A sexy superhero comedy (except when it isn't) about the never-ending struggles of a plucky but very unlucky young superheroine.
Sakana
Mad Rupert
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.
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 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...
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
Sister Claire
Yamino
In the troubled aftermath of a great war between Witches and her fellow Nuns, novice Sister Claire just wants a purpose.
Nerf Now!!
Josué Pereira
A cute webcomic about fanservice, video games, and... love. Mostly video games, though.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Heroes of Thantopolis
Izzy Strontium Hall
A living boy fights to save the City of the Dead.
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.
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?
Peritale
Mari Costa
A fairy godmother with no magic tries her best to successfully fulfill a Fairytale and win the respect of her peers.
Saint for Rent
Ru Xu
Saint Halliday runs an inn for Time Travelers. Unfortunately, he seems to attract other supernatural "guests," too.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
Three Panel Soul
Matt Boyd, Ian McConville
It's a pretty rigid format but we keep the content loose, you know?
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?
Namesake
Isa, Meg
There's ghosts at your heels and fairy tale worlds ahead. What do you do? Jump down the rabbit hole!
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.
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.
BOOKMARK Click "Tag Page" to bookmark a page. When you return to the site, click "Goto Tag" to continue where you left off.
BUFFER WATCH
Comics are currently drawn and uploaded through:
Granted, I played the cello, and the other instruments were clarinet and baritone, and we had precisely 1 performance (and we weren’t all playing at the same time). But it was technically a band!
We were called the Heirs of Air, and I’m not quite sure why.
Happened off panel in an alt demension of the Walkyverse and then there was when he tried a less drawn of the same thing except instead of Danny it was Amber. Also everyone but Mike was on the whole less emotionally scared- well Amber was really just better at moving, but still. Short Packed was pretty exclusively a comedy.
The comments on threesoms and abs are, as Shiro points out, jokes and silly commentary. I think we can all agree that Mike is an asshole, and that any time with him would not do Amber or Ethan any good.
Yeah, but that was in a different universe where the rules of reality shaped around him to blunt the lasting consequences of his actions. In this world, he’s not just a jerk, he’s openly dangerous, because the world is our reality, and every hateful action he does has lasting impact on the person he does it to.
And we frequently get to see it, whether it be Amber/AG worsening her DID in fear of Mike’s comment about becoming an abuser like her dad or Ethan’s recloseting of himself in response to Mike’s “teasing”.
I hate to Defend Mike, but Ethan recloseting himself and pursuing Joyce is on Ethan.
Mike was trying to get Ethan to disagree with him.
He was clearly scandalized when it had opposite effect.
Ethan recloseting himself had more to do with Amber ignoring him and wanting to feel a sense of normalcy.
I think Ethan needs to get laid to accept his sexuality.
( And getting laid with someone he has genuine feelings for will go 1000x toward that. )
Danny and Ethan self sacrificing tendencies aren’t helping.
We see here that Ethan isn’t being tricked by Mike and knows what he’s doing. He’s just missing Mike s endgame of Dannyx Ethan.
While I can admit there’s room to interpret that as Mike trying to push Ethan the other direction, the fact that the result was still the opposite of what he theoretically intended is one reason why “helping” people using methods like his is a shit thing to do.
You know what was much, much more effective at getting Ethan out of the closet? Joyce’s (and Amber’s before that) gentle support, nudging him towards the door.
And seriously, whatever Mike’s endgame involving Danny is, I will be shocked if that goes according to plan. Even if his goal is getting Danny and Ethan together, this is a godawful fucking way to do it. People aren’t toys to be played with, even if you treat your toys far better than Mike does.
Seriously, Amber, it’s not worth it knowing he’s doing it to upset you (or someone else) down the line. You’ll either get kicked in the self esteem or in the empathy.
Mike always has a motive – he wants to upset someone. Not a good idea.
If we were talking about a random asshole who doesn’t make a habit of harassing all and sundry? Sure, go for it, screw the jackass with hot abs and never ever speak to him again.
Mike? This is only a road that can lead to regret.
On the contrary, considering someone’s pros and cons when you are attracted them and grouping them as “no way” “friend zone” “casual sex” and “relationship” material, then going into any situation with your eyes wide open is a very good idea indeed. Also adult, and indicative of an interest in sex.
Sure, but any system that puts ‘abs’ over ‘will use this to treat you or someone else like utter shit’ is a system that needs serious serious revamping because it is broken.
Like I get that libido is really good at making abs seem like something that should override “will treat you like shit”, but I’ve seen the broken pieces from those encounters enough to feel that they really are never worth it.
Problem is there is no easy way to learn it. Best case scenario is watching a close friend go through it. Everyone always thinks it will be different for them.
Welcome to adult life and it’s many glorious shades of gray. Glad you want to revamp it, good luck with that.
First step, knowing the difference between casual sex and an ongoing one sided relationship. Both Ethan and Amber have experience with those and, once again, are not the helpless, innocent victims people try to paint tham as.
Amber notwithstanding, banging Mike would be one of the worst decisions shown in this comic, ranking just beyond “spending any time with Mike at all” and somewhat under “fired a gun on a university campus”.
I feel like that would, sadly, capture a realistic part of the college experience. I’ve known so many people who had their first abusive relationships in college or truly disastrous/harmful sexual encounters and kind of hard-learned how to trust their instincts with regards to red flags from that.
Well, I don’t think they are helpless, but they are definitely naive and coming into this without a wealth of sexual experience (AG/Amber divided it very neatly, so the Amber alter was neatly cut out of a lot of the experience of having Danny and so is basing a lot of her sexual experience on the disastrous failed night with Ethan and thus from a similar point of sexual dynamics being largely theoretical).
And that’s reflected in this. Yeah, there’s a difference between casual sex and a relationship, but I think one of the roughest lessons a lot of youth learn the hard way is that casual sex with someone who is attractive or “temporarily nice” but is a massive asshole otherwise or full of red flags tends to be as bad an idea as getting into a relationship with them.
Like, it’s less long-term damaging, but in my observation, most folks who get with abusers, narcissists, or jerks for casual sex either end up having crap sex (because people who can’t see outside themselves or are awful tend to be the kind of empathyless people who are truly epically bad at knowing how to pleasure others and can get stuck on their own method of doing stuff no matter whether or not it works for you) or it is more long-term damaging.
Like, when the sex isn’t terrible, there’s often a future cost, because that usually means the asshole is a manipulator too so will use the fact that you had sex to justify some terrible action or make you feel bad about having sex* or try and angle you into something more long-term and destructive or just turn on you afterwards in a way that is harmful and ruins the momentary afterglow of a decent night’s sex.
*Like the most benign version I’ve seen and the closest to being worth it I saw is one that went relatively okay (they were still crap at sex) until they heard the person speak at any mutual event they went to and then got filled with shame for who they had slept with each time. And that’s the best case I’ve personally witnessed. And I’ve witnessed way too many worst case scenarios. The most heart-breaking are the ones who settle or change in bad ways to try and rationalize the encounter (like giving up their feminism or their political beliefs because “it’s easier and we fight less that way”).
And I’ve seen it happen enough to be really wary of getting 100 miles of folks who leak out red flags and warn folks of the same, because most of the times, there’s a big downside that’s coming from it and sometimes there’s a really bad downside that leaves long-term damage.
Like I get the draw, I guess, abstractly, but dudes like Mike no matter how small the encounter are frequently never worth it and rarely leave the person happy and satisfied that they got together with them and frequently end up some bitter story of cynicism hard-won later on**.
** Which is a reason the worst human beings seem so fixated on dating partners as young as humanly possible. Because older partners have often been burned enough times to see through their shit, whereas younger partners are more likely to still hold on to the toxic narratives that makes them think someone like this might be worth a quick tumble.
Whether it’s casual sex or an ongoing relationship, they KNOW Mike wants it to hurt someone – whether it’s them or someone else.
It being casual sex doesn’t make it a good idea, and yes, I’ll stand by that. If you prioritize abs over emotional health or empathy, you are making a bad decision
All of that assumes trauma. Just because Mike wants something, doesn’t mean Mike gets it. There are a lot of emotive words being thrown around, none of which are inevitable consequences, or even likely.
Two adults are discussing a third person both are attracted to, and the pros and cons of casual sex with them. Nothing could be healthier, or smarter.
Trauma. The destruction of emotional health and all the other overly dramatic sweeping and inaccurate generalisations may make you feel like you have a handle on the situation, but it’s just sex. The worst consequence Mike has envisaged is making Danny jealous, not exactly damning his soul to hell.
What is the worst Mike can do to Ethan after one night stand? Out him at college? Already done. Out him to his parents? He doesn’t even need to sleep with him to do that.
A little too much overwrought hyperbole in this discussion. Earth is back this way…
Because screwing someone you KNOW wants to hurt you or someone else is still a REALLY TERRIBLE idea. If it doesn’t end up working, that’s just luck. Mike planning to turn Danny into ‘a whimpering, jealous mess’ is still a fucking awful thing to do.
I don’t think you’ve been paying attention because people have been talking about the worst thing Mike can do to Ethan – wreck his friendship with Danny, or hold this over his head to be a douche.
Talking about pros and cons of sex is healthy and smart. Deciding ‘is certainly planning sex so he can upset someone in some way’ is outranked by ‘hot abs’ is a terrible idea.
I have already dealt with most of that. You really should pay more attention. Also, your shift key appears to be broken, getting that fixed will prevent you from looking ridiculous in future.
As for Danny and Ethan’s friendship, both Danny and Ethan already have friends that have had sex with other people. Danny has had sex with one of the two people in this strip. Somehow their friendship has survived this trauma. I am not as convinced as you that the only grounds for friendship they have is Ethan’s celibacy.
Also, could I please have a diagram detailing how one would hold sex over someone’s head? It sounds like it would require a lot of flexibility.
Me, I like playing with fire, I even have a couple of cool party tricks. Haven’t been burned yet. Looks great, is dangerous can be a lot of fun and definitely worth it.
Because Mike’s entire plan is to use this to hurt Danny by reducing him to a jealous wreck. Even if Ethan doesn’t do anything to Danny, Mike will make sure Danny doesn’t hear the end of it until he’s miserable. Having sex with someone, sure, having sex with someone who is knowingly and willingly aiming to make Danny jealous can very easily wreck a friendship. Even if Mike doesn’t succeed, it’s still a terrible thing for him to try to do.
Rubbing it in, bringing it up at inopportune times, using that to try to angle for a larger commitment, using that as evidence you enjoy their shit, etc. are all ways people can hold sex over someone’s head.
Cool. Good for you. That doesn’t make it okay to talk down to people telling folks to be careful around fire – or that hanging out with the guy who does his damnedest to burn people on purpose is a terrible idea.
Oh, then let me do it. Hellespont, you’re condescending as fuck.
Sex is not just sex. Sex is not an action separate from the body, disconnected from the rest of one’s life, like a free-floating ball. Sex involves vulnerability. Sex involves intimacy. Sex involves risk.
And sex is rarely neutral.
Like, I would argue good sex is frequently a good thing and good casual sex or play I have seen directly can be uplifting, joyous, and put folks in a great mood and make them feel right in the world even if they have no plans to ever see them and even if one of them is aromantic and has no interest in forming any romantic relationships with everyone.
CONTENT WARNING: All the depressing things (sexual assault, abuse, suicidal ideation)
But bad sex? Bad sex can get traumatic as fuck. Here, let me point out some of the ways:
There’s good ol’ fashioned rape and there’s about a billion and a half ways that consent can get violated or a person can end up sexually assaulted. Someone refusing to listen to the revoking of consent of an action, being filmed without their permission and the video sold to porn distributors or put online, someone being pressured into a form of sex they don’t want because they are made to feel they “owe” it by going on a casual sex date, having someone “forget” to use condoms or otherwise remove them in the course of having sex [Julian Assange was a big fan of this bit of fuckery], and many many others.
Hell, I had an encounter in a scene where I had an action I specifically said couldn’t happen in the scene, they did it, I yellowed, told them that action could never happen again, they did it again, I reded, they ignored it and did it again until I used the house safe word. That put me off pick-up-play for about 3 years after that. Casual thing, was never expecting to see that person after that scene, still fucked me up.
There’s abuse. Sex is vulnerable so abusive assholes love using those vulnerable moments to chisel away at the self-esteem of the people they are sleeping with. One of my ex’s abusive exes was a piece of shit who assumed that women should be mind-readers and know the exact very specific way he needed to get off in a way that was “porntastic” enough to feel like “proper” sex and so he would constantly belittle her no matter what she did about how shit she was as a lay and use that to extract favors out of the bedroom to “make up for it”. That led to a complex about performative sex that lasted 5 years and made it impossible for her to go down on a person without hearing his belittling and emotional abuse.
There’s STIs. Like, they’re not the life-enders most people assume they are, but they are annoying. Once had a scene where an idiot top used a tool that pierced skin that they had used on other people without sterilizing on me and I had to red and then stew for a couple of months to wait until everything could show if I had anything, get tested, and wait for results.
There’s internal judgment. Most assholes are bad at sex, so having a shitty encounter where your partner is shit and the whole time is shit but you overlooked a bunch of things like bigotry about groups you care about, shitty actions they have done, or ways they mistreat you just feels awful. Cause it’s like you betrayed your sense of morals for sex that wasn’t even remotely worth it.
There’s good old fashioned pregnancy scares which are going to become more and more terrifying if US’s current government continues down its current path.
There’s lovely stalking. Had to help evacuate a friend from their house and give them a place to crash for a couple of nights because a one-night stand followed them home and angrily demanded a second date because of the “strength” of their “connection”. Put them off dating anyone for a good year after that.
There’s body dysphoria. Happens a lot to us trans folks. Partner insists on using our genitals in their “proper” ways or “accidentally touches those areas”. That can fuck you up for a good while after.
With kink there can be dangerous marks, things you can’t hide at work and the fallout that comes with that.
There’s injuries such as some asshole thinking that “jackhammer” “technique” they saw in a porno is exactly what your vagina needs to get off. My ex basically ended up being unable to have penetrative sex with anyone for 6 years because one of their first partners did this to her the first time she tried penetrative sex (and without lube or foreplay either).
There’s blackmail and exposure. Tyler Clementi kissed a guy he had met in his room and his shitty roommate turned that into an underground harassment campaign that threatened to out him to his conservative parents, leading to Tyler taking his own life.
And many trans women have learned that a one-night stand or the wrong person becoming sexually attracted to you regardless of your intentions can be the difference between going home safe and having your name read on Transgender Day of Remembrance.
Now again, sex can be great. Casual sex can be amazing and as a DM I’ve seen that a lot, way more than I’ve seen it go wrong in fact, but I’ve picked up a lot of sharp shattered pieces from folks who ignored the red flags and decided to go for a tumble because “it’s just sex, what’s the worst that could happen”.
Assholes are never worth the price they make you pay in return for the shit sex they give.
And they ruin the good times for everyone, because it makes the people who take that risk for the high potential of a really enjoyable evening a lot more hesitant to ever do so again.
While it’s totally fine that you see things differently, being condescending and dismissive about it is not.
Many of those predicting this to end up hurting Ethan are explicitly basing that on real life experiences. Even if the story doesn’t go that direction, or as far in that direction as some people think, those predictions aren’t “overly dramatic hyperbole”. That is a seriously shitty way to describe someone talking about emotional trauma.
Saying “it’s just sex” is hand-waving away the fact that not everyone can have casual sex without SOME level of emotional investment. And emotional investment opens him up to all kinds of avenues for emotional abuse, which Cerberus already commented on in detail.
I think you will find the other people in this thread are not the only ones with real life experience. Some of us obviously have a great deal more than others.
The overly dramatic hyperbole would be overly dramatic hyperbole with or without this strip.
It is just sex. That is exactly what this strip is saying. Eyes, arms and legs wide open.
Hellespont, I’m well aware that you may have experiences that you based your opinion on. That’s why I didn’t dismiss it or you. But your experience doesn’t cancel out theirs.
It also doesn’t justify your continued condescension. “Some of IS obviously have more of it than others”? Do you really want to be THAT person?
The fact that casual, no-strings-attached sex is both totally possible and not at all harmful does not guarantee that’s how things would go. People warning how this could blowing back on Ethan if he goes through with it Especially since it has been shown that Mike’s motivation for pursuing Ethan is hurting people.
If we were talking about some random character we knew nothing about, it would be jumping the gun to assume sleeping with him could go badly. But it isn’t. This is Mike. Not only does that make it harder to keep it casual, since they already have a history, but since it’s Mike, we have good reason to assume malice on his part.
Yes, it does. Especially as mine actually applies to the topic at hand.
Just to repeat that terribly condescending statement. Ethan and Amber are having an adult conversation. I doubt things are going to go anywhere near as badly as everyone seems to think. It is possible for characaters to Be something other than victims, no matter how often you declare their martyrdom.
Mike has given no signs of being an actual evil genius, or of possessing a mind control machine. Ethan and Amber are the ones making the choices and they are both completely aware of what they are getting into.
In this, Ethan stands up to someone for like the first time in his life, stating that he really cares about Danny as a person and warning Mike off of hurting him and begging on behalf of their friendship for that.
Mike’s response is to state to the 4th wall that he’s still going to go through with his plan to hurt the two of them, that he’s planning to pursue Ethan for the sole express purpose of hurting him and Danny, and doing so after lying to Ethan’s face about leaving Danny alone.
And he’s doing this because Danny dared appear. In other strips, he’s noted that if he knew that either Amber or Ethan got a partner, that he would intentionally sleep with them just to cause Amber or Ethan pain, leaving them needing to hide their partners in most public spaces lest Mike find out they exist (after all, this plan started off because Danny had a minute or two flirty conversation with Ethan in Mike’s presence.)
In addition to this, because we know this is his chosen action and intention, that colors his clear attempts to seduce Ethan and play to his insecurities, showing sudden interest in his “dumb nerd shit” to get Ethan to lower his guard, timing leaving another guy’s room so that he’ll “reveal” his queerness to Ethan and make him think that he’s an easier individual to start to date than an unknown person he’d have to warm up to, gaslighting Ethan about it when Ethan notices that there’s an ulterior motive going on, and so on.
You state that you feel Ethan and Amber are more than victims.
No shit. They are always more than victims. All people victimized, who have survived shitty situations are more than victims.
But they are being targeted by a person who means to harm them, who is openly toxic to their healing process and mental health, and who has created real measurable harm to both of them. Who will abuse them and has abused them in the past.
That’s toxic. That’s dangerous. Recognizing that doesn’t make Ethan and Amber victims.
They may choose to overlook that. A lot of young folks do. The weary cynicism of age frequently is won out of a lot of shitty situations and trauma. And there’s a lot of cultural messages that say that there’s nothing that could possibly go wrong or it will be worth the risk.
And if/when Mike hurts them, that’s not on either of them for being naive or for ignoring the red flags. That’s on Mike for being a miserable troll who lives for hurting others who have no institutional power to hurt him back.
Saying that sleeping with an abusive asshole would be a bad idea isn’t “declaring their martyrdom” (in part because that doesn’t make sense on any level). Nor is it some kind of victim mentality. Because you know what’s a great way to create more victims? Insisting that shit like this is worth the risk.
There’s other dudes out there they could have a good time banging, and who wouldn’t make their skin crawl afterward.
I mean, the other gay options that we know of on campus are Brian/Sayid, who are a couple, Danny, who has his own issues to deal with, and Mike’s latest conquest.
Unless Thad or Drew show up, not a lot of options without making new characters.
Ethan could just abstain. He’s still trying to figure out his own identity and is only just embracing the fact that he’s gay. He doesn’t need to run headfirst into a relationship. Also with as many lgbt ladies are in Joyce’s wing, I’m sure there’s more gay/bi guys around! Ethan just needs to branch out to find them.
His problem isn’t that he wants to find a dude to bone. It’s that he wants someone who’s into geeky stuff like him… who just happens to be a dude, and that’s not easy to specifically hunt down.
At his age Ethan is going to be looking mainly in a tiny age range (18-24 give or take) of about 9% of the population in general. He’s looking for someone male (50%) who is interested in a relationship with another male (10%). He is further looking for someone who identifies as a geek or nerd (7% is the best estimate I can find) so 0.0315% of the population. Now since this is college I feel we can double (0.06%) or triple (0.09%) that for an upper bound, but only because people are more willing to “give it a try, even if it doesn’t work out” for both geek interests and same sex relations in that stage of life. Google tells me that the Bloomington campus had an enrollment of 48,514 students for 2016, which suggests 15 to 45 people on the campus who would fit his criteria except for relationship status of single (which I’m not even going to try to estimate or find estimates of) and out (again, not going to try and estimate or look for that one).
So yeah, not easy but quite possible.
Edit: After looking up and typing all that, but before posting it, I realized the population statistic is irrelevant because most of the enrolled students are 18-24 (derp). I’m keeping it there for posterity however ;D
Rerunning the numbers that becomes 0.35% to 1.05% of the student population or aprox 170 to 509 students who fit the criteria.
Were he to seek the right kinds of social networking opportunities (LGBTQ and Geek/Nerd student organizations for example) he could meet a significant minority of these individuals within a few weeks and make other friends some of whom would likely have friends that fit the bill they may introduce him to (possibly in the Yenta-esque/Joyce manner).
The 10% figure was generated by Kinsey many years ago and only ever referred to the “exclusively homosexual” group (gay people). It does not include all the people who he put into the “bi” category.
And that’s likely because he’s got a whole culture and his family telling him that it’s much less likely and closer to the crossed-out section above and so this road will be lonely and involve having to settle for the first person who is remotely nice to him and expressing interest in dudes.
Which is why I think he needs that connection to community, to really take in how very much not alone he is in terms of being a dude having attraction to other dudes.
I’m well aware. I chose to stick with the 10% number because, first, it didn’t need citation the way that newer numbers would. I didn’t really want to see an argument on the validity of the methodology of the various studies I found with estimates as low as 2% (I literally did a double take and asked aloud “what the f…” when I saw that one) of the population in general and as high as 48% described variously as self describing as gay through self describing as part of the LGBTQ community. Secondly, I had a reasonable amount of trouble finding publicly available verifiable data that specifically fit the criteria of males in that age demographic who identify as gay, bi, or another appropriate identifier (ie are sexually or romantically attracted to other males) rather than males in that age demographic who identify as part of the LGBTQ community as a whole. In the end I went with what I knew was the lowball but generally accepted estimate because I didn’t want to spend another two hours doing research for a single post on a single web comic.
…and so of course Mike, who knows that Ethan worries about this, opens his seduction attempt by professing interest in Transformers. I mean, I knew he was playing to Ethan’s interests, but I don’t think I’d really taken on board that he was also playing to Ethan’s insecurities. God I hope this doesn’t end with Ethan’s heart being crushed.
Yes, it might well be hard to find someone right for him – other than Danny. But Mike is still the absolutely worst choice. Others could be excused for falling for it, but Ethan knows Mike. He knows he’d be doing it for ulterior motives. Doing it, as Amber says right here, “only to piss somebody somewhere off”.
Casual sex with stranger or casual acquaintance because of the great abs, sure. With Mike? Hell, no.
As someone who is asexual, I can never understand how an individual can think “This person is toxic and terrible and probably wants to sleep with me just to emotionally hurt me…but they’re so hot….”
Perhaps compare it to food. Like being hungry, but eating something that you KNOW you shouldn’t, that it might even make you sick, but damn it smells and looks so delicious…
It’s not a perfect analogy, but it’s a similar level of craving and want.
Yeah, that’s what sexual people have reported to me in the past. I intellectually understand it, but emotionally, there’s a distance there to it fully hitting home.
If you’re not aromantic, the equivalent might be, ‘this person has toxic values towards feminism or racism… but they’re so nice to me and they listened to me when I was sad.’
Everyone has their flaws and weaknesses, it’s whether or not they can override the good parts that you may or may not rightly see in them.
If we all stopped dating sexists and racists, then it would be a lot harder for sexists and racists to have children and pass on their sexism and racism. It’s called evolution.
I mean… that’s actually exactly what is happening here. Mike is a jerk and Ethan knows he’s a jerk, but he’s still thinking of it because Mike was nice to him. I mean, Amber is talking about Mike’s sexy abs, but the real reason Ethan is considering it is because of the little bit of niceness.
It’s like the temptation to eat an entire bowl of stuffing even though you know you’ll just get a bellyache for the rest of the night and you won’t even be able to beat your nine-year-old cousin at ping pong because of it.
Although, as a bisexual aromantic with rather cold and pragmatic views about sex, I can and have boned people just for them being hot before. It’s not like I’m capable of getting attached to them in any harmful way, so what’s the use in denying myself a pretty decent lay?
Imagine some kind of really rich dessert like cheesecake.
Even before eating it, you know you’re going to feel awful before finishing a slice. But it’s delicious. So, you could just have a small slice. Except it’s delicious. You NEED TO. You start to feel sick before finishing it, but it’s STILL DELICIOUS.
I’m probably much more likely to make myself sick eating too much dessert than I am to bang somebody I can’t stand. But then, I’m not a teenager anymore.
I’ve seen this a lot, but no, I don’t really understand that comparison either. I mean, yeah, I’ve had that feeling of “this is really good, I want to keep eating it even though I’m full,” but, like…I still stop? Maybe eat a little more than I should, but there’s also no real chance of life-changing regret. Sex with someone who you know would hurt you or at very least be bad for you? I think it’s safe to say in our culture most people put a lot more emotional weight on sex then they do on eating, so that really isn’t a comparison that makes sense to me. But then, literally, what do I know here? Nothing, hence the need for an explanation.
Casual sex with someone you consider to be a user or unpleasant or a philosophy student or a Trump voter, just because you are physically attracted to them is completely different to entering into a relationship with those people. In both cases though, so long as you know where you are going and why you are there, and go in with your eyes wide open, anything bad that happens is your own damn fault, anything good doubly so.
I sympathize, Whammy. I can maybe see it if you don’t know them that well and are hoping they’re just a casual asshole, not really the spawn of Satan, and a casual fuck would be fun. Not toxic, necessarily, just a run of the mill jerk. But in cases like Mike, he’s always being a conniving calculating cretin, there’s no way a casual fuck with him won’t be used against someone. And based on Ethan’s latest conversation with him, Ethan is starting to realize that. I hope this is just a passing thought that Ethan will abandon if he gets a nicer option elsewhere.
I can’t decide if this is unhealthy or healthy.
On the one hand, she assumes Mike’s kindness is humtrying to get into Ethan’s pants.
On the other, she realizes that Mike is Mike.
If they are actively involved with Mike, knowing what he is and how he operates, then they are involved in the same game he is and neither definition applies.
Seriously though, Ethan has got to be a little desperate to consider /Mike/ as an option, good abs or no, especially given Mike’s clearly visible game (that Amber can hopefully shut down, having easily pieced it together). As odd as this is to say, we need some emergency Danny asap.
I think Ethan started out having clocked Mike, but as time goes on and the hammer fails to drop, he’s starting to question his original conclusion and thinking maybe Mike’s not up to something after all–which he should know better by now, but I guess that’s the only way one stays friends with a shitheel like Mike for this long.
Yeah, he’s probably dealt with Mike repeatedly in the past, but that guy is brilliant at subtle manipulation. I mean, he seriously lowered Ethan’s guard just by ranting on transformers and pointing out Ethan’s lack of joy. Either the people around Mike are perpetually naive, or he is just that good at giving people the fight they don’t expect. The latter is infinitely more scary, to be honest.
Or maybe he can see that despite him having limped through the struggles of coming out, dealing with his sexuality in college, etc., he’s still no closer to finding happiness and balancing his sexuality, while Mike’s just… casually boning dudes left and right.
His heart wants a happy relationship, his boner is going, ‘but I REALLY want abs right now.’
The problem here is that they’re assuming Mike’s target is Ethan so if they can’t find a reason then they’ll assume it’s safe. Ethan’s already halfway seduced and not thinking clearly and Amber lacks the knowledge about Danny’s sexuality to figure out that angle.
Prom night, when Ethan came out in the bedroom when trying to have sex with Amber. He left and she had sex with Mike. It’s one of the earliest strips that show the three some dynamic. I think they were having lunch outside.
There’s nothing in either strip to suggest that Mike did anything with Amber. It doesn’t even say that he was there. If you know that two of your friends are planning to have sex after prom, and you also know that the next day same two friends are broken up and one comes out as gay, it does not take rocket science to fill in the blanks that Ethan was not fully focused on having sex with Amber, or that things got awkward. To say nothing about the likelihood that one or both probably talked about that night a lot in the process of coping with the emotional fallout.
That being said, if that’s your headcanon, I know of nothing to specifically disprove it, so rock on.
It’s had the hovertext for a long while, since I switched the thing to PHP so I didn’t have to do the math by hand every time someone said “fuck”. I changed the mechanism a couple months ago, though. It triggers a lot more easily now, on mere mouseover rather than a long hover, and it works on Android.
Well, given he’s an abuser who is intentionally targeting Ethan to sleep with with the express stated purpose of causing Ethan and Danny pain and fucking up their dynamic simply because he learned that Ethan had a non-toxic interaction in his life…?
Yeah.
But seriously, what’s likely to happen is Ethan comes out of it feeling like shit, has yet another non-Mike interaction turned poisonous by Mike’s bullshit and thus become more isolated and available for more of these Mike shenanigans in a time where he desperately needs space from toxicity to heal from his parents relentless homophobic abuse and explore who he is as a gay man and what he wants that to mean for him.
Like, we see Ethan when he’s not around Mike. He’s relaxed, suave, and grows in positive ways. With Mike, he’s on edge and frequently neurotic and self-doubting. He fundamentally is a better version of himself without Mike than with and sleeping with Mike is likely to get him stuck in that worse version, especially as Mike’s stated aim is to go through all this trouble for the express purpose of hurting him and Danny over Ethan’s specific request for Mike to leave them alone.
A request that is likely the first or one of only a select few he’s ever made of Mike.
So I attempted to explain this storyline to my boyfriend just now, and more and more I’m feeling like Mike genuinely does have a crush on Ethan but…just doesn’t know how to express that outside of using it to ruin someone else’s day. So he’s framing it that way to justify it to himself.
I suppose it’s not impossible. Mike does occasionally have moments where he doesn’t seem to have a particularly vested interest in being an asshole, so much as it’s just what comes naturally to him. Such as when he and Ethan were checking up on Amber while she was holed up writing fanfics, or when he seemed genuinely willing – though unable – to help Joyce by teaching her to lie. Though this was also right after trying to extort her into letting him in on what was going on with Becky, so.
Then again, he also compiles exploitable information on everyone he meets, so maybe he’s just into being an asshole in general, and isn’t especially invested in being an asshole to a specific person at any given time.
I can’t say I see much reason to think he won’t actually fuck Ethan over after he’s fucked Ethan over.
Well, it has to be extra convoluted to work on the closest thing he has to a friend, someone who knows him well and knows how awful he is. It’s sort of the extra challenge level.
I have had the theory for a while that this version of Mike is an unhappy nihilist, and honestly believes that he’s doing everyone else a “favor” by destroying their illusions that the world and everyone in it isn’t terrible, and thus making them just like him.
Oh goody! Another abusive or semi-abusive and definitely unhealthy coupling on the horizon. Damn it. I can appreciate the literary intrigue of dickbag characters like Mike, and to a lesser extent Robin, but at this point, I just want to lock Robin and Mike in a room and not have to deal with them for awhile. I don’t want to shut Ruth away, she’s trying her best to make amends in a rough time, but that stuff isn’t fun-times either. I like this comic, a lot, I don’t need it to be all sunshine and daisies, but I wasn’t ready to have it up my anxiety on a nightly basis with tragic relationships plotlines back to back all over the place.
Shit, I didn’t think of that. I was hoping they would have a death match or something. But no, you’re right, they’d procreate just to further spite and infect the world. I don’t generally advocate solitary confinement, the psychological effects are fucked, but in this case…I might be ok with it.
Yeah, the concentration of abusive relationships in this arc are a bit intense and triggering at times. Like, if you’ve dealt with aggressive stalkers or abusive friends/romantic partners who’ve pulled shit like this, this brings up some ugly memories.
But how do we know Mike and Robin *aren’t* trying to be better?
With Mike, we haven’t seen him really pull the “I’ll be nice so I can hurt you” bit before, at least bit as a long con. So it’s quite possible that he is (off panel) going through some personal growth, and part of the arc is that getting people to believe you’ve changed/are changing is difficult.
With Robin… Well, she’s currently in shock/denial. She hasn’t started to deal yet, so we really don’t know how she will.
I see your point, JohninCA, that maybe there’s undercurrents we don’t know that’ll come to light later, but as of right now, there’s more evidence that they’re NOT getting better. Robin is still cavalierly crashing in Leslie’s house as Leslie gets more and more beaten down, without any sign of remorse or awareness of what she’s putting Leslie through. Even if Robin is “trying” to express her affection in that instance, it’s intrusive and disrespectful and generally terrible, because Robin is thinking of HER wish to have fun, not Leslie’s. It’s entirely a self-centered expression based on what Robin wants to happen.
Mike might not pretend to be nice to get his goal very often, but he pretends to be amicable to set traps. “Oh, here Walky, I got you pajama jeans you really wanted! Great!….ahahaha, your relationship is in the toilet.” “Oh, Ethan, your life seems so hard, maybe it’d have been better for you if you hadn’t come out as gay. Just, just to think aloud, ol’ buddy…great, you’re back in the closet!” The only way his latest scheme will work is convincing Ethan he’s someone Ethan might want to sleep with. He’s still being an unapologetic asshole, he’s not trying to convince other people that he’s nice, but he’s JUUUUUUST “nice” enough to Ethan to plant that idea. Again, even if that’s born out of some misexpressed affection for Ethan, it doesn’t keep Ethan from being harmed. Maybe he’s secretly trying to change, but it’s hard to judge what the characters are doing when we can’t see them, and strips like this seem to imply that sleeping with Mike is almost always destructive. Ruth has actively and visibly tried to change, so I can have some faith that that’s going to continue. Mike and Robin haven’t shown any changes in their destructive behavior, so Ethan and Leslie shouldn’t bank on them secretly being healthy for them.
Sorry if that is long winded or sounds harsh, I’m not saying Mike couldn’t change- it’s fiction, that kind of redemption arc happens frequently, you might be right that it’s leading up to that. But as of right now the evidence we have is “Mike explicitly expressed a wish to seduce and emotionally cripple Ethan” and “Mike has arranged it so Ethan is starting to consider sleeping with him.” That doesn’t give me a whole lot of faith that a Mike/Ethan hookup is a good idea right now.
I just realized, if Ethan DID get with Mike, then Mike would be pissing off Danny, Amber AND Amazi-Girl all in one fell stroke (heh). Damn, that’s so evil it’s genius.
I’ve had a bet running for a couple of years now that Mike will nail Ethan and Amber in this reality as well. I do believe I hear the sound of fitty bucks dancing towards my pockets.
Panel 1: Oh, Ethan, no. There’s not but misery down that road.
Though I feel this is a central tragedy of Ethan. He’s loyal to a fault. Quite dramatically so. He wants to hang on to old friends even if they’ve always been toxic dangerous people who intentionally keeps him isolated in order to torture him. He wants to hold on to toxic family even though they are the type of people to violently bully a scared kid back into the closet.
He wants to hang on to an old life that was always conditionally based on never figuring out his attraction to men. He wants to cling to an idea of a past that never was. And here we see a benefit of that. He refuses to give up on Amber even though she’s been pushing him away a lot of yet out of a desire to hermit and that’s a friendship that has real merit to it.
But it also means he does not excise abuse as much as he should.
Panel 2: I love this panel so much. Not only because it’s Amber calling out this self-destructive shit when she sees it in others, but also because it’s a sign of the real close friendship these two have.
Amber is genuinely being a good friend here, calling out a damaging behavior, protective to her friend’s safety, and full of concern and empathy. Those eyebrows alone prove AG wrong. Amber is not without value. She cares deeply about others and tries to do right by them.
But oof, that last line is brutal. Like, that’s where I feel it’s spelled out in no uncertain terms that this “oh, he’s just trolling” bullshit is a false distinction. Mike is simply an abuser.
Cause this, the hesitant pause, the talking around it, the reminder of why you set the boundaries you did. This is how you frequently end up talking to someone who is struggling to get back together with their abusive ex (and yeah, I’m aware of the bitter irony that is me saying that).
I am so glad that when I was a kid, Codename: Kids Next Door had an exchange that shut down ‘it’s just a joke’ ‘it’s just trolling’ etc. right quick. Those kids had GREAT reactions to that excuse.
“So what?” “Friends don’t do that.” “Yeah? Well, it ain’t funny.”
Because, really, it being intended as a joke is not an excuse to be a jackass.
It’s roughly half way through. The villain (a mirror copy of one of the mains) tries to throw one of ‘their friends’ in the water, when said friend can’t swim and is afraid of water. ‘His’ other friends……don’t take kindly to it, and his excuse of ‘I was just kidding’ goes over like a lead balloon.
Sometimes it is just friends, which the part that makes the abuse trickier to spot. Friends can abuse each other in ways strangers can’t, without actually hurting – because they know each other well enough to avoid the actual danger zones and to back off if they accidentally push the wrong buttons.
You can tell the difference when they don’t back off, but keep twisting the knife if they do hit a sore spot.
Sure, but in context the kid was about to throw his ‘friend’ who was afraid of water and couldn’t swim into a pool.
Friends or not, that’s fucked up. You can tell the difference between a friend and an asshole, but this was definitely a hurtful thing someone tried to do.
Honestly, if there’s one thing that I would not weep to see the last of, it’d be this fucked up idea that terrible statements or actions shouldn’t be seen as they are if the asshole who commits them says they are a “joke”.
Cause like, not only is that a stupid excuse to belatedly try and normalize hate speech, but it’s also just fundamentally wrong and openly dismissive of the transformative powers of comedy.
Like, a good joke can bite deeper than any direct statement can. That’s why they are such a useful tool against systems of oppression. It’s insulting to jokes to play pretend that they are toothless and incapable of causing any impression at all to those who hear them.
Exactly. Which is why I will appreciate the show for having that exchange for a long ass time because it’s an important lesson we could see more of. “It’s just a joke” doesn’t make it acceptable.
“So what?” is the best reaction to ‘I was just kidding’ ever.
Panel 3: Another central tragedy of Ethan I think is that he puts up these closet walls because he doesn’t want to have the queer label feel like something that overpowers all the others. Especially since his experience growing up has been that being queer is something that takes away from himself. He’s been through loss. His family have become even more abusive, Amber has been frequently distant owing to having to fight for him, he’s become more directly aware of the depth and reach of organizations that despise him.
But, nonetheless he wants community. Hell, he craves community. He needs other people to talk to who understand implicitly, so he doesn’t feel alone and like he’s the only one with the fears and hopes that he has.
But he’s terrified of actually pursuing that community for fear that it will mean that queer is all that he’ll end up being. That his other personality traits will be pushed under or rendered less important in society’s eyes. And sadly, he hasn’t yet realized that in society’s eyes, that battle was lost the second he first experienced attraction to other men. Because society is a bastard that way.
Panel 4: Again, I love Amber here. And frankly, I feel it’s rather telling that Amber and Ethan are having a real heart-to-heart that is actually healthy and which allows Amber to show her best face forward when it’s just the two of them. Especially in the context of Ethan too frequently trying to “keep the band together” and thus let Mike ruin any genuine moment of connection and very necessary processing of their shared history.
But I also just love the level of analysis. She acknowledges his queerness, but centers his abuse. That he seeks out partners mostly out of a desire to hurt someone or set up one of his plans to hurt someone. Honestly, it might be the blonde hair, but Mike ends up reminding me a lot of the pedophile who made a career out of harassing folks on the internet. Just that raw need to hurt others and those who are more marginalized as a first, last, and only resort.
Panel 4 – That’s very true. And it’s almost over-obvious here how important it is for Ethan and Amber to have time alone. Mike and Ethan spent most of yesterday on their internet-rage-date, and today Amber scoots up with a chair to physically make a private cocoon for them to be able to talk.
Another central tragedy of Ethan I think is that he puts up these closet walls because he doesn’t want to have the queer label feel like something that overpowers all the others.
…huh. You know, it occurs to me that this may be one of the reasons he’s still keeping company with Mike. (Amber, by contrast, has had exactly one interaction with Mike that wasn’t precipitated by Ethan, and she ended it wanting to kill him.) Mike is possibly the only relationship Ethan has that wasn’t fundamentally altered by his coming out, and while it’s a terrible relationship, I can see where that might still have been sort of a comfort to Ethan, especially if there were other people who just dropped him outright.
Panel 5: Oh, Amber, you beautiful beautiful woman, you. Yes, call out this shit.
Like, for all AG demeans her, Amber gets abuse. She’s survived her dad’s abuse for too damn long not to understand this kind of game and the exploitation of the honeymoon phase to sucker someone in for the next round of awful. Conditional and temporary niceness before a sudden terrible moment that you know deep in your gut is happening as much as you want to believe it won’t.
And yeah, this also hits on a crucial point. Which is, abusers and harassers are frequently charming when they want to be and are perfectly able to be nice and polite temporarily to someone they are targeting or trying to snow someone in a honeymoon phase.
So the first red flags you end up seeing are rarely against you, but rather against those the abuser views as less than them. How do they treat waitstaff or retail workers? How do they talk about ex-partners? How do they treat your more marginalized friends? How do they talk about marginalized groups and rights struggles in general?
These bits often lay a clue as to an abuser’s nastier side that they are trying to hide with conditional niceness until they can get a position of power to isolate and control you. Or warning signs that they will eventually hurt you in a brutal way whether that be physical, sexual, or emotional.
And for someone like Mike who we know is intentionally trying to hook Ethan’s desperation in order to hurt him and ruin a really healthy flirtatious friendship with Danny… yeah, this rings very true.
Panel 6: Oh, Ethan, you sweet summer child… yes. Yes, it would be the worst thing.
Mike hurts people. He has never done otherwise and his actions often if not always have ulterior motives designed to hurt someone who was minding their own business and trying to live their own lives.
Several other ace folks have noted how alien this worldview feels, that draw to fuck someone toxic or openly harmful to your identity out of sheer horny thirst and desperation to feel that sexual connection. But, it’s also just a bad idea. I’ve known a lot of sexuals and a good number who’ve had an encounter with a person like this where they ignored the warning signs because “hey, it’s a one night stand anyways”. And it’s always been a terrible idea.
Assholes are frequently shit lovers and when they aren’t, they are frequently manipulative fucks who make sure you pay in pain for every moment of pleasure you’ve had with them. A lot of them have turned out to be rapists or abusers, laying a nasty pile of PTSD on top of folks, and even in the best case scenario, it often ends in a shit lay and a lot of guilt for fucking someone so obviously bad for them or against their moral code or who is openly harmful to them or their friends.
I’ve genuinely never seen it work out and everything’s peachy keen forever. And that frequently often gets paired with the mythology of the bad boy. The idea that the person who is toxic or harmful can be “fixed” with the power of love and thus no longer be harmful. That the racist who shit-talks your friends can be convinced with your love to see the beauty in all people, that the sexist who puts you down will see the error of their ways, that the abuser will stop.
And often it only works in the opposite direction, where the person with the abuser becomes less willing to stand for their dignity and more likely to overlook terrible actions in order to cling to this fantasy that they haven’t made a terrible mistake and hooked up with someone toxic or harmful.
It’s frankly, just never worth it.
Panel 7: But yeah, seriously, I’m way too ace to really truly connect with this way of looking at things. That someone’s hotness can override their awfulness. That it can seem like a good idea just because they are really really good looking and so the libido just takes all those critically thinking circuits and scrambles them with noise.
It’s just really really alien to me.
And so this panel is just heart-breaking. Amber and Ethan would have the space to heal if they cut this toxic little shit out of their lives and just supported each other on their PTSD recoveries. But they won’t. Not until he hurts them so bad that they can’t find the excuse to steer into self-destruction. And given how much hurt he’s already caused both of them just in the comic, I shudder to think of what it would take for them to finally make that clean healthy break.
Especially in a way that wouldn’t let him just worm his way back in.
I’m hoping that in the last panel, Amber is merely saying that the fucking itself wouldn’t be the worst, and just is momentarily distracted picturing it before she goes on to discourage actually doing it.
> Panel 7: But yeah, seriously, I’m way too ace to really truly connect with this way of looking at things. That someone’s hotness can override their awfulness.
I have to admit, I didn’t know Mike was supposed to be considered especially attractive in DoA. Granted, its hard to tell given the amount of details in a typical drawing, but I don’t think he has the looks of (for example) Joe or Ethan.
The thing with sex is that, generally speaking, I’m talking about simplification for the sake of explanation…
It’s reasonable, sensible, understandable logic… fighting ~50,000 generations of evolution favoring fucking over not fucking.
Because fucking passes on genes.
And not fucking does not pass on genes.
This isn’t a man/woman thing (although men may be more free to go ’round fucking because “death from childbirth” doesn’t factor into our personal consequences of fucking), this is just the core factor of evolution rearing its ugly head and influencing how we see the world… because all evolutionary roads lead to fucking.
…fucking is a fun word to say.
But it’s millions, billions of years of evolutionary instinct battering against our conscious knowledge of the issues. This is why “Abstinence only education” is such a crock of shit: Teenagers are dealing with an ugly mess of hormones and instincts and emotions, telling them “Don’t” is about as effective as telling someone dying of thirst not to drink a glass of water.
Mike is hot. Ethan and Amber both see him like that and wouldn’t mind banging him… and they want to be banged, because they’re non-ace teenagers. The logic… well, there’s a lot of people who had willing, consensual sexual relations with people and knew, going into it, that it was probably a dumb idea. Myself included. Once you take part in that, you start to see how “logic” is a very fancy five-letter word that doesn’t really have much impact most days.
(…this was a stream of consciousness post. Sorry if I shoved my foot halfway into my mouth, it honestly wouldn’t be the first time…)
I get what you’re saying, no foot in mouth I don’t think, but part of growing up is learning that following primal instincts isn’t always something you DO. We might have evolution and biology hammering at us, but we also have reasoning faculties and the ability of foresight and responsibility. Like knowing “this person is terribly manipulative to me and those I care about, I will resist the urge to fuck them because it’s better for everyone.” It’s hard, but people CAN do that. It’s why practical education works better than abstinence, because, no, not everyone is going to resist those urges all the time, but knowing the risks makes them more likely to make an informed decision when they do have sex. Whether Amber and Ethan can suddenly reach that ‘clarity’ at a young age in college is doubtful, but people are still going to root for them to do the healthy choice, not the ‘because my hormones said so’ choice. Especially ’cause they’re fictional and we can hope they get better things than the reality of an abusive dickbag for a fuckbuddy.
Not to say that sex is bad, or that foolish-but-consensual sex is the end of the world, or there’s some pre-sex checklist everyone should fill out to ensure they’ll never regret it ever ever. That would be impossible and puritanical. But it would still be a let down if, after succinctly pointing out all of the reasons Mike is a destructive force Ethan shouldn’t sleep with, Amber or Ethan just decided abs were more important.
I don’t see how fucking being necessary for the comtinuation of our species in any way make decisions based on one’s desire to fuck rational. I also don’t see how it relates to evolution. Sure, a species evolves through offspring that have a better chance of surviving in the current environment than its parent, but that’s the result of the local climate changing or the species migrating. If the conditions are the same, no amount of fucking is going to lead to evolution. If being horny was related to the need to evolve, our species as a whole should be asexual except when we go on vacation to different parts of the world.
As a straight person, I often wake up hot and bothered. Not having had sex in years can leave me extremely frustrated and unable to focus properly on whichever task is before me. Even so, I’d never trust my horniness to make reasonable decisions because when we’re horny, our decisions are motivated by a desire for a quick resolution with no long term goal.
I know you said your argument is simplified for the sake of explanation, but to me it becomes so simple it demands more questions than it answers.
Doesn’t make it rational, but we’re not particularly rational creatures. That’s the point of it. We are programmed with these irrational urges because past great apes with these urges had more children than those without them.
it’s not rational in any way, cause studies show that stress on an expectant mother, such as from an asshole partner, can lead to miscarriages and stress on men, such as from an asshole partner, lead to reduced sperm count
Cerberus, I frequently don’t agree with parts of your analysis, but I always enjoy them and I always find them worth thinking about. So I wanted to do something I don’t do enough which is say “Thank You” for them and for the time and effort you spend doing them. They are appreciated and obviously just not by me.
I think you people are overstating the evolutionary drive. Fucking is fun. It’s really really fun and leaves you relaxed and entertained. That by itself is enough to believe you don’t need to like someone to do it with them. Which I admit, I found out was actually someone I thought I had a friendly rivalry with’s motivation. No, it turned out she really hated me but thought I was hot.
Fucking someone you hate and fucking someone you know wants to hurt people are two different things. One can potentially be harmless, the other is almost always a terrible idea.
Arcs like this in fiction and in life frequently make me very very glad that I’m not interested either romantically or sexually in men. Cause I feel that this sort of self-destructive calculus is just a little more present in circles that date men than in circles that don’t. And I see a lot more dangerous settling for dangerous jerks because of it.
Well yeah, it’s certainly present in relationships between women/non-binary folks and women can definitely be stalkers or abusers just as much as men can be victims of this shit.
But I feel this defeated settling occurs slightly less than I see in queer men’s populations and straight women’s populations.
That’s because how men are socialized and how people are socialized to treat men is incredibly toxic and results in a lot of men being so emotionally stunted they can’t comprehend the feelings of others or themselves and a lot of people thinking that’s normal and okay and something they just have to compensate for by doing extra emotional labour.
my parents tried to the best of their ability to counter that bullshit and I’m still shit with feelings. Society – and my Mom’s obsession with making sure we didn’t do stuff that would “get us bullied” – pushed back too hard
It works the other way too. There are plenty of beautiful women who are well aware that the majority of people are willing to give them lots of extra leeway just because they’re beautiful/sexy, resulting in them becoming rude, self-absorbed or spiteful individuals who know their beauty will let them get away with it.
I’m not really blaming anyone in all of this. We’re genetically hard-wired to seek out attractive individuals when trying to find a partner, and it can be damn hard to overcome that bias (I’m just as guilty of it as anyone else), but at the same time, as someone who’s also been stuck in awful past relationships because of factors like this, it’s kind of bitter to see people falling into this same trap over and over.
Oh, there are some awful women as well, yes. I’ve helped guys escape abusive partners who are women before and I’ve counseled a lot of guys who’ve been raped by women (it happens a lot to ace guys, because sexual assault in general happens a lot to ace people because “corrective” stuff is super normalized against us).
I’m more talking about this social pressure to “settle for” or “try to fix” a harmful and dangerous red flag spewing partner and how much more present it is for those who date men, because we as a society have low expectations for men in general (which is also super harmful for men, because it’s a passive insult by society, like you’re not even expected to be kind and empathetic which is fucked up) and people are expected to just “accept” that and thus bad interactions with toxic people and there’s just less of that pressure for folks who date women.
And it’s not a binary thing, like it only exists on one axis, but the relative amounts are definitely skewed in a statistically significant way that is frequently noticeable and just depressing*.
*I’ve seen so many folks settle for awful, harmful partners just because they were tired of the crapshoot and at least this one doesn’t abuse them.
I’m starting to foresee a very odd triangle forming here.
BTW – Amber is right about one thing: Mike will have sex with anyone so long as it hurts someone. Attaching an ‘alignment’ label to that is probably going to be misleading.
Amber should know that right now Ethan is probably giving her advice a lot of consideration, so even if she just literally said how awful Mike is she’s not doing him any good by drooling over Mike’s abs three panels later.
But seriously how easy to play with can Ethan be? Sheesh.
Panel 5: Well Amber when you put it like that it does sound kind slutty, I mean just because your gay doesn’t mean desperate. But I’very been against every possible pairing that Involves Ethan from the beginning so maybe I’ll support this.
I mean what could possibly go wrong I mean one could possibly go wrong ? ( for some reason I feel like I’m going to eat my words here)
You know, maybe it’s because I’m demi, but … I don’t get Mike’s appeal, in that way. As a character in a story? Yes. But his personality is enough to make him hideous for me.
You’re not the only one, I agree with you a 100%. Mostly because to me he does not even display any kind of personality trait that I’d find in any way appealing (but I’m maybe demi too, so that might play a major role in my judgement). Anyone finding joy in unnerving others the way he does (I’d go so far to describe it as some kind of psychological torture-ish) would be a definite no-no, it would just not make him attractive in any way…
So, hey, gay dude right here, and I think Ethan is going through some of the same mental processes I have.
Basically, he’s desperate, and not just for sex. What is happening is that Mike is the first person he could have an actual chance with, and after spending his whole life hiding who he is, he has no idea what an actual, normal relationship is or how it works. He is going to grasp at every chance of feeling a romantic connection to anyone, no matter how awful they truly are.
Lust is only a fraction of what’s going on. The main drive here is feeling lonely and detached, and thus he is going to rationalize any relationship because “he’s being nice to me. That means it’ll be ok.”
Okay, that kind of reasoning I can understand. Meaning, with how you put it, I can understand that Ethan might grasp at this straw.
But speaking from my personal perspective, I couldn’t even imagine getting together with such a person as is Mike, simply because I’m a relatively nice person per default, and anything threatening the (emotional) well-being of others (especially friends) would result in me not being able to feel anything for him, even if I wanted to.
And as I’m demi (probably), that might play a huge part in the way I feel about this (now imagining the situation in a real life situation).
I’ve never had something what you’d call a real relationship in my life (and the one that nearly developed into one turned out to not be something afterall after a very short period of time – 1 1/2 months), and I’m older than Ethan, so I can definitely understand the desperation and loneliness, as I’ve experienced it myself for my whole life.
(only discovered that I might be demi at the end of last year, as I’ve stumbled over the term. Up until then I was as unlucky as to never have mutual feelings with someone that could lead to a relationship and I thought I was very weird for not simply wanting to have sex (or even kiss) with someone or find them attractive in that way without knowing them well and even forming some kind of emotional bond. Well there was one time I mentioned above, but that took me nearly a year to get over.
I never simply just could go and ‘date’. Or have sex, for that matter.)
So even if a person suddenly showed interest to me, if he weren’t even likeable to me as a normal person, I couldn’t be interested in him, so still Mike would be a No-No with a red alert blinking around him. I simply couldn’t have the emotional bond needed to even feel attracted to him.
I do get that other people might think or feel differently (because I’m influenced by my own idea of potential feelings, of course), although I got the vibe that even though you’re desperate and lonely “If you know he’s/she’ an asshole, don’t sleep with him/her” should still apply as a go-to-rule, if you don’t want to be hurt. And Ethan knows about all his misdeeds and knows he’d be used, but is still thinking about getting it on with Mike (emotionally or sexually) as a possibility, even though he knows, in general, how Mike ticks and works.
I know what you mean; Willis probably has been reading the debates here about what Mike is (alignment and morality) and is responding to it a little here.
I know it isn’t a popular opinion but I do think there is humanity in Mike and the fact that he is absolutely such a hateful and needlessly cruel human being in spite of that keeps making me wonder if this isn’t building up to something, because I remember the odd mention of Willis’ struggling to write a character like Mike as a real person instead of a comedy character and that nags at my memory as something that maybe at some point wouldn’t be left alone.
And the more buildup that happens I see specific phrases like “friend from high school” that seem intentional not to be placed in this talk for us to read. Amber and Ethan have known Mike since high school, and he’s always acted like this. I honestly want to know why.
Given that DoA is supposed to be more ‘real world’ than the Walkyverse demands that there be an understandable motive for Mike to be the way he is in this version of Willis’s universe. So, yes, I find it plausible that Willis is building up to a big reveal of some sort. Whether that is a redemption arc or just something that solidifies his identity as a malevolent nihilist remains to be seen.
Exactly. Like, I don’t think Mike would get a storyline because he at all needs some Freudian excuse for being an asshole (nothing excuses that), but “friend from high school” is just exactly specific enough to make me recall that we know virtually nothing about him besides the implication he’s been like this since before ninth grade.
I do suspect something like a flashback or exploration of his history familial or otherwise could be in the works (Thanksgiving is coming, folks) and I do also believe it could go either way.
The thing people seem to forget is that shallow as Mike seems, he’s a Willis character which means underneath the (very real) surface asshole there almost has to be a complex person with complex motivations, even if those motivations might be terrible.
That’s kind of how I feel about it. It’s not the ‘villains’ in DoA that typically waste spans of 1-2 storylines ramping up malevolence like his. People who are The Worst™ enter the spotlight and maybe get a few days’ strips worth of feigned decency before the curtain drops and we’re shown their true colors. After that it’s just a matter of whether they show up and escalation.
Characters like Carla and especially Ruth are the ones who get a week or two showing their worst behaviors before we find out there’s something going on beneath the surface. I have absolutely no evidence that Mike is in any way be sympathetic (certainly not justified, he is an asshole) in his actions at this time and I have no illusions that we’ll learn anything that’d change that. But I really, really want to know just what on Earth could make a person so intensely knowledgeable of civic and social justice issues as Mike is spend his life casually ruining lives without even enjoying it.
I don’t recall exactly how much we see of Mikes parents in this universe outside of Paterson-only content but the joke is that his parents are PATHOLOGICALLY nice people. Mike could strangle a kitten in front of him and they’d act no differently.
As mentioned above, for a while now I’ve thought that Mike is a nihilist, who truly believes he’s doing people a service by “educating” them in how the world “really” works, demonstrating to them that everything and everyone (including him) is actually terrible. It doesn’t make him “happy”, per se (happiness is another one of those lies we tell ourselves, you know, like “justice”) but it does give him… let’s call it satisfaction. Another soul saved.
I think similar, which make me wonder…I don’t want to Ethan hurt by Mike, but if Mike did end up hurting him, someone who he’s actually potentially close to, might Mike actually find himself feeling bad about it to some degree? Until now, got the impression Mike has had (put?) some distance between himself and his targets/their dealing with the result of what he does. Would it change anything if it’s someone who actually has been his friend for a while, and so can’t distance himself from his actions/consequences?
Actually nearly all Mike’s targets (that we see) are mostly people he knows or are close to him. But I think he doesn’t realize how much harm his words do because sarcastically telling someone who hates himself that he needs to LET himself have things that make him happy is not going to make that person hate themself less and makes the problem much worse, even though the statement itself is true. And Mike would not be the first smart person in the world who doesn’t realize this
Wanting to fuck someone because of a single attractive trait, I get. Emphasis on the wanting. Deciding that it would be a good idea to fuck someone because of a single attractive trait, I don’t get.
Hell, I can even get that. Deciding to fuck someone because of a single attractive trait despite knowing that they’re only doing it to hurt you (and/or someone else), I don’t get that.
Well, I do, in a way. But it comes out of a sad desperation.
It hits me now belatedly that one reason, narratively, that might exist for Ethan and Mike eventually hooking up (regardless of the very damaging implications of sleeping with someone purely to spite someone else, and/or in spite of the terrible nature of the person your sleeping with because they’re hot) is that Ethan somehow isn’t left a mess in the aftermath by Mike moving on then he will have at least one sexual encounter and some experience under his belt.
If Ethan is no longer a virgin and/or has experienced sex with a dude that is both safe and enjoyable, that means that Danny and Ethan getting together later wouldn’t carry the horrific unspoken implication of only having Amber’s fanfiction as a backdrop of information about how male-on-male sex works.
Good grief, Ethan, stop reminding me of myself. Yes, Mike’s being nice and you think that might be enough – get that sexual connection, pretend that is what love is, be satisfied with that. It’s your only shot, right? No-one else has shown interest in you, you’re a wreck, a freak.
Except you’re not. Look at Amber, look at Danny, heck, look at your actual roommate. They’re all people who like and love you, and they’ve (almost) always been good to you. Don’t blind yourself in the hope of getting into a relationship which you will regret. Please.
But…Mike being nice or Mike loving him is not what Ethan is taking into consideration on this decision. Ethan wants sex with a hot guy, Mike being nice was only part of a pointed hint to Ethan that Mike was, in fact, a guy who Ethan knows and may be an open to having sex. Mike being nice now was a wake-up call or a nudge and not a promise; before that he had been so strongly apathetic or aggressive toward Ethan that Ethan was inundated from any thought of Mike in a sexual nature.
Ethan has no illusions that Mike is in love with him. Ethan’s likelihood of being hurt if he decides to start anything despite knowing this doesn’t mean he isn’t aware of it.
Ethan is far more capable of separating sex itself from attraction to a person than Danny, and I think it’s the hoping-despite-knowing element of factoring Mike’s eventual rejection (rather than the memory of having sex with him) is what would Ethan more in this case. Hurt would be inevitable on both counts but Ethan as a character is not in my memory shown to have much proclivity to hang-ups over even the bad sexual encounters, the way Amber does and Danny would.
You know on rereading I do think there’s more hope here than I’m giving credit to that Ethan is searching for someone to share an emotional connection. However, I also think he wouldn’t be surprised or really too blindsided by Mike choosing otherwise because Mike is a goddamn asshole.
That’s the thing: He knows Mike. It is very possible that Mike will do a ‘screw and dump’ on Ethan and Ethan will just shrug and say: “Hey, I wasn’t expecting anything else!”
This may have an unanticipated consequence: Mike may get so upset that he wasn’t able to break Ethan’s heart that he may become obsessed with doing so. This will lead him to either becoming a creepy stalker or just falling in love with Ethan and not knowing how to handle it.
I can see variations of ‘screw and dump’ and Ethan coming out of it more or less fine, but what on Earth is that last paragraph. Mike’s so pathologically removed from connecting emotionally with people (I suspect very much on purpose) that even if there were any feelings there, and I’m not honestly certain there are, he’d probably shrug and move on for appearance’s sake.
I might be projecting a bit of myself onto Ethan, but it’s very easy to not distinguish between lust and love, especially when one is inexperienced as he is.
And it is hard, at least for some people, to “do the deed” and not feel some sort of connection, especially when the other party involved is someone you already know.
I can agree that Ethan won’t be too surprised when Mike drops this act – but it doesn’t means it won’t hurt him. Even if Ethan manages to restrain himself (as I hope), Mike “suddenly” reverting to his old self is going to hurt Ethan, because he’s started to find Mike’s company somewhat enjoyable.
In short: CUT TIES WITH THAT TOXIC ABUSIVE ASSHOLE, ETHAN!
My issue isn’t with saying Ethan is going to be hurt. I think he will be, sure. I do not think he will be as hurt as you are implying.
Because my second issue is, I honestly just do not understand this reading that Mike is a “TOXIC ABUSIVE ASSHOLE” instead of just, you know, an asshole.
Being an asshole is enough. Being an asshole already makes him an unsympathetic and harmful person. Mike doesn’t have to intend, genuinely, to ruin Ethan’s life to make him a bad person and a terrible friend to Ethan and a problematic character that hurts his friends’ mental health. Unless I am considerably wrong, none of the worst-case accusations people are throwing around will turn out to be true, because I don’t think Willis would write a storyline where events turn out so characters who don’t deserve it would get injustly degraded to such a degree.
Is Mike being manipulative in seducing Ethan? Of course he is. His actions are going to hurt Ethan and Mike may or may not realize how badly such a scenario could play out. But there is no “false” persona in what Mike’s doing because even doing nice things, he is still acting exactly the same and still an asshole. Mike isn’t even lying about how much deliberation is going into this; for him it’s really not a big deal to out-argue someone on the internet, it’s just the thing Ethan happens to like.
I’d be fucking shocked and disappointed beyond belief if Mike and Ethan end up hooking up without it being safe/sane/consensual and nontraumatic in the big picture, or for that matter without it being crystal clear on Mike’s part that it’s just sex and he means nothing more. Mike doesn’t have to be a toxic abuser or a monster like Ryan or even fully malevolent for his actions to be harmful to Ethan. Because Mike was such an asshole he’d ruin Ethan’s life like that then he’d have done it at some point in the last four years.
Because he’s said so and I quote: “I was waffling on whether to seduce
either you or Danny to turn the other into a jealous, whimpering mess,
so you it is.
Mike absolutely is doing this deliberately with the intention to hurt. He really is toxic and abusive. He’s not just a run of the mill asshole. He really is malevolent. Right before that strip he’s updating his file of “exploitable information”.
He’s not just the kind of asshole who might seduce someone with no consideration for their feelings, just for his own sexual pleasure. He’s hurting them deliberately.
Mike doing this deliberately with intent to hurt is not the issue. We all know he doesn’t care about hurting people. And his words are usually truthful but rarely literal. Hurt comes in degrees and I think Mike’s endgame here is getting Ethan and Danny together, not just making Danny jealous for shits and giggles.
The shits and giggles are there, don’t get me wrong, but getting accomplishing a goal in the most dickish way is the goal itself.
“Getting Ethan and Danny together” is still obnoxious, because they have already decided they don’t want to date for reasons that have nothing to do with liking each other. Mike does not actually often have a good goal in mind when he does this shit.
See – him posting a picture of Dorothy sleeping with Walky on Facebook. What was that going to accomplish?
Mike’s not ‘a jackass who goes about legitimate goals in hurtful ways’, he’s a jackass who hurts people on a whim.
Yes, Ethan and Danny have established a reason for not getting together, and Mike is disrespecting these reasons. He also has no goddamn way of knowing that conversation happened unless I am forgetting any reason that either of them would tell him, and I suspect he’d think those reasons are bullshit because for Christ’s sake Ethan deserves some happiness in his life.
And posting a picture of Dorothy sleeping next to Walky, both in their clothes, talking and laying next to each other, accomplishes absolutely nothing besides pissing Dorothy off.
Now, if Mike wanted to piss Dorothy off, and actually wanted to post pictures of Dorothy and Walky in bed together on Facebook where anyone could see them then he would’ve done it while the both of them were asleep. Or while they weren’t paying attention. Or another time when they weren’t aware of him doing it. Or maybe when Dorothy wasn’t within arm’s length of him to grab the phone and delete the posts immediately.
Mike is a jackass who hurts people on a whim and sometimes, maybe, his actions are not fueled by pure malice or without boundaries for right and wrong. He’s a fucking kid and until I see specific evidence he’s done something unforgivable on the level of characters in this strip that hurt people to get what they want without caring about others then I’m not treating him like a monster.
And to clarify, Mike disregarding Ethan and Danny’s choices in any case is not acceptable behavior and neither is any of the shit he’s actually done that hurts people.
Even without knowing those reasons, he does know Ethan does not want Danny caught up in Mike’s games and that Ethan asked him to promise to back off. Mike bald faced lied about it. If Mike gave a rat’s ass about Ethan’s feelings, he’d have backed off when Ethan told him too.
Dorothy WAS sleeping when he started taking pictures. He also tried to photoshop in a crack pipe, which could easily get Dorothy kicked out of school. Again, for no other reason than because she dared sleep in his room. He also said he was doing it to make her look bad and hurt her future career ambitions. The fact he did not succeed does not make that intention any better.
I don’t object to Mike being an asshole hurting folks on a whim, but I sure as hell object to the idea he’s trying to be some Asshole Sage teaching folks valuable lessons by fucking with them. That is utter bullshit and that is what I am objecting to.
I never said he was a monster – I said he was a terrible person and 100% a prick that people should cut off until he can get his act together because he does not deserve to have targets to abuse all the time.
(1) I don’t know for certain or even believe that Mike gives a flying fuck about Ethan’s feelings, (2) even if I thought Mike did certain things for any reason that was morally driven at all, that’s not what I am arguing anyone else should believe, (3) the interpretation Mike is, absolutely and without question any combination of: abuser and/or a monster, and/or anything for certain besides an asshole is my only argument. And finally (4) if you are unable to distinguish there is a difference the character Mike saying out loud the words “And now I’ll photoshop a crack pipe in there…” and the real, observable, provable reality that the character Mike was in fact trying to edit a crack pipe into a picture (one he’d supposedly already uploaded and was tagging) or that it’s irrelevant to my greater point that MIKE DID THIS INTENDING TO BE CAUGHT AND STOPPED, then I don’t think I can add anything that matters.
If he wanted to ruin Ethan’s life for funsies and had no specific plan in mind other than something that inspired him then Mike would have ruined Ethan’s life in high school. Ethan’s life got ruined plenty of ways in high school and Mike’s assured lack of helpfulness notwithstanding I don’t think he did.
His stated goal is to fuck with Danny and upset him, because Ethan told him he did not want him to screw with Danny. Even if he fails, his stated intentions are to hurt Danny. None of this has to do with Ethan’s feelings because if he gave a fuck about that, he’d have left Danny ALONE when Ethan told him to.
His stated to goal is to fuck with Danny and upset him because Mike is an asshole.
His stated goal, and what Mike is actually planning, are not unambiguously limited to the meaning of Mike’s exact same words when he said them and nothing more or less. His stated intentions are to hurt Danny. I believe Mike intends to take action that will hurt Danny’s feelings and I think Mike is aware that they will. If Mike gave a fuck about Ethan’s feelings, he might do any number of things, and, being an asshole, those things might include telling Ethan over and over and over again that he is punishing himself needlessly. And, being an asshole, Mike might tell him that in a tone that is condescending and hurtful and damaging for Ethan. And, being an eighteen-year-old or a human or maybe a character whose mind he can’t read any more than he can read Ethan’s, maybe Mike would not fully realize, if he did care, that being an asshole in this particular instance causes more harm than it is able to ultimately resolve. Maybe Mike not caring about the act of hurting Ethan’s feelings with his actions doesn’t mean he care whether Ethan lives or dies, or care about Ethan at all. We don’t know what it means. We can’t know what it means. Mike is the only character in the cast page for whom we can assume absolutely nothing because we are not shown his thoughts, he does not speak honestly, and his actions can be interpreted a million different ways and none of the ones I am reading from you seem to me good guesses of what Willis would write about if he was the one who actually gets to decide all this.
And when I say Mike does not speak honestly I mean it in the sense that we cannot take him at his word, regardless of whether or not he means it, because we do not ever know what he means. The only time we ever objectively in the character’s own frame of mind been given a reason that Mike did something was when he showed up in Leslie’s class to humiliate Walky for a time he farted.
I might be projecting here, given that I’ve had to deal with multiple sociopaths in my life, but does anyone else see the signs in Mike? He’s manipulative, superficially charming, full of contempt for everyone that’s barely disguised, except when he wants something, he seems to have a complete lack of empathy, again, except when he’s trying to ingratiate himself to someone, and when attacked by a vigilante he was calm enough to just kind of make a shitty bondage joke. Most people would be terrified, or angry, or whatever. I really do think that Mike might be a sociopath.
Also, there’s the fact that literally everything we see him do is calculated, and he seems to have the restricted range of emotions typical of a sociopath.
Psychopaths are not calculated. To my understanding there is no difference between psychopathy and sociopathy in biological terms. Mike’s range of emotions we’ve seen is indeed very limited, he does appear to read and understand people well either by instinct or more likely intense observation, and whether he has a conscience remains to be seen. But his habit of researching things intensely and his ability to act in very calculated ways don’t pertain to psychopathy; in fact it’s the opposite, people who can’t experience a normal range of emotions have to get kicks from some kind of rush and they tend to be loud and reckless.
Okay, first – Psychopathy and sociopathy are no longer considered real diagnoses.
Second – when they were, the difference was that psychopaths felt no clinical empathy and were very good at hiding it and very calculating. Sociopaths felt VERY LITTLE clinical empathy and were bad at hiding it, often having violent or angry outbursts. Also, clinical empathy is the ability to feel other’s emotions in a sort of echo, not the ability to like and care about others and wanting them to be happy.
That is strange, as its largely considered outdated. Most would diagnose someone who would have been considered a sociopath or psychopath with Anti-Social Personality Disorder or something else.
Now it clicked, that’s what I was talking about. Anti-Social Personality Disorder. I know it by that name but I believed it was still synonymous casually with psychopathy.
Points taken. The books I have are old and might be outdated, so I’ll look into it some more before I fire up the armchair pscyhology on Mike. I still don’t think he’s either a sociopath or a psychopath by any definition because a lot of behaviors I read from him are reminiscent of I have / have had displayed, which in my case were caused by hypersensitive empathy and detail awareness. Up to and especially including that echo you described of what people around you are feeling. One symptom of living with that and living in a place where I couldn’t express my emotions was attempts to strangle them internally that caused latent awful rage.
Oh yeah, no worries, I don’t think Mike has ASPD (which is usually what people jump to nowadays as a replacement diagnosis). I’m not sure what he might have, as I’m not a psychiatrist and most of what I know is from reading around. I just wanted to establish there were differences between those two diagnoses, from when they were widely used.
You’re fine, I actually appreciate the heads up. I just checked the publication date of the book I was remembering this from and hilariously it was published in 1993 a year before DSM-V overhauled the entire classification system for mental disorders
There’s also the problem that he’s not a real person and whatever Willis might intend him to have, if anything, is filtered through Willis’s attempt to portray it and Willis’s own non-professional understanding of it. All twisted up because it’s likely retrofitted onto Mike’s behavior in IW! & SP!, where it certainly wasn’t intended or taken seriously as mental illness.
@ thejeff – I don’t see why we have to retrofit it onto Mike’s Walkyverse behaviour. Amber almost certainly didn’t have DID in the Walkyverse, but it’s a strong contender here in DoA.
We don’t have to, but Willis seems to have. Mike behaves far more like his SP! self than Amber does. So, since he almost certainly wasn’t thinking in serious psychological terms when first writing Mike, if he was thinking of a diagnosis writing him now, the portrayal is still shaped by the characterization mostly coming first.
In Amber’s case, all of her psychological problems are very different (and we’re seeing her at a different stage in them as well). The abusive father is still there, but there was no triggering robbery to make things worse. On the surface, she’s coping with the trauma better than she was at first in SP!. Amber is far more functional here – probably because of AG as a coping mechanism. And possibly because of Ethan. SP! was even more of a shut-in.
DoA Amber of course has the rapidly worsening DID, which didn’t exist in SP. Amber’s a much different character, with different problems and a different personality. Little really carried over.
Mike, as I said, is much the same, just a bit more human and less a force of nature – no superpowers.
Mike is the character I think got changed the MOST in translation from SP! to DoA. Notwithstanding the obvious in you can literally click the Random Strip button on Shortpacked! until Mike shows up and have this be your first impression of him, DoA Mike is so much more subdued and likely to keep to himself unless he feels like it’s a good point in the conversation to be a pisshead or someone says anything that gets his attention. Shortpacked! Mike made racist jokes and tormented people with actual, observable enjoyment to say nothing of the fact that he existed in a time when Willis could make a certain joke I’m not going to mention here.
DoA Mike is not on the same level of assholery as that Mike, and that’s not touching anything in the context of actions that were treated as horrifyingly in context as they were.
I feel like I’m just arguing at this point because I’ve found so much evidence in the process of checking my own and others’ claims for veracity that I want to continue, but c’mon, DoA Mike’s first words were pointing out that Billie had never seen a motorcycle.
So what ‘good point’ is he trying to prove by basically calling girls sluts and taking pictures of them when they’re sleeping, or by saying he’d sleep with Amber or Ethan’s significant other to hurt them, or him taking the phone from Joyce so he can say ‘all hail Satan’, or him driving Ethan back into the closet?
He is not trying to prove any point at all. Mike is an asshole. Of the things you list that Mike has actually done, and know specifically what incident you are talking about, Mike does these things expressly because to piss people off.
Most of the comments section are actually not fans of Mike. His audience here is a lot more critical of his behaviour in the more realistic world of DoA.
Mike was popular for about a year and now people just take for granted he’s a monster because we only see his actions and not his life. Mike is the only character listed on the cast page both completely lacking in individual story exploration and also a “bad” guy who plays the antagonist—even Roz has a few scenes to herself in her room with her younger sister to humanize her.
I mean, in Shortpacked, I think Mike’s full storyline proved him to be more than just an asshole. I really genuinely enjoyed his relationship with Amber, and shipped it super hard, even though I’m super sensitive to unhealthy relationships usually.
Me? I’m kind of hoping Ethan goes for it, and*Mike* ends up hurt. “You think I’m only nice to you when I want to hurt you? Why are we even friends then?”
When called on his behavior. To make Ethan guilty for doing so.
Thing is, Mike is only nice when he wants to hurt you. He’s outright told us he’s planning something nefarious.
And I’ve got no damn idea why they’re friends. To the extent they are anyway. Ethan’s own issues, most likely.
Do people not consider the reason Mike goes around punching people in the face or inciting people because he actually just likes violence? That he wants someone to retaliate? It’s not even in a sexual sense necessarily, but everything Mike does indicates he’s all but begging for people to actually call him on his shit
Mike is a floating, neon danger sign that is apparent to pretty much everyone, even those not aware to the meta-discussion outside the 4th wall. Ethan and Amber -know- him, and they cannot be so oblivious as to not understand what his games are.
But hey “those abs”. As if a set of muscles can overwhelm the rational brain.
The rational brain is far less in charge than it thinks it is. Mostly it’s the rationalizing brain – providing justifications for what you’ve already decided to do.
I dunno. Maybe I’ve never actually had attractive people attracted to me, but I’ve never actually felt like someone’s physical form overrides my reason.
Okay, apropos of nothing, but if Amber/Amazi-Girl ever becomes fully integrated, would the tags just say Amber, or Amber & Amazi-Girl, or Amberzi-Girl? And more importantly, what the fuck would happen to her cheeks? THESE ARE THE BIG QUESTIONS PEOPLE
Integration doesn’t get rid of alters, it just means they’re communicating, sharing memories, and that they’re more or less working together for common goals (albeit, with their own thoughts, feelings, and ideas about achieving said goals). They would not be one entity, so AG could still pop up.
I’m fully aware of that — I’ve read every single comment Cerberus has made too, you know — but I just wonder how David M Willis would handle it. & that’s assuming they DO become integrated by the time the comic ends.
That’s… that’s a really good question. I’ve been going with AG/Amber, but I guess it would come down to what they wanted to be called together, which may in fact be Amber (having an alter share a name with the whole isn’t uncommon).
Wow, but yeah, I’m really not sure how that would end up being handled.
I think the secret to Mike is there’s no secret. There’s no hidden tragedy or series of depths. Mike has discovered he gets joy out of making other people feel worse and enjoys that sense of power. He had nice parents, a good home, and people who befriended him but found bullying people psychologically was awesome. I think that makes him a character much more interesting than the ones who have “excuses.”
“Bullshit. It’s all bullshit. My family, your family, you, me, everything. It’s all bullshit. The sooner you understand and accept this, the better off you’ll be.”
When Sal tells Mike that she slept with a TA to improve her score because the system was set up against her and it’s broken, Mike agrees with her.
You can read this as a shitty move, made only on the contingency that Sal would feel guilty regardless if he was silent. But Mike doesn’t outright lie, and this happened in March 2014. Since then Mike has not said a single unkind word thing to Sal.
This comic just delves into so many things I don’t understand.
There are so, so many hot people out there. Why would this one awful person who you know will use it against you be someone you would even consider having sex with? Sure, maybe if you’re in the moment (and possibly inebriated), but otherwise?
Yes, it would be horribly bad if you had sex with the psychopath. Heck, I don’t get why you even talk to the psychopath or were friends with the psychopath.
And maybe I’ve just not encountered enough sexually liberated women, but I’ve never heard women focus so much on abs, like men do on breasts. Even if you are focusing entirely on visual attractiveness, it’s usually about the whole person, not one body part.
Even when one girl I knew talked about liking big butts, someone else suggested someone, and she immediately shot them down because he was an asshole.
Now, I get that abusive relationships can make it hard. But these guys are completely separate, and they’re talking about this one person.
At least with Leslie, there’s probably a dearth of available lesbians, and at least something to admire about Robin. But, even then, I said the whole thing made me think less of her. There is no pretty but awful celebrity who I crush on.
So I just don’t get it. I don’t get how Mike even exists in this universe. I don’t get why people so willingly walk into traps. And I don’t get myopic focus on a single body part.
I think ppl tolerate Mike because are the all-knowing viewers who get to see his whole story (or a-hole-ry I should call it), unlike the characters within the story. At least, that’s what I think?
I dont know why Amber said what she said. But I think Ethan is considering this because he has low self-esteem. He doesnt think he can do any better. At least, that’s my guess.
People can fantasize about things that might be bad for them because those things generate sexual interest. This applies to anyone but like, these people in particular are ones that life has not conditioned to believe deserve something that’s both hot and healthily ideal.
Also if Ethan knew Mike in high school then he probably knows Mike is capable of giving people the best sex of their lives and if Ethan cares enough about sex to separate that from Mike being an asshole that he’s used to then it might be a factor in his thoughts.
I just imagined that would be funny because I thought “Hey, if DOA strip titles could be two words instead of always one, ‘Boning Mike’ would be a perfect title”
I am starting to wonder if what Ethan really needs is a Transformer-themed fleshlight.
And -NO- I am NOT looking that up.
(Let me know how you get on.)
Here's an entertaining cite at the bottom of the first page
Josh Gerstein@joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 19h
JUST IN: Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan moves to dismiss federal criminal case against her for allegedly helping immigrant hide from ICE. Her lawyers say she's protected by official acts & judicial immunity and 10th Amendment. Doc: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Where did Hollywood go so wrong? I thought movies were supposed to be an escape from reality, a chance to put your worries aside and not have to think about any underlying ideas or concepts. Well, not anymore.
theonion.com/you-can...
It's not a new argument, of course, but Chesterton dismissed it effectively in 1908.
"You will hear everlastingly... this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has been bribed already. That is why he is a rich man."
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com ⋅ 1d
Hawley dismisses Trump lining his pockets with his memecoin: "Listen, I think nobody believes that Donald Trump can be bought. I mean, what does Donald Trump need more money for?"
wilbur, savvy enough to know he's in a comic strip but still not a great actor, awkwardly lifts a muffin up into frame so that we, the audience, understand that he has a muffin right now, which is very important narratively, but he's not really selling it well as an organic, human action
confirming that the reason there's been no Galaxy Version female characters in Blokees until now is that they felt they needed to make Round Lady Thighs For Ladies
It's #webcomicday? We have a special day???
Well, my name is Pat McHoarney and I draw 69 Mouse-Ear Blvd, a multigenerational story about women who all have sexy legs and probably other features. There was a grandmother, but she wasn't hot and so she died off-panel.
Elizabeth Holmes is in prison for defrauding investors through her blood-testing company, Theranos. Her partner, Billy Evans, is now trying to raise money for a company that describes itself as “the future of diagnostics.” nyti.ms/3FbtZm9
Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 19h
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com ⋅ 1d
Pavel
@spavel.bsky.social ⋅ 10d
The New York Times @nytimes.com ⋅ 5d
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 3d
Loading ...
THREESOME
…which will never happen, because Mike
Damnit you beat me to it. This needs to happen!
In all honesty, rooming with a crush is a terrible, terrible idea, unless you’re already in a committed relationship (and even then it’s maybe 50/50).
That said, it’s a teenage relationship. Most of those are terrible ideas that we end up calling “learning experiences”.
The problem is that these kinds of learning experiences frequently are the ones that leave years-long scars.
Hell no, why settle when we could have Danny as the meat in an Ethan and Amber sandwich?
Foursome!
Only a few steps closer to the sexularity.
That was the name of my last band.
Which was weird, because we specialized in lighthearted lyrical covers to famous film scores.
Also because I’ve never been in a band.
Except — wait a minute, I WAS in a band!
Granted, I played the cello, and the other instruments were clarinet and baritone, and we had precisely 1 performance (and we weren’t all playing at the same time). But it was technically a band!
We were called the Heirs of Air, and I’m not quite sure why.
Wait no, we DID all play together on one song, but we never got around to playing my arrangement of Habanera (from Carmen).
…. “Wait, no! We DID play my arrangement of Habanera, but it only lasted for a minute and a half until our clarinetist broke out into a coughing fit.”
No, that was the clarinet duet I wrote back when our baritonist played the clarinet.
@Charles Nice one :p
Wasn’t it Heirs of Heirs, because of your father’s contemporary band?
AKA that fabled however-many-characters-are-in-this-cast-some?
Everybody but Daisy.
She doesn’t get to join the Sexularity.
Joyce takes one shoe off then goes catatonic on the floor in the corner, with the bug-eyed shocked expression frozen on her face.
and Zee Captain sits down beside her sipping from his steaming mug as his scarf gently pats her head.
Wasn’t Danny the wonderbread?
This little threadlet makes me smile. Dave, Pablo360, & Nono, I just want you to know you made someone smile today.
Ethan/Danny/Amber: the only sandwich where the Wonderbread is in the middle.
*snerk*
Girl there’s only one kind of sandwich that’ll really satisfy
Love sandwich
Love sandwich uh-huh
Because Mike would actually do it while Danny almost certainly would not?
Mike is well aware that threesomes have plenty of opportunity for horrible emotional fallout. He’d make sure it happened.
Happened off panel in an alt demension of the Walkyverse and then there was when he tried a less drawn of the same thing except instead of Danny it was Amber. Also everyone but Mike was on the whole less emotionally scared- well Amber was really just better at moving, but still. Short Packed was pretty exclusively a comedy.
I’m still not sure that wasn’t just Mike fucking with them
it already did in shortpacked
Well he DID fuck both of them in shortpacked canon. and then super marry Amber.
“Threesome.” they said in unison.
But threesomes never solve anything!
It solves the desire for a threesome.
Hmm could just make someone want more threesomes though.
That is a terrible reason to fuck a pisstake like Mike, Amber. Don’t encourage this.
Like the entire comments section doesn’t routinely encourage things like this.
Yeah, but not *sincerely*
The comments on threesoms and abs are, as Shiro points out, jokes and silly commentary. I think we can all agree that Mike is an asshole, and that any time with him would not do Amber or Ethan any good.
You do remember Amber married in in the other verse right?
Only after she had blackmail material.
Yeah, but that was in a different universe where the rules of reality shaped around him to blunt the lasting consequences of his actions. In this world, he’s not just a jerk, he’s openly dangerous, because the world is our reality, and every hateful action he does has lasting impact on the person he does it to.
And we frequently get to see it, whether it be Amber/AG worsening her DID in fear of Mike’s comment about becoming an abuser like her dad or Ethan’s recloseting of himself in response to Mike’s “teasing”.
I hate to Defend Mike, but Ethan recloseting himself and pursuing Joyce is on Ethan.
Mike was trying to get Ethan to disagree with him.
He was clearly scandalized when it had opposite effect.
Ethan recloseting himself had more to do with Amber ignoring him and wanting to feel a sense of normalcy.
I think Ethan needs to get laid to accept his sexuality.
( And getting laid with someone he has genuine feelings for will go 1000x toward that. )
Danny and Ethan self sacrificing tendencies aren’t helping.
We see here that Ethan isn’t being tricked by Mike and knows what he’s doing. He’s just missing Mike s endgame of Dannyx Ethan.
While I can admit there’s room to interpret that as Mike trying to push Ethan the other direction, the fact that the result was still the opposite of what he theoretically intended is one reason why “helping” people using methods like his is a shit thing to do.
You know what was much, much more effective at getting Ethan out of the closet? Joyce’s (and Amber’s before that) gentle support, nudging him towards the door.
And seriously, whatever Mike’s endgame involving Danny is, I will be shocked if that goes according to plan. Even if his goal is getting Danny and Ethan together, this is a godawful fucking way to do it. People aren’t toys to be played with, even if you treat your toys far better than Mike does.
Having fucked a dude in high school for that EXACT reason, I concur. The abs are a goddamn angler’s bulb.
Seriously, Amber, it’s not worth it knowing he’s doing it to upset you (or someone else) down the line. You’ll either get kicked in the self esteem or in the empathy.
It’s a perfectly good reason for a one-night stand with no emotional attachment.
This being Ethan, still a really bad idea.
Mike always has a motive – he wants to upset someone. Not a good idea.
If we were talking about a random asshole who doesn’t make a habit of harassing all and sundry? Sure, go for it, screw the jackass with hot abs and never ever speak to him again.
Mike? This is only a road that can lead to regret.
IIRC the person he’s trying to hurt here is Danny.
And IIGC it’s totally going to work.
Oh, but he can multitask. Hurting Danny will end up hurting Ethan and/or lead to cascading bad decisions.
On the contrary, considering someone’s pros and cons when you are attracted them and grouping them as “no way” “friend zone” “casual sex” and “relationship” material, then going into any situation with your eyes wide open is a very good idea indeed. Also adult, and indicative of an interest in sex.
Sure, but any system that puts ‘abs’ over ‘will use this to treat you or someone else like utter shit’ is a system that needs serious serious revamping because it is broken.
Yeah. It really is.
Like I get that libido is really good at making abs seem like something that should override “will treat you like shit”, but I’ve seen the broken pieces from those encounters enough to feel that they really are never worth it.
Problem is there is no easy way to learn it. Best case scenario is watching a close friend go through it. Everyone always thinks it will be different for them.
Welcome to adult life and it’s many glorious shades of gray. Glad you want to revamp it, good luck with that.
First step, knowing the difference between casual sex and an ongoing one sided relationship. Both Ethan and Amber have experience with those and, once again, are not the helpless, innocent victims people try to paint tham as.
Mike is EXPLICITLY trying to do it to destroy Ethan and/or Ethan’s friends. And they KNOW it.
This isn’t shades of gray. This is ‘that’s a stupid decision.’
Amber notwithstanding, banging Mike would be one of the worst decisions shown in this comic, ranking just beyond “spending any time with Mike at all” and somewhat under “fired a gun on a university campus”.
I feel like that would, sadly, capture a realistic part of the college experience. I’ve known so many people who had their first abusive relationships in college or truly disastrous/harmful sexual encounters and kind of hard-learned how to trust their instincts with regards to red flags from that.
Well, I don’t think they are helpless, but they are definitely naive and coming into this without a wealth of sexual experience (AG/Amber divided it very neatly, so the Amber alter was neatly cut out of a lot of the experience of having Danny and so is basing a lot of her sexual experience on the disastrous failed night with Ethan and thus from a similar point of sexual dynamics being largely theoretical).
And that’s reflected in this. Yeah, there’s a difference between casual sex and a relationship, but I think one of the roughest lessons a lot of youth learn the hard way is that casual sex with someone who is attractive or “temporarily nice” but is a massive asshole otherwise or full of red flags tends to be as bad an idea as getting into a relationship with them.
Like, it’s less long-term damaging, but in my observation, most folks who get with abusers, narcissists, or jerks for casual sex either end up having crap sex (because people who can’t see outside themselves or are awful tend to be the kind of empathyless people who are truly epically bad at knowing how to pleasure others and can get stuck on their own method of doing stuff no matter whether or not it works for you) or it is more long-term damaging.
Like, when the sex isn’t terrible, there’s often a future cost, because that usually means the asshole is a manipulator too so will use the fact that you had sex to justify some terrible action or make you feel bad about having sex* or try and angle you into something more long-term and destructive or just turn on you afterwards in a way that is harmful and ruins the momentary afterglow of a decent night’s sex.
*Like the most benign version I’ve seen and the closest to being worth it I saw is one that went relatively okay (they were still crap at sex) until they heard the person speak at any mutual event they went to and then got filled with shame for who they had slept with each time. And that’s the best case I’ve personally witnessed. And I’ve witnessed way too many worst case scenarios. The most heart-breaking are the ones who settle or change in bad ways to try and rationalize the encounter (like giving up their feminism or their political beliefs because “it’s easier and we fight less that way”).
And I’ve seen it happen enough to be really wary of getting 100 miles of folks who leak out red flags and warn folks of the same, because most of the times, there’s a big downside that’s coming from it and sometimes there’s a really bad downside that leaves long-term damage.
Like I get the draw, I guess, abstractly, but dudes like Mike no matter how small the encounter are frequently never worth it and rarely leave the person happy and satisfied that they got together with them and frequently end up some bitter story of cynicism hard-won later on**.
** Which is a reason the worst human beings seem so fixated on dating partners as young as humanly possible. Because older partners have often been burned enough times to see through their shit, whereas younger partners are more likely to still hold on to the toxic narratives that makes them think someone like this might be worth a quick tumble.
Whether it’s casual sex or an ongoing relationship, they KNOW Mike wants it to hurt someone – whether it’s them or someone else.
It being casual sex doesn’t make it a good idea, and yes, I’ll stand by that. If you prioritize abs over emotional health or empathy, you are making a bad decision
All of that assumes trauma. Just because Mike wants something, doesn’t mean Mike gets it. There are a lot of emotive words being thrown around, none of which are inevitable consequences, or even likely.
Two adults are discussing a third person both are attracted to, and the pros and cons of casual sex with them. Nothing could be healthier, or smarter.
Trauma. The destruction of emotional health and all the other overly dramatic sweeping and inaccurate generalisations may make you feel like you have a handle on the situation, but it’s just sex. The worst consequence Mike has envisaged is making Danny jealous, not exactly damning his soul to hell.
What is the worst Mike can do to Ethan after one night stand? Out him at college? Already done. Out him to his parents? He doesn’t even need to sleep with him to do that.
A little too much overwrought hyperbole in this discussion. Earth is back this way…
Because screwing someone you KNOW wants to hurt you or someone else is still a REALLY TERRIBLE idea. If it doesn’t end up working, that’s just luck. Mike planning to turn Danny into ‘a whimpering, jealous mess’ is still a fucking awful thing to do.
I don’t think you’ve been paying attention because people have been talking about the worst thing Mike can do to Ethan – wreck his friendship with Danny, or hold this over his head to be a douche.
Talking about pros and cons of sex is healthy and smart. Deciding ‘is certainly planning sex so he can upset someone in some way’ is outranked by ‘hot abs’ is a terrible idea.
I have already dealt with most of that. You really should pay more attention. Also, your shift key appears to be broken, getting that fixed will prevent you from looking ridiculous in future.
As for Danny and Ethan’s friendship, both Danny and Ethan already have friends that have had sex with other people. Danny has had sex with one of the two people in this strip. Somehow their friendship has survived this trauma. I am not as convinced as you that the only grounds for friendship they have is Ethan’s celibacy.
Also, could I please have a diagram detailing how one would hold sex over someone’s head? It sounds like it would require a lot of flexibility.
Me, I like playing with fire, I even have a couple of cool party tricks. Haven’t been burned yet. Looks great, is dangerous can be a lot of fun and definitely worth it.
Really badly, but sure. And my shift key is fine.
Because Mike’s entire plan is to use this to hurt Danny by reducing him to a jealous wreck. Even if Ethan doesn’t do anything to Danny, Mike will make sure Danny doesn’t hear the end of it until he’s miserable. Having sex with someone, sure, having sex with someone who is knowingly and willingly aiming to make Danny jealous can very easily wreck a friendship. Even if Mike doesn’t succeed, it’s still a terrible thing for him to try to do.
Rubbing it in, bringing it up at inopportune times, using that to try to angle for a larger commitment, using that as evidence you enjoy their shit, etc. are all ways people can hold sex over someone’s head.
Cool. Good for you. That doesn’t make it okay to talk down to people telling folks to be careful around fire – or that hanging out with the guy who does his damnedest to burn people on purpose is a terrible idea.
Refer to my previous responses. Everything is already covered there.
As for the nonsense about my being condescending, thanks, irony is always hilarious. I needed a good laugh.
Yeah, really badly.
I didn’t say anything about you being condescending, but nice try.
BBCC-
Oh, then let me do it. Hellespont, you’re condescending as fuck.
Sex is not just sex. Sex is not an action separate from the body, disconnected from the rest of one’s life, like a free-floating ball. Sex involves vulnerability. Sex involves intimacy. Sex involves risk.
And sex is rarely neutral.
Like, I would argue good sex is frequently a good thing and good casual sex or play I have seen directly can be uplifting, joyous, and put folks in a great mood and make them feel right in the world even if they have no plans to ever see them and even if one of them is aromantic and has no interest in forming any romantic relationships with everyone.
CONTENT WARNING: All the depressing things (sexual assault, abuse, suicidal ideation)
But bad sex? Bad sex can get traumatic as fuck. Here, let me point out some of the ways:
There’s good ol’ fashioned rape and there’s about a billion and a half ways that consent can get violated or a person can end up sexually assaulted. Someone refusing to listen to the revoking of consent of an action, being filmed without their permission and the video sold to porn distributors or put online, someone being pressured into a form of sex they don’t want because they are made to feel they “owe” it by going on a casual sex date, having someone “forget” to use condoms or otherwise remove them in the course of having sex [Julian Assange was a big fan of this bit of fuckery], and many many others.
Hell, I had an encounter in a scene where I had an action I specifically said couldn’t happen in the scene, they did it, I yellowed, told them that action could never happen again, they did it again, I reded, they ignored it and did it again until I used the house safe word. That put me off pick-up-play for about 3 years after that. Casual thing, was never expecting to see that person after that scene, still fucked me up.
There’s abuse. Sex is vulnerable so abusive assholes love using those vulnerable moments to chisel away at the self-esteem of the people they are sleeping with. One of my ex’s abusive exes was a piece of shit who assumed that women should be mind-readers and know the exact very specific way he needed to get off in a way that was “porntastic” enough to feel like “proper” sex and so he would constantly belittle her no matter what she did about how shit she was as a lay and use that to extract favors out of the bedroom to “make up for it”. That led to a complex about performative sex that lasted 5 years and made it impossible for her to go down on a person without hearing his belittling and emotional abuse.
There’s STIs. Like, they’re not the life-enders most people assume they are, but they are annoying. Once had a scene where an idiot top used a tool that pierced skin that they had used on other people without sterilizing on me and I had to red and then stew for a couple of months to wait until everything could show if I had anything, get tested, and wait for results.
There’s internal judgment. Most assholes are bad at sex, so having a shitty encounter where your partner is shit and the whole time is shit but you overlooked a bunch of things like bigotry about groups you care about, shitty actions they have done, or ways they mistreat you just feels awful. Cause it’s like you betrayed your sense of morals for sex that wasn’t even remotely worth it.
There’s good old fashioned pregnancy scares which are going to become more and more terrifying if US’s current government continues down its current path.
There’s lovely stalking. Had to help evacuate a friend from their house and give them a place to crash for a couple of nights because a one-night stand followed them home and angrily demanded a second date because of the “strength” of their “connection”. Put them off dating anyone for a good year after that.
There’s body dysphoria. Happens a lot to us trans folks. Partner insists on using our genitals in their “proper” ways or “accidentally touches those areas”. That can fuck you up for a good while after.
With kink there can be dangerous marks, things you can’t hide at work and the fallout that comes with that.
There’s injuries such as some asshole thinking that “jackhammer” “technique” they saw in a porno is exactly what your vagina needs to get off. My ex basically ended up being unable to have penetrative sex with anyone for 6 years because one of their first partners did this to her the first time she tried penetrative sex (and without lube or foreplay either).
There’s blackmail and exposure. Tyler Clementi kissed a guy he had met in his room and his shitty roommate turned that into an underground harassment campaign that threatened to out him to his conservative parents, leading to Tyler taking his own life.
And many trans women have learned that a one-night stand or the wrong person becoming sexually attracted to you regardless of your intentions can be the difference between going home safe and having your name read on Transgender Day of Remembrance.
Now again, sex can be great. Casual sex can be amazing and as a DM I’ve seen that a lot, way more than I’ve seen it go wrong in fact, but I’ve picked up a lot of sharp shattered pieces from folks who ignored the red flags and decided to go for a tumble because “it’s just sex, what’s the worst that could happen”.
Assholes are never worth the price they make you pay in return for the shit sex they give.
And they ruin the good times for everyone, because it makes the people who take that risk for the high potential of a really enjoyable evening a lot more hesitant to ever do so again.
While it’s totally fine that you see things differently, being condescending and dismissive about it is not.
Many of those predicting this to end up hurting Ethan are explicitly basing that on real life experiences. Even if the story doesn’t go that direction, or as far in that direction as some people think, those predictions aren’t “overly dramatic hyperbole”. That is a seriously shitty way to describe someone talking about emotional trauma.
Saying “it’s just sex” is hand-waving away the fact that not everyone can have casual sex without SOME level of emotional investment. And emotional investment opens him up to all kinds of avenues for emotional abuse, which Cerberus already commented on in detail.
I think you will find the other people in this thread are not the only ones with real life experience. Some of us obviously have a great deal more than others.
The overly dramatic hyperbole would be overly dramatic hyperbole with or without this strip.
It is just sex. That is exactly what this strip is saying. Eyes, arms and legs wide open.
Hellespont, I’m well aware that you may have experiences that you based your opinion on. That’s why I didn’t dismiss it or you. But your experience doesn’t cancel out theirs.
It also doesn’t justify your continued condescension. “Some of IS obviously have more of it than others”? Do you really want to be THAT person?
The fact that casual, no-strings-attached sex is both totally possible and not at all harmful does not guarantee that’s how things would go. People warning how this could blowing back on Ethan if he goes through with it Especially since it has been shown that Mike’s motivation for pursuing Ethan is hurting people.
If we were talking about some random character we knew nothing about, it would be jumping the gun to assume sleeping with him could go badly. But it isn’t. This is Mike. Not only does that make it harder to keep it casual, since they already have a history, but since it’s Mike, we have good reason to assume malice on his part.
Yes, it does. Especially as mine actually applies to the topic at hand.
Just to repeat that terribly condescending statement. Ethan and Amber are having an adult conversation. I doubt things are going to go anywhere near as badly as everyone seems to think. It is possible for characaters to Be something other than victims, no matter how often you declare their martyrdom.
Mike has given no signs of being an actual evil genius, or of possessing a mind control machine. Ethan and Amber are the ones making the choices and they are both completely aware of what they are getting into.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/percent/
This is the strip in question.
In this, Ethan stands up to someone for like the first time in his life, stating that he really cares about Danny as a person and warning Mike off of hurting him and begging on behalf of their friendship for that.
Mike’s response is to state to the 4th wall that he’s still going to go through with his plan to hurt the two of them, that he’s planning to pursue Ethan for the sole express purpose of hurting him and Danny, and doing so after lying to Ethan’s face about leaving Danny alone.
And he’s doing this because Danny dared appear. In other strips, he’s noted that if he knew that either Amber or Ethan got a partner, that he would intentionally sleep with them just to cause Amber or Ethan pain, leaving them needing to hide their partners in most public spaces lest Mike find out they exist (after all, this plan started off because Danny had a minute or two flirty conversation with Ethan in Mike’s presence.)
In addition to this, because we know this is his chosen action and intention, that colors his clear attempts to seduce Ethan and play to his insecurities, showing sudden interest in his “dumb nerd shit” to get Ethan to lower his guard, timing leaving another guy’s room so that he’ll “reveal” his queerness to Ethan and make him think that he’s an easier individual to start to date than an unknown person he’d have to warm up to, gaslighting Ethan about it when Ethan notices that there’s an ulterior motive going on, and so on.
You state that you feel Ethan and Amber are more than victims.
No shit. They are always more than victims. All people victimized, who have survived shitty situations are more than victims.
But they are being targeted by a person who means to harm them, who is openly toxic to their healing process and mental health, and who has created real measurable harm to both of them. Who will abuse them and has abused them in the past.
That’s toxic. That’s dangerous. Recognizing that doesn’t make Ethan and Amber victims.
They may choose to overlook that. A lot of young folks do. The weary cynicism of age frequently is won out of a lot of shitty situations and trauma. And there’s a lot of cultural messages that say that there’s nothing that could possibly go wrong or it will be worth the risk.
And if/when Mike hurts them, that’s not on either of them for being naive or for ignoring the red flags. That’s on Mike for being a miserable troll who lives for hurting others who have no institutional power to hurt him back.
What Cerberus said.
Saying that sleeping with an abusive asshole would be a bad idea isn’t “declaring their martyrdom” (in part because that doesn’t make sense on any level). Nor is it some kind of victim mentality. Because you know what’s a great way to create more victims? Insisting that shit like this is worth the risk.
There’s other dudes out there they could have a good time banging, and who wouldn’t make their skin crawl afterward.
Mike’s good at his job.
When your fine with your ex fucking your other high school third because you love the slash
Poor Ethan, he looks so shellshocked and upset in the second to last panel. Don’t bone him, you can do better hun.
I mean, the other gay options that we know of on campus are Brian/Sayid, who are a couple, Danny, who has his own issues to deal with, and Mike’s latest conquest.
Unless Thad or Drew show up, not a lot of options without making new characters.
Manny!
Ethan could just abstain. He’s still trying to figure out his own identity and is only just embracing the fact that he’s gay. He doesn’t need to run headfirst into a relationship. Also with as many lgbt ladies are in Joyce’s wing, I’m sure there’s more gay/bi guys around! Ethan just needs to branch out to find them.
Ethan went to one of those meetings.
His problem isn’t that he wants to find a dude to bone. It’s that he wants someone who’s into geeky stuff like him… who just happens to be a dude, and that’s not easy to specifically hunt down.
At his age Ethan is going to be looking mainly in a tiny age range (18-24 give or take) of about 9% of the population in general. He’s looking for someone male (50%) who is interested in a relationship with another male (10%). He is further looking for someone who identifies as a geek or nerd (7% is the best estimate I can find) so 0.0315% of the population. Now since this is college I feel we can double (0.06%) or triple (0.09%) that for an upper bound, but only because people are more willing to “give it a try, even if it doesn’t work out” for both geek interests and same sex relations in that stage of life. Google tells me that the Bloomington campus had an enrollment of 48,514 students for 2016, which suggests 15 to 45 people on the campus who would fit his criteria except for relationship status of single (which I’m not even going to try to estimate or find estimates of) and out (again, not going to try and estimate or look for that one).So yeah, not easy but quite possible.
Edit: After looking up and typing all that, but before posting it, I realized the population statistic is irrelevant because most of the enrolled students are 18-24 (derp). I’m keeping it there for posterity however ;D
Rerunning the numbers that becomes 0.35% to 1.05% of the student population or aprox 170 to 509 students who fit the criteria.
Were he to seek the right kinds of social networking opportunities (LGBTQ and Geek/Nerd student organizations for example) he could meet a significant minority of these individuals within a few weeks and make other friends some of whom would likely have friends that fit the bill they may introduce him to (possibly in the Yenta-esque/Joyce manner).
The 10% figure was generated by Kinsey many years ago and only ever referred to the “exclusively homosexual” group (gay people). It does not include all the people who he put into the “bi” category.
http://www.out.com/news-opinion/2016/3/11/less-50-teens-identify-straight-says-new-study
Anyway Ethan’s generation (millenials or younger) is much more decisively and openly queer.
He’s got options, it just doesn’t feel that way to him.
This.
And that’s likely because he’s got a whole culture and his family telling him that it’s much less likely and closer to the crossed-out section above and so this road will be lonely and involve having to settle for the first person who is remotely nice to him and expressing interest in dudes.
Which is why I think he needs that connection to community, to really take in how very much not alone he is in terms of being a dude having attraction to other dudes.
I’m well aware. I chose to stick with the 10% number because, first, it didn’t need citation the way that newer numbers would. I didn’t really want to see an argument on the validity of the methodology of the various studies I found with estimates as low as 2% (I literally did a double take and asked aloud “what the f…” when I saw that one) of the population in general and as high as 48% described variously as self describing as gay through self describing as part of the LGBTQ community. Secondly, I had a reasonable amount of trouble finding publicly available verifiable data that specifically fit the criteria of males in that age demographic who identify as gay, bi, or another appropriate identifier (ie are sexually or romantically attracted to other males) rather than males in that age demographic who identify as part of the LGBTQ community as a whole. In the end I went with what I knew was the lowball but generally accepted estimate because I didn’t want to spend another two hours doing research for a single post on a single web comic.
…and so of course Mike, who knows that Ethan worries about this, opens his seduction attempt by professing interest in Transformers. I mean, I knew he was playing to Ethan’s interests, but I don’t think I’d really taken on board that he was also playing to Ethan’s insecurities. God I hope this doesn’t end with Ethan’s heart being crushed.
Yes, it might well be hard to find someone right for him – other than Danny. But Mike is still the absolutely worst choice. Others could be excused for falling for it, but Ethan knows Mike. He knows he’d be doing it for ulterior motives. Doing it, as Amber says right here, “only to piss somebody somewhere off”.
Casual sex with stranger or casual acquaintance because of the great abs, sure. With Mike? Hell, no.
just wanna chime in that the alt-text amused me
(though I gotta ask – is it a reference to something?)
As someone who is asexual, I can never understand how an individual can think “This person is toxic and terrible and probably wants to sleep with me just to emotionally hurt me…but they’re so hot….”
I’m demisexual and I also have trouble with that.
Ditto.
It’s a very foreign way of thinking. Same with “this sex is going to be awful and come with really shitty baggage, but ‘it’s just been so long'”.
People like Mike are why the good Lord invented vibrators.
Perhaps compare it to food. Like being hungry, but eating something that you KNOW you shouldn’t, that it might even make you sick, but damn it smells and looks so delicious…
It’s not a perfect analogy, but it’s a similar level of craving and want.
Yeah, that’s what sexual people have reported to me in the past. I intellectually understand it, but emotionally, there’s a distance there to it fully hitting home.
If you’re not aromantic, the equivalent might be, ‘this person has toxic values towards feminism or racism… but they’re so nice to me and they listened to me when I was sad.’
Everyone has their flaws and weaknesses, it’s whether or not they can override the good parts that you may or may not rightly see in them.
I could see that, maybe. But then, sexism and racism are like instant dumps for me, so maybe I’m just an oddball in general.
That’s not odd. Let’s keep not dating sexists and racists.
If we all stopped dating sexists and racists, then it would be a lot harder for sexists and racists to have children and pass on their sexism and racism. It’s called evolution.
I mean… that’s actually exactly what is happening here. Mike is a jerk and Ethan knows he’s a jerk, but he’s still thinking of it because Mike was nice to him. I mean, Amber is talking about Mike’s sexy abs, but the real reason Ethan is considering it is because of the little bit of niceness.
It’s like the temptation to eat an entire bowl of stuffing even though you know you’ll just get a bellyache for the rest of the night and you won’t even be able to beat your nine-year-old cousin at ping pong because of it.
This is the best analogy.
Although, as a bisexual aromantic with rather cold and pragmatic views about sex, I can and have boned people just for them being hot before. It’s not like I’m capable of getting attached to them in any harmful way, so what’s the use in denying myself a pretty decent lay?
And I have eaten an entire bowl of stuffing despite being fully aware of the consequences before, so the analogy still holds.
That’s one of those things that always confused me about characters in TV shows and such.
As someone who isn’t asexual but has an ounce of self-respect and foresight, same.
Imagine some kind of really rich dessert like cheesecake.
Even before eating it, you know you’re going to feel awful before finishing a slice. But it’s delicious. So, you could just have a small slice. Except it’s delicious. You NEED TO. You start to feel sick before finishing it, but it’s STILL DELICIOUS.
I’m probably much more likely to make myself sick eating too much dessert than I am to bang somebody I can’t stand. But then, I’m not a teenager anymore.
Mike is cheesecake, confirmed.
I’ve seen this a lot, but no, I don’t really understand that comparison either. I mean, yeah, I’ve had that feeling of “this is really good, I want to keep eating it even though I’m full,” but, like…I still stop? Maybe eat a little more than I should, but there’s also no real chance of life-changing regret. Sex with someone who you know would hurt you or at very least be bad for you? I think it’s safe to say in our culture most people put a lot more emotional weight on sex then they do on eating, so that really isn’t a comparison that makes sense to me. But then, literally, what do I know here? Nothing, hence the need for an explanation.
Casual sex with someone you consider to be a user or unpleasant or a philosophy student or a Trump voter, just because you are physically attracted to them is completely different to entering into a relationship with those people. In both cases though, so long as you know where you are going and why you are there, and go in with your eyes wide open, anything bad that happens is your own damn fault, anything good doubly so.
I sympathize, Whammy. I can maybe see it if you don’t know them that well and are hoping they’re just a casual asshole, not really the spawn of Satan, and a casual fuck would be fun. Not toxic, necessarily, just a run of the mill jerk. But in cases like Mike, he’s always being a conniving calculating cretin, there’s no way a casual fuck with him won’t be used against someone. And based on Ethan’s latest conversation with him, Ethan is starting to realize that. I hope this is just a passing thought that Ethan will abandon if he gets a nicer option elsewhere.
Well, you don’t have to see them ever again? Unless you do, then don’t. Don’t do the thing.
I can’t decide if this is unhealthy or healthy.
On the one hand, she assumes Mike’s kindness is humtrying to get into Ethan’s pants.
On the other, she realizes that Mike is Mike.
See, Ethan and Amber are the innocent victims of Mike’s perfidy everyone is making the, out to be. And Mike is not a Machiavellian super genius.
I think you a word.
You are correct, “Ethan and Amber are NOT”
Innocent in the sense that they don’t know Mike’s games, no.
In the sense they’ve done absolutely nothing to warrant this and it’s more of Mike acting like an edge lord pisstake? I still stand by that.
If they are actively involved with Mike, knowing what he is and how he operates, then they are involved in the same game he is and neither definition applies.
How do you figure?
Knowing someone will be a cockpit to you and getting involved anyways does not actually warrant them being a cockpit to you.
Dammit, that was supposed to be cockbite.
They are not involved in Mike’s awful bullshit.
They just haven’t completely cut him out of their lives. There is a substantial difference.
Also, far from not recognizing Mike’s games, Amber recognized it immediately.
This is victim blaming bullshit.
*plays “Bad To The Bone” on the hacked Muzak*
Thank god we know that shortpacked’s subplot isn’t gonna repeat itself here. We already know how that went.
Surprisingly well, everything considered.
I love to see Amber in friend!mode. Support, trust and no-bullshit advice. She and Ethan are good for each other.
I think here we’re seeing some signs of their old dynamic and how healthy these two can be for each other.
And I think it’s saying loads that this finally happens in a strip where Ethan isn’t dragging along Mike to “try to keep the band together”.
Although he’s still the topic of the conversation. They haven’t quite passed that particular Mikedel test.
I mean, they do, but then you need to count Amber’s flip-out at Joyce.
Yes! More of these healthy interactions please, Amber! More of this and less of the self-hate and the making me sad.
Yes! I definitely expected the conversation to go directly to Amber’s problems, and it’s nice to see her being a supportive friend.
*spots Shortpacked! ship in the distance*
Seriously though, Ethan has got to be a little desperate to consider /Mike/ as an option, good abs or no, especially given Mike’s clearly visible game (that Amber can hopefully shut down, having easily pieced it together). As odd as this is to say, we need some emergency Danny asap.
I think Ethan started out having clocked Mike, but as time goes on and the hammer fails to drop, he’s starting to question his original conclusion and thinking maybe Mike’s not up to something after all–which he should know better by now, but I guess that’s the only way one stays friends with a shitheel like Mike for this long.
Yeah, he’s probably dealt with Mike repeatedly in the past, but that guy is brilliant at subtle manipulation. I mean, he seriously lowered Ethan’s guard just by ranting on transformers and pointing out Ethan’s lack of joy. Either the people around Mike are perpetually naive, or he is just that good at giving people the fight they don’t expect. The latter is infinitely more scary, to be honest.
Or maybe he can see that despite him having limped through the struggles of coming out, dealing with his sexuality in college, etc., he’s still no closer to finding happiness and balancing his sexuality, while Mike’s just… casually boning dudes left and right.
His heart wants a happy relationship, his boner is going, ‘but I REALLY want abs right now.’
I am incredibly tempted to invent the word “mothernickler” before I go to sleep. *flees*
You just have. Now that it’s done, lexicon-andeer a vehicle and gets out of here.
*flees for dear pun-stealing life*
The problem here is that they’re assuming Mike’s target is Ethan so if they can’t find a reason then they’ll assume it’s safe. Ethan’s already halfway seduced and not thinking clearly and Amber lacks the knowledge about Danny’s sexuality to figure out that angle.
Some alternative universe toy store employees are feeling this strip tonight.
Wait, how are they even reading it? REALITY PARADOX
Turns out that Dumbing of Age is just a non-powered AU of her friends that Shortpacked! Amber is writing. Wouldn’t be her first time.
It would be the worst thing. Mike would make sure of it.
Don’t date terrible, terrible people.
Boning =/= dating
Don’t fuck terrible people either. They’re never worth it.
Yes, that’s what I meant.
Well, don’t fuck terrible people in that way.
Just, you know. Fuck ’em. Generally speaking.
Fuck fucking terrible people.
Here fucking is a gerund acting as the object of the verb fuck, not an intensifying adverb participle modifying terrible.
Works either way, really.
Not quite talking about Danny but at least they clarified the enigma that is Mike Warner.
Mike’s whatever you don’t WANT him to be, baby
Wait, Amber’s seen Mike’s abs? Are we sure this isn’t the Walkyverse?
They’ve probably all gone swimming together at some point in their friendship.
I’m assuming that, in-universe, Mike has been posting his Fuck Zones on Twitter.
If Mike could draw, he’d make drawings of unpopular ships online just to spite people.
He’d make fanart of Korra/Bolin just to watch people froth.
Prom night, when Ethan came out in the bedroom when trying to have sex with Amber. He left and she had sex with Mike. It’s one of the earliest strips that show the three some dynamic. I think they were having lunch outside.
Attention and Awkward. Had to look it up.
Huh. I never interpreted those strips that way, I figured Mike had just found out afterwards and was being…himself.
Conclusion not supported by evidence given
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/04-the-bechdel-test/attention/ and the following strip to give a convenient link
There’s nothing in either strip to suggest that Mike did anything with Amber. It doesn’t even say that he was there. If you know that two of your friends are planning to have sex after prom, and you also know that the next day same two friends are broken up and one comes out as gay, it does not take rocket science to fill in the blanks that Ethan was not fully focused on having sex with Amber, or that things got awkward. To say nothing about the likelihood that one or both probably talked about that night a lot in the process of coping with the emotional fallout.
That being said, if that’s your headcanon, I know of nothing to specifically disprove it, so rock on.
And in one fell swoop, Amber seizes the number four spot from Sarah, and is rapidly closing on Ruth.
…I only just realized that by hovering over the F-Bomb count graphs, I can see the dates when each ‘bomb was dropped.
It’s had the hovertext for a long while, since I switched the thing to PHP so I didn’t have to do the math by hand every time someone said “fuck”. I changed the mechanism a couple months ago, though. It triggers a lot more easily now, on mere mouseover rather than a long hover, and it works on Android.
How have some characters only said fuck once in like…what is this, a month into the strip? I say fuck multiple times a day!
I think we’re on week five or six by this point.
Wednesday of Week Six!
Some major characters – like Joyce – haven’t said “fuck” at all in those six weeks.
I mean, we don’t see everything they say all day.
What’s the worst that could happen & what’s the probability of its happening? Mike’s misanthropic but it’s not like he’s Dr Doom.
Well, given he’s an abuser who is intentionally targeting Ethan to sleep with with the express stated purpose of causing Ethan and Danny pain and fucking up their dynamic simply because he learned that Ethan had a non-toxic interaction in his life…?
Yeah.
But seriously, what’s likely to happen is Ethan comes out of it feeling like shit, has yet another non-Mike interaction turned poisonous by Mike’s bullshit and thus become more isolated and available for more of these Mike shenanigans in a time where he desperately needs space from toxicity to heal from his parents relentless homophobic abuse and explore who he is as a gay man and what he wants that to mean for him.
Like, we see Ethan when he’s not around Mike. He’s relaxed, suave, and grows in positive ways. With Mike, he’s on edge and frequently neurotic and self-doubting. He fundamentally is a better version of himself without Mike than with and sleeping with Mike is likely to get him stuck in that worse version, especially as Mike’s stated aim is to go through all this trouble for the express purpose of hurting him and Danny over Ethan’s specific request for Mike to leave them alone.
A request that is likely the first or one of only a select few he’s ever made of Mike.
Your right its not like he’s Doctor Doom.
doctor Doom would be preferable.
Doctor Doom would be preferrable any day over Mike
You know who else wasn’t Doctor Doom? Hitler.
So I attempted to explain this storyline to my boyfriend just now, and more and more I’m feeling like Mike genuinely does have a crush on Ethan but…just doesn’t know how to express that outside of using it to ruin someone else’s day. So he’s framing it that way to justify it to himself.
I suppose it’s not impossible. Mike does occasionally have moments where he doesn’t seem to have a particularly vested interest in being an asshole, so much as it’s just what comes naturally to him. Such as when he and Ethan were checking up on Amber while she was holed up writing fanfics, or when he seemed genuinely willing – though unable – to help Joyce by teaching her to lie. Though this was also right after trying to extort her into letting him in on what was going on with Becky, so.
Then again, he also compiles exploitable information on everyone he meets, so maybe he’s just into being an asshole in general, and isn’t especially invested in being an asshole to a specific person at any given time.
I can’t say I see much reason to think he won’t actually fuck Ethan over after he’s fucked Ethan over.
If true, that’s just more reason why Mike shouldn’t be in any relationship with anybody.
Either Mike needs therapy in order to reach a point where causing suffering for its own sake isn’t his goal anymore or he needs to be stopped.
Oh, I agree. It’s just that this scheme is getting so convoluted I’m starting to doubt it’s juuuuust a matter of ruining someone’s day.
Well, it has to be extra convoluted to work on the closest thing he has to a friend, someone who knows him well and knows how awful he is. It’s sort of the extra challenge level.
I have had the theory for a while that this version of Mike is an unhappy nihilist, and honestly believes that he’s doing everyone else a “favor” by destroying their illusions that the world and everyone in it isn’t terrible, and thus making them just like him.
“No more lies. This is reality. It sucks, end to end and all the way down. You’re welcome.”
“Hey, Mike, want to go out for a bit?”
“Out?”
“Yeah, I wanna go get a six-pack.”
Oh goody! Another abusive or semi-abusive and definitely unhealthy coupling on the horizon. Damn it. I can appreciate the literary intrigue of dickbag characters like Mike, and to a lesser extent Robin, but at this point, I just want to lock Robin and Mike in a room and not have to deal with them for awhile. I don’t want to shut Ruth away, she’s trying her best to make amends in a rough time, but that stuff isn’t fun-times either. I like this comic, a lot, I don’t need it to be all sunshine and daisies, but I wasn’t ready to have it up my anxiety on a nightly basis with tragic relationships plotlines back to back all over the place.
then they come out 9 months later, arms full of mike-robin babies
Shit, I didn’t think of that. I was hoping they would have a death match or something. But no, you’re right, they’d procreate just to further spite and infect the world. I don’t generally advocate solitary confinement, the psychological effects are fucked, but in this case…I might be ok with it.
Yeah, the concentration of abusive relationships in this arc are a bit intense and triggering at times. Like, if you’ve dealt with aggressive stalkers or abusive friends/romantic partners who’ve pulled shit like this, this brings up some ugly memories.
But how do we know Mike and Robin *aren’t* trying to be better?
With Mike, we haven’t seen him really pull the “I’ll be nice so I can hurt you” bit before, at least bit as a long con. So it’s quite possible that he is (off panel) going through some personal growth, and part of the arc is that getting people to believe you’ve changed/are changing is difficult.
With Robin… Well, she’s currently in shock/denial. She hasn’t started to deal yet, so we really don’t know how she will.
Because we’ve seen Mike state his goal in no uncertain terms is to fuck with Danny’s feelings via screwing Ethan.
I see your point, JohninCA, that maybe there’s undercurrents we don’t know that’ll come to light later, but as of right now, there’s more evidence that they’re NOT getting better. Robin is still cavalierly crashing in Leslie’s house as Leslie gets more and more beaten down, without any sign of remorse or awareness of what she’s putting Leslie through. Even if Robin is “trying” to express her affection in that instance, it’s intrusive and disrespectful and generally terrible, because Robin is thinking of HER wish to have fun, not Leslie’s. It’s entirely a self-centered expression based on what Robin wants to happen.
Mike might not pretend to be nice to get his goal very often, but he pretends to be amicable to set traps. “Oh, here Walky, I got you pajama jeans you really wanted! Great!….ahahaha, your relationship is in the toilet.” “Oh, Ethan, your life seems so hard, maybe it’d have been better for you if you hadn’t come out as gay. Just, just to think aloud, ol’ buddy…great, you’re back in the closet!” The only way his latest scheme will work is convincing Ethan he’s someone Ethan might want to sleep with. He’s still being an unapologetic asshole, he’s not trying to convince other people that he’s nice, but he’s JUUUUUUST “nice” enough to Ethan to plant that idea. Again, even if that’s born out of some misexpressed affection for Ethan, it doesn’t keep Ethan from being harmed. Maybe he’s secretly trying to change, but it’s hard to judge what the characters are doing when we can’t see them, and strips like this seem to imply that sleeping with Mike is almost always destructive. Ruth has actively and visibly tried to change, so I can have some faith that that’s going to continue. Mike and Robin haven’t shown any changes in their destructive behavior, so Ethan and Leslie shouldn’t bank on them secretly being healthy for them.
Sorry if that is long winded or sounds harsh, I’m not saying Mike couldn’t change- it’s fiction, that kind of redemption arc happens frequently, you might be right that it’s leading up to that. But as of right now the evidence we have is “Mike explicitly expressed a wish to seduce and emotionally cripple Ethan” and “Mike has arranged it so Ethan is starting to consider sleeping with him.” That doesn’t give me a whole lot of faith that a Mike/Ethan hookup is a good idea right now.
I just realized, if Ethan DID get with Mike, then Mike would be pissing off Danny, Amber AND Amazi-Girl all in one fell stroke (heh). Damn, that’s so evil it’s genius.
Abs or not, it’s still probably a bad idea to have sex with Mike when you know he’s just doing it to piss someone off.
Especially when that someone could perfectly be you.
I’ve had a bet running for a couple of years now that Mike will nail Ethan and Amber in this reality as well. I do believe I hear the sound of fitty bucks dancing towards my pockets.
No, we haven’t. yet.
Comic Reactions:
Panel 1: Oh, Ethan, no. There’s not but misery down that road.
Though I feel this is a central tragedy of Ethan. He’s loyal to a fault. Quite dramatically so. He wants to hang on to old friends even if they’ve always been toxic dangerous people who intentionally keeps him isolated in order to torture him. He wants to hold on to toxic family even though they are the type of people to violently bully a scared kid back into the closet.
He wants to hang on to an old life that was always conditionally based on never figuring out his attraction to men. He wants to cling to an idea of a past that never was. And here we see a benefit of that. He refuses to give up on Amber even though she’s been pushing him away a lot of yet out of a desire to hermit and that’s a friendship that has real merit to it.
But it also means he does not excise abuse as much as he should.
Panel 2: I love this panel so much. Not only because it’s Amber calling out this self-destructive shit when she sees it in others, but also because it’s a sign of the real close friendship these two have.
Amber is genuinely being a good friend here, calling out a damaging behavior, protective to her friend’s safety, and full of concern and empathy. Those eyebrows alone prove AG wrong. Amber is not without value. She cares deeply about others and tries to do right by them.
But oof, that last line is brutal. Like, that’s where I feel it’s spelled out in no uncertain terms that this “oh, he’s just trolling” bullshit is a false distinction. Mike is simply an abuser.
Cause this, the hesitant pause, the talking around it, the reminder of why you set the boundaries you did. This is how you frequently end up talking to someone who is struggling to get back together with their abusive ex (and yeah, I’m aware of the bitter irony that is me saying that).
I am so glad that when I was a kid, Codename: Kids Next Door had an exchange that shut down ‘it’s just a joke’ ‘it’s just trolling’ etc. right quick. Those kids had GREAT reactions to that excuse.
“So what?” “Friends don’t do that.” “Yeah? Well, it ain’t funny.”
Because, really, it being intended as a joke is not an excuse to be a jackass.
Most of the time it wasn’t “intended as a joke” at the time it was said. Only claimed to be so later as cover.
As it was in this exchange as well. Even if it were, it’d still be bullshit.
You wouldn’t happen to have a YouTube link for this, would you?
Sure! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wmTOv-AABs
It’s roughly half way through. The villain (a mirror copy of one of the mains) tries to throw one of ‘their friends’ in the water, when said friend can’t swim and is afraid of water. ‘His’ other friends……don’t take kindly to it, and his excuse of ‘I was just kidding’ goes over like a lead balloon.
That was one of the greatest things I have ever witnessed.
Yeah, it’s one of the better episodes!
Sometimes it is just friends, which the part that makes the abuse trickier to spot. Friends can abuse each other in ways strangers can’t, without actually hurting – because they know each other well enough to avoid the actual danger zones and to back off if they accidentally push the wrong buttons.
You can tell the difference when they don’t back off, but keep twisting the knife if they do hit a sore spot.
Sure, but in context the kid was about to throw his ‘friend’ who was afraid of water and couldn’t swim into a pool.
Friends or not, that’s fucked up. You can tell the difference between a friend and an asshole, but this was definitely a hurtful thing someone tried to do.
That’s beautiful.
Honestly, if there’s one thing that I would not weep to see the last of, it’d be this fucked up idea that terrible statements or actions shouldn’t be seen as they are if the asshole who commits them says they are a “joke”.
Cause like, not only is that a stupid excuse to belatedly try and normalize hate speech, but it’s also just fundamentally wrong and openly dismissive of the transformative powers of comedy.
Like, a good joke can bite deeper than any direct statement can. That’s why they are such a useful tool against systems of oppression. It’s insulting to jokes to play pretend that they are toothless and incapable of causing any impression at all to those who hear them.
Exactly. Which is why I will appreciate the show for having that exchange for a long ass time because it’s an important lesson we could see more of. “It’s just a joke” doesn’t make it acceptable.
“So what?” is the best reaction to ‘I was just kidding’ ever.
Panel 3: Another central tragedy of Ethan I think is that he puts up these closet walls because he doesn’t want to have the queer label feel like something that overpowers all the others. Especially since his experience growing up has been that being queer is something that takes away from himself. He’s been through loss. His family have become even more abusive, Amber has been frequently distant owing to having to fight for him, he’s become more directly aware of the depth and reach of organizations that despise him.
But, nonetheless he wants community. Hell, he craves community. He needs other people to talk to who understand implicitly, so he doesn’t feel alone and like he’s the only one with the fears and hopes that he has.
But he’s terrified of actually pursuing that community for fear that it will mean that queer is all that he’ll end up being. That his other personality traits will be pushed under or rendered less important in society’s eyes. And sadly, he hasn’t yet realized that in society’s eyes, that battle was lost the second he first experienced attraction to other men. Because society is a bastard that way.
Panel 4: Again, I love Amber here. And frankly, I feel it’s rather telling that Amber and Ethan are having a real heart-to-heart that is actually healthy and which allows Amber to show her best face forward when it’s just the two of them. Especially in the context of Ethan too frequently trying to “keep the band together” and thus let Mike ruin any genuine moment of connection and very necessary processing of their shared history.
But I also just love the level of analysis. She acknowledges his queerness, but centers his abuse. That he seeks out partners mostly out of a desire to hurt someone or set up one of his plans to hurt someone. Honestly, it might be the blonde hair, but Mike ends up reminding me a lot of the pedophile who made a career out of harassing folks on the internet. Just that raw need to hurt others and those who are more marginalized as a first, last, and only resort.
Panel 4 – That’s very true. And it’s almost over-obvious here how important it is for Ethan and Amber to have time alone. Mike and Ethan spent most of yesterday on their internet-rage-date, and today Amber scoots up with a chair to physically make a private cocoon for them to be able to talk.
And it’s a much needed talk for Ethan.
Another central tragedy of Ethan I think is that he puts up these closet walls because he doesn’t want to have the queer label feel like something that overpowers all the others.
…huh. You know, it occurs to me that this may be one of the reasons he’s still keeping company with Mike. (Amber, by contrast, has had exactly one interaction with Mike that wasn’t precipitated by Ethan, and she ended it wanting to kill him.) Mike is possibly the only relationship Ethan has that wasn’t fundamentally altered by his coming out, and while it’s a terrible relationship, I can see where that might still have been sort of a comfort to Ethan, especially if there were other people who just dropped him outright.
That makes sense. It’s one constant in a sea of frightening and upsetting change. Sure, it’s a bad constant, but it’s a constant nonetheless.
Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t, is the flawed logic Ethan is probably using right here.
Panel 5: Oh, Amber, you beautiful beautiful woman, you. Yes, call out this shit.
Like, for all AG demeans her, Amber gets abuse. She’s survived her dad’s abuse for too damn long not to understand this kind of game and the exploitation of the honeymoon phase to sucker someone in for the next round of awful. Conditional and temporary niceness before a sudden terrible moment that you know deep in your gut is happening as much as you want to believe it won’t.
And yeah, this also hits on a crucial point. Which is, abusers and harassers are frequently charming when they want to be and are perfectly able to be nice and polite temporarily to someone they are targeting or trying to snow someone in a honeymoon phase.
So the first red flags you end up seeing are rarely against you, but rather against those the abuser views as less than them. How do they treat waitstaff or retail workers? How do they talk about ex-partners? How do they treat your more marginalized friends? How do they talk about marginalized groups and rights struggles in general?
These bits often lay a clue as to an abuser’s nastier side that they are trying to hide with conditional niceness until they can get a position of power to isolate and control you. Or warning signs that they will eventually hurt you in a brutal way whether that be physical, sexual, or emotional.
And for someone like Mike who we know is intentionally trying to hook Ethan’s desperation in order to hurt him and ruin a really healthy flirtatious friendship with Danny… yeah, this rings very true.
Panel 6: Oh, Ethan, you sweet summer child… yes. Yes, it would be the worst thing.
Mike hurts people. He has never done otherwise and his actions often if not always have ulterior motives designed to hurt someone who was minding their own business and trying to live their own lives.
Several other ace folks have noted how alien this worldview feels, that draw to fuck someone toxic or openly harmful to your identity out of sheer horny thirst and desperation to feel that sexual connection. But, it’s also just a bad idea. I’ve known a lot of sexuals and a good number who’ve had an encounter with a person like this where they ignored the warning signs because “hey, it’s a one night stand anyways”. And it’s always been a terrible idea.
Assholes are frequently shit lovers and when they aren’t, they are frequently manipulative fucks who make sure you pay in pain for every moment of pleasure you’ve had with them. A lot of them have turned out to be rapists or abusers, laying a nasty pile of PTSD on top of folks, and even in the best case scenario, it often ends in a shit lay and a lot of guilt for fucking someone so obviously bad for them or against their moral code or who is openly harmful to them or their friends.
I’ve genuinely never seen it work out and everything’s peachy keen forever. And that frequently often gets paired with the mythology of the bad boy. The idea that the person who is toxic or harmful can be “fixed” with the power of love and thus no longer be harmful. That the racist who shit-talks your friends can be convinced with your love to see the beauty in all people, that the sexist who puts you down will see the error of their ways, that the abuser will stop.
And often it only works in the opposite direction, where the person with the abuser becomes less willing to stand for their dignity and more likely to overlook terrible actions in order to cling to this fantasy that they haven’t made a terrible mistake and hooked up with someone toxic or harmful.
It’s frankly, just never worth it.
Panel 7: But yeah, seriously, I’m way too ace to really truly connect with this way of looking at things. That someone’s hotness can override their awfulness. That it can seem like a good idea just because they are really really good looking and so the libido just takes all those critically thinking circuits and scrambles them with noise.
It’s just really really alien to me.
And so this panel is just heart-breaking. Amber and Ethan would have the space to heal if they cut this toxic little shit out of their lives and just supported each other on their PTSD recoveries. But they won’t. Not until he hurts them so bad that they can’t find the excuse to steer into self-destruction. And given how much hurt he’s already caused both of them just in the comic, I shudder to think of what it would take for them to finally make that clean healthy break.
Especially in a way that wouldn’t let him just worm his way back in.
I’m hoping that in the last panel, Amber is merely saying that the fucking itself wouldn’t be the worst, and just is momentarily distracted picturing it before she goes on to discourage actually doing it.
It sounds a bit like fantasizing. Then again, I dont trust Amber’s judgment in any areas whatsoever. None.
> Panel 7: But yeah, seriously, I’m way too ace to really truly connect with this way of looking at things. That someone’s hotness can override their awfulness.
I have to admit, I didn’t know Mike was supposed to be considered especially attractive in DoA. Granted, its hard to tell given the amount of details in a typical drawing, but I don’t think he has the looks of (for example) Joe or Ethan.
He was apparently the hottest guy in the store in SP, according to Ethan.
Ethan: “But I’m not worth more. And if Mike hurts me, maybe he won’t have time to hurt someone else…”
Him and Amber are a lot alike in that way.
The thing with sex is that, generally speaking, I’m talking about simplification for the sake of explanation…
It’s reasonable, sensible, understandable logic… fighting ~50,000 generations of evolution favoring fucking over not fucking.
Because fucking passes on genes.
And not fucking does not pass on genes.
This isn’t a man/woman thing (although men may be more free to go ’round fucking because “death from childbirth” doesn’t factor into our personal consequences of fucking), this is just the core factor of evolution rearing its ugly head and influencing how we see the world… because all evolutionary roads lead to fucking.
…fucking is a fun word to say.
But it’s millions, billions of years of evolutionary instinct battering against our conscious knowledge of the issues. This is why “Abstinence only education” is such a crock of shit: Teenagers are dealing with an ugly mess of hormones and instincts and emotions, telling them “Don’t” is about as effective as telling someone dying of thirst not to drink a glass of water.
Mike is hot. Ethan and Amber both see him like that and wouldn’t mind banging him… and they want to be banged, because they’re non-ace teenagers. The logic… well, there’s a lot of people who had willing, consensual sexual relations with people and knew, going into it, that it was probably a dumb idea. Myself included. Once you take part in that, you start to see how “logic” is a very fancy five-letter word that doesn’t really have much impact most days.
(…this was a stream of consciousness post. Sorry if I shoved my foot halfway into my mouth, it honestly wouldn’t be the first time…)
I get what you’re saying, no foot in mouth I don’t think, but part of growing up is learning that following primal instincts isn’t always something you DO. We might have evolution and biology hammering at us, but we also have reasoning faculties and the ability of foresight and responsibility. Like knowing “this person is terribly manipulative to me and those I care about, I will resist the urge to fuck them because it’s better for everyone.” It’s hard, but people CAN do that. It’s why practical education works better than abstinence, because, no, not everyone is going to resist those urges all the time, but knowing the risks makes them more likely to make an informed decision when they do have sex. Whether Amber and Ethan can suddenly reach that ‘clarity’ at a young age in college is doubtful, but people are still going to root for them to do the healthy choice, not the ‘because my hormones said so’ choice. Especially ’cause they’re fictional and we can hope they get better things than the reality of an abusive dickbag for a fuckbuddy.
Not to say that sex is bad, or that foolish-but-consensual sex is the end of the world, or there’s some pre-sex checklist everyone should fill out to ensure they’ll never regret it ever ever. That would be impossible and puritanical. But it would still be a let down if, after succinctly pointing out all of the reasons Mike is a destructive force Ethan shouldn’t sleep with, Amber or Ethan just decided abs were more important.
I don’t see how fucking being necessary for the comtinuation of our species in any way make decisions based on one’s desire to fuck rational. I also don’t see how it relates to evolution. Sure, a species evolves through offspring that have a better chance of surviving in the current environment than its parent, but that’s the result of the local climate changing or the species migrating. If the conditions are the same, no amount of fucking is going to lead to evolution. If being horny was related to the need to evolve, our species as a whole should be asexual except when we go on vacation to different parts of the world.
As a straight person, I often wake up hot and bothered. Not having had sex in years can leave me extremely frustrated and unable to focus properly on whichever task is before me. Even so, I’d never trust my horniness to make reasonable decisions because when we’re horny, our decisions are motivated by a desire for a quick resolution with no long term goal.
I know you said your argument is simplified for the sake of explanation, but to me it becomes so simple it demands more questions than it answers.
Doesn’t make it rational, but we’re not particularly rational creatures. That’s the point of it. We are programmed with these irrational urges because past great apes with these urges had more children than those without them.
Yes, what thejeff said.
Stupid dumb horny ancestral apes.
But without them, we wouldn’t be here.
Leaving procreation up to purely rational minds isn’t likely to work out to well in the long run. Kids are a lot of work.
it’s not rational in any way, cause studies show that stress on an expectant mother, such as from an asshole partner, can lead to miscarriages and stress on men, such as from an asshole partner, lead to reduced sperm count
Your essays are always valuable.
I would like to summarize yours today, however, with an old joke that could well be playable for drama here, rather than comedy:
Mike: “Respect you in the morning? I don’t respect you now!”
Cerberus, I frequently don’t agree with parts of your analysis, but I always enjoy them and I always find them worth thinking about. So I wanted to do something I don’t do enough which is say “Thank You” for them and for the time and effort you spend doing them. They are appreciated and obviously just not by me.
So do I ever thank Willis for creating DOA in the first place? Nah. He’s a wealthy web-comic artist and porn-lord who doesn’t need my thanks.
Thank you. That means a lot.
Speaking as a sexual person…..yeah, no, still a terrible idea. An idea that happens a lot, but still a terrible one.
I think you people are overstating the evolutionary drive. Fucking is fun. It’s really really fun and leaves you relaxed and entertained. That by itself is enough to believe you don’t need to like someone to do it with them. Which I admit, I found out was actually someone I thought I had a friendly rivalry with’s motivation. No, it turned out she really hated me but thought I was hot.
Fucking someone you hate and fucking someone you know wants to hurt people are two different things. One can potentially be harmless, the other is almost always a terrible idea.
Arcs like this in fiction and in life frequently make me very very glad that I’m not interested either romantically or sexually in men. Cause I feel that this sort of self-destructive calculus is just a little more present in circles that date men than in circles that don’t. And I see a lot more dangerous settling for dangerous jerks because of it.
Well, there’s Robin, she’s pretty much female Mike with more power and less self-awareness.
Well yeah, it’s certainly present in relationships between women/non-binary folks and women can definitely be stalkers or abusers just as much as men can be victims of this shit.
But I feel this defeated settling occurs slightly less than I see in queer men’s populations and straight women’s populations.
Toxic masculinity! What a bunch of self-destructive nonsense.
That’s because how men are socialized and how people are socialized to treat men is incredibly toxic and results in a lot of men being so emotionally stunted they can’t comprehend the feelings of others or themselves and a lot of people thinking that’s normal and okay and something they just have to compensate for by doing extra emotional labour.
my parents tried to the best of their ability to counter that bullshit and I’m still shit with feelings. Society – and my Mom’s obsession with making sure we didn’t do stuff that would “get us bullied” – pushed back too hard
It works the other way too. There are plenty of beautiful women who are well aware that the majority of people are willing to give them lots of extra leeway just because they’re beautiful/sexy, resulting in them becoming rude, self-absorbed or spiteful individuals who know their beauty will let them get away with it.
I’m not really blaming anyone in all of this. We’re genetically hard-wired to seek out attractive individuals when trying to find a partner, and it can be damn hard to overcome that bias (I’m just as guilty of it as anyone else), but at the same time, as someone who’s also been stuck in awful past relationships because of factors like this, it’s kind of bitter to see people falling into this same trap over and over.
Oh, there are some awful women as well, yes. I’ve helped guys escape abusive partners who are women before and I’ve counseled a lot of guys who’ve been raped by women (it happens a lot to ace guys, because sexual assault in general happens a lot to ace people because “corrective” stuff is super normalized against us).
I’m more talking about this social pressure to “settle for” or “try to fix” a harmful and dangerous red flag spewing partner and how much more present it is for those who date men, because we as a society have low expectations for men in general (which is also super harmful for men, because it’s a passive insult by society, like you’re not even expected to be kind and empathetic which is fucked up) and people are expected to just “accept” that and thus bad interactions with toxic people and there’s just less of that pressure for folks who date women.
And it’s not a binary thing, like it only exists on one axis, but the relative amounts are definitely skewed in a statistically significant way that is frequently noticeable and just depressing*.
*I’ve seen so many folks settle for awful, harmful partners just because they were tired of the crapshoot and at least this one doesn’t abuse them.
Amber, didn’t you listen to what you just said?
No. She’s distracted by abs. And, given what we know about Amber’s slash tendencies, probably visions of Mike/Ethan rather then Mike/Amber.
Hopefully she’ll snap out of it in a moment.
Mike works out purely so that other people will hate themselves for lusting after him.
I’m starting to foresee a very odd triangle forming here.
BTW – Amber is right about one thing: Mike will have sex with anyone so long as it hurts someone. Attaching an ‘alignment’ label to that is probably going to be misleading.
Oh, I can attach an “alignment” label to that quite accurately.
“Evil”
he kind of is a Chaotic Evil posterchild, isn’t he.
Literally (google Shortpacked! alignment chart).
“I’m doing this to hurt someone” is kind of the definition of mustache-twirling evil…
Amber should know that right now Ethan is probably giving her advice a lot of consideration, so even if she just literally said how awful Mike is she’s not doing him any good by drooling over Mike’s abs three panels later.
But seriously how easy to play with can Ethan be? Sheesh.
Panel 5: Well Amber when you put it like that it does sound kind slutty, I mean just because your gay doesn’t mean desperate. But I’very been against every possible pairing that Involves Ethan from the beginning so maybe I’ll support this.
I mean what could possibly go wrong I mean one could possibly go wrong ? ( for some reason I feel like I’m going to eat my words here)
You know, maybe it’s because I’m demi, but … I don’t get Mike’s appeal, in that way. As a character in a story? Yes. But his personality is enough to make him hideous for me.
You’re not the only one, I agree with you a 100%. Mostly because to me he does not even display any kind of personality trait that I’d find in any way appealing (but I’m maybe demi too, so that might play a major role in my judgement). Anyone finding joy in unnerving others the way he does (I’d go so far to describe it as some kind of psychological torture-ish) would be a definite no-no, it would just not make him attractive in any way…
So, hey, gay dude right here, and I think Ethan is going through some of the same mental processes I have.
Basically, he’s desperate, and not just for sex. What is happening is that Mike is the first person he could have an actual chance with, and after spending his whole life hiding who he is, he has no idea what an actual, normal relationship is or how it works. He is going to grasp at every chance of feeling a romantic connection to anyone, no matter how awful they truly are.
Lust is only a fraction of what’s going on. The main drive here is feeling lonely and detached, and thus he is going to rationalize any relationship because “he’s being nice to me. That means it’ll be ok.”
shit. you want an internet hug?
Straight dude says “bingo”, touches nose. Well said.
Okay, that kind of reasoning I can understand. Meaning, with how you put it, I can understand that Ethan might grasp at this straw.
But speaking from my personal perspective, I couldn’t even imagine getting together with such a person as is Mike, simply because I’m a relatively nice person per default, and anything threatening the (emotional) well-being of others (especially friends) would result in me not being able to feel anything for him, even if I wanted to.
And as I’m demi (probably), that might play a huge part in the way I feel about this (now imagining the situation in a real life situation).
I’ve never had something what you’d call a real relationship in my life (and the one that nearly developed into one turned out to not be something afterall after a very short period of time – 1 1/2 months), and I’m older than Ethan, so I can definitely understand the desperation and loneliness, as I’ve experienced it myself for my whole life.
(only discovered that I might be demi at the end of last year, as I’ve stumbled over the term. Up until then I was as unlucky as to never have mutual feelings with someone that could lead to a relationship and I thought I was very weird for not simply wanting to have sex (or even kiss) with someone or find them attractive in that way without knowing them well and even forming some kind of emotional bond. Well there was one time I mentioned above, but that took me nearly a year to get over.
I never simply just could go and ‘date’. Or have sex, for that matter.)
So even if a person suddenly showed interest to me, if he weren’t even likeable to me as a normal person, I couldn’t be interested in him, so still Mike would be a No-No with a red alert blinking around him. I simply couldn’t have the emotional bond needed to even feel attracted to him.
I do get that other people might think or feel differently (because I’m influenced by my own idea of potential feelings, of course), although I got the vibe that even though you’re desperate and lonely “If you know he’s/she’ an asshole, don’t sleep with him/her” should still apply as a go-to-rule, if you don’t want to be hurt. And Ethan knows about all his misdeeds and knows he’d be used, but is still thinking about getting it on with Mike (emotionally or sexually) as a possibility, even though he knows, in general, how Mike ticks and works.
This strip isn’t I think actually, but feels quite meta.
I know what you mean; Willis probably has been reading the debates here about what Mike is (alignment and morality) and is responding to it a little here.
buffer
Three months isn’t THAT long and we’ve been talking about exactly what Mike might be for even longer.
Aha oh Amber if this were another universe
I know it isn’t a popular opinion but I do think there is humanity in Mike and the fact that he is absolutely such a hateful and needlessly cruel human being in spite of that keeps making me wonder if this isn’t building up to something, because I remember the odd mention of Willis’ struggling to write a character like Mike as a real person instead of a comedy character and that nags at my memory as something that maybe at some point wouldn’t be left alone.
And the more buildup that happens I see specific phrases like “friend from high school” that seem intentional not to be placed in this talk for us to read. Amber and Ethan have known Mike since high school, and he’s always acted like this. I honestly want to know why.
Given that DoA is supposed to be more ‘real world’ than the Walkyverse demands that there be an understandable motive for Mike to be the way he is in this version of Willis’s universe. So, yes, I find it plausible that Willis is building up to a big reveal of some sort. Whether that is a redemption arc or just something that solidifies his identity as a malevolent nihilist remains to be seen.
Exactly. Like, I don’t think Mike would get a storyline because he at all needs some Freudian excuse for being an asshole (nothing excuses that), but “friend from high school” is just exactly specific enough to make me recall that we know virtually nothing about him besides the implication he’s been like this since before ninth grade.
I do suspect something like a flashback or exploration of his history familial or otherwise could be in the works (Thanksgiving is coming, folks) and I do also believe it could go either way.
The thing people seem to forget is that shallow as Mike seems, he’s a Willis character which means underneath the (very real) surface asshole there almost has to be a complex person with complex motivations, even if those motivations might be terrible.
That’s kind of how I feel about it. It’s not the ‘villains’ in DoA that typically waste spans of 1-2 storylines ramping up malevolence like his. People who are The Worst™ enter the spotlight and maybe get a few days’ strips worth of feigned decency before the curtain drops and we’re shown their true colors. After that it’s just a matter of whether they show up and escalation.
Characters like Carla and especially Ruth are the ones who get a week or two showing their worst behaviors before we find out there’s something going on beneath the surface. I have absolutely no evidence that Mike is in any way be sympathetic (certainly not justified, he is an asshole) in his actions at this time and I have no illusions that we’ll learn anything that’d change that. But I really, really want to know just what on Earth could make a person so intensely knowledgeable of civic and social justice issues as Mike is spend his life casually ruining lives without even enjoying it.
I thought Willis made Mike’s parents nice people just to illustrate some people are bad just because they CHOOSE to be.
I don’t recall exactly how much we see of Mikes parents in this universe outside of Paterson-only content but the joke is that his parents are PATHOLOGICALLY nice people. Mike could strangle a kitten in front of him and they’d act no differently.
As mentioned above, for a while now I’ve thought that Mike is a nihilist, who truly believes he’s doing people a service by “educating” them in how the world “really” works, demonstrating to them that everything and everyone (including him) is actually terrible. It doesn’t make him “happy”, per se (happiness is another one of those lies we tell ourselves, you know, like “justice”) but it does give him… let’s call it satisfaction. Another soul saved.
, to borrow the terminology of one of the worst (and most successful) pack of lies.
This is exactly the impression I get from him.
I think similar, which make me wonder…I don’t want to Ethan hurt by Mike, but if Mike did end up hurting him, someone who he’s actually potentially close to, might Mike actually find himself feeling bad about it to some degree? Until now, got the impression Mike has had (put?) some distance between himself and his targets/their dealing with the result of what he does. Would it change anything if it’s someone who actually has been his friend for a while, and so can’t distance himself from his actions/consequences?
Actually nearly all Mike’s targets (that we see) are mostly people he knows or are close to him. But I think he doesn’t realize how much harm his words do because sarcastically telling someone who hates himself that he needs to LET himself have things that make him happy is not going to make that person hate themself less and makes the problem much worse, even though the statement itself is true. And Mike would not be the first smart person in the world who doesn’t realize this
Yes you fucking morons it would literally be the worst thing you could possibly do Jesus Christ on a cracker.
Hey, let’s not overblow things, because Mike is definitely not the worst-case scenario. They could fuck Ryan, for example.
Fucking Mike would be a bad decision, it would not be the worst decision.
It’s not the worst thing but YES, Mike is like a living bear trap and they know it. Why the hell are they thinking of sticking their hands in?
Because they’re horny and low on options.
Wanting to fuck someone because of a single attractive trait, I get. Emphasis on the wanting. Deciding that it would be a good idea to fuck someone because of a single attractive trait, I don’t get.
Hell, I can even get that. Deciding to fuck someone because of a single attractive trait despite knowing that they’re only doing it to hurt you (and/or someone else), I don’t get that.
Well, I do, in a way. But it comes out of a sad desperation.
One may, after an encounter (any form of sexytimes) look back to beforehand and thought, then, “It seemed like a good idea at the time”.
I’ve done it. Surely some others here have. It’s an admission of regret.
This doesn’t even seem like a good idea now, let alone later.
Mike is a good choice, to use the axiom, “If you could put a paper bag over his personality.”
It hits me now belatedly that one reason, narratively, that might exist for Ethan and Mike eventually hooking up (regardless of the very damaging implications of sleeping with someone purely to spite someone else, and/or in spite of the terrible nature of the person your sleeping with because they’re hot) is that Ethan somehow isn’t left a mess in the aftermath by Mike moving on then he will have at least one sexual encounter and some experience under his belt.
If Ethan is no longer a virgin and/or has experienced sex with a dude that is both safe and enjoyable, that means that Danny and Ethan getting together later wouldn’t carry the horrific unspoken implication of only having Amber’s fanfiction as a backdrop of information about how male-on-male sex works.
I’m pretty sure Ethan’s checked out porn as well. Also a terrible reference but at least physically possible.
yeah, if you’re a freaking acrobat contortionist with real good leg and ab stamina
Depends on what you’re watching. A lot is really lazy and just does the same three positions over and over.
Still causes injury from the length of the shoots and all the stretching involved
It seems like a bad idea to me, but I’m currently hooking up with someone I’m not even attracted to, so what do I know.
Good grief, Ethan, stop reminding me of myself. Yes, Mike’s being nice and you think that might be enough – get that sexual connection, pretend that is what love is, be satisfied with that. It’s your only shot, right? No-one else has shown interest in you, you’re a wreck, a freak.
Except you’re not. Look at Amber, look at Danny, heck, look at your actual roommate. They’re all people who like and love you, and they’ve (almost) always been good to you. Don’t blind yourself in the hope of getting into a relationship which you will regret. Please.
sorry I was dumb and tried to reply to this but posted it as a new comment instead
But…Mike being nice or Mike loving him is not what Ethan is taking into consideration on this decision. Ethan wants sex with a hot guy, Mike being nice was only part of a pointed hint to Ethan that Mike was, in fact, a guy who Ethan knows and may be an open to having sex. Mike being nice now was a wake-up call or a nudge and not a promise; before that he had been so strongly apathetic or aggressive toward Ethan that Ethan was inundated from any thought of Mike in a sexual nature.
Ethan has no illusions that Mike is in love with him. Ethan’s likelihood of being hurt if he decides to start anything despite knowing this doesn’t mean he isn’t aware of it.
Ethan is far more capable of separating sex itself from attraction to a person than Danny, and I think it’s the hoping-despite-knowing element of factoring Mike’s eventual rejection (rather than the memory of having sex with him) is what would Ethan more in this case. Hurt would be inevitable on both counts but Ethan as a character is not in my memory shown to have much proclivity to hang-ups over even the bad sexual encounters, the way Amber does and Danny would.
You know on rereading I do think there’s more hope here than I’m giving credit to that Ethan is searching for someone to share an emotional connection. However, I also think he wouldn’t be surprised or really too blindsided by Mike choosing otherwise because Mike is a goddamn asshole.
That’s the thing: He knows Mike. It is very possible that Mike will do a ‘screw and dump’ on Ethan and Ethan will just shrug and say: “Hey, I wasn’t expecting anything else!”
This may have an unanticipated consequence: Mike may get so upset that he wasn’t able to break Ethan’s heart that he may become obsessed with doing so. This will lead him to either becoming a creepy stalker or just falling in love with Ethan and not knowing how to handle it.
*holds up huge stop sign* NO. WE ARE NOT DOING THAT LAST PLOT. That is bullshit yaoi series non-sense and it is just wrong on so many levels
Yeah, let’s not go there.
I can see variations of ‘screw and dump’ and Ethan coming out of it more or less fine, but what on Earth is that last paragraph. Mike’s so pathologically removed from connecting emotionally with people (I suspect very much on purpose) that even if there were any feelings there, and I’m not honestly certain there are, he’d probably shrug and move on for appearance’s sake.
I might be projecting a bit of myself onto Ethan, but it’s very easy to not distinguish between lust and love, especially when one is inexperienced as he is.
And it is hard, at least for some people, to “do the deed” and not feel some sort of connection, especially when the other party involved is someone you already know.
I can agree that Ethan won’t be too surprised when Mike drops this act – but it doesn’t means it won’t hurt him. Even if Ethan manages to restrain himself (as I hope), Mike “suddenly” reverting to his old self is going to hurt Ethan, because he’s started to find Mike’s company somewhat enjoyable.
In short: CUT TIES WITH THAT TOXIC ABUSIVE ASSHOLE, ETHAN!
My issue isn’t with saying Ethan is going to be hurt. I think he will be, sure. I do not think he will be as hurt as you are implying.
Because my second issue is, I honestly just do not understand this reading that Mike is a “TOXIC ABUSIVE ASSHOLE” instead of just, you know, an asshole.
Being an asshole is enough. Being an asshole already makes him an unsympathetic and harmful person. Mike doesn’t have to intend, genuinely, to ruin Ethan’s life to make him a bad person and a terrible friend to Ethan and a problematic character that hurts his friends’ mental health. Unless I am considerably wrong, none of the worst-case accusations people are throwing around will turn out to be true, because I don’t think Willis would write a storyline where events turn out so characters who don’t deserve it would get injustly degraded to such a degree.
Is Mike being manipulative in seducing Ethan? Of course he is. His actions are going to hurt Ethan and Mike may or may not realize how badly such a scenario could play out. But there is no “false” persona in what Mike’s doing because even doing nice things, he is still acting exactly the same and still an asshole. Mike isn’t even lying about how much deliberation is going into this; for him it’s really not a big deal to out-argue someone on the internet, it’s just the thing Ethan happens to like.
I’d be fucking shocked and disappointed beyond belief if Mike and Ethan end up hooking up without it being safe/sane/consensual and nontraumatic in the big picture, or for that matter without it being crystal clear on Mike’s part that it’s just sex and he means nothing more. Mike doesn’t have to be a toxic abuser or a monster like Ryan or even fully malevolent for his actions to be harmful to Ethan. Because Mike was such an asshole he’d ruin Ethan’s life like that then he’d have done it at some point in the last four years.
Because he’s said so and I quote: “I was waffling on whether to seduce
either you or Danny to turn the other into a jealous, whimpering mess,
so you it is.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/percent/
Mike absolutely is doing this deliberately with the intention to hurt. He really is toxic and abusive. He’s not just a run of the mill asshole. He really is malevolent. Right before that strip he’s updating his file of “exploitable information”.
He’s not just the kind of asshole who might seduce someone with no consideration for their feelings, just for his own sexual pleasure. He’s hurting them deliberately.
Mike doing this deliberately with intent to hurt is not the issue. We all know he doesn’t care about hurting people. And his words are usually truthful but rarely literal. Hurt comes in degrees and I think Mike’s endgame here is getting Ethan and Danny together, not just making Danny jealous for shits and giggles.
The shits and giggles are there, don’t get me wrong, but getting accomplishing a goal in the most dickish way is the goal itself.
“Getting Ethan and Danny together” is still obnoxious, because they have already decided they don’t want to date for reasons that have nothing to do with liking each other. Mike does not actually often have a good goal in mind when he does this shit.
See – him posting a picture of Dorothy sleeping with Walky on Facebook. What was that going to accomplish?
Mike’s not ‘a jackass who goes about legitimate goals in hurtful ways’, he’s a jackass who hurts people on a whim.
Yes, Ethan and Danny have established a reason for not getting together, and Mike is disrespecting these reasons. He also has no goddamn way of knowing that conversation happened unless I am forgetting any reason that either of them would tell him, and I suspect he’d think those reasons are bullshit because for Christ’s sake Ethan deserves some happiness in his life.
And posting a picture of Dorothy sleeping next to Walky, both in their clothes, talking and laying next to each other, accomplishes absolutely nothing besides pissing Dorothy off.
Now, if Mike wanted to piss Dorothy off, and actually wanted to post pictures of Dorothy and Walky in bed together on Facebook where anyone could see them then he would’ve done it while the both of them were asleep. Or while they weren’t paying attention. Or another time when they weren’t aware of him doing it. Or maybe when Dorothy wasn’t within arm’s length of him to grab the phone and delete the posts immediately.
Mike is a jackass who hurts people on a whim and sometimes, maybe, his actions are not fueled by pure malice or without boundaries for right and wrong. He’s a fucking kid and until I see specific evidence he’s done something unforgivable on the level of characters in this strip that hurt people to get what they want without caring about others then I’m not treating him like a monster.
And to clarify, Mike disregarding Ethan and Danny’s choices in any case is not acceptable behavior and neither is any of the shit he’s actually done that hurts people.
Even without knowing those reasons, he does know Ethan does not want Danny caught up in Mike’s games and that Ethan asked him to promise to back off. Mike bald faced lied about it. If Mike gave a rat’s ass about Ethan’s feelings, he’d have backed off when Ethan told him too.
Dorothy WAS sleeping when he started taking pictures. He also tried to photoshop in a crack pipe, which could easily get Dorothy kicked out of school. Again, for no other reason than because she dared sleep in his room. He also said he was doing it to make her look bad and hurt her future career ambitions. The fact he did not succeed does not make that intention any better.
I don’t object to Mike being an asshole hurting folks on a whim, but I sure as hell object to the idea he’s trying to be some Asshole Sage teaching folks valuable lessons by fucking with them. That is utter bullshit and that is what I am objecting to.
I never said he was a monster – I said he was a terrible person and 100% a prick that people should cut off until he can get his act together because he does not deserve to have targets to abuse all the time.
(1) I don’t know for certain or even believe that Mike gives a flying fuck about Ethan’s feelings, (2) even if I thought Mike did certain things for any reason that was morally driven at all, that’s not what I am arguing anyone else should believe, (3) the interpretation Mike is, absolutely and without question any combination of: abuser and/or a monster, and/or anything for certain besides an asshole is my only argument. And finally (4) if you are unable to distinguish there is a difference the character Mike saying out loud the words “And now I’ll photoshop a crack pipe in there…” and the real, observable, provable reality that the character Mike was in fact trying to edit a crack pipe into a picture (one he’d supposedly already uploaded and was tagging) or that it’s irrelevant to my greater point that MIKE DID THIS INTENDING TO BE CAUGHT AND STOPPED, then I don’t think I can add anything that matters.
“getting Ethan and Danny together”? That’s a reach. Mike hasnt said or done anything that would indicate that this is his goal.
If he wanted to ruin Ethan’s life for funsies and had no specific plan in mind other than something that inspired him then Mike would have ruined Ethan’s life in high school. Ethan’s life got ruined plenty of ways in high school and Mike’s assured lack of helpfulness notwithstanding I don’t think he did.
*Mike did it
His stated goal is to fuck with Danny and upset him, because Ethan told him he did not want him to screw with Danny. Even if he fails, his stated intentions are to hurt Danny. None of this has to do with Ethan’s feelings because if he gave a fuck about that, he’d have left Danny ALONE when Ethan told him to.
His stated to goal is to fuck with Danny and upset him because Mike is an asshole.
His stated goal, and what Mike is actually planning, are not unambiguously limited to the meaning of Mike’s exact same words when he said them and nothing more or less. His stated intentions are to hurt Danny. I believe Mike intends to take action that will hurt Danny’s feelings and I think Mike is aware that they will. If Mike gave a fuck about Ethan’s feelings, he might do any number of things, and, being an asshole, those things might include telling Ethan over and over and over again that he is punishing himself needlessly. And, being an asshole, Mike might tell him that in a tone that is condescending and hurtful and damaging for Ethan. And, being an eighteen-year-old or a human or maybe a character whose mind he can’t read any more than he can read Ethan’s, maybe Mike would not fully realize, if he did care, that being an asshole in this particular instance causes more harm than it is able to ultimately resolve. Maybe Mike not caring about the act of hurting Ethan’s feelings with his actions doesn’t mean he care whether Ethan lives or dies, or care about Ethan at all. We don’t know what it means. We can’t know what it means. Mike is the only character in the cast page for whom we can assume absolutely nothing because we are not shown his thoughts, he does not speak honestly, and his actions can be interpreted a million different ways and none of the ones I am reading from you seem to me good guesses of what Willis would write about if he was the one who actually gets to decide all this.
And when I say Mike does not speak honestly I mean it in the sense that we cannot take him at his word, regardless of whether or not he means it, because we do not ever know what he means. The only time we ever objectively in the character’s own frame of mind been given a reason that Mike did something was when he showed up in Leslie’s class to humiliate Walky for a time he farted.
Oh, of course this banner would show up.
I fail at html.
What tag were you trying to use?
If you’re that horny, Ethan, just set on your hand until it’s numb than paw off.
shit, does that actually work?
Something about breaking Proprioception that makes it feel like someone else is fucking you, IIRC.
I know this is a reference to Shortpacked probably, but good job undermining any further point you are going to make about not trusting Mike, Amber
I might be projecting here, given that I’ve had to deal with multiple sociopaths in my life, but does anyone else see the signs in Mike? He’s manipulative, superficially charming, full of contempt for everyone that’s barely disguised, except when he wants something, he seems to have a complete lack of empathy, again, except when he’s trying to ingratiate himself to someone, and when attacked by a vigilante he was calm enough to just kind of make a shitty bondage joke. Most people would be terrified, or angry, or whatever. I really do think that Mike might be a sociopath.
Also, like half the comments section loves him even though he does nothing but be a toxic, manipulative, destructive asshole.
Also, there’s the fact that literally everything we see him do is calculated, and he seems to have the restricted range of emotions typical of a sociopath.
Psychopaths are not calculated. To my understanding there is no difference between psychopathy and sociopathy in biological terms. Mike’s range of emotions we’ve seen is indeed very limited, he does appear to read and understand people well either by instinct or more likely intense observation, and whether he has a conscience remains to be seen. But his habit of researching things intensely and his ability to act in very calculated ways don’t pertain to psychopathy; in fact it’s the opposite, people who can’t experience a normal range of emotions have to get kicks from some kind of rush and they tend to be loud and reckless.
Okay, first – Psychopathy and sociopathy are no longer considered real diagnoses.
Second – when they were, the difference was that psychopaths felt no clinical empathy and were very good at hiding it and very calculating. Sociopaths felt VERY LITTLE clinical empathy and were bad at hiding it, often having violent or angry outbursts. Also, clinical empathy is the ability to feel other’s emotions in a sort of echo, not the ability to like and care about others and wanting them to be happy.
My ex boyfriend just left psychiatry with a sociopathy diagnosis, among others.
That is strange, as its largely considered outdated. Most would diagnose someone who would have been considered a sociopath or psychopath with Anti-Social Personality Disorder or something else.
Now it clicked, that’s what I was talking about. Anti-Social Personality Disorder. I know it by that name but I believed it was still synonymous casually with psychopathy.
Socio/psychopathy are non-technical terms for ASPD.
@ Minder – Ahhh, I see. Yeah, a lot of folks still use those terms to refer to folks with ASPD, but a lot of people find it harmful and not helpful.
@ Pablo – Yeah, but as an actual diagnosis, that’s unusual.
But what I’m saying is it’s a term people could use to REFER to the diagnosis.
True enough.
Points taken. The books I have are old and might be outdated, so I’ll look into it some more before I fire up the armchair pscyhology on Mike. I still don’t think he’s either a sociopath or a psychopath by any definition because a lot of behaviors I read from him are reminiscent of I have / have had displayed, which in my case were caused by hypersensitive empathy and detail awareness. Up to and especially including that echo you described of what people around you are feeling. One symptom of living with that and living in a place where I couldn’t express my emotions was attempts to strangle them internally that caused latent awful rage.
Oh yeah, no worries, I don’t think Mike has ASPD (which is usually what people jump to nowadays as a replacement diagnosis). I’m not sure what he might have, as I’m not a psychiatrist and most of what I know is from reading around. I just wanted to establish there were differences between those two diagnoses, from when they were widely used.
You’re fine, I actually appreciate the heads up. I just checked the publication date of the book I was remembering this from and hilariously it was published in 1993 a year before DSM-V overhauled the entire classification system for mental disorders
There’s also the problem that he’s not a real person and whatever Willis might intend him to have, if anything, is filtered through Willis’s attempt to portray it and Willis’s own non-professional understanding of it. All twisted up because it’s likely retrofitted onto Mike’s behavior in IW! & SP!, where it certainly wasn’t intended or taken seriously as mental illness.
@ Minder – Oh, yeah, that’ll change a few things.
@ thejeff – I don’t see why we have to retrofit it onto Mike’s Walkyverse behaviour. Amber almost certainly didn’t have DID in the Walkyverse, but it’s a strong contender here in DoA.
We don’t have to, but Willis seems to have. Mike behaves far more like his SP! self than Amber does. So, since he almost certainly wasn’t thinking in serious psychological terms when first writing Mike, if he was thinking of a diagnosis writing him now, the portrayal is still shaped by the characterization mostly coming first.
In Amber’s case, all of her psychological problems are very different (and we’re seeing her at a different stage in them as well). The abusive father is still there, but there was no triggering robbery to make things worse. On the surface, she’s coping with the trauma better than she was at first in SP!. Amber is far more functional here – probably because of AG as a coping mechanism. And possibly because of Ethan. SP! was even more of a shut-in.
DoA Amber of course has the rapidly worsening DID, which didn’t exist in SP. Amber’s a much different character, with different problems and a different personality. Little really carried over.
Mike, as I said, is much the same, just a bit more human and less a force of nature – no superpowers.
We also haven’t spent much time with Mike, so it’s hard to see what carried over.
Which is because he got crowded out by others.
Mike is the character I think got changed the MOST in translation from SP! to DoA. Notwithstanding the obvious in you can literally click the Random Strip button on Shortpacked! until Mike shows up and have this be your first impression of him, DoA Mike is so much more subdued and likely to keep to himself unless he feels like it’s a good point in the conversation to be a pisshead or someone says anything that gets his attention. Shortpacked! Mike made racist jokes and tormented people with actual, observable enjoyment to say nothing of the fact that he existed in a time when Willis could make a certain joke I’m not going to mention here.
DoA Mike is not on the same level of assholery as that Mike, and that’s not touching anything in the context of actions that were treated as horrifyingly in context as they were.
I feel like I’m just arguing at this point because I’ve found so much evidence in the process of checking my own and others’ claims for veracity that I want to continue, but c’mon, DoA Mike’s first words were pointing out that Billie had never seen a motorcycle.
So what ‘good point’ is he trying to prove by basically calling girls sluts and taking pictures of them when they’re sleeping, or by saying he’d sleep with Amber or Ethan’s significant other to hurt them, or him taking the phone from Joyce so he can say ‘all hail Satan’, or him driving Ethan back into the closet?
I think I answered this question in the wrong place now I hope this is the correct place so I can redirect you below sorry
He is not trying to prove any point at all. Mike is an asshole. Of the things you list that Mike has actually done, and know specifically what incident you are talking about, Mike does these things expressly because to piss people off.
Fair enough.
Most of the comments section are actually not fans of Mike. His audience here is a lot more critical of his behaviour in the more realistic world of DoA.
Mike was popular for about a year and now people just take for granted he’s a monster because we only see his actions and not his life. Mike is the only character listed on the cast page both completely lacking in individual story exploration and also a “bad” guy who plays the antagonist—even Roz has a few scenes to herself in her room with her younger sister to humanize her.
A lot of that was leftover “good”will from his still somewhat small fanbase from the Walkyverse!.
I mean, in Shortpacked, I think Mike’s full storyline proved him to be more than just an asshole. I really genuinely enjoyed his relationship with Amber, and shipped it super hard, even though I’m super sensitive to unhealthy relationships usually.
Ah, so much Mike hate.
Me? I’m kind of hoping Ethan goes for it, and*Mike* ends up hurt. “You think I’m only nice to you when I want to hurt you? Why are we even friends then?”
If Mike gets hurt that would just turn him on.
Sounds like something Mike would say.
When called on his behavior. To make Ethan guilty for doing so.
Thing is, Mike is only nice when he wants to hurt you. He’s outright told us he’s planning something nefarious.
And I’ve got no damn idea why they’re friends. To the extent they are anyway. Ethan’s own issues, most likely.
No, like, that isn’t a joke. He really would.
Do people not consider the reason Mike goes around punching people in the face or inciting people because he actually just likes violence? That he wants someone to retaliate? It’s not even in a sexual sense necessarily, but everything Mike does indicates he’s all but begging for people to actually call him on his shit
me as hell
Mike is a floating, neon danger sign that is apparent to pretty much everyone, even those not aware to the meta-discussion outside the 4th wall. Ethan and Amber -know- him, and they cannot be so oblivious as to not understand what his games are.
But hey “those abs”. As if a set of muscles can overwhelm the rational brain.
Oh, they can. They really can.
The rational brain is far less in charge than it thinks it is. Mostly it’s the rationalizing brain – providing justifications for what you’ve already decided to do.
I dunno. Maybe I’ve never actually had attractive people attracted to me, but I’ve never actually felt like someone’s physical form overrides my reason.
Okay, apropos of nothing, but if Amber/Amazi-Girl ever becomes fully integrated, would the tags just say Amber, or Amber & Amazi-Girl, or Amberzi-Girl? And more importantly, what the fuck would happen to her cheeks? THESE ARE THE BIG QUESTIONS PEOPLE
Integration doesn’t get rid of alters, it just means they’re communicating, sharing memories, and that they’re more or less working together for common goals (albeit, with their own thoughts, feelings, and ideas about achieving said goals). They would not be one entity, so AG could still pop up.
I’m fully aware of that — I’ve read every single comment Cerberus has made too, you know — but I just wonder how David M Willis would handle it. & that’s assuming they DO become integrated by the time the comic ends.
Fair enough. My guess is “Amber”.
That’s… that’s a really good question. I’ve been going with AG/Amber, but I guess it would come down to what they wanted to be called together, which may in fact be Amber (having an alter share a name with the whole isn’t uncommon).
Wow, but yeah, I’m really not sure how that would end up being handled.
I think the secret to Mike is there’s no secret. There’s no hidden tragedy or series of depths. Mike has discovered he gets joy out of making other people feel worse and enjoys that sense of power. He had nice parents, a good home, and people who befriended him but found bullying people psychologically was awesome. I think that makes him a character much more interesting than the ones who have “excuses.”
What on Earth would make you think that Mike gets joy from this
He doesn’t seem capable of feeling anything at all but shades of anger
“Bullshit. It’s all bullshit. My family, your family, you, me, everything. It’s all bullshit. The sooner you understand and accept this, the better off you’ll be.”
(Arby’s)
That argument is one I think Mike would see through. Mike certainly isn’t better off for seeing it all as bullshit and knows this.
Depends on whether you think that knowing an awful truth is better than believing/being deceived by a pretty lie.
When Sal tells Mike that she slept with a TA to improve her score because the system was set up against her and it’s broken, Mike agrees with her.
You can read this as a shitty move, made only on the contingency that Sal would feel guilty regardless if he was silent. But Mike doesn’t outright lie, and this happened in March 2014. Since then Mike has not said a single unkind word thing to Sal.
I think he believes it.
Looks like the both have shitty taste in men.
Now I miss Shortpacked!
Mike’s abs tho.
This comic just delves into so many things I don’t understand.
There are so, so many hot people out there. Why would this one awful person who you know will use it against you be someone you would even consider having sex with? Sure, maybe if you’re in the moment (and possibly inebriated), but otherwise?
Yes, it would be horribly bad if you had sex with the psychopath. Heck, I don’t get why you even talk to the psychopath or were friends with the psychopath.
And maybe I’ve just not encountered enough sexually liberated women, but I’ve never heard women focus so much on abs, like men do on breasts. Even if you are focusing entirely on visual attractiveness, it’s usually about the whole person, not one body part.
Even when one girl I knew talked about liking big butts, someone else suggested someone, and she immediately shot them down because he was an asshole.
Now, I get that abusive relationships can make it hard. But these guys are completely separate, and they’re talking about this one person.
At least with Leslie, there’s probably a dearth of available lesbians, and at least something to admire about Robin. But, even then, I said the whole thing made me think less of her. There is no pretty but awful celebrity who I crush on.
So I just don’t get it. I don’t get how Mike even exists in this universe. I don’t get why people so willingly walk into traps. And I don’t get myopic focus on a single body part.
And I say this as someone with a particular body part fetish.
I think ppl tolerate Mike because are the all-knowing viewers who get to see his whole story (or a-hole-ry I should call it), unlike the characters within the story. At least, that’s what I think?
I dont know why Amber said what she said. But I think Ethan is considering this because he has low self-esteem. He doesnt think he can do any better. At least, that’s my guess.
People can fantasize about things that might be bad for them because those things generate sexual interest. This applies to anyone but like, these people in particular are ones that life has not conditioned to believe deserve something that’s both hot and healthily ideal.
Also if Ethan knew Mike in high school then he probably knows Mike is capable of giving people the best sex of their lives and if Ethan cares enough about sex to separate that from Mike being an asshole that he’s used to then it might be a factor in his thoughts.
I’m really digging Amber’s outfit. It’s so cute
Wow, so Mike’s plan is really working then. Sigh
Alternative title: “Boning”
I just imagined that would be funny because I thought “Hey, if DOA strip titles could be two words instead of always one, ‘Boning Mike’ would be a perfect title”
I am starting to wonder if what Ethan really needs is a Transformer-themed fleshlight.
And -NO- I am NOT looking that up.
(Let me know how you get on.)