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…..I was refreshing out of idle interest in seeing if I could somehow beat you. It first showed for me at 12:04am (9:04pm, cause west coast), and your post is at 12:01am.
This has its own timeline, a few minutes out of phase. Notice you only got to see the comic at 12:04am, and yet your comment says it was posted at 12:03am.
I took a few comments to track down the server’s time slide and then a few to figure out the minute changeover, then a prediction on where the next comic would land, for me to beat them ONCE.
Ya gotta commit to beat the Patreon crew.
It’s simple. You need to understand the name being used here. Ana Chronistic.. It’s a combination of Arabic, Greek and English.
‘Ana’ translated from Arabic means “I am”
“Chronistic” an adjective made from Chronos, greek for “Personification of time”, and the adjective suffix “istic” meaning “of or pertaining to”.
So in summation; that name means.. “I am of time!”
It’s also soooo fucking satisfying to see a character call Mike out to his face. Who’d have thought it would be Danny who would see through Mike’s BS and call him what he is: A manipulative abuser?
And that took me all of 5 seconds to find, and is probably not even the worst Mike’s done. But it really does illustrate how weirdly acceptive people are of Mike’s harassment.
I lump him in with Faz, as annoying characters who hopefully will never be central to a major story line and I wouldn’t miss if they never showed up again.
I wish he was more like Galasso. I can tell Willis is trying to make Mike more “serious”, but he’d be a better character if he was just a weirdly antipathic creep Amber and Ethan remember from high school who now runs a Youtube channel about the dangers of Presbytarian immigration.
I mean, there’s regular levels of asshole and there’s ‘elaborately spoof websites so you can make your roommate cry and record him doing so.’ That’s just… an incredibly pointlessly sadistic move.
And it’s still definitely (and deliberately) ambiguous whether Mike meant what he said in his last Blaine confrontation – whether he genuinely, tragically thought he was helping Amber by blackmailing Blaine into driving her for the field trip of doom, or if he actually wanted her and her abuser to be stuck in a car together all day, ‘making each other miserable’. If it’s the former? Then yeah, there’s still a chance for him to turn things around someday. Maybe not with Ethan and Amber – a lot of trust’s been burned – but still possible. If it’s the latter? Then he was an absolute garbage person well beyond what’s expected for either tweens or edgelords. I’m not sure you can ever come back from that.
Honestly, I think him doing that to Blaine was serious, but it was the day he snapped and became the asshole. There’s SOME reason behind all his assholery, we just need to see what
If you mean ‘he didn’t realize/intend that Amber would be abused on this trip, but became an asshole when he saw that didn’t work’, then sure.
If you mean ‘he decided, on that day, to deliberately put Amber in a position where she would be abused, for hours on end’… That’s not assholish. That’s monstrous. There is no good reason why someone should do that to another person. Period.
Raidah’s an asshole, sure, but Mike’s pointlessly sadistic and totally lacking any decent qualities in his interactions with people. At least with Raidah you can say she cares about her friends (whether she’s GOOD at helping is a different question, but still) and is loyal to them.
Also depends on what the person is doing to them. I took issue with Joyce’s behaviour earlier, yeah, but if she had just called Raidah on being a condescending asshole a lot of the time, I’d have been there with her. Nothing Danny has said has been nice, but it’s also not really wrong or unjustified by past interactions.
I feel like Mike is somehow lower for people because people still antagonize Mary in-comic and Carla got her comeuppance, and Mike is only just now getting some lashback.
For me? Mike.
Mary may be a self centred hypocritical judgemental moralising blackmailer, but at least you can kind of understand why she acts that way. Mike however, has no motivations, no reason, he’s a somewhat sadistic asshat just for the sake of being a somewhat sadistic asshat.
Maybe we’ll get some character development to explain this, but until then, Mary has more dimensions (if if they are warped).
Because we’ve been seeing him show a more vulnerable side regarding Ethan after they slept together when no one else was around. But manipulation can come from genuine emotion too. Tbh I just want my boy to get some character development
He looks teary eyed here, and I dunno, I don’t think he’d drum up crocodile tears for Danny’s benefit.
I’m more inclined to think he wanted to show Ethan he could be a gay man, and that he could play the field, and it looks like he either caught feelings or wishes he could have kept it going, but knows he’s kinda poison.
Yes, this is the same serious look he had when he asked Ethan to have sex with him. I do think that Mike has feelings for Ethan.
If at the same time, he can mess with Danny who’s got feelings too, win-win for Mike.
I misunderstood your comment for a second and went back up because I was like “wait, there’s no alt text? Probably an error not foreshadowing” – and then I reread the alt text and was like “OH.”
Mike is an asshole. He has hurt Danny’s friends. He walked up to Danny when Danny was minding his own business, and opened the with a weird comment to Danny. Danny doesn’t need to wait until Mike tries to hurt him to tell Mike he’s an asshole and he doesn’t want to deal with him.
If Mike doesn’t want people to talk to him the way Danny is, welp, that’s what happens when you put so much effort into cultivating your reputation as an asshole.
The downside of being a professional asshole is, people treat you like you’re an asshole even when you’re not actively being an asshole.
Mike is a very interesting ethical litmus test for the fandom at large. The question he provokes is: Are there some people who are so dislikable that we will approve when they suffer? And I mean suffer as in really feel the twist-in-the-gut pain that comes with being human. Are there some people to whose pain we will say “Good, they deserve it”?
Few things make me feel as bad as the suffering of others, even when they’re Bad People. I wonder where the rest of you stand.
Upon thinking of your question and looking inside myself, I find that i’m oddly opposite. In general I prefer to see bad people suffer as opposed to not suffering, but only to a degree. The thing is, and it’s true both in real life and here, is that we don’t know the extent Mike is feeling or if he even IS suffering, or if it’s more of a lingering regret. Also it depends a significant amount on what level of asshole you consider Mike. Some things he has done, as others have said, could easily range from simple maliciousness gone wrong to some really scummy things depending on his intent. Honestly at this point I don’t think Mike deserves to suffer because I don’t know what his real intent is but I WILL say that this is a situation he brought upon himself and so deserves whatever he gets from it.
I’m sorry, but with your avatar being Mary, I am projecting a fair amount of viciousness into your comment. I know it’s meant as a genuine self-reflective analysis of the situation and your feelings toward it, but I imagine Mary saying it and I really can imagine her saying this with a self-satisfied, better-than-you, nose up facial expression. It kinda makes an interesting point that people form opinions about other people and then find it difficult not to form assumptions about their motivations based on pre-conceived notions of their personality. I don’t even have any opinions about you as a person, but I do about Mary. And because you are wearing her face, it makes it a little hard to separate. I think that’s why so many people are finding it hard to trust that Mike is actually being vulnerable right now.
I will admit to a certain very small amount of pleasure having Mary randomly end up my avatar because my views do not line up with hers. However, as you said the face being shown can affect how someone views a message. My views are entirely my own but being able to have that little bit of baggage randomly attached in the form of a small picture is interesting to me and your comment is exactly why. Thank you very much for that. If I may clarify a bit, I meant that in general I prefer a situation where a person who has done wrong is made to suffer an equivalent wrong. I am not suggesting any kind of scale for this equivalence as I know that this is more of a personal desire than a system for balance. I do not like to see people in pain, any kind of pain, as it hurts me inside to see that. It doesn’t change the thought that some people “deserve” pain.
There’s a difference between reading into someone’s statements based on pre-conceived notions based on their avatar and reading into someone’s statements based on past experience with them.
We have trouble trusting Mike because he’s been shown to be a manipulative asshole. That’s a problem with having a history as a manipulative asshole. People stop trusting you, even if you actually try to change.
I think if the suffering is a consequence of their actions then it’s fair. So here where Danny is just being rude, well mike deserves that for being awful all the time. I wouldn’t think it was fair if mike fell and broke his leg or something.
This is where I stand too. If you are a rude cruel person to people, then I might not be rude myself, but it is fair that others are rude and distrusting of you. But if you were rude then fell down a staircase and broke your leg, I’d still call an ambulance for you.
Even the worst types of people, I wouldn’t personally be okay with hurting myself or think that hurting them is necessarily the right thing to do in general (individual situations vary). But that’s because I try to draw a distinction between what someone ‘deserves’, which is abstract and not clearly definable and ‘how humans should be treated’. Someone may ‘deserve’ it, but we should still do better than that because we’re not monsters, we’re all humans.
Agreed. Like, the consequence I want most for Mike is for people to stop hanging out with him because he’s a perennial asshole, and for Mike to subsequently realize he is the problem and try and change.
I just like watching my favorite characters suffer. Especially ones like Mike who are so one dimensional and need an emotional punch in the gut for character development
When they’re real, I feel more iffy on wishing bad things on them. Depends how bad they are and what’s being wished on them and who’s doing the wishing, but that’s my general rule.
I want to believe that Mike is exhibiting genuine emotional heartbreak in his eyes, but he specifically made a plan to fuck with Danny and break HIS heart through Ethan, so I can’t jump on the train of “aww, poor Mike” quite yet. I’m hoping he’s actually growing tho!!!
He’s a college student, he’s not an evil mastermind. Don’t expect him to be entirely consistent or for his plans to go exactly as he expects them to, just because that’s how Walkyverse!Mike usually was.
I don’t know anything about the previous iterations of characters and the comics they were in. I’m assuming the Walkyverse!Mike was an evil mastermind based off of what you’re saying, and I definitely don’t think he’s that. I just can’t trust what I’m seeing. I’ll believe his teary eyes when I see more substance! >:3
SP!Mike became less and less of a problem as his relationship with Amber deepened, IMO. He was still cartoonishly over the top and rarely had to deal with any consequences, but Amber softened him quite a bit.
To be clear, he’s still an asshole. Having good reasons for being an asshole doesn’t make you NOT an asshole. But assholes can still be sympathetic and redeemable. And hopefully in the end, Mike will turn out to be both.
Mike is basically just your typical Edgelord. It’s just that Dumbing of Age is in a time when those are as common as grains of sand. I think part of the fun is him becoming aware this is not a unique or helpful attitude.
Ok I’m not sure I get it? Mike’s clearly teary-eyed but I can’t follow the reasoning to why… Current hypothesis:
> Mike genuinely likes Ethan
> Mike started hooking up w Ethan to mess with Danny
> (Because Danny is clearly interested in Ethan, and vice versa)
> Here he realizes that Danny doesn’t care that Mike’s hooking up with Ethan, as long as Ethan isn’t hurt. And this whole thing has actually been on his (Mike’s) expense, not Danny’s.
This is slightly convoluted though, so I feel like I’ve missed something
Mike actually likes Ethan. His initial plan was to hook up with him to make Danny jealous. But closer to the actual time, he changed his mind, gave Ethan an actual confidence boost and THEN had sex with him. It made Ethan more confident and embrace his sexuality. Mike did it at the expense to himself but Danny wasn’t in his contemplation at the time and doesn’t actually care if he has made Danny jealous or not. He just. Decided to be nice to Ethan.
Anything’s possible, but the plan does seem to have worked, at least partially. Danny hasn’t been reduced to a whimpering mess, but he has been showing signs of jealousy.
The point isn’t whether the plan worked or not but whether he still cared if that occurred or not and honestly we haven’t seen Mike making any effort to ensure Danny knew and would get jealous. Normally he is meticulous when it comes to his crafted plans to harm others.
Mike may be an asshole, but I’m also half convinced most of the shit he says is made up, and he’s got +5 proficiency with expertise in Deception. His whole thing is fucking with people’s minds, but while the shit he says is pretty horrible, no one, that I’ve seen, has really been worried about it, they’ve just avoided him as much as possible. I’m also half convinced all of his bullshit is a self defense mechanism because pretty sure his little past flashback blurb was a lead up to him getting kicked down for trying to defend his friends.
It also seems like a good portion of the time Mike has acted as a catalyst for growth in some of the other characters. There have been times when his messing with people has forced them to at least acknowledge, if not outright confront problems that they had been trying desperately to ignore pr avoid confronting.
Now, whether this was intentional on Mike’s part, or an unintended consequence of constant fuckery, I don’t know. But I feel like it just might be the former. He fucks with his friends enough to ensure they never think he actually cares about them (the self-defense mechanism you mention) while occasionally fucking with them in ways that are productive… ESPECIALLY in Ethan’s case.
today in #9chickweedlane i learned we have to be shown children learning and relearning what sex is, for Reasons, even though they already clearly know and have prepared nuanced questions about it!
also that Gran must hate, if she's still alive, how Old Juliette is the same but with gray hair
one of my favorite things is when a commenter explodes WHEN DO THESE CHARACTERS GET THERAPY but directed towards a character who canonically has a regular therapist
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btw if you're one of those rando bluesky weirdos who doesn't know me but sees me in the wild being sarcastic and don't know i'm being sarcastic because you haven't taken like 30 seconds to, like, maybe look at my user profile or something, keep walking, you're not going to score internet points here
Here's an entertaining cite at the bottom of the first page
Josh Gerstein@joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
JUST IN: Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan moves to dismiss federal criminal case against her for allegedly helping immigrant hide from ICE. Her lawyers say she's protected by official acts & judicial immunity and 10th Amendment. Doc: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Where did Hollywood go so wrong? I thought movies were supposed to be an escape from reality, a chance to put your worries aside and not have to think about any underlying ideas or concepts. Well, not anymore.
theonion.com/you-can...
It's not a new argument, of course, but Chesterton dismissed it effectively in 1908.
"You will hear everlastingly... this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has been bribed already. That is why he is a rich man."
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com ⋅ 2d
Hawley dismisses Trump lining his pockets with his memecoin: "Listen, I think nobody believes that Donald Trump can be bought. I mean, what does Donald Trump need more money for?"
wilbur, savvy enough to know he's in a comic strip but still not a great actor, awkwardly lifts a muffin up into frame so that we, the audience, understand that he has a muffin right now, which is very important narratively, but he's not really selling it well as an organic, human action
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 1d
Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com ⋅ 2d
Pavel
@spavel.bsky.social ⋅ 11d
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“…finishing this sentence”
…..I was refreshing out of idle interest in seeing if I could somehow beat you. It first showed for me at 12:04am (9:04pm, cause west coast), and your post is at 12:01am.
HOW!?
Ana is part of the machine, there is no winning, only disappointment and confusion.
Secret patreon tier, Ana gets to queue comments like Willis queues comics
Time travel.
Haven’t you seen The Matrix? Ana is The One.
This has its own timeline, a few minutes out of phase. Notice you only got to see the comic at 12:04am, and yet your comment says it was posted at 12:03am.
It’s right there in their name. Anachronistic.
The site’s been online long enough to gain sentience, and it manifests itself in the form of Ana. Sometimes even in the strip!
I took a few comments to track down the server’s time slide and then a few to figure out the minute changeover, then a prediction on where the next comic would land, for me to beat them ONCE.
Ya gotta commit to beat the Patreon crew.
It’s simple. You need to understand the name being used here. Ana Chronistic.. It’s a combination of Arabic, Greek and English.
‘Ana’ translated from Arabic means “I am”
“Chronistic” an adjective made from Chronos, greek for “Personification of time”, and the adjective suffix “istic” meaning “of or pertaining to”.
So in summation; that name means.. “I am of time!”
“At the expense of him admitting he’s wrong about Transformers.”
“Go bots were the superior IP and nobody gave it a chance. It’s obvious in hindsight.”
SCARY
Yeah, Mike just blipped out of existence.
Aww, is Mike sad?
Good.
The amount of schadenfreude Mike inspires is kind of… staggering.
I’m no fan of the guy either, but even Raidah didn’t inspire that level of ‘good, they deserve to be miserable’.
That’s because Mike is one of the worst students, he isn’t quite on par with the parents but he comes close.
It’s also soooo fucking satisfying to see a character call Mike out to his face. Who’d have thought it would be Danny who would see through Mike’s BS and call him what he is: A manipulative abuser?
How? What evils has mike done aside from being kind of an asshole to people
I feel like that question has come up in almost every strip Mike has been in.
I’ll just leave this here:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/04-of-mike-and-men/recording/
And that took me all of 5 seconds to find, and is probably not even the worst Mike’s done. But it really does illustrate how weirdly acceptive people are of Mike’s harassment.
I don’t take Mike seriously because he seems to be more of a one-dimensional caricature of an asshole, than a fleshed-our character
I lump him in with Faz, as annoying characters who hopefully will never be central to a major story line and I wouldn’t miss if they never showed up again.
I wish he was more like Galasso. I can tell Willis is trying to make Mike more “serious”, but he’d be a better character if he was just a weirdly antipathic creep Amber and Ethan remember from high school who now runs a Youtube channel about the dangers of Presbytarian immigration.
He’s a Shortstacked character to the core.
That strip includes the answer to the question as well as a good example of what he’s done.
I mean, there’s regular levels of asshole and there’s ‘elaborately spoof websites so you can make your roommate cry and record him doing so.’ That’s just… an incredibly pointlessly sadistic move.
And it’s still definitely (and deliberately) ambiguous whether Mike meant what he said in his last Blaine confrontation – whether he genuinely, tragically thought he was helping Amber by blackmailing Blaine into driving her for the field trip of doom, or if he actually wanted her and her abuser to be stuck in a car together all day, ‘making each other miserable’. If it’s the former? Then yeah, there’s still a chance for him to turn things around someday. Maybe not with Ethan and Amber – a lot of trust’s been burned – but still possible. If it’s the latter? Then he was an absolute garbage person well beyond what’s expected for either tweens or edgelords. I’m not sure you can ever come back from that.
Honestly, I think him doing that to Blaine was serious, but it was the day he snapped and became the asshole. There’s SOME reason behind all his assholery, we just need to see what
If you mean ‘he didn’t realize/intend that Amber would be abused on this trip, but became an asshole when he saw that didn’t work’, then sure.
If you mean ‘he decided, on that day, to deliberately put Amber in a position where she would be abused, for hours on end’… That’s not assholish. That’s monstrous. There is no good reason why someone should do that to another person. Period.
Raidah’s an asshole, sure, but Mike’s pointlessly sadistic and totally lacking any decent qualities in his interactions with people. At least with Raidah you can say she cares about her friends (whether she’s GOOD at helping is a different question, but still) and is loyal to them.
Also depends on what the person is doing to them. I took issue with Joyce’s behaviour earlier, yeah, but if she had just called Raidah on being a condescending asshole a lot of the time, I’d have been there with her. Nothing Danny has said has been nice, but it’s also not really wrong or unjustified by past interactions.
Who’s lower on that scale though, Mike or Mary?
I feel like Mike is somehow lower for people because people still antagonize Mary in-comic and Carla got her comeuppance, and Mike is only just now getting some lashback.
Mary is worse for me, but Mike’s lack of backlash is making this cathartic for me, yes.
For me? Mike.
Mary may be a self centred hypocritical judgemental moralising blackmailer, but at least you can kind of understand why she acts that way. Mike however, has no motivations, no reason, he’s a somewhat sadistic asshat just for the sake of being a somewhat sadistic asshat.
Maybe we’ll get some character development to explain this, but until then, Mary has more dimensions (if if they are warped).
Mary’s more understandable and coherent, but Mike’s lack of apparent reasons doesn’t make her a better person.
Just because you don’t know Mike’s motivations doesn’t mean he doesn’t have them.
It’s not fair that he can just dip out when he starts to feel vulnerable, come back and face your sadness Mike.
Because we’re assuming that he’s not manipulating Danny right now… why?
I’m assuming that he is
Because we’ve been seeing him show a more vulnerable side regarding Ethan after they slept together when no one else was around. But manipulation can come from genuine emotion too. Tbh I just want my boy to get some character development
Yes, please and thank you. That’s all I really want too.
That’s great, Dan. Now stop giving Joe chances.
When that happens Joe will be like “Guess Joyce was right about consequences… Or was that Danny who said it first?”
Have we really seen Joe & Danny interact since his relapse?
Mike loves Ethan sorry it’s canon
Or Mike wants Danny to THINK he loves Ethan.
I honestly can’t tell.
He looks teary eyed here, and I dunno, I don’t think he’d drum up crocodile tears for Danny’s benefit.
I’m more inclined to think he wanted to show Ethan he could be a gay man, and that he could play the field, and it looks like he either caught feelings or wishes he could have kept it going, but knows he’s kinda poison.
Of course he’d drum of crocodile tears for Danny’s benefit. This is Mike.
I don’t know if he is, but if that was part of a scheme he definitely would.
Teary eyed wait what?
I know what shade of cyan Willis uses for tears, and it ain’t present.
Yes, this is the same serious look he had when he asked Ethan to have sex with him. I do think that Mike has feelings for Ethan.
If at the same time, he can mess with Danny who’s got feelings too, win-win for Mike.
Come on Mike, open up a little to Danny, he is relatively harmless. It is why Sal likes him too.
The term is “mostly harmless”.
That’s for planets.
Or Nugget
Or beginner Elite Dangerous players.
[Narrator] When Mike said, “I did your mom for a nickel” what he really meant was, “I love you.”
Oh my gosh you made me laugh. I heard this in Grandpa’s *exact voice*.
[Narrator] Mike doesn’t kiss Danny at this time.
[GoblinScribe] What?
[Narrator] He doesn’t kiss him. I’m explaining to you because you look nervous.
danny’s fucking face in the last panel jhhgsdkfhs hes like “hm what was that”
I mean, how else do you react to seeing a trickster god shit-stirrer on the verge of tears? It’s got to be jarring as hell.
Ethan is currently holding a bag of nickels and has a puzzled expression on his face.
At the expense of…
… your mother.
I Just Got Paid Today
I got me a Pocket Full of Change…
I dunno,
But I think I might,
‘Cause I gotta pocket
Full of Kryptonite.
No Alt-text, everything is NOT going all according to keikaku.
Plan means tactical contingistrat
I misunderstood your comment for a second and went back up because I was like “wait, there’s no alt text? Probably an error not foreshadowing” – and then I reread the alt text and was like “OH.”
Cue for the ending scene of Rick and Morty’s The Old Man and the Seat. No rest for the wicked.
I’m still reeling from that. Pretty powerful.
That’s a nice Gravatar you got, there. Got the flag, got the peace sign, it’s a good theme.
Trade-off: Plans being Dan’d up
You only become spineless once the uke is played, too, so it’s a double Danning
A “Double Danning” is also what I’d imagine a threesome between Mike, Ethan and Danny be called, and I’m voting for it next election.
Best threesome write-in campaign ever, if we could say so ourselves.
Ethan-Dan-Mike – “As EDM as dubstep”
Mike-Ethan-Dan – “Take your MEDs”
Dan-Mike-Ethan – “Run DME”
… “Us.”
Good for you, standing up to him Danny.
Standing up for what? Mikes for once done nothing wrong
Mike is an asshole. He has hurt Danny’s friends. He walked up to Danny when Danny was minding his own business, and opened the with a weird comment to Danny. Danny doesn’t need to wait until Mike tries to hurt him to tell Mike he’s an asshole and he doesn’t want to deal with him.
If Mike doesn’t want people to talk to him the way Danny is, welp, that’s what happens when you put so much effort into cultivating your reputation as an asshole.
The downside of being a professional asshole is, people treat you like you’re an asshole even when you’re not actively being an asshole.
Or, you know
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-3/01-if-the-shoes-split/waving/
Can we get an F in the comments section for Mike’s vulnerability?
F
F
AH SHIT
ominous
Oh Danny, you’re honestly becoming one of my favourite characters. You go, you.
… It’s the hat, isn’t it?
Big ol’ +1 from me
I think the precise moment he became my favorite character may actually have been when Joyce could only remember him as a floating hat.
Saaaaamesies. He’s gotten a lot of much-needed development and it shows. <3
At the expense of what? AT THE EXPENSE OF WHAT. Tell me it’s not Dinobot. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TELL ME IT’S NOT DINOBOT.
Mike is a very interesting ethical litmus test for the fandom at large. The question he provokes is: Are there some people who are so dislikable that we will approve when they suffer? And I mean suffer as in really feel the twist-in-the-gut pain that comes with being human. Are there some people to whose pain we will say “Good, they deserve it”?
Few things make me feel as bad as the suffering of others, even when they’re Bad People. I wonder where the rest of you stand.
Upon thinking of your question and looking inside myself, I find that i’m oddly opposite. In general I prefer to see bad people suffer as opposed to not suffering, but only to a degree. The thing is, and it’s true both in real life and here, is that we don’t know the extent Mike is feeling or if he even IS suffering, or if it’s more of a lingering regret. Also it depends a significant amount on what level of asshole you consider Mike. Some things he has done, as others have said, could easily range from simple maliciousness gone wrong to some really scummy things depending on his intent. Honestly at this point I don’t think Mike deserves to suffer because I don’t know what his real intent is but I WILL say that this is a situation he brought upon himself and so deserves whatever he gets from it.
I’m sorry, but with your avatar being Mary, I am projecting a fair amount of viciousness into your comment. I know it’s meant as a genuine self-reflective analysis of the situation and your feelings toward it, but I imagine Mary saying it and I really can imagine her saying this with a self-satisfied, better-than-you, nose up facial expression. It kinda makes an interesting point that people form opinions about other people and then find it difficult not to form assumptions about their motivations based on pre-conceived notions of their personality. I don’t even have any opinions about you as a person, but I do about Mary. And because you are wearing her face, it makes it a little hard to separate. I think that’s why so many people are finding it hard to trust that Mike is actually being vulnerable right now.
I will admit to a certain very small amount of pleasure having Mary randomly end up my avatar because my views do not line up with hers. However, as you said the face being shown can affect how someone views a message. My views are entirely my own but being able to have that little bit of baggage randomly attached in the form of a small picture is interesting to me and your comment is exactly why. Thank you very much for that. If I may clarify a bit, I meant that in general I prefer a situation where a person who has done wrong is made to suffer an equivalent wrong. I am not suggesting any kind of scale for this equivalence as I know that this is more of a personal desire than a system for balance. I do not like to see people in pain, any kind of pain, as it hurts me inside to see that. It doesn’t change the thought that some people “deserve” pain.
There’s a difference between reading into someone’s statements based on pre-conceived notions based on their avatar and reading into someone’s statements based on past experience with them.
We have trouble trusting Mike because he’s been shown to be a manipulative asshole. That’s a problem with having a history as a manipulative asshole. People stop trusting you, even if you actually try to change.
I think if the suffering is a consequence of their actions then it’s fair. So here where Danny is just being rude, well mike deserves that for being awful all the time. I wouldn’t think it was fair if mike fell and broke his leg or something.
This is where I stand too. If you are a rude cruel person to people, then I might not be rude myself, but it is fair that others are rude and distrusting of you. But if you were rude then fell down a staircase and broke your leg, I’d still call an ambulance for you.
Even the worst types of people, I wouldn’t personally be okay with hurting myself or think that hurting them is necessarily the right thing to do in general (individual situations vary). But that’s because I try to draw a distinction between what someone ‘deserves’, which is abstract and not clearly definable and ‘how humans should be treated’. Someone may ‘deserve’ it, but we should still do better than that because we’re not monsters, we’re all humans.
Agreed. Like, the consequence I want most for Mike is for people to stop hanging out with him because he’s a perennial asshole, and for Mike to subsequently realize he is the problem and try and change.
I just like watching my favorite characters suffer. Especially ones like Mike who are so one dimensional and need an emotional punch in the gut for character development
When they’re fictional? Absolutely.
When they’re real, I feel more iffy on wishing bad things on them. Depends how bad they are and what’s being wished on them and who’s doing the wishing, but that’s my general rule.
I want to believe that Mike is exhibiting genuine emotional heartbreak in his eyes, but he specifically made a plan to fuck with Danny and break HIS heart through Ethan, so I can’t jump on the train of “aww, poor Mike” quite yet. I’m hoping he’s actually growing tho!!!
He’s a college student, he’s not an evil mastermind. Don’t expect him to be entirely consistent or for his plans to go exactly as he expects them to, just because that’s how Walkyverse!Mike usually was.
I don’t know anything about the previous iterations of characters and the comics they were in. I’m assuming the Walkyverse!Mike was an evil mastermind based off of what you’re saying, and I definitely don’t think he’s that. I just can’t trust what I’m seeing. I’ll believe his teary eyes when I see more substance! >:3
Walkyverse Mike wasn’t an evil mastermind. He was just an asshole who liked to kick people in the nuts.
SP!Mike had become more of the evil mastermind.
SP!Mike became less and less of a problem as his relationship with Amber deepened, IMO. He was still cartoonishly over the top and rarely had to deal with any consequences, but Amber softened him quite a bit.
I forget that alot of people here havent read its walky or shortpacked. And that’s a weird thing to think about
Oh come off it Mike! You had sex with Ethan you didn’t give him your kidney!
You clearly haven’t read the latest Slipshine story, if you think they’ve got 4 kidneys between them.
I would think that doing it with kidneys – like, there in bed with them – would be awkward and messy.
OMG MIKE CAUGHT FEELINGS YESSSS
It does seem like Mike may have developed feelings for Ethan. Or he could be just messing with Danny. But I suspect it’s the former.
People not wanting to be around you is an expected consequence of being an asshole, Mike. This should not be news.
Why are these 18 year olds so dramatic
“Why is all this water so wet?”
In my experience that means it’s very turned on.
Maybe because it’s a drama comic
Danny standing up to Mike and Mike getting the feels for Ethan. That’s a one-two punch right there.
I really like this storyline a lot. I hope to see more where Mike is coming from and what changed him.
No. NO, Mike, you don’t GET to make me wibble –
Who am I kidding. After we read your backstory you totally do.
To be clear, he’s still an asshole. Having good reasons for being an asshole doesn’t make you NOT an asshole. But assholes can still be sympathetic and redeemable. And hopefully in the end, Mike will turn out to be both.
At the expense of his heart and will to go on, one thing that Mike never knew that he had and the other that he never knew it was possible to lose.
Well said. Also, wibbles. Something I never knew I could do for Mike until recently. :c
Mike is basically just your typical Edgelord. It’s just that Dumbing of Age is in a time when those are as common as grains of sand. I think part of the fun is him becoming aware this is not a unique or helpful attitude.
I misread it as ‘sit on your face’ which is not always the best threat, but it was pretty funny until I realized what it actually said.
Ok I’m not sure I get it? Mike’s clearly teary-eyed but I can’t follow the reasoning to why… Current hypothesis:
> Mike genuinely likes Ethan
> Mike started hooking up w Ethan to mess with Danny
> (Because Danny is clearly interested in Ethan, and vice versa)
> Here he realizes that Danny doesn’t care that Mike’s hooking up with Ethan, as long as Ethan isn’t hurt. And this whole thing has actually been on his (Mike’s) expense, not Danny’s.
This is slightly convoluted though, so I feel like I’ve missed something
At the expense of Mike himself
Mike actually likes Ethan. His initial plan was to hook up with him to make Danny jealous. But closer to the actual time, he changed his mind, gave Ethan an actual confidence boost and THEN had sex with him. It made Ethan more confident and embrace his sexuality. Mike did it at the expense to himself but Danny wasn’t in his contemplation at the time and doesn’t actually care if he has made Danny jealous or not. He just. Decided to be nice to Ethan.
Anything’s possible, but the plan does seem to have worked, at least partially. Danny hasn’t been reduced to a whimpering mess, but he has been showing signs of jealousy.
The point isn’t whether the plan worked or not but whether he still cared if that occurred or not and honestly we haven’t seen Mike making any effort to ensure Danny knew and would get jealous. Normally he is meticulous when it comes to his crafted plans to harm others.
Honestly, it’s towards Danny that he’s looking all teary-eyed. So… I think maybe he’s got something for Danny.
It could be that he envies Danny and Ethan, for their ability to move on from this while he can’t.
…I’m not sure where else to post this but… Walky exists. He’s real and still like McNuggets.
Everything? I don’t think so.⅕ is more probably
Mike being bummed out and paying for the consequences of his actions? Golly but my birthday isn’t for another five months
Did he just Batman out of that conversation?
“… of the death of a bachelor?”
did someone already make this reference
Mike may be an asshole, but I’m also half convinced most of the shit he says is made up, and he’s got +5 proficiency with expertise in Deception. His whole thing is fucking with people’s minds, but while the shit he says is pretty horrible, no one, that I’ve seen, has really been worried about it, they’ve just avoided him as much as possible. I’m also half convinced all of his bullshit is a self defense mechanism because pretty sure his little past flashback blurb was a lead up to him getting kicked down for trying to defend his friends.
It also seems like a good portion of the time Mike has acted as a catalyst for growth in some of the other characters. There have been times when his messing with people has forced them to at least acknowledge, if not outright confront problems that they had been trying desperately to ignore pr avoid confronting.
Now, whether this was intentional on Mike’s part, or an unintended consequence of constant fuckery, I don’t know. But I feel like it just might be the former. He fucks with his friends enough to ensure they never think he actually cares about them (the self-defense mechanism you mention) while occasionally fucking with them in ways that are productive… ESPECIALLY in Ethan’s case.
CAUGHT IN YOUR OWN NET
im p sure mike was intending for ethan to catch feelings and instead he did and i am LIVING for this