go all Shadowrun and get a Commlink implant.
Someone check the timeline, aren’t they still in October? I hear Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party is excellent. Though also incredibly crowded.
I hope it is, going there for the first time this year
Rrrrr!
There’s a real person under there, much to Mike’s chagrin.
“Nah.”
*New text from Amber*
“Ennh, well, maybe I do.” *leaves*
…I think this is the first time present day Mike has been this rattled. He’s slipping.
He’s lost his temper once before, I think on their very first day of college, when Amber wouldn’t stop killing spiders on her computer so the trio could hang out. But that didn’t have the emotional vulnerability that this does.
Yeah, that was comedic, doesn’t really count.
Wouldn’t be surprised if Walky booked it, though. This is a rawness I’ve never seen from Mike and I’m unnerved as shit.
Yeah, holy crap, Mike expressed an emotion other than sullen sarcasm,
Yeah. The mask is slipping. This is fascinating and a little scary.
I think it’s fun. But I like to see character’s masks crumble. It’s like my faourite story-sub-arch.
It turns out Mike is so good at making people miserable, he can even do it to himself!
Nah, pissing you off is too much fun, Mike. 😛
It is also a very unhealthy exercise, do so at your own risk.
When I Breakdown in the middle and lose my thread
No one can understand a word that I say
When I Breakdown just a little and lose my head…–Alan Parsons Project
Once you see his gums, the death comes swift.
What if Mike was super detached in all of his plans in the past.. but actually caught real feelings for Ethan??? :O
I wonder why he’s so angry. Regret? Anger that its working? Anger that his friends are “accepting” what he considers “bad” decisions? Mike’s such a weird dude y’all
I strongly suspect that Mike has had a crush on Ethan for a LONG time, but he has so firmly stamped down his emotions that he even convinced himself he doesnt and is just doing this for warped reasons.
Having sex with your many years long crush and having him walk away without batting an eye would do a number on anyone.
Oh! Good point! Maybe Mike’s mad that Ethan isn’t as “simpering mess” as Ethan thought he could be, and Mikes the jealous mess instead!!!!
Once again Mike shows he isn’t immune to feelings despite his best attempts, granted he is still a dick but maybe by the end of college he’ll be a functioning person. So you know, 2024? Also, incoming blind Mike hate and blind Mike forgiveness, and people being dicks in the comments, everyone draw your line in the sand or grab popcorn.
Can my sand lines be shaped like Voltron? I wanna draw Voltron.
Sure, why not? I’m sure we can get colored sand and make it better, it’s not like there’s any rush, besides Voltron was/is awesome. Never did check out the remake though, was it any good and how long did it run?
Current remake is still running and will finish with eight seasons. As to quality… eh, people like it, but it’s a constant drama shitshow. Not touching it.
Weird seems pretty drama free to me. I must have a high tolerance. Really compared to say Korra it’s a lightweight. Now Korea was a drama sh**show.
It’s a great show, better than the original imho. Stay away from the fan base though.
Per my Partner coming in during S7: THIS SHOW IS STRESSFUL
That being said: I love the show, the fandom is a shitfest. All over some shipping. If you avoid the online community (or have an extensive block list), you should be fine and enjoy the show!
to clarify: She got sucked in and is emotionally invested in these characters she’s barely seen. She already loves it.
Can I draw a line in the popcorn? 😀 a line made *of* popcorn probably wouldn’t last very long.
2024? It’s been, what, 8 years or so and they haven’t even hit first semester snow.
End of college for this comic is decades away, even if it somehow switched to 2 comics a day.
Holy crap has it really been 8 years? I feel like I just started reading this a few years back, where did all that time go? And if you’re right then at least I’ll have a consistent comic to read for another 20 years.
The first strip was September 10th, 2010. So closer to 9 years now.
That is.. slightly less than eight years.
Or did I lose a year again?
No, sorry, I’m tired and forgot that we’re coming up on eight years, not nine.
Needfuldoer mathed it out last December. Assuming the In-Comic-Time-To-Real-World-Time ratio remains more or less constant, we won’t even reach the end of this academic year until the real-world year 2261. (And that was before the “Faz is Great” storyline skewed the ratio even longer.)
To get to the start of the next academic year, add another…ballpark, maybe 84 years? Plus three full academic years and two more summer vacations, and that’s…1260 real-world years? If I haven’t screwed something up — and it’s entirely possible that I have — but anyway, that puts in-comic graduation in real-world 3270 or thereabouts.
At any rate, far enough in the future that Fermi estimation is good enough.
Yeah, we’ve had a couple arcs last a lot longer than the old average since then. One of these days I’ll get around to re-doing the math.
Something’s really gotten to Mike. He’s starting to loose his cool.
Mike, apologizing for not being insulting enough. Does that mean he views it as an obligation?
But damn, Walky is on fire today for exposing people’s inner turmoil. Mike reacting emotionally is uncommon.
Wait, so if Walky’s the one forcing people to confront uncomfortable truths… does that mean he’s usurped Mike’s throne? Mike’s gotta start chowing down on McNuggets and editing the Dexter and Monkey Master wiki ASAP if equilibrium is to be maintained.
Equilibrium, while a fun movie, is a touch overrated as a concept.
Not without incident.
Understandably, he can’t allow this to happen.
It’s why we forgive his flaws.
I’m not becoming Pajama Man Mc. Nugget. Screw you!
Waahhh wahh wahhhh
Maybe Mike will actually talk to Walky about his problems?
Yeah, probably not.
Yes.
He would rather be inside Dorothy.
But that is no longer an option, Mike.
Walky would rather going
DZ, Discovery Zone!
Where he can cut loose and be on his own!
(actually, he’s probably too young to really even remember Discovery Zone, huh? I have never felt more 31 than right this moment.)
… How the fuck do I remember that jingle? They went defunct before I was seven, and I can barely remember anything from elementary school.
You see, Mike, SOME people actually do have people they like interacting with and who enjoy interacting with them, and sometimes this means they message each other on their phones because phones are not just one-way screens to the void.
If Mike wants me to feel bad for him not having any people who don’t think interactions with him are traps to be defused and avoided, he could start by not setting up his interactions that way in the first place.
Hit a nerve, maybe? While in this case, Walky’s in his dorm room and thus totally justified, no amount of rationalization will make staring at your phone instead of interacting with the people actually in the room with you any less rude.
Nobody’s owed an interaction, even if they’re sitting on your lap in lingerie. Less so when they’re a known asshole who everyone just barely tolerates.
Agreed. It doesn’t matter if they’re roommates or total strangers, Walky doesn’t owe Mike any kind of interaction, especially considering who Mike is. Another thing was that Walky was already on his phone when Mike walked in and commented on it, as if that’s any less rude than Walky just not saying hi.
Mike…was never calling walky rude? Or acting like he was owed an interaction? He was just taking one of his usual iabs at walky, pretty sure that’s how he says hi
No, we’re all getting at the commenter who implied texting when other people are around is.
Mike insinuated Walky was depressed, though. (Which, yes, there are some warning signs, but this current texting bit is not one of them.)
Should have been clearer, I was talking about the commenter, who seemed to be defending screen-staring in general. I find it rude because I’ve had to sit through far too many dinners, concerts, and events that people explicitly invited one another to for the purposes of social interaction, only to find everyone but me staring into their phones while occasionally mumbling a response to one another without even making eye contact. It’s creepy.
Their comment doesn’t apply to the behavior you’re talking about though. They were pointing out that people use their phones to talk to other people because Mike is accusing Walky of being depressed just because he’s on his phone.
I never said he did? And I know what Mike’s like, I’ve read the Walkyverse for several years at this point.
My comment was made in the context of the chain it was posted in. You know, the one that has “no amount of rationalization will make staring at your phone instead of interacting with the people actually in the room with you any less rude.”
If Amber weren’t successfully carrying on both conversations with Walky and Ethan in the last strips, and Walky with Amber and Joyce etc., that would be one thing and it would be kind of rude, at least with regards to Amber and Ethan. As it stands, the only ones either one has been shown blowing off were Billie (who was not actually carrying on a dialogue in the first place, that was totally a monologue he never really wanted) and Mike. And again, it’s not as though that was an attempt to open a conversation, it was just Mike insulting Walky because that’s Mike’s default form of interaction with him. If Mike’s made it clear that no amount of niceness will make him be even vaguely civil to you, why continue expending actual energy on that relationship beyond the minimum amounts that can’t be avoided? You can room with someone and not have any real personal relationship.
And in fact he does successfully carry on a conversation with Mike in this strip while still using his phone.
Mike has made it abundantly clear he hates Walky. Like, actually hates. And Walky and Amber have both been successfully multitasking conversations this whole thing, Walky’s just not bothering with Mike because he began with an insult and goes out of his way to make Walky cry to record for his own amusement. That wasn’t a lead-in to pleasant socialization, and it’s not Walky doing the Depressed Aimless Internet Scroll.
But yes, I do get annoyed when people don’t acknowledge that one of the reasons people spend time on their phones is to interact with other people. Mostly though I just wanted to dunk on Mike because even his two best friends question if they even are friends, cannot conceive of him doing something nice for them that isn’t designed to screw them over later, and generally only hang around with him because of inertia, Ethan’s old crush, and neither of them having the self-esteem needed to realize they don’t deserve some dude insulting them all the time and would be better off without him. As shown here with Walky, someone who doesn’t have these factors will just get inured to his bullshit.
Phones only exist because people wanted to interact with each other over distances. Without that function, we’d all be carrying around basically just tablets.
Yeah I really doubt that Mike was asking for attention or conversation there, pleasant or not. That was just a jab.
For Amber and Ethan- honestly I think a chunk of it is pity. When you know Mike’s tricks you tend not to get as badly hurt by them (Ethan was able to set boundaries around Danny, and I think the reason he is just walking away from sex is because he knew to keep the emotional distance).
They know not to give Mike too much fuel and I cant think of a time in comic he managed to seriously do damage to Ethan or Amber- he just annoys them
Mike does help them in his warped way and really has no one else. I think Amber and Ethan are mostly friends with him because they can handle him and dont want him to be alone.
I also want to point out that Amber is pretty screwed up and her Amazigirl BS has done at least as much damage as Mike has, if not more.
Ethan though…. Yeah dude needs more self esteem and better friends.
Mike’s conversation (sarcastic or not) drove Ethan back into the closet, and Mike telling Amber she was going to turn into her father is about the point where Amber started clearly and constantly thinking herself a monster and AG the ‘good one’, which has amped up every problem they have on each other and everyone else.
AG is definitely not a good coping mechanism, and her proclivity towards violence in both alters needs to be addressed, but that’s not gonna happen until Amber gets access to significant, competent mental health care. There’s too much at play and too much trauma to untangle before Amber can start to come to a healthy relationship with AG and them both work on healthier outlets than beating people up.
As far as we know, Mike’s never had a significant shift in behavior as the result of trauma or pathological issues. He was getting a read on people before Ms. Phillips; he was working to take her down and using Brent before Blaine. He’s like this because he chooses to be, and I’m much harder on the dude whose behavior is a constant choice than the one who’s likewise Not Okay but is clearly severely mentally ill and doesn’t have the resources to start coping with it.
And that’s all assuming that long term exposure to Mike’s bullshit hasn’t added to their issues or at least helped keep them trapped. We’ve seen that in the current examples you cite and there’s little reason to think he wasn’t doing the same stuff to them back in high school.
He’s certainly not the primary cause of their problems, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t been a bad influence.
I wasnt saying that. I was saying that I think a big motivator may be pity. A lot of people who are building healthy esteem will keep a loser friend around because they dont want the friend to be all alone and they feel able to habdle the friend’s bullshit.
Those aren’t the characters I’ve been reading about.
Also, Amber seems pretty much done with Mike. She tolerates for Ethan’s sake as far as I can tell. She’s never sought him out. She never seems happy to see him. Never expressed any concern for him.
It is, however, considerably less rude than demanding attention just because you are physically near to somebody.
By like, a lot.
Possibly infinite.
HUH.
EAT IT, MIKE
I can’t be sure but I suspect Mike may have realized he actually has feelings for Ethan.
This is the first time Mike has expressed actual rage instead of his apathetic angry face. He seriously feels something for Ethan.
Mostly horny, I’m guessing.
That or he’s pissed off because his plan isn’t working
I can’t see him getting so worked up over that. His plans have gone “wrong” before, like when he tried to drive a wedge between Dorothy and walky and accidentally brought them closer together
“Isn’t there a place you’d rather be”
How about you, chump change? You’re the one who bungled into the room with an attitude. Walky was minding his damn business
eating some fruitchatting with Amber. Jeez, what an entitled runt.Speaking of Amber, I wonder if walky will mention Mike’s unusual behaviour to her? I wonder whether that would lead anywhere?
Oh my god, that’s right… now they are connected!
Sooooooo…. Mike figured that having a fling with Ethan would lead to Ethan having stronger feelings for him, leading Mike and Ethan having an actual relationship (or at least a situation where Mike can toy with pining Ethan a bit)?
But instead, Ethan actually seems to be into the idea of getting to just have casual relationships instead of something more serious right now since he’s still feeling his way, and he never figured Mike would want anything more, so Mike’s pissed?
But they touched wieners, so of course Mike is entitled to exclusive Ethan privileges. Foreskins are legally binding.
Oh, God!
No one ever told me, I can’t afford a lawyer.
Don’t worry, it’s not a jail-worthy offense. You just get a fine comparable to a parking ticket.
Ethan shouldn’t have one.
Sorry, I remembered he was Jewish and then forgot whether Jewish folks like their wangles to be mangled. I’m guessing yes?
That is certainly some language you’ve chosen there
But yeah
Sorry, I guess “mangled” brings a bit of a gross image to mind.
If that’s the case, I’m gonna point and laugh.
Normally I’d like things to not have to progress that far, but with Mike I think it would be required: he needs to have a mental break, and go into therapy. Even without the harm he’s doing to others, this isn’t a healthy way to live. He probably should’ve been in therapy AGES ago, but I doubt he will until someone makes him (kinda like Ruth).
I’d also recommend something teaching basic social decency. I mean, it’s clear he knows the steps, but something needs to teach him that the reason we adhere to them is because otherwise no one wants to be around you, and it’s a direct result of your shitty actions.
… Do such things actually exist? Because I feel like we as a society could really use them.
Pretty sure he knows basic social decency, he just doesn’t currently give a fuck.
Well @regalli my theory is that he started doing that on purpose because of Blaine’s threat, and then that just became engrained in him
See, this is why RuthxMike is my OTP.
(It really isn’t.)
OTHP: One True Hate Pairing!
Sadly therapy isnt a panacea. Even if Mike has been in therapy he can still be like this. I was in therapy for yeara and it really didnt help me. It took a LOT of time to find a therapist that got me to open up and helped me feel better.
Wait did Mike apologize? His head really isn’t in this right now.
Well, he did apologize for not being up to his usual standards of abuse, so it’s not quite like a normal apology.
I suspected that Mike was serious about Ethan. IMHO, this both confirms this and confirms that Mike’s overall behaviour has poisoned any possibility of Ethan believing that ta long-term relationship between them is possible or even desirable.
MIke hasnt helped but Ethan’s parents are the bigger issue. We didnt see it but a few references were made to how badly his fanily acted to force him back into the closet. And we saw bits of it.
Ethan isnt ready to bring a guy home to meet the parents so honestly it ia better to stay casual and ease into dating men instead of lookong for something more serious.
That’s possible, but I think it’s more Mike specific.
I think he’d quite happily fall for someone else (Danny?), rather than just try to keep it casual, but Mike? Maybe he actually knows better.
I like the way Walky and Amber are both so mellow right now.
HOLY SHIT.
That was just… just my reaction to this.
Hooray ship.
I mean, I just reread the strip and I’m still defaulting to “holy shit”.
Uh oh, Mike’s devil-may-care facade is cracking.
As it turns out, the Devil may care.
He’s some sort of devilman crybaby
Mike’s last line is likely to cut real deep actually.
Tbh this could be what shifts Mike and changes the direction he goes with his growth. He is at the age where I see this usually happen. He can either stay a dick or learn to open up and care about other people. The second one will be a process, but something needs to trigger it as he plans his adult life.
There’s something about a character who’s presented themselves as an unflappable jerk getting irked by the lightest taste of their own medicine that is supremely rewarding.
HA, got eem!
Uh oh, he’s breaking.
oh shit!
nope
How are you doing this?
Changing avatars?
By changing the email address, usually just changing the case of a letter so that the actual address stays the same.
Careful, Mike, the non-Euclidean space inside your mouth is showing.
seriously thought this is actually kind of scary. Mike is generally a voice of reason a raher welcome source of stability in this series, albiet an assholish one, but stable none the less.
Right now Mike is actually feeling *something*, can’t tell what exactly as I can’t parse that expresion, but even I can tell its *not* **pleasant**. which is terrifying. at the same time part of me is thinking this is mike he will probably calm down shortly.
in the mean time: Break out the popcorn folks, its time to watch the show!
going back to amazi-girl |:P
Ohhh this is new. I think. Also, he’s the first person to call him “Walkerton”, I think.
Yeah, most people call him Walky except Sal, his parents, and sometimes Dorothy (when she’s trying to have a serious talk) who call him ‘David’.
walkerton poked the bear
Walkerton might also poke him again, because Walkerton has questionable people skills. That’s what I’m worried about. A bit.
Left field comment that has nothing to do with today’s comic, but…
Doing a reread and I got to the MacIntyre Kidnapping arc. Which made me think…
I really hope this comic doesn’t end with Joyce losing her faith.
I think its going to be more of a redefining what her faith is to her, maybe a rejection of what she was taught, not of Christianity as a whole.
Considering the semi autobiographical nature of Joyce’s arc, it’s probably better that you resign yourself to that happening now.
I mean it might not? But it’s extremely likely.
Becky on the other hand is going to keep her faith and be happier for it. Lots of people are gonna keep their faith – like Jacob, for example.
But Joyce? Probably not.
Which is really unfortunate, because frankly I couldn’t care less about Becky. Her story doesn’t interest me except as a vehicle for Joyce’s character development.
It is very likely.
There’ve been a bunch of signs that Joyce’s faith is very brittle and rather than bend to accommodate changes the way Becky’s has, it’ll snap completely.
There was that little rant about how if evolution is real, then Adam and Eve aren’t and that means everything is a lie.
Becky is still firmly Christian and the experience actually cemented her faith in God’s love. Joyce’s dad also ended that arc by saying that God told him to trust Joyce.
So it might end with Joyce as an atheist but it can certainly end with Joyce simply reevaluating her faith and taking control of it instead of blindly following her parents’ teachings.
I think its pushing much more towards Joyce redefining her faith while maintaining her connection to her God rather than rejecting her faith entirely.
Strange. Mike is not singing while talking like Ethan.
Post coitum omne animal triste est, sive gallus et mulier. — Galen
Wow, Mike sure miscalculated and really fell for Ethan if even Walky can walk all over him.
Oh hey, Mike is wearing a white T-shirt
Is this the only time we’ve seen him in a white T-shirt? It must symbolize something but I’ve no idea what.
I was wondering if anyone else had noticed that.
I did not even notice that but now that you point it out, you’re right, I don’t think we have ever seen him in a plain white shirt before.
So walky, sal, Mike, Ethan, Amber, and Danny are all in a love hexagon?
A love hypercube
This. This has me a very specific level of really unfuggin comfortable. Considering how much has happened in this strip, my level of concern… has me done a concern
“usually you insult me more”
“sorry”
Owned.
Man´s clearly Drained
Not when I’m with you, Mike.
N-n-n-no, no, no, no place I’d rather be
Ooh ooh
:O
I can’t even imagine how damaging it must be to be sexually intimate with people while making yourself partition away all feeling. From the last strip, it’s implied Mike has done this before and it may be a pattern in the furtherance of his schemes. Which is just… Not to romanticize sex, but it does require you to be physically vulnerable and (ideally) drop the psychological shields. Good sex does. If Mike doesn’t even let himself ever do that, he’s hurting himself at least as much as he hurts others and I feel sorrier for him than I ever have.
Slightly off topic as the strips have moved on but doing a reread and I kinda think this strip may be relevant to Joyce and her approach to Raidah and Jacob. It is literally less than a month since she had to start considering that this dating thing can be messy and complicated, that sometimes love is not enough, that your first love may not be your soul mate, that people have baggage…
Yes, her response was still all off, swinging to the other side of the axis from “hyperventilating because he has feelings for an ex with whom he knows it wouldn’t work” straight to “but if we’re meant to be together nothing else can or will ever matter so his current girlfriend is just a little road bump I shouldn’t worry about”… But much like in her response here where she acknowledges that she is overcompensating from an early misapprehension, she should find some sensible middle ground soonish. Hopefully. Maybe? (Coz successful relationships and healthy mindsets about them are quite hard to develop…)
And yes, this means we might just see Anti-Joyce emerge when Joyce gets pat her sexual repression block. Although probably not literally as a separate person with her own body and everything this time 😉 Be interesting to see where she ends up falling on that measure when the pendulum stops swinging…
“like the hospital ?”
Fuuuuuuck yes Mike is getting emotional and I’m living for it!
Oh, right, I forgot Mike just kind of bullies everyone, not just Amber and Ethan For Their Own Good.
Boy, he needs a reckoning.
Dear Mr. Willis
I have read much of your work, and it is only now that I am realizing how much baggage I have with these characters. Mike is assumed to be Mike, but I don’t know how true that is. Just went back and read all there is of Mike within DOA, and I am convinced we do not have a complete picture of who he is in this universe, besides the superficial similarities to prior incarnations. How much do you rely on characterizational shorthand? Am I supposed to throw out all the history when reading this comic or only some of it?
If it is only some of it then you have created a wonderfully metatextual experience, and you’ve given yourself not only a built-in audience but a world with which said audience can still be surprised.
Looking forward to your reply,
BB.
In DoA you should throw out most history of other universes in terms of backstory and what has shaped the characters.
The only things that remain the same are:
*Sexualities if there was one preestablished in a previous universe.
*Key personality traits.
*Names if there was one established – Willis has drawn and named pretty much every background character from the Walkyverse in DoA at some point by now I think?
*A few key relationships e.g. Amber and Ethan’s preexisting friendship, Walky and Sal are siblings.
Some history can give a bit of perspective or insight e.g. Robin insists she is straight in this universe, but because of Shortpacked, we know that is not true, she is bi/pan. And other parts can be fun for comparison e.g. Rachel and Joe were together in Shortpacked, but that is unimaginable here because of how Joe’s actions repulse her; Joyce and Walky were together in a different universe too, but here they hardly ever get along and Walky trends towards being a jerk to her for no reason at all sometimes.
A couple names have changed. Dina Sarazu is now Dina Saruyama and Ruck Lesse is now Ruth Lessick.
I think sexuality continuity has to be taken with a grain of salt too, at least in the sense that a character previously depicted as straight may, in fact, be bi but just not have had the opportunity to explore themselves in the Walkyverse? (i.e. Danny)
Even if you ignore prior incarnations, for eight years Mike was rather established as a one dimensional jerk. Now we’re seeing more about his past and other sides of him.
There are similarities but there’ve always been new twists and surprises. 🙂
Didn’t we JUST establish Walky’s getting lost in his phone due to apparent depression?
If by “lost in his phone”, you mean “texting with Amber”, sure.
Not sure where we established that it was due to depression.
lmao this is a minor form of this… some depressives hate their lives so much that the only way to ignore the misery is to let the rest of the world experience it as much as you do, because fuck those congas for having normally balanced emotions and not hating themselves for every second of their lives. The most extreme version of this depression, I would say, results in more extreme displays of loathing, like mass murder for example
Did you seriously just blame mass murder on people suffering from depression? Wow. That is not how mental illness works.
People who commit various shooting Are often mentally ill though. Which sadly says more about the ease with which they can acquire weapons instead of professional help and less about danger posed by mentally ill people.
I would like to see actual numbers on this “often” claim, please.
Well I’m no researcher but once, out of curiosity, I looked up some of the shootings. Of the more famous ones Harris of the Columbine one was diagnosed with depression while the Virginia Tech Cho was being treated for depression and anxiety since Middle School apparently. In Sandy Hook the perpetrator was diagnosed with Asperger syndrome and an obsessive-compulsive disorder. In the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting the perpetrator was previously diagnosed with depression, autism and ADHD.
Of course I mostly picked the ones with the high body counts but there are countless “smaller ones” which might have happened for a variety of different reasons.
You do know that most mentally ill people hurt themselves more than they hurt others, yes? And that it’s dangerous to assert that most perpetrators of violent crimes are mentally ill, as that can lead to mentally ill = violent stereotypes being ingrained in the minds of the masses? And that it’s a really fucking gross, hurtful, and thoughtless assumption to say that depression leads to mass murder?
I mean, your previous comment implied you’re aware of this, but you’re also backing up the original comment that asserted that extreme depression leads to mass murder instead of, you know, suicide.
I mean I would argue that you would have to be mentally unwell by default to commit an act like that because willingness to kill others does not = healthy brain, just by definition. I think that’s what they were trying to say?
But yeah, obviously the vast majority of mentally ill people do NOT commit murder/should not be considered threats to society.
And before anyone jumps down my throat, depression/anxiety sufferer here who has definitely not murdered anyone so I’m definitely not saying depression leads to mass murder.
The point is that they didn’t need to jump in with a ‘well actually’ when the original statement was as wild as “extreme depression leads to mass murder”. There are so many other things that could come about as a result of depression, and the fact that violence is automatically the first thing that comes to mind is a hurtful stigma that affects mentally ill people everywhere. I’m pissed as someone that suffers from depression and anxiety.
I think you understood my comment backwards. I didn’t say “Mentally ill people commit mass murder” I said “Mass murder is usually committed by mentally ill people”. It’s kind of like that shitty argument being thrown around that “Pedophiles are gay so gays are pedophiles” which I loath.
The point of my comment was more or less that the laws in America (or rather the lack of them) makes it incredibly easy for those people to obtain guns and hurt other people. I never intended to claim that mentally ill people are inherently dangerous, except to themselves, and that they should be seen as a threat.
I understand perfectly what your comment was trying to say. But considering the original comment was “extreme depression leads to mass murder”, adding your comment reinforced the former, not the latter. Because it just reinforces that statement that “mentally ill people are violent”. And again, you didn’t even bring up the fact that most mentally ill people are likely to be victims of violence themselves or hurt themselves, just focusing on how “mass murder is usually committed by mentally ill people”.
Gun laws in America focusing on mentally ill people would not actually be beneficial or helpful. From psychiatry online: “Gun restriction laws focusing on people with mental illness perpetuate the myth that mental illness leads to violence, as well as the misperception that gun violence and mental illness are strongly linked. Stigma represents a major barrier to access and treatment of mental illness, which in turn increases the public health burden.”
“I never intended to claim that mentally ill people are inherently dangerous, except to themselves”
Nope. Nope. Stop right there. Mentally ill people are not inherently dangerous to themselves. Are they more likely to hurt themselves? Yes. But they are not a danger. I can guess at what point you’re trying to make, but that is a hurtful wording of it.
…huh.
I don’t think we’ve ever seen Mike Angry before.
We’ve seen him be ticked, disappointed, sad-ish, and stoic.
But I don’t think he’s been angry.
You had one job Mike, one job!
You know what I find interesting when it comes to the whole Mike debate, that Mike is considered a shit human being for being awful to people and hurting them, which is shitty of him to do, but a lot of people don’t seem to care why he is the way he is. Yet, when it comes to Amber/AG, these same people are happy to give them a pass on beating the shit out of people they view as “acceptable targets” as a vent for their violent tendencies, even going so far as to go looking for someone to beat up because they’re upset, because of their trauma. Well, we’ve just seen Mike has gone through trauma, being hit by a teacher, being manhandled and having his family threatened by a known abusive adult. So my question to these people is why do Amber/AG get a pass for trauma and Mike doesn’t? To quote an insightful comment by Mike,”Is it because she’s(they’re) a girl?”
The gender issue is at play. Its also because Amber has a history of trauma that causes her issues. As far as we know Mike had great parents and a happy childhood and despite having every chance for a goof life he has chosen to be a jerk.
Its also due to past incarnations. Mike has basicallyy always been The Jerk whereas Amber wasnt alwayd a violent sociopath so past feelings give Amber more of a pass.
Glad I’m not the only one who notices the gender bias. Having a happy family doesn’t preclude you from having trauma or mental health issues, if that’s what you’re saying. We just saw in past strips he went through trauma, so again I ask why that doesn’t matter? We’ve seen so little of Mike’s back story in this version that we don’t really know everything he’s been through and certainly can’t start assuming he’s fine because he has nice parents. How many people with crippling depression for instance have “every chance for a good life” and still are terribly depressed? If Mike does have depression, which has just been hinted he might, depression can make people angry and hateful, not just sad, mopey, or numb.
Given that we know only very specific things about the characters stay the same from one universe to another, and their backstories isn’t one of them, I don’t know why past incarnations matter at all.
On the other hand, you can’t really just assume there must be some crippling trauma or mental illness when we’ve barely seen hints that there might be something. We’ve clearly been shown Amber’s mental problems and we’ve met the cause of most of them.
Nor is all trauma equal. If the trauma we saw for Mike in the flashback was supposed to have produced some kind of mental break, we’ve seen no real signs of it. He didn’t react in any significant way. He remained calm and apparently in control through all of it. Suggests to me that he was already a good chunk of the way to being the Mike we now know.
And as I said below, it doesn’t really matter much. Mike is what he is. If that trauma made him that, he’s still that. If there’s a crack from it that can lead to some healing so that he’s not the constant asshole, then it matters.
I’m not assuming he’s an ass because he’s mentally ill or went through trauma, I’m saying we can’t say that mental illness doesn’t contribute and trauma isn’t the reason he’s an ass because we don’t know why he is. Basically we can’t say why he is who he is because we don’t know.
Assuming he’s a piece of shit “just because” isn’t fair to him since we don’t know anything about him really.
Also, we could apply this reasoning to most of the outright villains in the story. Do we have reserve judgment on Mary because we don’t enough about her past?
Or Ryan, for that matter? Sure, he drugs and rapes girls, but we don’t really know anything else about him.
How about the adult abusers? Maybe Blaine and Clint were abused themselves as kids. We don’t know. Can’t judge them.
Oh please, I didn’t say you can’t think someones a bad person, I said you should decide that’s all they are and Mike is not even in the league of any of the people you mentioned especially not Ryan.
“I didn’t say you can’t think someones a bad person”
well, you sure gave me that impression pretty strongly.
how do *you* know mike is so different from blaine etc.?
There’s a difference between deciding they’re a bad person and deciding bad is ALL they are. I know he’s different from Blaine etc, because his actions are mean and he’s an asshole, but these other people are committing felony acts and endangering other people’s lives. That’s like saying all bad people are equally bad in every way, it’s a broad brush and it’s lazy.
No, he hasn’t done anything as bad. But that’s not the point.
We haven’t seen Mike show anything other than cruelty*. And we’ve seen much more of Mike than any of the others.
He’s not a real person, no more than Mary or Ryan or Blaine. He’s only complicated if he’s written that way and for years he wasn’t. Fictional characters can in fact just be simple villains. Or simple assholes who’s only purpose is jokes and occasionally prodding the other characters in interesting directions.
*As always, some potential caveats for young Mike and some hints in the current arc, which I’m still reserving judgment on until we know more, but these are guesswork and could be wind up going in several directions.
*Shouldn’t
Everyone reacts to trauma differently and we can’t say how Mike’s trauma has effected him without making assumptions based on nothing more than facial expression and that seems kind of messed up. That reads to me like saying” This person reacted to trauma in the way I think is acceptable so it’s real, but this other person didn’t so I can discount it and say it didn’t effect them”. Is that what you mean to be saying because that’s how it comes across?
I’m saying this is fiction and if the author wants me to believe a character is traumatized, they need to convey that. Willis has been quite capable of doing that with many characters, often with only a strip or two devoted to it – at least until he comes back to it later.
If that was his intent with Mike, it hasn’t worked for me. It’s possible we’ll get there of course, but I don’t see it yet. Nor has there been any clear line drawn between this trauma and Mike’s behavior – especially considering he was already doing Mike things pretty much from the start of the flashback.
I also can’t rule out some completely unheard of trauma in Mike’s past that will make me sympathetic. But I don’t feel the need to invent that so that I can be sympathetic beforehand.
But most of this is beside my main point, which is that Amber is a good person who’d got some issues, while Mike has never shown any signs of being a good person.
I guess we’re just reading theses strips differently on a fundamental level then.
Amber cares about self-improvement and doing the right thing and so on. If she’s given some basic frigging therapy and anger management skills, I expect her to make vast improvements.
Mike, OTOH, was a cardboard cutout of a character until recently. We’re only beginning to see vague hints that he *might* not be completely uncaring. We haven’t yet seen anything to suggest he’d want to stop hurting people.
Neither of those points means she should get a pass for hurting people while he doesn’t and we don’t know what Mike’s inner workings are because we haven’t seen them so we can’t just assume he’s a piece of shit. WANTING to stop hurting people doesn’t make it okay that you’re doing it nor does it make it less bad than someone who doesn’t care because the effect on the targets is till the same. If Amber/AG actually stopped hurting people then it would matter, at this point we have people who know it’s wrong but still feel justified in doing it and I’m not sure how that’s more okay than Mike.
Amber does things other than hurting people. Mike doesn’t.
That’s the simple form and I suspect is responsible for about 95% of the difference in reaction.
*How* is Amber being “given a pass”? If it’s that we’re not personally pointing out that her bad behaviour was bad, well, there’s nobody around claiming it was good, so there’s nothing to argue against!
I’ve seen lots of comments saying Mike is bad and Amber is good because her trauma explains her bad behavior, we’ve obviously seen different comments if you think no one has said her behavior is good.
No one (at least recently) has said her *bad* behaviour was good. Her *good* behaviour is indeed good.
I’m not saying the comments are saying her bad behavior is good, just that I’ve seen it said her bad behavior is excusable because of her trauma.
Hrm. Yeah, I don’t think trauma should excuse shitty behaviour. Explain, yes; excuse, no.
I agree Inahc, explain, but not excuse is reasonable, excuse is not.
To also quote Mike “A culture of mass media that indoctrinates all people to eternally forgive white males.”
But more I think it’s that we’ve very rarely seen Mike do anything except treat people awfully. Even those that argue he has good motives or winds up doing good, can’t really deny that his methods are awful. We’ve seen a few hints at more depth in young!Mike and some things that can be read that way in the this arc for current!Mike, though they’re not clear enough to be undeniable and still don’t actually show him being nice. And his shit is nearly always targeted at other main characters we care about and mostly at his friends, not at actual villains or even the kind of nameless petty criminals AG beats up.
Amber, while we’ve seen her rage and we’ve seen her use of Amazi-Girl as an outlet for violence, but we’ve also seen her be a good person. We’ve seen her care for Ethan, we’ve seen her help Dina with social skills, we saw her and Danny together. We’ve seen Amazi-Girl risking her life to rescue Becky, or if you think that was too cartoony to count or that she just escalated and put everyone at risk, we saw her work to track down Ryan. And we saw both her and Amber worry about how that would affect Joyce.
We’ve seen plenty of good, human behavior from Amber to make us care about her and to balance out the violent parts. We’ve seen nothing of the kind from Mike.
Going in the opposite direction and making “white males” out to be shit isn’t good either, judging individuals on who they are as people is better than broad brushing imo.
See I get that she can be a good person, but how does that make her bad actions more okay exactly? Even some of histories most awful people did good things at least some of the time, doesn’t make it more okay that they did bad things. Essentially, I get all that about Amber/AG, but we don’t know enough about Mike to really judge him clearly. So, writing him off as a piece of shit whose irredeemable because he’s an ass specifically because we haven’t see much about him is not exactly showing good human empathy or at least sympathy. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover and all that.
Basically, it seems hypocritical to say because we know a person can be good they get a pass for being violent, but this guy who we don’t know much about can be written off as trash because we don’t know him. Why not judge them by the same standard and reserve judgement on Mike until we know more?
We’ve seen plenty of Mike. Not his backstory – which is a valid point, but his behavior in the present. Enough to establish a pattern. We also know what his closest friends who’ve known him for years think about him.
It’s not that we don’t know enough about him, it’s that what we know has been universally bad. (Aside from a few hints in this latest arc.) How long should we reserve judgment? He’s been on screen and a consistent asshole for all eight years of this comic. He’s got an established character.
Switching to the meta-level for a moment, by this point if we don’t know enough to judge the character, that’s a failure by the writer. “Oh no, they think he’s a jerk. I just keep forgetting to include all the offscreen moments when he’s kind and supportive.” That just doesn’t wash.
I wouldn’t say he’s irredeemable though. He’s just currently an ass.
I personally like to reserve judgement on fictional characters until I have a fairly clear picture of them and seeing as Mike is often used as a comic relief character or one dimensional caricature in DOA, it doesn’t seem fair to measure him against the same yardstick as a character we know a lot about like Amber.
Basically, it’s like how a lot of people treated Ruth as nothing but a piece of shit until they knew her back story. It’s the same thing with Mike, we see him acting shitty so people vilify him without knowing anything about him. That seems like a problem to me that a character who’s an ass is only given empathy if we know they’ve suffered. Like they aren’t human, so to speak, until we have a reason to treat them as more than a villain.
You’re the one comparing Mike and Amber here, to be clear. And you’re also the one that’s putting up these parameters before you judge characters. If 8+ years of a comic is still not enough for you to get a fairly clear picture of a character, then either the creator has failed in some way or you’re holding onto arbitrary goalposts for no reason.
And yeah, people tend to treat characters as villains if they haven’t shown any other facet to themselves besides cruel and villainous actions. Things that both early Ruth and current Mike have done. With this logic, we probably shouldn’t treat Blaine or Sir as villains either. Sure, we’ve only seen them be cruel and abusive, but clearly we’ve only seen one part of them, so maybe we should cut them some slack.
To be clear, it’s not so much that characters need to suffer in order to receive empathy. They need to be given sympathetic traits in order to be treated sympathetically. With how Mike has been presented in comic up to this storyline, was there anything that really prompted him to be treated in the same way characters like Ethan, Billie, Walky, etc. have been treated? No, not really. Because the only side of Mike that was seen was a side that was cruel and malicious, that messed with other people for his own enjoyment, and even if it was all in a cartoonish manner, that’s still all anyone saw from him for 8 years. Even with your example of Ruth, it did not take that long before sympathetic traits were shown. Maybe within the first couple of years.
I never got the “escalation” thing applied to that particular case. Ross ran through campus with a loaded rifle (and fired it), intent on kidnapping Becky and throwing her into conversion “therapy”. Provided you’re not using something whose effects require the term “blast radius” to describe, I’m not sure how you could escalate the situation.
Yeah, I don’t really get it either. I think the theory is that she wasn’t currently at risk of being killed and the cops would have just found them and arrested him and everything would have been fine, instead of risking everyone’s lives with car accidents and the like.
Which I’d find more persuasive if the track record for finding kidnap victims was better than it is.
I too don’t get that argument.
Basically, to me it looks like the issue boils down to “This person get’s a pass because I know they can be good, but it’s okay to write this other person off because I don’t know them, so I don’t have to care about them”. That seems like a problematic way to dole out empathy to me. That seems like the only people who deserve empathy are people we know why they are who they are and strangers shouldn’t be given empathy, we should just write them off as good/bad and move on. I think empathy should be given equally without condoning bad behavior.
Man, the idea that Amber is getting some sort of free pass to be a jerk really flies in the fact of the way the comment section has been reacting to her since she first started being a jerk. Like, folks have repeatedly asserted that she was too broken to deserve love, that she was an abuser just like her father and would never change, etc etc etc.
Amber’s negative reception has actually repeatedly been compared to Mike’s relatively positive reception as an example of plain ole misogyny (I.e., people being harder on Amber because she’s a girl), and it’s really strange to see that now being turned around.
In my experience, what’s happened has kind of been that self-proclaimed Mike fans would appear often, but usually they were people who didn’t comment regularly, whereas anti-Mike folks stuck around and got increasingly harsh in their assessment of him because of the first group, and now we’ve got a relatively even mixture of regular people who hate Mike and regular people who defend Mike, but the storyline focusing on him now – as it has never done before – is really bringing that debate (such as it is) to the forefront of the comment section.
The anti-Amber contingent is quiet right now because it’s been a while since she did anything that hurt anyone, so by comparison it seems to you like she’s being given a pass, but if you go back to previous Amber storylines (especially leading up to her fight with Joyce’s attempted rapist), you’ll see that there’s plenty of anti-Amber vitriol around these here parts.
I’m not saying no one vilifies Amber, just that a lot of the people I see vilify Mike are the same people who give Amber a pass and that seems messed up to me. Dealing with perceived misogyny by hating on males is hypocritical at best. Besides, it’s messed up to decide that criticism of a female character is automatically misogyny when there could be so many more reasons for people to not like her. I’m not saying it never is misogyny, just that I’m sure it isn’t always, just like Mike haters aren’t always commenting because of misandry, but at least some of them are.
Oh also, I’m a long time commenter, I had to change my name because for some reason, while my email works fine, the old name I had doesn’t comment right on this or any other comic at the moment and I already asked and have been told I wasn’t blocked here or anywhere else.
That’s also a good point.
There’s a contingent of Amber bashers. And another of Mike lovers. And vice versa. The idea that there’s any general trend of Mike getting attacked and Amber getting a free pass is ludicrous.
Read my comment above, I never said it was a general trend just that I’ve noticed the same people who vilify Mike give Amber a pass a lot of the time. Also, something isn’t “ludicrous” just because you don’t see it that way.
no, it’s ludicrous because it’s contrary to reality. 🙂
What is and isn’t part of reality, except for concrete things with facts to back them up, is largely opinion and thus subjective. Everyone’s individual perception is their own reality.
” the same people who vilify Mike give Amber a pass a lot of the time.”
who, exactly?
the two people most pissed off at mike seem to be Emily and Doomska, and in the half-dozen amber comics I searched I didn’t find them commenting at *all*.
Well, like me, most likely. Assuming I qualify as “vilifying Mike”.
But my reasons for doing either aren’t quite what foxy is arguing.
There were lots of doomska’s comments on this page and others that seem to have been deleted since last night, many of those were the one’s I was referencing.
But that’s kind of Inahc’s point. I mean sure, Doomska was vilifying Mike, but I don’t have any idea what they think about Amber. Unless not bringing her up counts as giving her a pass.
I saw comments by doomska and other people last night that compared Mike to Amber and said basically Amber is excused because she’s mentally ill, not my fault stuff gets deleted, I swear i should start screenshotting this stuff.
well, if it was deleted then at least you can rest assured that it’s not welcome here 🙂
True Inahc. It’s good to know.
I have not deleted anything. I think you’re looking on the wrong page.
in my case, it turns out I had “whole words” enabled on my search bar. 🙂
also, doomska’s comments were actually milder than I remembered. still kinda jerky flamebait, but, not calling any of the commenters anything worse than “lacking a moral compass”.
Ah Ok, just be an issue with my end then.
Yeah, much of the reaction seemed to be treated their comments as much worse than they were.
And Doomska said nothing about Amber. The only place defending Amber really came up was in talking about Mike suggesting she was more like Blaine.
Whoops, did a typo on my name there.
There were lots of doomska’s comments on this page and others that seem to have been deleted since last night, many of those were the one’s I was referencing.
Nah, Amber is absolutely in my shit books too. She’s a clear danger to the people around her and while it could be argued that she isn’t directly responsible for the actions of her alter she is responsible for her complete inaction in doing anything whatsoever to address the fact that she has an alternate personality that goes out at night and assaults people. Like, until Amber seeks out proper mental healthcare to deal with her issues I’m going to intensely dislike her because she is putting others in actual physical danger with her avoidant behaviour.
I’m fascinated who isn’t in your shit book and why, you aren’t the only one, but a lot of people seem to have a very black or white morality scale they judge these characters on. I don’t think Amber is 100% good or bad, I struggle to think of a character who is completely good(Dina?) Maybe it is because putting characters into simple categories is just easier and requires less effort, but the more I read all the comments the more this thought occurs to me.
I mean Mike and the straight up villains (a distinction without a difference if you ask me but enough people don’t consider Mike a villain that I may as well make it) are the only ones perpetually in my shit book the rest it’s more based on how they’re behaving at the moment. For example, Joyce is in there at the moment because she’s being really gross in her current arc and I have no truck with that shit but I don’t think she’s the devil she’s just being shitty right now.
I don’t think Amber is evil I think she’s reckless and unwilling to meaningfully address how her mental illness causes her to hurt others beyond unproductive self-flagellation. I don’t have to think a character is The Worst for me to disapprove of their actions and dislike them because of them.
I agree with your interpretation of many commenter’s reactions to character’s. I think it’s largely the black and white thinking of some people that bugs me because it ignores the fact that these characters are complex people.
It also kind of makes me wonder how these people enjoy fiction at all, because fiction is largely filled with fairly flawed characters.
Personally I find characters that are totally perfectly wonderful people extremely boring. Stories need internal conflict to be interesting to me.
I agree on all counts, perfect characters are boring.
Am I the only one expecting this to turn into a reverse of the violent beatdown we just went through in the re-posted ITS WALKY?
Because I’m pretty sure that Mike’s family can’t provide the same get-out-of-jail-free (literally) card that Linda did in SEMME, nor are the extenuating stakes quite so cosmic.
Somehow I feel that this comic has to end with the entire cast in court-mandated therapy.
Because that worked out so well for Sal the first time. 😛
Apply cool water to the burned area.
I think this might all be a scheme to get back at amber.
Her dad put her in the position that got him hit and tossed out of the room that day, shes the one who abandoned him, and hes scheming to make ethan confident enough to leave her.
I think this might all be revenge for getting hurt from his genuine act of kindness.
Do Walky/Amber have a name yet? Has someone beaten me to Wamber?
Wamber is a lot better than Amby. Plus you can say it WHAMber.
…Is Mike depressed?
o_o Is Mike going to get drunk alone? Will we be seeing Drunk Mike?
Basically, the reason seeing people broad brush Mike as ALL bad, is because it ignores the fact that people are complicated and anyone is capable of being “bad”. It’s the same thing I see in real life a lot, where someone does something really awful and a lot of people try to say they are somehow different from “normal” people, it’s a way of ignoring that all people can do bad things and even real evil isn’t something anyone can say they aren’t capable of if put in the right situation.
Nah. That’s why people broad brush Amber as bad. Or Carla. Some others.
We paint Mike bad because we haven’t been shown any good. Potentially some possibility in young Mike, though it’s not clear, because even then he was all masks. Maybe current Mike will change. As it is he’s just barely breaking out of being one-dimensional. He’s been enigmatic, but that’s not the same as complicated.
People are complicated, but fictional characters are not. Not all the time, at least. Mike’s only ever been hinted at having depths recently. It’s not unreasonable for people to treat him as the one-note edgelord he’s presented himself as for the past 8 years of the comic.
That was supposed to say Basically, the reason seeing people broad brush Mike as ALL bad bothers me, is because it ignores the fact that people are complicated and anyone is capable of being “bad”. It’s the same thing I see in real life a lot, where someone does something really awful and a lot of people try to say they are somehow different from “normal” people, it’s a way of ignoring that all people can do bad things and even real evil isn’t something anyone can say they aren’t capable of if put in the right situation.
This bugs me too. People keep saying that anyone trying to understand/explain characters who behave badly are somehow condoning abuse in real life…but at the same time, assuming anyone who behaves badly is just an Awful Person makes me wonder if these people are also assuming anyone who ever makes a mistake in real life is an awful unredeemable person (especially if they’re already conflating fiction and reality).
People are flawed and make lots of mistakes. Anyone who thinks someone who does a problematic thing is automatically bad/unforgivable are probably not as aware of their own flaws as they should be…because they have most definitely done something bad in the past as well. We all have. No one is perfect. Human interaction and life in general are extremely complex and putting things in very black and white terms or immovable boxes is a dangerous practice.
The difference with Mike is that we’ve seen almost nothing other than the bad behavior. (Up until this arc, I’d have said nothing.) And many people aren’t just trying to understand, but to paint his bad behavior as good.
I’m all for nuance and complexity, in characters that actually are presented as having good and bad sides.
If you’re reading Mike as a character who “makes a mistake” or isn’t perfect or “does a problematic thing”, you’re so far off from how I read this comic we can’t even talk. His entire shtick is being an asshole. If I knew someone like that in real life? Especially if his oldest and closest friends were warning people away from him? Damn right I’m going to think he’s awful. He is.
Most of the other characters in this comic are more complex. They’ve screwed up. They’ve done bad things and made mistakes. They’ve hurt people, even their friends. But it’s not a constant. They’ve also helped and shown compassion. There, most readers are willing to see them as complex, flawed characters and to consider both the good side and the bad.
Some aren’t. This argument you’re making might carry more weight if you used a different character to make it: Ruth with her abuse of Billie and the whole floor early on. Amber’s rage and Amazi-Girl’s casual violence. Joe’s objectification of women, before he took some steps to change.
You can probably find some commenters who can’t get past those things to acknowledge the good sides we have seen from those characters.
(Other than the outright villains, of course – though the defense some of those got before the villainy got to blatant to deny still grates.)
thejeff I’m not just referring to comments about Mike here. This is in reference to the general discussion about the trend some people have of labeling every character in this strip who does a bad thing as an awful person.
This particular line of thought was more in reference to people labeling Joyce, Amber, etc. as straight-up awful people for every error even within the general context of their growth as complex characters.
Also to be clear, I don’t read Mike as a generally good person who occasionally does a bad thing. I read him as an occasionally sympathetic asshole, so I’m really not trying to white knight him here. I like the character, but it’s not because I think he’s some kind of misunderstood angel.
I have the same opinion of Mike, he’s an asshole who can at times be sympathetic. I like his character because he’s interesting not because I think he’s nice. However, thinking he’s an asshole doesn’t mean I think he’s an evil piece of shit either and that’s what bothered me, the characterization of people in this comic, Joe, Sarah, Joyce, etc., as well a s Mike as evil because they’re flawed.
autogatos I agree with you, I don’t think it should matter what someone has done, no matter how bad they should still be treated as human, their behavior should not be condoned, but they shouldn’t be treated as some anomaly impossible for the rest of us to become because as you said that kind of black and white thinking is dangerous.
Oh also, autogatos I looked at your profile and I really like your art.
Oh thank you so much! 🙂
I gotta draw some DoA fanart sometime when I finally have free time.
You’re welcome ☺ Seeing DOA fan art in your style would be awesome!