Dumbing of age. Doa

>tfw we will never get an Amber vs Amazi-girl fight scene.

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I...... really don't get it. She wanted to be noticed? Amazi-girl fought? Fought what? Her?

This reads like the schizophrenic ramblings of a serial killer.

So what, is she going to go around stabbing men in the nuts now?

Forget Ruth, this one needs that psych ward more.

And this is the part where a sane person would call the mental ward and have them committed...

So is this supposed to be some big twist? Ever since the whole hand-stabbing thing we've known that Amber is unhinged. Hell, ever since she started talking to herself and stalking Sal we know she's been bonkers. I don't see why it's worth bringing this up in this manner. We should have just gotten the Amber vs. Amazi-Girl fight.

Maybe that's part of the problem with Willis' pacing. He drags out stories that could be more compacted like this, and he too quickly wraps up stories that could be expanded upon.

Anyways, if it weren't obvious, the password is "afraid". I just counted and it's in here twelve times.

I think she wants to be seen by others as a threat? This is the strangest attention whoring since killing yourself for Tumblr Likes.

I think what's going to happen is that Amazi-Girl no longer shows up and Amber stalks the night murdering alleged rapists.

>be seen by others as a threat

The only way that makes sense is if she has some warped grasp on reality because her dad was like "you a weak ass bitch like your mom" for not beating people up or something. So in other words: Amber is still mentally unstable. Or even more so than before

She realized she could hurt people, badly, and nothing would change, there would be no consequences, that she would feel good.

Basically she's a high functioning sociopath in denial, and now she's not in denial any more.

In other words:

Dorothy get the fuck out!

I'm guessing it's on purpose, but that extreme closeup of Amber looks so weird. The slanted bean eyes Dotty has in the last panel are also not great.

Despite the generally unsatisfying writing, I'm kinda into Amber just becoming an outright unrepentant villain. But who knows if that'll actually happen beyond this one strip. It would be cool if she decided to go after Sal again.

Honestly, if someone doesn't drag this girl to a psych ward, I have a feeling something messed up is gonna happen

I'd be down for antagonistic/villain-y Amber. Of course, Willis would never go down that road -- because that would be a middle finger to all the other ~poor oppwessed sociopathic people with abusive parents~... or something. Guess we'll see.

It's a bit hard to parse with all the fears being thrown around, but this seems like another case of Mike having influence (despite her protestations).

Sadist, not sociopath. Of course, she should be aware enough to realize that she only got away with hurting Ryan because Ryan threatened her and two others with a knife, and also is a sexual predator.

I'm not sure which would be more dramatically satisfying, Amber tries to go after Sal only for Sal to simply call the cops on her or for Ethan physically fighting her to protect Sal.

The problem is: no one is strong enough to defeat Amber except Amazi-Girl.

Willis thrives on narrative implausibility, ergo the most likely outcome will be either Danny, if he wants to retain the drama, or Dina, if he wants to end it on a punchline, defeating Amber.

Just as Amber is about to ice a dude, she slips on a banana peel and falls down a manhole. At least, that is the quality of writing I've come to expect.

I could see the Dina ending being serious.

>Amber rampages unchecked
>Triumphs physically over Sal and Ethan, completely rebuffs Danny, Dorothy and Ethan's emotional bids
>Dina slaps her and as Amber is in the midst of retaliating, cuts through her bullshit with a cutting remark
>Transition into a true friendship speech, "Since we met, you have helped me be a better person. Both in connecting with people, but also in taking on more responsibility to have a positive impact on my friends. Now it is my turn to return the favour."
>"Sympathy via light physical contact" reference to ruin the moment
>Amber breaks down and decides to get help

>afraid
>afraid
>afraid
>afraid

>tl;dr i have insecurities and am unraveling
I hope nobody truly finds her endearing.

Danny's character arc is to have him constantly emasculated to the point that it wouldn't surprise me to see him literally castrated.

>i'm literally my father

>Dumbing
>You calling me an abuser with a bad temper?
>Well, how about I beat your ass!

Though, seriously, if Mike and Amber cross countered each other to death I would donate a single dollar to David's patreon.

MIke really is the only thing that makes this worth reading.

Just a matter of her to keep picking her targets carefully. This comic goes like a week per volume right? She got two targets in less than two months.

>Sal and Ethan
>Not Joe, the second biggest pile of beefwall available.

> My favorite characters explain the comic to me

Remember when Mike was supposed to be fucking with Danny by fucking Ethan?

You think that will control her bloodlust, Satan? Also even Willis knows that at some point that premise would wear thin and run out of narrative fuel.

Three targets, you forgot about Ross.

So Amber is a psychopath now?
Are we supposed to like her?

>That face in the last panel

Amber realized her friends will accept her for what she is: A barely hinged sociopath with rage issues who'll be rewarded so long as she keeps going after the Bad Guys.

Because this realistic slice-of-life comic needs a Rogues Gallery.

We already got Toedad and Rapin' Ryan, Ruthless switched sides and is now a tragic antihero, and Mary's been re-characterized into a Flash Thompson-esque character.

WE have known she's unhinged because we're all adults. None of the Dumbing of Age crew seem to have the cognition of a pre-teen.

It's not that far-fetched that no one has any idea how unhinged Amber is, most of the cast doesn't interact with her. Danny, Dina, and Dorothy are the people who primarily associate with her, Dorothy's interactions are in a restricted and specific context while Dina is unobtrusive and has difficulty reading social/emotional cues.

The funny thing is that Dorothy could have learned DoA-weeks ago how dangerously unstable Amber is if she'd just talked to Danny after Amber dumped him. I may not be a journalist but 'he betrayed us' seems like a thing that should be investigated. Or even if you're friends with the person who said she was betrayed.

"Amber, I just talked to Danny, and-"

"What did he say?"

"He's worried about you. He said you broke up with because he talked to a girl that saved your life. He told me that you've been having problems and I just wanted to ask if you needed to talk."

"Oh. Oh, I see what's going on here. She got to you too. Just like him."

"What? Amber, you're starting to worry me."

"There's no reason to be worried, Dorothy. I'll take of it. I'll take care of everything..."

Or we can ignore that dangling plot thread to have Ethan and Danny make moon-eyes at each other and create another snail-paced plot thread where Mike is possibly potentially maybe going to do something somehow about Ethan's man-crush.

>The funny thing is that Dorothy could have learned DoA-weeks ago how dangerously unstable Amber is if she'd just talked to Danny after Amber dumped him.

You have to keep in mind that Willis grew up watching sitcoms, cheap dramas, and Questionable Content. As far as he's concerned, "conflicts that arise from people not talking to each other" isn't just not lazy storytelling, it's ideal storytelling!

Aye, that's true. But it's an even bigger plot hole than in those. As Dorothy pointed out yesterday, she considers herself a journalist. She also wants to be the person who helps others. Since Amber was her friend, Danny was her ex and Amazi-Girl was the story she was looking into, it's something that should have hit all the bases for her to investigate. Or at least talk to Danny to find out why he 'lost faith/betrayed' Amber.

>my favorite character is the designated asshole
Same reason Captain Boomerang is my favorite Suicide Squad character.

They don't interact. Making him have a big moment with Amber would be poor.

So it will probably happen.

I feel like this is supposed to feel like a very deep introspective character moment but it's not particularly clever or handled well.

Really Amber's whole character in GENERAL hasn't been handled very well, to the point where I don't know if Willis intends for us to sympathize with her or to be afraid of her. I literally have no idea what his intentions are with any of this.

I think we're supposed to see her as tragic.

More so than the fucked up shit that's already happened?

I do, but mostly because I view her descent into insanity as an attempt by Willis to make Sal seem like less of an ungrateful piece of shit that shifts the blame for her bad decisions onto institutional racism.

The sad thing is there is enough room for tragedy all around: Amber's terrible upbringing leaving her unable to function as a normal adult while creating a mentality that resists seeking help, and Sal reading too much into her parents actions and self-destructing while being unable to see that they do care for her. Ethan should be playing a large role in this too.

True, but Willis still has that dogmatic sense of right and wrong, so it's still very black and white in the morality of his stories

Amber is evil, and she was using Amazi-Girl as an excuse not to go all-out.

Amazi-Girl is more like a superego than a distinct personality.

I will be absolutely thrilled if we never hear from "Amazi-Girl" again.

Instead, we are going to get a cheesy plot where Dorothy, Danny, and Ethan spend several months trying to get her to bring A-G back.

Yeah, a better writer would steer this towards some great naunce, but it's really just doing the heavy lifting to find things he's put in by accident.

really just us^

>She realized she could hurt people, badly, and nothing would change, there would be no consequences, that she would feel good.
>Amber realized her friends will accept her for what she is: A barely hinged sociopath with rage issues who'll be rewarded so long as she keeps going after the Bad Guys
Well, Willis does want the tumblr audience. Now they have another character to identify with.

I have run through a few ideas on how to make DoA readable... sadly, most of my efforts would probably make everyone in this thread die of embarrassment (myself included) and I don't want to be known as a mass murderer who took his own life.

You could join the VA efforts for dubbing the comic as hilariously as possible.

So did she murder the not-actually-a-rapist guy or not? I haven't kept up.

Nope he's just been put in the hospital for a long time. She was trying to slay him, but failed. I think the idea is that the Amazi-Girl side of her stopped her from going full kill mode. But now she's an untethered murder machine.

My money's on Amber sneaking out to go kill Sal, because given how quickly Willis likes to rush to concluding his storylines, that's the next logical step for Amber.

It's hard to say. They didn't attack her at the rally. Maybe there's hope.

Willis has outright stated that nobody will ever die in DoA. Yes, it takes out all tension, but it makes his readers feel better because they fulfil every negative stereotype about young modern liberals.

This.

It's a slice of life college drama/comedy. There shouldn't be a lot of deaths to begin with. You don't need to rack up a bodycount or have life-threatening situations all the time. But when you do have them, like Toedad's Wild Ride, or Rapin' Ryan's confrontation, it completely removes all tension because you know the characters will be completely fine. They won't die because as Willis put it, the rest of the cast would be mourning for years. By the same token, it also means no one can be badly injured. They'd be in the hospital for years real-time. There's absolutely no tension or risk to the dangerous situations Willis writes. It's fine to have the 'no deaths' rule, especially in what's supposed to be a grounded, lighthearted college drama... but then you can't have any conflict or tension in the tense conflicts you're writing.

Amber wants to hurt Sal, but Amazi-Girl wants to protect Sal from Amber. Now that Amazi-Girl is gone, Amber has nothing to stop her from hurting Sal.

Since that's apparently how DID works, according to Willis.

I have a feeling that in events like these, three-day time skips are going to become a trend.
It really is amazing that nobody has investigated the school for everything that's been going on.

How long ago did he state the rule? Is that information still available?

He removed the thing on the website about it being permanently freshman year a whilr back, so more stuff might be different now.

>Amber wants to hurt Sal, but Amazi-Girl wants to protect Sal from Amber. Now that Amazi-Girl is gone, Amber has nothing to stop her from hurting Sal.

This is the current state, but Amazi-Girl definitely started out trying to attack Sal. She ran up on her and some others buying booze and tried to pick a fight.

Then at the rally after she got caught stalking her, she changed it to this idea that she's protecting her from Amber.

I think it's kinda like how Amber said that Amazi-Girl lied to Dorothy, when that's not the state of events. Or when Danny asked who dumped him and Amber said she thinks it's Amazi-Girl, but some Amber might've "bled through." It seems like the longer these personas are being expressed, more and more negative aspects get attached to Amber and removed from Amazi-Girl. Which seems like way more of a fantastical setting thing than a real life thing, like with how Anti-Joyce appeared in It's Walky. It's a good metaphor for the dual nature of a person, but I dunno if it would work literally like this.

I have to wonder how his fans are reacting to the Amber situation. Do they still see her as a tragic figure, or are they seeing through Willis' bullshit and wondering where he's going with her.

It's just weird seeing her go from being his moderately attractive nerd waifu from Shortpacked to this broken psychotic doll.

That is way too much fucking text. That may as well be an email.

>She ran up on her and some others buying booze and tried to pick a fight.
>Then at the rally after she got caught stalking her, she changed it to this idea that she's protecting her from Amber.

That's also true. There was also a point where Amazi-Girl was stalking Sal as she loitered around at night. Shortly afterwards was the rally, I believe.

>It seems like the longer these personas are being expressed, more and more negative aspects get attached to Amber and removed from Amazi-Girl.
>It's a good metaphor for the dual nature of a person, but I dunno if it would work literally like this.

I'm not GirlAnon, but I'm going to assume it's not at all how it would work in real life.

They'd just say it's a "Crowning Moment of Sadness" and a definitive "Break The Cutie" because as far as I know these people take tropes seriously.

Knowing Dorothy, she's probably the kind of journalist who would default to doing "interviews" by email if she had the option.

It's actually a Tear Jerker, there's no such thing as a Crowning Moment of Sadness. I'm ashamed I know that.

It's a Tear Jerking moment until that last panel where it looks like Amber's about to break Dorothy's face.

Bump for Patreanon.

Up until the final panel I wasn't sure if Amber's confession was meant to be like a cry for help. That final panel just showed that Amber's fucking psychotic.

As her roommate, Dina should be worried.

So there are a few bonus strips this month. Apparently it's a peanuts ripoff?

>I'm not GirlAnon, but I'm going to assume it's not at all how it would work in real life.
'Sup?

Haven't had much time to dedicate to this thread or horrible mangling of Amber's character, because I spend weekends with my boyfriend since we don't see each other much during the week. He's got a good job now, but he was kind of out of it today, so I've been keeping a close eye on him.

I'm looking at my DID document and rearranging it to make it easier to read. I'm also going to add some relevant strips that disprove the idea of Amber having this disorder.

This last strip is so far removed from what normally happens. The idea of getting rid of alters is not a new one. But that usually involves a lot of therapy/counseling, and you have to come to terms with yourself and your identities.

Removing an alter is referred to as "integration." This means that you incorporate those parts of yourself back into your personality (perhaps in large part or even almost nothing at all). You merge them. You don't kill them off.

The literal point of an alter is to handle the things that the main identity cannot.

Rather than killing Amazi-Girl, I'd almost expect a new alter to show up to help with double-duty. She is rapidly decreasing in stability, so she would more than likely get an alter who doesn't know what's going on or one who would actively shield her from the unhealthy behaviors of Amber.

Example:
>Amber considers going to stab Sal so she can stab her other hand, to make a matching pair.

>Her new alter, Amelia (sticking with the theme in her naming conventions), takes over and goes to a local restaurant for some nice, hot tea. She reads a book, does breathing exercises, and goes back to her room when she feels calmer.

>To keep Amber from undoing her efforts, Amelia is the one who takes the body to bed and allows Amber to try again in the morning.

Gonna go back to that doc and will come back with it soon. Feel free to post questions for me in the meantime.

And since I suck, I can't seem to download the other 4 images.

>tfw this image is getting more and more relevant by the second

>sexualizing an inanimate object
>sexually educating kindergarteners I think
Willis is a degenerate.

If Amber gets a new alter, that would actually be a not-so-bad idea.
But knowing Willis, he's going to stick with Amber/Amazi-Girl. I just hope he has an internal mental battle between Amazi-Girl and Amber; that will probably be hilariously bad.

Also, have you ever watched the movie "The Three Faces of Eve"?

>yikes, how does she know that word

Usually it's preceded by "Come give me a ____" Willis is getting dark.

Turns out I just needed to give them a .png

...

...

>Roses are red.
>So's blood on my knife.
>Spread them legs.
>You might escape with your life.

I for one hope this is the grand entrance of the newest DoA villain, Amazi-Raper.

OK tonight's strip in a minute or two,. I gotta clean up something.

>Stupid electoral college

Somebody explain.

>anal-fisting platypus
Yeah, Willis is really kind of fucked up.

Also, these are the laziest bonus strips. There's the background with Blowjob Cat, there's the two poses for the literal child (waving and walking away), and one overlay for being TP'd. Other than quote bubbles, it's literally nothing.

She's crazy as fuck and Dorothy must accommodate her in order to get into Princeton.

This one is...unnerving.

I can see he put alot of effort into this

America is a federation like the European Union. The Electoral College is a system which ensures that small states like Wyoming and Delaware always have a voice against Texas and California, the big states.

So basically the Dumbing of Age version of Injustice

Explain the joke.

trump won because of the electoral college

It's gonna happen. It's just that the narrative keeps cutting into different people all the time

Amazi-Girl's original concept was that she was where Amber put away all her negative and violent impulses, and later when her personality started disintegrating positive impulses like her sexuality and self-worth, so this could be Willis fucking up the concept of an integration.

Also have you ever read Memoirs of my Nervous Illness by Daniel Paul Schreber?

...

"hurr durr my opinions are unpopular outside of a specific bubble this isn't fair"

>Your vigilantism was justified cause you saved Joyce and "countless" potential lives

For once Amber is right on this front that she doesn't deserve any sort of praise or encouragement for what she does/did.

Dorothy, you're literally enabling Amber's violent behavior at this point.

>Everything else is just details.
No, everything else is literally a mental illness that requires hospitalization and therapy.

So basically it's an overly complicated, salty jab at Trump that is only tangentially related to the rest of the joke, but had to be made because everyone knows the best way to fight Trump is making snarky jokes about the election for the next 8 years.

Also, I just noticed this grammar:
>Amber, you saved my life.
>And you saved Joyce's life.
>And any potential future lives he may have attempted.

"Attempted" is not the right word.

But I thought her father hated her?

God these are mediocre.

>Amber: I was so afraid of unleashing Violent Amber, but now that I have I feel great. Violence is awesome!
>Dorothy: You're a big hero, Amber.

What the fuck, Dorothy? Also if she really felt this way, why was she dreading thinking about Amazi-Girl all day? I thought the whole point is that she was disgusted and no longer thinking of her as a hero to look up to.

Also, Amber, she can't sound like your father. Dorothy is saying you saved her life, Blaine would be saying that you almost ended his life.

Y'know what, Willis should just do the Artisticat strips instead from now on.

Yeah, I think he means it as in "attempt on someone's life" but you're right it doesn't really work like this. "Threatened" would've been much better.

>Also, have you ever watched the movie "The Three Faces of Eve"?
No, not yet! I'm not sure how accurate it is. Is it considered a documentary, or is it a standard movie?

If it's a mainstream movie, then it's going to be riddled with stuff they think people want to hear.

Like that BS for "Lucy," where they claimed we only use 10% of our brains. Still makes me mad.

Love how we don't see the actual teenagers. Are they traveling as fast as the Flash?

It was put to a vote. One side won, but a higher authority voted differently.

>Amazi-Girl's original concept was that she was where Amber put away all her negative and violent impulses, and later when her personality started disintegrating positive impulses like her sexuality and self-worth, so this could be Willis fucking up the concept of an integration.
Sounds plausible. A-G made sense in Shortpacked at first.

>Also have you ever read Memoirs of my Nervous Illness by Daniel Paul Schreber?
No, I might have to look into it!

One of the best fictional books about mental illness that I've read is "Multiple Choice." It represents a lot of my struggles with my OCD tendencies. Pretty sure I cried during at least one of my readings.

>My father was totally selfless and brave
or
>My father would say I'm selfless and brave

>My father wants to save lives

All of it sounds like BS from here.

Her dad was proud of her when she got violent.

Super-fun (/s) strip where we see the beginning of Danny and Ethan's interest in each other.

2013.

>Her dad was proud of her when she got violent.

Yeah but was he proud of her for vigilantism?

>Is it considered a documentary, or is it a standard movie?
It's a fiction film, but it's based on a documented case of DID:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three_Faces_of_Eve
>The Three Faces of Eve is a 1957 American mystery drama film presented in CinemaScope, based on a book by psychiatrists Corbett H. Thigpen and Hervey M. Cleckley, who also helped write the screenplay. It was based on their case of Chris Costner Sizemore, also known as Eve White, a woman they suggested might suffer from dissociative identity disorder (multiple personality disorder). Sizemore's identity was concealed in interviews and this film, and was not revealed to the public until 1975. The film is directed by Nunnally Johnson.

So it's probably less full of shit as most other films. Filmmakers in the 50s studied their shit, or at least when they had the money to do so.