I….. you know what, I went through this phase. It’s not the best coping mechanism, but when you’re that quagmired in self-loathing and social anxiety you cope however you need to until you’re able to find better healthier ways to deal.
On the one hand, it’s nice to see Amber smiling. On the other hand, she’s watching her ex snog the dead friend she regularly hallucinates and has outloud conversations with.
…Which is fine, I just think Danny should have asked first before walking up and smooching Amber’s delusion. Luckily, she taking it well. Remember folks, consent is important, even with hallucinations.
Somehow this feels like the crackiest of all crack ships, despite aligning with canon sexuality. Not sure why. Maybe because Danny was among the few who made no excuses for him?
Kinda wonder how that interaction would’ve went. We know Danny did not like Mike and I don’t see Mike as so desirable that he could easily overcome that hurdle.
Thag Simmons
badly, it would have gone badly
Regalli
I would admittedly read that AU fic. Of course, Mike WAS capable of being a lot more charming when he tried and hadn’t interacted with Danny nearly as much yet, but Danny hung out with Ethan and Amber enough that I suspect he’d have heard enough stories to see through it.
I don’t think it ends in makeouts, though. Danny does not strike me as one in favor of hatefucks.
Andy
His literal first interaction with Danny was to lie to him and tell him that he was dating Dorothy. I don’t see Danny giving Mike much chance to come back from that.
Shipping someone alive with someone who’s dead (in a universe where I’m pretty sure vampires and other types of undead don’t exist) does seem like a very crack ship to me.
Less risk of physical injury, but that’s the best I can say about it.
Thag Simmons
That is significant even if it’s the only positive. Not nearly getting killed is very much a positive
annarchy
I mean the core problem of living in any form of fictional existence, instead of your now, is that for every step you take there is a separate step that you could have been taking a different path you could have walked.
So if you choose to live in fantasy you don’t live your life. You just live in a dream.
At the end of that road lies waking up with nothing but the memory and the wish that something like that could have been.
Clif
At the end of all the roads, all you have is the memory.
annarchy
No. At the end of a fictional road there was no movement you alone have the memory. At the end of a shared world you have memory of changing it and the world changed.
One lets you affect your outer world one of them closes you off from. Both of them you are still operating within your memories but one of them allows you to acknowledge the world in a way in which you affect it leaving you with something more than just memories.
Fictional delusional living the reward can only be things that you think about and you spent time sitting around thinking about them not thinking about the reality of your now.
Whereas if one bases their understanding on things that are in a shared reality of “now” you can have all of the memories of moving and interacting with those other entities who actually exist in your now plus an existent now that has been affected you.
Literally living in a fictional world in your head takes up time that you could have been using to think about your actuality and now meaning you are at a loss of times in which you have spent making actions on your actual world by deciding to live in fiction.
Not that I haven’t done so in response to circumstance myself but I avoid it as a last course of action because it paralyzes me from being able to affect my world.
The Wellerman
Very thorough. However, to some degree we will always have to fantasize or find some means of escape from reality to feel satisfied / happy.
For if you expect this unjust, crude, indifferent universe to magically support us in achieving our preconceived notions of ideal lives… well, you might as well expect a bush to grow you a fully assembled hair-dryer.
Now that we see that Amber can do stuff like this with this internal Brain Mike of hers, does that make it more likely that he’s a Tulpa or an introject? Or both?
It can be possible for one headmate to temporarily think really strongly and ‘force’ someone else to mime something out in headspace. In my experienced it doesn’t really stick more than a second or two, though? It’s almost impossible to actually make someone do something they don’t want to, which is exactly why old-style integration would often ultimately fall apart.
(SOURCE: Married to a system. Or rather, some of the people in a system. It’s Complicated™️.)
So I take it that it’s much more likely that this couple are Tulpas?
Also, regarding Tulpas and Alters, I’m confused on how integration works.
Sorry if this sounds like a stupid question, but is it like that Fusion Dance from Dragon Ball Z?
Doki
Tulpa is a term where the meaning – and the autonomy implied by it – can vary from person to person. It’s not a scientific term, so I’ve seen a lot of debate on what actually constitutes a tulpa. And personally, I don’t think it’s useful to nitpick and try to label ~what type~ a headmate is, anyway. People are people. (Imagination Danny™️ is undoubtedly just a very temporary mental image and not his own person, and functions just as a visual gag here LOL.)
And I tend to be pretty anti-integration* so I’m probably the wrong person to ask about that, haha. I’ve just never personally known a system it worked for. I know they’re out there! But it used to be seen by therapists as the goal every system should strive for, and was often coercive. So I don’t have experience with that myself, and can’t really answer that question. :C
* (The historical definition of ‘integration’, anyway! Nowadays it’s more meant like “can you all function together as a group and get along? yeah? COOL”. Which seems like a healthy goal to work for. :D)
Also whatever the Mike that Amber is interacting with is, she can still have just overlaid that momentarily with a fantasy about Danny and the Original Mike. So briefly there were two different Mike constructs extant. I think!
Okay, I feel like this “tulpa” thing has come up a few times but I’m not about to scour recent strips’ comments for specific citations. The only other times I’ve seen or heard the term before have been in horror stories or other supernatural settings. I didn’t do any sort of “deep dive”, because it’s 7am and no, but it feels like there’s a negative connotation? Or is this like Nadine from Arthur?
We popping the BIGGEST bottles when Makorra happens tomorrow
Regalli
Alas, there are many fictional Makos. The Mass Effect one, Sailor Jupiter… and yeah, The Worst Mako. (Though I will say straight up skipping the infuriating stuff I heard secondhand happens in Book Two because I dropped early and only picked it up after hearing Books Three and Four were good? Definitely helps!)
Thag Simmons
Good rule of thumb, if people are discussing two characters who had previously dated the same person hooking with each other, and people start talking about Mako, it is always the Mako from Korra.
LiamKav
Being worse than the Mako from Mass Effect is pretty bad.
(Although I’m currently playing FF VII Remake and though this was about that Mako which also confused me.)
Schpoonman
Bite your tongue, we didn’t deserve that wonderful tank.
Spencer
Yeah.
The Mako was unappreciated.
Roborat
The only Mako I could think of was the one from the SWTOR MMO.
Doki
dkskdkjfgdklfg
PERFECT comment
Eldritchy
Oh, that Mako, I was wondering what did Mankanshoku Mako do to earn such ire.
Amber, I feel like you need to re-evaluate your… basically everything in your life. Relatedly, finding out that your friend/ex has(or had) a thing going with them and then not addressing it, also needs re-evaluation.
284 thoughts on “Implication”
Ana Chronistic
nice, making love not war
nope, no problems here
*backing away slowly*
Ana Chronistic
(this reminds me of that 1 – 5 apple meme and how I can only see 5 and I hate it, I want to see even 4)
ThunderNight
I can’t tell if this is super unhealthy or the most healthy
alongcameaspider
I mean its distracting her from her spiraling self loathing issues
Still a bit weird
Jeff
Definitely the former. Nothing about this is helping her process anything meaningful, just more denial and trying to forget.
Corlanthis
Well her subconscious is now actively yelling at her for treating people as *things*. That’s REAL bad
Reltzik
There’s a lot of stuff here that I think either belongs in the Con column, or at least is borderline for almost being put in there.
But in the Pro column, look at that smile. This is the most joy we’ve seen out of Amber since… well since at LEAST the timeskip.
Needfuldoer
She almost immediately cast Ethan’s issues aside and found a way to frame them in a way that’s appealing to her.
That’s not good.
Spriteless Auntie
I guess if Ethan saw it coming that I am now glad he pushed her away to do this away from him.
Keulen
Definitely super unhealthy, though I’m sure there are plenty of things that are more unhealthy than this.
The Wellerman
? Oh my god…
I think my art may have predicted the future
Rose by Any Other Name
I know I did.
Back when people were like “oh, Amber will have a meltdown if she finds out about Danny/Ethan” and I was like “won’t she just think it’s super hot?”
I was gonna comment on this yesterday, but it seemed subtle enough then that I couldn’t be sure I was right. This? This though? Yeah.
Madock345
I must have missed the art you’re talking about, but I want it
The Wellerman
Oh nothing much. Just this little [NSFW] piece where Brain Mike gives Amber a nice little reward for her speedrunning progress.
Decidedly Orthogonal
This is dementedly delightful. Well done!
Rose by Any Other Name
Oh! THat’s so cute! I love it!
v.gay.person
I….. you know what, I went through this phase. It’s not the best coping mechanism, but when you’re that quagmired in self-loathing and social anxiety you cope however you need to until you’re able to find better healthier ways to deal.
The Wellerman
cosigned!
brute
.. actually yea that’s a good point.
Sirksome
Hrmm. I don’t know how I feel about this. Not good. I know that at least.
Doctor_Who
On the one hand, it’s nice to see Amber smiling. On the other hand, she’s watching her ex snog the dead friend she regularly hallucinates and has outloud conversations with.
…Which is fine, I just think Danny should have asked first before walking up and smooching Amber’s delusion. Luckily, she taking it well. Remember folks, consent is important, even with hallucinations.
The Wellerman
Well, whether or not its consensual between them in her brain may very well depend on whether these “hallucinations” still count as “her”.
If they do, then this is technically just masturbating.
Doctor_Who
Oh, I know, I was just joking that this s the actual real Danny who just came up and started snogging ImagiMike.
Ereb
Weird, somehow I remember that Danny came out to her, although he didn’t dare to at first. Or was that Ethan?
RassilonTDavros
IIRC he was about to, right before that conversation escalated into a fight/break-up.
Thag Simmons
He came out to Ethan (and Jacob by accident), but I don’t think Amber found out
fudo81
He also came out to Dorothy, but not to Amber, not yet.
RassilonTDavros
Somehow this feels like the crackiest of all crack ships, despite aligning with canon sexuality. Not sure why. Maybe because Danny was among the few who made no excuses for him?
Sirksome
Maybe it’s also because Mike’s dead and as weird as shipping to living people you know is it’s even weirder when one is dead?
Thag Simmons
Mike was apparently considering seducing him rather than Ethan
Sirksome
Kinda wonder how that interaction would’ve went. We know Danny did not like Mike and I don’t see Mike as so desirable that he could easily overcome that hurdle.
Thag Simmons
badly, it would have gone badly
Regalli
I would admittedly read that AU fic. Of course, Mike WAS capable of being a lot more charming when he tried and hadn’t interacted with Danny nearly as much yet, but Danny hung out with Ethan and Amber enough that I suspect he’d have heard enough stories to see through it.
I don’t think it ends in makeouts, though. Danny does not strike me as one in favor of hatefucks.
Andy
His literal first interaction with Danny was to lie to him and tell him that he was dating Dorothy. I don’t see Danny giving Mike much chance to come back from that.
Keulen
Shipping someone alive with someone who’s dead (in a universe where I’m pretty sure vampires and other types of undead don’t exist) does seem like a very crack ship to me.
Cmasta1992
This somehow feels less healthy than everything about having Amazi-Girl as a split personality
Thag Simmons
She isn’t likely to get into streetfights or car chases doing this so it probably comes out north of the line?
StClair
Less risk of physical injury, but that’s the best I can say about it.
Thag Simmons
That is significant even if it’s the only positive. Not nearly getting killed is very much a positive
annarchy
I mean the core problem of living in any form of fictional existence, instead of your now, is that for every step you take there is a separate step that you could have been taking a different path you could have walked.
So if you choose to live in fantasy you don’t live your life. You just live in a dream.
At the end of that road lies waking up with nothing but the memory and the wish that something like that could have been.
Clif
At the end of all the roads, all you have is the memory.
annarchy
No. At the end of a fictional road there was no movement you alone have the memory. At the end of a shared world you have memory of changing it and the world changed.
One lets you affect your outer world one of them closes you off from. Both of them you are still operating within your memories but one of them allows you to acknowledge the world in a way in which you affect it leaving you with something more than just memories.
Fictional delusional living the reward can only be things that you think about and you spent time sitting around thinking about them not thinking about the reality of your now.
Whereas if one bases their understanding on things that are in a shared reality of “now” you can have all of the memories of moving and interacting with those other entities who actually exist in your now plus an existent now that has been affected you.
Literally living in a fictional world in your head takes up time that you could have been using to think about your actuality and now meaning you are at a loss of times in which you have spent making actions on your actual world by deciding to live in fiction.
Not that I haven’t done so in response to circumstance myself but I avoid it as a last course of action because it paralyzes me from being able to affect my world.
The Wellerman
Very thorough. However, to some degree we will always have to fantasize or find some means of escape from reality to feel satisfied / happy.
For if you expect this unjust, crude, indifferent universe to magically support us in achieving our preconceived notions of ideal lives… well, you might as well expect a bush to grow you a fully assembled hair-dryer.
thejeff
Also less likely to rescue friends or strangers.
Stephen Bierce
*the hacked Muzak switches to the Garth Brooks version of “Shameless”*
Stephen Bierce
Elsewhere I hear “and I’m sure everybody else thought it was Amazi-Girl who had the more tenuous grip on reality”.
The Wellerman
A thought occurs.
Now that we see that Amber can do stuff like this with this internal Brain Mike of hers, does that make it more likely that he’s a Tulpa or an introject? Or both?
tim gueguen
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_AEpDOuWk8
Doki
It can be possible for one headmate to temporarily think really strongly and ‘force’ someone else to mime something out in headspace. In my experienced it doesn’t really stick more than a second or two, though? It’s almost impossible to actually make someone do something they don’t want to, which is exactly why old-style integration would often ultimately fall apart.
(SOURCE: Married to a system. Or rather, some of the people in a system. It’s Complicated™️.)
The Wellerman
So I take it that it’s much more likely that this couple are Tulpas?
Also, regarding Tulpas and Alters, I’m confused on how integration works.
Sorry if this sounds like a stupid question, but is it like that Fusion Dance from Dragon Ball Z?
Doki
Tulpa is a term where the meaning – and the autonomy implied by it – can vary from person to person. It’s not a scientific term, so I’ve seen a lot of debate on what actually constitutes a tulpa. And personally, I don’t think it’s useful to nitpick and try to label ~what type~ a headmate is, anyway. People are people. (Imagination Danny™️ is undoubtedly just a very temporary mental image and not his own person, and functions just as a visual gag here LOL.)
And I tend to be pretty anti-integration* so I’m probably the wrong person to ask about that, haha. I’ve just never personally known a system it worked for. I know they’re out there! But it used to be seen by therapists as the goal every system should strive for, and was often coercive. So I don’t have experience with that myself, and can’t really answer that question. :C
* (The historical definition of ‘integration’, anyway! Nowadays it’s more meant like “can you all function together as a group and get along? yeah? COOL”. Which seems like a healthy goal to work for. :D)
Bubbletea
Also whatever the Mike that Amber is interacting with is, she can still have just overlaid that momentarily with a fantasy about Danny and the Original Mike. So briefly there were two different Mike constructs extant. I think!
Needfuldoer
It’s a tragedy that there isn’t enough panel space for Amber to conjure the Danny/Mike makeout image alongside Brain!Mike so we can see his reaction.
Delicious Taffy
Okay, I feel like this “tulpa” thing has come up a few times but I’m not about to scour recent strips’ comments for specific citations. The only other times I’ve seen or heard the term before have been in horror stories or other supernatural settings. I didn’t do any sort of “deep dive”, because it’s 7am and no, but it feels like there’s a negative connotation? Or is this like Nadine from Arthur?
RassilonTDavros
In which Amber realizes she is Mako.
Thag Simmons
never a pleasant realization
Unless it’s a different Mako I guess. There are some cool ones
newlland(Henryvolt)
Took me a moment to understand the reference.
The Wellerman
I’m just gonna say that I don’t get it, ’cause I am totally lost on the “Mako” entry in urban dictionary.
Thag Simmons
We popping the BIGGEST bottles when Makorra happens tomorrow
Regalli
Alas, there are many fictional Makos. The Mass Effect one, Sailor Jupiter… and yeah, The Worst Mako. (Though I will say straight up skipping the infuriating stuff I heard secondhand happens in Book Two because I dropped early and only picked it up after hearing Books Three and Four were good? Definitely helps!)
Thag Simmons
Good rule of thumb, if people are discussing two characters who had previously dated the same person hooking with each other, and people start talking about Mako, it is always the Mako from Korra.
LiamKav
Being worse than the Mako from Mass Effect is pretty bad.
(Although I’m currently playing FF VII Remake and though this was about that Mako which also confused me.)
Schpoonman
Bite your tongue, we didn’t deserve that wonderful tank.
Spencer
Yeah.
The Mako was unappreciated.
Roborat
The only Mako I could think of was the one from the SWTOR MMO.
Doki
dkskdkjfgdklfg
PERFECT comment
Eldritchy
Oh, that Mako, I was wondering what did Mankanshoku Mako do to earn such ire.
drs
Mako from Legend of Korra. rot13: jub fnj uvf gjb tveysevraqf ubbx hc va gur raq
Clif
Are we bonky tonking yet?
Kyrik Mochalowski
Amber, I feel like you need to re-evaluate your… basically everything in your life. Relatedly, finding out that your friend/ex has(or had) a thing going with them and then not addressing it, also needs re-evaluation.
Regalli
Yeah I ain’t touching this one.
The Wellerman