what, no “what’s wrong with talking to other people”? I’m sure she never specifically said “DON’T EVER TALK TO THE PERSON WHO SAVED MY LIFE BUT I WON’T ACKNOWLEDGE IT BECAUSE I WAS UNCONSCIOUS AT THE TIME AND DON’T ACTUALLY KNOW WHY SHE WAS THERE”
It’s all part of Sal’s multi-layered plan to slowly psychologically torture Amber. We’re at be seen in public areas at a relatively ambiguous proximity to her “not” boyfriend. It’s coming along quite nicely.
I don’t think that he realized just how many problems she has. Ironic timing on their slipshine because this seems like a bad romance about to implode.
At the very least, stop accidentally calling every third person a baby-devouring werewolf. That’s just not cool- the paranoid stockpiling of silver you’ve started me on isn’t cheap, y’know.
I’m not sure how Danny can fight, given that there’s no way he could understand what’s even happening.
And Ethan probably couldn’t help, either, since Danny’s description probably wouldn’t include any details he’d need to figure out it’s about Sal, and he’d have no reason to guess it to ask.
Aaaaaaaaand now I get another reason to hate Amber. She’s pulling that THING some bongoy obnoxious girls do. “I won’t tell you that a thing bothers me, let alone why, but I magically expect you to know it anyway, AND IT’S YOUR OWN FAULT IF YOU’RE NOT PSYCHIC YOU BASTARD”
These girls give the rest of us who aren’t completely irrational a bad name. ^=__=^;;
Amber’s not doing it because she’s a girl, though. She’s doing it because her Issues have Issues. Inability or unwillingness to communicate has no gender. Her dad probably set invisible goalposts all the time, because he’s an abuser. The stereotype that invisible goalposts are a “girl thing” is what gives us womenfolk a bad name, not the behavior itself. When men/boys do it, it’s seen as individual behavior; when women/girls do it, it’s seen as “that THING” girls do.
Entitlement also plays a similar factor, despite coming from a totally different direction, and you see a lot of that basis for it as well. That in turn is compounded by neglectful (albeit not outright abusive) parenting.
(Which, of course, is also not remotely related to biological sex.)
That aside, well put.
Arbitrary catch-alls are aggravating, especially when there’s clear indicators as to why the behaviors actually exist.
I just don’t like it when guys feel they HAVE to walk on eggshells around me because I’m a girl, just because they’ve had to deal with this crap before. I don’t like getting lumped in with irrational people just cause I also happen to be the same gender.
Me neither. It sucks to feel like you represent your entire gender. Cis guys have that feeling less often. DOWN WITH STEREOTYPES. (Plus relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/385/)
Though he does seem to be aware that Sal being around isn’t positive for Amber, if I’m reading yesterday’s comic correctly. Though I could be, what’s the term, ‘Dannying it up’?
Danny’s doing that “Suspiciously Specific Denial”-thing which you can look up on TVtropes at your own peril. Sal doesn’t know that Amber is Amazigirl, that’s why Danny said he was waiting for someone completely unrelated.
as i understand it, he was just reading her facial expression. I don’t really get how he would know she was specifically upset about sal in the last strip, but maybe it’s just a case of comic logic.
Maybe? That would be a valid interpretation, but she’s not using her Amazi-Voice. I guess she’s still trying to pretend to everyone else that she’s Amber…
Amazi-Girl isn’t a personality it’s a persona she has adopted as a terribly self-destructive coping method. Amber is clearly not actually suffering from DID however much she seems to wish she were.
I don’t think that Amazi-Girl actually necessarily talks like that. At one point, Ethan remarked that she started doing a voice. I think it’s just a disguise thing.
Well, Bruce Wayne was Batman’s disguise. Though comparing her identity to that of a fictional character that likely has more issues than she does, may not be the best thing.
*Bows.* That’s the third best compliment I’ve gotten. Right behind: “That drawing reminds me of H.P. Lovecraft.” The best being: “You look like a hitman.”
Both Amber and Amazigirl are tagged, but the word bubbles aren’t changing, and I’m too lazy to check whether this is normal. Might be a good sign? Or a bad one.
Amber is rapidly losing sympathy from me. I don’t care WHAT Sal did in the past, Danny is his own person and can talk to whoever he pleases. This relationship is stsrting to edge dangerously close to abusive.
I haven’t had a lot of sympathy for Amber for a while. I mean as a character I don’t hate her but as a person I think she’s garbage. Y’know like a batman villain. Except played straight and less fun.
Please do not call people with mental illnesses “garbage,” even if they are fictional.
Especially fictional people for whom pretty much all their bad qualities are actually caused by their illness, and have been doing their best to be good. Even if it’s breaking down now, that doesn’t make them garbage.
That attitude is one that people face in real life all the time.
And be happy I didn’t make this a “why I don’t feel sympathy for you” post.
People with mental illnesses can be garbage people in the same way black people, gay people, and any other group of people can be garbage people. Having a mental illness isn’t a “Get out out of being awful” free card.
A person with a mental illness can still just not be a good person and I’m allowed to think her actions are kind of garbage. I don’t think all people with mental illnesses are shitty.
I will say, there’s a big difference between Amber being a “garbage person”and doing a “garbage action.” One is a judgment of her (and a declaration of identity), whereas the other is a judgment of her action.
In conversation, people tend to lump these two ideas together, when they’re very different ways of looking at the world. Everyone does bad actions some times, for a variety of reasons. There’s nothing final about doing something bad, nor is there anything final about saying someone did something bad. But calling someone “garbage” is playing judge, jury, and executioner.
Personally, I tend to think that there’s a lot more people doing “garbage actions” than there are “garbage people,” if indeed there are any. The Buddha quote, “To know all is to forgive all,” comes to mind. Which is not to say that bad behavior should be overlooked – it’s still problematic, and we’re all still responsible for what we do.
But when someone calls someone a “garbage person,” that implicitly suggests that the speaker believes the person is irredeemably bad and should be discarded (you know, like – hm, not thinking of the word here. Tip of my tongue). Not the most humane way to refer to someone whose destructive actions are linked with their own mental illness and suffering. Not the most humane way to refer to anyone.
That’s why I only use the phrase “garbage person” to refer to Garbage Pail Kids, Oscar the Grouch, and people who are made of garbage.
Amber is a very unsympathetic character to me. Her dad Blaine is a rat bastard, but she is becoming worse than he is. She could have killed five innocent people during her last episode of vigilantism. And in this episode, she is treating Danny very much like her father treated her.
I think Amber is addicted to her rage because it makes her feel good. It’s just like using drugs, only in this case anger truly is her “self-medication.”
Eeeeh. I can understand not liking Amber really, (and personally AmaziGirl/Danny has been bothering me for a while for Danny’s sake) but I wouldn’t go as far to say she’s worse than Blaine. Like Blaine is evil in its most distilled form in this comic. Hell, Blaine /is/ basically responsible for the bs Amber pulls. If there’s a true root cause- it’s him. And like I can see Amber waking the hell up to reality eventually unlike him- if Blaine risked people’s lives I really could never see him seeing a problem in the long run. Amber is in process I guess you could say (she did realise attacking Sal was a bad idea not too long ago in strips hence she went ‘Amazi Girl’ for a bit to get away) and I could see her hanging up the cape… eventually.
Amber could redeem herself in the future. Blaine never, ever will.
Like I can understand not liking her at points (hell if I knew her irl I wouldn’t want to be around her) but like nah, Blaine is the worst.
I guess you could say she has one very similar issue though too: both Blaine and Amber think Amber is trash.
I was abused by my father, who was much worse than Blaine. (And I think Blaine is pure evil. A complete schmuck who should never be allowed to have any wives or children or even pets.) I feel compassion for Amber’s feelings, but I have NO compassion for her behavior because she identifies with the abuser.
Even as a child, I knew I never wanted to make anyone feel
the way I felt during the abuse. I never wanted to cause anyone the
fear, pain, humiliation, desperation, and the terrible sadness that comes from being abused. I didn’t want to scar anyone. I wanted to raise my children with gentleness, honesty and love. And I did it, with a lot of help. My kids are SO much healthier than I will ever be.
Like Amber, I turned my negative emotions against myself. Unlike Amber, I did not identify with the abuser, which she obviously is doing.
There are many adults who suffer abuse and end up being abusive in turn, but fortunately there are also some who decide that no matter what, they are not going to lash out and inflict harm on others. Many of us who make that decision don’t know where to put all those pent up negative feelings, so we take it out on ourselves and become depressed. I was very much like Danny, actually, always placating, always people-pleasing, always trying to avoid punishment for just taking up space and breathing air.
Thank God for all the good therapists out there who do such great work with people who have been almost destroyed. I am the fortunate beneficiary of that help and much more. However, it seems the only abused people who really get help are those that have never identified with their abusers. The abusers in my family never want to get help, would never consider going to a 12-Step program, and can’t admit that they are actively harming people, especially their kids.
It is terrifying to see Amber devolve into the same kind of person her father is. I don’t see any way that Danny can get her to go get help. I think there actually will have to be real life consequences, and even then, I am not sure it will be enough.
amber is pretty bad and she’s pretty deluded if she doesn’t think she’s unnecessarily endangering others with her fits of vigilantism, but what we as readers of the comic know is that she does feel genuinely bad about that time she abused danny, and doesn’t want to be like her father, whereas her father is clearly very comfortable being himself.
Still, suffering from abuse explains but doesn’t justify abuse. It’s a complicated situation and that’s a good thing in terms of storytelling
There has to be a point when you’re SO ineffectual with convincing people that it swings back around and they do it out of pity. A pity threesome is still a threesome. You just also have the luxury of feeling both great and depressed about it if you want.
I realized either person Danny’d have a threesome with has issues with Amber so the ideal configuration would be Danny, Ethan, Sal While Amber masturbates in the corner wearing her costume.
Wait then hasn’t Danny technically already had a threesome with Amber and Amazi-girl? Or maybe technically he hasn’t? I don’t know how seperate identities work into the logistics of sexy times. But it may or may not have possibly already not happened unless it did.
The value of a three-way is worth how impressive the story/memory is. If your story is “I had sex with a person with a split personality” I’d still consider that regular sex. It’d be like having sex with a mix raced person and saying “I had sex with a black guy, AND an asian guy”
She did the same the first time she had a flashback after seeing Sal, I think. Also after coming to after the car chase and seeing Sal, but that time she was still in her costume.
Wait. So Amber unreasonably expects Danny to magically know he shouldn’t interact with Sal, and his response, rather than, “What? Why wouldn’t I talk to her?” is more along the lines of “I’m gonna tell you the truth so please don’t get mad at me, darling”?
Hey I like Danny, actually I think a large part of the reason I do is because even after their break up, Dorothy still likes him (not romantically) and I trust her judgment.
Danny has no idea how to stand up for himself. We’ve started seeing more and more hints of the emotional undermining that’s been the pattern in his life, so it’s not surprising. He doesn’t question why Amber is mad–he immediately goes into placation mode. So, so unhealthy.
I like Danny. I’ve always liked him. He’s said some dumb things, but who hasn’t, really. I can identify with him a lot.
Danny probably also (if he’s thought that far ahead and isn’t just automatically going to that placating mode) just thinks Amber is ’embarrassed’ at the girl who saved her or something if he knows nothing of the robbery. It probably sounds like a bs idea to anyone else (and it would be) and yet he doesn’t question why she’s so angry at her for talking to her.
From Danny’s point of view, Amber picked up on either him being attracted to Sal (who isn’t?) or on Sal thinking Amazi-Girl is not the best thing since sliced bread. There is no other reason that he can imagine why Amber should be angry that Sal’s there.
He wanted Sal to be elsewhere because she might pick up on amazi-girl’s identity when she sees him with Amber – and also he doesn’t want to do what she told him to while she watches.
But yes, he directly jumps into placating mode and already things he has done something wrong.
I have a friend who acts like this wherever her lover is involved and it is starting to drive me nuts. The lover wants something totally preposterous and the friend is totally ashamed that she is unable or actually doesn’t want to comply for very good reasons (like not wanting to sink lots of money into a house she cannot afford in the long run). And the lover starts in with undermining her confidence, telling her she’s weak, she has issues, …
I watched this for 2 years now and its getting worse (or maybe I get to hear more about it). But I’m starting to wonder if listening and getting the friend to relax, find back to her confidence really are good things or if they are just stabilizing the relationship.
Does anyone have a good resource on emotional abuse and the friendship perspective? Everything I found strongly relates to relationships with also physical abuse but that’s not happening.
Thanks for the link.
Unfortunately, I don’t think they are into my kind of problem. Physical violence is not an issue and if it ever happened, my friend would see the red flag. I’m rather sure her lover knows this, she’s too skilled a manipulator to risk that (and I actually think she wouldn’t do it anyway). They don’t live together, my friend has her own apartment, money, a job, … and could walk away if she wanted to without there being any danger or stuff. She just chooses not to.
It’s like watching an alcoholic who hasn’t hit bottom yet.
Having clarified this in my mind, maybe I should dip into my CoDA book again…
They have the capacity to work with all different kinds of issues including physical, verbal, and, psychological abuse. The Houston Women’s Center is another amazing resource — they are trained to deal with all sorts of challenges. Even if they can’t help your particular issue they WILL be able to send you to the right resources. Take care.
Thanks for all your replies.
Fortunately, physical abuse is not as often an issue in lesbian relationships that in heterosexual, though I long ago let go of the illusion that women don’t become physically violent.
I will take care.
I wish she would…
These panels are really, really great for making me realize just how much of a Danny I was to my ex’s Amber. This…does not make them fun for me to read.
That being said, the Pillsbury joke is hilarious, so that’s something.
In b4 somebody totally blames Danny for not knowing Sal’s and Amber’s history. Neither has ever told him, he has no reason to think they’ve ever even met.
Yeah, no. You can be mad at Sal, Amber, but you don’t get to say who Danny can talk to, let alone be friends with. Especially since he originally thought Sal was Amazi-girl anyway, and only talked to her in the first place because he thought she was you (Amazi-you, anyway).
I want to sympathize with Amber more here, but while I know she was psychologically scarred by what happened, and that’s terrible, she also suck a knife through Sal’s hand after she had already been taken into custody, potentially maiming and limiting use of said hand for the rest of Sal’s life, and Sal was going through her own shit, and has learned to cope, and she actually saved Amber from being fucking roadkill, putting her own life at risk, AND didn’t say shit to the cops.
And this isn’t cute. Please, for the love of god, have Danny do the smart thing for once, and help Amber get some actual /help/.
(OMFG, I’m relying on Danny, everything is going to hell in a handbasket he personally hands to the Devil)
And for another thing, where the hell does she get off controlling who he can and cannot speak to? This relationship started off vaguely cute, but has rapidly spiraled into abusive. I feel like she’s slowly becoming her father by not dealing with her anger issues and trauma, and instead indulging in violence in “justifiable” situations, aka Amazi-Girl. And slowly, the parameters of “justifiable” are expanding.
IF Danny knew the story before hand about Sal and Amber, it’d be different. It’s really upsetting when people you care about are still friends with your abuser. (Whether the one-time incident that was never meant to escalate as far as it did counts as abuse is irrelevant, from Amber/AG’s perspective, it counts.) It’s dismissive of what you’ve been through, it puts you in further danger by said abuser, and there’s an air of “I don’t believe you really went through this trauma/get over it.”
BUT Danny has no knowledge of the hold up, and Amber knows this.
You don’t have to think that what someone is doing is a good thing to sympathize with them. You know about her trauma. You know that her horribleness is because of her mental illness. You can still acknowledge her horrible behavior while having sympathy for what led her there. You can acknowledge she has an illness, and think the illness is horrible, without thinking she is.
And she’s not. Blaine is horrible. Amber channeled her uncontrolled rage into doing good. For all the whining about vigilantism, she only once attacked someone before they indicated they were going to physically attack her, and that was her dad–as “Amber.” And even then, only the first time, and everyone was perfectly okay with it.
No, it’s not a good way to handle it. She needs to learn anger management. But it does show that, underneath it all, she is a good person. Just because her bad coping mechanism is cracking as the seems now doesn’t suddenly make her horrible.
By this logic, we should also hate Sal, yet everyone lover her. She punched her own brother. Not because he was any thread. Not to try and accomplish anything good. No, she did it because he was singing a song that annoyed her.
And what were the comments like? “Yeah, me and my brother traded punches sometimes.” or “Stupid Walky, stop making Sal feel uncomfortable.”)
Oh, and did you forget when Sal tried to tell her friend Marcie who she could hang out with? Sure, Marcie turned it around on her, but it started out with the same sort of thing. Do you forget her trying to start a fight with Malaya, similar to how Amber started a fight with Sal and crew?
Yet very few people, including myself, find it remotely hard to have sympathy for Sal. We know what she’s been through, and we sympathize. Even though she’s a bit more morally ambiguous, we still think she’s generally a good person.
So hopefully this will help you with what you said up above. That you “want to feel more sympathy for Amber.” Plus, if you can do it for a stupid comic, that makes it easier to do in real life.
Because there are people with much worse mental illnesses that Amber out there. She’s at least mostly functional. She at least can get out of her house and go to college.
I’d take it even a step further, you don’t have to think somebody is right or good or forgivable to have sympathy for them. Sympathy can be separate from judgment entirely, it’s a function of seeing anyone in pain, not solely good people behaving well.
I have three younger siblings. We have shoved each other, tackled each other, pinned one another, and just been general for dumb reasons like “You used the last of my shampoo, OMFG”
And hey, I’m also hella neurodivergent myself! And have suffered through physical and emotional trauma! Do you know what I did? …Some pretty awful shit. Some really dangerous, awful, self-destructive shit. I con inced myself that engaging in that sort of behavior was me defying the odds, doing what I wanted, living in the moment –
I’m 27 and my right knee is a wreck.My hands shake sometimes. I have damage to my heart. (Sort of an essential organ) I’m still neurodivergent and queer as all get out, but you know, once I got some help and started taking my eds, I stopped doing stupid shit like what Amber is doing. I stopped taking out my anger on everyone around me, and I stopped internalizing it too. I stopped doing dumb, impulsive, reactionary things.
I don’t hate Amber. I’m scared for the character because I could have been her if someone hadn’t stepped in and gotten me the help I needed. Amber is a bomb right now, and when she goes off, she’s going to take more than herself out. I’m losing sympathy fast because she is seeing the signs of it all around her and refusing to SEE them, and if she does blow up, there will be casualties.
In the intrest of being correct: Amazi-Girl did also knee a creep in the face before even introducing herself. I kind of feel like that’s worth bringing up whenever people say that she never attacks first.
But that was kind of a throwaway thing in a montage, and towards an unnamed character, so it’s understandable that people didn’t attach significance to it.
Danny, in case you were actually going to look for danger signs on the path to a controlling relationship, here’s one. Your girlfriend is angry with you for having a conversation she did not pre-approve, with someone she hates and fears but has given you no cause to suspect.
So would it not be a sign of a controlling relationship if Danny knew their history? Though it seems one-sided now.
Huh, now I wonder if Sal actually does recognize Ethan and Amber, and is just maintaining her ‘too cool’ attitude to interact with them, and is using a proxy to help them recover from the trauma that she regrets inflicting on them?
Well, if Danny knew not their actual history but Amber’s view of it – Sal as the Evil Criminal Nemesis who threatened her last boyfriend, the monster that inspired the creation of Amazi-Girl, second only to her Father, but he was just hanging out with her anyway, yeah, I’d say that was worth being upset about.
In this case, not overly controlling, just protective. In her mind Sal is Dangerous.
And of course, the last time Danny had a conversion with someone she hated and feared, it was a really bad thing and we all approved when she broke it up.
This is all horribly fucked up, mostly because Sal isn’t the monster Amber thinks she is, but it’s a different kind of fucked up. It’s not “abusive controlling relationship” screwed up, it’s “traumatic reaction to Sal” screwed up.
Yeah, I’m really not getting the “omg Amber’s Blaining it up” vibe from this that other folks seem to have. I think she’s being an ass right now, because regardless of her history with Sal and her mental health issues, it really doesn’t excuse her talking to Danny like this, but, like, her PTSD trigger is standing right there next to her boyfriend. She’s freaking out and trying to assert control because asserting control is what Amber does to deal with her problems.
I dunno, I just have a really hard time blaming Amber for hating Sal, any more than I’d blame Sal for hating Amber if the truth came to light.
This is the weird thing; I think that this is Amazi-Girl’s over-protective mode in action (like the time she sneaked into Ethan’s room to warn him that Sal was on campus). She’s just a bit gruff and doesn’t do ‘kindly tone’.
I’m not sure that Amber is upset at the thought of Danny talking with Sal. I think it’s more of a case that Amazi-Girl is upset at Sal even being present. Yes, there is a difference and I think that this is the beginning of a climactic crisis in Amber’s mental health.
I have this weird sense that maybe Danny & AmaziGirl HAVE talked about Sal – maybe in relation to that time that Amber saw the two of them talking in the hallway (when Danny thought Sal was AG). AG might not have given him all the details of her childhood trauma, but maybe expressed concerns about Sal. (on another note, I’m hoping this comes to a head. As much as I’m no fan of Danny’s, this is getting painful to watch.)
She indeed does. Almost like being “Amazi-Girl” is actually a terribly unhealthy outlet for her issues that will have her justifying her violent outbursts more and more, until she’s just like him.
I really worry this character is going to be exactly what she hates before long.
It may be in the opposite direction. The line between the two personalities is blurring. I can picture a future storyline could have AmaziGirl forcibly take control.
They’re not actual distinct personalities. Amazi-Girl is a role Amber adopts to give her an (extremely unhealthy) outlet for her rage that she can justify as different from the way her father expresses his. She does not have DID she has a really shitty coping method.
No, as she’s Amazi-Girl right now, this is not improvement. Amazi-Girl doesn’t do red panels. She doesn’t lose control as Amber does. But this way, she’ll never deal with the trauma.
@Emily: From my experience with people with MPD, she does have distinct personalities. They are still communicating, though barely. But I definitely read her as factual multiple personality. This is NOT role-playing.
It’s not MPD it’s Dissociative Identity Disorder. It is very clear she is not suffering from DID and that Amazi-Girl is not actually a separate identity but rather a mask Amber uses to distance herself from her rage issues and violent impulses. Amber isn’t dissociating she’s desperately TRYING to dissociate so she can avoid facing the things she hates about herself. If Amber had DID then she wouldn’t REMEMBER what she did as Amazi-Girl or at least not in the crystal clear way she repeatedly has been shown to do so. Amazi-Girl is a persona not a personality.
I’d tell Amber that she needs to get therapy, but that’s a bit of a gamble when you consider the fact that they make more money keeping you balanced than they would curing you of mental issues.
Well obviously there are plenty of mental diseases that can’t be cured, but something like what Amber has seems more like life issues that she just needs help working through.
Not necessarily, no. Amber dealt with roughly 20 years of abuse from her father, a figure most people should be able to draw support and love from. That changes a person for life. How well they function afterwards is a matter of resilience (a dev psych term I’m not too fond of) and care from both social and professional outlets later in life. As you can see, Amber is not doing so well. Even after years of therapy and social support, that abuse doesn’t go away. Her quality of mental health and life in general will improve, but having such a skewed first quarter of your life isn’t something that will really go away.
I assure you, therapists are not selling out their patients’ health for the copays, nor do they have any shortage of potential patients/clients. Quite the opposite; a much more common problem is that too many people need help. If there was a magic cure, that would be great, but there isn’t, so they just help each person as much as they can in their time together.
This. Therapists aren’t there to make money off of suffering, they’re typically actually well-intentioned people trying to help others improve their mental health. The fact that they need to eat means that they charge money, but as Leorale said, there are usually too many patients for one therapist to take on. My college, as a personal example, has month-long waiting periods to see therapists because they’re so over-booked.
WHAT THE FUCK? SAL IS TRYING TO TAKE DANNY FROM YOU? YOU HAVE TO DEFEND HIM, AMBER. YOU CAN’T FAIL YET ANOTHER LOVED ONE WHO IS THREATENED BY A PUNK WITH A KNIFE.
….noooooooo, Amber, that is not a correct analysis of the situation.
Same. Before it was Amber unleashing verbal rage on Danny, now it’s about to be Amazi-Girl. And Amazi-Girl has provably zero problems unleashing physical rage, too, on ‘the deserving’. I’m terribly afraid that ‘the deserving’ might include ‘my traitorous boyfriend whom I caught conspiring with my hated nemesis’.
You are confusing Amber and Amazi-Girl. Amber is the one who flies off the handle and stabs people and flips tables and beats the shit out of people. She reacts like a frightened animal: she runs if she can, and lashes out if she can’t.
Amazi-Girl is much more controlled, with a much higher threshold for the appropriateness of violence. See the dispute in the parking lot where she desperately wanted to fight Sal, but couldn’t and didn’t because Sal wouldn’t attack her first.
Amazi-Girl checking in here is a good sign as far as the likelihood of this ending in ultraviolence is concerned.
Exactly like that. Trying to provoke the known dangerous criminal to attack her, so she would be justified in beating her up. And when it didn’t work (other than on Malaya), she still didn’t flip out and attack Sal. All of which horribly confused her: Sal didn’t follow the script. And hasn’t since, especially saving her during the chase.
If you think she’s going to physically attack Danny at this point, you’re misreading her entirely.
Okay let’s try again. The controlled way she hospitalized her father in a brawl in a restaurant parking lot. The controlled way she nearly got herself and a number of other people killed in a high speed car chase by using fucking caltrops on the highway. I doubt she’s going to physically abuse Danny here but she sure as hell is gonna do it verbally and emotionally which has been pretty much SOP for her.
That was “Amber” who beat up Blaine, per the tags anyway.
Amber also almost swore at Danny before she started crying and that’s the only time I could ever think she was verbally abusing him, so I don’t know how that’s SOP for her.
I’m with you on the car chase, though, but that seems to be the intent. That she saved Becky but absolutely would have gotten herself killed if not for Sal and will if she keeps this up.
That would be a meaningful distinction if Amazi-Girl and Amber were actually meaningfully distinct identities but they aren’t. They’re just roles she plays depending on how she wants to behave.
Amber has been effectively gaslighting Danny ever since she set the rule that he was dating Amazi-Girl and not her by consistently failing to adhere to that rule herself while still lashing out at him whenever he followed her lead.
Well, since no more accidents were shown at the time and I’m sure the street was closed and then cleared as part of the clean-up/investigation, I’m going to say that was nobody.
But no, it’s all Amber’s fault. She’s the crazy dangerous one, escalating the situation and putting everyone at risk. Not the guy kidnapping his daughter at gunpoint and letting go of the wheel at speed to climb out on the roof and shoot her. That’s all perfectly reasonable. She’s the problem.
They’re both a problem. Me taking issue with Amber’s incredible recklessness and cavalier attitude towards collateral damage is not an absolution of Toedad. The fact that nothing went horribly wrong in that scenario has nothing to do with good judgement on Amber’s part and everything to do with it being a comic.
Amber already hurt Danny just a couple of days ago, if Amazi-girl hurts him too I can see Amber calling it quits because Danny is supposed to be safe with Amazi-girl, he’s supposed to be ALWAYS safe with her. Amber is another matter because Amber is flawed but Amazi-girl is better so she’s better for him! Riiight…? (not my thoughts of course, just likely Amber’s. But god do I feel bad for Danny.)
It’s interesting to note Sal really is the crystalization of evil as it exists in the universe for Amber. Sal doesn’t really think about that hold up as anything other than teenage rebellion but I wonder how it would affect her, if she knew that she literally TORTURED someone mentally for a decade with the affects. Would she say it’s all on Amber for the fact she let it do that to her or feel guilt?
I wonder that too but I also wonder if she ever stop to think ” I wonder what happened to those two kids whose lives are threatened and put in danger? “
She didn’t *literally* torture someone mentally. If she were literally torturing someone there would need to be some actual torture on her part. Amber may *be* mentally tortured by Sal, but that’s not literal on Sal’s part.
Which leads into my next question: Should she feel guilt? It’s not really her fault, or her problem.
She should feel guilty for robbing a store and threatening to cut Ethan. The emotional trauma from that experience would probably have faded away over time though, had it not been for Amber’s father’s abuse right after the incident. So, she should feel kinda guilty, but the damage and hate inside Amber isn’t really about Sal at all.
That’s a very direct perspective but probably not the right one. Sal was rebelling against her parents but threatened the lives of two people in the process.
Waving a knife around is grounds for threatening someone most everyone in the vicinity. And she “cowered” because she was 13 fucking years old and some asshole grabbed her best friend and threatened to murder him.
And note that “SHE threatened SAL’s life with that knife stunt” only on being goaded by her abusive father. Which might or might not make any legal difference, but sure as hell makes a moral and psychological one.
Damned if I’ll live in the debt of a thief!
Damned if I’ll yield at the end of the chase.
I am the Law and the Law is not mocked
I’ll spit his pity right back in his face
There is nothing on earth that we share
It is either Sal or Amazi-Girl!
AmaziGirl is the “positive redirection” of the anger and rage that Amber has been nurtured into having by… you guessed it… Blaine.
Recall the flashback sequence where the police have young Sal in custody, and Blaine is off to the side goading and degrading Amber with “That’s it? It was just a knife! You let her push you around with that?”. The subsequent act of flipping out and stabbing Sal through the hand? Technically that would be AmaziGirl’s birth into the Dumbiverse, as Amber finally did what she perceived her father wanted by taking revenge on Sal for having gotten pushed around.
Over time becoming aware of how shitty and abusive Blaine is, and likely with help from taking martial arts, she nurtured AmaziGirl into a force for power, but with a rigid set of morals and standards to keep ‘her’ in check, as she realizes that flying into a murderous rage and stabbing people is not the best way to deal with most situations. AmaziGirl becomes a thing to be summoned in Amber’s times of stress and need, supplying her with confidence and the ability to beat down people threatening her as needed.
But the source of it all: Blaine.
There’s also the fact that second panel has her eyes and general expression looking like the hateful, sour, “no answer you provide is good enough, you’re a fuckup” demeanor that Blaine is so well known for.
She is her father’s daughter, even if she hates him and kicked his ass. AmaziGirl can’t take back a decade and a half or more of being raised by that fuckwit.
so now people are fine with calling amazi-girl amber? just some weeks/months ago you were all very careful with the names and now all of it is just amber.
also remember that aamazi-girl/amber right here is, yes shes acting as if danny cant talk to whoever he wants, but shes also just a bit angry because that girl up there saved her recently even though shes supposed to be a villain. its irrational to assume danny already knows, but we’re all irrational. i can totally see this happening in a normal human life, maybe even in one of your lives. f.ex theres a couple and person doesnt like that popular girl in school cause she thinks shes a bongo and she would rather her boyfriend not talk to her since shes a tiny bit jealous too, and then is quick to get angry when her boyfriend talks to that girl. dont we all ger jealous?
but im sure she will slap danny tomorrow and then ill hate her. im still holding on to the last character that i could identify with when she was just anxious and sad and there are no other depressed characters that havent been total jerks. we’ll see how it goes
I think that if anyone had known where this storyline was going no-one would have done that. Playing along with light-hearted wacky antics is one thing, but now it’s increasingly obvious that Amber has serious problems.
no, it wasnt before we saw ambers problems. people were distincting amber from amazi girl a lot, and it was when we knew she had problems. i wrote a comment then about how maybe they shouldnt do that because amber doesnt actually have multiple personality disorder, the names are just different titles shes pushing herself into. but no one cared obviously and continued with it
No, it’s not jealousy we see here. Sal held up a convenience store that Amber and Ethan were in and she held Ethan hostage with her knife. That incident unleashed Amber’s rage that she now channels into amazi-girl. Recently, Sal saved her, so that messed with her black and white picture that Sal is a terrible, horrible criminal, but Amber still harbors a lot of hatred towards Sal. Her reaction is completely understandable.
what i wrote is obviously a metaphor, cause im pretty sure no one in this comments section would be any more understandable if i just wrote ambers story without mentioning names. im also pretty sure no one here is a secret super hero
I’m quickly losing any kind of sympathy for Amber. I want to feel sympathetic towards her, knowing how mental illness can affect an individual, but that doesn’t justify her actions. She really needs to get some help, and fast. Furthermore, Danny needs to stop being Danny for a second and realize how unhealthy and dangerous this relationship is becoming.
Yeeeeah…. no. I used to like Amber and I felt sorry for her. Not anymore. Danny has NO idea what went wrong but now she tries to bully him into not talking to random people? Why is she a bully AND a coward? Go to Sal and REPAIR the problem, you moron!
Given the fact Amber went into Amazi Girl a few comics back to avoid /violently/confronting Sal in her own words to Walky and hang on rooftops I don’t think that would be the best idea. To walk up to her I mean. She’s going to lash out if she does that and make the situation worse.
She doesn’t want to prevent Danny from talking to random people.
She wants to prevent Danny from talking to that particular evil and dangerous person.
Her perception is off, and she hasn’t actually told Danny what it is so this is just very confusing on his end, but she’s not trying to control whom he talks to.
Also, she went through this once already with Danny. That evil and dangerous person was actually quite evil and dangerous.
Eh, it’s just how it is. She wears a mask, her body language is markedly different, she doesn’t wear glasses, and how could that weird shut-in nerd ever leap off a roof and zipline onto a truck?
But that’s a trope of comic books that’s been around forever. The example that always comes to mind for me is Nightwing meeting Bridget Clancy. Clancy was Dick Grayson’s landlady in Bludhaven, and they dated for a while. Yet when she meets Nightwing she gives no indication she realises they’re the same person. Apparently a domino mask is sufficient to make them appear to be different people.
This is the scariest thing I’ve ever seen Amber/Amazigirl do. Point of no return when her persona automatically takes over. Now I’m wondering what happened to ‘Amber’ and when she’ll ever return given that ‘Amazigirl’ is by far a stronger personality.
Also aren’t people being awfully hard on her? Two strips ago she was being a harmless and adorkable nerd. Sure she has multi-layered mental issues, and is downright scary when she has one of her episodes, but maybe have some compassion for the real Amber, whom we still see flashes of from time to time. I think Willis’ excellent character is presenting her as a tragic figure even in these terrifying moments rather than as a villain to be hated.
The only thing I can think is that these people have never actually had to deal with someone with an anger-based mental illness.
And I’m glad there are people like you here, because this stuff is hitting way too close to home for me. There are people I haven’t responded to because I’m not sure I can keep my cool while doing so.
I literally had a Joyce moment when I saw some of this shit. I envy Amber’s ability to just look a little disgusted. I had a full out Joyce moment–yelling profanity I try not to ever use.
I haven’t actually known anyone with a similar mental illness either, but I definitely remember episodes, like Amber’s interaction with Walky on the roof and her exchanges with Dina, which were meant to help us see that she’s hurting mentally and emotionally as much as she’s hurting others including Danny. I don’t understand how the sympathy we’ve seen commenters show for Amber during her ‘red panel’ episodes can evaporate so fast; I guess it has something to do with the episodic nature of these narratives, meaning you won’t remember an earlier, sympathetic bit of characterisation if a completely unsympathetic one is being shown Now in six frames. I think reading contradictions against each other is necessary but maybe a daily strip format where there are So many characters anyway isn’t the easiest way to do this, idk…
Having said that, I’m sorry this has been triggering for you. Maybe take a break from engaging with particularly victim blamey threads, for purely self protective reasons. Hugs and solidarity.
Sympathy has evaporated because of her abuse of others and failure to seek treatment. One can be sympathetic to an alcoholic’s struggle with addiction but then have that sympathy disappear when the alcoholic chooses to drive drunk.
The thing is your assuming a level of control she doesn’t have. When you’re spinning out as hard as she is. When someone is suffering from mental illness, they aren’t in a place to make good decisions.
In ‘verse her coping methods have been enabled and praised by nearly everyone she’s interacted with. It’s not until very recently that Danny and a few others have realized she’s not well at all. It’s taken an outsider to point out that Amber is in serious trouble and needs help.
There’s also a huge stigma associated with mental illness, a stigma with some concrete social and job related consequences. There’s also a sense that if the mentally ill person had been stronger, flexible, sensitive, less thin skinned etc. that they wouldn’t be mentally ill at all. It’s one of the big reason for people who are ill from seeking treatment.
People are going to have to have to help her get the treatment she needs.
As for abuse… it’s there and will need to be addressed but it’s not the whole and sum of all of her action.
It occurs to me that Danny, having emphasized his honesty, might honestly say to AG: “Actually, I was kind of suggesting to her that she might possibly leave the area….?”
(AG might say: “And why would you want her to leave?”
And Danny could honestly reply: “Second-hand smoke is bad?”)
I’m in at weird position where I do sympathies with Amber logically speaking because of her past I also just feel more for Danny here. The romantic relationship needs to end for his own long term happiness. Period.
I guess the problem is, as much as Amber’s past was terrible, Danny doesn’t deserve to be a punching bag. Amber generally seems to lash out because she’s scared rather than malice like say, Blaine (who emotionally at least reaches worse degrading heights from the stuff we’ve seen)- but that’s not a relationship or treatment anyone deserves regardless of the reasons for them. Mistreatment is still mistreatment regardless of motivation. Like I won’t say that intentions never matter, because they can- they just matter less than actions at the end of the day.
Intentions and knowing them can mean these actions can eventually be combated though. Hopefully.
She needs out of college and into therapy really in an ideal world. Hell, I almost wonder if her arc will end up with her going to jail at this stage if she doesn’t do that.
Yep! Amber has many reasons to occasionally be abusive or distant towards Danny. Reasons aren’t the same thing as excuses. They really don’t have much time together left.
I don’t know that they don’t have much time left together. I think Danny’s folks messed up his head in one way or another and as a result he is a little too dependent on his close relationships. It’s why he had a hard time letting Dorothy go. It’s why he gets so flustered when Joe isn’t the perfect friend (though at least with Joe he is willing and able to push back).
It’s also why he is too accommodating for Amber/AG when she teeters too close to the edge. She lost her shit on him earlier in the day and he caved immediately instead of standing up for himself. She then angrily dismissed him later and his response was to do her laundry for her. Now, she is telling him off for talking to someone else despite never telling him that she even has issues with her, let alone what said issues actually are, but his response is to placate. He seems to be the type that will continually cave, blame himself, and placate more and more even as Amber/AG gets more abusive.
What is weird about that? That it’s happening in fiction rather than real life? Because that’s pretty much the way everything is. Just because you see someone doing something horrible doesn’t mean they are horrible.
It’s especially true when it comes to mental illness. Unfortunately, I’m seeing a lot of–what’s a neutral word–lack of understanding of it here. People are crapping on Amber not because she is fundamentally a bad person, but are acting like she’s choosing to act the way she is.
It really saddens me that I see a rather good depiction of how mental illness really works–even if stylized a little bit–and see how people still do what they do in the real world. Even with all the information, they still go on to hate Amber, and lose the ability to feel sorry for her.
It honestly disturbs me. If they do this when it’s all laid out for them, and you know what’s going on, what about real life where you don’t know?
Or do they not realize you can still have sympathy for someone even if their actions may be hurting someone else? Can they only handle sympathy for one person at a time?
It bothers me how much further we have to go, when someone can casually call Amber garbage and think nothing of it.
I think people are sympathetic to WHY Amber says what she says and does what she does, but that doesn’t make her behavior any less abusive. It is a weird feeling to have complicated feelings toward a fictional character like that, especially for a one a day comic. I also don’t think there’s anything loaded with feeling ‘weird’.
It’s especially weird when you find the characters hot and cute together, even most of the time, and love their interactions and storyline, but know that what’s best for at least one of them, if not both, is for them to break up.
I don’t have any problem with people pointing out that she’s being abusive. My problem is with people who say they have no sympathy for her. That even with everything handed to them on a silver platter, they still can’t manage even a little sympathy?
Not even those who say they are having trouble with it. I get that. It can be hard. But, still, it’s much easier here than it is in real life, when it’s someone real who can actually affect you and your real life. I know–from both sides.
And one comment in particular (which I finally calmed down enough to respond to rationally) was just so casual about the whole thing–like Walky on steroids. At least Walky almost always comes across as good-natured but clueless.
I had to force myself to see that person this way.
This is a good comment, trlkly. I really commend Willis for writing Amber the way he does. She is being abusive towards Danny, she is definitely in the wrong here, and she needs to find help before she really hurts someone (probably Danny, possibly “just” emotionally, still bad). She is also a scared and damaged person whose motivations we understand, and she deserves all the help.
In real life, there is good reason to stay away from people like Amber. Her particular brand of mental issues makes her dangerous to love for someone like Danny (who a lot of people here relate to). That doesn’t make her a horrible person, and I can’t even imagine how much it must suck to be stuck with issues that effectively disqualify you from close, loving relationships.
She’s still abusive. She’s still dangerous. And I so hope that every real life Amber could find a way to heal and grow beyond it.
Yeah, I thought so. This is the start of the part where Amber (and Amazi-Girl) go down a dark, dark Miller-esque path where she causes damage and pain, simply because she loses faith that she is anything but a monster.
The potential choices aren’t good. Becky probably couldn’t keep a secret to save her life. Ruth on the other hand seems to have her own issues with using physical violence where it’s inappropriate.
Becky is absolutely brilliant at keeping secrets.
She’s wildly open about being Lesbian because she can be, because the only people who matter already know – Joyce, her dad and everybody back home.
This helpful Venn diagram shows the overlap of Sal-el’s Maternal Units and The Great Faz’s Current Hostages. You will notice also this graph that proves that the great Faz is not psychotic.
So many people not having sympathy for characters. This is the way of things.
Strip called Dumbing of Age: Someone does something appropriate to a strip called Dumbing of Age.
Commenters: I have no sympathy for this character.
I have sympathy for all these characters. Or, more accurately, empathy. Except maybe Amber’s Dad and Scarface. And maybe Malaya, though that might change if she ever becomes more than the token jerk. But even Toedad I have empathy for, since I understand just how badly his fundamentalist dogma screwed him over.
Don’t get me wrong, I still hate his guts because he’s an abusive and terrible person. But I do have empathy for how his sincere fundamentalism screwed him up. Same with Carol and John. But for the grace of coincidence and trauma, there go I.
Amber I definitely have empathy for. An abused child who coped with her abuse in all the wrong ways, and who has been enabled by so many people caught up in the romance of her superheroine identity. And who put so much of her baggage into that one moment, the moment where her rage triggered and she went after Sal.
Do I think she’s right to hate Sal? No. Do I understand why she does? Oh hell yes. My reaction to Amber is not judgment. Rather, it is, “Oh, I hope she gets the help she needs. I hope she manages to replace these horribly destructive ways of thinking with better ways. I hope she manages to forgive herself and find healthier ways to handle her anger.”
Of course I also have empathy for Danny. Poor guy, he didn’t know this would trigger Amber. And now he’s got to choose between encouraging Amber to do what is best for her, and keeping her happy with their relationship.
Sympathy is a fine sentiment, but it’s not going to do anything to change the situation. If the people around her aren’t willing to set consequences for Amber’s bad behavior, then she’ll never have an incentive to seek proper treatment.
I’m… I’m not a character in this fictional universe. I can’t… look, there’s no way for me to go inside the comic, and help Amber cope with her problems. Because Amber’s a character, being written, in a piece of fiction.
What I can do is empathize with the characters, who are brilliantly and complexly written because Willis is a genius. I guess it’s a tribute to that excellent writing that makes so many people so judgmental, desperate for her to shape up and FIX THINGS.
But I don’t think it’s about fixing things. I think it’s about understanding people. Dumbing of Age is about broken people. Some people broken a little bit, some people, like Amber, broken a lot. It doesn’t ask us to fix them. It asks us to understand them. To empathize with them.
I feel like a lot of the lack of sympathy around Amber/Amazi-Girl might stem from them seeming so cognizant of their mental state and issues (Issues-at-large) at times. Amazi-Girl knows all about Amber’s anger and violence issues, Amazi-Girl called herself crazy, Amber has admonished herself for treating Danny poorly at times. At the same time she keeps acting as if her compartmentalization is an actual solution, although emotional outbursts keep happening whenever unexpecting things occur. It’s clearly not enough to put all her good in one bucket and all her bad in another bucket and pretend everything is okay. But she doesn’t really take any other steps towards alleviating that stuff. Like, has Amber ever shown that she’s looked into rudimentary anger management type stuff, so she can at least delay her anger until she can safely switch over to Amazi-Girl? It’s frustrating to see someone almost get it, and it feels like they’re being neglectful when someone they care about could be hurt in the process.
Then there’s the aspect about blaming Sal that I imagine divides some people. I understand that Sal has become her Joe Chill, but once again, she knows that her dad contributed to her becoming who she is (something about being saddled with his petty violent rage). So, it’s frustrating to see her put so much of the onus on Sal specifically, even though we know trauma doesn’t have to follow logic like that. As a counter-point to A/A-G we’ve been presented with Ethan, who, while he hasn’t been introduced to her in a way that links her to the crime, was completely willing to forgive and assume that Sal has changed in the time since the incident. That definitely paints Amber/Amazi-Girl’s issues towards Sal in a worse light.
So while I understand why one would be sympathetic, there’s enough there to feel fed up with Amber/Amazi-Girl’s behaviour even though you can follow the path of events that leads her to act that way. It feels like writing for a good villain.
i was initially angry at Amber/Amazi-girl, then after reading the comments I realised Amazi-girl was trying to protect Amber in a way. Still doesn’t excuse her behavior towards Danny though.
My biggest issue with the relationship between Danny and Amber/Amazi-Girl, is that Danny enables her obviously unhealthy behavior. What Amber needs is someone who helps her get through without the need of a different persona, not somebody who is in love with the persona she created.
Danny is enabling her Amazi-Girl stuff, but as far as he’s concerned he’s dating and in love with Amber and he thinks “I’m dating Amazi-Girl” is just a cute in-joke between the two of them.
Y’know, I’ve just realised that I’ve totally misread this strip. Between Panels 1 and 2, Amber flees in terror leaving Amazi-Girl holding the yoke, as it were; she’s just not using the voice for some reason. I don’t know if Danny would necessarily know this, though.
This makes me wonder… Way back in the ’90s, there was a The Incredible Hulk arc where, due to some hand-waving incident, Bruce ends up in control of The Hulk’s body whilst The Hulk ends up in charge of Bruce’s body. Might we see something similar happen here? Amazi-Girl taking charge of Amber but, as a consequence, Dark Amber, the red-background repository of the all Amber’s hate and violence is in charge of Amazi-Girl’s body and things get… nasty. Amazi-Girl is largely in control of her application of force. Dark Amber would beat up anyone who looks cross-eyed at her and wouldn’t care too much about the consequences for Amazi-Girl’s reputation.
I live with an Iraq war PTSD sufferer. Amber / AG is doing all she can right now. Asking her to magically will herself out of her situation is unreasonable. She didn’t control the circumstances that molded her. She’s just 18 for Gods sake.
She should see a therapist, but she’s no more capable of that than she is of flying. But she can take steps that will make her capable later. That’s reasonable to hope for.
No one’s suggesting that she should magically Will herself to do something, but rather that those who care about her need to set reasonable consequences to give her an incentive to seek treatment. Continuing to enable her tendency toward violence risks landing her in jail.
I’m sorta in-between you guys, erring on the “shit is fucked up for the poor kid” side. Amber needs to do something, because her current self therapy of “bottle everything up, lash out when triggered, bottle that up to and use it motivate further self therapy” is just making things horribly worse. By the same token, well, Sal is standing right there and being near her causes meltdowns. I can’t blame her for being angry right now, and while she’s being demanding, I’m not sure I’d call it controlling or abusive behaviour.
That’s the thing about abusive behaviours: they almost always escelate. They tend to be slow and insidious, with the other person justifying negative behaviors and the other person (like Danny here) feeling the need to placate and go along with it, rather than saying, “bunk you, why are you telling me what to do with my time?” It’s almost always an escalation.
I think it’s possible to sympathize with a person and dislike them at the same time. Like others here, I like Amber as a character (Well Written, Willis!) But I definitely wouldn’t want to be here friend. I agree she needs help, but the thing about life and adulthood is that there are no take-backsies with certain things. When you’re in a relationship with anyone, there are things that you can do and say that will change it, and you’ll never be the same again in the other person’s eyes. A mistake is a mistake is a mistake, period. You can repent and learn and move on (like Sal), or you’re stuck in that place (like Amber). But if I were Sal, I wouldn’t expect to be best buddies with Amber. That past has already happened. There are a million people I could connect with. Likewise, Amber thinks Blaine is a shitty father. If he came back now and wanted to be in her life again, I doubt she would ever trust him. In fact, I don’t think she’s ever trusted him.
I just think that when you use aspects of your mental illness to treat people like shit, it becomes an excuse, and therefore I don’t have that much sympathy.
Also, another thing: a relationship does not need to be abusive to end. Simply not wanting to be with the person anymore is enough. It does not have to get worse to get better. Skip the drama and be better for yourself, Danny.
Yes, but – Amber’s at worst on the borderline of abusive towards Danny. She yelled at him once and immediately shut herself down to protect him. She was far more horrified by her words than he was.
It’s not quite clear yet where she’s going in this scene, so I’m reserving judgement. I have a strong suspicion it’s not so much her telling him what he can do with his time as “Why are you talking to that monster! Not safe!”
Equating this at all to Blaine’s life long deliberate abuse and manipulation of Amber is disgusting. It’s possible that she’ll end up in a similar place, but she’s definitely nowhere near it yet.
You misunderstand me- the point I’m trying to make is that knowing what your problem is and dealing with your problems are two different things. I’m not saying Amber is an irredeemable monster, I’m simply saying that her dealing with her feelings in a violent manner, then blaming all of it on Sal, then snapping at Danny is still wrong, regardless of what her intentions might be. Nobody deserves her crap. She doesn’t deserve her crap. She might be under certain circumstances, but the moment her actions start affecting other people it stops being about *her* and her feelings, because now other people are and have been involved.
Also, it’s not disgusting at all to link Amber with her dad, given that he is the reason she is like this. It’s simply acknowledging the cyclical nature of abuse. Anyone who has experienced this, especially by a parent, will know one of the top things they say is : “what? That’s nothing! My childhood was worse than yours/ I’m not my parent, you deserve this and that’s why.” I’m pointing out that this is a dangerous time for Amber because her persona combined with her upbringing is causing her to be angry/violent at people who she thinks deserve it, regardless of the consequences. And, she thinks that by doing so she’s becoming the opposite of Blaine (“I’m doing this for everyone own good, not for me”). She needs help but to do that she needs to own her emotions and her decisions. She can’t break the cycle of abuse if she can’t even acknowledge that she is a link in the chain.
Besides, being in the chain does not automatically make you a monster. It just means that you have a connection with an abuser, AND depending on a number of factors you have the potential to repeat that cycle.
And as far as her trying to protect Danny, she’s wrong about Sal literally being a threat to his safety, although I will give you that we haven’t seen the next comic yet. Though I will say that Danny didn’t do anything wrong, and it’s really never appropriate to yell at someone/ accuse them of some sort of betrayal if they haven’t even done anything. Danny should not have to step around her feelings, she needs to sort them out herself.
Yeah, I agree with most of that really, it’s just the emphasis.
Obviously Danny isn’t in any danger from Sal. Obviously, Amber’s completely wrong about Sal. But from her perspective I think he is. That’s she’s wrong, doesn’t change her emotional reaction to it. And remember, this is the guy who got suckered by her dad and how she reacted then.
Yeah, she needs to sort out her own feelings – though that’s a horribly inadequate way of phrasing it. She’s going to need years of effort to work through a childhood of abuse and trauma and she’s still in the phase of relying on her old coping strategies, not actually addressing the real issues.
My point isn’t that what she’s doing is right, it’s that she’s really not coming from the same direction as an abuser. She’s not controlling Danny, even if it looks like that to him. She’s scared for him.
Danny is probably totally misreading this as “she’s jealous of me talking to Sal” and it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out in the next few strips. This is the payoff for a lot of setup work. I’m hoping this is at least the set-up for a reconciliation with Sal, probably through Danny. Which is narratively speaking the big step she needs to take to get back on a more even keel – and possible the start of motivation to get some actual help.
I do apologize, upon reading that statement again, saying that she needs to sort out her feelings might seem flippant. I’ve dealt with a few people in my life who are stuck in a destructive loop, so i’m obviously projecting here. Trust me, I know about the work and struggle involved in working through an abusive childhood. She will obviously need support and extensive therapy, but as many a therapist and others will say, she must do the personal introspective work herself. It’s really up to her. That’s the unfair part about it, in my opinion – mother/father do all this damage, and ultimately we’re the ones that deal with the fallout of it.
I understand what you’re saying about what Amber is thinking right now, from her perspective. I just think that she should realize perspectives other than her own. To her, she’s protecting Danny. Outwardly she’s being aggressive and making him feel like he’s wrong when she has not been clear at all about why she feels the way she does about Sal, which is unfair and rude, even if she doesn’t think so. I’d like to see where the next strip goes..
Or possibly even “Huh, someone feels threatened by my very existence and would like me not to be seen in public. This is such an unusual feeling for me.”
As far as therapy goes it’s a reasonable guess Amber has had therapy. The girl we saw in earlier strips does seem able to interact with the world in ways the Amber in the flashbacks to the night of Sal’s robbery attempt seemed unable to. But it also seems likely that she stopped seeing a therapist at some point, possibly because she managed to convince those involved she was mentally healthy. Since this is a girl who managed to develop a superhero identity without those around her catching on she may have successfully been able to trick her therapist, and her mother, into thinking she could now cope with her past.
I’m also gonna take a guess and say Amber has some kind of stigmatization about it too. Therapy is for little sucky babies who need to tie up their bootstraps and instead she’ll do the smart thing and punch people in the face.
Dorothy is so damn aggravating. Would love to walk up to her, slap her upside the head for being an idiot and tell her to get over it. Then follow her around and keep doing that until she realizes that she is responsible for her own actions , including how she treats people. Kick her to the curb, Danny! BOOM
It took me a minute to understand why Amber was saying “Wrong.” to Danny, as if he’d somehow fucked up just by saying her name. Then I realized oh, she means she’s Amazi-Girl right now. It’s… getting pretty bad, the compartmentalizing. I know Danny isn’t a mental health expert, but surely he’s at least a little worried when she does this.
So Amazi-Girl is Amber’s ‘better self’, right? The person she becomes to keep violent or abusive tendencies in check and the person that she’s decided is dating Danny because Amber can’t be relied upon to treat him well.
But Amazi-Girl being ideal goes straight out the window when Sal exists within her realm of perception. And leads to ….Amazi-Girl treating Danny in the same shitty way that she was trying to avoid by insisting that he not date Amber.
Amber in this comic has always rung false for me in a way that other characters do not.
I mean, obviously you need to take a few psychological liberties to contrive the inclusion of a superhero in your story, but the split personality angle really bothers me for some reason. Every time it comes up I just want to skip to something else.
I think its partially because I have seen the same kind of stories done many times by far less talented writers than Willis, and it’s just not bringing anything to the table.
Seriously? Go stuff yourself, Amber. You were one of my favorite characters in the other universes. Here… it is like you are doing your best to poison every relationship you have. I understand how mental trauma can mess you up, and I find it pathetic in the original sense of the word, but there’s a point where you have to step back from someone who is self-destructing before they take you down to, and Amber is/has crossed right over that line.
Amber. Amber, Amber, Amber. Pleeeease go get professional help. You have (1) declared that you don’t want to be Blaine, and (2) tried to free yourself of the opinions he spouts out loud. These are important, but they won’t stop you from becoming the person you hate. Amber, you have internalized your father’s teachings on what makes a person strong vs. weak, among other things, and you cannot undo years of soaking in his toxicity on your own. You cannot. Yeah, Blaine would say therapy is for the weak. Fuck Blaine. Therapy is for the strong, the people who don’t want to hurt themselves and others. You don’t want to hurt innocents like Danny, yes? So please. GET HELP.
/end impassioned note to fictional character
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what, no “what’s wrong with talking to other people”? I’m sure she never specifically said “DON’T EVER TALK TO THE PERSON WHO SAVED MY LIFE BUT I WON’T ACKNOWLEDGE IT BECAUSE I WAS UNCONSCIOUS AT THE TIME AND DON’T ACTUALLY KNOW WHY SHE WAS THERE”
or something
Sal: “hee hee!”
New Pillsbury Caramel Rolls!
That sounds delicious.
GET ON IT, PILLSBURY.
It’s all part of Sal’s multi-layered plan to slowly psychologically torture Amber. We’re at be seen in public areas at a relatively ambiguous proximity to her “not” boyfriend. It’s coming along quite nicely.
Dammit Ana now i’m just… I think I’m dying from laughter.
And for that matter, I don’t think Danny knows that
Amber has a problem with Sal, does he?
I believe you are correct.
He does now
I don’t think that he realized just how many problems she has. Ironic timing on their slipshine because this seems like a bad romance about to implode.
I’m pretty sure timing it here is the point, there wasn’t gonna be another chance.
I think mike might actually be the best hope for a happy ending to this.
But he doesn’t know why.
“Is she your ex-girlfriend?”
He actually probably still doesn’t, because that would require Amber/Amazigirl to spell it out for him, given how poor a people-reader he is 😛
Implying that a good enough people reader could understand the situation going on here.
Because nothing says “she scared me and threatened my best frend with a knife 6 years ago without even knowing I was there” like pointing angrily.
It’s all in the body language.
Is that what that means? Jeez, I should stop pointing at people.
Yeah, probably. :X
At the very least, stop accidentally calling every third person a baby-devouring werewolf. That’s just not cool- the paranoid stockpiling of silver you’ve started me on isn’t cheap, y’know.
I don’t think Professor X could get a read on Amber at this point.
Or maybe he’ll think she’s now jealous of all girls he talks to.
That does seem to be the direction his thoughts went first.
:eyes your avatar:
Feels familiar, does it?
I predict a fight, and then Danny goes to Ethan to figure out what the hell was up with that.
I’m not sure how Danny can fight, given that there’s no way he could understand what’s even happening.
And Ethan probably couldn’t help, either, since Danny’s description probably wouldn’t include any details he’d need to figure out it’s about Sal, and he’d have no reason to guess it to ask.
Aaaaaaaaand now I get another reason to hate Amber. She’s pulling that THING some bongoy obnoxious girls do. “I won’t tell you that a thing bothers me, let alone why, but I magically expect you to know it anyway, AND IT’S YOUR OWN FAULT IF YOU’RE NOT PSYCHIC YOU BASTARD”
These girls give the rest of us who aren’t completely irrational a bad name. ^=__=^;;
Give her a second. There’s still plenty of time for a dramatic reveal.
Amber’s not doing it because she’s a girl, though. She’s doing it because her Issues have Issues. Inability or unwillingness to communicate has no gender. Her dad probably set invisible goalposts all the time, because he’s an abuser. The stereotype that invisible goalposts are a “girl thing” is what gives us womenfolk a bad name, not the behavior itself. When men/boys do it, it’s seen as individual behavior; when women/girls do it, it’s seen as “that THING” girls do.
This.
Entitlement also plays a similar factor, despite coming from a totally different direction, and you see a lot of that basis for it as well. That in turn is compounded by neglectful (albeit not outright abusive) parenting.
(Which, of course, is also not remotely related to biological sex.)
That aside, well put.
Arbitrary catch-alls are aggravating, especially when there’s clear indicators as to why the behaviors actually exist.
I just don’t like it when guys feel they HAVE to walk on eggshells around me because I’m a girl, just because they’ve had to deal with this crap before. I don’t like getting lumped in with irrational people just cause I also happen to be the same gender.
Me neither. It sucks to feel like you represent your entire gender. Cis guys have that feeling less often. DOWN WITH STEREOTYPES. (Plus relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/385/)
Though he does seem to be aware that Sal being around isn’t positive for Amber, if I’m reading yesterday’s comic correctly. Though I could be, what’s the term, ‘Dannying it up’?
Danny’s doing that “Suspiciously Specific Denial”-thing which you can look up on TVtropes at your own peril. Sal doesn’t know that Amber is Amazigirl, that’s why Danny said he was waiting for someone completely unrelated.
Why?????? This happened to me yesterday too 🙁
You mean “Danial”
as i understand it, he was just reading her facial expression. I don’t really get how he would know she was specifically upset about sal in the last strip, but maybe it’s just a case of comic logic.
I think he was just annoyed at Sal because of their conversation in the laundry room.
Sal offered to leave because Danny shouldn’t talk to Amazi-Girl with her around.
Danny denied that he planned to talk to Amazi-Girl. But that’s what he actually planned to do, so Sal should leave.
Amber’s about to Dan it up.
..well that was anticlimatic
Meh, I’m sure it’ll get rowdier in 24 hours.
Real world time, or DoA time? ’cause waiting half a year for a resolution seems a bit long. 😛
(at least she didn’t rush to the fight, I guess)
And the Shit Switch has been flipped! Take cover, everybody!
The winds of shit are a blowin’
You know what a shit barometer is, Bubs? Measures the shit pressure in the air.
We’re facing a full force Shitnado.
A F4, maybe even F5!
Alt-F4, maybe
I like that.
The fecal matter has impacted the rotating circulatory device.
danny attempts charming smile. critical fail
But I thought Fairy was effective against Dragon type?
Pity Amber is clearly a Fighting type. :/
Oh dear, I seem to have remembered weaknesses in reverse.
Looking at the chart..
It seems likely Amber is Poison type. >_<
Yeah, getting that now.
I like that smile.
Ooh-hoooo!
So Amber is finally getting mad at Sal and not running away in fear? A little better I guess
“Wrong,” she said.
Looks like Amber did run away, and Amazi-Girl is not happy to be there.
Maybe? That would be a valid interpretation, but she’s not using her Amazi-Voice. I guess she’s still trying to pretend to everyone else that she’s Amber…
The voice was something she only started doing to fool Danny.
Check the tags.
Of that she tells Danny he’s wrong, when the only thing he’s said is “Amber.”
Oh, so that’s why AmaziGirl is tagged.
You could technically say that Amber hid away in fear, given that Amazi-Girl has taken charge.
(it’s the sudden lack of blush marks, see)
That’s Amazi-Girl. Note the cheeks and the absence of blush thereon.
The voice is wrong, though. So it’s not Amazi-Girl.
Not entirely.
Iirc the cheek blush is the main tell, the voice is something she puts on while in costume to not be recognized.
…that said, I also thought that previous AG was tied to wearing the costume, so the times they are a-changin’
She’s getting worse? Since now she’s just switching “personalities” out of perceived convenience.
Amber crashing from fear is not “perceived convenience.”
And since Amber’s out, somebody had to take the helm, and that means Amazi-Girl.
At least it’s not The Black Voice – then there’d be hell to pay.
I saw it more in terms of “who is better equipped to seal with this” and the answer is Clearly Not Amber. Convenient isn’t always a good thing.
Amazi-Girl isn’t a personality it’s a persona she has adopted as a terribly self-destructive coping method. Amber is clearly not actually suffering from DID however much she seems to wish she were.
Remember, DID is not an on/off bit – there’s a whole spectrum of DID behaviors, and Amber’s definitely nonzero on the scale.
Dissociation is a spectrum. Pretty sure DID is just one condition. Although Amber does appear to be heading towards that.
The question would be, can you force it? Willingly make another personality/persona/whatever to take over when needed?
That said, I think Amber isn’t going back and forth between herself and AG all too consciously.
I guess I gave her too much credit. But she sure acts the part of someone with it.
It’s not new. She’s switched without the costume or even the mask before.
And more rarely, become Amber while in costume.
undercover Amazi-Girl
Kinda looks like she’s mad at Danny atm.
ohhh shiiiiee
… well now I can’t /not/ hear it when seeing that panel.
Hey Amber…maybe relax a bit.
“Could you maybe chill?”
“How about YOU chill?”
knock knock, it’s self-loathing
“Amber… isn’t here right now. I’ll leave a message for her, should she ever come out of the hole she’s hiding in.“
If Amazi-Girl is talking, why aren’t the speech bubbles blue?
Amazi-Girl doesn’t have to do the voice; she just chooses to use it as part of her disguise. The real tell is the cheeks.
Tagged as both, so Amber then AG.
Honesty Is Such A Lonely Word
Everyone is so untrue
Honesty is hardly ever heard
And mostly what I need from you!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6NyOvgzG1o
Billy Joel? I was thinking I delve into American comedy and pick out parody:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VR1kZnhuM3I
Sokol, you have a lot to learn about American comedy.
“Oh! Hey, Amber.” “Wrong.”
But the Wrong balloon isn’t blue.
So this is Amazi-Girl pretending to be (and talk like) Amber?
Apparently the only difference between the two are cheeks.
Wait, cheeks? Really?
I gotta stop reading this comic. Maybe see a dentist or something.
Well, visible difference, anyway.
I don’t think that Amazi-Girl actually necessarily talks like that. At one point, Ethan remarked that she started doing a voice. I think it’s just a disguise thing.
That makes sense, but does it imply that keeping Amber’s voice is now Amazi-Girl’s disguise rather than the voice being Amber’s disguise?
Well, Bruce Wayne was Batman’s disguise. Though comparing her identity to that of a fictional character that likely has more issues than she does, may not be the best thing.
Now there’s a tagline!
“Come read Batman! He has more issues than we could ever write!”
How very Wade of you.
*Bows.* That’s the third best compliment I’ve gotten. Right behind: “That drawing reminds me of H.P. Lovecraft.” The best being: “You look like a hitman.”
Yes, we wouldn’t want to compare her to… a fictional character?
Fictional in a Meta sense.
Amber, Danny barely picks up on things that are obvious to everyone else, even if they’re stated aloud.
Expecting Danny to be psychic is right out.
Wait, I thought Sal didn’t smoke for real
She smokes, she just doesn’t light up indoors. She just keeps an unlit cigarette to satisfy her oral fixation.
[/Freud]
Nah, she’s no Augustus Waters.
the cigarette is a metaphor you see
for another cigarette she will light up later
accurate lol
Sal smokes cigarettes, she just doesn’t smoke weed.
Both Amber and Amazigirl are tagged, but the word bubbles aren’t changing, and I’m too lazy to check whether this is normal. Might be a good sign? Or a bad one.
It’s the cheeks: they change from the first panel to the second. The speech bubble is optional; it’s just part of her disguise like the outfit.
Remember, Amazi-Girl originally didn’t change her voice. She started that to throw Danny off about her true identity.
The voice isn’t a definitive sign of Amazi-Girl. She didn’t always use it; she adopted it as part of her disguise beginning of Week 2 so Danny wouldn’t recognize Amber’s voice. The real distinction between Amber and Amazi-Girl is that Amber has cheek blushes and Amazi-Girl doesn’t. Notice that they disappear between panel 1 and 2.
This is 100% a bad sign.
*Reads strip.*
*Reads alt-text.*
I don’t…what?
*Re-reads strip. Gets to panel 4-*
Oh! Ha!
Woah, Amberzigirl, It’s rude to point. Who do you think you are?
But Sal isn’t pointing. That weird nerd girl is.
Why, one ofThe Pointer Sisters, obviously
I think Yotomoe has made an excellent point.
How rude of me.
Amber is rapidly losing sympathy from me. I don’t care WHAT Sal did in the past, Danny is his own person and can talk to whoever he pleases. This relationship is stsrting to edge dangerously close to abusive.
I haven’t had a lot of sympathy for Amber for a while. I mean as a character I don’t hate her but as a person I think she’s garbage. Y’know like a batman villain. Except played straight and less fun.
Please do not call people with mental illnesses “garbage,” even if they are fictional.
Especially fictional people for whom pretty much all their bad qualities are actually caused by their illness, and have been doing their best to be good. Even if it’s breaking down now, that doesn’t make them garbage.
That attitude is one that people face in real life all the time.
And be happy I didn’t make this a “why I don’t feel sympathy for you” post.
Nah Amber is fine.
Amazi girl is a piece of shit tho
People with mental illnesses can be garbage people in the same way black people, gay people, and any other group of people can be garbage people. Having a mental illness isn’t a “Get out out of being awful” free card.
A person with a mental illness can still just not be a good person and I’m allowed to think her actions are kind of garbage. I don’t think all people with mental illnesses are shitty.
well said!!
The group of people who aren’t garbage can’t be garbage people. What about them?
I will say, there’s a big difference between Amber being a “garbage person”and doing a “garbage action.” One is a judgment of her (and a declaration of identity), whereas the other is a judgment of her action.
In conversation, people tend to lump these two ideas together, when they’re very different ways of looking at the world. Everyone does bad actions some times, for a variety of reasons. There’s nothing final about doing something bad, nor is there anything final about saying someone did something bad. But calling someone “garbage” is playing judge, jury, and executioner.
Personally, I tend to think that there’s a lot more people doing “garbage actions” than there are “garbage people,” if indeed there are any. The Buddha quote, “To know all is to forgive all,” comes to mind. Which is not to say that bad behavior should be overlooked – it’s still problematic, and we’re all still responsible for what we do.
But when someone calls someone a “garbage person,” that implicitly suggests that the speaker believes the person is irredeemably bad and should be discarded (you know, like – hm, not thinking of the word here. Tip of my tongue). Not the most humane way to refer to someone whose destructive actions are linked with their own mental illness and suffering. Not the most humane way to refer to anyone.
That’s why I only use the phrase “garbage person” to refer to Garbage Pail Kids, Oscar the Grouch, and people who are made of garbage.
She lost my sympathy a long time ago.
Which is ironic, since the board insists on giving me her as an avatar.
It’s like raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin
on your wedding day!
I can sympathize.
It’s appropriate. Amazi-Girl doesn’t have much sympathy for Amber either.
We’re going to get to a point where Amber is in the hospital in a coma and we get the mental meeting of her Amber-self and her AG persona.
Sort of like what happened to Tommy in Dino Thunder, but with less personas, less spandx (sorry Dr. K!) and no giant robot fights.
I sympathise with Amber, but I also think that she should be under a psychiatrist’s care, for her own safety.
It’s not like she was verbally attacking Danny some time ag- oh wait.
Amber is a very unsympathetic character to me. Her dad Blaine is a rat bastard, but she is becoming worse than he is. She could have killed five innocent people during her last episode of vigilantism. And in this episode, she is treating Danny very much like her father treated her.
I think Amber is addicted to her rage because it makes her feel good. It’s just like using drugs, only in this case anger truly is her “self-medication.”
Eeeeh. I can understand not liking Amber really, (and personally AmaziGirl/Danny has been bothering me for a while for Danny’s sake) but I wouldn’t go as far to say she’s worse than Blaine. Like Blaine is evil in its most distilled form in this comic. Hell, Blaine /is/ basically responsible for the bs Amber pulls. If there’s a true root cause- it’s him. And like I can see Amber waking the hell up to reality eventually unlike him- if Blaine risked people’s lives I really could never see him seeing a problem in the long run. Amber is in process I guess you could say (she did realise attacking Sal was a bad idea not too long ago in strips hence she went ‘Amazi Girl’ for a bit to get away) and I could see her hanging up the cape… eventually.
Amber could redeem herself in the future. Blaine never, ever will.
Like I can understand not liking her at points (hell if I knew her irl I wouldn’t want to be around her) but like nah, Blaine is the worst.
I guess you could say she has one very similar issue though too: both Blaine and Amber think Amber is trash.
I was abused by my father, who was much worse than Blaine. (And I think Blaine is pure evil. A complete schmuck who should never be allowed to have any wives or children or even pets.) I feel compassion for Amber’s feelings, but I have NO compassion for her behavior because she identifies with the abuser.
Even as a child, I knew I never wanted to make anyone feel
the way I felt during the abuse. I never wanted to cause anyone the
fear, pain, humiliation, desperation, and the terrible sadness that comes from being abused. I didn’t want to scar anyone. I wanted to raise my children with gentleness, honesty and love. And I did it, with a lot of help. My kids are SO much healthier than I will ever be.
Like Amber, I turned my negative emotions against myself. Unlike Amber, I did not identify with the abuser, which she obviously is doing.
There are many adults who suffer abuse and end up being abusive in turn, but fortunately there are also some who decide that no matter what, they are not going to lash out and inflict harm on others. Many of us who make that decision don’t know where to put all those pent up negative feelings, so we take it out on ourselves and become depressed. I was very much like Danny, actually, always placating, always people-pleasing, always trying to avoid punishment for just taking up space and breathing air.
Thank God for all the good therapists out there who do such great work with people who have been almost destroyed. I am the fortunate beneficiary of that help and much more. However, it seems the only abused people who really get help are those that have never identified with their abusers. The abusers in my family never want to get help, would never consider going to a 12-Step program, and can’t admit that they are actively harming people, especially their kids.
It is terrifying to see Amber devolve into the same kind of person her father is. I don’t see any way that Danny can get her to go get help. I think there actually will have to be real life consequences, and even then, I am not sure it will be enough.
amber is pretty bad and she’s pretty deluded if she doesn’t think she’s unnecessarily endangering others with her fits of vigilantism, but what we as readers of the comic know is that she does feel genuinely bad about that time she abused danny, and doesn’t want to be like her father, whereas her father is clearly very comfortable being himself.
Still, suffering from abuse explains but doesn’t justify abuse. It’s a complicated situation and that’s a good thing in terms of storytelling
It’s been abusive for a while. I still sympathize with her to a degree but I sympathize with Danny more at this point.
HOW DARE YOU TALK TO OTHER WOMEN!
She really should prevent him from talking to other men, if you know what I mean.
I do not, could you explain? Preferably with diagrams from Cerberus and pictures from Yotomoe.
“You should have submitted a list in advance if there were people I wasn’t supposed to be talking to.”
There’s no way this ends well.
“So what you’re saying is the threesome is a no-go?”
With his inability to sway a conversation with a woman to his favor being a factor there’s no way in hell I can pull that off.
There has to be a point when you’re SO ineffectual with convincing people that it swings back around and they do it out of pity. A pity threesome is still a threesome. You just also have the luxury of feeling both great and depressed about it if you want.
Hmm, mind blowing sex or self-esteem…..eh it’s not like I have a lot to brag about.
Unless you’re bad at the sex. That’ll only make your self-esteem even worse!
So even more pity threesomes?
This seems dangerous. Could lead to the pity threesingegularity.
Not sure that’s the threesome Danny wants.
But it’s the threesome he deserves.
I realized either person Danny’d have a threesome with has issues with Amber so the ideal configuration would be Danny, Ethan, Sal While Amber masturbates in the corner wearing her costume.
The threesome he deserves is cringing confused in a corner while the two ladies beat the shit out of each other?
… Hmm, yeah, that does sound about right.
Wait then hasn’t Danny technically already had a threesome with Amber and Amazi-girl? Or maybe technically he hasn’t? I don’t know how seperate identities work into the logistics of sexy times. But it may or may not have possibly already not happened unless it did.
The value of a three-way is worth how impressive the story/memory is. If your story is “I had sex with a person with a split personality” I’d still consider that regular sex. It’d be like having sex with a mix raced person and saying “I had sex with a black guy, AND an asian guy”
Hey that does a great disservice to the split personality nutjobs out there and the blasians who love them!
That’s a kinky subgenre I didn’t even know I wanted.
Well, technically its been a threesome this whole time, what with Amazigirl and Amber being who they are….
*reads alt text*
So that’s why Sal won’t shut up about how Toaster Strudels are sooooo-o-o-o-o-oo-o much better than Pop-Tarts–
The hell they are.
Each have their pros and cons.
Oh good, Amber’s taking all her shit out on Danny again. Another familiar pattern.
Danny is a multi-verse shit-catcher. (even from me.)
They must have a pretty weird sex life, then.
I mean some of her shit I can understand. But ALL of it? That’s just messy!
Where would he keep it all?
Is this the first time Amber became AmaziGirl involuntarily? That is not so good.
I think it happened when Dorothy discovered her too. The blushes suddenly disappeared.
I don’t think it’s more involuntary than when Dorothy identified her.
She did the same the first time she had a flashback after seeing Sal, I think. Also after coming to after the car chase and seeing Sal, but that time she was still in her costume.
I’m noticing a commonality here.
I don’t like where this is going.
Wait. So Amber unreasonably expects Danny to magically know he shouldn’t interact with Sal, and his response, rather than, “What? Why wouldn’t I talk to her?” is more along the lines of “I’m gonna tell you the truth so please don’t get mad at me, darling”?
Oh, Danny.
Danny’s too good for her and that made me throw up in my hands to type out.
Hey I like Danny, actually I think a large part of the reason I do is because even after their break up, Dorothy still likes him (not romantically) and I trust her judgment.
I don’t. Girl wants to be president. Only awful people can become president. That’s part of the job!
The ones’ who should have the job are the ones’ who don’t want it. Less likely to abuse their powers that way.
That just means she’ll fail because she’s great.
Danny has no idea how to stand up for himself. We’ve started seeing more and more hints of the emotional undermining that’s been the pattern in his life, so it’s not surprising. He doesn’t question why Amber is mad–he immediately goes into placation mode. So, so unhealthy.
I like Danny. I’ve always liked him. He’s said some dumb things, but who hasn’t, really. I can identify with him a lot.
his folks really did a number on him. :/
Oooh yeah. That’s a bad sign.
Danny probably also (if he’s thought that far ahead and isn’t just automatically going to that placating mode) just thinks Amber is ’embarrassed’ at the girl who saved her or something if he knows nothing of the robbery. It probably sounds like a bs idea to anyone else (and it would be) and yet he doesn’t question why she’s so angry at her for talking to her.
From Danny’s point of view, Amber picked up on either him being attracted to Sal (who isn’t?) or on Sal thinking Amazi-Girl is not the best thing since sliced bread. There is no other reason that he can imagine why Amber should be angry that Sal’s there.
He wanted Sal to be elsewhere because she might pick up on amazi-girl’s identity when she sees him with Amber – and also he doesn’t want to do what she told him to while she watches.
But yes, he directly jumps into placating mode and already things he has done something wrong.
I have a friend who acts like this wherever her lover is involved and it is starting to drive me nuts. The lover wants something totally preposterous and the friend is totally ashamed that she is unable or actually doesn’t want to comply for very good reasons (like not wanting to sink lots of money into a house she cannot afford in the long run). And the lover starts in with undermining her confidence, telling her she’s weak, she has issues, …
I watched this for 2 years now and its getting worse (or maybe I get to hear more about it). But I’m starting to wonder if listening and getting the friend to relax, find back to her confidence really are good things or if they are just stabilizing the relationship.
Does anyone have a good resource on emotional abuse and the friendship perspective? Everything I found strongly relates to relationships with also physical abuse but that’s not happening.
In Texas but they can help direct you to the best resources
Thanks for the link.
Unfortunately, I don’t think they are into my kind of problem. Physical violence is not an issue and if it ever happened, my friend would see the red flag. I’m rather sure her lover knows this, she’s too skilled a manipulator to risk that (and I actually think she wouldn’t do it anyway). They don’t live together, my friend has her own apartment, money, a job, … and could walk away if she wanted to without there being any danger or stuff. She just chooses not to.
It’s like watching an alcoholic who hasn’t hit bottom yet.
Having clarified this in my mind, maybe I should dip into my CoDA book again…
They have the capacity to work with all different kinds of issues including physical, verbal, and, psychological abuse. The Houston Women’s Center is another amazing resource — they are trained to deal with all sorts of challenges. Even if they can’t help your particular issue they WILL be able to send you to the right resources. Take care.
National Domestic Violence Hotline: 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or TTY 1-800-787-3224
Emotional abuse can escalate into physical abuse. Here’s a list of red flags to watch out for:
http://nnedv.org/resources/stats/gethelp/redflagsofabuse.html
Thanks for all your replies.
Fortunately, physical abuse is not as often an issue in lesbian relationships that in heterosexual, though I long ago let go of the illusion that women don’t become physically violent.
I will take care.
I wish she would…
How is Amazi-Girl in this strip?
Unless she’s the one in the black vest in panel 3?
“Oh! Hey, Amber.” “Wrong.”
Danny picked the wrong name, because Amber just broke.
Sometime between panels one and two, AmaziGirl took the wheel.
Amber had another kernel panic because she’s never addressed the damage Sal happened to cause.
A strong relationship is built on a foundation of not talking to people the other person has stabbed. Ben Franklin probably said that.
Some of my best friends were my stab victims. And others stabbed me. You don’t really know someone until you pierce their skin with a blade.
Stabbing lets you see their inner beauty.
#JokerRelationshipAdvice
+1
Ear piercers are the best friends ever!
Probaby while laying with a prostitute.
I’m just slapping the bongos to make music
That’s personally funny right now because my YT channel just put up “Tank” by The Seatbelts (the version with lots of congas and bongos).
Can Sal hear all this?
She has… not been having a good day, has she.
I think she’s too far away. On the other hand if she can see them she might cue in on their tense postures.
Oh god this is going to get so ugly.
But I’m not in the comic.
Aw jeez. Good one. I’m sure you’re not even ugly.
These panels are really, really great for making me realize just how much of a Danny I was to my ex’s Amber. This…does not make them fun for me to read.
That being said, the Pillsbury joke is hilarious, so that’s something.
Im sorry you had to go through that :/
Thanks, that’s kind of you. 🙂
Well, this is all about to go to hell…
It can always pray on its deathbed and hope it at least goes to purgatory.
What is she saying ‘wrong’ to?
Danny called her Amber. She’s clarifying that she’s being Amazi-Girl at the moment.
I wondered. Shoulda looked at the tags.
Though me off too. Wonder if Danny needs to be able to see the tag cloud as well.
In b4 somebody totally blames Danny for not knowing Sal’s and Amber’s history. Neither has ever told him, he has no reason to think they’ve ever even met.
Oh, he knows they’ve met–when Sal saved Amber’s life.
This is not the part of the story that would be helpful to him at the moment.
Yeah, no. You can be mad at Sal, Amber, but you don’t get to say who Danny can talk to, let alone be friends with. Especially since he originally thought Sal was Amazi-girl anyway, and only talked to her in the first place because he thought she was you (Amazi-you, anyway).
I want to sympathize with Amber more here, but while I know she was psychologically scarred by what happened, and that’s terrible, she also suck a knife through Sal’s hand after she had already been taken into custody, potentially maiming and limiting use of said hand for the rest of Sal’s life, and Sal was going through her own shit, and has learned to cope, and she actually saved Amber from being fucking roadkill, putting her own life at risk, AND didn’t say shit to the cops.
And this isn’t cute. Please, for the love of god, have Danny do the smart thing for once, and help Amber get some actual /help/.
(OMFG, I’m relying on Danny, everything is going to hell in a handbasket he personally hands to the Devil)
And for another thing, where the hell does she get off controlling who he can and cannot speak to? This relationship started off vaguely cute, but has rapidly spiraled into abusive. I feel like she’s slowly becoming her father by not dealing with her anger issues and trauma, and instead indulging in violence in “justifiable” situations, aka Amazi-Girl. And slowly, the parameters of “justifiable” are expanding.
This! She is emanating 100% Blaine in this strip after panel one.
IF Danny knew the story before hand about Sal and Amber, it’d be different. It’s really upsetting when people you care about are still friends with your abuser. (Whether the one-time incident that was never meant to escalate as far as it did counts as abuse is irrelevant, from Amber/AG’s perspective, it counts.) It’s dismissive of what you’ve been through, it puts you in further danger by said abuser, and there’s an air of “I don’t believe you really went through this trauma/get over it.”
BUT Danny has no knowledge of the hold up, and Amber knows this.
In Amber’s case, the abuser is Blaine, not Sal.
Sal’s robbery is just the icing on years-of-abuse cake,
and even in that event it was Blaine who triggered her going postal.
They both are, at least in AG’s mind. It’s why she freaks out every time she sees Sal.
“I want to sympathize with Amber more here”
You don’t have to think that what someone is doing is a good thing to sympathize with them. You know about her trauma. You know that her horribleness is because of her mental illness. You can still acknowledge her horrible behavior while having sympathy for what led her there. You can acknowledge she has an illness, and think the illness is horrible, without thinking she is.
And she’s not. Blaine is horrible. Amber channeled her uncontrolled rage into doing good. For all the whining about vigilantism, she only once attacked someone before they indicated they were going to physically attack her, and that was her dad–as “Amber.” And even then, only the first time, and everyone was perfectly okay with it.
No, it’s not a good way to handle it. She needs to learn anger management. But it does show that, underneath it all, she is a good person. Just because her bad coping mechanism is cracking as the seems now doesn’t suddenly make her horrible.
By this logic, we should also hate Sal, yet everyone lover her. She punched her own brother. Not because he was any thread. Not to try and accomplish anything good. No, she did it because he was singing a song that annoyed her.
And what were the comments like? “Yeah, me and my brother traded punches sometimes.” or “Stupid Walky, stop making Sal feel uncomfortable.”)
Oh, and did you forget when Sal tried to tell her friend Marcie who she could hang out with? Sure, Marcie turned it around on her, but it started out with the same sort of thing. Do you forget her trying to start a fight with Malaya, similar to how Amber started a fight with Sal and crew?
Yet very few people, including myself, find it remotely hard to have sympathy for Sal. We know what she’s been through, and we sympathize. Even though she’s a bit more morally ambiguous, we still think she’s generally a good person.
So hopefully this will help you with what you said up above. That you “want to feel more sympathy for Amber.” Plus, if you can do it for a stupid comic, that makes it easier to do in real life.
Because there are people with much worse mental illnesses that Amber out there. She’s at least mostly functional. She at least can get out of her house and go to college.
sal did not punch walky
she shoved him
(punching usually involves a “POW!” or something)
(and generally both your arms aren’t extended at the same time)
Sal is Walky’s (Older? Twin?) sister. She has a biological license to punch Walky in certain situations.
They’re twins (fraternal, of course).
Oooooh I did not see that. Missed the outline of the other arm.
I’d take it even a step further, you don’t have to think somebody is right or good or forgivable to have sympathy for them. Sympathy can be separate from judgment entirely, it’s a function of seeing anyone in pain, not solely good people behaving well.
I have three younger siblings. We have shoved each other, tackled each other, pinned one another, and just been general for dumb reasons like “You used the last of my shampoo, OMFG”
And hey, I’m also hella neurodivergent myself! And have suffered through physical and emotional trauma! Do you know what I did? …Some pretty awful shit. Some really dangerous, awful, self-destructive shit. I con inced myself that engaging in that sort of behavior was me defying the odds, doing what I wanted, living in the moment –
I’m 27 and my right knee is a wreck.My hands shake sometimes. I have damage to my heart. (Sort of an essential organ) I’m still neurodivergent and queer as all get out, but you know, once I got some help and started taking my eds, I stopped doing stupid shit like what Amber is doing. I stopped taking out my anger on everyone around me, and I stopped internalizing it too. I stopped doing dumb, impulsive, reactionary things.
I don’t hate Amber. I’m scared for the character because I could have been her if someone hadn’t stepped in and gotten me the help I needed. Amber is a bomb right now, and when she goes off, she’s going to take more than herself out. I’m losing sympathy fast because she is seeing the signs of it all around her and refusing to SEE them, and if she does blow up, there will be casualties.
In the intrest of being correct: Amazi-Girl did also knee a creep in the face before even introducing herself. I kind of feel like that’s worth bringing up whenever people say that she never attacks first.
But that was kind of a throwaway thing in a montage, and towards an unnamed character, so it’s understandable that people didn’t attach significance to it.
Danny, in case you were actually going to look for danger signs on the path to a controlling relationship, here’s one. Your girlfriend is angry with you for having a conversation she did not pre-approve, with someone she hates and fears but has given you no cause to suspect.
So would it not be a sign of a controlling relationship if Danny knew their history? Though it seems one-sided now.
Huh, now I wonder if Sal actually does recognize Ethan and Amber, and is just maintaining her ‘too cool’ attitude to interact with them, and is using a proxy to help them recover from the trauma that she regrets inflicting on them?
Well, if Danny knew not their actual history but Amber’s view of it – Sal as the Evil Criminal Nemesis who threatened her last boyfriend, the monster that inspired the creation of Amazi-Girl, second only to her Father, but he was just hanging out with her anyway, yeah, I’d say that was worth being upset about.
In this case, not overly controlling, just protective. In her mind Sal is Dangerous.
And of course, the last time Danny had a conversion with someone she hated and feared, it was a really bad thing and we all approved when she broke it up.
This is all horribly fucked up, mostly because Sal isn’t the monster Amber thinks she is, but it’s a different kind of fucked up. It’s not “abusive controlling relationship” screwed up, it’s “traumatic reaction to Sal” screwed up.
Yeah, I’m really not getting the “omg Amber’s Blaining it up” vibe from this that other folks seem to have. I think she’s being an ass right now, because regardless of her history with Sal and her mental health issues, it really doesn’t excuse her talking to Danny like this, but, like, her PTSD trigger is standing right there next to her boyfriend. She’s freaking out and trying to assert control because asserting control is what Amber does to deal with her problems.
I dunno, I just have a really hard time blaming Amber for hating Sal, any more than I’d blame Sal for hating Amber if the truth came to light.
This is the weird thing; I think that this is Amazi-Girl’s over-protective mode in action (like the time she sneaked into Ethan’s room to warn him that Sal was on campus). She’s just a bit gruff and doesn’t do ‘kindly tone’.
I’m not sure that Amber is upset at the thought of Danny talking with Sal. I think it’s more of a case that Amazi-Girl is upset at Sal even being present. Yes, there is a difference and I think that this is the beginning of a climactic crisis in Amber’s mental health.
I think Sal talking to Danny makes it worse. She could grab him and threaten him with a knife at any moment. Just like she did to Ethan.
This is a disaster.
It is going to be a big disaster, more disastrous than a tornado.
Shit, Amber just might do something that she’ll regret.
She’s already done something that she’ll regret. Danny.
To my understanding that’s status quo for just being in the same panel as him.
Doing Danny is status quo for being in-panel with him? Somebody should tell Ethan.
He is pretty cute.
You both know what I meant. I think. Maybe not. I don’t normally do sexual innuendos, ok?
If anyone should be regretful about who they’re having sex with here it’s Danny.
Danny ” ok, ok , ok the truth is… I might have homosexual feelings for ex boyfriend and also I want a threesome between me, you, and him. ”
Sal: “Hey can I get in on this ?”
Danny: ” I don’t know, what you think Amber ? ”
Amber: ” NO ! “
Sal: This ex-boyfriend is Ethan?
Well, ah go fer tall, an’ so ah remember the hell outta him!
Aaaaaaah this isn’t gonna be good :c Best case, no violence?
Best case: Matching hand scars for everyone!
I mean, Amber is pretty close to attack mode.
Just realized I should have gone Oprah for that joke.
You get a scar! You get a scar! You get a scar! Everybody gets sca~rs!
Or maybe Al Pacino!
I have this weird sense that maybe Danny & AmaziGirl HAVE talked about Sal – maybe in relation to that time that Amber saw the two of them talking in the hallway (when Danny thought Sal was AG). AG might not have given him all the details of her childhood trauma, but maybe expressed concerns about Sal. (on another note, I’m hoping this comes to a head. As much as I’m no fan of Danny’s, this is getting painful to watch.)
Okay, so… what does that sound sound like?
tee hee
So does Amber look ALOT like her Dad in Panel 2 to anyone else? Anyone?
She indeed does. Almost like being “Amazi-Girl” is actually a terribly unhealthy outlet for her issues that will have her justifying her violent outbursts more and more, until she’s just like him.
I really worry this character is going to be exactly what she hates before long.
No red panels. That’s some progress, I guess?
It may be in the opposite direction. The line between the two personalities is blurring. I can picture a future storyline could have AmaziGirl forcibly take control.
They’re not actual distinct personalities. Amazi-Girl is a role Amber adopts to give her an (extremely unhealthy) outlet for her rage that she can justify as different from the way her father expresses his. She does not have DID she has a really shitty coping method.
No, as she’s Amazi-Girl right now, this is not improvement. Amazi-Girl doesn’t do red panels. She doesn’t lose control as Amber does. But this way, she’ll never deal with the trauma.
@Emily: From my experience with people with MPD, she does have distinct personalities. They are still communicating, though barely. But I definitely read her as factual multiple personality. This is NOT role-playing.
It’s not MPD it’s Dissociative Identity Disorder. It is very clear she is not suffering from DID and that Amazi-Girl is not actually a separate identity but rather a mask Amber uses to distance herself from her rage issues and violent impulses. Amber isn’t dissociating she’s desperately TRYING to dissociate so she can avoid facing the things she hates about herself. If Amber had DID then she wouldn’t REMEMBER what she did as Amazi-Girl or at least not in the crystal clear way she repeatedly has been shown to do so. Amazi-Girl is a persona not a personality.
I’d tell Amber that she needs to get therapy, but that’s a bit of a gamble when you consider the fact that they make more money keeping you balanced than they would curing you of mental issues.
“curing” tells me you don’t really understaad mental illness that well
dammit i caught my typo but not soon enough to fix it
Well obviously there are plenty of mental diseases that can’t be cured, but something like what Amber has seems more like life issues that she just needs help working through.
Not necessarily, no. Amber dealt with roughly 20 years of abuse from her father, a figure most people should be able to draw support and love from. That changes a person for life. How well they function afterwards is a matter of resilience (a dev psych term I’m not too fond of) and care from both social and professional outlets later in life. As you can see, Amber is not doing so well. Even after years of therapy and social support, that abuse doesn’t go away. Her quality of mental health and life in general will improve, but having such a skewed first quarter of your life isn’t something that will really go away.
Changes? No. It started before she was developed.
She doesn’t have a normal to recover.
I assure you, therapists are not selling out their patients’ health for the copays, nor do they have any shortage of potential patients/clients. Quite the opposite; a much more common problem is that too many people need help. If there was a magic cure, that would be great, but there isn’t, so they just help each person as much as they can in their time together.
This. Therapists aren’t there to make money off of suffering, they’re typically actually well-intentioned people trying to help others improve their mental health. The fact that they need to eat means that they charge money, but as Leorale said, there are usually too many patients for one therapist to take on. My college, as a personal example, has month-long waiting periods to see therapists because they’re so over-booked.
WHAT THE FUCK? SAL IS TRYING TO TAKE DANNY FROM YOU? YOU HAVE TO DEFEND HIM, AMBER. YOU CAN’T FAIL YET ANOTHER LOVED ONE WHO IS THREATENED BY A PUNK WITH A KNIFE.
….noooooooo, Amber, that is not a correct analysis of the situation.
No, but this is far more entertaining.
or horrifying. I really think that’s what her inner voice screams at her, with Blaine’s voice.
Fudge you, Blaine.
I’m legit kind of worried about Danny’s safety right now
Same. Before it was Amber unleashing verbal rage on Danny, now it’s about to be Amazi-Girl. And Amazi-Girl has provably zero problems unleashing physical rage, too, on ‘the deserving’. I’m terribly afraid that ‘the deserving’ might include ‘my traitorous boyfriend whom I caught conspiring with my hated nemesis’.
You are confusing Amber and Amazi-Girl. Amber is the one who flies off the handle and stabs people and flips tables and beats the shit out of people. She reacts like a frightened animal: she runs if she can, and lashes out if she can’t.
Amazi-Girl is much more controlled, with a much higher threshold for the appropriateness of violence. See the dispute in the parking lot where she desperately wanted to fight Sal, but couldn’t and didn’t because Sal wouldn’t attack her first.
Amazi-Girl checking in here is a good sign as far as the likelihood of this ending in ultraviolence is concerned.
Yet it is a bad sign in that she probably made the switch specifically because Amber WANTED to attack Danny, which is… not good.
Pretty sure it was Sal, not Danny, who triggered Amazi-Girl.
In this case i wager it was Sal talking with Danny which triggered Amazi-Girl.
Like the controlled way she desperately tried ti instigate a brawl in a liquor store parking lot.
Exactly like that. Trying to provoke the known dangerous criminal to attack her, so she would be justified in beating her up. And when it didn’t work (other than on Malaya), she still didn’t flip out and attack Sal. All of which horribly confused her: Sal didn’t follow the script. And hasn’t since, especially saving her during the chase.
If you think she’s going to physically attack Danny at this point, you’re misreading her entirely.
Okay let’s try again. The controlled way she hospitalized her father in a brawl in a restaurant parking lot. The controlled way she nearly got herself and a number of other people killed in a high speed car chase by using fucking caltrops on the highway. I doubt she’s going to physically abuse Danny here but she sure as hell is gonna do it verbally and emotionally which has been pretty much SOP for her.
That was “Amber” who beat up Blaine, per the tags anyway.
Amber also almost swore at Danny before she started crying and that’s the only time I could ever think she was verbally abusing him, so I don’t know how that’s SOP for her.
I’m with you on the car chase, though, but that seems to be the intent. That she saved Becky but absolutely would have gotten herself killed if not for Sal and will if she keeps this up.
That would be a meaningful distinction if Amazi-Girl and Amber were actually meaningfully distinct identities but they aren’t. They’re just roles she plays depending on how she wants to behave.
Amber has been effectively gaslighting Danny ever since she set the rule that he was dating Amazi-Girl and not her by consistently failing to adhere to that rule herself while still lashing out at him whenever he followed her lead.
Despite the costume, it was Amber, not Amazi-Girl, who beat down Blaine.
The spike balls may have been an unwise tactic, but they weren’t inappropriate use of violence. Dude had a fucking gun.
Tell that to everyone else using that stretch of highway who gets to have their tires shredded at high speed.
Well, since no more accidents were shown at the time and I’m sure the street was closed and then cleared as part of the clean-up/investigation, I’m going to say that was nobody.
But no, it’s all Amber’s fault. She’s the crazy dangerous one, escalating the situation and putting everyone at risk. Not the guy kidnapping his daughter at gunpoint and letting go of the wheel at speed to climb out on the roof and shoot her. That’s all perfectly reasonable. She’s the problem.
They’re both a problem. Me taking issue with Amber’s incredible recklessness and cavalier attitude towards collateral damage is not an absolution of Toedad. The fact that nothing went horribly wrong in that scenario has nothing to do with good judgement on Amber’s part and everything to do with it being a comic.
The ugliest part of their relationship is the latent threat of violence. If Danny does something wrong Amber might hurt someone.
Amber already hurt Danny just a couple of days ago, if Amazi-girl hurts him too I can see Amber calling it quits because Danny is supposed to be safe with Amazi-girl, he’s supposed to be ALWAYS safe with her. Amber is another matter because Amber is flawed but Amazi-girl is better so she’s better for him! Riiight…? (not my thoughts of course, just likely Amber’s. But god do I feel bad for Danny.)
“I.. uh, let her play mario kart on my 3DS in exchange for calculus tutoring?”
I can’t wait for the day she learns Sal saved her life. Minds will be blown.
What in that Mad max style car chase with Toedad? She knows she was more offended by it because it was like “I don’t want to owe you fucking shit !”
Amber and Amazi-Girl aren’t THAT disconnected.
…Wasn’t she knocked unconscious or something?
HOW DARE YOU claim that she doesn’t already know that?
It’s interesting to note Sal really is the crystalization of evil as it exists in the universe for Amber. Sal doesn’t really think about that hold up as anything other than teenage rebellion but I wonder how it would affect her, if she knew that she literally TORTURED someone mentally for a decade with the affects. Would she say it’s all on Amber for the fact she let it do that to her or feel guilt?
I wonder that too but I also wonder if she ever stop to think ” I wonder what happened to those two kids whose lives are threatened and put in danger? “
She didn’t *literally* torture someone mentally. If she were literally torturing someone there would need to be some actual torture on her part. Amber may *be* mentally tortured by Sal, but that’s not literal on Sal’s part.
Which leads into my next question: Should she feel guilt? It’s not really her fault, or her problem.
She should feel guilty for robbing a store and threatening to cut Ethan. The emotional trauma from that experience would probably have faded away over time though, had it not been for Amber’s father’s abuse right after the incident. So, she should feel kinda guilty, but the damage and hate inside Amber isn’t really about Sal at all.
That’s a very direct perspective but probably not the right one. Sal was rebelling against her parents but threatened the lives of two people in the process.
Sal only threatened one person’s life; Amber cowered in the corner until SHE threatened SAL’s life with that knife stunt.
Waving a knife around is grounds for threatening someone most everyone in the vicinity. And she “cowered” because she was 13 fucking years old and some asshole grabbed her best friend and threatened to murder him.
And note that “SHE threatened SAL’s life with that knife stunt” only on being goaded by her abusive father. Which might or might not make any legal difference, but sure as hell makes a moral and psychological one.
I think it was more Amber’s dad that did the years long mental torture, that just ramped up the trauma that Sal caused.
This has probably been said before at some point, but given her incredibly wonked view of justice, I get super Inspector-Javert vibes from Amazi-girl.
Is Willis a Les Mis fan?
Damned if I’ll live in the debt of a thief!
Damned if I’ll yield at the end of the chase.
I am the Law and the Law is not mocked
I’ll spit his pity right back in his face
There is nothing on earth that we share
It is either Sal or Amazi-Girl!
Good stuff.
Blaine-mode, activated
No, I’d say that was The Black Voice, which comes up occasionally. This is just Amazi-Girl.
AmaziGirl is the “positive redirection” of the anger and rage that Amber has been nurtured into having by… you guessed it… Blaine.
Recall the flashback sequence where the police have young Sal in custody, and Blaine is off to the side goading and degrading Amber with “That’s it? It was just a knife! You let her push you around with that?”. The subsequent act of flipping out and stabbing Sal through the hand? Technically that would be AmaziGirl’s birth into the Dumbiverse, as Amber finally did what she perceived her father wanted by taking revenge on Sal for having gotten pushed around.
Over time becoming aware of how shitty and abusive Blaine is, and likely with help from taking martial arts, she nurtured AmaziGirl into a force for power, but with a rigid set of morals and standards to keep ‘her’ in check, as she realizes that flying into a murderous rage and stabbing people is not the best way to deal with most situations. AmaziGirl becomes a thing to be summoned in Amber’s times of stress and need, supplying her with confidence and the ability to beat down people threatening her as needed.
But the source of it all: Blaine.
There’s also the fact that second panel has her eyes and general expression looking like the hateful, sour, “no answer you provide is good enough, you’re a fuckup” demeanor that Blaine is so well known for.
She is her father’s daughter, even if she hates him and kicked his ass. AmaziGirl can’t take back a decade and a half or more of being raised by that fuckwit.
Oh, so this is the arc where Amber cuts Danny and he ends up with Ethan. Alright then.
Here’s hoping!
I am not sure if it will be that quick/simple or if it will even occur that way.
I find myself liking Amber less and less.
Come on now, Danny. Be a grown-up.
so now people are fine with calling amazi-girl amber? just some weeks/months ago you were all very careful with the names and now all of it is just amber.
also remember that aamazi-girl/amber right here is, yes shes acting as if danny cant talk to whoever he wants, but shes also just a bit angry because that girl up there saved her recently even though shes supposed to be a villain. its irrational to assume danny already knows, but we’re all irrational. i can totally see this happening in a normal human life, maybe even in one of your lives. f.ex theres a couple and person doesnt like that popular girl in school cause she thinks shes a bongo and she would rather her boyfriend not talk to her since shes a tiny bit jealous too, and then is quick to get angry when her boyfriend talks to that girl. dont we all ger jealous?
but im sure she will slap danny tomorrow and then ill hate her. im still holding on to the last character that i could identify with when she was just anxious and sad and there are no other depressed characters that havent been total jerks. we’ll see how it goes
I think that if anyone had known where this storyline was going no-one would have done that. Playing along with light-hearted wacky antics is one thing, but now it’s increasingly obvious that Amber has serious problems.
no, it wasnt before we saw ambers problems. people were distincting amber from amazi girl a lot, and it was when we knew she had problems. i wrote a comment then about how maybe they shouldnt do that because amber doesnt actually have multiple personality disorder, the names are just different titles shes pushing herself into. but no one cared obviously and continued with it
No, it’s not jealousy we see here. Sal held up a convenience store that Amber and Ethan were in and she held Ethan hostage with her knife. That incident unleashed Amber’s rage that she now channels into amazi-girl. Recently, Sal saved her, so that messed with her black and white picture that Sal is a terrible, horrible criminal, but Amber still harbors a lot of hatred towards Sal. Her reaction is completely understandable.
“because she saved her recently even though shes supposed to be the villain”
Jealousy isn’t what Amber is feeling. Amber hates Sal. Danny isn’t why she hates him and she may dump him for associating with her.
what i wrote is obviously a metaphor, cause im pretty sure no one in this comments section would be any more understandable if i just wrote ambers story without mentioning names. im also pretty sure no one here is a secret super hero
In his defense, it’s not like Danny and Amber are dating.
I think Amber’s starting to overclock herself.
What the slipshine reminds me of
http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/marveldatabase/images/1/17/Gwen_stacy_dies.JPG/revision/latest?cb=20060122014414
Gwen Stacy’s death? The comic that is attributed as the end of the silver age?
So this Slipshine will show the death of Danny and it will be the end of the Dumbing of Age of comics?
Going to be honest here… Amber is starting to drive me crazy.
I’m quickly losing any kind of sympathy for Amber. I want to feel sympathetic towards her, knowing how mental illness can affect an individual, but that doesn’t justify her actions. She really needs to get some help, and fast. Furthermore, Danny needs to stop being Danny for a second and realize how unhealthy and dangerous this relationship is becoming.
Hmm, that’s an ironic avatar.
Admittedly, I’m curious of who I should feel bad for, Amber or AmaziGirl. Who is the Person, and who is the Mask?
Danny appears to be a victim of emotional abuse/neglect from multiple sources. It’s kinda hard to just… stop, being in that sort of mindset.
You’re kinda… echoing the way Danny’s parents treat him, there. The abuse that causes that kind of behavior.
You know that, right?
Yeeeeah…. no. I used to like Amber and I felt sorry for her. Not anymore. Danny has NO idea what went wrong but now she tries to bully him into not talking to random people? Why is she a bully AND a coward? Go to Sal and REPAIR the problem, you moron!
I sincerely doubt that he has the tools.
Given the fact Amber went into Amazi Girl a few comics back to avoid /violently/confronting Sal in her own words to Walky and hang on rooftops I don’t think that would be the best idea. To walk up to her I mean. She’s going to lash out if she does that and make the situation worse.
She doesn’t want to prevent Danny from talking to random people.
She wants to prevent Danny from talking to that particular evil and dangerous person.
Her perception is off, and she hasn’t actually told Danny what it is so this is just very confusing on his end, but she’s not trying to control whom he talks to.
Also, she went through this once already with Danny. That evil and dangerous person was actually quite evil and dangerous.
So… the reason no-one suspects that Amber is AG is presumably because Amber’s body language is so shy and withdrawn.
If Sal looks closely at the posture and gestures of the girl now talking to Danny, a lightbulb may go on.
The fact that it hasn’t already is patently ridiculous. No amount of body language is going to make them any less obviously identical.
Really? You sure about that?
(conveniently, I had cause to look for/link this video somewhere else just the other day.)
There’s a reason “Clark Kenting” is the trope name for expecting the audience to buy a terribly transparent disguise being remotely effective.
Eh, it’s just how it is. She wears a mask, her body language is markedly different, she doesn’t wear glasses, and how could that weird shut-in nerd ever leap off a roof and zipline onto a truck?
If I live in a world where comic book laws of physics apply I’m going to assume comic book laws apply elsewhere too.
…aren’t you complaining about exactly that?
You do realize people are actually like this, though, right? There are several instances of celebrities losing in “look alike” contests.
http://listverse.com/2013/08/27/10-famous-people-who-couldnt-impersonate-themselves/
Plus, look at this image of clark kent vs. superman
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2013/06/superman_man_of_steel_disguise_prosopagnosia_explains_why_no_one_recognizes.html
I did not immediately recognize them as the same person, and I knew what I get getting into before even looking at the picture.
Also, the actor In Real Life stood in times square, wore a superman shirt, and no one noticed him.
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2016/03/17/henry-cavill-times-square/
It’s really not at all ridiculous for people to not be recognized, and “clark kenting” should not be a term.
But that’s a trope of comic books that’s been around forever. The example that always comes to mind for me is Nightwing meeting Bridget Clancy. Clancy was Dick Grayson’s landlady in Bludhaven, and they dated for a while. Yet when she meets Nightwing she gives no indication she realises they’re the same person. Apparently a domino mask is sufficient to make them appear to be different people.
A trope being overused doesn’t make it not a dumb trope and it doesn’t mean I have to like it or pretend it isn’t lazy and dumb.
This is the scariest thing I’ve ever seen Amber/Amazigirl do. Point of no return when her persona automatically takes over. Now I’m wondering what happened to ‘Amber’ and when she’ll ever return given that ‘Amazigirl’ is by far a stronger personality.
Also aren’t people being awfully hard on her? Two strips ago she was being a harmless and adorkable nerd. Sure she has multi-layered mental issues, and is downright scary when she has one of her episodes, but maybe have some compassion for the real Amber, whom we still see flashes of from time to time. I think Willis’ excellent character is presenting her as a tragic figure even in these terrifying moments rather than as a villain to be hated.
*excellent character writing, ooof typo
The only thing I can think is that these people have never actually had to deal with someone with an anger-based mental illness.
And I’m glad there are people like you here, because this stuff is hitting way too close to home for me. There are people I haven’t responded to because I’m not sure I can keep my cool while doing so.
I literally had a Joyce moment when I saw some of this shit. I envy Amber’s ability to just look a little disgusted. I had a full out Joyce moment–yelling profanity I try not to ever use.
I haven’t actually known anyone with a similar mental illness either, but I definitely remember episodes, like Amber’s interaction with Walky on the roof and her exchanges with Dina, which were meant to help us see that she’s hurting mentally and emotionally as much as she’s hurting others including Danny. I don’t understand how the sympathy we’ve seen commenters show for Amber during her ‘red panel’ episodes can evaporate so fast; I guess it has something to do with the episodic nature of these narratives, meaning you won’t remember an earlier, sympathetic bit of characterisation if a completely unsympathetic one is being shown Now in six frames. I think reading contradictions against each other is necessary but maybe a daily strip format where there are So many characters anyway isn’t the easiest way to do this, idk…
Having said that, I’m sorry this has been triggering for you. Maybe take a break from engaging with particularly victim blamey threads, for purely self protective reasons. Hugs and solidarity.
Sympathy has evaporated because of her abuse of others and failure to seek treatment. One can be sympathetic to an alcoholic’s struggle with addiction but then have that sympathy disappear when the alcoholic chooses to drive drunk.
The thing is your assuming a level of control she doesn’t have. When you’re spinning out as hard as she is. When someone is suffering from mental illness, they aren’t in a place to make good decisions.
In ‘verse her coping methods have been enabled and praised by nearly everyone she’s interacted with. It’s not until very recently that Danny and a few others have realized she’s not well at all. It’s taken an outsider to point out that Amber is in serious trouble and needs help.
There’s also a huge stigma associated with mental illness, a stigma with some concrete social and job related consequences. There’s also a sense that if the mentally ill person had been stronger, flexible, sensitive, less thin skinned etc. that they wouldn’t be mentally ill at all. It’s one of the big reason for people who are ill from seeking treatment.
People are going to have to have to help her get the treatment she needs.
As for abuse… it’s there and will need to be addressed but it’s not the whole and sum of all of her action.
It occurs to me that Danny, having emphasized his honesty, might honestly say to AG: “Actually, I was kind of suggesting to her that she might possibly leave the area….?”
(AG might say: “And why would you want her to leave?”
And Danny could honestly reply: “Second-hand smoke is bad?”)
But isn’t it second-hand cool?
I’m in at weird position where I do sympathies with Amber logically speaking because of her past I also just feel more for Danny here. The romantic relationship needs to end for his own long term happiness. Period.
I guess the problem is, as much as Amber’s past was terrible, Danny doesn’t deserve to be a punching bag. Amber generally seems to lash out because she’s scared rather than malice like say, Blaine (who emotionally at least reaches worse degrading heights from the stuff we’ve seen)- but that’s not a relationship or treatment anyone deserves regardless of the reasons for them. Mistreatment is still mistreatment regardless of motivation. Like I won’t say that intentions never matter, because they can- they just matter less than actions at the end of the day.
Intentions and knowing them can mean these actions can eventually be combated though. Hopefully.
She needs out of college and into therapy really in an ideal world. Hell, I almost wonder if her arc will end up with her going to jail at this stage if she doesn’t do that.
Yep! Amber has many reasons to occasionally be abusive or distant towards Danny. Reasons aren’t the same thing as excuses. They really don’t have much time together left.
I don’t know that they don’t have much time left together. I think Danny’s folks messed up his head in one way or another and as a result he is a little too dependent on his close relationships. It’s why he had a hard time letting Dorothy go. It’s why he gets so flustered when Joe isn’t the perfect friend (though at least with Joe he is willing and able to push back).
It’s also why he is too accommodating for Amber/AG when she teeters too close to the edge. She lost her shit on him earlier in the day and he caved immediately instead of standing up for himself. She then angrily dismissed him later and his response was to do her laundry for her. Now, she is telling him off for talking to someone else despite never telling him that she even has issues with her, let alone what said issues actually are, but his response is to placate. He seems to be the type that will continually cave, blame himself, and placate more and more even as Amber/AG gets more abusive.
What is weird about that? That it’s happening in fiction rather than real life? Because that’s pretty much the way everything is. Just because you see someone doing something horrible doesn’t mean they are horrible.
It’s especially true when it comes to mental illness. Unfortunately, I’m seeing a lot of–what’s a neutral word–lack of understanding of it here. People are crapping on Amber not because she is fundamentally a bad person, but are acting like she’s choosing to act the way she is.
It really saddens me that I see a rather good depiction of how mental illness really works–even if stylized a little bit–and see how people still do what they do in the real world. Even with all the information, they still go on to hate Amber, and lose the ability to feel sorry for her.
It honestly disturbs me. If they do this when it’s all laid out for them, and you know what’s going on, what about real life where you don’t know?
Or do they not realize you can still have sympathy for someone even if their actions may be hurting someone else? Can they only handle sympathy for one person at a time?
It bothers me how much further we have to go, when someone can casually call Amber garbage and think nothing of it.
I think people are sympathetic to WHY Amber says what she says and does what she does, but that doesn’t make her behavior any less abusive. It is a weird feeling to have complicated feelings toward a fictional character like that, especially for a one a day comic. I also don’t think there’s anything loaded with feeling ‘weird’.
It’s especially weird when you find the characters hot and cute together, even most of the time, and love their interactions and storyline, but know that what’s best for at least one of them, if not both, is for them to break up.
I don’t have any problem with people pointing out that she’s being abusive. My problem is with people who say they have no sympathy for her. That even with everything handed to them on a silver platter, they still can’t manage even a little sympathy?
Not even those who say they are having trouble with it. I get that. It can be hard. But, still, it’s much easier here than it is in real life, when it’s someone real who can actually affect you and your real life. I know–from both sides.
And one comment in particular (which I finally calmed down enough to respond to rationally) was just so casual about the whole thing–like Walky on steroids. At least Walky almost always comes across as good-natured but clueless.
I had to force myself to see that person this way.
P much spot on Trina.
This is a good comment, trlkly. I really commend Willis for writing Amber the way he does. She is being abusive towards Danny, she is definitely in the wrong here, and she needs to find help before she really hurts someone (probably Danny, possibly “just” emotionally, still bad). She is also a scared and damaged person whose motivations we understand, and she deserves all the help.
In real life, there is good reason to stay away from people like Amber. Her particular brand of mental issues makes her dangerous to love for someone like Danny (who a lot of people here relate to). That doesn’t make her a horrible person, and I can’t even imagine how much it must suck to be stuck with issues that effectively disqualify you from close, loving relationships.
She’s still abusive. She’s still dangerous. And I so hope that every real life Amber could find a way to heal and grow beyond it.
Aw, shucks.
And thanks for the part re:Danny. that does help. With all the Danny hate I see (even if joking), I assumed no one really identified with him.
If that’s the issue, I can understand it a little more. Good thing that, as far as I can tell, Danny is much better with sympathy than they are.
Yeah, I thought so. This is the start of the part where Amber (and Amazi-Girl) go down a dark, dark Miller-esque path where she causes damage and pain, simply because she loses faith that she is anything but a monster.
Perhaps get a red-headed sidekick.
The potential choices aren’t good. Becky probably couldn’t keep a secret to save her life. Ruth on the other hand seems to have her own issues with using physical violence where it’s inappropriate.
What about Carla?
Becky is absolutely brilliant at keeping secrets.
She’s wildly open about being Lesbian because she can be, because the only people who matter already know – Joyce, her dad and everybody back home.
Is this the part where Amazi-girl and Sal-el fight until they realize their mothers have the same name?
No, Faz has to kidnap Sal-el’s mother first, didn’t you read the script?
Please refer to this handy chart.
This helpful Venn diagram shows the overlap of Sal-el’s Maternal Units and The Great Faz’s Current Hostages. You will notice also this graph that proves that the great Faz is not psychotic.
Is that before or after Faz sticks his “Jolly Rancher” in someone’s mouth?
After, I believe, but your choice of punctuation suggests innuendo, so…
*Flips through the script.*
…I can’t quite be sure.
I’d go with both.
“Actually, I thought she was Amazigirl at first!”
Did…did Amber just switch into Amazigirl?
Someone save Danny please. And get Amber/Amazigirl therapy. But first priority: get Danny out of there.
Great … Everytime I see Sal smoking, I want a smoke … … OK, I always want a smoke …
So many people not having sympathy for characters. This is the way of things.
Strip called Dumbing of Age: Someone does something appropriate to a strip called Dumbing of Age.
Commenters: I have no sympathy for this character.
I have sympathy for all these characters. Or, more accurately, empathy. Except maybe Amber’s Dad and Scarface. And maybe Malaya, though that might change if she ever becomes more than the token jerk. But even Toedad I have empathy for, since I understand just how badly his fundamentalist dogma screwed him over.
Don’t get me wrong, I still hate his guts because he’s an abusive and terrible person. But I do have empathy for how his sincere fundamentalism screwed him up. Same with Carol and John. But for the grace of coincidence and trauma, there go I.
Amber I definitely have empathy for. An abused child who coped with her abuse in all the wrong ways, and who has been enabled by so many people caught up in the romance of her superheroine identity. And who put so much of her baggage into that one moment, the moment where her rage triggered and she went after Sal.
Do I think she’s right to hate Sal? No. Do I understand why she does? Oh hell yes. My reaction to Amber is not judgment. Rather, it is, “Oh, I hope she gets the help she needs. I hope she manages to replace these horribly destructive ways of thinking with better ways. I hope she manages to forgive herself and find healthier ways to handle her anger.”
Of course I also have empathy for Danny. Poor guy, he didn’t know this would trigger Amber. And now he’s got to choose between encouraging Amber to do what is best for her, and keeping her happy with their relationship.
You, I like.
eeeee badgermole!!!!!! I know it’s unrelated but I got excited.
Sympathy is a fine sentiment, but it’s not going to do anything to change the situation. If the people around her aren’t willing to set consequences for Amber’s bad behavior, then she’ll never have an incentive to seek proper treatment.
I’m… I’m not a character in this fictional universe. I can’t… look, there’s no way for me to go inside the comic, and help Amber cope with her problems. Because Amber’s a character, being written, in a piece of fiction.
What I can do is empathize with the characters, who are brilliantly and complexly written because Willis is a genius. I guess it’s a tribute to that excellent writing that makes so many people so judgmental, desperate for her to shape up and FIX THINGS.
But I don’t think it’s about fixing things. I think it’s about understanding people. Dumbing of Age is about broken people. Some people broken a little bit, some people, like Amber, broken a lot. It doesn’t ask us to fix them. It asks us to understand them. To empathize with them.
I feel like a lot of the lack of sympathy around Amber/Amazi-Girl might stem from them seeming so cognizant of their mental state and issues (Issues-at-large) at times. Amazi-Girl knows all about Amber’s anger and violence issues, Amazi-Girl called herself crazy, Amber has admonished herself for treating Danny poorly at times. At the same time she keeps acting as if her compartmentalization is an actual solution, although emotional outbursts keep happening whenever unexpecting things occur. It’s clearly not enough to put all her good in one bucket and all her bad in another bucket and pretend everything is okay. But she doesn’t really take any other steps towards alleviating that stuff. Like, has Amber ever shown that she’s looked into rudimentary anger management type stuff, so she can at least delay her anger until she can safely switch over to Amazi-Girl? It’s frustrating to see someone almost get it, and it feels like they’re being neglectful when someone they care about could be hurt in the process.
Then there’s the aspect about blaming Sal that I imagine divides some people. I understand that Sal has become her Joe Chill, but once again, she knows that her dad contributed to her becoming who she is (something about being saddled with his petty violent rage). So, it’s frustrating to see her put so much of the onus on Sal specifically, even though we know trauma doesn’t have to follow logic like that. As a counter-point to A/A-G we’ve been presented with Ethan, who, while he hasn’t been introduced to her in a way that links her to the crime, was completely willing to forgive and assume that Sal has changed in the time since the incident. That definitely paints Amber/Amazi-Girl’s issues towards Sal in a worse light.
So while I understand why one would be sympathetic, there’s enough there to feel fed up with Amber/Amazi-Girl’s behaviour even though you can follow the path of events that leads her to act that way. It feels like writing for a good villain.
Unfortunately Danny knows the launch codes; even worse, he doesn’t know he knows the launch codes so he may well use them accidentally.
Status: Bikini Amber
Man, Amber is the worst.
I usually try to find the positives in characters, but yeah, I’m beginning to agree.
Y’know, Amber, after you turn 21 it might be worth it to transfer to a university in Colorado, Oregon, or Washington.
i was initially angry at Amber/Amazi-girl, then after reading the comments I realised Amazi-girl was trying to protect Amber in a way. Still doesn’t excuse her behavior towards Danny though.
“angry” as in “come on, stop torturing yourself, you’re hurting other people this way, please just go to therapy already” :\
oooh here we go
My biggest issue with the relationship between Danny and Amber/Amazi-Girl, is that Danny enables her obviously unhealthy behavior. What Amber needs is someone who helps her get through without the need of a different persona, not somebody who is in love with the persona she created.
Danny is enabling her Amazi-Girl stuff, but as far as he’s concerned he’s dating and in love with Amber and he thinks “I’m dating Amazi-Girl” is just a cute in-joke between the two of them.
Y’know, I’ve just realised that I’ve totally misread this strip. Between Panels 1 and 2, Amber flees in terror leaving Amazi-Girl holding the yoke, as it were; she’s just not using the voice for some reason. I don’t know if Danny would necessarily know this, though.
This makes me wonder… Way back in the ’90s, there was a The Incredible Hulk arc where, due to some hand-waving incident, Bruce ends up in control of The Hulk’s body whilst The Hulk ends up in charge of Bruce’s body. Might we see something similar happen here? Amazi-Girl taking charge of Amber but, as a consequence, Dark Amber, the red-background repository of the all Amber’s hate and violence is in charge of Amazi-Girl’s body and things get… nasty. Amazi-Girl is largely in control of her application of force. Dark Amber would beat up anyone who looks cross-eyed at her and wouldn’t care too much about the consequences for Amazi-Girl’s reputation.
She only started using the voice when Danny started hanging around her.
Nice catch. I thought AG was present only when the costume and/or voice was present as well.
She did, uh, outright tell him.
Whos the random hipster in the third/second panel?
He’s called Generic McPasserby. 😛
…. wow.
I’ve heard some bad names in my life, but that Generic’s parents SUCK.
It’s better than Schoolie McSchoolface.
I am sure you are referring to Boaty McBoatface!
In Amber’s eyes, Sal may be some kind of cartoonish super villain, but she’s still a rank amateur compared to Doctor Colossus.
Bless you, alt text.
I live with an Iraq war PTSD sufferer. Amber / AG is doing all she can right now. Asking her to magically will herself out of her situation is unreasonable. She didn’t control the circumstances that molded her. She’s just 18 for Gods sake.
She should see a therapist, but she’s no more capable of that than she is of flying. But she can take steps that will make her capable later. That’s reasonable to hope for.
No one’s suggesting that she should magically Will herself to do something, but rather that those who care about her need to set reasonable consequences to give her an incentive to seek treatment. Continuing to enable her tendency toward violence risks landing her in jail.
I’m sorta in-between you guys, erring on the “shit is fucked up for the poor kid” side. Amber needs to do something, because her current self therapy of “bottle everything up, lash out when triggered, bottle that up to and use it motivate further self therapy” is just making things horribly worse. By the same token, well, Sal is standing right there and being near her causes meltdowns. I can’t blame her for being angry right now, and while she’s being demanding, I’m not sure I’d call it controlling or abusive behaviour.
That’s the thing about abusive behaviours: they almost always escelate. They tend to be slow and insidious, with the other person justifying negative behaviors and the other person (like Danny here) feeling the need to placate and go along with it, rather than saying, “bunk you, why are you telling me what to do with my time?” It’s almost always an escalation.
I think it’s possible to sympathize with a person and dislike them at the same time. Like others here, I like Amber as a character (Well Written, Willis!) But I definitely wouldn’t want to be here friend. I agree she needs help, but the thing about life and adulthood is that there are no take-backsies with certain things. When you’re in a relationship with anyone, there are things that you can do and say that will change it, and you’ll never be the same again in the other person’s eyes. A mistake is a mistake is a mistake, period. You can repent and learn and move on (like Sal), or you’re stuck in that place (like Amber). But if I were Sal, I wouldn’t expect to be best buddies with Amber. That past has already happened. There are a million people I could connect with. Likewise, Amber thinks Blaine is a shitty father. If he came back now and wanted to be in her life again, I doubt she would ever trust him. In fact, I don’t think she’s ever trusted him.
I just think that when you use aspects of your mental illness to treat people like shit, it becomes an excuse, and therefore I don’t have that much sympathy.
Also, another thing: a relationship does not need to be abusive to end. Simply not wanting to be with the person anymore is enough. It does not have to get worse to get better. Skip the drama and be better for yourself, Danny.
Yes, but – Amber’s at worst on the borderline of abusive towards Danny. She yelled at him once and immediately shut herself down to protect him. She was far more horrified by her words than he was.
It’s not quite clear yet where she’s going in this scene, so I’m reserving judgement. I have a strong suspicion it’s not so much her telling him what he can do with his time as “Why are you talking to that monster! Not safe!”
Equating this at all to Blaine’s life long deliberate abuse and manipulation of Amber is disgusting. It’s possible that she’ll end up in a similar place, but she’s definitely nowhere near it yet.
You misunderstand me- the point I’m trying to make is that knowing what your problem is and dealing with your problems are two different things. I’m not saying Amber is an irredeemable monster, I’m simply saying that her dealing with her feelings in a violent manner, then blaming all of it on Sal, then snapping at Danny is still wrong, regardless of what her intentions might be. Nobody deserves her crap. She doesn’t deserve her crap. She might be under certain circumstances, but the moment her actions start affecting other people it stops being about *her* and her feelings, because now other people are and have been involved.
Also, it’s not disgusting at all to link Amber with her dad, given that he is the reason she is like this. It’s simply acknowledging the cyclical nature of abuse. Anyone who has experienced this, especially by a parent, will know one of the top things they say is : “what? That’s nothing! My childhood was worse than yours/ I’m not my parent, you deserve this and that’s why.” I’m pointing out that this is a dangerous time for Amber because her persona combined with her upbringing is causing her to be angry/violent at people who she thinks deserve it, regardless of the consequences. And, she thinks that by doing so she’s becoming the opposite of Blaine (“I’m doing this for everyone own good, not for me”). She needs help but to do that she needs to own her emotions and her decisions. She can’t break the cycle of abuse if she can’t even acknowledge that she is a link in the chain.
Besides, being in the chain does not automatically make you a monster. It just means that you have a connection with an abuser, AND depending on a number of factors you have the potential to repeat that cycle.
And as far as her trying to protect Danny, she’s wrong about Sal literally being a threat to his safety, although I will give you that we haven’t seen the next comic yet. Though I will say that Danny didn’t do anything wrong, and it’s really never appropriate to yell at someone/ accuse them of some sort of betrayal if they haven’t even done anything. Danny should not have to step around her feelings, she needs to sort them out herself.
Yeah, I agree with most of that really, it’s just the emphasis.
Obviously Danny isn’t in any danger from Sal. Obviously, Amber’s completely wrong about Sal. But from her perspective I think he is. That’s she’s wrong, doesn’t change her emotional reaction to it. And remember, this is the guy who got suckered by her dad and how she reacted then.
Yeah, she needs to sort out her own feelings – though that’s a horribly inadequate way of phrasing it. She’s going to need years of effort to work through a childhood of abuse and trauma and she’s still in the phase of relying on her old coping strategies, not actually addressing the real issues.
My point isn’t that what she’s doing is right, it’s that she’s really not coming from the same direction as an abuser. She’s not controlling Danny, even if it looks like that to him. She’s scared for him.
Danny is probably totally misreading this as “she’s jealous of me talking to Sal” and it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out in the next few strips. This is the payoff for a lot of setup work. I’m hoping this is at least the set-up for a reconciliation with Sal, probably through Danny. Which is narratively speaking the big step she needs to take to get back on a more even keel – and possible the start of motivation to get some actual help.
I do apologize, upon reading that statement again, saying that she needs to sort out her feelings might seem flippant. I’ve dealt with a few people in my life who are stuck in a destructive loop, so i’m obviously projecting here. Trust me, I know about the work and struggle involved in working through an abusive childhood. She will obviously need support and extensive therapy, but as many a therapist and others will say, she must do the personal introspective work herself. It’s really up to her. That’s the unfair part about it, in my opinion – mother/father do all this damage, and ultimately we’re the ones that deal with the fallout of it.
I understand what you’re saying about what Amber is thinking right now, from her perspective. I just think that she should realize perspectives other than her own. To her, she’s protecting Danny. Outwardly she’s being aggressive and making him feel like he’s wrong when she has not been clear at all about why she feels the way she does about Sal, which is unfair and rude, even if she doesn’t think so. I’d like to see where the next strip goes..
Oh, you clever bastard. Giving us a sex comic of them, then building to what might very well be their nuclear breakup.
Man, Danny, get out of this while you still can.
Panel 4 Sal’s internal dialogue:
“Don’ punch tha racist white girl. Don’ punch tha racist white girl. Use tha cigarette ta calm down.”
Or possibly even “Huh, someone feels threatened by my very existence and would like me not to be seen in public. This is such an unusual feeling for me.”
At that distance she may not even be able to hear them.
I doubt Amber’s keeping her voice down.
Gasp! Now we know Amazi-girl’s true identity! We know Danny, we know Sal, we know Amber, so logically the 4th person in panel 3 must be Amazi-girl.
Wow, that’s *some* disguise. Kudos, dude.
They got caught out of place so they had to steal Becky’s Han Solo ensemble to blend in with the civvies and get out.
Becky has a Han-Solo ensemble? Was she allowed to watch Star Wars?
Jekyll’s turned back into Hyde again.
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
As far as therapy goes it’s a reasonable guess Amber has had therapy. The girl we saw in earlier strips does seem able to interact with the world in ways the Amber in the flashbacks to the night of Sal’s robbery attempt seemed unable to. But it also seems likely that she stopped seeing a therapist at some point, possibly because she managed to convince those involved she was mentally healthy. Since this is a girl who managed to develop a superhero identity without those around her catching on she may have successfully been able to trick her therapist, and her mother, into thinking she could now cope with her past.
We’ve been told she has not been given therapy, her dad wouldn’t allow it.
I’m also gonna take a guess and say Amber has some kind of stigmatization about it too. Therapy is for little sucky babies who need to tie up their bootstraps and instead she’ll do the smart thing and punch people in the face.
Dorothy is so damn aggravating. Would love to walk up to her, slap her upside the head for being an idiot and tell her to get over it. Then follow her around and keep doing that until she realizes that she is responsible for her own actions , including how she treats people. Kick her to the curb, Danny! BOOM
*Amber 🙂
It took me a minute to understand why Amber was saying “Wrong.” to Danny, as if he’d somehow fucked up just by saying her name. Then I realized oh, she means she’s Amazi-Girl right now. It’s… getting pretty bad, the compartmentalizing. I know Danny isn’t a mental health expert, but surely he’s at least a little worried when she does this.
http://plebcomics.tumblr.com/post/143339272078/when-im-not-boring-you-all-to-death-about-my
REKT
E
K
T
Oh boy, a buttmad neckbeard. We get how many of you a week?
Oh, wow. Now where did I leave the keys to the missile room?
Why don’t we play a nice game of chess?
Wow, that sure is… a thing that… what exactly is that supposed to be?
RUN TO THE HILLS
RUN FOOOOOR YOUR LIIIIIIFE!
/Iron Maiden
Two points.
Point 1: Danny has done absolutely nothing wrong here (though he’s probably going to screw things up in the near future).
Point 2: Point 1 doesn’t matter in the slightest.
Wow, Amber’s really turning into her father, isn’t she? Scratch turning into- is already.
So Amazi-Girl is Amber’s ‘better self’, right? The person she becomes to keep violent or abusive tendencies in check and the person that she’s decided is dating Danny because Amber can’t be relied upon to treat him well.
But Amazi-Girl being ideal goes straight out the window when Sal exists within her realm of perception. And leads to ….Amazi-Girl treating Danny in the same shitty way that she was trying to avoid by insisting that he not date Amber.
Mm, can’t wait for that sexy emotional abuse. And you just know Danny is gonna take it. He’s gonna take it all.
Because… he’s been abused?
Oh crap, Amazi-Girl is tagged. Not sure if anything good will come out of the next comic.
Of course it will.
This is a dramatic cliffhanger. The next comic is going to be Walky and Dorothy getting into a ticklefight. A Slipshine will come out of it.
“Wrong” sounds a lot like “Amber’s not here right now”.
Or at least “pretend she’s not here”. It’s a bit worrying.
Amber in this comic has always rung false for me in a way that other characters do not.
I mean, obviously you need to take a few psychological liberties to contrive the inclusion of a superhero in your story, but the split personality angle really bothers me for some reason. Every time it comes up I just want to skip to something else.
I think its partially because I have seen the same kind of stories done many times by far less talented writers than Willis, and it’s just not bringing anything to the table.
The whole Amazi-Girl thing has always just been kind of “meh” for me.
Seriously? Go stuff yourself, Amber. You were one of my favorite characters in the other universes. Here… it is like you are doing your best to poison every relationship you have. I understand how mental trauma can mess you up, and I find it pathetic in the original sense of the word, but there’s a point where you have to step back from someone who is self-destructing before they take you down to, and Amber is/has crossed right over that line.
Amber. Amber, Amber, Amber. Pleeeease go get professional help. You have (1) declared that you don’t want to be Blaine, and (2) tried to free yourself of the opinions he spouts out loud. These are important, but they won’t stop you from becoming the person you hate. Amber, you have internalized your father’s teachings on what makes a person strong vs. weak, among other things, and you cannot undo years of soaking in his toxicity on your own. You cannot. Yeah, Blaine would say therapy is for the weak. Fuck Blaine. Therapy is for the strong, the people who don’t want to hurt themselves and others. You don’t want to hurt innocents like Danny, yes? So please. GET HELP.
/end impassioned note to fictional character
Ha!
Imagining Sal making the Pillsbury Doughbough sound is just.. pfffffft-worthy 😛