Our heroes must navigate a hazardous dating scene, overcome personal anxieties, and wrangle unruly seafood in order to find love, peace of mind, and a paycheck.
Nerf Now!!
Josué Pereira
A cute webcomic about fanservice, video games, and... love. Mostly video games, though.
The Weave
Rennie Kingsley
A young woman pursued by bad luck is witness to the murder of the Fairy Queen of Summer. Can she get to the bottom of this mystery?
Augustine
Winter Jay Kiakas, Windy
August and her ragtag group are just like everyone else, simply surviving in the treacherous Crater... When they stumble into what may be an artifact of the ancient past, their lives are thrown into a much bigger loop as they trifle with bounty hunters, monsters and gods.
Sleepless Domain
Mary Cagle (Cube Watermelon)
In a world where magical girls and their battles are commonplace, loss has become all too common as well.
Lies Within
Lacey
Lysander's aimless and carefree life is turned upside down when he accidentally discovers that the cute boy next door, Simon, is a literal monster
The Messenger
indui
In a ruin-abound town cursed with bad luck, Kai and Kalla--a young boy and a fledgling dragonbird spirit--take on a quest in hopes the reward will solve all of their problems.
Blindsprings
Kadi Fedoruk
Tamaura, wrested into a world 300 years in the future, must find a way to save the magic fading from her country.
Darkling Bright
Chris Hazelton
Kieran Bright is a college student home for the summer and roped into an online reunion with his old neighborhood friends in the most recent update of their favorite childhood MMORPG.
At least, he was, and that was the idea...
Join Kieran and his friends as they are pulled into another reality that may or may not be real and are forced to confront their own identities, the nature of simulated universes and reality itself.
ARISE, YE SKELETON KING
Brian Clevinger, Escher Cattle, Lee Black
A troupe of wandering "adventurers" down to their last silver "acquire" a map only to find the real treasure was the fiend they dug up along the way.
Monster's Garden
Ash G.
Champion pit fighter Kilo Monster was content to spend the rest of his days tending to his quiet garden alone... until he met a curious robot girl and her human family.
Heroes of Thantopolis
Izzy Strontium Hall
A living boy fights to save the City of the Dead.
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
Nigh Heaven & Hell
Scotty
Heather Vodihn is on a simple mission: find her father. However she becomes entangled with two strangers with mysterious powers being stalked by a group with bizarre demands. Heather must learn to trust her new traveling companions, even if she is untrustworthy herself.
Saint for Rent
Ru Xu
Saint Halliday runs an inn for Time Travelers. Unfortunately, he seems to attract other supernatural "guests," too.
Dumbing of Age
David M Willis
Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
Sister Claire
Yamino
In the troubled aftermath of a great war between Witches and her fellow Nuns, novice Sister Claire just wants a purpose.
Novae
KaiJu
A historical romance with a touch magic and a dash of astronomy. It chronicles the romantic adventures of Sulvain, a sweet tempered necromancer and Raziol, a passionate 17th century astronomer.
Three Panel Soul
Matt Boyd, Ian McConville
It's a pretty rigid format but we keep the content loose, you know?
Freakshow
Scotty
A festival of broken people, blood flows in the center ring. Come one and come all, to the greatest show in all of Paris.
Little Tiny Things
Clover
What are the little things that move us? The simple joys that warm our bodies and hearts? The micro life of insects that influence our world more than we think? The tiny steps we make everyday to have a happier tomorrow?
Empowered
Adam Warren
A sexy superhero comedy (except when it isn't) about the never-ending struggles of a plucky but very unlucky young superheroine.
Not Drunk Enough
Tess Stone
Logan Ibarra is possibly the unluckiest repairman in the world. A late night job should not have landed him in the middle of a mad scientist's squabble, but he soon finds himself surrounded by monsters and further madness with little tools to get out.
Barbarous
Ananth Hirsh, Yuko Ota
A crummy wizard and an anxious monster have to get over themselves and bring order to an apartment building full of misfits.
The Golden Boar
Magnolia Porter Siddell
A young woman joins a group of summoners who call forth Guardian Beasts to protect their isolated magical island. Unfortunately, her Guardian Beast is nothing like she'd imagined, and he's about to change her life, and everything she thought she knew about herself...
Peritale
Mari Costa
A fairy godmother with no magic tries her best to successfully fulfill a Fairytale and win the respect of her peers.
Namesake
Isa, Meg
There's ghosts at your heels and fairy tale worlds ahead. What do you do? Jump down the rabbit hole!
Edison Rex
Chris Roberson
The adventures of the world’s greatest villain who, after defeating his superheroic nemesis, decides that he’s the only one left to defend the world.
Stand Still, Stay Silent
Minna Sundberg
A few generations after the end of the world, a small, poorly financed research crew is sent out to rediscover whatever is left of the forbidden old world in the south.
Ozzie the Vampire
Eric Lide
Ozzie and her best friend Kimmy are your average everyday normal art students – except one is an immortal vampire with superpowers and the other possesses a magic talking grimoire. Also they have to save their town from a demonic invasion.
Guilded Age
T Campbell, John Waltrip, Florence Machina
Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
Angel's Orchard
Harry Bogosian
After the events in Demon's Mirror, Gerda has accepted her role as a Demon Hunter, and Cezar has traveled back to the Demon City. Demons have existed alongside humans for millennia, so things begin to return to normal. But an impossibly powerful Relic has been taken by one of the Demon Masters, and a silent war enters its final stages.
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Only the Shortpacked! readers detest Malaya yet. The folks who started with DoA are mostly waiting for more screentime before they decide. No spoilers!
Wait, really? You guys didn’t like Malaya? I mean, she was kind of a jerk, yeah, but so was Ultra Car. Don’t tell me you guys didn’t like Ultra Car, either!
Anyway, I think Malaya was nicer in that universe than this one, at least once she’d gotten a chance to mellow out.
I found it super un-charming how she defined herself by who and what she hated (everyone and everything, pretty much). Ultra-Car actually liked some stuff, like superheroes and dropping people in the Amazon. Also, this universe’s Malaya likes skating, so that could be promising.
Finding out that his parents were emotionally abusive and used almost the same language- minus the joking- to beat him down kinda took a lot of the fun out of it for me.
They don’t appear to be physically abusive, but mentally and emotionally abusive. It wasn’t so much its own arc was it was interjected into other arcs.
Wait, so… the fact that his parents are emotionally abusive and his best friend is Joe WASN’T enough to make you feel sorry for him?
You heartless monster.
I’m not sure who he’d be a good friend to in his current mode (secret texting to Joyce if he’s doing that would answer that question but that would also be a character growth from where he’s been).
Like he tends to be self-centered, demands friends keep all conversations to shallow talks on girls and sex, and frequently trails off in hangout time to letch at women.
Like, we’ve seen him try to have a bro-relationship with Jacob and it’s mostly just seemed like Jacob tolerating his presence rather than any sort of mutual strong friendship.
Like I feel Jacob could easily be a decent friend if he put his mind to it and may be doing that for Joyce right now, but otherwise, he certainly has issues when it comes to his being a good friend.
“Like I feel Jacob could easily be a decent friend” = ‘Joe’? Wow, this is the second time in a few days that I’ve posted “ITYM Joe.” Is this becoming a trend?
Maybe. On the other hand, from Joe’s perspective, his life has been almost completely drama free the whole time he’s been there, while Danny’s had two breakups (not that Joe knows about the second), a confrontation with someone’s abusive father, and an experience that made him question his own sexuality.
Joe’s not exactly supportive, yeah, but that’s because he’s been watching Danny spiral out of control and has repeatedly pushed him towards his own laid-back lifestyle instead – something he genuinely believes would be better for Danny, or at the very least easier to deal with.
Remember his interactions with Joyce? First he was going to try to seduce her to help get her over her sheltered mindset (you can argue there were selfish motives there too, though), then later on he tried to nudge her away from her pretend-swear phase.
He’s also called out Walky for his faux-masculinity complex.
Every one of those characters he’s clashed personalities with has actually been conflicted due to the qualities Joe’s pushed against.
Kinda strikes me as though he’s trying to push people away from what he sees as repressive or self-defeating behavior – and he grew up with Dan, so it’s not like he doesn’t have experience seeing it.
And as a friend, no, he’s not the guy you come talk to after a breakup. He’s the guy you go to when you need to do something else to keep your mind off the issue and help you return to normal, to remember the world still goes on and things’ll be fine. It’s a bit disingenuous to write him off as merely “shallow” when he’s outright choosing to put up that shallow persona because he’s sick of drama.
Joe is honestly one of my favourite characters. I mean, yeah he’s only in it to get laid as some would put, but he’s never fake about it. He’s honest about who he is, and people who are hating on him, are the same people who celebrate the same honesty of self in other people.
He doesn’t get upset when people don’t like him for him after all. Like, he might be bummed out kinda in the next panel, but he lives and let lives and all that entails, as far as I can tell, he dislikes no one other than Mike.
I would more argue his idea of “fixing” Joyce through his penis is part and parcel of the disturbing way asexual people are targeted for “corrective” rape and otherwise hounded for being broken.
But I can see the rest of your point even if I have disagreements with it and could definitely see him serving the role of shallow friend who will talk about mindless awful bullshit but can serve that role if you need something toxic to take your mind off of “stuff”.
I wouldn’t, because the storyline made sure to establish the opposite of that. Joe didn’t realize she was that badly repressed, sure, but then again, the first time he ever noticed her was when she walked by him while thinking aloud of her marriage fantasies on her way out from gender studies class. And even before she got on the elevator on the way down, she was pretty clearly interested in his body. Equating what Joe did with rape, especially after the idea visibly upset him, is a rather unfair assessment of his character. Up to you whether you think his intent to nudge her out of her comfort bubble was still sleazy, but the worst he did was to ask her what was so wrong with the idea of lust. Before getting assaulted.
Joe still comes off as very sleazy to me, mostly because I’ve never actually met anyone who was (or even tried to be) that much of a player who wasn’t a total sleaze. Who wouldn’t at least bend the concept of consent to within an inch of its life. Joe’s already commented on how alcohol helps with threesomes – which is a huge red flag – using alcohol to get women to have sex they wouldn’t have had otherwise. Not rape, but not cool either.
I’d actually love to see how Joe’s game works with someone who doesn’t want sex – at least not immediately, but who also doesn’t instantly go to violence or threats of violence like Joyce or Sarah. How hard would he push? What would he do to try to get laid?
Or see it from the point of view of one of his casual conquests. Maybe someone who’d been reluctant but let herself get talked into it, possibly expecting a relationship, not just a night.
“Joe didn’t realize she was that badly repressed”
Is that some kind of Tower-of-Bable-thingy i am watching now?
People confusing characters whose name starts with “J” – well, there are quite a lot of them:
Jacob
Joyce
Joe
Jonathan
Jocelyne
Joz
Jarcie (more like Darcie, isn’t it?)
Jecky
Jillie
Jal
Jarah
Jamber
Jarry
Janny
Jethan
Jike
Jina
Joetad!
Because the entire point of AMVs is to clog up YouTube search results with as many entries that are utterly irrelevant to what you were searching for as possible.
Right? 2000 for me. Y2K didn’t kill us all, and it only took about 2 days to download a Vegeta/Savage Garden AMV to watch on the trusty ole RealMedia Player. Heady days.
I don’t either. Popular music started going to hell once punk and grunge started to become dominant on the scene, and has been going downhill ever since. Now we’re back to little more than drums/percussion and chanting.
I’d recommend it! Their self-titled album, Thrill of the Feel (when they were called Sons of Angels), Rise Again, and 2 Nights 2 Remember are all pretty dang good.
As a side note, try looking for an EP called “Ready!” that was produced under the name “JxJ” if you haven’t heard of it – it was a one-time collaborative work between Jun Senoue and Junko Noda. Main reason is that there’s a song that’s pretty much a differently pitched Emerald Coast with (frustratingly yet to be translated) lyrics, and it sounds absolutely wonderful.
Seeing your comment I had two revelations : “Oh, so those are the Nickleback fans!” and “This webcomic has a crossover audience between geeks and hipsters”.
I have complicated feelings about them – on one hand, they remind me of what was the most miserable and embarrassing time in my life (long story).
On the other hand, by basically being the soundtrack of Angry Teen, they were a musical reminder that I wasn’t alone during said time. Which was a big and important part of letting me survive.
On the other other hand, I’ve aged out of the target demographic and it really shows in my emotional reaction to their songs. I don’t mind emotional self-pity songs, but I prefer when they show a little more self-awareness than most Linkin Park songs did at the time.
On the fourth other hand, Chester Bennington was very vocal about his mental health and abuse issues, and by being vocal about it, he convinced me to seek mental health help at the time and it probably saved my life.
Buuut I still can’t listen to their music anymore. It makes me cringe when it’s not bringing up bad memories.
Yeah, say what you will about the lyrics, but I think the music itself is okay. (In Hybrid Theory and Meteora, that is. It went downhill fast afterwards, and I haven’t gone back to check if they got better again.)
I’ve always sort of treated it as a synonym for ‘song-based fanvid’ anyway, and that definition would include the ones that ‘animated’ doesn’t catch on account of a live-action source material.
All right, first one to make a Danny AMV to Lincoln Park and post it on YouTube gets a cookie. You’ll also get punched in the face because, you know, Lincoln Park AMV and it has to be done. But you’ll get a cookie afterwards.
And Danny always trying your best with nothing but the best intentions in mind the problem is he’s always destined too fuck up somehow in someway…. but they can never say he didn’t try.
But if anything it’s not his fault this time, you just got caught up in between a brutal grudg.
Oh god I actually kind of like this song it actually does bring tears to my eye a little. In all fairness it is super cliche but I don’t even like country. What is wrong with me.
He was standing on the stairway of an old dorm at Indiann
When an on-the-scene reporter stuck her iphone in the face of that young man
She said “tell the folks please mister, what are you gonna do
Now that this superheroine’s taken all that’s dear to you”
The young man just smiled and said “Billie, let me tell you something, this ain’t nothing”…
Truck and dog, definitely. House, not so much – a good country singer, after losing his truck, dog, and woman, needs a house so he can go sit on the front porch and sing his song of loss as the sun sets.
Ohhh, my bike got stole / and two girlfriends dumped me / and my best friend / he just don’t understand! / The basis for Joyce’s dog / has been dead for like a decade / boy ain’t it tough / to be a Dan… *twang twang twang twang*
You have to ease into country music. Start with Cake doing Sad Songs and Waltzes before you move on to the real thing. And I don’t mean any of the current top 40 country, but Willie And Hank Sr.
So, since no one else is going to, I’ll go ahead and be the one to admit that I actually like Linkin Park. And Nickelback, while I’m at it. And Youtube music videos (not all of them, obviously, but some of them were actually pretty good, unless that’s just the nostalgia talking).
Well, lots of people had to like those bands or else how would we all know their names even today? Likewise, tons of people had to love disco when it was hot.
I’m meh on Linkin Park but I do like Nickelback. Incidentally, I remember reading someone traced the “everyone hates Nickelback” meme to a promo for a canceled comedy special with Brian Posehn.
The thing about Nickelback and Linkin Park both, though, is that they’re both bands that have had a lot of songs get airplay that are really samey – people forget they’re not one-hit wonders because all their songs kind of run together.
I like both bands, but I like most music so that might not be saying much.
I don’t like Naruto/Linkin Park AMVs though. I do know a really good AMV with Linkin Park (and the anime movie Perfectr Blue), but I don’t think it exists on Youtube so I can’t link it.
Linkin Park was one of my first experiences with finding music of my own instead of just listening to whatever was popular with the other kids at school, so I suppose I’m biased in that regard. Tend to stay away from AMVs though. I can only hear the same exact song used for every single video despite never being made by the same person before I begin to dislike the song as well.
Danny, don’t worry, get some sleep and wake up better tomorrow. Some days, you just have to accept that today is gonna be the day that they’re gonna throw it back to you.
He did say he unironically liked My Little Ponies, so definitely could see magical girl anime. Could also see harem anime because a lot of those series linger on one or two “true” potential couples for the series. Could also see general shoujo anime.
I mean, at the end of the day, he’s a romantic so plotlines that focus on it could really speak to him.
I could also see a series like Inuyasha really speaking to him for the mix of action and romance.
It might not be relevant but I just wanted to let the world know that the most well-known TV host of the most watched political journalism show over here made his Bronie coming out during his show just the other week.
CRAAAAAAWLING IIINNN MY SKIIIIIIN
THESE WOOOOOUNDS THEY WIIIIIIILL NOT HEAAAAAAAL
FEAAAAAAAR IS HOOOOOOOW I FAAAAAAAAALL
CONFUUUUUUUUSING WHAAAAAAAT IS REAAAAAAAAAL
There’s something inside me that pulls beneath the surface
Consuming, confusing
This lack of self-control I fear is never ending
Controlling, how I can’t seem
To find myself again, the walls are closing innnnn
(without a sense of confidence and I’m convinced there’s just too much pressure to take)
I’ve felt this way before, so insecuuurrreee
… I could go on.
Also, I just realized that crawling is pretty much the only LP song that doesn’t have some bad memory associated with it. Which kind of sucks because it was always one of my least favorite – I always preferred the ones where they let Mike Shinoda get his creativity going.
Oh my god, like a month ago when I was at a party, a group of us were singing along loudly to the referenced song, and I just kept getting flashes of Naruto AMVs.
I’m Danny.
And while Danny has truly tried to do the right thing now: by trying to get Amber to back off A.G. a bit, and by telling her that he likes her better than A.G.: that makes what he is saying now true. He did good.
BUT what the Hell was he doing the months before this one important confrontation? He was bragging on having a super hero gf: he was proud of having a super hero GF and even asked her to wear the mask to bed.
And don’t forget, when he kicked Amber to the curb when she was so down she was crawling, ‘because I have a new gf now…Amazi-Girl.’
Yup, Danny, you sure put a lot of thought into doing this right…uh huh! Like about 1 day of it. And that’s because you had you’re nose rubbed in the fact that if you didn’t try to do something, Sal was afraid AG was going to succeed in killing her self in one of her crazy stunts.
So while you are sitting around feeling sorry for yourself and patting yourself on the back too: where is the sorrow for Amber?
And yes I do know he’s only a kid, and way over his depth in this situation, and he only did what most people do: go with the flow till it kicks you in the teeth.
At least he did try when Sal talked to him. So I do give him an attaboy on that.
He didnt kick anyone to the curb. He actually did have GF, that GF *was* AmaziGirl and he didnt know that AG was Amber. So when Amber forced him to lie to his parents about their relationship, he was right to be pissed off. Danny is loyal to a fault and he was showing his loyalty to his GF AG here. I dont know why you are blaming him for being faithful to his GF.
And yes, he was super happy to have superhero GF. It was a (kinda nerdy) dream come true. But I dont get why that’s a bad thing?
No, he said that it wasn’t cool to fake to his PARENTS that they were in a relationship when she knew he was in a relationship with Amazi-girl. Later he found out the truth as well as what Amber/Amazi-girl were dealing with regarding her dad and he was super-supportive.
Yeah, he got a kick out of being a superheroine’s boyfriend. Cause that’s pretty badass for a nerd and he had no exposure or awareness of just how awful severe mental illness can be for the sufferer and the complex bundle of issues that drove said mask and confident sexy persona.
And it’s also worth noting its only been recently that he’s even been aware of some of the darkness. When he saw her distress with her dad, he reached out to her friends and tried to talk more in depth. When he saw her berating and pushing away her Amber side, he tried to reach out and show it was worthy of love too (also, I think Amber/Danny/Amazi-girl proves that Amber/AG can’t handle poly).
Beyond that, things seemed all right and her superheroine persona was being seen publicly as doing a lot of good with lots of positive press about how awesome she is saving people and stuff.
When he found out she nearly died and the mass of self-hatred that was driving her, he tried to reach out and he listened to Sal and her advice and used that to try and do good or at least reach out in a real way and slammed face first into an unwinnable situation.
Also, I’m really not seeing where he said that he likes Amber more than AG. Hell, he doesn’t even see them as distinct alters. He’s mostly been showing that he doesn’t think Amber is as hateable and worthless as Amber believes she is.
So yeah, not sure that this argument is all that supported in comic.
I think you’re right. In fact, I don’t think he was referring to her alters at all. He’s never really treated “Amber” and “Amazi-girl” as separate people. He and Ethan always talk about Amber, not “Amber” and “Amazi-girl.”
I mean, Danny calls her Amber the entire time, even though she pretty much told him that “Amazi-girl” was speaking. And he asks her to “stop being Amazi-girl,” clearly referring to putting on the costume.
I think he’s saying something more like “I like that you do these superhero things, but I like you as a normal person more, and I don’t want you to die.” He’s using the names more like how they would be used in the comics.
In fact, I could see that being used in a comic, when a superhero’s girlfriend is saying that what he’s doing is too dangerous. I think that might have been one line he had actually rehearsed.
Exactly that. He thinks he’s saying, hey, I know you think you have to be the eternal superheroine, but this fun little kinky game is getting dangerous and I don’t want to lose the person.
Sadly, the way alters see statements like that is complete rejection (not that Amazi-girl wasn’t already heading in that direction with her rant).
In addition to what everyone else said, since Danny found out that Amber was Amazi-Girl, he’s pushed to openly date her instead of AG. And has treated her like his girlfriend, even when she’s denied it.
The idea that he’s been pushing the separation is just wrong.
So I had some thoughts about the Danny–Amazi-Girl confrontation, and it took a while to get it all out. It might be that someone already covered this in the previous pages, in which case I apologize for the redundancy.
I think Danny made some wholly understandable yet terrible mistakes in what he said to Amazi-Girl.
First of all, I think Danny really should have tried to find out why Amazi-Girl was so angry about Sal. His failure to do so was understandable because his own interactions with Sal have been so lacking in physical aggression that he probably cannot imagine anyone having a problem with her, and he was also understandably over-focussed on what he wanted to ask of Amazi-Girl.
But there’s something more important about the Amber–Amazi-Girl situation that he doesn’t understand because he doesn’t have the perspective that we do as the audience of these narratives. Danny can’t see the “red panel” scenes; he doesn’t grasp the panic attacks and angry outbursts that Amber has. He doesn’t really understand the switching between Amber and Amazi-Girl.
I suspect that he, like most people who see Amazi-Girl, see only the bold and daring heroics. But I think the point of what we’ve seen of the characters is that Amazi-Girl provides the emotional self-restraint that Amber lacks in stressful situations. And that self-restraint is pretty crucial. Amber flees blindly; Amazi-Girl makes tactical withdrawals from the stressful situation. Amber lashes out; Amazi-Girl — well, she inherits Amber’s biases and emotions, but is more in control of her behavior.
This isn’t perfect, of course. For example, Amazi-Girl “gave in” to Amber’s need for revenge, and became Amber again so as to curbstomp her father Blaine. And the scene where she tackled Mike was an obvious excessive use of force.
But the point is, that self-control is almost certainly why Amber really feels she needs Amazi-Girl.
Of course, Amazi-Girl has her own problems in how she handles situations, which leads to things like her smashing into car windows.
Even though Danny couldn’t really quite see it, when he asked that Amber to “take a break” from Amazi-Girl, it would sound like he was asking her to take a break from emotional self-control; to “take a break” from not having panic attacks and rage attacks.
So. . . in the absence of some really good cognitive-based therapy to help integrate Amazi-Girl’s emotional control with Amber’s more normal modes of behavior, what Danny should probably have said is something more like “Can you — can Amazi-Girl take a break from the life-endangering heroics? If something like a kidnapping or assault happens, can you please make the effort to not escalate into actions that could get someone badly injured or killed? Especially, y’know, you — whoever you happen to be?”
I hope that Ethan might have the insight into Amazi-Girl’s nature to suggest something like this, but I suspect he doesn’t.
And that’s not even getting into Amber’s self-esteem issues, when Danny said he like Amber “more”.
I’m pretty sure that neither Amber nor Amazi-Girl think of Amber as being more likable than Amazi-Girl, and Danny saying otherwise almost certainly looked like some sort of ludicrous transparent ruse to AG.
I’m pretty sure Amber/AG is not only the first multiple he’s ever met, but probably also the first person with severe mental illnesses he’s been this involved with the life of. I mean, Dorothy and Joe have their issues, but they’re not as strong impairments as Amber’s collection of mental illnesses.
And I think that means he’s prone to making a lot of mistakes with how to handle it and doesn’t even fully understand what’s going on. I don’t think he at all appreciates or has ever fully understood her alters (or personas if it is not DID) and what they mean. And definitely has not spent long with people with severe panic attacks, depression, anxiety, self-hatred, and so on.
That being said, I don’t think that that the Sal Incident had a potential positive outcome. Amber had already decided that Danny had betrayed a sacred trust simply for existing in the same area as something she has decided was evil. And so, she was going to go off on him for “betraying her” regardless of whatever he did.
He could have been a patch of wet bread and she would still have probably accused him of plotting against her and not doing enough to show his shared antipathy to the demonic force she sees Sal as.
And given that she’s been heavily resistant to even the most cursory conversation or focus on her mental disorders, I’m not sure how he could have breached a more in-depth conversation on those.
In true Linkin Park, it really didn’t matter what he did… in the end.
Sure, she later say “Please tell me…you haven’t been talking to her,” but I think that was rhetorical. Either that, or she actually has split, including the memory issues.
I think Amber’s biggest fear is of her entire coping mechanism breaking down. Hence why Sal saving her rattled her so much. Before that, she didn’t seem to freak out when she was around. She even used witty language when she first tried to fight her–it wasn’t the pure anger/panic we see her get to now.
So seeing her talk to Danny seemed like the worst thing possible. Sal had already indicated that she should Amber should stop being Amazi-girl. And her argument wasn’t a bad one. So it could easily be convincing to someone like Danny.
Some part of her knows that Sal (and now Danny) is right, that Amazi-girl is not a healthy coping strategy. And that scares her more than anything. Reintegration means actually facing her fears–without her crutch.
That’s all a good point. And I think you’re right on that.
I think the gray-morality also throws her. She wants Amazi-girl and Amber to live in a world of absolutes. There are monsters, there are victims, and there are heroes. And the victim of Amber is kept locked up so she won’t become a monster like her dad and Amazi-girl gets to be the hero who cannot fail least a victim become a monster like she fears.
And Sal, must be evil under this worldview, because there’s no room for complexity in the arrangement and in the panic attack. So Sal the monster corrupting her boyfriend is what made him into a monster in her eyes and also why she cannot accept the reality of Sal saving her being a heroic action. Because if she accepts that those she sees as monsters can be heroes, she loses her moral certainty and then what could become of Amazi-girl and therefore what could become of Amber to save her from being the monster.
Isn’t it strange that the fear of victims that *they* are the monsters – because of all the hate and anger they carry around and it seems impossible to feel it because it’s so much surely it would explode all over the place – is likely to create monstrous behavior.
Not strange at all when you consider how much we’re told we’re destined to perpetuate the cycle of abuse or some shit.
I relate to Amber. A lot. My dad was like Blaine when he was pissed off or stressed or fighting with my mom or etc. But he was much, much better than Blaine at putting on the ‘chill dad’ facade around outsiders. So when I was freaking out at school about how my dad would react to me getting a 94%, people would laugh at me and they didn’t realize what missing 6% on the test meant for me. My mom was more like a Danny’s mom crossed with Sal’s mom.
So keep that in mind, and imagine how I felt in 9th grade health class getting told that “Many victims perpetuate the cycle of abuse by getting into abusive relationships over and over, or by becoming abusers themselves.”
The option of breaking the “cycle” was never discussed. It was not even acknowledged as a thing that can happen, let alone described in detail how one would go about it.
Imagine Teen Me aging through high school, no abusive relationship. Getting into uni, no abusive relationship. Graduating undergrad, no abusive relationship… Imagine what happened.
My two options, according to everything I’ve ever been told by society and even experts (my mental health counselor as a teen talked a lot about the cycle and how I had to be careful and get counselling in relationships and blah blah blah but not how to avoid the cycle, more she took it as given that I’d continue it, for example), are to become a victim again, or to become an abuser. And I’ve had anger issues my whole life. And by that time (mid-20s), I had yet to end up the victim in an abusive relationship.
And then it occurred to me, “what if I’m already an abuser?” and I flipped my shit. Because I decided as a teen that I’d rather die than become my parents.
You can imagine the fear I live with – every time I lose my temper, it’s “Oh shit did I over-react? Did I step over the line? I didn’t say anything abusive?” and hours and hours of deconstruction and over-analysis of what happened. Every time I get angry, it’s the fear that this time is going to be the time I hurt someone. Every time I feel annoyed with someone, it’s wondering if I’m blaming them for something I’m actually at fault for.
I could go on, but yeah. Kids who grew up in abusive households have a whole pile of mental baggage on top of the abuse itself that they have to deal with in adulthood, not the least of which is the general assumption that they will continue the abuse pattern either as abusers or victims and that “it’s only a matter of time before they fall back to the comfortable pattern of an abusive relationship.”
(quotations because I had someone, who knew my past, say that to me to my face when praising me for “doing the responsible thing” after a break up. They went on to tell me that I should remain celibate for society’s safety and my own.)
I’m sorry that you had to go through that. I can empathise. The thing that use to keep me up at night when I was a kid wasn’t what was happening to me, but was knowing that when I was older I was going to become an abuser.
Because when you’re young things are very concrete and I knew what was happening was abuse and that victims turned into abusers and murderers.
I wish that rather than talking about the ‘cycle of abuse’ so much in school, they talked about how it’s especially important for abuse victims to learn how to deal with anger and anxiety in a healthy way and to establish and enforce boundaries for themselves and also to accept and respect boundaries enforced by others.
Because that’s actual practical advice on how to not perpetuate the cycle – as opposed to spending an entire class doom-n-glooming about how victims are pretty much destined to either remain so forever or become what they hate, and not presenting any solutions but instead just assuming that victims are destined to be broken people forever.
Yup, I was “lucky” in that the monstrous behavior I did was always directed towards myself rather than others when I was in that mindset, but it’s still an easy trap to fall into, often with very permanent consequences.
If Danny hadn’t been so preoccupied with wanting to tell Amber she should stop being Amazi-Girl and risking her life, he might have gone more into “why ever shouldn’t I be talking to Sal?” but the situation didn’t look hopeful in terms of a response that makes sense. I cannot imagine Amber or Amazi-Girl being able to say two plain sentences about it while Sal was nearby. As far as we know Danny doesn’t have a clue Amber was caught in a hold-up as a teenager, nor what effects it had on her.
So it was a no win situation for the relationship at best and could have turned into a Danny becomes the ultimate doormat situation at worst (if he allowed himself to give in and repudiate Sal because Amber says so).
I hope Danny gets along to plain speaking in a second, Ethan may want to sympathize with the emotions but he needs to know what actually happened.
Slightly OT: Cerberus, I just noticed that you are using “alters” to refer to distinct personalities of a DID, and “persona” to indicate something else. I’m not into the psychological wording (just a few years relationship experience with a DID in the 90ties) and have used “personas” for what you called “alters”. Where is the distinction?
I dunno, I wasn’t actually using a scientific word for persona and was just looking for a term to mean non-DID performance. It’s something I’ve used personally to describe stuff that aren’t alters, but are outwardly different than my day to day life.
For instance, I will say I have a “teacher persona” to refer to the performance I undergo when I am teaching even though that persona is mostly the work of several alters all working together and temporarily putting aside their stuff for the good of the kids.
But I see no reason why someone couldn’t use the persona term to describe alters. Hell, I don’t think I even consistently used the term alters until I saw my first piece of media that actually included a multiple (United States of Tara), referring them instead by name or as “personalities” or as “people who live in my head”.
Also totally agree that one of the two and ideally both need to push through their stuff and let Ethan know what the hell happened, so he can provide emotional support to one or both of them.
On the DID front, I wonder if this particular crisis pushes Amber and Amazi-Girl farther apart? Possibly far enough Amber doesn’t remember what happened.
My first point-of-contact with Linkin Park was not an anime music video, but this one (or an earlier post of it) of a WoW paladin soloing the old Deadmines:
Panel 1: Ethan asks what happened neutrally. Which is big for him. He just finished saying that he probably does defer to Amber a little bit and that Amber has straight up said Danny is a persona non grata (therefore his little talk with Danny if she saw it would be interpreted by her as a betrayal).
He may have even got a partial rant from her about Danny “betraying her” or some such shit and Danny is full of self-pity so it’s easy for it to be interpreted by an outsider like Ethan that he really did “danny” it up in the classical sense.
But. Ethan stays. Ethan asks. Ethan doesn’t place blame. Ethan wants to hear Danny’s side. And not just because they are close friends, but I think that might just be how Ethan is around those who are his friends (it’s how we’ve seen him around Amber and Mike). And that’s kind of beautiful and special.
Panel 2: That panel 2… that’s an immense amount of awareness packed into that vague statement. That it wasn’t just something out of nowhere but something that was going to happen shows that he’s been moved out of the full fantasy for awhile now and may have even suspected that Amber’s more “erratic” behaviors and random slights held against him would blow up in his face for awhile now (possibly ever since the party at least).
And that’s really hard for some dumb 18 year old who’s just lost his second only relationship to figure out and be aware of. Especially given this was the first person with severe mental illnesses he’s dated.
And it shows that he might not begin and end his processing of this breakup as “I was inadequate and so obviously…” and that might help him be even more aware in the future.
Probably going to get some hate for this but I hope they don’t end up together. I have nothing against the idea of two dudes discovering other aspects their sexualities and being cute and gross and stuff together, but I feel like the progression between these two particular characters doesn’t go that way. I think, and it’s my opinion on the matter, that as they struggle to come to terms with that other side of themselves they didn’t know they have there’s bound to be strong emotions, and the obvious feeling that they can’t trust them or that they are out of control. And once they gain the means to accept and build over what they are they might not blindly give into some random moment of hormonal horniness.
It just seems too “obvious” and played for laughs right now. I might change my mind of they actually build something worth getting into a relationship.
Theb again, they’re not the sharpest tools in the shed, so they might just go for it anyway.
My guess is that they don’t get together, really. But they do wind up having sex at least once. It’s just set up too well–with Danny figuring out he was bisexual because of Ethan, and Ethan never being shown with any sort of boyfriend.
I just don’t think they work as an actual couple. So it will go south, but somehow they’ll stay friends–probably because of Amber.
It’s because it’s set up too well that it feels a bit forced to me. Then again, I dont do shipping almost never, but I guess it’s more plausible to see them getting it on as something of a growth experience or sorts.
I hope they don’t end up together, either. If they do end up together, well, I’m not going to dislike the ship – they get on well enough. But I do think they have a better ‘friend’ vibe at the moment. Ethan hasn’t really shown any attraction to Danny past the comic book outing, and Danny’s just a mess of newly found feelings and hormones coupled with a crush.
Yes, it’s not about them. As far as their characterization goes they would probably work well together. I just don’t see them going that direction, it feels a bit like the comment’s section wishful thinking. And while there’s nothing wrong with that it doesn’t mean it’ll define happen.
Linkin Park is in most of the Transformers movies? Good lord, it’s like the producers are trying to figure out how to make the shittiest franchise and we keep willingly eating all the shit they shovel in front of us. It’s like Domino’s Pizza
I feel bad for Danny here – he has neither the knowledge nor the maturity to date someone with as bad a mental illness as Amber’s.
Speaking from experience: If you are dating someone with severe mental illness, you need to have the emotional maturity to be able to be their rock, quietly supportive even as their jerkbrain is an asshole, and you need to have the knowledge and training to be able to first-aid for their mental health crises and advocate effectively for their needs with mental health people – just like my partner knows how to first-aid for life-threatening asthma with me and when and how to advocate for me when I am too busy breathing to do anything else.
Danny is years away from having the emotional maturity to be able to tell his emotions to go take a hike for a few hours so he can think clearly and respond appropriately to Amber/Amazigirl’s mental health crises – and even if he had the emotional maturity, he doesn’t have the training and knowledge.
That’s not something he’s at fault for. The vast majority of teenagers I’ve met don’t have it in them to do that while staying mentally healthy and balanced themselves. It’s a life experience thing, not a Danny-is-useless thing.
And that’s leaving aside the very real abusive dynamic that Amber and Danny are building towards. Even if it was a healthy, non-abusive relationship, he’d be in over his head. And it’s not, which makes it worse.
Serious sign of an abusive relationship – danny has to be perfect all the time. Watch his words. Meet with only the right people. If he strays from perfect behavior, he will get yelled at or dropped. Its more obvious when it happens to a male, since its pretty normative for a female.
Yeah, that would be a sure sign, but I still don’t think it’s what’s happening here. It’s not “only the right people”, it’s specifically Amber’s trigger – Sal. It’s not “perfect behavior”, the only other thing that’s set her off is her blurring the distinction between her alters, because he really doesn’t get how serious that is.
Not his fault, of course. Amber’s way screwed up, beyond any reasonable expectation that Danny or any other random teenage boy would be able to deal with.
But it’s not at all the kind of controlling abusive behavior that you’re talking about or that Blaine used on her.
Meant to add, what Danny says here is a sign of the emotional abuse Danny’s already been through – his parent’s disregard for anything he does or any good qualities he has. Their valuing him only for the women he dates and the crippling low self-esteem that comes from that.
In many ways he’s a tailor made victim for an abusive partner.
Does anyone want Amber to visit Blaine in the hospital and talk about their history of violence, abuse, and self-hatred (while he can’t do anything since he’s in a hospital bed?).
As someone raised by an abusive parent, (albeit abusive in a very different way) I don’t think anything positive could come from that discussion. Blaine isn’t going to change, so all it will do is put Amber in a really negative place by reopening all those wounds.
I guess I may just be jaded, and there could be the possibility that reflecting on the source of her issues would help Amber make some progress, but it doesn’t seem likely. She’s not in a terribly introspective mindset at the moment.
I think it’d be interesting if she assumed she was like him now and tried to empathize and it turned out he didn’t have any self-hatred or experiences of abuse. He’s just a control-freak with out of control assumptions of his rights to other people’s lives.
Cause the thing about abusive cycles is that they aren’t always the result of abusive environments. Some are perpetuated simply because that is modeled as an acceptable behavior in society.
Awww, geeze. I already see where this is going. Ethan consoles Danny in his time of need, they hook up, Amber somehow finds out, blows up on Ethan in a self-destructive rage and cuts him out of her life too, so continues the ever-downward spiral of the train wreck that is their lives. I realize this was never intended to be a funny or adventure-driven story, but damn, it’s just a never-ending parade of human misery and it’s tiring. I fear even Becky’s unflagging optimism or Dina’s adorable innocence isn’t enough to hang around. Even though there’s likely a positive outcome or neutral level of closure some years or decades down the road, the drama and negativity far outweigh any enjoyment that might otherwise be derived from this story. It’s too much for me, but y’all have a good time, I’ll try not to let the screen door hit me in the ass on the way out. Good luck, David.
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 ⋅ 1d
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.
Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 1d
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com ⋅ 1d
Pavel
@spavel.bsky.social ⋅ 10d
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Feeling sorry for Danny is a kind of a new emotion for me. I’m not sure I like it.
Yeah, what happened to him being the “hate in a good way” character?
What happened to him being a verb? I prefer him to Dan things up.
We could turn Amber into a verb now to mean acting unreasonably or somethin’.
Seconded
OOOOOOOOH! We could call it the “amber alert”!
Oh wait
It was put to rest when he did the right thing and got punished for it.
Egg Zachery!
Agree… But maybe just on hiatus.
Well, it’s inappropriate to say that I Danny Danny…
He’s all Dan’d out.
I think his delightful bi fantasies helped a lot.
Prediction: Malaya will be the new character that many commenters love to hate.
Didn’t we already? Or was that only for people who read Shortpacked! ?
Only the Shortpacked! readers detest Malaya yet. The folks who started with DoA are mostly waiting for more screentime before they decide. No spoilers!
Wait, really? You guys didn’t like Malaya? I mean, she was kind of a jerk, yeah, but so was Ultra Car. Don’t tell me you guys didn’t like Ultra Car, either!
Anyway, I think Malaya was nicer in that universe than this one, at least once she’d gotten a chance to mellow out.
I found it super un-charming how she defined herself by who and what she hated (everyone and everything, pretty much). Ultra-Car actually liked some stuff, like superheroes and dropping people in the Amazon. Also, this universe’s Malaya likes skating, so that could be promising.
Finding out that his parents were emotionally abusive and used almost the same language- minus the joking- to beat him down kinda took a lot of the fun out of it for me.
His parents were abusive? I don’t remember that arc. Do you happen to have a link?
They don’t appear to be physically abusive, but mentally and emotionally abusive. It wasn’t so much its own arc was it was interjected into other arcs.
where and when?
It’s somewhat subtle.
Clearest example is that he’s accustomed to people calling him a piece of shit or similar, and doesn’t think it’s a big deal. http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/piece-of-shit/
I thought that was a reflection on us, the readers/commenters…
“Mom and Dad, i’m doing fine without Dorothy.
I even have a new girlfriend already.”
“Oh, really? Is she better than Dorothy?”
Danny’s parents only care about the girlfriend he has. His only worth is having a “good” (better then Dorothy?) girlfriend.
For them Danny is just a noone without a girlfriend.
I went to see that arch and I miss Mike’s parents…
ah, right, I HAD forgotten about this.
Wait, so… the fact that his parents are emotionally abusive and his best friend is Joe WASN’T enough to make you feel sorry for him?
You heartless monster.
I mean, Joe isn’t really a BAD friend, just maybe not very Danny-compatible.
I’m not sure who he’d be a good friend to in his current mode (secret texting to Joyce if he’s doing that would answer that question but that would also be a character growth from where he’s been).
Like he tends to be self-centered, demands friends keep all conversations to shallow talks on girls and sex, and frequently trails off in hangout time to letch at women.
Like, we’ve seen him try to have a bro-relationship with Jacob and it’s mostly just seemed like Jacob tolerating his presence rather than any sort of mutual strong friendship.
Like I feel Jacob could easily be a decent friend if he put his mind to it and may be doing that for Joyce right now, but otherwise, he certainly has issues when it comes to his being a good friend.
“Like I feel Jacob could easily be a decent friend” = ‘Joe’? Wow, this is the second time in a few days that I’ve posted “ITYM Joe.” Is this becoming a trend?
Who knows, I sometimes have a brain fart of name dyslexia and this would be one of them. Damn multiple J-names!
The Brown family must be a feast for you!
Sometimes I weep in the night when I think of them…
Maybe. On the other hand, from Joe’s perspective, his life has been almost completely drama free the whole time he’s been there, while Danny’s had two breakups (not that Joe knows about the second), a confrontation with someone’s abusive father, and an experience that made him question his own sexuality.
Joe’s not exactly supportive, yeah, but that’s because he’s been watching Danny spiral out of control and has repeatedly pushed him towards his own laid-back lifestyle instead – something he genuinely believes would be better for Danny, or at the very least easier to deal with.
Remember his interactions with Joyce? First he was going to try to seduce her to help get her over her sheltered mindset (you can argue there were selfish motives there too, though), then later on he tried to nudge her away from her pretend-swear phase.
He’s also called out Walky for his faux-masculinity complex.
Every one of those characters he’s clashed personalities with has actually been conflicted due to the qualities Joe’s pushed against.
Kinda strikes me as though he’s trying to push people away from what he sees as repressive or self-defeating behavior – and he grew up with Dan, so it’s not like he doesn’t have experience seeing it.
And as a friend, no, he’s not the guy you come talk to after a breakup. He’s the guy you go to when you need to do something else to keep your mind off the issue and help you return to normal, to remember the world still goes on and things’ll be fine. It’s a bit disingenuous to write him off as merely “shallow” when he’s outright choosing to put up that shallow persona because he’s sick of drama.
Joe is honestly one of my favourite characters. I mean, yeah he’s only in it to get laid as some would put, but he’s never fake about it. He’s honest about who he is, and people who are hating on him, are the same people who celebrate the same honesty of self in other people.
He doesn’t get upset when people don’t like him for him after all. Like, he might be bummed out kinda in the next panel, but he lives and let lives and all that entails, as far as I can tell, he dislikes no one other than Mike.
I would more argue his idea of “fixing” Joyce through his penis is part and parcel of the disturbing way asexual people are targeted for “corrective” rape and otherwise hounded for being broken.
But I can see the rest of your point even if I have disagreements with it and could definitely see him serving the role of shallow friend who will talk about mindless awful bullshit but can serve that role if you need something toxic to take your mind off of “stuff”.
I wouldn’t, because the storyline made sure to establish the opposite of that. Joe didn’t realize she was that badly repressed, sure, but then again, the first time he ever noticed her was when she walked by him while thinking aloud of her marriage fantasies on her way out from gender studies class. And even before she got on the elevator on the way down, she was pretty clearly interested in his body. Equating what Joe did with rape, especially after the idea visibly upset him, is a rather unfair assessment of his character. Up to you whether you think his intent to nudge her out of her comfort bubble was still sleazy, but the worst he did was to ask her what was so wrong with the idea of lust. Before getting assaulted.
Joe still comes off as very sleazy to me, mostly because I’ve never actually met anyone who was (or even tried to be) that much of a player who wasn’t a total sleaze. Who wouldn’t at least bend the concept of consent to within an inch of its life. Joe’s already commented on how alcohol helps with threesomes – which is a huge red flag – using alcohol to get women to have sex they wouldn’t have had otherwise. Not rape, but not cool either.
I’d actually love to see how Joe’s game works with someone who doesn’t want sex – at least not immediately, but who also doesn’t instantly go to violence or threats of violence like Joyce or Sarah. How hard would he push? What would he do to try to get laid?
Or see it from the point of view of one of his casual conquests. Maybe someone who’d been reluctant but let herself get talked into it, possibly expecting a relationship, not just a night.
“Joe didn’t realize she was that badly repressed”
Is that some kind of Tower-of-Bable-thingy i am watching now?
People confusing characters whose name starts with “J” – well, there are quite a lot of them:
Jacob
Joyce
Joe
Jonathan
Jocelyne
Joz
Jarcie (more like Darcie, isn’t it?)
Jecky
Jillie
Jal
Jarah
Jamber
Jarry
Janny
Jethan
Jike
Jina
Joetad!
#notallletterjnames !
But more seriously, to Nyzer, I’m pretty much in agreement with what thejeff said.
And as far him “fixing” Joyce, I’m directly quoting him:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/penis/
It’s one of the big reasons why I do not view him as being as up on consent as he’s convinced he is.
I can’t wait for Danny to be part of a Weird Al polka parody!
Yeah i’ll just leave this here
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eVTXPUF4Oz4
Leaving this here from Danny’s PoV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3clmmWRXfn4
This is more Danny’s PoV
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn3KSLBxNSQ
Linkin Park reminds me of the Final Fantasy 9 AMV from so long ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CKBitnAOLA
Honestly, I was thinking of this one, around the 4:55 mark.
https://youtu.be/K7ioNInodLk
I can’t actually scream, because it’s 1AM, but mentally I am screaming because why are there so many of these?!?!
You ain’t seen nothing, yet–
Because the entire point of AMVs is to clog up YouTube search results with as many entries that are utterly irrelevant to what you were searching for as possible.
Thanks for the 2003-Newgrounds flashbacks…
Right? 2000 for me. Y2K didn’t kill us all, and it only took about 2 days to download a Vegeta/Savage Garden AMV to watch on the trusty ole RealMedia Player. Heady days.
Iiii was actually thinking of this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9XkY84MUls
Oh. Someone got there before me.
Cue Goku looking very angsty…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prf2GDR8j7A
Are there twenty more where that came from? Absolutely.
I think this is the first DBZ one ever done, and definitely the one this strip brought to my mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tODP9fnbWzI
2008? Not even close. I’m pretty sure archaeologists have found Linkin Park AMVs dating from the Paleolithic era.
Time travelers have all the fun, where can I steal a TARDIS?
It’s been (re?)published on YouTube in 2008. Reality might be far more complex.
I was watching DBZ AMVs on fan sites in 1999. Youtube just conglomerated the madness!
It is from much earlier than 2008.
Ah yes, the Linkin Park Z era, that was a dreadful time to try any AMVs on YouTube, much less any halfway decent ones.
Okay but Danny’s comparison is kind of hilarious and adorable despite the context.
I’m afraid I don’t own any Linkin Park.
I’m not. I’m relieved.
They’re kinda a little bit in the direction of REM, if REM was terrible.
How about REM if they were Newfies?
*puts on “End of the World” by Great Big Sea*
OMG, fellow Great Big Sea fan!
Their cover of End of the World makes the original version sound like a funeral dirge.
Alan Doyle can really sling words like nobody else
And someone has uploaded several versions to YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-5oGnvfUEU
And for those who can’t understand a Newfie accent “at speed”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K71UbC1EaSE
And no I don’t expect to see this right away
Their cover is part of the select group that I deem as good as the original. And I say that as a seriously hardcore REM fan.
(OK, and GBS fan too. “Captain Kidd” is still one of my go-to ‘Fuck the World’ songs.
Because “End of the World as We Know” it wasn’t already hard enough to sing.
Oh well, at least it’s it’s Mary Mac.
I have only two songs of theirs and both of them were the results of watching AMVs
Gods damn it I’m in the minority, aren’t I?
Gimme that! *flicks the Muzak into karaoke mode, does an embarrassingly decent job of “In The End”*
“I put my trust in you, pushed as far as I can go, for all of this, there’s only one thing you should know…”
Good choice.
Better choice: keep it that way
I confess they were one of my fave bands when I was, like, 14.
I don’t either. Popular music started going to hell once punk and grunge started to become dominant on the scene, and has been going downhill ever since. Now we’re back to little more than drums/percussion and chanting.
CUT MY LIFE INTO PIECES
THIS IS MY LAST RESORT
*naruto and sasuke running at each other*
Cue the same scene, only with 10 others and they’re all set to nickleback songs.
Please NO, not nickelback songs
YES, ALL THE NICKLEBACK SONGS! INCLUDING THAT ONE YOU REALLY DON’T LIKE! YOU KNOW THE ONE
I didn’t know Nickelback had more than one song.
I felt that way about crush 40.
Live and learn, as they say!
Open Your Heart, I am All of Me, All Hail Shadow, the City Escape theme…
I haven’t listened to anything they made that wasn’t in a Sonic game though.
I’d recommend it! Their self-titled album, Thrill of the Feel (when they were called Sons of Angels), Rise Again, and 2 Nights 2 Remember are all pretty dang good.
As a side note, try looking for an EP called “Ready!” that was produced under the name “JxJ” if you haven’t heard of it – it was a one-time collaborative work between Jun Senoue and Junko Noda. Main reason is that there’s a song that’s pretty much a differently pitched Emerald Coast with (frustratingly yet to be translated) lyrics, and it sounds absolutely wonderful.
Oh dear GOG my mother owns their songs unironically
Seeing your comment I had two revelations : “Oh, so those are the Nickleback fans!” and “This webcomic has a crossover audience between geeks and hipsters”.
Mike, nickel, your mom’s backside.
–ah, I can’t phone it in like that. Nickelback is what Mike got, when he didn’t like your mom’s services.
UGH, WHY DO THESE WORDS BRING BACK SO MANY MEMORIES?! YOUNGER ME, WHAT WERE YOU DOING WITH OUR LIFE?!
Linkin Park may be extremely melodramatic and a little absurd at times, but their Hybrid Theory and Meteora remain incredibly entertaining albums.
It takes a little time, breaking the habit i mean.
I’m doing that tonight.
I still kind of like them, if only because their music is the audio embodiment of an Angry Teen.
Yeaaah.
I have complicated feelings about them – on one hand, they remind me of what was the most miserable and embarrassing time in my life (long story).
On the other hand, by basically being the soundtrack of Angry Teen, they were a musical reminder that I wasn’t alone during said time. Which was a big and important part of letting me survive.
On the other other hand, I’ve aged out of the target demographic and it really shows in my emotional reaction to their songs. I don’t mind emotional self-pity songs, but I prefer when they show a little more self-awareness than most Linkin Park songs did at the time.
On the fourth other hand, Chester Bennington was very vocal about his mental health and abuse issues, and by being vocal about it, he convinced me to seek mental health help at the time and it probably saved my life.
Buuut I still can’t listen to their music anymore. It makes me cringe when it’s not bringing up bad memories.
Yeah, say what you will about the lyrics, but I think the music itself is okay. (In Hybrid Theory and Meteora, that is. It went downhill fast afterwards, and I haven’t gone back to check if they got better again.)
I am, perhaps, too old to know what “AMV” stands for so I had to look it up. I’m presuming it does not stand for “Avian Myeloblastosis Virus”?
Animated music video. Search with caution, some of that shit gets weird.
I prefer my initial guess.
Is that what it stands for? I always thought it stood for “Amateur Made Video”.
Amateur music video could also work.
I’ve always sort of treated it as a synonym for ‘song-based fanvid’ anyway, and that definition would include the ones that ‘animated’ doesn’t catch on account of a live-action source material.
Anime music video actually.
Anime, animated, same thing.
Let’s just start with the best one ABSOLUTELY EVER
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84KbkXmtEq0
Best AMV ever? That’s a tough one. I guess I’ll go with this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHZqxecCukg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HCrFHkC51g
…I’ll show myself out.
No no you’re all wrong… watch this masterpiece from 2000-2001 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvpLihW1GRk
https://youtu.be/dcqmvGVH9c0?t=58s
DBZ and Prodigy is like chocolate and peanut butter. Plus that video quality gets me right in the nostalgia
But you have no idea how excited I was to find this one made it to Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnGDK9Ja4GA
Brought to you by DivX!
Dammit Danny now I’m seeing too many AMV montages from when I was like 14.
You also reminded me of the song “you are going down” by Sick Puppies so the AMV description sounds accurate.
This is a problem only that only fujoshi can solve.
Where are these fujoshi and how do I tell them the good word about all the gay feel-good webcomics I know about
All right, first one to make a Danny AMV to Lincoln Park and post it on YouTube gets a cookie. You’ll also get punched in the face because, you know, Lincoln Park AMV and it has to be done. But you’ll get a cookie afterwards.
I’ll do it but only if I can use everything you know is wrong by weird al
I’m sure if you did it and gave us the adress to your newly opened P.O. box, you’d get tons of cookies.
Leave poor Abe out of this!
“I was born in a log cabin I built with my own two hands.”
— Abe Lincoln
And Danny always trying your best with nothing but the best intentions in mind the problem is he’s always destined too fuck up somehow in someway…. but they can never say he didn’t try.
But if anything it’s not his fault this time, you just got caught up in between a brutal grudg.
Oh Danny. This is the time for country music. The music of pain.
Ohh, my truck broke down, and my girl left me, and my hounddog died, and life is sad… *twang twang twang twang*
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSdItuvBxc8
Warning, don’t watch unless you’re prepared to cry*. This is that song.
*of laughter
Oh god I actually kind of like this song it actually does bring tears to my eye a little. In all fairness it is super cliche but I don’t even like country. What is wrong with me.
Once again YouTube tells me I cannot watch this because copyright…
How about this one: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=60hN60f_FO0
I closed the tab at “A place called Vietnam”.
He was standing on the stairway of an old dorm at Indiann
When an on-the-scene reporter stuck her iphone in the face of that young man
She said “tell the folks please mister, what are you gonna do
Now that this superheroine’s taken all that’s dear to you”
The young man just smiled and said “Billie, let me tell you something, this ain’t nothing”…
Doesn’t he still need to lose his house, truck, and dog first?
Truck and dog, definitely. House, not so much – a good country singer, after losing his truck, dog, and woman, needs a house so he can go sit on the front porch and sing his song of loss as the sun sets.
Preferably while drunk.
Oh, and he also needs to still have his gee-tar, which he strums while singing his song of loss.
Ohhh, my bike got stole / and two girlfriends dumped me / and my best friend / he just don’t understand! / The basis for Joyce’s dog / has been dead for like a decade / boy ain’t it tough / to be a Dan… *twang twang twang twang*
Maybe he should listen to Tex Hooper, although I wouldn’t call his brand of country “the music of pain.”
Points for paraphrasing Xander Harris!
You have to ease into country music. Start with Cake doing Sad Songs and Waltzes before you move on to the real thing. And I don’t mean any of the current top 40 country, but Willie And Hank Sr.
Blasphemy. Dolly or Bust.
Back in ’97, my wife left me, I lost my job, I lost my house, my truck broke down, and my dog died. And I don’t even like country music!
One of the things that helped me get through that period, though, was Linkin Park…
She put him out
like the burning end of a midnight cigarette
She broke his heart
He spent his whole life trying to forget
You know what else is taking “a long time coming out of nowhere”? Danny x Ethan
And it appears to be a long
Appears to be a long
Appears to be a long
Time such a long long lonely time
Before the dawn
Dunno why, but when I read your comment, all I could think was:
“And I think it’s gonna be a long long time”
Till touchdown brings me round again to find
So, since no one else is going to, I’ll go ahead and be the one to admit that I actually like Linkin Park. And Nickelback, while I’m at it. And Youtube music videos (not all of them, obviously, but some of them were actually pretty good, unless that’s just the nostalgia talking).
I’ll back you up, save on the Youtube part, just never watched them.
Well, lots of people had to like those bands or else how would we all know their names even today? Likewise, tons of people had to love disco when it was hot.
I’m meh on Linkin Park but I do like Nickelback. Incidentally, I remember reading someone traced the “everyone hates Nickelback” meme to a promo for a canceled comedy special with Brian Posehn.
The thing about Nickelback and Linkin Park both, though, is that they’re both bands that have had a lot of songs get airplay that are really samey – people forget they’re not one-hit wonders because all their songs kind of run together.
YouTube music videos are great and I continue to watch and make them.
I found my childhood.
Well, that was bizarre and creepy.
I approve!
I grew up in the height of early popularity for that band. I’ve memorized most of that Hybrid Theory album purely by cultural osmosis.
Well I like them too and I don’t really care what people think of me due to my musical tastes.
I like both bands, but I like most music so that might not be saying much.
I don’t like Naruto/Linkin Park AMVs though. I do know a really good AMV with Linkin Park (and the anime movie Perfectr Blue), but I don’t think it exists on Youtube so I can’t link it.
Linkin Park was one of my first experiences with finding music of my own instead of just listening to whatever was popular with the other kids at school, so I suppose I’m biased in that regard. Tend to stay away from AMVs though. I can only hear the same exact song used for every single video despite never being made by the same person before I begin to dislike the song as well.
I’ll back you up with Linkin Park, but not the other two. AMVs always made me cringe, except when they’re humorous (see SgtWadeyWilson’s link above)
I still watch a lot of that stuff, though I remember when it was bad AMV on Newgrounds
Danny, don’t worry, get some sleep and wake up better tomorrow. Some days, you just have to accept that today is gonna be the day that they’re gonna throw it back to you.
If Danny doesn’t elaborate on his random teenage angstings, I’m going to throw something. Worse than a vague facebook status right now Daneroo.
So since Danny clearly hasn’t been watching the AMVs for the music, what anime has he been watching them for?
Pick a series, any series. Odds are good at least half the tracks for it are Linkin Park or Slipknot.
Yeah, but which anime do we think Danny would like?
My guess is some sort of magical girl anime with a prominent boyfriend who is always helping them out. Or maybe one of those secret girlfriend anime.
(And I can’t believe I almost typed animes, twice! Good guy, Firefox spellcheck–keeping me from sounding like my grandpa.)
He did say he unironically liked My Little Ponies, so definitely could see magical girl anime. Could also see harem anime because a lot of those series linger on one or two “true” potential couples for the series. Could also see general shoujo anime.
I mean, at the end of the day, he’s a romantic so plotlines that focus on it could really speak to him.
I could also see a series like Inuyasha really speaking to him for the mix of action and romance.
It might not be relevant but I just wanted to let the world know that the most well-known TV host of the most watched political journalism show over here made his Bronie coming out during his show just the other week.
Wait, who?
“Over here” meaning probably not the same place as you. The name’s Jean-René Dufort.
If Danny doesn’t elaborate on his random teenage angstings, I’m going to throw something. Worse than a vague facebook status right now Daneroos.
HE TRIED SO HARD AND GOT SO FAR BUT IN THE END IT DOESNT EVEN MATTER
CRAAAAAAWLING IIINNN MY SKIIIIIIN
those are the only words to that song i know.
I felt this way before. SO INSECURRRRRRRRRE!
Let me help you out:
CRAAAAAAWLING IIINNN MY SKIIIIIIN
THESE WOOOOOUNDS THEY WIIIIIIILL NOT HEAAAAAAAL
FEAAAAAAAR IS HOOOOOOOW I FAAAAAAAAALL
CONFUUUUUUUUSING WHAAAAAAAT IS REAAAAAAAAAL
WHOA-OOOOOOOOOOOH
There’s something inside me that pulls beneath the surface
Consuming, confusing
This lack of self-control I fear is never ending
Controlling, how I can’t seem
To find myself again, the walls are closing innnnn
(without a sense of confidence and I’m convinced there’s just too much pressure to take)
I’ve felt this way before, so insecuuurrreee
… I could go on.
Also, I just realized that crawling is pretty much the only LP song that doesn’t have some bad memory associated with it. Which kind of sucks because it was always one of my least favorite – I always preferred the ones where they let Mike Shinoda get his creativity going.
I’m pretty sure that’s a song about “subtext”.
Would it make you feel better if I rub my dick across your face?
“Well, that’s my story. It’s an old story, one you’ve probably heard before, but I never thought it would happen to me.”
Here’s a Linkin Park “Crawling” AMV of Pokémon, just ’cause you gotta hear ’em all.
https://youtu.be/1ilTUwxBOak
… I have several questions.
HE HAD TO FALL
TO LOSE IT ALLLLLLLL
BUT IN THE END, IT DOESN’T EVEN MATTEEEERRRRR
Oh my god, like a month ago when I was at a party, a group of us were singing along loudly to the referenced song, and I just kept getting flashes of Naruto AMVs.
I’m Danny.
Your reading webcomic comments…we’re all Danny!
And sometimes we Dann up things too!
*thinks about the Legend of Zelda/In the End AMV when I made when I was 14*
heh heh well…
….. so the newest generation coming of age knows Linkin Park, not by name, but primarily second-hand through AMVs.
….
….
….
…. the evolution of culture is bizarre, myriad-facetted, and endlessly rich. And we should kill it with fire.
Lol and I agree.
And they know The Who and Led Zep through car commercials and TV intros. That’s where the real money is, but you have to be verrrrry patient.
And while Danny has truly tried to do the right thing now: by trying to get Amber to back off A.G. a bit, and by telling her that he likes her better than A.G.: that makes what he is saying now true. He did good.
BUT what the Hell was he doing the months before this one important confrontation? He was bragging on having a super hero gf: he was proud of having a super hero GF and even asked her to wear the mask to bed.
And don’t forget, when he kicked Amber to the curb when she was so down she was crawling, ‘because I have a new gf now…Amazi-Girl.’
Yup, Danny, you sure put a lot of thought into doing this right…uh huh! Like about 1 day of it. And that’s because you had you’re nose rubbed in the fact that if you didn’t try to do something, Sal was afraid AG was going to succeed in killing her self in one of her crazy stunts.
So while you are sitting around feeling sorry for yourself and patting yourself on the back too: where is the sorrow for Amber?
And yes I do know he’s only a kid, and way over his depth in this situation, and he only did what most people do: go with the flow till it kicks you in the teeth.
At least he did try when Sal talked to him. So I do give him an attaboy on that.
He didnt kick anyone to the curb. He actually did have GF, that GF *was* AmaziGirl and he didnt know that AG was Amber. So when Amber forced him to lie to his parents about their relationship, he was right to be pissed off. Danny is loyal to a fault and he was showing his loyalty to his GF AG here. I dont know why you are blaming him for being faithful to his GF.
And yes, he was super happy to have superhero GF. It was a (kinda nerdy) dream come true. But I dont get why that’s a bad thing?
No, he said that it wasn’t cool to fake to his PARENTS that they were in a relationship when she knew he was in a relationship with Amazi-girl. Later he found out the truth as well as what Amber/Amazi-girl were dealing with regarding her dad and he was super-supportive.
Yeah, he got a kick out of being a superheroine’s boyfriend. Cause that’s pretty badass for a nerd and he had no exposure or awareness of just how awful severe mental illness can be for the sufferer and the complex bundle of issues that drove said mask and confident sexy persona.
And it’s also worth noting its only been recently that he’s even been aware of some of the darkness. When he saw her distress with her dad, he reached out to her friends and tried to talk more in depth. When he saw her berating and pushing away her Amber side, he tried to reach out and show it was worthy of love too (also, I think Amber/Danny/Amazi-girl proves that Amber/AG can’t handle poly).
Beyond that, things seemed all right and her superheroine persona was being seen publicly as doing a lot of good with lots of positive press about how awesome she is saving people and stuff.
When he found out she nearly died and the mass of self-hatred that was driving her, he tried to reach out and he listened to Sal and her advice and used that to try and do good or at least reach out in a real way and slammed face first into an unwinnable situation.
Also, I’m really not seeing where he said that he likes Amber more than AG. Hell, he doesn’t even see them as distinct alters. He’s mostly been showing that he doesn’t think Amber is as hateable and worthless as Amber believes she is.
So yeah, not sure that this argument is all that supported in comic.
Oops, never mind, found it:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/teensiest/
Still not sure that he’s appreciating fully what he’s saying there with regards to her alters though.
I think you’re right. In fact, I don’t think he was referring to her alters at all. He’s never really treated “Amber” and “Amazi-girl” as separate people. He and Ethan always talk about Amber, not “Amber” and “Amazi-girl.”
I mean, Danny calls her Amber the entire time, even though she pretty much told him that “Amazi-girl” was speaking. And he asks her to “stop being Amazi-girl,” clearly referring to putting on the costume.
I think he’s saying something more like “I like that you do these superhero things, but I like you as a normal person more, and I don’t want you to die.” He’s using the names more like how they would be used in the comics.
In fact, I could see that being used in a comic, when a superhero’s girlfriend is saying that what he’s doing is too dangerous. I think that might have been one line he had actually rehearsed.
Exactly that. He thinks he’s saying, hey, I know you think you have to be the eternal superheroine, but this fun little kinky game is getting dangerous and I don’t want to lose the person.
Sadly, the way alters see statements like that is complete rejection (not that Amazi-girl wasn’t already heading in that direction with her rant).
In addition to what everyone else said, since Danny found out that Amber was Amazi-Girl, he’s pushed to openly date her instead of AG. And has treated her like his girlfriend, even when she’s denied it.
The idea that he’s been pushing the separation is just wrong.
and so the awkward dating and self destructing amazigirl begins. Oh my
danny! danny. i laughed so hard and now have ‘in the end’ stuck in my head.
So I had some thoughts about the Danny–Amazi-Girl confrontation, and it took a while to get it all out. It might be that someone already covered this in the previous pages, in which case I apologize for the redundancy.
I think Danny made some wholly understandable yet terrible mistakes in what he said to Amazi-Girl.
First of all, I think Danny really should have tried to find out why Amazi-Girl was so angry about Sal. His failure to do so was understandable because his own interactions with Sal have been so lacking in physical aggression that he probably cannot imagine anyone having a problem with her, and he was also understandably over-focussed on what he wanted to ask of Amazi-Girl.
But there’s something more important about the Amber–Amazi-Girl situation that he doesn’t understand because he doesn’t have the perspective that we do as the audience of these narratives. Danny can’t see the “red panel” scenes; he doesn’t grasp the panic attacks and angry outbursts that Amber has. He doesn’t really understand the switching between Amber and Amazi-Girl.
I suspect that he, like most people who see Amazi-Girl, see only the bold and daring heroics. But I think the point of what we’ve seen of the characters is that Amazi-Girl provides the emotional self-restraint that Amber lacks in stressful situations. And that self-restraint is pretty crucial. Amber flees blindly; Amazi-Girl makes tactical withdrawals from the stressful situation. Amber lashes out; Amazi-Girl — well, she inherits Amber’s biases and emotions, but is more in control of her behavior.
This isn’t perfect, of course. For example, Amazi-Girl “gave in” to Amber’s need for revenge, and became Amber again so as to curbstomp her father Blaine. And the scene where she tackled Mike was an obvious excessive use of force.
But the point is, that self-control is almost certainly why Amber really feels she needs Amazi-Girl.
Of course, Amazi-Girl has her own problems in how she handles situations, which leads to things like her smashing into car windows.
Even though Danny couldn’t really quite see it, when he asked that Amber to “take a break” from Amazi-Girl, it would sound like he was asking her to take a break from emotional self-control; to “take a break” from not having panic attacks and rage attacks.
So. . . in the absence of some really good cognitive-based therapy to help integrate Amazi-Girl’s emotional control with Amber’s more normal modes of behavior, what Danny should probably have said is something more like “Can you — can Amazi-Girl take a break from the life-endangering heroics? If something like a kidnapping or assault happens, can you please make the effort to not escalate into actions that could get someone badly injured or killed? Especially, y’know, you — whoever you happen to be?”
I hope that Ethan might have the insight into Amazi-Girl’s nature to suggest something like this, but I suspect he doesn’t.
And that’s not even getting into Amber’s self-esteem issues, when Danny said he like Amber “more”.
I’m pretty sure that neither Amber nor Amazi-Girl think of Amber as being more likable than Amazi-Girl, and Danny saying otherwise almost certainly looked like some sort of ludicrous transparent ruse to AG.
I’m pretty sure Amber/AG is not only the first multiple he’s ever met, but probably also the first person with severe mental illnesses he’s been this involved with the life of. I mean, Dorothy and Joe have their issues, but they’re not as strong impairments as Amber’s collection of mental illnesses.
And I think that means he’s prone to making a lot of mistakes with how to handle it and doesn’t even fully understand what’s going on. I don’t think he at all appreciates or has ever fully understood her alters (or personas if it is not DID) and what they mean. And definitely has not spent long with people with severe panic attacks, depression, anxiety, self-hatred, and so on.
That being said, I don’t think that that the Sal Incident had a potential positive outcome. Amber had already decided that Danny had betrayed a sacred trust simply for existing in the same area as something she has decided was evil. And so, she was going to go off on him for “betraying her” regardless of whatever he did.
He could have been a patch of wet bread and she would still have probably accused him of plotting against her and not doing enough to show his shared antipathy to the demonic force she sees Sal as.
And given that she’s been heavily resistant to even the most cursory conversation or focus on her mental disorders, I’m not sure how he could have breached a more in-depth conversation on those.
In true Linkin Park, it really didn’t matter what he did… in the end.
I think you are mistaken. He wasn’t just standing near her. Amber came up to them while Danny and Sal were talking to one another.
That’s why we see them still talking through the ovals of Amber’s glasses.
Sure, she later say “Please tell me…you haven’t been talking to her,” but I think that was rhetorical. Either that, or she actually has split, including the memory issues.
I think Amber’s biggest fear is of her entire coping mechanism breaking down. Hence why Sal saving her rattled her so much. Before that, she didn’t seem to freak out when she was around. She even used witty language when she first tried to fight her–it wasn’t the pure anger/panic we see her get to now.
So seeing her talk to Danny seemed like the worst thing possible. Sal had already indicated that she should Amber should stop being Amazi-girl. And her argument wasn’t a bad one. So it could easily be convincing to someone like Danny.
Some part of her knows that Sal (and now Danny) is right, that Amazi-girl is not a healthy coping strategy. And that scares her more than anything. Reintegration means actually facing her fears–without her crutch.
That’s all a good point. And I think you’re right on that.
I think the gray-morality also throws her. She wants Amazi-girl and Amber to live in a world of absolutes. There are monsters, there are victims, and there are heroes. And the victim of Amber is kept locked up so she won’t become a monster like her dad and Amazi-girl gets to be the hero who cannot fail least a victim become a monster like she fears.
And Sal, must be evil under this worldview, because there’s no room for complexity in the arrangement and in the panic attack. So Sal the monster corrupting her boyfriend is what made him into a monster in her eyes and also why she cannot accept the reality of Sal saving her being a heroic action. Because if she accepts that those she sees as monsters can be heroes, she loses her moral certainty and then what could become of Amazi-girl and therefore what could become of Amber to save her from being the monster.
Isn’t it strange that the fear of victims that *they* are the monsters – because of all the hate and anger they carry around and it seems impossible to feel it because it’s so much surely it would explode all over the place – is likely to create monstrous behavior.
Not strange at all when you consider how much we’re told we’re destined to perpetuate the cycle of abuse or some shit.
I relate to Amber. A lot. My dad was like Blaine when he was pissed off or stressed or fighting with my mom or etc. But he was much, much better than Blaine at putting on the ‘chill dad’ facade around outsiders. So when I was freaking out at school about how my dad would react to me getting a 94%, people would laugh at me and they didn’t realize what missing 6% on the test meant for me. My mom was more like a Danny’s mom crossed with Sal’s mom.
So keep that in mind, and imagine how I felt in 9th grade health class getting told that “Many victims perpetuate the cycle of abuse by getting into abusive relationships over and over, or by becoming abusers themselves.”
The option of breaking the “cycle” was never discussed. It was not even acknowledged as a thing that can happen, let alone described in detail how one would go about it.
Imagine Teen Me aging through high school, no abusive relationship. Getting into uni, no abusive relationship. Graduating undergrad, no abusive relationship… Imagine what happened.
My two options, according to everything I’ve ever been told by society and even experts (my mental health counselor as a teen talked a lot about the cycle and how I had to be careful and get counselling in relationships and blah blah blah but not how to avoid the cycle, more she took it as given that I’d continue it, for example), are to become a victim again, or to become an abuser. And I’ve had anger issues my whole life. And by that time (mid-20s), I had yet to end up the victim in an abusive relationship.
And then it occurred to me, “what if I’m already an abuser?” and I flipped my shit. Because I decided as a teen that I’d rather die than become my parents.
You can imagine the fear I live with – every time I lose my temper, it’s “Oh shit did I over-react? Did I step over the line? I didn’t say anything abusive?” and hours and hours of deconstruction and over-analysis of what happened. Every time I get angry, it’s the fear that this time is going to be the time I hurt someone. Every time I feel annoyed with someone, it’s wondering if I’m blaming them for something I’m actually at fault for.
I could go on, but yeah. Kids who grew up in abusive households have a whole pile of mental baggage on top of the abuse itself that they have to deal with in adulthood, not the least of which is the general assumption that they will continue the abuse pattern either as abusers or victims and that “it’s only a matter of time before they fall back to the comfortable pattern of an abusive relationship.”
(quotations because I had someone, who knew my past, say that to me to my face when praising me for “doing the responsible thing” after a break up. They went on to tell me that I should remain celibate for society’s safety and my own.)
*All the hugs* That really sucks.
I’m sorry that you had to go through that. I can empathise. The thing that use to keep me up at night when I was a kid wasn’t what was happening to me, but was knowing that when I was older I was going to become an abuser.
Because when you’re young things are very concrete and I knew what was happening was abuse and that victims turned into abusers and murderers.
@Sorry
I wish that rather than talking about the ‘cycle of abuse’ so much in school, they talked about how it’s especially important for abuse victims to learn how to deal with anger and anxiety in a healthy way and to establish and enforce boundaries for themselves and also to accept and respect boundaries enforced by others.
Because that’s actual practical advice on how to not perpetuate the cycle – as opposed to spending an entire class doom-n-glooming about how victims are pretty much destined to either remain so forever or become what they hate, and not presenting any solutions but instead just assuming that victims are destined to be broken people forever.
Yup, I was “lucky” in that the monstrous behavior I did was always directed towards myself rather than others when I was in that mindset, but it’s still an easy trap to fall into, often with very permanent consequences.
If Danny hadn’t been so preoccupied with wanting to tell Amber she should stop being Amazi-Girl and risking her life, he might have gone more into “why ever shouldn’t I be talking to Sal?” but the situation didn’t look hopeful in terms of a response that makes sense. I cannot imagine Amber or Amazi-Girl being able to say two plain sentences about it while Sal was nearby. As far as we know Danny doesn’t have a clue Amber was caught in a hold-up as a teenager, nor what effects it had on her.
So it was a no win situation for the relationship at best and could have turned into a Danny becomes the ultimate doormat situation at worst (if he allowed himself to give in and repudiate Sal because Amber says so).
I hope Danny gets along to plain speaking in a second, Ethan may want to sympathize with the emotions but he needs to know what actually happened.
Slightly OT: Cerberus, I just noticed that you are using “alters” to refer to distinct personalities of a DID, and “persona” to indicate something else. I’m not into the psychological wording (just a few years relationship experience with a DID in the 90ties) and have used “personas” for what you called “alters”. Where is the distinction?
I dunno, I wasn’t actually using a scientific word for persona and was just looking for a term to mean non-DID performance. It’s something I’ve used personally to describe stuff that aren’t alters, but are outwardly different than my day to day life.
For instance, I will say I have a “teacher persona” to refer to the performance I undergo when I am teaching even though that persona is mostly the work of several alters all working together and temporarily putting aside their stuff for the good of the kids.
But I see no reason why someone couldn’t use the persona term to describe alters. Hell, I don’t think I even consistently used the term alters until I saw my first piece of media that actually included a multiple (United States of Tara), referring them instead by name or as “personalities” or as “people who live in my head”.
Also totally agree that one of the two and ideally both need to push through their stuff and let Ethan know what the hell happened, so he can provide emotional support to one or both of them.
On the DID front, I wonder if this particular crisis pushes Amber and Amazi-Girl farther apart? Possibly far enough Amber doesn’t remember what happened.
It’s okay, Danny. My first point of reference for Linkin Park was dumb AMVs, too.
…Except I think it was through Kazaa, for there were no Youtubes then.
Are we still sharing AMVs? Because this was one of the first two AMVs I ever saw: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D85duFrcw7o (NSFW language)
The other one was the Ninja Scroll AMV set to a Wu-Tang song (IIRC, “Victory”) but I can’t find that one.
are you crawling in your skin?
And here I am just listening to the Meteora album as I read this… wow.
My first point-of-contact with Linkin Park was not an anime music video, but this one (or an earlier post of it) of a WoW paladin soloing the old Deadmines:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChCcydExdmk
Two things that jump out at me:
Panel 1: Ethan asks what happened neutrally. Which is big for him. He just finished saying that he probably does defer to Amber a little bit and that Amber has straight up said Danny is a persona non grata (therefore his little talk with Danny if she saw it would be interpreted by her as a betrayal).
He may have even got a partial rant from her about Danny “betraying her” or some such shit and Danny is full of self-pity so it’s easy for it to be interpreted by an outsider like Ethan that he really did “danny” it up in the classical sense.
But. Ethan stays. Ethan asks. Ethan doesn’t place blame. Ethan wants to hear Danny’s side. And not just because they are close friends, but I think that might just be how Ethan is around those who are his friends (it’s how we’ve seen him around Amber and Mike). And that’s kind of beautiful and special.
Panel 2: That panel 2… that’s an immense amount of awareness packed into that vague statement. That it wasn’t just something out of nowhere but something that was going to happen shows that he’s been moved out of the full fantasy for awhile now and may have even suspected that Amber’s more “erratic” behaviors and random slights held against him would blow up in his face for awhile now (possibly ever since the party at least).
And that’s really hard for some dumb 18 year old who’s just lost his second only relationship to figure out and be aware of. Especially given this was the first person with severe mental illnesses he’s dated.
And it shows that he might not begin and end his processing of this breakup as “I was inadequate and so obviously…” and that might help him be even more aware in the future.
Probably going to get some hate for this but I hope they don’t end up together. I have nothing against the idea of two dudes discovering other aspects their sexualities and being cute and gross and stuff together, but I feel like the progression between these two particular characters doesn’t go that way. I think, and it’s my opinion on the matter, that as they struggle to come to terms with that other side of themselves they didn’t know they have there’s bound to be strong emotions, and the obvious feeling that they can’t trust them or that they are out of control. And once they gain the means to accept and build over what they are they might not blindly give into some random moment of hormonal horniness.
It just seems too “obvious” and played for laughs right now. I might change my mind of they actually build something worth getting into a relationship.
Theb again, they’re not the sharpest tools in the shed, so they might just go for it anyway.
My guess is that they don’t get together, really. But they do wind up having sex at least once. It’s just set up too well–with Danny figuring out he was bisexual because of Ethan, and Ethan never being shown with any sort of boyfriend.
I just don’t think they work as an actual couple. So it will go south, but somehow they’ll stay friends–probably because of Amber.
It’s because it’s set up too well that it feels a bit forced to me. Then again, I dont do shipping almost never, but I guess it’s more plausible to see them getting it on as something of a growth experience or sorts.
Just hopefully not in a couple chapters.
I hope they don’t end up together, either. If they do end up together, well, I’m not going to dislike the ship – they get on well enough. But I do think they have a better ‘friend’ vibe at the moment. Ethan hasn’t really shown any attraction to Danny past the comic book outing, and Danny’s just a mess of newly found feelings and hormones coupled with a crush.
Yes, it’s not about them. As far as their characterization goes they would probably work well together. I just don’t see them going that direction, it feels a bit like the comment’s section wishful thinking. And while there’s nothing wrong with that it doesn’t mean it’ll define happen.
Linkin Park is in most of the Transformers movies? Good lord, it’s like the producers are trying to figure out how to make the shittiest franchise and we keep willingly eating all the shit they shovel in front of us. It’s like Domino’s Pizza
“For once, JUST FOR ONCE, I did everything right and didn’t ‘Danny’ it up… and it still wasn’t enough”
“So maybe it wasn’t your fault?”
“Nah, it means I’m even more worthless than I though”
That is the Danny self-esteem process in a nutshell.
Shit now I feel even worse for him now
…I likely have seen that AMV.
I wasn’t really on board before, but I will go down with this ship.
“I tried so hard
And got so far
But in the end
It doesn’t even matter”
Man, those AMVs were my fave pasttime at around 17 y.o…
I feel bad for Danny here – he has neither the knowledge nor the maturity to date someone with as bad a mental illness as Amber’s.
Speaking from experience: If you are dating someone with severe mental illness, you need to have the emotional maturity to be able to be their rock, quietly supportive even as their jerkbrain is an asshole, and you need to have the knowledge and training to be able to first-aid for their mental health crises and advocate effectively for their needs with mental health people – just like my partner knows how to first-aid for life-threatening asthma with me and when and how to advocate for me when I am too busy breathing to do anything else.
Danny is years away from having the emotional maturity to be able to tell his emotions to go take a hike for a few hours so he can think clearly and respond appropriately to Amber/Amazigirl’s mental health crises – and even if he had the emotional maturity, he doesn’t have the training and knowledge.
That’s not something he’s at fault for. The vast majority of teenagers I’ve met don’t have it in them to do that while staying mentally healthy and balanced themselves. It’s a life experience thing, not a Danny-is-useless thing.
And that’s leaving aside the very real abusive dynamic that Amber and Danny are building towards. Even if it was a healthy, non-abusive relationship, he’d be in over his head. And it’s not, which makes it worse.
Linkin Park – automatically linked in
It’s not like Danny to give up so easily! Usually he doggedly pursues love.
Maybe getting dumped twice in a month(?) period can do that to you.
Serious sign of an abusive relationship – danny has to be perfect all the time. Watch his words. Meet with only the right people. If he strays from perfect behavior, he will get yelled at or dropped. Its more obvious when it happens to a male, since its pretty normative for a female.
That hit WAY closer to home than I would like… man, my ex did a number on me.
That’s shitty and I’m right there with ya, and I’m sorry you’ve gone through that ringer.
Yeah, that would be a sure sign, but I still don’t think it’s what’s happening here. It’s not “only the right people”, it’s specifically Amber’s trigger – Sal. It’s not “perfect behavior”, the only other thing that’s set her off is her blurring the distinction between her alters, because he really doesn’t get how serious that is.
Not his fault, of course. Amber’s way screwed up, beyond any reasonable expectation that Danny or any other random teenage boy would be able to deal with.
But it’s not at all the kind of controlling abusive behavior that you’re talking about or that Blaine used on her.
Meant to add, what Danny says here is a sign of the emotional abuse Danny’s already been through – his parent’s disregard for anything he does or any good qualities he has. Their valuing him only for the women he dates and the crippling low self-esteem that comes from that.
In many ways he’s a tailor made victim for an abusive partner.
Totes on this last point.
It’s also why I think he needs to spend time getting his head discombobulated before he throws himself into any more relationships.
Relax, Danny. There was no way you could have got that right.
Linkin Park is always a good reference point, especially for people Danny’s age.
Blasting that shit at full volume with headphones still serves the purpose it did when you were in high school.
Such fond memories… I’ve mostly switched to dubsteb and folk metal, though.
Does anyone want Amber to visit Blaine in the hospital and talk about their history of violence, abuse, and self-hatred (while he can’t do anything since he’s in a hospital bed?).
Or would that be a horrible idea?
As someone raised by an abusive parent, (albeit abusive in a very different way) I don’t think anything positive could come from that discussion. Blaine isn’t going to change, so all it will do is put Amber in a really negative place by reopening all those wounds.
I guess I may just be jaded, and there could be the possibility that reflecting on the source of her issues would help Amber make some progress, but it doesn’t seem likely. She’s not in a terribly introspective mindset at the moment.
I think it’d be interesting if she assumed she was like him now and tried to empathize and it turned out he didn’t have any self-hatred or experiences of abuse. He’s just a control-freak with out of control assumptions of his rights to other people’s lives.
Cause the thing about abusive cycles is that they aren’t always the result of abusive environments. Some are perpetuated simply because that is modeled as an acceptable behavior in society.
Awww, geeze. I already see where this is going. Ethan consoles Danny in his time of need, they hook up, Amber somehow finds out, blows up on Ethan in a self-destructive rage and cuts him out of her life too, so continues the ever-downward spiral of the train wreck that is their lives. I realize this was never intended to be a funny or adventure-driven story, but damn, it’s just a never-ending parade of human misery and it’s tiring. I fear even Becky’s unflagging optimism or Dina’s adorable innocence isn’t enough to hang around. Even though there’s likely a positive outcome or neutral level of closure some years or decades down the road, the drama and negativity far outweigh any enjoyment that might otherwise be derived from this story. It’s too much for me, but y’all have a good time, I’ll try not to let the screen door hit me in the ass on the way out. Good luck, David.
I’m sorry to hear that. Offer of *hugs*.
I’ve pretty much emotionally disconnected from most of these plotlines out of simple self-preservation.
I was gonna sing the song in the comics but then you called me out in the last panel. So fuck.
Danny, use your damn words and tell Ethan EXACTLY what happened with Amber, so the two of you can find a way to get her some help. Seriously.
I am watching a streamer right now and this song is playing.
Perfect timing lol.
Fuck ‘im Danny! Fuck him hard and good and let Amber know
So Danny feels cold and lost in desperation?
I remeber being that way and not realizing I was being let off the hook. Sometimes you got to take the out when it presents itself
In the 5th panel Danny looks like he dresses to the left. And has a penis that almost touches his knee.
Yes, I have the mind of a 13 year old. So?