At some point as a teen I either fell down a minorly mentally scarring Wikipedia tunnel or insomnia led me to odd documentaries with the same end result, and I learnt that most people’s hang to one side or the other and one of the functions of Prince Albert piercings was/is to control this for aesthetic reasons.
On the one hand Joe’s right, platitude-dispensing rectum or no.
On the other hand, we know from experience that Amber’s way of coping with things can result in one becoming a superhero. Sure, Becky would appreciate some sympathy from Joyce, but I’m sure she’d also appreciate being Batman. Everyone wants to be Batman, and she’s already got dead parents so she’s ahead of the game.
I mean, Batman is not a very healthy person and nothing he does will actually achieve any meaningful long-term consequences (unless he does something that creates another supervillain; those usually stick around).
Being Batman is suffering and it’s the last thing anyone should aspire to.
Only if you’re a crappy writer or a member of DC Editorial who doesn’t want superheroes to have happy, fulfilling personal lives.
Serious answer though, Batman’s money is the only reason social services in Gotham haven’t totally collapsed and he does employ a good chunk of the city, and makes a habit of hiring ex-cons so they don’t need to continue a life of crime.
And yet he never gets around to throwing that money at the nightmare factory that seems to exist solely to make his enemies (a fair chunk he’s either made himself or inspired) into worse people. Granted, I’ve long believed that he doesn’t dedicate resources to helping his Rogues become functioning members of society because without them, he has to confront his own demons, but still . . .
I mean, in Spongebob Squarepants, Plankton is traditionally seen as the villian, but in recent years people have been reckoning that it’s actually Mr. Krabs who’s the real villian.
There’s no reason to suspect that Batman isn’t subject to the same kind of scrutiny.
He donates to Arkham, even, at least in some continuities.
Unfortunately, the place is cursed by a cosmic force maintaining the status quo. Or just cursed in general. Gotham clearly attracts some distinct weirdness given Bruce is actually the SECOND instance of Old Money Scion Theming Self After A Nocturnal Winged Animal in Gotham, and that’s counting the entire Court of Owls as one instance. (‘Bruce is accidentally the world’s biggest wrench in the plans of a secret society who built Gotham with all these secret passages and convenient gargoyles to hide their agents’ is one of those storylines that shouldn’t make nearly as much sense as it does.)
That, and Gotham being as weird as it is and it being the DC universe, I would actually buy ‘the city is literally, actively cursed by one of the many supernatural entities in the universe’ as a reason. An evil Superman from an alternate universe could show up, kill the Batfamily’s entire collective rogues gallery, and then promptly vworp out of reality again, and within days there’d be a whole NEW cast of people with oddly thematic neuroses to deal with. (And the Joker, unkillable murderclown that he is, would probably just show up three days later with some handwave about the Lazarus Pits or something.)
I see no other explication. I mean, outside of all this money spend, the rate of crime should have made mots people move (except those who can’t, sure, but that would mean at least way fewer socializing events for millionaires). Also there is no way that in that situation the Wayne Industries wouldn’t see massive strike movements whatever the salary is.
No. I can categorically state that Gotham is *not* cursed by *one* of the many supernatural entities in the universe.
At last count, Gotham was cursed by at *least* **FIVE* of the many major supernatural entities in the universe.
Please note that I only say five, because my brother gave me four reasons why I should attend his wedding in Gotham, and I therefore only felt I needed to find five reasons to not go. So after I got to five, I stopped looking. It didn’t take me long to get to five. There’s probably more.
Yeah, “Batman’s methods don’t/can’t help” is like the least interesting way to write about him. Crime and supervillainy being inevitable don’t negate the good stuff he actually does do, and taking that good away for the sake of drama is just flat-out lazy. Yeah, he’s an unstable weirdo who could do a whole hell of a lot more with his seemingly-infinite money and incredible tech, but like… It’s a weird city.
It’s a reaction to the meta nature of serial storytelling anyway. Batman can’t help because if he did, then over the 90 years of Batman comics, he shouldn’t still be in a corrupt city fighting an ever increasing number of supervillains. There’s no intent inherent to this or any deep point about rich people or the nature of crime or anything. It’s just an inherent result of writing decades worth of stories about a guy fighting crime.
All the takes about Gotham being cursed or Batman really causing the problems or how he really should spend his money on social programs are just attempts to justify what starts to look weird if you think too deeply about super hero tropes.
It’s essentially true for all super heroes anyway. They may not all have money, but they all generate rogue’s galleries and far more trouble than seems reasonable. Often their superpowers would be far more use doing other things than fighting crime or even than fighting world conquerors. But super hero comics are adventure stories.
Oh, yeah. It’s the nature of Big Two superhero comics in play – keeping everything in continuity means Batman’s probably been fighting crime for decades, except he isn’t allowed to age really, and Gotham’s still full of costumed assholes. (My first bit about a cosmic force enforcing the status quo was meant to be a dig at editorial.) Over at Marvel, the X-Men have terraformed and colonized Mars, and everyone’s like ‘we have no idea how they’re going to eventually reset back to the school in New England, but it’s gonna be weird when they do.’
Or what some lousy writer will do with it a decade from now.
Yeah, that’s my biggest problem with the current big X-Men arc. It changes everything and it’s cool and all, but it’s not sustainable.
It’s a good thing really, as frustrating as it can be. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be reading comics if they’d headed off into exploring the realistic consequences of super powers, super tech, aliens and magic, moving their worlds further and further from anything recognizable as our society, starting decades before I was born.
IMHO, I feel like saying this isn’t sustainable because they left the Xavier school for the gifted in the dust is more of a problem than the X-men colonizing and terraforming Mars. Stories *should* be able to change things. The fact that Marvel and DC have not been allowing it is a problem.
Marvel, at least, already has multiple universes, so they have an excuse to have it both ways if they choose to. They could easily have some realities that maintain the crime-punching status quo and others that explore how superpowers could change and improve society.
On the other hand, the suspension of disbelief many people need to enjoy the crime-punching might be more strained when other comics show how much better things could be if the superheroes had sense.
The story where that happens can be cool, but remember if that was the way the genre worked, they would have done that back in the 60s and we’d have been off in some incomprehensible alternate world for my whole comic reading lifetime.
And that’s ignoring the DC side, where everything changed when Superman stopped WWII.
They can tell alternate history stories – and they do, but the main line is always going to be our world, like it is today with Superheroes, because that’s the genre. The gonzo science fantasy alien world that we’d like to think real superheroes would lead to isn’t something with the same appeal.
Nor for that matter is the horrific dystopia that random people getting superpowers and billionaires having supertech would far more likely be – even if the Boys had a good run.
Oh, Batman’s certainly allowed to age – but only if he ages enough in one go to need immediate replacing, and only when they want to put in a particular replacement.
Heck, Animated Series’ Batman – arguably one of the most popular incarnations of the character around – ended up as a bitter old man estranged from his friends and family in Batman Beyond.
The best Batman stories, imo, are the ones with a robust Batfamily where Bruce is by no means perfect but clearly does care about them and enjoy their company and where he is friends with other heroes like Superman and Wonder Woman.
Huh, unless these iterations are handled comically, I tend to have the opposite opinion.
Personally, I prefer Batman iterations where nobody has superpowers (sure, the villains have superpower-esque technology). I mean, I feel like Batman’s role as a hero is incredibly undermined when you have bunch of other people who can do a much better job than him and in much faster time.
Then again, I’m not too big into superhero films in general, and I can’t really take superheros such as Superman and Wonder Woman seriously as I tend to feel they’re out-of-place in grittier scenarios.
Ah, I’ve never watched that one, but I have heard of it.
I really don’t mind superheroes so much as long as it’s aware of how ridiculous it is. For example, something like the Incredibles works for me, as it plays around with the core idea of Superheroes.
Well My Hero Academia solves the problem by having 80% of everyone having at LEAST some kind of superpower, to the point to which laws pretty much HAD to be rewritten with them in mind.
Oh and also, The Incredibles is my absolute favorite!!!
Edna Mode is just so wonderful!!! And the Omnidroid fight was EPIC!
YMMV. It’s more about the relationships for me. If you’d rather not throw in superpowers heroes, he can always be friends with Jim Gordon, Batwoman, Lucius Fox, etc.
Batman needs some gothic creepiness and angst to his character, but being a broody miseryguts who’s always miserable, but miserable in really cool and badass ways, that sucks.
Well yeah but he had to suffer and fail in preparation for Batman Beyond, where Terry inspires him to pick himself back up and take his company back.
It was just a lot nicer before we found out the root of Batman’s suffering and isolation from the family was that he fucked his son’s girlfriend and got her preggers.
Batman has the advantage of being rich though. While don’t know how much money Becky’s parents had, somehow I doubt her family’s wealth is anywhere near Batman levels of rich.
Yeah, sometimes it’s like acne — the things you must not do are that which you feel like doing the most. But of course, that doesn’t prevent us from doing it like the instinctive, bipedal primates we are.
Leaving it be or not, I guess there’s only so much the product of over 250 million years worth of happy accidents could do right.
Can’t just push the button just behind the ear that says “reset.” It’s for cortisol levels and epinephrine and such. You need a special tool to do a hard reboot.
Hmm… I assumed by “250 million years of happy accidents” you were refering to an estimate of the totality of evolution from first evidence of life to now. That is why I provided a citation. So yes, I’ve made the all too common error of assuming I understood you…
What is distinctive following the permian extinction that more directly led to deriving pleasure from popping a festering zit than evolution and survival in general? What *did* you mean?
If that’s a gross-out video and it’s not the one of the Australian dude and his mates mixing cake ingredients in his stomach, baking it, and then eating the result, you’re fired.
This was about ten years ago, and I imagine he’s retired by now. Hurt like hell, and I still have a little indent on my arm in the place where the pus shot out, but uh…it got rid of the bump? It was kind of bizarre– I thought he was just grabbing my arm to look at it, but nope.
I wish I had felt more Grief tbh. I mean like…I was fine remarkably fast after the news. I dunno I often worry about how quickly I can get over deaths. I did cry at the funeral though, so I’m not completely heartless!
I’m in a similar position. For me, I feel like I got all my grief out in one go. When I was 11/12 my dad, uncle, and nextdoor neighbour all died of cancer within around a year. Since then, the amount of grief I feel at deaths is significantly reduced.
There’s no single right way to grieve nor to feel grief. In my case I adjust to a “new normal” incredibly quickly due to a pretty bad case of ADHD- which can be a bad thing as much as a good thing. But yeah, for me grief tends to be pretty brief once the arrangements have all been made and “the new normal” slips into place.
Our brains are all wired differently.
Most definitely! Wasn’t trying to imply that was the case for you, but if it helps you find peace with your emotional processing then I’m glad my sharing helped. <3
In the case of general grief, yes, absolutely. In the case of “I done fucked up and was kind of shitty to you in your grief”… just being there without actually bringing that into the room might do more harm than good, in general.
Not to say that’s the dynamic here. Joyce feels bad but we don’t know how Becky experienced it or how she still feels now. Still, actually bringing her feelings of guilt up is likely, long term, to help her and their relationship, even if not Becky individually.
Eh, most of Amber’s better decisions come from Amazi-Girl, primarily because that aspect of her isn’t afraid. Amber herself lives in fear so she never progresses because she never takes risks. Hopefully over time this will be alleviated as people begin to know all sides of her.
But at the moment I don’t think it was terrible advice, I think Amber brought it on herself (and knows this).
From Booster? I’m guessing they didn’t actually mean it literally. Rather I’m guessing it was an exercise to force Joyce to seriously consider her options and what feels right to her.
…It just so happened to work out literally.
I might be giving Booster too much credit but so far they’ve been fairly on the ball. It was too much of a gamble for it to have been literal if they’re even half as smart and perceptive as they’ve been shown to be to date.
The butt realm is where all platitudes come from.
Speaking from the heart requires speaking from the butt… the human body is very poorly laid out for emotional communication.
I agree with Joyce’s assessment, and Joe’s reasoning. Ignoring it is definitely gonna make it worse, probably. It might make it bad in trying to talk about it, but hey, I think it’ll still be a better result than ignoring it. I think that might of been how Toedad did the whole “she’s dead” thing and that worked so well.
I relate to Joe because I have never given advice that I actually feel 100% confident that it’s true. I’ve got pretty limited life experience so most of my advice is arbitrary, but I certainly try my best to be helpful.
Meh, everyone’s experience is unique. Even two people with have shared lived events will have different responses to it. The fact that you’d even give advice when asked puts you ahead of most.
I’ve got reasonably good at talking since I used to be a wall-flower who was implicitly good at listening. Now my goal is to get back to being good at listening, but now, explicitly.
When people ask me for advice my openner is always, “ignore all the advice people are giving you, including this.” The point being that they can listen all they want, but at the end of the day, they should still make their own choice.
Amber who writes hard-core slash. Joyce who just recently threw in a gratuitous cocksucker. Joe who pulls platitudes out of his ass. I’m mystified which of the three you’re leaving out.
Judging from Walky’s bit about the therapists on campus being terrible, she might have tried and they were utterly unequipped to help her, and so clearly didn’t. (Given how misunderstood DID and related conditions are even by trained psychologists, this is an unfortunately possible outcome.)
If they get desperate, she can always try cannabis.
I’m healthy enough to admit I’m at least mildly biased there, and the fact that it’s not for everyone, but come on. At least it’s impossible to overdose on the stuff, and FAR less addictive than even alcohol.
Just saying, if all else fails, maybe she should give it a go. Just a suggestion…
I feel like if that were to fail (which it might not), it would fail rather horrifically. High risk enough that it wouldn’t be my recommendation for Amber at this stage.
Note that I said with all honest doubt that such should be reserved as a last resort in the case that all else fails (i.e. increasing suicidal ideation).
Provided that she would get her substance from a trustworthy source (Carla or Meredith), there’s no risk of dying due to cannabis DIRECTLY (i.e. no danger that wouldn’t also be present on any other drug).
Even if it didn’t work, at that desperate point what would she have to loose?
That sounds a lot more reserved than your initial comment on it, honestly. I was just thinking about the complicated impact cannabis can have with mental illness and specifically dissociative disorders.
“Increasing suicidal ideation” is such a range that it’s hard to respond to specifically, but could she be suicidal and then cannabis fuck her up more? Sure.
n.b. If you aren’t dealing with a dispensary, be *very* wary. Pot is not a *gateway drug*. However, many dealers (at least in Canada) are/were lacing it with fentanyl, which is a dramatically more dangerous animal and very easily leads to a hard chemical addiction.
Yeah hopefully in this sliding timescale, cannabis will medically become available to her. One of the best benefits as to taking cannabis is that it’s impossible to overdose. It’s an especially good option in the case that typical anti-depressents don’t work.
Hard to overdose, but nothing is *impossible* to overdose on. I’m pro-legalization (of everything: legalize and regulate) but personally don’t use anything excepting an occasional social drink. Being from BC, I know plenty of folks who are effectively permanently blitzed, because they were young adults when they started and did *way* too much marijuana, not all at once, but over a sustained long period of time. Kids who were brilliant now struggle to put together a coherwnt sentence.
It’s always the dosage that makes the poison, and any substance is safe so long as you use it properly.
You have to take A LOT of cannabis in comparison to other drugs for the same kinds of adverse effects or lethal response. You’d have to consume 80% of your body weight</stin THC to induce a lethal response, whereas caffeine only requires you to consume less than 1% of your body weight to end your life, and is readily available to anyone as a dietary supplement.
As with all drugs, I would DEFINITELY recommend starting with lower doses to see how it effects them personally, as that varies TREMENDOUSLY from person to person and even from day to day. Some people may not even experience anything their first time trying it.
Also, in regard to your friends of apparently derelict intellect, are you sure it was JUST cannabis they consumed?
I genuinely think AmbG could get a lot of good out of online plural communities – while the psychological community as a whole doesn’t get DID, people who have it do. It’d play well into their (especially Amber’s) preference for internet vs face-to-face communication, give an outlet for support, and likely some strategies for getting along and not trying to push all the ‘bad’ traits as one alter’s doing even when that’s false. (A dynamic at least one plural commenter recognized and brought up before.)
Though I can say I also relate to Amber in that I am gradually beginning to loathe people. But mostly online people. I enjoy IRL people but the internet makes me hate interacting with people. So tiresome. But I love talking to customers at Wendy’s! People are nice <3.
I work there. I don’t wanna work there. I wanna work at an animation studio. But I gots bills to pay I got mouths to feed and there ain’t nothing in this world for free. I can’t slow down and I can’t hold back but man I wish I could.
I think I’m better at interacting with people online than IRL. Online I have more time to think about what I want to say and I can much more easily disengage if I screw up than interacting with IRL people.
I very much prefer online. Sure, anonymity makes people more likely to act like shitweasels, but it’s a lot easier to disengage than when you run into a shitweasel in meatspace. (And when they’re BIGOTED shitweasels, I don’t feel unsafe, just annoyed.)
(Also, what Keulen said about being able to get one’s ducks in a row before ‘speaking’.)
It’s fine for casual arguments over comics and the like, but for anything more serious, I find that having too much time to get my ducks in a row means I spend so long trying to get them all lined up properly, I fail to talk at all.
In meatspace, you’ve got to get something out, awkward though it might be.
Hey, sometimes the platitudes win. The reason they become platitudes is because a lot of people do genuinely find them comforting. Not everyone, certainly, but lots of people.
Depends on the emotion and the person.
Some people need time on their own to process the majority of the emotion before getting to the issue.
Some people need help tackling the issue before the emotion.
Honestly, Joe delivering solid advice even if he was just bullshitting it is both on par with the character as well as most people trying to help in a situation they don’t completely have experience with.
Spider Robinson wrote the Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon series, named for the owner and proprietor Mike Callahan. It’s an excellent series and not nearly famous enough as far as I’m concerned.
I was fortunate enough to get to meet Spider Robinson at a con at Stony Brook in NY when I was in college. He had a criminally under-attended panel, and the man was every bit as friendly and personable and wonderful as you’d hope from his writing.
Shock horror! Joe actually does have empathy and knows how to be kind! Well, we’ve known that for a while, it’s just that Joe doesn’t like showing it because he’s afraid of the flaws he’s certain that he’s inherited from his father and thus prefers to appear shallow.
Meanwhile, Amber comes up with one good insight: Becky’s bad behaviour, as exemplified by her attitude towards Dorothy, is all about her anger at how her life has gone so horribly wrong in so many ways.
Joe’s dad could easily be a decent guy who does shitty things. If so, I hope Joe learns to see it and figure out how he takes after the decent guy, and how to be a decent guy who avoids his father’s shitty mistakes.
Joe interacts with people, Amber doesn’t. He’s bound to learn stuff, if only by accident. And since Dorothy is a zero to him (on the woman ranking), his big head can speak without being hijacked by his little head.
Hope it hadn’t been too hot where you’re working…. if we don’t get serious about climate change, we out of all things might just have to dunk into Lake Joe!
hey Wagstaff! cheers! *fist bump*
i’m still in south italy, though i’m not working anymore =)
i’m up on a mountain at 1000m (~3000ft) so it’s actually nice and cool, bordering on chilly in the evening. there was a forest fire here a few years ago though =/
oh hey, apparently i missed your sweet message =) now it’s what, oh 10 days later =) so you will never read this =) =) but thank you, yes, sort of, i did twist my ankle so that was not so kind on my journey’s part =) =) =/ oh well, bicep/shoulder workout =) =) =) (because crutches)
I’m very much loving the latest “Joe being a decent human” content. It’s about time we got some shown character growth instead of just background and implied growth.
Amber’s advice reminds me of the episode of Friends where Phoebe says her mother’s advice was to always repress and bury negative feelings, to which Rachel replied “the woman who got married a bunch of times and then killed herself?”
Look, if you’re going to establish Becky as a big ball of buried rage, then maybe spend some time with that before. Using the Expository Gun to /tell/ the reader instead of showing the reader isn’t very functional or well-done character writing.
Becky’s single concerned face a few strips ago wasn’t much of an establishment, more of a throw-away that is trying to shoehorn a new character trait at the last minute.
You’re assuming Amber is right about the rage. She could be misreading Becky’s well-established buried other emotions as rage because that’s what Amber identifies in herself.
Yep. I wouldn’t necessarily read it all as rage – wouldn’t be shocked if that’s Amber projecting, or maybe sarcastic – but we all recognize that, for instance, her issues with Dorothy stem from a fear of being replaced as Joyce’s Best Friend. There’s been some hints (in the strips where she talks to Amber after Blaine’s death) that Becky’s feelings about Bonnie’s death in general aren’t as simple as ‘she died and I’m sad’, probably because of the circumstances, and that she started tuning out some of the platitudes. I wouldn’t call that rage, but maybe some irritation and hurt.
That’s the thing, Joe, is most platitudes come from an initially good bit of advice that just got repeated ad nauseum. So if you pick the right platitudes you end up accidentally giving good advice!
Also. Amber. For the love of god go to therapy. It isn’t quirky or cool to mention how bad off your mental health is. Please stop acting like it is.
There’s this one conversation in Mass Effect 3 I really like, where Shepard tells Garrus they think his parents are okay and Garrus goes on a little tirade about the uselessness of platitudes in the face of a galactic war, and then Shepard (if they have the Spacer backstory) says they lost contact with their parents, Garrus just kind of sheepishly tells them he thinks their parents are okay.
‘Cause like, platitudes are useless for actually changing anything about the person you’re saying them to, but their real purpose is showing the recipient that you care.
If you’re ready that as Amber thinking it’s “quirky or cool”, you’re misreading the whole character. I mean, she should still go to therapy, but that’s not why she isn’t.
Her refusal to get help or even listen when people express concern for her gets… a tad on my nerves at times. I don’t think she’s expressly doing it for “coolness” points, but I do think she kind of… relishes in how bad her mental health has gotten in a way that I find a lot less sympathetic the longer it goes on.
How do I put this: Amber screws things up as a result of a source problem, but then uses those screw-ups to further justify her self-loathing beliefs, and once she screws things up again she doesn’t reflect on how she’s self-destructing, she just uses it as further proof she’s an irredeemable monster without hope and her only course of action is to continue as-is. It’s not that she doesn’t want help, it’s that she can’t fathom the problem can be solved.
Like if, I dunno, I can’t fix my lawn mower, that’s a problem with multiple solutions. I can try fixing it myself, I can get it fixed, I can buy a new one, that kind of thing. Amber doesn’t have the ability to go from “I have a problem” to “solve the problem” because “the problem” is her. She doesn’t process her mental state as something that can be treated and healed, she thinks Amber The Person is terrible and there’s no alternative.
Amber talks about her emotional state like a petulant teenager, this is because she is one, but she earnestly believes the worst parts of what she says about herself. Given Blaine refused to get her mental help after the robbery while Stacy seems at best oblivious to how bad things are for her she probably doesn’t have a good opinion about mental health resources either.
I guess considering what she’s been through and the apparently bad reputation of mental health resources on campus, she’s only antisocial like this because she pretty much NEEDS to be, lest she swallow even more resentment to the bursting point, and wind up hurting the people she loves.
In all fairness, she should not be judged or put at a disadvantage for having to be like this, for the same reason we don’t put people at a disadvantage for the sex, natural ability, or ancestors of the body they just happened to be born into.
Ultimately, a fair society can only be a society that we would be happy to be born into at random.
Let’s be honest, Amber’s probably trying to ignore them as much as possible back, but, ya know, still in her room. She needs to reinstate the dinosaur question policy.
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even a broken cock is right twice a day
…wait no
Why was this painful to read when I don’t even have a cock
Because you recognise that anything happening to that particular area (regardless of specifics) tends to be painful?
I mean
ANYTHING?
pain, pleasure…
Not unless you’re into masochism.
Yes. Especially that.
“Anything happening to an area” usually implies something bad happening.
Otherwise the phrase would be more specific.
You seem determined to be serious. I’ll leave you to it.
Nah, I’m trying to be comically serious.
Well, try harder!
Oh ho, this one time…
at band camp?
I mean I’m sure Joe’s does hang a bit to the right.
At some point as a teen I either fell down a minorly mentally scarring Wikipedia tunnel or insomnia led me to odd documentaries with the same end result, and I learnt that most people’s hang to one side or the other and one of the functions of Prince Albert piercings was/is to control this for aesthetic reasons.
If someone with that sort of piercing “uses the back door”, is does that count as Prince Albert in a Can?
Well, you better go catch it!
…wait no hold on
lol epic
Thanks for that, Ana. I’ll not be sleeping tonight.
That sounds painful.
Only ever ask a cock for it’s wisdom twice in 24 hours? Got it.
I think we’ve covered this…
Ask it what you should do, then do the opposite
Except twice a day apparently
On the one hand Joe’s right, platitude-dispensing rectum or no.
On the other hand, we know from experience that Amber’s way of coping with things can result in one becoming a superhero. Sure, Becky would appreciate some sympathy from Joyce, but I’m sure she’d also appreciate being Batman. Everyone wants to be Batman, and she’s already got dead parents so she’s ahead of the game.
Don’t be selfish, Joyce. Do it for BatBecky.
Both of my parents are about ten years gone. Not Batman.
Not batman… YET.
(Sorry about your parents tho.)
I thought Sal was Batman?
No, she just wishes hers were gone.
(I expect she’ll go low- or no-contact with them after college. She’ll probably be there for her brother, though.)
You might be missing a multinational billion-dollar family company with a massive R&D department and incompetent accountants.
And Albert. He always seems like a very nice, supportive surrogate parent butler…
Mandela moment, the butler has always been Alfred in this universe.
In the Dumbiverse Carla is closest to being Batman, except her parents are still living and she doesn’t have a butler.
Doesn’t have a butler. That we Know of,…. !!
She doesn’t have a butler that we know of, yet.
Made me laugh, So Hard!
Well done.
Never assume a woman doesn’t have butlers at her disposal!
She might have an Albert in her can.
Albert is unarguably a prince.
Tho certainly not Becky specifically.
I mean, Batman is not a very healthy person and nothing he does will actually achieve any meaningful long-term consequences (unless he does something that creates another supervillain; those usually stick around).
Being Batman is suffering and it’s the last thing anyone should aspire to.
Yeah, but chicks dig the car.
I want the utility belt.
How can we create a more sane society,
when we keep supporting systems that reward sickness?
Restricting utility belts to sick people rewards sickness. Give utility belts to the masses, and end this madness.
What do you have against sickness? Some of my best friends have been sick.
“Being Batman is suffering”
Only if you’re a crappy writer or a member of DC Editorial who doesn’t want superheroes to have happy, fulfilling personal lives.
Serious answer though, Batman’s money is the only reason social services in Gotham haven’t totally collapsed and he does employ a good chunk of the city, and makes a habit of hiring ex-cons so they don’t need to continue a life of crime.
And yet he never gets around to throwing that money at the nightmare factory that seems to exist solely to make his enemies (a fair chunk he’s either made himself or inspired) into worse people. Granted, I’ve long believed that he doesn’t dedicate resources to helping his Rogues become functioning members of society because without them, he has to confront his own demons, but still . . .
That’s a very good point there.
I mean, in Spongebob Squarepants, Plankton is traditionally seen as the villian, but in recent years people have been reckoning that it’s actually Mr. Krabs who’s the real villian.
There’s no reason to suspect that Batman isn’t subject to the same kind of scrutiny.
He donates to Arkham, even, at least in some continuities.
Unfortunately, the place is cursed by a cosmic force maintaining the status quo. Or just cursed in general. Gotham clearly attracts some distinct weirdness given Bruce is actually the SECOND instance of Old Money Scion Theming Self After A Nocturnal Winged Animal in Gotham, and that’s counting the entire Court of Owls as one instance. (‘Bruce is accidentally the world’s biggest wrench in the plans of a secret society who built Gotham with all these secret passages and convenient gargoyles to hide their agents’ is one of those storylines that shouldn’t make nearly as much sense as it does.)
I’m betting it’s along the lines of this trope common among super rich guys with super technology:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ReedRichardsIsUseless
That, and Gotham being as weird as it is and it being the DC universe, I would actually buy ‘the city is literally, actively cursed by one of the many supernatural entities in the universe’ as a reason. An evil Superman from an alternate universe could show up, kill the Batfamily’s entire collective rogues gallery, and then promptly vworp out of reality again, and within days there’d be a whole NEW cast of people with oddly thematic neuroses to deal with. (And the Joker, unkillable murderclown that he is, would probably just show up three days later with some handwave about the Lazarus Pits or something.)
I see no other explication. I mean, outside of all this money spend, the rate of crime should have made mots people move (except those who can’t, sure, but that would mean at least way fewer socializing events for millionaires). Also there is no way that in that situation the Wayne Industries wouldn’t see massive strike movements whatever the salary is.
No. I can categorically state that Gotham is *not* cursed by *one* of the many supernatural entities in the universe.
At last count, Gotham was cursed by at *least* **FIVE* of the many major supernatural entities in the universe.
Please note that I only say five, because my brother gave me four reasons why I should attend his wedding in Gotham, and I therefore only felt I needed to find five reasons to not go. So after I got to five, I stopped looking. It didn’t take me long to get to five. There’s probably more.
Yeah, “Batman’s methods don’t/can’t help” is like the least interesting way to write about him. Crime and supervillainy being inevitable don’t negate the good stuff he actually does do, and taking that good away for the sake of drama is just flat-out lazy. Yeah, he’s an unstable weirdo who could do a whole hell of a lot more with his seemingly-infinite money and incredible tech, but like… It’s a weird city.
It’s a reaction to the meta nature of serial storytelling anyway. Batman can’t help because if he did, then over the 90 years of Batman comics, he shouldn’t still be in a corrupt city fighting an ever increasing number of supervillains. There’s no intent inherent to this or any deep point about rich people or the nature of crime or anything. It’s just an inherent result of writing decades worth of stories about a guy fighting crime.
All the takes about Gotham being cursed or Batman really causing the problems or how he really should spend his money on social programs are just attempts to justify what starts to look weird if you think too deeply about super hero tropes.
It’s essentially true for all super heroes anyway. They may not all have money, but they all generate rogue’s galleries and far more trouble than seems reasonable. Often their superpowers would be far more use doing other things than fighting crime or even than fighting world conquerors. But super hero comics are adventure stories.
Oh, yeah. It’s the nature of Big Two superhero comics in play – keeping everything in continuity means Batman’s probably been fighting crime for decades, except he isn’t allowed to age really, and Gotham’s still full of costumed assholes. (My first bit about a cosmic force enforcing the status quo was meant to be a dig at editorial.) Over at Marvel, the X-Men have terraformed and colonized Mars, and everyone’s like ‘we have no idea how they’re going to eventually reset back to the school in New England, but it’s gonna be weird when they do.’
Or what some lousy writer will do with it a decade from now.
Yeah, that’s my biggest problem with the current big X-Men arc. It changes everything and it’s cool and all, but it’s not sustainable.
It’s a good thing really, as frustrating as it can be. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be reading comics if they’d headed off into exploring the realistic consequences of super powers, super tech, aliens and magic, moving their worlds further and further from anything recognizable as our society, starting decades before I was born.
IMHO, I feel like saying this isn’t sustainable because they left the Xavier school for the gifted in the dust is more of a problem than the X-men colonizing and terraforming Mars. Stories *should* be able to change things. The fact that Marvel and DC have not been allowing it is a problem.
Marvel, at least, already has multiple universes, so they have an excuse to have it both ways if they choose to. They could easily have some realities that maintain the crime-punching status quo and others that explore how superpowers could change and improve society.
On the other hand, the suspension of disbelief many people need to enjoy the crime-punching might be more strained when other comics show how much better things could be if the superheroes had sense.
The story where that happens can be cool, but remember if that was the way the genre worked, they would have done that back in the 60s and we’d have been off in some incomprehensible alternate world for my whole comic reading lifetime.
And that’s ignoring the DC side, where everything changed when Superman stopped WWII.
They can tell alternate history stories – and they do, but the main line is always going to be our world, like it is today with Superheroes, because that’s the genre. The gonzo science fantasy alien world that we’d like to think real superheroes would lead to isn’t something with the same appeal.
Nor for that matter is the horrific dystopia that random people getting superpowers and billionaires having supertech would far more likely be – even if the Boys had a good run.
Oh, Batman’s certainly allowed to age – but only if he ages enough in one go to need immediate replacing, and only when they want to put in a particular replacement.
I know Cap’s done that, but I don’t recall a Bat replacement with that as the reason. He can do it for an alternate future of course.
The vast majority of Batman stories portray Batman as pretty miserable on a personal level, even the good ones.
Heck, Animated Series’ Batman – arguably one of the most popular incarnations of the character around – ended up as a bitter old man estranged from his friends and family in Batman Beyond.
The best Batman stories, imo, are the ones with a robust Batfamily where Bruce is by no means perfect but clearly does care about them and enjoy their company and where he is friends with other heroes like Superman and Wonder Woman.
Huh, unless these iterations are handled comically, I tend to have the opposite opinion.
Personally, I prefer Batman iterations where nobody has superpowers (sure, the villains have superpower-esque technology). I mean, I feel like Batman’s role as a hero is incredibly undermined when you have bunch of other people who can do a much better job than him and in much faster time.
Then again, I’m not too big into superhero films in general, and I can’t really take superheros such as Superman and Wonder Woman seriously as I tend to feel they’re out-of-place in grittier scenarios.
What about series like My Hero Academia?
Ah, I’ve never watched that one, but I have heard of it.
I really don’t mind superheroes so much as long as it’s aware of how ridiculous it is. For example, something like the Incredibles works for me, as it plays around with the core idea of Superheroes.
Well My Hero Academia solves the problem by having 80% of everyone having at LEAST some kind of superpower, to the point to which laws pretty much HAD to be rewritten with them in mind.
Oh and also, The Incredibles is my absolute favorite!!!
Edna Mode is just so wonderful!!! And the Omnidroid fight was EPIC!
Ooh my back!
YMMV. It’s more about the relationships for me. If you’d rather not throw in superpowers heroes, he can always be friends with Jim Gordon, Batwoman, Lucius Fox, etc.
Yeah.
Batman needs some gothic creepiness and angst to his character, but being a broody miseryguts who’s always miserable, but miserable in really cool and badass ways, that sucks.
Sal is basically Batman.
Well yeah but he had to suffer and fail in preparation for Batman Beyond, where Terry inspires him to pick himself back up and take his company back.
It was just a lot nicer before we found out the root of Batman’s suffering and isolation from the family was that he fucked his son’s girlfriend and got her preggers.
Does Batman seem like a particularly happy person to you?
Please. She has red hair and is a lesbian.
She’s a suit away from being Batwoman already.
Batman’s a douchebag.
Amber however, is a gamer, so maybe she’s playing the scenario out to win by getting her peace back.
Batman has the advantage of being rich though. While don’t know how much money Becky’s parents had, somehow I doubt her family’s wealth is anywhere near Batman levels of rich.
I mean generally if it’s good to leave something alone you wouldn’t call it ‘festering’
Yeah, sometimes it’s like acne — the things you must not do are that which you feel like doing the most. But of course, that doesn’t prevent us from doing it like the instinctive, bipedal primates we are.
Leaving it be or not, I guess there’s only so much the product of over 250 million years worth of happy accidents could do right.
Billion
erg. Edit: 3-4 Billion
Please don’t make the same mistake that news reporters do 50% of the time with astronomical discoveries.
I’m *this* close to running out of hard lemonade, and I have yet to fully reset my cannabis tolerance.
Can’t just push the button just behind the ear that says “reset.” It’s for cortisol levels and epinephrine and such. You need a special tool to do a hard reboot.
Now just what is this special tool?
Hmm… I assumed by “250 million years of happy accidents” you were refering to an estimate of the totality of evolution from first evidence of life to now. That is why I provided a citation. So yes, I’ve made the all too common error of assuming I understood you…
What is distinctive following the permian extinction that more directly led to deriving pleasure from popping a festering zit than evolution and survival in general? What *did* you mean?
Yeah…. I guess I was a bit obscure, wasn’t I?
250 million years is the estimated time period when the first mammals started evolving.
I don’t know why I settled on that range anyway. But I suppose it was a little less blunt then the alternative:
“Intelligent Design” my ass!!!
On second thought, now I know!
It’s FAR easier for our primate brains to intuitively grasp the largeness of figures of hundreds of millions as opposed to billions.
But then there’s potential for grossly fascinating oozing.
*throws up in mouth a little and cries from reminder of body trauma*
Nature sure doesn’t like to show mercy, does it? The singularity of humans and machines cannot come soon enough.
r/popping
I know I say this enough about lots of things proven to be detrimental, but still…
NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!!!!
NEVER POP YOUR ZITS!!!!!!
NEVER!!!!!!!!
If you really need a Try Not to Vomit Challenge, for the love of your skin please please please please this instead [WARNING: Explicit Content]:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w5IwZyJd4jE&t=225
If that’s a gross-out video and it’s not the one of the Australian dude and his mates mixing cake ingredients in his stomach, baking it, and then eating the result, you’re fired.
Ooo! Bulemia cake: fewer calories and three times the taste!
Reminds me of a cyst that I had on my arm once that the derm just grabbed and squeezed.
Either that wasn’t a cyst or you need to change your dermatologist IMMEDIATELY.
This was about ten years ago, and I imagine he’s retired by now. Hurt like hell, and I still have a little indent on my arm in the place where the pus shot out, but uh…it got rid of the bump? It was kind of bizarre– I thought he was just grabbing my arm to look at it, but nope.
Oh my…. you’re so lucky to have survived his practice. You have my sympathy.
Especially not Fester’s quest.
hey i got the reference for once!
Hey, I wish I didn’t get that reference!
.. God, I hated that game.
Gomez’ brother has a game out? Pugsly will have a blast.
Sometimes you don’t even have to talk to people. Just be there and hang out, like my friends were for me when my Grandma died.
Yes, that is good friend behaviour.
Sorry about your grandma but hooray for awesome friends helping you move past the first raw stages of grief
I wish I had felt more Grief tbh. I mean like…I was fine remarkably fast after the news. I dunno I often worry about how quickly I can get over deaths. I did cry at the funeral though, so I’m not completely heartless!
People are gonna feel how they’re gonna feel, at the end of the day.
I’m in a similar position. For me, I feel like I got all my grief out in one go. When I was 11/12 my dad, uncle, and nextdoor neighbour all died of cancer within around a year. Since then, the amount of grief I feel at deaths is significantly reduced.
Fuck cancer though.
We’re getting really close! “Heat pharmaceuticals” is testing some stuff that might work really well.
There’s no single right way to grieve nor to feel grief. In my case I adjust to a “new normal” incredibly quickly due to a pretty bad case of ADHD- which can be a bad thing as much as a good thing. But yeah, for me grief tends to be pretty brief once the arrangements have all been made and “the new normal” slips into place.
Our brains are all wired differently.
Hmmm if that is indeed a trait of ADHD that would at least explain it.
Most definitely! Wasn’t trying to imply that was the case for you, but if it helps you find peace with your emotional processing then I’m glad my sharing helped. <3
In my experience the death of an older person is less traumatic than the death of a young person.
Speaking as an older person, I’m pretty sure I would find my death to be traumatic. It’s uncertain I would ever recover.
It’s true. Older people are less likely to recover from death than young people.
Well, that’s because old people are more likely to have a DNR.
(Do Not Resuscitate)
In the case of general grief, yes, absolutely. In the case of “I done fucked up and was kind of shitty to you in your grief”… just being there without actually bringing that into the room might do more harm than good, in general.
Not to say that’s the dynamic here. Joyce feels bad but we don’t know how Becky experienced it or how she still feels now. Still, actually bringing her feelings of guilt up is likely, long term, to help her and their relationship, even if not Becky individually.
Okay maybe Amber is a human dumpster fire so this worked out this time but I hold that it was still very shitty advice!
Eh, most of Amber’s better decisions come from Amazi-Girl, primarily because that aspect of her isn’t afraid. Amber herself lives in fear so she never progresses because she never takes risks. Hopefully over time this will be alleviated as people begin to know all sides of her.
But at the moment I don’t think it was terrible advice, I think Amber brought it on herself (and knows this).
Of course, most of Amber’s worst decisions come from Amazi-Girl too, for similar reasons. Liking stalking Sal.
Stalking Sal worked better than fleeing from Sal in fear. See the immediate aftermath of the first kidnapping.
which I’m too lazy to search back and find to link to.
From Booster? I’m guessing they didn’t actually mean it literally. Rather I’m guessing it was an exercise to force Joyce to seriously consider her options and what feels right to her.
…It just so happened to work out literally.
I might be giving Booster too much credit but so far they’ve been fairly on the ball. It was too much of a gamble for it to have been literal if they’re even half as smart and perceptive as they’ve been shown to be to date.
Mike has always been good at giving people bad advice for their own good.
The butt realm is where all platitudes come from.
Speaking from the heart requires speaking from the butt… the human body is very poorly laid out for emotional communication.
I agree with Joyce’s assessment, and Joe’s reasoning. Ignoring it is definitely gonna make it worse, probably. It might make it bad in trying to talk about it, but hey, I think it’ll still be a better result than ignoring it. I think that might of been how Toedad did the whole “she’s dead” thing and that worked so well.
Joe being a well adjusted human being who gives genuinely good advice? What a shock!
Butt or not, this is OK advice!
You can also just say what’s there: “I don’t really know what to say but also I love you” is perfectly fine.
Every tidbit of wisdom is actually pretty obvious, because if people were really smart, they would do the sensible thing every time.
What is actually the sensible thing to do isn’t always what seems like the sensible thing though.
Well if science can tell us anything, it’s that the most valid response in any scenario is not necessarily the most intuitive.
Rationally that makes sense, but my gut’s telling me it’s not true.
and then this entire comic wouldn’t exist!
I relate to Joe because I have never given advice that I actually feel 100% confident that it’s true. I’ve got pretty limited life experience so most of my advice is arbitrary, but I certainly try my best to be helpful.
Meh, everyone’s experience is unique. Even two people with have shared lived events will have different responses to it. The fact that you’d even give advice when asked puts you ahead of most.
This is good.
But in any case, for any scenario, I think it is rather wise to take heed of some ancient wisdom mirrored by world-renowned psychologist Dr. Kahneman:
“It is better to admit uncertainty, then to act on pretended knowledge.”
Never heard of Kahneman, but this is, like, all of science theory right there.
You should definitely read his work! Consume his fruits, and your eyes will be opened, and you will be wise.
Giving advice is always useful. If nothing else, when things go bottoms up it gives them someone to blame.
oh, I’m not noble. I just like to talk! I also love giving critique and vomiting out my opinion. I love talkin’ to people.
That is good. Never loose that.
I’ve got reasonably good at talking since I used to be a wall-flower who was implicitly good at listening. Now my goal is to get back to being good at listening, but now, explicitly.
When people ask me for advice my openner is always, “ignore all the advice people are giving you, including this.” The point being that they can listen all they want, but at the end of the day, they should still make their own choice.
Panel 4:
☑ I’m in this picture and I don’t like it.
Same. Joe’s advice was good, but I’m finding Amber in panel 4 a bit too relatable right now.
Potty mouths, the both of them.
Amber who writes hard-core slash. Joyce who just recently threw in a gratuitous cocksucker. Joe who pulls platitudes out of his ass. I’m mystified which of the three you’re leaving out.
Amber. Writing doesn’t make her a potty-mouth, it would make potty-fingers.
Hey now, it doesn’t matter where the platitude comes from, what matters is that you’re giving a crap.
Lvl Up! JOE gains +1 Wisdom!
Amber… I am begging you to have a crumb of therapy.
Please. Just one therapy crumb.
Judging from Walky’s bit about the therapists on campus being terrible, she might have tried and they were utterly unequipped to help her, and so clearly didn’t. (Given how misunderstood DID and related conditions are even by trained psychologists, this is an unfortunately possible outcome.)
If they get desperate, she can always try cannabis.
I’m healthy enough to admit I’m at least mildly biased there, and the fact that it’s not for everyone, but come on. At least it’s impossible to overdose on the stuff, and FAR less addictive than even alcohol.
Just saying, if all else fails, maybe she should give it a go. Just a suggestion…
I feel like if that were to fail (which it might not), it would fail rather horrifically. High risk enough that it wouldn’t be my recommendation for Amber at this stage.
Note that I said with all honest doubt that such should be reserved as a last resort in the case that all else fails (i.e. increasing suicidal ideation).
Provided that she would get her substance from a trustworthy source (Carla or Meredith), there’s no risk of dying due to cannabis DIRECTLY (i.e. no danger that wouldn’t also be present on any other drug).
Even if it didn’t work, at that desperate point what would she have to loose?
That sounds a lot more reserved than your initial comment on it, honestly. I was just thinking about the complicated impact cannabis can have with mental illness and specifically dissociative disorders.
“Increasing suicidal ideation” is such a range that it’s hard to respond to specifically, but could she be suicidal and then cannabis fuck her up more? Sure.
Well DID and depression conditions like that on their own may only get worse with time.
Even if there IS risk to her doing cannabis, at a certain point, the risk of doing SOMETHING will eventually outweigh the risk of doing NOTHING.
Yeah, I’m certainly not arguing for “nothing.” Amber just isn’t among the top characters in this comic I’d give weed too.
That said, it could be *interesting* if she tried it. Seems unlikely until/unless the sliding timescale means she can legally get it, though.
Provided she could legally get it, it would actually be the safest, if not one of the safest, among her options.
If you’re talking “of things she could take,” possibly. Psych meds aren’t always great, for sure, and they could go really badly as well.
n.b. If you aren’t dealing with a dispensary, be *very* wary. Pot is not a *gateway drug*. However, many dealers (at least in Canada) are/were lacing it with fentanyl, which is a dramatically more dangerous animal and very easily leads to a hard chemical addiction.
Yeah hopefully in this sliding timescale, cannabis will medically become available to her. One of the best benefits as to taking cannabis is that it’s impossible to overdose. It’s an especially good option in the case that typical anti-depressents don’t work.
Hard to overdose, but nothing is *impossible* to overdose on. I’m pro-legalization (of everything: legalize and regulate) but personally don’t use anything excepting an occasional social drink. Being from BC, I know plenty of folks who are effectively permanently blitzed, because they were young adults when they started and did *way* too much marijuana, not all at once, but over a sustained long period of time. Kids who were brilliant now struggle to put together a coherwnt sentence.
(worse than me even)
It’s always the dosage that makes the poison, and any substance is safe so long as you use it properly.
You have to take A LOT of cannabis in comparison to other drugs for the same kinds of adverse effects or lethal response. You’d have to consume 80% of your body weight</stin THC to induce a lethal response, whereas caffeine only requires you to consume less than 1% of your body weight to end your life, and is readily available to anyone as a dietary supplement.
As with all drugs, I would DEFINITELY recommend starting with lower doses to see how it effects them personally, as that varies TREMENDOUSLY from person to person and even from day to day. Some people may not even experience anything their first time trying it.
Also, in regard to your friends of apparently derelict intellect, are you sure it was JUST cannabis they consumed?
*weight in pure THC
I could have SWORN I typed that right.
I genuinely think AmbG could get a lot of good out of online plural communities – while the psychological community as a whole doesn’t get DID, people who have it do. It’d play well into their (especially Amber’s) preference for internet vs face-to-face communication, give an outlet for support, and likely some strategies for getting along and not trying to push all the ‘bad’ traits as one alter’s doing even when that’s false. (A dynamic at least one plural commenter recognized and brought up before.)
Though I can say I also relate to Amber in that I am gradually beginning to loathe people. But mostly online people. I enjoy IRL people but the internet makes me hate interacting with people. So tiresome. But I love talking to customers at Wendy’s! People are nice <3.
Do you work there? Or are you one of those people who has the gift (skill) of being able to just start conversations with people?
I work there. I don’t wanna work there. I wanna work at an animation studio. But I gots bills to pay I got mouths to feed and there ain’t nothing in this world for free. I can’t slow down and I can’t hold back but man I wish I could.
There ain’t no rest for the wicked
Until we close our eyes for good.
Then good luck gettin’ them righteous dolla bills!
I think I’m better at interacting with people online than IRL. Online I have more time to think about what I want to say and I can much more easily disengage if I screw up than interacting with IRL people.
I very much prefer online. Sure, anonymity makes people more likely to act like shitweasels, but it’s a lot easier to disengage than when you run into a shitweasel in meatspace. (And when they’re BIGOTED shitweasels, I don’t feel unsafe, just annoyed.)
(Also, what Keulen said about being able to get one’s ducks in a row before ‘speaking’.)
It’s fine for casual arguments over comics and the like, but for anything more serious, I find that having too much time to get my ducks in a row means I spend so long trying to get them all lined up properly, I fail to talk at all.
In meatspace, you’ve got to get something out, awkward though it might be.
Joe has a nice, platitude full butt confirmed?
Platitudiful.
Joe and Booster team up to give Joyce advice!
So you’re saying that what Joe needs… is a Boost
-_- I’d tell you to get out, but knowing myself, I’d probably have made the same joke if you had not.
It’s not bad advice, even if Joe’s not confident in it.
*plays “Apostate” by Danny Baranowsky on Voxola-Muzak hybrid system*
Hey, sometimes the platitudes win. The reason they become platitudes is because a lot of people do genuinely find them comforting. Not everyone, certainly, but lots of people.
Depends on the emotion and the person.
Some people need time on their own to process the majority of the emotion before getting to the issue.
Some people need help tackling the issue before the emotion.
Sometimes it’s just a big ball of everything.
If you don’t know, it’s good to check though. Even if it’s just a “I noticed thing sucks. I’m happy to listen if you want to complain about thing.”
Honestly, Joe delivering solid advice even if he was just bullshitting it is both on par with the character as well as most people trying to help in a situation they don’t completely have experience with.
Joe didn’t mean to roll that Nat 20 on the Give Advice check but there it is anyway!
Joe accidentally stumbled upon Callahan’s law: “Shared pain is lessened; shared joy increased.” -Spider Robinson
“Thus do we refute entropy.”
Why is it Callahan’s lawn if someone named Johnsons said it?
Spider Robinson wrote the Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon series, named for the owner and proprietor Mike Callahan. It’s an excellent series and not nearly famous enough as far as I’m concerned.
I agree, I loved reading the crosstime series, and the associated Lady Sally books. I was a denizen of the usenet group as well.
It’s good to know there are others here familiar with The Place. *makes a bad pun and tosses a glass in the fireplace*
I was fortunate enough to get to meet Spider Robinson at a con at Stony Brook in NY when I was in college. He had a criminally under-attended panel, and the man was every bit as friendly and personable and wonderful as you’d hope from his writing.
Shock horror! Joe actually does have empathy and knows how to be kind! Well, we’ve known that for a while, it’s just that Joe doesn’t like showing it because he’s afraid of the flaws he’s certain that he’s inherited from his father and thus prefers to appear shallow.
Meanwhile, Amber comes up with one good insight: Becky’s bad behaviour, as exemplified by her attitude towards Dorothy, is all about her anger at how her life has gone so horribly wrong in so many ways.
Joe’s dad could easily be a decent guy who does shitty things. If so, I hope Joe learns to see it and figure out how he takes after the decent guy, and how to be a decent guy who avoids his father’s shitty mistakes.
Oh wow! I totally misread the speaker arrow on panel one. The rage comment makes so much more sense now! Thank you
Just the right platitudes, Joe. also known as empathy.
Joe interacts with people, Amber doesn’t. He’s bound to learn stuff, if only by accident. And since Dorothy is a zero to him (on the woman ranking), his big head can speak without being hijacked by his little head.
Booster was right!!! I’m more and more worried for Amber, but seeing Joe and Joyce relationship became more deep is so sweet ♡. GO JOE!
We all thought Joe was a shallow character, but it turns out he contains platitudes
I want to be glad that you’re back, but you show up with a pun like that…
(jk)
*smug face emoji*
well i’m glad to be back =) sort of back. we’ll see
So glad to see you! And with such a neat pun!
Hope it hadn’t been too hot where you’re working…. if we don’t get serious about climate change, we out of all things might just have to dunk into Lake Joe!
hey Wagstaff! cheers! *fist bump*
i’m still in south italy, though i’m not working anymore =)
i’m up on a mountain at 1000m (~3000ft) so it’s actually nice and cool, bordering on chilly in the evening. there was a forest fire here a few years ago though =/
It’d be better if he were Australian, then he could contain platypus.
now if he was a creative writing major he might contain Plath-itudes
Things they do look awful c-c-cold,
Yeah, I hope I die before I get ode.
(Talking about Maw’s generation)
Milu! Welcome, I hope your journey’s are treating you well!
oh hey, apparently i missed your sweet message =) now it’s what, oh 10 days later =) so you will never read this =) =) but thank you, yes, sort of, i did twist my ankle so that was not so kind on my journey’s part =) =) =/ oh well, bicep/shoulder workout =) =) =) (because crutches)
I’m very much loving the latest “Joe being a decent human” content. It’s about time we got some shown character growth instead of just background and implied growth.
Book 11: I just pulled some platitudes out of my asshole
To be fair, they become platitudes for a reason.
panel four: she just looks so world weary. It’s heart breaking.
Amber’s advice reminds me of the episode of Friends where Phoebe says her mother’s advice was to always repress and bury negative feelings, to which Rachel replied “the woman who got married a bunch of times and then killed herself?”
Look, if you’re going to establish Becky as a big ball of buried rage, then maybe spend some time with that before. Using the Expository Gun to /tell/ the reader instead of showing the reader isn’t very functional or well-done character writing.
Becky’s single concerned face a few strips ago wasn’t much of an establishment, more of a throw-away that is trying to shoehorn a new character trait at the last minute.
Anywho, just a small critique.
You’re assuming Amber is right about the rage. She could be misreading Becky’s well-established buried other emotions as rage because that’s what Amber identifies in herself.
I mean, that Becky is Becky at least partly because she keeps repressing feelings is nothing new
The most recent example being her inability to manage her libido and how that affects her relationship with Dina
Becky’s upbeat invincibility has pretty obviously been a defense mechanism since we first met her.
Yep. I wouldn’t necessarily read it all as rage – wouldn’t be shocked if that’s Amber projecting, or maybe sarcastic – but we all recognize that, for instance, her issues with Dorothy stem from a fear of being replaced as Joyce’s Best Friend. There’s been some hints (in the strips where she talks to Amber after Blaine’s death) that Becky’s feelings about Bonnie’s death in general aren’t as simple as ‘she died and I’m sad’, probably because of the circumstances, and that she started tuning out some of the platitudes. I wouldn’t call that rage, but maybe some irritation and hurt.
I mean, she explicitly called out the “Nobody likes a Debbie Downer” thing.
Oh my god Amber, please go to therapy.
No, that might help her heal and she hates that.
No therapist could possibly help with her problems and she doesn’t deserve it anyway.
Or so say her brain weasels.
If all else fails, she might wanna check in at Dream Corp LLC.
That’s the thing, Joe, is most platitudes come from an initially good bit of advice that just got repeated ad nauseum. So if you pick the right platitudes you end up accidentally giving good advice!
Also. Amber. For the love of god go to therapy. It isn’t quirky or cool to mention how bad off your mental health is. Please stop acting like it is.
There’s this one conversation in Mass Effect 3 I really like, where Shepard tells Garrus they think his parents are okay and Garrus goes on a little tirade about the uselessness of platitudes in the face of a galactic war, and then Shepard (if they have the Spacer backstory) says they lost contact with their parents, Garrus just kind of sheepishly tells them he thinks their parents are okay.
‘Cause like, platitudes are useless for actually changing anything about the person you’re saying them to, but their real purpose is showing the recipient that you care.
Sympathy via light physical contact. Except, like, verbal.
If you’re ready that as Amber thinking it’s “quirky or cool”, you’re misreading the whole character. I mean, she should still go to therapy, but that’s not why she isn’t.
Her refusal to get help or even listen when people express concern for her gets… a tad on my nerves at times. I don’t think she’s expressly doing it for “coolness” points, but I do think she kind of… relishes in how bad her mental health has gotten in a way that I find a lot less sympathetic the longer it goes on.
How do I put this: Amber screws things up as a result of a source problem, but then uses those screw-ups to further justify her self-loathing beliefs, and once she screws things up again she doesn’t reflect on how she’s self-destructing, she just uses it as further proof she’s an irredeemable monster without hope and her only course of action is to continue as-is. It’s not that she doesn’t want help, it’s that she can’t fathom the problem can be solved.
Like if, I dunno, I can’t fix my lawn mower, that’s a problem with multiple solutions. I can try fixing it myself, I can get it fixed, I can buy a new one, that kind of thing. Amber doesn’t have the ability to go from “I have a problem” to “solve the problem” because “the problem” is her. She doesn’t process her mental state as something that can be treated and healed, she thinks Amber The Person is terrible and there’s no alternative.
Amber talks about her emotional state like a petulant teenager, this is because she is one, but she earnestly believes the worst parts of what she says about herself. Given Blaine refused to get her mental help after the robbery while Stacy seems at best oblivious to how bad things are for her she probably doesn’t have a good opinion about mental health resources either.
Your take on Amber is perfect. I’m seeing her in a whole new way.
I guess considering what she’s been through and the apparently bad reputation of mental health resources on campus, she’s only antisocial like this because she pretty much NEEDS to be, lest she swallow even more resentment to the bursting point, and wind up hurting the people she loves.
In all fairness, she should not be judged or put at a disadvantage for having to be like this, for the same reason we don’t put people at a disadvantage for the sex, natural ability, or ancestors of the body they just happened to be born into.
Ultimately, a fair society can only be a society that we would be happy to be born into at random.
We love us some good character development.
I am like a liiittle peeved at them for kind of ignoring Amber this whole time, even though it’s comedically quite effective. 😛
Let’s be honest, Amber’s probably trying to ignore them as much as possible back, but, ya know, still in her room. She needs to reinstate the dinosaur question policy.
I still think you could break Dina by answering “Corvus”.