One recovering alcoholic lesbian and one drunk bisexual.
Kladeos
Two bisexuals, one recovering one lying.
Heavensrun
We don’t actually know with certainty whether Ruth identifies as Gay or Bi. She’d had one known relationship with a male in the WV that went badly, and in this continuity, she’s only really shown any interest in Billie (who she mentioned was her first “girl of interest” So at this point, she could be Gay, Bi, straight but gay for Billie, Billiesexual, etc…It’s a little silly to get territorial over it.
Kladeos
Willis has stated that neither are exclusively into girls, so Ruth is probably bisexual or pansexual.
Not that I don’t believe you, but I forget where they mention Billie is bi.
Kladeos
Billie is at the very least confirmed bi-curious – she tells Joyce that everyone is curious about being gay. But she was bisexual in Roomies, making her bisexual in the Dumbiverse too.
Varangian
There was also the fact she offered to jump on top of Danny’s D back during the interview arc thing. Like, she likes dudes at least a little.
Lilith
She was bi in Dumbiverse? How did I missed that? I guess I was too focused to wonder what on earth she did see in Danny.
John
Leaving aside the Walkyverse and all hints and speculation: Billie has attempted to kiss Sal, and jumped Danny.
Willis has said that Ruth is not exclusively lesbian, but Billie is the only person in either universe that she’s exhibited a definite attraction to.
I actually forgot Billie was bi in the Walkyverse. Stands to reason she’d also be in this universe as well since Willis said everyone’s the same sexuality in response to all the Ethan comments.
I think you just hate Danny because he reminds you of yourself. There’s no worse hate than self-hate.
begbert2
I’m pretty sure that everyone who hates Danny does so due to envy. He is considerate, friendly, loyal, and patient, not to mention that he has had at least three attractive women pursuing him at various times. He behaves in an emotionally mature manner and has so far exhibited so few flaws that people feel the need to make them up whole cloth. And he’s doing this at an age that most of us were complete blinking idiots. Most of us can only aspire to be like Danny. And deep down, we all know it.
Varangian
[comically aghast voice]Why, you! BLASPHEMER! HERETIC! Recant! Recant! Forswear Danny or be shunned![/comically aghast voice]
John
If you think Danny is considerate, you haven’t been paying much attention to Danny. Danny can’t be considerate of other people because Danny never actually engages with other people. He lives in a fantasy world that he’s built up in his head, and considers other people only insofar as they fit into the fantasy roles he’s cast them in.
There’s a reason that Dorothy dumped him. There’s a reason that he couldn’t figure out that Dorothy was dumping him even while she was doing it. There’s a reason that he refuses to consciously acknowledge Amazi-Girl’s identity even though he recognized her. There’s a reason that he was dating the fantasy Amber instead of the real one in the first place. These are all the same reason.
And when I was Danny’s age (lo these many moons ago), I was dating the only girl in CS in my year. And I knew her name.
Be like Danny. Gods forbid.
Kivitasku
Not sure if failing to recognize subtleties of communication from others makes you inconsiderate. Is it lack of attention or lack of empathy skills? He seems to want to do the right thing by people, he just doesn’t see them for who they are and what they want. He’s not connecting. Of course, there is also a prominent kind of a jerkass who totally does see the subtle hints and just chooses to ignore them when they don’t align with what he wants to see.
John
Well, you can’t be considerate of people if you don’t try to understand what they actually want and need so that you can, well, consider that. While it’s certainly debatable how much you can really blame someone for something they legitimately don’t understand, I’m more inclined to blame Danny for it than, say, Dina, because, while Dina understands even less, she’s willing, even eager, to accept correction when things are explained to her and attempts to revise her behaviour accordingly. Danny just digs in his heels and rejects anything that doesn’t comply with his fantasy – witness the whole breakup with Dorothy.
You mean the one where he tried to make any excuse to avoid the thing that he had placed all of his importance in?
Oh wow. What an inhuman monster. Surely the breakup was purely because he wasn’t perfect enough for Dorothy, and she is utterly infallible in her actions and choices of lovers.
Give me a fucking break.
Admiral ChucK
I feel bad for Danny, honestly. Some of his qualities reminded me of me (although I connect to several characters) I think everyone seems to hate Danny because nobody here connects with his character.
Rutee
Meh, you’re overreaching here. Yeah, Danny’s terrible, but his interactions with Dorothy since being dumped don’t indicate someone who believes he’s the main character of the story. Those assholes exist, and they almost always cast the ex- as a shrieking harpy who wanted our #bravehero to suffer.
Mind, this doesn’t make him considerate, but the way in which you cast that inconsiderate nature of his isn’t accurate. For the record Amber is also kinda hilariously fucked up, but she’s also actually amusing.
Logician
I don’t think John’s overreaching. You’re missing the fact that an important part of Danny’s fantasy is that “he’s a nice guy”. He doesn’t diss his ex because that’s not what nice guys do: he’d much rather pine tragically, then win her back in the third reel. This means he’s not a total asshole, but he’s still completely ignoring her wants and needs. You can’t call it considerate.
Rutee
Empirical evidence indicates that griping is exactly what nice guys do. Also, I explicitly said he is inconsiderate.
Yeah, in the face of joe attacking him, danny makes a bullshit, condescending excuse.
Which he -immediately- retracts. As projection Meaning, its nonsensical to point to that as evidence of him trying to portray himself as better than he is, or unable to care about others. He admitted the real reason he didn’t want to have sex before the conversation as over, and the condescending excuse _only_ came up as a vapid defense aginst joe’s bullshit judging of him, and was plainly not what he actually felt at the time. He omes off as overly focused on romance, not selfish or a mysoginist.
As for ambition, he plainly has one: to be with he woman he loves forever. Its not a class-based one like dorothy’s, but its stil plainly his goal, and its not that uncommon to have.
His time with amber? Vanilla friendship with the potential for romance. His time with. Amazigirl? A vanilla kink with a -real girl- who he still enjoys hanging out with. Beyond the sillinss involved in getting her attention in the first place, and deciding to play along for, what, three weeks? He’s doing basically the same stuff with her as he would have done with amber. He’s a romantic – he’s irrational, but I don’t see how it makes him the asshole people keep making him out to be, especially compared to the actually (often) malicious characters we see in this strip and everyone is rooting for.
He’s imperfect and a bit more cliche than the other archetypes in this comic, big whoop.
MsSchiff
He doesn’t even think he’s the main character of the story!
He’s f***ing Silver Age LOIS LANE.
John
Never said he was casting himself as the main character of the story. In fact, with both Dorothy and Amazi-Girl, he cast himself in a decidedly secondary role. That doesn’t change that he’s casting his romantic interests in fantasy roles and reacting to his expectations of the fantasy rather than considering the real person.
He does, as Logician says, cast himself as heroic (and I can only imagine how he’s spinning his treatment of Amber at the bridge to make that the good, considerate, heroic way to have handled the situation), but that’s not the same thing as casting himself as the hero.
And, yeah, the only reason it worked as well as it did with Amazi-Girl is that Amber is also hilariously fucked up and living a fantasy, and her fantasy was congruent with Danny’s fantasy. But the reason it broke down so rapidly and angrily is that Amber doesn’t live entirely in the fantasy. She’s two different people, the real Amber and the fantasy Amazi-Girl, and the part of her that isn’t Amazi-Girl wasn’t willing to accept being cast as Clark Kent and being the eternal loser to her cooler (angry, violent, dangerous, broken) fantasy side.
‘Cause she’s not really Superman/Clark Kent. She’s Batman/Bruce Wayne, a broken person using her alter ego to offload all her anger and fear and pain so that she doesn’t have to carry it herself. And every time she pushes a chunk of her self over into Amazi-Girl, she comes a little closer to ending up like Bruce, just an empty husk that Batman sometimes wears as a disguise.
Rutee
Considering that a realistic thing he said was exactly why Dorothy dumped him, there’s kind of an issue here. It’s definitely partially right, but not entirely.
Rutee
Rather, the realistic thing was the proximate cause. It was deeper than one condescending comment.
(And, really, what kind of crappy metaphor is that band-aid thing? I hear it all the time, but the problem I’ve always had with band-aids is getting them to stay on. I usually have to duct tape them.)
Rutee
That’s not a fantasy. That’s a mundane, reasonable expectation. It’s possibly wrong, and condescending, and terribly unsupportive, but if you want to paint Danny as someone who can’t maintain a realistic look at reality, “I don’t think you’ll actually maintain the drive to become president long enough to reach harvard” isn’t helping your case. Her ambitions *informed* his fantasy. Saying those ambitions wouldn’t last is saying *The fantasy won’t happen*. She can’t bang him in the Oval Office if she’s not the president.
John
Ah, there’s the disconnect. Dorothy being President wasn’t Danny’s fantasy. That’s Dorothy’s dream (which may not be realistic, but she’s making a real effort at it, which even in the likely case that she fails should leave her in a good position for a consolation prize). Danny’s fantasy was that it was twoo wuv and forever and wherever Dorothy went, whether that was the White House or the Waffle House, Danny would be right there at her side, updating her patches and banging her on her desk.
But Dorothy wasn’t really feeling that, and tried to subtly hint that to him. But subtle doesn’t work on Danny, and when she finally got blatant, and told him that if she went where she wanted to go, he couldn’t follow her, his response was to express his hope that she decided not to go where she wanted to and stayed there and played faithful lover and wife to him instead.
“… thinking love was more important than stupid Yale!”
In other words, “My fantasy is more important than your stupid fantasy!”
…being hurt that someone would choose ambition over being with you?
Are you kidding me? How completely fucking unrealistic to see a _teenager_ going the whole “I just want my beloved to be happy” route? You seriously think it can’t be love if there isn’t even a hint of wanting the person to be there with you in there?
As for Danny asking Dorothy to abandon his dreams — by your own definition, Dorothy was asking the same thing. At least Danny couched it in the hypothetical that if he perservered for her, she would change her mind. Not “give up”, but “reevaluate”.
“As well as the examples John gives, consider the encounter with Billie.”
If you mean the one where she was taking her top off, I remember that as him saying that there was a girl he liked and he wanted to be with her, instead of having a fling.
Defining a guy saying he’d rather not have vapid sex to a girl as somehow being callous to her out of self ego is just…wut.
Seriously, wut.
Rutee
“This is true love” is a very, very, VERY mundane fantasy, shared by thousands of people who have no business in it. When people talk about Danny’s desire for fantasies, they generally mean he has unrealistic, ABNORMAL fantasies.
What he said was condescending, insensitive, and dickish, but not particularly unrealistic (except inasmuch as saying it out loud was a stupid thing to do). Everything about his time with Amber *does* scream about unrealistic fantasies, but with Dorothy? Yeah, it’s unrealistic, but in the same way many people’s mundane hopes are unrealistic (And ‘This is true love’ is less of a fantasy than Dorothy’s desire to be president, Joyce’s thinking she’ll find a husband for her in college, everything Amber seems to cram into Amazi-girl, or Walky thinking he can get away with coasting forever).
And no, with Billie, he also explicitly characterized Billie as not knowing what she wanted, and being incapable of forming the decision to bang on her own. He ADMITS this was projection on his part. He explicitly ignores her feelings, is called on it by Joe, and concedes. I don’t have high standards here; it’s one thing to not want to sleep with her, and another to insist Billie does not either. It’s not just insensitive, it is, again, condescending.
Additionally, Dorothy didn’t ask him to give up any ambition except ultimately the ‘true love’ one, and THAT wasn’t until they broke up and she made it clear that was over. Danny didn’t HAVE ambitions; she can’t ask him to give them up.
Logician
Danny wants to be a good guy, he would hate to be thought selfish by anyone (especially himself), he sees himself as the hero of the story. But you’re being taken in by his own fantasy: his actions are not considerate of others, they are only considerate of his own image. As well as the examples John gives, consider the encounter with Billie. He completely ignored what she actually wanted or needed because he only saw things in terms of “how the hero should act”. Joe called him on it, and Joe was right, in spite of being so one-dimensional.
Hate is too strong a word, but my dislike of him is sharpened by the fear that maybe, at that age, I was a little bit like him.
Camila
He didn’t want to have sex with Billie, how can you people find something wrong with that!? He should have considered what Billie wanted? If I remember correctly he didn’t even knew who she was and even if he did it was his choice to have or not to have sex with her and both choices are ok, I don’t understand why everyone dislikes Danny so much, he is just an average guy.
Kladeos
No. It’s not that he didn’t want to have sex with her. It’s that he thought he knew what was right for Billie better than she did. He didn’t want to “take advantage of” someone who was not in a position to be taken advantage of, implying that he was doing her a favour by not sleeping with her like she wanted.
Kladeos
“But what if she thinks it’s a bad decision later?” Danny asks, but what he really did was take away her ability to make that decision for herself.
insomniac
Now, if Danny had said “I don’t feel like I am in a position where casual sex is emotionally healthy FOR ME” he would be 100% in the right. (And yeah, Billie and Joe would impugn his masculinity, and they would be assholes for doing so.)
But instead he had to cast it as making a decision on HER behalf, because he knew what was good for her better than she did, which is pretty goddamn patronizing.
Or you could read the very next comic, where he admits he was making the first excuse that came to mind to cover for, you guessed it, that he wasn’t in a position where casual sex is emotionally healthy for him.
’cause, insomniac, he pretty much said those _exact words_ in the very next panel.
This is cherrypicking to a ridiculous extreme, guys. Yes, people make stupid excuses for their behavior when being attacked for their behavior. OHMYFUCKINGGAWD WHATASURPRISE.
Yotomoe
I am Danny’s age, and I can tell you, I’m not very envious of him.
Yotomoe
Danny also doesn’t remind me of myself. Are you calling me Danny? What an insult!
Also, who said I hate Danny?
311 thoughts on “Well past”
piemanpie24
Finally, less family drama. Now we move on to the drunk lesbian drama.
KingMabel
But there is only one lesbian and one drunk…
insomniac
One recovering alcoholic lesbian and one drunk bisexual.
Kladeos
Two bisexuals, one recovering one lying.
Heavensrun
We don’t actually know with certainty whether Ruth identifies as Gay or Bi. She’d had one known relationship with a male in the WV that went badly, and in this continuity, she’s only really shown any interest in Billie (who she mentioned was her first “girl of interest” So at this point, she could be Gay, Bi, straight but gay for Billie, Billiesexual, etc…It’s a little silly to get territorial over it.
Kladeos
Willis has stated that neither are exclusively into girls, so Ruth is probably bisexual or pansexual.
KingMabel
Not that I don’t believe you, but I forget where they mention Billie is bi.
Kladeos
Billie is at the very least confirmed bi-curious – she tells Joyce that everyone is curious about being gay. But she was bisexual in Roomies, making her bisexual in the Dumbiverse too.
Varangian
There was also the fact she offered to jump on top of Danny’s D back during the interview arc thing. Like, she likes dudes at least a little.
Lilith
She was bi in Dumbiverse? How did I missed that? I guess I was too focused to wonder what on earth she did see in Danny.
John
Leaving aside the Walkyverse and all hints and speculation: Billie has attempted to kiss Sal, and jumped Danny.
Willis has said that Ruth is not exclusively lesbian, but Billie is the only person in either universe that she’s exhibited a definite attraction to.
David Herbert
I actually forgot Billie was bi in the Walkyverse. Stands to reason she’d also be in this universe as well since Willis said everyone’s the same sexuality in response to all the Ethan comments.
insomniac
She also attempted to drunkenly mac on Sal.
Dicrel Seijin
“Hey, we can tag-team her.” is perhaps the best Billie quote ever.
Aeyt
My thoughts exactly!
Jen Aside
“Okay, but THEN we make out, okay??”
Fay
And I’m pretty sure that the worst parent award still goes to Blaine.
Yotomoe
I dunno. What about Danny’s parents. They brought DANNY into the world.
Jay Eff
Yeah, but not necessarily on PURPOSE.
All Else Fails
“SHUT UP! I HATE ALL OF YOU! I NEVER ASKED TO BE BORN! IF I HAD A GUN, I’D KILL ALL OF YOU!”
Rikushadow5
“I never asked for this…”
ninja_jesus
I think you just hate Danny because he reminds you of yourself. There’s no worse hate than self-hate.
begbert2
I’m pretty sure that everyone who hates Danny does so due to envy. He is considerate, friendly, loyal, and patient, not to mention that he has had at least three attractive women pursuing him at various times. He behaves in an emotionally mature manner and has so far exhibited so few flaws that people feel the need to make them up whole cloth. And he’s doing this at an age that most of us were complete blinking idiots. Most of us can only aspire to be like Danny. And deep down, we all know it.
Varangian
[comically aghast voice]Why, you! BLASPHEMER! HERETIC! Recant! Recant! Forswear Danny or be shunned![/comically aghast voice]
John
If you think Danny is considerate, you haven’t been paying much attention to Danny. Danny can’t be considerate of other people because Danny never actually engages with other people. He lives in a fantasy world that he’s built up in his head, and considers other people only insofar as they fit into the fantasy roles he’s cast them in.
There’s a reason that Dorothy dumped him. There’s a reason that he couldn’t figure out that Dorothy was dumping him even while she was doing it. There’s a reason that he refuses to consciously acknowledge Amazi-Girl’s identity even though he recognized her. There’s a reason that he was dating the fantasy Amber instead of the real one in the first place. These are all the same reason.
And when I was Danny’s age (lo these many moons ago), I was dating the only girl in CS in my year. And I knew her name.
Be like Danny. Gods forbid.
Kivitasku
Not sure if failing to recognize subtleties of communication from others makes you inconsiderate. Is it lack of attention or lack of empathy skills? He seems to want to do the right thing by people, he just doesn’t see them for who they are and what they want. He’s not connecting. Of course, there is also a prominent kind of a jerkass who totally does see the subtle hints and just chooses to ignore them when they don’t align with what he wants to see.
John
Well, you can’t be considerate of people if you don’t try to understand what they actually want and need so that you can, well, consider that. While it’s certainly debatable how much you can really blame someone for something they legitimately don’t understand, I’m more inclined to blame Danny for it than, say, Dina, because, while Dina understands even less, she’s willing, even eager, to accept correction when things are explained to her and attempts to revise her behaviour accordingly. Danny just digs in his heels and rejects anything that doesn’t comply with his fantasy – witness the whole breakup with Dorothy.
KKoro
You mean the one where he tried to make any excuse to avoid the thing that he had placed all of his importance in?
Oh wow. What an inhuman monster. Surely the breakup was purely because he wasn’t perfect enough for Dorothy, and she is utterly infallible in her actions and choices of lovers.
Give me a fucking break.
Admiral ChucK
I feel bad for Danny, honestly. Some of his qualities reminded me of me (although I connect to several characters) I think everyone seems to hate Danny because nobody here connects with his character.
Rutee
Meh, you’re overreaching here. Yeah, Danny’s terrible, but his interactions with Dorothy since being dumped don’t indicate someone who believes he’s the main character of the story. Those assholes exist, and they almost always cast the ex- as a shrieking harpy who wanted our #bravehero to suffer.
Mind, this doesn’t make him considerate, but the way in which you cast that inconsiderate nature of his isn’t accurate. For the record Amber is also kinda hilariously fucked up, but she’s also actually amusing.
Logician
I don’t think John’s overreaching. You’re missing the fact that an important part of Danny’s fantasy is that “he’s a nice guy”. He doesn’t diss his ex because that’s not what nice guys do: he’d much rather pine tragically, then win her back in the third reel. This means he’s not a total asshole, but he’s still completely ignoring her wants and needs. You can’t call it considerate.
Rutee
Empirical evidence indicates that griping is exactly what nice guys do. Also, I explicitly said he is inconsiderate.
KrytenKoro
Yeah, in the face of joe attacking him, danny makes a bullshit, condescending excuse.
Which he -immediately- retracts. As projection Meaning, its nonsensical to point to that as evidence of him trying to portray himself as better than he is, or unable to care about others. He admitted the real reason he didn’t want to have sex before the conversation as over, and the condescending excuse _only_ came up as a vapid defense aginst joe’s bullshit judging of him, and was plainly not what he actually felt at the time. He omes off as overly focused on romance, not selfish or a mysoginist.
As for ambition, he plainly has one: to be with he woman he loves forever. Its not a class-based one like dorothy’s, but its stil plainly his goal, and its not that uncommon to have.
His time with amber? Vanilla friendship with the potential for romance. His time with. Amazigirl? A vanilla kink with a -real girl- who he still enjoys hanging out with. Beyond the sillinss involved in getting her attention in the first place, and deciding to play along for, what, three weeks? He’s doing basically the same stuff with her as he would have done with amber. He’s a romantic – he’s irrational, but I don’t see how it makes him the asshole people keep making him out to be, especially compared to the actually (often) malicious characters we see in this strip and everyone is rooting for.
He’s imperfect and a bit more cliche than the other archetypes in this comic, big whoop.
MsSchiff
He doesn’t even think he’s the main character of the story!
He’s f***ing Silver Age LOIS LANE.
John
Never said he was casting himself as the main character of the story. In fact, with both Dorothy and Amazi-Girl, he cast himself in a decidedly secondary role. That doesn’t change that he’s casting his romantic interests in fantasy roles and reacting to his expectations of the fantasy rather than considering the real person.
He does, as Logician says, cast himself as heroic (and I can only imagine how he’s spinning his treatment of Amber at the bridge to make that the good, considerate, heroic way to have handled the situation), but that’s not the same thing as casting himself as the hero.
And, yeah, the only reason it worked as well as it did with Amazi-Girl is that Amber is also hilariously fucked up and living a fantasy, and her fantasy was congruent with Danny’s fantasy. But the reason it broke down so rapidly and angrily is that Amber doesn’t live entirely in the fantasy. She’s two different people, the real Amber and the fantasy Amazi-Girl, and the part of her that isn’t Amazi-Girl wasn’t willing to accept being cast as Clark Kent and being the eternal loser to her cooler (angry, violent, dangerous, broken) fantasy side.
‘Cause she’s not really Superman/Clark Kent. She’s Batman/Bruce Wayne, a broken person using her alter ego to offload all her anger and fear and pain so that she doesn’t have to carry it herself. And every time she pushes a chunk of her self over into Amazi-Girl, she comes a little closer to ending up like Bruce, just an empty husk that Batman sometimes wears as a disguise.
Rutee
Considering that a realistic thing he said was exactly why Dorothy dumped him, there’s kind of an issue here. It’s definitely partially right, but not entirely.
Rutee
Rather, the realistic thing was the proximate cause. It was deeper than one condescending comment.
John
I got the impression that Dorothy had been trying to subtly hint around the breakup for a while, but the thing that finally convinced her to just rip the band-aid off was Danny expressing his expectation that Dorothy would abandon her own dreams and ambitions in order to comply with his fantasy.
(And, really, what kind of crappy metaphor is that band-aid thing? I hear it all the time, but the problem I’ve always had with band-aids is getting them to stay on. I usually have to duct tape them.)
Rutee
That’s not a fantasy. That’s a mundane, reasonable expectation. It’s possibly wrong, and condescending, and terribly unsupportive, but if you want to paint Danny as someone who can’t maintain a realistic look at reality, “I don’t think you’ll actually maintain the drive to become president long enough to reach harvard” isn’t helping your case. Her ambitions *informed* his fantasy. Saying those ambitions wouldn’t last is saying *The fantasy won’t happen*. She can’t bang him in the Oval Office if she’s not the president.
John
Ah, there’s the disconnect. Dorothy being President wasn’t Danny’s fantasy. That’s Dorothy’s dream (which may not be realistic, but she’s making a real effort at it, which even in the likely case that she fails should leave her in a good position for a consolation prize). Danny’s fantasy was that it was twoo wuv and forever and wherever Dorothy went, whether that was the White House or the Waffle House, Danny would be right there at her side, updating her patches and banging her on her desk.
But Dorothy wasn’t really feeling that, and tried to subtly hint that to him. But subtle doesn’t work on Danny, and when she finally got blatant, and told him that if she went where she wanted to go, he couldn’t follow her, his response was to express his hope that she decided not to go where she wanted to and stayed there and played faithful lover and wife to him instead.
“… thinking love was more important than stupid Yale!”
In other words, “My fantasy is more important than your stupid fantasy!”
That’s not love, Danny.
KKoro
…being hurt that someone would choose ambition over being with you?
Are you kidding me? How completely fucking unrealistic to see a _teenager_ going the whole “I just want my beloved to be happy” route? You seriously think it can’t be love if there isn’t even a hint of wanting the person to be there with you in there?
As for Danny asking Dorothy to abandon his dreams — by your own definition, Dorothy was asking the same thing. At least Danny couched it in the hypothetical that if he perservered for her, she would change her mind. Not “give up”, but “reevaluate”.
“As well as the examples John gives, consider the encounter with Billie.”
If you mean the one where she was taking her top off, I remember that as him saying that there was a girl he liked and he wanted to be with her, instead of having a fling.
Defining a guy saying he’d rather not have vapid sex to a girl as somehow being callous to her out of self ego is just…wut.
Seriously, wut.
Rutee
“This is true love” is a very, very, VERY mundane fantasy, shared by thousands of people who have no business in it. When people talk about Danny’s desire for fantasies, they generally mean he has unrealistic, ABNORMAL fantasies.
What he said was condescending, insensitive, and dickish, but not particularly unrealistic (except inasmuch as saying it out loud was a stupid thing to do). Everything about his time with Amber *does* scream about unrealistic fantasies, but with Dorothy? Yeah, it’s unrealistic, but in the same way many people’s mundane hopes are unrealistic (And ‘This is true love’ is less of a fantasy than Dorothy’s desire to be president, Joyce’s thinking she’ll find a husband for her in college, everything Amber seems to cram into Amazi-girl, or Walky thinking he can get away with coasting forever).
And no, with Billie, he also explicitly characterized Billie as not knowing what she wanted, and being incapable of forming the decision to bang on her own. He ADMITS this was projection on his part. He explicitly ignores her feelings, is called on it by Joe, and concedes. I don’t have high standards here; it’s one thing to not want to sleep with her, and another to insist Billie does not either. It’s not just insensitive, it is, again, condescending.
Additionally, Dorothy didn’t ask him to give up any ambition except ultimately the ‘true love’ one, and THAT wasn’t until they broke up and she made it clear that was over. Danny didn’t HAVE ambitions; she can’t ask him to give them up.
Logician
Danny wants to be a good guy, he would hate to be thought selfish by anyone (especially himself), he sees himself as the hero of the story. But you’re being taken in by his own fantasy: his actions are not considerate of others, they are only considerate of his own image. As well as the examples John gives, consider the encounter with Billie. He completely ignored what she actually wanted or needed because he only saw things in terms of “how the hero should act”. Joe called him on it, and Joe was right, in spite of being so one-dimensional.
Hate is too strong a word, but my dislike of him is sharpened by the fear that maybe, at that age, I was a little bit like him.
Camila
He didn’t want to have sex with Billie, how can you people find something wrong with that!? He should have considered what Billie wanted? If I remember correctly he didn’t even knew who she was and even if he did it was his choice to have or not to have sex with her and both choices are ok, I don’t understand why everyone dislikes Danny so much, he is just an average guy.
Kladeos
No. It’s not that he didn’t want to have sex with her. It’s that he thought he knew what was right for Billie better than she did. He didn’t want to “take advantage of” someone who was not in a position to be taken advantage of, implying that he was doing her a favour by not sleeping with her like she wanted.
Kladeos
“But what if she thinks it’s a bad decision later?” Danny asks, but what he really did was take away her ability to make that decision for herself.
insomniac
Now, if Danny had said “I don’t feel like I am in a position where casual sex is emotionally healthy FOR ME” he would be 100% in the right. (And yeah, Billie and Joe would impugn his masculinity, and they would be assholes for doing so.)
But instead he had to cast it as making a decision on HER behalf, because he knew what was good for her better than she did, which is pretty goddamn patronizing.
KKoro
Or you could read the very next comic, where he admits he was making the first excuse that came to mind to cover for, you guessed it, that he wasn’t in a position where casual sex is emotionally healthy for him.
’cause, insomniac, he pretty much said those _exact words_ in the very next panel.
This is cherrypicking to a ridiculous extreme, guys. Yes, people make stupid excuses for their behavior when being attacked for their behavior. OHMYFUCKINGGAWD WHATASURPRISE.
Yotomoe
I am Danny’s age, and I can tell you, I’m not very envious of him.
Yotomoe
Danny also doesn’t remind me of myself. Are you calling me Danny? What an insult!
Also, who said I hate Danny?
Doctor_Who
No contest. Blaine wins. His prize is a lifetime supply of groin kicks.
rachel
more like a DEATHtime supply !!!
…eh? EH??
Varangian
1.) A fantastic idea.
2.) I love how your gravatar has Amber either proposing the idea or approving of it.
rachel
thanks I cropped it myself, ahhhh I love Amber so much!!
pyrophobia
*slow clap*
Aizat
Groin kicks followed by multiple elbow drops to the balls.
Kladeos
Some of the other parents are in ways almost worse because their abuse is less obviously horrific. Like Ethan’s and Sal’s.
Aizat
Heck, dude trumps Gendo Ikari.
Rani
Hey now let’s not get ahead of ourselves
Maxy
I’m not sure they’ve thought this plan through well enough. If she punches Billie, what willAmazi-girl do?
Tunaro
Vanish mysteriously into the night?
Aizat
Inverted Takedown?
ninja_jesus
German suplex?
James
The moss-covered three-handled family gredunza?
buzzsaw
ARMBAR
Aizat
Number 2: Armdrag.
DSL
Illudium Pu-36 Explosive Space Modulator. At last.
Rutee
Oh hai it’s the only wrestling bit I know 😀
Well, one of the only two.
“INDEED” – 船木
Deathjavu
But you see, Ruth is Amazi *is shot*
I never…even…understood…that joke…
Tunaro
That last panel pretty much sums up their whole relationship doesn’t it?
Plasma Mongoose
Their ship the USS Tsundere is one heck of a battleship.
KingMabel
I’ve seen ships come and go, but this ship looks tough enough to live a long life.
Partially because it’s the most complex.
All Else Fails
Is it Rubix Cube complex? Or Code Lyoko Sector 5 complex?
KingMabel
Okay 2 things:
1. Points on Code Lyoko reference
2. Code Lyoko Sector 5 ain’t got shit on Billie X Ruth
That One Weirdo
XANA ever wants to defeat those quirky kids, all it has to do is make them navigate through a simulation of these two’s emotions.
THEY WON’T MAKE IT OUT ALIVE.