I live right next to a lake and water types are never anywhere to be seen. They have forsaken my town. I’ll only get a Gyarados after about 200 more kilometers of walking. Man I wish they’d implement trading already.
I guess, how populated is the area around that lake? b/c the one in our shopping district is all Magikarps, Psyducks, and like one Dratini every three hours. The residential one is a little less so, but then I have to either hike half an hour or run through a treacherous forest to get there so I have less data on it. Friend gets them all the time from the river by his house, tho.
Yes, but Ingress is super hard depending on where you are. My entire hometown is covered in a green field, I can’t do jack about it on my own 😩 leveling can be a real chore
Pokemon Go is headed that way here. All the gyms around here are level 10 blue. I could spend an hour taking down one, but it would be taken back within minutes, so it’s not worth it (especially when it’s cold outside).
Thing is at least PoGo, even if it costs money, you can still play while housebound (like I was for a solid week of torture), where Ingress is effectively not a game if you can’t get to a portal.
Or is your area busy enough that you actually find Pokemon in the house? I think I did once, but it was probably the GPS shifting enough to put me in a slightly better area.
I have used GPS error to help hatch eggs. It’s particularly amusing when it tells my I’m moving to fast while the phone is sitting on my desk.
Pokémon spawn everywhere there are people (which is weird since canonically the opposite is true), so while it’s harder to get items w/o stops, you can still catch things. I mean, there’s actually an Exeggcute nest in my desk =p
(there was a townhouse for sale literally on top of a stop, and I regret not having the extra $150k to have bought it XD …somewhat)
Yeah, odd choice to pick something that’ll be dated before the strip runs, and totally obscure in a couple years. But hey, maybe there will always be a new pokemon, just like there’s always new Mario.
I think Willis chose Pokemon Go because while the particular game might be less popular now (though there are still a few millions playing it, which is still something many companies would kill for), the franchise is probably going to stay with us until the end of time. And even if it didn’t have staying power (so to speak), it’ll probably take about ten years until it is truly obscure.
It’s also a game that works really well for someone on a college campus needing excuses to get out and about. It’s not being played by everyone, but it is a good fit for Amber.
Dunno what y’all are talking about. I know plenty of people who still play Pokemon Go. Just ‘cuz everyone ever isn’t playing it anymore doesn’t mean nobody’s playing it 😛
I still play (Super) Mario Kart occasionally. On my SNES.
I got an N64, but I never got any games for it other than the Mario Kart 64 it came bundled with. Which was way too easy compared to Super Mario Kart. 😛
(Fave games of all time are Terranigma, Illusion of Gaia, and Soulblazer; all SNES RPGs)
I have actually seen someone playing Pokemon Go more recently than Mario Kart, though obviously that is still around. The initial excitement is gone, and so it isn’t in the news much, but Reports of its death are greatly exaggerated.
Honestly, it would probably be horrible. Amber can’t even share with herself, Danny would feel like he was cheating on both of them and Amber still has complicated feelings about Ethan.
well I would argue that it’s not cheating if the rules allow for it, but you’re not wrong that the biggest issue that whole dynamic has is that the principles are each and in their own way incapable of nutting up and just *talking* about their issues. in this respect, I think Danny’s actually got the leg up A and E for no other reason than he’s been open and honest about discussing things with others when he thought the moment was right. Amber is still trying way too hard to double-bill as both the hero and the villain of her own story; and Ethan, bless his heart, is just way too damn passive most of the time
Two of my aunts (one of them with young children she plays with) still do regularly, and I make an effort to check in when I’m out and have the battery life to do so. (I keep meaning to get a backup source.) If you’re in an isolated area then yeah, but on a college campus there’s still definitely incentives to play.
Choosing when to walk away Can be a minor act of reclaiming agency for someone who didn’t get to call the shots in the relationship. This is hard for Danny and hard in a different way for Amber, but it needed to happen.
Amber has some pretty self-destructive tendencies that sabotaged the relationship, I kinda feel Danny had to walk away if he was ever going to make a point to her.
Ah, but have you ever done it on a computer with one disk drive and 64K RAM? Insert disk 1… Insert disk 2… Insert disk 1… Insert disk 2…
This would have been around 1984-5. I was in high school.
Yes, computers literally have a million times as much RAM now as they did 30 years ago. And the standard disk held, what was it, 360 KB of data? Vs. at least 360 GB today. Of course, clock speed and access time haven’t advanced as fast – just a few thousand times, even if you count multiple cores.
Hmm, maybe that’s why computers today aren’t much more responsive than they were back then… Or maybe it’s that the number of computer viruses in the wild has probably grown a billionfold, which also requires more layers of security in the software.
Oh, and the number of pixels and colors in the display has also grown… a cheap flip phone today probably has better graphics on its tiny screen than an original IBM PC CGA display (320×200, 2 bits per pixel).
I remember when mobile devices did not exist, nor did home computers. I don’t know about any Pokemon games and I still find Dumbing of Age entertaining and relevant. I am just trying to say that the pop culture references don’t matter. The characters and the story matters, and to that end Willis is one of the better authors that I have read.
Try as I might, I have a really hard time having sympathy for Amber. While she has undoubtedly been in incredibly unpleasant and difficult circumstances, I relate too much to Danny to be able to see her side.
Yeah, I think this is a fine conversation, in case they ever want to be friendly with each other again. It’ll be awkward for a while, but that’s okay, keep it neutral and short, and give it time.
What did you think Professor Willow did with them? People go on and on about how the Pokemon get turned directly into Candies, but those are just a reward for giving him a new bath powder.
Panel 1: Welp, everyone who called Amber not really noticing Danny up until now were right on the money. Whoopsie daisy.
Panel 2: Okay, I gotta know what the Amber alter knows.
She’s distressed about Danny, so it’s likely she knows something, but she’s also not really making any waves to reach out to him which could mean she’s internalized Amazi-girl’s conclusion that “he’s better off without us” as well as her own over-reaction to the Amber alter’s one instance of yelling at Danny (like, the AG alter has something to apologize for that she hasn’t, but Amber reacted quickly when she felt herself entering a place she didn’t like) or it could mean she doesn’t have the full story or it could simply mean that the Amber alter is super shy and this feels like a really awkward conversation, especially since this alter “is not the one who was dating him”.
Most importantly, it doesn’t look like the Amber alter holds any ill feelings of anger towards Danny, so if she does have the full story, it looks like the AG alter was wrong that “Amber would see that as a betrayal”.
And the worst part is Amber is so closed off I don’t know how we’re going to get the full story of what the Amber alter knows or if things are still reasonably integrated or things are starting to heavily disassociate.
Panel 3: Art note, I’m loving these long-distance panels as they’re great for making the characters feel extremely isolated and really heightens the emotional intensity of scenes of angst. I mean, this isn’t even a heavy angst scene like Billie in front of Ruth’s door, but the long shot makes Amber look all by herself with her game in a really interesting way.
I have a question. You say the Amber alter might not have the full story, but I was under the impression there was no, um, cognition dissonance? between the alters (or, at least, the alters in this particular case).
Is cognition dissonance present in all DID alters? In at least one alter in all DID cases? If it’s a random crapshoot, is there something that indicates that there’s cognition dissonance in the Amber/AG case?
As I understand it, lack of shared memory is commonly a diagnostic for DID. Some have used that to argue that Amber isn’t actually DID. Others see it as more of a spectrum.
Up until now, Amber and AG have definitely shared memory. That we haven’t seen any clear evidence that they do for the most recent traumas has some of us wondering if the disassociation has progressed farther and they’ve begun hiding things from each other.
To me, it definitely seems like the disassociation has gotten worse than it was at the start of the semester. Whether it’s gone as far as not sharing memory we don’t know yet.
Lack of shared memory is a sign of full dissociation. It’s usually a worst case scenario, much like ‘evil alters’. It’s a more glamorous trope for movies, though, which is why most media portrays it and, partially as a result of that, a lot of people (even some psychiatrists) argue it’s a necessity for diagnosis. More common are partially integrated people (integrated in this case meaning sharing memories, communicating, and more or less working together towards a common goal, albeit with different emotions and interpretations towards that goal).
So, if we start seeing Amber being surprised at reports of AG’s activities, that would be a sign her mental state has escalated into “something is about to go very, very wrong and someone REALLY needs to call in mental health experts” territory?
Quite possibly. Even the guy whose backpack she retrieved was taken aback by her level violence, so she’s arguably at the “danger to herself and others” level. Still, I think trying to talk to her about it first would be worth a shot before we go to forced admittance.
We have plenty of evidence that Amber has severe anger management issues. We have plenty of evidence she has strong emotional problems. We are remarkably light on evidence of any actual disassociation of personality except as a useful linguistic metaphor for adopting a separate secret identity by literally becoming a super hero who can channel Amber’s aggression in an emotionally acceptable way (ie. completely unlike her father). If we discovered that Amber continues to have the same fight/flight reaction to Sal, then that would be strong evidence of an actual disassociation. In the absence of such solid evidence, the assumption of an actual split personality seems to be overly complex and to undercut the themes of the actual story. Which is not to say such an interpretation is uninteresting or ridiculous on its face.
Panel 4: Heh, okay, so let’s tackle the obvious that Danny is totally a Magikarp/Gyrados. He’s someone who started out as a total joke with lots of negatives but has really grown a lot into his own in these first couple of weeks in college and could really be something if he continues to work at it and his growth.
But also, I like him trying to reach out and I’d love these two to be friends. Fuck, I’d mostly like the Amber alter to be Danny’s friend. Because the AG alter wrapped up in the self-importance of being the golden alter who can’t make mistakes really hurt him in a paranoid attack (viewing one of your alters as the golden one really is dangerous business), but the Amber alter has raged yes, but she tends to check herself when she does in a way that AG has trouble with (preferring the overly elaborate comic book ending in lieu of a simple apology (giving Sal the ability to track her, deciding Danny would be better off with no further contact rather than a “hey, I was in a shitty headspace, sorry”)).
Panel 6: I feel like Amber’s face is full of meaning. Like there’s the sadness at the distance that now exists, because for the Amber alter, Danny dating AG meant someone to hang with in the mornings. And that’s one of the understated tragedies of the affair. That this alter dumped on by the other alter and seen by that alter as just a pit for all of their collective bad feelings, who’s scared of most everyone and still hurting over her last boyfriend coming out and worrying that she on her own will never be good enough for anyone, lost a really good friend because of shit her other alter decided on her own to do.
And it really almost feels like two separate people at this point given the level of disassociation and compartmentalization Amber/AG is going through.
I think the breakup will be overall more healthy for Danny. I think he needs to discover who he is outside a relationship. And I think some introspection and healing from Amber/AG so she doesn’t have to worry that she’s a loose cannon that’s going to hurt someone more than the AG alter already did with Sal and Danny (but of course, it’s the Amber alter who’s “dangerous”, seriously, golden alters, they’re a disastrous mistake) will do her good.
But I think the Amber alter is going to suffer the most in the short term for not having that close friend to nerd with who wasn’t tainted by failed relationship feelings (or an abusive dickwad like Mike).
You’re right that Danny needs to discover who he is outside of a relationship. I would say that, to a lesser extent, so does Amber. In HS, she was all about Ethan (and later, about helping Ethan come out and face his family). In DoA, she was all about Ethan and video games. She needs to figure out who she is outside of doomed-to-fail relationships and outside of her video game addiction (she plays games way more than is healthy for someone who is not a professional gamer).
And I don’t think it’s even that Amber needs to discover who she is, so much as she needs to re-discover who she is and accept it. I think that at one point Amber had a good sense of self, but Blaine was Blaine and fucked it up.
Actually, given that she’s a programmer, ‘not a professional gamer’ might be not exactly correct here. A game developer also needs to understand very well what they are doing, so ‘playing lots of games’ is almost a professional qualification.
We haven’t seen Amber’s game habit impact her daily life in a negative way. It’s important to differentiate between ‘spends a lot of time playing games because of isolating herself and shitty headspace’ and ‘isolates herself and is in a shitty headspace becaues of spending a lot of time playing games’. Amber’s case is the first one. It’s just a coping mechanism, and it’s unhealthy only to the degree that it is a symptom of the underlying problem.
Note that she plays /different/ games and finds time to code mobile apps. Until dissociation started getting worse this semester, I would count Amazi-girl’s outings as ‘another hobby’, too.
So yeah, I think Amber’s games are alright. Everything else about her life isn’t )=
And she still has social interactions outside of gaming and even the occasional outing, like the party. Again, she’s spending her time playing games because she’s already isolated, not the other way around. If it weren’t games she’d have another coping device, probably leaning more heavily on comics or traditional books, but she’d still be doing it constantly. (And so far the only time we’ve seen it override class or something is the class where multiple people in it had already checked out because it was so simple. It’s not affecting her schoolwork, there’s no chance she was going to pay attention there, so it doesn’t count as negative consequences unless she continues playing it after midterms when Alex takes the chance to completely change up the curriculum.)
Thanks to the sliding timescales, in the Dumbiverse it takes 1 month to design, build, and release a game. Everyone is constantly inundated with new releases. The games market is supersaturated.
While I would like those two back together, Amber needs to figure her own stuff out. Honestly, it’s probably just better if Amber and Danny dated, not Amazi-Girl and Danny
Not just Amber, Danny needs to sort out his sexuality before jumping into a relationship as well. And seeing he tends to equate being attracted to a guy as “Gay”, he’s still relying on either a gender binary model, or the Kinsey scale (both of which are quite inadequate in the real world) meaning he’s got a long way to go as well.
Ehhh. For centuries men had successful relationships with each other without modern terminology for different types of sexuality and were basically alright. Danny doesn’t necessarily need to ~figure everything out~ first. It’s okay to have ‘???’ as sexuality.
Decide in haste and in anger (and fear) and regret at leisure, eh Amber? I think that she is seriously regretting this because it’s clear that by rejecting Danny’s help, she’s lost a friend; probably the bes friend she has been able to make since Ethan and maybe even better.
Now… I find myself wondering if some future preview art we’ve seen indicates that she intends to get him back?
Damn it Danny. Don’t fucking leave it there. Awkwardly stand around and wait until she says something or you can’t stand it anymore after a 10 seconds of silence like a normal person.
Panel One: Yeah, Amber definitely did see Danny. I’m not sure she was actually distracting herself from him or the class in general, since she’s beyond the course material. But no avoiding seeing him now.
Panel Two: And yes, just because she’s not spending every second pining and fixating on him doesn’t mean her breakup didn’t hurt. She misses him and she probably will for a while. Time apart to recover is a good thing though. I’m hoping that that recovery is coming soon.
Panel Three: Though, ouch, yeah, Amber’s definitely isolated right now. The far away shot highlights it.
Panel Four: It’s nice of Danny to reach out and offer a Pokemon-as-peace-offering type thing. On the one hand, it kinda sucks he needs to make the peace offering, as he did nothing wrong, but it’s sweet that he recognizes something she would like and points it out to her. These two would make wonderful friends if they never get back together. Particularly the Amber alter, not the AG one. The AG alter needs to take some more time on that.
Panel Five: And yeah, running into exes is awkward. It’s even awkward when you’re 100% over them, so this is just sucky. But Amber isn’t AG, she can take nice gestures more easily. And this was a good one. It might open doors for them interacting more.
Panel Six: Aaaaaaaand he’s gone. Probably for the best. They both have some fixing up to do for themselves before they can start interacting regularly again. At least Amber seems to be ready for positive chats again.
I’m so happy they both gave and accepted an olive branch here. It’s a small gesture, but it will do them tons of good to lay the groundwork now if they decide to get closer to each other again.
Huh. My take is very different from everyone else’s. Their dating relationship is gone. But Amber just assumed they could still be friends, like she is with her previous ex.
And I suspect she’s gonna now try to figure out a way to talk to him. They won’t date, but they may possibly be able to salvage a friendship.
Mostly because there’s no way that Amber/AG doesn’t apologize after making up with Sal. So there has to be some sort of communication between them.
But I think Danny will stand firm on saying she can’t be Amazi-girl, and Amber/AG won’t allow that.
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“find a lake, they’re Water-type magnets”
*owns three non-caught Gyarados, one of which is rubbish but maybe I can trade it to a non-local living in the desert*
“also, Instinct took over that gym, but there’s only a Ditto in there lol”
Nintendo should have partnered with Staples so every copy and print center spawned nothing but Dittos.
I live right next to a lake and water types are never anywhere to be seen. They have forsaken my town. I’ll only get a Gyarados after about 200 more kilometers of walking. Man I wish they’d implement trading already.
I guess, how populated is the area around that lake? b/c the one in our shopping district is all Magikarps, Psyducks, and like one Dratini every three hours. The residential one is a little less so, but then I have to either hike half an hour or run through a treacherous forest to get there so I have less data on it. Friend gets them all the time from the river by his house, tho.
also YES on trading soon pls =<
Aww.
Danny employs being himself. It is surprisingly effective.
Shaggy’s off to get high with his friends at an old amusement park.
BoB Guy’s off to put on his psychotic clown makeup and hang around the old amusement park.
Funtimes ensue.
Norville and Friends unmask Clown.
Norville and Friends: “Buckets of Blood Guy?!”
Johnny Bravo: “…Who’s that?”
Good ol’ BoBby G.
Poor Amber. Spending so much time on a futile pursuit. And playing Pokemon.
if she REALLY wanted futile, Ingress =p
Didn’t they get most of their pokéstop database from Ingress ?
Yes, but Ingress is super hard depending on where you are. My entire hometown is covered in a green field, I can’t do jack about it on my own 😩 leveling can be a real chore
Pokemon Go is headed that way here. All the gyms around here are level 10 blue. I could spend an hour taking down one, but it would be taken back within minutes, so it’s not worth it (especially when it’s cold outside).
Thing is at least PoGo, even if it costs money, you can still play while housebound (like I was for a solid week of torture), where Ingress is effectively not a game if you can’t get to a portal.
What can you do if housebound?
Or is your area busy enough that you actually find Pokemon in the house? I think I did once, but it was probably the GPS shifting enough to put me in a slightly better area.
I have used GPS error to help hatch eggs. It’s particularly amusing when it tells my I’m moving to fast while the phone is sitting on my desk.
Pokémon spawn everywhere there are people (which is weird since canonically the opposite is true), so while it’s harder to get items w/o stops, you can still catch things. I mean, there’s actually an Exeggcute nest in my desk =p
(there was a townhouse for sale literally on top of a stop, and I regret not having the extra $150k to have bought it XD …somewhat)
If they ever get back together, they can play mario kart on the switch.
Soooo, what are the chances the next time we see lesile and robin their in bed together
More likely they’ll be on the couch watching SU together.
Which is especially funny, because I’m in the middle of a first-time Steven Universe binge-watch right now myself.
Less “funny,” more “mildly interesting,” really. 😛
congressional couch cuddlin’
There always is Mario Kart. There will always be Mario Kart.
Yeah, it actually a less dated reference now. People still play that.
Lol yeah, I was gonna say, this strip is already out of date.
Yeah, odd choice to pick something that’ll be dated before the strip runs, and totally obscure in a couple years. But hey, maybe there will always be a new pokemon, just like there’s always new Mario.
Nerds don’t play obscure games from their franchises? Huh. Awkward.
I think Willis chose Pokemon Go because while the particular game might be less popular now (though there are still a few millions playing it, which is still something many companies would kill for), the franchise is probably going to stay with us until the end of time. And even if it didn’t have staying power (so to speak), it’ll probably take about ten years until it is truly obscure.
It’s also a game that works really well for someone on a college campus needing excuses to get out and about. It’s not being played by everyone, but it is a good fit for Amber.
Dunno what y’all are talking about. I know plenty of people who still play Pokemon Go. Just ‘cuz everyone ever isn’t playing it anymore doesn’t mean nobody’s playing it 😛
What they said. 🙂
I still play (Super) Mario Kart occasionally. On my SNES.
I got an N64, but I never got any games for it other than the Mario Kart 64 it came bundled with. Which was way too easy compared to Super Mario Kart. 😛
(Fave games of all time are Terranigma, Illusion of Gaia, and Soulblazer; all SNES RPGs)
I have actually seen someone playing Pokemon Go more recently than Mario Kart, though obviously that is still around. The initial excitement is gone, and so it isn’t in the news much, but Reports of its death are greatly exaggerated.
I hope Amber and Danny make up and stuff, but to be entirely honest for a lot of reasons I don’t want them back together.
Same, also I want Danny X Ethan to happen.
I’m still holding out for Amber/Danny/Ethan
I mean I’m not holding my breath or anything but it would be nice
Honestly, it would probably be horrible. Amber can’t even share with herself, Danny would feel like he was cheating on both of them and Amber still has complicated feelings about Ethan.
well I would argue that it’s not cheating if the rules allow for it, but you’re not wrong that the biggest issue that whole dynamic has is that the principles are each and in their own way incapable of nutting up and just *talking* about their issues. in this respect, I think Danny’s actually got the leg up A and E for no other reason than he’s been open and honest about discussing things with others when he thought the moment was right. Amber is still trying way too hard to double-bill as both the hero and the villain of her own story; and Ethan, bless his heart, is just way too damn passive most of the time
What was Amber expecting?
Ratata and Pidgey, same as always.
Don’t forget Spearow.
And the occasional Weedle. Maybe a Caterpie to really shake things up.
ALL VENONATS >=|
“Sod that I’m gonna play with Sal again”
I’ll Be All Right Without You…
There’ll be someone else, I keep tellin’ myself
Damn, that song is really appropriate for this strip.
i mean, nobody plays pokemon go anymore, and mario kart 8 deluxe is on the horizon…
Nobody but the author. And me. And the two nerds pictured in the above comic.
Two of my aunts (one of them with young children she plays with) still do regularly, and I make an effort to check in when I’m out and have the battery life to do so. (I keep meaning to get a backup source.) If you’re in an isolated area then yeah, but on a college campus there’s still definitely incentives to play.
Choosing when to walk away Can be a minor act of reclaiming agency for someone who didn’t get to call the shots in the relationship. This is hard for Danny and hard in a different way for Amber, but it needed to happen.
Yea, I am surprised Danny’s the one walking away. And not completely sure why he is doing it.
It’s a sign that he’s matured a lot if anything.
Amber has some pretty self-destructive tendencies that sabotaged the relationship, I kinda feel Danny had to walk away if he was ever going to make a point to her.
*Reads Alt Text*
Mario Kart? I can remember when they were playing “Joe Montana Sports Talk Football.”
But do you remember when Batman played Dance Dance Revolution?
Oh, but of course!
I remember when the big game for portable devices was Tetris.
…. on the original Gameboy.
…. no high quite so high as knocking out 4 rows with a single long block.
Remembers making a 5-1/4″ copy/dup to load the 386, because 5-1/4″ failed so often, didn’t want to lose the real disk.
upgrading the Apple II+, using punch cards, playing pong.. Wait…. maybe being old isn’t a game I want to win.
You win. The most geezer points I can claim is that my first gaming console was an Atari VCS. The one with the wood veneer.
Magnavox Odyssey 4000.
Ah, but have you ever done it on a computer with one disk drive and 64K RAM? Insert disk 1… Insert disk 2… Insert disk 1… Insert disk 2…
This would have been around 1984-5. I was in high school.
Yes, computers literally have a million times as much RAM now as they did 30 years ago. And the standard disk held, what was it, 360 KB of data? Vs. at least 360 GB today. Of course, clock speed and access time haven’t advanced as fast – just a few thousand times, even if you count multiple cores.
Hmm, maybe that’s why computers today aren’t much more responsive than they were back then… Or maybe it’s that the number of computer viruses in the wild has probably grown a billionfold, which also requires more layers of security in the software.
Oh, and the number of pixels and colors in the display has also grown… a cheap flip phone today probably has better graphics on its tiny screen than an original IBM PC CGA display (320×200, 2 bits per pixel).
You had disks? I had to use a tape drive.
As in a cassette tape deck hooked up to the computer.
“I can’t imagine anyone needing more than 64kb!” – Bill Gates
I remember when mobile devices did not exist, nor did home computers. I don’t know about any Pokemon games and I still find Dumbing of Age entertaining and relevant. I am just trying to say that the pop culture references don’t matter. The characters and the story matters, and to that end Willis is one of the better authors that I have read.
We all know that. We just don’t Willis to find out.
I remember when these two were playing Snoopy Tennis on their Game & Watch… I think.
That was genuinely “awwwwww” worthy.
So how long is it polite for Danny to wait before dating Ethan?
According to the two of them, a very long time. Mike, in the other hand…
No wait necessary, EthDan is the ship that will NEVER sink. NEVER.
Good job, Danny
Try as I might, I have a really hard time having sympathy for Amber. While she has undoubtedly been in incredibly unpleasant and difficult circumstances, I relate too much to Danny to be able to see her side.
Um. I think the basis of Danny’s side was that he had so much sympathy for Amber he didn’t want her risking her life anymore.
🙁
Guys. Just don’t talk to each other.
Or talk about totally neutral subjects, like video games, and only in passing, and only in an awkward and stilted manner.
Yeah, I think this is a fine conversation, in case they ever want to be friendly with each other again. It’ll be awkward for a while, but that’s okay, keep it neutral and short, and give it time.
Poor Amber 🙁
Danny obviously needs to polish up on his Batman skills. You’re supposed to vanish before they turn back to look at you.
Amazi-Girl didn’t get around to teaching him that, yet.
Nonono, gloomy hunched-over back-turned is part of the repertoire too.
Good news, everyone! [/ProfFarnsworth]
The DoA Universe has just transformed into the Mario Universe! Name who plays each part! (ignore gender alignments if you want)
Danny is obviously Mushroom Guy
Is Mike Bowser or Waluigi? (is Mary one of them?)
Joyce – Princess Peach
Dorothy – Daisy?
DANNY IS THE MAGIKARP!!!
Considering the fate of most magikarps…
… They get used as bludgeons to beat other critters into submission until they turn into giant sea dragons?
(Everything I know about Pokémon, I learned from Manly Guys Doing Manly Things.)
I was just thinking of that and I would totally ship Amber with Jared
OMG thanks for putting that link there. That comic hilarious.
They are ground up into a powder and dumped into the bathwater? http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/unhealthy/
What did you think Professor Willow did with them? People go on and on about how the Pokemon get turned directly into Candies, but those are just a reward for giving him a new bath powder.
I reckon they’ll be on the Switch over the real-time summer months.
Comic Reactions:
Panel 1: Welp, everyone who called Amber not really noticing Danny up until now were right on the money. Whoopsie daisy.
Panel 2: Okay, I gotta know what the Amber alter knows.
She’s distressed about Danny, so it’s likely she knows something, but she’s also not really making any waves to reach out to him which could mean she’s internalized Amazi-girl’s conclusion that “he’s better off without us” as well as her own over-reaction to the Amber alter’s one instance of yelling at Danny (like, the AG alter has something to apologize for that she hasn’t, but Amber reacted quickly when she felt herself entering a place she didn’t like) or it could mean she doesn’t have the full story or it could simply mean that the Amber alter is super shy and this feels like a really awkward conversation, especially since this alter “is not the one who was dating him”.
Most importantly, it doesn’t look like the Amber alter holds any ill feelings of anger towards Danny, so if she does have the full story, it looks like the AG alter was wrong that “Amber would see that as a betrayal”.
And the worst part is Amber is so closed off I don’t know how we’re going to get the full story of what the Amber alter knows or if things are still reasonably integrated or things are starting to heavily disassociate.
Panel 3: Art note, I’m loving these long-distance panels as they’re great for making the characters feel extremely isolated and really heightens the emotional intensity of scenes of angst. I mean, this isn’t even a heavy angst scene like Billie in front of Ruth’s door, but the long shot makes Amber look all by herself with her game in a really interesting way.
I agree on the panel composition. It’s beautiful, and highlights Amber’s isolation.
I have a question. You say the Amber alter might not have the full story, but I was under the impression there was no, um, cognition dissonance? between the alters (or, at least, the alters in this particular case).
Is cognition dissonance present in all DID alters? In at least one alter in all DID cases? If it’s a random crapshoot, is there something that indicates that there’s cognition dissonance in the Amber/AG case?
As I understand it, lack of shared memory is commonly a diagnostic for DID. Some have used that to argue that Amber isn’t actually DID. Others see it as more of a spectrum.
Up until now, Amber and AG have definitely shared memory. That we haven’t seen any clear evidence that they do for the most recent traumas has some of us wondering if the disassociation has progressed farther and they’ve begun hiding things from each other.
To me, it definitely seems like the disassociation has gotten worse than it was at the start of the semester. Whether it’s gone as far as not sharing memory we don’t know yet.
Thanks.
Lack of shared memory is a sign of full dissociation. It’s usually a worst case scenario, much like ‘evil alters’. It’s a more glamorous trope for movies, though, which is why most media portrays it and, partially as a result of that, a lot of people (even some psychiatrists) argue it’s a necessity for diagnosis. More common are partially integrated people (integrated in this case meaning sharing memories, communicating, and more or less working together towards a common goal, albeit with different emotions and interpretations towards that goal).
Please correct me if I’m wrong, Cerberus!
So, if we start seeing Amber being surprised at reports of AG’s activities, that would be a sign her mental state has escalated into “something is about to go very, very wrong and someone REALLY needs to call in mental health experts” territory?
I’d say we’re already deep in that territory.
Quite possibly. Even the guy whose backpack she retrieved was taken aback by her level violence, so she’s arguably at the “danger to herself and others” level. Still, I think trying to talk to her about it first would be worth a shot before we go to forced admittance.
We have plenty of evidence that Amber has severe anger management issues. We have plenty of evidence she has strong emotional problems. We are remarkably light on evidence of any actual disassociation of personality except as a useful linguistic metaphor for adopting a separate secret identity by literally becoming a super hero who can channel Amber’s aggression in an emotionally acceptable way (ie. completely unlike her father). If we discovered that Amber continues to have the same fight/flight reaction to Sal, then that would be strong evidence of an actual disassociation. In the absence of such solid evidence, the assumption of an actual split personality seems to be overly complex and to undercut the themes of the actual story. Which is not to say such an interpretation is uninteresting or ridiculous on its face.
Yes, even moreso than now. That’s a sign of a full split and integration is usually the goal.
Panel 4: Heh, okay, so let’s tackle the obvious that Danny is totally a Magikarp/Gyrados. He’s someone who started out as a total joke with lots of negatives but has really grown a lot into his own in these first couple of weeks in college and could really be something if he continues to work at it and his growth.
But also, I like him trying to reach out and I’d love these two to be friends. Fuck, I’d mostly like the Amber alter to be Danny’s friend. Because the AG alter wrapped up in the self-importance of being the golden alter who can’t make mistakes really hurt him in a paranoid attack (viewing one of your alters as the golden one really is dangerous business), but the Amber alter has raged yes, but she tends to check herself when she does in a way that AG has trouble with (preferring the overly elaborate comic book ending in lieu of a simple apology (giving Sal the ability to track her, deciding Danny would be better off with no further contact rather than a “hey, I was in a shitty headspace, sorry”)).
Panel 6: I feel like Amber’s face is full of meaning. Like there’s the sadness at the distance that now exists, because for the Amber alter, Danny dating AG meant someone to hang with in the mornings. And that’s one of the understated tragedies of the affair. That this alter dumped on by the other alter and seen by that alter as just a pit for all of their collective bad feelings, who’s scared of most everyone and still hurting over her last boyfriend coming out and worrying that she on her own will never be good enough for anyone, lost a really good friend because of shit her other alter decided on her own to do.
And it really almost feels like two separate people at this point given the level of disassociation and compartmentalization Amber/AG is going through.
I think the breakup will be overall more healthy for Danny. I think he needs to discover who he is outside a relationship. And I think some introspection and healing from Amber/AG so she doesn’t have to worry that she’s a loose cannon that’s going to hurt someone more than the AG alter already did with Sal and Danny (but of course, it’s the Amber alter who’s “dangerous”, seriously, golden alters, they’re a disastrous mistake) will do her good.
But I think the Amber alter is going to suffer the most in the short term for not having that close friend to nerd with who wasn’t tainted by failed relationship feelings (or an abusive dickwad like Mike).
You’re right that Danny needs to discover who he is outside of a relationship. I would say that, to a lesser extent, so does Amber. In HS, she was all about Ethan (and later, about helping Ethan come out and face his family). In DoA, she was all about Ethan and video games. She needs to figure out who she is outside of doomed-to-fail relationships and outside of her video game addiction (she plays games way more than is healthy for someone who is not a professional gamer).
And I don’t think it’s even that Amber needs to discover who she is, so much as she needs to re-discover who she is and accept it. I think that at one point Amber had a good sense of self, but Blaine was Blaine and fucked it up.
Actually, given that she’s a programmer, ‘not a professional gamer’ might be not exactly correct here. A game developer also needs to understand very well what they are doing, so ‘playing lots of games’ is almost a professional qualification.
We haven’t seen Amber’s game habit impact her daily life in a negative way. It’s important to differentiate between ‘spends a lot of time playing games because of isolating herself and shitty headspace’ and ‘isolates herself and is in a shitty headspace becaues of spending a lot of time playing games’. Amber’s case is the first one. It’s just a coping mechanism, and it’s unhealthy only to the degree that it is a symptom of the underlying problem.
Note that she plays /different/ games and finds time to code mobile apps. Until dissociation started getting worse this semester, I would count Amazi-girl’s outings as ‘another hobby’, too.
So yeah, I think Amber’s games are alright. Everything else about her life isn’t )=
And she still has social interactions outside of gaming and even the occasional outing, like the party. Again, she’s spending her time playing games because she’s already isolated, not the other way around. If it weren’t games she’d have another coping device, probably leaning more heavily on comics or traditional books, but she’d still be doing it constantly. (And so far the only time we’ve seen it override class or something is the class where multiple people in it had already checked out because it was so simple. It’s not affecting her schoolwork, there’s no chance she was going to pay attention there, so it doesn’t count as negative consequences unless she continues playing it after midterms when Alex takes the chance to completely change up the curriculum.)
Thanks to the sliding timescales, in the Dumbiverse it takes 1 month to design, build, and release a game. Everyone is constantly inundated with new releases. The games market is supersaturated.
Holy shot does that mean that they’ll actually get Half-Life 3?
Maybe after a just few in-universe years.
DoA’s time dilation effect isn’t THAT extreme. Not by a long shot.
Yeah, as a microtransaction-laden pinball game. Valve thought: “Hey, if Konami thought it was a good idea…!”
first DLC ‘Extra ball’. “Hey if Bethesda could get away with Horse Armour”
Either that or everyone is nostalgic for random games at different times. Maybe there was a recent update to Pokemon GO in Doa land?
While I would like those two back together, Amber needs to figure her own stuff out. Honestly, it’s probably just better if Amber and Danny dated, not Amazi-Girl and Danny
Not just Amber, Danny needs to sort out his sexuality before jumping into a relationship as well. And seeing he tends to equate being attracted to a guy as “Gay”, he’s still relying on either a gender binary model, or the Kinsey scale (both of which are quite inadequate in the real world) meaning he’s got a long way to go as well.
Either that or he has a problem with forbidden fruit that is Ethan and Ethan alone.
Ehhh. For centuries men had successful relationships with each other without modern terminology for different types of sexuality and were basically alright. Danny doesn’t necessarily need to ~figure everything out~ first. It’s okay to have ‘???’ as sexuality.
man, danny’s reminding me more and more of my younger self, and i do not cherish those memories at all
I don’t know why, but now I feel like Danny is an American version of that one French waiter from Monty Python’s “The Meaning of Life”.
“lets see what happened in doa after falling asleep” oh.. oh…..
Decide in haste and in anger (and fear) and regret at leisure, eh Amber? I think that she is seriously regretting this because it’s clear that by rejecting Danny’s help, she’s lost a friend; probably the bes friend she has been able to make since Ethan and maybe even better.
Now… I find myself wondering if some future preview art we’ve seen indicates that she intends to get him back?
Caption:
“So that’s what that feels like.”
damn. flair worked out great.
How helpful.
As much as Danny/Ethan is intriguing, I still want Sal/Danny for some reason.
I also want this for somewhat selfish reasons: I am a Dan (Actual name) who married a Sally ( Who is very much UNLIKE Sally and more like Joyce.)
I chortle at this a lot.
Way to Dan things up 😉
Dan things happen.
Sometimes you have to just accept that now and then, Dan things happen to good people.
And this comment thread seems to be one Dan thing after another.
Today’s comic has exceeded the feels limit.
Welcome to Wilisworld.
Damn it Danny. Don’t fucking leave it there. Awkwardly stand around and wait until she says something or you can’t stand it anymore after a 10 seconds of silence like a normal person.
Panel One: Yeah, Amber definitely did see Danny. I’m not sure she was actually distracting herself from him or the class in general, since she’s beyond the course material. But no avoiding seeing him now.
Panel Two: And yes, just because she’s not spending every second pining and fixating on him doesn’t mean her breakup didn’t hurt. She misses him and she probably will for a while. Time apart to recover is a good thing though. I’m hoping that that recovery is coming soon.
Panel Three: Though, ouch, yeah, Amber’s definitely isolated right now. The far away shot highlights it.
Panel Four: It’s nice of Danny to reach out and offer a Pokemon-as-peace-offering type thing. On the one hand, it kinda sucks he needs to make the peace offering, as he did nothing wrong, but it’s sweet that he recognizes something she would like and points it out to her. These two would make wonderful friends if they never get back together. Particularly the Amber alter, not the AG one. The AG alter needs to take some more time on that.
Panel Five: And yeah, running into exes is awkward. It’s even awkward when you’re 100% over them, so this is just sucky. But Amber isn’t AG, she can take nice gestures more easily. And this was a good one. It might open doors for them interacting more.
Panel Six: Aaaaaaaand he’s gone. Probably for the best. They both have some fixing up to do for themselves before they can start interacting regularly again. At least Amber seems to be ready for positive chats again.
I’m so happy they both gave and accepted an olive branch here. It’s a small gesture, but it will do them tons of good to lay the groundwork now if they decide to get closer to each other again.
Agreed. If nothing else, they now have a non-shitty last interaction for next time.
Huh. My take is very different from everyone else’s. Their dating relationship is gone. But Amber just assumed they could still be friends, like she is with her previous ex.
And I suspect she’s gonna now try to figure out a way to talk to him. They won’t date, but they may possibly be able to salvage a friendship.
Mostly because there’s no way that Amber/AG doesn’t apologize after making up with Sal. So there has to be some sort of communication between them.
But I think Danny will stand firm on saying she can’t be Amazi-girl, and Amber/AG won’t allow that.
I think if Amber thought they could still be friends, she wouldn’t have been holed up in her room and avoided him/talking about him.
I do think she wants to be friends, though.
Was.. was that a metaphor? D’:
Magikarp are all over IU Bloomington’s campus. The Jordan “River” is apparently just the place for floppy fish.