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David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 7d
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 7d
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg @theradr.bsky.social ⋅ 20d
Gwen Snyder is uncivil @gwensnyder.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
Ash Parrish @adashtra.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
Katie @katiestp.bsky.social ⋅ 3d
Hunter S Schafer @bolt451.bsky.social ⋅ 4d
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(he/him)
⚧
“wait, are you saying if your dad divorces his mom, you would be LESS squicky about fanfic with him in it”
“STOP THAT”
“i mean, not that it stops you, but still”
Amber, stop, friendfics are weird.
Amber in high school.
Oh god, that show’s 11 years old now. What is time doing and how can we make it stop.
Dude, it sucks so much. I was 21 like a week ago, I swear.
Seriously! There’s no way graduation was over 12 years ago; that time flew by, but getting through school in the first place took forever!
*looks at Hiyori*
*looks at Amber*
Oh good god it’s true.
So who’s Konata?
Dina maybe since she is a dinosaur otaku.
…who cosplays as dinosaurs. I think you might be on to something there.
I wrote a friendfic once. It was full of love triangles. Actually, if I remember correctly, it was a love dodecagon.
I wonder if I’m in anyone’s friendfic?
… So it was basically a poly community.
No, that would have solved a lot of the problems in it, though. It was a mess. But the dodecagon was like various relationships and attractions that could connect in a dodecagon. I actually started with the dodecagon and worked my way out from there.
In the words of a wise
manbird:“AND THEN THEY ALL FUCKED!”
Reminds me of Tina Belcher’s “Erotic Friend Fiction”.
Dude, please. That’s what makes them so GOOD.
Nah. When I was more active in fandom, someone wrote a slashfic about my best friend and I because we had both publicly said it was flattering. And it was. And HILARIOUS.
Do you still have it?
Amber clearly subscribes to the Slipshine
So Amber’s not in Supernatural fandom, then.
You misunderstand. Amber has no trouble writing slashfic about characters who are related to each other; the squick comes from writing slashfic about characters who are related to her.
I thought Amber was still avoiding Joyce? Because Joyce wanted to thank her and Amber wanted to not be thanked because she was afraid of becoming like her dad?
Perhaps, but then Faz was supposedly with Joyce and she had to deal with that.
Yeah, but if it was a choice between facing Joyce and giving up and losing her stepbrother forever…
Actually yeah, what the hell, Amber?
She was avoiding EVERYONE at the time, and apart from the Garbage Roof, she didn’t really stop until Faz showed up. She probably just wasn’t ready to deal with anyone yet.
Still isn’t ready, but what else was she going to do.
I look forward to the day when Joyce finds out about any slashfic involving her.
That grin on your Danny avatar sells your comment.
So Amber wants slashfic of her and Joyce.
Honest question: What’s the difference between smut and slashfic? (Other than the fact that Slashfic is specifically non-hetero)
I think slashfic is based on specific characters or people while smut can be that and just… of any other characters of your creation?
I dunno, I slept through that part of fandom indoctrination.
I would argue that slashfic can be sexual, but can also be more romance centered, while smut is always pornographic and tends to skip over more emotional details.
Smut doesn’t have to be fanfiction and is sexually explicit or “obscene.”
Slashfic is fanfiction and could, for example, be about two characters blushing around each other and then sharing a first kiss.
(They can also bone, but that’s not a requirement.)
To be smut, it must be utterly without redeeming social importance.
Or so Tom Lehrer told me.
So Notorious RBG “disciplining” the Donald to death is not smut. Got it.
Slashfic is m/m or f/f and may or may not have sex, smut is porn and may or may not be m/m or f/f.
Yeah, taking in account Ethan’s comments and random Amber comments over the years? I’m pretty sure her Slashfics are also like, 75% smut
More likely Amber wants to write Joyce/Sarah slashfic. You know, the REEEEALLY squicky kind.
Amber’s thinking ahead
*looks around to see if Bob Dylan wrote a song about this stuff*
What does he know about friend fic?
Not as much as Randy “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” Newman…
I don’t think I’ve ever met a Randy Newman song I liked. Though I could be wrong.
Does Amber write Friendfiction???
At least in her head.
No. They’re not her friends. They’re just some people who, without wanting to, she has gotten to know quite a bit about.
Amber was looking for Faz so she sort of had to interact with Joyce
Can confirm, I’ve had major, worldview-shaking revelations about how I feel about things (coming to grips with that fact that any sort of gender- or sexuality-based bigotry are all some of the worst things humanity has ever done) were first formulated and based on stuff like the video games I play or the anime I watch.
Fandom is weird.
I maintain some of my best revelations about my worldview and resistance against both fundamentalism as well as other unpleasant ideologies come from. “What would Luke Skywalker do?”
“And you *will* slashfic them eventually, so better safe than sorry.”
I like to imagine panel 5 is Amber taking about a half minute to seriously think that question over before coming to the only logical conclusion.
I think that she probably WAS looking for some downside, but that was the worst she could think of
She’s tryin’ to resist the power of Joyce’s friendship, but it’s a losing battle
Yes <3 <3 <3
Or the worst she could think of that didn’t cut too deep. She probably didn’t want to go into the “I don’t even deserve friends because I’m a horrible monster and the whole ‘what she did’ thing is just proof of that” line of thought.
More subtly though, family you choose is one thing, but family forced upon you is something else. This is Joyce choosing, not Amber.
Joyce is choosing for Joyce. Amber can still decide whether she wants to reciprocate. It’s not like she’s gonna hesitate to push her away if she’s feeling crowded.
She does it out of love! She calls it ‘friend-fiction’.
Ok that last panel is unsettling.
So she wants to slashfic Sarah and Joyce?
We’ve all been there.
Interesting, I have binged EGS many times, and I had completely forgotten that bit.
I never forget cake. *.*
does
does Joyce know what slashfic is
I mean, she does know what shipping is, but then again, she thought homosexuality was a sin like a month* ago.
*In-universe month
True… but is it REALLY homosexuality if a boy vampire hold a boy werewolf in the hand while sparkling extra muc… oh God, it IS a sin, isn’t it? DON’T LOOK AT THE SCREEN FROM HEAVEN, NANA!
Homosexuality isn’t a sin, but sparkly vampires sure as hell are.
Let’s call Alexander Andersen or Alucard to clean this up for us.
I only found out what slashfic is, like, just now. The word suggested something else to me entirely. Turns out it’s something much nicer than what I thought.
Well, about that other type of fanfiction…
Hmm. We going to get to meet Faz’s mom?
Also, I wonder. Willis has said that part of why Mike doesn’t appear much is because he’s essentially a cartoon character compared to the rest of the cast, and it is difficult to ground him and still have him serve his purpose. Do you suppose that applies to Faz, too? Because Faz has been surprisingly grounded post-Joyce dealing with him.
He’s been surprisingly grounded, but does he still serve his purpose? Is a non-Fazy Faz still Faz?
Meeting Faz’s mom might be interesting. I just hope she’s alone. It feels like there’s still another shoe to drop in this storyline.
It probably depends on whether or not Blaine’s out of the hospital.
A strip containing Faz and titled “Squicky” where the use of the word has nothing to do with Faz?? How unexpected
That doesn’t seem to stop Joyce.
…I’ve been wondering this for a while, but I think I’ve got it now: The reason the Head Alien II never fucked with this timeline (besides inspiring Davi dWillis to create Dexter and MM) was because this specific timeline slides. While every other timeline in the Willis-Multiverse advances on realtime, this timeline works similarily to Marvel Comics, events aren’t locked to the year they happen, they slide.
When the comic first came out, the 3DS hadn’t launched yet, and despite that, an important part of Danny and Amazi-girl’s relationship AND Danny and Sal’s friendship is Mario Kart for the 3DS.
This timeline would have been impossible for the HA-II to properly dominate.
I’m pretty sure Head Alien won’t appear in Dumbing of Age outside of the Dexter and MM show and other in-universe fiction. Don’t remember where he said it, but I thought Willis said that the DoA universe is supposed to be more like real life and not have aliens and other wacky sci-fi stuff that the Walkyverse had.
Oh I know, I’m trying to find an explanation why, since HAII could change timelines at will unless somehow trapped.
I guess I get the fun of trying to come up with plausible explanations to fit the two together, but isn’t the simplest explanation that It’s Walky’s multiple timelines aren’t canon in DoA. This isn’t an alternate IW! timeline, it’s an entirely different universe.
Trying to come up with reasons HA isn’t here is like trying to explain why the Marvel Universe wasn’t affected by the latest DC multiversal disaster or vice versa.
This reality was created by the Cheese. Why? REASONS.
Mario Kart for the DS has been around a lot longer than the comic, though?
Regular DS, sure, but Amber was lured to a party with the promise of picking up possible Friendpasses, which is a 3DS and not regular DS thing, isn’t it? So I take that to mean they are playing the 3DS.
So it’s like the bit when Morlun tried to invade the Spider-Man newspaper comic strip world and couldn’t deal with its stuttering time flow?
YEEEESSSSSSSSSS
Like, from the point of view from the characters, time is flowing normally, but if you look in ffrom the outside it is all wonky
You just need to upgrade them “Moms” and “Daddies”.
I’m pretty sure the slashfic that Amber is thinking about is not with her friends, but rather a set of four pubescent genetically enhanced silent warrior reptiles, that aren’t really brothers, but function as if they are.
I dunno. This Amber doesn’t have the same obssessions as OG Amber, and hasn’t shown any preference for TMNT.
Also, 80’s TMNT was garbage, fite me.
Back to the Sewer was clearly the best Turtle show.
Click ANYWHERE in this video’s progress bar for evidence and/or comedy gold to support this claim.
Good Lord, I had almost forgotten that gods-forsaken nightmare. I had it on VHS, years back, and it haunts my subconscious to this day.
*Projectile vomiting*
What the hell was that abomination?
That’s such a bizarre concept, but I feel like it could be incredibly entertaining. If only someone were bold enough to make a cartoon or four out of it. Maybe some movies, even.
what about the immature radioactive samurai slugs?
I have the comic series of the “Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters. (the first parody of TMNT) I had never been interested in TMNT at the time, but thought these guys were hilarious. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolescent_Radioactive_Black_Belt_Hamsters
(see also: Pre-Teen Dirty-Gene Kung-Fu Kangaroos)
Now that I remember. I love Tiny Toons and Animaniacs.
Puh, I seem to be wrong about Faz mirroring Becky’s journey. He is not thrown out and on the run.
He also doesn’t seem to mirror Howard as exactly as I thought, even if Amber and Ruth share some big-sister moments.
He has his own story ark together with Amber, and it seems interesting enough.
As Amber is clearly Tumblr personified, which sites would the other main cast be?
Dorothy is Linkedin. Joe is Tinder (or some other dating site).
And that’s all I got.
Joyce is ChristianMingle, fight me.
Mike is 4chan.
Mary is deviantART.
I’d argue that Joyce is dumbingofage.com
That’s like an Ouroboros of recursive redundancy.
That’s definitely an honest yet truthful tautology.
Cackling my ass off, thank you.
Well, Mike is obviously Twitter, since he’s abusive and bad for your metal health but people inexplicably still hang around him
Twitter’s not so bad, once you get past every single aspect of it.
Walk would be Buzzfeed. Dumb stuff with a lot of care put towards making sure it’s all set in the right order, and smart enough to know how to portray it, yet still too lazy to innovate past that once the old model starts to falter.
(with constant ads for McNuggets, etc)
She’s not wrong.
Damn, got beaten to it.
Psh Amber, you just haven’t read/seen enough incesty things to be on board with it, soon you’ll find everything is shippable and nothing is too gross to ship.
(Disclaimer: I do not endorse incest, it has potential in some fiction but irl the genetic issues from closely biologically related matings are terrible, pls do not engage in such activities)
But is it incest if it’s you and yourself from an alternate reality/timeline?
You know, for the sake of reading and enjoying fiction, I’ve tended to just ignore it (But also I normally think that it isn’t)
“As regards sexual intercourse with older or younger copies of yourself, it’s incest in branching or changeable timelines, and masturbation in inevitable timelines. In either case, yes, it is gay.”
-Tailsteak, “Basic Time Travel Ettiquette”
Sorry, ruling out relationships between relatives based on biology is homophobe and implies that the result of mating must be biological offspring.
Not a good reason.
I’m all for a taboo on sexual abuse, but if related people get to know each other when they are both grown up and then start a relationship, why not?
If they are closely related and there are known genetic problems in the family or the families had a tendency to interbreed for centuries, if they want babies, they are better of with artificial insemination or adoption.
If they are just closely related, a genetic problem in their offspring is unlikely.
And if they do not want children, their genes shouldn’t be relevant to their relationship at all.
With your family of choice, it was your and their decision to be important to each other not based on sex, and ignoring that is what would make Ambers slashfic blärg.
No, bullshit, thinking incest is bad is not fucking homophobic. Being gay, and wanting to fuck your brother/sister/cousin are two entirely separate things, and I’m sort of disgusted you would try and connect the two.
I also missed the point of that first bit, initially. Double-check it and it makes more sense.
Still extremely off-putting as a whole, though.
What on earth does incest have to do with homophobia? Please don’t compare the two.
What CJ is saying is that if your agrument against incest is reproduction aspects, you’re ignoring relationships that would not or could not result in reproduction anyway, such as gay people.
But reproductive reasons ARE probably the reason why it’s such a primal taboo in the first place. Sure, it doesn’t apply to every kind of relationship, but if most humans are predisposed towards finding incest disgusting, thats not gonna change even if they tell themselves “well, they’re not ACTUALLY going to have children, so good news, I’m not grossed out by this anymore!”
That said, this isn’t exactly a conversation I’m dying to have so I’m happy leaving it there.
That’s definitely a case for having that gut reaction, but I guess the argument is that gut reaction alone doesn’t justify a certain stance.
The health risk to the child of first-degree incest (e.g. parent-child or full siblings) is approximately the same as the health risk to the child of a mother over the age of forty. The health risk to the child of second degree incest is approximately the same as the health risk to the child of a mother aged thirty-five.
Most of the incest taboos in traditional societies, and many of the laws resulting from them, forbid sex and marriage between some couples who are not related at all (e.g. widow and her late husband’s brother, adoptive siblings, people who are members of the same clan by descent from a sixth-century tribal chieftain who is probably legendary anyway). Or they permit sex and marriage between couples who are actually quite close (e.g. woman and her mother’s full brother). And often both!
There is obviously something to the incest taboo, but avoidance of the genetic risk of inbreeding doesn’t seem to be it. For more information I suggest reading The Red Lamp of Incest, by Robin Fox.
Yeah, being grossed out by family-fucking doesn’t really seem like a situation where the sexuality or gender of the involved parties actually affects anything. Like, who cares if they’re gay, straight, bi, or pan for each other, the problem is that they’re blood relatives.
The only problem should be adults or near-adults abusing children under their care. I don’t fucking care if they are biological related or not.
So, the other way round, if it’s not adults or near adults abusing children in their care, but instead all parties are adult and consenting and have the actual ability to not consent, it shouldn’t be of concern to anyone how closely the people involved are genetically related.
I get really annoyed with the incest taboo used as a weapon against consenting adults instead of a shield for children from abusive adults.
Nah, incest is creepy as hell, no matter how adult the involved parties are. I’m not about to apply qualifiers to it, the whole thing is just Not Cool.
Why? “Just not cool” is not based on any reason, and “it was always taboo” ist not a really good reason either.
Given it is much more likely to meet half-siblings late in life then thousands of years ago, condemning them doesn’t serve any reason.
If you want to make an argument not based on biology, not based on “always” try family is a group of people bound by love and, as long as they are not mated, not by sex, we might have something to talk about. But biology shouldn’t have any place in that discussion.
If Amber wrote slashfic about people in her family of choice that would be weird because it would violate the agreement to be important to one another without sex being involved. Because it would, in fantasy, ignore boundaries they agreed on.
Sorry, you’re not gonna budge me on this one. I can tell it’s the same on your end, so we’re just gonna have to disagree.
I talked about this with a friend today and she mentioned a case where a couple hab been living together for several years, they had two healthy kids and when they wanted to marry they found out they were half-siblings.
Result was not only that they weren’t allowed to marry but also that the state took custody of the kids.
Anyone wants to explain the sense in destroying four lives?
I’m really sorry if it seemed like what I meant was “ew, straight incest is gross” and offended you. On some level, I don’t really care as long as everything about the relationship was fine (non abusive, not morally compromising in any way like blackmail), and it doesn’t really matter what the gender or sex or orientation of the two (or more) are, but the concern that I’d attempted to state was passing on a higher rate of what are basically fucked up genes. The only taboo I can think of and justify spurning in any kind of incestuous situation among consenting and sane-enough adults, is if they want to naturally produce a child, from their loins, with genetic information from the both of them. That taboo is the taboo of not only birthing/bringing a human being into this world who didn’t ask to be born (let’s be real, wanting to create kids is at least a little bit selfish on the part of the parents) but also making their lives difficult with problems that the parents knew had a possibility of occurring. I’m not saying either that “problems” such as disabilities and allergies and whatnot from genetic mutations are reasons to not have kids, but from the standpoint of someone who used to be a very upset-at-their-parents-for-not-balancing-the-risks-and-possible-health-issues-they-bequeathed-to-their-children kind of kid, it is irresponsible to not take concerns about the child into account. Certainly, there’s many factors to consider, but honest to god, the only one that I was talking about was the one concerning the possible next generation. Maybe it’s not healthy or morally correct to engage in romantic/sexual interactions with people who may or may not have been raised as family, together, but that’s also none of my business and I don’t really care (unless they’re trying to create babies and we are friends. Then no, if they don’t want to listen to all the possible pitfalls this child may have, I do care a lot)
Ok, so you are concerned about the actual risk involved in creating children when there is reason to be careful what kind of genes are in the mix and the relationship to incest is only that you think it automatically creates a high-risk situation?
That’s about as far from the end of the stick I was barking at as one can get.
I totally understand the point that if people want to have children with each other and there is reason consider that genetics might turn up a bad mix of receccive gene, people should access that risk first before proceeding.
I just don’t want biology involved in any concept of who has a right to fall in love (or have a relationship) with whom. All those ideas are social concepts created by people. Family is a concept that seemed to be based on genetics, but that idea only worked while there was no chance to determine actual biological relationships, and even then, stuff like adoption was normal and presenting children born by someone else as your own happened.
Parenting is a social act, biology cannot act.
Being family is also a social act, or rather loads of individual social acts. Not biology.
amber nooooo dooon’t that’s weiiiiiird
Unrelated to the strip (well, sorta, Amber’s in it): I already posted this on my Tumblr yesterday, but I guess I didn’t remember the fact that the DoA website is probably the best place to show people your DoA fanart :p
https://imgur.com/4JiB4NV
I can DREAM of them being happy, drama-less friends dammit!
OMG Cheetos on the carpet!
No, really, that’s nice. Thumbs-up, Like, Heart, for just the reason you said.
Wow! Seriously, its great!
Joyce is a pure and good soul (continued)
Erotic Friend-Fiction!!
Lots of fully clothed butt touching but little else.
What about two butts, both wearing pants but no underwear, bumping into each other?
Either Amber needs to tell us something about how she visualises Joyce in her head or that’s a bad excuse. Either one would work for me!
Well the easy solution to that is not too ship real people
Both Amber and Joyce turn to look at you with expressions of amazement and disbelief.
Just to add that I’m finding Amber’s care and concern for Faz really sweet. I don’t think that there is any conscious awareness on her part but she’s already completely adopted Faz and is taking being his sister very, very seriously.
If someone wanted to censor in a the word “transgender” in a subreddit because it was being used offensively, how would you address that? Or just let it go? I mean, it’s a subreddit, so maybe it’s not that big a deal. But it seems problematic, as well as being just kind of a stupid solution.
Tell the person to stop overreacting, for starters. Then downvote them and the offensive parties into the fucking Shadow Realm, just to make a point.
The person who wants to censor comments with “transgender” in them is a moderator, though.
All the more reason to call them on their bullshit.
So, wait, they’re a mod? Why not just ban the person using the word offensively? Are they another mod? Can mods not do that on reddit? Is there a reason why banning isn’t an option? I ask because I’ve modded for other sites before and if someone continued using the word transgender offensively after being told to cut it out, a mod or admin’s banhammer would have taken care of it long before it got to discussion of possibly censoring the word.
I think it’s that it’s different people doing it, so you can warn one person and maybe they’ll stop, but then someone else comes in saying the same thing. I think the two mods may be sick of dealing with it. I also think they themselves may not be too aware; I’ve sent one of them a message about it, and it seems like they can only imagine it being used in an offensive way.
This is why I should just stick to the Neopets subreddit, man.
I’d post a message in the forum issuing a blanket warning that anyone using it offensively would be blocked then. And definitely try educating the mods.
Tell the person using it offensively to knock it off and then explain while the word is being used offensively, it’s also a word people use as an important self identifier so you can’t censor it altogether.
Why do I get the impression that you’ve probably been banned from less message boards than I have?
So far I haven’t been banned from any, to my knowledge. I’m better at reining myself in with writing then irl.
Well, 0 is a lower number than mine, so there’s that explained.
The thing is that it’s not just one person necessarily.
So the subreddit is for MasterChef Junior. This season there’s a girl with short hair and I guess a deeper than average voice for a girl her age. But she is very much a girl, and she and members of her family have stated in reply to some comments on places like Facebook and Instagram that she is cisgender. But some people can’t seem to grasp that and seem to basically go looking for places to insist that she’s a boy or transgender or whatever. And those people are annoying, but censoring “transgender” is not a good solution, in my opinion.
Have then been told to knock it off? If so, if they persist, it’s time to break out the banhammer imo.
Actually, I can almost see the case in that situation. They’re children, there’s no real place to be speculating on their genders and sexuality on a cooking show.
I agree that people shouldn’t be speculating about the kids gender; the options are between blocking comments with it and letting the mods know when it’s used, though. Outright blocking can prevent comments that are even complaining about others doing it elsewhere, though, and limits any other way it might come up. It just rubs me wrong to treat it like it itself is a bad word.
Your mods sound nicer than me. I’d have issued a blanket warning by now and started banning people.
Amazi-Girl will preserve her sisterly right to make fun of her brother by beating up anyone else who makes fun of him, too.
…She’s going to have a very busy say.
Oh, this was meant to be a reply to BenRG’s comment. Whoops
Love the icon btw!
Amber is grasping at some poor arguments there. Push on Joyce and show her what a Family-by-choice is like!
“Ooh! Who do you pair me with? Sal?”
“No, she’s Amazi-Girl’s crush… OMIGODNODON’TREMEMBERTHATPLEASE!”
Ah Shego x Kim Possible type. Just give Sal a cool villain outfit of her own and we are Go!
Now you’ve gone and reminded me of an awesome comic I read years ago and can’t find again.
If you’re urging her to continue declaring herself family whether Amber likes it or not, I’m not sure what your definition of Family by “choice” is.
Instead of pushing on, maybe pull back on the “family” talk until Amber feels it and chooses it herself?
Can confirm. Ended up marrying someone I designated my “big brother”.
Amber is a queen.
Queen
Queen
Queen
Also amber you better have ethanny in that computer of yours for some unholy reason or I’m sueing.
If I could use an emoji atm it’d be the gun emoji and then >:l
Amber, it’s squicky now, but if you wanna ship who you want, it’s always best not to tell who you’re shipping that you’re shipping them.
VERY true. Also, squicky? New term for me today! ^-^
(sorry for double post. mistyped my email in the last one ^^; )
I may be a bit wrong but a squick is somthing that makes some one uncomfortable and they generally try to avoid. It is essentially the exact same as a trigger but hasn’t become a joke by society
Though squick has strong implications of disgust rather than the kind of panic reactions trigger was originally intended for.
Oh, thank you for the clarification
She’d right – I read a fic about that once.
wait
Hmm there was that one Story where Kal-El was raised by the Waynes… If he hadn’t been an only child….
Amber has thought about this…
Insight into the artist’s mind, right here.
Well that is odd. I just learned what squick was yesterday and here it is today
Like that time with dolphins in Guatemala in 200.
Wait does Joyce know Amber is amazagirl? I completely don’t remember that. Or did Amber do something else?
Amber (as Amber) disemboweled Ryan.
Don’t think Joyce knows that Amber is Amazi-Girl
I don’t think so, I think she just knows Amber got stabby on Ryan.
oh derp. i am forgetti