I really do hope Mike gets his ass handed to him at some point. Violence doesn’t solve many problems but Mike strikes me as one of the few which it would.
sun tzu: “toxic” isn’t a nice thing to call anyone. not a single person can INFECT you with negativity. And if you’ll notice, Mike is being rather consensual about everything he does. He was upfront about no attachments with Ethan (while using his “evil” to make his friends do emotional work they aren’t doing otherwise, not even pushing his opinion that Ethan and Dan should be together but putting himself in the situation in a way agreed to and not unethical itself in order to CREATE and NOT FORCE a learning opportunity), not forcing himself to be even be acceptable to walk with. Imagine how isolating that would be? to know that you knowing your own power grants more, and that same power alienates. yet, Mike handles this realization with some grace and even apparent humor.
Dark humor, often. Like in panel three. And very dry.
But.. TOXIC?
He’s not perpetuating *harm* ANYwhere that I see.
There’s still the correct way of helping people to come to realizations and the wrong way. His is the wrong way. It’s akin to staging a fake kidnapping (unknown to both the parent AND the child) to get them to realize that they do truly love each other. Did it work? Yes, it did. Did it also cause needless trauma and anguish on both sides? Yes, it did.
Tough love only works insofar as people can handle the consequences. Not everybody is as resilient mentally or psychologically. Some of the people “helped” by Mike might end up crawling into a bottle or other unhealthy means of coping.
..my whole point is that NOTHING Mike has done has been truly harmful. And this comic illustrates an AWARENESS of his ability to get away with more than he ought to by rights. Yet his face expresses PAIN at this knowledge, he still does not take it personally when the black women he is talking to has a reaction toward security at his self-awareness of this.
THAT is consent. No way around it.
…I may be forgetting something important, but I can’t remember a single thing Mike’s done that’s been HARMful, malicious, or even long-term. Only mischievous. Only needling. Annoying, NOT *harm*ful.
There was also:
– Taking photos of Dorothy and Walky in bed together and saying he’d share them
– Making shitty comments about Billie the day after she and Ruth were sent to the hospital for being suicidal
– Slut shaming Sal (I don’t care if he happened to be right about her sleeping with Jason, it was still shitty)
Even if Mike *is* expressing sadness or pain over the way society lets him get away with this shit, he’s still doing it. His remorse means nothing and is worth nothing
He also doesn’t have ANY grounds for being upset by Sarah’s reaction. Even if he weren’t an asshole, people aren’t obligated to hang out with him
“A culture of mass media that indoctrinates all people to eternally forgive white males”
I love Mike, he’s a fantastic terrible character, but a real person like that, hella naw, you right.
The dedication to his defence is a little telling perhaps.
No. It’s not a nice thing to call anyone. Nor are plenty of other correct labels.
I suppose you can avoid seeing the harm if you can convince yourself that everything he does is somehow intended to help the very people he’s harassing.
Also, what’s consensual about recording Walky crying in his sleep and playing it for his friends?
And as for being “upfront” with Ethan, he’s being upfront about no attachments, but he’s using that to mask his actual reasons which makes him seem much less upfront about it all.
Ethan’s being equally upfront about his own feelings and desires…. by ignoring them in ways Mike is PLAYING INTO but not manipulating.
Hence:
as for recording being consensual, Mike’s possibly following modern law over actual consent culture. cuz he knows exactly where the line is, and where it should be, and plays with those lines in ways that then allow people to interact with them more directly.
Sounds like a power play, but not an altogether unconscious nor harmful one. especially when we consider this person is supposed to have JUST moved out of their parents? This whole comic seems to be exploring how personal identity interacts with original “family” environment.
Ethan is submissive in personality. He’s even willing to deny his own sexuality to appease “doing the right thing” or “making people comfortable/happy”.
Mike is simply a converse, a dominant personality. He’s not willing to budge on what he sees to be real, even if it means pointing out how other people ARE (see: needling Dorothy into feeling guilty of her own accord for how she’s treating herself and Walky). Is MIKE doing the thing, or is he involving himself in ways that lead ultimately to more awareness, mindfulness, and consent. Sure, his methods are uncomfortable to some, but …. HARMful? I’m just not sure.
So it’s “consensual” because the law says he doesn’t need consent. Nice.
But yeah, I get it. It’s the same old bullshit. Mike’s not harmful because he’s being an asshole to make you a better person. And when the person in question actually gets worse from what he said (Ethan going back in the closet, Amber spirally farther into self-loathing), well that’s not his problem. He was trying to help. If they took it the wrong way, oh well.
I suspect Whitt may be defending Mike because they’ve recognized a bit of themselves in him, and don’t want to be made to feel hurtful/harmful/toxic by association.
So do it. Non-harmfully. Why would someone having an opinion you disagree with mean *I* am at fault for speaking in front of you? I am not currently in any position to affect your life directly accept through you reading my words. … it doesn’t MATTER if I’m wrong, tangibly, does it?
You just implied that I am toxic. ..Is it toxic to call people toxic?
Mike seems to me to be a willing scapegoat, more than an abuser. Is he ‘perfect’? I didn’t say that.
Just my opinion, mate. It’s safe for people to be wrong if they have no power over you, which I don’t *think* I do..
I don’t like being told I’m toxic for thinking as I do. Teach me a better way to think, absolutely. But calling my thinking “toxic” does NOT make me open to listening more. =\
And burdening someone with the responsibility of NEVER thinking something their audience disagrees with is a power play UNlike what Mike has so far done.
Look at the final panel on this page for proof Mike respects people more than you just did me.
….
By your logic, anytime anyone posts anything on social media or even say something in public they bear no responsibility for the effect their words have on people, because, hey, its not THEIR fault that people chose to read/listen to their words, right?
And… no. Calling out toxic behaviour for what it is is not equivalent to actual toxic behaviour. That’d be like accusing someone of being racist after being called racist for their racist actions.
Mike may not deny his actions, sure, but has he ever apologized to people for his actions? Has he in any way changed his behaviour when people ask him to stop?
So are we just ignoring Mike recording Walky without his permission seven times, and showing at least one of those recordings to other people without Walky’s permission? That was literally one strip ago, and while it’s the most recent example it’s far from the only one.
I again could be wrong about absolutely everything but…
I do not think Walky was HARMED
and I just looked it up and while the answers were not entirely built for this one fictional scenario, it looks like what Mike did was legal.
…so, this does not …. look, I’m not saying he’s doing everything right.
I’m saying he’s NOT been outright HARMful.
Means versus ends. His means are odd but his ends nonharmful.
The law is DEFINITELY not on the side of “no one may ever be recorded unknowingly.” I’m no lawyer. I just looked up internet stuff. But again….
if my point is Mike’s intentionally playing with lines of allowance in ways that bring them OUT, not hide them, I’m still going with even the Walky recording thing is more mischievous than malicious.
All it did is create self-awareness of how attached he is. Was it true that the show was canceled? nooooo. was Walky harmed?
I am just not sure anything he’s done counts as HARM, even if it’s not NICE.
…wow. there are plenty of things that are legal that still harm people, that is in no way an adequate defence of Mike’s actions. And ends justifies the means? There is no situation where that is an excuse. And “more mischievous than malicious”? If that something is dear enough to Walky that it elicits such an emotional response, that fucking crosses the line. Oh, and Mike absolutely knew how important that show was to Walky, and STILL chose to go ahead with it. That makes his actions even worse.
On thing that appears to be consistent across universes is that Mike enjoys exposing the hypocrisy and fallibility of humans. The way to “defeat” him would be to humble him, not to feed the things he thrives on. Resorting to physical violence seems about as useful and stupid and immature as a parent screaming at a crying child. You’re not solving anything, you’re just exacerbating the situation by venting, and then trying to find reasons to justify the action.
Then again, physical violence and justifications go hand-in-hand to begin with.
The way to “defeat” him is probably just to ignore him. Cut him off, isolate him, warn others about him. Don’t waste time with schemes to humble him. Don’t engage. Don’t interact with him at all. Certainly don’t listen to him.
Difficult to do that completely, especially for Walky, who has to room with him. Kicking him in the shins to get past him will do in a pinch. Not venting and justifying it, just circumventing an obstacle.
Mike, you realize that Joyce has not forgiven the majority of white males in her life and that quite a few of them have been beaten within an inch of their lives, imprisoned, or STABBED. You are supposed to be a smart evil genius and Joyce literally just got her wrist out of cast from BEATING A MAN.
Um I mean she’s still a dick to Joe who is basically a perfect cinnamon bun teddy bear compared to Mike so no
But the fandom seems perpetually unable to accept that Sarah is, at best, incredibly flawed in her moral prognosises of people so I give this conversation up basically before it starts.
How is just ranking people worse than actively sending your naive sheltered friend to break up a relationship without her knowledge? Granted, raidah deserves it but still. I’ll never get the intense Joe hate
Go read that strip where Joyce finally got through to him again.
His attitude matters.
Not fond of Sarah’s plans either, but Joe’s problems were basically his entire life – at least from what we saw of it. And he was talking himself up to be even worse than he actually was – with talking of drunken threesomes and the like.
Joe treated EVERY woman he encountered like their entire purpose for existing was for his benefit, constantly skirting (and not infrequently crossing) the line between merely being obnoxious and sexual harassment. He was so unwilling to respect women’s boundaries that it made many of them feel unsafe, and refused to listen to any complaints until Joyce was forced to painfully relate her very personal traumatic experience in order to drive it into his fat head that his behavior was harmful:
@fart captor The strip literally right before that Joe explicitly said he is after meaningless sex because he thinks it’s good for both himself and his partner. He also earlier says he only has sex with consenting people, and that his goal is for both parties to have fun.
Now, he was TOTALLY WRONG, but he definitely didn’t treat women like they existed for his pleasure. In fact he actively tried to push danny away the same way he avoids meaningful relationships with women. His resulting actions caused more harm than Sarah but he’s not intentionally spiteful like she is.
He wasn’t talking about how he was only interested in casual sex, or even just the how he treats the women he sleeps with. They had been talking about his Do List, which he put EVERY WOMAN he encountered on, even if he didn’t know her name OR find her attractive. Joe himself is explicitly admitting that he is not treating women like human beings. He’s even doing it on purpose, knowing that it’s hurtful, because he thought the harm was minor (and he refused to listen to anyone telling him otherwise).
Joe was sexually harassing practically every woman he met and completely refused to listen to any of them telling him to stop, no matter how clearly they expressed that his unwelcome, or how visibly it was stressing them out.
It was only when every single woman on campus was pissed off at him that he actually considered that maybe he was doing something bad, and even then he was still refusing to accept that his actions were harmful until Joyce told him about what happened with Ryan (which, again, is extremely shitty of him, as that shit was painful for her to talk about).
The fact that Joe thinks he’s very good about consent doesn’t change the fact that he very clearly was not. He pays only the absolute bare minimum of respect for consent to avoid being a sex offender, but “not committing a crime” and “treating women like people rather than objects” are not the same thing.
Sarah, on the other hand, has been intentionally spiteful towards exactly one person, who she has good reason to feel spiteful towards. That’s not even in the same ballpark.
@fart captor my point is that Joe treats everyone like objects, not just women, because he thinks it’s better for everyone. This includes his “closest” friend, Danny, who he explicitly wants no meaningful interaction with. Again, he’s causingg a lot more harm than Sarah, but he doesn’t mean to, whereas Sarah is intentionally causing harm (and knowingly accepting further collateral damage). So no, it’s not in the same ballpark, it’s apples and oranges. They’re both terrible people in their own way, but they both have positives.
He’s not being tongue-in-cheek about the issue itself, which I’m pretty sure he’s self-aware enough to both know about and probably not give a fuck about, because he’s Mike. It’s more that the response is absurdly general and he knows it’s not the answer she’s actually looking for.
Well yeah, he’s being tongue-in-cheek because he’s just pointing it out as a fact of life without make excuses for himself. He’s an asshole and gets away with it because people are sheep, ’nuff said, moving on.
I think the issue boils down to the fact Mike is a protagonist so we assume he’s got his reasons but in RL, everyone knows a Mike and they’re just plain assholes because being one is fun.
Given that Willis has specifically commented about making Anna a female POC take on Mike’s behavior, I’d say yeah.
Though part of it may still be holdover from SP!, where Mike got a lot more depth and where he was much closer to the force-of-nature asshole sage some commenters treat him as.
I mean the fact of fiction is that characters we’d be appalled by if they were real people are super fun when they’re fictional characters.
I know Mike is an asshole and I’d probably despise him IRL but he’s still one of my favorite characters because in the context of fiction he’s hilarious.
Distancing yourself is sadly one of the best things you can do in the face of open hostility and toxicity, to reduce the risk that you become the next target.
Possibly, but that’s not what Raidah think. She think Sarah should not have called at all.
One of the most frustrating thing in Sarah’s situation is that she simply doesn’t know, and will likely never know, what would have been the right thing to do. (Compare and contrast with Joyce’s situation where there was a very clear choice between Right and Wrong).
Considering how she is shunned for doing that, saying she is selfish for not having done so sooner is a rather cynical point of view.
When you are 18, involving parents or authorities into a problem is something you only do if you are out of options. And as neither Dana nor her friends were willing to even see the problem, she was out of options.
And I don’t see why Sarah should sacrifice her future degree and ability to earn a living to a rich friend who doesn’t care she puts Sarah at risk.
Not necessarily; I mean, Joyce’s first response to Dina’s siuation was to call her dad.
And honestly, Dana was in a pretty bad place, so I don’t think dismissing her as ‘a rich friend who doesn’t care she puts Sarah at risk’ is entirely fair. But it’s true that before calling Dana’s dad, she could have gone to, say, her RA.
Oh, wait. That would have been Ruth.
Okay, now I want an AU where that happens. ‘Ruth, my roommate’s smoking too much damn pot, and may be suicidal!’ ‘Dammit, couldn’t she at least have some booze to share?’
Except even with a more normal RA, going to her risks even worse consequences than calling the parents – the RA really can’t do much directly except tell the roommate to knock it off, which wasn’t likely to work. If she escalates it up the chain of command then the university has to take official notice of a student smoking pot – which means getting the police involved.
Yes after talking to Dana’s friends who couldn’t assure Sarah that they heard Sarah and would try to help Dana calling her father was Sarah’s best chance of helping Dana instead of making Dana’s situation worse. The fact is while Dana was pulled out of school her record doesn’t say kicked out for smoking pot.
That’s the point I’m trying to make. From Raidah’s perspective, Sarah got rid of Dana because she was getting in her way. Sarah has a tendency to frame her actions in a selfish light, even if they’re for the other person’s own good. In this case, it looks bad because Sarah only got Dana’s father involved after her grades started slipping.
They’re both guilty of miscommunication.
The one question I have is, has anyone heard from Dana at all since then?
Raidah has supposedly been in contact, though we’re not sure how often or how much. This is part of why Raidah’s still mad at Sarah – because Dana was.
OTOH, Raidah was apparently completely fooled by Dana into thinking she was fine while she was still at school, so she’s not exactly a reliable source of info on how Dana’s really doing.
@Needfuldoer: Raidah sees Sarah taking care of herself as incredibly selfish. Raidah obviously comes from money, Sarah is poor and her only chance to get a degree is be able to work really hard. Being angry with Sarah for this is lacks both insight and empathy, not to mention the common decency not to expect others to sacrifice more than you are willing to do yourself.
What could she have done?
Dana didn’t want to stop taking drugs, Sarah needed to study and both things where not possible as long as both shared a room. Switching roomies takes a long time, so that was not an option. None of Dana’s friends offered to switch temporarily. So what options did Sarah have?
Not if it puts her own welfare at risk. If Sarah had gotten rid of Dana because she interfered with her studies, that would have been justified. The fact she did it for Dana’s own good is just iceing on the cake.
If you have a relationship with someone only because you fear their retributive actions, that’s a shitty relationship.
The best thing altogether, of course, is to quickly gauge someone like Mike, don’t get too close, and back off asap. Sarah’s a bit in but it’s only like, the third month? of school, she can separate from him quick-like if need be.
I’m just waiting for the flashback panels to make this comment section eat it’s own words. There IS a reason that Amber and Ethan are still the closest thing to friends Mike has, we’re just waiting to find out what it is.
We’re technically eating our own words by the recording being something completely different than first intended.
Me, I’m ambivalent about Mike. He’s obviously still a good guy. This is also a comic verse, and some things are done differently for the purpose of an enjoyable story.
…I mean, you are probably right that there is more to their back story, but as reasons go that one is pretty solid.
(As for Amber – I can’t remember even once she has sought out Mike’s company. She tolerates him, marginally, but to me it seems like she has more of the attitude “whatever, I have dealt with much worse” than “I like to hang out with Mike”).
I don’t recall a situation where Amber once actively sought out EITHER of their company after starting college, it was always both Ethan and Mike trying to get her to join them socially instead of killing spiders for hours on end in her room.
From earlier panels, it’s pretty clear that the three of them were pretty much a ‘clique’ to themselves in high school. They were clearly close enough friends to have the full story for everything up to prom night, so that’s about three years of frequent and at least amicable interaction.
Though we don’t know how much of Amber’s part of the high school relationship resembled her current approach to Mike – how long she had been distancing herself from him.
She has sought out Ethan a couple of times (when she found out he and Joyce had broken up comes to mind) and has always been friendly with and concerned about him. She did say early on that she needed a bit of distance from him, since she’d been doing a lot of emotional support work for him over the summer – helping her ex-boyfriend deal with figuring out he’s gay.
Mike, she’s never looked for or had anything good to say about.
If you tag search for Mike+Amber, there’s only 22 strips that they’ve both appeared in, and not only is there not a single strip where Amber appears to enjoy (or anything more than tolerate) Mike’s company, but most of their interactions have been extremely negative, where Mike treats Amber like shit and/or Amber is telling Mike to fuck off.
Not only has Ethan been in 4 times as many strips with Amber, in the majority of those (like this one) it’s clear that she enjoys his company, even if we don’t know who sought the other one out.
In spite of how Amber rarely leaves her room except for class or to fight crime, there’s now several other people whose she’s shown to be more friendly with than Mike, like Danny, Dina, Walky, and even Joyce and Becky, although only once or twice each.
Hell, she’s even more friendly with Sal these days than she’s ever been shown with Mike, and being around Sal still causes panic attacks!
By comparison, Mike really seems less like a friend than someone Amber would have cut out of her life entirely if Ethan wasn’t still friends with him.
Honestly, I’d say the only actual friends Mike has are Amber and Ethan, and probably a big part of that is just out of inertia. Plenty of people stay friends with shitty people just because they’ve always been friends and are just used to it.
Oh and also Ethan has apparently had a crush on Mike the whole time.
Aside from that, I’d hesitate to call anyone a “friend” of Mike. Everyone else is an acquaintance at best.
“He could do worse” is not a very good endorsement. Especially given how low a blow this is. Walky is hurting, and Mike is making that a joke in one of the most invasive ways possible.
Fine. Acquaintances. Ex-girlfriends girlfriend and sister. Class mates. School comrades. Lunch buddies. Fellow fans. People he happen to hang out with sometimes.
Whatever word you pick it wouldn’t make Mike’s actions less detestable.
And just the fact that he deliberately misled Walky to elicit such a reaction then FILMED it really should already tell you everything you need to know about him
Ethan, yes. Also “If you’re my friend, and I’m like 50% sure you are”.
Even Amber’s basically written him off and only tolerates him for Ethan’s sake. Ethan knows what he is, probably better than anyone else, but tolerates him, mostly because of his own issues.
Sarah has referred to herself as a “(female canine)y killjoy misanthrope”, so she’s not pretending anything. The main difference is that she specifically wants to screw over Raidah for revenge, while Mike screws over everybody just for the fun of it.
The whole Sarah/Raidah thing is essentially a cycle of revenge. Raidah hates Sarah for ‘getting rid’ of Dana, which is a very understandable reading of how that whole thing went down. Sarah had her reasons too, but they sound selfish from Raidah’s perspective so she feels justified in being a bongo to her.
Sarah’s a bongo back in kind, over time turning a single point of animosity into a mutual feud from which there is no escape. They see each other as evil caricatures of themselves undeserving of common decency, ‘excusing’ actions that they would otherwise disapprove of. It’s complex and makes them both out to be flawed.
Mike doesn’t need all that, he just needs a bit of material to work with and a whim.
In a world of depressingly realistic Toedads, I still think having a villain around who’s willing to create elaborate pranks about cartoons is refreshing, but Sarah’s on-point reactions and facial expressions are the real star here.
I admit, it’s not that unbelievable. One of my friends created an elaborate prank which convinced a friend of ours (a politician in his local election) that we’d contacted the Communist party and registered him as one nationally.
That’s not even remotely accurate. Sarah’s an abrasive jerk a lot of the time but even when she does fuck with people it’s because she has a long standing blood feud with them not just because she thinks it would be funny to make someone else miserable for no reason.
She manipulated Joyce. And I’m not sure you can even say she Narced on her old roomie because of genuine concern. The breaking point was her grades, not an escalation in their behaviour.
Yes Sarahs a little more human then Mike, but i both personally view them as the most selfish characters who aren’t just villains or foils narratively.
It was more than her just grades slipping a little. She was at the point where she could’ve lost her scholarship if they’d slipped any more. She’d already accommodated Dana as much as she could, but it’s completely unreasonable to expect her to risk her entire academic career like that.
And remember that’s Sarah’s description. Sarah the misanthrope who can’t let herself admit out loud she cares and worries about people. Of course she paints that decision in a negative light.
I’d be very surprised if concern for Dana wasn’t at least as important to her as her very real worries about her own future in college.
Mike is about a billion times worse. He’s deliberately cruel and manipulative toward people who have not given him the slighted justification for resentment. Sarah’s biggest fault is that she overreacts, but Mike isn’t even reacting.
I’m unsure if it makes it better or worse, but one thing I can say for Mike that I cant say for the “Mike-alikes” I know irl—at least Mike is self aware.
This seems like a good enough strip to ask a question I’ve been wondering about since my last reread: in the Dumbiverse, did the reclusive genius who created Dexter and Monkey Master also create Ultra-Car, only to see it cancelled for being too clever?
Honestly I just looked it up on the wiki while double-checking my controvertial opinions on the Sarah/Raidah feud. I can never find anything just searching on Tumblr…
Not really. Like, I am sure they’ve probably interacted before, but of the main cast guys, he’s maybe the one she’s spoken to the least. Like, I think she’s even talked to Danny slightly more.
It’s not about excusing anything, it’s about his sheer level of self-awareness. His whole shtick is being disgusted with and exposing the hypocrisy of humans as a whole, and this is clearly a part of that. I’m pretty sure it’s the result of being raised by people who refuse to admit that anything is ever wrong in the world.
Shit. This is the chapter where we find out just what Mike’s damage really is. I suspect terrible consequences for him (and others, because Mike does not suffer alone).
that line is so true. Like, how many tv characters are there, that are intolerable assholes, but that are still loved, just because they are white males (that are considered attractive) and thus fandom loves them.
Okay, not justifying everything Mike says/does. But Walky would be an insufferable roommate. I don’t quite know why Mike has been sabotaging Walky’s relationship, even before the Pajama Jeansgate Scandal of 2012. I imagine that, just as Dina was more nuanced than the dinosaur girl, Mike is more nuanced than he displays. Or maybe it was nothing but late night farts that drove Mike the the brink. http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/03-the-first-step-towards-recovery/congratulations/
I generally don’t like Mike, but this was genuinely amusing to me. He’s an asshole, and regardless of intent, deliberately hurting people is antithetical to my beliefs…
But damn, if I don’t get a chuckle at self aware privilege checking. Say what you will, the boy is #woke enough to not take credit for shit he never earned. (And it’s a damn shame that the bar is set so low that that seems like an achievement…)
As an aside, it DOES feel like this is an arc where we’re going to get some development for good ol’ Mike. I highly doubt it will be one of those trite “this excuses every shitty thing he does, has done, & will continue to do” storylines, because Willis isn’t a shitty writer/person, but I am expecting to get a little context – and, perhaps, in the present he may even receive some sort of wakeup call or reality check.
We’re seeing Joe suffer consequences, Faz got a bit of development I guess?, and Dorothy is seeing hella fallout from overworking herself. Ruth is going to therapy, Amber has learned not to 100% hate/fear Sal…
As for differences, Sarah demonstrated considerable warmth towards Joyce, between smacking Ryan with the bat, calling her “little sister”, trying to talk her out of the disastrous Ethan relationship, and embracing her at the end of the Toedad saga when Joyce was lamenting that things had changed forever. She has also formed something of a kinship with Dina in the past.
Mike’s shown what may be altruism on occasion, but it can be difficult to tell if his motives are good, or if shit has just worked out from his trolling behavior. He has definitely tried to drive Ethan to actually embrace his homosexuality, seemingly aware of the harm re-closeting himself was doing to Ethan, but even then, how much of that is pushing his buttons and how much of it is looking out for a friend can be tricky to pin down.
And how much of that last thing is him trying to turn Danny into a broken weeping jealous wreck because of it?
I mean he basically laid that out as his plan in an aside right before this recent set of being oddly nice to Ethan and that culminating in them making out a few times.
He was doing this before he even knew of Danny outside of claiming to be dating, uhh, Dorothy maybe? in order to bug him. it was a one off joke I don’t remember much.
I remember him grilling Ethan about eating at Chik-Fil-A prior to that and other self-loathing behavior.
Sarah is abrasive and blunt, but she mostly just wants to be left alone. Other than her specific thing with Raidah, she doesn’t go out of her way to mess with people – which is Mike’s entire purpose.
While I agree with above comments that they have a very different approach towards people (Sarah mostly direct, Mike convoluted intrigue), I find that one thing unites the two: that they consciously see behind the lies other characters tell themselves – and won’t have it. (well, ok, Mike is than using those self-deceptions to play the people, while Sarah is simply upfront)
So I see great potential that they can crack each other’s shell – I am just wondering who would “win”. And if they don’t open up simultaneously, it might end up a painful experience for the one who made the first step.
(do I make any sense at all?)
Judging by panel 5, Mike is already intrigued 😉
Mike is a level beyond Raidah and gets away with it in comic and in the comments because….?
Maybe because we have a longer history with him, but yes – Panel 4
Eh, imo raidah comes off as worse because of how targeted she is. I can’t help but have a begrudging respect for the indiscriminate asshole type, in fiction at least. Meanwhile raidah spent an entire year trying to ruin one person’s life. It might also be the fact that we got a lot of time with Mike in the walkyverse. Idk if raidah was in it’s walky, but basically most people wouldn’t have spent time with her before now, and wouldn’t have the opportunity to grow close with her like with Mike.
Also the fact that he has minimal expressions makes him less annoying to me
I guess it’s because of how cartoony Mike is. He is awful but he is… fantasy awful while Raidah is something many people actually had to deal with.
Reminds me this Voldemort vs Umbridge comparison. How Voldemort is more evil but Umbridge is more hated because not many of us had dealings with psychotic, evil overlord mass murderers but we’ve all had to deal with assholes who have power over us and are petty enough to use that power to ruin our days and lives.
Mike is a bongo. There. Raidah is a bongo too but in a totally different way. People are allowed to dislike different actions. Plus, level of cruelty are entirely subjective. For example, no one cares about Walky, he been lazy with his school work for quite some time. At least Mike kinda nudged him to gthink about going to class. Sarah had to deal with two assholes. One lying suicide person, and Raidah who lives in complete ignorance.we can’t really say one is worth than the other as facts. But I personally dislike Raidah more and have the opinion she Is worse than mike
Mike kinda “works” in a non-realistic setting because he fills the role of the comedic sociopath. It’s a case of “Ha, look how fucked up this guy is”.
But if you transplant the same character into a more realistic setting (which DoA kinda is), it becomes a lot less… endearing.
That actually seems to be a trend with characters in DoA – the stuff you might have found funny or endearing really isn’t when put into this setting. Mike being Mike, Joe’s philandering, Walky’s manchild issues….
Some of those work as character growth issues. Others, like Mike and Robin and Faz, are basically the whole point of the character and they wouldn’t be the same without them – but they still don’t work.
I’m assuming because to most posters on here Mike is sort of proxy for them in that most posters on here wouldn’t say boo to a fly in real life so Mike fulfills that role for them
Oh, this is the first time Sarah is shown with Mike and probably the first time she if left alone with him isn’t it? Sarah will probably won’t be very eager to repeat the experience and I cannot really blame her.
Meh, I am liking Mike more than Dorothy right now, at least the guy can stay consistent. Granted he is consistently an A-Hole, but it is rare if ever he is going to change just because a few things in his life goes wrong. If anything, it will make him stronger.
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“Why yes I DO get away with murder, regularly”
“I’d say I can’t tell if you’re shitting me but experience tells me I already know the answer anyway”
I really do hope Mike gets his ass handed to him at some point. Violence doesn’t solve many problems but Mike strikes me as one of the few which it would.
He literally got jumped by Amazi-girl, remember?
And kicked in the shins by Joyce.
Sadly, he’s still around and still toxic.
sun tzu: “toxic” isn’t a nice thing to call anyone. not a single person can INFECT you with negativity. And if you’ll notice, Mike is being rather consensual about everything he does. He was upfront about no attachments with Ethan (while using his “evil” to make his friends do emotional work they aren’t doing otherwise, not even pushing his opinion that Ethan and Dan should be together but putting himself in the situation in a way agreed to and not unethical itself in order to CREATE and NOT FORCE a learning opportunity), not forcing himself to be even be acceptable to walk with. Imagine how isolating that would be? to know that you knowing your own power grants more, and that same power alienates. yet, Mike handles this realization with some grace and even apparent humor.
Dark humor, often. Like in panel three. And very dry.
But.. TOXIC?
He’s not perpetuating *harm* ANYwhere that I see.
*Dark humor like in panel FOUR.
Whoops.
There’s still the correct way of helping people to come to realizations and the wrong way. His is the wrong way. It’s akin to staging a fake kidnapping (unknown to both the parent AND the child) to get them to realize that they do truly love each other. Did it work? Yes, it did. Did it also cause needless trauma and anguish on both sides? Yes, it did.
Tough love only works insofar as people can handle the consequences. Not everybody is as resilient mentally or psychologically. Some of the people “helped” by Mike might end up crawling into a bottle or other unhealthy means of coping.
..my whole point is that NOTHING Mike has done has been truly harmful. And this comic illustrates an AWARENESS of his ability to get away with more than he ought to by rights. Yet his face expresses PAIN at this knowledge, he still does not take it personally when the black women he is talking to has a reaction toward security at his self-awareness of this.
THAT is consent. No way around it.
…I may be forgetting something important, but I can’t remember a single thing Mike’s done that’s been HARMful, malicious, or even long-term. Only mischievous. Only needling. Annoying, NOT *harm*ful.
That was my entire point.
@whitt:
Here’s Mike listening to Amber opening up to him and talking about one of her greatest anxieties, and Mike immediately using it to make her feel like shit:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/04-just-hangin-out-with-my-family/ensnared/
There was also:
– Taking photos of Dorothy and Walky in bed together and saying he’d share them
– Making shitty comments about Billie the day after she and Ruth were sent to the hospital for being suicidal
– Slut shaming Sal (I don’t care if he happened to be right about her sleeping with Jason, it was still shitty)
Even if Mike *is* expressing sadness or pain over the way society lets him get away with this shit, he’s still doing it. His remorse means nothing and is worth nothing
He also doesn’t have ANY grounds for being upset by Sarah’s reaction. Even if he weren’t an asshole, people aren’t obligated to hang out with him
“A culture of mass media that indoctrinates all people to eternally forgive white males”
I love Mike, he’s a fantastic terrible character, but a real person like that, hella naw, you right.
The dedication to his defence is a little telling perhaps.
You must have some different definition of “truly harmful”.
I mean, he hasn’t actually killed or crippled anyone, so it’s all good right?
No. It’s not a nice thing to call anyone. Nor are plenty of other correct labels.
I suppose you can avoid seeing the harm if you can convince yourself that everything he does is somehow intended to help the very people he’s harassing.
Mike spent several comic strips punching Joe in the face.
Yeah, but that’s okay and fine, because Joe noticed a woman who wasn’t Joyce, while they were on a date.
You say that like it was acceptable.
I’m not sure how you got there, since their comment was in response to a comment that ended with, “He’s not perpetuating *harm* ANYwhere that I see.”
Oh, crap, I see! My bad. Sorry, Rectilinear Propagation!
Also, what’s consensual about recording Walky crying in his sleep and playing it for his friends?
And as for being “upfront” with Ethan, he’s being upfront about no attachments, but he’s using that to mask his actual reasons which makes him seem much less upfront about it all.
Ethan’s being equally upfront about his own feelings and desires…. by ignoring them in ways Mike is PLAYING INTO but not manipulating.
Hence:
as for recording being consensual, Mike’s possibly following modern law over actual consent culture. cuz he knows exactly where the line is, and where it should be, and plays with those lines in ways that then allow people to interact with them more directly.
Sounds like a power play, but not an altogether unconscious nor harmful one. especially when we consider this person is supposed to have JUST moved out of their parents? This whole comic seems to be exploring how personal identity interacts with original “family” environment.
Ethan is submissive in personality. He’s even willing to deny his own sexuality to appease “doing the right thing” or “making people comfortable/happy”.
Mike is simply a converse, a dominant personality. He’s not willing to budge on what he sees to be real, even if it means pointing out how other people ARE (see: needling Dorothy into feeling guilty of her own accord for how she’s treating herself and Walky). Is MIKE doing the thing, or is he involving himself in ways that lead ultimately to more awareness, mindfulness, and consent. Sure, his methods are uncomfortable to some, but …. HARMful? I’m just not sure.
(ignore the “hence” — i think i started one thought then dropped it after the one word.)
So it’s “consensual” because the law says he doesn’t need consent. Nice.
But yeah, I get it. It’s the same old bullshit. Mike’s not harmful because he’s being an asshole to make you a better person. And when the person in question actually gets worse from what he said (Ethan going back in the closet, Amber spirally farther into self-loathing), well that’s not his problem. He was trying to help. If they took it the wrong way, oh well.
I suspect Whitt may be defending Mike because they’ve recognized a bit of themselves in him, and don’t want to be made to feel hurtful/harmful/toxic by association.
“not a single person can INFECT you with negativity”
Counterpoint: reading this comment made me want to punch something.
So do it. Non-harmfully. Why would someone having an opinion you disagree with mean *I* am at fault for speaking in front of you? I am not currently in any position to affect your life directly accept through you reading my words. … it doesn’t MATTER if I’m wrong, tangibly, does it?
You just implied that I am toxic. ..Is it toxic to call people toxic?
Mike seems to me to be a willing scapegoat, more than an abuser. Is he ‘perfect’? I didn’t say that.
Just my opinion, mate. It’s safe for people to be wrong if they have no power over you, which I don’t *think* I do..
(sigh)
*why would having an
*except through
I don’t like being told I’m toxic for thinking as I do. Teach me a better way to think, absolutely. But calling my thinking “toxic” does NOT make me open to listening more. =\
And burdening someone with the responsibility of NEVER thinking something their audience disagrees with is a power play UNlike what Mike has so far done.
Look at the final panel on this page for proof Mike respects people more than you just did me.
….
By your logic, anytime anyone posts anything on social media or even say something in public they bear no responsibility for the effect their words have on people, because, hey, its not THEIR fault that people chose to read/listen to their words, right?
And… no. Calling out toxic behaviour for what it is is not equivalent to actual toxic behaviour. That’d be like accusing someone of being racist after being called racist for their racist actions.
Mike may not deny his actions, sure, but has he ever apologized to people for his actions? Has he in any way changed his behaviour when people ask him to stop?
So are we just ignoring Mike recording Walky without his permission seven times, and showing at least one of those recordings to other people without Walky’s permission? That was literally one strip ago, and while it’s the most recent example it’s far from the only one.
I again could be wrong about absolutely everything but…
I do not think Walky was HARMED
and I just looked it up and while the answers were not entirely built for this one fictional scenario, it looks like what Mike did was legal.
…so, this does not …. look, I’m not saying he’s doing everything right.
I’m saying he’s NOT been outright HARMful.
Means versus ends. His means are odd but his ends nonharmful.
The law is DEFINITELY not on the side of “no one may ever be recorded unknowingly.” I’m no lawyer. I just looked up internet stuff. But again….
if my point is Mike’s intentionally playing with lines of allowance in ways that bring them OUT, not hide them, I’m still going with even the Walky recording thing is more mischievous than malicious.
All it did is create self-awareness of how attached he is. Was it true that the show was canceled? nooooo. was Walky harmed?
I am just not sure anything he’s done counts as HARM, even if it’s not NICE.
…wow. there are plenty of things that are legal that still harm people, that is in no way an adequate defence of Mike’s actions. And ends justifies the means? There is no situation where that is an excuse. And “more mischievous than malicious”? If that something is dear enough to Walky that it elicits such an emotional response, that fucking crosses the line. Oh, and Mike absolutely knew how important that show was to Walky, and STILL chose to go ahead with it. That makes his actions even worse.
That just means not enough violence was used. 🙂
Joyce’s “kicking in the shins” approach actually seemed to work. Didn’t get rid of him permanently, but got him out of the way which was the goal.
Yeah, but he enjoyed it.
I don’t. When did that happen?
Whiteboard ding dong bandit storyline
October 7, 2014.
July 18th, 2014.
Apparently Ruth didn’t kill him. Either she’s losing her talent for femur removal or the anti depression medication is extremely effective.
On thing that appears to be consistent across universes is that Mike enjoys exposing the hypocrisy and fallibility of humans. The way to “defeat” him would be to humble him, not to feed the things he thrives on. Resorting to physical violence seems about as useful and stupid and immature as a parent screaming at a crying child. You’re not solving anything, you’re just exacerbating the situation by venting, and then trying to find reasons to justify the action.
Then again, physical violence and justifications go hand-in-hand to begin with.
Or we could take it not seriously and have him beaten up.
The way to “defeat” him is probably just to ignore him. Cut him off, isolate him, warn others about him. Don’t waste time with schemes to humble him. Don’t engage. Don’t interact with him at all. Certainly don’t listen to him.
Difficult to do that completely, especially for Walky, who has to room with him. Kicking him in the shins to get past him will do in a pinch. Not venting and justifying it, just circumventing an obstacle.
Ignore him is bad advice, but your advice isn’t actually to ignore him so I’ll shut up for now.
Maybe Sarah can beat his ass!
uh. I woke up way too early.
No! No walking separately! They need to be best friends and hang out forever! I want them to be the Statler and Waldorf of this comic.
The question is, what is a mana mana?
The better question is, who cares!?
“DOH HOHOHOHOHOHO!”
+1
We’d love to hear your story!
In fact, we’d hate to miss your story!
In fact, we’d love to hate your story!
DOOOOH HOHOHOHOHOHOHO
Mike, you realize that Joyce has not forgiven the majority of white males in her life and that quite a few of them have been beaten within an inch of their lives, imprisoned, or STABBED. You are supposed to be a smart evil genius and Joyce literally just got her wrist out of cast from BEATING A MAN.
The white males that she hasn’t forgiven did WAY worse stuff then he ever did, honestly Mike has a point.
Um I mean she’s still a dick to Joe who is basically a perfect cinnamon bun teddy bear compared to Mike so no
But the fandom seems perpetually unable to accept that Sarah is, at best, incredibly flawed in her moral prognosises of people so I give this conversation up basically before it starts.
I mean unless we are JUST talking about NotRyan in which case sure.
Joe absolutely deserved how Sarah treats him. Being better than Ryan or Mike is an INCREDIBLY low bar
I mean. Not really. Joe has done a lot less shitty stuff than Sarah, for instance.
No, he’s done a lot more. There was an entire storyline about this
How is just ranking people worse than actively sending your naive sheltered friend to break up a relationship without her knowledge? Granted, raidah deserves it but still. I’ll never get the intense Joe hate
Go read that strip where Joyce finally got through to him again.
His attitude matters.
Not fond of Sarah’s plans either, but Joe’s problems were basically his entire life – at least from what we saw of it. And he was talking himself up to be even worse than he actually was – with talking of drunken threesomes and the like.
Joe treated EVERY woman he encountered like their entire purpose for existing was for his benefit, constantly skirting (and not infrequently crossing) the line between merely being obnoxious and sexual harassment. He was so unwilling to respect women’s boundaries that it made many of them feel unsafe, and refused to listen to any complaints until Joyce was forced to painfully relate her very personal traumatic experience in order to drive it into his fat head that his behavior was harmful:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/04-the-do-list/object/
Joyce should never have had to tell him that to get him to stop.
Sarah had every reason to respond to Joe with hostility. And while he way she was manipulating Joyce was crappy, it doesn’t approach that level.
@fart captor The strip literally right before that Joe explicitly said he is after meaningless sex because he thinks it’s good for both himself and his partner. He also earlier says he only has sex with consenting people, and that his goal is for both parties to have fun.
Now, he was TOTALLY WRONG, but he definitely didn’t treat women like they existed for his pleasure. In fact he actively tried to push danny away the same way he avoids meaningful relationships with women. His resulting actions caused more harm than Sarah but he’s not intentionally spiteful like she is.
@boxbot: That’s not what Joe said, or he what he was referring to.
He said “Everyone’s better off not human beings. […] That way no one really gets hurt”
He wasn’t talking about how he was only interested in casual sex, or even just the how he treats the women he sleeps with. They had been talking about his Do List, which he put EVERY WOMAN he encountered on, even if he didn’t know her name OR find her attractive. Joe himself is explicitly admitting that he is not treating women like human beings. He’s even doing it on purpose, knowing that it’s hurtful, because he thought the harm was minor (and he refused to listen to anyone telling him otherwise).
Joe was sexually harassing practically every woman he met and completely refused to listen to any of them telling him to stop, no matter how clearly they expressed that his unwelcome, or how visibly it was stressing them out.
It was only when every single woman on campus was pissed off at him that he actually considered that maybe he was doing something bad, and even then he was still refusing to accept that his actions were harmful until Joyce told him about what happened with Ryan (which, again, is extremely shitty of him, as that shit was painful for her to talk about).
The fact that Joe thinks he’s very good about consent doesn’t change the fact that he very clearly was not. He pays only the absolute bare minimum of respect for consent to avoid being a sex offender, but “not committing a crime” and “treating women like people rather than objects” are not the same thing.
Sarah, on the other hand, has been intentionally spiteful towards exactly one person, who she has good reason to feel spiteful towards. That’s not even in the same ballpark.
@fart captor my point is that Joe treats everyone like objects, not just women, because he thinks it’s better for everyone. This includes his “closest” friend, Danny, who he explicitly wants no meaningful interaction with. Again, he’s causingg a lot more harm than Sarah, but he doesn’t mean to, whereas Sarah is intentionally causing harm (and knowingly accepting further collateral damage). So no, it’s not in the same ballpark, it’s apples and oranges. They’re both terrible people in their own way, but they both have positives.
Mike is actively trying to break up people so…
Oh wait, so Sarah doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
No, she has plenty of other areas where she is a far better person than Mike. Pretty much EVERY other subject in fact
I am pretty critical of Sarah and think the fanbase is overly forgiving of her actions but…
Yea I mean she has a lot of legs to stand on relative to Mike. Mike is fucking poison.
In fairness, I’m pretty sure he’s being at least 50% tongue-in-cheek here.
… Although I don’t feel like Mike would typically benefit from “fairness” being applied to his words or actions.
What’s there to be tongue-in-cheek about? The circumstances of his birth means he can get away with a lot of behavior other people can’t.
He’s not being tongue-in-cheek about the issue itself, which I’m pretty sure he’s self-aware enough to both know about and probably not give a fuck about, because he’s Mike. It’s more that the response is absurdly general and he knows it’s not the answer she’s actually looking for.
Well yeah, he’s being tongue-in-cheek because he’s just pointing it out as a fact of life without make excuses for himself. He’s an asshole and gets away with it because people are sheep, ’nuff said, moving on.
Mike definitely benefits from “fairness” being applied to his actions.
He wouldn’t benefit from fairness.
Mike is a special kind of asshole.
I feel like the fandom has been called out in the fourth panel.
I think the issue boils down to the fact Mike is a protagonist so we assume he’s got his reasons but in RL, everyone knows a Mike and they’re just plain assholes because being one is fun.
I dunno, this phenomenon sure didn’t help Danny.
Which the fandom got a dose of reality when we met Danny’s parents, who were basically the comment section of that time period.
Some took a hint, some kept on “Hyuck, Dannying!1”
His ukulele made me realize he was hopeless.
All Danny’s are…
His ukulele made me realize he is powerful. He is beyond social opprobrium. He has built up an immunity to
iocane powdertoxic masculinity.That’s partly because of leftover Roomies! hate.
hehehehe yep
Given that Willis has specifically commented about making Anna a female POC take on Mike’s behavior, I’d say yeah.
Though part of it may still be holdover from SP!, where Mike got a lot more depth and where he was much closer to the force-of-nature asshole sage some commenters treat him as.
I mean the fact of fiction is that characters we’d be appalled by if they were real people are super fun when they’re fictional characters.
I know Mike is an asshole and I’d probably despise him IRL but he’s still one of my favorite characters because in the context of fiction he’s hilarious.
“I’m not sure about tomorrow, how about never?”
*Sarah heads across the street, then the street after that, walks to class*
Good call Sarah.
Distancing yourself is sadly one of the best things you can do in the face of open hostility and toxicity, to reduce the risk that you become the next target.
Sad but true.
*happy squeak* Cerberus! *hugs if wanted*
*hugs*
🙂
Welcome back!
We missed you!
Ironically, that’s exactly what Raidah thinks about Sarah.
*nods a lot to this*
Yup. And she might very well be right.
She is. Neither of them handled the situation very well, but Sarah only called Dana’s father after the situation became detrimental to her grades. If she thought Dana needed the help that badly, she could have called him sooner.
Possibly, but that’s not what Raidah think. She think Sarah should not have called at all.
One of the most frustrating thing in Sarah’s situation is that she simply doesn’t know, and will likely never know, what would have been the right thing to do. (Compare and contrast with Joyce’s situation where there was a very clear choice between Right and Wrong).
Considering how she is shunned for doing that, saying she is selfish for not having done so sooner is a rather cynical point of view.
When you are 18, involving parents or authorities into a problem is something you only do if you are out of options. And as neither Dana nor her friends were willing to even see the problem, she was out of options.
And I don’t see why Sarah should sacrifice her future degree and ability to earn a living to a rich friend who doesn’t care she puts Sarah at risk.
Not necessarily; I mean, Joyce’s first response to Dina’s siuation was to call her dad.
And honestly, Dana was in a pretty bad place, so I don’t think dismissing her as ‘a rich friend who doesn’t care she puts Sarah at risk’ is entirely fair. But it’s true that before calling Dana’s dad, she could have gone to, say, her RA.
Oh, wait. That would have been Ruth.
Okay, now I want an AU where that happens. ‘Ruth, my roommate’s smoking too much damn pot, and may be suicidal!’ ‘Dammit, couldn’t she at least have some booze to share?’
Except even with a more normal RA, going to her risks even worse consequences than calling the parents – the RA really can’t do much directly except tell the roommate to knock it off, which wasn’t likely to work. If she escalates it up the chain of command then the university has to take official notice of a student smoking pot – which means getting the police involved.
Yes after talking to Dana’s friends who couldn’t assure Sarah that they heard Sarah and would try to help Dana calling her father was Sarah’s best chance of helping Dana instead of making Dana’s situation worse. The fact is while Dana was pulled out of school her record doesn’t say kicked out for smoking pot.
That’s the point I’m trying to make. From Raidah’s perspective, Sarah got rid of Dana because she was getting in her way. Sarah has a tendency to frame her actions in a selfish light, even if they’re for the other person’s own good. In this case, it looks bad because Sarah only got Dana’s father involved after her grades started slipping.
They’re both guilty of miscommunication.
The one question I have is, has anyone heard from Dana at all since then?
Raidah has supposedly been in contact, though we’re not sure how often or how much. This is part of why Raidah’s still mad at Sarah – because Dana was.
OTOH, Raidah was apparently completely fooled by Dana into thinking she was fine while she was still at school, so she’s not exactly a reliable source of info on how Dana’s really doing.
@Needfuldoer: Raidah sees Sarah taking care of herself as incredibly selfish. Raidah obviously comes from money, Sarah is poor and her only chance to get a degree is be able to work really hard. Being angry with Sarah for this is lacks both insight and empathy, not to mention the common decency not to expect others to sacrifice more than you are willing to do yourself.
So she shouldn’t have given Dana a chance to work through her grief?
So she shouldn’t have tried to help?
What could she have done?
Dana didn’t want to stop taking drugs, Sarah needed to study and both things where not possible as long as both shared a room. Switching roomies takes a long time, so that was not an option. None of Dana’s friends offered to switch temporarily. So what options did Sarah have?
I don’t think it was even an issue is just studying; she also couldn’t sleep, which is way more detrimental.
Not if it puts her own welfare at risk. If Sarah had gotten rid of Dana because she interfered with her studies, that would have been justified. The fact she did it for Dana’s own good is just iceing on the cake.
I Mike’s last name Lampshade
Sarah is the best. I think we’d get along
Why is ANYONE friends with Mike at this point? Like, really.
Would you rather have Mike mad at you?
If you have a relationship with someone only because you fear their retributive actions, that’s a shitty relationship.
The best thing altogether, of course, is to quickly gauge someone like Mike, don’t get too close, and back off asap. Sarah’s a bit in but it’s only like, the third month? of school, she can separate from him quick-like if need be.
I’m just waiting for the flashback panels to make this comment section eat it’s own words. There IS a reason that Amber and Ethan are still the closest thing to friends Mike has, we’re just waiting to find out what it is.
We’re technically eating our own words by the recording being something completely different than first intended.
Me, I’m ambivalent about Mike. He’s obviously still a good guy. This is also a comic verse, and some things are done differently for the purpose of an enjoyable story.
OK, so there is a previous comic about this recording. Am I the only one who can’t see it?
Never mind. Caching.
Ethan is a massive push-over with a crush…
…I mean, you are probably right that there is more to their back story, but as reasons go that one is pretty solid.
(As for Amber – I can’t remember even once she has sought out Mike’s company. She tolerates him, marginally, but to me it seems like she has more of the attitude “whatever, I have dealt with much worse” than “I like to hang out with Mike”).
I don’t recall a situation where Amber once actively sought out EITHER of their company after starting college, it was always both Ethan and Mike trying to get her to join them socially instead of killing spiders for hours on end in her room.
From earlier panels, it’s pretty clear that the three of them were pretty much a ‘clique’ to themselves in high school. They were clearly close enough friends to have the full story for everything up to prom night, so that’s about three years of frequent and at least amicable interaction.
Though we don’t know how much of Amber’s part of the high school relationship resembled her current approach to Mike – how long she had been distancing herself from him.
She has sought out Ethan a couple of times (when she found out he and Joyce had broken up comes to mind) and has always been friendly with and concerned about him. She did say early on that she needed a bit of distance from him, since she’d been doing a lot of emotional support work for him over the summer – helping her ex-boyfriend deal with figuring out he’s gay.
Mike, she’s never looked for or had anything good to say about.
Amber’s most adorable episode of seeking contact with Ethan was this one
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/03-the-thing-i-was-before/scootscoot/
If you tag search for Mike+Amber, there’s only 22 strips that they’ve both appeared in, and not only is there not a single strip where Amber appears to enjoy (or anything more than tolerate) Mike’s company, but most of their interactions have been extremely negative, where Mike treats Amber like shit and/or Amber is telling Mike to fuck off.
Not only has Ethan been in 4 times as many strips with Amber, in the majority of those (like this one) it’s clear that she enjoys his company, even if we don’t know who sought the other one out.
In spite of how Amber rarely leaves her room except for class or to fight crime, there’s now several other people whose she’s shown to be more friendly with than Mike, like Danny, Dina, Walky, and even Joyce and Becky, although only once or twice each.
Hell, she’s even more friendly with Sal these days than she’s ever been shown with Mike, and being around Sal still causes panic attacks!
By comparison, Mike really seems less like a friend than someone Amber would have cut out of her life entirely if Ethan wasn’t still friends with him.
Yeah, it’s that they both have incredibly low senses of self worth.
Honestly, I’d say the only actual friends Mike has are Amber and Ethan, and probably a big part of that is just out of inertia. Plenty of people stay friends with shitty people just because they’ve always been friends and are just used to it.
Oh and also Ethan has apparently had a crush on Mike the whole time.
Aside from that, I’d hesitate to call anyone a “friend” of Mike. Everyone else is an acquaintance at best.
Ethan has also expressed some sort of self-sacrificing sentiment about keeping Mike away from other people.
Amber has never said it, but it would fit perfectly with her world view
On the other hand, crush or not, he’s been open about the fact that the idea of rooming with him is appalling: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/04-the-bechdel-test/backpack/
Walky can attest to that.
Seriously, secretly recording your room mate and showing it to his friends? NOT OK.
Considering the quality of Walky’s farts, and his sheer pride in that quality, I’d say Mike’s actually being fairly mild.
“He could do worse” is not a very good endorsement. Especially given how low a blow this is. Walky is hurting, and Mike is making that a joke in one of the most invasive ways possible.
He didn’t show it to Walky’s friends, he showed it to Joyce and Sarah.
…Joyce is not Walky’s friend?
Fine. Acquaintances. Ex-girlfriends girlfriend and sister. Class mates. School comrades. Lunch buddies. Fellow fans. People he happen to hang out with sometimes.
Whatever word you pick it wouldn’t make Mike’s actions less detestable.
And just the fact that he deliberately misled Walky to elicit such a reaction then FILMED it really should already tell you everything you need to know about him
Didn’t someone mention in-comic that Mike doesn’t have friends but only people he is willing to stand next to?
To me it also starts to look lite fewer and fewer people are willing to stand next to mike.
For obvious reasons.
Ethan, yes. Also “If you’re my friend, and I’m like 50% sure you are”.
Even Amber’s basically written him off and only tolerates him for Ethan’s sake. Ethan knows what he is, probably better than anyone else, but tolerates him, mostly because of his own issues.
I’m sure these two will get along famously.
How dare Mike make me confront that sad, frustrating reality in Panel 4? He really is an asshole!
Mike seems to be on a role lately.
I ship Sarah and Mike. Imagine the misanthropy they could get create.
Like a Big Singing Crocodile and a dog.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5iZE6-a9jU
Yeah, I’m not sure whether I just spend way too much time online or I’m letting past appearances influence me, but I feel like he might be flirting?
Preach, brother/sister! The main difference between Mike and Sarah?
Mike knows how much of a fucking asshole he is. Sarah still pretends she’s not!
Sarah has referred to herself as a “(female canine)y killjoy misanthrope”, so she’s not pretending anything. The main difference is that she specifically wants to screw over Raidah for revenge, while Mike screws over everybody just for the fun of it.
The whole Sarah/Raidah thing is essentially a cycle of revenge. Raidah hates Sarah for ‘getting rid’ of Dana, which is a very understandable reading of how that whole thing went down. Sarah had her reasons too, but they sound selfish from Raidah’s perspective so she feels justified in being a bongo to her.
Sarah’s a bongo back in kind, over time turning a single point of animosity into a mutual feud from which there is no escape. They see each other as evil caricatures of themselves undeserving of common decency, ‘excusing’ actions that they would otherwise disapprove of. It’s complex and makes them both out to be flawed.
Mike doesn’t need all that, he just needs a bit of material to work with and a whim.
In a world of depressingly realistic Toedads, I still think having a villain around who’s willing to create elaborate pranks about cartoons is refreshing, but Sarah’s on-point reactions and facial expressions are the real star here.
I admit, it’s not that unbelievable. One of my friends created an elaborate prank which convinced a friend of ours (a politician in his local election) that we’d contacted the Communist party and registered him as one nationally.
Whoot! Gotta try that!
These two are pretty similar in my head.
That’s not even remotely accurate. Sarah’s an abrasive jerk a lot of the time but even when she does fuck with people it’s because she has a long standing blood feud with them not just because she thinks it would be funny to make someone else miserable for no reason.
She manipulated Joyce. And I’m not sure you can even say she Narced on her old roomie because of genuine concern. The breaking point was her grades, not an escalation in their behaviour.
Yes Sarahs a little more human then Mike, but i both personally view them as the most selfish characters who aren’t just villains or foils narratively.
It was more than her just grades slipping a little. She was at the point where she could’ve lost her scholarship if they’d slipped any more. She’d already accommodated Dana as much as she could, but it’s completely unreasonable to expect her to risk her entire academic career like that.
And remember that’s Sarah’s description. Sarah the misanthrope who can’t let herself admit out loud she cares and worries about people. Of course she paints that decision in a negative light.
I’d be very surprised if concern for Dana wasn’t at least as important to her as her very real worries about her own future in college.
Jesus fucking Christ, Mike.
Oh hey, looks like I’m a prophet.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/04-of-mike-and-men/uglycrying/#comment-1325410
PRAISE THE ORACLE!
Panel 4 is a bit TOO on point. 🙁
Sadly yes.
Entirely true.
Also, glad to see you around!
Also also, how much really is Mike different from Sarah right now?
Mike is about a billion times worse. He’s deliberately cruel and manipulative toward people who have not given him the slighted justification for resentment. Sarah’s biggest fault is that she overreacts, but Mike isn’t even reacting.
Panel 4 is my entire problem with a segment of this communty’s reaction to Mike.
CERBERUS! \o/
In panel four Mike is superbly trolling not only Sarah but quite a readers as well
I’m unsure if it makes it better or worse, but one thing I can say for Mike that I cant say for the “Mike-alikes” I know irl—at least Mike is self aware.
I love you, Sarah.
I wonder if Mike is wincing in panel four. It’s difficult for me to parse exactly what he is conveying there, facially.
Seems like that to me.
This seems like a good enough strip to ask a question I’ve been wondering about since my last reread: in the Dumbiverse, did the reclusive genius who created Dexter and Monkey Master also create Ultra-Car, only to see it cancelled for being too clever?
Apparently, yes!
Thank you! That’ll larn me to not keep up with the tumblr…
You’re welcome!
Honestly I just looked it up on the wiki while double-checking my controvertial opinions on the Sarah/Raidah feud. I can never find anything just searching on Tumblr…
A troll’s thread got deleted and now my comeback toward them is gone forever, RIP
Eh, it wasn’t funny anyway
STILL COUNTS AS THE LAST WORD, DANGIT!
So -that’s- what happened to my most cleverest post ever…
Mike drop.
eyyy
Yes, please.
Please drop Mike.
Is it just me or does Mike look weirdly upset about the little fact he’s saying in panel four?
… Maybe because it means less punches, and we already know he has masochistic tendencies.
It’s his usual troll face, as he’s again trolling? He MAY be disappointed that even that didn’t get Sarah to punch him.
Sarah hasn’t actually talked with Mike much, has she?
Not really. Like, I am sure they’ve probably interacted before, but of the main cast guys, he’s maybe the one she’s spoken to the least. Like, I think she’s even talked to Danny slightly more.
MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIKEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Is it me or does Mike actually look kind of bothered as he says that mass media comment
…huh, you’re right.
Still doesn’t excuse anything — he’s knowingly and deliberately taking advantage of that system — but it’s a worthwhile insight nonetheless.
It’s not about excusing anything, it’s about his sheer level of self-awareness. His whole shtick is being disgusted with and exposing the hypocrisy of humans as a whole, and this is clearly a part of that. I’m pretty sure it’s the result of being raised by people who refuse to admit that anything is ever wrong in the world.
Huh, Mike’s gotten woke.
Shit. This is the chapter where we find out just what Mike’s damage really is. I suspect terrible consequences for him (and others, because Mike does not suffer alone).
that line is so true. Like, how many tv characters are there, that are intolerable assholes, but that are still loved, just because they are white males (that are considered attractive) and thus fandom loves them.
I love numerous horrible women in television because they’re attractive. 🙂
And honestly, half the time it seems they’re only considered attractive *because* they are white male assholes.
I’ve lost count of the number of times an actor suddenly became ‘hot’ after playing a villain.
Fictitious assholes are just fun bruh
One month ago: “Mike is not enough of an asshole. DOA Mike is nothing like old Mike.”
Today: “Jesus Christ, Mike. WTF?”
Okay, not justifying everything Mike says/does. But Walky would be an insufferable roommate. I don’t quite know why Mike has been sabotaging Walky’s relationship, even before the Pajama Jeansgate Scandal of 2012. I imagine that, just as Dina was more nuanced than the dinosaur girl, Mike is more nuanced than he displays. Or maybe it was nothing but late night farts that drove Mike the the brink. http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/03-the-first-step-towards-recovery/congratulations/
I generally don’t like Mike, but this was genuinely amusing to me. He’s an asshole, and regardless of intent, deliberately hurting people is antithetical to my beliefs…
But damn, if I don’t get a chuckle at self aware privilege checking. Say what you will, the boy is #woke enough to not take credit for shit he never earned. (And it’s a damn shame that the bar is set so low that that seems like an achievement…)
As an aside, it DOES feel like this is an arc where we’re going to get some development for good ol’ Mike. I highly doubt it will be one of those trite “this excuses every shitty thing he does, has done, & will continue to do” storylines, because Willis isn’t a shitty writer/person, but I am expecting to get a little context – and, perhaps, in the present he may even receive some sort of wakeup call or reality check.
We’re seeing Joe suffer consequences, Faz got a bit of development I guess?, and Dorothy is seeing hella fallout from overworking herself. Ruth is going to therapy, Amber has learned not to 100% hate/fear Sal…
Who knows what awaits our “favorite” trashcan.
Okay, being serious.
Besides that “Mike knows how gigantic of an asshole he actually is”, at most, what’s the difference between Mike and Sara right now?
Besides that Mike has a penis.
……………look, who doesn’t want to see them bang?
They wouldn’t do much for me as a couple.
As for differences, Sarah demonstrated considerable warmth towards Joyce, between smacking Ryan with the bat, calling her “little sister”, trying to talk her out of the disastrous Ethan relationship, and embracing her at the end of the Toedad saga when Joyce was lamenting that things had changed forever. She has also formed something of a kinship with Dina in the past.
Mike’s shown what may be altruism on occasion, but it can be difficult to tell if his motives are good, or if shit has just worked out from his trolling behavior. He has definitely tried to drive Ethan to actually embrace his homosexuality, seemingly aware of the harm re-closeting himself was doing to Ethan, but even then, how much of that is pushing his buttons and how much of it is looking out for a friend can be tricky to pin down.
And how much of that last thing is him trying to turn Danny into a broken weeping jealous wreck because of it?
I mean he basically laid that out as his plan in an aside right before this recent set of being oddly nice to Ethan and that culminating in them making out a few times.
He was doing this before he even knew of Danny outside of claiming to be dating, uhh, Dorothy maybe? in order to bug him. it was a one off joke I don’t remember much.
I remember him grilling Ethan about eating at Chik-Fil-A prior to that and other self-loathing behavior.
Sarah is a much better person, who is usually kind to her friends and doesn’t intentionally hurt them, for starters. They’re almost nothing alike
Sarah is abrasive and blunt, but she mostly just wants to be left alone. Other than her specific thing with Raidah, she doesn’t go out of her way to mess with people – which is Mike’s entire purpose.
..i am now in love with Mike.
Crap.
I totally ship the two!
While I agree with above comments that they have a very different approach towards people (Sarah mostly direct, Mike convoluted intrigue), I find that one thing unites the two: that they consciously see behind the lies other characters tell themselves – and won’t have it. (well, ok, Mike is than using those self-deceptions to play the people, while Sarah is simply upfront)
So I see great potential that they can crack each other’s shell – I am just wondering who would “win”. And if they don’t open up simultaneously, it might end up a painful experience for the one who made the first step.
(do I make any sense at all?)
Judging by panel 5, Mike is already intrigued 😉
It’s okay. I will always hate you Mike.
Mike is a level beyond Raidah and gets away with it in comic and in the comments because….?
Maybe because we have a longer history with him, but yes – Panel 4
Personally, I hate Raidah because she called Dinah a retard. Also, Mike has the rule of funny going for him.
Technically I don’t think she called Dina a “Retard” (that was her friend, as I think you implied in a later post), but she did talk down to her.
Never mind, I was thinking of Cher. The part about the rule of funny still applies though.
Eh, imo raidah comes off as worse because of how targeted she is. I can’t help but have a begrudging respect for the indiscriminate asshole type, in fiction at least. Meanwhile raidah spent an entire year trying to ruin one person’s life. It might also be the fact that we got a lot of time with Mike in the walkyverse. Idk if raidah was in it’s walky, but basically most people wouldn’t have spent time with her before now, and wouldn’t have the opportunity to grow close with her like with Mike.
Also the fact that he has minimal expressions makes him less annoying to me
I guess it’s because of how cartoony Mike is. He is awful but he is… fantasy awful while Raidah is something many people actually had to deal with.
Reminds me this Voldemort vs Umbridge comparison. How Voldemort is more evil but Umbridge is more hated because not many of us had dealings with psychotic, evil overlord mass murderers but we’ve all had to deal with assholes who have power over us and are petty enough to use that power to ruin our days and lives.
Mike is a bongo. There. Raidah is a bongo too but in a totally different way. People are allowed to dislike different actions. Plus, level of cruelty are entirely subjective. For example, no one cares about Walky, he been lazy with his school work for quite some time. At least Mike kinda nudged him to gthink about going to class. Sarah had to deal with two assholes. One lying suicide person, and Raidah who lives in complete ignorance.we can’t really say one is worth than the other as facts. But I personally dislike Raidah more and have the opinion she Is worse than mike
Remind me again why anyone likes Mike again?
People like assholes in fiction. They’re fun
Mike kinda “works” in a non-realistic setting because he fills the role of the comedic sociopath. It’s a case of “Ha, look how fucked up this guy is”.
But if you transplant the same character into a more realistic setting (which DoA kinda is), it becomes a lot less… endearing.
That actually seems to be a trend with characters in DoA – the stuff you might have found funny or endearing really isn’t when put into this setting. Mike being Mike, Joe’s philandering, Walky’s manchild issues….
Some of those work as character growth issues. Others, like Mike and Robin and Faz, are basically the whole point of the character and they wouldn’t be the same without them – but they still don’t work.
I’m assuming because to most posters on here Mike is sort of proxy for them in that most posters on here wouldn’t say boo to a fly in real life so Mike fulfills that role for them
Oh, this is the first time Sarah is shown with Mike and probably the first time she if left alone with him isn’t it? Sarah will probably won’t be very eager to repeat the experience and I cannot really blame her.
Meh, I am liking Mike more than Dorothy right now, at least the guy can stay consistent. Granted he is consistently an A-Hole, but it is rare if ever he is going to change just because a few things in his life goes wrong. If anything, it will make him stronger.
Did Mike and Billie invest in the same old-school recorder? Is Mike a…journalism major?
The Dexter and Monkey Master comic CANCELLED?
Wait, what?!?
And shipped
there are some points mike has made