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Joyce’s Hat: Oh, you. You just couldn’t let me go, could you? This is what happens when an unstoppable hat meets an immovable hat. You truly are unstainable, aren’t you? You won’t kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness. And I won’t kill you because you’re just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever.
Dina’s hat: You’ll be on Joyce’s head forever.
“Faz understands that your systematic devouring of him indicates your overwhelming lust for his body, and looks forward to the moment when I fully satiate you.”
Probably not. Understanding what you’d do in the situation you were just in helps you to understand what you’d do in the situation you were just in. Your reaction to how you reacted helps to form who you want to become.
… I think that all checks out.
Yes, but it’s not the adversity itself that is strengthening your character. If you persevere, then you can reinforce your strength, and if you are found wanting, then you can take the time to shore up your weaknesses. This, however, can’t happen during the adversity.
In Amber’s case, growing up with a father like Blaine would not make her strong (which we clearly see in Shortpacked). It wasn’t until she was removed from that situation that she could start to strengthen herself.
While your argument is true, this is not exact same situation. Amber from Shortpacked! grew up lacking in any self-confidence. DOA’s Amber has been stated to have grown up with anger issues, and anger always makes one more likely to stand up for one’s self than lack of confidence.
The Jurassic Park engineers, in mistakenly engineering giant raptors, made a terrible mistake. An awesome terrible mistake. How could Dr. Grant be wrong too? Anyone dumb enough to take John Hammond’s word for anything can’t be right that often. There. Problem solved.
Up until he retaliated. Walkyverse Blaine wasn’t adverse to hitting Amber. So a sucker punch to the face will quite likely be countered with a sucker punch of his own.
Of course we can’t be sure if he’d actually be stupid enough to do it where there are witnesses.
Amber and her father have a history, and her responses will all be shaped by that. Perfectly reasonable stuff she would say to a stranger that was being an illogical powertripper won’t be one of the natural response choices when dealing with her dad. By the same token, his reaction to a challenge from someone he thinks is a member of that extremely tiny segment of humanity that he can get away with dominating would be different than the way he would react to others.
Shame, too, since he is crazy full of openings since he doesn’t think he needs to protect himself. I will be extremely glad when he flounces off back to his hole… he pisses me off with each word balloon he gets and that is such a waste, since he is, in any objective sense, a powerless and pathetic nonentity. Amber can’t be objective about this, though.
He was CONFIRMED to be a bigger asshole there, anyway. It’s entirely possible he was physically abusive in the Dumbiverse, too, even aside from the verbal and emotional abuse going on here.
That said, the implication in the earlier comic mentioning Blaine was that he had left them, not the other way around, possibly of his own volition.
If that’s the case, he may well be marginally less of an asshole than he was in the old universe. … Seriously, him up and leaving their lives strikes me as loads better than what he did to Amber and Stacy in the Walkyverse. At the very least, it was probably a factor in Amber being as comparatively emotionally stable here from the start as she is.
Once in a train I apprehended a noisy drunk getting on everyone’s nerves with singing, vulgar talk etc etc at top level. After I told him to shut up and turned around, he started right again, so I pushed him into his seat with my arm across his throat and told him again, then releasing him. He got out of his seat and stated he was a head taller than me and going to crush me (actually, he had to stand kind of hunched in the aisle because of his size). I just looked at him, hands dangling at my side and told him “Try it.”. Now given our respective brawling experience and relative strengths, it was probably a good thing for me that he did not actually take me up on the offer.
Problem was that I was dead serious about it, and he probably could not figure out why. Actually, neither could I but I was not trying at the moment. So he backed off.
Some of these days I’m going to get myself killed.
trust me, attitude is equaly as important as ability. if you can convince someone that you can beat them, then you’ve won without having to throw a single punch.
god, one of the stupidest moments of my childhood was believing that and asking my Chinese friend I’d known since we were two if it was true. And she was like ‘…no?’
The second stupidest was when someone got me to ask the Jewish girl I had a crush on as a tiny fellow if the Hannukah fairy was a real thing. That was also a ‘…no?’
I imagine them a bit more like the ninja cat or weeping angels: every time they are unseen, they move closer, but when they are spotted they do not move. Eventually, though, you will blink, and you will be doomed.
AMBER YOU ARE PROBABLY A LEGAL ADULT AND THE COURT ORDERED HIM TO PAY SO HE CANNOT HOLD THAT OVER YOU. HE SHOULD NOT BE IN YOUR CLOSET DIGGING AROUND. HE SHOULDN’T EVEN BE THERE AS HE WAS NOT INVITED. YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO BOOT HIS ASS OUT.
Exactly. Boot him out through the window. He’ll have to pay for the damages, and getting cut to ribbons by the glass during the defenestration would serve him right!
I suddenly imagine Walkyverse Mike using the dimension portal to systematically punch all Blaines, possibly filming it as a future anniversary gift for Amber.
I’m not sure how it works, but I don’t know if she’d still be receiving the court-ordered financial support if she had a restraining order against him.
I hope she would, but as I said, I don’t know how the law works with that.
You totally would, child support has little to do with any kind of restraining order. In many states it’s actually automated, money leaves paycheck and gets put into an account, end of story.
Restraining order or not, he has NO right to be in that room if she doesn’t want him there. If she notified campus security, they’d have no trouble at all kicking his ass out. And his little Faz, too.
I feel sick to my stomach when I see her dad. Seriously, Amber is the character that I relate to most in the comics and seeing her dad being an ass makes me want to jump in there and simultaneously unleash the Furies and give Amber a hug.
LOL. Hopefully it does. Actually, I was just saying that the toilet frm the international station was a reference to Dead Like Me. It’sn how the lead character dies and becomes a Grim Reaper
-twitch- What’s that, Blaine? You have to have a court order to tell you to help support your daughter and you think you get to say how that money is spent?
Where’s Ruth? I need her to teach me how to remove femurs…
I’m torn between wanting him to die a slow and painful death, or a fast and painful one so we don’t have to deal with him any longer than absolutely necessary.
I think that if Blaine were real, and we were to meet him, it’d end up in a “Murder on the Orient Express” type situation where we all attack him and nobody’s sure who dealt the killing blow.
When Dina is trying to educate you on poor social skills you know you have problems.
Huh, you know, this asshole is like a less passive aggressive version of Joyce’s parents. Walks into his daughter’s life, criticises and dismisses her choices and attempts to assert his control over her life.
The thing about angry and aggressive people is that they tend to put themselves in situations that allow them to express anger and aggression. It’s addictive, in a way.
Actually, I wonder…yes, certainly he could be here for no reason other than to be a tremendous, douchey asshole. But I can’t help but feel like he’s got some kind of angle. He was looking for money the first time he showed up in Shortpacked!, could this be similar?
I’ve been reading on “To Be or Not To Be”, so it was supposed to be an allusion to the nunnery line, as I find his attempted sexual activity to be shameful. Not because sex is shameful, but because Faz is shameful. A monastery would also have the advantage of being secluded and full of self-denial, as I am given to understand. On the whole, advantages. I’d be perfectly fine with him never speaking to anyone ever ever again. I like to hope that he can learn, though. Despite all evidence to the contrary.
Ethan could throw a punch. Danny is probably as helpful as Pokey from Earthbound. Danny Apologized profusely
Danny smiled incinserely
Danny still didn’t recongnize Amber
Ethan’s not exactly in an emotional stable place right now. Even if Amber’s dad didn’t know his specific issues he’d likely see the weakness in him. Like blood in the water in front of a shark.
I so want Danny to come in and find the guts to just say something.
Then Blaine will berate him scaring the shit out of him which Blaine then slips in and falls into Faz embedding teeth in that grinning globe he calls a head. Jaws of life are required. Blaine’s jaw is wired shut for 4 months. Faz’s injury amounts to a lobotomy.
You know, Willis, if you’re going to have someone die in a car crash, or any other sort of way, or multiple ways, simultaneously, fucking kill off Blaine, please.
And for every one there are dozens of caring, supportive, hardworking Dads who see their #1 role in life as loving and providing for their families. I have a Dad like that. (He’s 90 and still very much a Dad.) Mrs. Animal has a Dad like that. I have been a Dad like that for 31 years.
Sarah’s going to have such a long day. First she’s got to introduce Joyce’s parents to Old Testament God. Then she’s gotta swing by Danny’s parents. Then maybe Walky and Sal’s parents. And now there’s this guy. An Old Testament’s God’s wrath is never done.
Why not disembowel him slowly in a fire? While periodically strangling him with his own intestines? You want torture, I got a few thousand ways to do it.
But usually I’m just this quiet guy that likes to ride a bike to get places. Seriously, I haven’t killed anyone in ages. That you know…
Obviously the grappling hook is so she doesn’t have to go down to the dorm lobby to greet the pizza guy. Like how one of the Ninja Turtles (probably Donatello, but don’t quote me on that) had the pizza guy feed a pizza down through a sewer grate in the first movie, except in reverse. She just lowers her hook down out the window with a twenty on it, and then reels in a pizza.
I want Danny to redeem himself here. Like he overhears how Blaine treats Amber and just flips his shit, nobody knows what’s going, and it cuts to Blaine in a body cast with Faz explaining how women lust over him with charts.
In my fantasy of how this plays out, someone would knock Blaine out and he would wake up tied down and catheterized. At the other end of the catheter would be one of those old-timey glass IV bottles. The bottle would contain hydrochloric acid.
He gets therapy or grows up and realizes exactly how awful he was to his daughter. I’ve seen it happen, with abusers of a couple of different stripes. You kind of feel sorry for them.
If he’s a sociopath though (which I’m very certain he is) he’s incapable of reforming. Sociopaths who get mental therapy are generally good at telling therapists and psychiatrists what they want to hear and feigning emotional change. Sadly therapy just teaches them how to better psychopaths. They can’t change because their amygdula(part of the brain that regulates emotions, memories, trauma,etc) doesn’t function normally. If that’s the case then the best thing for Amber and her family is to keep their distance.
I sort of like Blaine. I can now use him as an outlet for my violent rages at my own social and parental situation. Thank you David Willis for creating this hellspawn for me to torture maim and humiliate in my dreams.
Because he can. Because he’s a complete cockass dickhole jerkface who is only happy when other people are unhappy except he’s still not happy then because he’s too busy being angry because that’s what makes the other people not happy. Because his idea of parenting is to scare a child so far into line, they become 2-dimensional. Because reasons because thinking about this character any more just makes me mad and slightly nauseated.
Never punch someone in the face. Too many bones, and if they happen to duck, you’ll shatter your fingers on their skull. Aim for the gut, the solar plexus (better) of it you must, throat or point of chin.
Not a speck of martial arts training, but I was hell on wheels in a bar fight back in the day (the day being about 1979.)
Even if the Sarazus are a herbivorous species, they can still be dangerous. See the example of the Cape Buffalo. So hurry up and trample Faz and Blaine to death!
“Congratulations,” Blaine! You’re neck-and-neck with Ryan the Rapist on the Loathesome Leaderboard! Whatever you say next, or whatever Amber chooses to reveal, could really push you ahead!
If she pulls it off, it’s only because Blaine has been out of Amber’s life too long to know that “You turned your boyfriend gay on your prom night” is a button he could use.
Genetically Modified Rabid Radioactive Monkeys.
That actually the secret origin for one of my Champions characters. Except it was bats. Chiropteretta, the Singing Bat!
My guess is the grappling hook is for Amazi-girl’s exits/entries using the dorm windows? Sal is the only one who seemingly climbs sheer building faces.
I think Faz is in danger, he really shouldn’t corner Dina.
I think Amber is about to let her abusive asshole father feel that he has made a very bad mistake harassing her at this point in her life.
I hope I’m right on both counts.
Wait. Trouble with PETA because they’re the only ones crazy enough to care what happens to Faz, or because they wouldn’t like you inflicting Faz on Canadian wildlife?
Ooh, I hope we get at least 4 more (on this topic) irrelevant comics ending in Amber telling her whore of a father to go to hell. Faz might be fun in the meantime though.
Oh yay… if you combine Joyce’s dad (the religion thing) and Blaine (the comics thing) you’d probably get my dad. My mom introduced me to comics, my dad thought they were a waist of time and money and told me to throw them away (instead I just simply hid them where he couldn’t see em :P). *twitches*
And sometimes when that dad has a kid, the dad has a certain mindset. He goes thinking, well, wait a minute. He’s paying for everything here. He pays for their food, their house, their clothes, their education. The kid could not exist without him. The kid’s whole life would be objectively shittier without him- of course it would! How would they even SURVIVE without daddy paying for their baby food? It’s not like they could get a job! They owe their whole existence to him!
But these thoughts go on quietly, in the far backdrop of the dad’s mind. He’s not always thinking it consciously. It’ll arise sometimes, in the heat of anger. Mostly, the thoughts he has are thoughts which superficially resemble those of all fathers: “I care for this child, and in the interest of caring for them, they should listen to me”.
The issue is that this surface level thought arises from corrupted mechanisms beneath: while a normal father thinks of care as unconditional love, a father like Blaine thinks of care as the obligation of childrearing; while a normal father thinks that a child should listen as one half of a communication process that becomes more involved as the child becomes an adult, Blaine thinks of it as the child’s obligation TO him, in RETURN of ALL that he has GIVEN UP to them.
This is the thought-process that happens when you turn yourself into the most important person in your world.
Blaine’s a psychopath. He has extreme narcissim. He likes dominating, controlling, and hurting others. He lacks empathy, so when he invokes negative emotions in Amber he gets a kick out of the control without feeling her pain in kind. Think of the kid that grabs another’s toy and plays rough with it and breaks it and reacts as if “eh, no big deal. It’s not like it was mine”.
You negated the Sal cliffhanger with the continuation of another good plot. Sorry Willis, we all win like that.
It’d take something REALLY big plot-wise interrupted by something INCREDIBLY unrelated and uninteresting to do an effective cliffhanger. Basically, the apex of the Ruth-Billie relationship arc interrupted by a Danny comic.
I gotta be honest, Dina vs. Faz is amazing. They talk in exactly the same manner, the same kinds of obsessive and self-centered personalities, and have the same asperger’s symptoms. Just one of them is a complete and utter pervert, and the other probably doesn’t understand the concept of a sex drive except. This interaction could go on for DAYS and it would be brilliant. This could be an entire sitcom series, just these two in a room, talking about dinosaurs and sex, forever.
It’s a mistake to confuse Dina’s extreme introversion for shallow. It’s made her naive, but there’s depth in her to fill, unlike Faz, who’s everything is only skin deep.
Walky is the farthest from one I’ve found. Ethan is because he can’t be honest to someone who thought/thinks he’s his girlfriends about who he is, even when, by his own admission, he knows who he is. He’s selfishly using her to be accepted, and, in my opinion, that’s being an asshole.
Not being honest and being selfish makes you an asshole? That means every person I’ve ever met in my entire life was an asshole. I think you need stricter criteria.
I’ve read the entire strip twice. I know this universe of the characters pretty well, and every male character, outside of maybe one or two, is an asshole of some kind. Some are rude, some use others, there are jerks of many kinds. Ethan using Joyce, Joe being sex-obsessed guy, Jason lying to/using Sal, Mike’s tremendous vocabulary of insults, Amber’s dad being possessive-intimidator, Joe’s dad being rapey-Joe, Joyce’s dad keeping her from her friend just for having different religious views, etc. The list goes on. The only female characters who have even been written as rude at all, for more than a single instance, have been Ruth, Billie, Sarah, and Joyce’s mom.
Amber has deliberately friend zoned herself and has told her best friend that she needs space. Sal had sex with Jason and was angry that it didn’t improve her grades. Joyce slut shames and is judgemental. Dorothy let her boyfriend go to a college because of her when she knew she wanted to break up with him.
You can interpret pretty much all the characters as being arseholes if you want to. Willis has written characters who are young, who make mistakes and aren’t always the best that they could be. It’s part of what makes the comic so engaging.
Mike is just an arsehole though. To say otherwise and you’re wrong.
As Squeeble and gears said, if your definition of “asshole” is as generous as to include Ethan and Jason, it should also include a good chunk of the female cast; even Joyce has ben unintentionally rude to people on more than one occasion. Willis’s characters, both male and female, are very human and full of human failings. If you really see a double standard in the strip, I’m afraid you’re either not reading it carefully enough, or reading too much into it.
Never argue with a conveniently-selective memory. A conveniently-selective memory’s already decided those things that disagree with it don’t really count.
Sad but true :c Still, if you keep reminding them that there are lots of people who don’t see things the way they see them, it may do something in the long run.
Fortunately Ruth is just down the hall, so it wouldn’t take long for her to come and tear Blaine and Faz a new one while beating them with their own bloody femurs.
Or we could get lucky and Sarah comes along and goes Old Testament God on their asses with a baseball bat.
Or possibly even better, Mike comes along and out-assholes Blaine to the tune of fists to Blaine’s face.
For some reason, that line about the comics and “you can see why I rarely bother” gave me a horrifying thought: what if Blaine knows about Amazi-Girl? What if he’s the one who taught Amber how to fight, because sure, kid, you want to take down criminals? Hilarious. Let’s see if you have what it actually takes, not like those heroes on your little nerd fantasies.
Like Big Daddy from Kick-Ass only a thousand times more malignant and doing it solely to amuse himself.
Now David warned us that in the “bad parenting” department, Joyce’s parents would finish a distant second. Amber’s dad is into an impressive running start, but will he keep the lead? Joyce’s parents are from La Porte, Indiana, home of the famously bad mother Belle Gunness, so they might still have a few trumps in hand.
Actually, what’s with the votes? One can vote which family we want to meet, but then there is the upload buffer telling us that two months’ worth of comics are already uploaded.
There are only two explanations: David has uploaded multiple alternative timelines and selects timelines to show based on votes. Or we’re going to meet all of them anyway.
I keep trying to think of worst case scenario, and one I keep coming back to is “Dina’s parents complaining about how disrespectful Amber was towards her father, and how Dina should try to get to know that nice boy Faz better”.
I think Dinas parents seem to be just as shy as Dina herself. I doubt they’ll speak up. But I don’t think they’re stupid. They’d likely be able to see an abusive father.
Though wether or not they like faz i dunno. He’s mostly harmless.
I see Blaine rufusing to rein in his very disrespectful-of-their-daughter son as the most likely path to a “Dina’s parents kick Blaine’s ass” scenario.
Willis. Willis. Willis. You just managed to turn me angry. Now, you just need to make me love Faz, and i shalt forever donate you unlimited numbers of cookies.
Actually. I somewhat feel sorry for Faz, being the one who is stuck with Blaine. His behavior in Shortpacked likely resulting from a lack of a good father figure just carries over to Dumbing except he is actually even worse off because his father figure is such a jerk off!
The air in here is lousy with contempt. Dina and Faz are kind of similar in their level of social skills–they’re both bad at reading social cues, but Dina shows respect by backing off whereas Faz has no qualms about steamrollering others to get what he wants. (Which, due to the delicacy required in getting what he wants, means he can’t.)
Call me crazy, but suddenly Joyce’s parents seems less worse. I mean, yeah they are pretty bad, but at least they really do love and care for their daugther unlike this walking piece of shit. Seriously, I would throw him out or excuse myself that I need to go to the toilett and in truth go and scratch his entire car!
I think this is what’s known as “damning with faint praise”. Joyce’s parents are terrible, terrible people, but yes, that small difference that they were themselves brainwashed into their terribleness sets them above Blaine, who revels in his jerkiness.
I know that the expected catch phrase is “Damn you, Willis!”
But after the week I’ve had, and the sore points in my memory that this comic stirs for me, I was left instead with, “God damn it, Willis.”
A lone renegade fondles his glass of whisky. His bleary eyes focus on a newspaper. Dumbing of Age has taken the top spot in the Daily David, the crown in Willis’ media empire. His lips form words as he squints, then he mutters to himself. “Ruth died in a car crash…? Colliding with Ultra Car?”
He sinks back and bangs the bar with his glass, the bartender hurrying for another bottle. “God damn it, Willlis.”
This story line is just making more and more uncomfortable as it goes on. I know that Willis has it ready until Oct. but honestly I just want to ignore it for the next few weeks and come back when hopefully things have happened and not just making me feel like curling up and hiding in the closet.
Dang it, I want to know what he told Amber about comics. Im sure its sensible advice that Id totally would want to follow and not an attempt to control every aspect of my life/identity. Also, she could have just said the grappling hook meant that she was a Mabel fan (Gravity Falls).
It’s a waste of time, you’re squandering your potential, read real books, don’t be a kid, those are trash, I’ll only let you read those if you read these other books first, etc. What my mom said to me about SF/F. I didn’t get into comic books until college.
I’m actually kind of surprised about the hate Faz is getting here: he’s set next to Blaine, who is actually being abusive, and throughout the webcomic we’ve seen worse behavior from Joe, Ruth, and Billie (possssibly including Sal or Ethan, too), who are generally treated as fan-favorites. He’s hit on Dina in two strips, so far, and the worst part of what he’s doing I can think of is that there’s no reciprocation — he’s not forcing himself on her or seeking to intimidate her, he’s not getting violent, he’s just making some pathetic come-ons.
Is it because he’s unattractive? Socially immature? He deserves to die for these?
Well, sure, but Ethan was a pretty swell guy in Shortpacked!, while in DoA he did a pretty shitty thing before learning that Joyce would be okay with it. I don’t think it’s fair to be saying the kid should die just with what we’ve seen so far.
For that matter…as abusive as Blaine’s current behavior reminds me of, he’s yet to actually do or have done anything specific that would compare to, say, how the Walkertons treated Sal, how Joyce’s parents treated her, or worst of all, how Danny’s parents treated him. I mean, I’m almost certain evidence of pretty bad neglect or abuse is going to come up soon (damn does he remind me of my father!), but…he can’t fairly be considered the most loathsome character so far, even among the parents.
Also, does court ordered child support really mean that he was totally unwilling to provide for Amber? I know in my situation at least the money goes toward the mother to be “used in general for the children’s welfare”, not directly to the kids, so it might have been just that he disagreed with doing that or the specific amount.
Then again, if he does continue to be like my dad, then he probably is a hate-filled monster who deserves no sympathy. It’s just that we’re not certain of that yet, and I kind of hope for Amber’s sake that they are merely estranged, and not fully vitriolic.
I think its an issue because of the existance of this and shortpacked! – people have an expectation of the character of faz (and blaine) from that universe, and as such are expecting them to act accordingly in this one as well.
because of that assumption (and that his one redeeming factor in SP was his earnest desire to know his father – something that cannot be present here) people are expecting him to turn on the uncomfortable backstabing stalker creep mode here at any moment – something he is showing hints of
so a bit unfair, but a risk of the whole double universe thing.
Blaine, however, proved he was an asshole right from the get-go with the “this is MY room, and how dare they make me pay for it” bs he opened with. that’s not control freak behavour. that’s controlling relationship behaviour.
also, we don’t know how Sal’s parents treat her yet – we have her own words on it, but that could be biterness or truth, as we haven’t seen it yet. I’m hoping just bad memories on Sal’s part blown out of proportion due to time, because I hope for happy families for at least one character.
Amber should stop arguing an just nuke the site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure (maybe stuff Jocye shitty parents in the same room before hand).
Her dad was a dick to her and her mom, and basically slept around with a lot of women, mostly of the Korean race, as evidenced by Faz, due to him having ties with the Korean mafia.
I kinda want to see this explored in SP!, actually, like now that the Drama Tag stuff is solved, maybe this could be the next long-arching story?
The comic never goes into explicit details beyond “abuse,” but Amber was pretty messed up there at the beginning, and given the fact that she’s married to Mike of all people, her current emotional health is debateable, though she’s certainly in a much better place than she was.
She most I remember ever getting was when he showed up at the store, ostensibly to reconcile, Ethan gave him an “I know what you did,” speech and threw his ass out of the store.
Dina needs to change tactics, and quick! She can be excused for not knowing, but I’m sure that Faz is familiar enough with Japanese porn to know that a grimace like that is essentially an Asian O-Face.
Y’know, the thing is, he DIDN’T pay for it. HIS money went to her food, health, and other vital needs, which he doesn’t get a say in because they’re, y’know, vital. The rest of it isn’t his money to decide what to do with.
Blaine, you shouldn’t be so dismissive of comics. If you had read some in your time, maybe you’d have known better than to keep picking on your daughter when her speech balloon turned black. Just saying.
Here's an entertaining cite at the bottom of the first page
Josh Gerstein@joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 18h
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 ⋅ 1d
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
confirming that the reason there's been no Galaxy Version female characters in Blokees until now is that they felt they needed to make Round Lady Thighs For Ladies
It's #webcomicday? We have a special day???
Well, my name is Pat McHoarney and I draw 69 Mouse-Ear Blvd, a multigenerational story about women who all have sexy legs and probably other features. There was a grandmother, but she wasn't hot and so she died off-panel.
Elizabeth Holmes is in prison for defrauding investors through her blood-testing company, Theranos. Her partner, Billy Evans, is now trying to raise money for a company that describes itself as “the future of diagnostics.” nyti.ms/3FbtZm9
Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 18h
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com ⋅ 1d
Pavel
@spavel.bsky.social ⋅ 10d
The New York Times @nytimes.com ⋅ 5d
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 3d
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Faz hid that grappling hook there, didn’t he?
It’s Dina. She uses it to get around unnoticed.
How did you think she got behind those doors without anyone seeing her? She grapples up to the roof, crawls through the ducts, and drops down unseen.
The Sorayama clan are all master ninjas.
Oh my god…DINA IS AMAZI-GIRL! Wow. I did not have that in the pool.
It’s actually Dina’s hat that is Amazigirl.
Joyce’s hat is it’s archnemesis.
Joyce’s Hat: Oh, you. You just couldn’t let me go, could you? This is what happens when an unstoppable hat meets an immovable hat. You truly are unstainable, aren’t you? You won’t kill me out of some misplaced sense of self-righteousness. And I won’t kill you because you’re just too much fun. I think you and I are destined to do this forever.
Dina’s hat: You’ll be on Joyce’s head forever.
“Hey. Hey Joyce.”
“What? Who’s there? God?”
“Yeah, sure, why not. Now listen carefully: take Sarah’s bat, and bash Dorothy’s head in.”
This thread wins an internet today!
BAHAHAHA!
“W-who ARE you?!”
“I’m Hatman.”
Plot twist: Joyce’s hat is secretly controlled by her parents.
Yea, this will not end well….
I think something irreversible may happen. Like The Saruyamas consuming Faz while he is still alive. And he will enjoy it.
“Faz understands that your systematic devouring of him indicates your overwhelming lust for his body, and looks forward to the moment when I fully satiate you.”
“Is this what the internet reffered to as ‘Eating out’? Faz believed he was to do this to the ladies, but Faz must have been mistaken”
Everybody gets a free Ferrari, and everyone is happy. BUT JOYCE’S GETS A FLAT TIRE!
And you get a flat tire! And you get a flat tire! Everybody gets a flat tire!
OH BOY! MY FAVORITE!
It’s turtles all the way down.
Show him how the grappling hook works. Just be sure to put it point blank into his eye.
I bet Amber has read Watchmen. Hence she knows how Rorschach uses his grappling hook.
But Rorschach gets caught…
College dorm room closets rarely have a built-in secret compartment to hide your grappling hook and various other Comedian-style gear.
I think I should sleep. I tried to read your comment and all I saw was
“College Dom nom nom”
College dom nom nom is what Walky does with natchitos.
It’s also what Ruth wants to do to Billie.
Heavy weapons guy approves.
Yea, those rooms cost extra, she couldn’t afford it.
Her father couldn’t afford it.
And what he does to the fingers of guys like Amber’s Korean mob goon dad…
I’m pretty sure she just has the standard hook on a rope to be thrown without the aid of a launching apparatus.
Well then that makes it even easier to “demonstrate” to him!
Oddly enough, it always takes adversity to build character. Amber’s standing up for herself. Dina’s expressing herself.
Faz is… Faz.
Faz is standing up for Dina.
Faz stands up for everyone, if you catch my meanin’
Pity Faz isn’t Japanese. There’s an old Japanese adage: The nail that sticks out gets hammered down. If you catch my meanin’.
This is getting akward. If you catch my meanin’.
I think a lot of people are going to get hammered after this.
You have to be hammered just to deal with Faz.
I’m not sure even Billy could get -that- hammered.
No, you have to hammer Faz to deal with him. I’d use a jackhammer myself.
Hmm…does it take adversity to build up character, or is it only during adversity that one’s true character shines forth?
Are they mutually exclusive?
Probably not. Understanding what you’d do in the situation you were just in helps you to understand what you’d do in the situation you were just in. Your reaction to how you reacted helps to form who you want to become.
… I think that all checks out.
Yes, but it’s not the adversity itself that is strengthening your character. If you persevere, then you can reinforce your strength, and if you are found wanting, then you can take the time to shore up your weaknesses. This, however, can’t happen during the adversity.
In Amber’s case, growing up with a father like Blaine would not make her strong (which we clearly see in Shortpacked). It wasn’t until she was removed from that situation that she could start to strengthen herself.
While your argument is true, this is not exact same situation. Amber from Shortpacked! grew up lacking in any self-confidence. DOA’s Amber has been stated to have grown up with anger issues, and anger always makes one more likely to stand up for one’s self than lack of confidence.
Well, if not for adversity, how else are you supposed to get XP?
Dude’s right. There don’t seem to be many fetch quests in IU.
Lots of dialog though. Especially in classes. You have to keep mashing that A button repeatedly.
Oh, God. And so it begins.
I know. I had no hope this situation wouldn’t be bad, but… Auuuuugh. *Shudders*
The Eye of the Shitnado has passed! Prepare for the second barrage!
And one guy gets tackled into a manhole by Wolverine.
Then Wolverine carries them through the sewer while singing.
Dina’s parents: DO SOMETHING.
They are allowing him to remain focussed on Amber so he won’t see when they attack him from the sides.
Clever Girl…
I’ve long wanted someone to make an animation of that scene with Dina’s head pasted over the raptor’s.
I just want people to portray their size accurately for once. There’s also no evidence that they were packhunters.
Technically no, but plenty of birds and reptiles come together at various times, even they aren’t like wolf packs.
Does it really matter? They’re long dead.
they arnt dead they just became roomies with Elvis…and the dodo bird
It matters to paleontology nerds.
Maybe we can explain it thusly:
The Jurassic Park engineers, in mistakenly engineering giant raptors, made a terrible mistake. An awesome terrible mistake. How could Dr. Grant be wrong too? Anyone dumb enough to take John Hammond’s word for anything can’t be right that often. There. Problem solved.
An awesome mistake.
It’s the parents you don’t see coming that get you.
Amber’s mom: PICK UP THE PACE
if you can’t hurry make sure to bring some rugs with you for the bodies
Look, she’s getting Joe’d as fast as she can. Joe’s dad can’t Joe as fast as Joe.
Can’t rush a good schtupping.
There is an art to love making. You can’t just rush it. LOVE HAS NO TIME LIMIT.
They are doing something. Staring counts as something.
They are standing behind the door
Aw, wait, oops…They are visible behind Blaine earlier.
Hold on just a few more seconds you two the teleporter is almost ready!
Beam me up, Dr. Rosenthal.
“Can’t you wait? I’m kinda busy!”
Amber, tell him to FUCK OFF!!!!
A nice sucker punch would be nice as well
I don’t think that’d work…pretty sure that’d just make him mad.
But it would make her feel oohhh so good.
Up until he retaliated. Walkyverse Blaine wasn’t adverse to hitting Amber. So a sucker punch to the face will quite likely be countered with a sucker punch of his own.
Of course we can’t be sure if he’d actually be stupid enough to do it where there are witnesses.
Amber and her father have a history, and her responses will all be shaped by that. Perfectly reasonable stuff she would say to a stranger that was being an illogical powertripper won’t be one of the natural response choices when dealing with her dad. By the same token, his reaction to a challenge from someone he thinks is a member of that extremely tiny segment of humanity that he can get away with dominating would be different than the way he would react to others.
Shame, too, since he is crazy full of openings since he doesn’t think he needs to protect himself. I will be extremely glad when he flounces off back to his hole… he pisses me off with each word balloon he gets and that is such a waste, since he is, in any objective sense, a powerless and pathetic nonentity. Amber can’t be objective about this, though.
PUNCHIN’ TIME
Okay, Dina, make like your idol Troodon and tear his throat out. You’ve got the savage grimace, you’re halfway there.
Saurornithoides mongoliensis. Why does everyone keep confusing him with Troodon? I bet Dina doesn’t appreciate it.
Saurornithoides mongoliensis needs a snappier name. Imma call him “Sauromon”.
As I said yesterday they are troodontids. So the confusion isn’t so bad.
Still, it’s kind of like calling a Colombian a Mexican.
Naw it’s more like calling a Nicaraguan a Belizian.
It’s like calling a Canadian an American, except less likely to get you mauled.
Or calling a Puerto Rican Cuban.
No offense to my Cuban bros and sis.
There’s only one woman in Cuba?
looks at caption test … well played willis
What are you talking about Willis? Sal’s right here!
OH MY GOD, AMBER IS SAL?
Cheesus, Walkyverse Blaine was a lousy father, but now the guy’s a colossal asshole to boot!
Dude was an asshole back in the Walkyverse too. In fact, he was a bigger one there.
He was CONFIRMED to be a bigger asshole there, anyway. It’s entirely possible he was physically abusive in the Dumbiverse, too, even aside from the verbal and emotional abuse going on here.
Yep. We know he’s an asshole, but the extent to his assholishness is up in the air for now.
That said, the implication in the earlier comic mentioning Blaine was that he had left them, not the other way around, possibly of his own volition.
If that’s the case, he may well be marginally less of an asshole than he was in the old universe. … Seriously, him up and leaving their lives strikes me as loads better than what he did to Amber and Stacy in the Walkyverse. At the very least, it was probably a factor in Amber being as comparatively emotionally stable here from the start as she is.
Personally, I’ve always preferred the term “bastarditude.” As referenced in TG here: http://www.treadingground.com/?p=329
We barely met him, but the implication was that Walkyverse Blaine was a total asshole, too.
Walkyverse Blaine was exponentially an asshole from what we’ve seen thus far.
I’m just waiting for the rest of the Sorayamas to attack. Pleeeeaaaase?
Wouldn’t it be so cool if the Saruyamas were closet ninjas?
Or maybe Okâsan is the ninja and Otôsan is a closet samurai!
BANZAI!!!
I don’t want Dina to be a closeted ninja!
She should be Out and proud.
DINA ISN’T IN THE CLOSET!
She is behind the door!
If the fact that you’re a ninja isn’t a secret then you’re doing it wrong.
It’s not the ninja that hides. For the ninja creates closets in plain sight.
They can’t be ninjas. We already saw them.
THAT’S WHAT THEY WANT YOU TO THINK.
D’OH!
Ninja’s can hide in plain sight.
Know what Dr. McNinja’s parents look like under their masks? YOU DO NOW!
Can’t be. Where’s the mustache of Authority? You can’t shave that thing off. It would take a superhuman to even pluck off a hair!
The mustache is a ninja as well.
All asians know martial arts. Its an unwritten rule of fiction.
Yup
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AllAsiansKnowMartialArts
Wait, doesn’t that mean it’s written?
IT IS WRITTEN
It is known.
It is law
I AM THE LAW!
I AM BATMAN!
I AM VENGEANCE!
I AM CORNHOLIO!!!
I AM MEGATRON!!!
Excuse me? At best you’re NBE-2.
I AM THE TERROR THAT FLAPS IN THE NIGHT! I. AM. DARKWING DUCK!!!!!!
I AM SPARTACUS!
I AM YOUR FATHER!
AND I’M HIS BEST FRIEND JESUS!
Quiet you!
I knew an asian dude in college who swore he once scared off a mugger by dropping into a phony kung-fu pose.
Personally I think he was full of shit, but the image amuses me, especially since he was about 5’7” and 40 pounds overweight.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Acrofatic
Once in a train I apprehended a noisy drunk getting on everyone’s nerves with singing, vulgar talk etc etc at top level. After I told him to shut up and turned around, he started right again, so I pushed him into his seat with my arm across his throat and told him again, then releasing him. He got out of his seat and stated he was a head taller than me and going to crush me (actually, he had to stand kind of hunched in the aisle because of his size). I just looked at him, hands dangling at my side and told him “Try it.”. Now given our respective brawling experience and relative strengths, it was probably a good thing for me that he did not actually take me up on the offer.
Problem was that I was dead serious about it, and he probably could not figure out why. Actually, neither could I but I was not trying at the moment. So he backed off.
Some of these days I’m going to get myself killed.
Appropriate avatar is appropriate.
trust me, attitude is equaly as important as ability. if you can convince someone that you can beat them, then you’ve won without having to throw a single punch.
god, one of the stupidest moments of my childhood was believing that and asking my Chinese friend I’d known since we were two if it was true. And she was like ‘…no?’
The second stupidest was when someone got me to ask the Jewish girl I had a crush on as a tiny fellow if the Hannukah fairy was a real thing. That was also a ‘…no?’
Hanukkah fairy? Is that what Jews tell their kids so they don’t have to admit that Santa’s a huge anti-Semite?
That’s what they call Mr. Hanky, the Christmas poo.
I believe it’s from some Judy Bloom book, though I can’t recall which one.
Which style? All of them? You can argue that swords count as martial art forms too.
And now watch how the pack of Saruyamas lunges on its prey. Their generally docile nature hides the feral beast within.
I imagine them a bit more like the ninja cat or weeping angels: every time they are unseen, they move closer, but when they are spotted they do not move. Eventually, though, you will blink, and you will be doomed.
Huh, not surprised that Faz has allowed us to see a new facial expression of Dina.
Faz brings out some unique facial expressions in me as well. I call this one “Disgusement”. It’s a cross between amusement and disgust.
AMBER YOU ARE PROBABLY A LEGAL ADULT AND THE COURT ORDERED HIM TO PAY SO HE CANNOT HOLD THAT OVER YOU. HE SHOULD NOT BE IN YOUR CLOSET DIGGING AROUND. HE SHOULDN’T EVEN BE THERE AS HE WAS NOT INVITED. YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO BOOT HIS ASS OUT.
This^
Exactly. Boot him out through the window. He’ll have to pay for the damages, and getting cut to ribbons by the glass during the defenestration would serve him right!
Double this. ^
And once you’re out of the dorms, don’t let anyone have your address who might pass it along.
Agreed. Chuck him out on his ass, you are well within your rights.
It may be well within her rights, but he’s still bigger, older, and her dad. It’s quite a bit easier said than done, regardless of her strength.
Yeah, but Amazi-Girl’s got her back on this one.
Look on the bright side: Mike can finally punch Blaine!
I suddenly imagine Walkyverse Mike using the dimension portal to systematically punch all Blaines, possibly filming it as a future anniversary gift for Amber.
Even in the universe where Blaine is a kind hearted philanthropist who is working on a cure for cancer
ESPECIALLY in that universe.
NO ONE CAN ESCAPE THE WRATH THAT IS MIKE/AMBER!
I think Blaine’s behaviour is a multiverse constant.
Except in that one universe where he’s his own father,grandfather,great grandfather,and Great great grandmother.
He’s also his own pet hamster.
I assume girls hang on my every word too, Faz. Except I’M RIGHT!
You know, considering we haven’t seen Dina’s parents do fuck all how did they “insist” to Dina that she should be hospitable? A series of blinks?
They’re probably just frozen with a mix of terror and awkwardness.
Why is no one calling security? If Amber doesn’t already have a restarining order against Blaine then she will soon have one.
I’m not sure how it works, but I don’t know if she’d still be receiving the court-ordered financial support if she had a restraining order against him.
I hope she would, but as I said, I don’t know how the law works with that.
You totally would, child support has little to do with any kind of restraining order. In many states it’s actually automated, money leaves paycheck and gets put into an account, end of story.
He probably just hadn’t shown up in her life in so long she felt she didn’t need one.
You can get both.
Restraining order or not, he has NO right to be in that room if she doesn’t want him there. If she notified campus security, they’d have no trouble at all kicking his ass out. And his little Faz, too.
I feel sick to my stomach when I see her dad. Seriously, Amber is the character that I relate to most in the comics and seeing her dad being an ass makes me want to jump in there and simultaneously unleash the Furies and give Amber a hug.
I’ve never said this before about a webcomic character but PLEASE KILL AMBER’S DAD OFF IN A MOST HORRIBLE SCHADENFREUDICAL FASHION.
Thank you.
^this^ a thousand times this
on a related note
right now you are down and out and really feeling crappy
“Is it possible to kill a man by magic?”
“A magician could, but a gentleman never would.”
And when I see how sad you are, it sort of makes me… happyyyyyyyyy!
“I’ll say!”
“And when I see just how sad you are, it makes me sort of… HAPPY!”
He gets hit by a meatorite which blows his organs up internally.
NAh, he gets hit by the toilet from the international space station.
Dead Like Me
Dead don’t like Blaine
LOL. Hopefully it does. Actually, I was just saying that the toilet frm the international station was a reference to Dead Like Me. It’sn how the lead character dies and becomes a Grim Reaper
I missed the first few minutes (and maybe the entire pilot?), but I knew that.
Why am I thinking of David Cronenberg’s “Scanners?”
WHY DOES NO ONE KNOW HOW TO SPELL THE SAUROCHAMU’S LAST NAME RIGHT?!
It’s just that the Sarazus are so forgettable. Which is their greatest weapon, of course.
Oh, that explains why they’d have a name like Soganoya
I think Suzumiya is a fine name.
^this too^
Until you’re on her bad side…then it isn’t so fun.
I guess. I suppose some people just have a hard time with the silent x.
Shouldn’t it be “And How many damn comics” instead of “And now”?
-twitch- What’s that, Blaine? You have to have a court order to tell you to help support your daughter and you think you get to say how that money is spent?
Where’s Ruth? I need her to teach me how to remove femurs…
I’m torn between wanting him to die a slow and painful death, or a fast and painful one so we don’t have to deal with him any longer than absolutely necessary.
That’s why dark magic is so much fun. Necromancy means you can kill your enemies as many times as you want.
Amber can kick his ass just fine.
Also, Ruth’s down in the cafeteria with Howard and Billie.
I know, I’m being a bit selfish and wanting to contribute to his suffering.
I think that if Blaine were real, and we were to meet him, it’d end up in a “Murder on the Orient Express” type situation where we all attack him and nobody’s sure who dealt the killing blow.
Now all I can think of is how easy it would be to identify which cast member did it. Like, if it was Dina, there’d be teeth marks.
He needs a corn popper… to the FAAAAAAACCCCEEEE!!!!
And the BAAAAAALLS!
Baseball bat to the face.
Grappling hook to the balls.
Then defenestration.
I am always for a good defenestration.
A demonstration of that defenestration would aid my education and help assauge my consternation.
When Dina is trying to educate you on poor social skills you know you have problems.
Huh, you know, this asshole is like a less passive aggressive version of Joyce’s parents. Walks into his daughter’s life, criticises and dismisses her choices and attempts to assert his control over her life.
Also, where can I buy a grapling hook? Do they just sell them online?
Yes. They don’t come with guns, and in fact, I don’t think grappling hook guns are a real thing, but you can totally by the hook and cord online.
They are, but they aren’t really as exciting as you would think.
I believe they just fire a rope that secures to something and you have to physically climb up the rope after securing the gun to a firm surface.
I bet Blaine’s face is a firm surface, what with all the face exercises he does.
If Gravity Falls told me anything, you can get them from a souvenier shop.
And SWOTOR taught me that you can get them from a vendor in the mountains.
Only if Mabel hasn’t squirreled them all away yet.
Kick his ass, kick his ass!!
So why in the name of Sean Connery did he bother coming?
So make her feel like shit and assert control over her life.
Bingo.
Yahtzee.
To be a verbally abusive ass, clearly.
(I know it’s only going to get worse from here. It just… auuuugh. AughaughaughaughSOMEONEGETSALINHEREPLEEEEEEASE.)
Hopefully Amber will at least assault him!
Yes. Please.
I will pay good money for the entire cast to beat the shit out of him. Everyone. Including Buckets of Blood guy.
Especially Buckets of Blood Guy.
Nah, I expect BOBG to just stand there and narrate the goreshed he’s watching, then wet his pants in excitement.
The thing about angry and aggressive people is that they tend to put themselves in situations that allow them to express anger and aggression. It’s addictive, in a way.
It’s like a drug that kills you psychologically before it kills you physically (Unless you do it too much in which case both are possible)
Side effects include loneliness, increased aggression, and death. Anger is not for everyone. Consult your doctor before use.
You have inspired me
http://squallloir.tumblr.com/post/58430272372/paid-for-by-supporters-of-canvashat-and-the-help
Actually, I wonder…yes, certainly he could be here for no reason other than to be a tremendous, douchey asshole. But I can’t help but feel like he’s got some kind of angle. He was looking for money the first time he showed up in Shortpacked!, could this be similar?
Blaine is really as charming as his walkyverse counterpart… real charming :S
I do however like how he has no problem with the grappling hook.
I’m not sure Blaine knows what a grappling hook is. “What is this, some kind of Dungeons and Dragons?”
This is perfect.
He probably just assumes it’s the kind of stupid thing a fan of comic books would buy as part of their deranged childish fantasies.
Well, that’s the reason *I* own a grappling hook.
He understands that while comics are stupid grappling hooks are always awesome.
I choose to to translate that as:
You’ve become a Martial Artist – Great!
You’ve become a super hero? – Gah! Not the heir to my empire!
Fuck you. FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU. GO HOME AND DIE IN A FIRE. FAZ, GET THEE TO A MONASTERY AND STAY THERE UNTIL YOU GROW UP AND LEARN SOCIAL CUES.
Amber: Ice cream and crimefighting.
Because if you’re going to learn social cues, it’ll be from a monastery.
Well, at least he’ll be away from most people, and they might force him to take a vow of silence.
I’m sure Faz could find some other way to communicate. Visual aides for example.
You can see by this chart the number of visual Aids faz has. The large slice of pie represents how many of them involve Faz’s little Faz.
Faz invented the Genitalian Sign Language.
I misread that as you talking about Faz having visual AIDS.
God, I’ve never believed in you, but please make this happen.
Some monks are masters in the game. They are actually so good they retire so other guys get a chance with women.
I’ve been reading on “To Be or Not To Be”, so it was supposed to be an allusion to the nunnery line, as I find his attempted sexual activity to be shameful. Not because sex is shameful, but because Faz is shameful. A monastery would also have the advantage of being secluded and full of self-denial, as I am given to understand. On the whole, advantages. I’d be perfectly fine with him never speaking to anyone ever ever again. I like to hope that he can learn, though. Despite all evidence to the contrary.
Go home and be a family–wait, you already screwed that up.
The amount of tension in this room kind of makes me sick…I’m completely offput by her dad
Not surprisingly since I get the feeling he’s suppressing an urge to hit her in panel four.
White text on black bubble, darker shaded character on red background…
Gee, where have we seen Willis use that before? O_O
Blaine’ll come back when it’s not possessed o’ clock.
Blaine should probably never come back.
Good thought, maybe Ruth will walk by on her way back from lunch and accidentally push him down the garbage chute.
Why don’t you show him your mace Amber. After all, he paid for that too.
I really don’t care whether you mean the spray or the midieval weaponry in this case.
It’s the medieval weaponry, but instead of being covered in spikes, it’s covered in nozzles that shoot Mace.
A mace mace. I like it.
And that is the one question you do NOT, under any circumstances, ask Faz.
I feel like Blaine’s character design is missing something. Namely, several fists to the face.
Also is it bad that the masochist in me wants nothing but a week of Blaine walking around and critiquing everything Amber does?
Er, I believe that would be your inner SADIST, actually.
Not if it hurts him/her too.
I know this has been painful for *me* to read.
You know what this situation needs right now? A big heaping teaspoon of Danny! Estimated time of walking in: 3…2…1…
Or, you know, Ethan, who’s Amber’s best friend and has known her since high school. Better yet, Mike.
Yeah, because Ethan is sooooo intimidating.
Ethan could throw a punch. Danny is probably as helpful as Pokey from Earthbound.
Danny Apologized profusely
Danny smiled incinserely
Danny still didn’t recongnize Amber
Ethan’s not exactly in an emotional stable place right now. Even if Amber’s dad didn’t know his specific issues he’d likely see the weakness in him. Like blood in the water in front of a shark.
Mike, Mike, Mike, Mike!
Wow people asking for danny that when you know the situation has gotten dire
I was being sardonic when I was calling for Danny. Not to be confused with being Zardonic, which is when you are calling for more Trent Reznor.
Whoa, backtrack, can we call for Trent Reznor? Is that an option? Put my vote in for Trent Reznor rescue.
Or Zordonic, which is when you call for five teenagers with attitude.
I so want Danny to come in and find the guts to just say something.
Then Blaine will berate him scaring the shit out of him which Blaine then slips in and falls into Faz embedding teeth in that grinning globe he calls a head. Jaws of life are required. Blaine’s jaw is wired shut for 4 months. Faz’s injury amounts to a lobotomy.
STRANGLE
You know, Willis, if you’re going to have someone die in a car crash, or any other sort of way, or multiple ways, simultaneously, fucking kill off Blaine, please.
Even if Blaine is nowhere near the car crash, have it kill him.
Maybe he could get hit in the face by a spaceship and reconstructed as a female
I’d prefer he be reconstructed as a plant.
A plant that will destroy Amber’s enemies.
I approve of this, but I would hope that someone understood my reference.
I did.
Elaborate.
This is the moment I would say, “Get out of my room or I will call the campus police, and laugh as they tase you.”
“Don’t tase me bro!”
I would love to see what happens when he puffs himself up and tells the campus cops to fuck off because he pays their salary.
There are a lot of abusive asshole dads like that out there.
And for every one there are dozens of caring, supportive, hardworking Dads who see their #1 role in life as loving and providing for their families. I have a Dad like that. (He’s 90 and still very much a Dad.) Mrs. Animal has a Dad like that. I have been a Dad like that for 31 years.
So, take these things in persepctive.
…aaaaaaand it’s like the second (or third, not so sure) time I’ve seen Dina snap out of her poker face and express an emotion in this universe.
Dina should start playing poker. She would have payed up her student loan in about two months.
No matter how good her hand is it wouldn’t make a difference if she didn’t know how to play.
“None of these cards have dinosaurs on them or contain information about dinosaurs. I find little to endear me to this endeavour.”
Her difficulties understanding people would probably make everything equal. She’d be as incapable of discerning their bluffs as they would be hers.
Maybe if she’s as smart as she was in the Walkyverse, she could start understanding how to cheat, err… use mathematical advantages.
I read this late at night, so I suppress the urge to laugh out loud, so as to avoid disturbing my family. The last panel got me.
time to call in the tactical nuke also known as Ruth
Or Sarah.
Sarah’s going to have such a long day. First she’s got to introduce Joyce’s parents to Old Testament God. Then she’s gotta swing by Danny’s parents. Then maybe Walky and Sal’s parents. And now there’s this guy. An Old Testament’s God’s wrath is never done.
Wait, what did Sal and Walky’s parents do to warrant a visit from Sarah’s bat?
I said maybe, but I suspect their interactions with Sal will go poorly.
To stop an abuser you need another abuser.
To fuck an asshole you need a dick.
You know what, I’ve changed my mind. Instead of dying in a fire I hope he is disemboweled slowly.
Why not disembowel him slowly in a fire? While periodically strangling him with his own intestines? You want torture, I got a few thousand ways to do it.
But usually I’m just this quiet guy that likes to ride a bike to get places. Seriously, I haven’t killed anyone in ages. That you know…
I’m hoping he starts some shit on campus and Amazi-Girl stops him.
this is where ultracar makes her grand appearance
I’d like to point out over 400 people have lied on the current survey!
Willis, you know you don’t have to work so hard to get me to hate that guy, I already have plenty of reason to.
Also, why does Amber have a grappling hook? And where can I get one?
Obviously the grappling hook is so she doesn’t have to go down to the dorm lobby to greet the pizza guy. Like how one of the Ninja Turtles (probably Donatello, but don’t quote me on that) had the pizza guy feed a pizza down through a sewer grate in the first movie, except in reverse. She just lowers her hook down out the window with a twenty on it, and then reels in a pizza.
I want Danny to redeem himself here. Like he overhears how Blaine treats Amber and just flips his shit, nobody knows what’s going, and it cuts to Blaine in a body cast with Faz explaining how women lust over him with charts.
That’d be really nice.
If not Danny, I’ll take Ruth, Mike, ROZ EVEN.
What if Faz’s thing isn’t visually representing data in this universe? He could write a sonnet about how women lust over him.
Even better he writes a sonnett about a chart that explains that explains how much of an asskicking Blaine recieved.
Amber is coming out of her shell in the most ominous possible way
In my fantasy of how this plays out, someone would knock Blaine out and he would wake up tied down and catheterized. At the other end of the catheter would be one of those old-timey glass IV bottles. The bottle would contain hydrochloric acid.
Try and top that, kiddies.
He gets therapy or grows up and realizes exactly how awful he was to his daughter. I’ve seen it happen, with abusers of a couple of different stripes. You kind of feel sorry for them.
If he’s a sociopath though (which I’m very certain he is) he’s incapable of reforming. Sociopaths who get mental therapy are generally good at telling therapists and psychiatrists what they want to hear and feigning emotional change. Sadly therapy just teaches them how to better psychopaths. They can’t change because their amygdula(part of the brain that regulates emotions, memories, trauma,etc) doesn’t function normally. If that’s the case then the best thing for Amber and her family is to keep their distance.
I sort of like Blaine. I can now use him as an outlet for my violent rages at my own social and parental situation. Thank you David Willis for creating this hellspawn for me to torture maim and humiliate in my dreams.
Why does he even care? It doesn’t affect him at all. I’ll never understand people like that.
The only way it affects him as such is that he’s the one paying for it.
I was talking about the comics.
I didn’t NOT raise no nerd.
Because he can. Because he’s a complete cockass dickhole jerkface who is only happy when other people are unhappy except he’s still not happy then because he’s too busy being angry because that’s what makes the other people not happy. Because his idea of parenting is to scare a child so far into line, they become 2-dimensional. Because reasons because thinking about this character any more just makes me mad and slightly nauseated.
Don’t hold back, tell us how you really feel.
So when is literally ANYONE going to step in and punch amber’s jerk dad in his jerk face?
Never punch someone in the face. Too many bones, and if they happen to duck, you’ll shatter your fingers on their skull. Aim for the gut, the solar plexus (better) of it you must, throat or point of chin.
Not a speck of martial arts training, but I was hell on wheels in a bar fight back in the day (the day being about 1979.)
I’m basically imagining you sitting in a chair, whiskey in hand, telling various schoolchildren stories about your life.
And that image is awesome.
Even if the Sarazus are a herbivorous species, they can still be dangerous. See the example of the Cape Buffalo. So hurry up and trample Faz and Blaine to death!
Sheesh…It’s kinda pointless for me to comment, this section got filled so fast.
So Willis, when do you plan on launching your new line of Blaine-head stressballs?
or punching bags?
Or toilet paper?
“Congratulations,” Blaine! You’re neck-and-neck with Ryan the Rapist on the Loathesome Leaderboard! Whatever you say next, or whatever Amber chooses to reveal, could really push you ahead!
“Ethan’s mom is coming in hard on second place! Can she steal a victory?”
If she pulls it off, it’s only because Blaine has been out of Amber’s life too long to know that “You turned your boyfriend gay on your prom night” is a button he could use.
It’s not really a cliffhanger if you switch to something even *more* dramatic.
(In response to the alt-text).
Yes, Mr. Willis, I was expecting more Sal today. My sexy dusky brunette fix is now unfulfilled.
What are you talking about? Amber’s right there.
Amber is not dusky.
I thought he was talking about you.
Faz is such a lousy pick-up artist, he cannot even pick up a VD in a red light zone.
He can’t even pick up something he dropped. If he drops a $20 he is physically incapable of lifting it back off the ground.
He certainly can’t pick up chicks, even if they just hatched!
He actually is right, but for different reasons than he thinks.
You’re a monster.
My head just started pounding and I actually feel angry.
He sounds like my father at his worst.
Good work, dude, you actually managed to portray that feeling really well.
I need to go hit something now.
Hey, Willis, can you kill them both with a taxi, twenty three rabid monkeys – sixteen of which are radioactive, and about twelve acres of hellfire?
That would be great
OOOH rabid radioactive monkeys… do they carry ebola?
That and AIDS.
Genetically Modified Rabid Radioactive Monkeys.
That actually the secret origin for one of my Champions characters. Except it was bats. Chiropteretta, the Singing Bat!
PUNCH THEM BOTH ALREADY!
She’s doing the Batman voice!
MY NAME IS AMBER O’MALLEY
I WANT TO KILL MY FATHER
PREPARE TO DIE
My guess is the grappling hook is for Amazi-girl’s exits/entries using the dorm windows? Sal is the only one who seemingly climbs sheer building faces.
I think Faz is in danger, he really shouldn’t corner Dina.
I think Amber is about to let her abusive asshole father feel that he has made a very bad mistake harassing her at this point in her life.
I hope I’m right on both counts.
HOW is it that AS TERRIFYING as the exchange between Amber and her dad is, it is just as HILARIOUSLY ADORABLE between Faz and Dina?
I still ship them.
I’d ship Faz to Canada if that wouldn’t get me in trouble with both PETA and the Mounties.
Wait. Trouble with PETA because they’re the only ones crazy enough to care what happens to Faz, or because they wouldn’t like you inflicting Faz on Canadian wildlife?
Yes.
Faz thinks if girl says she doesn’t want to sleep with him it means she wants to roleplay a rape fantasy.
I note his eyes have yet to open from that “I know everything and I’m so wonderful I think I’m going to come” expression.
Actually, now that I think about it, I don’t think Faz has ever opened his eyes in all the years he’s been in Shortpacked either.
Nope, never, and the one time I was expecting it (The revelation that he’s Amber’s sister), it didn’t happen.
He must be like Brock from Pokemon.
Ooh, I hope we get at least 4 more (on this topic) irrelevant comics ending in Amber telling her whore of a father to go to hell. Faz might be fun in the meantime though.
Oh yay… if you combine Joyce’s dad (the religion thing) and Blaine (the comics thing) you’d probably get my dad. My mom introduced me to comics, my dad thought they were a waist of time and money and told me to throw them away (instead I just simply hid them where he couldn’t see em :P). *twitches*
I’m sorry to hear that. I’m glad you’ve managed to work around it.
Also, love your icon
http://sadpanda.us/images/1795929-5T8HE4H.png
I STILL THINK THEY’D BE A CUTE COUPLE WITH AWKWARD BABIES.
PfffHAHAHAHAAH!
That is horrible and disgusting. I love it!
Magnificent.
NIIIIIIICE!
I think I died a little.
I’ll say this: if my daughter wanted to use the money I give her for college to be a superhero, I’d be all for it.
So what’s Amber’s dad’s malfunction?
He’s an asshole. That’s all there is to it.
mega asshole
Now that I think about it: Where the hell is Mike when you actually need him for once?!
Mike is out with your mum.
Where is would he be, he’s probably out with all our mums.
…I walked into that one
…I got no one to blame but my self…
…And your mum, but she’s with Mike
Well, see, sometimes a dad has a kid.
And sometimes when that dad has a kid, the dad has a certain mindset. He goes thinking, well, wait a minute. He’s paying for everything here. He pays for their food, their house, their clothes, their education. The kid could not exist without him. The kid’s whole life would be objectively shittier without him- of course it would! How would they even SURVIVE without daddy paying for their baby food? It’s not like they could get a job! They owe their whole existence to him!
But these thoughts go on quietly, in the far backdrop of the dad’s mind. He’s not always thinking it consciously. It’ll arise sometimes, in the heat of anger. Mostly, the thoughts he has are thoughts which superficially resemble those of all fathers: “I care for this child, and in the interest of caring for them, they should listen to me”.
The issue is that this surface level thought arises from corrupted mechanisms beneath: while a normal father thinks of care as unconditional love, a father like Blaine thinks of care as the obligation of childrearing; while a normal father thinks that a child should listen as one half of a communication process that becomes more involved as the child becomes an adult, Blaine thinks of it as the child’s obligation TO him, in RETURN of ALL that he has GIVEN UP to them.
This is the thought-process that happens when you turn yourself into the most important person in your world.
This analysis, with some modification, explains a lot about MRAs.
Well that’s a sweeping overgeneralization.
And then you end up like this: http://i696.photobucket.com/albums/vv324/immortalpictures/fell.jpg
Blaine’s a psychopath. He has extreme narcissim. He likes dominating, controlling, and hurting others. He lacks empathy, so when he invokes negative emotions in Amber he gets a kick out of the control without feeling her pain in kind. Think of the kid that grabs another’s toy and plays rough with it and breaks it and reacts as if “eh, no big deal. It’s not like it was mine”.
You negated the Sal cliffhanger with the continuation of another good plot. Sorry Willis, we all win like that.
It’d take something REALLY big plot-wise interrupted by something INCREDIBLY unrelated and uninteresting to do an effective cliffhanger. Basically, the apex of the Ruth-Billie relationship arc interrupted by a Danny comic.
Holy shit could we emphasize any more how shitty Amber’s dad and Faz are?
Great story-telling, WIllis.
You rock!
Oh god Dinas face… it makes me want to give her a hug and protect her from Faz…
Faz is slowly becoming the worst family character. I mean, at least until Blaine unleashes the evil.
What a douchepuppet. This statement is applicable for two people in the panels genetically linked and possessing penises.
I gotta be honest, Dina vs. Faz is amazing. They talk in exactly the same manner, the same kinds of obsessive and self-centered personalities, and have the same asperger’s symptoms. Just one of them is a complete and utter pervert, and the other probably doesn’t understand the concept of a sex drive except. This interaction could go on for DAYS and it would be brilliant. This could be an entire sitcom series, just these two in a room, talking about dinosaurs and sex, forever.
It’s a mistake to confuse Dina’s extreme introversion for shallow. It’s made her naive, but there’s depth in her to fill, unlike Faz, who’s everything is only skin deep.
Faz wants to fill Dina’s depths.
Blaine makes me physically nauseous.
I’m glad Amber is more able to stand up to her father in this universe. I guess her parents divorced earlier letting her get away from his influence.
Someone doesn’t know how to write male characters who aren’t assholes.
If you think Ethan or Walky are proper assholes, your standards for that term probably include everyone in the strip who isn’t Dina.
Walky is the farthest from one I’ve found. Ethan is because he can’t be honest to someone who thought/thinks he’s his girlfriends about who he is, even when, by his own admission, he knows who he is. He’s selfishly using her to be accepted, and, in my opinion, that’s being an asshole.
Not being honest and being selfish makes you an asshole? That means every person I’ve ever met in my entire life was an asshole. I think you need stricter criteria.
Welcome to the webcomic. You may want to go to the beginning and read the archives in order to get acquainted with the characters and the story ^^
I’ve read the entire strip twice. I know this universe of the characters pretty well, and every male character, outside of maybe one or two, is an asshole of some kind. Some are rude, some use others, there are jerks of many kinds. Ethan using Joyce, Joe being sex-obsessed guy, Jason lying to/using Sal, Mike’s tremendous vocabulary of insults, Amber’s dad being possessive-intimidator, Joe’s dad being rapey-Joe, Joyce’s dad keeping her from her friend just for having different religious views, etc. The list goes on. The only female characters who have even been written as rude at all, for more than a single instance, have been Ruth, Billie, Sarah, and Joyce’s mom.
“Welcome to the webcomic.”
Amber has deliberately friend zoned herself and has told her best friend that she needs space. Sal had sex with Jason and was angry that it didn’t improve her grades. Joyce slut shames and is judgemental. Dorothy let her boyfriend go to a college because of her when she knew she wanted to break up with him.
You can interpret pretty much all the characters as being arseholes if you want to. Willis has written characters who are young, who make mistakes and aren’t always the best that they could be. It’s part of what makes the comic so engaging.
Mike is just an arsehole though. To say otherwise and you’re wrong.
Okay, at least 3 of your examples are the girl’s fault at least as much as the guy’s.
As Squeeble and gears said, if your definition of “asshole” is as generous as to include Ethan and Jason, it should also include a good chunk of the female cast; even Joyce has ben unintentionally rude to people on more than one occasion. Willis’s characters, both male and female, are very human and full of human failings. If you really see a double standard in the strip, I’m afraid you’re either not reading it carefully enough, or reading too much into it.
Never argue with a conveniently-selective memory. A conveniently-selective memory’s already decided those things that disagree with it don’t really count.
Sad but true :c Still, if you keep reminding them that there are lots of people who don’t see things the way they see them, it may do something in the long run.
Can we kill him? Can we just plain kill him? Please Willis? Can he be killed? Kick him out the window face first.
Faz can stay even.
ROCKS FALL, SEVERAL VERY SPECIFIC PEOPLE DIE
All hail DAB.
I do believe the Black Getter Approach to Problem Solving is required here, and if not, it’s getting seriously close to being appropriate.
http://youtu.be/bkc6E47KBNI
Cyrano de Bergerac?
You may want to assemble a tazer, Dina.
saaaaaad
Fortunately Ruth is just down the hall, so it wouldn’t take long for her to come and tear Blaine and Faz a new one while beating them with their own bloody femurs.
Or we could get lucky and Sarah comes along and goes Old Testament God on their asses with a baseball bat.
Or possibly even better, Mike comes along and out-assholes Blaine to the tune of fists to Blaine’s face.
For some reason, that line about the comics and “you can see why I rarely bother” gave me a horrifying thought: what if Blaine knows about Amazi-Girl? What if he’s the one who taught Amber how to fight, because sure, kid, you want to take down criminals? Hilarious. Let’s see if you have what it actually takes, not like those heroes on your little nerd fantasies.
Like Big Daddy from Kick-Ass only a thousand times more malignant and doing it solely to amuse himself.
Now David warned us that in the “bad parenting” department, Joyce’s parents would finish a distant second. Amber’s dad is into an impressive running start, but will he keep the lead? Joyce’s parents are from La Porte, Indiana, home of the famously bad mother Belle Gunness, so they might still have a few trumps in hand.
Actually, what’s with the votes? One can vote which family we want to meet, but then there is the upload buffer telling us that two months’ worth of comics are already uploaded.
There are only two explanations: David has uploaded multiple alternative timelines and selects timelines to show based on votes. Or we’re going to meet all of them anyway.
Maybe he’s just curious as to which families the readers were interested in so he can tailor future stories for them?
Willis is just using the polls to give us an illusion of power. Especially since we’re voting on matters that have already been decided months ago.
Feels like elections in the real world.
I keep trying to think of worst case scenario, and one I keep coming back to is “Dina’s parents complaining about how disrespectful Amber was towards her father, and how Dina should try to get to know that nice boy Faz better”.
I think Dinas parents seem to be just as shy as Dina herself. I doubt they’ll speak up. But I don’t think they’re stupid. They’d likely be able to see an abusive father.
Though wether or not they like faz i dunno. He’s mostly harmless.
I suspect they see Faz as stupid.
I see Blaine rufusing to rein in his very disrespectful-of-their-daughter son as the most likely path to a “Dina’s parents kick Blaine’s ass” scenario.
I know Amber’s mom is “busy” but she’d better hurry up!
Willis. Willis. Willis. You just managed to turn me angry. Now, you just need to make me love Faz, and i shalt forever donate you unlimited numbers of cookies.
Just keep repeating “Amzi-girl is immune to criticism.” I find it helps me keep from wanting to punch Blaine’s face on my laptop.
Actually. I somewhat feel sorry for Faz, being the one who is stuck with Blaine. His behavior in Shortpacked likely resulting from a lack of a good father figure just carries over to Dumbing except he is actually even worse off because his father figure is such a jerk off!
Okay this Dina/Faz interaction is great. Must see more. Looking for a “Dina destroys Faz” payoff.
Meanwhile, Blaine continues to be a jackass, though seemingly (slightly) less of a horrible person than in his Walkyverse appearances.
Mostly because there’s witnesses and he’s a scum-sucking coward.
oh wow you had bring her father into play didn’t you!
You’d think Faz could pick up on these visual cues if he ever opened his eyes. On the other hand, points to him for getting Dina to emote.
The air in here is lousy with contempt. Dina and Faz are kind of similar in their level of social skills–they’re both bad at reading social cues, but Dina shows respect by backing off whereas Faz has no qualms about steamrollering others to get what he wants. (Which, due to the delicacy required in getting what he wants, means he can’t.)
Willis, make it stop. It hurts, and they all had plenty of problems on their own.
Plot twist: The Saruyamas are Yakuza members. Things will not end well.
Call me crazy, but suddenly Joyce’s parents seems less worse. I mean, yeah they are pretty bad, but at least they really do love and care for their daugther unlike this walking piece of shit. Seriously, I would throw him out or excuse myself that I need to go to the toilett and in truth go and scratch his entire car!
I think this is what’s known as “damning with faint praise”. Joyce’s parents are terrible, terrible people, but yes, that small difference that they were themselves brainwashed into their terribleness sets them above Blaine, who revels in his jerkiness.
Oh my God.
I am not a fan of either Mike or Ethan but if one of them would lay this douche-berg out they will become my instant fave.
Although I guess Amazi-Amber could do it herself.
I also garuntee this shitlord is here for alternate reasons and not to see Amber.
Oooooh boy, am I the only one who wants to punch Faz in the nuts?
Not to mention her deadbeat dad.
just want see Dina punch the kid in the face and DINO STOMP him
Ditto! In any case, the dueling social ineptitude between Faz and Dina is AMAZING…
I don’t know him from any other continuity–why does Faz talk so weird?
That’s just the way he talks. There’s never been a particular *reason* given, other than he’s pretty fucked up.
I always thought it was because he was borderline autistic.
Hey! That’s an insult to autistic people.
I cannot believe this strip actually shows someone more horrible than Faz…
It’ll only get worse.
He dies, right? Amber kills him?
I know that the expected catch phrase is “Damn you, Willis!”
But after the week I’ve had, and the sore points in my memory that this comic stirs for me, I was left instead with, “God damn it, Willis.”
A lone renegade fondles his glass of whisky. His bleary eyes focus on a newspaper. Dumbing of Age has taken the top spot in the Daily David, the crown in Willis’ media empire. His lips form words as he squints, then he mutters to himself. “Ruth died in a car crash…? Colliding with Ultra Car?”
He sinks back and bangs the bar with his glass, the bartender hurrying for another bottle. “God damn it, Willlis.”
I’d high five you if I could.
This story line is just making more and more uncomfortable as it goes on. I know that Willis has it ready until Oct. but honestly I just want to ignore it for the next few weeks and come back when hopefully things have happened and not just making me feel like curling up and hiding in the closet.
Can he die again already?
Dang it, I want to know what he told Amber about comics. Im sure its sensible advice that Id totally would want to follow and not an attempt to control every aspect of my life/identity. Also, she could have just said the grappling hook meant that she was a Mabel fan (Gravity Falls).
It’s a waste of time, you’re squandering your potential, read real books, don’t be a kid, those are trash, I’ll only let you read those if you read these other books first, etc. What my mom said to me about SF/F. I didn’t get into comic books until college.
I agree with the others, it is time for another universe to lose it’s Blaine.
Amber seems far more capable of standing up to her father in this universe. Good.
I’m actually kind of surprised about the hate Faz is getting here: he’s set next to Blaine, who is actually being abusive, and throughout the webcomic we’ve seen worse behavior from Joe, Ruth, and Billie (possssibly including Sal or Ethan, too), who are generally treated as fan-favorites. He’s hit on Dina in two strips, so far, and the worst part of what he’s doing I can think of is that there’s no reciprocation — he’s not forcing himself on her or seeking to intimidate her, he’s not getting violent, he’s just making some pathetic come-ons.
Is it because he’s unattractive? Socially immature? He deserves to die for these?
Well, he was a proven creep in Shortpacked!, so people are just making assumptions.
Well, sure, but Ethan was a pretty swell guy in Shortpacked!, while in DoA he did a pretty shitty thing before learning that Joyce would be okay with it. I don’t think it’s fair to be saying the kid should die just with what we’ve seen so far.
For that matter…as abusive as Blaine’s current behavior reminds me of, he’s yet to actually do or have done anything specific that would compare to, say, how the Walkertons treated Sal, how Joyce’s parents treated her, or worst of all, how Danny’s parents treated him. I mean, I’m almost certain evidence of pretty bad neglect or abuse is going to come up soon (damn does he remind me of my father!), but…he can’t fairly be considered the most loathsome character so far, even among the parents.
Also, does court ordered child support really mean that he was totally unwilling to provide for Amber? I know in my situation at least the money goes toward the mother to be “used in general for the children’s welfare”, not directly to the kids, so it might have been just that he disagreed with doing that or the specific amount.
Then again, if he does continue to be like my dad, then he probably is a hate-filled monster who deserves no sympathy. It’s just that we’re not certain of that yet, and I kind of hope for Amber’s sake that they are merely estranged, and not fully vitriolic.
The part that did it for me was him saying it was his room. That is textbook control freak behavior.
Control freak, sure, but…until today’s strip, he hadn’t been seen doing anything actually degrading to her like a lot of the other parents had.
Still, in today’s strip he outright admits to being a monstrous bastard, so wooooo!
My guess is that the anti-Faz is currently magnified by pro-Dina.
I think its an issue because of the existance of this and shortpacked! – people have an expectation of the character of faz (and blaine) from that universe, and as such are expecting them to act accordingly in this one as well.
because of that assumption (and that his one redeeming factor in SP was his earnest desire to know his father – something that cannot be present here) people are expecting him to turn on the uncomfortable backstabing stalker creep mode here at any moment – something he is showing hints of
so a bit unfair, but a risk of the whole double universe thing.
Blaine, however, proved he was an asshole right from the get-go with the “this is MY room, and how dare they make me pay for it” bs he opened with. that’s not control freak behavour. that’s controlling relationship behaviour.
also, we don’t know how Sal’s parents treat her yet – we have her own words on it, but that could be biterness or truth, as we haven’t seen it yet. I’m hoping just bad memories on Sal’s part blown out of proportion due to time, because I hope for happy families for at least one character.
Amber should stop arguing an just nuke the site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure (maybe stuff Jocye shitty parents in the same room before hand).
Can someone explain what Amber’s dad did in the previous Walky comics that earned him his infamy? Or is he pretty much just an asshole deadbeat dad?
Her dad was a dick to her and her mom, and basically slept around with a lot of women, mostly of the Korean race, as evidenced by Faz, due to him having ties with the Korean mafia.
I kinda want to see this explored in SP!, actually, like now that the Drama Tag stuff is solved, maybe this could be the next long-arching story?
The comic never goes into explicit details beyond “abuse,” but Amber was pretty messed up there at the beginning, and given the fact that she’s married to Mike of all people, her current emotional health is debateable, though she’s certainly in a much better place than she was.
She most I remember ever getting was when he showed up at the store, ostensibly to reconcile, Ethan gave him an “I know what you did,” speech and threw his ass out of the store.
PLEASE tell me Amber’s dad gets his ass handed to him in the next comic! PLEASE make it happen!
Dina needs to change tactics, and quick! She can be excused for not knowing, but I’m sure that Faz is familiar enough with Japanese porn to know that a grimace like that is essentially an Asian O-Face.
Y’know, the thing is, he DIDN’T pay for it. HIS money went to her food, health, and other vital needs, which he doesn’t get a say in because they’re, y’know, vital. The rest of it isn’t his money to decide what to do with.
Does this mean Dina is ambers sister
Got to the panel of Faz vs. Dina and actually started slow-clapping alone in my kitchen.
Blaine, you shouldn’t be so dismissive of comics. If you had read some in your time, maybe you’d have known better than to keep picking on your daughter when her speech balloon turned black. Just saying.
I hope his death is slow and painful.
Blimey. That’s an almost 7-week-duration Brick Joke.
Nice work, DW.
Her dads only redeeming feature is his character design.