No, you’re right. Regular speech bubbles, albeit quieter and gruffer, presumably to show AG is far away. Might’ve given her the incentive to learn though.
I mean if you *really* want to mix realism into this, from what I’ve reasearched on the subject that realistically you can’t actually throw your voice like that. Ventriloquism is basically just a mix of minimal mouth movement and focusing a person’s attention on something else to convince them that what they’re looking at is what’s doing the talking, so I’m not sure it would even work in this case since she was looking at Amber. Then again I guess if she was looking at her DS instead she wouldn’t notice Amber talking, but still not sure how she’d get her to think the voice was coming from behind her.
That said of course, this is just based on my research of ventriloquism. It’s very possible I’m wrong
Honestly it probably doesn’t matter that much. It’s a funny enough gag on it’s own and if for reason it’s used in the future then well at least it’s been established.
what if she’s hidden a secret mike in the wall in case she needs to make a dramatic gesture at some point and it’s easy access and that’s what she’s using
idk i don’t think that’s what actually happened but as long as we’re putting a lot of work into investigating plausible ways a thing might have happened
and also that is the kind of planning ahead that is totally wish fulfillment fantasy for me
I had that thought as well. Then again, she is looking in that direction in the fourth panel. Perhaps Sal followed her gaze to the other side of the room, and then Amber threw her voice? …Not sure if she’d even have to use minimal mouth movement at that point, but she might have been in Sal’s peripheral vision, so perhaps.
personally, it feels weird to me that sal doesn’t find it odd that amber can perfectly recreate amazi-girl’s voice, suggesting some connection between the two. then again, amber and amazi-girl are so impossibly different that sal has a lot of reasons to disregard her own suspicions, amber and amazi-girl are supposed to have met before, and amber, in sal’s eyes, could’ve seen news reports or been hiding when sal and amazi-girl met. either way, this is great. XD
“As the great American philosopher Vince Lombardi put it, Winning is not everything–is ONLY thingI“–The commander of the October Guard in G.I. Joe TV series.
Lombardi always hated when people quoted that. He preferred the I am Third. You live for your faith, then your family and then your work. Putting the team third is enough.
Well, that’s one way to avoid direct facial confrontation. Which is probably a good thing considering that Amber’s still afraid of hurting Sal. A few more sessions like these though, and Amber might be able to talk to Sal face to face.
Physically, yes. Amber can hurt Sal. Her build is a deceptively powerful one, and she can easily wipe the floor with much larger individuals than her. So Amber is completely capable of hurting Sal.
Mentally and Emtionally? Amber is uncertain but afraid that mentally and emotionally she is able to hurt Sal. And that uncertainty extends to the audience. Part of what traumatized Amber so much that day at the gas station was that she did in fact hurt someone. And she’s afraid that she’ll one day “snap” and hurt someone again. The two things from that day that have haunted her are 1) she was unable to help Ethan and paralyzed by fear and 2) when she did finally act she unnecessarily hurt someone who already restrained. Both these things are triggered by her PTSD when she encounters Sal. Will she maybe, eventually, be able to directly interact with Sal in a healthy way as Amber? Maybe yes, maybe no. Is she currently capable of hurting Sal if her PTSD is triggered to hard and she freaks out? Yes. Resoundedly yes.
That said, Sal seems to have a higher pain tolerance. AG seems like she has a hard time taking a hit. She took a long time recovering from Malaya kneeing her in the gut – Sal recovered pretty much instantly from the same. So, can she physically hurt her? Probably. Will she get hurt worse in the process or afterwards? Also possible.
I am fairly certaythat Sal would fuck Amber up, so yeah, while the argument makes sense, it feels completely unbiased on Amber’s one delusions of how much of a monster she is.
AG doesn’t actually get in many fights. She tends to jump folks (or at least surprise them) and beat them down before they get to swing back. I think Ryan and his boys (which is an unfair fight) and Malaya are the only ones we’ve seen who hit her back.
Yep! Which, while helpful considering she’s like 5’3 (5’5 in AG’s boots), is also not good for gouging how well she’d do with someone hitting back she hasn’t struck first and got fighting angry.
Oh, I’m hoping this is building towards an end of her being afraid.
I don’t see it quite that way. It’s not that Amber thinks she wouldn’t get hurt… it’s that she doesn’t care whether or not she gets hurt. If Amber got her face caved in after having thrown a punch at Sal, Amber would be upset about having thrown a punch.
yeah i’m not gonna take a steaming dump all over people who suffer from trauma by magically making amber better overnight, so if this bothers you, 1) sorry, it’s gonna continue, and 2) don’t be my friend cuz YIKES
If I can get a little TMI for a sec, I share a lot of Personal Trauma Bullshit with Amber, abused kid, worrying I’m taking on aspects of my abusive parent, other stuff it’d be too much to get into, but just…thank you for doing her justice, okay? I genuinely appreciate having one piece of media to consume that I can be confident won’t suddenly turn Super Unfortunate.
Yeah seriously, it would be pretty terrible to write a character with lifelong abuse, crippling anxiety, PTSD, etc., and then, poof, she’s all better from her lifelong trauma.
For characters who have suffered but remain hella resilient, please see Becky, instead.
Or, to a lesser extent, Joyce, who is slowly recovering and integrating her experiences, with support from her friends, and emerging fifty times more badass than ever before.
They’re each on different trajectories, but each are consistent to the characters, and realistic to how different people might recover from their various situations.
I really dig it.
I’ve expressed concern over stuff because I’ve been burned so many times where the character with a history of abuse is turned into a horrible monster, but Amber’s story is incredibly important to me as an abuse survivor. It means a lot to me that she struggles and that she tries to overcome those struggles as best she can, and that she’s surrounded by people who unconditionally love her and support her.
Also the jackasses here who gleefully threw around “lol cycle of abuse” because they are stupid shitfuckers who should go get hit by a bus. They did not help.
While we’re thanking you for handling this story right, thank you so much for making her DID status canon and doing the research to do that story right. It really means a lot to see someone with my mental illness who isn’t a demented killer or as someone “too broken to function”.
It’s very possible once you understand how “throwing your voice” works. Firstly, one doesn’t actually throw the voice. It helps if you’re in a large hall like they’re in now, versus outside, so that there’s a little echo. Secondly, you speak deeply, projecting your voice as if you’re speaking to a large crowd. This carries the voice everywhere. (And the low growling Amazi-Girl voice is essentially this already.)
But, most importantly, is the PERFORMANCE. You have to react to the voice as if you didn’t speak it. You have to look surprised and in the direction you want the voice to have come from. You don’t throw the voice, you put it everywhere and choose a origin point with the direction of your glance. If Sal doesn’t expect Amazi-Girl’s voice to come out of Amber’s body, and Amber is jerking her head up to look at the other side of the hall as the Amazi-Girl voice fills it, Sal will think the voice is coming from elsewhere.
Not gonna lie, but out of all the amazing physics broken things Amber did, this is the first one that broke my suspension of disbelief. It’s cool to learn it’s an actual thing though! 😀
It would be, but look at Amber’s face in the third panel – seeing Sal still spins her toward a panic attack. So she did that to get her out of her face. This just worked out in her favour.
This is definitely possible, especially as AG gave Sal an app that would lead straight to Amber.
Without realizing it, they may kind of want to be known as both, or want to integrate. I can’t tell for sure yet.
I mean, I wouldn’t call it unfair exactly, insofar as they both did terrible things one night when they were children and are under no obligation to forgive one another, but I still feel calling this hypocrisy, that Amber is trying to humanize Sal despite freaking out and breaking up with Danny over her (or more accurately, when Danny was hanging around with her arch nemesis and then told her she needed to stop being Amazi-Girl because said arch nemesis said so) is wrong. Is Amber just supposed to live in fear of Sal for the rest of her time in college on the off-chance that it offends Danny?
It’s also, he’s chill with this. He knows that Amber is not responsible for the breakup awfulness and AG has been ducking him so they can’t process that yet.
Honestly I’m still hoping that eventually Danny and Amber get to be together outside the whole superhero persona drama once Amber’s started to make some headway into therapy. It’d be nice, and it’s not fair that Amber needs to be held responsible for AG’s fuck up.
If she’s anything like me, then learning that the golden alter can fuck up is a key part of that abused alter coming into their own and for things to really settle. I think we’re seeing here the first steps on that. Amber is pushing back against AG, is recognizing the unfairness of her situation, and is making her own connections without AG’s approval or watching her cut in.
And I think the Amber alter will be healthier for it as will Amber/AG as a whole and allow her as a whole person to date and love without trying to segregate it.
Amber needs to tell to Danny that he had a right to be friends with Sal and getting mad at him for such was wrong. She owes him that much. How much she explains beyond that is sort of up to her.
Amazigirl needs to tell Danny the same. This doesn’t mean that Amazigirl needs to get back together with him if he’s interested but that she needs to admit she broke up with him for shitty reasons.
It might help if one of them explained at least that some of what actually happened with Sal so he can make sense of what happened.
– She found Danny waiting at their usual hangout spot with Sal.
– She asked if he knew who she was, whereupon Danny responded with “she says she saved your life,” so he implicitly states that he does know and all he wants to focus on is her grand act of heroics.
– Danny tells Amber she has to stop being Amazi-Girl, or rather, to stop being a remotely good person and let terribly shitty no good Amber take the reigns, because Sal says it’s a good idea.
Danny is owed an explanation and an apology, but Amber isn’t a hypocrite if she’s trying to confront her PTSD. She made a bad call in a bad state of mind and she’s been punished for it.
It’s more likely that if this does end up with Amber apologizing or trying to make amends with him, she still ends up blaming herself for it, and that she poisoned Amazi-Girl due to her hatred of Sal.
Okay Danny wanting Amazigirl to cease to exist was not a good move, but he can’t know why it was out of line and he reasonably believes he was unpersoned by Amazigirl for hanging out with Sal. Keep in mind Danny can not be expected understand why quit being Amazigirl is such an unreasonable request he thinks he was asking her to quit a hobby.
I still think Amber owes it to Danny to admit he had a right to be friends with Sal and that Amazigirl’s reaction was shitty whoever she blames for that reaction.
If a parent raises a child and the child wrongs someone the parent needs to admit that what the child did was shitty to the wronged party regardless of whether the parent thinks its the result of bad parenting or not. I know its not a perfect analogy.
Befriending Sal without admitting as much is hypocritical, and deciding not to try to work past her problem with Sal because of her previous screw up is sunk cost fallacy and helps no one.
I think it would be better if she could explain that Sal did something bad in the past once not directly to her and has clearly improved since then and since Amber knows Sal is a good person now Amber is trying to work past her issues.
I don’t think Danny ever wanted AG to cease to exist. That’s probably how she took it, but all he wanted was for her to take a break from crime fighting, or at least quit taking as many risks.
But while I agree she owes him an apology, she only owes him as much explanation as she’s ready to give.
Like, it would be great if she can talk to him about what happened with the robbery, but that is an incredibly traumatic, panic attack triggering memory for her, and if she isn’t ready to talk about it, she absolutely does not owe Danny that. If all she can manage is how proximity to Sal affects her, but not WHY, demanding more would be really crappy.
I think it might help Danny make sense of what happened if Amber could explain her issue with Sal, but the only thing she only owe to Danny is to admit that he did nothing wrong in befriending Sal and some resident of her body should not have reacted the way she did to their friendship.
I appreciate that, thus far, he’s not too annoyed at Sal for this. Yes, she did tell him needed to stop enabling AG’s martyrdom and more reckless escalation (which, if AG is to continue, is true – she does need to rein those tendencies in), but she did not make AG freak out – she was already pissed at him because Sal merely EXISTED in the same general public area Danny was in. And she knows nothing about Amber’s issues. Of course, it’s not Amber’s fault AG mistreated him, which he seems to acknowledge. But after Amber insisted she was not friends with Sal and refused to consider AG was maybe not the paragon of goodness she needs her to be, Danny might be pissed with her now too.
I don’t think Danny has it in him to get too angry with Amber. Even when she did her “worst”, making him think he was cheating on Amazi-Girl, it took him all of one day to try and make things right with her.
That said, it’s healthy for him that he can be frustrated with her and express that frustration, because it shows some self worth on top of no longer idealizing Amazi-Girl, and I hope he’s at least willing to try and get some answers before the next scene change.
Totally. Danny’s been learning his right to have inconvenient feelings, and these days, he’s able to express anger/frustration productively, instead of always having to avoid conflict. Funny how Danny has become one of the more emotionally-healthy main characters around.
Man, I keep waiting for the confrontation between Amber and Sal to happen proper and it never does. I forget which universe Danny said this in, but it’s like Charlie Brown and his freakin’ football.
None of Sal, Amber, or Amazi-Girl are likely to bring up that incident, so we probably won’t get the conversation I’m assuming you want unless Ethan sidles into the equation.
OH MAN AMBER I do not understand. in a good way?
Is this a step forward? this feels like a step forward. like, the part of phobia therapy where you can exist in the same room as a spider. as long as you don’t have to look at it. (is desensitisation therapy still a thing?)
So Amber’s, what, taking independent steps to reconciling Amber’s phobic reaction with Amazigirl’s grudging respect etc? which seems like a good thing.
Good luck Amber~~~
I think it’s more that she wants to win, and she is distracted from her phobia by her intense focus on trying to get that win. Overall, I feel like she is being more childish by thinking she is too good to use the blue shells she being given, but she’ll stoop to creating a distraction outside of the game to force a mistake from her opponent. I feel this is twice as true because that distraction she is creating is potentially exposing her secret identity.
I don’t get that vibe. Look at her face in panel 3 – she’s freaked out by Sal still. Distracting her from Amber just also happened to work out game wise.
Sal didn’t send her into a catatonic state this time. Amber stayed in control throughout this interaction, Amazi-Girl didn’t have to jump into the pilot’s seat at all.
Granted Amber still had to do the voice and get Sal away from her as quickly as possible, but I think this shows she’s making gradual but steady progress.
Desensitization therapy is totally a thing. Normally a therapist helps you out with it, but Amber’s method is totally starting to work for her. (Also normally Sal would be in on the plan, but that’s not as fun to read.)
You experience increasing levels of the scary thing, in a completely safe environment. The key: you’re in control of the situation the whole time. You also get time to recover afterwards, and you reflect on how the thing is causing you progressively less stress.
Amber wants to interact with Sal without panic, flashbacks, switching alters uncontrollably, etc.
She’s figured out she can use a fun game, it’s familiar and distracting, they don’t talk or see each other. She’s good at the game. She’s in a safe chair-fort. She can do it!
When Sal gets too close and starts talking to her, she isn’t in control of that, and needs Sal to go away right now, so she depends on AG’s voice in a pinch. However, she doesn’t switch alters or panic.
In the last panel, I think she’s stressed from the exertion, but relieved that she could regain control of their interaction, without having to lose all control of herself. Success!
Looks that way. My impression is that Amber is having a red-panels-moment in that panel there… but as we’ve already seen those red panels, they’re left omitted. I think.
or I could be wrong. It’s just the impression I’ve got.
I think she was starting to have a panic attack when Sal approached, but luring Sal away prevented it from getting bad enough for her to start having flashbacks / brain melt
Too bad Sal is likely to catch on pretty quick if she uses that too often
Panel 1: *heart melts* Oh, Danny, you sweet perfect cinnamon roll, never change… except actually no, do change to believe in your goodness and trust that you have worth on your own instead of as an amazing person’s second, but besides that…
But, yeah, I love that his first instinct is to check up on her, make sure she’s okay and that he’s doing it with kindness and grace even though he knows that Amber last left off with him denying she liked Sal at all.
Panel 2: Gotta drift.
Panel 3: Okay, props to Amber.
Like, we see there in her eyes that this is way out of her comfort zone and she’s genuinely trying to find a means of interacting that doesn’t severely trigger her and that’s a close run thing. Right here, Sal gets close and she’s right back in that fear-soaked hell inches away from a full panic attack, but…
Panel 4: She quickly reacts to de-escalate the situation and make it something she can handle again, keep this potentially triggering activity a bonding experience. And we see in the tags, this isn’t AG bailing her out*, it’s Amber dropping the AG voice affectation like she did with Danny when she abandoned their last conversation.
*Which of course it wouldn’t be. AG, the golden alter, “protector” of Amber has fucking bailed on Amber almost every time with this shit, leaving her to clean up the emotional messes she leaves behind. So yeah, in her hour of need of course it fell on the Amber alter to bail herself out. And I hope that Amber can see that more and more and trust in her own power, ingenuity, and goodness.
Panel 5: That said, Amber is a dirty cheater sometimes. :p
It’s been a couple days since my last update so here an update on the cancer status for those who want to read. And I have bad news and good news. The bad news is, I have more cancer. The good news is, it isn’t the thyroid cancer spreading, I just developed a case of skin cancer on my left shoulder. So, I’m getting that piece of skin cut off in a week. Apparently it’s a combination of too many X-rays, being too white for the California sun without a ton of sunscreen, unsafe drinking water (apparently I was drinking water with a lot of heavy metals before I moved two years ago), and genetics. Skin cancer (or at least, malignant skin tumors) has apparently been common on my mother’s side of the family since the 1890s. So has recovery after removing said malignant tumors though, so that’s ok. Still, if it weren’t so serious it would be kinda funny. I mean, seriously what are the odds of two different cancers developing concurrently without relation to one another in the same person?
D: my condolences on, well, both cancers, but especially the thyroid cancer. I’m sure you’ve done some digging into online resources already, but dearthyroid.org was a huge help to me when I first started dealing with thyjinks (that’s what I call it, anyway. Definitely flippant, but how better to respond to being gaslit by your own goddamn body?)
Sounds like the got the skin cancer early. Good! It’s best when they can remove the skin and get rid of it.
I lost my aunt to skin cancer because she waited too late, and they kept acting like it was just an infection. Still have some animosity towards those doctors, even though I’m sure it was a normal mistake.
Dang, nice catch, sounds like you and your docs got the skin cancer early.
Good luck in treatment; may you kick cancer’s butt, like Sal vs. Danny at MarioKart!
Thanks for the support to all you great people. I’m not too worried anymore, the docs are pretty sure both cases can be taken care of no problem, and I’ve already decided I’m willing to let amputate my arm or cut out my vocal cords if that’s what needs to be done (a little bit of morbid humor always helps me). I’m just really happy I still have my health insurance because Obamacare didn’t get repealed. It’s a little morbid, but I’m actively curious as to what type of cancer I might develop in the future, seeing as I might be predisposed to getting it.
Throwing your voice isn’t a thing that really happens. It’s just that you distract people with moving the dummy or puppet’s mouth when yours isn’t moving, so they just assume the sound is coming form the dummy. It even works when the ventriloquist is the only one who has the mic.
But, you see, Amber is a tech genius. She set something up where she could make her voice come out of some speaker or something, so it would actually sound like it came from elsewhere.
I’m sure Batman has done this at some point in the comics.
Willis explained this above. It’s about using the acoustics of the room to make the voice sound like it comes from ‘everywhere’ and then reacting to it like you also were startled by it
Throwing her voice is about getting Sal out of her face before she has an anxiety attack – look at her face in panel three. Her falling in the ravine is a bonus.
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Best friends forever
Which one’s the Goku and which one’s the Krillin?
Well, Sal is Vegeta, which would mean that Amber is Goku and Amazi-Girl is Krillin.
Make of that what you will.
Who’s the Yamcha then?
Danny maybe?
Defiantly Danny
Danny, in a defiant manner.
Sal’s piccolo you nerd
I was expecting Mr. Popo.
No, Dina is Mr. Popo. Sal is TFS Mr. Popo.
Also, David Willis is Toribot.
Yeah, but Goku and Krillin actually work well together and don’t have remotely similar conflicts as Amber and AG.
“That’s it, killing you both.”
“He keeps kicking me in the dick! Why? Why does he keep kicking me in the dick?”
She’s really not trying to hide it, is she.
“Well, you better go catch it!”
“WHAT”
“come ON, that’s a classic punchline!”
Thanks for this. I needed a good laugh.
With great power comes great irresponsibility.
She learned at teh Walky Skool of Subtlety.
Oh Amber you cad.
Aw balls I’ll never be first :[
[sanic]You’re too slo-ow![/sanic]
Ikr
Try throwing your voice.
Sal’s Kart-Fu is too powerful!
any power is a super power if you’re a super hero, even good hearing, or having a belt
Or having money. Money is the greatest superpower.
Incorrect, pouches is best superpower. Pouches can solve any problem.
But with money you can buy pouches.
OTOH, you can keep money in pouches. Hmmm.
It didn’t help Money Man.
Just use the damn blue shell.
The Blue Shell is an admission that you can’t overtake the opponent with sheer skill alone. Amber refuses.
Nope. No way. When did she have time to learn to do that?
You can accomplish a lot of things off-screen, if you imply hard enough.
She didn’t really throw her voice. That’s silly.
She actually used her psychic powers to summon Dina, who used a voice modulator Amber gave her for this express purpose.
It’s like when Superman occasionally dressed up as Batman to help Bruce Wayne maintain his secret identity.
Who says she didn’t know before?
A while ago – she threw her voice when she was helping Drunk!Billie to bed too. Told her Ruth was alive and to drink water.
Was that voice-throwing? I seem to remember regular speech bubbles with woobly lines.
No, you’re right. Regular speech bubbles, albeit quieter and gruffer, presumably to show AG is far away. Might’ve given her the incentive to learn though.
I mean if you *really* want to mix realism into this, from what I’ve reasearched on the subject that realistically you can’t actually throw your voice like that. Ventriloquism is basically just a mix of minimal mouth movement and focusing a person’s attention on something else to convince them that what they’re looking at is what’s doing the talking, so I’m not sure it would even work in this case since she was looking at Amber. Then again I guess if she was looking at her DS instead she wouldn’t notice Amber talking, but still not sure how she’d get her to think the voice was coming from behind her.
That said of course, this is just based on my research of ventriloquism. It’s very possible I’m wrong
Honestly it probably doesn’t matter that much. It’s a funny enough gag on it’s own and if for reason it’s used in the future then well at least it’s been established.
what if she’s hidden a secret mike in the wall in case she needs to make a dramatic gesture at some point and it’s easy access and that’s what she’s using
idk i don’t think that’s what actually happened but as long as we’re putting a lot of work into investigating plausible ways a thing might have happened
and also that is the kind of planning ahead that is totally wish fulfillment fantasy for me
Mike does seem the type to hide in a wall all day, waiting to make somebody mildly annoyed. =D
Mike also seems like the type to get trapped behind a brick wall next to some barrels of wine.
I see your reference, and I applaud you. Well done indeed.
I don’t get it 🙁
I think it’s a reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cask_of_Amontillado
Dear God, O’Malley!
my god.
the truth unravels
And this is now in my head canon
I had that thought as well. Then again, she is looking in that direction in the fourth panel. Perhaps Sal followed her gaze to the other side of the room, and then Amber threw her voice? …Not sure if she’d even have to use minimal mouth movement at that point, but she might have been in Sal’s peripheral vision, so perhaps.
Amazingirl is prepared for everything.
ventriloquism phase usually comes before superhero phase
You can learn anything from YouTube videos these days.
pssht, who needs blue shells when you have a blue voice? 😛
personally, it feels weird to me that sal doesn’t find it odd that amber can perfectly recreate amazi-girl’s voice, suggesting some connection between the two. then again, amber and amazi-girl are so impossibly different that sal has a lot of reasons to disregard her own suspicions, amber and amazi-girl are supposed to have met before, and amber, in sal’s eyes, could’ve seen news reports or been hiding when sal and amazi-girl met. either way, this is great. XD
assuming that sal realizes she’s been tricked, which I just realized isn’t the case, but her being upset for falling off a cliff
But Amber wears glasses! She couldn’t possibly be Amazi-Girl!
Also, Amber’s always blushing. Amazi-Girl would NEVER blush.
If you embarrass AmaziGirl, will she turn into Amber?
She can WHAT
Of course it isn’t Super-Ventroliquism. It’s Amazi-Ventriloquism.
How many more talents does Amber have that we haven’t seen yet?
As many as the plot requires.
All of them. Yes, even that one. Especially that one.
Gosh.
Golly.
Gee.
Whiz!
She can fly! She can swim! She can sing like Neil Sedaka!
No, doofus, she threw Amazi-Girl’s voice.
Um. How does Amazi-Girl feel about that, exactly?
…witch…
Make your mind Amber, this is getting beyond old.
That’s a surprisingly useful trick for anyone with a secret identity.
“As the great American philosopher Vince Lombardi put it, Winning is not everything–is ONLY thingI“–The commander of the October Guard in G.I. Joe TV series.
*plays John Tesh’s “Roundball Rock” on the hacked Muzak*
The best version starts 54 seconds into this video! (Watch from the beginning for context though.)
Lombardi always hated when people quoted that. He preferred the I am Third. You live for your faith, then your family and then your work. Putting the team third is enough.
Well, that’s one way to avoid direct facial confrontation. Which is probably a good thing considering that Amber’s still afraid of hurting Sal. A few more sessions like these though, and Amber might be able to talk to Sal face to face.
But can she, really? Hurt Sal, I mean.
Not that I want them to fight, but still that idea feels a bit condescending besides the usual levels of Amber’s self-hatred.
Trauma reactions aren’t always rational.
Physically, yes. Amber can hurt Sal. Her build is a deceptively powerful one, and she can easily wipe the floor with much larger individuals than her. So Amber is completely capable of hurting Sal.
Mentally and Emtionally? Amber is uncertain but afraid that mentally and emotionally she is able to hurt Sal. And that uncertainty extends to the audience. Part of what traumatized Amber so much that day at the gas station was that she did in fact hurt someone. And she’s afraid that she’ll one day “snap” and hurt someone again. The two things from that day that have haunted her are 1) she was unable to help Ethan and paralyzed by fear and 2) when she did finally act she unnecessarily hurt someone who already restrained. Both these things are triggered by her PTSD when she encounters Sal. Will she maybe, eventually, be able to directly interact with Sal in a healthy way as Amber? Maybe yes, maybe no. Is she currently capable of hurting Sal if her PTSD is triggered to hard and she freaks out? Yes. Resoundedly yes.
That said, Sal seems to have a higher pain tolerance. AG seems like she has a hard time taking a hit. She took a long time recovering from Malaya kneeing her in the gut – Sal recovered pretty much instantly from the same. So, can she physically hurt her? Probably. Will she get hurt worse in the process or afterwards? Also possible.
I am fairly certaythat Sal would fuck Amber up, so yeah, while the argument makes sense, it feels completely unbiased on Amber’s one delusions of how much of a monster she is.
AG doesn’t actually get in many fights. She tends to jump folks (or at least surprise them) and beat them down before they get to swing back. I think Ryan and his boys (which is an unfair fight) and Malaya are the only ones we’ve seen who hit her back.
She’s all for the element of surprise.
Hopefully this helps building the notion that she can engage Sal without the risk of violence. Eventually.
Yep! Which, while helpful considering she’s like 5’3 (5’5 in AG’s boots), is also not good for gouging how well she’d do with someone hitting back she hasn’t struck first and got fighting angry.
Oh, I’m hoping this is building towards an end of her being afraid.
See, to me, Amber gives herself too much credit, even if she doesn’t see it that way.
Yeah sure anyone can hurt anyone, but if they were to fight I’m pretty sure Sal would come on top.
I don’t see it quite that way. It’s not that Amber thinks she wouldn’t get hurt… it’s that she doesn’t care whether or not she gets hurt. If Amber got her face caved in after having thrown a punch at Sal, Amber would be upset about having thrown a punch.
Yeah, Amber seems far more traumatized by, for example, stabbing Sal than Blaine’s reaction.
No blue shells, but false justice alarms are kosher? Tsk tsk, Amber.
(I am 100% kidding don’t worry)
I don’t know what frustrates me more at this point. Amber, or the writing of Amber. She’s been dealing with this for so long it’s just…. RAWR!
I’m bored of Amber to the point I can’t get mad at her anymore.
Trauma doesn’t disappear overnight. It’d be way more unrealistic if she just got over all her shit, like, immediately with no trouble or fuss.
yeah i’m not gonna take a steaming dump all over people who suffer from trauma by magically making amber better overnight, so if this bothers you, 1) sorry, it’s gonna continue, and 2) don’t be my friend cuz YIKES
If I can get a little TMI for a sec, I share a lot of Personal Trauma Bullshit with Amber, abused kid, worrying I’m taking on aspects of my abusive parent, other stuff it’d be too much to get into, but just…thank you for doing her justice, okay? I genuinely appreciate having one piece of media to consume that I can be confident won’t suddenly turn Super Unfortunate.
Yeah seriously, it would be pretty terrible to write a character with lifelong abuse, crippling anxiety, PTSD, etc., and then, poof, she’s all better from her lifelong trauma.
For characters who have suffered but remain hella resilient, please see Becky, instead.
Or, to a lesser extent, Joyce, who is slowly recovering and integrating her experiences, with support from her friends, and emerging fifty times more badass than ever before.
They’re each on different trajectories, but each are consistent to the characters, and realistic to how different people might recover from their various situations.
I really dig it.
Seconded.
I’ve expressed concern over stuff because I’ve been burned so many times where the character with a history of abuse is turned into a horrible monster, but Amber’s story is incredibly important to me as an abuse survivor. It means a lot to me that she struggles and that she tries to overcome those struggles as best she can, and that she’s surrounded by people who unconditionally love her and support her.
Also the jackasses here who gleefully threw around “lol cycle of abuse” because they are stupid shitfuckers who should go get hit by a bus. They did not help.
*appropiate gesture of support*
While we’re thanking you for handling this story right, thank you so much for making her DID status canon and doing the research to do that story right. It really means a lot to see someone with my mental illness who isn’t a demented killer or as someone “too broken to function”.
That is an impressive trick, I don’t understand how that’s possible when the person you want to distract is literally right next to you.
Skillz.
It’s very possible once you understand how “throwing your voice” works. Firstly, one doesn’t actually throw the voice. It helps if you’re in a large hall like they’re in now, versus outside, so that there’s a little echo. Secondly, you speak deeply, projecting your voice as if you’re speaking to a large crowd. This carries the voice everywhere. (And the low growling Amazi-Girl voice is essentially this already.)
But, most importantly, is the PERFORMANCE. You have to react to the voice as if you didn’t speak it. You have to look surprised and in the direction you want the voice to have come from. You don’t throw the voice, you put it everywhere and choose a origin point with the direction of your glance. If Sal doesn’t expect Amazi-Girl’s voice to come out of Amber’s body, and Amber is jerking her head up to look at the other side of the hall as the Amazi-Girl voice fills it, Sal will think the voice is coming from elsewhere.
tl;dr i studied ventriloquism for this strip
I learned a thing today!
excellent
Yay! Learning things is fun!
Not gonna lie, but out of all the amazing physics broken things Amber did, this is the first one that broke my suspension of disbelief. It’s cool to learn it’s an actual thing though! 😀
Hey, cool!
I’m very curious how you research the strip in general. It’s neat!
There are so many unbelievable things that can be explained with “People don’t really pay attention, yo”.
That’s why Dina knew who Amazi-Girl was. She actually does pay attention.
Plus she found the costume in the closet.
My head canon is that she was actually just standing behind the door one day when Amber changed to Amazi-Girl.
Also the background music for the transformation sequence was a dead giveaway.
This is very amusing, considering that EGS is playing around with change blindness in the current storyline, so sort of parallel themes.
Can Ventriloquism work at that distance?
The rules say it’s effective within 6 spaces, provided the target is sufficiently distracted.
Heh, turns out tricks to get your trigger out of your face also works to distract them from video games.
..is throwing your voice an actual thing? I read a book on ventriloquism as a kid and it was just about not moving one’s lips.
If Norville can do it, Amber can do it!
Oh noes, she’s using her powers for evil now. Throwing her voice so she can win at Mario Kart.
she’ll use ventriloquism but she won’t use blue shells
Well yeah. Ventriloquism gets Sal out of physical proximity. Blue shells don’t.
(Look at Amber’s face when Sal walks over)
an excellent point!!
oh, come on, amber!
Ummmmm!!!!! Amber, isn’t that unethical??
There’s no ethics in Mario Kart. Only winners and losers.
Winners, and whiners.
It would be, but look at Amber’s face in the third panel – seeing Sal still spins her toward a panic attack. So she did that to get her out of her face. This just worked out in her favour.
superventriloquism strikes in the name of superdickery YET AGAIN
my god. when will it cease
Ok it’s like you almost want to get caught now.
This is definitely possible, especially as AG gave Sal an app that would lead straight to Amber.
Without realizing it, they may kind of want to be known as both, or want to integrate. I can’t tell for sure yet.
Kinda rubbing the hypocrisy into Danny’s face there, huh, Amber?
How dare Amber not check with Danny before attempting to confront her crippling anxiety with Sal.
Making peace with someone she’d previously hated unfairly (though quite understandably) isn’t hypocrisy. It’s growth.
I mean, I wouldn’t call it unfair exactly, insofar as they both did terrible things one night when they were children and are under no obligation to forgive one another, but I still feel calling this hypocrisy, that Amber is trying to humanize Sal despite freaking out and breaking up with Danny over her (or more accurately, when Danny was hanging around with her arch nemesis and then told her she needed to stop being Amazi-Girl because said arch nemesis said so) is wrong. Is Amber just supposed to live in fear of Sal for the rest of her time in college on the off-chance that it offends Danny?
It’s also, he’s chill with this. He knows that Amber is not responsible for the breakup awfulness and AG has been ducking him so they can’t process that yet.
Honestly I’m still hoping that eventually Danny and Amber get to be together outside the whole superhero persona drama once Amber’s started to make some headway into therapy. It’d be nice, and it’s not fair that Amber needs to be held responsible for AG’s fuck up.
If she’s anything like me, then learning that the golden alter can fuck up is a key part of that abused alter coming into their own and for things to really settle. I think we’re seeing here the first steps on that. Amber is pushing back against AG, is recognizing the unfairness of her situation, and is making her own connections without AG’s approval or watching her cut in.
And I think the Amber alter will be healthier for it as will Amber/AG as a whole and allow her as a whole person to date and love without trying to segregate it.
Amber needs to tell to Danny that he had a right to be friends with Sal and getting mad at him for such was wrong. She owes him that much. How much she explains beyond that is sort of up to her.
Amazigirl needs to tell Danny the same. This doesn’t mean that Amazigirl needs to get back together with him if he’s interested but that she needs to admit she broke up with him for shitty reasons.
It might help if one of them explained at least that some of what actually happened with Sal so he can make sense of what happened.
Amber flipped out because
– She found Danny waiting at their usual hangout spot with Sal.
– She asked if he knew who she was, whereupon Danny responded with “she says she saved your life,” so he implicitly states that he does know and all he wants to focus on is her grand act of heroics.
– Danny tells Amber she has to stop being Amazi-Girl, or rather, to stop being a remotely good person and let terribly shitty no good Amber take the reigns, because Sal says it’s a good idea.
Danny is owed an explanation and an apology, but Amber isn’t a hypocrite if she’s trying to confront her PTSD. She made a bad call in a bad state of mind and she’s been punished for it.
And I would argue it’s AG who owes that explanation and apology since she did it
It’s more likely that if this does end up with Amber apologizing or trying to make amends with him, she still ends up blaming herself for it, and that she poisoned Amazi-Girl due to her hatred of Sal.
Yep. Oh self worth, you cruel bastard.
Okay Danny wanting Amazigirl to cease to exist was not a good move, but he can’t know why it was out of line and he reasonably believes he was unpersoned by Amazigirl for hanging out with Sal. Keep in mind Danny can not be expected understand why quit being Amazigirl is such an unreasonable request he thinks he was asking her to quit a hobby.
I still think Amber owes it to Danny to admit he had a right to be friends with Sal and that Amazigirl’s reaction was shitty whoever she blames for that reaction.
If a parent raises a child and the child wrongs someone the parent needs to admit that what the child did was shitty to the wronged party regardless of whether the parent thinks its the result of bad parenting or not. I know its not a perfect analogy.
Befriending Sal without admitting as much is hypocritical, and deciding not to try to work past her problem with Sal because of her previous screw up is sunk cost fallacy and helps no one.
I think it would be better if she could explain that Sal did something bad in the past once not directly to her and has clearly improved since then and since Amber knows Sal is a good person now Amber is trying to work past her issues.
I don’t think Danny ever wanted AG to cease to exist. That’s probably how she took it, but all he wanted was for her to take a break from crime fighting, or at least quit taking as many risks.
But while I agree she owes him an apology, she only owes him as much explanation as she’s ready to give.
Like, it would be great if she can talk to him about what happened with the robbery, but that is an incredibly traumatic, panic attack triggering memory for her, and if she isn’t ready to talk about it, she absolutely does not owe Danny that. If all she can manage is how proximity to Sal affects her, but not WHY, demanding more would be really crappy.
I think it might help Danny make sense of what happened if Amber could explain her issue with Sal, but the only thing she only owe to Danny is to admit that he did nothing wrong in befriending Sal and some resident of her body should not have reacted the way she did to their friendship.
I love how bewildered Danny is about all this. “You are… friends? Right? In a non-murdery way… Right?”
I thought he was getting ticked off. Danny is slow to anger, but he’s sure got reason to be very confused right about now.
I appreciate that, thus far, he’s not too annoyed at Sal for this. Yes, she did tell him needed to stop enabling AG’s martyrdom and more reckless escalation (which, if AG is to continue, is true – she does need to rein those tendencies in), but she did not make AG freak out – she was already pissed at him because Sal merely EXISTED in the same general public area Danny was in. And she knows nothing about Amber’s issues. Of course, it’s not Amber’s fault AG mistreated him, which he seems to acknowledge. But after Amber insisted she was not friends with Sal and refused to consider AG was maybe not the paragon of goodness she needs her to be, Danny might be pissed with her now too.
I don’t think Danny has it in him to get too angry with Amber. Even when she did her “worst”, making him think he was cheating on Amazi-Girl, it took him all of one day to try and make things right with her.
That said, it’s healthy for him that he can be frustrated with her and express that frustration, because it shows some self worth on top of no longer idealizing Amazi-Girl, and I hope he’s at least willing to try and get some answers before the next scene change.
Totally. Danny’s been learning his right to have inconvenient feelings, and these days, he’s able to express anger/frustration productively, instead of always having to avoid conflict. Funny how Danny has become one of the more emotionally-healthy main characters around.
Nice job, Danny. You’re a good egg.
He Dan’d up his ability to Dan things.
Man, I keep waiting for the confrontation between Amber and Sal to happen proper and it never does. I forget which universe Danny said this in, but it’s like Charlie Brown and his freakin’ football.
None of Sal, Amber, or Amazi-Girl are likely to bring up that incident, so we probably won’t get the conversation I’m assuming you want unless Ethan sidles into the equation.
OH MAN AMBER I do not understand. in a good way?
Is this a step forward? this feels like a step forward. like, the part of phobia therapy where you can exist in the same room as a spider. as long as you don’t have to look at it. (is desensitisation therapy still a thing?)
So Amber’s, what, taking independent steps to reconciling Amber’s phobic reaction with Amazigirl’s grudging respect etc? which seems like a good thing.
Good luck Amber~~~
I think it’s more that she wants to win, and she is distracted from her phobia by her intense focus on trying to get that win. Overall, I feel like she is being more childish by thinking she is too good to use the blue shells she being given, but she’ll stoop to creating a distraction outside of the game to force a mistake from her opponent. I feel this is twice as true because that distraction she is creating is potentially exposing her secret identity.
I don’t get that vibe. Look at her face in panel 3 – she’s freaked out by Sal still. Distracting her from Amber just also happened to work out game wise.
Sal didn’t send her into a catatonic state this time. Amber stayed in control throughout this interaction, Amazi-Girl didn’t have to jump into the pilot’s seat at all.
Granted Amber still had to do the voice and get Sal away from her as quickly as possible, but I think this shows she’s making gradual but steady progress.
Desensitization therapy is totally a thing. Normally a therapist helps you out with it, but Amber’s method is totally starting to work for her. (Also normally Sal would be in on the plan, but that’s not as fun to read.)
You experience increasing levels of the scary thing, in a completely safe environment. The key: you’re in control of the situation the whole time. You also get time to recover afterwards, and you reflect on how the thing is causing you progressively less stress.
Amber wants to interact with Sal without panic, flashbacks, switching alters uncontrollably, etc.
She’s figured out she can use a fun game, it’s familiar and distracting, they don’t talk or see each other. She’s good at the game. She’s in a safe chair-fort. She can do it!
When Sal gets too close and starts talking to her, she isn’t in control of that, and needs Sal to go away right now, so she depends on AG’s voice in a pinch. However, she doesn’t switch alters or panic.
In the last panel, I think she’s stressed from the exertion, but relieved that she could regain control of their interaction, without having to lose all control of herself. Success!
…what.
…… yup, now Sal’s NEVER going to guess that they’re the same person*.
…. not that she was going to anyway.
*using, in this case, the word “person” in the sense of “body”.
Okay, now this is starting to get strange. Does Amber have a subconscious reflex reaction to Sal?
Looks that way. My impression is that Amber is having a red-panels-moment in that panel there… but as we’ve already seen those red panels, they’re left omitted. I think.
or I could be wrong. It’s just the impression I’ve got.
I think she was starting to have a panic attack when Sal approached, but luring Sal away prevented it from getting bad enough for her to start having flashbacks / brain melt
Too bad Sal is likely to catch on pretty quick if she uses that too often
Sal is a PTSD trigger for Amber.
Comic Reactions:
Panel 1: *heart melts* Oh, Danny, you sweet perfect cinnamon roll, never change… except actually no, do change to believe in your goodness and trust that you have worth on your own instead of as an amazing person’s second, but besides that…
But, yeah, I love that his first instinct is to check up on her, make sure she’s okay and that he’s doing it with kindness and grace even though he knows that Amber last left off with him denying she liked Sal at all.
Panel 2: Gotta drift.
Panel 3: Okay, props to Amber.
Like, we see there in her eyes that this is way out of her comfort zone and she’s genuinely trying to find a means of interacting that doesn’t severely trigger her and that’s a close run thing. Right here, Sal gets close and she’s right back in that fear-soaked hell inches away from a full panic attack, but…
Panel 4: She quickly reacts to de-escalate the situation and make it something she can handle again, keep this potentially triggering activity a bonding experience. And we see in the tags, this isn’t AG bailing her out*, it’s Amber dropping the AG voice affectation like she did with Danny when she abandoned their last conversation.
*Which of course it wouldn’t be. AG, the golden alter, “protector” of Amber has fucking bailed on Amber almost every time with this shit, leaving her to clean up the emotional messes she leaves behind. So yeah, in her hour of need of course it fell on the Amber alter to bail herself out. And I hope that Amber can see that more and more and trust in her own power, ingenuity, and goodness.
Panel 5: That said, Amber is a dirty cheater sometimes. :p
Pnael 5: But until Sal catches on that Amber is AG, she’s going to get away clean.
Amber’s idea of honour is VERY twisted…
There is no honor in Mario Karts, only speed.
It’s been a couple days since my last update so here an update on the cancer status for those who want to read. And I have bad news and good news. The bad news is, I have more cancer. The good news is, it isn’t the thyroid cancer spreading, I just developed a case of skin cancer on my left shoulder. So, I’m getting that piece of skin cut off in a week. Apparently it’s a combination of too many X-rays, being too white for the California sun without a ton of sunscreen, unsafe drinking water (apparently I was drinking water with a lot of heavy metals before I moved two years ago), and genetics. Skin cancer (or at least, malignant skin tumors) has apparently been common on my mother’s side of the family since the 1890s. So has recovery after removing said malignant tumors though, so that’s ok. Still, if it weren’t so serious it would be kinda funny. I mean, seriously what are the odds of two different cancers developing concurrently without relation to one another in the same person?
Oh no! Well, I’m glad they caught it early and you’re getting treatment. *hugs*
Thanks Cerberus. And I’m subbing for a teacher on maternity leave while this is going on as well.
D: my condolences on, well, both cancers, but especially the thyroid cancer. I’m sure you’ve done some digging into online resources already, but dearthyroid.org was a huge help to me when I first started dealing with thyjinks (that’s what I call it, anyway. Definitely flippant, but how better to respond to being gaslit by your own goddamn body?)
Hey, hope you kill all those suckers.
…
Crayfish are the superior crustaceans anyway.
Kick cancer’s ass, Rukduk!
Sounds like the got the skin cancer early. Good! It’s best when they can remove the skin and get rid of it.
I lost my aunt to skin cancer because she waited too late, and they kept acting like it was just an infection. Still have some animosity towards those doctors, even though I’m sure it was a normal mistake.
Oof. That is an unfortunate roll of the dice there. I’m glad it sounds like your doctors are on top of things and caught it.
Dang, nice catch, sounds like you and your docs got the skin cancer early.
Good luck in treatment; may you kick cancer’s butt, like Sal vs. Danny at MarioKart!
(Bad jokes are how I express all feelings, and also how I show support. I mean to say, Good luck!)
Dang it! I’m sorry to hear that. I hope treatment for both goes well!
Oh no. 🙁 Good luck with treatment.
Thanks for the support to all you great people. I’m not too worried anymore, the docs are pretty sure both cases can be taken care of no problem, and I’ve already decided I’m willing to let amputate my arm or cut out my vocal cords if that’s what needs to be done (a little bit of morbid humor always helps me). I’m just really happy I still have my health insurance because Obamacare didn’t get repealed. It’s a little morbid, but I’m actively curious as to what type of cancer I might develop in the future, seeing as I might be predisposed to getting it.
So did she panic at the interaction or just wanted to win?
Yes.
Amber, no! Don’t abuse your power! You must use them for GOOD!
Throwing your voice isn’t a thing that really happens. It’s just that you distract people with moving the dummy or puppet’s mouth when yours isn’t moving, so they just assume the sound is coming form the dummy. It even works when the ventriloquist is the only one who has the mic.
But, you see, Amber is a tech genius. She set something up where she could make her voice come out of some speaker or something, so it would actually sound like it came from elsewhere.
I’m sure Batman has done this at some point in the comics.
Oh, and she did this just to cover her identity, but panicked when Sal came over to talk to her and used it then.
Willis explained this above. It’s about using the acoustics of the room to make the voice sound like it comes from ‘everywhere’ and then reacting to it like you also were startled by it
That’s a dovahkiin ability!
‘Dork-vahkin’.
I wanna hug all three of them.
Sad 3DS Friends.
*Crying 3DS Friends
So she’ll trick Sal by throwing her voice and pretending that Amazi-girl is over there but she won’t go as low as to throw a blue shell?
Throwing her voice is about getting Sal out of her face before she has an anxiety attack – look at her face in panel three. Her falling in the ravine is a bonus.
Amazigirl’s blue voice is like a shell in sound form.
I once threw my voice. It once off a tree and into a creep. Took forever to find after that. Do not recommend.
“Bounced off a tree” is what I would have said if I didn’t suck at the typings.