how big are their rooms that she has distance to SKIP to the next one
also be sure to mention that Dotty and you used to be a thing before Joyce can, Walky, maybe try to disarm the bombs BEFOREHAND after striking out on two
(ok Sal isn’t really a BOMB but he DID miss the chance to mention the twin thing first)
The rooms are big enough to allow for some fairly elaborate scene staging when we see the insides. The outer walls are however long they need to be for this joke to work.
You may be wondering how Joyce was able to pass standardized science tests with questions about things like evolution despite being taught by Carol.
In fact, Joyce got every answer right, she was just taught to WrItE LiKe ThIs so it would all come off as sarcastic. They can’t technically count that as wrong.
You joke but I’m given to understand “here’s what you need to tell the state to keep us out of trouble, understand that it’s all bullshit and don’t internalize it” is how most of these places work.
Yes, that’s exactly how they have been doing it for more than 30 years. My boss from back in the late ’80s homeschooled his daughters and I got to see their textbooks. I originally put “texts” but that word has acquired different meanings in the thirty-odd years since then.
I wrote a comment but accidentally closed the tab, so shorter version:
If the school/homeschooling program is a less extreme church/sect, they also don’t need to buy special textbooks, as they can just have their plentiful parent volunteers cut out the “unnecessary” pages from regular textbooks.
source: my husband’s catholic school science/bio books with reproduction removed.
I was told by a high school teacher in Australia around 2009 that the super religious schools tell their students to write “It is said that-” (or something along those lines) for questions whose answers go against their belief. That way they can get the marks on the state tests without actually stating that like, evolution is real or something.
You are assuming that a homeschooler needs to pass true standardize tests. That may be the case in Indiana (I don’t know), but it is certainly not the case everywhere. For example in Florida there are a number of different ways that a student can be evaluated. Standardized tests are one, but those administered by school systems (actual standardized tests matching what public school students take) are generally discouraged by homeschooling groups – basically because the students tend not to do well, though this is attributed to unfamiliarity with the test format, not being “drilled to the test like public school students are”, or a variety of other excuses, rather than that they had an inadequate education. Instead, they can be evaluated by any certified teacher of the parent’s choice using whatever evaluation method that teacher chooses. This teacher could be retired and could be sympathetic to the parents particular educational choices, so allows the parents a lot of latitude in tailoring the evaluation. Another choice is a nationally normed test, but chosen by, given by, and evaluated by a test administrator chosen by the parents, with only the evaluation, not the raw scores submitted. Another choice is an evaluation by any licensed psychologist using whatever evaluation technique the psychologist chooses. Bottom line – for a few dollars the parents can get whatever sort of evaluation they want, and it will be considered good enough.
Indiana doesn’t require testing, or even notice to be given that a child is being homeschooled. Parents are told to keep records and such for things like what they are teaching but they only have to provide it if requested. States like Virginia, where I live, that do require testing often allow for any standardized test. Some are significantly easier than others, and students only have to pass by being in a minimum stanine (in VA it’s the 4th stanine). But the standardized tests are ones given to some schools, even the CAT tests. And in VA the required subjects are math and reading/language arts, so science isn’t even a tested thing. Evaluation by a certified teacher is also permitted but I honestly know very few people who use that route. Each state has varied requirements, with states like Texas being super lenient while states like Pennsylvania are super strict, but most are somewhere in between.
Doesn’t ‚her homeschooling was accredited‘ just mean that the group homeschooling them gave a school board or whoever a list of topics they would cover? This is really a language question, does someone’s homeschooling was accredited mean accrediting the program vs testing the individual who did it?
It’s not really clear what Joyce and Becky were taught in terms of science. They definitely seem aware of the basics of evolution – though in the warped form you see in attacks from creationists.
See this just convinces me a little bit more that Booster is probably majoring or studying psychology in some way. Who just drops “plural” terminology casually?
I understand what you’re saying and it’s very valid but that only convinces me more that Booster would study it to try and become the reliable source they maybe didn’t have in their own life. Maybe that’s just wishful thinking for me now though.
I mean, I do know at least one trans person with mental health issues who’s getting a psychology degree, so it’s certainly not impossible!
I didn’t mean to disprove your headcanon so much as point out that this kind of casual understanding is increasingly common among, for lack of a better term, Booster’s demographic. (Hell, it’s probable they’ve already met folks like Amber.)
Nah it’s fine. It’s not really a headcanon but just a theory since Booster has been show to be pretty perceptive on things in a way most people at least in the cast of DoA aren’t so it stands out, but you and others have noted and it very much is likely just a fact of Booster needing to be so as coping and communication requirements in the nb or lgbtq community at large. But if Booster is studying psychology I will take credit for the call!
Agreed. That’s my experience too. More than average of queers/trans people are neurotypical and/or have mental health issues (esp trauma) which also makes them more-than-average aware of mental conditions that are not their own. Because they have queer/trans friends and they are likely to have mental health issues as well…^^
I can say, from being a (lapsed) reader of this comments section (among other things), that a lotta folks are better on this issue than you might think.
… barring that, I think their presence there should have been noted and advertised a lot earlier, as IMO it represents a significant “value add” to Patron status.
I don’t think that’s the issue. As someone who isn’t up on psychology, I for one am confused as to why Booster is saying “plural” as if this is an orientation or identity as opposed to a mental illness (which DID is, right…?). Incidentally, DID is also exceedingly rare, so it’s a little strange for Booster to just casually toss it about as if, “yeah, I knew several in my hometown.”
There’s a much finer line between orientation and identity and mental illness than you’d think. If you want a better sense of how this is being discussed in terms of the lived experiences of people, look up the peer movement.
But as a simple example, DID can be viewed either as an illness that needs treating, or it can be viewed as an adaptive response to trauma that’s perfectly fine to embrace as long as it can be navigated functionally.
Keep in mind that being LGBTQ+ has and in some places still is considered a mental illness too.
I think the difference is in the navigating part. Identity usually doesn’t have the potential to be destructive in nature (not counting hatred etc by others cause that’s the environment not being able to deal with you, instead of you being unable to deal with life).
Generally, in my experience, most mental problems actually are a problem solely if they’re not properly navigated. Thing is, some of them are hard to manage. And some people don’t want to learn to manage them. Or even both.
You seem to be saying DID is hard to navigate/manage. I know one plural person pretty well, and the plurality doesn’t seem to be a problem/destructive/hard to navigate for that person.
No idea about did, actually. I know a few autistic people (including myself), some folks with borderline and /or ptsd. In general, it seems to depend on the severity and sometimes determination of the person. For example, I can manage my autism pretty well. I know people who can’t. Same for Borderline and ptsd, some fare well, some don’t, and it usually correlates to “how well can the person navigate their own mind”.
I haven’t met a plural person yet. For me, it just seems to be something that can mess with your social interactions pretty badly if not managed properly.
Given that changing gender is not quite perfected yet and that fertility is lost during an op (and it’s possibly not 100% looking like a “born-with” genitalia), I’m not even sure an operation solves all those internal struggles.
I was referring to the “real world interface” though. Stuff like being able to manage school, work, money, etc. People with bad cases of mental problems can lose this ability.
Intrusive thoughts? It was such a relief to learn that those are a thing and that it was just the depression aping me being a complete and utter bongo towards myself…
There’s a difference between DID and being plural, DID being a subset of plurality and a fairly small one at that even per the DSM. Given that Booster doesn’t know what flavor Amber is, “plural” is the correct word to use here.
Plural is the identity, DID or OSDD-1 are the mental health conditions that can cause plurality. Apparently it’s possible to be plural separate of trauma cause brains are weird sometimes? Plus, if DID/OSDD are successfully treated, it rarely results in one single personality at the end. It’s much more common to result in what’s called “functional multiplicity” which is essentially being plural but without trauma and amnesia making your life difficult all the time. So, lots of different reasons people identify as plural rather than talking about a diagnosis.
Also, DID isn’t rare. Current studies have it impacting 1-3% of the general population, and OSDD impacts up to 8%.
There’s tulpamancy too, which is different but still in the general plural community I think? I’ve found it all really interesting to look into, brains are freakin wacky.
Idk I’ve heard some mixed messages on how people with DID or OSDD feel about tulpamancy and I guess I haven’t really looked into the larger plural community too much so if I shouldn’t be bringing this into the same discussion I apologize.
I had to look that up – interesting. I may have had a tulpa when I was younger, or I may have just made up someone to talk to. I haven’t spoken to them in years, so maybe it was just the latter.
Yeah, same community, even though (like all communities) there are people who gatekeep. The most prevalent is basically “If you haven’t had trauma you’re not valid” which is really toxic.
I’m not really familiar with OSDD but my understanding was that the incidence of DID was about 0.1%, but about 4 times higher than that for psychiatric inpatients.
We have DID and we know there are at least two other systems that regularly comment on this comic, even though only 6% of DID or OSDD systems are open about their plurality.
Recent research finds it is closer to about 2-3% i.e. about as prevalant as green eyes. It tends to be a fairly well-disguised condition so the number may even be higher than that.
Plural is not the term an average psych major would be using. People are more prone to clinical language if they’re studying the field.
That’s not to say they aren’t a psych major, they could be. But using plural indicates a familiarity with the community itself and the terms being used by the people in it, rather than just a familiarity with DID as a clinical disorder. Studying psych only really suggests the latter, not the former.
That’s what I was going to say. Booster sounds like they hang out on mental health Tumblr rather than someone who’s taken psych classes. That doesn’t preclude them also taking psych classes but it isn’t evidence of it. Mental health Tumblr and queer Tumblr have a lot of overlap so I would suspect that’s where they picked it up unless they were also researching their own mental issues or those of a loved one.
Yeah, you kids have it so much better than I did pre-internet. I was dealing with PTSD before anyone knew there was such a thing. I was also part of a group that got followed a lot better than some people in similar situations minus the military connection. The thing that got me was finding out Cold War military dependents had drug and alcohol abuse rates almost identical to combat veterans of the same era, and that they were orders of magnitude higher than the general population of the same age. That’s when the penny dropped for me that this was a stress reaction when PTSD was barely a diagnosis for adults, and kids were still believed to “get over” stuff like that.
Of course Booster doesn’t actually exist, so didn’t “drop” any terminology. Rather, Willis did. He could have done so because he did want to provide some clues/background for this new character. But it could be just that Willis knows the term and used it because it is less clinical, shorter, whatever – without it necessarily having any intent to say anything special about the character saying it.
Unlikely. Willis is pretty careful about characterization and word usage. They’ve never used “plural” before to describe Amber – not from her or any of the other characters.
I mean, sounds like something I would say if I had thought of it, just getting the general idea of “two separate minds in the same body” without necessarily having to specify a (possibly very wrong) term for the same. And I would’ve heard of it through a handful of movies like Identity rather than Tumblr or peers, so I wouldn’t be sure if anyone else knew what I even meant. But I am also fairly aware of being wrong like Joyce said, so it would be feeling out what’s acceptable phrasing.
We know she wasn’t allowed to watch Tangled or Frozen. They’re both generally standard “modern twist on a medieval fairy tale” Disney movies, so we can assume most of the others are off the table.
She’s also said she wasn’t allowed to watch Scooby-Doo, so probably half of the Hanna-Barbera catalog is out.
Honestly, with her gold in mental gymnastics I bet Carol could have found a way to disapprove of everything harder than Davey and Goliath or VeggieTales, even if it’s something she herself grew up with (or allowed her older children access to before she was further radicalized).
I was getting a very “asking for a friend” vibe from his expression in the panel after saying that. I’m thinking he may have gone to see them himself during the timeskip.
Billie moved to a different dorm. That’s probably what Dorothy meant, because Ruth was talking about people who had moved out of the dorm. It’s possible she and Ruth broke up, so that’s why Ruth would act like she did. As far as Walky is concerned, he maybe doesn’t see her as much since she moved to Forrest Quad.
It’s also possible that she and Ruth are still together, but Ruth still doesn’t want to think about the time she and Billie’s relationship was discovered, when she was suicidally depressed.
Especially since she *did* still lose Billie—Billie got driven out of the dorm, so as an RA, kinda of an embarrassing messup for Ruth even if Billie’s fine now.
But I’m getting bad vibes from this delay.
Wait, I think I know what happened. Like I literally am 99% sure.
Billie went to therapy, like she promised. The therapist found out some of her situation (like the drinking) and she got kicked out of the college, or otherwise put on probation. That’s why Billie’s being talked about the way she is, even though we had no reason to expect things to go wrong for her at the end of the last book. It’s also why Walky dislikes the therapists here.
There are a few exceptions where therapists are mandated reporters – threat to self or others, and abuse and neglect of children and elders are the big ones. In practice at universities, though, there are also… certain loopholes in confidentiality as a whole, because student privacy isn’t ironclad. That said, the only recent case of loopholes being used I can find is one in which the University of Oregon accessed a student’s records because the student was suing the school. Not a major concern for Billie, but it is a VERY GOOD REASON for Amber, especially given her vigilanteism can pretty much only be described as ‘risk to self and others.’
Billie had actually mandated that the paperwork to turn her femurs into teaching aids be executed and her femurs be given to Ruth in her will, and a combination of the Billington’s being distant parents and the Walky/Sally teamup being emphatic got it done.
If you’re talking about the cast shot it’s probably Billie. She really fits the silhouette and they’re not meant to be misleading so it’s a very high chance it’s her….well actually it could also be Marcie maybe.
“They’re not meant to be misleading”, you say, after a silhouette with roughly Mike’s height, build, and jawline turned out to be a new character entirely.
(And no, Booster is not Mike, I refuse to dignify that)
Only because Willis said that it was unintentional and that none of them were intended to be misleading. That doesn’t mean people won’t mistake one person for another.
Yeah–we’ve seen eyelids + eyebrows on some characters sometimes, but this seems to just be a default part of how Booster’s face works, a la Davan from Something*Positive. I’ll admit it’s been throwing me a bit too.
Both characters also have glasses, so it might be to differentiate the smaller frame from the edge of the eyes on certain angles. Amber’s are huge so she wouldn’t benefit from the line distinction… who else have we seen with glasses? Spencer? Does she have the line?
Well we haven’t met Jacob or Roz. Joyce prancing would indicate the former? But they’re not talking or something. Hm. Anyone else (besides Billie) we haven’t met?
Well, *we* have met Becky and Dorothy, but they’re the two people that Joyce would absolutely insist on introducing to Booster and she’d double-absolutely would skip towards.
Carol had worn VHS copies of the Hymmel the Humming Hymnal version of Mousercize, complete with Chastity Churchmouse in a leotard and a gigantic sweatband around the entire hymnal costume.
No, I don’t think so. Everything seems to suggest to me that he’s willing to wait for her schedule to clear up and do other things until then. Basically, they’ve drifted away from each other and this is proven by the fact that Walky occasionally actually verbally reminds himself that they’re supposed to be planning to get back together eventually.
So, it’s confirmed that Walky is in therapy. This doesn’t surprise me as the university likely offered everyone targetted by the O’Malley Gang counselling and other assistance. It also doesn’t surprise me to learn that they aren’t very good, given that Amber and Walky are both still only dealing with what happened to Mike.
So, Joyce got an A in Prancing? Raised to be a Disney Princess confirmed?
No, it’s confirmed that Walky knows therapy is available in the school and has got an idea from *somewhere* that it’s not very good. Could be first hand, could be from a friends comment, could be from seeing how much it’s done/(not done) for a friend.
So now the question is, do Amber, Amazi-Girl and Mike know about the Plural community?
(not that it is one singular, uniform community.)
The best benefit is always having other Systems to talk to, because regardless of how exactly a system works, it’ll still be very different than just being a singlet (=not plural).
We could see it go either way whether the three of them found a way into a community like that. On the one hand, a lot of that is online, and Amber is internet-savvy. On the other, you need to know that something exists to go looking for it, and “I thought I was all alone with this” is still really common.
Thank you very much for sharing these resources. I’ve been spending quite a bit of time reading about this topic since seeing your post yesterday, and I’m pretty excited 🙂
Guess I always thought it was DID or nothing.
You know, my first guess is ‘Amber tried (because she was intending to pre-skip) and dropped (because they weren’t equipped to deal with her, unsurprisingly because the field of psychology REALLY SUCKS for plural people in particular and school counseling centers tend to be understaffed.)’ But I could also see EVERYONE from the kidnapping having to go and Walky seeing firsthand how inadequate they were just for him alone, especially given his ‘or so I’ve heard’. Or Billie, I suppose, but she seemed to be doing a bit better pre-skip, I still think she’s in decent shape. Dorothy was managing okay but if her counselor and advisor thought the way she was crunch-moding to the point of falling asleep at her desk was totally fine, I have concerns. (More likely I think that she downplayed it.)
Why isn’t the cast in therapy? Because unfortunately, school therapists cannot handle the massive piles of trauma our cast have to shovel through, there’s a limit of sessions per term.
(Not all schools have to limit your sessions per term to manage workload, even big schools, but like. The fact that this happens enough mental health resources can bring it up as a possibility and not a wild outlier should tell you how it’s typically prioritized.)
Ah! That would be really depressing and frustrating. I know that would be the most realistic take on how things would turn out because getting proper mental care takes lots of time and resources, but this is also a comic world potentially better than our own. Mike DIED trying to save Amber. It would suck if that was only for her to fall further into her self loathing mental issues because she couldn’t get the proper help even after finally deciding herself to try to find some. Like that whole deal would be a super huge downer. That goes for all of the them too!
There should be a realistic and available option for mental care out there for Amber even if it takes a few story arcs or something to get there. Otherwise her character is just staying stagnant or even going backwards. Which is just kind of miserable.
Sooooo much this, which was one of the reasons why I wanted Mike to recover. I do hope, as said upthread by &era System, that AmbG have found some support in system communities online. Between already being more comfortable on the internet and the ‘no, you are not alone’ factor – and peer support has the guarantee of ‘we actually acknowledge this is a real thing, here’s something that helps’ that mainstream therapy very much does not have right now – I think it might end up being a better fit. (I also continue to hold out hope that Mike was a short-term hallucination caused by the severe stress on her system plus trauma, though I suspect otherwise.)
Incidentally, surprised you haven’t mentioned how shitty it is for Walky to out her as plural to Booster. ‘Cause seriously, what the hell, Walky. Hoping she’s been more forward about it over the break, but with a new person disclosure’s a gamble for pretty much any mental health condition, especially the ‘scary’ ones. Booster seems safe, but given Walky’s not volunteering ‘has probably been in therapy’ about himself (that ‘so I’ve heard’ panel is pretty implicating,) it’s pretty awful to tell them about someone else’s issues.
Benefit of the doubt for walky here, he might not know stigmas around systems and he was the only one of the cast that figured it out on his own… and as he pointed out with how he treated it from the time he donned pajamas… he thought she was open about it with how obvious it was to him. She tried to describe it to Danny and Sal. She hasn’t really hid it in the traditional sense. More like – vigilantes are a problem for enrollment. Still shitty overshare, but way less of a slip than it would be for almost anyone else who knows and found out by being told.
Who else even knows?
Ethan learned about it at the end.
Danny has something of a clue, though I don’t think it’s been made clear how much he grasps.
Walky figured it out – with some pretty big clues when he ran into Amazi-girl.
She told Sal she was friends with AG not Amber at one point. She told Danny youre dating her not me. She told Joyce us. Even if the cast doesn’t buy a vowel, AG and Amber have been pretty clear about trying to explain the distinction.
She’s often talked to others as if they already knew or as if it was obvious, but especially in the context of the super hero/secret id thing, it’s not at all surprising those weren’t understood. We can see them as clues in context, but much harder for someone in the story to see it – and we still get posters here going “Are they really different people?”
None of those were attempts to explain the distinction any more than her early talks with Danny – which were complicated by the changing nature of the relationship between AG and Amber. The only time she’s actually come out and told someone, rather than just dropping references to the other alter as if everyone already knew, was to Ethan at the hospital.
Dina also got some hints.
But while some of them may have figured it out or should have figured it out, the only ones who’ve we’ve seen acknowledge knowing about it are Walky and Ethan. Everyone else still seemed to be treating it as a superhero/secret id thing, not a case of separate personalities.
Oh. Also on her therapist… it might have been worse. It could have been a court ordered evaluation due to being sued by the family of the Swiss cheese formerly known as pastor boy.
Hi… I was pointed to this comic by a friend a few weeks ago and have just caught up, by binging on it day and night… (For anyone who’s been with it since the start and hasn’t done a re-read, it’s worth it just for the lack of cliff-hangers. I have no idea how you regulars were able to stand it not knowing what had happened to Mike!)
Anyway, I love the comic. I am wondering what happened to “Shortpacked” though? Because I recognise a LOT of the characters from that strip…!
And just out of interest, what is the correct usage of the word “Strawman”?
(Actually I put that in to prove I read the “read this first” first”)
A strawman is basically an argument that the responder set up (which is a misrepresentation of what was being said) and then knocked down as it is easier to do so than to actually knock down the point they are responding to. It gives the illusion of refuting while really just being derailment.
For instance, if I said that ‘gay people are people’. And someone responded with ‘If you are saying gay people are people, then you’re saying straight people are dogs, and I for one, do not bark!’ Their argument is a strawman. It has misrepresented the initial point and not actually refuted it; it has only refuted the point that they came up with by actively choosing to misrepresent what was said and distracts you into arguing that you never said that.
Someone that sets up a strawman is acting in bad faith to purposefully derail away from the point they feel they can’t actually refute by setting up a point that person is unlikely to agree with. This may be combined with sealioning i.e. pretending to act in good faith but they are really repeating the same questions and repeatedly inviting debate when they never intended to pay attention or look at evidence presented.
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how big are their rooms that she has distance to SKIP to the next one
also be sure to mention that Dotty and you used to be a thing before Joyce can, Walky, maybe try to disarm the bombs BEFOREHAND after striking out on two
(ok Sal isn’t really a BOMB but he DID miss the chance to mention the twin thing first)
She’s just gotta go down to the other end of the hall for this, so prancing…
Width of the room, width of the shared bathroom, width of the other room.
She’s possibly one of those who skips more up and down rather than forward.
It was an easy ‘A’, then.
I guess so, if she kept skipping.
Although she’s picked up one ‘A’, going for the “Easy ‘A'” would probably still have Joyce panicking about pre-marital hankies-panky.
When I see ‘hanky-panky’ pluralized that way, I can’t help but translate it to ‘hanky-spanky’.
Of which I approve.
The rooms are big enough to allow for some fairly elaborate scene staging when we see the insides. The outer walls are however long they need to be for this joke to work.
You also have to allow for space for all the secret passages.
I’m guessing the room they’re going to is billie’s. So skipping is reasonable since she’s in a different place
Pff, you sound like somebody who failed at Prancing in school.
♫“You should be pran-cing, yeah!”♫
Long enough for Carla to skate…
You may be wondering how Joyce was able to pass standardized science tests with questions about things like evolution despite being taught by Carol.
In fact, Joyce got every answer right, she was just taught to WrItE LiKe ThIs so it would all come off as sarcastic. They can’t technically count that as wrong.
You joke but I’m given to understand “here’s what you need to tell the state to keep us out of trouble, understand that it’s all bullshit and don’t internalize it” is how most of these places work.
Yes, that’s exactly how they have been doing it for more than 30 years. My boss from back in the late ’80s homeschooled his daughters and I got to see their textbooks. I originally put “texts” but that word has acquired different meanings in the thirty-odd years since then.
I wrote a comment but accidentally closed the tab, so shorter version:
If the school/homeschooling program is a less extreme church/sect, they also don’t need to buy special textbooks, as they can just have their plentiful parent volunteers cut out the “unnecessary” pages from regular textbooks.
source: my husband’s catholic school science/bio books with reproduction removed.
I was told by a high school teacher in Australia around 2009 that the super religious schools tell their students to write “It is said that-” (or something along those lines) for questions whose answers go against their belief. That way they can get the marks on the state tests without actually stating that like, evolution is real or something.
I can only assume they also weaponize this surface-level “understanding” to reinforce their opinion that it’s all nonsense.
You are assuming that a homeschooler needs to pass true standardize tests. That may be the case in Indiana (I don’t know), but it is certainly not the case everywhere. For example in Florida there are a number of different ways that a student can be evaluated. Standardized tests are one, but those administered by school systems (actual standardized tests matching what public school students take) are generally discouraged by homeschooling groups – basically because the students tend not to do well, though this is attributed to unfamiliarity with the test format, not being “drilled to the test like public school students are”, or a variety of other excuses, rather than that they had an inadequate education. Instead, they can be evaluated by any certified teacher of the parent’s choice using whatever evaluation method that teacher chooses. This teacher could be retired and could be sympathetic to the parents particular educational choices, so allows the parents a lot of latitude in tailoring the evaluation. Another choice is a nationally normed test, but chosen by, given by, and evaluated by a test administrator chosen by the parents, with only the evaluation, not the raw scores submitted. Another choice is an evaluation by any licensed psychologist using whatever evaluation technique the psychologist chooses. Bottom line – for a few dollars the parents can get whatever sort of evaluation they want, and it will be considered good enough.
Indiana doesn’t require testing, or even notice to be given that a child is being homeschooled. Parents are told to keep records and such for things like what they are teaching but they only have to provide it if requested. States like Virginia, where I live, that do require testing often allow for any standardized test. Some are significantly easier than others, and students only have to pass by being in a minimum stanine (in VA it’s the 4th stanine). But the standardized tests are ones given to some schools, even the CAT tests. And in VA the required subjects are math and reading/language arts, so science isn’t even a tested thing. Evaluation by a certified teacher is also permitted but I honestly know very few people who use that route. Each state has varied requirements, with states like Texas being super lenient while states like Pennsylvania are super strict, but most are somewhere in between.
On the other hand, there will need to be something to get into a respectable school like IU.
Doesn’t ‚her homeschooling was accredited‘ just mean that the group homeschooling them gave a school board or whoever a list of topics they would cover? This is really a language question, does someone’s homeschooling was accredited mean accrediting the program vs testing the individual who did it?
It’s not really clear what Joyce and Becky were taught in terms of science. They definitely seem aware of the basics of evolution – though in the warped form you see in attacks from creationists.
See this just convinces me a little bit more that Booster is probably majoring or studying psychology in some way. Who just drops “plural” terminology casually?
Statistically, most queer and/or neurotypical people under 30 I’ve encountered in the past five years.
Professionals can be kinda shitty (or just expensive) and folks’ve gotta spend a lot of time figuring out their brains themselves.
I understand what you’re saying and it’s very valid but that only convinces me more that Booster would study it to try and become the reliable source they maybe didn’t have in their own life. Maybe that’s just wishful thinking for me now though.
I mean, I do know at least one trans person with mental health issues who’s getting a psychology degree, so it’s certainly not impossible!
I didn’t mean to disprove your headcanon so much as point out that this kind of casual understanding is increasingly common among, for lack of a better term, Booster’s demographic. (Hell, it’s probable they’ve already met folks like Amber.)
Nah it’s fine. It’s not really a headcanon but just a theory since Booster has been show to be pretty perceptive on things in a way most people at least in the cast of DoA aren’t so it stands out, but you and others have noted and it very much is likely just a fact of Booster needing to be so as coping and communication requirements in the nb or lgbtq community at large. But if Booster is studying psychology I will take credit for the call!
Agreed. That’s my experience too. More than average of queers/trans people are neurotypical and/or have mental health issues (esp trauma) which also makes them more-than-average aware of mental conditions that are not their own. Because they have queer/trans friends and they are likely to have mental health issues as well…^^
Most people probably don’t know that Dissociative Identity Disorder replaced Multiple Personality Disorder.
I can say, from being a (lapsed) reader of this comments section (among other things), that a lotta folks are better on this issue than you might think.
…hey, has Cerberus been around lately?
Shows up from time to time, but I think hangs out more in the patrons (day ahead) comment section. Our loss.
Oh, that’s why. I’ve been missing Cerb’s comments.
Oh, heck, this SOOO much! Miss ‘em (Their POV, comments, perspective) sumthin awful.
Same, and I would very much like to see them return.
… barring that, I think their presence there should have been noted and advertised a lot earlier, as IMO it represents a significant “value add” to Patron status.
I don’t think that’s the issue. As someone who isn’t up on psychology, I for one am confused as to why Booster is saying “plural” as if this is an orientation or identity as opposed to a mental illness (which DID is, right…?). Incidentally, DID is also exceedingly rare, so it’s a little strange for Booster to just casually toss it about as if, “yeah, I knew several in my hometown.”
There’s a much finer line between orientation and identity and mental illness than you’d think. If you want a better sense of how this is being discussed in terms of the lived experiences of people, look up the peer movement.
But as a simple example, DID can be viewed either as an illness that needs treating, or it can be viewed as an adaptive response to trauma that’s perfectly fine to embrace as long as it can be navigated functionally.
Keep in mind that being LGBTQ+ has and in some places still is considered a mental illness too.
I think the difference is in the navigating part. Identity usually doesn’t have the potential to be destructive in nature (not counting hatred etc by others cause that’s the environment not being able to deal with you, instead of you being unable to deal with life).
Generally, in my experience, most mental problems actually are a problem solely if they’re not properly navigated. Thing is, some of them are hard to manage. And some people don’t want to learn to manage them. Or even both.
You seem to be saying DID is hard to navigate/manage. I know one plural person pretty well, and the plurality doesn’t seem to be a problem/destructive/hard to navigate for that person.
No idea about did, actually. I know a few autistic people (including myself), some folks with borderline and /or ptsd. In general, it seems to depend on the severity and sometimes determination of the person. For example, I can manage my autism pretty well. I know people who can’t. Same for Borderline and ptsd, some fare well, some don’t, and it usually correlates to “how well can the person navigate their own mind”.
I haven’t met a plural person yet. For me, it just seems to be something that can mess with your social interactions pretty badly if not managed properly.
Though identity can be pretty destructive without the medical procedures used to alleviate it. Dysphoria isn’t just the environment.
Given that changing gender is not quite perfected yet and that fertility is lost during an op (and it’s possibly not 100% looking like a “born-with” genitalia), I’m not even sure an operation solves all those internal struggles.
I was referring to the “real world interface” though. Stuff like being able to manage school, work, money, etc. People with bad cases of mental problems can lose this ability.
DID is probably less rare than you think, and there are non-DID forms of plurality as well.
I can’t help but think of all the reports of sufferers of some forms of depression about having a voice in their head that criticizes them.
Intrusive thoughts? It was such a relief to learn that those are a thing and that it was just the depression aping me being a complete and utter bongo towards myself…
There’s a difference between DID and being plural, DID being a subset of plurality and a fairly small one at that even per the DSM. Given that Booster doesn’t know what flavor Amber is, “plural” is the correct word to use here.
Plural is the identity, DID or OSDD-1 are the mental health conditions that can cause plurality. Apparently it’s possible to be plural separate of trauma cause brains are weird sometimes? Plus, if DID/OSDD are successfully treated, it rarely results in one single personality at the end. It’s much more common to result in what’s called “functional multiplicity” which is essentially being plural but without trauma and amnesia making your life difficult all the time. So, lots of different reasons people identify as plural rather than talking about a diagnosis.
Also, DID isn’t rare. Current studies have it impacting 1-3% of the general population, and OSDD impacts up to 8%.
There’s tulpamancy too, which is different but still in the general plural community I think? I’ve found it all really interesting to look into, brains are freakin wacky.
Idk I’ve heard some mixed messages on how people with DID or OSDD feel about tulpamancy and I guess I haven’t really looked into the larger plural community too much so if I shouldn’t be bringing this into the same discussion I apologize.
I had to look that up – interesting. I may have had a tulpa when I was younger, or I may have just made up someone to talk to. I haven’t spoken to them in years, so maybe it was just the latter.
Yeah, same community, even though (like all communities) there are people who gatekeep. The most prevalent is basically “If you haven’t had trauma you’re not valid” which is really toxic.
Source: Me, Tulpamancer.
I’m not really familiar with OSDD but my understanding was that the incidence of DID was about 0.1%, but about 4 times higher than that for psychiatric inpatients.
Nope, not according to current research.
We have DID and we know there are at least two other systems that regularly comment on this comic, even though only 6% of DID or OSDD systems are open about their plurality.
http://traumadissociation.com/dissociativeidentitydisorder
Recent research finds it is closer to about 2-3% i.e. about as prevalant as green eyes. It tends to be a fairly well-disguised condition so the number may even be higher than that.
Plural is not the term an average psych major would be using. People are more prone to clinical language if they’re studying the field.
That’s not to say they aren’t a psych major, they could be. But using plural indicates a familiarity with the community itself and the terms being used by the people in it, rather than just a familiarity with DID as a clinical disorder. Studying psych only really suggests the latter, not the former.
That’s what I was going to say. Booster sounds like they hang out on mental health Tumblr rather than someone who’s taken psych classes. That doesn’t preclude them also taking psych classes but it isn’t evidence of it. Mental health Tumblr and queer Tumblr have a lot of overlap so I would suspect that’s where they picked it up unless they were also researching their own mental issues or those of a loved one.
Yeah, you kids have it so much better than I did pre-internet. I was dealing with PTSD before anyone knew there was such a thing. I was also part of a group that got followed a lot better than some people in similar situations minus the military connection. The thing that got me was finding out Cold War military dependents had drug and alcohol abuse rates almost identical to combat veterans of the same era, and that they were orders of magnitude higher than the general population of the same age. That’s when the penny dropped for me that this was a stress reaction when PTSD was barely a diagnosis for adults, and kids were still believed to “get over” stuff like that.
Obviously they don’t, because we didn’t.
*appropriate gesture of comfort here*
Dang, that’s awful. So sorry you had to go through all that!
I was thinking that too.
Of course Booster doesn’t actually exist, so didn’t “drop” any terminology. Rather, Willis did. He could have done so because he did want to provide some clues/background for this new character. But it could be just that Willis knows the term and used it because it is less clinical, shorter, whatever – without it necessarily having any intent to say anything special about the character saying it.
Unlikely. Willis is pretty careful about characterization and word usage. They’ve never used “plural” before to describe Amber – not from her or any of the other characters.
I mean, sounds like something I would say if I had thought of it, just getting the general idea of “two separate minds in the same body” without necessarily having to specify a (possibly very wrong) term for the same. And I would’ve heard of it through a handful of movies like Identity rather than Tumblr or peers, so I wouldn’t be sure if anyone else knew what I even meant. But I am also fairly aware of being wrong like Joyce said, so it would be feeling out what’s acceptable phrasing.
But is she a Disney Prancer?
Probably not – there’s some evidence that Joyce’s parents were anti-Disney.
We know she wasn’t allowed to watch Tangled or Frozen. They’re both generally standard “modern twist on a medieval fairy tale” Disney movies, so we can assume most of the others are off the table.
She’s also said she wasn’t allowed to watch Scooby-Doo, so probably half of the Hanna-Barbera catalog is out.
Honestly, with her gold in mental gymnastics I bet Carol could have found a way to disapprove of everything harder than Davey and Goliath or VeggieTales, even if it’s something she herself grew up with (or allowed her older children access to before she was further radicalized).
Wouldn’t be surprised if the Disney movies Hank and Carol had grown up with were still okay.
At first I thought she was skipping in the sense of ‘the people in these rooms don’t have names or personalities so we’re skipping past them’.
Considering that the rooms are right next door, it doesn’t seem likely.
Yeah, Dotty and Becky would make Joyce skip to the point of skipping classes over their weary heads.
‘Prance, Joyce!
Prance, I said!’
Does this mean we finally see billie
Considering Dorothy saying earlier that they had lost Billie, and Ruth shutting down over it … I’m not expecting to find her anywhere on campus.
Considering also that someone told Walky the therapists there weren’t very good. Who could that have been, do you suppose?
I was getting a very “asking for a friend” vibe from his expression in the panel after saying that. I’m thinking he may have gone to see them himself during the timeskip.
They ‘lost’ Billie to Forest quad. I’m not picking up why people are reading further into that than we have already seen.
Demoted Oblivious, I don’t get it either.
Maybe the distance actually has made Ruth and Billie drift apart in the intervening months, as Sir predicted.
Hell no. Not letting him be right.
If they’re going to break up, they need to do it on screen in an appropriately messy destructive fashion.
Billie moved to a different dorm. That’s probably what Dorothy meant, because Ruth was talking about people who had moved out of the dorm. It’s possible she and Ruth broke up, so that’s why Ruth would act like she did. As far as Walky is concerned, he maybe doesn’t see her as much since she moved to Forrest Quad.
It’s also possible that she and Ruth are still together, but Ruth still doesn’t want to think about the time she and Billie’s relationship was discovered, when she was suicidally depressed.
Especially since she *did* still lose Billie—Billie got driven out of the dorm, so as an RA, kinda of an embarrassing messup for Ruth even if Billie’s fine now.
But I’m getting bad vibes from this delay.
Wait, I think I know what happened. Like I literally am 99% sure.
Billie went to therapy, like she promised. The therapist found out some of her situation (like the drinking) and she got kicked out of the college, or otherwise put on probation. That’s why Billie’s being talked about the way she is, even though we had no reason to expect things to go wrong for her at the end of the last book. It’s also why Walky dislikes the therapists here.
Wait, but, how could something said at therapy sessions possibly lead to that? Therapy is approximately 250% confidential.
There are a few exceptions where therapists are mandated reporters – threat to self or others, and abuse and neglect of children and elders are the big ones. In practice at universities, though, there are also… certain loopholes in confidentiality as a whole, because student privacy isn’t ironclad. That said, the only recent case of loopholes being used I can find is one in which the University of Oregon accessed a student’s records because the student was suing the school. Not a major concern for Billie, but it is a VERY GOOD REASON for Amber, especially given her vigilanteism can pretty much only be described as ‘risk to self and others.’
Billie doesn’t live in this dorm.
She died over the time skip.
But Ruth still has her femurs.
Billie had actually mandated that the paperwork to turn her femurs into teaching aids be executed and her femurs be given to Ruth in her will, and a combination of the Billington’s being distant parents and the Walky/Sally teamup being emphatic got it done.
*plays “Senior Skip Day” on the hacked Muzak*
I guess the damage is recent enough to say scab and not scar.
So who is Joyce so excited to see? Dotty and Becky?
Confirmation that Walky spent some time with school therapists discussing Mike’s death?
God damnit stupid comment system, the box at the bottom of the page is not supposed to get threaded as a reply.
Walky and Sal now share things, like a distrust of therapy.
I’m assuming it’s Dorothy and Becky. I can’t think of any other pair of students in this dorm Joyce might be skipping to go see.
Who’s the last one? I don’t recognize the silhouette and I’m drawing a blank
If you’re talking about the cast shot it’s probably Billie. She really fits the silhouette and they’re not meant to be misleading so it’s a very high chance it’s her….well actually it could also be Marcie maybe.
“They’re not meant to be misleading”, you say, after a silhouette with roughly Mike’s height, build, and jawline turned out to be a new character entirely.
(And no, Booster is not Mike, I refuse to dignify that)
But has anyone ever seen them at the same time?
Booster was literally *just* at Amber’s door!
You left out haircut. Booster’s haircut is almost identical to Mikes.
Booster is Anti-Mike. The silhoutte might be Anti-Billie, the “masturbate indoors” character, or both.
[Michael Scott ‘thank you’ dot gif]
I got so much pushback about this yesterday…
Only because Willis said that it was unintentional and that none of them were intended to be misleading. That doesn’t mean people won’t mistake one person for another.
I don’t doubt Willis said it was unintentional, but I didn’t see that note.
I get that.
Either Amber is becoming the Horde, or she is becoming Diavolo and becomes a mob leader.
Or she has a bunch of spiders to kill…
As a plural person I am SO DAMN HAPPY RN
The real question is: what that system gonna be called?
I wish our representation wasn’t a mess of emotional trauma, but honestly expecting a balanced person in This comic is silly, so take what we can get.
Good on Booster’s nonbinary peeps though, they’ve won the common sense lottery
RIGHT??? Oh my god, “plural” being used in a webcomic *by someone other than the plural person*??? Holy crap so much squee.
Does Booster have two right eyebrows in panel four, or am I crazy?
I think it’s actually the left one missing and lowered eyelids. Looks similar to when Joyce apologized for her fumble the other day.
Yeah–we’ve seen eyelids + eyebrows on some characters sometimes, but this seems to just be a default part of how Booster’s face works, a la Davan from Something*Positive. I’ll admit it’s been throwing me a bit too.
Both characters also have glasses, so it might be to differentiate the smaller frame from the edge of the eyes on certain angles. Amber’s are huge so she wouldn’t benefit from the line distinction… who else have we seen with glasses? Spencer? Does she have the line?
I get what you’re seeing, but I’m pretty sure Booster just has an arched right brow plus slightly lowered eyelids to indicate they are Not Amused.
Or that they are amused. Interpretations vary.
Well we haven’t met Jacob or Roz. Joyce prancing would indicate the former? But they’re not talking or something. Hm. Anyone else (besides Billie) we haven’t met?
Well, *we* have met Becky and Dorothy, but they’re the two people that Joyce would absolutely insist on introducing to Booster and she’d double-absolutely would skip towards.
So for home-schooled gym, did Joyce have prancercise class?
Carol had worn VHS copies of the Hymmel the Humming Hymnal version of Mousercize, complete with Chastity Churchmouse in a leotard and a gigantic sweatband around the entire hymnal costume.
Wait, so Dorothy doesn’t count as a Walky-scab to get picked at?
No, I don’t think so. Everything seems to suggest to me that he’s willing to wait for her schedule to clear up and do other things until then. Basically, they’ve drifted away from each other and this is proven by the fact that Walky occasionally actually verbally reminds himself that they’re supposed to be planning to get back together eventually.
Walky verbally reminds himself that they are supposed to be planning to get back together eventually.
Say what?
When was that?
Yeah, I was going to say.
He kind of suggested it after the kidnapping, but that wasn’t about an existing plan.
Listen and learn, it is time for prancing.
Now here we are…
Booster have a distinct feeling they are late for the plot.
They are right.
Now I’m just wondering if Booster is going to have the same thought about Joyce and Dorothy everyone else does.
I don’t think that their behaviour is going to allow for having an opinion when it’s so obvious!
So, it’s confirmed that Walky is in therapy. This doesn’t surprise me as the university likely offered everyone targetted by the O’Malley Gang counselling and other assistance. It also doesn’t surprise me to learn that they aren’t very good, given that Amber and Walky are both still only dealing with what happened to Mike.
So, Joyce got an A in Prancing? Raised to be a Disney Princess confirmed?
No, it’s confirmed that Walky knows therapy is available in the school and has got an idea from *somewhere* that it’s not very good. Could be first hand, could be from a friends comment, could be from seeing how much it’s done/(not done) for a friend.
*Does a happy plural dance*
It isn’t the fortnite dance, right?
If there’s one thing the world needs more of in these trying times, it’s prancing. You’re a hero Joyce and I salute you.
Didn’t even know plurality was considered a thing. Time to research!
So now the question is, do Amber, Amazi-Girl and Mike know about the Plural community?
(not that it is one singular, uniform community.)
The best benefit is always having other Systems to talk to, because regardless of how exactly a system works, it’ll still be very different than just being a singlet (=not plural).
But there’s also a ton of resources online these days.
There’s stuff you can hand employers (or universities?) to hopefully get better understanding (https://www.pluralpride.com/playbook), there’s activism resources (https://pluralactivism.carrd.co/), there’s things to just send to people so you have to explain less (https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/17hQAbjEs9rAa69kSqfYmmB9ZlbP7eeuL54UzmAtlk_U/mobilebasic) or (https://morethanone.info/#home) and of course there are a lot of things on “I’m having X Plural Problem help?” (unfortunately we wouldn’t know what to link there that’d be represenative).
We could see it go either way whether the three of them found a way into a community like that. On the one hand, a lot of that is online, and Amber is internet-savvy. On the other, you need to know that something exists to go looking for it, and “I thought I was all alone with this” is still really common.
Thank you very much for sharing these resources. I’ve been spending quite a bit of time reading about this topic since seeing your post yesterday, and I’m pretty excited 🙂
Guess I always thought it was DID or nothing.
Walky has tried to go to a therapist?
Time to see Billie I’m assuming.
I think it’s pretty clear that they are headed towards Dorothy and Becky. Joyce is prancing.
To be fair, she deserves an A in Prancing.
You know, my first guess is ‘Amber tried (because she was intending to pre-skip) and dropped (because they weren’t equipped to deal with her, unsurprisingly because the field of psychology REALLY SUCKS for plural people in particular and school counseling centers tend to be understaffed.)’ But I could also see EVERYONE from the kidnapping having to go and Walky seeing firsthand how inadequate they were just for him alone, especially given his ‘or so I’ve heard’. Or Billie, I suppose, but she seemed to be doing a bit better pre-skip, I still think she’s in decent shape. Dorothy was managing okay but if her counselor and advisor thought the way she was crunch-moding to the point of falling asleep at her desk was totally fine, I have concerns. (More likely I think that she downplayed it.)
Why isn’t the cast in therapy? Because unfortunately, school therapists cannot handle the massive piles of trauma our cast have to shovel through, there’s a limit of sessions per term.
(Not all schools have to limit your sessions per term to manage workload, even big schools, but like. The fact that this happens enough mental health resources can bring it up as a possibility and not a wild outlier should tell you how it’s typically prioritized.)
Ah! That would be really depressing and frustrating. I know that would be the most realistic take on how things would turn out because getting proper mental care takes lots of time and resources, but this is also a comic world potentially better than our own. Mike DIED trying to save Amber. It would suck if that was only for her to fall further into her self loathing mental issues because she couldn’t get the proper help even after finally deciding herself to try to find some. Like that whole deal would be a super huge downer. That goes for all of the them too!
There should be a realistic and available option for mental care out there for Amber even if it takes a few story arcs or something to get there. Otherwise her character is just staying stagnant or even going backwards. Which is just kind of miserable.
Sooooo much this, which was one of the reasons why I wanted Mike to recover. I do hope, as said upthread by &era System, that AmbG have found some support in system communities online. Between already being more comfortable on the internet and the ‘no, you are not alone’ factor – and peer support has the guarantee of ‘we actually acknowledge this is a real thing, here’s something that helps’ that mainstream therapy very much does not have right now – I think it might end up being a better fit. (I also continue to hold out hope that Mike was a short-term hallucination caused by the severe stress on her system plus trauma, though I suspect otherwise.)
Incidentally, surprised you haven’t mentioned how shitty it is for Walky to out her as plural to Booster. ‘Cause seriously, what the hell, Walky. Hoping she’s been more forward about it over the break, but with a new person disclosure’s a gamble for pretty much any mental health condition, especially the ‘scary’ ones. Booster seems safe, but given Walky’s not volunteering ‘has probably been in therapy’ about himself (that ‘so I’ve heard’ panel is pretty implicating,) it’s pretty awful to tell them about someone else’s issues.
Benefit of the doubt for walky here, he might not know stigmas around systems and he was the only one of the cast that figured it out on his own… and as he pointed out with how he treated it from the time he donned pajamas… he thought she was open about it with how obvious it was to him. She tried to describe it to Danny and Sal. She hasn’t really hid it in the traditional sense. More like – vigilantes are a problem for enrollment. Still shitty overshare, but way less of a slip than it would be for almost anyone else who knows and found out by being told.
Who else even knows?
Ethan learned about it at the end.
Danny has something of a clue, though I don’t think it’s been made clear how much he grasps.
Walky figured it out – with some pretty big clues when he ran into Amazi-girl.
I think that’s it.
She also referred to herselves as “us” to Joyce during the van rescue scene.
She told Sal she was friends with AG not Amber at one point. She told Danny youre dating her not me. She told Joyce us. Even if the cast doesn’t buy a vowel, AG and Amber have been pretty clear about trying to explain the distinction.
She’s often talked to others as if they already knew or as if it was obvious, but especially in the context of the super hero/secret id thing, it’s not at all surprising those weren’t understood. We can see them as clues in context, but much harder for someone in the story to see it – and we still get posters here going “Are they really different people?”
None of those were attempts to explain the distinction any more than her early talks with Danny – which were complicated by the changing nature of the relationship between AG and Amber. The only time she’s actually come out and told someone, rather than just dropping references to the other alter as if everyone already knew, was to Ethan at the hospital.
Dina also got some hints.
But while some of them may have figured it out or should have figured it out, the only ones who’ve we’ve seen acknowledge knowing about it are Walky and Ethan. Everyone else still seemed to be treating it as a superhero/secret id thing, not a case of separate personalities.
Oh. Also on her therapist… it might have been worse. It could have been a court ordered evaluation due to being sued by the family of the Swiss cheese formerly known as pastor boy.
Dumbing of Age: A webcomic about pastors and cheese.
Why doesn’t Joyce just grab Booster and Walky’s hands and teleport them to Dorothy with her?
Joyce can’t teleport to Dorothy, that’s absurd.
I can kinda see “Prancing” as a physical education credit.
Hi… I was pointed to this comic by a friend a few weeks ago and have just caught up, by binging on it day and night… (For anyone who’s been with it since the start and hasn’t done a re-read, it’s worth it just for the lack of cliff-hangers. I have no idea how you regulars were able to stand it not knowing what had happened to Mike!)
Anyway, I love the comic. I am wondering what happened to “Shortpacked” though? Because I recognise a LOT of the characters from that strip…!
And just out of interest, what is the correct usage of the word “Strawman”?
(Actually I put that in to prove I read the “read this first” first”)
This is an alternate universe from Shortpacked. Basically, “What if the cast of Shortpacked all went to college together.”
“And there were no aliens or super powers involved.”
Willis made it pretty easy not to wonder about Mike by ASSAULTING US ALL with another high stakes storyline. He’s a wrathful god like that. 😛
Congrats on reading through it all!
A strawman is basically an argument that the responder set up (which is a misrepresentation of what was being said) and then knocked down as it is easier to do so than to actually knock down the point they are responding to. It gives the illusion of refuting while really just being derailment.
For instance, if I said that ‘gay people are people’. And someone responded with ‘If you are saying gay people are people, then you’re saying straight people are dogs, and I for one, do not bark!’ Their argument is a strawman. It has misrepresented the initial point and not actually refuted it; it has only refuted the point that they came up with by actively choosing to misrepresent what was said and distracts you into arguing that you never said that.
Someone that sets up a strawman is acting in bad faith to purposefully derail away from the point they feel they can’t actually refute by setting up a point that person is unlikely to agree with. This may be combined with sealioning i.e. pretending to act in good faith but they are really repeating the same questions and repeatedly inviting debate when they never intended to pay attention or look at evidence presented.
wow full open about the multiple personality uh