Willis mentioned once that Danny’s parents have about the same opinion of him as the comments section does(and this was back when the comments really hated him). So yeah, Danny’s reaction to verbal abuse isn’t surprising, but it’s pretty upsetting.
I seem to recall the comments section actually being disturbed when they started doing that. It’s one thing for use to do it, especially since it was mostly a running joke, but when parents are the ones treating Danny like he’s worthless, well that’s a lot less funny and a lot more fucked up.
THIS. some years ago when i told my dad about a job i was pursuing, his response was “don’t screw this up”….the implication being that i’d screwed up everything prior. which i kind of had, it’s a fair point, but YOU DON’T GODDAMN SAY THAT TO YOUR OWN GODDAMN KID.
so anyway we don’t really talk much anymore, even taking into account that we didn’t really talk that much to begin with.
Eh, my father once told me that my life was in such a state of shambles that my only remaining option was to kill myself, and even people who know about that, from trained professionals to other children of abusive parents, still give me constant criticism for not calling him more and not being a more dutiful respectful son who understands that he loves me and forgives him and honors him et cetera et cetera. I think the general consensus is that parents can say whatever they goddamn like to their kids, and it’s the kid’s job to make them look good for saying it.
General consensus of people that are either punching bags or have never experienced it themselves. Personally, once I agreed with my father that we had nothing to say to each another, we never spoke again – that was ~10 years ago.
While I do want to try one more time, preferably before he crokes it, I’m in no real rush and will realistically only do so when I can snub him with my accomplishments, because he’s the kind of person that cares about such things – I’m really not, but I know my audience.
Until such a time, he can go fuck himself.
Oh, and yes, people have told me that as well, repeatedly. I explained to them that they had no idea of what they where talking about and where utterly wrong. Some understood, others disagreed on principle – but I made my point very clear.
“I think the general consensus is that parents can say whatever they goddamn like to their kids, and it’s the kid’s job to make them look good for saying it.”
Oh very much so. There’s a weird big culture dedicated to whitewashing negative deeds by parents and putting the onus on their kids to “reconnect” and “forgive”. Usually it’s reinforced by narratives about “the importance of family” though this usually doesn’t extend to asking parents to stop being awful to kids or overly demanding parents who’ve disowned their kids to stop being awful and reconnect.
I’m gonna guess it has something to do with the fact that parents have social power over kids and the fact that there’s still a lot of remnants of the culture that views kids as the property of parents to shape how they want.
Totally. People from healthy families saying, ‘but FAAAAMILY’ are talking about a whole different beastie than a truly dysfunctional and toxic family situation. Here is a terrible metaphor but it’s 1am so it’s the one you get: it’s kinda like if you love doggies, and you’re encouraging somebody that their dog can be so terrific if they are nice to it, while not quite understanding that you’re talking to somebody who has a hyena in their house.
A lot of happy-family people like their families, and don’t want to believe that some people just don’t get to have a basically kind family of origin, so they wanna fix it! Nope. Hyenas. It’s wiser to figure that if somebody has stopped talking to their families, well that was probably really hard, and they probably had a really important reason about which I know nothing.
This comment gives me the urge to puke up, like, every shitty “LOVE YOUR PARENTS EVEN IF THEY’RE HUGE SHITSTAINS” movie I’ve ever watched. Thanks for the detox.
People give me shit for not calling or talking to my mother or wanting to. Despite the fact that shes a toxic individual, I love her, I really do, but she’s toxic to my mental health. She isn’t abusive, shes just not the kind of person I can spend time with, she wasn’t a part of my life until I was 19 and then she was too MUCH a part of my life and could not and would not understand, that I’m already grown I don’t need a mommy, I needed a Mom. e_e; couple that with the fact that she had bad stress handling and spent most of my life inside jail/prison whatever, and you have a wonderful cocktail of I’m sick of this crap. The last time she got arrested, it was newsworthy, and that’s when I drew the line and decided I’m can’t have her in my life.
I don’t really get that attitude. But then, I just say that my parents’ abuse resulted in me having PTSD, and they go “well shit, okay then” and leave it at that.
…Hooray for finding a use for that I guess?
But yeah, I definitely got that attitude fired at me as a kid and (especially) as a teenager; and somewhat as a younger adult, before I understood the scope and origin of the damage. I pull no punches with parents and bullshit now, and I have no patience with anyone else having that attitude. Thankfully the people nearest and dearest to me totally support me.
Oh, it’s definitely okay not to talk to your parents if they treat you like shit. Hell, my mom is nice to me and I still don’t talk to her because talking to her screws me up inside (due to many issues). People who have good parents won’t understand, cannot understand; people who were brought up to believe that family > everything else also cannot understand. You do what’s best for you and you’ll be happier for it, even with the occasional twinges of guilt. I cut my toxic family out of my life years ago and I am so, so much healthier.
Many times, reconnecting with and talking to parents is a way to resolve issues with your own life and feelings. Kills the stress at the source, etc. Sometimes even just seeing that the parent either forgives/feels regret, or that they’re never going to love or respect you, ever, can be a source of huge relief – just like what Becky did in this comic.
Yeah, when someone’s a fictional character you’ll never really encounter, it can be okay to joke about them, but when someone is a parent and you’re saying that to your own kid, it’s… really bad.
Can someone please direct me to the strip(s) in which Danny’s parents are verbally abusive? Because I can’t find it anywhere. A couple of below the belt remarks, yes, but nothing like what Amber just did.
Joe actually cares about Danny. He jokes around, but it’s clear to the both of them his opinion of Danny is much more nuanced then his parent’s opinion of him is.
Maybe, but I think Joe’s criticism is usually attempting to be constructive and not aimed at doing Danny down. Mostly Joe encourages him to be more promiscuous (which he sees as the best way to avoid the romantic angst that Danny repeatedly winds up in), or challenges Danny to defend some of his problematic attitudes towards sex and relationships.
It’s constructive in the sense that Joe wants Danny to reevaluate his thought process, but the problem with that is Joe thinks “be more like me” is the ideal solution.
Danny’s worst aspects, like his tendency to revolve around his partner to his own detriment and his inability to accept that he’s not a cheater if he thinks Ethan is attractive, I’d want to see him overcome, but that’s not really moving towards Joe in the same way that Joe opening up to emotional connections doesn’t make him more Danny.
These characters are foils. It makes sense to view their characteristics on a continuum in ways that wouldn’t work in comparing real people.
Dan is profoundly uncomfortable with his sexuality (and I mean that here as every aspect of his sexuality, not just his attraction towards men/Ethan) and existing outside of a committed relationship. Joe is at the other end, being totally comfortable with his sexuality and adamantly opposed to existing within a committed relationship.
Being comfortable with your sexuality and yourself is healthier, in the majority of cases.
” in the same way that Joe opening up to emotional connections doesn’t make him more Danny.” – I dispute the premise. If two people are opposite in some way, then the middle and the other person are in the same direction.
Spencer, you’ve misunderstood. Why? What makes Joe’s take inherently healthier?
It’s not about Joe being better, it’s about them being on opposite ends of the spectrum. Danny needs to stop becoming so emotionally attached to people so quickly. Joe needs to stop being afraid of becoming attached. They both need to be more like each other to find a happy, stable medium.
More than slightly. Amber is an utterly dangerous person, given her antics and her AG alter’s attitudes toward violence; I’d bet dollars to donuts she’s going to go looking for a fight after this conversation – no telling if it would be deliberate or otherwise.
That’s the same feeling I get when I’m wondering why the voice of that handsome cad Archer has been transplanted into an balding, middle-aged father who owns a joint called Bob’s Burgers.
I spent so much time wondering why the season 4 premier of Archer did such an extended riff on Bob’ Burgers. Same voice actor right. I didn’t catch that at all. (Hides due to embarrassment)
I dunno, on some level, he’s always played the exact same character. He’s a masculine man who is impatient, has a low tolerance for bullshit, and is ruled by his own impulses and knows it.
I am so completely overconfident that I’m confident that my overconfidence issues have their own issues of overconfidence, and this exponential cycle of overconfidence will lead to me taking over the world STARTING WITH THIS GAME OF CONFIDENCE ISSUES!
…. what? Confidence issues can swing both ways, yo.
Okay, I agree, but I don’t know which half of that is tragic. That his parents sound like that or that we sound like that? How am I agreeing? I shouldn’t be able to agree without knowing that.
(I was also ridiculing the comments, being tongue-in-cheek, laughing at the hangman, style of thing. Might have come across better if I’d said “that’s tragic, yo.”)
When I am in hopeful mode I think that seeing the arguments here will help people get that people are complicated and diverse. We got one simple set of events we see but different people construct vastly different stories behind them on very little data. Maybe that idea could be applied to people who disagree with you in real life.
(When I am not in hopeful mode I know that we are all assholes who never learn.)
This comment section, and those of the few other webcomics I follow, are far, far above average. However, the average comment section, particularly on a news organization’s web site, would, if it were a person, richly deserve having its head held in the bowl of a used, but unflushed, toilet until the bubbles stopped.
His parents, in not so many words, spent like the entire time doing that when they visited. The only time they weren’t kind of shitty to him was when Amber was around.
Joe and his parents, but mostly his parents. His parents pretty much treat him like he has no value outside of a relationship and Joe… Joe has really started to treat him more as an imposition than a friend complaining in most encounters that he’s a fuck-up and a loser and he’s constantly trying to bring down his high with all this emotional processing shit.
Between them and generally low self-esteem, I can see him really thinking that his only value is that he provides as “boyfriend”.
Right, okay, I see what you and Cerberus are saying. I guess the whole “Joe doesn’t give a shit about Danny” bit is… a little too humorously overdone for me to process it as being a real (within the fiction, of course) part of their relationship, if that makes any sense. It’s like how you know people didn’t really die when they fell from multiple stories in Willis’s old comics.
Well, I think Joe cares about Danny and Danny still values that connection, but it is also a connection that is these days very much composed of Joe treating Danny and his feelings as a burden out loud. Which given his raising environment probably feels normal but isn’t all that conducive to believing in yourself and your inherent value.
I think that’s their issues clashing, though. Joe does his best to distance himself from his emotions(because feelings lead to relationships and relationships get you hurt), while Danny is looking for constant validation of his own(because the people who are supposed to care about him spend all their time undermining him). Their goals in their friendship are incompatible and until they can work through their respective issues, the friendship will be strained.
I would second the advice to sever from Amber ASAP – she’s going to implode sooner or later, and unless you get clear, chances are you’re going to be caught in the undertow.
It’s a conundrum. If he separates himself, he will prbbly end up hurting Amber and that may worsen her issues. If he stays, he is in for a rough situation.
Personally, I am glad he is trying at least for a little bit. But I wdnt judge him if he thought the situation was too much for him to handle and breaking up with Amber.
Danny has to really balance up how long he feels he is able to stay without causing himself severe mental harm.
Maybe long enough to get her a therapist and for her to learn some coping mechanisms first at least?
Just kind of hoping the eventual break-up occurs on one of her upswings, when things are going her way for once, rather than on one of her downswings, where everything is already going to hell.
I mean honestly every student that’s been introduced could use some form of counseling except maybe like Sayid, if only we don’t know anything about him.
“Hi, my name is Sayid, and when I came out as gay my family declared me a target for an honor killing. And when I was a kid my foster family’s mosque got firebombed by rednecks who’ll use any excuse to attack brown people. And my puppy died last month.”
Amber needs therapy, but I don’t see why Danny would need to completely remove himself from the situation. He’s not under divine obligation to help her but it’d be crummy if he ditched her here and came back later.
I dont think anyone is saying for him to ditch her, just maybe dating her is a bad idea. While being there for amber is all well in good, the relationship is not really very good for danny.
I mean, if that is what Danny and/or Amber were to suggest, then that makes sense, but I don’t really see where the difference lies since they’d be around each other and they both have strong romantic feelings for one another anyway.
What OP is suggesting, that Danny separate himself from the situation and suggest therapy, implies that Danny should divorce himself from Amber completely, rather than say something like “maybe we shouldn’t date right now but also I’m going to be here anyway”, which again; I don’t see the difference.
As a person who stayed in an abusive relationship for way too long, I can say that this does not seem like an abusive relationship to me. Danny doesn’t seem like he’s staying with Amber/A-G because he thinks he can fix her. He’s with her because he cares about her. And the *one* time she was momentarily verbally abusive towards him, she immediately apologized to him.
I get how she can seem unhinged, but I was with the real thing and this isn’t the same thing. Danny seems to know what he’s getting into here, and seems like a stable supportive force; I think he also knows his own limits. Their relationship seems healthy and if I were his friend (and knew everything that I as a commenter know), I would suggest therapy for both of them but not for them to stop seeing each other.
I feel like there’s this idea that’s been floating around the comments that if someone has mental health issues they shouldn’t date. And maybe that’s the case in some situations, but come on guys. Amber isn’t gonna suddenly start whaling on Danny. Sal, maybe, but not Danny.
Even in dumping him, she just said “we’re through”. She was mad at the time, too. That would’ve been a key time for an abuser to say something nasty.
(Also she didn’t like that Danny was a pushover without his own aspirations, which doesn’t fit the abuser profile. But mostly because she’s a tactful and kind person.)
Oh, come on. She may not have been absolutely perfect, but not breaking up with him before they went to college =/= calling him a piece of shit and just generally being verbally abusive.
Generally speaking, I got the impression that Dorothy was uncomfortable with how easy it was to push Danny into something he genuinely didn’t want to do and to take advantage of him. And I think she dumped him because she was afraid that if she wasn’t taking advantage of his pushover tendencies now, the reality of her ambitions was that it was going to happen sooner or later, and if he wasn’t capable of having a life outside her, she knew he was going to be miserable.
In a partner, Dorothy wants someone who’s like a cat – I will let you pet me and give me attention when you’re here, but when you’re not it’s not the end of the world because there’s other stuff I’m doing. Danny is very much like a dog in a one-person household: His entire world is his partner, and he suffers a lot when they’re not able to regularly devote themselves to him. I don’t mean that as a criticism to him, it’s his personality – he’s insecure and needs a lot of reassurance that the other person cares about him and wants him to be happy. We’re starting to learn about why he’s so insecure, which is awesome (as we learn more about Danny, I see a lot of parallels between him and Joyce, inasmuch as they were brought up in toxic, emotionally abusive environments and both became hyper-pleasers to over-compensate for it).
Nah, it’s Danny’s parents. They’re tied with the Walkertons and the Browns for 3rd-worst parents at this point. Reread Freshman Family Weekend sometime and look at how they treat Danny, it’s pretty bad.
For a minute there, I thought you forgot about Ross and Blaine. Then I realized they don’t count because neither one is particularly deserving of the title of “father”.
That’s a pretty huge mistake, standing by while your kid gets neglected!
(Also he did a microaggression about Sal’s hair, when he really ought to know better, and the whole scene was pressnted as a microcosm of their relationship, meaning that’s how they act to Sal all the time.)
is it just me or does “standing by while your kid gets neglected” basically count as neglect? i mean, seeing what you want to see really doesn’t count as “being there for your kid,” no matter how amiable you are in response to their performance of showing you what they think you want to see.
My father once told me that the reason he never stood up to my mother for me was because as long as she was targeting me she was leaving him alone.
His words were “Sometimes I’m going to stand with your mother just because she’s your mother,” as his excuse for standing by and letting her berate me for no reason, but I directly challenged him and he acknowledged that the above was what he really meant.
It’s about the only time I ever did something that could be called “talking back” to my parents, despite that being my mother’s favorite justification to scream at me when I was little and she couldn’t come up with anything else (once I learned to not say anything at all, she switched to “Not answering fast enough”).
And it was done so subtly, too, by framing it as a compliment rather than a criticism. I’ve had a family member tell me they thought my hair was prettier straight, and they were baffled when I didn’t feel complimented. I can only imagine what it would be like to feel so pressured by society’s and parent’s disapproval of natural Black hair texture that I would keep it straightened at all times.
Walky’s dad is… weak. Maybe if he didn’t marry his wife (whose name escapes me now for some reason) he would even be a decent dad, but the fact he just stands by while his wife abuses their children makes him as much as guilty as her.
So, out of everyone Danny’s has a relationship you somehow zeroed in on one of the only two people who have treated him with kindness and support the entire time.
I always loved the idea that the transporters aren’t actually transporters.. They just DL your brain into the computer and build you a body where you need it to be, and torch the you at the current location, the new body just never realizes it, because the copy happens before the dissolve.
We have a guy travel back in time with another guy in a metal suit (He’s the muscle, if something goes wrong) to about the part when Amber/Amazi-Girl is on her way to Blaine’s location. They jump ‘er and fill her up with fake memories about how a robbery crew stole her friend or something…
Big confrontation: Have some music playing, have the robbery crew make an appearance, amazi-Girl goes beserk and beats ’em all up (The purpose of this was to get to the point of no return, where Amber forgets who she is, and an insane Amazi-Girl takes her place) the guys from before freeze time and take her away to a nice white castle in another dimension where the three and another guy start a rock band and go on wacky adventures.
This has to be the stupidest comment I’ve heard all day. First off where do they get the fake memories from?
And who is this “metal suit guy” you’re talking about? Lancelot? Gordon Freeman? Generic Dwarven automation? If this is what you call bad fanfiction, then even I can top that:
Let’s say all that happens. BUT, during the magical adventures, you show up and take a liking to this new “Amazi-Girl” the two guys made. Since she has “fake” memorie, Amazi-Girl takes a liking to you, too.
Their problem is that they are attempting to do that, leading both into stress positions where Amazi-girl is putting them in physical danger and Amber is blowing up at their boyfriend because she has so little self-esteem.
With DID, integration is generally the best path, but sadly, it can often take a lot to believe that.
Interesting, I thought integration was a huge major goal with DID. Are there some alters who really do need to get kicked out, or cases where separating is good somehow, or something else I haven’t thought of?
Integration is very much the main goal. Trying to “separate” out alters or kick them out invariably works terribly, because alters react like people when you try and eliminate them or isolate them (raise a fuss and resist). And this often leads to what people most associate with DID (full dissociation w/ memory loss).
In integration, the alters can have their quirks and their personalities but it’s being used for a common whole.
What Amber is doing is really really bad for her own mental health.
But it’s also a mistake I, at least, did when I was younger and I think is an easy trap for DID people to fall into. After all, if one alter has a personality aspect that feels toxic, it only makes sense to try and remove it for the better of the whole.
Except that isn’t how it works at all and doing that just makes everything so much worse.
It is an easy trap to fall into because people think they are a bad person if they have negative personality traits, especially ones they struggle with. =<
Which is why Inside Out is doing a lot of good for mentally ill kids, including ones with DID, because it allows them to recognize the bullshittery of that worldview.
Heck, even neurotypical kids can do with a lesson of ‘hey your negative feelings are okay, and part of you, and you don’t have to try to get rid of them.’
Holy shit, people talking through their relationship problems and trying to be as supportive as they can for one another?
That’s… actually not that uncommon in this webcomic, but it’s still a nice sight to see!
(Also Amber/Amazi-Girl’s disassociation problems seem to be getting worse by the strip and I really hope someone recognizes them for what they are in-story. I don’t blame Danny and Ethan for not fully getting it; they don’t have the same insight into Amber’s mind that we do. But the way she’s handling things is not healthy, and we’ve already seen the toll it’s having on her emotional and social health.
TL;DR God damn it would someone get these kids some damn good therapists.)
I frankly can’t give a fig for her emotional health, as she’s running amok and attacking people, for crying out loud. Since toedad was clapped in irons and lead away, she’s by far the most dangerous persona on campus to students.
…wouldn’t that be a great reason to care about her emotional health, then? Since she only does this because she’s emotionally really messed up. Which was the entire point of today’s comic.
We haven’t seen her assault anyone in quite a while, so far as I recall; she solved the mystery of the Whiteboard Dingdong Bandit without doing anything worse than giving Mike a boner. I’m holding out hope that she’s contenting herself with parkour lately and not injuring anyone. Considering the generally positive attitude towards her on campus, though, I doubt she’s done lasting injury to anyone but Blaine – bruises at worst.
Yet. That’s always on the table, and will be until her antics are ended for good. Frankly, if I was on that campus, my main thought toward her antics is seeing them ended in some way that didn’t end in stretchers. I don’t have optimism for any kind of voluntary mental help for her, frankly. This is going to end someplace ugly, I’m pretty certain of that.
There was the series of vigante-ism in Book 5 (Chapter 2, right at the start).
We didn’t see any fighting, but the opponents she found for the night were
–a guy trying to break intro a car (she seemed content woth just scaring and chasing him),
–a guy trying to rape a girl (he picked a fight woth Amazi-Girl).
And then the limit gets broader and broader until that someone is beating up anyone who “deserves it”. There’s a reason vigilantes are forbidden, people acting as jury/judge/executioner will inevitably degrade into tyrants even if they started as well meaning protectors.
I’ll come back to this comment when Amazi-Girl breaks a guy’s legs after a trusted source tells her he never delivers the library books on time, and say “HAH!”
Even then, she didn’t just beat him up because he was a rapist. She intervened and he attacked her when she did so.
Not jury/judge/executioner, but defense of self & others.
They were the last occasion I remembered, but I didn’t recall how long it’s been or how easy she let off the inept car thief.
Hopefully she’ll get help. I think it’s unlikely she’ll go too far; being stigmatized for seriously injuring someone through her vigilantism would last just as long as the mourning that prohibits deaths. It doesn’t seem likely she’ll just get better somehow, nor seek help, so I think Danny’ll round up some helpers and stage an intervention before or when she implodes.
There’s an argument to be made that if a police officer “hadn’t attacked anyone innocent in a while” that that is still problematic. But it’s not like A-G got anyone badly injured the one time she fucked with Sal’s gang anyway, and it’s a cartoon. I dunno; maybe if the police acknowledged that they were fucked up emotionally the same way Amber is, we’d feel more sympathetic? But we can also see inside her head.
Clearly, it’s too late for me to be making much sense…
And even when she fucked with Sal’s gang, which is by far the clearest example of her seeking violence, she didn’t attack them, but provoked them into attacking her. A fine line perhaps, but if she wasn’t going to cross it for Sal, she’s a long way from crossing it for anyone else.
What interested me was that, at the end of that scene, Amazi-Girl was begging them to come back and fight her. I think that moment clearly establishes that starting something is a line that she simply won’t cross.
Except for Blaine but he could be said to have started a fight a long, long time ago.
And it’s why AG is so insistent on the separation, because AG won’t ever cross that line, but Amber totally would, so she wants to separate Amber from her as much as possible.
The problem is that that separation is what makes Amber more dangerous and less able to integrate more of AG’s positive traits (and vice versa).
Actually, I see that the particular matter to which you refer proves that it is wrong to view Amazi-Girl as dangerous and violent. Remember: she went out of her way to deal with the road-sign vandals non-violently. Furthermore, from what one vandal said, it seems to be common knowledge around Bloomington that, if you’re not violent, Amazi-Girl will not start violence.
I would say that she accepted a non-violent solution as a last resort, she would have much preferred a fight. AG isn’t non-violent at all, she is just staunchly reactive. It is one of her rules. As for dangerous…barring a Willis edict from on high about how the rules of the universe work, eventually AG is going to hurt someone. People can be amazingly fragile at times. At which point her coping strategy will need a coping strategy.
did you know that amazi-girl, that paragon of justice, keeps a troubled college girl hidden away and openly hates her to vent insecurities?
oh, it’s ok, she’s just doing it to herself.
some people are really super nice. others just learn to point their shit-cannons inward. it’s not always easy to tell them apart. making the world a better place by declaring yourself an emotional toxic waste site is pseudo-martyrdom
That’s why I always aim to make the world a worse place by aiming my shit-cannons outward. It’s always fun to make others miserable. You know what they say, after all.
With the kind of prolonged exposure that being raised to adulthood by them imposes, they don’t have to say it so bluntly. The endless insinuations, not even necessarily deliberate on their part, sink in after a while.
now see i have a very similar way of handling my personality except it goes: Danny equivalent but with some better intuition=main personality, Amazigirl equivalent for a 23 yr old guy whos REALLY into anime=the one that would likely get me killed if anything like the gas station incident ever happened to me, the affected female personality (think Harem from Grrl Power)=the one that would get used for blowing off steam if i ever got access to something that is essentially the TF Gun from El Goonish.
How the hell does Danny deserve that? What exactly has he done wrong? The worst I can think of is being overly dependent on Dorothy before they broke up (yeah, he’s pretty clingy, but that’s not evil) and that one time he accidentally helped Blaine find her, but he had no way of knowing that Blaine was an asshole. From his point of view, Amber was acting really fucking weird (he didn’t know anything about Amazigirl or Abusive Blaine) and her dad just wanted to talk to her about her problems. As soon as he realized what was going on he felt super guilty.
It’s also worth pointing out that Dina made the same mistake. It’s not on most people’s radars to be considering that parents are unhealthy and dangerous for their kids.
Consider also we live in a society where, to a large extent (even under the law), kids are not considered full people and are considered quasi-property of their parents. And arguably there’s a decent amount of reasons behind that on the fronts of “children genuinely are incapable of meeting their own basic survival needs” and “children need to develop all the way through adolescence before they’re able to do complex reasoning and responsibility at an adult level” and “children need someone who has both authority and power to say, ‘No, kid, you’re not going to climb the power pole to see what happens if you touch the line. Nope, that idea is vetoed.'” fronts. However, I’m genuinely not really pleased with how our legal system has handled it because the parent-child power dichotomy enables abusers to abuse, as a result of the system and culture rather than in spite of it. By which I mean: How many people did not see the emotional abuse Danny’s parents were giving him until recently? Or Joyce’s? We think that abuse is a dichotomy, where at one end you have Blaine and at the other end you have Dina’s folks and ne’er the twain shall met. In reality, abuse is a spectrum, where at one end you have “perfect” relationships which I sincerely doubt exist and the other you have unspeakably evil assholes which unfortunately do exist but are extremely rare and everything else is somewhere in between. But you can’t pin-point an exact point where “non-abusive, if rocky” becomes “abusive”. Any line you draw will be arbitrary and then it becomes, “If calling your partner a mean name once a month is not abusive, what about every other week? Once a week? Every day? Where does the line get drawn? If you say every two weeks, then what of a relationship where it averages every fourteen days and two minutes? How can you say that a relationship where the incidents of isolated abuse have two minutes and one second less between them is abusive, but that one is not?”
My argument can also be used to argue that an abusive relationship isn’t abusive but right now I’m more using it to illustrate the difficulty of defining abuse. Because most relationships, even healthy ones, aren’t perfect because people aren’t perfect. Even in a healthy relationship, you and/or your partner will screw up in the heat of the moment and blurt out something terrible rarely. Rarely, but it happens. Like, it’s been about a year and 3 months since the last time my partner or I cursed at each other. So, for us, suuuper rare. But it happens.
Anyway, my point being that it’s hard for people to recognize abuse when we see it because 1, it’s normalized in our culture, 2, we’ve been socialized to think of a false accusation of abuse as a bajillion times worse than allowing unchecked abuse to continue, and 3, there’s no real hard definition of what abuse is, in part because of the shades of grey that exist in the real world. A 4th issue on it is that it’s generally seen as shameful, so victims of abuse have a hard time talking about it and 5th is that when society does admit something is abusive, it only talks about the extreme cases where the abuser is literally trying to kill the victim, so we have this knee-jerk tendency to dismiss anything less than that severe as not-real-abuse (something my abusers have regularly used, usually coupled with “it’s not like I’m abusing you or anything.”).
Hating on Danny is practically a meme. He could get run over while helping an old lady cross the street and people would say he deserved it for slowing down the traffic.
Take it one step further, Danny. Give Amazi-girl a new mission. To help and protect a girl named Amber who is being abused. And the person she must be protected from is a girl named … Amber.
…idk, i can see AG and amber deciding that the best way to protect amber from herself is to leave AG running the show and keep amber in the mental equivalent of solitary confinement.
Then what would happen when Amazi-Girl gets a temper? Amber isn’t compartmentalizing because only one persona has the problem, she’s doing it because she wants to have a scapegoat, because that’s all Amber’s ever been. If she thinks something weak, petty, that’s Amber talking.
I do agree on the sense that perhaps this wouldn’t keep her from trying, but it’s doomed to fail.
Yup, it’s an easy mistake to make treating a personality as a dumping ground for toxicity and then being shocked when that personality has toxic elements and then seek to isolate it..
Amber’s already tried her version of solitary, (staying in her room killing video spiders), but Danny, Dina, and Ethan kept pulling her out. And she let them. Plus AG even let Dorothy in. She/they could have easily shut them out. Glimmer of hope that Amber/AG wants to be helped?
Considering that Amazi-Girl’s vigilante skills consist of punching the bad guy and punching the bad guy harder, I’m not sure how she could protect Amber from herself without making it look like a Fight Club homage.
Worse yet, AG’s “must punch bad guy to protect Amber, but Amber is the bad guy” loop followed by “if I punch Amber, I’m the bad guy. Must punch me”, could cause AG to implode!
Or not be necessary? I’m skeptical that Willis would go down the route of Amazi-Girl sabotaging Amber so as to keep her personality intact. She’s designed to help Amber, so when Amber doesn’t need helping, A-G will probably have less pressure. Maybe just fight crimes and not beat up teens in 7-11 lots.
Likely not? Even if we say this is similar to a DID, alters are designed to help the primary personality and would be unlikely to act out in response to the primary personality feeling better.
He’s still attracted to Ethan but now that he knows that he’s still attracted to Amber, he seems to be focused on his relationship with her. He’s not going to cheat on her. Loyalty is basically one of his defining character traits.
The more I think about it, the less convinced I am that it’s actually going to happen, at least not in the way we’re expecting.
Apart from being completely unable to see Ethan make a move on someone Amber dated (especially if the reason Danny is free is because of a bad break up), well, it’s too easy. Danny provides Ethan everything he wants as a character: he’s a kind, supportive, friendly dude, they share similar interests, there’s zero drama to be had from either of them because they both already like each other. It’d be like if Walky and Becky got together (disregarding the obvious reason why that wouldn’t happen); there would be little room for growth or drama, because the two of them are so similar they’d probably just run around in circles telling poop jokes for all eternity. The only sources of conflict would be dealing with their parents, who can’t show up enough to actually be anything more than a situational adversary, and guilt over Amber, which suddenly casts her in the antagonistic role for not being totally on-board with losing her boyfriend to her best friend.
People are treating it like it’s a red herring if it doesn’t end in a relationship, but I think Ethan provides Danny a lot of drama to work through now. Without his sexuality issues to work through, Danny’s entire storyline is kind of wrapped up in being Amber’s boyfriend. Coming to grips with his sexuality and ideas of faithfulness is something unique to Danny that he needs to work through outside of being Amber’s boyfriend. It gives more drama to his character and opens more doors to other developments and relationships the character previously lacked. Ethan now, ends up being both the catalyst for confusing feelings he doesn’t get, and also a sort of safe haven for Danny, who says nice things to him and tells him why Amber’s problems aren’t his fault and nerds out over stuff, except since Danny doesn’t understand his sexuality Ethan ends up fueling more drama because Danny starts smothering any attempts at understanding it’s okay to be attracted to more than one person. If Danny and Ethan were just totally platonic friends, then that’d be boring. It’s a dead end. Danny would just be sad, talk to Ethan, and then feel better. The way things are now is just inherently more interesting and provides more potential for good stories.
I could be totally wrong and Danny/Ethan ends up happening and also it’s the single most heartwarming romance story ever told by human beings and ends all conflict on Earth, but whether Danny ends up with Ethan isn’t really the important factor.
Can it be campus dog-visit weekend already? I know they usually save that for the end of the semester and test weekends, but please? In the wake of a crisis? They have earned puppy cuddles.
I like these kids! I have a morbid fascination with scrolling through the comments section on this cool comic, and I have yet to understand why there’s so much hatred for so many characters. I didn’t read the other Willis comics and i don’t know what Danny did in some alternate universe, but I’ve read this comic since strip 1- and I get the feeling i’d end up bein’ his friend. Feel the same way about Amber/Amazi girl. She’ll get over her self doubt with the help of her friends, and take off that mask if Danny & company sticks to being helpful. I’m having fun watching them grow! thanks for the comic Willis.
Dannys biggest flaw was that he couldn’t see what the readers of the strip could see and acted in what he thought was the best course of action with the information he had
The Danny hate in the comments is about 98% willfull stupidity and 2% not understanding that Danny can’t see that his world is contained within comic boxes and magically be able to read everyone’s inner thoughts and past incidents like the readers can.
If you mean something like Danny burying or just getting over his attraction to Ethan, then that’s probably not going to be the case. Danny’s confusion and apprehension over his new feelings for Ethan are an extremely real example of those first steps into figuring out one’s sexuality, especially when you’re Danny, who’s so into monogamy that he rejects even the idea that he’s allowed to think of someone other than his SO as attractive.
If you mean something awful like Danny cheating, then don’t worry. Unlike what Genuinely Terrible commenters would think, it’s not going to happen.
I suppose if you tilt your head and squint just right, you could say Danny cheated on Amazi-Girl with Amber. And then gave an excuse equivalent to “I thought she was YOU!”
(I mean, he wasn’t lying. But that’s probably beside the point.)
Yeah! Just having that awkward crush feeling and learning to deal with it, without ignoring it, because he’s in a committed relationship (sort of?) and that’s what you do to stay healthy. That would be so awesome. It would be great to see lessons learned here without everything getting fucked up.
But the guns on the wall, so its gonna end up used.
The gun is being used, though. Danny’s got the hots for Ethan, and he’s trying to deal with that. Whether that means Amber and Danny break up and he hooks up with Ethan, or if they stay together and Danny healthily processes it or maybe doesn’t at all and angsts considerably about it, or maybe poly if that’s where Willis wants to take it. Danny/Ethan isn’t the only way this storyline can resolve.
It’s never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever end up as “Danny cheats” or “Danny realizes that he must fuck a dude to become a proper bisexual”,
With Danny being so monogamous and faithful, Danny is more likely to end his relationship with Amber to be with Ethan than to cheat on her. Besides, I doubt Ethan would willingly do that Amber since he cares about Amber a lot to be with Danny. So overall, I don’t believe Danny is going to be with Ethan.
Still, you have to appreciate Willis’s storytelling ability to spark suspense in his readers. The fact that so many of us are doubting Danny’s fidelity is a testament to that.
David Willis is a talented writer, don’t think anyone here would consider arguing that point, but “oh no is the bisexual guy going to cheat” isn’t coming from him. It comes from people who have no idea what bisexuality actually is.
No, but he is putting that tension out there and keeping it unresolved, without ever having any of them do anything wrong, which is the part that’s nicely done.
Yeah, the tension is there, and the story can go any which way. It adds more to Danny’s character, and is a realistic depiction of a bi dude trying to figure out an attraction he barely registers as okay to have while he’s in a relationship.
Don’t see where cheating comes into that, which is what I was addressing.
It’s one possible outcome of the sexual tension. Dumping Amber for him is another.
I don’t think either of those will happen, but they’ve both been left open as possibilities.
It won’t. Apart from it being fucking stupid to assume that Danny, the single most monogamous human being on the planet, would ever cheat or even treat that as a possibility because he’s bi, Willis himself has already squashed it.
Dumping Amber because he wants to pursue Ethan, being dumped by Amber, poly, even saying something like “hey I want to pursue this because I feel its important to figure it out, but I also want you to be involved”, these are valid interpretations. Cheating is not. Cheating never will be.
Yeah a couple commenters seemed to take Willis’s statement that he’d made Danny bi to introduce “another potential partner for Ethan” as proof that he was INEVITABLY gonna hook them up. Needless to say, I don’t think that’s what that meant at all.
It’s really heartwarming to see Danny trying to reach out to Amber here.
It’s clear to me that Amber thinks that she’s really a bad person and that the only time that she can be nice or good is when she’s wearing the mash. Danny is challenging this and, I hope at least, encouraging Amber to question her assumptions about herself.
I’m hoping that this sequence ends with Danny telling Amazi-Girl that Amber is a good person, deserving of love and he needs her help to convince her of that; that her father hasn’t destroyed all the good in her by a long margin. Amazi-Girl replies that she doesn’t want to lose him to her. He assures her that she won’t lose him.
“You won’t lose me. I want us all to be together.”
“All three of us?”
“All three of us.” Last panel is the two of them hugging on the ledge seen from some distance.
Oh Danny. You’re the fuck-up the comments hate, but you shouldn’t hate yourself. Keep tryin’, eventually the winds will shift in your favor!
It’s funny, though, but ever since he seemed to start addressing “boy I make dumb mistakes a lot,” I’ve been enjoying him as a character a lot more. I actually root for Danny to come out on top now.
…. Now, if we’re talking about someone who is making bad choices unrepentantly, there’s a DIFFERENT character that I’ve come to dislike for that!
* looks at Walky*
Danny is hitting on a really useful coping strategy here, for people who are meanest to themselves. I recommend it: treat yourself as if this was your friend.
Alas, studies show that taking out your anger through violence (be it in a gym or in games or fantasies or whatever) makes it worse over time, not better, as your train yourself to feel angry more often, and to feel better when you do.
Contrary to common belief, it’s not actually a good idea to “release your anger” through punching and kicking, not even inanimate things. In fact, what that does is worsening the problem.
Why? Because when you pull that stuff out, what really happens is that working a punching bag etc. makes it feel -good- to be angry. And that in turn means that you are more likely to get angry in the future, because your stupid body now associates being angry with getting a good workout. In addition, it doesn’t actually do anything to resolve the issues of why there is anger in the first place.
So what one needs to focus on are instead basically relaxation techniques, and to actually resolve the issues leading to anger.
The thing that makes me most hopeful for Amber is that she sees her potential (or more than potential) to be abusive and she is trying to work against it. Maybe not in the best ways, maybe not effectively, but she’s 18 and she’s trying.
Danny, love, you need lots of hugs and affirmation. And dreams for yourself. I hope you get them.
Not only that (though I reject the idea of Amber becoming an abuser at all), but it’s Danny who insists that what said was fine, and Amber refuses to believe that.
She lashed out, she got angry, but she’s not an abuser.
See, I don’t buy into the ‘you have to love yourself before other people can love you’ bullshit at all, but I don’t get the flat denial either. What, in your view, makes it impossible for Amber to end up abusive?
In world, it’s certainly a risk. She’s on a path that certainly leads to problems. I suspect, at this point and for the foreseeable future, she’d be far more likely to push Danny away for his own good and because she’s not worthy of him, than to actually abuse.
In story, this is a challenge for her to overcome, not a descent into tragedy.
This is probably a better way to put what I was trying to say.
Amber’s fears of becoming her father is something she’s going to confront, in the same way that Dorothy struggles with the difficulties of getting into Yale and the emotional pain it will cause her to leave the people she cares about, but it’s not going to end up with her failing herself and becoming what she hates.
Though I don’t understand why AG is so resistant to help. I really don’t get it. I mean, she’s obviously not happy with the situation at hand, so why doesn’t she let Danny try to help both Amber AND Amazi-Girl?
I dunno. For some reason it feels like she’s REALLY pushing back against it, and i don’t really understand it.
This is normal for a lot of people. Getting help means admitting that you’re weak, pathetic, needy, hopeless, etc. I mean, it doesn’t, but that’s the theme song running in their heads. And what if the therapy doesn’t work? How stupid would that be?
In some ways, depression (and related issues) is a lot like having a cursed ring or a Horcrux. It makes you feel and think and do awful things, but you just can’t bear to throw it in a volcano. And the analogy falls apart here, because therapy is a lot harder than a trip up Mount Doom.
By the time I realized I was in need of help, I was engaging in some really fucked up self harm. I look back in hindsight and think of how obviously I needed help, but at the time it made perfect sense to me.
It also doesn’t help when you’re raised by people like my parents, and very likely Blaine, who pooh-pooh therapy of all sorts (physical and emotional/mental) their whole lives with “Person just didn’t get their ass whupped enough as a kid” or “Person just needs to grab their bootstraps and pick themselves up” or “Therapy is for whiny babies who can’t handle their own lives” or “It’s all bullshit to get money from people too weak to take care of themselves.”
Once this mantra is repeated over and over enough, it becomes a constant background echo when you need therapy. I was in my master’s degree program before I even sought help, even though I’ve had symptoms of depression since I was a kid. (And yes, the “just need to grab your bootstraps ” bit was directed at me, too. I don’t even have an estimate of how many times I was told to just “suck it up” and “deal with it” and “grab your bootstraps” (I particularly grew to hate THAT phrase), because it was pretty much a regular feature of my life.)
Add in the fact that Amazi-Girl is, in Amber’s mind, supposed to be perfect. She is a super-cool vigilante who stops crimes and never loses control, which can’t be beaten and is way more popular and liked than Amber, a representation of everything Amber wants to be and which can only be positive. Admitting AG is flawed, in even the smallest way, means this whole mask Amber has put up falls apart, and she loses control over her feelings.
In this “inner relationship”, AG is the one who keeps Amber in check, not the other way.
Yeah. Amazi-Girl is a coping mechanism/personality that’s becoming increasingly unstable and maladaptive, and realizing that is going to be super painful for Amber.
Amazi-Girl isn’t getting more unstable – Amber is. That means Amber is bad and needs to be repressed more. Amazi-Girl is the good one. The who’s in control and helps people.
At least that’s how she sees it.
Which leads to Amber getting more unstable. And so on around the loop.
I was dealing with depression and anxiety issues for years when I was younger. My dad suggested several times that I get some help, but my mom kept saying that I was just being selfish and childish and that all I needed was for people to not put up with my bullshit. The only reason I eventually got help was because I told my mom I literally wanted to kill myself (I didn’t mention the times I’d already tried). And guess what most of the nurses in the mental hospital told me? That suicide was selfish and that I needed to get better because I was hurting my family. That’s right. I didn’t need help because I was constantly miserable and deserved to be happy. I needed help because I was being selfish and needed to change for other people. So of course I started thinking that I actually was a horrible, selfish person. Everybody else was saying it, so why wouldn’t I believe it? I didn’t actually start getting better until I started seeing a therapist who actually listened to me and said sympathized with me but told me that things would get better, and actually gave me suggestions on *how* to make myself feel better. She didn’t say, “Other people have worse lives than you, and they don’t kill themselves. You need to stop being so whiny.” She said, “I can see how you would be depressed when your classmates bully you and your dog and music teacher just died and your mom reads your diary and lets your siblings constantly invade your privacy. Why don’t we work on ways to help you feel better about that?”
So, basically, it’s hard to ask for help when everybody you’ve met so far has been telling you that anybody who asks for help is a horrible person. And with Amazigirl it must be bad because… well, she’s separating herself into two different personalities, one of whom is getting a bit violent and dangerous.. People tend to hear that and go, “Wow, this person is insane and should be locked up forever.”
This actually kinda doesn’t bode well for how Danny’s lived his life so far if he’s okay with something as troubling as a partner calling him a piece of shit. Like obviously Amber needs help (and this is a good first step, this comic) but Danny does too if this is the way he thinks relationships work.
I kind of saw it less that Danny thinks it’s okay, but more that he thinks so little of himself that he’s okay with accepting something bad, if that makes sense. Plus I think he’s trying to smooth things over with Amber, that she doesn’t need to feel guilty for nearly calling him a piece of shit, which tellingly, Amber will have none of.
He clearly recognizes that it’s not alright, he tells Amber as much in Panel 5.
Yeah, regardless of if it’s he’s normalizing this behavior or has that low of a self esteem that he doesn’t mind the not normal behavior… either way he needs some help.
Hell I think most of the people in this comic should really talk to someone 🙁 except maybe Sierra, she seems to be doing well.
Sierra we haven’t seen that much of. If she’s got serious issues, they’re offscreen – the same with most of the other minor characters.
Dina could probably use some help with her undiagnosed ASD or whatever it actually is. She seems good now, but it’s not that long ago she was curled up under Ethan’s jacket trying to block out the crowd. That kind of attack in the wrong setting, could go very badly.
Mary also benefits from being seldom seen, but she’s coming from a background similar to Joyce’s, but seems to have internalized the nasty parts of it. Which means less cognitive dissonance, but likely less chance of adjusting. There have been a few hints of something else going on with her – The constant wristbands, the mid-afternoon nudity. Mary has secrets. I may also be projecting from her previous version’s arc.
Mike is probably more in need of therapy than anyone, or would be if he was written seriously, rather as a toon.
I understand those horrible inner voices that call you horrible names. And sometimes if you’re not careful, they can spill out to those you care about. =( When you grow up in an abusive home and have lots of trauma that can happen. If you relate to Amber, please get help for that. It’s a ton of hard work, but I promise you it’s worth it. <3
One of the worst parts for me was feeling guilt over my anger. That being angry was a fundamental mistake and made me a terrible person. That being angry about my shit situation had to be buried, and that sure as fuck didn’t work. All I ended up doing was boiling over and losing my shit, because I never learned how to be okay with being angry.
Sorta. People beat him up a lot over not knowing who Amazi-Girl is (because this one short brunette girl he hangs out with must also be the local vigilante), but it’s not like a lot of the hatred wasn’t rooted in genuine frustration with his actions.
What bothers me about the reaction to Danny is that opinion seemed to change about him as soon as the bisexual angle was revealed and seemed tied to shipping him with Ethan.
I mean, kind of? There’s definitely a lot of people who only warmed up to after that and are only interested in him for banging Ethan and being in a M/M couple.
At the same time, it’s unfair to say Danny only got popular because of that, or that bisexual representation isn’t a good reason to warm up to a character.
It’s a mix for me. He was basically terrible until he got together with Amazi-Girl, then there was the Freshman Family arc that started explaining his foibles and why he’s such a goob, and since the thing with Blaine I find he’s one of the more consistently well written characters, and finding out he’s bi and seeing him deal with that is another aspect of that.
That’s the thing though there did seem to be genuine hatred over someone that’s basically a bit clueless yet characters that have acted a lot worse (in my opinion of course) like Ruth, Mike or Sal don’t get as much negative reaction
It just baffles me a bit (but then maybe I identify with Danny more then any other character here)
Oh ok, fair enough. She did treat her really poorly, and I liked that Malaya got the upper hand in their last interaction.
They’re really similar in that they really don’t feel a need to be friends with lots of different people. I bet if someone approached Sal as if they were deigning to be her friend she’d react just like Malaya did.
She’s been kind of boring since she tried to beat up Malaya. Nowadays all she does is look cool next to her dork friends.
She started out kinda bleh to me and it wasn’t until Freshman Family Weekend that I thought she started getting really interesting (which I can say about most of the cast, now that I think about it). Stuff like how she felt alone without Marcie and her botched attempt at opening up to Jason were great.
I guess to me theres been no real change in his personality since hes been identified as bi, hes still basing his actions on what he knows and the more he knows the “better” his outcomes
Danny isn’t significantly different, but he’s exploring new stuff. Figuring out what being bisexual means to him opens up a new avenue of storytelling that he otherwise wouldn’t get.
I just realised something: Danny is an easy target for bullying. That’s where all the hatred in the early stages of the comic came from. It wasn’t just his cluelessness (though that didn’t help); it was because we percieved him as someone weak, as a pushover, or in short: as the perfect target for bullying.
Mind = blown
No, many (not all) Batman villains have a mental disorder to give them an gimmick, something that they obsess over and can be exploited to beat them. It’s what makes them dangerous but also makes them beatable.
If you made someone like Poison Ivy sane she could take over the world or kill everyone fairly easily. Or how you deal with the Riddler, who is so smart nobody would be able to catch him if he wasn’t compelled to leave clues.
Amber is violently unstable, there’s legitimate reason to fear her and want to keep her away from people.
Amber is “violently unstable” either against complete nobodies who don’t even get to have names, and for whom getting their asses kicked without narrative consequence is the entire reason they exist, or Blaine, who totally fucking had it coming. She didn’t even get to land a finger on Sal, and chances are she never will specifically because we’re not going to see Amber become the violent monster she thinks she is.
She’s not suddenly going to start beating the shit out of Ethan or Danny. JFC Dorothy’s actually hit Walky before and nobody thinks she’s some kind of domestic abuser.
I say bullshit, Amber totally could hit Ethan or Danny if one of them triggered her. She’s already tossed a table while screaming at Ethan and barely stopped herself from cussing out Danny. Her control is eroding by the week. It’s only a matter of time before she hurts someone we can’t say deserved it.
It could happen, but it won’t. Amber’s never going to become the abuser she thinks she is.
So far she’s flipped a table, which I mean that’s not okay, but at the same time it’s just a table. It was picked back up and the day went on.
And she yelled at Danny before nearly bursting into tears and here she refuses to allow him to brush it aside. People get angry sometime, and people curse out people they like and feel bad about it. It isn’t suddenly more dangerous and wrong because of Amber’s mental state.
He’d stop dressing like a bat, and stop sabatoging efforts to clean up the city instead of doing everything himself to facilitate his own coping mechanisms.
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“well I’ll try to put a word in for you but idk”
“she has poop emotes at the ready”
I read that wrong, and was really worried that she’s sitting right above him for a second.
Amazi-Girl has ways of making her displeasure known. Sal should start wearing a hat outdoors.
What, so she’s a pigeon now?
Nah, it’s only for Danny. Incidentally, the next Slipshine is a little weird.
Hatoful boyfriend / DoA crossover?
Gimme the chocolate, Hisao!
Wrong visual novel.
I mean it’s hard to confirm. Have we ever seen her and a pigeon in the same place at the same time??
would explain her nemesis, the squirrel.
Well, Squirrel Girl *is* unbeatable.
Nog is inescapable.
Grace is pretty tough as well.
oh thanks for that mental image
💩💓💩💓💩💓💩💓
Seems fair, but…
Yeah, okay Amber
This is just ever so slightly disturbing.
In the sense that Amber has big problems, that Danny is accustomed to verbal abuse, or both?
Willis mentioned once that Danny’s parents have about the same opinion of him as the comments section does(and this was back when the comments really hated him). So yeah, Danny’s reaction to verbal abuse isn’t surprising, but it’s pretty upsetting.
wonder if he baited her with that comment so he could use the line on the last panel, or if it was a coincidence.
Dan-o is too honest to bait someone even if he’s trying to help them.
Also, he’d Dan it up if he tried.
… like, a 4th Dan Danning.
I seem to recall the comments section actually being disturbed when they started doing that. It’s one thing for use to do it, especially since it was mostly a running joke, but when parents are the ones treating Danny like he’s worthless, well that’s a lot less funny and a lot more fucked up.
THIS. some years ago when i told my dad about a job i was pursuing, his response was “don’t screw this up”….the implication being that i’d screwed up everything prior. which i kind of had, it’s a fair point, but YOU DON’T GODDAMN SAY THAT TO YOUR OWN GODDAMN KID.
so anyway we don’t really talk much anymore, even taking into account that we didn’t really talk that much to begin with.
Eh, my father once told me that my life was in such a state of shambles that my only remaining option was to kill myself, and even people who know about that, from trained professionals to other children of abusive parents, still give me constant criticism for not calling him more and not being a more dutiful respectful son who understands that he loves me and forgives him and honors him et cetera et cetera. I think the general consensus is that parents can say whatever they goddamn like to their kids, and it’s the kid’s job to make them look good for saying it.
General consensus of people that are either punching bags or have never experienced it themselves. Personally, once I agreed with my father that we had nothing to say to each another, we never spoke again – that was ~10 years ago.
While I do want to try one more time, preferably before he crokes it, I’m in no real rush and will realistically only do so when I can snub him with my accomplishments, because he’s the kind of person that cares about such things – I’m really not, but I know my audience.
Until such a time, he can go fuck himself.
Oh, and yes, people have told me that as well, repeatedly. I explained to them that they had no idea of what they where talking about and where utterly wrong. Some understood, others disagreed on principle – but I made my point very clear.
“I think the general consensus is that parents can say whatever they goddamn like to their kids, and it’s the kid’s job to make them look good for saying it.”
Oh very much so. There’s a weird big culture dedicated to whitewashing negative deeds by parents and putting the onus on their kids to “reconnect” and “forgive”. Usually it’s reinforced by narratives about “the importance of family” though this usually doesn’t extend to asking parents to stop being awful to kids or overly demanding parents who’ve disowned their kids to stop being awful and reconnect.
I’m gonna guess it has something to do with the fact that parents have social power over kids and the fact that there’s still a lot of remnants of the culture that views kids as the property of parents to shape how they want.
Totally. People from healthy families saying, ‘but FAAAAMILY’ are talking about a whole different beastie than a truly dysfunctional and toxic family situation. Here is a terrible metaphor but it’s 1am so it’s the one you get: it’s kinda like if you love doggies, and you’re encouraging somebody that their dog can be so terrific if they are nice to it, while not quite understanding that you’re talking to somebody who has a hyena in their house.
A lot of happy-family people like their families, and don’t want to believe that some people just don’t get to have a basically kind family of origin, so they wanna fix it! Nope. Hyenas. It’s wiser to figure that if somebody has stopped talking to their families, well that was probably really hard, and they probably had a really important reason about which I know nothing.
This comment gives me the urge to puke up, like, every shitty “LOVE YOUR PARENTS EVEN IF THEY’RE HUGE SHITSTAINS” movie I’ve ever watched. Thanks for the detox.
People give me shit for not calling or talking to my mother or wanting to. Despite the fact that shes a toxic individual, I love her, I really do, but she’s toxic to my mental health. She isn’t abusive, shes just not the kind of person I can spend time with, she wasn’t a part of my life until I was 19 and then she was too MUCH a part of my life and could not and would not understand, that I’m already grown I don’t need a mommy, I needed a Mom. e_e; couple that with the fact that she had bad stress handling and spent most of my life inside jail/prison whatever, and you have a wonderful cocktail of I’m sick of this crap. The last time she got arrested, it was newsworthy, and that’s when I drew the line and decided I’m can’t have her in my life.
Well, as a person who grew up with some really great parents, I think your dad should smoke an M80.
I don’t really get that attitude. But then, I just say that my parents’ abuse resulted in me having PTSD, and they go “well shit, okay then” and leave it at that.
…Hooray for finding a use for that I guess?
But yeah, I definitely got that attitude fired at me as a kid and (especially) as a teenager; and somewhat as a younger adult, before I understood the scope and origin of the damage. I pull no punches with parents and bullshit now, and I have no patience with anyone else having that attitude. Thankfully the people nearest and dearest to me totally support me.
Oh, it’s definitely okay not to talk to your parents if they treat you like shit. Hell, my mom is nice to me and I still don’t talk to her because talking to her screws me up inside (due to many issues). People who have good parents won’t understand, cannot understand; people who were brought up to believe that family > everything else also cannot understand. You do what’s best for you and you’ll be happier for it, even with the occasional twinges of guilt. I cut my toxic family out of my life years ago and I am so, so much healthier.
Don’t call your asshole dad. Tell your shrink and friends they’re full of shit.
Many times, reconnecting with and talking to parents is a way to resolve issues with your own life and feelings. Kills the stress at the source, etc. Sometimes even just seeing that the parent either forgives/feels regret, or that they’re never going to love or respect you, ever, can be a source of huge relief – just like what Becky did in this comic.
Yeah, when someone’s a fictional character you’ll never really encounter, it can be okay to joke about them, but when someone is a parent and you’re saying that to your own kid, it’s… really bad.
Danny isn’t real so we can’t hurt him, but his parents can.
Can someone please direct me to the strip(s) in which Danny’s parents are verbally abusive? Because I can’t find it anywhere. A couple of below the belt remarks, yes, but nothing like what Amber just did.
I can’t help but think that Joe might also be a factor.
Joe actually cares about Danny. He jokes around, but it’s clear to the both of them his opinion of Danny is much more nuanced then his parent’s opinion of him is.
I’m waiting for sal to suddenly burst in on a motorcycle, and tell them both to shut the fuck up.
Maybe, but I think Joe’s criticism is usually attempting to be constructive and not aimed at doing Danny down. Mostly Joe encourages him to be more promiscuous (which he sees as the best way to avoid the romantic angst that Danny repeatedly winds up in), or challenges Danny to defend some of his problematic attitudes towards sex and relationships.
It’s constructive in the sense that Joe wants Danny to reevaluate his thought process, but the problem with that is Joe thinks “be more like me” is the ideal solution.
Well, yeah. But moving a little further towards the Joe end of the continuum could be healthy for Danny.
Why? What makes Joe’s take inherently healthier?
Danny’s worst aspects, like his tendency to revolve around his partner to his own detriment and his inability to accept that he’s not a cheater if he thinks Ethan is attractive, I’d want to see him overcome, but that’s not really moving towards Joe in the same way that Joe opening up to emotional connections doesn’t make him more Danny.
These characters are foils. It makes sense to view their characteristics on a continuum in ways that wouldn’t work in comparing real people.
Dan is profoundly uncomfortable with his sexuality (and I mean that here as every aspect of his sexuality, not just his attraction towards men/Ethan) and existing outside of a committed relationship. Joe is at the other end, being totally comfortable with his sexuality and adamantly opposed to existing within a committed relationship.
Being comfortable with your sexuality and yourself is healthier, in the majority of cases.
” in the same way that Joe opening up to emotional connections doesn’t make him more Danny.” – I dispute the premise. If two people are opposite in some way, then the middle and the other person are in the same direction.
Spencer, you’ve misunderstood.
Why? What makes Joe’s take inherently healthier?
It’s not about Joe being better, it’s about them being on opposite ends of the spectrum. Danny needs to stop becoming so emotionally attached to people so quickly. Joe needs to stop being afraid of becoming attached. They both need to be more like each other to find a happy, stable medium.
Both. Danny being accustomed to verbal abuse moreso than Amber’s problems, but still…
More than slightly. Amber is an utterly dangerous person, given her antics and her AG alter’s attitudes toward violence; I’d bet dollars to donuts she’s going to go looking for a fight after this conversation – no telling if it would be deliberate or otherwise.
I disagree. Why would she go looking for a fight after someone shows he cares about her? But I suppose time will tell.
For some reason I’m reading all of Danny’s lines in Morty’s voice now.
He’s right though.
I still can’t hear Morty without wondering why Lemongrab looks like a little boy now.
That’s the same feeling I get when I’m wondering why the voice of that handsome cad Archer has been transplanted into an balding, middle-aged father who owns a joint called Bob’s Burgers.
imagine my surprise when one of bob’s daughters showed up on that fx show about the last man alive.
which might actually be called “the last man alive,” i don’t remember.
Don’t watch Gravity Falls, it’ll mess you up.
I spent so much time wondering why the season 4 premier of Archer did such an extended riff on Bob’ Burgers. Same voice actor right. I didn’t catch that at all. (Hides due to embarrassment)
I got to know him as Coach McGurk on Home Movies first. It was especially jarring to see him as Archer after that
I dunno, on some level, he’s always played the exact same character. He’s a masculine man who is impatient, has a low tolerance for bullshit, and is ruled by his own impulses and knows it.
Ah, come on now, Can of Creamed Corn is a totally different character!
Hmm, I can actually really hear that.
I’ve just always given Danny deeper voices like Yuri Lowenthal and Alex Rochon.
Would that make Joe Rick?
Huh, a nice game of “Who Has the Most Confidence Issues.”
I would put up my hand, but I’m not confident enough to do so.
At least you’re confident enough to want to put your hand up. Some of us don’t even get that far.
I’d play, but what’s the point? I have no chance of winning. I’d fail at that, same way I fail at everything else.
I own a refrigerator magnet that says, “My Inferiority Complex is Not as Good as Yours”
You don’t deserve a magnet as awesome as that.
It’s a game where no one wins.
I am so completely overconfident that I’m confident that my overconfidence issues have their own issues of overconfidence, and this exponential cycle of overconfidence will lead to me taking over the world STARTING WITH THIS GAME OF CONFIDENCE ISSUES!
…. what? Confidence issues can swing both ways, yo.
Methinks Danny reads the comments section ’round here..
He doesn’t need to, his family sounds just like us.
That is tragic.
……
….
..
.
Okay, I agree, but I don’t know which half of that is tragic. That his parents sound like that or that we sound like that? How am I agreeing? I shouldn’t be able to agree without knowing that.
So confused.
That his parents hate on Danny as intensely as the comments used to hate on Danny.
(I was also ridiculing the comments, being tongue-in-cheek, laughing at the hangman, style of thing. Might have come across better if I’d said “that’s tragic, yo.”)
When I am in hopeful mode I think that seeing the arguments here will help people get that people are complicated and diverse. We got one simple set of events we see but different people construct vastly different stories behind them on very little data. Maybe that idea could be applied to people who disagree with you in real life.
(When I am not in hopeful mode I know that we are all assholes who never learn.)
This comment section, and those of the few other webcomics I follow, are far, far above average. However, the average comment section, particularly on a news organization’s web site, would, if it were a person, richly deserve having its head held in the bowl of a used, but unflushed, toilet until the bubbles stopped.
Are we about to learn Danny’s deep dark secrets?
“Sometimes I forget to wash my hands after I go to the bathroom.”
“I once tore the tag off a matress that said ‘Do not remove.'”
“I orient the roll of toilet paper towards the wall, not towards the seat.”
“I shake my willy more than twice after doing a number one”.
“Sometimes I forget to delete the history.”
“I once left the toilet seat up.”
to hell with that one lol.
Sometimes I take a penny, but I never leave a penny.
“I help the other guys on my floor do their laundry because most of them don’t know how to do it themselves.”
“Uh… that’s not a bad thing?”
“But it makes me feel smugly superior to them!”
Out of all of them, this one sounds the most likely.
My thoughts exactly. Who the hell has been calling Danny a piece of shit? His parents? I can hardly believe that it’s Joe or Dorothy.
His parents, in not so many words, spent like the entire time doing that when they visited. The only time they weren’t kind of shitty to him was when Amber was around.
Joe and his parents, but mostly his parents. His parents pretty much treat him like he has no value outside of a relationship and Joe… Joe has really started to treat him more as an imposition than a friend complaining in most encounters that he’s a fuck-up and a loser and he’s constantly trying to bring down his high with all this emotional processing shit.
Between them and generally low self-esteem, I can see him really thinking that his only value is that he provides as “boyfriend”.
You can hardly believe it’s Joe? Have you met Joe? I’m sure their friendship went south around the time Joe got hit by the hormones.
Right, okay, I see what you and Cerberus are saying. I guess the whole “Joe doesn’t give a shit about Danny” bit is… a little too humorously overdone for me to process it as being a real (within the fiction, of course) part of their relationship, if that makes any sense. It’s like how you know people didn’t really die when they fell from multiple stories in Willis’s old comics.
Well, I think Joe cares about Danny and Danny still values that connection, but it is also a connection that is these days very much composed of Joe treating Danny and his feelings as a burden out loud. Which given his raising environment probably feels normal but isn’t all that conducive to believing in yourself and your inherent value.
I think that’s their issues clashing, though. Joe does his best to distance himself from his emotions(because feelings lead to relationships and relationships get you hurt), while Danny is looking for constant validation of his own(because the people who are supposed to care about him spend all their time undermining him). Their goals in their friendship are incompatible and until they can work through their respective issues, the friendship will be strained.
Yup, this. It’s just a shame that their friendship goal clashes just reinforce the notion that his company is an imposition to others.
Wow, that makes a lot of sense.
A bunch of people from highschool? Heck, elementary school?
“I use Jason’s toothbrush.”
“Who?”
“my boyfriend”
“Sometimes, I pick my nose, and… and I wipe it on my bath robe.”
“I always wear long shirts to hide the cutting scars.”
What? they can’t all be tongue in cheek.
Danny maybe you should separate yourself from this situation and suggest therapy
what do you think my dude
I would second the advice to sever from Amber ASAP – she’s going to implode sooner or later, and unless you get clear, chances are you’re going to be caught in the undertow.
That would be the logical approach. Danny hasn’t exactly shown himself to always be the most logical guy, plus he’s in love, and love makes us stupid.
-er. Love makes guys stupider.
Love makes everyone stupid.
-er.
It’s a conundrum. If he separates himself, he will prbbly end up hurting Amber and that may worsen her issues. If he stays, he is in for a rough situation.
Personally, I am glad he is trying at least for a little bit. But I wdnt judge him if he thought the situation was too much for him to handle and breaking up with Amber.
I agree with you.
Danny has to really balance up how long he feels he is able to stay without causing himself severe mental harm.
Maybe long enough to get her a therapist and for her to learn some coping mechanisms first at least?
Just kind of hoping the eventual break-up occurs on one of her upswings, when things are going her way for once, rather than on one of her downswings, where everything is already going to hell.
I mean honestly every student that’s been introduced could use some form of counseling except maybe like Sayid, if only we don’t know anything about him.
Why does Dorothy needs therapy?
… aside from being a workaholic, but she kinda knows how to take breaks… with a hint of megalomania… but it’s channeled in a healthy manner and….
…. DAMMIT DOROTHY YOU’RE NOT HELPING MY CASE!
She’s a prime candidate for burn-out.
*Sayid appears on panel for the first time*
Hi guys!… I don’t think my mother ever loved me.
He’s been on panel. He gave Amazi-Girl a skateboard so she could use it in a car chase.
shit i fucked up
Alternately
“Hi, my name is Sayid, and when I came out as gay my family declared me a target for an honor killing. And when I was a kid my foster family’s mosque got firebombed by rednecks who’ll use any excuse to attack brown people. And my puppy died last month.”
“We’re all crazy here.”
I’ve always assumed that the main message of DOA is: We ALL have “issues”, but we can better with a little help.
Amber needs therapy, but I don’t see why Danny would need to completely remove himself from the situation. He’s not under divine obligation to help her but it’d be crummy if he ditched her here and came back later.
I dont think anyone is saying for him to ditch her, just maybe dating her is a bad idea. While being there for amber is all well in good, the relationship is not really very good for danny.
its not really healthy for either of them
I mean, if that is what Danny and/or Amber were to suggest, then that makes sense, but I don’t really see where the difference lies since they’d be around each other and they both have strong romantic feelings for one another anyway.
What OP is suggesting, that Danny separate himself from the situation and suggest therapy, implies that Danny should divorce himself from Amber completely, rather than say something like “maybe we shouldn’t date right now but also I’m going to be here anyway”, which again; I don’t see the difference.
Heck, he just admitted he is so used to verbal abuse that he is perfectly ok with it. HE needs therapy!
Thing is, if your a superhero theory often turns out badly.
As a person who stayed in an abusive relationship for way too long, I can say that this does not seem like an abusive relationship to me. Danny doesn’t seem like he’s staying with Amber/A-G because he thinks he can fix her. He’s with her because he cares about her. And the *one* time she was momentarily verbally abusive towards him, she immediately apologized to him.
I get how she can seem unhinged, but I was with the real thing and this isn’t the same thing. Danny seems to know what he’s getting into here, and seems like a stable supportive force; I think he also knows his own limits. Their relationship seems healthy and if I were his friend (and knew everything that I as a commenter know), I would suggest therapy for both of them but not for them to stop seeing each other.
I feel like there’s this idea that’s been floating around the comments that if someone has mental health issues they shouldn’t date. And maybe that’s the case in some situations, but come on guys. Amber isn’t gonna suddenly start whaling on Danny. Sal, maybe, but not Danny.
Aaaaanyone think he’s talking about Dorothy? She wasn’t the best girlfriend, even if Danny was clingy.
Dorothy doesn’t strike me as the person to commit verbal abuse, so far she hasn’t with Walky.
I suspect you could do some horrible thing with an ax to Joyce and Dorothy still wouldn’t call you a piece of shit.
Eh, she might call Toedad or Blaine that.
…. we need a bodypart name for Blaine. Maybe Dickdad.
Even in dumping him, she just said “we’re through”. She was mad at the time, too. That would’ve been a key time for an abuser to say something nasty.
(Also she didn’t like that Danny was a pushover without his own aspirations, which doesn’t fit the abuser profile. But mostly because she’s a tactful and kind person.)
Oh, come on. She may not have been absolutely perfect, but not breaking up with him before they went to college =/= calling him a piece of shit and just generally being verbally abusive.
Generally speaking, I got the impression that Dorothy was uncomfortable with how easy it was to push Danny into something he genuinely didn’t want to do and to take advantage of him. And I think she dumped him because she was afraid that if she wasn’t taking advantage of his pushover tendencies now, the reality of her ambitions was that it was going to happen sooner or later, and if he wasn’t capable of having a life outside her, she knew he was going to be miserable.
In a partner, Dorothy wants someone who’s like a cat – I will let you pet me and give me attention when you’re here, but when you’re not it’s not the end of the world because there’s other stuff I’m doing. Danny is very much like a dog in a one-person household: His entire world is his partner, and he suffers a lot when they’re not able to regularly devote themselves to him. I don’t mean that as a criticism to him, it’s his personality – he’s insecure and needs a lot of reassurance that the other person cares about him and wants him to be happy. We’re starting to learn about why he’s so insecure, which is awesome (as we learn more about Danny, I see a lot of parallels between him and Joyce, inasmuch as they were brought up in toxic, emotionally abusive environments and both became hyper-pleasers to over-compensate for it).
Nah, it’s Danny’s parents. They’re tied with the Walkertons and the Browns for 3rd-worst parents at this point. Reread Freshman Family Weekend sometime and look at how they treat Danny, it’s pretty bad.
For a minute there, I thought you forgot about Ross and Blaine. Then I realized they don’t count because neither one is particularly deserving of the title of “father”.
she said 3rd worst parents
I think those are one and two, given the 3-way tie for third.
DRAT. This is what happens when you don’t read things carefully. Maybe I can be clever next time.
Walky’s father seemed nice. His main mistake (to me) seemed not checking his wife’s clear preference towards Walky and her neglect of Sal.
That’s a pretty huge mistake, standing by while your kid gets neglected!
(Also he did a microaggression about Sal’s hair, when he really ought to know better, and the whole scene was pressnted as a microcosm of their relationship, meaning that’s how they act to Sal all the time.)
is it just me or does “standing by while your kid gets neglected” basically count as neglect? i mean, seeing what you want to see really doesn’t count as “being there for your kid,” no matter how amiable you are in response to their performance of showing you what they think you want to see.
i guess it’s complicated…
Yeah, if they’re different, it isn’t by much. Passive vs. active, I guess, but that’s nothing to Sal.
My father once told me that the reason he never stood up to my mother for me was because as long as she was targeting me she was leaving him alone.
His words were “Sometimes I’m going to stand with your mother just because she’s your mother,” as his excuse for standing by and letting her berate me for no reason, but I directly challenged him and he acknowledged that the above was what he really meant.
It’s about the only time I ever did something that could be called “talking back” to my parents, despite that being my mother’s favorite justification to scream at me when I was little and she couldn’t come up with anything else (once I learned to not say anything at all, she switched to “Not answering fast enough”).
That’s true. I am sure Sal felt neglected/disfavored by both her parents.
He seems to share the preference, just more passively. He acknowledged Sal was there, but only to criticize her natural hair.
And it was done so subtly, too, by framing it as a compliment rather than a criticism. I’ve had a family member tell me they thought my hair was prettier straight, and they were baffled when I didn’t feel complimented. I can only imagine what it would be like to feel so pressured by society’s and parent’s disapproval of natural Black hair texture that I would keep it straightened at all times.
Walky’s dad is… weak. Maybe if he didn’t marry his wife (whose name escapes me now for some reason) he would even be a decent dad, but the fact he just stands by while his wife abuses their children makes him as much as guilty as her.
Wait, the Segals aren’t contenders?
You forgot the Spiegels
What did Spike ever do to you?
Segals… derp
So, out of everyone Danny’s has a relationship you somehow zeroed in on one of the only two people who have treated him with kindness and support the entire time.
No. We have never seen Dorothy act verbally or physical abusive even in circumstances where there was an expectation for her be angry.
I don’t know what’s sadder…that either of them need to be told that, or that Danny’s the only one who seems willing to listen when he is.
Amber and Amazi-Girl need a holiday away from each other.
How would you suggest that happen? Seeing as how they share a body (not counting Danny).
Transporter accident perhaps.
La la la I don’t know what you’re talking about that episode never happened
Suspension of disbelief has limits, and sometimes Star Trek likes to beat them to death.
“That” episode? Which one, specifically?
Yes.
I know, I know (tries to touch ceiling raising hand as high as possible)!!
I always loved the idea that the transporters aren’t actually transporters.. They just DL your brain into the computer and build you a body where you need it to be, and torch the you at the current location, the new body just never realizes it, because the copy happens before the dissolve.
If I recall correctly, there were also some episodes of Star Trek that dealt with that. 😛
As happens with soft science fiction written by many different people, there are a lot of inconsistencies in Star Trek.
or a clutch turtle jump drive
(it’s a super obscure reference but i really hope someone gets it)
Liaden? At least that’s where clutch turtle rings a bell. I don’t recall how the jump drive fits, but I’ve only a read a few of them.
I got this whole thing planned out.
We have a guy travel back in time with another guy in a metal suit (He’s the muscle, if something goes wrong) to about the part when Amber/Amazi-Girl is on her way to Blaine’s location. They jump ‘er and fill her up with fake memories about how a robbery crew stole her friend or something…
Big confrontation: Have some music playing, have the robbery crew make an appearance, amazi-Girl goes beserk and beats ’em all up (The purpose of this was to get to the point of no return, where Amber forgets who she is, and an insane Amazi-Girl takes her place) the guys from before freeze time and take her away to a nice white castle in another dimension where the three and another guy start a rock band and go on wacky adventures.
Absolutely foolproof, right guys?
This has to be the stupidest comment I’ve heard all day. First off where do they get the fake memories from?
And who is this “metal suit guy” you’re talking about? Lancelot? Gordon Freeman? Generic Dwarven automation? If this is what you call bad fanfiction, then even I can top that:
Let’s say all that happens. BUT, during the magical adventures, you show up and take a liking to this new “Amazi-Girl” the two guys made. Since she has “fake” memorie, Amazi-Girl takes a liking to you, too.
Boom. Wolf x Amazi-Girl love time.
She’s a comic book superhero. That kind of thing is pretty much S.O.P.
Or maybe she could get the Martian Manhunter to be one of her.
Their problem is that they are attempting to do that, leading both into stress positions where Amazi-girl is putting them in physical danger and Amber is blowing up at their boyfriend because she has so little self-esteem.
With DID, integration is generally the best path, but sadly, it can often take a lot to believe that.
Interesting, I thought integration was a huge major goal with DID. Are there some alters who really do need to get kicked out, or cases where separating is good somehow, or something else I haven’t thought of?
Oh, on second thought, when the person is in immediate crisis, or has other goals that take precedence for them in general. Derp is mine.
Integration is very much the main goal. Trying to “separate” out alters or kick them out invariably works terribly, because alters react like people when you try and eliminate them or isolate them (raise a fuss and resist). And this often leads to what people most associate with DID (full dissociation w/ memory loss).
In integration, the alters can have their quirks and their personalities but it’s being used for a common whole.
What Amber is doing is really really bad for her own mental health.
But it’s also a mistake I, at least, did when I was younger and I think is an easy trap for DID people to fall into. After all, if one alter has a personality aspect that feels toxic, it only makes sense to try and remove it for the better of the whole.
Except that isn’t how it works at all and doing that just makes everything so much worse.
That makes sense, thank you.
It is an easy trap to fall into because people think they are a bad person if they have negative personality traits, especially ones they struggle with. =<
Which is why Inside Out is doing a lot of good for mentally ill kids, including ones with DID, because it allows them to recognize the bullshittery of that worldview.
Heck, even neurotypical kids can do with a lesson of ‘hey your negative feelings are okay, and part of you, and you don’t have to try to get rid of them.’
No they need to be closer together, Amber needs to stop trying to compartmentalise herself, it’s hideously unhealthy.
They need something like that thing in the fly that will weld both bits of her together/
Holy shit, people talking through their relationship problems and trying to be as supportive as they can for one another?
That’s… actually not that uncommon in this webcomic, but it’s still a nice sight to see!
(Also Amber/Amazi-Girl’s disassociation problems seem to be getting worse by the strip and I really hope someone recognizes them for what they are in-story. I don’t blame Danny and Ethan for not fully getting it; they don’t have the same insight into Amber’s mind that we do. But the way she’s handling things is not healthy, and we’ve already seen the toll it’s having on her emotional and social health.
TL;DR God damn it would someone get these kids some damn good therapists.)
I frankly can’t give a fig for her emotional health, as she’s running amok and attacking people, for crying out loud. Since toedad was clapped in irons and lead away, she’s by far the most dangerous persona on campus to students.
…wouldn’t that be a great reason to care about her emotional health, then? Since she only does this because she’s emotionally really messed up. Which was the entire point of today’s comic.
We haven’t seen her assault anyone in quite a while, so far as I recall; she solved the mystery of the Whiteboard Dingdong Bandit without doing anything worse than giving Mike a boner. I’m holding out hope that she’s contenting herself with parkour lately and not injuring anyone. Considering the generally positive attitude towards her on campus, though, I doubt she’s done lasting injury to anyone but Blaine – bruises at worst.
Yet. That’s always on the table, and will be until her antics are ended for good. Frankly, if I was on that campus, my main thought toward her antics is seeing them ended in some way that didn’t end in stretchers. I don’t have optimism for any kind of voluntary mental help for her, frankly. This is going to end someplace ugly, I’m pretty certain of that.
Sadly, your avatar is clashing with your posts quite a bit on this one. I mean, mixed signals. Serious mixed signals.
I don’t agree. Daisy looking anxious fits fine, in my opinion.
There was the series of vigante-ism in Book 5 (Chapter 2, right at the start).
We didn’t see any fighting, but the opponents she found for the night were
–a guy trying to break intro a car (she seemed content woth just scaring and chasing him),
–a guy trying to rape a girl (he picked a fight woth Amazi-Girl).
To be fair, I cannot find a single fault with someone who limits themself to beating rapists, especially ones that started it.
And then the limit gets broader and broader until that someone is beating up anyone who “deserves it”. There’s a reason vigilantes are forbidden, people acting as jury/judge/executioner will inevitably degrade into tyrants even if they started as well meaning protectors.
Nah, just rapists.
I’ll come back to this comment when Amazi-Girl breaks a guy’s legs after a trusted source tells her he never delivers the library books on time, and say “HAH!”
Uh, you might be waiting a while I think.
Even then, she didn’t just beat him up because he was a rapist. She intervened and he attacked her when she did so.
Not jury/judge/executioner, but defense of self & others.
They were the last occasion I remembered, but I didn’t recall how long it’s been or how easy she let off the inept car thief.
Hopefully she’ll get help. I think it’s unlikely she’ll go too far; being stigmatized for seriously injuring someone through her vigilantism would last just as long as the mourning that prohibits deaths. It doesn’t seem likely she’ll just get better somehow, nor seek help, so I think Danny’ll round up some helpers and stage an intervention before or when she implodes.
There’s an argument to be made that if a police officer “hadn’t attacked anyone innocent in a while” that that is still problematic. But it’s not like A-G got anyone badly injured the one time she fucked with Sal’s gang anyway, and it’s a cartoon. I dunno; maybe if the police acknowledged that they were fucked up emotionally the same way Amber is, we’d feel more sympathetic? But we can also see inside her head.
Clearly, it’s too late for me to be making much sense…
And even when she fucked with Sal’s gang, which is by far the clearest example of her seeking violence, she didn’t attack them, but provoked them into attacking her. A fine line perhaps, but if she wasn’t going to cross it for Sal, she’s a long way from crossing it for anyone else.
What interested me was that, at the end of that scene, Amazi-Girl was begging them to come back and fight her. I think that moment clearly establishes that starting something is a line that she simply won’t cross.
Except for Blaine but he could be said to have started a fight a long, long time ago.
And it’s why AG is so insistent on the separation, because AG won’t ever cross that line, but Amber totally would, so she wants to separate Amber from her as much as possible.
The problem is that that separation is what makes Amber more dangerous and less able to integrate more of AG’s positive traits (and vice versa).
Actually, I see that the particular matter to which you refer proves that it is wrong to view Amazi-Girl as dangerous and violent. Remember: she went out of her way to deal with the road-sign vandals non-violently. Furthermore, from what one vandal said, it seems to be common knowledge around Bloomington that, if you’re not violent, Amazi-Girl will not start violence.
I would say that she accepted a non-violent solution as a last resort, she would have much preferred a fight. AG isn’t non-violent at all, she is just staunchly reactive. It is one of her rules. As for dangerous…barring a Willis edict from on high about how the rules of the universe work, eventually AG is going to hurt someone. People can be amazingly fragile at times. At which point her coping strategy will need a coping strategy.
This has to be the most relatable unrelatable situation ever.
He should’ve asked how Amber is.
She’s fine, by the way.
Man, Amber’s self-hate makes me really sad for her. I’m hoping this’ll be the push she needs to get therapy.
did you know that amazi-girl, that paragon of justice, keeps a troubled college girl hidden away and openly hates her to vent insecurities?
oh, it’s ok, she’s just doing it to herself.
some people are really super nice. others just learn to point their shit-cannons inward. it’s not always easy to tell them apart. making the world a better place by declaring yourself an emotional toxic waste site is pseudo-martyrdom
That’s why I always aim to make the world a worse place by aiming my shit-cannons outward. It’s always fun to make others miserable. You know what they say, after all.
mike is the counter-amber. ordinari-guy?
Perfect!
Mike would be proud.
*plays the late great David Bowie’s “The Jean Genie” on the hacked Muzak*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGQo6zpVzt8 <- "Let Yourself GO!"
/me pours a forty.
Bowwwwwwwwwwiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeee
Self-esteem and self-regard, they both have it in spades.
Today on DoA, “Dannying” in a rather unfortunate new light.
I am glad Danny has started this conversation.
Also, does this mean Danny’s parents regularly called him things like “piece of shit”?
Yep. Maybe not in those exact words, but all they’ve done on-screen so far is tear him down. That’s not good for a kid(or anyone’s) psyche.
Yea, they def werent nice to him but I hadnt though (before today) that they actually called him things.
With the kind of prolonged exposure that being raised to adulthood by them imposes, they don’t have to say it so bluntly. The endless insinuations, not even necessarily deliberate on their part, sink in after a while.
Man I remember when this comic had characters I didn’t want to hug that weren’t parents.
I still wouldn’t hug Mike.
It’s probably kinder not to hug Sarah, either. But yes.
Well, mostly I’d hug him because it’d annoy him.
I hope you like being punched in the kidneys?
It’s Willis’s secret plan to make us want to hug all his characters. Then he will unleash his plushie army and we’ll be overrun!
Danny: You’re not as above this as you think you are!
Amazigirl: Yes, I am.
Danny: I didn’t mean literally.
Danny is Dannying it right
Definitely. Danny’s definitely a character who’s really gotten a chance to shine in the new universe.
It’s like when they redefined “pulling a Monica” in Friends.
Or “Britta-ing” in Community.
Oh my god, poor Danny. 🙁
Tell me who’s been calling him a piece of shit. I’ll beat them up.
He’s been reading the comments.
I will punch the comments.
punches computer screen
injure own hand, buy new computer screen
It turns out the real douchebag was inside us all along.
– Directed by M. Night Shyamalan
M. Night Slipshine
Worst. Porno. Ever.
The gravitar really sells the comment.
His family.
That’s…. sounds disturbingly much like something Amber could say
now see i have a very similar way of handling my personality except it goes: Danny equivalent but with some better intuition=main personality, Amazigirl equivalent for a 23 yr old guy whos REALLY into anime=the one that would likely get me killed if anything like the gas station incident ever happened to me, the affected female personality (think Harem from Grrl Power)=the one that would get used for blowing off steam if i ever got access to something that is essentially the TF Gun from El Goonish.
Huh? That doesn’t seem like a good idea, bro, they are all you.
tfw you haven’t started reading the comments section yet, but you know there’ll still be people talking crap about Danny ^^
Well, Danny kind of deserves to be called things like that, so no problem there!
No.
How the hell does Danny deserve that? What exactly has he done wrong? The worst I can think of is being overly dependent on Dorothy before they broke up (yeah, he’s pretty clingy, but that’s not evil) and that one time he accidentally helped Blaine find her, but he had no way of knowing that Blaine was an asshole. From his point of view, Amber was acting really fucking weird (he didn’t know anything about Amazigirl or Abusive Blaine) and her dad just wanted to talk to her about her problems. As soon as he realized what was going on he felt super guilty.
It’s also worth pointing out that Dina made the same mistake. It’s not on most people’s radars to be considering that parents are unhealthy and dangerous for their kids.
I thought Ridureyu was kidding.
That’s the problem with irony and sarcasm: It’s very difficult to communicate in a written form.
Joyce almost did the same mistake as well… http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/fix/
Consider also we live in a society where, to a large extent (even under the law), kids are not considered full people and are considered quasi-property of their parents. And arguably there’s a decent amount of reasons behind that on the fronts of “children genuinely are incapable of meeting their own basic survival needs” and “children need to develop all the way through adolescence before they’re able to do complex reasoning and responsibility at an adult level” and “children need someone who has both authority and power to say, ‘No, kid, you’re not going to climb the power pole to see what happens if you touch the line. Nope, that idea is vetoed.'” fronts. However, I’m genuinely not really pleased with how our legal system has handled it because the parent-child power dichotomy enables abusers to abuse, as a result of the system and culture rather than in spite of it. By which I mean: How many people did not see the emotional abuse Danny’s parents were giving him until recently? Or Joyce’s? We think that abuse is a dichotomy, where at one end you have Blaine and at the other end you have Dina’s folks and ne’er the twain shall met. In reality, abuse is a spectrum, where at one end you have “perfect” relationships which I sincerely doubt exist and the other you have unspeakably evil assholes which unfortunately do exist but are extremely rare and everything else is somewhere in between. But you can’t pin-point an exact point where “non-abusive, if rocky” becomes “abusive”. Any line you draw will be arbitrary and then it becomes, “If calling your partner a mean name once a month is not abusive, what about every other week? Once a week? Every day? Where does the line get drawn? If you say every two weeks, then what of a relationship where it averages every fourteen days and two minutes? How can you say that a relationship where the incidents of isolated abuse have two minutes and one second less between them is abusive, but that one is not?”
My argument can also be used to argue that an abusive relationship isn’t abusive but right now I’m more using it to illustrate the difficulty of defining abuse. Because most relationships, even healthy ones, aren’t perfect because people aren’t perfect. Even in a healthy relationship, you and/or your partner will screw up in the heat of the moment and blurt out something terrible rarely. Rarely, but it happens. Like, it’s been about a year and 3 months since the last time my partner or I cursed at each other. So, for us, suuuper rare. But it happens.
Anyway, my point being that it’s hard for people to recognize abuse when we see it because 1, it’s normalized in our culture, 2, we’ve been socialized to think of a false accusation of abuse as a bajillion times worse than allowing unchecked abuse to continue, and 3, there’s no real hard definition of what abuse is, in part because of the shades of grey that exist in the real world. A 4th issue on it is that it’s generally seen as shameful, so victims of abuse have a hard time talking about it and 5th is that when society does admit something is abusive, it only talks about the extreme cases where the abuser is literally trying to kill the victim, so we have this knee-jerk tendency to dismiss anything less than that severe as not-real-abuse (something my abusers have regularly used, usually coupled with “it’s not like I’m abusing you or anything.”).
Hating on Danny is practically a meme. He could get run over while helping an old lady cross the street and people would say he deserved it for slowing down the traffic.
Actually, nobody had talked crap about him until Ridureyu responded to your comment!
Is this like the first multi-word title on DoA?
Not even close. The earliest one I see on a quick skim-through is Red Bull, way back in January 2011.
…
I like you, Danny.
Take it one step further, Danny. Give Amazi-girl a new mission. To help and protect a girl named Amber who is being abused. And the person she must be protected from is a girl named … Amber.
….woah, that’s a *deeply interesting idea.*
Maybe even a good one. If it works well, it’ll work great. If it doesn’t it… hmm.
…idk, i can see AG and amber deciding that the best way to protect amber from herself is to leave AG running the show and keep amber in the mental equivalent of solitary confinement.
OP, interesting. There’s a chance it could work…
But sadly, I think neeks is right that in her current state, AG would just take it as proof that Amber needs to be locked up, leaving AG in charge.
Then what would happen when Amazi-Girl gets a temper? Amber isn’t compartmentalizing because only one persona has the problem, she’s doing it because she wants to have a scapegoat, because that’s all Amber’s ever been. If she thinks something weak, petty, that’s Amber talking.
I do agree on the sense that perhaps this wouldn’t keep her from trying, but it’s doomed to fail.
Yup, it’s an easy mistake to make treating a personality as a dumping ground for toxicity and then being shocked when that personality has toxic elements and then seek to isolate it..
Amber’s already tried her version of solitary, (staying in her room killing video spiders), but Danny, Dina, and Ethan kept pulling her out. And she let them. Plus AG even let Dorothy in. She/they could have easily shut them out. Glimmer of hope that Amber/AG wants to be helped?
Considering that Amazi-Girl’s vigilante skills consist of punching the bad guy and punching the bad guy harder, I’m not sure how she could protect Amber from herself without making it look like a Fight Club homage.
Worse yet, AG’s “must punch bad guy to protect Amber, but Amber is the bad guy” loop followed by “if I punch Amber, I’m the bad guy. Must punch me”, could cause AG to implode!
Danny wants Amber to feel better about herself.
If Amber did so, could that cause Amazi-Girl to turn worse?
Or not be necessary? I’m skeptical that Willis would go down the route of Amazi-Girl sabotaging Amber so as to keep her personality intact. She’s designed to help Amber, so when Amber doesn’t need helping, A-G will probably have less pressure. Maybe just fight crimes and not beat up teens in 7-11 lots.
Likely not? Even if we say this is similar to a DID, alters are designed to help the primary personality and would be unlikely to act out in response to the primary personality feeling better.
sooooo is he still gay for ethan or has that ship sailed?
He’s still bi for Ethan. And bi in general.
And is bi for Amber (And Amazi-Girl, who he didn’t realize were different people until today), as well.
He’s still attracted to Ethan but now that he knows that he’s still attracted to Amber, he seems to be focused on his relationship with her. He’s not going to cheat on her. Loyalty is basically one of his defining character traits.
Yeah too bad dorothy didnt see that
Dorothy definitely knew that he was loyal, even to the extent of not having his own goals, and she didn’t like that last bit.
The more I think about it, the less convinced I am that it’s actually going to happen, at least not in the way we’re expecting.
Apart from being completely unable to see Ethan make a move on someone Amber dated (especially if the reason Danny is free is because of a bad break up), well, it’s too easy. Danny provides Ethan everything he wants as a character: he’s a kind, supportive, friendly dude, they share similar interests, there’s zero drama to be had from either of them because they both already like each other. It’d be like if Walky and Becky got together (disregarding the obvious reason why that wouldn’t happen); there would be little room for growth or drama, because the two of them are so similar they’d probably just run around in circles telling poop jokes for all eternity. The only sources of conflict would be dealing with their parents, who can’t show up enough to actually be anything more than a situational adversary, and guilt over Amber, which suddenly casts her in the antagonistic role for not being totally on-board with losing her boyfriend to her best friend.
People are treating it like it’s a red herring if it doesn’t end in a relationship, but I think Ethan provides Danny a lot of drama to work through now. Without his sexuality issues to work through, Danny’s entire storyline is kind of wrapped up in being Amber’s boyfriend. Coming to grips with his sexuality and ideas of faithfulness is something unique to Danny that he needs to work through outside of being Amber’s boyfriend. It gives more drama to his character and opens more doors to other developments and relationships the character previously lacked. Ethan now, ends up being both the catalyst for confusing feelings he doesn’t get, and also a sort of safe haven for Danny, who says nice things to him and tells him why Amber’s problems aren’t his fault and nerds out over stuff, except since Danny doesn’t understand his sexuality Ethan ends up fueling more drama because Danny starts smothering any attempts at understanding it’s okay to be attracted to more than one person. If Danny and Ethan were just totally platonic friends, then that’d be boring. It’s a dead end. Danny would just be sad, talk to Ethan, and then feel better. The way things are now is just inherently more interesting and provides more potential for good stories.
I could be totally wrong and Danny/Ethan ends up happening and also it’s the single most heartwarming romance story ever told by human beings and ends all conflict on Earth, but whether Danny ends up with Ethan isn’t really the important factor.
Someone please give all these people some hugs.
Can it be campus dog-visit weekend already? I know they usually save that for the end of the semester and test weekends, but please? In the wake of a crisis? They have earned puppy cuddles.
I now really want to see a series of these characters with adorable happy-making puppies.
(Mike gets a cat.)
Therapy dog visits are the best.
They show up every two weeks at my campus now.
I like these kids! I have a morbid fascination with scrolling through the comments section on this cool comic, and I have yet to understand why there’s so much hatred for so many characters. I didn’t read the other Willis comics and i don’t know what Danny did in some alternate universe, but I’ve read this comic since strip 1- and I get the feeling i’d end up bein’ his friend. Feel the same way about Amber/Amazi girl. She’ll get over her self doubt with the help of her friends, and take off that mask if Danny & company sticks to being helpful. I’m having fun watching them grow! thanks for the comic Willis.
Dannys biggest flaw was that he couldn’t see what the readers of the strip could see and acted in what he thought was the best course of action with the information he had
Yeah theres a bit of sarcasm there
The Danny hate in the comments is about 98% willfull stupidity and 2% not understanding that Danny can’t see that his world is contained within comic boxes and magically be able to read everyone’s inner thoughts and past incidents like the readers can.
You left out: “how dare Danny act like
me at that ageevery young person eversuch an idiot! I hate stupidpast mehim!”Anybody here still hate Danny? No? Good.
I’m sorry, that was a little dickish. But jeez, he’s saying exactly what she needs to hear. Isn’t that worth a bunch of awkwardness?
For the record I always liked Danny. 😐
Just a thought:
I love the idea of Danny turning bisexuality tropes on their head by continuing to do nothing questionable whatsoever with Ethan.
id like that too but it seems really unlikely
If you mean something like Danny burying or just getting over his attraction to Ethan, then that’s probably not going to be the case. Danny’s confusion and apprehension over his new feelings for Ethan are an extremely real example of those first steps into figuring out one’s sexuality, especially when you’re Danny, who’s so into monogamy that he rejects even the idea that he’s allowed to think of someone other than his SO as attractive.
If you mean something awful like Danny cheating, then don’t worry. Unlike what Genuinely Terrible commenters would think, it’s not going to happen.
I suppose if you tilt your head and squint just right, you could say Danny cheated on Amazi-Girl with Amber. And then gave an excuse equivalent to “I thought she was YOU!”
(I mean, he wasn’t lying. But that’s probably beside the point.)
No, he really, really didn’t.
Yeah! Just having that awkward crush feeling and learning to deal with it, without ignoring it, because he’s in a committed relationship (sort of?) and that’s what you do to stay healthy. That would be so awesome. It would be great to see lessons learned here without everything getting fucked up.
But the guns on the wall, so its gonna end up used.
The gun is being used, though. Danny’s got the hots for Ethan, and he’s trying to deal with that. Whether that means Amber and Danny break up and he hooks up with Ethan, or if they stay together and Danny healthily processes it or maybe doesn’t at all and angsts considerably about it, or maybe poly if that’s where Willis wants to take it. Danny/Ethan isn’t the only way this storyline can resolve.
It’s never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever end up as “Danny cheats” or “Danny realizes that he must fuck a dude to become a proper bisexual”,
With Danny being so monogamous and faithful, Danny is more likely to end his relationship with Amber to be with Ethan than to cheat on her. Besides, I doubt Ethan would willingly do that Amber since he cares about Amber a lot to be with Danny. So overall, I don’t believe Danny is going to be with Ethan.
Still, you have to appreciate Willis’s storytelling ability to spark suspense in his readers. The fact that so many of us are doubting Danny’s fidelity is a testament to that.
David Willis is a talented writer, don’t think anyone here would consider arguing that point, but “oh no is the bisexual guy going to cheat” isn’t coming from him. It comes from people who have no idea what bisexuality actually is.
No, but he is putting that tension out there and keeping it unresolved, without ever having any of them do anything wrong, which is the part that’s nicely done.
Yeah, the tension is there, and the story can go any which way. It adds more to Danny’s character, and is a realistic depiction of a bi dude trying to figure out an attraction he barely registers as okay to have while he’s in a relationship.
Don’t see where cheating comes into that, which is what I was addressing.
It’s one possible outcome of the sexual tension. Dumping Amber for him is another.
I don’t think either of those will happen, but they’ve both been left open as possibilities.
It won’t. Apart from it being fucking stupid to assume that Danny, the single most monogamous human being on the planet, would ever cheat or even treat that as a possibility because he’s bi, Willis himself has already squashed it.
Dumping Amber because he wants to pursue Ethan, being dumped by Amber, poly, even saying something like “hey I want to pursue this because I feel its important to figure it out, but I also want you to be involved”, these are valid interpretations. Cheating is not. Cheating never will be.
Yeah a couple commenters seemed to take Willis’s statement that he’d made Danny bi to introduce “another potential partner for Ethan” as proof that he was INEVITABLY gonna hook them up. Needless to say, I don’t think that’s what that meant at all.
If Danny left Amber for Ethan, that would be two boyfriends in a row lost to Ethan’s gayness. She might not take that well.
It’s really heartwarming to see Danny trying to reach out to Amber here.
It’s clear to me that Amber thinks that she’s really a bad person and that the only time that she can be nice or good is when she’s wearing the mash. Danny is challenging this and, I hope at least, encouraging Amber to question her assumptions about herself.
It’s nice to see that the two of them are working things out face to face.
Well, technically they’re at different elevations, but it’s the same idea, really.
Goddamnit Danny! This is obviously NOT okay! You can’t even be a complete shit! You’re just a piece of shit! I’ve shat bigger shits than you!
I’m hoping that this sequence ends with Danny telling Amazi-Girl that Amber is a good person, deserving of love and he needs her help to convince her of that; that her father hasn’t destroyed all the good in her by a long margin. Amazi-Girl replies that she doesn’t want to lose him to her. He assures her that she won’t lose him.
“You won’t lose me. I want us all to be together.”
“All three of us?”
“All three of us.” Last panel is the two of them hugging on the ledge seen from some distance.
But, as I’ve said before, I’m an old romantic.
“… and maybe Ethan.”
Red panels.
Forever.
Well that’s harsh, but true.
Yep, had this conversation. God I wish it went somewhere. Someday.
Oh Danny. You’re the fuck-up the comments hate, but you shouldn’t hate yourself. Keep tryin’, eventually the winds will shift in your favor!
It’s funny, though, but ever since he seemed to start addressing “boy I make dumb mistakes a lot,” I’ve been enjoying him as a character a lot more. I actually root for Danny to come out on top now.
…. Now, if we’re talking about someone who is making bad choices unrepentantly, there’s a DIFFERENT character that I’ve come to dislike for that!
* looks at Walky*
Walky seems to be pure Id, I don’t think he can be blamed for his choices any more than a cat who ate the goldfish.
I can see Walky eating the goldfish.
Only in response to a dare. Then he’d look at his horrified GF and say: “What? It was a dare!”
Why would he eat a goldfish? He doesn’t even like sushi.
He’d make the mistake of going to a county fair with drunk friends. :p
Unless the drunk-at-the-fair-and-eating-goldfish-you-win-college-dudes are only a Wisconsin thing. ^^;
And the new batman pose arises.
This is why I like Danny. I can relate to him very well.
Danny is hitting on a really useful coping strategy here, for people who are meanest to themselves. I recommend it: treat yourself as if this was your friend.
I’ve pulled “Don’t insult my friend like that” on a few friends who were running themselves down too much.
Doesn’t the University have a Gymnasium? If Amber has so many anger issues, punching and kicking a punching bag can be a great form of release.
Though seeing a therapist would help as well.
Alas, studies show that taking out your anger through violence (be it in a gym or in games or fantasies or whatever) makes it worse over time, not better, as your train yourself to feel angry more often, and to feel better when you do.
Contrary to common belief, it’s not actually a good idea to “release your anger” through punching and kicking, not even inanimate things. In fact, what that does is worsening the problem.
Why? Because when you pull that stuff out, what really happens is that working a punching bag etc. makes it feel -good- to be angry. And that in turn means that you are more likely to get angry in the future, because your stupid body now associates being angry with getting a good workout. In addition, it doesn’t actually do anything to resolve the issues of why there is anger in the first place.
So what one needs to focus on are instead basically relaxation techniques, and to actually resolve the issues leading to anger.
If you’re interested, here’s a link talking more indepth about this: http://www.apa.org/topics/anger/control.aspx
Aaand my comment is a bit on the late side. That’s what I get for being too wordy, I guess.
The thing that makes me most hopeful for Amber is that she sees her potential (or more than potential) to be abusive and she is trying to work against it. Maybe not in the best ways, maybe not effectively, but she’s 18 and she’s trying.
Danny, love, you need lots of hugs and affirmation. And dreams for yourself. I hope you get them.
Not only that (though I reject the idea of Amber becoming an abuser at all), but it’s Danny who insists that what said was fine, and Amber refuses to believe that.
She lashed out, she got angry, but she’s not an abuser.
See, I don’t buy into the ‘you have to love yourself before other people can love you’ bullshit at all, but I don’t get the flat denial either. What, in your view, makes it impossible for Amber to end up abusive?
Because we’re never going to see a storyline about an abused child becoming her abuser.
It’d be like getting a story about how all Dorothy ever really wanted was to give up going to Yale.
In world, it’s certainly a risk. She’s on a path that certainly leads to problems. I suspect, at this point and for the foreseeable future, she’d be far more likely to push Danny away for his own good and because she’s not worthy of him, than to actually abuse.
In story, this is a challenge for her to overcome, not a descent into tragedy.
This is probably a better way to put what I was trying to say.
Amber’s fears of becoming her father is something she’s going to confront, in the same way that Dorothy struggles with the difficulties of getting into Yale and the emotional pain it will cause her to leave the people she cares about, but it’s not going to end up with her failing herself and becoming what she hates.
Amber’s almost as messed up as Batman, which is…amazing, really.
Self-tortured superheroes need hugs or whatever form of comfort they prefer.
Are we going to see a long series of memes with Amazi-Girl slapping Danny because of [issue_of_the_day]?
Let me get MS Paint ready.
My dad is not DEEEEEAAAAAAADDDDDD
I love this “Giving Batman the therapy he has always needed” arc so goddamn much.
This.
Though I don’t understand why AG is so resistant to help. I really don’t get it. I mean, she’s obviously not happy with the situation at hand, so why doesn’t she let Danny try to help both Amber AND Amazi-Girl?
I dunno. For some reason it feels like she’s REALLY pushing back against it, and i don’t really understand it.
This is normal for a lot of people. Getting help means admitting that you’re weak, pathetic, needy, hopeless, etc. I mean, it doesn’t, but that’s the theme song running in their heads. And what if the therapy doesn’t work? How stupid would that be?
In some ways, depression (and related issues) is a lot like having a cursed ring or a Horcrux. It makes you feel and think and do awful things, but you just can’t bear to throw it in a volcano. And the analogy falls apart here, because therapy is a lot harder than a trip up Mount Doom.
This is so goddamned true.
By the time I realized I was in need of help, I was engaging in some really fucked up self harm. I look back in hindsight and think of how obviously I needed help, but at the time it made perfect sense to me.
It also doesn’t help when you’re raised by people like my parents, and very likely Blaine, who pooh-pooh therapy of all sorts (physical and emotional/mental) their whole lives with “Person just didn’t get their ass whupped enough as a kid” or “Person just needs to grab their bootstraps and pick themselves up” or “Therapy is for whiny babies who can’t handle their own lives” or “It’s all bullshit to get money from people too weak to take care of themselves.”
Once this mantra is repeated over and over enough, it becomes a constant background echo when you need therapy. I was in my master’s degree program before I even sought help, even though I’ve had symptoms of depression since I was a kid. (And yes, the “just need to grab your bootstraps ” bit was directed at me, too. I don’t even have an estimate of how many times I was told to just “suck it up” and “deal with it” and “grab your bootstraps” (I particularly grew to hate THAT phrase), because it was pretty much a regular feature of my life.)
Add in the fact that Amazi-Girl is, in Amber’s mind, supposed to be perfect. She is a super-cool vigilante who stops crimes and never loses control, which can’t be beaten and is way more popular and liked than Amber, a representation of everything Amber wants to be and which can only be positive. Admitting AG is flawed, in even the smallest way, means this whole mask Amber has put up falls apart, and she loses control over her feelings.
In this “inner relationship”, AG is the one who keeps Amber in check, not the other way.
Yeah. Amazi-Girl is a coping mechanism/personality that’s becoming increasingly unstable and maladaptive, and realizing that is going to be super painful for Amber.
Amazi-Girl isn’t getting more unstable – Amber is. That means Amber is bad and needs to be repressed more. Amazi-Girl is the good one. The who’s in control and helps people.
At least that’s how she sees it.
Which leads to Amber getting more unstable. And so on around the loop.
I was dealing with depression and anxiety issues for years when I was younger. My dad suggested several times that I get some help, but my mom kept saying that I was just being selfish and childish and that all I needed was for people to not put up with my bullshit. The only reason I eventually got help was because I told my mom I literally wanted to kill myself (I didn’t mention the times I’d already tried). And guess what most of the nurses in the mental hospital told me? That suicide was selfish and that I needed to get better because I was hurting my family. That’s right. I didn’t need help because I was constantly miserable and deserved to be happy. I needed help because I was being selfish and needed to change for other people. So of course I started thinking that I actually was a horrible, selfish person. Everybody else was saying it, so why wouldn’t I believe it? I didn’t actually start getting better until I started seeing a therapist who actually listened to me and said sympathized with me but told me that things would get better, and actually gave me suggestions on *how* to make myself feel better. She didn’t say, “Other people have worse lives than you, and they don’t kill themselves. You need to stop being so whiny.” She said, “I can see how you would be depressed when your classmates bully you and your dog and music teacher just died and your mom reads your diary and lets your siblings constantly invade your privacy. Why don’t we work on ways to help you feel better about that?”
So, basically, it’s hard to ask for help when everybody you’ve met so far has been telling you that anybody who asks for help is a horrible person. And with Amazigirl it must be bad because… well, she’s separating herself into two different personalities, one of whom is getting a bit violent and dangerous.. People tend to hear that and go, “Wow, this person is insane and should be locked up forever.”
This actually kinda doesn’t bode well for how Danny’s lived his life so far if he’s okay with something as troubling as a partner calling him a piece of shit. Like obviously Amber needs help (and this is a good first step, this comic) but Danny does too if this is the way he thinks relationships work.
I kind of saw it less that Danny thinks it’s okay, but more that he thinks so little of himself that he’s okay with accepting something bad, if that makes sense. Plus I think he’s trying to smooth things over with Amber, that she doesn’t need to feel guilty for nearly calling him a piece of shit, which tellingly, Amber will have none of.
He clearly recognizes that it’s not alright, he tells Amber as much in Panel 5.
Yeah, regardless of if it’s he’s normalizing this behavior or has that low of a self esteem that he doesn’t mind the not normal behavior… either way he needs some help.
Hell I think most of the people in this comic should really talk to someone 🙁 except maybe Sierra, she seems to be doing well.
Sierra seems like one of the only people in this comic that doesn’t need SOME KIND of help. So far, I can only think of:
Sierra
Dina
Mary
Mike
Leslie
Am I missing someone?
Im pretty sure if Mike went to a therapist, the therapist would need therapy afterward
Sierra we haven’t seen that much of. If she’s got serious issues, they’re offscreen – the same with most of the other minor characters.
Dina could probably use some help with her undiagnosed ASD or whatever it actually is. She seems good now, but it’s not that long ago she was curled up under Ethan’s jacket trying to block out the crowd. That kind of attack in the wrong setting, could go very badly.
Mary also benefits from being seldom seen, but she’s coming from a background similar to Joyce’s, but seems to have internalized the nasty parts of it. Which means less cognitive dissonance, but likely less chance of adjusting. There have been a few hints of something else going on with her – The constant wristbands, the mid-afternoon nudity. Mary has secrets. I may also be projecting from her previous version’s arc.
Mike is probably more in need of therapy than anyone, or would be if he was written seriously, rather as a toon.
Leslie probably been through it already.
Pretttttty sure Mary could use some help, but she’ll be damned (literally, probably) if she decides to get it.
Oh maybe that football player who was like “why would I want to gay-bash you?!” He seems to have his shit together.
danny this is the smartest thing you have ever said, ever.
I understand those horrible inner voices that call you horrible names. And sometimes if you’re not careful, they can spill out to those you care about. =( When you grow up in an abusive home and have lots of trauma that can happen. If you relate to Amber, please get help for that. It’s a ton of hard work, but I promise you it’s worth it. <3
All of this is unmitigated truth.
One of the worst parts for me was feeling guilt over my anger. That being angry was a fundamental mistake and made me a terrible person. That being angry about my shit situation had to be buried, and that sure as fuck didn’t work. All I ended up doing was boiling over and losing my shit, because I never learned how to be okay with being angry.
So Dannys been verbally abused most of his life yet he still tries to do the right thing by people and is loyal to a fault…
I could never understand the vitriol he received
He was kind of an annoying dickhead for two years.
He got better in 2013, but 2014 had a large focus on him growing out of the worst aspects of his character.
It seemed to me his biggest flaw was that he didn’t have access to the same information the readers had
Sorta. People beat him up a lot over not knowing who Amazi-Girl is (because this one short brunette girl he hangs out with must also be the local vigilante), but it’s not like a lot of the hatred wasn’t rooted in genuine frustration with his actions.
What bothers me about the reaction to Danny is that opinion seemed to change about him as soon as the bisexual angle was revealed and seemed tied to shipping him with Ethan.
Yeah that bothered me as well, straight Danny suddenly became more popular when he became attractive to Ethan yet Danny himself hadn’t changed at all
I mean, kind of? There’s definitely a lot of people who only warmed up to after that and are only interested in him for banging Ethan and being in a M/M couple.
At the same time, it’s unfair to say Danny only got popular because of that, or that bisexual representation isn’t a good reason to warm up to a character.
It’s a mix for me. He was basically terrible until he got together with Amazi-Girl, then there was the Freshman Family arc that started explaining his foibles and why he’s such a goob, and since the thing with Blaine I find he’s one of the more consistently well written characters, and finding out he’s bi and seeing him deal with that is another aspect of that.
That’s the thing though there did seem to be genuine hatred over someone that’s basically a bit clueless yet characters that have acted a lot worse (in my opinion of course) like Ruth, Mike or Sal don’t get as much negative reaction
It just baffles me a bit (but then maybe I identify with Danny more then any other character here)
I hate Ruth a lot, but lately she’s just doing the same things over and over so there’s nothing to say about it.
Sal did her crime and the time. What’s so bad about her now?
I was meaning more about her interactions with Malaya
Oh ok, fair enough. She did treat her really poorly, and I liked that Malaya got the upper hand in their last interaction.
They’re really similar in that they really don’t feel a need to be friends with lots of different people. I bet if someone approached Sal as if they were deigning to be her friend she’d react just like Malaya did.
She’s been kind of boring since she tried to beat up Malaya. Nowadays all she does is look cool next to her dork friends.
She started out kinda bleh to me and it wasn’t until Freshman Family Weekend that I thought she started getting really interesting (which I can say about most of the cast, now that I think about it). Stuff like how she felt alone without Marcie and her botched attempt at opening up to Jason were great.
I guess to me theres been no real change in his personality since hes been identified as bi, hes still basing his actions on what he knows and the more he knows the “better” his outcomes
Danny isn’t significantly different, but he’s exploring new stuff. Figuring out what being bisexual means to him opens up a new avenue of storytelling that he otherwise wouldn’t get.
Hating Mike would be wasted. It would only make him stronger.
I just realised something: Danny is an easy target for bullying. That’s where all the hatred in the early stages of the comic came from. It wasn’t just his cluelessness (though that didn’t help); it was because we percieved him as someone weak, as a pushover, or in short: as the perfect target for bullying.
Mind = blown
Unless you were bullied yourself in which case you understood where Danny was coming from
Jesus dude, how many fucking red flags do you need? This girl is crazy.
She has a mental disorder.
Can we not treat it like she’s a fucking sideshow attraction?
I haven’t seen anyone treat it like an attraction. Everyone’s reaction seems to be a desire to flee.
And it’s bullshit. Trying to sum up Amber’s real life mental disorder as “she’s crazy” does nothing but encourage stigmatizing of mental health.
It’s why every Batman villain has some kind of mental disorder so the audience feels okay in seeing them getting their heads caved in.
No, many (not all) Batman villains have a mental disorder to give them an gimmick, something that they obsess over and can be exploited to beat them. It’s what makes them dangerous but also makes them beatable.
If you made someone like Poison Ivy sane she could take over the world or kill everyone fairly easily. Or how you deal with the Riddler, who is so smart nobody would be able to catch him if he wasn’t compelled to leave clues.
Amber is violently unstable, there’s legitimate reason to fear her and want to keep her away from people.
Amber is “violently unstable” either against complete nobodies who don’t even get to have names, and for whom getting their asses kicked without narrative consequence is the entire reason they exist, or Blaine, who totally fucking had it coming. She didn’t even get to land a finger on Sal, and chances are she never will specifically because we’re not going to see Amber become the violent monster she thinks she is.
She’s not suddenly going to start beating the shit out of Ethan or Danny. JFC Dorothy’s actually hit Walky before and nobody thinks she’s some kind of domestic abuser.
I say bullshit, Amber totally could hit Ethan or Danny if one of them triggered her. She’s already tossed a table while screaming at Ethan and barely stopped herself from cussing out Danny. Her control is eroding by the week. It’s only a matter of time before she hurts someone we can’t say deserved it.
It could happen, but it won’t. Amber’s never going to become the abuser she thinks she is.
So far she’s flipped a table, which I mean that’s not okay, but at the same time it’s just a table. It was picked back up and the day went on.
And she yelled at Danny before nearly bursting into tears and here she refuses to allow him to brush it aside. People get angry sometime, and people curse out people they like and feel bad about it. It isn’t suddenly more dangerous and wrong because of Amber’s mental state.
What would happen if you made someone like Batman sane?
He’d stop dressing like a bat, and stop sabatoging efforts to clean up the city instead of doing everything himself to facilitate his own coping mechanisms.
The solution is Amazi-Girl has to realize that Amber isn’t real and let go of the disguise.
I think you got those nouns switched :U
I don’t.
I don’t either, but I don’t think it would work. Amber’s pain is what makes the awesomeness of Amazi-Girl possible.
JUST A FEW MINUTES GUYS!!!!! also where is he posting these from? that way i know if there is like a time change from where im at
What?
nevermind