Welp. I was going to comment on a different aspect of what Ethan just said, but the comments are already a dumpster fire of Very Strong Opinions (TM), so… never mind, I guess.
To me it reads as “Wait you think SAL the person who threatened you with a KNIFE, deserves better than DANNY, the guy you were megacrushing/wanting to mack on? WAT?”
That’s my assumption. Danny can put his foot WAY in his mouth, but I can’t see him doing anything malicious. That conversation (which was indeed very insensitive of him) is about as bad as he gets.
Good question. I hadn’t considered the third possibility (from Ethan’s perspective) but it makes a lot of sense. Personally I think that Mike dying does not give him a pass for being such an asshole to everyone. Danny is/was entitled to feel how he does about how Mike treated him regardless of Mike dying.
Ethan knows Mike is an asshole, Danny’s point (which wasn’t “it’s fine if he dies lol” it was a refusal to sweep Mike’s actions under the rug) is true, but for Ethan to accept it means taking Mike off that pedestal he’s got now that he’s gone.
Backstabbing can mean a lot of things. Especially since Ethan is clearly being pretty salty here. Unless something else happened during the time skip which personally seems unnecessary to me since that relationship already broke, I think Ethan just means that he though Danny was a genuinely nice dude nut Danny was actually capable of saying something personally hurtful.
I think that the backstabbing Ethan is talking about isn’t a single incident. Over the initial course of knowing each other, Danny established himself as a good and kind person, someone Ethan liked, trusted, and to whom he was attracted.
And then, while one of Ethan’s best friends, someone he’s known forever, his life’s version of Joe perhaps (in that they were friends despite having basically nothing in common and Mike was often pretty mean to him), someone hugely important in his life, was horrifically injured and comatose in the hospital, that’s when Danny turned. Danny said cruel things (true or not is beside the point), Danny was not kind or understanding or a good friend. Danny thought it would be good if Mike didn’t get better. And then Danny stomped off, shouting about how if he’s not more important than Ethan’s horrifically injured and comatose friend, he’s out! And then he STAYED out.
Basically, the betrayal could well have been ‘Danny made me believe that he was a good person, and then he kicked me in the emotional balls and ran away laughing’.
Danny saying that was undoubtedly fucked up, but I’m not sure that it would be accurate for Ethan to call that “stabbing him in the back” so I also can’t help but wonder if something else might have happened since them
Also while if I remember correctly Ethan was sort of awkwardly dating him or at least having sex with him and liked him. So his friend told him it would probably be for the best if his sort of boyfriend never woke up
They weren’t really dating each other; in fact, Ethan brought a date to the party, and it wasn’t Mike. They were friends, they made out at least once and had sex once, Mike had a genuine crush he never admitted…it was complicated
Yeah, that wasn’t good, but I’m not surprised Danny felt that way considering Mike was a huge jerk to him every time the two of them interacted before Mike died.
This is exactly the problem. How Danny felt about Mike was NOT RELEVANT in that situation. Neither is whether Mike was or was not an asshole. Ethan was extremely worried about a long-time friend, who was in a coma (and ended up dying not long after). When someone is grieving someone who was important to them personally, that grief is real, regardless of the virtues or vices of the person being mourned.
When an awful public figure dies, it’s fair game to immediately point out how they were an asshole. When it’s a private figure, and a teenager at that, your only appropriate role as an empathetic person is to comfort and listen to the person affected by that loss.
I liked Ethan right up until now when he said Danny wasn’t the best. Now I don’t like Ethan. He could do better than you and I’m glad you two aren’t a couple.
From that last panel though, I actually feel kinda bad for him — it suggests that he’s never gotten to know any genuinely good people in his life, has he?
Except that’s not even true. Over the last decade we’ve seen a 3 month or so chunk of Ethan’s life and know he’s met good people and made a few friends. Joyce for example was very kind to him even though their relationship was a total sham of mutual self-denial.
Well if that’s the case, then this stuff about Mike and Amber and some other third thing must be taking up a LOT of his emotional bandwidth, so as to have no room for anything else.
Personally I think since Mike died literally sacrificing himself and near the end was romantically involved with Ethan it’s cause Ethan to remember the dude with more reverence than maybe Mike really deserved.
Danny insulted one of Ethan’s best friends who’d just sacrificed himself to save a bunch of peoples’ lives. And then he doubled down by comparing the situation to Star Wars, which is one of the most out of touch things you can do. And then he escalated things even further by whining about how he wasn’t important to Ethan during all of this. Danny made Mike’s situation and Ethan’s grief over the potential death of his friend about himself because he had a crush on Ethan and couldn’t just behave like a normal person. He didn’t just “speak the truth” about Mike like some people are saying. He was being an insensitive immature shithead when one of the people Ethan was closest to in the world was on death’s door.
Danny ISN’T the best. That’s kind of one of his big character traits. If you read through itswalky.com you’ll see how much Willis despises Walkyverse Danny in the commentary, and how that changed perspective over the years has impacted his characterization in DoA. And he’s not being written to be the worst either, but Ethan’s feelings about him –especially in this period of grief that’s clearly effected his entire worldview– are valid.
Everything you’ve said is mostly valid about Ethan’s defensiveness over someone who objectively and genuinely selflessly helped other people at their own cost (I think trying to take Blaine over the ledge is the one truly heroic thing Mike did in his entire 9-year DoA run, everything else is steeped in either he-was-so-bad-at-being-heroic-he-was-instead-villainous or just-outright-being-a-piece-of-shit), and Ethan is mostly right to be horrified that that person who was also in his life for a long time is being disparaged.
But Danny had also clearly made some deep-if-flawed connections with both Ethan and Amber in the first semester before Mike’s death, so seeing the obvious and long-term damage Mike had dealt to the both of them makes his desire for Mike to go far far away equally or even more valid.
Yes, he went about it in an extremely tone-deaf manner and at very nearly the worst possible time (Walky making a terrifically unkosher joke at the funeral would have been the worst possible time), but I really believe that actions and their effects outweigh the intention behind them, and by that metric Mike was a terrible person. There are several JFK airports worth of baggage for Amber and Ethan to unpack concerning Mike and his place in their lives, but at the end of that very long day he was a deliberately negative influence on virtually everyone around him.
Ethan was and is tremendously hurt and he deserves bandages for his wounds, not salt, but Danny was and is right.
If actions and their effects matter more than intentions, then Danny’s actions and effects were ‘cause more pain to Ethan on what probably turned out to be the worst day of Ethan’s life so far’.
Danny was NOT RIGHT to do that. If Mike was wrong to be an asshole (which he absolutely 1000% was) then so was Danny. Mike’s assholery does not excuse Danny’s.
The problem with that is that pain caused by truth is not as equally valid a thing to whine about as pain caused by an asshole punching you down because he thinks it will make you tougher/better/smarter/doing you a favor. Mike was LITERALLY a Blane in the making and judging by his parents it had nothing to do with abuse from them, at least. Danny might have been an ass about how he said things but he definitely wasn’t wrong about Mike.
Not the not waking up part thing. Morally that was shit and Danny is in the wrong for that. The ‘everything else’ part about Mike. He was an abuser, a dickhead, and one right thing from an abuser does not a good person make.
It’s the great refuge of the tactless asshole “I’m only telling the truth!” It makes the problem everybody else who’s upset with what they shouldn’t be upset with. Of course, you just determined Mike was going to be Blaine (the man directly responsible for Mike’s fate, cause you know, obviously they Blaine saw Mike as future competition I guess) and that Danny was correct in what he said at face value: That it would be better if Mike never woke up. That’s the “truth” you are defending, a man is looking at the grieving friend/not quite figured out lover of somebody, whom said somebody actually gave his life saving, and telling them that it would be best if said person never recovered from the injuries they took doing that. They aren’t disconnected. Danny didn’t say “Okay that’s too much but I can’t pretend I like him”. Danny wished that “never wake up” thing, and when Ethan called him out on it, walked into that “Truth” which is somehow valid. It was a fucking mansplain about how what he said wasn’t a bad thing because consider this and that. Just happened to be a dude doing it to another dude.
Okay a few things. For one I’ve never read it’s Walky or even Shortpacked except for the occasional strip or two when someone links it. So I don’t really have any context for Danny’s characterization in that regard or if an interpretation of a character from a different comic universe applies here.
Also I don’t actually think Danny is the best, he does have his issues but Ethan is being unfair here. Mike was a horrible person for 90% of his run and Ethan outright admitted that he got a free pass for that just because they were friends. That’s not okay. So in this situation they were both jerks but for whatever reason Ethan’s opinions are more valid than Danny’s? Why? Because of the timing?
To me Mike doesn’t suddenly get forgiven just because he made a noble sacrifice at the end and Ethan’s opinions are indeed valid but don’t somehow overwrite the fact he’s being a jerk and insulting a good person for no reason just because he’s sad and that person hurt his feelings.
Danny is a nice guy. Ethan is just salty Danny wasn’t nice to him once.
Yes because of the timing. Danny established his shittiness entirely through his disgusting timing. The timing is in fact the entire problem with how Danny acted, and as problems go it is a very big one. I’m fine with Danny not being sad about what happened to Mike. That is an opinion that he is entirely entitled to. But the way he acted in that moment was beyond awful and Ethan has every right to not forgive him. Because in that moment Danny managed to beat anything I’ve seen Mike said. And that is a serious achievement in scumminess.
Danny said exactly two things wrong in that situation that turned it from a horrible comment into a disgusting situation:
1) Said he was upset that Ethan valued spending time with his dying friend over him.
2) He implied Mike dying was retribution for Mike being a shitty *young adult*.
Danny didn’t actually say either of those things. He compared Mike to Darth Vader the meaning of which is that even if you did something noble and self-sacrificing in the end it doesn’t make up for all the people you hurt. The billions of people on Alderaan are still dead even if Darth Vader helped destroy the Empire at the very end, just as the people Mike hurt with his actions are still hurt even though he died saving Amber.
Then he said if the situations were reversed and he was in a coma Mike would talk shit about him and Ethan would be fine with it. Which Ethan agreed with because he knew Mike longer than Danny and ultimately decided in that moment he cared more about Mike than Danny. That’s fair, but still a mean thing to say to someone you might have had romantic interest in.
Danny was selfish in that moment to make the conversation about him while Ethan was emotional and worried about his hurt friend, yes. But they were both being pretty honest in that moment and said some hurtful stuff. And now instead of maybe owning up to his own hypocrisy over Mike Ethan’s decided to lash out and insult Danny. It’s valid, he’s entitled to his emotions and opinion but it doesn’t mean his take on Danny is accurate.
I would argue that inaccuracy makes a reaction invalid. Just because someone has emotions doesn’t mean they’re appropriate ones. That way leads to the world we have today, where opinions and emotions outweigh fact.
Yeah, that seems pretty severe for Danny saying Mike was pretty shitty to most people. Like, the “Is so bad?” is not great, and I really wish Danny would have admitted to that being a shit thing to say, but beyond that… He wasn’t really wrong. Hardly a knife in the back.
Theory: Ethan is actually really upset because the last thing HE said to Mike was “Lemme guess, you fucked Danny’s mom” and an exasperated sigh. But it’s far easier to be angry at Danny for things said behind Mike’s back, then it is to be angry at himself. And he is angry at himself.
You probably have to think of Mike as of one of his best friends, because that’s what he was, meanness and everything. Then, yes, it is a pretty big thing. I’d be pretty furious if someone wished death on a hospitalised person that’s dear to me.
He didn’t wish death on him. He wished that he wouldn’t wake up for awhile. A break from a guy you find exhausting to talk to is not the same as wishing him dead, and Ethan himself did not believe he’d die at the time.
I’m pretty sure those details don’t count when you’re scared your friend might die. I’ve been in that position (attempted suicide and he didn’t die, but still, the fear probably is the same), and you are pretty emotional.
The problem with that is that Mike was one of his best friends, sure, but Ethan was also extremely aware of how manipulative and cruel Mike had become. He flat out forbade Mike from really so much as interacting with Danny because he was worried Mike would drive him away. Doesn’t mean Danny didn’t see enough of Mike to draw his own conclusions.
Ethan is one of the very few people who got to really see a different side of Mike, and he was very aware of that, too.
When Danny said that if the tables were turned, Mike would be throwing shade at him, and Ethan would let it happen, Ethan flat out agreed.
That’s NOT a point in Ethan’s favor.
And the fact that he still seems to be holding on to that grudge says a lot about Ethan’s nepotism towards Mike.
He agreed with basically “he’s been my friend since forever”. So yeah.
Fair or not is a different thing. We’re talking about a retraumatized teenager who just lost a childhood friend. He’s grieving. I’m pretty sure you’re allowed to be unfair and lead by emotions instead of logic in that situation.
And it’s actually not a good look for Danny that his response and the last thing he said to Ethan was ‘fine, if my thoughts and feelings aren’t the most important thing to you right this minute, I’m out!’
And he stomped off. Seemingly only to be seen again by Ethan some… three months later, by chance, and mostly from behind because as soon as he realized Ethan was in the room he just had to be anywhere else.
Like, it’s really easy to see a series of really percussion-instrument moves from Danny. We the readers know where he’s coming from because we see his thoughts and know his intentions. Ethan just sees someone who hurt him at a bad time, someone he’d thought was a good friend but who then dropped him like a hot coal, and three months later isn’t even willing to be in the same room with Ethan for more than a few seconds.
This, exactly. When Danny makes his first asshole comment, we see from his face that he realizes it was an awful thing to say. But then, instead of apologizing, he doubles down and says a bunch of worse things. And by his comment to himself at the end, we know he showed up at the hospital to be “nice” to Ethan (a goal at which he failed catastrophically) for the ulterior motive of asking Ethan out. That’s classic “nice” guy behavior, and Ethan is understandably pissed.
And it should be noted that Mike’s reaction to that forbiddance was to only obey the letter of it, and not the spirit of it, and attempt to fuck with Danny *by seducing Ethan*.
… which is actually super fucked up the more I think about it.
Mike was legit like my favorite character. That probably says something about me. I don’t know what. I feel like Mike himself would make a joke about that.
Said it wouldn’t be so bad if the abusive asshole didn’t wake up.
Then told Ethan he’d have tolerated it if Mike was saying it about Danny… and Ethan couldn’t deny it.
Ethan was willing to tolerate it from Danny, frankly, until Danny doubled down.
And then Ethan’s tolerance or lack thereof was moot, because Danny got mad about his feelings and opinions not being the most important thing to Ethan during this time of Ethan being traumatized/worried/scared for his hospitalized friend in a coma, and stomped off.
Danny stomped off. Ethan did not kick him out, say ‘get out of my face!’, or anything.
It’s not an issue of being “most important” so much as Ethan being completely indifferent to the impact of Mike’s actions on others, that to Ethan, it’s his love interest/dear friend, but to anyone other than him and Amber or to an extent Walky, it’s someone who routinely treated them like shit for no particular reason other than his own entertainment most of the time.
I will definitely say that yeah, like you say, Danny was the one who left, and like you say, he doubled down after the initial outburst, where he could have and should have expressed himself differently.
The response to Ethan acknowledging that yes indeed his best friend of several years gets more latitude from him than someone he’s known a month was ‘fine! If I’m so unimportant to you I’ll just leave!’ AKA, if Danny’s thoughts and feelings are not what Ethan is most concerned about right that moment, he’s out. I don’t see another way to read it.
I think Danny’s response was more a reaction to Ethan essentially openly stating that he would in fact let Mike talk shit if Danny was in the hospital because he’s known Mike longer.
Yeah, pretty much however you slice it that’s a massive “fuck you” to Danny/ reveals something both distasteful and cowardly in Ethan’s character. This isn’t to endorse Danny’s hospital words, which were ill-combined and ill-timed.
Yeah, this. Danny’s words in that moment were not nice, and while I liked Mike as a character, he did treat almost everyone like shit. He only was occasionally not a huge jerk to Ethan and Amber, who knew him for years before college.
“My longtime friend is in a coma from which he might not wake up” is one of those situations in which someone gets a pass for less than ideal behavior. “I showed up to comfort my crush with the ulterior motive of asking him out on a date and insulted someone important to him” is not one of those situations.
And Mike had almost certainly done far more damage to Ethan and Amber than to any of his other targets, if only by starting earlier and having longer to work on them.
That said, I can understand both why Danny was thinking that about Mike even if he shouldn’t have let it slip out and why Ethan reacted so strongly to it in the moment and even why he’s still holding onto it in his grief.
Regarding Ethan choosing Mike while at the hospital. I don’t like Mike, but what always bothered me about what Danny said was that he made up an imaginary scenario in his head to play victim. Essentially Danny was mad that after a night of kidnapping, Ethan didn’t have the energy to be excited to see him. I don’t think enough people appreciate how emotionally manipulative that was.
Well Amber is the one doing the (unintentional?) biting by bringing up Sal putting the knife to his throat, and it’s not really clear that he would have said that if Amber hadn’t did that first, so technically it’s poison that’s in those words. >0<
If he had any control over his poison, would he really be wasting it on someone like Amber, who he probably thinks wouldn’t be worth the effort to destroy and feast on the gooey remains of her psyche?
Venom and Poison are different not only in terms of method of delivery, in terms of evolutionary poison. Venom evolved as a means of incapacitating prey in predatory creatures. Poison developed just as a means of defense in all kinds of creatures, signalling others to avoid it.
Ethan adapted this emo-based toxicity and his new look for the sole purpose of warning other organisms (usually humans) to stay away from him so he could mourn the death of his friend, and just about no other purpose. Compare to the spikes on a porcupine, which they are known NOT to fight with.
Amber is acknowledging why some people would have some issues with other people despite being on good terms because there is history there, She’s not disapproving of the union though.
Ethan on the other is speaking ill of Danny like he hurt him worse than anyone else did his entire life.
I’m petty sure this one has nothing to do with Halloween, last time we saw those two before the time skip it was when the had the argument in the hospital about Danny wishing Mike wouldn’t wake him from his Coma and the next thing that happens to Mike is that he dies.
Don’t really get why people seem to be coming down so hard on Ethan. If my best friend/fuckbuddy died and someone told me right before that the world would be better off without them, I’d be pretty mad about that too! Of course it’s irrational and of course Mike wasn’t a very good person, but Ethan is allowed to be upset about what Danny said.
No one is saying he doesn’t have the right to be upset at Danny. But judging him and saying he isn’t worth dating, by one thing he said? That’s unreasonable.
Is it? From an audience perspective we know Danny’s ultimately decent, but I’d be pretty comfortable writing somebody off as a dickhead after an argument like they had
I’d be willing to bet that part of why Ethan’s opinion of Danny is so low is because he never even reached out to him after Mike died.
And, tbh, Danny was kind of an asshole to Ethan. He made a shitty comment while Mike was in the hospital which turned into an argument, then seemingly avoided Ethan instead of trying to make amends or apologize.
Hell, even before that he was planning to ask Ethan out just hours after he had been kidnapped and then learned his friend was in a coma. Danny seems to have improved a lot over the time skip, but he was pretty bad at considering Ethan’s feelings.
It’s not one thing he said. When Ethan pointed out that that was shitty, Danny’s response was to double down, in an “I’m not listening to your feelings” kind of way that’s a huge relationship red flag
Also it is heavily implied that Mike was actually getting much better because of his relationship with Ethan and the two actually legitimately had started to like eachotherm and Danny says basically it wouldn’t be so bad if your FwB you might want to be your actual boyfriend who mind you was killed trying to save your other friends lives
No, Mike was in love with Ethan, he even stared on his asshole campaign to protect Ethan. Ethan just realized sex is fun and moved right on past him. Hence the words to Danny about wishing he had understood and loved him back like the transformers did.
He’s allowed to be upset, even if he’s twisting it into something it really wasn’t. Which is to say, Danny saying that was hurtful, and obscenely poorly timed, but it wasn’t a betrayal. It was just what he honestly felt, given he’d had literally not a single positive encounter with Mike.
This is basically how i feel. I don’t care too much about what Danny said but if i were Ethan i sure as hell would. I’d bomb the bridge from orbit and tell everyone about it. He’s allowed to feel this way and no, he actually have to be nice about it
This is the right take. Ethan is grieving and hurt, and not to mention just a teenager. He is working through his emotions. Dan obviously screwed up that day, but even with his flaws, he is never ill-intentioned.
YEAH actively grieving person! Be quiet because Danny is being pleasant right now and not you!
That’s how this works! Person who’s being nice right now is a pure, precious bean that’s never done anything that other characters can interpret as mean, cold or cruel!
It’s the argument any time one of the traumatized people does anything other than be sad/upset.
Joyce is being a terrible/the worst person! I have no sympathy! Ethan’s being a bit of a dick UNSYMPATHETIC.
It’s like to some people the validity of someone’s trauma depends on how many sadboi points they have right now X.X
Everyone’s a traumatized mess, they’re acting bad, that doesn’t nullify the pain, but you’d think Ethan kicked Danny in the teeth the way people are telling him to “Shut the fuck up” and “I’M GLAD YOU DIDNT’ GET WITH DANNY”
Over a private opinion said to someone else… Yeesh and crackers
Yeah, I’d say “telling someone they shouldn’t be sad about their friend dying because he was an asshole” is less “showing some spine” and more “inappropriate timing for a low blow”.
Mike was “only” comatose at the time that line was said, and as tone-deaf and ill-timed as it was, given all of the damage Danny could see Mike had done to Amber in Ethan in the time the three had known each other, he was right to wish that the two would have some time without a deliberately* negative influence in their lives.
*: Argue about Mike’s intentions all you want, the actual events of the story as it played out (seriously, read the fucking archives) established Mike as a thoroughly abusive person whose “help” never actually helped anyone in-story. Throwing himself off a ledge with Blaine was the only unambiguously good thing he did in his 9 years in DoA.
And even that was a spur-of-the-moment decision, after hearing Blaine use the same justification for his actions that he used for his own gave him an epiphany.
The popular opinion seems to be that Danny wished Mike would never wake up, but I seem to recall he was reacting to the idea of Mike not waking up *right away*. He just wanted a little space.
Well Amber is the one doing the (unintentional?) biting by bringing up Sal putting the knife to his throat, and it’s not really clear that he would have said that if Amber hadn’t did that first, so technically it’s poison that’s in those words. >0<
Knives Out is possibly the BEST new movie I’ve watched in quite a few years, and no news on the entertainment industry has given me greater joy than knowing it was greenlit for two sequels.
Those are definitely something I’m sitting my ass down in theatres for as soon as I can, COVID allowing.
Knives Out 2: Stabbing Boogaloo
Knives Out 3: I Stab at Thee
Knives Out was a massive, massive standout to me. I didn’t expect much because I have weird standards for whodunnits, but KO hit almost every single note I like. I look forward to the sequel with indescribable eagerness.
heyyyy i just finished watching it! it was glorious you guys, thank you! i had fun, i tried to guess and i got it wrong, it’s gripping, it’s smart, it’s meaningful, it’s subversive, it’s allegorical… yeah! that was a good time. chef’s kiss!
lol yeah! she was pretty good.
i do think the barfing gimmick is a bit silly, which is kind of at odds with the otherwise more subdued and restrained sort of dark humour.
Yes Ethan, because calling out some asshole on his bullshit is stabbing /you/ in the back. Was Danny’s comment poorly timed and made him look like a dick? Yes. On the other hand, was Danny not liking Mike valid? Absolutely.
Before you accuse Dan of being a shit person, maybe take a step back and examine the whole picture.
A valid point, he isn’t wrong for feeling hurt or wanting space from Danny. However calling him a shit person over one mistake is unreasonable at best.
Even if you apologize and make amends each time you do so, repeating the same mistake a lot of times begins to shed skeptical light on the sincerity of your repentance (no religious connotations intended).
Yeah, but people aren’t always reasonable when they’re hurt. We get the benefit of being emotionally removed from the story, and seeing things from everyone’s perspective for the most part. Plus, this is still super recent for Ethan – someone very close to him died, someone he had complicated feelings for, just as he’d started to come to terms with his sexuality. Grief and depression are ugly things and they bring out the ugly things in people.
Hopefully when he does come out of this he’ll be able to look back and see that he was doing some projecting, or that he’s acting out because he’s hurt. But maybe the timing was bad, and he’ll never be able to be close with Danny ever again. Its sad, but it happens sometimes
It’s a hallmark of good writing that people feel so strongly about it!
In Ethan’s view, Danny didn’t just say “your longtime friend / FWB dying isn’t such a bad thing”, he also said “it’s fine that you’ll never get closure”.
Mike dying had not occurred to the characters yet when Danny said that, again it was in response to “they don’t think he’ll wake up for a while” indicating that they expected him to wake up at that point in time
So maybe I’m misremembering, but I got the pretty strong impression that Ethan was in denial about how bad Mike’s odds were, and that the rest of the people in the know were not nearly as optimistic
Yeah, but at the time the comment was made, he was not dead, and Ethan himself did not expect him to die, and the comment was “Would it be so bad if he was in a coma for awhile?”
When someone is a “nice guy”, it’s almost always an expression of entitlement, that they do “nice” things in order to get material benefit.
Danny has a lot of character faults, but he’s never, not even once, displayed this one that I am aware of. Anything he’s done for other people has been with no strings attached, which has sometimes been just plain poor judgment on his part.
I’d argue that Danny has a tendency to make Sacrifices of his own wants and needs for the objects of his affection that they neither want not ask for nor need to prove how devoted he is. He does this partly to avoid conflict and partly to make the other person feel obligated not to dump him for his clinginess and passive aggression. Furthermore, despite him never talking about it with the other person or telling them about it, he seems to think it means they owe him.
Lastly, if the other person has ambitions or wants or dreams that aren’t compatible with his, he expects them to psychically KNOW he doesn’t want them to do it and tries to manipulate them into not doing it by putting it down (see him making fun of Dorothy’s life’s ambition rather than having a conversation about how he cares about her and wants to keep the relationship going even if she goes to her dream school).
See also his avoidance of conflict with Amber rather than talking his attraction with Ethan with her.
So, especially as someone who is closely related to someone very much like Ethan, I’d argue he’s not the stereotypical “Nice Guy” putting in kindness coins into the girl vending machine and expecting sex to pop out not realizing that girls are not in fact vending machines, but he absolutely does use superficial kindness and self sacrifice as manipulation tactics, which I think is what Ethan’s getting at. Danny will sacrifice what he wants for you, but all of his gifts and gestures come with strings attached.
(And because that brand of manipulation drives me batty, I actually agree with Ethan. Sal deserves better.)
Like to clarify, because of my experience with my relative who Danny reminds me of, I read the whole Dorothy breakup arc as Danny basically trying to manipulate with a message of, “I care for you so much I sacrificed even considering what school I would actually like to go to so I can be with you! I did this for you, so now you’ll sacrifice your greatest dream for me, right? I mean it’s kind of a stupid and unrealistic dream anyway, right? Wouldn’t you be happier settling down with me and following my ill-defined dream instead? Don’t you kind of owe me that since I made this sacrifice for you?” Leaving out that they’re not the same, Dorothy didn’t ask him to do that, and making fun of someone’s life dream because they’re not willing to sacrifice it for you is a shitty move.
Like, he’s been getting better as time goes on, so I don’t despise him as much as I used to, but I totally understand where Ethan’s coming from and agree with him on this.
I can see that in relationship with Dorothy – but that was in the first handful of strips, essentially his backstory. It’s a lot more of a stretch to see it in anything since then. The avoiding conflict part perhaps, but I don’t see the “thinks they owe him” part anywhere in his relationship with Amber. Or Ethan. Or Sal.
Yeah, no, if ANYONE was off in the Dorothy/Danny relationship it was Dorothy, who, instead of actually breaking up with him, just expected him to… not go to this college? I guess? Like ghosting, but more passive?
Nah, Danny was pretty shit there too. We don’t see the setup, since it’s backstory, but the implication is that he specifically followed her here. At least instead of considering other options.
And the bit we do see, right before the breakup, where he says “maybe you’ll like it here and change your mind” and then “I’ll quit school” to follow her, is bad enough.
She should have broken up with him earlier, that much is true. As she said.
But the real point is that Danny has changed since then. He hasn’t kept behaving like that.
Danny was actively wrong, Dorothy was passively wrong.
Dorothy wasn’t supposed to be a main character at the time, she was just there to dump Danny, so at the time Dorothy herself makes the point: she should have done this earlier and it was wrong of her not to, but the important part is Danny making his mistakes, telling Dorothy she could change her mind about going to Yale, and then immediately falling into another romantic fantasy through Amazi-Girl.
In hindsight, with Dorothy going onto be the deuteragonist of the series, it’s the same kind of mistake with the same level of consequence, it’s just that Dorothy condemning herself is all we were ever supposed to get until Danny and Dorothy had it out a few times afterwards.
Reeeeally wondering why this was apparently never, ever touched for the past several months by either Ethan or Danny. I imagine some combination of Danny being too bad at social interactions to address it tactfully and Ethan, given his current mental state, probably just shutting down any attempt that might have been made.
Anyway, Ethan’s justified in feeling betrayed, but I don’t know if he’s justified in evidently deciding Danny’s a terrible person for calling his objectively terrible person of a friend a terrible person at a terrible moment.
I mean, I don’t think it’s “betrayal” in the strictest sense so much as “Ethan believed Danny was his friend and he said something that made him feel like he wasn’t at the worst possible moment to do so.”
Overall I think Danny’s transgression amounts to a very unfortunate slip of the tongue that blew up in his face aggressively (because of course it did, he’s Danny), but in Ethan’s position, I don’t think it’s hard to imagine feeling like you, having assessed someone to be considerate of your feelings, have been betrayed when they say something that sort of tramples on them when they’re vulnerable.
And then Danny apparently doubled down by not talking to Ethan again, to boot. Like, I suspect that if Danny had turned up at a later point and said something non-apologetic, some kind of ‘I regret saying that to you at that specific time’ thing (not apologizing for thinking it, not taking it back, not even saying wouldn’t express it in another time and place) Ethan probably would have accepted that. Instead, Danny ran away and stayed away, and that feelings-trample was left to fester.
That’s not really established.
We don’t know who’s pushing who away here. For all we know Danny did make overtures and Ethan reacted like he’s reacting here.
I personally feel like the ‘oh shit it’s Ethan what do’ reaction from Danny earlier and inability to even exist in the same room as Ethan indicates that Danny has had no contact by design.
Basically just the trust that Danny would be a decent person really. In a hard time, Danny said an insensitive thing which Ethan was going to let slide and then he doubled down. Twice. And then Mike died after that. So he feels bitter about it. In his mind he may even think something like ‘Danny got exactly what he wanted’.
Which isn’t fair, Danny never asked for his death and probably lacks the knowledge to know how dangerous long-term comas are. But bitter people aren’t known for their fairness.
Danny seemingly dropped Ethan completely after their shouting match in the hospital. In no way has Danny, at least, been keeping up with Ethan’s doings: he was shocked to see Ethan in a common area. If they’ve spoken to any degree after the hospital, I’d be stunned.
Frankly, though, while I love Sal, Danny, and their combo, I absolutely see where Ethan is here. Yes, Sal held a knife to him, but she never actually hurt him, and he has no beef with her now. Danny, on the other hand, he liked and trusted, and Danny hurt him badly at a bad time and then disappeared. Sal can do better than THAT guy. (Fortunately, she has. She is dating Real Dan as opposed to Dickbag Dan.)
I can’t stop picturing Joyce and Ethan wearing the Tripp pants, fishnets, and band tees of 2008, panda eyeliner on, and hair covering one eye. Ethan in particular keeps making me think of Bully Maguire. I’m so struggling to take either of them seriously right now. Help me.
Alternate reading: Ethan is saying that nice people don’t exist, because that allows him to understand Mike, after his death, as more normal or even laudable (and less of an objectively terrible person). Of course it isn’t true that all guys are equally knife-y — but if it was, and all guys have knives, Mike at least had the consideration to put his terrible traits right out front where people could see them.
Ethan is trying out the idea that Mike wasn’t unusually horrible, he was just really direct about his horribleness, which was honest of him.
If Ethan continues holding this opinion, it follows that Ethan should be more obvious about his own mean feelings (such as by voicing his acerbic thoughts instead of being the very considerate kind passive fellow that he was before Mike died). It also would support that Danny is clearly untrustworthy and is hiding something (as evidenced by hurting Ethan’s feelings with his poorly-timed opinion).
ethan’s right for this one i hate to say it. sorry but if your friend is dying and some guy says to you that it would be fine if he never woke up and then proceeds to double down on that position and then your friend dies for real you have the right to hate pn that guy forever
Oh, fuck all the way off, Ethan. Danny said ONE tone deaf thing, about a dude who emotionally abused everyone he knew, *especially* you.
“Rude,” I can see. “Backstabbing” is a childish, maudlin accusation. You’re entitled to feeling like garbage but that doesn’t automatically make your #deep insights any less grating.
Shut the hell up Ethan,, the last thing you told Danny was that you’d let Mike talk shit about him if he was hospitalized because you knew him longer than Danny. Fuck off with your “Sal deserves better than him” shit. Asshole.
I think I can safely say that I can’t fully blame Ethan for still being upset. It’s only been a few months, and something like what happened could be really traumatizing. I agree that Danny’s transgression wasn’t nearly as bad as he’s making out to be, but at the same time, it had to sting in a major way.
It’s so weird reading all these angry comments at ETHAN. I guess it’s golden Danny was a prick because the important part was he “told the truth”. Danny essentially asked “would it be a bad thing?” this guy Ethan has known, for better or worse, since he was a kid just didn’t…wake up. Danny said this to a guy that he had known for, possibly, maybe four months tops given that was all during the first semester.
ALSO, Danny deciding the hospital, where Ethan is in turmoil, was the absolute PERFECT opportunity to confess how he felt because that whole moment should have all been about him and not how Ethan was dealing after all that chaos. Yea, maybe Mike wasn’t shit but Danny isn’t either. Ethan is not wrong to feel even slightly like this.
I mean, if someone you thought cared about you takes a swing at you when you’re at your worst, it’s understandable that you’ll think he was two-faced all along. It’s not textbook backstabbing but it’s close enough.
i’m sure Julius Caesar wouldn’t hesitate to call Brutus a backstabber if he’d survived, even though the specific direction the actual knife came from may not be precisely 6 o’clock
(i hasten to add, judging by the general vibe today, that the above comment in no way reflects the views of the commenter. i’m just trying to see things Ethan’s way)
And I think people aren’t taking into account just how MUCH trauma stuff got piled on Ethan that day. He was kidnapped, held hostage under threat of harm/death for the second time in less than five years, watched one of said kidnappers get brutally murdered in front of him, and got out of that situation only to find that one of his best friends (maybe first crush, first sex partner) was horrifically injured and comatose in the hospital and had been alone there for hours or days because his other best friend seemingly decided not to tell anyone about it.
Even before Mike passed, even with taking into any account the fight with Danny, that’s a ton of trauma and probably a lot of free-floating anger. The fight with Danny might have just made him a ‘safe’ target for said anger, since Ethan seemingly hasn’t actually had to deal with him in person since.
Danny absolutely was a prick at that moment. Obviously, we don’t know how much interaction Danny had with Mike, but very few people had truly positive interactions with him. That’s on Mike and no one else, but again that still does not excuse the terrible timing for letting that reaction come out of his big mouth.
Having said that, I don’t recall what Danny’s upbringing was like. I remember his parents being open to him dating a Dotty 2.0, but outside of that I got the impression that there was some not so great stuff hidden in the shadows. Perhaps Mike struck a little to close to home for Danny’s taste.
We never got flashbacks to Danny’s upbringing, but from the interaction’s we’ve seen with his parents, let’s just say that I’m not surprised Danny’s self-esteem… isn’t great.
Well, he needs to date a Dorothy because he’ll never amount to anything on his own.
That’s his parents in a nutshell. Would be nice to dig a little deeper into that, but maybe there really isn’t anything else to it.
Well yeah I might not see eye to eye with Roz with everything but I don’t see her pushing someone to suicide and then being too callous to give a damn about it.
Mary really wasn’t too callous to care, she seemed to want to let Ruth rot for even barely stymying her bigotry towards Carla. That was the arc she went from quirky-but-unserious-side-antagonist to holy-shit-she’s-actually-a-villain.
Considering Mary’s status as pure-villain-through-and-through-only-approachable-via-comedy and Roz’s status as purely heroic but extraordinarily unpleasant about it, I would hope so.
Maybe we’ll get another idiot saying that Willis was being unfair about a completely truthful representation of American fundamentalism. I hate for Willis to deal with that (if it was as offensive as it was for me having only shared the experience, I genuinely can’t comprehend what it was like for someone to deny his lived experience directly like that), but catharsis comes infrequently nowadays.
I think the extra-fucked part of said idiotic accusations of unfairness is, you can literally just turn on the news, any channel I’d assume, and see people acting exactly as portrayed in this comic. Hell, they’re probably being even stupider and making Willis look like a fretful centrist coward by comparison. To pretend that it’s unfair is the same thing plugging their ears and shouting the lyrics to Hotel California.
Seriously. Part of the reason I’ve been largely absent here for a bit, to be entirely honest. Just don’t have the spoons most days to even skim the comments, because I just can’t handle the esoteric discourse longer than it takes to fire off a mildly silly comment or two.
I’m always particularly amused by the ones who want a portrayal of real Christians as good people and when pointed at the good Christians in the comic eventually let it out that “real Christians” means bigots to them.
Perhaps Joyce runs into Mary before seeing Becky or Liz again, and when Mary pushes her about Christianity, Joyce decides to pick a fight.
But it goes badly, because Mary is more than just a fundie who “doesn’t see the truth.” She’s a monster who would show it’s not about Christianity at all. Just red-panelly hate.
I know I’d never call Danny’s most recent on-screen Dan-up a ‘stab in the back’. Which doesn’t preclude Ethan from being Dramatic. But for my money, a timeskip transgression, probably wellmeaning on Danny’s part- outed Ethan to parents/others? Entrapped him into therapy?
Ethan’s out to his parents. IIRC, his mom hates it and makes him suffer, and blames Amber for not being a good enough girl to keep him from looking at boys.
Not to pile on here, but Danny’s stupid little outburst doesn’t really seem like “stabbing in the back”, considering he said it directly to Ethan’s face, in the moment. Like, he didn’t sneak around saying it and accidentally letting it get back to Ethan, he just said something to the effect of “fuck that guy anyway lmao” then and there, right in front of Mike’s barely-not-a-corpse. Seems about as up-front as that sort of thing gets.
I think the ‘backstab’ is a little more complex than one fight. From Ethan’s perspective, Danny built up Ethan’s affection for and trust in him over weeks/months, then blew both up in several very hurtful ways at a terrible time, in very quick succession, then disappeared. I don’t think it’s incomprehensible that Ethan might feel like the initial ‘kind, attractive Danny’ part was just Danny making sure that Ethan’s defenses (built up over years of Amber’s crisis-validation needs and Mike’s Mike things and thus considerable fortifications) would be all the way down before the knife came out.
Well no, it’s definitely not incomprehensible. It’s probably overthinking, though. Maybe I only think that because of audience bias, but honestly these days I’ve been thinking that the audience’s standpoint is the only one that matters when I engage with fiction.
Okay, so Danny *really* needs to apologize to Ethan about that stupid and poorly-timed thing he said. Also, I guess this officially confirms that Danny and Ethan are no longer friends, to put it lightly.
What you find easy to tolerate is not gonna be easy for everyone to tolerate. That is just part of life. You’re allowed to have different tolerances for different things for different people as well. You don’t have to be perfectly fair, especially as Ethan was a mostly passive background character while Joyce was a likeable main character that we saw do several good things and make several hard choices.
Is it philosophically inconsistent to have patience for both Joyce and Ethan, but not for the commentariat’s insistence on resolving any conflict between characters by declaring one absolutely right and the other a monster?
We cam understand why Ethan feels this way and empathize without thinking he’s right about Danny.
i’ve been wondering, maybe there’s a selection bias? maybe people are more likely to leave a (slew of) comment(s) when some visceral button of theirs gets pushed by the current comic for whatever reason?
i don’t know, it doesn’t happen to me very often but then again i don’t really get mad ever
oh yeah, i get that.
i find the vitriol a bit taxing myself, regardless of how good the take is.
Like, it feels so easy. “I”-statements. don’t qualify opposing opinions as immoral or dumb. avoid inflammatory hyperbole. admit and apologize when you were wrong or unfair.
but eh… it’s the internet. and maybe people WANT to fight after all, who am i.
I’m the opposite. I’m finding Joyce more annoying (though I’m more understanding of it now) but I’m purely pro Ethan here. I haven’t seen a strip yet where he’s not just right
No, Ethan’s just still got a rock up his butt from that one time when Danny decided it’d be a really good idea to shit-talk his childhood friend in front of him, while said friend was currently in a coma and also dying. Perfectly reasonable, tbh.
Also “being mean to people” doesn’t mean “deserves to die,” and the latter seemed to be Danny’s reasoning? It’s juuuust a bit messed up to say “man wouldn’t it be great if he died” about p much anyone
A running list of “Your mom” jokes and a pulling a number of pranks in order to stir the pot isn’t as bad as blatantly just saying “If he dies, he dies” for a guy he barely knows to his closes friend while his parents are grieving in the next room all because he’s bitter and jealous that he fucked his crush. Maybe I’m missing something when I’m recalling how much of a shit Mike was but I don’t remember anything Mike did that left an impression like that hospital incident.
I don’t hate Danny, to me he’s not a nice guy he’s a good guy but even the greatest of people have their worse moments and unfortunately his worse moments outshines What Mike has done up until this point.
OK he’s said mean things about people and pulled nasty prank, But still hadn’t see him go that far like Danny did. Even if we liked to think he would the record doesn’t show.
I thought that was because he made a bunch of fake internet post about the Dexter & Monkey master comics being canceled? That aside…I’d haft to say no still not as bad.
He also recorded Walky crying in his sleep after breaking up with Dorothy.
Mike caught feels after sleeping with Ethan, except the reason he did was to make Danny miserable. He admits this, because the plan was to make either of them feel bad, and he would have tried to sleep with Danny.
Also he told Amber she’s going to end up like her dad, and then whoops turns out Mike is the silver medal in responsibility for why Amber’s so fucked up.
Walky’s sufficiently traumatized from rooming with Mike for a couple months that he’s still checking the closets when he walks in to see if Mike’s hiding in them.
Mike kept records on people so he could hurt them and seduced Ethan with the intention of hurting Danny, plus years of being abusive and comparing Amber to her abuser pos dad because she dated a pushover like Danny. https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/file/
Danny might have made an objectively shitty comment that hurt Ethan’s feelings, but Mike’s literally broken people with malice aforethought. He went on a rant on how he wants to make the whole world suffer because he feels no one deserves to be happy, up to and including his own parents. He noticed Danny had undeniably romantic feelings towards Ethan and he deliberately seduced the latter and steered him into collecting his own harem just because he knew it would torture Danny, and proceeded to rub Danny’s face in it. The only reason Ethan managed to retain a happy impression of Mike is because Ethan is an oblivious doormat who would rather look the other way when Mike bullies people than challenge a childhood friend.
And, by his own admission, he is one of the biggest factors behind what is the single greatest destructive force in the entire series: the creation of Amazi-Girl. And we have no reason to believe his regret at the end was actually morality or empathy. For all we know, he was just grossed out that he had so much in common with a fucking boomer.
Mike himself says he spent years “poking Amber’s bear” to turn her into a timebomb to use against Blaine, right before his realization that he was using the same justifications for abuse as Blaine. Mike was absolutely an abusive “friend” and Danny was completely right that Ethan would be better off with him away for awhile. Even if it was incredibly shitty to let that slip out in that circumstance.
Ethan was far nicer to Danny than I would have been in his situation. If someone I had only known a few months told me that they’d be fine if my childhood friend who was in a coma never woke up, I’d punch them in the face. Ethan is perfectly justified in feeling hostile and doesn’t owe Danny anything.
It’s not a backstab, it’s a frontstab!!
(Also more of a “oops, I accidentally put this knife in your chest, let me push it in a little more and then run away”)
I understand on a deeply personal level the effects of trauma, grief, depression, etc.
But this still makes me role my eyes so hard I sprain something, Danny said a tone deaf thing, which he apologized for and only doubled down on when Ethan started talking up Mike being a hero because he saw the damage Mike did to EVERYONE, especially Ethan and Amber. He’s not evil for fuck sakes. Mike systematically emotionally, mentally, and verbally abused people for most of his life, doing one heroic thing doesn’t make him a saint.
This is completely a human response from Ethan, but God’s is it grating and obnoxious. https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/04-is-a-song-forever/alderaan/
He doubled down only *after* Ethan lauded Mike as a hero and the look of horror on his face in the previous page points to he was sorry, he just hated Mike’s abusive bullshit too much not to keep talking when Ethan basically said Mike saving Amber gave him a pass for being a shit head every other day of the year.
Ethan is childhood friends with Mike, ofcourse he thinks the guys great. Danny should sorta understand as he’s best friends for life with Joe after all, Danny did a weak “ Sorry I made you mad” apology, Ethan didnt accept it due to so many things being still fresh and raw.
It’s a crap apology and Danny never made any attempt to give a more sincere one for being so callous, hell he never has to apologize for thinking Mikes an ass ( Cause he is) But a “ I’m so sorry, I said something really careless Ethan” woulda been enough is all.
God they are all so annyoingly 18/19 year olds lmao
My thoughts exactly. I can’t exactly blame Ethan since he was too close (and “too close”) to Mike to really see Mike’s behaviour and his effects on others, but he’s basically viewing Mike and his behaviour through rose-tinted glasses. Mike’s not an idiot; he does do things with an intent to prod people out of their comfort zones and into what could potentially be a better place, but he goes about it the wrong way without regard to things like empathy or perhaps even consent. If you’re a shut-in, he’ll drag you out to a party (or bring the party TO you) because he knows you DO need to learn about how to socialize with others, but he doesn’t care if that it turns you into a panicked mess of anxiety all evening and it’s one of the worst nights of your life.
He should smile more through his whole “ Was kidnapped, witnessed a murder, and saw a friend die/go to a funeral” Trauma bc he said one kinda shitty thing about Danny?
I mean, if we want to talk about stabbing people in the back, a friend who intentionally only sticks to the LETTER of your requests rather than the SPIRIT of them (Deciding to woo Ethan to hurt and mess with Danny, since Ethan said not to do any Mike stuff ‘To Danny’)
.. Like, were there any interactions between Danny and Mike where Mike *wasn’t* fucking with and/or bullying Danny?
Not many because they didn’t have that many interactions at all, I can only think of the time they met right before Ethan told him to not mess with him and then the night of Dinas birthday. Other than that they didn’t speak much at all.
Plus I think it’s safe to say Mike got with Ethan because he had an actual fondness for him he wouldn’t admit it was just icing on cake that it got to Danny
To be fair the statement “I hope he doesn’t wake up” and “It wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t wake up” may not be the same thing but it dangerously close.
People aren’t obligated to be kind to people who are grossly unkind to them, as Danny was to Ethan when he said it’d be better if his old friend never woke up and made it all about him before running away from any accountability about his actions. Danny was grossly self-centered when Ethan needed support, and Ethan doesn’t need to forgive him for that. Ethan especially isn’t obligated to tone down his pain and hurt to his closest remaining friend (Amber). Ethan is clearly not getting the support he needs, even Amber seems like she doesn’t want to hear about how someone she used to date really hurt her oldest remaining friend. Ethan can’t process this alone, being isolated in the wake of trauma is one of the worst things for trauma that definitely lets it fester into PTSD more easily, Danny is running away from accountability to great effect.
I refuse to believe that this is all the payoff we were gonna get from Joe’s “Nice Guy ➡️” shirt. It COULD be, but my storytelling sense is telling me it’s not gonna be.
This storyline is giving me flashes of future arcs.
Arc 1: Joyce and Joe start to open up to each other, but then Dorothy’s (Yale) and Becky’s (insecurity about relationship with Dina) shit hit the fan. Joyce goes out of campus trying to bring Dorothy back and Becky goes out of campus trying to emotionally repossess Joyce. Joe has a big letdown and Dina is his only emotional support. There is a Slipshine about Dina doing empirical experimentation with Joe, and both get a huge character lift from it.
Arc 2: Gothan and AG conspire together. AG freezes Sal and Gothan makes Danny his emotional slave. But then Ghost Mike inspires Walky to confront Amber, throw AG down Garbage Roof and unfreeze Sal. Danny finally rises up and emotionally strangles Gothan.
Amber… all the times she was with Sal as a friend, were that all a lie ( or it’s AmaziGirl who is friends with Sal)? Does Amber still hate her? What a disgusting hypocrite! Ethan can’t forget what Danny told him when Mike was in the hospital, he thinks Sal is with someone who could strab her in the back at the first problem. These two are so broken it hurts to watch them!
Yeah no i picked up on that too. “You think SAL could do better?” I noticed the emphasis in that sentence and was wondering if she meant Danny’s the one that could do better. Hoping I’m just reading too much into things because ambers hatred of sal was the worst part of her character and i don’t want it back
No i think it’s because Amber would expect Ethan to be more antagonistic towards Sal than Danny, which tells us that she wasn’t aware that Ethan had a falling-out with Danny, which tells us she really hasn’t been talking to him, or rather listening to him, a whole lot over the past 4 months. ouch.
Y’all, I’m pretty sure he’s saying Danny stabbed him in the heart too.
Ethan would talk about Danny sometimes like “no, he’s too good for me” because Ethan also has crippling self esteem issues and Danny telling him he was hot was the first time he ever had a single piece of positive affirmation about being gay.
I think Ethan caught feels more than he cared to admit.
I am really confused by the comments section today. Are we saying that having a negative opinion of someone behind their back is… Worse than expressing that negative opinion to someone’s loved ones while they’re dying in the hospital? What has Ethan actually done other than mourn Mike? Yeah Mike was an edgy reddit shitlord etc but materially, what harm has he done other than have an awkward conversation with Danny (who seems to be doing fine, by the way?) Is it just… He’s sad and shouldn’t be? The cast are all like 18! What is happening.
(And I might be overly sensitive to this because I had a friend die suddenly when we were 18 and it meant she never got to grow and it sucks! It fucks you up forever!!!)
Wow, I was not expecting this level of anger. I thought Ethan was showing remorse about their argument, but apparently he was just fishing for an apology.
I understand why Ethan feels that way about Danny after what he said and he has every right to be, but Danny also wasn’t entirely wrong when he said if Danny was in the hospital like Mike was, Mike would have been insulting and denigrating towards Danny. That doesn’t mean he should have said it and Danny should have certainly apologized, but he didn’t. I hope they can come together in the future and resolve their differences. Only time will tell.
I have to assume that during the depressive/grief spiral Ethan is currently in, he has replayed his conversation with Danny over and over and over in his head, probably making it worse and worse over time – in my experience that’s kinda how these things go lol. It probably also doesn’t help that – if their one interaction we’ve seen is any indication – Danny is treating Ethan like damaged goods, acting very condescending, and fleeing as quickly as possible. Now, is Ethan assessing Danny’s behavior rationally here? Of course not. But I think his conclusions here are extremely understandable.
Amazing how few people are able to grasp “what Danny did wasn’t as bad as Ethan’s making it out to be” and “Ethan was deeply hurt by Danny’s comment at an extremely turbulent and traumatic time, it changed how he views him and he’s allowed to carry hurt and disdain towards him because of it. Also he’s a fucking teenager”.
Either Danny’s evil or Ethan’s being evil and nuance doesn’t exist. And no, Ethan doesn’t have to be nice when talking about perceived betrayal, honestly tell me how many people from your life who’ve hurt you deeply that you take the care to “not be mean” when you talk about them. I’m sorry he’s being “mean”, boo hoo i guess.
Anyway I’m looking forward to more Ethan/Amber interactions, it’s also nice seeing her get called out
Right? It’s always so “Oh character is being an ass right now, ugh they are the worst!” and it’s like…guys not only are they dumb teenagers but they all went through*hella trauma* they’re not going to be 100% rational and perfect human beings.
Not caring for the undertone of “You’re only sympathetic unless you stop acting sad, any other emotion is bad and loses sympathy”
Joyce has a thousand reasons as to why she’s currently being a puffy ball of atheist rage, she’s being a lil bit of an arse but really deserves some sympathy… real sympathy, not a snarky comment from Sarah about how she’ll forgive her X.X
But the counter too often isn’t “They’re being an ass for understandable reasons”, but “They’re completely right to be an ass and the people they’re going after are the real problems who completely deserve it.”
Ethan was hurt by what Danny said when Mike ended up in a coma, but… it’s not a betrayal, like, at all? Danny didn’t break his word or talk behind his back or anything. He spoke critically (and honestly) about a fairly toxic friend of Ethan’s when Ethan didn’t want to hear it. While the guy obviously has a right to his feelings, Ethan describing that as Danny putting a knife in his back is just inaccurate and melodramatic, like he’s trying to be the victim of a greater injury to justify how strongly he’s reacting without having to acknowledge that his part in it (ie not being willing to hear criticism of a toxic friend because the guy had gotten hurt doing a noble thing)
I agree with this 100%. I don’t agree with a lot of people essentially saying Danny was right to wish someone death, especially so in that time and place. But yeah he didn’t stab Ethan in the back, agreed
*Not being willing to hear criticism of a toxic friend, right after being kidnapped and watching a brutal murder only to THEN find out his friend was in a coma/dying
It was not the time NOR the place for Danny to say that, being critical and honest without tact is kinda being an arsehole
To be fair Danny is like what 18 so that’s to be expected but still.
Here’s the real question. Why did Amber feel the need to inform Ethan of this development? I mean, I get she’s trying to pay Sal’s actions forward, but it feels like she’s even more checked out of what passes for her social circle than I realized.
Like, Amber and/or AG is Danny’s ex, has or had a complex centered around Sal, and literally broke-up with Danny over his friendship with Sal. By all accounts Sal and Danny’s relationship is a potential landmine for Amber/AG regardless of whether they’re dating or staying friends.
But, Ethan doesn’t care about Sal. She’s an acquaintance at best. And Danny and Ethan were friends, but not for long and have been actively avoiding each for months by all appearances.
Like, what’s he going to do with this information? Brood about how unfair it is that Danny gets to date his friends while he and Mike will never be? I can’t see him actively stirring up shit just to hurt Danny. Even if he was somehow caught by surprise. And how would he do so anyway?
So, either Amber has so completely dropped out of her friends’ lives she doesn’t realize how distant Ethan is from everything…
Or, this is just another distraction for Amber to avoid talking about the real issue she wants to talk with Ethan about. Which is Ghost-Mike.
Oh to me it’s pretty clear Amber just needs *someone* to help her sort through her own feelings about this news that she’s just received, but she has no one else to talk to. Ethan is her childhood BFF and all, so she just goes to him because he’s the only person she can— or could— trust to be at once honest and kind to her.
I think Mike was so awful it makes it hard to empathize with Ethan. Frankly he seems like an enabler who would deny Mike was that bad. It’s a common dynamic when one person is an abuser and they have a partner who basically tries to control the narrative.
Many people feel great relief when their abuser dies and Mike was so awful I can see multiple people feeling like that. It’s a valid reaction. Mike only has himself to blame for making Danny feel like it’d be good for him to stay comatose for a bit.
Note that abusers can also do nice things so Mike’s sacrifice doesn’t erase all the crap he did.
I think Ethan needs to realise that Danny’s reaction was a valid as his own when Mike was in hospital. It would be different if Danny and Mike just didn’t get on, but Mike’s character was way too extreme for me to view Ethan more kindly.
But the issue is that Mike wasn’t Danny’s abuser. My dad was physically and emotionally abusive to me and when he died I felt relieved, yes, but it was still incredibly painful and imo it would have been messed up if one of my friends was like “oh sweet he died high five,” which is how I view Danny’s actions
I feel like this comment section seems to think Danny was justified in literally wishing someone to die, and that’s awful imo. And also like… No one seems to be mentioning that Mike tried to make up for his shitty behavior, but no somehow we’ve all decided to be Rachel and think that no one can ever make up for their actions ever. He took on a mob boss murderer for Amber but I guess that doesn’t count because he tried to seduce Ethan because of jealousy. Ffs
Danny did a nasty as hell lash out, Ethan didn’t call Mike out on the crap, and Mike was Mike. But yeah, Mike did try to improve himself, and he saved lives as a result
The wish wasn’t that Mike would die, it was that Mike would be in a coma for a few weeks and Danny wouldn’t have to look over his shoulder all the time. Neither of them realized that Mike would actually die at that point.
The actual quotes from that scene:
Ethan: “They’re not sure he will (wake up) for a while.”
Danny: “Would that be so bad?”
In the aftermath of him actually dying and knowing that a long coma is already a really bad sign, that’s easy to read as “would it be bad if he died”, but there’s little reason to think Danny was thinking that. More just, “At least you get a break from the abuse for a while.”
Tall Rachel is an idiot and completely wrong about redemption being a story/impossible, but I do agree with Carlos Bacca that sometimes you go so far into the red you can never get back into the black. Mike spent almost all of his screentime being a terrible person, abusing people because he thought he was smarter than he was. He didn’t kill anyone, and was lucky that his provocation of Amber didn’t lead to her hurting someone permanently, but even the one very good thing he did wasn’t nearly enough to bring him out of the black.
Concerning the comments above that Mike was on his way to change, he wasn’t. He was clearly miserable seeing Ethan with other guys because of his own feelings, but instead of coming clean at that point and trying to talk to Ethan directly he lets him go, presumably because he was still fulfilling his shitstain mission of hurting Danny. The “Oh shit, I’ve been wrong this entire time,” moment only came about after confronting Blaine and Ross behind Blowjob Cat and seeing that Amber was Amazi-Girl.
Because people linked to the conversation itself where Danny (probably unwisely) brought up Vader (and it’s probably unwise that I’m doing the same), I’m thinking of some Legends material where Anakin as a Force Ghost tries to talk to Leia, who was not directly involved in his arc, and was in fact completely removed from his redemption arc. Luke has forgiven his father, so Anakin is hoping to get some of the same catharsis from his estranged daughter who confronts him with the fact that Force-ratified redemption be damned, he was still fucking Vader for over 20 years before he finally turned on the Emperor. She makes it completely clear to him that being contrite and doing one admittedly tremendously good thing does not undo all the harm he’s caused, nor does it give him a pass from people who still have every reason to hate him.
Looks like Amber, Danny and everyone else has ignored / avoided Ethan during the most difficult time of his life. Kidnapped, watched a murder, friend dies. Then Danny shows up like nothing has happened and has nothing to say. No apology, can’t wait to bail. Danny is not a friend to Ethan.
This feels like a weird read of Danny considering that seeing Ethan mortified him into immediately thinking about saying anything that could hurt him, tried to make obviously forced small talk, and then bailed while affirming Ethan he was definitely not gonna go have a good time where he’s having fun.
So if you wanna know what Danny thinks of Ethan, it’s “I can’t say something that will make him miserable or indicate to him I’m in a good mood.”
Not really clear, due to the time skip. Ethan at this point really doesn’t seem like he’d welcome overtures from Danny. Did Danny try at any point last semester? How much of Ethan’s isolation is him pushing people away and how much the others avoiding him? We don’t know. The pattern was all set in the time skip.
Okay so this lady hosts a costume party, everyone has to wear a costume based on an animal or some sort of insect, One guy shows up wearing green and giving his girlfriend a piggie back ride.
The host asks them “ What are you supppsed to be?”
The guy answers” Well I’m a turtle and this” He turns so the gf can wave “ Is Michelle~“
The following is intended solely in a humorous light and is in no way meant to reflect the views of myself or any other commenter, either stated or hypothetical:
How dare these little shithead kids keep putting themselves through horrible situations. Stop traumatising yourselves, stop traumatising yourselves!
I’ve honestly come to hate Ethan. He’s kind just trash at this point.
Shortpacked Mike had redeeming and endearing qualities over the years, DoA Mike never did. He was just a trash human from beginning to end, and Ethan was nothing but an enabler after some dick.
Ethan isn’t wrong in regards of earlier Danny, and they both have codependent tendencies. Current Danny has been great to Sal so far, but that was all during daily life moments and problems. Consider how Sal is worried about Billie hanging around Asher for both the right and wrong reasons.
We’ve seem how Asher handles things when someone from his Grandad’s crew pulls him back in…We’ve also seen what a yo-yo Billie can be, Raidah’s denial about her lack of self-control with others whom she feels are in the wrong, and Sal’s need to get involved with dangerous situations….Danny does not have a good track record with situations like that.
To compensate for not being able to handle the situation at the level of personal responsibility it calls for (especially when everyone around him isn’t) instead of biting the bullet and doing so?
Sal putting a knife to his throat feels probably so distant now, and way less personal. Danny putting his foot in his mouth the most he has ever done and kept going probably feels even more sore specially as Mike didn’t got up
Ethan sure is agonizing over the question, “what is the meaning of nice?” now isn’t he?
I don’t understand all the people saying Ethan is a jerk. Ummmm, he has supported Amber through emotional crisis *her* *entire* *life*, and while, yes, they both recently lost a close friend, Ambers ability to make everything about herself and her anxieties has turned her into a selfish friend when Ethan is CLEARLY HURTING DEEPLY.
He isn’t being a jerk. He’s being depressed.
Which, btw, turns out so was Mike. (*cues comic of Carla overhearing the words “sometimes it’s hard to tell when someone is depressed”
*cue the entire Ruth/Billie-are-jerks-to-cope-with-trauma storylines
*cue Mike laying in bed after Walky teases “maybe YOURE depressed”
*cue Ruth saying “you’re not going to kill yourself but you’d welcome death as punishment
*cue Mike launching himself after remembering Evil Dad explaining superficial similarities between them)
Both Amber and Mike were activated into unhealthy-but-ultimately-harm-FREEing actions. Amber was much less healthy her isolate-and-dissassociate NESS, but because she is openly self aware, we all can it acceptably entertaining. Mike behaved in much more tangible acceptable ways, really, orienting mere sarcasm and double-faced-pseudo-rudeness. I know not everyone feel this way about Mikes behavior, but there was so often overt benefit to come from his “bad” action, that it calls to mind the philosophical conundrum of means vs ends. Mike accepted judgement and even outright scorn, but continuously took actions that BENEFITTED THOSE AROUND HIM, without seeming, until the end, to be concerned with such egoistic thing as a reputation.
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Note to self: literal stabbing pain to avoid feels
Remember kids, don’t leave your Emo alone for too long!
They’ll end up like those tamagotchi in the back of your dresser drawer.
Or should I say….
TamaGOTHchi
From the makers of Tickle Me Ethan™ and Tickle Me Ethan™ EXTREME comes this holiday season’s hottest must-have toy!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5mS49R7Gek
Hmmm… TamaGOTHchi… Tickle Me Ethan…
This gives me yet another idea! 😏
SlipShinEthan?
Welp. I was going to comment on a different aspect of what Ethan just said, but the comments are already a dumpster fire of Very Strong Opinions (TM), so… never mind, I guess.
So… um… hi everyone. **waves**
That’s alright, a fresh new perspective is always valued! I think.
Also, if it’s any consolation, I was just trying to make a reference to a MAD TV skit.
hey there Rose!
oh hi Rose!
woopsie!
High milu, and Rose bAON!
Hello there
hide the emotional pain with real pain
I know Ethan’s being mean, but did you REALLY need to bring that up Amber?!?!
Of ALL things?
It seems to be what she’s here to talk about, so kinda
I think they’re referring to Amber bringing up the hostage-taking part.
To me it reads as “Wait you think SAL the person who threatened you with a KNIFE, deserves better than DANNY, the guy you were megacrushing/wanting to mack on? WAT?”
Sorta thing
Soooooo… something happened during the time jump, I take it?
I doubt it. It’s just that Danny and Ethan’s last known talk went really bad.
That’s my assumption. Danny can put his foot WAY in his mouth, but I can’t see him doing anything malicious. That conversation (which was indeed very insensitive of him) is about as bad as he gets.
Yeah, unless we’re getting a back-stabby flash-backy, Emothonal Ethan ith eathily overthtating thingth.
I wonder what hurt him more, that Mike died, or that Danny said what he did, or that he thinks Danny was right?
Good question. I hadn’t considered the third possibility (from Ethan’s perspective) but it makes a lot of sense. Personally I think that Mike dying does not give him a pass for being such an asshole to everyone. Danny is/was entitled to feel how he does about how Mike treated him regardless of Mike dying.
I am sort of considering this.
Ethan knows Mike is an asshole, Danny’s point (which wasn’t “it’s fine if he dies lol” it was a refusal to sweep Mike’s actions under the rug) is true, but for Ethan to accept it means taking Mike off that pedestal he’s got now that he’s gone.
Danny asked Ethan if it would really be so bad if Mike never woke up.
Mike proceeded to not wake up.
So… yeah. “Something” happened, all right.
That’s not really backstabbing, though, so I don’t know what Ethan’s going on about.
Backstabbing can mean a lot of things. Especially since Ethan is clearly being pretty salty here. Unless something else happened during the time skip which personally seems unnecessary to me since that relationship already broke, I think Ethan just means that he though Danny was a genuinely nice dude nut Danny was actually capable of saying something personally hurtful.
Which is, of course, such dense irony that we risk making a [i]freaking black hole[/i].
I [b]hate it[/b] when I forget which forum formatting applies. I’ve littered some markdown around here too.
not *just* saying something hurtful—when Ethan called him out on being a dick, Danny doubled down
I’m guessing the “backstabbing” was shittalking Mike, and then never following up/trying to make amends with Ethan after Mike died.
I think that the backstabbing Ethan is talking about isn’t a single incident. Over the initial course of knowing each other, Danny established himself as a good and kind person, someone Ethan liked, trusted, and to whom he was attracted.
And then, while one of Ethan’s best friends, someone he’s known forever, his life’s version of Joe perhaps (in that they were friends despite having basically nothing in common and Mike was often pretty mean to him), someone hugely important in his life, was horrifically injured and comatose in the hospital, that’s when Danny turned. Danny said cruel things (true or not is beside the point), Danny was not kind or understanding or a good friend. Danny thought it would be good if Mike didn’t get better. And then Danny stomped off, shouting about how if he’s not more important than Ethan’s horrifically injured and comatose friend, he’s out! And then he STAYED out.
Basically, the betrayal could well have been ‘Danny made me believe that he was a good person, and then he kicked me in the emotional balls and ran away laughing’.
I think Ethan feels he was emotionally backstabbed. He expected comfort from Danny, but got Danny at his most socially impaired.
Danny saying that was undoubtedly fucked up, but I’m not sure that it would be accurate for Ethan to call that “stabbing him in the back” so I also can’t help but wonder if something else might have happened since them
I’m not sure Ethan needs to be right, so long as he thinks he is.
Also while if I remember correctly Ethan was sort of awkwardly dating him or at least having sex with him and liked him. So his friend told him it would probably be for the best if his sort of boyfriend never woke up
They weren’t really dating each other; in fact, Ethan brought a date to the party, and it wasn’t Mike. They were friends, they made out at least once and had sex once, Mike had a genuine crush he never admitted…it was complicated
I dunno, it look like quite straighforward front-stabbing, to me.
Yeah, that wasn’t good, but I’m not surprised Danny felt that way considering Mike was a huge jerk to him every time the two of them interacted before Mike died.
This is exactly the problem. How Danny felt about Mike was NOT RELEVANT in that situation. Neither is whether Mike was or was not an asshole. Ethan was extremely worried about a long-time friend, who was in a coma (and ended up dying not long after). When someone is grieving someone who was important to them personally, that grief is real, regardless of the virtues or vices of the person being mourned.
When an awful public figure dies, it’s fair game to immediately point out how they were an asshole. When it’s a private figure, and a teenager at that, your only appropriate role as an empathetic person is to comfort and listen to the person affected by that loss.
…this comment coming from Joe sort of undermines the gravitas, doesn’t it.
Yes, yes it does.
And even more, if you go back to his talk with Mike at the party, Danny was bothered more by Mike being a huge jerk to Ethan than to him.
Going to guess that Amber doesn’t know about the hospital fight
I liked Ethan right up until now when he said Danny wasn’t the best. Now I don’t like Ethan. He could do better than you and I’m glad you two aren’t a couple.
From that last panel though, I actually feel kinda bad for him — it suggests that he’s never gotten to know any genuinely good people in his life, has he?
WYSIATI
Except that’s not even true. Over the last decade we’ve seen a 3 month or so chunk of Ethan’s life and know he’s met good people and made a few friends. Joyce for example was very kind to him even though their relationship was a total sham of mutual self-denial.
Well if that’s the case, then this stuff about Mike and Amber and some other third thing must be taking up a LOT of his emotional bandwidth, so as to have no room for anything else.
Personally I think since Mike died literally sacrificing himself and near the end was romantically involved with Ethan it’s cause Ethan to remember the dude with more reverence than maybe Mike really deserved.
“maybe”
Danny insulted one of Ethan’s best friends who’d just sacrificed himself to save a bunch of peoples’ lives. And then he doubled down by comparing the situation to Star Wars, which is one of the most out of touch things you can do. And then he escalated things even further by whining about how he wasn’t important to Ethan during all of this. Danny made Mike’s situation and Ethan’s grief over the potential death of his friend about himself because he had a crush on Ethan and couldn’t just behave like a normal person. He didn’t just “speak the truth” about Mike like some people are saying. He was being an insensitive immature shithead when one of the people Ethan was closest to in the world was on death’s door.
Danny ISN’T the best. That’s kind of one of his big character traits. If you read through itswalky.com you’ll see how much Willis despises Walkyverse Danny in the commentary, and how that changed perspective over the years has impacted his characterization in DoA. And he’s not being written to be the worst either, but Ethan’s feelings about him –especially in this period of grief that’s clearly effected his entire worldview– are valid.
Everything you’ve said is mostly valid about Ethan’s defensiveness over someone who objectively and genuinely selflessly helped other people at their own cost (I think trying to take Blaine over the ledge is the one truly heroic thing Mike did in his entire 9-year DoA run, everything else is steeped in either he-was-so-bad-at-being-heroic-he-was-instead-villainous or just-outright-being-a-piece-of-shit), and Ethan is mostly right to be horrified that that person who was also in his life for a long time is being disparaged.
But Danny had also clearly made some deep-if-flawed connections with both Ethan and Amber in the first semester before Mike’s death, so seeing the obvious and long-term damage Mike had dealt to the both of them makes his desire for Mike to go far far away equally or even more valid.
Yes, he went about it in an extremely tone-deaf manner and at very nearly the worst possible time (Walky making a terrifically unkosher joke at the funeral would have been the worst possible time), but I really believe that actions and their effects outweigh the intention behind them, and by that metric Mike was a terrible person. There are several JFK airports worth of baggage for Amber and Ethan to unpack concerning Mike and his place in their lives, but at the end of that very long day he was a deliberately negative influence on virtually everyone around him.
Ethan was and is tremendously hurt and he deserves bandages for his wounds, not salt, but Danny was and is right.
If actions and their effects matter more than intentions, then Danny’s actions and effects were ‘cause more pain to Ethan on what probably turned out to be the worst day of Ethan’s life so far’.
Danny was NOT RIGHT to do that. If Mike was wrong to be an asshole (which he absolutely 1000% was) then so was Danny. Mike’s assholery does not excuse Danny’s.
The problem with that is that pain caused by truth is not as equally valid a thing to whine about as pain caused by an asshole punching you down because he thinks it will make you tougher/better/smarter/doing you a favor. Mike was LITERALLY a Blane in the making and judging by his parents it had nothing to do with abuse from them, at least. Danny might have been an ass about how he said things but he definitely wasn’t wrong about Mike.
Not the not waking up part thing. Morally that was shit and Danny is in the wrong for that. The ‘everything else’ part about Mike. He was an abuser, a dickhead, and one right thing from an abuser does not a good person make.
It’s the great refuge of the tactless asshole “I’m only telling the truth!” It makes the problem everybody else who’s upset with what they shouldn’t be upset with. Of course, you just determined Mike was going to be Blaine (the man directly responsible for Mike’s fate, cause you know, obviously they Blaine saw Mike as future competition I guess) and that Danny was correct in what he said at face value: That it would be better if Mike never woke up. That’s the “truth” you are defending, a man is looking at the grieving friend/not quite figured out lover of somebody, whom said somebody actually gave his life saving, and telling them that it would be best if said person never recovered from the injuries they took doing that. They aren’t disconnected. Danny didn’t say “Okay that’s too much but I can’t pretend I like him”. Danny wished that “never wake up” thing, and when Ethan called him out on it, walked into that “Truth” which is somehow valid. It was a fucking mansplain about how what he said wasn’t a bad thing because consider this and that. Just happened to be a dude doing it to another dude.
long-term damage? while he was alive, Mike was a significantly better friend to Ethan than Danny ever was
Okay a few things. For one I’ve never read it’s Walky or even Shortpacked except for the occasional strip or two when someone links it. So I don’t really have any context for Danny’s characterization in that regard or if an interpretation of a character from a different comic universe applies here.
Also I don’t actually think Danny is the best, he does have his issues but Ethan is being unfair here. Mike was a horrible person for 90% of his run and Ethan outright admitted that he got a free pass for that just because they were friends. That’s not okay. So in this situation they were both jerks but for whatever reason Ethan’s opinions are more valid than Danny’s? Why? Because of the timing?
To me Mike doesn’t suddenly get forgiven just because he made a noble sacrifice at the end and Ethan’s opinions are indeed valid but don’t somehow overwrite the fact he’s being a jerk and insulting a good person for no reason just because he’s sad and that person hurt his feelings.
Danny is a nice guy. Ethan is just salty Danny wasn’t nice to him once.
Yes because of the timing. Danny established his shittiness entirely through his disgusting timing. The timing is in fact the entire problem with how Danny acted, and as problems go it is a very big one. I’m fine with Danny not being sad about what happened to Mike. That is an opinion that he is entirely entitled to. But the way he acted in that moment was beyond awful and Ethan has every right to not forgive him. Because in that moment Danny managed to beat anything I’ve seen Mike said. And that is a serious achievement in scumminess.
Danny said exactly two things wrong in that situation that turned it from a horrible comment into a disgusting situation:
1) Said he was upset that Ethan valued spending time with his dying friend over him.
2) He implied Mike dying was retribution for Mike being a shitty *young adult*.
Danny didn’t actually say either of those things. He compared Mike to Darth Vader the meaning of which is that even if you did something noble and self-sacrificing in the end it doesn’t make up for all the people you hurt. The billions of people on Alderaan are still dead even if Darth Vader helped destroy the Empire at the very end, just as the people Mike hurt with his actions are still hurt even though he died saving Amber.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/04-is-a-song-forever/alderaan/
Then he said if the situations were reversed and he was in a coma Mike would talk shit about him and Ethan would be fine with it. Which Ethan agreed with because he knew Mike longer than Danny and ultimately decided in that moment he cared more about Mike than Danny. That’s fair, but still a mean thing to say to someone you might have had romantic interest in.
Danny was selfish in that moment to make the conversation about him while Ethan was emotional and worried about his hurt friend, yes. But they were both being pretty honest in that moment and said some hurtful stuff. And now instead of maybe owning up to his own hypocrisy over Mike Ethan’s decided to lash out and insult Danny. It’s valid, he’s entitled to his emotions and opinion but it doesn’t mean his take on Danny is accurate.
I would argue that inaccuracy makes a reaction invalid. Just because someone has emotions doesn’t mean they’re appropriate ones. That way leads to the world we have today, where opinions and emotions outweigh fact.
What did Danny do that amounted to a knife in the back? Say some truth about Mike? Seems like exaggeration.
Yeah, that seems pretty severe for Danny saying Mike was pretty shitty to most people. Like, the “Is so bad?” is not great, and I really wish Danny would have admitted to that being a shit thing to say, but beyond that… He wasn’t really wrong. Hardly a knife in the back.
Theory: Ethan is actually really upset because the last thing HE said to Mike was “Lemme guess, you fucked Danny’s mom” and an exasperated sigh. But it’s far easier to be angry at Danny for things said behind Mike’s back, then it is to be angry at himself. And he is angry at himself.
I think there’s some real merit to that theory. And if it’s true–yeah, it hurts, but I kinda love how *human* it feels, y’know? If that makes sense
You probably have to think of Mike as of one of his best friends, because that’s what he was, meanness and everything. Then, yes, it is a pretty big thing. I’d be pretty furious if someone wished death on a hospitalised person that’s dear to me.
He didn’t wish death on him. He wished that he wouldn’t wake up for awhile. A break from a guy you find exhausting to talk to is not the same as wishing him dead, and Ethan himself did not believe he’d die at the time.
I’m pretty sure those details don’t count when you’re scared your friend might die. I’ve been in that position (attempted suicide and he didn’t die, but still, the fear probably is the same), and you are pretty emotional.
The problem with that is that Mike was one of his best friends, sure, but Ethan was also extremely aware of how manipulative and cruel Mike had become. He flat out forbade Mike from really so much as interacting with Danny because he was worried Mike would drive him away. Doesn’t mean Danny didn’t see enough of Mike to draw his own conclusions.
Ethan is one of the very few people who got to really see a different side of Mike, and he was very aware of that, too.
When Danny said that if the tables were turned, Mike would be throwing shade at him, and Ethan would let it happen, Ethan flat out agreed.
That’s NOT a point in Ethan’s favor.
And the fact that he still seems to be holding on to that grudge says a lot about Ethan’s nepotism towards Mike.
He agreed with basically “he’s been my friend since forever”. So yeah.
Fair or not is a different thing. We’re talking about a retraumatized teenager who just lost a childhood friend. He’s grieving. I’m pretty sure you’re allowed to be unfair and lead by emotions instead of logic in that situation.
And it’s actually not a good look for Danny that his response and the last thing he said to Ethan was ‘fine, if my thoughts and feelings aren’t the most important thing to you right this minute, I’m out!’
And he stomped off. Seemingly only to be seen again by Ethan some… three months later, by chance, and mostly from behind because as soon as he realized Ethan was in the room he just had to be anywhere else.
Like, it’s really easy to see a series of really percussion-instrument moves from Danny. We the readers know where he’s coming from because we see his thoughts and know his intentions. Ethan just sees someone who hurt him at a bad time, someone he’d thought was a good friend but who then dropped him like a hot coal, and three months later isn’t even willing to be in the same room with Ethan for more than a few seconds.
This, exactly. When Danny makes his first asshole comment, we see from his face that he realizes it was an awful thing to say. But then, instead of apologizing, he doubles down and says a bunch of worse things. And by his comment to himself at the end, we know he showed up at the hospital to be “nice” to Ethan (a goal at which he failed catastrophically) for the ulterior motive of asking Ethan out. That’s classic “nice” guy behavior, and Ethan is understandably pissed.
And it should be noted that Mike’s reaction to that forbiddance was to only obey the letter of it, and not the spirit of it, and attempt to fuck with Danny *by seducing Ethan*.
… which is actually super fucked up the more I think about it.
More like what Mike did was a stab in the back.
It’s almost like it was planned. How better to split up Ethan and Danny than get Danny to say something bad about him to Ethan, and then fucking die!
Damn you, Willis. Mike was the best character in the strip, and you had to go and kill him off just for his ultimate asshole move to work.
Mike was legit like my favorite character. That probably says something about me. I don’t know what. I feel like Mike himself would make a joke about that.
Danny did what now
Said it wouldn’t be so bad if the abusive asshole didn’t wake up.
Then told Ethan he’d have tolerated it if Mike was saying it about Danny… and Ethan couldn’t deny it.
Ding ding.
Oh shit, I forgot about that last part.
o u c h
Ethan was willing to tolerate it from Danny, frankly, until Danny doubled down.
And then Ethan’s tolerance or lack thereof was moot, because Danny got mad about his feelings and opinions not being the most important thing to Ethan during this time of Ethan being traumatized/worried/scared for his hospitalized friend in a coma, and stomped off.
Danny stomped off. Ethan did not kick him out, say ‘get out of my face!’, or anything.
It’s not an issue of being “most important” so much as Ethan being completely indifferent to the impact of Mike’s actions on others, that to Ethan, it’s his love interest/dear friend, but to anyone other than him and Amber or to an extent Walky, it’s someone who routinely treated them like shit for no particular reason other than his own entertainment most of the time.
I will definitely say that yeah, like you say, Danny was the one who left, and like you say, he doubled down after the initial outburst, where he could have and should have expressed himself differently.
The response to Ethan acknowledging that yes indeed his best friend of several years gets more latitude from him than someone he’s known a month was ‘fine! If I’m so unimportant to you I’ll just leave!’ AKA, if Danny’s thoughts and feelings are not what Ethan is most concerned about right that moment, he’s out. I don’t see another way to read it.
I think Danny’s response was more a reaction to Ethan essentially openly stating that he would in fact let Mike talk shit if Danny was in the hospital because he’s known Mike longer.
Yeah, pretty much however you slice it that’s a massive “fuck you” to Danny/ reveals something both distasteful and cowardly in Ethan’s character. This isn’t to endorse Danny’s hospital words, which were ill-combined and ill-timed.
Yeah, this. Danny’s words in that moment were not nice, and while I liked Mike as a character, he did treat almost everyone like shit. He only was occasionally not a huge jerk to Ethan and Amber, who knew him for years before college.
“My longtime friend is in a coma from which he might not wake up” is one of those situations in which someone gets a pass for less than ideal behavior. “I showed up to comfort my crush with the ulterior motive of asking him out on a date and insulted someone important to him” is not one of those situations.
And Mike had almost certainly done far more damage to Ethan and Amber than to any of his other targets, if only by starting earlier and having longer to work on them.
That said, I can understand both why Danny was thinking that about Mike even if he shouldn’t have let it slip out and why Ethan reacted so strongly to it in the moment and even why he’s still holding onto it in his grief.
Regarding Ethan choosing Mike while at the hospital. I don’t like Mike, but what always bothered me about what Danny said was that he made up an imaginary scenario in his head to play victim. Essentially Danny was mad that after a night of kidnapping, Ethan didn’t have the energy to be excited to see him. I don’t think enough people appreciate how emotionally manipulative that was.
Well, that is just anti-social claptrap.
God Daaaaaaaaaaamn! So much venom in those words.
Well Amber is the one doing the (unintentional?) biting by bringing up Sal putting the knife to his throat, and it’s not really clear that he would have said that if Amber hadn’t did that first, so technically it’s poison that’s in those words. >0<
Nah, Venom is accurate. If you provoke a Snake into biting it doesn’t become a poisoning
Plus I think the connotations of “Poisoned Words” don’t really match what is being said, “Venomous Words” fits a lot better
Well, just to be fair, snakes often tend to do warning bites without any venom.
Where as Ethan just seems to be indiscriminately spreading his toxicity to anyone who dare intersects the vicinity of his nightmare-scape.
Not always though, especially with the younger ones
Ethan may be acting mean, but he’s not stupid.
If he had any control over his poison, would he really be wasting it on someone like Amber, who he probably thinks wouldn’t be worth the effort to destroy and feast on the gooey remains of her psyche?
I thought we established that this was defensive behaviour rather than predatory behaviour
Exactly.
Venom and Poison are different not only in terms of method of delivery, in terms of evolutionary poison. Venom evolved as a means of incapacitating prey in predatory creatures. Poison developed just as a means of defense in all kinds of creatures, signalling others to avoid it.
Ethan adapted this emo-based toxicity and his new look for the sole purpose of warning other organisms (usually humans) to stay away from him so he could mourn the death of his friend, and just about no other purpose. Compare to the spikes on a porcupine, which they are known NOT to fight with.
*evolutionary purpose.
I should really increase ping time after I’ve been staring at code all day.
Amber is acknowledging why some people would have some issues with other people despite being on good terms because there is history there, She’s not disapproving of the union though.
Ethan on the other is speaking ill of Danny like he hurt him worse than anyone else did his entire life.
*mind shifts immediately to that time Blaine stomped on Ethan*
Then again, words hurt differently.
What happened on Halloween?!
I’m petty sure this one has nothing to do with Halloween, last time we saw those two before the time skip it was when the had the argument in the hospital about Danny wishing Mike wouldn’t wake him from his Coma and the next thing that happens to Mike is that he dies.
Under the terms of Mike’s will, Ethan is required to carry on his legacy of being a huge asshole.
I’m actually thinking that is Ethan’s next arc, and in the process, he’s going to learn some hard truths.
I feel like since Mike’s death, several characters have had moments where they tried to carry on Mike’s asshole legacy.
Note that Amber didn’t refute that Danny stabbed Ethan in the back.
I don’t think she knows about DannyandEthan’s argument just yet…
Don’t really get why people seem to be coming down so hard on Ethan. If my best friend/fuckbuddy died and someone told me right before that the world would be better off without them, I’d be pretty mad about that too! Of course it’s irrational and of course Mike wasn’t a very good person, but Ethan is allowed to be upset about what Danny said.
It’s neither being “stabbed in the back,” nor warranting a “could do better.”
this
Yeah, he’s not being very nice but he’s not unjustified here
You’re allowed to do a ton of things and you can still be a huge prick when doing them.
No one is saying he doesn’t have the right to be upset at Danny. But judging him and saying he isn’t worth dating, by one thing he said? That’s unreasonable.
Is it? From an audience perspective we know Danny’s ultimately decent, but I’d be pretty comfortable writing somebody off as a dickhead after an argument like they had
I’d be willing to bet that part of why Ethan’s opinion of Danny is so low is because he never even reached out to him after Mike died.
And, tbh, Danny was kind of an asshole to Ethan. He made a shitty comment while Mike was in the hospital which turned into an argument, then seemingly avoided Ethan instead of trying to make amends or apologize.
Hell, even before that he was planning to ask Ethan out just hours after he had been kidnapped and then learned his friend was in a coma. Danny seems to have improved a lot over the time skip, but he was pretty bad at considering Ethan’s feelings.
It’s not one thing he said. When Ethan pointed out that that was shitty, Danny’s response was to double down, in an “I’m not listening to your feelings” kind of way that’s a huge relationship red flag
Also it is heavily implied that Mike was actually getting much better because of his relationship with Ethan and the two actually legitimately had started to like eachotherm and Danny says basically it wouldn’t be so bad if your FwB you might want to be your actual boyfriend who mind you was killed trying to save your other friends lives
No, Mike was in love with Ethan, he even stared on his asshole campaign to protect Ethan. Ethan just realized sex is fun and moved right on past him. Hence the words to Danny about wishing he had understood and loved him back like the transformers did.
Interesting I thought Ethan was actually starting to like Mike as he was improving. It may not have worked whole hog but I saw potential
Also important to note: Mike himself thought he was better off dead. Which. I have strong feelings about.
yeah, but that’s just depression
Mmmyep.
He’s allowed to be upset, even if he’s twisting it into something it really wasn’t. Which is to say, Danny saying that was hurtful, and obscenely poorly timed, but it wasn’t a betrayal. It was just what he honestly felt, given he’d had literally not a single positive encounter with Mike.
This is basically how i feel. I don’t care too much about what Danny said but if i were Ethan i sure as hell would. I’d bomb the bridge from orbit and tell everyone about it. He’s allowed to feel this way and no, he actually have to be nice about it
This is the right take. Ethan is grieving and hurt, and not to mention just a teenager. He is working through his emotions. Dan obviously screwed up that day, but even with his flaws, he is never ill-intentioned.
Ethan. Buddy. Shut the fuck up.
scruffysecond.gif
Oh get the hell over yourself Ethan. Danny showed some spine for once in his life and you go to shit over it.
YEAH actively grieving person! Be quiet because Danny is being pleasant right now and not you!
That’s how this works! Person who’s being nice right now is a pure, precious bean that’s never done anything that other characters can interpret as mean, cold or cruel!
Nobody’s actually making that argument.
Except everyone basically is
It’s the argument any time one of the traumatized people does anything other than be sad/upset.
Joyce is being a terrible/the worst person! I have no sympathy! Ethan’s being a bit of a dick UNSYMPATHETIC.
It’s like to some people the validity of someone’s trauma depends on how many sadboi points they have right now X.X
Everyone’s a traumatized mess, they’re acting bad, that doesn’t nullify the pain, but you’d think Ethan kicked Danny in the teeth the way people are telling him to “Shut the fuck up” and “I’M GLAD YOU DIDNT’ GET WITH DANNY”
Over a private opinion said to someone else… Yeesh and crackers
On the other hand, the other side of the commentariat is agreeing with Ethan that Danny was a horrible monster who wanted Mike dead.
We can understand and sympathize with Ethan’s trauma without agreeing with him.
Yeah, I’d say “telling someone they shouldn’t be sad about their friend dying because he was an asshole” is less “showing some spine” and more “inappropriate timing for a low blow”.
Mike was “only” comatose at the time that line was said, and as tone-deaf and ill-timed as it was, given all of the damage Danny could see Mike had done to Amber in Ethan in the time the three had known each other, he was right to wish that the two would have some time without a deliberately* negative influence in their lives.
*: Argue about Mike’s intentions all you want, the actual events of the story as it played out (seriously, read the fucking archives) established Mike as a thoroughly abusive person whose “help” never actually helped anyone in-story. Throwing himself off a ledge with Blaine was the only unambiguously good thing he did in his 9 years in DoA.
And even that was a spur-of-the-moment decision, after hearing Blaine use the same justification for his actions that he used for his own gave him an epiphany.
The popular opinion seems to be that Danny wished Mike would never wake up, but I seem to recall he was reacting to the idea of Mike not waking up *right away*. He just wanted a little space.
Well Amber is the one doing the (unintentional?) biting by bringing up Sal putting the knife to his throat, and it’s not really clear that he would have said that if Amber hadn’t did that first, so technically it’s poison that’s in those words. >0<
Woops that was meant to be a reply to Henryvolt.
I appreciate the alt-text because I appreciate good movies.
Yup. That movie was amazing. I literally bought the DVD on Amazon while the credits were rolling directly in front of me.
Knives Out is possibly the BEST new movie I’ve watched in quite a few years, and no news on the entertainment industry has given me greater joy than knowing it was greenlit for two sequels.
Those are definitely something I’m sitting my ass down in theatres for as soon as I can, COVID allowing.
Knives Out 2: Stabbing Boogaloo
Knives Out 3: I Stab at Thee
…oh really, well ok let me see what it’s about, maybe watch a trailer, read a couple reviews, and— ooooh LaKeith Stanfield is in it? SAY NO MORE
It’s a well-plotted whodunnit. I’d sit my ass in a theatre for that ALONE, but then the movie has the fucking GALL to be stellar in every aspect.
GOD that’s infuriating.
Knives Out was a massive, massive standout to me. I didn’t expect much because I have weird standards for whodunnits, but KO hit almost every single note I like. I look forward to the sequel with indescribable eagerness.
I loved that movie so much! It was a great whodoneit!
wow! alright! i’ll watch it TONIGHT
btw Knives Out is also a beautiful Radiohead song =)
heyyyy i just finished watching it! it was glorious you guys, thank you! i had fun, i tried to guess and i got it wrong, it’s gripping, it’s smart, it’s meaningful, it’s subversive, it’s allegorical… yeah! that was a good time. chef’s kiss!
…ok LaKeith Stanfield has a really small part, that’s kind of my biggest complaint
It has Ana de Armas being pretty much every south american nationality possible…
lol yeah! she was pretty good.
i do think the barfing gimmick is a bit silly, which is kind of at odds with the otherwise more subdued and restrained sort of dark humour.
Yes Ethan, because calling out some asshole on his bullshit is stabbing /you/ in the back. Was Danny’s comment poorly timed and made him look like a dick? Yes. On the other hand, was Danny not liking Mike valid? Absolutely.
Before you accuse Dan of being a shit person, maybe take a step back and examine the whole picture.
He did kinda say it’d be fine if Mike died, and Ethan has a lot of very complex feelings about that and it’s fair that he feels hurt by it
A valid point, he isn’t wrong for feeling hurt or wanting space from Danny. However calling him a shit person over one mistake is unreasonable at best.
Mistakes are qualitative, not quantitative. You don’t get a set number of mistake strikes.
If Ethan thinks what Danny did was bad enough, then that’s that.
They can be qualitative too, mind you.
Even if you apologize and make amends each time you do so, repeating the same mistake a lot of times begins to shed skeptical light on the sincerity of your repentance (no religious connotations intended).
*quantitative
Also yeah you’re both basically right
Yeah, but people aren’t always reasonable when they’re hurt. We get the benefit of being emotionally removed from the story, and seeing things from everyone’s perspective for the most part. Plus, this is still super recent for Ethan – someone very close to him died, someone he had complicated feelings for, just as he’d started to come to terms with his sexuality. Grief and depression are ugly things and they bring out the ugly things in people.
Hopefully when he does come out of this he’ll be able to look back and see that he was doing some projecting, or that he’s acting out because he’s hurt. But maybe the timing was bad, and he’ll never be able to be close with Danny ever again. Its sad, but it happens sometimes
It’s a hallmark of good writing that people feel so strongly about it!
Not only that, but Ethan clearly regrets how dismissive he was in his last conversation with Mike.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-10/02-to-remind-you-of-my-love/empathizing/
In Ethan’s view, Danny didn’t just say “your longtime friend / FWB dying isn’t such a bad thing”, he also said “it’s fine that you’ll never get closure”.
I take back what I said yesterday
Unless something bad happened during the timeskip Ethan is being extraordinarily unfair to Danny
The worst thing Danny did was muse about a guy who had never been anything other then an asshole to him being in a coma for a while
“Being in a coma for a while” seems like an understatement considering that Mike died
Mike hadn’t died when Danny said that.
It was already clear that Mike’s chances of recovery were not good when Danny said that.
Mike dying had not occurred to the characters yet when Danny said that, again it was in response to “they don’t think he’ll wake up for a while” indicating that they expected him to wake up at that point in time
So maybe I’m misremembering, but I got the pretty strong impression that Ethan was in denial about how bad Mike’s odds were, and that the rest of the people in the know were not nearly as optimistic
I got the impression that he was relaying what doctors or Mike’s parents had told him personally
Except that’s what Danny did
“Would that be so bad” was in response to Ethan saying “they don’t think he’ll wake up for a while”
Yeah, but at the time the comment was made, he was not dead, and Ethan himself did not expect him to die, and the comment was “Would it be so bad if he was in a coma for awhile?”
Not “Would it be so bad if he died?”
In fairness to Ethan, of the two of them, Sal is definitely the one who could do better.
Yeah, kinda agreeing with Ethan here. Danny is a “nice” person, but I don’t find him to be an actually good person.
When someone is a “nice guy”, it’s almost always an expression of entitlement, that they do “nice” things in order to get material benefit.
Danny has a lot of character faults, but he’s never, not even once, displayed this one that I am aware of. Anything he’s done for other people has been with no strings attached, which has sometimes been just plain poor judgment on his part.
I’d argue that Danny has a tendency to make Sacrifices of his own wants and needs for the objects of his affection that they neither want not ask for nor need to prove how devoted he is. He does this partly to avoid conflict and partly to make the other person feel obligated not to dump him for his clinginess and passive aggression. Furthermore, despite him never talking about it with the other person or telling them about it, he seems to think it means they owe him.
Lastly, if the other person has ambitions or wants or dreams that aren’t compatible with his, he expects them to psychically KNOW he doesn’t want them to do it and tries to manipulate them into not doing it by putting it down (see him making fun of Dorothy’s life’s ambition rather than having a conversation about how he cares about her and wants to keep the relationship going even if she goes to her dream school).
See also his avoidance of conflict with Amber rather than talking his attraction with Ethan with her.
So, especially as someone who is closely related to someone very much like Ethan, I’d argue he’s not the stereotypical “Nice Guy” putting in kindness coins into the girl vending machine and expecting sex to pop out not realizing that girls are not in fact vending machines, but he absolutely does use superficial kindness and self sacrifice as manipulation tactics, which I think is what Ethan’s getting at. Danny will sacrifice what he wants for you, but all of his gifts and gestures come with strings attached.
(And because that brand of manipulation drives me batty, I actually agree with Ethan. Sal deserves better.)
Like to clarify, because of my experience with my relative who Danny reminds me of, I read the whole Dorothy breakup arc as Danny basically trying to manipulate with a message of, “I care for you so much I sacrificed even considering what school I would actually like to go to so I can be with you! I did this for you, so now you’ll sacrifice your greatest dream for me, right? I mean it’s kind of a stupid and unrealistic dream anyway, right? Wouldn’t you be happier settling down with me and following my ill-defined dream instead? Don’t you kind of owe me that since I made this sacrifice for you?” Leaving out that they’re not the same, Dorothy didn’t ask him to do that, and making fun of someone’s life dream because they’re not willing to sacrifice it for you is a shitty move.
Like, he’s been getting better as time goes on, so I don’t despise him as much as I used to, but I totally understand where Ethan’s coming from and agree with him on this.
I can see that in relationship with Dorothy – but that was in the first handful of strips, essentially his backstory. It’s a lot more of a stretch to see it in anything since then. The avoiding conflict part perhaps, but I don’t see the “thinks they owe him” part anywhere in his relationship with Amber. Or Ethan. Or Sal.
Yeah, no, if ANYONE was off in the Dorothy/Danny relationship it was Dorothy, who, instead of actually breaking up with him, just expected him to… not go to this college? I guess? Like ghosting, but more passive?
Nah, Danny was pretty shit there too. We don’t see the setup, since it’s backstory, but the implication is that he specifically followed her here. At least instead of considering other options.
And the bit we do see, right before the breakup, where he says “maybe you’ll like it here and change your mind” and then “I’ll quit school” to follow her, is bad enough.
She should have broken up with him earlier, that much is true. As she said.
But the real point is that Danny has changed since then. He hasn’t kept behaving like that.
It’s possible that both of them were the bad guy in that particular situation
Sometimes there isn’t a good guy and both people are at fault
Danny was actively wrong, Dorothy was passively wrong.
Dorothy wasn’t supposed to be a main character at the time, she was just there to dump Danny, so at the time Dorothy herself makes the point: she should have done this earlier and it was wrong of her not to, but the important part is Danny making his mistakes, telling Dorothy she could change her mind about going to Yale, and then immediately falling into another romantic fantasy through Amazi-Girl.
In hindsight, with Dorothy going onto be the deuteragonist of the series, it’s the same kind of mistake with the same level of consequence, it’s just that Dorothy condemning herself is all we were ever supposed to get until Danny and Dorothy had it out a few times afterwards.
Wait, did he actually betray his friends by helping Blaine and/or Ross, or am I missing something?
I definitely did not betray his friends in that way. He just put his foot in his mouth
No, Ethan is just being realistically 18/19 and blowing valid hurt emotions into an unjustifiable atrocity.
nah, here’s the “knife in the back” ethan is talking about https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/04-is-a-song-forever/hospitalized/
I can’t believe I’m saying this but I actually understand where Ethan is coming from. In fact I think I would say Ethan is Justified.
If this was a few years back and someone told me I’d be sticking up for Ethan I’d tell them to stop bullshiting me.
Reeeeally wondering why this was apparently never, ever touched for the past several months by either Ethan or Danny. I imagine some combination of Danny being too bad at social interactions to address it tactfully and Ethan, given his current mental state, probably just shutting down any attempt that might have been made.
Anyway, Ethan’s justified in feeling betrayed, but I don’t know if he’s justified in evidently deciding Danny’s a terrible person for calling his objectively terrible person of a friend a terrible person at a terrible moment.
How was Ethan betrayed exactly? What trust relationship did Danny abuse?
I mean, I don’t think it’s “betrayal” in the strictest sense so much as “Ethan believed Danny was his friend and he said something that made him feel like he wasn’t at the worst possible moment to do so.”
Overall I think Danny’s transgression amounts to a very unfortunate slip of the tongue that blew up in his face aggressively (because of course it did, he’s Danny), but in Ethan’s position, I don’t think it’s hard to imagine feeling like you, having assessed someone to be considerate of your feelings, have been betrayed when they say something that sort of tramples on them when they’re vulnerable.
And then Danny apparently doubled down by not talking to Ethan again, to boot. Like, I suspect that if Danny had turned up at a later point and said something non-apologetic, some kind of ‘I regret saying that to you at that specific time’ thing (not apologizing for thinking it, not taking it back, not even saying wouldn’t express it in another time and place) Ethan probably would have accepted that. Instead, Danny ran away and stayed away, and that feelings-trample was left to fester.
And fester it definitely has.
That’s not really established.
We don’t know who’s pushing who away here. For all we know Danny did make overtures and Ethan reacted like he’s reacting here.
I personally feel like the ‘oh shit it’s Ethan what do’ reaction from Danny earlier and inability to even exist in the same room as Ethan indicates that Danny has had no contact by design.
Or he’s tried before – likely relatively soon after and been rebuffed hard.
Basically just the trust that Danny would be a decent person really. In a hard time, Danny said an insensitive thing which Ethan was going to let slide and then he doubled down. Twice. And then Mike died after that. So he feels bitter about it. In his mind he may even think something like ‘Danny got exactly what he wanted’.
Which isn’t fair, Danny never asked for his death and probably lacks the knowledge to know how dangerous long-term comas are. But bitter people aren’t known for their fairness.
Danny seemingly dropped Ethan completely after their shouting match in the hospital. In no way has Danny, at least, been keeping up with Ethan’s doings: he was shocked to see Ethan in a common area. If they’ve spoken to any degree after the hospital, I’d be stunned.
Frankly, though, while I love Sal, Danny, and their combo, I absolutely see where Ethan is here. Yes, Sal held a knife to him, but she never actually hurt him, and he has no beef with her now. Danny, on the other hand, he liked and trusted, and Danny hurt him badly at a bad time and then disappeared. Sal can do better than THAT guy. (Fortunately, she has. She is dating Real Dan as opposed to Dickbag Dan.)
Well, as the saying goes, a true friend stabs you in the front.
I’d swear that was a quote from a former White House Communications Director
Love Lies Bleeding in my hands… *segues into the instrumental interlude*
oh THAT’S what he’s saying! finally, after 20 years of forgetting to look up the lyrics, i can rest.
I can’t stop picturing Joyce and Ethan wearing the Tripp pants, fishnets, and band tees of 2008, panda eyeliner on, and hair covering one eye. Ethan in particular keeps making me think of Bully Maguire. I’m so struggling to take either of them seriously right now. Help me.
I do actually want this to put Joyce and Ethan in a friendship space again, though.
I agree with Ethan.
He is now the truth bomb giver that Mike was.
Even on the last panel?
Ethan Told Danny to his face he’d let Mike talk shit about him being hospitalized. Ethan’s a prick, not a “truth bomb giver”
So, Phipps is actually partly right: Ethan IS what Mike was.
Except Mike was occasionally entertaining.
Weird, then, that he’s mad at Danny for dropping a similar truth bomb on him.
I feel like Mike dying has cause some commentors to gloss over or ignore some of Mike’s more abusive moments
Which is extra telling because they already glossed over how awful he was when he was alive.
Yeah, I don’t think it was the dying that did it.
Joe’s shirt wouldn’t lie, Ethan
Alternate reading: Ethan is saying that nice people don’t exist, because that allows him to understand Mike, after his death, as more normal or even laudable (and less of an objectively terrible person). Of course it isn’t true that all guys are equally knife-y — but if it was, and all guys have knives, Mike at least had the consideration to put his terrible traits right out front where people could see them.
Ethan is trying out the idea that Mike wasn’t unusually horrible, he was just really direct about his horribleness, which was honest of him.
If Ethan continues holding this opinion, it follows that Ethan should be more obvious about his own mean feelings (such as by voicing his acerbic thoughts instead of being the very considerate kind passive fellow that he was before Mike died). It also would support that Danny is clearly untrustworthy and is hiding something (as evidenced by hurting Ethan’s feelings with his poorly-timed opinion).
I like your take.
oh shit that’s really insightful.
ethan’s right for this one i hate to say it. sorry but if your friend is dying and some guy says to you that it would be fine if he never woke up and then proceeds to double down on that position and then your friend dies for real you have the right to hate pn that guy forever
Oh, fuck all the way off, Ethan. Danny said ONE tone deaf thing, about a dude who emotionally abused everyone he knew, *especially* you.
“Rude,” I can see. “Backstabbing” is a childish, maudlin accusation. You’re entitled to feeling like garbage but that doesn’t automatically make your #deep insights any less grating.
Shut the hell up Ethan,, the last thing you told Danny was that you’d let Mike talk shit about him if he was hospitalized because you knew him longer than Danny. Fuck off with your “Sal deserves better than him” shit. Asshole.
I think I can safely say that I can’t fully blame Ethan for still being upset. It’s only been a few months, and something like what happened could be really traumatizing. I agree that Danny’s transgression wasn’t nearly as bad as he’s making out to be, but at the same time, it had to sting in a major way.
It’s so weird reading all these angry comments at ETHAN. I guess it’s golden Danny was a prick because the important part was he “told the truth”. Danny essentially asked “would it be a bad thing?” this guy Ethan has known, for better or worse, since he was a kid just didn’t…wake up. Danny said this to a guy that he had known for, possibly, maybe four months tops given that was all during the first semester.
ALSO, Danny deciding the hospital, where Ethan is in turmoil, was the absolute PERFECT opportunity to confess how he felt because that whole moment should have all been about him and not how Ethan was dealing after all that chaos. Yea, maybe Mike wasn’t shit but Danny isn’t either. Ethan is not wrong to feel even slightly like this.
This, but idk, I’d call that interaction a fairly direct stab in the front.
That specifically is my only quibble with him being down on Danny, tbh. At least be accurate about which direction he was shitty in.
I mean, if someone you thought cared about you takes a swing at you when you’re at your worst, it’s understandable that you’ll think he was two-faced all along. It’s not textbook backstabbing but it’s close enough.
i’m sure Julius Caesar wouldn’t hesitate to call Brutus a backstabber if he’d survived, even though the specific direction the actual knife came from may not be precisely 6 o’clock
(i hasten to add, judging by the general vibe today, that the above comment in no way reflects the views of the commenter. i’m just trying to see things Ethan’s way)
And I think people aren’t taking into account just how MUCH trauma stuff got piled on Ethan that day. He was kidnapped, held hostage under threat of harm/death for the second time in less than five years, watched one of said kidnappers get brutally murdered in front of him, and got out of that situation only to find that one of his best friends (maybe first crush, first sex partner) was horrifically injured and comatose in the hospital and had been alone there for hours or days because his other best friend seemingly decided not to tell anyone about it.
Even before Mike passed, even with taking into any account the fight with Danny, that’s a ton of trauma and probably a lot of free-floating anger. The fight with Danny might have just made him a ‘safe’ target for said anger, since Ethan seemingly hasn’t actually had to deal with him in person since.
Danny absolutely was a prick at that moment. Obviously, we don’t know how much interaction Danny had with Mike, but very few people had truly positive interactions with him. That’s on Mike and no one else, but again that still does not excuse the terrible timing for letting that reaction come out of his big mouth.
Having said that, I don’t recall what Danny’s upbringing was like. I remember his parents being open to him dating a Dotty 2.0, but outside of that I got the impression that there was some not so great stuff hidden in the shadows. Perhaps Mike struck a little to close to home for Danny’s taste.
We never got flashbacks to Danny’s upbringing, but from the interaction’s we’ve seen with his parents, let’s just say that I’m not surprised Danny’s self-esteem… isn’t great.
Well, he needs to date a Dorothy because he’ll never amount to anything on his own.
That’s his parents in a nutshell. Would be nice to dig a little deeper into that, but maybe there really isn’t anything else to it.
Ah, so after Becky v. Joyce, we now have Ethan v. Danny in the comments.
I guess next storyline we’ll have, I dunno, Roz vs. Mary.
I would really hope that, no matter how much one dislikes Roz, one would still hold Mary to be worse.
Well yeah I might not see eye to eye with Roz with everything but I don’t see her pushing someone to suicide and then being too callous to give a damn about it.
Mary really wasn’t too callous to care, she seemed to want to let Ruth rot for even barely stymying her bigotry towards Carla. That was the arc she went from quirky-but-unserious-side-antagonist to holy-shit-she’s-actually-a-villain.
Considering Mary’s status as pure-villain-through-and-through-only-approachable-via-comedy and Roz’s status as purely heroic but extraordinarily unpleasant about it, I would hope so.
Maybe we’ll get another idiot saying that Willis was being unfair about a completely truthful representation of American fundamentalism. I hate for Willis to deal with that (if it was as offensive as it was for me having only shared the experience, I genuinely can’t comprehend what it was like for someone to deny his lived experience directly like that), but catharsis comes infrequently nowadays.
I think the extra-fucked part of said idiotic accusations of unfairness is, you can literally just turn on the news, any channel I’d assume, and see people acting exactly as portrayed in this comic. Hell, they’re probably being even stupider and making Willis look like a fretful centrist coward by comparison. To pretend that it’s unfair is the same thing plugging their ears and shouting the lyrics to Hotel California.
Every day pushes me a little out of existentialism and a little more towards outright nihilism.
Seriously. Part of the reason I’ve been largely absent here for a bit, to be entirely honest. Just don’t have the spoons most days to even skim the comments, because I just can’t handle the esoteric discourse longer than it takes to fire off a mildly silly comment or two.
and we are grateful for your mild silliness u_u
I’m always particularly amused by the ones who want a portrayal of real Christians as good people and when pointed at the good Christians in the comic eventually let it out that “real Christians” means bigots to them.
Roz had it coming.
Make it Joyce v. Mary.
Perhaps Joyce runs into Mary before seeing Becky or Liz again, and when Mary pushes her about Christianity, Joyce decides to pick a fight.
But it goes badly, because Mary is more than just a fundie who “doesn’t see the truth.” She’s a monster who would show it’s not about Christianity at all. Just red-panelly hate.
And then Sal shows up.
I also want Roz vs. Mary because that means we’d finally had a Road Runner to Mary’s Wile E. Coyote.
I know I’d never call Danny’s most recent on-screen Dan-up a ‘stab in the back’. Which doesn’t preclude Ethan from being Dramatic. But for my money, a timeskip transgression, probably wellmeaning on Danny’s part- outed Ethan to parents/others? Entrapped him into therapy?
Ethan’s out to his parents. IIRC, his mom hates it and makes him suffer, and blames Amber for not being a good enough girl to keep him from looking at boys.
Drama queen
Danny dodged a bullet. He’s better off with Sal.
Not to pile on here, but Danny’s stupid little outburst doesn’t really seem like “stabbing in the back”, considering he said it directly to Ethan’s face, in the moment. Like, he didn’t sneak around saying it and accidentally letting it get back to Ethan, he just said something to the effect of “fuck that guy anyway lmao” then and there, right in front of Mike’s barely-not-a-corpse. Seems about as up-front as that sort of thing gets.
I think the ‘backstab’ is a little more complex than one fight. From Ethan’s perspective, Danny built up Ethan’s affection for and trust in him over weeks/months, then blew both up in several very hurtful ways at a terrible time, in very quick succession, then disappeared. I don’t think it’s incomprehensible that Ethan might feel like the initial ‘kind, attractive Danny’ part was just Danny making sure that Ethan’s defenses (built up over years of Amber’s crisis-validation needs and Mike’s Mike things and thus considerable fortifications) would be all the way down before the knife came out.
Well no, it’s definitely not incomprehensible. It’s probably overthinking, though. Maybe I only think that because of audience bias, but honestly these days I’ve been thinking that the audience’s standpoint is the only one that matters when I engage with fiction.
huh, you wanna share your thought process on that? i’m just curious.
Okay, so Danny *really* needs to apologize to Ethan about that stupid and poorly-timed thing he said. Also, I guess this officially confirms that Danny and Ethan are no longer friends, to put it lightly.
Is it philosophically inconsistent to have patience for Joyce’s antics but find Ethan absolutely insufferable? I’m currently in that position.
What you find easy to tolerate is not gonna be easy for everyone to tolerate. That is just part of life. You’re allowed to have different tolerances for different things for different people as well. You don’t have to be perfectly fair, especially as Ethan was a mostly passive background character while Joyce was a likeable main character that we saw do several good things and make several hard choices.
Very true.
Re: Joyce and Ethan, at this rate I prefer Joyce’s antics to Ethan’s attitudes the same way I prefer a paper cut to a poison oak rash.
Is it philosophically inconsistent to have patience for both Joyce and Ethan, but not for the commentariat’s insistence on resolving any conflict between characters by declaring one absolutely right and the other a monster?
We cam understand why Ethan feels this way and empathize without thinking he’s right about Danny.
i’ve been wondering, maybe there’s a selection bias? maybe people are more likely to leave a (slew of) comment(s) when some visceral button of theirs gets pushed by the current comic for whatever reason?
i don’t know, it doesn’t happen to me very often but then again i don’t really get mad ever
Yeah, I think it’s reasonable that people comment more when they have stronger feelings about a given strip. I certainly do.
Very likely true.
What pushes my buttons tends to be bad takes in the comments. 🙂
oh yeah, i get that.
i find the vitriol a bit taxing myself, regardless of how good the take is.
Like, it feels so easy. “I”-statements. don’t qualify opposing opinions as immoral or dumb. avoid inflammatory hyperbole. admit and apologize when you were wrong or unfair.
but eh… it’s the internet. and maybe people WANT to fight after all, who am i.
I’m the opposite. I’m finding Joyce more annoying (though I’m more understanding of it now) but I’m purely pro Ethan here. I haven’t seen a strip yet where he’s not just right
(for the record i don’t think he’s factually correct about Danny but he’s 100% in his rights to feel this way)
Sidebar I think the phrase Ethan is stumbling for her is sucker-punch.
…wait, did Danny and Ethan have a thing in the break?
No, Ethan’s just still got a rock up his butt from that one time when Danny decided it’d be a really good idea to shit-talk his childhood friend in front of him, while said friend was currently in a coma and also dying. Perfectly reasonable, tbh.
Yeeeeeahhhhhhh, Ethan was never gonna be happy about or even charitable to Danny post Mike. Not surprised in the least.
I think Danny could have made it up, amends if not apology, in a way that Ethan would have accepted. But I think Danny opted to ghost instead.
Because Mike never said anything bad about anyone, right?
But when Danny did it, its different?
Mike gets the bias of “ Friend since childhood” Danny is “ Guy he’s known for Three ish months max”
Who’s been talking shit about said childhood friend who was Dying at the time.
Also “being mean to people” doesn’t mean “deserves to die,” and the latter seemed to be Danny’s reasoning? It’s juuuust a bit messed up to say “man wouldn’t it be great if he died” about p much anyone
Yeah, especially to one of their best friends right in front of their hospital door.
Danny never said that though, he said “would it be so bad if He were in a coma for a while”
Yes still fucked up but he said that on the understanding that Mike would recover at some point
Yeah that.
But it’s not like anyone’ll remember the next time these characters show up.
As far as this version of Mike goes, yeah.
A running list of “Your mom” jokes and a pulling a number of pranks in order to stir the pot isn’t as bad as blatantly just saying “If he dies, he dies” for a guy he barely knows to his closes friend while his parents are grieving in the next room all because he’s bitter and jealous that he fucked his crush. Maybe I’m missing something when I’m recalling how much of a shit Mike was but I don’t remember anything Mike did that left an impression like that hospital incident.
I don’t hate Danny, to me he’s not a nice guy he’s a good guy but even the greatest of people have their worse moments and unfortunately his worse moments outshines What Mike has done up until this point.
OK he’s said mean things about people and pulled nasty prank, But still hadn’t see him go that far like Danny did. Even if we liked to think he would the record doesn’t show.
‘Pranks’ like intentionally manipulating Walky’s fear of failure so he’ll cry himself to sleep?
I thought that was because he made a bunch of fake internet post about the Dexter & Monkey master comics being canceled? That aside…I’d haft to say no still not as bad.
He also recorded Walky crying in his sleep after breaking up with Dorothy.
Mike caught feels after sleeping with Ethan, except the reason he did was to make Danny miserable. He admits this, because the plan was to make either of them feel bad, and he would have tried to sleep with Danny.
Also he told Amber she’s going to end up like her dad, and then whoops turns out Mike is the silver medal in responsibility for why Amber’s so fucked up.
Thank you all for this nearly perfect recap of Mike.
Or should I say redress of grievances?
Walky’s sufficiently traumatized from rooming with Mike for a couple months that he’s still checking the closets when he walks in to see if Mike’s hiding in them.
Danny blurted out a painful thing.
Mike kept records on people so he could hurt them and seduced Ethan with the intention of hurting Danny, plus years of being abusive and comparing Amber to her abuser pos dad because she dated a pushover like Danny.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/file/
Danny might have made an objectively shitty comment that hurt Ethan’s feelings, but Mike’s literally broken people with malice aforethought. He went on a rant on how he wants to make the whole world suffer because he feels no one deserves to be happy, up to and including his own parents. He noticed Danny had undeniably romantic feelings towards Ethan and he deliberately seduced the latter and steered him into collecting his own harem just because he knew it would torture Danny, and proceeded to rub Danny’s face in it. The only reason Ethan managed to retain a happy impression of Mike is because Ethan is an oblivious doormat who would rather look the other way when Mike bullies people than challenge a childhood friend.
And, by his own admission, he is one of the biggest factors behind what is the single greatest destructive force in the entire series: the creation of Amazi-Girl. And we have no reason to believe his regret at the end was actually morality or empathy. For all we know, he was just grossed out that he had so much in common with a fucking boomer.
Yeah, I’m giving Danny a pass lol
Mike himself says he spent years “poking Amber’s bear” to turn her into a timebomb to use against Blaine, right before his realization that he was using the same justifications for abuse as Blaine. Mike was absolutely an abusive “friend” and Danny was completely right that Ethan would be better off with him away for awhile. Even if it was incredibly shitty to let that slip out in that circumstance.
and it turns out the hovertext to the previous strip was extremely accurate. or maybe we should say it was an understatement.
oops that shoulda gone one higher, under Fox’s comment
I can’t read the hover text, what does it say?
“last panel: snapshot summary of an entire arc????”
Ethan was far nicer to Danny than I would have been in his situation. If someone I had only known a few months told me that they’d be fine if my childhood friend who was in a coma never woke up, I’d punch them in the face. Ethan is perfectly justified in feeling hostile and doesn’t owe Danny anything.
This. As much as Danny was right about Mike, this.
It’s not a backstab, it’s a frontstab!!
(Also more of a “oops, I accidentally put this knife in your chest, let me push it in a little more and then run away”)
I understand on a deeply personal level the effects of trauma, grief, depression, etc.
But this still makes me role my eyes so hard I sprain something, Danny said a tone deaf thing, which he apologized for and only doubled down on when Ethan started talking up Mike being a hero because he saw the damage Mike did to EVERYONE, especially Ethan and Amber. He’s not evil for fuck sakes. Mike systematically emotionally, mentally, and verbally abused people for most of his life, doing one heroic thing doesn’t make him a saint.
This is completely a human response from Ethan, but God’s is it grating and obnoxious.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/04-is-a-song-forever/alderaan/
Yup
Agreed. Ethan is being an absolute arse.
… Where is the apology at???
First panel of the link, “yeah! yeah, I didnt…sorry”
Sorry with a * But isn’t an apology though since he doubled down
He doubled down only *after* Ethan lauded Mike as a hero and the look of horror on his face in the previous page points to he was sorry, he just hated Mike’s abusive bullshit too much not to keep talking when Ethan basically said Mike saving Amber gave him a pass for being a shit head every other day of the year.
Ethan is childhood friends with Mike, ofcourse he thinks the guys great. Danny should sorta understand as he’s best friends for life with Joe after all, Danny did a weak “ Sorry I made you mad” apology, Ethan didnt accept it due to so many things being still fresh and raw.
It’s a crap apology and Danny never made any attempt to give a more sincere one for being so callous, hell he never has to apologize for thinking Mikes an ass ( Cause he is) But a “ I’m so sorry, I said something really careless Ethan” woulda been enough is all.
God they are all so annyoingly 18/19 year olds lmao
Eh, we’ll have to agree to disagree on the apology, but yes they’re so frustratingly young.
I’m over here thinking “Imagine the angst over filing their taxes”
My thoughts exactly. I can’t exactly blame Ethan since he was too close (and “too close”) to Mike to really see Mike’s behaviour and his effects on others, but he’s basically viewing Mike and his behaviour through rose-tinted glasses. Mike’s not an idiot; he does do things with an intent to prod people out of their comfort zones and into what could potentially be a better place, but he goes about it the wrong way without regard to things like empathy or perhaps even consent. If you’re a shut-in, he’ll drag you out to a party (or bring the party TO you) because he knows you DO need to learn about how to socialize with others, but he doesn’t care if that it turns you into a panicked mess of anxiety all evening and it’s one of the worst nights of your life.
You beat me to it Fox.
This is a real shame. Ethan was a very sympathetic character, and I liked his attitude. This guy though… woof.
He should smile more through his whole “ Was kidnapped, witnessed a murder, and saw a friend die/go to a funeral” Trauma bc he said one kinda shitty thing about Danny?
how’d you get that from what Adept said
“ Its a shame he WAS sympathetic” Aka he’s being a lil bit of a dick, no sympathy if you act out any… which has been a habit for this comment section
This is not “acting out any”. It’s been a long time, and he’s lashing out at everybody. He’s being a self centred jerk.
Its been 3/4 months! Its been a long time for US
Y’know, one can dislike someone’s general attitude and still understand where they’re coming from.
Ethan was a passive to a fault non character who barely reacted to anything. He’s interesting now
I mean, if we want to talk about stabbing people in the back, a friend who intentionally only sticks to the LETTER of your requests rather than the SPIRIT of them (Deciding to woo Ethan to hurt and mess with Danny, since Ethan said not to do any Mike stuff ‘To Danny’)
.. Like, were there any interactions between Danny and Mike where Mike *wasn’t* fucking with and/or bullying Danny?
Not many because they didn’t have that many interactions at all, I can only think of the time they met right before Ethan told him to not mess with him and then the night of Dinas birthday. Other than that they didn’t speak much at all.
Plus I think it’s safe to say Mike got with Ethan because he had an actual fondness for him he wouldn’t admit it was just icing on cake that it got to Danny
Still not a reason to wish someone to die?? Why is this okay?
Because Danny didn’t actually wish anyone to die.
Even if it’s reasonable that Ethan thought he did.
To be fair the statement “I hope he doesn’t wake up” and “It wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t wake up” may not be the same thing but it dangerously close.
No, but the “for a while” part makes it very different.
But that’s not what he did. The lines were
“Ethan: “They’re not sure he will (wake up) for a while.”
Danny: “Would that be so bad?”
People aren’t obligated to be kind to people who are grossly unkind to them, as Danny was to Ethan when he said it’d be better if his old friend never woke up and made it all about him before running away from any accountability about his actions. Danny was grossly self-centered when Ethan needed support, and Ethan doesn’t need to forgive him for that. Ethan especially isn’t obligated to tone down his pain and hurt to his closest remaining friend (Amber). Ethan is clearly not getting the support he needs, even Amber seems like she doesn’t want to hear about how someone she used to date really hurt her oldest remaining friend. Ethan can’t process this alone, being isolated in the wake of trauma is one of the worst things for trauma that definitely lets it fester into PTSD more easily, Danny is running away from accountability to great effect.
I refuse to believe that this is all the payoff we were gonna get from Joe’s “Nice Guy ➡️” shirt. It COULD be, but my storytelling sense is telling me it’s not gonna be.
This storyline is giving me flashes of future arcs.
Arc 1: Joyce and Joe start to open up to each other, but then Dorothy’s (Yale) and Becky’s (insecurity about relationship with Dina) shit hit the fan. Joyce goes out of campus trying to bring Dorothy back and Becky goes out of campus trying to emotionally repossess Joyce. Joe has a big letdown and Dina is his only emotional support. There is a Slipshine about Dina doing empirical experimentation with Joe, and both get a huge character lift from it.
Arc 2: Gothan and AG conspire together. AG freezes Sal and Gothan makes Danny his emotional slave. But then Ghost Mike inspires Walky to confront Amber, throw AG down Garbage Roof and unfreeze Sal. Danny finally rises up and emotionally strangles Gothan.
All intense stuff.
Amber… all the times she was with Sal as a friend, were that all a lie ( or it’s AmaziGirl who is friends with Sal)? Does Amber still hate her? What a disgusting hypocrite! Ethan can’t forget what Danny told him when Mike was in the hospital, he thinks Sal is with someone who could strab her in the back at the first problem. These two are so broken it hurts to watch them!
Amazi-girl is friends with Sal, Amber does her best to tollerate her
Yeah no i picked up on that too. “You think SAL could do better?” I noticed the emphasis in that sentence and was wondering if she meant Danny’s the one that could do better. Hoping I’m just reading too much into things because ambers hatred of sal was the worst part of her character and i don’t want it back
No i think it’s because Amber would expect Ethan to be more antagonistic towards Sal than Danny, which tells us that she wasn’t aware that Ethan had a falling-out with Danny, which tells us she really hasn’t been talking to him, or rather listening to him, a whole lot over the past 4 months. ouch.
Y’all, I’m pretty sure he’s saying Danny stabbed him in the heart too.
Ethan would talk about Danny sometimes like “no, he’s too good for me” because Ethan also has crippling self esteem issues and Danny telling him he was hot was the first time he ever had a single piece of positive affirmation about being gay.
I think Ethan caught feels more than he cared to admit.
Everyone should be stabbed in the heart from time to time.
It increases blood flow.
Acupuncture is technically back-stabbing.
I am really confused by the comments section today. Are we saying that having a negative opinion of someone behind their back is… Worse than expressing that negative opinion to someone’s loved ones while they’re dying in the hospital? What has Ethan actually done other than mourn Mike? Yeah Mike was an edgy reddit shitlord etc but materially, what harm has he done other than have an awkward conversation with Danny (who seems to be doing fine, by the way?) Is it just… He’s sad and shouldn’t be? The cast are all like 18! What is happening.
(And I might be overly sensitive to this because I had a friend die suddenly when we were 18 and it meant she never got to grow and it sucks! It fucks you up forever!!!)
Man Emothan is bitter.
Wow, this is really telling of how much resentment Ethan has for Danny. (And rightfully so.)
Wow, I was not expecting this level of anger. I thought Ethan was showing remorse about their argument, but apparently he was just fishing for an apology.
Now come on, Ethan. Danny said it right to your face, so at most he stabbed your in your front.
I understand why Ethan feels that way about Danny after what he said and he has every right to be, but Danny also wasn’t entirely wrong when he said if Danny was in the hospital like Mike was, Mike would have been insulting and denigrating towards Danny. That doesn’t mean he should have said it and Danny should have certainly apologized, but he didn’t. I hope they can come together in the future and resolve their differences. Only time will tell.
I have to assume that during the depressive/grief spiral Ethan is currently in, he has replayed his conversation with Danny over and over and over in his head, probably making it worse and worse over time – in my experience that’s kinda how these things go lol. It probably also doesn’t help that – if their one interaction we’ve seen is any indication – Danny is treating Ethan like damaged goods, acting very condescending, and fleeing as quickly as possible. Now, is Ethan assessing Danny’s behavior rationally here? Of course not. But I think his conclusions here are extremely understandable.
Amazing how few people are able to grasp “what Danny did wasn’t as bad as Ethan’s making it out to be” and “Ethan was deeply hurt by Danny’s comment at an extremely turbulent and traumatic time, it changed how he views him and he’s allowed to carry hurt and disdain towards him because of it. Also he’s a fucking teenager”.
Either Danny’s evil or Ethan’s being evil and nuance doesn’t exist. And no, Ethan doesn’t have to be nice when talking about perceived betrayal, honestly tell me how many people from your life who’ve hurt you deeply that you take the care to “not be mean” when you talk about them. I’m sorry he’s being “mean”, boo hoo i guess.
Anyway I’m looking forward to more Ethan/Amber interactions, it’s also nice seeing her get called out
Nope. Not allowed. No nuance here.
Pick a character and defend their take to the death. In any conflict one of them must be completely right and the other a complete monster.
You know when you mentioned me yesterday as “is this what Spencer feels like all the time?”
You hit a bullseye there.
Right? It’s always so “Oh character is being an ass right now, ugh they are the worst!” and it’s like…guys not only are they dumb teenagers but they all went through*hella trauma* they’re not going to be 100% rational and perfect human beings.
Not caring for the undertone of “You’re only sympathetic unless you stop acting sad, any other emotion is bad and loses sympathy”
Ick
*whistles*
*Kicks 800,000 words about why Joyce is the way she is right now under a table*
Joyce has a thousand reasons as to why she’s currently being a puffy ball of atheist rage, she’s being a lil bit of an arse but really deserves some sympathy… real sympathy, not a snarky comment from Sarah about how she’ll forgive her X.X
But the counter too often isn’t “They’re being an ass for understandable reasons”, but “They’re completely right to be an ass and the people they’re going after are the real problems who completely deserve it.”
Yeah and thats a bad take too, its either one or the other x.x
Ethan was hurt by what Danny said when Mike ended up in a coma, but… it’s not a betrayal, like, at all? Danny didn’t break his word or talk behind his back or anything. He spoke critically (and honestly) about a fairly toxic friend of Ethan’s when Ethan didn’t want to hear it. While the guy obviously has a right to his feelings, Ethan describing that as Danny putting a knife in his back is just inaccurate and melodramatic, like he’s trying to be the victim of a greater injury to justify how strongly he’s reacting without having to acknowledge that his part in it (ie not being willing to hear criticism of a toxic friend because the guy had gotten hurt doing a noble thing)
I agree with this 100%. I don’t agree with a lot of people essentially saying Danny was right to wish someone death, especially so in that time and place. But yeah he didn’t stab Ethan in the back, agreed
At no point did Danny wish death on anyone, Mike dying was not considered as a possibility at that point in universe
It was “would it be so bad if he didn’t wake up for a while”
Danny fucked up, and Mike dying made that fuck up worse, but let’s not act like it was worse then it was
*Not being willing to hear criticism of a toxic friend, right after being kidnapped and watching a brutal murder only to THEN find out his friend was in a coma/dying
It was not the time NOR the place for Danny to say that, being critical and honest without tact is kinda being an arsehole
To be fair Danny is like what 18 so that’s to be expected but still.
THAT is what this was about? Ethan needs to take a better look at his life.
Here’s the real question. Why did Amber feel the need to inform Ethan of this development? I mean, I get she’s trying to pay Sal’s actions forward, but it feels like she’s even more checked out of what passes for her social circle than I realized.
Like, Amber and/or AG is Danny’s ex, has or had a complex centered around Sal, and literally broke-up with Danny over his friendship with Sal. By all accounts Sal and Danny’s relationship is a potential landmine for Amber/AG regardless of whether they’re dating or staying friends.
But, Ethan doesn’t care about Sal. She’s an acquaintance at best. And Danny and Ethan were friends, but not for long and have been actively avoiding each for months by all appearances.
Like, what’s he going to do with this information? Brood about how unfair it is that Danny gets to date his friends while he and Mike will never be? I can’t see him actively stirring up shit just to hurt Danny. Even if he was somehow caught by surprise. And how would he do so anyway?
So, either Amber has so completely dropped out of her friends’ lives she doesn’t realize how distant Ethan is from everything…
Or, this is just another distraction for Amber to avoid talking about the real issue she wants to talk with Ethan about. Which is Ghost-Mike.
Oh to me it’s pretty clear Amber just needs *someone* to help her sort through her own feelings about this news that she’s just received, but she has no one else to talk to. Ethan is her childhood BFF and all, so she just goes to him because he’s the only person she can— or could— trust to be at once honest and kind to her.
not sure Ethan’s up to it anymore, though.
I think Mike was so awful it makes it hard to empathize with Ethan. Frankly he seems like an enabler who would deny Mike was that bad. It’s a common dynamic when one person is an abuser and they have a partner who basically tries to control the narrative.
Many people feel great relief when their abuser dies and Mike was so awful I can see multiple people feeling like that. It’s a valid reaction. Mike only has himself to blame for making Danny feel like it’d be good for him to stay comatose for a bit.
Note that abusers can also do nice things so Mike’s sacrifice doesn’t erase all the crap he did.
I think Ethan needs to realise that Danny’s reaction was a valid as his own when Mike was in hospital. It would be different if Danny and Mike just didn’t get on, but Mike’s character was way too extreme for me to view Ethan more kindly.
But the issue is that Mike wasn’t Danny’s abuser. My dad was physically and emotionally abusive to me and when he died I felt relieved, yes, but it was still incredibly painful and imo it would have been messed up if one of my friends was like “oh sweet he died high five,” which is how I view Danny’s actions
😔 Me too.
I feel like this comment section seems to think Danny was justified in literally wishing someone to die, and that’s awful imo. And also like… No one seems to be mentioning that Mike tried to make up for his shitty behavior, but no somehow we’ve all decided to be Rachel and think that no one can ever make up for their actions ever. He took on a mob boss murderer for Amber but I guess that doesn’t count because he tried to seduce Ethan because of jealousy. Ffs
I just think Everybody Sucks There
Danny did a nasty as hell lash out, Ethan didn’t call Mike out on the crap, and Mike was Mike. But yeah, Mike did try to improve himself, and he saved lives as a result
That I can agree with 100%
Also lol book title – DoA: Everybody Sucks
Pretty true to life (including me) tbh
The wish wasn’t that Mike would die, it was that Mike would be in a coma for a few weeks and Danny wouldn’t have to look over his shoulder all the time. Neither of them realized that Mike would actually die at that point.
The actual quotes from that scene:
Ethan: “They’re not sure he will (wake up) for a while.”
Danny: “Would that be so bad?”
In the aftermath of him actually dying and knowing that a long coma is already a really bad sign, that’s easy to read as “would it be bad if he died”, but there’s little reason to think Danny was thinking that. More just, “At least you get a break from the abuse for a while.”
Tall Rachel is an idiot and completely wrong about redemption being a story/impossible, but I do agree with Carlos Bacca that sometimes you go so far into the red you can never get back into the black. Mike spent almost all of his screentime being a terrible person, abusing people because he thought he was smarter than he was. He didn’t kill anyone, and was lucky that his provocation of Amber didn’t lead to her hurting someone permanently, but even the one very good thing he did wasn’t nearly enough to bring him out of the black.
Concerning the comments above that Mike was on his way to change, he wasn’t. He was clearly miserable seeing Ethan with other guys because of his own feelings, but instead of coming clean at that point and trying to talk to Ethan directly he lets him go, presumably because he was still fulfilling his shitstain mission of hurting Danny. The “Oh shit, I’ve been wrong this entire time,” moment only came about after confronting Blaine and Ross behind Blowjob Cat and seeing that Amber was Amazi-Girl.
Because people linked to the conversation itself where Danny (probably unwisely) brought up Vader (and it’s probably unwise that I’m doing the same), I’m thinking of some Legends material where Anakin as a Force Ghost tries to talk to Leia, who was not directly involved in his arc, and was in fact completely removed from his redemption arc. Luke has forgiven his father, so Anakin is hoping to get some of the same catharsis from his estranged daughter who confronts him with the fact that Force-ratified redemption be damned, he was still fucking Vader for over 20 years before he finally turned on the Emperor. She makes it completely clear to him that being contrite and doing one admittedly tremendously good thing does not undo all the harm he’s caused, nor does it give him a pass from people who still have every reason to hate him.
Looks like Amber, Danny and everyone else has ignored / avoided Ethan during the most difficult time of his life. Kidnapped, watched a murder, friend dies. Then Danny shows up like nothing has happened and has nothing to say. No apology, can’t wait to bail. Danny is not a friend to Ethan.
Ethan only has one true friend.
Dinobot.
This feels like a weird read of Danny considering that seeing Ethan mortified him into immediately thinking about saying anything that could hurt him, tried to make obviously forced small talk, and then bailed while affirming Ethan he was definitely not gonna go have a good time where he’s having fun.
So if you wanna know what Danny thinks of Ethan, it’s “I can’t say something that will make him miserable or indicate to him I’m in a good mood.”
Joyce too, huh?
Not really clear, due to the time skip. Ethan at this point really doesn’t seem like he’d welcome overtures from Danny. Did Danny try at any point last semester? How much of Ethan’s isolation is him pushing people away and how much the others avoiding him? We don’t know. The pattern was all set in the time skip.
It is entirely possible he left/was pulled out of school and did not return until recently, given how surprised Danny was to see him.
Given that they are college students, if he wasn’t at school, it would be kind of difficult for them to be around/there for him.
Ya know, now I want Jacob to chime in
(working on the assumption they have the same roomies other than the changes we’ve already seen?
Anyways that’s enough character debate, who wants to hear a bad joke?
yes! bad joke! bad joke! bad j— wait what you mean bad
Okay so this lady hosts a costume party, everyone has to wear a costume based on an animal or some sort of insect, One guy shows up wearing green and giving his girlfriend a piggie back ride.
The host asks them “ What are you supppsed to be?”
The guy answers” Well I’m a turtle and this” He turns so the gf can wave “ Is Michelle~“
hahaha loved it ^^
i think you specifying “an animal or some sort of insect” when that turns out to be totally irrelevant makes it even better XD
Thank you, thank you~
Took me a second but 😂
Took me a few hours actually.
But I guess it’s because I never heard “Michelle” pronounced like that before 😅
Think people are being too hard on the angsty teenagers who went through trauma but what do I know
The following is intended solely in a humorous light and is in no way meant to reflect the views of myself or any other commenter, either stated or hypothetical:
How dare these little shithead kids keep putting themselves through horrible situations. Stop traumatising yourselves, stop traumatising yourselves!
If I were them, I would simply not get kidnapped. Amateur mistake, right there.
Their first mistake? Having shithead parents. Never do that!
I’ve honestly come to hate Ethan. He’s kind just trash at this point.
Shortpacked Mike had redeeming and endearing qualities over the years, DoA Mike never did. He was just a trash human from beginning to end, and Ethan was nothing but an enabler after some dick.
Ethan was a long term victim. Manipulated since he was 12 or so into being dependent on Mike.
If Danny is such a good sport, Sal’s a lucky gal, cause, as we all know, nice guys finish last.
Ethan isn’t wrong in regards of earlier Danny, and they both have codependent tendencies. Current Danny has been great to Sal so far, but that was all during daily life moments and problems. Consider how Sal is worried about Billie hanging around Asher for both the right and wrong reasons.
We’ve seem how Asher handles things when someone from his Grandad’s crew pulls him back in…We’ve also seen what a yo-yo Billie can be, Raidah’s denial about her lack of self-control with others whom she feels are in the wrong, and Sal’s need to get involved with dangerous situations….Danny does not have a good track record with situations like that.
Danny will bring sandwiches to the exciting adventures.
To compensate for not being able to handle the situation at the level of personal responsibility it calls for (especially when everyone around him isn’t) instead of biting the bullet and doing so?
Sal putting a knife to his throat feels probably so distant now, and way less personal. Danny putting his foot in his mouth the most he has ever done and kept going probably feels even more sore specially as Mike didn’t got up
I am still kinda jarred by Ethan’s book 12 hairstyle.
I’m jarred by his cheeks looking gaunt. Doesn’t it look like Willis is going out of the way to make Ethan look like he hasn’t been eating???
New Ethan’s a bit of a bummer isn’t he?
Much worse, he’s an utter jerk.
Ethan sure is agonizing over the question, “what is the meaning of nice?” now isn’t he?
I don’t understand all the people saying Ethan is a jerk. Ummmm, he has supported Amber through emotional crisis *her* *entire* *life*, and while, yes, they both recently lost a close friend, Ambers ability to make everything about herself and her anxieties has turned her into a selfish friend when Ethan is CLEARLY HURTING DEEPLY.
He isn’t being a jerk. He’s being depressed.
Which, btw, turns out so was Mike. (*cues comic of Carla overhearing the words “sometimes it’s hard to tell when someone is depressed”
*cue the entire Ruth/Billie-are-jerks-to-cope-with-trauma storylines
*cue Mike laying in bed after Walky teases “maybe YOURE depressed”
*cue Ruth saying “you’re not going to kill yourself but you’d welcome death as punishment
*cue Mike launching himself after remembering Evil Dad explaining superficial similarities between them)
Both Amber and Mike were activated into unhealthy-but-ultimately-harm-FREEing actions. Amber was much less healthy her isolate-and-dissassociate NESS, but because she is openly self aware, we all can it acceptably entertaining. Mike behaved in much more tangible acceptable ways, really, orienting mere sarcasm and double-faced-pseudo-rudeness. I know not everyone feel this way about Mikes behavior, but there was so often overt benefit to come from his “bad” action, that it calls to mind the philosophical conundrum of means vs ends. Mike accepted judgement and even outright scorn, but continuously took actions that BENEFITTED THOSE AROUND HIM, without seeming, until the end, to be concerned with such egoistic thing as a reputation.
**BY AMBER’S DAD
Both Amber and Mike were activated into unhealthy-but-blah-blah behaviors BY AMBER’S DAD
My bad.
Also, thank you Willis, for finally giving us an “in” for the OT3 of this comic!
Aanyway roulette again
Swear I’m gonna get banned one of these days…
OR NOT HOLY FUCK
🙁
Boo, Ethan.
How about, “Nice guys rarely manage to be 100% selfless 24/7/365… because they’re human and fallible and have their own lives to try and sort out too.