ngl, i always though the ‘inflation’ thing was some kinda joke that went too far because idk if anyone was ever credited for ‘coming up with it’ , like weight gain/chubbiness i understand but the over the top drawings ppl would put would be hard to imagine anyone getting satisfaction from. i wonder if the wonderbread guy is still around i haven’t been on DA in like a decade lol
Weirdly, inflation is actually one of the better understood kinks in terms of origin, with much of it being directly caused by Violet in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, with “blueberrification” being a subset of inflation with juice inside the subject and thus closer to the ground zero of it, along with people being filled with air pumps in old cartoons, often to reinflate when after they’d been flattened.
I certainly don’t *get* the kink, but I’m unfortunately very aware of it.
Any question you can come up with. The answer is always yes. I once read a translated Japanese comic called “Graduation and Beheading.” The title was very accurate.
Fun fact! There was supposed to be a Gibby! spinoff of iCarly, which shot a pilot that got shut down by executives. It included a scene where an employee of a rec center was told he was supposed to put sunscreen on children and inflate some balls, but he got confused. His boss held up balls covered in sunscreen and some kids walked through with massive stomachs, muttering “so full…”
The Gibby! spinoff did inflation on children!
well, that guy did end up being a pervert, too and i think jeanette mccurdy’s book/auto bio mentioned him even if she couldn’t legally mention his name or so
Here we see a Brown Headed Amber alone on the sweeping forums of the internet, its natural habitat. Behold as she attempts to worm her way into a new webcomic fan forum. Yet she must be careful, if she is rejected she will have to brave the raging inferno’s of the Summer Blockbuster flame-wars alone.
yeah the nonconsenting thing is an issue even if booster isn’t a stranger though not sure how looking at a pic of amber through the lens later would be as effective as just observing her directly
I think Booster is *definitely* trolling Amber, being as intrusive as they possibly can be. I don’t personally see this as creepy, though, since it seems pretty clearly not a sexual thing, rather a “I’m gonna deliberately make you uncomfortable with the flimsiest of excuses” thing.
what if it’s in the context of… oh, just to pull out a hypothetical at random…
“hey, that thing you asked me to do earlier is extremely morally dubious, but I suspect you’re not going to listen if I just tell you that; so instead, I’m going to give you a demonstration of what it’s like being the subject of it.”
Creepy doesn’t have to be sexual. A creep is someone who makes you uncomfortable for a variety of reasons, but nonconsensual photography is definitely under the creep umbrella.
Wasn’t there a Patreon panel posted previously that showed Booster wanting to take candid photos of the quad from Dorothy’s window, so that no one would see Booster doing it? I’m voting “creepy as fuck”.
not saying it should be encouraged/condoned, but i think a lot of older teens/young adults are still at the phase, whether it’s to be rebellious/contrarian or not enough maturity/life experience, and of course everyone is diff, but it’s a very ‘young person’ thing to not listen/pester someone in this kinda way (at least it’s not a livestream or online so far)
I don’t think this is a lack of awareness of boundaries, this is a deliberate infringement on them. Booster knows what they are doing and is doing it with deliberate intent.
This is just a convenient opportunity for Booster to snap photos of people which would normally be a bit creepy but because of the mutual give and take of their arrangement it works here! Everyone wins! Except Ethan probably. He should really be aware of this whole setup thing since he’s the most important factor.
she has said no therapist would be equipped to deal with her or so, not sure if a student would fare that much better but also no amazigirl adventures anymore so i’d assume booster wouldn’t get in the crossfire of anyhing dangerous
Amber saying that no therapist would be equipped to deal with her doesn’t mean that’s true. It just means that’s what Amber believes is true.
I still don’t think student therapists should be trying to treat their fellow students with no oversight or actual qualifications, but this isn’t smarting of age so we’ll see!
sal also got like , “well, rob a convenience store at 14 and see how many therapists you get sent to” although i’d assume they might have some kinda unintentional/inherent bias if it was like “This kid robbed a convenience store” versus “she was desperate to help her injured/newly-crippled friend” or so (though even with a ‘valid’ reason, they’d prolly have to ‘lecture’ her about not committing the crime and all the other stuff)
And I still think Amber is, in the usual manner of children very young adults, vastly overestimating how special and unique(ly broken) she actually is.
A genuinely good therapist (I acknowledge none may be available) would be much too professional to laugh and say “oh, dear, you have no idea“… but they might very well think it.
To some extent that’s true, but DID really is rare and neither well understood or easy to treat. It’s unlikely a random therapist is going to have with it or with anything much rarer.
I hope that is not the case, but worry that it is.
I’m still holding out for the SS Garbage Skowl to be repaired in dry dock and set out anew.
Unless it’s a friendship, of course. Amber could use more friends and Booster seems a decent person to me.
you’re not supposed to get too close/directly interact as a nature documentary-person tho, right. wonde rif they’ll bump into ethan first questioning this or another person booster will answer and someone will reasonably say “that’s kinda weird/messed up/unnecessary, just talk to him” lol. thhough other than danny and joe, idk if anyone would care enough to get involved
not sure how helpful observing amber /now/ would be if she’s not on good enough speaking terms to push booster on him lol. seems like it’d be easier to just ask her to talk about the past
might be hard for her to talk about her current emotions but i can imagine her and some other ppl just casually just dumping all their past issues like “Yeha my dad was abusive, ethan was there for me but turns out he was gay which made our prom night awkward” and summarize
I kind of like Booster as a cast addition. (Note that “like” is absolutely not a stamp of approval on their actions. They definitely are too clever by half, and their grasp on psychology is still definitely a novice’s, but most strikingly when and how they use it.)
Anyway, I do like that they fill some of the same role Mike did while not being quite as “living cartoon character” about it. I do find it kind of funny that someone called Booster is routinely seen to “neg” people to a degree and take them down a peg.
But you can totally like a character as a character without liking them as a person. I wonder if this applies to real life at all. I feel like it does. I’m gonna come up with an example from my personal life later.
I think part of the symbolic meaning of Booster’s name has to do with the Power Booster Rod from the original continuity, for reasons I’ll probably write up in full at some point.
Oh, same. I like the way that they’re deliberately provoking other characters, and I like the way that they’re self-aware about what they’re doing (when so many other characters in the strip don’t seem to be) but I would not like them as a person and would struggle to get along with them in real life.
Like I thought & hoped, more than Ethan the one peculiar character that has caught Booster’s interest is Amber. The sweet Ambooster is slowly starting… so good! But shoot a photo of Amber’s head from behind is really weird. Is Booster documenting her hairstyle or something?
I am not a fan of the idea of the “befriend and maybe bang Ethan” plot. This is something that would maybe be cute if Amber and Ethan were still friends and if Ethan was in the market for a relationship, but as it stands it’s just…
Creepy on all fronts and no party seems actually comfortable with the situation.
Dumbing of Age and all, so no shade thrown at Willis themself.
my hope is that Booster won’t be secret. Like maybe he won’t bring it up, but if/when Ethan’s like “did my friends put you up to this or something?” that Booster will be like “yeah, what of it.”
Amber is mega-creepy about Ethan as it is, so this is unfortunately in – character.
I’m just wondering if she’s ever going to get called out in-universe about how fucked up it is to loudly announce to your grieving friend that he’s the subject of your sexual fantasies and then double down when he’s not amused.
And if she does if she’ll ever process it in a useful way, rather than doing a shame spiral then going “well I’m gross anyway” and doubling down even further
Booster made it explicitly clear they aren’t interested in pursuing Ethan, because they aren’t a guy or masc-presenting (their words) and Ethan is a gay man. So at the very least this isn’t a “hook up with Ethan” plot, this is a “get Ethan a more emotionally stable/mature friend who is also LGBT” plot. Maybe featuring some light ogling, but like, that’s just par for the course here I think.
Amber does treat people like her little sex dolls though and Danny did call her out on it but he, unfortunately, folds like a lawn chair.
Yeah totally. It’s honestly concerning to me the way a few of these characters seem to think Ethan being abjectly miserable is extremely hot somehow. Hopefully when Booster actually meets him they’re more, uh. Normal. About it.
Fair Warning, I’m still making my way through Walkyverse for the same time and and I’m not to Shortpacked yet, but people were saying that they originate from Amber’s drawing of what would be a woman’s fantasy version of Batman. https://images.app.goo.gl/vuryJKvz4VjcYYBw7
Can someone please remind me what is morally dubious about the “my friend could really use another friend right now” arrangement around Ethan? What am I forgetting?
People can be, rightfully or not, extra critical of actions carried out duplicitous, regardless of motive behind it. So like, if Amber *said* she was going to try to find Ethan someone to talk to, that’d be one thing, but she didn’t.
I do sometimes wonder if people have forgotten this is a webcomic sometimes and we’ve seen leagues wilder gambits and hijinks, or that she’s doing this out of genuine concern, but it happens, we all get invested.
The only dubious part in of itself is her trying to secretly arrange it, but with Amber’s often creepy and boundary-ignoring treatment of Ethan post-time skip, people have more apprehension, and it’s probably increased by so many of the commenters disliking Booster
i don’t think it’s inherently bad for ethan to have/talk to and make diff friends but it could come off as “I dont’ wanna deal with him right now, you be his friend” but it’s not as if ambers gonna abandon him
dunno if she’s necessarily thinking this either but i get how ppl can interpet it as “you’re a psych student, you can probably fix him”
What I love about the reaction to Replacement Mike is that it kind of feels like this:
MIKE: I act like a total asshole to people. Sometimes this means making them confront uncomforable truths. My permenant scowl gives no clue as to my intent in these cases.
COMMENTS: No, you see, what we have here is a master psychologist who is making his friends into better people.
BOOSTER: I’m a master psychologist who forces people to confront uncomfortable truths to make them into better people.
COMMENTS: Wow, what an asshole.
And I’m not saying Booster isn’t an asshole! Not least because he isn’t really a master psychologist. But I never really got the sense Mike was, either. Maybe he was better at this than Booster, maybe he was lucky, maybe he wasn’t even trying. We don’t know, and honestly, I think he was a bit of an asshole either way.
The main difference between them is that Mike had characters who knew him enough to tolerate him, and even make excuses for him. We also had more of an idea of his stake in things sometimes, at least, in part, and we saw him make grand gestures like what led to his death.
Booster’s still a lot newer, and both in-universe and out, they don’t have those bonds built yet. I actually do rather like their dynamic with Walky, and thought it was refreshing that they explicitly just came right out and asked Ruth on a date, even if she didn’t take them up on it. We don’t get a lot of that in this webcomic, for obvious reasons that it’s not exactly much of a story, usually.
In any case, I think people will warm to Booster, but Mike had years to get used to him, and even then, up until he died, he was one of the more divisive characters in the cast, barring obvious shitbirds like Mary. It’ll take time.
I definitely think that’s a large part of it. Lots of people knew Mike, especially those of us who read Willis’ other webcomics before DoA started and knew the Mike from that universe. We knew Mike was a jerk, but he often had fairly decent motives behind his actions, and when it came down to it he tried to help his friends.
And it was pretty jarring for a character a lot of us knew and liked for years to die offscreen, and shortly after we found out about his death, a new character who acted sorta like him showed up.
Re alt-text: Sounds like the time a girl was into me and, without asking about relationships or preferences first, had given me her phone to read a wikipedia article for an anime set in the omegaverse.
I wonder where the idea came from that people can “get lucky” by revealing their fetishes to an unsuspecting person. Seems like a nuisance at best and a boundary breach at worst.
There was a Dan Savage column where a straight woman describes two different guys suddenly trying to choke her during sex.
An awful lot of people have no sense whatsoever.
Like, I don’t like having anxiety, but I often think that the world would be better if more people considered “what can go wrong” before doing something. Just a little bit.
For real, I think people are way too hard on them. Like, I dunno. You gotta read stuff in this comic with a certain level of “this is hyperbolic humor” rather than “what would I feel like if all of this happened exactly like this in real life”
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“stupid EULA!”
somehow surprised “lactation” isn’t in those alt-text tags
yeah, at mpreg and inflation, might as well go full in
Re:Alt-Text, Today’s strip is sponsored by DeviantArt! 🤣
Yeah, diaper stuff keeps turning up there. Don’t see the appeal of it.
ngl, i always though the ‘inflation’ thing was some kinda joke that went too far because idk if anyone was ever credited for ‘coming up with it’ , like weight gain/chubbiness i understand but the over the top drawings ppl would put would be hard to imagine anyone getting satisfaction from. i wonder if the wonderbread guy is still around i haven’t been on DA in like a decade lol
Weirdly, inflation is actually one of the better understood kinks in terms of origin, with much of it being directly caused by Violet in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, with “blueberrification” being a subset of inflation with juice inside the subject and thus closer to the ground zero of it, along with people being filled with air pumps in old cartoons, often to reinflate when after they’d been flattened.
I certainly don’t *get* the kink, but I’m unfortunately very aware of it.
Your mention of air pumps makes me wonder if there’s any Dig Dug fanart catering to the fetish.
Any question you can come up with. The answer is always yes. I once read a translated Japanese comic called “Graduation and Beheading.” The title was very accurate.
Yes… but the device is his d***. Source: tried to find an emulator in the early 00’s
Fun fact! There was supposed to be a Gibby! spinoff of iCarly, which shot a pilot that got shut down by executives. It included a scene where an employee of a rec center was told he was supposed to put sunscreen on children and inflate some balls, but he got confused. His boss held up balls covered in sunscreen and some kids walked through with massive stomachs, muttering “so full…”
The Gibby! spinoff did inflation on children!
well, that guy did end up being a pervert, too and i think jeanette mccurdy’s book/auto bio mentioned him even if she couldn’t legally mention his name or so
She apparently refers to him as The Creator in the book.
I was going to joke about taking psychic damage from the alt text but then I read the comments…
https://twitter.com/thesupermonart/status/1422098388527452161 I meant over the top stuff like this as opposed to something that might be closer to ‘chubby chasing/feederism’ or whatever, but to each their own
That place is an epicenter of depraved fantasy.
FREEZE-FRAME! *organ riff starts*
Still no fix on the muzak?
That’s too bad :/
I was about to make an Ao3 joke, but nothing I can conceive of beats the alt text.
Not even a week in, I have now uttered my first “Damn You Willis” via alt-text. Great start to our 25th year.
Booster-azzi?
I can’t decide if Booster is being creepy yet. It feels kind of… nature documentary-ish.
Here we see a Brown Headed Amber alone on the sweeping forums of the internet, its natural habitat. Behold as she attempts to worm her way into a new webcomic fan forum. Yet she must be careful, if she is rejected she will have to brave the raging inferno’s of the Summer Blockbuster flame-wars alone.
Booster’s narrating this in their best Sir David Attenborough voice.
If the comment section here allowed upvotes, you would have mine.
yeah the nonconsenting thing is an issue even if booster isn’t a stranger though not sure how looking at a pic of amber through the lens later would be as effective as just observing her directly
It’s kinda creepy, but I also can’t rule out that Booster is intentionally trolling Amber a little bit as much as anything else.
I think Booster is *definitely* trolling Amber, being as intrusive as they possibly can be. I don’t personally see this as creepy, though, since it seems pretty clearly not a sexual thing, rather a “I’m gonna deliberately make you uncomfortable with the flimsiest of excuses” thing.
That isn’t any better.
what if it’s in the context of… oh, just to pull out a hypothetical at random…
“hey, that thing you asked me to do earlier is extremely morally dubious, but I suspect you’re not going to listen if I just tell you that; so instead, I’m going to give you a demonstration of what it’s like being the subject of it.”
how’s that?
Oh that will backfire gloriously. Who do you think taught Amber the boundaries to make that connection? Her Dad? Her doormat ex? Mike?
Creepy doesn’t have to be sexual. A creep is someone who makes you uncomfortable for a variety of reasons, but nonconsensual photography is definitely under the creep umbrella.
I half expect something like the ending of One-Hour Photo
Wasn’t there a Patreon panel posted previously that showed Booster wanting to take candid photos of the quad from Dorothy’s window, so that no one would see Booster doing it? I’m voting “creepy as fuck”.
I’m voting “serious amateur photographer.” It’s often hard to tell the difference.
Their behavior here seems kinda creepy to me.
not saying it should be encouraged/condoned, but i think a lot of older teens/young adults are still at the phase, whether it’s to be rebellious/contrarian or not enough maturity/life experience, and of course everyone is diff, but it’s a very ‘young person’ thing to not listen/pester someone in this kinda way (at least it’s not a livestream or online so far)
Amber is not looking at porn she is clearly watching tiktok complations of boils being lanced.
You know, i think porn would be more socially acceptable to me.
Amber just enjoys it when Clark Kent is a more round(ed) character.
Yeah; Booster gonna need to learn some boundaries.
i’m sure if amber gets uncomfortable with it later she can call it off. at least there’s no signs of aggression/her suddenly punching them though
I don’t think this is a lack of awareness of boundaries, this is a deliberate infringement on them. Booster knows what they are doing and is doing it with deliberate intent.
Yea, this seems like Booster is deliberately needling Amber based on what she want’s them to do to Ethan.
This is just a convenient opportunity for Booster to snap photos of people which would normally be a bit creepy but because of the mutual give and take of their arrangement it works here! Everyone wins! Except Ethan probably. He should really be aware of this whole setup thing since he’s the most important factor.
Why not sonic? Or buff Lucario?
Watch this somehow turn into Amber/Booster as opposed to Ethan/Booster
…. Yknow, I wouldn’t be opposed. Booster is a psych student.
she has said no therapist would be equipped to deal with her or so, not sure if a student would fare that much better but also no amazigirl adventures anymore so i’d assume booster wouldn’t get in the crossfire of anyhing dangerous
Amber saying that no therapist would be equipped to deal with her doesn’t mean that’s true. It just means that’s what Amber believes is true.
I still don’t think student therapists should be trying to treat their fellow students with no oversight or actual qualifications, but this isn’t smarting of age so we’ll see!
sal also got like , “well, rob a convenience store at 14 and see how many therapists you get sent to” although i’d assume they might have some kinda unintentional/inherent bias if it was like “This kid robbed a convenience store” versus “she was desperate to help her injured/newly-crippled friend” or so (though even with a ‘valid’ reason, they’d prolly have to ‘lecture’ her about not committing the crime and all the other stuff)
And I still think Amber is, in the usual manner of
childrenvery young adults, vastly overestimating how special and unique(ly broken) she actually is.A genuinely good therapist (I acknowledge none may be available) would be much too professional to laugh and say “oh, dear, you have no idea“… but they might very well think it.
To some extent that’s true, but DID really is rare and neither well understood or easy to treat. It’s unlikely a random therapist is going to have with it or with anything much rarer.
Of course, Willis would have to draw this therapist first, and it would kind of undercut the premise of DOA.
And Booster is no therapist, so by the transitive property…
“You fool. No man can help me.”
“Non-binary.”
I hope that is not the case, but worry that it is.
I’m still holding out for the SS Garbage Skowl to be repaired in dry dock and set out anew.
Unless it’s a friendship, of course. Amber could use more friends and Booster seems a decent person to me.
Booster did call Amber a “fascinating creature” once.
Honestly, that’s part of my issue with them. They don’t seem very much to treat people as people? More like cases and problems to puzzle out.
They called Ruth that. I believe all they said for Amber was “oh she’s plural.”
Ahhh, train wreck waiting to happen. Do want!
Is that reference to Back Stroke of the West?
Booster is photosexual, confirmed.
Ah, booster going full nature documentary on this.
you’re not supposed to get too close/directly interact as a nature documentary-person tho, right. wonde rif they’ll bump into ethan first questioning this or another person booster will answer and someone will reasonably say “that’s kinda weird/messed up/unnecessary, just talk to him” lol. thhough other than danny and joe, idk if anyone would care enough to get involved
not sure how helpful observing amber /now/ would be if she’s not on good enough speaking terms to push booster on him lol. seems like it’d be easier to just ask her to talk about the past
I mean, most characters, sure, but this hinges on asking Amber to *talk* about anything. That was tough to do before Mike died, much less after.
might be hard for her to talk about her current emotions but i can imagine her and some other ppl just casually just dumping all their past issues like “Yeha my dad was abusive, ethan was there for me but turns out he was gay which made our prom night awkward” and summarize
…Dumbing of Age Book 13: rule 34 clark kent…
I kind of like Booster as a cast addition. (Note that “like” is absolutely not a stamp of approval on their actions. They definitely are too clever by half, and their grasp on psychology is still definitely a novice’s, but most strikingly when and how they use it.)
Anyway, I do like that they fill some of the same role Mike did while not being quite as “living cartoon character” about it. I do find it kind of funny that someone called Booster is routinely seen to “neg” people to a degree and take them down a peg.
It is ironic about the name.
But you can totally like a character as a character without liking them as a person. I wonder if this applies to real life at all. I feel like it does. I’m gonna come up with an example from my personal life later.
I think part of the symbolic meaning of Booster’s name has to do with the Power Booster Rod from the original continuity, for reasons I’ll probably write up in full at some point.
I think you’re on to something here.
Oh, same. I like the way that they’re deliberately provoking other characters, and I like the way that they’re self-aware about what they’re doing (when so many other characters in the strip don’t seem to be) but I would not like them as a person and would struggle to get along with them in real life.
Hovertext:
That’s uh…. that’s an image.
how dare you on that hover text.
oh booster you sneaky mofo
I friggin love the hovertext here.
Like I thought & hoped, more than Ethan the one peculiar character that has caught Booster’s interest is Amber. The sweet Ambooster is slowly starting… so good! But shoot a photo of Amber’s head from behind is really weird. Is Booster documenting her hairstyle or something?
I am not a fan of the idea of the “befriend and maybe bang Ethan” plot. This is something that would maybe be cute if Amber and Ethan were still friends and if Ethan was in the market for a relationship, but as it stands it’s just…
Creepy on all fronts and no party seems actually comfortable with the situation.
Dumbing of Age and all, so no shade thrown at Willis themself.
my hope is that Booster won’t be secret. Like maybe he won’t bring it up, but if/when Ethan’s like “did my friends put you up to this or something?” that Booster will be like “yeah, what of it.”
*secretive
That would definitely increase my respect for Booster, which is preeeetty low after the Incident.
Amber is mega-creepy about Ethan as it is, so this is unfortunately in – character.
I’m just wondering if she’s ever going to get called out in-universe about how fucked up it is to loudly announce to your grieving friend that he’s the subject of your sexual fantasies and then double down when he’s not amused.
And if she does if she’ll ever process it in a useful way, rather than doing a shame spiral then going “well I’m gross anyway” and doubling down even further
Magic 8-Ball says:
OUTLOOK NOT SO GOOD
Booster made it explicitly clear they aren’t interested in pursuing Ethan, because they aren’t a guy or masc-presenting (their words) and Ethan is a gay man. So at the very least this isn’t a “hook up with Ethan” plot, this is a “get Ethan a more emotionally stable/mature friend who is also LGBT” plot. Maybe featuring some light ogling, but like, that’s just par for the course here I think.
Amber does treat people like her little sex dolls though and Danny did call her out on it but he, unfortunately, folds like a lawn chair.
True, but I am concerned over them agreeing to do this because Ethan isn’t “bad to look at”.
Amber’s definitely being an asshole, but that’s… kind of expected at this point, really?
Yeah totally. It’s honestly concerning to me the way a few of these characters seem to think Ethan being abjectly miserable is extremely hot somehow. Hopefully when Booster actually meets him they’re more, uh. Normal. About it.
I’m not sure that WAS why they agreed. They looked unimpressed
If I weren’t at work, I would totally punch in those search tags.
I wonder whether Amber and Booster will end up balancing each other out or dragging each other down.
it’s 8 megabyte of transformers yaoi
(which is HUGE for a SEARCH cache)
Hrmm… Booster, it is important to get consent for photography.
Re: alt-text…
She would.
That is, uh, a VERY specific and somewhat disturbing search cache there, Amber. XD
Not nearly as bad as it could be. Remember she is why Mike knew what vore is.
I think it was Guro (just finished a reread yesterdayl but it may have been both guro and vore
Would have been funnier if the alt-text said Bruce Wayne considering Booster’s origins.
I don’t get the reference. What do we know about Boosters origins? Is this about Walkyverse?
Fair Warning, I’m still making my way through Walkyverse for the same time and and I’m not to Shortpacked yet, but people were saying that they originate from Amber’s drawing of what would be a woman’s fantasy version of Batman.
https://images.app.goo.gl/vuryJKvz4VjcYYBw7
Re alt-text: How can it be mpreg and Rule 34?
What am I missing? Rule 34 just says “There is porn of it”. Nothing conflicts.
Could be confusing Rule 34 with Rule 63?
Yeah, that was it. I need to bone up on my Rules of the Internet.
Wait, so I’m confused. Is Clark inflating, or is the diaper inflating? Or are we just stuffing him full of diapers? Is that bad for the baby?
I’m sure the contents of her browser history would destroy the minds of most mortals
Can someone please remind me what is morally dubious about the “my friend could really use another friend right now” arrangement around Ethan? What am I forgetting?
Nothing, people just like to be dramatic.
People can be, rightfully or not, extra critical of actions carried out duplicitous, regardless of motive behind it. So like, if Amber *said* she was going to try to find Ethan someone to talk to, that’d be one thing, but she didn’t.
I do sometimes wonder if people have forgotten this is a webcomic sometimes and we’ve seen leagues wilder gambits and hijinks, or that she’s doing this out of genuine concern, but it happens, we all get invested.
The only dubious part in of itself is her trying to secretly arrange it, but with Amber’s often creepy and boundary-ignoring treatment of Ethan post-time skip, people have more apprehension, and it’s probably increased by so many of the commenters disliking Booster
i don’t think it’s inherently bad for ethan to have/talk to and make diff friends but it could come off as “I dont’ wanna deal with him right now, you be his friend” but it’s not as if ambers gonna abandon him
dunno if she’s necessarily thinking this either but i get how ppl can interpet it as “you’re a psych student, you can probably fix him”
What I love about the reaction to Replacement Mike is that it kind of feels like this:
MIKE: I act like a total asshole to people. Sometimes this means making them confront uncomforable truths. My permenant scowl gives no clue as to my intent in these cases.
COMMENTS: No, you see, what we have here is a master psychologist who is making his friends into better people.
BOOSTER: I’m a master psychologist who forces people to confront uncomfortable truths to make them into better people.
COMMENTS: Wow, what an asshole.
And I’m not saying Booster isn’t an asshole! Not least because he isn’t really a master psychologist. But I never really got the sense Mike was, either. Maybe he was better at this than Booster, maybe he was lucky, maybe he wasn’t even trying. We don’t know, and honestly, I think he was a bit of an asshole either way.
Flagging my own comment because wow I’m rethinking getting into this.
I’m glad that you did get into it, because I think it’s an excellent point.
The main difference between them is that Mike had characters who knew him enough to tolerate him, and even make excuses for him. We also had more of an idea of his stake in things sometimes, at least, in part, and we saw him make grand gestures like what led to his death.
Booster’s still a lot newer, and both in-universe and out, they don’t have those bonds built yet. I actually do rather like their dynamic with Walky, and thought it was refreshing that they explicitly just came right out and asked Ruth on a date, even if she didn’t take them up on it. We don’t get a lot of that in this webcomic, for obvious reasons that it’s not exactly much of a story, usually.
In any case, I think people will warm to Booster, but Mike had years to get used to him, and even then, up until he died, he was one of the more divisive characters in the cast, barring obvious shitbirds like Mary. It’ll take time.
I definitely think that’s a large part of it. Lots of people knew Mike, especially those of us who read Willis’ other webcomics before DoA started and knew the Mike from that universe. We knew Mike was a jerk, but he often had fairly decent motives behind his actions, and when it came down to it he tried to help his friends.
And it was pretty jarring for a character a lot of us knew and liked for years to die offscreen, and shortly after we found out about his death, a new character who acted sorta like him showed up.
Re alt-text: Sounds like the time a girl was into me and, without asking about relationships or preferences first, had given me her phone to read a wikipedia article for an anime set in the omegaverse.
I wonder where the idea came from that people can “get lucky” by revealing their fetishes to an unsuspecting person. Seems like a nuisance at best and a boundary breach at worst.
There are times when it’s an acceptable ice breaker, but this certainly doesn’t sound like one of them.
There was a Dan Savage column where a straight woman describes two different guys suddenly trying to choke her during sex.
An awful lot of people have no sense whatsoever.
Like, I don’t like having anxiety, but I often think that the world would be better if more people considered “what can go wrong” before doing something. Just a little bit.
I love Booster so much. So much that I should probably not read the comments today.
They’ve honestly been fairly balanced, like yeah a lot of people still do not like them, but I think reactions have softened some.
For real, I think people are way too hard on them. Like, I dunno. You gotta read stuff in this comic with a certain level of “this is hyperbolic humor” rather than “what would I feel like if all of this happened exactly like this in real life”
Willis, that’s cursed, buddy.
You spelled “Bruce Wayne” wrong.