254

AU
Posted on December 18, 2015 by David M Willis

254 thoughts on “AU”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    why do they need lube tho, surely they have, like, plugs? =B idk

    [inb4 BUTT PLUGS LOLOLOLOL]

    1. Ana Chronistic

      ALL THE BLUSHING

      1. Mr. Random

        Speaking of, I may have missed this, but why is everyone constantly blushing with the circles?

        1. lejwocky

          It’s an emerging epidemic

        2. Znayx

          Yes, except for Amazi-girl… My conclusion is that it’s not really blushing, just the reddish skin tone showing in their cheeks like is regular for most people. But why did Willis chose to remove it for AG? Makes her look less innocent maybe? Hmmm. Now I really want to know.

        3. Captain Button

          Because she has green Kryptonian blood, not red human blood.

          What!?

        4. inqntrol

          That makes her sound like one of those “Lizaed People”(reptillian aliens that can shapeshift). Wait a minute!!! “appropiate theme. “

        5. Lurlock

          Is Kryptonian blood green? Because I’m pretty sure we’ve seen Superman bleed on more than one occasion and it was red like human blood. Are you thinking of Vulcan blood?

        6. Captain Button

          I don’t know and didn’t check, the error was part of the [attempt at a lame] joke.

        7. DarkoNeko

          isn’t vulcan blood red too, with just copper instead of iron ?

        8. Hijean

          That would make it blue. See: Lobsters, and several others with copper based hæmoglobin equivalents.

        9. DarkoNeko

          uh.

        10. Kamino Neko

          All the human-looking aliens in the DCU have red blood.

        11. Airyu

          I thought it was to show that AG is not a complete person.
          However, characters with freckles don’t get rouge on their cheeks either, so idk.

        12. Toad

          Well you know, people with freckles aren’t complete people either, so.

        13. Deanatay

          They lack souls, right? Or, is that redheads?

        14. Dark

          Often the same thing.

        15. Wublub

          No, the freckles are souls.
          Souls we’ve stolen from our victims, but still souls.

        16. Hijean

          The fact that your grav is Ruth makes that a lot more believable.

        17. Captain Button

          Souls reside in femurs? Who knew?

        18. Gamaran Sepudomyn

          I think I have some problems. I read “freckles” as “leeches”.

        19. Vincent

          Willis started doing it in Shortpacked. There was an alt-text, if I recall correctly, something about drawing people with a blush all the time.

          It might have been a dare or taunt that spiralled out of control. Or you know he really liked how faces turned out with them.

          I’d track down the strip but I’m busy winning at cookie clicker and sleeping.

    2. WeirderThanWeird

      I just realized what you’re doing with your gravatars and name. 😀

      (At least, I assume it’s on purpose.)

      1. Ana Chronistic

        ThatsTheJoke.jpg

    3. Scrounge

      You sure it’s not more like a gas pump?

  2. DarkoNeko

    Energon sure is a lot of things 😮

    1. DarkoNeko

      Also, there are transformers reading this from the background waaaaall

      1. Screwball

        Hihooooooo!!!!

      2. Willoughby Chase

        This strip is meta on so many levels

    2. Captain Button

      It is also a floor wax and a dessert topping!

      1. merbrat

        *hands you an internet*

      2. Screwball

        …And yet I keep getting told to stop licking the floor…

    3. Doctor_Who

      Also their worst animated series!

      1. Tacos

        We prefer not to think about that series.

      2. AgentKeen

        I’m glad I’m not the only one thinking of that joke.

    4. Viktoria

      Really not that unusual. Blood/Souls/Lifeforce of their god are all effectively the same thing in some IRL religions. Having something that can do that and can be expended as ammo is a bit odd, but also justifies them needing to replace it(“food”). And when you have something portable, easily divisible, that everyone needs and there’s a limited supply of, well, I can’t think of many better currencies.

      (Not a transformers fan, just a general geek)

    5. StClair

      It’s a floor wax and a dessert topping!

      1. Questionor

        ^^

    6. Noclevername

      “WHAT? Humans use water as their primary body fluid, drink the stuff, bathe in it, use it in religious rituals, as a spiritual metaphor, as a cleanser, as a means of transportation, it falls from their sky, and it’s in their food? WEIRD”

      –Optimus Prime

      1. Jhon

        Sir, had I an Internet to bestow, it would be yours.

    7. Scrounge

      That’s not even all of them. It also can emit dangerous radiation or explode, and that’s just the normal stuff. Don’t even ask about all the weird variants of the stuff that are out there.

  3. Mr. Random

    …. I feel a little pressure. As if someone’s leaning on a very thin wall.

    1. Deanatay

      Wall? It’s a sliding glass door, dude!

  4. Nik

    Self referential AU’s. Woo!

    1. Toad

      Quick, which DoA character is which Avenger?

      1. Iain

        Amazi-Girl is Black Widow! Amber is Black Widow’s catsuit.
        Ethan is Bruce Banner. Ruth is the Hulk. Joyce is Captain America. Walky is Iron Man. Mike is Tony Stark. Joe is Thor. Billie is Hawkeye. Danny is Jarvis. Sarah is Falcon. Dorothy is Scarlet Witch. Carla is Quicksilver. Sal is Vision.

        1. Hijean

          No, Dorothy is Thor, and Billie is Iron Man. Willis has drawn both of them, it must be true. Also, only Billie drinks enough to be Stark.

    2. Lia47

      OH i didnt even get that

  5. Mr. Mendo

    Yeah, Energon doesn’t really add up when you think about it.

    So, who do you think it is? My money’s on Beach Comber/Bumblebee!

    1. Andrew

      3rd panel. It’s Megatron/Rung

      1. Mr. Mendo

        I…don’t know who Rung is…

        1. Doctor_Who

          This guy!

        2. Mr. Mendo

          Well, three guesses who the top was. 😉

        3. Disloyal Subject

          Well… that’s enough internet for today.

        4. Doctor_Who

          22 minutes in. New record?

        5. JetstreamGW

          If that phases you, you haven’t had enough internet 😛

        6. Mr. Mendo

          The internet: where the day isn’t complete without seeing a can of Mountain Dew fucking a hoagie!

      2. Doctor_Who

        “So that’s what your alt-mode is for!”

    2. Dean

      Megatron/Starscream!

      1. inqntrol

        That’s one hate fuck I never thought of.

        1. Tacos

          That’s a good portion of TF slash. That, and Optimus/Megatron.

        2. Wizard

          Why do you think Megatron keeps Starscream around?

        3. Screwball

          You mean bongoscream?

          Wait, that B I T C H filter is still active, isn’t it? Lol Bongoscream. Well if that is why Megsy keeps him around, it’ll be kinda fitting, if you think about it… 😛

        4. Betty Anne

          Er…if you need examples, I might be able to provide some. >_>

          Even if I’m not QUITE as Megatron/Starscream as I used to be. I’ve been pretty much consumed by Megatron/Kup, with a little side of Megatron/Optimus as of late. ^^;

    3. Kryss LaBryn

      B-Beachcombers?

      1. Mr. Mendo

        Nah, the hippie one who found the lake of electrum.

  6. Guairdean

    This is a serious bromance.

  7. lightsabermario

    Flowey the Flower wants your…lube?

    1. AdeptArcanist

      “In this world, it’s lubricate or be lubricated!”

    2. Captain Button

      The One Who Controls The Lube ….

      1. Kryss LaBryn

        The lube must flow…

  8. gkheyf

    take that yesterday’s comics!

    1. gkheyf

      er…i meant comments

  9. Stephen R. Bierce

    *sees Au as the chemistry symbol for Gold and wants to play incidental music from the 007 movie Goldfinger*

    1. Stephen R. Bierce

      It’s a shame that Weird Al Yankovic did “Dare To Be Stupid”. You can’t filk Weird Al. It’s already filk.

    2. DarkVeghetta

      I was thinking more along the lines of Astronomical Unit (1 AU = 150mil km).

      1. Stephen R. Bierce

        When it first appeared, the title was Capital/Lowercase, not Capital/Capital that it is now.

  10. Plasma Mongoose

    Energon is like the Force then.

    1. Doctor_Who

      I haven’t seen the new Star Wars yet, but I think it’s about the Sith hijacking a dam to produce Force Cubes.

    2. Ana Chronistic

      has a light side, a dark side, and holds the universe together?

      1. John

        That’s duct tape.

        1. DarkoNeko

          Yes. Yes it is.

        2. inqntrol

          And here’s a word of wisdom from our sponsor.

    3. DarkVeghetta

      Jedi use the Force as lube?

      1. Needfuldoer

        Rather would you go in dry he did? Hmm?

      2. John

        Sith use the Force for autoerotic asphyxiation.

    4. Tan

      The Spice seems more analogous.

  11. lejwocky

    It’s not as kinky as stampeding cattle through the Vatican.

    1. JessWitt

      Is that Carla’s fetish?

      1. Captain Button

        It is from Blazing Saddles.

        1. inqntrol

          The Wild West was sure an interesting period.

  12. TheStranger

    What, pray, is an “AU”?

    1. cesium133

      Alternate universe. Or astronomical unit. Take your pick. 🙂

      1. TheStranger

        Astronomical unit was my thought when I saw Willis’ tweet, yeah. Then I saw the comic and went “bwuh?”

    2. TheStranger

      Alternate Universe?

      1. Viktoria

        The Avengers but there’s no superpowers and everyone is in high school. Or works in a coffee shop. It’s a good way of getting to use standard romance tropes that wouldn’t work in the canon universe, while also getting to write something you know about instead of trying to stage villain plots and superhero battles.

        Plus, humanAU!Transformers get to have normal sex instead of whatever robots do.

      2. hurtstothink

        Basically a different, often fan-made continuity. Dumbing of Age could be considered a AU of the original Walkyverse.

        1. saltchocolate

          I love it! DoA is Willis’s fanfic of his own earlier comics! (If this sounds snarky, it’s not meant to. Willis + Walkyverse = OTP)

        2. DarkVeghetta

          OTP? Oh The Penises?

        3. saltchocolate

          If we’re going in that direction, it’d have to be OTL.

        4. Toad

          Oh the labia?

        5. Screwball

          I hear it means “One True Pairing”. That character X & character Y are meant to be, despite being from completely different universes, & the holder of that OTP will not be persuaded otherwise…

          Now I know for all the Earth ladies it’s me & them, but I don’t know if I can share myself with soooo many ladies (not that it’ll stop me trying), but I guess it’s not unusual for people to have more than 1…

        6. Betty Anne

          OTPs don’t HAVE to be completely balls-crazy, they just happen to be if there’s also a lot of fangasming and ~flailing~ going on while the letters OTP are present. XD

          Or, there’s me, who OTPs pretty much every pairing I like, thus defeating the purpose of putting “OTP” in the description. 😐

      3. DinaWho

        It’s a fanfiction term broadly used to describe a story that alters the canon story substantially. This can consist of putting the characters in an alternate setting like in the ‘college au’ mentioned above (which this comic actually is in relation to the main Walkyverse), or altering major plot points in the original canon, for example in Harry Potter a story where Neville is the chosen one or Harry is raised by someone other than the Dursleys. Sometimes I have seen Universe Alteration proposed as an alternative name for the latter type, but it has never really caught on to my knowledge.

        1. LeslieBean4Shizzle

          Wow. Your Harry Potter example took me back to one of my very last fanfictions in college. It was an AU where Harry met a nice Slitherin girl on the train instead of Ron and Hermione and let the hat put him in Slitherin. I wrote it because I found all the characters from Slitherin so cartoonishly evil that the idea of what normal people in that house would be like became a sort of mental exercise. Of course, once I established that, I kinda got bored with the whole thing and never finished it.

        2. Jenny Islander

          That’s an example of an AU in the old sense. Back in the dinosaur days, there were alternate universes (or What-Ifs) and alternate continuities (Elseworlds), following a division used in science fiction and superhero comics. What-Ifs/AUS/whatever started off with a decision or accident or something like that. I’ve read an Avengers fic where Phil Coulson was one of those unlucky few who have a bad reaction to a vaccine, so he developed severe whooping cough and grew up to be an accountant. But because he’s, well, Coulson, he ended up as an accountant for SHIELD. Or what if Voldemort went after baby Neville instead of baby Harry and Neville was the Boy Who Lived? Or what if Bucky didn’t fall from the train–or they both fell? Elseworlds/alternate continuities/retcons/whatever are “same people, but in high school” or “same people, but in space” or “same people, but human” or what have you. /geek

        3. Kamino Neko

          Hmm…I wonder if the Longbottoms would have done a better job of repelling Voldemort than the Potters did, since they were trained Aurors, rather than simply enthusiastic amateurs.

        4. StClair

          Yes, but as I recall, he still ****ed ’em both up pretty bad. Like, “put them in the Incurably Insane Asylum for life.”
          Poor Neville.

        5. Captain Button

          No, that was his henchwoman Bellatrix Lestrange and happened after the fall of You-Know-Who.

          An important question for this AU is why Snape would betray The Dark Lord. He wasn’t in love with Alice Longbottom.

        6. Falling Star

          I always found it interesting that a lot of really popular books had the main character as a male. So, I decided to see what would happen if I turned Harry into a girl and adjusted plot points and characters as necessary. The results were amazing.
          Also, I wanted to make a gay relationship in the original Potterverse for the simple reason that there were none. So, just to be a dick, I changed Snape into a girl, making the ultimate plot twist that no one saw coming.
          [LONG LIVE MISTY POTTER]

        7. Scrounge

          Maybe he saw it as a near-miss for Lily Potter.

          Or perhaps it WASN’T a near miss, and Voldemort killed all three Potters in this universe before moving on to the Longbottoms.

        8. Historyman68

          Oh man I’d read the heck out of that.

    3. hurtstothink

      Alternate Universe

    4. Griffin

      Gold. AUs are gold.

      1. Betty Anne

        Win. Your comment is win. :3

  13. Cattleprod

    Man, the sliding timescale hurts my head sometimes, it took me a moment to realize that yeah, Rung now existed when Amber was 15.

  14. Emma

    Apparently they are robosexual.

    1. Kryss LaBryn

      Isn’t everyone?

  15. Zaidyer

    Tonight, in panel one:
    …And that’s when David Willis’s self-referential singularity folden in on itself!

    1. Booyahman

      Haha, I didn’t even realize that’s self-referencing until I read it a second time.

  16. ninja_jesus

    I had so many friends like Amber. Jeez.

    1. Needfuldoer

      Creating embarrassing fan media (fiction or art) is an online rite of passage.

  17. Someone

    putting a bunch of superheroes in college would be idiotic

    1. AGV

      Theres like tons of cartoons about this

      1. HeySo

        We’re reading one.. 😛

        1. Kamino Neko

          I dunno…calling the Semme folks ‘superheroes’ may be stretching the term a bit.

        2. Kryss LaBryn

          People with abilities beyond the norm who try to save the world? They may not be typical superheroes but I think they still fit the trope.

        3. Spencer

          They’re about as self destructible and prone to overreaction as the average superhero.

          On a tangential note, I actually really like how the official SEMME uniform was just a T-shirt and yellow stripe. I like that whole “casual superhero” look.

        4. Someone

          Thats the joke

  18. Mjolna

    Nothing quite like two dudes reading the gay porn of a friend together. I remember when I was but a weary 20yo doing the same thing. Fun times.

  19. electromagneticDestroyosaur

    An AU where they all go to college together? That’s rich! What kind of soulless hack would do something like that?

    1. Screwball

      Exactly! I mean, what would the even call something like that? The Age Of Dumbing? Heh, silly idea…

      Wait, an Electromagnetic Destroyosaur, HERE? AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!
      *runs off screaming…*

      1. Dean

        It’s Dumbing of Avengers, obviously.

        1. Screwball

          *Stops panicking*
          Aww yeeeeeeeah, I guess so. Oh well…
          *Runs off, panicking again…*

  20. detective boomwolf

    Hey man, energon can be used for a lot. I know that from…. friends who told me things about it.

  21. Carriethedragon

    *love triangle intensifies*

    *in the weirdest way possible*

    1. Tacos

      Wait until it becomes a love isocohedron <.<

      1. DarkVeghetta

        So, nine more besides these three.

        1. No Name

          Actually, seventeen more. Icosa- means twenty, dodeca- means twelve. The trope is called “Love Dodecahedron” though, at least on TVTropes, so I can see the confusion.

        2. Falling Star

          But that’s like the whole cast.
          Wait…

        3. Peduncle

          DarkVeghetta’s arithmetic may be right. Are the participants in a love triangle the edges or the vertices? An icosahedron (your friendly D20) has 20 faces, 12 vertices, and 30 edges. If the people are vertices, then each of them has five connections. We would probably need more genders.

        4. No Name

          Curses! Foiled by Geometry!

        5. Opus the Poet

          Nope, just more bi or pan characters. quit being so heteronormative. 😛

      2. DarkVeghetta

        PS: Icosa(-hedron), not isoco.

  22. EpikAlia

    An AU where no one’s a superhero and they all go to college together?

    Oho, I see what you did there!

  23. caesaria82

    lmao this is so cute.

  24. Lord Stoneheart

    (Reads alt text).

    Well I mean if they are going to use it for everything else…
    (Goes back to scrubbing brain clean of poor lube substitutes mentioned in slash fic)

  25. Romanticide

    So is energon their equivalent to their water? XD XD

    1. Tacos

      Well they can drink it and get drunk from it….

    2. Screwball

      …And food, and ammo, and blood…

      …Yeah, we Cybertronians use Energon a lot. I’m no Energon specialist, I fixed Cybertronian computers (cause I’m a Minicon), but yeah, we use it all over the place. I don’t know how, maybe they mix it a certain way, put stuff in it, no idea, but I do know I got 2 built in pistols which convert it into a plasma I can shoot. Not big volume wise, but it melts through well enough, hit something vital & they’ll know about it…

  26. Marie

    And then Danny sat on his lap.

    1. nothri

      Danny can sit on his own lap? I’m impressed.

  27. Kraken

    Priorities, Dan!

  28. Wanderinglynx

    This is looking suspiciously like a “reading porn together leads to something more” scenario

    1. IDontcarenomore

      ^

    2. RoyEstherMorton

      Isn’t it though?

      They’re blushing. But they continue to read. While they smile Mona Lisa-ishly.

      I believe this is a milestone in their relationship.

      1. Sam

        So, “transformers slashfic written by a 15-year old” is the reason behind Monalisa’s smile? Damn!

  29. Palamdrone

    Avengers AU? I didn’t realize there was an Australian Avengers.

    1. That Damn Rat

      YEah, but they make the Great Lakes Avengers look good….

      1. Screwball

        Must be the American “we are the best, all others suck” version of the Australian Avengers, cause Aussies tend to kick ass. Hell, Aussies have to kick ass, just to survive the native plants & animals… O_O

      2. DSL

        Becky is Squirrel Girl.

        1. Opus the Poet

          I dunno, my latest ish of USG has Doc Doom coming back for a rematch in the past because… He’s still an idiot? And did you read the one where she outsmarted Galactus?

  30. feli

    Oh, Danny.
    I’ve got a bad feeling about this. As if Amber hasn’t enought problems already.

    1. Spencer

      Danny’s crushing on Ethan, something compounded by him being unwilling to admit that someone other than his SO can be attractive, on top of him having sexual feelings he barely registers as okay to have, but he’s not going to do anything.

      His sexuality is not a problem. It never will be. Not to him, not to Amber.

    2. Viktoria

      Danny broke off his friendship with Amber because he was dating AG and Amber pushed too hard. He’s many things, but he’s not disloyal.

      1. saltchocolate

        The reason they call it chemistry is because sometimes things just explode . . .

        1. DarkVeghetta

          Not all chemical reactions end in explosions. Sometimes they fizz or liquefy or discharge excess hydrogen.

        2. saltchocolate

          +1 internet

        3. Spencer

          I’m going to take a peek into my crystal ball and say that we’re not going to get a storyline about Danny being so overwhelmed by his attraction to Ethan that he cheats on his girlfriend.

        4. Spencer

          Whoops. That was supposed to be a response (and agreeing) with Viktoria.

    3. Emma

      I think that what’s more likely than Ethan and Danny suddenly making out and fucking is Amber walking in, seeing them close together and blushing…then assumes the worst and has another rage mode episode.

      And THAT isn’t even very likely in my mind.

      Dan would never cheat. NEVER. That’s already been shown. And Ethan? I very much doubt he’d do that to his best friend. If this was a comic where it was instead Mike, yeah he’d do it. But Ethan? No way.

  31. Raen

    Sort of like those Na’vi penis braids, then?

  32. Bunk

    Pfft who would ever read something about an alternate universe of a bunch of people with superpowers going to College. I mean that would just be absolutely ridiculous.

  33. motorfirebox

    Ahaha the blushes, they make me laugh.

  34. Pylgrim

    B-but Robots! Machines! Crude oil! It’s basically the first thing that jumps to mind. Young Amber’s mind works in mysterious ways.

    1. Screwball

      Cybertronians aren’t just Robots or Machines. We’re sentient living creatures of what you meatsacks would call “robotic” nature, who came into existence on a planet completely made up of the same stuff as us pretty much. Energon? That’s literally our lifeblood, it serves the same purposes roughly as your meatsack blood, as well as being produced in several forms by our home planet Cybertron, tho it does also exist on other planets, including Earth. In fact, many definitive battles took place on & around Earth. Here, have some info about it…

      Oil is nice tho. Some of us enjoy it, others don’t, personal taste I guess…

      1. Captain Button

        Note that if you take out the blood cells, the composition of blood is basically the same as seawater was when life emerged from the sea hundreds of millions thousands of years ago.

        1. StClair

          Each of us carries within us our own ocean.

  35. Chengrel

    If they don’t kiss in the next few pages I’m going to riot.

    1. Spencer

      Danny is dating his best friend, so… sharpen your pitchfork.

    2. Lucy

      i, like these characters, have read enough fanfiction in my day that the inside of my head is now a constant litany of “I KNOW WHERE THIS SCENARIO LEADS OH GOD HOW LONG UNTIL THEY KISS” and it’s troubling.

    3. Tacos

      Danny is Captain Monogamy so you should get ready to riot. Do some stretches first so you don’t pull a hammy.

      1. Kamino Neko

        Oh, god….

        Something just occurred to me.

        Danny could possibly end up Ross Gellering it up.

        ‘WE WERE ON A BREAK!!!’

        1. Gamaran Sepudomyn

          Still a better Ross than the other one. By miles.

    4. Captain Button

      I’ve heard of Kissing Bandits, but never Kissing Riots.

      1. Kryss LaBryn

        It’s my Pussy Riot cover band.

    5. Nono

      The crush seems to be mostly one-sided. Ethan hasn’t seemed to show any actual attraction to Danny.

      1. chiscii

        Oh no… Oh no no no…..

        Now I’m imagining a Scott Pilgrim Finest Hour scenario like, Danny and Amber having a nasty ass break up, the kind where you don’t really know if you’ll be able to get back together even as friends, and cutting off contact for… like two days, considering the DoA timeline and Danny’s history. Danny going to Ethan for comfort and guidance, getting carried away in the lonely warmth of the moment and kissing him. Ethan kissing back for a tiny moment before getting like wtf, Danny danning it up saying that everything has always been so easy with him, with a hint of Ross Geller “Amber and I are on a break”. Ethan practically taking offense to all that because of having to deal with the emotional stress of coming out and thinking what he felt was just a good non-straight friend pillar turn out to see him like a reachable boy toy, with a hint of ‘dude Amber’s my best friend don’t do this to her’, leaving Danny to fight his own demons alone.

        Ow I broke my own heart with this ficlet let me go take a shower

      2. Emma

        http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/04-the-whiteboard-dong-bandit/thoughts/

        I think Ethan has SOME attraction to Danny, but maybe I’m misinterpreting that comic. Maybe he was blushing because he was on top of a man, and not Danny specifically.

        1. Spencer

          FWIW he also thinks Danny is “adorable” and sputtered a lot when Danny joked that Ethan would have to buy him dinner first.

          Whether or not that’s just him reacting to his sexuality leaking into the lie he built where he’s totes straight, honest(he reacts the same way whenever Jacob stands around being stupidly hot), but Danny does strike me as the kind of guy Ethan would go after.

        2. Captain Button

          I think one of Ethan’s difficulties is that he really doesn’t know what he wants in a guy*. He hasn’t gotten that far yet, he is still working out the more basic parts of being gay Ethan-style.

          * Except at the superficial physical level, see his browser history for that.

  36. Bagge

    This strip work just as well without dialog.

    1. Falling Star

      This is making me giggle.

  37. Jesse

    Wait, Transformer sparks are more energon? I thought those would be a bit more special than that.

    1. DarkVeghetta

      Energon is literally their god’s body and presumably soul. I don’t think they have anything more special lyeing around.

      1. Screwball

        I can has found wiki page… 😛

  38. Sophia

    Is this an example of irony?

  39. thumb

    I can’t believe I never realised all that. They take in the body of christ all the time and then decide to literally shoot it at people. It puts their entire war in a new perspective. As well as cybertronian capitalism.

  40. Stormtrooper0914

    Much Kinky

  41. Kereth Midknight

    Neither Danny nor Ethan are the type who would cross Amber over something like this.

    And yet. . .

    So much of the drama of DoA is built on characters making bad, heat-of-the-moment decisions, and in this case, the cards on this one have been stacked too high not to let fall eventually. Plus, this is exactly the type of situation that would be required for Danny and Ethan to get in trouble: They are alone, the mood has been set, and Danny is confused about the state of his relationship with Amber/AG anyway.

    This doesn’t mean anything will happen, of course, although infidelity or sudden threesomes are not wholly out of the picture, but scene is toying with the reader anticipation of such outcomes, at the very least, and the awareness of the potential aftermath. It’s bouncing off those expectations hard.

    1. Spencer

      Infidelity is actually wholly out of the picture.

      Its funny how that suddenly became a hypothetical when we found out Danny was bi.

      1. chiscii

        On one hand I’m not sure it’s because Danny’s bi as much as Danny having his attraction to Ethan being portrayed as simpler, stronger and more real than his attraction to Amber (that’s the framing the “reassert my friggin’ heterosexuality” line seems to make y’know).

        On the other hand, who am I kidding, there’s so many people who put infidelity in the picture because Danny’s bi, not even consciously in most cases.

        1. Spencer

          I mean, Danny’s attraction to Ethan is real and legitimate. That’s kind of why he’s freaking out about it. And the line about “reasserting his friggin’ heterosexuality” was a joke. It wasn’t meant to have any actual impact on our view of the character beyond setting up a slipshine.

          I don’t really see how it’s more real, though. It’s the same thing he did with Amber, only he has nothing to compare it. He’s going through “oh shit I like this guy even though I don’t know how to process liking guys” and “oh shit this makes me a cheater”.

          It’s certainly strong, but I don’t know if I’d say it’s stronger, and it’s definitely simpler, but that doesn’t make it more real.

        2. Gob Hobblin

          This exactly: you can be in a solid, committed relationship and still find yourself crushing or very attracted to someone outside of that relationship. That’s just biology doing it’s thing. It doesn’t invalidate the committed relationship or the feeilngs that created it.

        3. Rutee

          I really don’t think ‘reassert my heterosexuality’ was a joke. I think you’re probably right that he won’t cheat, but this I’m pretty sure you’re dead wrong on. It was probably /at least/ half serious.

        4. Spencer

          Sorry, I meant that the line was supposed to be comedic (since it leads right into him having sex with Amber), but Danny himself did totally mean it seriously, since at the time he had no idea that he actually could have a legit attraction to men.

        5. chiscii

          Yeah, what I meant with more real wasn’t that his relationship with Amazi-Girl was a sham, just that we weren’t shown the same level of awkward feelings-stumbling with Amber/AG we got shown with Ethan (which I get is because he’s never felt like that towards a boy, but still). Emphasis was in portrayed rather than in real, which is why I also mentioned framing ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

          I mean I’m all for Ethan and Danny because I see a lot of myself in Ethan and he deserves to feel secure in that his orientation is right, I didn’t mean to make it sound like Amazi-Girl wasn’t a legit love interest for Dan. I’m not delusional to ignore stuff like the elevator scene or Danny going out of his way to be with Amber when she confronted her father. All I tried to do was offer a point for Danny and Ethan other than ‘Dan will cheat because bi people are all cheaters.’ Granted, I didn’t bring much of a point, so *at myself* bye felicia

        6. Spencer

          Things with Ethan definitely are a lot more awkward and stumbling, but that’s definitely because he’s new to being attracted to guys. He was fairly straightforward with Amber/AG early on, but the awkward boners and the confused blush fits are more of a thing with Ethan, because Ethan is someone he’s attracted to who is a guy, and not the one person he decided he’s ever allowed to look at or acknowledge in any non-platonic fashion.

          But, yeah, I know that you weren’t saying that so no worries. There’s legit reasons to ship Dan/Ethan without thinking that cheating will be involved.

      2. Rutee

        We found out he was bi after he’d ‘finally’ established a rapport with someone else. There were Danny/Sal comments, most of which did not rely on “Sal is Amazi-girl”.

        Seriously, the only two couples I haven’t seen counter-canon shipping for are Dina and Becky, and Grace and Mandy, and the latter two don’t exactly get a lot of screentime. Frankly, there probably IS counter-canon Dina/Becky shipping, because Becky was wildly unpopular, and Dina is the most popular, and I didn’t notice it because I was ignoring comments. It’s not all about Danny being bi, seriously.

        1. Rutee

          I mean, I’m pretty sure there was Ethan/Danny comments before Ethan found out he was bi. By which I mean I remember them at the start of what could over-generously be called their first date.

        2. Spencer

          I don’t really think any of the Danny/Sal stuff from way back was actually serious, the same way nobody actually expects Dorothy/Joyce to happen, or Mary/Carla from a few days ago. There’s way more people legitimately expecting Danny/Ethan to happen than there are, I don’t know, Marcie/Sal? Walky/Billie? I remember there was this one really adorable Sal/Carla art on the DoA tumblr.

          Which, I mean, shipping’s fine. I don’t have the right to tell people what they’re allowed to like and I’ve pretty obviously been taking this a lot more serious than most people here, but can we not bring “oh I guess infidelity is gonna happen” into it? There’s been more than one commenter over the last year who’s thought it was going to happen, and it’s one of the ugliest stereotypes of bisexuality out there.

        3. thejeff

          The Danny/Sal shipping was probably also tied to Roomies.

          Willis putting in the scenes that hinted at it was certainly both a reference to that and a way of showing there wasn’t anything there in this world.

        4. Spencer

          Oh yeah, that was a thing there.

          You’d think I’d remember that. I love me some IW!.

  42. Heather

    Even if this crush/feelings etc result in nothing between the two I’m just kind of glad they can bond over less than realistic porny fanfic right now. It’s kind of nice for some reason. Like even if they only ever remain friends. It’s… sweet? In a weird way.

    (Is that weird? It’s weird isn’t it.)

    I mean I even do ship it, I guess I just can accept that the possibility it may never happen despite mutual attraction and what they have is still great despite my shipping preferences.

    1. Spencer

      I mentioned this yesterday, but I’m mostly just really glad that Danny can actually acknowledge an interest in something queer without thinking it’s the end of the world. He’s making progress in normalizing his attraction to men, and exploring that through something as harmless as slash fic is a really healthy move.

    2. Rutee

      The most fun with shipping happens when you can acknowledge the canon, and don’t feel tied to it, without also being horrible, I feel. “I like it, but it won’t happen” is a fine way to enjoy your fiction.

  43. Falling Star

    kawaii~
    [gets lynched for being a weeaboo]

    1. brumagem

      Nothing wrong with being a weeaboo. But if you’re going to use japanese then use Actual Japanese.

      イーサンと ダニーは 一緒 に かわいいです。

      1. Falling Star

        😀

      2. li

        That’s not… how issho ni works. Kawaii isn’t a verb, you can’t “do” it together.

        Ironically what you’re trying to say would be better expressed as かわいいカップル.

        1. brumagem

          Yeah, kawaii is an adjective. With the copula verb desu “to be (in a state of being)” makes kawaiidesu “is cute”. But I guess the way I phrased it is pretty darn awkward. The pitfalls of lifting vocabulary off Google translate and thinking I can use it right.

        2. li

          Yeah, but issho ni is still an adverb, and kawaii is still not a verb. (Desu is also not reeeeaally a verb, but that’s neither here nor there. Just try to think of it less as a verb itself and more like -masu, increasing the politeness of a phrase, i.e. asukatta desu, which means “It was hot.” Desu is fairly rarely conjugated to deshita, doesn’t have a -te tense, etc etc.)

          But anyway! Issho ni is an adverb, and it also takes to instead of wa. So if Ethan and Danny are going to see a movie together, it’s イーサンはダニーと一緒に映画を見に行く.

          You can also use 一緒 as a noun, though! Which I didn’t know when I corrected you. 😛 So don’t feel bad. Lots to learn about this language still, for all of us.

          イーサンはダニーと一緒です is apparently a perfectly good sentence which does mean they’re together, though one I’ve never heard before. And I’m not sure if, by itself, it implies they’re a couple. (As opposed to a sentence like 私たちはいつまでも一緒です which translates as “we will be together forever”, and I think implies coupledom, just being “issho” could just mean they’re hanging out right now.)

          /makes this all very long….

        3. brumagem

          Yeah, just finished one quarter’s worth of beginner’s Japanese so I’ve only learned polite ways of saying things (and did not get into adverbs at all), just korewa toshoukandesu, Watashi-no uchi-wa furuidesu, and such. Do you have any recommendations for self-directed learning?

  44. Crazy Lou

    I agree, strip title. This is gold.

  45. brumagem

    Ethan. Honey. Nobody uses “as if” as an exclamation anymore. You sound like a girl in a nineties movie.

    1. Captain Button

      Next you are going to tell me no one goes “Way, Man!” in response to “No Way!”

      No way.

      1. Falling Star

        Way, man!

  46. Captain Button

    “The lifeforce of their creator god.”

    Is Transformers Creationism a thing?

    (No idea, too old for Transformers.)

    1. No Name

      Their creator god is literally their planet (or so I’ve heard) and communicates with them on a regular basis (or so I’ve heard). I think Transformers Creationism is the only thing; Willis made a Shortpacked! strip on the subject some time ago.

      1. Kamino Neko

        Not that regular. Primus HAS spoken directly to them occasionally (in some continuities…not the IDW universe, where there are Cybertronians who even doubt he exists, for instance), but he’s mostly kind of quiet. But he’s certainly chattier than most gods.

    2. Betty Anne

      “Too old for Transformers” is not a thing that happens. “Missed the boat the first time” can happen to people who were not five years old in 1984. :3

      While we’re here, Sunstorm would like to talk to you about Primus. :3

  47. MutantSentry

    …If it was a regular fan fic instead if slashfic I’d be interested in reading that Avengers thing

    1. Lampredi

      Here’s the start of one by ironychan.. never finished though:

  48. Wublub

    I really hope Amber doesn’t walk in right now.
    “Oh, hi Amber. I (your boyfriend) and your gay ex are just reading your sexy fan-fic.”
    Maybe it’s a good thing Danny didn’t get to tell her he’s bi (and has a huge crush on Ethan) yet.

    1. Greenygal

      While right now Amber is so upset about other stuff she probably wouldn’t even register this, on a normal day I suspect it would go like this: “Oh god you’re reading my old fanfic, I can’t believe I wrote that, I was fifteen, the dialogue is horrible, and oh god what’s with these descriptions, and someone I know is actually reading it, I’m going to crawl under my bed and die.”

      1. Rutee

        Sounds about right. She still doesn’t know Danny’s into dudes, and probably assumes heterosexuality like many (Though given DoA, maybe she doesn’t, that’d be nice).

      2. John

        Seriously, she’s apparently narrated her Cap/Bucky fics to Danny like thirty times; I think her only problem with him reading her slashfic would be that it’s old stuff and she’d be mortified about how terrible it is.

        Or maybe she’s got enough of that part of Willis in her that she’d post it on the Internet in proper story order with commentary describing how terrible it is and mocking her younger self.

  49. batman

    It’s getting saucy

    1. Falling Star

      What, WHAT, is your gravatar from?

      1. Captain Button

        Patreon advance strip. He is meddling with the very nature of time itself, at the risk of creating a time paradox, the result of which could cause a chain reaction that would unravel the very fabric of the spacetime continuum and destroy the entire universe!

        1. thomas wrobel

          “Thats worst case scenario mind, the destruction might in fact be very localized, limited to merely our own galaxy.”

        2. Emma

          Aw that’s annoying. But I guess it’s not that big of a spoiler…

        3. Captain Button

          I can say no more.

        4. StClair

          This is heavy.

        5. Captain Button

          There’s that word again….

        6. Lord Stoneheart

          And yet the paradox of Marty’s parents not meeting, causing Marty to cease to exist, meaning that he could never go back in time to disrupt his parents not meeting wasn’t really addressed. I mean I don’t think it was. (Clearly I just need to watch the first two BTTFs again. I probably just missed something. It’s been a while.)

          Oh right the best case scenario. Batman is a jerk who spoils stuff for people.

  50. smooti

    Wait, is Danny that tall? Is Ethan slouching slightly? Maybe I was headcanoning Ethan as way taller than he is or Danny as way shorter.

    1. smooti

      Upon some research, I’ve realized I totally thought Danny was way shorter than he actually is.

      1. Kraken

        I had this same thought back when they were walking to Joyce’s party together.

  51. Pinja

    Get your transformers all out of your yaoi Willis : /

    …

    How big is the TF wiki article on TF slashfic anyway?

  52. Betty Anne

    YAAAAAAAAAAS AMBER! You get win points for introducing these boys to Transformers slash in probably the best way possible, even though you don’t know you did it yet. 😀

  53. Nena

    Kiss already!

  54. Brady

    Doesn’t all fan fiction take place in an alternate universe? After all, the events in the original fiction take place in a world where the events of the fan fiction never happened.

    1. Betty Anne

      Nope, it doesn’t! Some types of fanfic exist perfectly within canon. http://professorfangirl.tumblr.com/post/68833277791/wheres-that-damn-types-of-fanfic-graph

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