398

Needs
Posted on February 22, 2017 by David M Willis

398 thoughts on “Needs”

  1. Ragnarok101

    So, Mike apparently reads the comment section.

    1. Pablo360

      For a nickel.

      1. wheelpath

        In the FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE
        oh the memes, may they never die

        1. Emperor Daniel

          The lady requires your post.

        2. N0083rP00F

          They do die but they still shamble on.
          Undead memes, members of shamblers union local #2

        3. agera

          They only slightly die.

    2. Emperor Daniel

      You got in before Ana Chronistic? What sorcery is this?

      1. factorsofx

        Yesterday I managed. Ana hasn’t made first post for a few days now.

        1. Needfuldoer

          Should we be worried?

    3. tim gueguen

      Mike IS the comments section. All the other posts but yours and mine are actually by Mike.

      1. Ragnarok101

        Burn it. Burn it all.

        1. Ragnarok101

          Also somehow my Grav is stuck as Becky, and while Becky is rad change is also good. Help

        2. Emperor Daniel

          Easiest way is probably to change/mistype your email when making a post. I dunno if it even has to be a real address. 😛

        3. Passchendaele

          Is that possible? I’ve been commenting here for a week now, but I’ve always been other rachel.

        4. Passchendaele

          Oh, that makes sense. I hate how slowly I type my responses.

        5. John

          The “random” default gravatar it provides if you don’t have a custom one set is determined from a hash of the email address you provide, so as long as you use the same email, it’ll give you the same gravatar. (Unless Willis changes the default gravatars for the site, which happens periodically.)

          On the flip side, if you change the email – and I believe even minor cosmetic changes like fiddling with the capitalization count – you’ll get a different gravatar.

        6. Emperor Daniel

          Let’s try this for Science!

        7. Emperor Daniel

          Yep, it worked – just changing capitalization is sufficient to get a new Gravatar.

        8. BBCC

          That’s how I got my Sal grav over on It’s Walky’s new site.

        9. Leorale

          Or you can set your own gravatar by following that little link there.

          I like taking whichever default gravatar looks the most like you irl, and then wrecking it in any paint program, to turn it into a Willis-style self portrait. It’s fun.

        10. BBCC

          That does sound fun!

          Me, I like to keep going until I find one that will give me a Sal grav, because Sal is my favourite. I also know some folks like finding ones that are most like them, character wise.

        11. John

          I’ve considered doing this, but, to the best of my recollection, no one in Willis’s entire body of work looks even remotely like me.

          Most of them look less unlike me than Sarah, but Sarah’s awesome, so that’s okay.

        12. Ragnarok101

          Lessee…..

        13. LooksLikeDaniel

          I always seem to get Joyce when I use my computer and Amazi-Girl when I use my phone. Same email. I’m not sure how that works.

        14. LooksLikeDaniel

          Oh, I take it back.

        15. LooksLikeDaniel

          Aha! Amazi-Girl happens when I leave the first letter of my email capitalized.

        16. thejeff

          Double check the capitalization you’ve got stored as the default in each place.

        17. thejeff

          I was Ninja’d by your own experiments 🙂

        18. Reltzik

          Your gravatar is assigned based on the characters in your email address, and it’s case sensitive. Change your email address, or just change which letters in it are capitalized, and you will change your gravatar. You can’t predict what one you’ll get, but once you get one you like you can keep it. I call it Grav Roulette.

        19. jpic89

          Oooh, let’s see what I get.

        20. jpic89

          And spin!

        21. Ragnarok101

          Spinning

        22. Fart Captor

          Why would you want to have a LESS rad avatar? I don’t understand??

        23. Reltzik

          Too many rads give you cancer.

        24. Tacos

          Or turn you into a big, green rage monster.

        25. Emperor Daniel

          It’ll be fine so long as you stay under 1000 rads, though.

        26. Kamino Neko

          … I can’t figure out if you mean the Hulk or Supermutants…my response changes depending on which…

        27. Reltzik

          Kamino: Shroedinger’s hulk-mutants.

        28. Chris

          Pffft. Whatever, Smoothskin.

      2. Doctor_Who

        I theorized during Shortpacked a few times that 25% of the internet is Mike, and 25% is Faz.

        When they join forces: 4chan.

        1. Wizard

          Your theory is depressingly plausible.

        2. Noheart6265

          Please, that 25% of the internet could never be as effective or efficient as Mike is at what he does.

    4. BenRG

      Well, seriously, that is more-or-less what Willis says about the character too!

    5. Needfuldoer

      His phone has a proxy to our side of the fourth wall.

  2. Doctor_Who

    Danny & Amber, Robin & Leslie, now Ethan & Mike.

    Is this storyline just about humorously unhealthy relationships?

    1. Pablo360

      We had Becky & Dina, and Ruth got professional help. This is just the universe’s way of maintaining balance.

    2. Kernanator

      There’s an argument to be made that this comic is entirely about that.

      1. Reltzik

        There’s also tragic and infuriating and non-funny unhealthy parental relationships.

    3. Emily

      More like “humorously.” They’re actually all horribly unsettling Willis just keeps applying a completely inappropriate tone to them with a sledgehammer. Like, I have zero understanding of how Mike can be portrayed as a comedic character in this setting when his entire characterization is “serial abuser of everyone around him for literally no reason other than he enjoys their pain.”

      1. Clif

        It’s so that we can realize that in spite of being an irredeemable one-dimensional troll, Mike can have more joy than someone with no sense of humor. For a nickle.

        1. thejeff

          Or can claim to in order to troll someone better.

        2. Paulinir

          I like Mike and think he is a good guy. I think he is considered mean by many because he shows people what they are doing wrong. Ethan is hurt for example because he is not honest about his sexuality. Mike stuffed books into Walky’s bag and now Walky is getting tutored in that subject.
          A good example of what makes Mike who he is is the Joyce Joe date. Mike told them upfront what was going to happen.
          Other characters break rules, act irrational or backstab people. Mike says what is wrong, is right and that is what people hate him for.

        3. Fart Captor

          So now stuffing his books into Walky’s bag is a life lesson, too? JFC. THAT was actually harmless enough to be funny, but Mike isn’t some magical savant who can already tell someone is going to have trouble studying in the first week of class.

          Mike has slut shamed both Dorothy and Sal, beat the shit out of Joe, talked shit about Billie to her best friend the morning after her suicidal girlfriend was sent to the hospital (which also had elements of slut-shaming), chased Ethan back into the closet, and the shit he said to Amber about turning into her dad was unacceptable.

          But even if he was actually correct, and his abusive actions were intended to impart some life lesson, even if they ended up having that result, Mike would STILL be an abusive asshole, because the ends do not justify the means. He could have absolute knowledge and the best intentions, but that still wouldn’t give him the right to treat people the way he does.

          You can also teach someone self-defense by constantly trying to beat the crap out of them. That sure as hell doesn’t justify doing it.

          Yeah other characters break rules, and treat their friends badly at times. But they have actual reasons for it, and usually end up apologizing for it. Mike does little else BUT mistreat people, and he does that shit on purpose.

        4. Akahane

          Yeah, no, he’s definitely an asshole. He’s just an asshole who happens to be willing to use his assholishness for good sometimes so we can all live vicariously through him.

  3. Emperor Daniel

    Mike, everyone.

  4. Kernanator

    Eric’s face is stuck like that.

    1. Doctor_Who

      That’s his O-Face.

      1. Undrave

        You mean his O-FAAAAAAAAAAACE!

      2. Znayx

        His O-Face… Ohfass… Orifice?

  5. Danni

    that hardly counts as joy, ethan

    1. NineByNine

      that’s the joke e_e;

  6. Masumi

    Impressed by Mike’s perfect timing. Did he put a timer on Ethan?

    1. Masumi

      *tracker, i mean.

    2. Reltzik

      Maybe Ethan’s just so boring that his morning schedule is predictable down to the second.

      1. NotPiffany

        Between dining hall hours and classes, I wouldn’t be surprised.

    3. John

      He just waited until he saw Ethan down the hall, then went into Eric’s room for 150 milliseconds.

  7. Renadt

    Mike is gay? Did not know that. Or at least nonamorous bisexual.

    1. Pablo360

      Mike is whatever you don’t want him to be.

      1. MM

        He’s aroused by emotional pain and discomfort, which know no gender.

        1. vlademir1

          So you’re saying Mike is a pansexual emotional sadist with some consent issues associated with his sadism though from what we’ve ever seen not with physical acts? If so all I gotta say is “Mike. Mike never changes.”

        2. MaximumZero

          Is that too long of a label for tumblr? I can’t tell anymore.

        3. C.T. Phipps

          I believe Mike is asexual but hetero or bisexual romantic.

        4. Paul

          I don’t think ‘I have needs, I’m allowed to blow off some stream’ really fits with the conception of an asexual only interesting in romance.

        5. C.T. Phipps

          Fair enough.

        6. Sam

          Asexuals can still have a libido, just not specific sexual attraction towards someone. So even if he were asexual, he could still have sexual needs or an enjoyment of sex. Not every asexual is sex repulsed.

          It also entirely possible that he just doesn’t care whether he is sexually attracted to someone or not and is comfortable having sex with whoever is willing regardless of what his actual sexuality is.

        7. Li

          A lack of sexual attraction to other people doesn’t always mean a lack of interest in sex. Some asexual people are sex-repulsed, some are neutral, and some are positive. Also, people’s sex drive doesn’t necessarily match up favorably with how they feel about sex. (You can be both sex-repulsed and hypersexual, which as I understand it generally sucks.)

          Anyway TL;DR Mike can totally have “needs” and still be asexual. Asexual is an orientation describing who you’re sexually attracted to (no one), not necessarily a measure of how much you enjoy sex.

        8. thejeff

          He could, but I don’t think there’s much to suggest it.

          It’s hard to tell with Mike, particularly this version of Mike, whether anything he’s said or done that indicates attraction is actually real or just him messing with someone. Based on what we’ve seen, this is all part of the plan to mess with Ethan & Danny.

          In SP!, we eventually saw somethings beneath that veneer with him and Amber. There’s been no equivalent here yet.

        9. Li

          Yeah I don’t necessarily think Mike is ace, I just wanted to clear up what ace means 🙂

        10. Vi

          He and Amber had a SUPER sexual relationship in shortpacked, and eventually like three kids (judging by a flashforward thing with canon wobbliness, definitely at least one canon kid) so I’m pretty sure he’s bisexual? He was also way in love with her which I enjoyed.

        11. APersonAmI

          A lot of the words found on tumblr that annoy people outside of it are attempts to as accurately describe how comlpicated people actually are, which gets on peoples nervers becase a lot of people don’t actually want to imagine other people complexly. Considering that mission statement, I’d assume yes, though I admit I don’t hang out on tumblr nearly enough to be considered a resident.

        12. Li

          You mean is it long enough to get a teenager harassed on tumblr for the terrible crime of trying to figure themselves out? For sure.

        13. Rian

          Actually, apparently Mike is a (at least sexual) masochist.
          http://www.shortpacked.com/index.php?id=1167

        14. Clif

          Of course that was the older experienced knows what he wants Mike, not young “dumb” still finding his path Mike we get in DOA.

        15. thejeff

          Even in DoA, he does make a comment about being turned on when Amazi-Girl tackles him, which could imply that.
          Or, like with most things Mike, could just be him messing with her.

        16. Vi

          I’m pretty sure it was honest. Or maybe I’m just hoping it is.

        17. Dominic

          I’m late to the party, but I’m pretty sure his reaction to being punched was more about getting under Amber’s skin so much she reacted with violence, not actually being aroused by pain itself.

      2. caesaria82

        I always giggle at this ‘whatever you don’t want him to be’ descriptor. Because I never want any characters to be straight lol. I mean, if they are, I guess I’m not mad. But *want* being the operative word. EVERYONE IS QUEER EVERYWHERE is kinda my dream fictional universe. So I feel like Mike is onto me xD

        1. C.T. Phipps

          Then Mike is straight having gay sex to gaslight a gay person.

      3. Leorale

        No, really, that’s how he describes himself!
        http://www.shortpacked.com/index.php?id=281

      4. Remmington Steele

        For a nickel, apparently.

    2. Doctor_Who

      In Universe-A he slept with both Amber and Ethan, so yeah, I guess he’s bi.

      1. Clif

        But the person he was in love with was Dana. You know, before she died.

        1. Clif

          Oh wait, no I guess Amber does count.

        2. Beef

          It’s been a long time since I’ve read SP, was he actually in love with her or did he just feel guilty for her death?

        3. No Name

          With a guy like Mike, feeling any emotion other than contempt for a person implies love.

      2. Sam

        Or he just doesn’t care who he has sex with as long as his needs are satisfied regardless of his actual sexuality which is better fitting with his attitude.

        1. thejeff

          Or he’s just saying things as part of his plan to mess with Ethan. No real reason to believe him here.

    3. JetstreamGW

      Mike don’t give no shits.

    4. Akahane

      Mike isn’t gay or straight. He just likes to masturbate using other people.

  8. Meta

    “Irredeemable one-dimensional troll of a non-person,” indeed.

    1. Reltzik

      Please.

      Thanks to Walkieverse, we know that he’s an irredeemable troll of a non-person in MULTIPLE dimensions.

    2. foamy

      That characterisation is harsh enough that if any actual person called themselves that, I’d either be worried or think they were trying for a martyr complex, but this is Mike and from everything shown in DoA it is a 100% accurate label.

    3. Akahane

      And this comic has at LEAST two dimensions 😛

  9. Kathleen

    Dear lord, who is doing what in that new slipshine?? Is that Sayid? Or is it whatsherface dating Jacob? Who is the guy with the arm tattoo? Is that that the winter solider???

    1. Cheshrin

      It’s Sayid and his boyfriend, Brian (who was in charge of the LGBTQ/questioning meeting that Danny, Ethan, Joybe and Dina were all at). The arm tattoo belongs to Sayid, it’s just a little tricky to tell because of the way the image is cropped.

  10. Adj

    I read his name as “Elric” and thought “Well, he is kinda pale…”

    1. Tacos

      Will he have to do human transmutation later on then?

      1. Adj

        I meant Elric of Melniboné, not the Elric brothers of Resembool.

        1. Vehryn

          So he uses his “sword” to drink people.

  11. Passchendaele

    Even his hair is one-dimensional.

    (to be honest, though, I never thought I would find myself this perplexed/fascinated by the mind games of a character whose presence is almost totally defined by his impact on everyone else.)

    1. Passchendaele

      Also, Ethan’s self-righteous face in that last panel is awesome.

  12. caesaria82

    Mike is being hilariously self-aware, while Ethan is being very … Ethan. I love this strip, idek.

    1. SonicBlueRanger

      It has shades of Shortpacked! and I love that.

  13. Danni

    mike being gay is the second gay surprise ive gotten this week

    1. Emperor Daniel

      Mike’s either bi or pan, actually – he slept with both Amber and Ethan in Shortpacked! (eventually marrying Amber), and it’s a Willis rule that sexuality remains constant between the ‘verses.

      1. Meep

        Wait… so Danny…? No wait, he did said he was when he was snarking about gay marriage, sarcasm can be so confusing. Stuff like this makes me miss the old verse. 🙂

        1. Li

          Yes, Danny is retroactively also bi.

    2. Opus the Poet

      Bi, not gay. Orientations did not change from the previous universe, and we saw Mike on that day for recognizing bi people. Ruth and Billie and Mike and ? I can’t remember the other guy, but 2 males and 2 females.

      1. Opus the Poet

        Read the comment below and remembered it was Danny as the other male…

      2. caesaria82

        I think the picture you mean actually had Danny in it and not Mike? Unless there were more pictures and I’m thinking of a different one than you.

        1. Amazi-Stool

          Here‘s the link!

    3. fillerusername

      I think he’ll just fuck whoever he needs to gender being completely irrelevant to achieve whatever means to whatever end he’s going for.

      So…bi/pan?

      1. Leorale

        Whatever you don’t want him to be.
        http://www.shortpacked.com/index.php?id=281

    4. Meep

      Depends whether you’ve read Shortpacked! but really it always seemed like Mike’s biggest decider was the opportunity to be Mike.

      Mind you his reasons for being an ass in the old Walkyverse always seemed more along the lines of “because he can”. Bellow example is an excelent illustration(danger serious binge material): http://www.shortpacked.com/index.php?id=712

      1. C.T. Phipps

        If we took Mike at face value and not as Edward from Twilight as a Mummy, then Mike is asexual with heterosexual romantic tendencies. Which would be unfortunate for the most prominent asexual character other than Carla. It depends if he’s ever attracted to anyone sexually–which we haven’t seen. Certainly, he seems to only want EMOTIONAl connections.

        1. BBCC

          He seemed pretty sexually attracted to Amber over in SP. I kinda read Mike as either demi, gray ace, or fluid, depending on when I read it.

        2. C.T. Phipps

          Did he? He always seemed uninterested in Amber save from the perspective she liked his abusive assholishness. Certainly, he never seemed to sleep with her because he wanted to.

        3. BBCC

          That’s how I read things like this strip anyways, but YMMV:http://www.shortpacked.com/index.php?id=111

          (Fun fact, this is also around when Willis said Mike developed feelings for Amber).

        4. Hdharris

          He literally just said I have needs, in regards to having unemotionally connected sex with Eric, and said, however sarcastically, that he took joy in it

        5. Oz

          What exactly makes you think of him as ace? I’m genuinely curious since I’ve always seen him as allosexual with just some particular kinks o.o

    5. Yossarianduck

      “Gay Surprise” sounds so much better than a Kinder Surprise.

    6. Akahane

      Why do people assume that having sex with one person means that their orientation is forever decided by that one person’s gender o_O

  14. Kathleen

    Yeah little does Ethan know, Mike is actually being honest. His evil plan is to make Ethan jealous.

  15. valis_kr3

    No Ethan! You read wiki for joy and edit it as an exercise in futility.

  16. Ironbillie

    So, who was the catcher and who was the pitcher

    1. Reltzik

      Maybe they took turns?

    2. caesaria82

      Why is that important?

      1. Usayasha

        For completely academic, non-porn related reasons.

        1. caesaria82

          I mean, I understand it for porn purposes. Like if this was a slipshine, I guess there’d be more of a reason for this question (unless, like Leorale says below, they did any other of the fun things two guys can do together).

          But in general coversation I find this question so… uneccessary. What does it accomplish for you to know the answer to this question? There is always some kind of undertone to this question, for me. Is your perception of either person going to change if you know the answer? You know what I mean?

          Basically, there is a thinkpiece on bottom-shaming in here somewhere, but I am not the person to write it lol. Sorry for the long comment^^

      2. Bluewind

        You knew it would be asked. People always ask that. It’s like people who ask which one is the man/woman in a homosexual relationship.

        Also, check out all the readers so far that assumed Mike is gay instead of a bisexual/polysexual/pansexual. Nobody so far assumed Eric was a closeted transwoman either. It is what it is.

        1. caesaria82

          You’re right. It’s always asked. That’s exactly why I asked the person why it’s important to them to know that. In that way where you ask people to explain a sexist, racist, etc joke and say ‘I don’t get it’ to make them explain it and why it’s ‘funny’ to them. To make them think about it.

          It feels futile sometimes, but here we are.

          And you’re so right about your second paragraph, too.

        2. Bluewind

          When I get bigoted jokes (I hear a lot of racist, sexist, and homophobic ones) in real life, I just act like I totally didn’t get it or like I didn’t hear them say anything at all. Just blank face with no discernible emotion. They tend to kind of laugh nervously as they repeat the punchline. They can get pretty awkward and change the subject to anything else or try to explain it sometimes explaining that other people had laughed at it. The end result is them either avoiding them around me upon threat of painful awkwardness or calling me uptight before telling them to someone else which causes me to leave and not go near them until they have shut up. We do what works in our situation and I’m pretty sure I live near a spawn point.

          Thanks for agreeing. 🙂

        3. DonDueed

          Nice passive aggressiveness there, BW.

          The one time a cow orker told me a racist joke I just gave him the ol’ stink eye. He said, “What, that’s not racist!”. I said “Of course it’s racist.” He paused for a second, then agreed, yeah, it was kinda racist. He never told another joke like that around me.

      3. Ironbillie

        Because the inner pervert in all of us wants to know what nasty yet erotic stuff those two did. Whether it was just them hugging it out or full anal sex.

        1. Bluewind

          First off, “nasty yet erotic”? I’m not even sure what that means.

          Second off, not all of us. I was like “Woo Mike!”, then “Huh. Mike must’ve slept with that guy.”, then realized I didn’t like Eric, then I started wondering if Mike did it to fuck with Ethan, and then decided to read the comments. I never thought of what kind of sex they might have had. Now show me a porn of them and I’ll probably enjoy the hell out of it, but passing mention that sex occurred is just that. It’s the same as when other couples like Danny and AG, Dorothy and Walky, or Ruth and Billy had sex with their respective partners; I didn’t sit around trying to figure out what kind of sex they had, but if I had a Slipshine account I would have had a fun time finding it out! There are also several asexual readers in the comment section alone who I’m pretty sure didn’t fantasize about what they did either.

          Finally, if you want to know what kind of sex they had, then what does it mater how exactly they had that sex?

    3. Leorale

      Neither, it was an epic evening that involving mutual masturbation, oral, frottage, and other non-anal types of sex that two dudes may enjoy together.

      1. Bluewind

        Thank you! So many people think for it to be sex, a penis must go in a vagina or anus.

        I had one person ask a lesbian friend of mine how 2 women know when the sex is over. She said “When we say it is”. XD

        1. BBCC

          I remember once, my women’s history class was talking about how men didn’t think lesbians were really a problem because it wasn’t really sex because no penetration. I asked if they thought lesbians didn’t have hands.

        2. DonDueed

          BW, I feel kinda sorry for the partner of the person who asked that question. I mean, there’s a pretty specific unstated assumption there about when sex is “over”, and I doubt it involves the partner’s opinion of the matter.

        3. Li

          Even if you don’t take it there, it strongly implies that the asker doesn’t know women can have orgasms, which is still true for an alarming percentage of women.

        4. thejeff

          More charitably, it could refer to men generally not being able to continue after an orgasm, while women are more likely to be able and interested.

        5. Bluewind

          Most likely. My ex was like that. Considering he never warmed me up either (often implying there was something wrong with me making me feel like crap about myself), I was more often than not pulling out a BOB afterwards while he went off and cleaned up, showered, played video games, or went to sleep. When he came (even if it was during oral), sex was over.

        6. Kamino Neko

          When I was in high school, there was a sex ed talk that involved handing in anonymous questions…that was one of them. It baffled me that it would be a question. It took me so long to figure out ‘when the guy comes’ was the assumed end for het sex (and ‘when the top comes’ for gay male, I guess).

        7. Bluewind

          It’s what an alarming number of straight people believe. It leads to a lot of women ending up unsatisfied (examples include lack of warm up, man orgasmed fast, and was close when he got there and sex was over) or bored/chafed. A lot of men who can last a long time will keep going because they are very proud of lasting a long time during the penatration part. To some that might sound great, but without a break to keep our engine purring and let our vagina rest that thing gets irritated and god help us we get dry after a while while makes it worse! (lube is a necessity and a god damn life saver you idiots. It doesn’t mean we’re broken or not turned on! It also doesn’t mean we won’t still get chafed after you’ve been at it without a break for half an hour)

        8. Leorale

          That is awful. The obvious solution in a cis/het couple is that she gets to come *first*, not that she doesn’t get to come at all!

        9. Bluewind

          Oh yeah. It really messes with you too. It didn’t help that my ex said there was something wrong with me. There’s not. It’s just that women tend to be rubix cubes while men tend to be tic-tac-toe and he had ADD. He was also a selfish ass. Thus my love of a good toy and rechargeable batteries. 😉

          If you can’t tell, I’m a pretty open person about the subject matter at hand. I guess it’s partly due to how I was raised. Despite the need for brain bleach over it, I know about healthy sexual relationships between men and women thanks to my dad telling me stories of when he was young and a hippy who was very popular with the opposite sex. He laid out how it was supposed to be. He has a lot of stories to pull from (with blessed vague details). We sat down and figured it up and he had around 100 different partners. He went to a lot of parties where he’d get a tap on the shoulder, go have sex, go back to the party, and that pattern sometimes repeated for the rest of the night. The crazy part is that even though he never used a condom, he only got something twice. One was crabs from a woman he was seeing who was getting them from her husband who was a trucker (dad was monogamous so never cheated on a girlfriend/wife, but he never objected to being with a woman who was in a monogamous relationship while he wasn’t). The other time was from my biological mother and whatever it was required him to paint himself with this purple medicine for a while. He has one son he knows of out there somewhere with another man on the birth certificate. His first wife had 2 kids. Then there’s me from him getting with my equally lose biological mother. At least they quit smoking pot and stuff when they found out she was pregnant, although he probably shouldn’t have married her last name be damned. Him getting snipped when he found out was overboard too as she had a hysterectomy after I was born.

    4. SonicBlueRanger

      Like Mike isn’t a top.

  17. fillerusername

    He fucked Eric because of the convenient location of his dorm room.

    1. fillerusername

      Ethan sees him coming out of the room because he has to walk past it, plants the seed that Mike is sexually available to men…

      1. Reltzik

        ….. while that is one of my top theories as well, I have to question your intentions with the phrase “plants the seed”.

        Pun… senses… tingling…

        1. Emperor Daniel

          Mike planted his seed in your mom for a nickel.

        2. fillerusername

          That was entirely accidental but I’m still taking credit/blame for it.

    2. Clif

      Precisely. It’s all part of his plot to seduce Ethan so he can screw Danny up.

    3. BenRG

      That wouldn’t surprise me at all. Mike is very, very focussed and methodical in his trolling.

  18. Shiro

    Please let this evil plan culminate in Mike realizing he’s actually sincerely, really, non-ironically-or-for-the-purposes-of-some-cruel-prank attracted to Ethan. I can think of no better comeuppance than Mike realizing he’s feeling a genuine positive emotion.

    1. Travestyhat

      That would in fact be totally worth it.

    2. Passchendaele

      That’d be fantastic, and a great way to add characterization. Still, I feel like he’d make even more elaborate and cruel plots to hide/remove what affection he does feel. Guess it depends on how this iteration of Mike reacts to entering new territory (pun or otherwise).

      1. Rian

        The thing is, this actually has happened twice in the Walkyverse (first with Dina then Amber) and Mike always reacts with massive self sabotage because he genuinely feels (somewhat correctly) that he is a horribly destructive influence on the lives of people around him.
        For reference see : http://www.shortpacked.com/index.php?id=1499
        http://www.shortpacked.com/index.php?id=1501
        and http://www.shortpacked.com/index.php?id=1504

        1. Noheart6265

          Honestly, those Walkyverse moments made Mike my favorite character in that universe. I enjoyed how over the top his cruelty was to those around him, sure, but those humanizing moments offered such an impressive contrast that really made Mike as a character stick out to me.

    3. timemonkey

      Attraction is a neutral emotion.

    4. BBCC

      And then have him get flat out rejected because nobody trusts Mike, he’s an asshole, least of all Ethan.

      1. Shiro

        I’m thinking it doesn’t even get that far, Mike realizes he’s Feeling a Thing and just sort of collapses in on himself in mute horror.

        1. BBCC

          That’s awful!

          Mike deserves no less. I approve.

        2. Emily

          I have zero sympathy for Mike because to have sympathy for someone they’d have to actually be a person and not an utterly 2-dimensional automaton of hate.

        3. Shiro

          See, that’s where I got the idea that this would be the most devastating ending possible for him. If you’re a Doctor Who fan, think Cyberman with broken emotional inhibitor, and the carnage that resulted.

        4. Shiro

          …not that I want Mike to *actually* harm himself like the Cybermen did, I mean. Just like…the emotional equivalent of that.

    5. Jhon

      Mike feeling a genuine positive emotion…
      would be an existential crisis for him.
      In the most basic possible sense of the word.

  19. Kris

    This would mean something to me if I cared about Eric…or even knew he existed.

    1. fillerusername

      I think his facial expression, line about having a girlfriend, and use of “down low” tells you everything.

      1. Kris

        Honestly…I actually hate him a little just for that face. He could give blood on the weekends and I’d still hope he breaks both his legs.

        1. Leorale

          I agree, that is some very clear exposition that he’s a total douche. Perfect.

      2. Injuryman

        Eric may or may not have a girlfriend. That was just the first thing Ethan thought of that Mike could use against him.

      3. Raen

        From Mike’s commentary, I feel like if he does have a girlfriend, she’s completely OK with this.

    2. Clif

      Eric is just a means to an end. Like Walky started out being for Dorothy, but more nefarious.

      1. timemonkey

        I’m not even sure he was really aiming for Dorothy that time, the final reveal seemed to indicate a grudge against Walky.

        1. Clif

          No, I wasn’t meaning that Walky was a means to Dorothy. I was saying that Walky started out being a temporary means to an end for Dorothy and then became something more. The point is that Eric as a person is not important to Mike but just a temporary convenience, just as Walky started out not being important as a person to Dorothy but a temporary convenience.

        2. timemonkey

          Walky was always a person to Dorothy, he just wasn’t her endgame. That’s very different. She always acknowledged he was a person with feelings and was honest with him about the limitations of their relationship, as well as letting him know when she wanted to change those limitations.

  20. Emperor Daniel

    …I just realized this is Eric. As in, Eric Shtuppenstein. As in, the guy Mary secretly slept with in Roomies!.

    1. Passchendaele

      No character left unused.

      (I totally forgot about him, wow. He’s apparently not that memorable. Will that change in this arc? And what are the odds his gf is still Mary?)

    2. Arianod

      Schtuppendous!

    3. Fart Captor

      Also, I heard one time he got trapped in a pool

    4. Remmington Steele

      Surely that should be Schtuppenstein?

      1. Tomas

        His ancestors anglicized the name when they came to America.

  21. Benjy

    I just resealized Mike has some depth to his hair. When did that start happening?

  22. Clif

    Oh, geeze, you’re right. I cannot hold the entire Walkyverse in my mind at one time.

  23. Keulan

    Is Eric a completely new character? I don’t remember seeing him in the Walkyverse, unless he only appeared in one strip or something.

    1. Emperor Daniel

      He’s the guy whom Mary was covertly having sex with in Roomies!.

      1. Keulan

        Damn, I completely forgot about that.

      2. Reltzik

        “Covertly” somehow happening at a massive party. I mean, yeah, they found a door and closed it, but how the hell did they expect no one noticing them finding a door to close?

        1. timemonkey

          Who pays attention to Mary? After a couple sentences from he you just start blocking her out.

        2. Reltzik

          Nonono, just the opposite. Even if she’s being completely silent, she’s still there, and I’m AWARE that she’s there through a special ESP generated in my brain’s newly-formed hate lobe.

    2. BBCC

      (Minor Roomies! spoiler)

      He screwed Mary once and fathered her baby, which she then aborted.

      1. CJ

        Wait, what?
        Was she just this sanctimonious in Roomies!?

        (Playing gravatar roulette, let’s see if I can get Sal)

        1. CJ

          I mean, DOA-Mary seems like she would die of apoplexy before doing an abortion

        2. timemonkey

          DOA-Mary is a massive hypocrite who tries to make herself look better by accusing other people of being worse than she is.

        3. BBCC

          She’s pretty preachy there, though the worst ‘sins’ she had to deal with there were parental disobedience and underage drinking.

          And yeah, she was pro-life, but then she got whacked in the face by real life experience and so she aborted.

  24. miados

    huh got some reason i think eric looks older than everyone else in the dorm but it could just be my perception on things

    1. caesaria82

      Well his hair is white. If that’s blond, that’s a very light blond. Especially in contrast to Mike’s legitimatelly yellow hair. It’s the Joyce Brown school of ‘blonde’.

  25. Cerberus

    It’s somewhat surreal seeing Mike doing his standard queer edgelord shit on the same day Milo finally imploded in on himself.

    Like… talk about topical.

    1. Travestyhat

      The serendipity is kinda stunning, isn’t it? I admit that right now I feel like I’m having a Monkey’s Paw moment over here: I asked the universe ‘please, let Willis stop banging on about Robin ruining Leslie’s life and sense of self-worth, I’ll watch anything else’ and it said ‘OH REALLY?’

      1. Emily

        Seriously, it was like “Oh are you tired of watching an abuser be portrayed as comedic? Too fucking bad time for Mike.”

    2. C.T. Phipps

      One BBer down! We just need to get the rest of them.

    3. caesaria82

      Oh man, I didn’t even think of this until you just said it. (not that Mike is a literal fascist though, at least not that we know of?^^)

      1. C.T. Phipps

        He’s a fascist in the Kylo Ren sense. Yeah, he’d work for the First Order but it’s just a means to an end.

        1. John

          Mike would work for the First Order, and it would result in the First Order destroying themselves because of their own personal flaws.

    4. Reltzik

      …. wait, Milo imploded?

      *googles*

      ….

      …. BREITBART HAS STANDARDS??????

      1. BBCC

        I’m not sure whether I’m more shocked by that than Milo’s resignation.

      2. nightsbridge

        Tbh, I find that whole thing bittersweet. I’m half convinced that the reason he’s really damaged goods to them now isn’t because of the awful things he’s said, cause he’s said worse, but because now he’s basically the kind of queer person they friggin’ doomsay constantly.

        It’d be nice if they grew a conscious. But, personally, I find it more likely that they went, “aha, queer pedophile! That makes so much sense! How could we have been fooled? We cannot allow this to erode our core Family Values!”

        I’m glad the fucker has been burned by it but I can’t see this as a change of heart by those they voted him off the island.

        1. C.T. Phipps

          I totally just see it as ass covering. BB has gotten a lot of attention from normal people and it’s like exposing traditional vampires to daylight. It won’t kill most of them but it does weaken them.

        2. thejeff

          Worse than that even. Even in his explosion he still does more damage. He’s confirming all their myths about homosexuality for them – gay men as child predators, homosexual recruitment, etc.

      3. Emily

        Nobody who dropped Milo over this has standards. They have a bottom line and they decided pedophilia apologia would hurt that bottom line morality never entered into it otherwise they wouldn’t have been working with a racist, misogynistic, homophobic, transphobic, etc piece of garbage.

        1. Clif

          How can you not feel sorry for them? They got in bed with a perfectly normal Nazi in good faith and then found out he was some kind of *weird* Nazi.

        2. Fart Captor

          Yeah, his book deal only tanked because their publisher stopped thinking it would be profitable

        3. BBCC

          Frankly, if it takes standards of profitability rather than morality to drop folks like that, I say thank fuck for standards of profitability.

    5. ischemgeek

      I am FUCKING GLAD he imploded.

      ESPECIALLY because he imploded over shit that one of my therapists when I was a kid tried to “talk me around” to. “It could be a positive experience! You learned from it, right?”

      (there are people who actually believe what he was saying and they are more common than you think and many of them hold positions of trust and power over kids who’ve been victimized already)

      I’m just glad to finally see SOMEONE get something generally approaching the approximate vicinity of real consequences for CSA apologia. Not the people who genuinely really should be getting those consequences (Milo has said waaaay fucking worse and he and PewDiePie could and probably would be charged under Canadian hate speech laws if they lived up here for inciting to violence against a marginalized group – and bleat about Orwellian all you fucking like, I like that there are consequences to advocating for and inciting others to genocide up here in Canada. Up here, your right to free speech ends when you’re violating the right of another to go about their business safely – or inciting others to violate that right. Just like your right to swing your arms ends at someone else’s nose).

      1. Clif

        Not technically accurate. The assault ends at the nose and the battery begins.

        1. Reltzik

          Technically, it’s still assault at that point. ALSO battery, but still assault.

        2. Clif

          I sit corrected.

        3. Tomas

          If you make me flinch, that’s assault. If you hit me twice for flinching, that’s battery.

    6. rectilinearpropagation

      As long as this is an actual implosion and not temporary setback until everyone feels it’s plausible to “forget” about the child rape thing.

      I really want this to be it for him but for some reason the media insists on forgiving truly awful white male celebrities, which unfortunately Milo is now. If a year from now I can’t remember his name I’ll be able to count this real and not folks just covering their ass.

      Side note: Why didn’t Milo have to suffer the whole “why is this person famous” thing that ladies like Paris Hilton did? As far as I can tell he’s also famous for no reason.

    7. JepMZ

      That’s not remotely the same thing. Eric isn’t a stereotypical molesting Catholic priest.

  26. BBCC

    And one abusive relationship in the making shifts to another one.

    Topical transitions.

  27. C.T. Phipps

    One thing which is interesting is Ethan seems largely uninterested in sex or romance. Mike and others seem to be pressuring him or believing he should be actively seeking a romance now.

    1. fillerusername

      Not to erase the possibility of an aro/ace reading of a character that’s not really Ethan. The only guys he’s been shown to be romantically or sexually interested in (Jacob and Danny) just haven’t been real actual options. He also wasn’t pursuing things because he was putting himself back in the closet for a little while. His relationship with Joyce at least establishes he is interested in companionship. Once Mike’s plan has reached the point where he has presented himself as an actual sexual (or romantic option) for Ethan that Ethan could actually pursue (it being an obvious bad idea aside) it’ll be interesting to see what he does.

      1. BBCC

        I think CT just meant Ethan’s not looking for anybody right now, not that he doesn’t feel romantic or sexual attraction.

      2. Shival

        Ethan also showed interest in Joshua before discovering Joshua is really Jocelyne. Which doesn’t really change anything as Joyce’s sibling, of any gender, wouldn’t be a real option.

        1. ischemgeek

          I think as far as sex and romance goes, Ethan is basically a gay Jacob – by which I mean, he’s a gay dude who’s looking for connection and the commitment and security of a long term relationship, and not interested at all in casual sex.

          Thing is, a lot of people are pushing him to be a gay Joe, probably because stereotypes about gay men and promiscuity.

        2. timemonkey

          He’s never said he’s only looking for relationships. He’s trying to avoid being defined by his sexuality and has been outright denying it again just recently. Not a lot of room for hookups so far.

        3. StClair

          and (it seems to me, sometimes) that anyone who doesn’t fall into that stereotype, who isn’t constantly on the make, is latched onto by “a-” folks desperately seeking more representation of whoever they are.

    2. timemonkey

      He was like that in Shortpacked as well, he mostly just doesn’t realise what he’s missing out on.

    3. Tadpole7

      Ethan is interested, see his interactions with Jocelyne, Danny plus some scenes where it’s obvious he finds Jacob very distracting.

      He’s very uncomfortable with his sexuality (for many reasons) and that’s been one of the biggest reasons he’s not actively looking. Plus he’s a bit of an introvert as well.

      1. C.T. Phipps

        True. Though I do think there’s something to Ethan being someone who sex isn’t necessarily all that important to or romance while still being a sexual being.

        1. timemonkey

          It’s kinda hard to buy that when you’ve already seen him humiliate himself several times trying to get some from Mike and skip things he’s usually obsessed with to have marathon sex in the other universe.

  28. Arianod

    Step 1: edit wiki
    Step 2: punch all the things
    Step 3: joy?

    1. Bagge

      Step 4: Question joy.
      Step 5: Check wiki.
      Step 6: Edit wiki
      Step 7: Punch all the things
      Step 8: Joy?

  29. fillerusername

    I wouldn’t be surprised if the end of Mike’s eventual game here is Danny finding out about him hooking up with Ethan in this exact same way as this with one of them walking out of the other’s room in a way that leaves almost no denial sex occurred.

    1. CJ

      Had to read your comment twice after wondering what “denial sex” was…

    2. Angelbadman

      I am not sure what that is supposed to achieve for Mike. Apart from momentary embarrassment for Ethan and Danny.

      1. ischemgeek

        Pain for Danny and Ethan both – Mike knows they care about each other and that Danny is a massive closet case while Ethan is still too uncomfortable about his sexuality to make the first move with anyone, so the two are caught in a holding pattern but probably would still feel rejected if one or the other found someone else (maybe except Amber and Danny getting together again, which I don’t think is going to happen).

        Mike gets Ethan to sleep with him and gets Danny to see – bam, Danny feels rejected and hurt, and Ethan is filled with guilt over it. From Mike’s POV, it’s a two-fer of emotionally damaging people.

        1. Cerberus

          Which yeah, that’s the thing of it. It’s about emotionally damaging people. Cause that’s “fun” to him. Because he finds that “funny”.

          And he’ll go to any length to do that to the person empathetic enough to try and consistently be his friend even though he’s been harmed again and again by him. Because being an edgelord matters more to him than anything else.

        2. BenRG

          I’ve never seen any indication that Mike actually finds anything funny. If anything, his reaction seems to be that he finds it cynically and depressingly typical and that the only satisfaction he’s got is from proving to himself yet again how profoundly shitty everyone in the world is (including him).

          There I think the find the key to his nature – He isn’t doing this to amuse himself. He knows he’s a horrible person (he says as much to Ethan in this strip). However, he needs to justify that by proving that everyone else is horrible too so he tries to provoke them to selfish, unhealthy and aggressive behaviour and then tells himself that the outcome is proving him right.

        3. Elisto

          I don’t really see him doing anything because he’s enjoying it. When have we ever seen him smile or seem to enjoy anything? He seems to just be doing it all to make some kind of messed up point about people and himself.

          I still maintain he thinks hurting people is somehow “helping” them “get over” whatever he perceives their problem to be. I wouldn’t be surprised if he, at least subconsciously, thinks everyone’s bringing all these problems on themselves and he’s the only one insightful enough to see it. Because the thing is, he’s not necessarily completely wrong about their problems, but he doesn’t seem to get that it’s a massive boundary violation, never mind being harmful in other ways, and, frankly, none of his business to try to “fix.”

          So I don’t think he exactly enjoys what he’s doing, but I suspect it does help him feel like he’s doing something productive mixed with superiority for “understanding” the world so much better that he thinks everyone else does. Which ironically is based on a lack of understanding healthy interactions and acceptance of normal human flaws, but so far he hasn’t figured that out.

          Long story short, I think it is hurting him to do what he does, and I think he even knows that, but at least that superiority he gets from it simultaneously makes him feel better about himself and his relation to the world where all he seems to be able to see is people’s flaws and suffering.

        4. BBCC

          I’ll believe that when he stops calling Dorothy and Sal massive sluts.

        5. thejeff

          Or when he starts punching up, rather than targeting more marginalized people. Let’s see him take on Joe for his issues, for example.

        6. BBCC

          Exactly. If he goes after Mary for her transphobia or Jason for fucking his students, I’ll concede Mike’s trying to help.

        7. StClair

          I think if (this) Mike is trying to “help” anyone, it’s in getting them to realize that everyone and everything in the world is shit. Including him, and them.

          Arby’s.

        8. Angelbadman

          that sounds, dumb. Seriously? Danny has a minor crush on Ethan and Ethan is attracted to every good looking male he sees. Ethan and Danny may have shared a moment, but neither of them seems pair bonded for life. Sorry, but the idea sex with anyone would be seen as a betrayal towards Danny by Ethan is really stretching things. Considering how quickly Danny moved on after Dorothy, I really doubt he is more fragile than he is an emotional dunce.

        9. fillerusername

          You couldn’t think of any other way to voice your disagreement with my speculation without being deliberately insulting? I also don’t know how fucking “dumb” my speculation can be considered to be when Mike outright stated that it was his PLAN to seduce either Danny or Ethan to make the other jealous: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/percent/. I’m just speculating how he might end up going about it. Also feelings are fucking irrational sometimes and just because it might not make sense for Danny to be hurt about Ethan hooking up with someone else he might be? Consider the fact he might be in a fragile fucking place right now more so than after his break up with Dorothy and that with all the emotional blows he’s been taken something very minor like his crush hooking up with someone else might hurt more than it normally would? Consider Danny’s the first guy Ethan’s had a real romantic bond with since coming out? So however little logical sense it should make I don’t think it’s at all “dumb” to consider this might just maybe end up being a big fucking deal. It’s been dragged out for a goddamn year and likely will take another year before it actually happens.

        10. fillerusername

          However it plays out is not going to be just nicely glossed over. Not with this much build up. It might all work out fine but shit has to go down.

        11. thejeff

          It will also be done with Mike’s usual expert timing and I’m sure some surprises for extra pain. Even if Danny would normally be okay with Ethan hooking up with someone, I’m sure Mike can find a way to twist the knife.

          I also suspect that this will lead to them bypassing their worries about hurting Amber and actually getting together. Which the Mike fans will spin as having been his plan all along.

        12. fillerusername

          I feel like something is going to happen between now and when/if Ethan goes through with hooking up with Mike that will push him and Danny significantly closer just to play up the drama. I would not be at all surprised if we get to the point where we can no longer write off the emotions we’re dealing with as just a “simple crush” when it does.

          It’s not out of the realm of possibility when you look at how serious Walky/Dorothy have gotten in the relatively short span of the comic. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mike takes steps to ensure Danny/Ethan fall harder for each other to ensure maximum devastation. How is what he’s hoping to achieve fun for him or enough drama for us if what Danny/Ethan have by the time what goes down goes down is as simple as a crush? I think one or both will be in love by the time what goes down goes down but nothing will have happened yet. Then Mike swoops in. Danny’s gutted. Bad idea hook up (and/or slipshine ensues) and we either get them hooking up continuously in secret (like either is good at that) or they hook up just the once and Mike hangs the threat of Amber finding out over their heads indefinitely. Maybe this will result though in them coming clean rather than hiding it and Amber stops speaking to them both while she gets therapy and they decide whether or not to stay together? I think Ethan will cut Mike out of his life though as a result. Hopefully.

        13. Angelbadman

          You are absolutely correct, shit has to go down. Just don’t assume it will work out the way Mike has planned it to.

        14. Angelbadman

          Yes, it was a dumb plan. Mike’s plan is dumb. There, I have revealed my secret code. If you think it was your plan, you are mistaken.

          I doubt Danny is more upset about Amber than he was about Dorothy. He tied his entire identity into Dorothy. Amber was just as exciting as it was brief.

          Once again, you are also not Ethan or Danny. Just because their response might be irrational, doesn’t mean your observations have to be.

          While your image of Mike as an evil genius is as valid as any, we have not seen any evidence of the storyline you are speculating.

          And, as I said, Ethan seeing any kind of sexual encounter as a betrayal of Danny is highly unlikely.

    3. BenRG

      It wouldn’t surprise me if Mike has baldly just stated his end-game here: He wants to push Ethan into being more active in filling the hole he has in his personal life. He seems to have decided to do so by seducing Ethan and then making his jealous, driving him to find someone else as revenge.

  30. newllend(Henryvolt)

    …ooh I see what’s really going on here, well played.

  31. Bagge

    Hi Eric, you seem like an upstanding fella!

    1. Sunny

      His fella was definitely upstanding last night, if you know what I mean.

      1. Bagge

        I’m so glad you made that joke so I didn’t have to!

  32. JessWitt

    Well I can’t afford slipshine at the moment so Mike x Eric will have to do til then.

  33. Kyle

    this…this is Blessed……ive been waiting Years for this..

    thank u willis???

  34. Wraithy2773

    Look, Mike, we might believe you if it weren’t for the fact that almost every single other appearance of yours involves you being a dick to someone…

    1. Angelbadman

      Maybe Mike is a selfish lover. Eric doesn’t seem to care who knows he is gay.

      1. timemonkey

        Assuming he even is gay. Lots of other options.

        1. Clif

          Ask Mary.

        2. Angelbadman

          None of which Eric seems to give a toss about anyone knowing, being the actual point.

  35. BenRG

    Wow, Mike! Talk about bizarre levels of self-awareness!

    Of course, the concept of Mike ‘finding joy’ in something is bizarre to me. He always seems so bitterly disappointed in the world around him and always has such an angry attitude that I really can’t see him having ‘joy’.

  36. Plasma Mongoose

    By the look on Eric’s face, Mike was the receiver.

    1. BenRG

      Mike really doesn’t have a problem with things like that; it is actually frightening the way he can divorce his intellect from what he does with his body.

      1. Li

        By all accounts being the “receiver” feels better, so why Mike would have to “divorce his intellect from what he does with his body” is beyond me, but also seriously there’s more to sex than penetration.

  37. C.T. Phipps

    I would be interested if Robin decides to start screwing with the other characters in the setting from Leslie’s house. For example, making it a campaign issue to get wiki editors barred from the university or people who look like Nightwing.

  38. JepMZ

    I feel like that plan doesn’t work unless most one dimensional trolls are hot.

    1. Clif

      No, just Mike.

  39. No

    Yep Mike remains my favorite character.

  40. DarkoNeko

    Aah. Editing a wiki used to make me happy, too. Now it’s mostly a chore.

    1. Clif

      That’s the point in time at which to stop. Or if it remains important to you, to find and start training a replacement.

      1. StClair

        Agreed/seconded.

  41. Usayasha

    Huh. It looks like Mike’s a briefs guy.

    1. Clif

      He’s whatever you don’t want him to be.

  42. BenRG

    It looks to me that Ethan is going to the shower. I’m wondering if Willis is going to have him run into Carla and Joyce going to the ladies’ facilities to dry-run Carla’s Shower Shoes Mk.2 Beta?

  43. C.T. Phipps

    There is kind of an interesting irony that DOA Mike is actually horrible at causing misery to other people. He’s NOT trying to be a Zen warrior therapist but actually just troll people and all he’s done so far is bring Ethan some internet joy and get a bisexual minor character laid.

    1. Noheart6265

      I would be inclined to agree if he hadn’t psychologically dismantled the person Ethan was having his transformers argument with.

      1. BenRG

        I think that the psychological dismantling of a TF fan who was wrong was proxy wish fulfilment on Willis’s part.

        1. C.T. Phipps

          I think it was DOA Willis who Mike dismantled.

        2. Clif

          I think the person that Ethan was having his transformers argument was also Mike. It’s all part of his plan.

    2. Cerberus

      Oh, no, he’s very good at causing misery to people. Let us not forget he basically got Ethan to run screaming back into the closet with his constant “teasing” about all the things Ethan has lost due to coming out and he’s massively fucked with Amber/AG’s DID and self-image in painfully destructive ways by stating that she was destined to become an abuser like her father.

      And that this whole arc is essentially him going to extreme lengths to fuck with Ethan and Danny, against the explicit request by Ethan to leave him alone, simply because he thinks it would be funny if that nascent healthy friendship in Ethan’s life ended.

      Fuck, he’s basically used emotional abuse to try and ensure Ethan and the Amber alter have no friends but him, isolating them as much as possible from developing healthy friendships that would allow them to finally see how toxic he has been being.

      1. Derek

        I think you’re giving too much credit to Mike for pushing Ethan back into the closet. I’d say it was 45% parental pressure, 45% societal pressure and 10% Mike. Like yes, he’s still a factor but he’s hardly completely responsible for society’s homophobia making Ethan feel alone and unwelcome

        1. Cerberus

          He’s not responsible for it. But he does exploit that existing pressure and contribute to it in a very intentional way. Making it impossible for Ethan to find any space to be himself and truly grow and thrive and thus be more prone to assuming that this identity of his is poisonous.

          Like, for a young queer person struggling with identity with non-supportive parents, friends are critical and often friend spaces are, at first, the only place you can safely be yourself without apology and thus build a healthy acceptance of one’s self.

          Mike, has instead deliberately tried to poison this a good portion of the times they hang out and definitely does not let Ethan exist in a space where he is not thinking about what he’s been denied full access to due to his sexuality.

          He’s taken the one space that is supposed to be supportive and turned it into yet another antagonistic space and is seeking to destroy the healthy queer friendship with Danny on top of that.

          And heck, that’s a “troll” thing too. Never directly causing the oppression, but contributing to and exploiting the fuck out of it. Heck, it’s one of the tactics on the Duluth Power and Control wheel. Cause those oppressions are vulnerabilities and exploiting that gives you a greater sense of power over the person and keep them from effectively fighting back.

          Which is a reason that 99% of these “trolls” are white men and boys.

        2. Derek

          I don’t deny Mike is a very toxic parasite in Ethan’s life and the sooner they cut ties the better off Ethan will be, but at the same time I am loath to give Mike too much credit for anything. In most of the conflicts he “causes” he’s more of a catalyst for trouble that was already brewing; though he gets 100% blame for always deliberately making it worse instead of better.

        3. Cerberus

          Fair.

        4. Jhon

          Dang. I thought Duluth Power and Control was a utility company. Thanks to you I now know differently.

      2. Greenygal

        Huh–that’s an interesting viewpoint on his relationship with Ethan and Amber. And the thing is, I don’t actually think that Mike’s that good at causing long-term misery–most of his targets get mad and then dismiss it and move on. Ethan is a definite exception; I can’t actually tell if Amber is because Amber’s issues are so severe that I can’t tell if Mike actually made them worse, although he was certainly giving it a good try. Although I notice that Amber hasn’t interacted with him since that conversation…and if Mike’s trying to isolate them from having other friends, again we go back to Mike not actually being that good at this. He’s vicious to Amber and she stops interacting with him; he tells Ethan he shouldn’t have come out of the closet and Ethan gets a girlfriend.

        Mike’s a terrible person. But it makes me feel better to think he’s also a self-defeating terrible person.

  44. Emily

    Oh rad time for us to focus on the other horrible abuser who I’m apparently supposed to find hilarious.

    1. Leorale

      At least Mike is acknowledged as horrible and damaging? He outright says in this comic that he’s not a person.

      1. inqntrol

        He’s mostly what you don’t want him to be.

      2. Leorale

        ….but yes, I am not arguing your point, he is clearly awful and people have every right not to enjoy him.

        1. Greenygal

          Um. You might want to consider that some of the people who really hate Mike have been targeted by Mikes in real life, and therefore this comment sounds an awful lot like telling people that they only hate their abusers because they’re secretly abusive themselves.

        2. thejeff

          Or possibly just have known Mikes and react badly to them.

        3. Emily

          Fuck you.

  45. Fiona

    Mm, Mike. My unfortunate tendency to adore asshat characters strikes me again. Also, I read Shortpacked! before anything else and now can’t stop obsessively wanting Mike and Amber back together here because terrible shipperbrain won’t let go of the pair. Even if that’s a terrible idea right now.

  46. Trolldrool

    The living personification of all migraines has returned.

  47. Robbzilla

    I see Mike as a power bottom…. Not sure exactly why.

  48. Eldritch Gentleman

    Yup Mike is still working on his “Bag Ethan” evil plan…

  49. skyfullofhat

    Yaay! Finally have my own Gravatar 😀 (I thiiiiiink)

  50. Cerberus

    Comic Reactions:

    I’ve talked a lot about how the more realistic tone of Dumbing of Age changes the interpretation of specific characters. And I’ve talked a lot about how topicality often adds certain dimension to certain character’s actions owing to how the comic is set in more-or-less our world in the ever-changing now.

    We’ve seen how Robin has fared with that shift (poorly), but I’d say Mike comes out the worst. Because in SP! he basically got to be a force of nature, someone the laws of physics would bend around to make his cruel actions occur, but also divorce them from real consequences or fallout.

    But that only happens in a narrative where the literal rules of the comic are willing to bend to allow that to happen, to blunt the character and his impact. When he’s placed in a more realistic context, when we see the long-term damage of his “jokes” and when he is just an ordinary person and so is invited to be compared to his real-world analogues.

    Which is a long-winded way of saying that Mike in this world is an abusive edgelord piece of shit and darkly familiar to anyone who has dealt with the kind of “faux-nihilist” internet “trolls” who will try and ruin your life and then try and call it a joke afterwards as if that meant the damage they caused somehow didn’t “count”.

    And as such, he becomes far harder to empathize with. And that is especially true when real-life context adds to that pot. We’ve just had an election where our current president was largely carried to victory by nazi recruitment among this type of young white edgelords who pretend their active attempts to affect real policy are somehow “jokes no one’s actually invested in”.

    We’ve just seen years of “trolls” abusing people to the point where a large number of people have had to completely cut off their internet access to protect themselves and where those who remain who are heavily marginalized do so under an avalanche of bigoted edgelords who think it’s “funny” to try and drive them to suicide or casually ruin their lives and to otherwise endlessly harass them.

    And the invitation has been made in comic to view Mike through that lens. His ongoing harassment of Dorothy, taking essentially revenge porn pics of her while she is sleeping and posting them to her Facebook to try and drive her away from what he feels entitled to call his space. And this time, we see the damage his actions do. We’ve seen Ethan get bullied back into the closet. We’ve seen Amber/AG damage herself even more by pressing directly on recent traumas and insisting that she’s destined to become an abuser like her father.

    Like in the real world, his “jokes” actively harm people, and are in fact based in nothing else than harming people, much like the internet edgelord “trolls” of our society. And just like another blonde queer who successfully marketed himself as a “provocateur” for harassing and harming people until enough people realized that he was a child molestation apologist.

    And it makes every strip with him tend to become a “dear Bob, people still trying to stay in his life, you need to get the fuck out for your own safety” sort of moment.

    1. rectilinearpropagation

      Another similarity between Mike and said real world asshole: The thing everyone is suddenly horrified by has been public knowledge for years.

    2. BenRG

      I’ll say this again: There is no evidence at all that Mike finds any of this ‘funny’.

      1. Cerberus

        There is evidence though that he gets off on it. Because he keeps doing it and he keeps minimizing what he’s done so people continue to trust him. Getting them to treat Mike’s casual harassment of anyone who wanders near him as just “Mike being Mike”.

  51. Cerberus

    Panels 2-3: So we have this. Ethan finding out that Mike is queer. Because Mike carefully timed the end of his one-night stand so that this information would be revealed in this carefully controlled way to Ethan rather than just coming out to him and thus risk a moment of vulnerability (because to an edgelord, vulnerability is the devil and must be killed with fire).

    And the reason why he is releasing this information in this controlled way and the reason he has temporarily started being the type of friend Ethan has always wanted to see in Mike* is monstrous.

    *And there’s a real world context to this, where abusers and edgelords love to exploit people’s desire to see good in all people. Cause we don’t like viewing everyone as someone who is going to actively try and hurt us. Who is enriched by our suffering. So we are very susceptible to any narrative that tells us that the person is not as bad as they seem. That they are a cheeky devil with a good person deep down inside or that they are doing it out of love or that they are scared and broken and just in need of love. And why it often takes having lots and lots of encounters with the type of fucks who love the power dynamic of fucking over people and abusing them to realize that that actually is the end-game and motivation of these people and letting them into your life is just going to get you abused unless you become an enabler of their abuse.

    He’s trying to seduce Ethan. To make him think “I never knew Mike was into guys” and raise the possibility of there being a possibility of a relationship between them given their shared history. An Ethan who has been through a lot of hell since coming out and hasn’t had the experience of things being a possibility with someone ever except for a few flirtations with Danny and Jocelyne.

    To make him fall in love, go to bed with him, all so he can break his heart and call him a loser afterwards. Because destroying yet again all the progress Ethan has made in trying to accept himself after a lifetime of abuse from his mother is funny to Mike.

    And it’s even worse than that, because he’s not doing this because Ethan is the only one naively optimistic enough to still let Mike be a major part of his life. He’s doing this because he saw Danny. He saw that Danny existed and that this might be a healthy dynamic in Ethan’s life.

    And so he wants to twist that. And twist that against Ethan making his one and only request of Mike, begging on their shared history for him to leave Danny alone a bitter joke. To destroy both of them, make their dynamic broken and toxic, so once again, he’ll be isolated and in misery and with low self-esteem enough to freely torment.

    This is the context for all of this.

    1. tbf

      I doubt Mike’s sexuality is news to Ethan. I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out Mike was the one who convinced Ethan to come out in the first place. “See, Ethan? I came out to my Ward-and-June-Cleaver parents and everything was fine. You should come out too. Probably soon, seeing as how you’re taking Amber to the prom tonight.”

      1. thejeff

        Given that there’s never been even a hint of it in any of their conversations, even when Mike convinced him to go back in the closet, I doubt it.

        And barring some dramatic revelation, which would really screw up Amber & Ethan’s back story, he pretty much figured it out the same time Amber – in bed after prom.

        1. tbf

          I interpreted the looks on their faces after prom as he’s just told her and she’s heartbroken. They’re both still dressed, so I don’t think they slept together. And the guilty look on his face doesn’t exactly say “sudden epiphany.” More like, “I’ve put this off way too long.”

        2. BBCC

          They didn’t finish, but word from the slipshines is that Amber’s ‘done stuff’ before, so they at least got started.

  52. Cerberus

    Panel 4: And luckily we have Ethan more and more recognizing the toxicity of Mike. Like, here, he recognizes that this action is in some way intentional. That he is undergoing this action as part of a larger action to hurt someone. But he’s too good and trusting of a person to realize that the person he is seeking to hurt his himself.

    Because he’s still straining to see Mike as someone he is 50-60% sure is his friend:
    http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/percent/

    And that’s what I hate about Mike and his real-world counterparts. They feast on that goodness, that empathy, that desire to be fair, that desire to try and see the good in all and see something redeemable in even the most disgusting villain. That good positive trait in humanity in order to abuse freely and never face consequences.

    Hiding behind “I was only kidding” and various accusations of unfairness when the damage they do is noticed, isolating and harassing their victims while they do so. We see it with Richard Spencer, with Milo, with any number of high-profile abusers, and we see it domestically in abusive relationships. Abusers getting their victims to stay by appealing to their empathy, to their goodness, to their willingness to continually give people second chances when they hurt you.

    Until they’ve beat that optimism out of that, because in their mind, making you bitter and broken and cynical is the point. Because that makes them feel like more than just another speck on this blue-green soggy rock. Because that ability to ruin someone’s life makes them feel the power of that. And it’s something that’s defined a portion of humanity for a long time, causing all manner of abuses (slavery, ICE raids, feudalism).

    1. BBCC

      On that ICE raids comment – for those of you concerned, call your senators, reps, governors, and check out your local town hall meetings: https://townhallproject.com

      1. Killjoy

        My only concern is if legal residents, those brought here as children, or legitimate refugees are being caught up in the detentions and deportations — that is, if something actually unjust is being done.

        I’m as bothered by actual illegal immigrants are being deported, as I would be by someone engaged in breaking-and-entering and/or trespassing being arrested and charged.

        1. Killjoy

          “are being”… edit fail. Ugh

        2. BBCC

          If you are not concerned, this does not apply to you, does it? Hence why I said ‘for those of you concerned’.

        3. thejeff

          Don’t worry, they will be.
          Hell, citizens will be deported. They have been in the past. As we expedite deportations, there will be less checking and more errors.

        4. Fart Captor

          Not to mention more “errors”

  53. Cerberus

    Panel 5: So let’s talk gaslighting. Gaslighting is the deliberate lying to a person in order to reinforce a power dynamic or keep the victim of abuse disoriented and in doubt of their own processing of events and rationales and so more prone to accept the abuser’s frame and distrust their natural inclinations to recognize that something’s wrong.

    Mike is 100% gaslighting here.

    Ethan recognizes something’s up with this. That this isn’t just a cute little queer hook-up, but some sort of evil plan against someone. And so Mike deflects that accurate assessment and instead creates his own frame for events. And he does it with the devil’s best trick (according to the comic Lucifer), selective truth. He is not pulling a prank on Eric, which is not the same as he is not pulling a prank. And he offers a counter-narrative for Ethan to latch on to, saying he was just out having good queer fun.

    And Ethan, to his credit, does not accept this framing at first, assuming that this must be some larger plot to hurt someone in their coming out, because Mike did the whole using a person’s queerness against them against Ethan.

    Panel 6: And so Mike escalates the gaslighting, including direct attacks on points that Ethan is sore and vulnerable about. Because to an edgelord, having and expressing vulnerability is a signal to attack. And to attack on that exact point.

    Are they depressed and struggle with suicidal ideation? Try and reinforce the side of their brain that makes them want to kill themselves and cut them off from their coping strategies. Are they a survivor of assault? Try and trigger them with endless rape “jokes” and sexual harassment.

    So he hits Ethan where it’ll hit the hardest, that he has a lot of complicated feelings about his queerness and his sexual attraction to men.That he’s going to be doomed to forever be miserable due to that attraction and that it will always deny him experiencing real joy, because that’s the homophobic narrative that both Mike and Ethan’s mom have spun (though Ethan’s mom to a larger and more terrifying extent).

    It’s exactly the line of attack that would get Ethan defensive and no longer on a train of thought of realizing that Mike is indeed trying to actively hurt someone and thus potentially foil his “plan”.

    And that’s why I really hope the end of this arc is Ethan cutting this abusive little shit out of his life once and for all. I doubt it will, because otherwise, we’d almost never see Mike in comic again and I’m not sure Willis is too keen on that. Cause someone who will go to these extents, who will exploit these vulnerabilities just to isolate and hurt you is not a good person and will always be a threat to Ethan’s pursuit of healthy friendships and relationships so long as he’s in his life.

    Like, fuck, if Ethan actually did get a boyfriend, do you know how bitterly Mike would seek to destroy that person? He’s targeting Danny simply because Danny was queer and hanging out with Ethan and they shared some light flirtation. An actual boyfriend? Mike would be digging up old photos of the person to shop into child pornography by the end of the day if that happened.

    1. OnyxIdol

      I value your insights, Cerberus, but damn are they depressing.

    2. thejeff

      Just to add one point, Mike being Mike, he’s probably also pulling something on Eric. No need to limit the damage to Ethan, even if he’s the more important target.

      Also, how the hell does this even play out in Ethan’s mind that leads him to “Mike’s gay and I should date him” as opposed to “All this time Mike knew I was struggling with being gay and said nothing about this, but he was gay and apparently completely casual about it?”

      1. Li

        “Something”? Unless Eric is in an open relationship with his gf, the what is obvious

    3. JBento

      Requesting information on what “edgelord” means.

      1. badmartialarts

        A devil’s advocate, except an asshole about it. That guy (or girl) who always takes the opposite position, just out of spite rather than actual belief or desire to explore alternatives.

        1. nightsbridge

          I don’t know if that quite fits? An edgelord is generally ‘edgy’ and ‘dangerous’ in a very 4chan, Milo kind of way. Deliberately offending people because ‘lulz’ and ‘fuck you that’s why.’

        2. thejeff

          Yeah, definite connotations of trangressing society’s “norms” in a way that somehow looks a lot like the old norms, but with more swearing. Guys who crack jokes aimed at women and minorities because that’s not PC and they’re so cool and rebellious for doing it

        3. Cerberus

          Basically people who want to believe punching down and normalizing child rape and literal nazism is “cool” and “edgy” and totally a blow against the PC system man.

          Because all the many mediocre white men doing “edgy” shock humor totally lose contracts and airtime and opportunities the same way a show featuring a trans character or openly talking about abortion does.

          Basically a traditionalist asshole who also wants to feel like a counter-culture rebel with a massive dose of hiding behind “I didn’t mean any of it, it was all for the lulz” when called out on it. Frequently are at the center of most harassment campaigns.

    4. LooksLikeDaniel

      Actually, I don’t think he’s gaslighting here at all. Ethan saw Mike walking out of Eric”s room in his underwear and wasted no time flatly accusing him of foul play. Mike, somewhat indignant at the baseless accusation, assured Ethan that he, god forbid, had sex without an angle. Ethan wouldn’t accept that, so Mike gave him the sarcastic jab he clearly wanted to hear.

      1. thejeff

        Which distracts Ethan from the actual plan, which Mike has already told us is aimed at him & Danny. This poor schlub is only collateral damage.

        Mike is not the poor victim being baselessly accused of foul deeds here.

      2. RogueParasol

        I’d agree with you, maybe, IF we didn’t know Mike was concocting something about seducing Ethan. Sure, Mike could hypothetically just have had a hookup and gotten annoyed when Ethan caught him. But that’s a stretch considering how calculating Mike is. I didn’t think this was as creepy until I re-read all of the strips with Mike in them and realized he is ALWAYS making a move in his sick game to destroy people. It’s never an accident or a coincidence, it’s always a step in his twisted plan. And even if he was simply annoyed that Ethan is prying, that last panel is a tactical blow in a series of low blows about Ethan’s insecurities. This too neatly fits into Mike’s systematic derailment of Ethan’s emotions and his ultimate “seduce Ethan to mess with him and Danny” plan to be innocent on Mike’s part.

      3. Cerberus

        Well, yeah, this comic out of context, that would seem a wholly normal explanation. And that’s what makes it gaslighting. It’s presenting a fake, but just believable you doubt yourself rationale for a clearly targeted action.

        And we know it’s targeted because we the audience saw him in the percent comic I linked to above, openly admitting his plan was to seduce Ethan to reduce Danny to a miserable crying jealous wreck despite Ethan telling him in no uncertain terms to lay off.

        So in that context, I feel it would qualify, because Ethan is very much correct in his accusation here. And Mike is using the easier narrative to make Ethan doubt himself entirely so he won’t suss out that he’s being targeted until it’s too late.

        1. RogueParasol

          Cerberus, I don’t know if you were responding to me- I meant to be responding to LookslikeDaniel- but on the off chance you were, I wanted to say I agreed. If this strip took place in a vacuum, Mike might be given the benefit of the doubt of being “just” a snarky asshat who’s trying to deflect a friend’s unwelcome accusations. His strips aren’t as frequent, so it can be easy to forget it’s a pattern, not a singular punchline. But this isn’t a singular event, or Mike “accidentally” going too far in embarrassment or stress (which would still be a dick move, but not intentional manipulation). This is the latest strategic move on Mike’s part, with the express goal of hurting Ethan, which is important to remember.

  54. Killjoy

    Honestly, Mike has been my least favorite character all the way back to Roomies, and it’s been for all the reasons that people outline here. I’ve never found Mike anything but an abusive, manipulative bully, and derived a sort of dark satisfaction from the way Dina and then Amber were able to turn his behavior back on him.

    It seems that without the cover of rubber reality and wacky hijinks, maybe his behavior is finally more visible for what it’s always been.

    1. Victor Riley

      Same here. As much as he loves to punch other people, he’s the one that deserves a punch more than most. (Except for Ryan… Mike can let loose on him.)

      1. BP

        Yes, good. Inflict him where he is needed. He can be like Muzzle from Road Rovers – only unleashed as a last resort because otherwise he’s too unstable. [/giant dork who remembers a cartoon nobody watched]

  55. Pablo360

    I’ve seen some people complaining that Robin and Mike are portrayed as more comedic than they should be in this comic, for what they are.

    I think you could easily make that argument, given their histories.

    I also think it’s wrong, at least in the case of Mike. Because I look at this page, and nothing about what Mike is doing could be framed as humorous. Which is good.

    1. Killjoy

      And yet there are plenty of people who find Mike hilarious even now.

      In general, since I was a kid, I’ve noticed a trend in comedy (or what gets called comedy) to be more mean-spirited, as the national tone has changed. It seems like comedy has gone from laughing with characters, to laughing AT characters.

      1. TemporalShrew

        I’d like to note that you don’t really determine what is and isn’t comedy. I tend to find dark humour absolutely hilarious, and it would be very good if, reading through the comments section of this four-panel comic strip containing a single dark joke that only vaguely lightens the plainly heavy tone contained therein, I was not being made to feel perpetually like a dreadful human being for having a different sense of humour.

        1. TemporalShrew

          Correction, six. I’m very used to traditional comic strip format and assume everything I read will be and is four panels. Because I am a genius.

      2. BBCC

        Eh, I have a pretty sadistic sense of humour. That said, Mike’s crossed that line like 20 times by now.

      3. thejeff

        It is possible to like Mike as a character and find strips with him in them as funny, while still thinking he’s an asshole.

        It’s only the idea that he’s some kind of Zen jerk who’s actually an intentional force for good that really bothers me.

        1. Jhon

          It’s when Mike unintentionally does good that I find him amusing. The rest of the time, less so.

  56. chris73

    If Roman Polanski can plead guilty to the charge of “Unlawful Sexual Intercourse with a minor” and yet is still fetted by Hollywood then theres no real reason why Milo, a self-confessed abuse victim, can’t make a come back either

    Its a funny old world we live in

    1. thejeff

      Well, first off, Polanski fled the country to avoid serving his time and remains overseas. I’d settle for that with Milo. 🙂

      Second, Polanski apparently has talent and isn’t just famous for being offensive. I suspect it’s harder to recover when you’ve got nothing but being an asshole going for you.

      1. chris73

        Its why I look at Hollywood vilifying Trump and wonder why they don’t put the same spotlight on themselves

        I mean Streep got major kudos for blasting Trump yet also gives Polanski a standing ovation, there’s plenty of accusations about Woody Allen but no investigations and a-listers fall over themselves to film with him, Casey Affleck can apparently treat women however he likes but nothing happens and that’s not even going into the problems with the casting couch

        I’d suggest Hollywood sorts it own issues out first but It’d rather produce absolute bollix like La La Land instead

        1. Shad

          I thought the casting couch was just a porn gimmick

        2. chris73

          If you wiki casting couch (last time I posted links it went into moderation) then there are plenty of stories from Gwyneth Paltrow, Susan Sarandon, Charlize Theron, Ryan Phillipe and others about the casting couch

          But get a Hollywood star worth millions to stand up at an awards ceremony and slam Trump and that’s a big deal but try getting some of these big stars to try to protect young actors from predatory behaviour in their own industry and the silence is deafening

          *Side note La La Land is way over rated, Sing Street is so much better

    2. chris73

      That was a supposed to be a reply to someone not just a random comment

  57. Killjoy

    Ugh… more bad news.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/us/politics/devos-sessions-transgender-students-rights.html

    (Also, Trump team manages to make DeVos look vaguely sympathetic.)

    1. Fart Captor

      Fuck. Whiney Dickhead really wants to wear people down, doesn’t he?

      DeVos can still rot. If she pulls a Sally Yates here, I might actually think better of her, but she paid good money for that cabinet post, so I’m not optimistic.

      Hopefully he put the same “best people” on this that he put on his immigration ban, so the courts can immediately shut that down. This rancid, gangrenous tumor of a president cannot be removed soon enough.

      1. C.T. Phipps

        I confess, I actually assumed Trump wasn’t going to be anti-trans simply because I didn’t think it was possible for the man to contain EVERY form of bigotry known to man. Shows me.

        1. Fart Captor

          Even if HE isn’t, he has to appease the GOP bigots in Congress happy enough that they don’t impeach his disgusting ass. And if there’s one thing he’s consistent about, it’s not giving a damn about anyone else.

          This is some absolute bullshit

    2. BBCC

      Reps, senators, governors. Call, email, write, and/or fax. Go to town hall meetings if you can.

      https://5calls.org
      http://itstimetofight.weebly.com
      ^^^^
      These two offer good call lists.

      https://faxzero.com
      ^^^^
      This will help you fax for free

      https://townhallproject.com
      ^^^^
      This will show you your rep’s nearest town hall meeting.

    3. BBCC

      I have a post waiting in moderation, but the gist is – call, write, attend events for, fax, and/or email your reps, senators, and governors. Call your school boards and ask for their policies – urge them to change them if they’re bad ones.

  58. Bluewind

    Cerberus, omg I just seen Trump on the news and had to come straight here. I’m so sorry for you, your fiancé, and any other trans individuals in the US. It’s bullshit and puts a target on innocent people just living their lives. Is there anything I can do to help fight against it? *hugs offered*

    Note: To anyone who hasn’t heard, Trump is trying to force all schools to have a completely separate bathroom for trans students. So it’s either hold it or bring attention to yourself in front of strangers. Even my father who is pretty bigoted reacted negatively to the news.My local news seems to support it (they didn’t even hid how pro Trump they were during the election so no surprise there).

    1. BBCC

      Call your reps and senators and go to any town hall meeting you can get to with them there.

      1. Bluewind

        I’ll see what I can do. My area is sickeningly pro Trump. I’ll have to ask around to see when and if we will have a meeting anytime soon much less have one with any elected official. It couldn’t hurt though.

        1. BBCC

          townhallproject is a good site to check your local meetings.

          Face to face is the best way to influence your reps. Calling is another good way. Even if it’s a pro-red district, if they hear from enough folks opposed to a given policy, it can help a lot. That’s how things like Rand Paul flipping on the ACA vote or the tie for DeVos happened. Constituent pressure is a DICK to deal with.

        2. Bluewind

          I’m not gonna lie, it scares me to do it publicly. I got followed to my car once by a man who wouldn’t leave me alone when he eavesdropped me talking to another woman when I mentioned I don’t go to church. I was harassed in a vets office twice, once by a woman insisting I go to church and one by a man who cussed me out because I’m a democrat (child murderer to him). I detailed the experience in the library and many other on here. But I need to put up or shut up.

        3. BBCC

          It’s okay to stick to calling your electeds from your own home, if you’re not prepared to go out. Or you could go to the event, listen to what is said, and then wait until it’s over – many electeds will be okay with a constituent coming up to talk quietly/privately when the event is over. My MP was when she visited my high school (though my MP is pretty cool and things may be different in the states).

    2. chris73

      We’re going through this ourselves in NZ:

      http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/81590796/Marlborough-transgender-students-bathroom-battle-brings-about-change

      http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11804688

      1. Bluewind

        I’m guessing her family would have been one of the ones speaking out against people of different colors peeing in the same place too *eye roll*

    3. Cerberus

      Yeah, we knew this was coming as soon as he won. And yeah, this is going to kill a lot of trans kids. Most especially because it’s being reported as a bathroom only bill like all anti-trans legislation, but this not only means the green light to admin harassing trans kids and signalling to the bullies that they are not the gender they are and admin will not stand for them.

      But the other factors of Obama’s order getting rolled back means schools can once again refuse to accept a student’s gender or correct their name in classrooms or in any documentation, which means targeted dead-naming to get trans kids to either go back in the closet (and die) or drop out of school entirely (and die).

      And worse it rolls back some of the Title IX protections as well, meaning that a lot of anti-trans discrimination and harassment has gotten the green-light and trans kids are going to be shut out of after school sports and full rights.

      And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of what’s still coming down the way. We need to make sure that FADA (first amendment defense act) never gets passed, otherwise it will become near impossible for many queer and trans people to have legal jobs in certain regions.

      1. Bluewind

        All we can do is hope we can elect enough people in 2 years to block his ass from doing much and then elect someone else in 4 years. Either that or he falls over dead. I want it to be by lightening or plane crash after he says god is on his side somehow to put a pin in how even the Christian god disapproves. I don’t want it to keep snowballing like this. I want it to end.

        How are your kids taking it? And please tell me the bullies are running with this 🙁

        1. Bluewind

          Just looked up FADA. HOLY CRAP ON A CRACKER!!! That bill is against everyone in the LGBTQ+ community and can be read as against single mothers and unwed couples! Jobs can turn us down or fire us without any other cause, we can be refused service, and we lose all protection… If that passes then you and your fiancé, me, my cousin and his husband, my neighbor, none of us will be safe. I’m gonna go have a mini freak out. The international ban is public enough that so many have stood up against it and fight. Would there be enough coverage on what this is for people to fight as hard against it too and the dozens of other bigoted things they are gonna try?

    4. de Combys

      So, did he say that trans kids would be forced to use the bathroom?

      Because if not, than it’s a very, very good thing because that would ensure that trans kids can’t be forced by their school to use the opposite gender bathrooms.

      And even if kids are forced to go to the trans bathroom, at least they still aren’t forced into opposite-gender bathrooms. It’s, imo, much much better than that option. Still not ideal, but better.

      Especially considering that there might still be a good way to go before the nationwide social acceptability of trans people going into their own gender’s bathroom is made. People need to be educated beforehand. I think that it is a good first step that will gradually familiarize the public with the issue in a non-foreceful way, all while giving trans kids a safe bathroom space, opening up for more possibilities in the future. It does have disadvantages, but it’s still a first step. A partial solution is not worse than no solution, so don’t go all drama about this please. Things take time, and there are other choices than status quo VS immediate perfect situation.

      And please don’t reply to me stuff about how Trump is necessarily ill-intentioned and therefore he is motivated by discriminatiive beliefs and such, because I disagree. Btw: my quite large Syrian American family from Delaware voted Trump, and I would’ve too if I was American. Oh, and in my family we’re all very well educated people with university degrees and intellectual jobs.

      And before you go all batshit on me, I’m trans, gay, half-Arab, adopted, an artist, disabled, also part of other religious and linguistic minorities. And my previously mentioned family is very accepting (yes, even though they’re evil Arabs). So the usual “you’re privileged + discriminative” invalidating comments are unapplicable, sorry.

      Yes, believe it or not, there are intelligent people who support Trump for various reasons. But it’s no use explaining those very valid reasons to people who dismiss you the moment they hear you’re on that side. So I’m not going there.

      1. Bluewind

        I’m not going to attack you for your beliefs, but I think you should read Cerberus’ reply to me above. It shows the impact of rolling back the order other than bathrooms and also other fights in our future. It’s a complex issue.

        And I’m kinda offended that you would automatically assume that your family would be evil. A culture doesn’t automatically make someone a bad person any more than a religion does. I’m an atheist myself and I believe that religion is a beautiful thing that is beneficial to many people while I get hate thrown at me from Christians in my area who are ignorant as to what that means (including being called a satanist and illuminati), so I know how sometimes people can be very judgemental towards things they are not.

        I’m also going to disagree with you strongly on Trump, but that doesn’t mean that I will hate you as a person. I have friends and family who supported him and while any political centered conversation will get extremely heated, I don’t hate them or boot them out of my life. I could sit here and argue politics until I’m blue in the face with you, but I worry that you would take it as a personal attack and tune me out making my words moot. I have many reasons for being against him (like the environmental impact a wall would have on local wildlife) as you have for being for him and I think agreeing to disagree is the best thing for you and I to do.

      2. Fart Captor

        Can’t say I believe a word of that, but in case you’re not a troll, and really are that naive:

        He has removed federal protections. This means that states are once again free to force trans students to use separate bathrooms, or the bathroom based on their original birth certificate. Not to mention all the other things Cerberus mentioned that this allows states to do, if you actually read her post.

        This does not give trans students a safe anything. States like Texas and North Carolina have already demonstrated they will discriminate against trans students. There have been states that literally passed laws putting a bounty on trans kids who try to use the bathroom matching their identity.

        Even schools where they HAVE single person bathrooms for trans kids to use (Hint: many do not), that will put a crosshairs on those kids who are ALREADY the targets of viscous bullying.

        Since they don’t have to honor changes to students records, kids are no longer guaranteed protection grin dead naming and misgendering even from teachers.

        I don’t know how trans kids are treated where you’re from, but here it can get absolutely awful.

        And if you seriously don’t think Trump’s behavior is malicious, you have not been paying attention to him.

        1. Bluewind

          You are a wonderfully powerful and thunderous fart my dear. Keep trying to blow away oppression and bigotry and one day the winds of change may come. 😉

      3. Tomas

        Ok, first of all, this issue is not about bathrooms, it’s about hatred. The bathroom bills are just an expression of that hatred, just like in the days racial segregation. Universal acceptance of trans kids is all well and good, but it is not, and should not, be a prerequisite for basic rights. The WHOLE POINT of civil rights is to protect people in unpopular demographics, and if you don’t know that already then you’re not as educated as you claim to be.

        Secondly, you support Trump for “various reasons”? Please. You only support Trump to spite the liberals. You’re not even subtle about it.

  59. Silly Name

    So, who else feels that Mike didn’t actually sleep with Eric?

    1. C.T. Phipps

      Mike slept with Eric. He also slept with Eric’s mom. For a nickle.

  60. Schol-R-LEA

    Of course he’s not going to tell Eric’s girlfriend about it now.

    It isn’t time for that yet. He has to spent a week fucking both Eric and *and* Eric’s girlfriend, then arrange for them to find out about each other in a way so compromising that makes them *both* look like pieces of shit, and end up blaming each other instead of Mike.

    1. Schol-R-LEA

      Having said that, I now wonder what will happen when Mike decides to fuck with Carla’s head. I expect that it will involve at least one explosion.

    2. Sam

      Well, in that case, none of them would come out of that a shining example of morality.

  61. fillerusername

    Okay just gonna say I feel like some people have been a little too eager to pretend this ongoing Ethan/Danny/Mike thing isn’t clearly being written as a something we’re meant to take seriously and be paying attention to and I’m just wondering why? Is it because they haven’t gotten canonically together and people are just completely in denial about the fragile emotional places they’re both in? Consider the home life Ethan just escaped and the fact that Mike is setting himself up to be the first guy Ethan ever sleeps with and it’s motivated out of nothing but cruelty? Consider Danny’s home life and repeated rejection and all the amzigirl shit and how they’ve both been set up as being just…this nice thing in each others lives and Mike is going to shatter that and then there’s fucking Amber…

    Honestly tell me how is this not meant to be taken seriously? How can it really be expected that either isn’t going to care?

    1. StClair

      Lots of people are taking it very seriously. Check the comments above yours.
      Some of us are just watching and waiting, with dread, for the inevitable.

      Oh, and there’s also what’s going on in the comic.

      1. fillerusername

        How do you expect me to respond to this? I’m obviously specifically talking about the people replying to previous comments above and in other discussions downplaying the seriousness or claiming it’s ridiculous to think Danny or Ethan would be upset. That’s why I said “some people.”

        1. fillerusername

          Yeah I know there are some people taking it seriously. Great. My question was about those who seem insistent on not and mocking people who do because I’m honestly curious about the motivations.

  62. Liam

    This being the only comic of Willis’ I’ve read, I actually had no idea that Mike was gay/bisexual, so this was actually quite a surprise.

    Though at the same time I half expected Mike to be only able to derive sexual satisfaction from the suffering and misery of others, so it’s a double-whammy of surprises.

  63. Black

    I honestly never figured Mike to be gay. Huh…

    1. JessWitt

      He’s omnisexual.

    2. Sam

      His sexuality is shrouded in mystery because:

      a) In Shortpacked! he slept with both Amber and Ethan opening the possibility of bi/pan/poly.

      b) He married Amber in Shortpacked! and was capable of falling in love so he is at minimum heteroromantic.

      c) It is entirely possible he is a sex-positive asexual who enjoys sex, has a libido but isn’t specifically sexually attracted to anyone.

      d) It is entirely possible he is straight or gay but will happily have sex with someone he isn’t sexually attracted to just because he enjoys sex and he doesn’t care enough to care whether he is specifically sexually attracted to the person or not.

      He is the kind of person where him actually having sex with someone doesn’t guarantee anything because he doesn’t care – he will have sex with anyone as long as it ruins someone else’s day or is a part of a plan to ruin someone’s day eventually.

  64. CrockedCop

    Has there ever been a moment where Mike wasn’t an ass, short or long therm
    ?

    1. Fart Captor

      When Becky told him he was invited to Joyce’s party “if he could be nice”, and he declined, that approached nice.

      Also, this could be construed as sticking up for Joyce:
      http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/02-that-perfect-girl/profane/

  65. de Combys

    To all commentors: this is DoA, not IW or SP.

    Got it?

    Mike and Mike and Mike are different persons. This Mike here has never done anything psychopathic.

    So stop it. It’s nerve-grating. Thanks.

    Actually, I take back my thanks. I know full well that this message won’t have the least impact.

    1. Zatar

      People have listed multiple examples of the awful things he’s done in this comic above, and we are currently in the midst of a story-line about him trying to seduce Ethan for the explicit purpose of causing both him and Danny emotional pain. The fact that you see nothing wrong with this says more about you then the other commentators.

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