180

Boundaries
Posted on May 10, 2018 by David M Willis

180 thoughts on “Boundaries”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    “Bound… aries? Is that, like, they tied up a ram?”

    1. Maveric1984

      No, it’s jumping British people named Harry

      1. King Daniel

        Or Potter’s into bondage.

        1. space

          Harry Potter and the Chamber of Bondage

        2. Koms

          Fifty “wands freed.

        3. Jack Spade

          Harry Potter the Prisoner of Ginny

        4. Lumino

          Well, THAT would get Amber’s attention.

        5. noiob

          Scared, Potter?

  2. AnvilPro

    Rude Amber

    1. Pl0x

      Assertive of her wants and needs, and expressing when herself someone is making her uncomfortable.

      1. Pl0x

        Yikes

        *expressing herself when

      2. Eldritch Gentleman

        Problem is that what she “needs” is being suggested by the stupid part of her brain that is convinced she is a monster and that she should not interact with people at all…

        1. Pl0x

          Sure, and socializing isn’t going to help when she really doesn’t want to or feels like she doesn’t deserve it.

        2. Eldritch Gentleman

          That’s the problem though. She thinks she does not deserve to socialize, she thinks she does not deserve the attention of those people. If she just secludes herself and people stop kicking her door in she will believe she was right. I just feel that military-grade love and appreciation that Joyce radiates is what she needs.

        3. abysswatcher1993

          Sometimes we have to intervene when our friends are being self destructive. If people wouldn’t intervene other people would become too depressed to work properly and affect the lives of everyone around. You need good friends who support you when you have screwed up, and also the friends that kick your ass to make you stop screwing up.

        4. thejeff

          Joyce isn’t a good friend to Amber. Joyce hardly knows Amber. Joyce is not in any position to judge Amber’s level of depression or socialization or to know if she needs an intervention.
          Joyce isn’t actually trying to intervene because she thinks Amber is at risk, she’s just decided that since Amber saved Dorothy, Amber is now family and must be dragged into her social circle regardless of her wishes.

          Amber’s needs and Joyce’s behavior are different questions.

        5. Roborat

          Or maybe she is just being friendly and hoping to get to know her better by having dinner together?

        6. thejeff

          In this strip alone without any other context, that wouldn’t be an unreasonable take. Given Joyce’s issues with boundaries in general and given that she just declared a few strips back that Amber was as good as family, which Amber rejected, I doubt it. And of course, given her followup, it’s pretty damn clear it wasn’t a casual invitation.

        7. Classic Appa

          Well, basically the most important tenet of Christianity is to love all, even if someone has been a total dingbat to you. (Or killed your family or whatever.) This isn’t license to pry into other peoples affairs, or make peoples decisions for them, but it certainly is license to invite people to dinner and pursue friendships. Joyce isn’t violating anyone’s rights by telling people she cares about them like family.

        8. Dark

          Maybe I need to reread the comic (again), but I seem to remember Joyce and Amber interacting a lot before Becky and the kidnapping.

      3. Emily

        Maladaptive coping mechanisms are not “needs.” Amber doesn’t need (or really even want) to live in total isolation she just feels that’s what she deserves.

        1. Sigh

          Sometimes, though, there’s “I am done dealing with people now” or even “You are not the particular people I want to interact with.”

        2. thejeff

          Sometimes, but not here and now. Not with Amber.

        3. Jack

          And yet, other people really don’t have the right to decide that you don’t get to be alone, or even part of your life at all. That’s almost the definition of stalking or harassment.

          You could make an argument for that being different when in dire situations (suicidal, etc.), but right here right now does not seem like that case even slightly.

        4. Eldritch Gentleman

          She has a split-personality which just got Worse, is suffering from some severe self-hatred and is doing her damn best to push away all the people who actually care about her. I think it IS a dire situation. If she doesn’t get love and help Now her situation will only get worse.

        5. abysswatcher1993

          I agree. She needs to reconcile her two personalities and embrace her violent tendencies for good, like using her strength to protect others. If she keeps rejecting her true self she will become more dangerous and unstable than a sexually frustrated Joyce.
          She needs to be in a loving relationship, to have friends, to practice her hobbies, etc. Maybe put away the mask of Amazigirl and be a super hero without secret identity, like Tony Stark?

        6. thejeff

          @Eldritch Gentleman: It is a bad situation, though not at a crisis point right now. Joyce doesn’t know or understand that though and is thus both not justified and likely to be unhelpful.

          @abysswatcher1993: Reconciling her two personalities is likely to be a long process, involving years of therapy. Nor is it really “rejecting her true self”, to the point I’m not even sure what you mean by that.
          Given that at this point, Amazi-Girl is acting while Amber is sleeping and Amber isn’t remembering what she does, I don’t think putting away the mask is an option.
          She has serious problems and needs actual professional help, not just friends and hobbies.

        7. Inahc

          “embrace her violent tendencies”? um, no, she needs some anger management skills, so that it doesn’t come out as violence any more.
          (but you’re right that rejecting the anger is not a solution)

        8. BBCC

          Being a secret identity-less superhero would most likely get Amber arrested, also. Cool in comic books with a shared universe full of an established superhero community, but in a slightly more realistic setting its a bad idea.

        9. Emily

          @thejeff I’m pretty sure attacking people with no recollection of it qualifies as a crisis point. Hell, Amber’s vigilantism was a crisis point from day one people don’t dress up in a costume and perpetrate violent vigilantism unless shit is fucked.

        10. thejeff

          @Emily: Fine. Conceded. (At least for the sake of this discussion. We differ on the nature of Amazi-Girl’s actions.)
          But that’s neither a crisis Joyce knows anything about, nor one that making her socialize more and making more friends will address. As interventions go, this is about on the same level as her mom’s idea that most of her problems can be traced to low blood sugar.

          Now if you want to argue that Ethan or Danny or Dorothy or even Dina should be calling the cops on her to get her the help she needs and save people from her dangerous vigilantism, then at least there’s a rational case to be made. To argue that Joyce should ignore her repeatedly expressed desire to be left alone because she’s a dangerous vigilante makes no sense at all. Even more so because Joyce has no clue about that..

          Which is my problem with most of the support for Joyce here: It’s based both on motivations Joyce doesn’t have and on trivializing the problems Amber has by assuming just becoming friends (or “family”) with Joyce will somehow fix them. Or have any effect on them at all.

        11. thejeff

          @Jack: Absolutely agreed. I was just countering the idea that Amber just needed a little time away from people or those particular people. Amber has serious issues with isolating herself. It’s a bad coping mechanism, not healthy at all.

          OTOH, you’re right that it’s not Joyce’s place to force herself upon her. And Joyce is very likely the wrong kind of person to actually help Amber here.

        12. Eldritch Gentleman

          I think the main problem is that the Right people got pushed away. Neither Danny nor Ethan even try even though they were the closest to her. Her mother is giving her space too. Let’s be fair, Joyce is the only one willing to kick her door down in and drag her out. She may be far from perfect but she is the only one willing to go in full force.

        13. thejeff

          Maybe so, but she’s doing it for the wrong reasons with no idea of what she’s dealing with and no trust from Amber. She’s not going to be able to help.

        14. Eldritch Gentleman

          Yeah but… what else can be done? Her mother is too meek and useless, same for Danny and Ethan. The end will be probably Amber doing something drastic and the help being Forced on her.

        15. thejeff

          Perhaps, but just forcing her to socialize isn’t what she needs. And Joyce isn’t trying to stage an intervention because she understands Amber is in crisis, she’s just being Joyce and running over boundaries without any good reason.

        16. Pl0x

          And what exactly would Joyce be able to do? Keep telling Amber she’s not a monster, keep trying to eat meals with her, while in Amber’s mind the thought that she’s a monster is quite fixed? I feel like it’s been brewing for a long time too, growing and growing in her subconscious until this recent incident that made the idea emerge. She has to want to change her mind first in order for it to start changing and get better. Idk how Joyce is gonna help with that. Unless, Idk, making her go see a trained professional somehow.

        17. Inahc

          Ruth is still checking up on amber too, so Joyce isn’t the only one who can “save” her. :/

        18. thejeff

          And Dina’s there and Ethan does check in. She’s not that isolated.

        19. thejeff

          Oh and Walky up on the garbage roof.

        20. abysswatcher1993

          @thejeff: Walky is terrible at giving advice! He is as clueless as Dany and Joyce, and has the attention span of a small kid in the toy store of Shortpacked. They are buddies because they empathize about their self loathing, but they aren’t really helping each other to improve.

          Also, if Amber goes to therapy the doctor would probably just give her some antidepressants, listen to her dark secrets and tell her everything that a person with common sense would say: “you aren’t a monster”. All of that while they put their notes in a file with Amber’s name. All therapists only give you drugs and/or counsel you in what way to socialize, so having friends and hobbies is part of the therapy of recovery.

        21. thejeff

          Okay. I got nothing. I don’t even know how to respond.

          Amber has real serious mental problems. They’re not going to be touched by just having friends and hobbies. She’s got (or at least had) friends and hobbies. She kept getting worse – disassociating further until now she doesn’t even share memories.
          I’m no expert and I’m not sure what proper treatment for DID and the rest of her problems is, but I know they can do a whole lot more than you suggest.

        22. Inahc

          wow.

          walky doesn’t know how to help with improvement, but they *did* help each other cope. that’s important too.

          therapists actually cannot prescribe any medication. that’s psychiatrists (I admit, I had to doublecheck that with google).

          counselling covers a hell of a lot more than “what way to socialize”. In amber’s case, it’d probably be a mix of anger management training, grounding exercises, CBT/DBT, and some DID-specific things my brain is reluctant to remember atm.

    2. JoeCovenant

      There’s assertive, then there’s rude.
      That was rude.

      1. Pl0x

        I guess I don’t care.

      2. thejeff

        Yeah, but sometimes rude is needed. Given Joyce’s lack of appreciation for boundaries, it might be warranted. Given Joyce’s follow up line, implying she’s not back off and leave Amber alone as requested, it might not have been rude enough.

        Of course, the other side of that is that it’s Amber’s brain weasels that make her so emphatic about wanting that isolation. It is something she needs to overcome, but it’s not Joyce’s place to do so. Nor, I suspect, is Joyce’s approach one that would help her.

        1. Jack

          Agreed.

          This also *feels* a bit sexist. If a guy was saying, “I want to be alone” I feel like it would be respected more. (I mean, probably not by Joyce, but that’s Joyce’s problem.)

  3. DailyBrad

    Okay, so the implicit understanding is now explicit. Good to know.

    1. StClair

      Yup.

  4. Kathleen

    I wonder what storyline we’ll cut to next.

    1. newllend(henryvolt)

      Let’s see we just got done with walky and Jason, that he wasn’t doing much that day and neither was Bellie. So I’m predicting a panel with either Joe and Danny or a panel with Sal.

    2. Ainara

      Mary

    3. Inahc

      Mike.

    4. Roborat

      Raidah.

  5. Stephen Bierce

    *cues up some Rod Stewart for the hacked Muzak*

    1. Opus the Poet

      Nahh, Rolling Stones “Can’t Always Get What You Want”

      1. Deanatay

        S.B. doesn’t always go for the obvious… that’s our job. 🙂

  6. Zathras10

    Mmmm. Pie.

    1. BrokenEye, the True False Prophet

      What kind of pie?

      1. Zathras10

        Pumpkin, of course.

        http://www.shortpacked.com/2010/comic/book-12/05-neww-2010-comics/thanksgiving/

  7. Passchendaele

    *insert obligatory “you sunk my battleship!” joke*

    1. Screwball

      But Faz kept his pants done up the whole time…

  8. Stu

    So I gotta wonder – how the hell would Jacob react to all this, aside from being pissed at Sarah? He obviously does enjoy spending time with Joyce, after all.

    1. Inahc

      Very, very disappointed?

    2. Puckish Rogue

      My guess is that he’d feel pretty damn with both Joyce and Sarah for trying to break him and Raidah up, especially since all hes ever been is nice to both of them

      1. Puckish Rogue

        Grrr, I mean pretty damn angry

        I shouldn’t really post while at work

        1. 3oranges

          I took “feel pretty damn” as some new but entirely intelligible slang. 🙂

        2. King Daniel

          I’ll just drop this here: https://i.imgur.com/twfa1kL.png

      2. Victor

        Huh? I mean, Joyce was pretty upfront with him about talking Sarah up. I think if he was going to be angry about it, he’d already be angry about it.

        1. Kathleen

          I don’t think he knew she was talking Sarah up… so that it would ruin his relationship. A relationship he talks about how happy he is in. I don’t think he would take kindly to that.

    3. Charlotte

      What I’m sad about is that this probably means Joyce will not want to hang out with Jacob anymore at all, and I think they were really good for each other (as friends; completely independent of anything that was going on with Raidah).
      I hope that they can somehow salvage their friendship.

  9. Puckish Rogue

    I guess Joyce now has trust in what Joe says which is interesting

    1. cbwroses

      She said awhile ago that Joe is on the ball about a lot of things, so she does have a certain amount of trust in what he says.

    2. HeySo

      Other than Sarah and Dorothy, he’s probably Joyce’s closest friend. They’ve regularly been seen texting each other. It looks like they’ve built up a healthy respect for one another.

      1. thejeff

        I’m interested to see how him falling off the wagon (and ditching her with Faz) affects that.

        1. HeySo

          Well, I mean, they’ve been texting since well before “the list”.
          In fact, since they were still friends after her “negative zero” rating, along with lasting through her blaming him for her toe injury, I don’t see her taking it too hard.

  10. Reltzik

    Joyce, you should know that you’ll never get closure without boundaries.

    ….

    *waits for, like, the only two people who will get that to get that, and then runs for dear punning life*

    1. vlademir1

      *shakes head and walks away reading a Spider Robinson novel*

    2. StClair

      this is a math joke, isn’t it.
      I’ve read enough xkcd strips to recognize the form, if not understand the content.

    3. Schpoonman

      So, I want to be mad, but I think that’s a pretty profound statement, so I suppose I’m okay with it.

      1. Reltzik

        Gravatar win.

    4. UniqueSnowflake2

      Yeah, you better run. If I catch you in this neighborhood again, I’ll kick you in the balls.

      1. Reltzik

        Wow, I always thought neighborhoods were more open and accepting than that. I guess their tolerance for puns is shrinking.

        1. Needfuldoer

          Puns must be respected and handled responsibly.

        2. Clif

          Balls are only one way to define closure of sets.

        3. Clif

          Also neighborhood. Well done.

        4. Clif

          Thought neighborhoods were more open … okay, I’m slow sometimes.

        5. Reltzik

          Also, you find boundaries using limits — shrinking the tolerance of the neighborhood.

        6. Reltzik

          …. okay, didn’t phrase that quite right. Technically it’s not a limit, but you still shrink the neighborhood around each boundary point to the infinitesimal and show that it still contains part of the set. Close enough for pun work.

        7. HeySo

          Let’s be honest- Mary was just looking for an excuse to threaten someone’s testicles.

    5. Minim

      That brightened my day. Maybe we could have our own pun group.

      1. Reltzik

        Well, since we’ve already dealt with closure, and forming a group would give our association identity. But I’m not sure how I’d go about getting an inverse of myself.

  11. Mr D

    You knopw, much as I happen to enojy my solitude, if not for people like Joyce, I wouldn’t have friends.

    By which I mean, people like Joyce befriend everyone and thus create a circle around them, and I happen to befriend people on that circle.

  12. Mr D

    WAIFU WARS:
    YUKIKIO/CHIE/NAOTO/RISE
    CHOOSE ONE.

    1. Sam

      Rise. I was Chie at the very start, then Naoto, but now I’m at a Rise stage of my life. XD

    2. Clif

      One does not choose one’s true WAIFU. The WAIFU chooses you.

  13. Fart Captor

    Okay, NOW Joyce is making the decision for Amber. I still approve tho. Grumpypants will be loved and that’s FINAL

    1. Zathras10

      Yeah. I mean, she does go about it a little transgressively, but actually isn’t wrong. Later Walkyverse Joyce was often this combination too.

    2. BBCC

      Can she love her from a distance?

      1. Fart Captor

        Probably. Like a love sniper. High caliber love blasting through windows from a clock tower down the street

        1. Mr D phone posting

          Definition: ‘Love’ is making a shot to the knees of a target 120 kilometers away using an Aratech sniper rifle with a tri-light scope… Love is knowing your target, putting them in your targeting reticule, and together, achieving a singular purpose against statistically long odds.

        2. BBCC

          I understood that reference! 😀

      2. Deanatay

        Meme between me and my spouse:

        I love you, dear.

        Over there.

        I love you WAAAY over there.

  14. Rabid Rabbit

    Good lord but Joyce is lucky to have escaped a punch in the third panel.

    And as someone who really, really loathes people who try to force others to socialise, not to mention that appalling mother-knows-best smugness Joyce has got going, I would have cheered if she hadn’t.

    1. Tom T.

      Amber declined awfully rudely, though. I can’t begrudge Joyce a little retaliation.

      1. Pl0x

        I feel like someone like Joyce needs a straightforward and assertive refusal to get them to really back off.

      2. thejeff

        She’d already declined the “family” offer more subtly a couple strips ago. Sometimes you need to escalate to bluntness.

        And it seems this wasn’t enough to actually get Joyce to really back off.

      3. Jack

        I’m kind of bothered how many people think Amber was rude here. She was quite straight-forward. You don’t have to agree with her (she is kind of broken). But it’s her right to associate or not associate with people. Joyce claims she’s trying to be a friend (or family!), but you don’t get to unilaterally decide on that.

        Basically, Joyce is being an ass here. It’s victim-blaming to pin this on Amber. (Surrounding context matters, of course. The first panel here doesn’t look like Joyce is being an ass, out of context.)

  15. Derek

    “I want boundaries” “well we don’t always get what we want” UMMMMMMMMMM highly concerning

    1. Fart Captor

      It would be if that were what happened. She was responding to Amber saying she didn’t want to be part of Joyce’s family, not Sarah pointing out that she should respect other people’s boundaries.

      Deciding to continue seeing Amber as family and inviting her to join them despite Amber’s desire to be alone is really, really tame, since all she had to do was decline the invitation

      1. BBCC

        I’m still a little annoyed with her little ‘we don’t always get what we want’ about Amber saying she didn’t want to be part of her family. If I thought Joyce would only continue to invite her places and respectfully back off after told no, I wouldn’t be bothered but I have a feeling that’s not how this is going to go.

        I will say I agree Joyce has every right to see Amber as family. Amber has every right not to reciprocate, but Joyce can think of people how she likes.

        1. GoblinScribe

          From That 70s Show:
          Lori: “I HATE YOU!”
          Kitty: “Well, that’s just too bad, because I love you!”

          This is more that, I think. But it’s good that Sarah calls her out on it a little, even if it’s a bit hypocritical.

      2. thejeff

        It is what happened. Amber set a boundary. Joyce said she was going to ignore it. “I don’t want to be family. I want to be alone.” “We don’t always get what we want.”
        If Joyce wants to continue thinking of Amber as family in the privacy of her own head, that’s fine. Even if she continues to invite Amber to join them when they happen to see each other, that’s not so bad. If she starts a project of getting Amber to come out and be more social, against Amber’s expressed wishes, she’s going well over the line.

        She’s not there yet, but one of those sounds more like Joyce to me than the other.
        Luckily they don’t share a half-bath, because I don’t think Amber would react as well to Joyce as Sal does. 🙂

        1. Fart Captor

          Joyce does not seem to be kidnapping Amber and forcing her to join them?

          Like, yeah, Sarah is right about Joyce needing to respect boundaries, but Derek made it sound as if THAT was what Joyce was responding to when she said “we don’t always get what we want”, which would have been orders of magnitude worse than what actually happened.

        2. Derek

          yeah I kind of read the panels out of order in my head and I thought Joyce was responding to Sarah’s boundaries remark. Re-reading it, Joyce’s statement is not AS bad but still rustles my jimmies

        3. thejeff

          Honestly, I think it’s not as bad that way. Responding to Amber’s “I don’t want to be your family. I want to be alone.” with “We don’t always get what we want.” strongly implies that she isn’t going to accept that. That she isn’t going to leave Amber alone. No, she’s not actually kidnapping Amber, but I’ll bet she does keep pushing those boundaries over Amber’s protests.
          She as much as says she will – and hints at it again in the end with how good it is that she didn’t respect Sarah’s boundaries.

        4. Fart Captor

          As Emily has noted in another thread, Amber probably doesn’t ACTUALLY want to be totally alone. Isolating herself is one of her unhealthy coping mechanisms. She obviously DOES need her space, and can be overwhelmed by too much socialization, but she doesn’t need to shut people out completely in order to have that.

          Hopefully, Joyce will continue to reach out to Amber like she just did, while also not pushing too hard. If she demonstrates that she’s able to give her space and go away when that’s what she needs, Amber *might* actually let her in willingly.

          This being Joyce, I expect her to screw at least some of that up. She’ll probablyattempt the same strategy that worked on Sarah and not realize that Amber isn’t the same kind of antisocial until something that will make me sad has happened

        5. Inahc

          yeah… amber needs help, and it’ll probably end up necessitating *some* boundary-crossing, but it’s not an excuse for the kind of wholesale boundary-trampling that joyce practices.

          this is one of those hard social problems that doesn’t have a simple black-and-white answer like “respect all boundaries 100% always” or “ignore any boundary that seems dumb”.

        6. thejeff

          Hopefully. Giving space isn’t exactly something Joyce is good at.

        7. Fart Captor

          Honestly, if Amber and Sarah ended up being friends somehow, that would probably be a more ideal result. Joyce wants to smother the people she loves with affection and I love her for that, but Amber isn’t gonna be able to handle that any time soon. Sarah’s level of tolerance for other humans is closer to Amber’s

          Amber could totally join Sarah and Dina as they eat together in silent friendship

          it will never happen but it’d be so adorable

      3. Chris Phoenix

        Um… turn that around – what if it were Joe, deciding to continue seeing Sara as desirable, and inviting her to date him despite her declining? I don’t think you would say it was tame since all she has to do is decline the invitation.

        Yes, offers of unwanted friendship are not usually as fraught and perilous as offers of unwanted dating. But still.

    2. CJ

      I don’t know. It’s not quite so clear cut.
      Respecting Ruth’s boundaries would have meant to let her die. Both Billie and Carla didn’t respect her boundaries and saved her life.
      Respecting Sarah’s boundaries would have meant to let her dig down into books and have no connection to anyone. Yes, Joyce does not easily take “no” for an answer. That can be annoying. If her not taking no for an answer extended to the topic of sex, it would be downright scary.
      But.
      Lots of people currently annoy me with asking me to go dancing with them which I decline because I’m too physically exhausted. That is, since they caught on to the fact that I’m not well. The person I had most contact with since being exhausted started to be so bad, has kept texting and calling even if I occasionally brushed here of rather grumpyly, while most of my close friends respected my boundaries and left me alone.
      (Was I acting stupidly by not asking for help sooner? Sure. )
      So yes, respect people’s boundaries but not the lies they tell themselves.

      1. Eldritch Gentleman

        Quite. Amber should, under no circumstances, be treated as a healthy example of introversion. There is Nothing healthy about Amber, she is a mess and she needs help.

      2. Derek

        forgive me for understanding, but are you annoyed by the friend checking up on you with texts or you prefer that treatment?

        1. CJ

          I was also sometimes annoyed with that friend for making regular contact and actually asking if I was ok when I didn’t react to texts for several days. That was at the time I slept 14 hours a day and still felt exhausted the other 10 and answering a text took more energy than I had.
          I retrospect, I’m thankful.
          What she did is different from what the others do. I never had the feeling I had to smooth over not wanting to do stuff like with others who manage to take “sorry, I won’t come to the ball, I’m too exhausted ” personally. And part of me knows that the others mean well, they are offering activities that I like to do. They are just not very good at offering support to someone who’s exhausted.

  16. BBCC

    …Damn it, they’re both right. Joyce needs to respect boundaries, but Sarah has absolutely ZERO right to all after this Joyce/Jacob nonsense.

    1. Koms

      She preachcc but not practicecc

  17. Marsh Maryrose

    Nitpicks, we got nitpicks.

    Joyce, you don’t point cruise missiles anywhere. You do target them, but the whole raison d’etre of cruise missiles is, even if you see them in flight, you don’t know where they’re going.

    1. Peruhain

      Precisely the point. Sarah was trying to use Joyce to take revenge on Raidah without seeming to be the source of the hostile act.

  18. Foxhack

    [[ Plays The Incredible Hulk’s closing theme on the hacked-up muzak ]]

    And yes I know it’s not meant to be used this way but it’s the only Hulk song I know.

  19. Keulen

    Is Joyce trying to quote the Rolling Stones in the 3rd panel? You can’t always get what you want?

  20. TemporalShrew

    When someone appears to be basically *snarling* that they want nothing to do with me after I propose something, I don’t think “respect” is the most natural thing to expect in return.

    Amber’s extra-edgy “leave me alone” attitude is really quite grating, even if I completely understand why she has it.

    1. thejeff

      Not necessarily respecting them, but respecting their wish to have nothing to do with you.

    2. Inahc

      um, no, basic human respect is not something you should withdraw just because someone was mildly rude.

      but perhaps we’re thinking of very different definitions of “respect”.

  21. newllend(henryvolt)

    Simple no then storming off before she haggled you down to doing something else would have sufficed.

  22. Opus the Poet

    [Billy]”I like pie!”[/Billy]

  23. Josh Spicer

    That seemed pretty god damn random there Amber.

    1. JessWitt

      She had a trying day, keeping her pervy step-brother in line, and then a frantic search for him over campus.

      1. thejeff

        And she’d already told Joyce she had no interest in the family thing.

  24. Bagge

    …Sarah said, while following Joyce around like a particularly cranky puppy.

  25. JessWitt

    Oh is it raining? I can’t tell if that’s foreboding or just part of the milieu.

    At least Joyce circled back to the Jacob issue with Sarah.

  26. BenRG

    It’s curious isn’t it? Most of Joyce’s proudest achievements come from what could be considered a character flaw!

    That aside, here comes the rain that I predicted Walky needed for his melancholy trip back to the dorms!

    1. Mr D

      I suddenly remember what was the question that began this AU:

      If their circumstances had been different, and had they met on a regular universe, would Joyce and Walky have fallen in love anyway?

      http://www.joyceandwalky.com/comics/20100904last.png

  27. Iain

    Literally. The worst.

  28. Pl0x

    I am, as always, firmly on the side of ‘having personal boundaries’, ‘being assertive about your boundaries when you need to’, and also ‘shouldn’t have to care if your boundaries offend anyone’. Also I guess I kind of really dislike Joyce, soz.

    1. Classic Appa

      Amber was pretty assertive of her personal boundaries with Danny, but she came to regret it. I think their is a difference between a cool headed approach to interpersonal relationships and lashing out because you are in a bad head-space.

      1. Pl0x

        If you’re talking about when Amber insulted Danny for talking to Sal, I actually don’t consider that a personal boundary, because that’s an unreasonable thing to require of someone. Amber can’t restrict who Danny can or can’t talk to. In fact that’s a violation of the boundaries that Danny should have (but hasn’t thought about).

    2. Eldritch Gentleman

      Which works great for healthy people, which Amber is not, her seclusion will only worsen her psychological state.

      1. Pl0x

        I agree that she is unhealthy. But forcing her to do socialize isn’t going to work, because she will probably feel like an outsider.

        1. timemonkey

          She already does anyway.

        2. Pl0x

          More reason not to socialize then!

        3. Needfuldoer

          It’s a self-fulfilling prophesy!

      2. Sir_Naff

        @eldritch gentleman

        Joyce has almost no inkling of the issues Amber is working through. Joyce is a high energy person who can be exhausting to be around even for people who like her (e.g. Becky). Joyce and Amber’s main interactions have been during traumatic events, which means that Joyce is probably an unwelcome reminder of said events, and also Amber’s own perceived failures – Sarah blamed Amazi-Girl for Scarface getting away in the first place, which set off a chain of events culminating in Amber stabbing the guy. All of these myriad issues are “reasons” that Amber is “allowed” to not want to hang out with Joyce, but…

        NONE OF THAT MATTERS, BECAUSE AMBER IS A HUMAN WHO HAS AGENCY AND CAN MAKE HER OWN DECISIONS ABOUT WHOM SHE MAKES HERSELF VULNERABLE TO.

        (after this is probably TL;DR but I spent a lot of time writing this and then rewriting it when my computer decided it was bored of this website suddenly so I’m keeping it – but consider yourself warned)

        Your earlier comment – “Yeah, but what else can be done?” is an intractable problem – we hate to see people suffering, so when we think we can fix it we try our god-damnedest to do so, even over their protests. When a sufferer finally gets through to their would-be savior that what they are doing is not helping, and perhaps even hurting, the savior faces serious cognitive dissonance as they think that what they’re doing is helping but are getting the opposite feedback. There are two common responses to this: “Oh, well I guess they’re just acting this way for attention” (denying the suffering of the victim), and “They just don’t know what is best for them!” (denying the victim their agency). Both are untrue – in actuality the sufferer is fully – possibly even hyper – aware of how others perceive their “I need help now fuck off” attitude, and of course this can cause additional feelings of guilt and hopelessness: “I’m dangerous to other people and now this nice person is trying to be my friend I’m going to hurt them I don’t want to do that so I must push them away oh but now I feel bad because I’m being mean to the nice person.” Sometimes would-be saviors just have to accept “You can’t help this person right now,” which people obviously have a lot of difficulty with – nobody wants to be helpless. But we can’t control other people and we can’t fix other people’s problems unilaterally. Trying to force the other person to the table to fix their problems so that you can feel like you’ve accomplished something is selfishness of the highest order.

        TL;DR: Not all problems have simple solutions.

  29. Ainara

    A simple “no” would’ve sufficed, sheesh

    1. Clif

      Really. We see that a strong “no” really didn’t suffice.

      1. BenRG

        Well, in fairness, Amber turned a polite invitation into an unprovoked attack on Joyce. Amber could have addressed the boundaries issue only if Joyce didn’t take her ‘no’ for an answer.

        1. thejeff

          It’s a bit rude, but I’m not seeing how it’s an “attack on Joyce”. Joyce said a couple strips back she now considered Amber family. Amber pushed back then and does so more strongly here. She’s making it clear that not only is she not interested in dinner right now, she’s not interested in the whole “family” project. Seems to me she read Joyce correctly and as Clif said, even that wasn’t enough.

    2. Tom T.

      Yes, this seems like borderline verbal abuse. Amber is lucky to have so many people willing to forgive her hostility.

      1. thejeff

        Really? How?
        She doesn’t insult Joyce. She doesn’t say anything about Joyce. She just states what she wants. What’s abusive about it?

      2. Derek

        “I don’t want to be your family” is not verbal abuse. The one time Amber did verbally abuse someone was when she was scolding Danny for not keeping her alters separate and then getting chummy with Sal

      3. Sam

        No it’s not??? Not even close??? Making her preference of being alone and not being part of Joyce’s family isn’t an attack on Joyce or an attempt to manipulate Joyce or part of a pattern to control Joyce. Her face might imply her tone is a bit rude, but we all know Joyce tends to be too pushy with people sometimes and that can make people grumpy when dealing with her! Amber doesn’t have to always be friendly and polite with someone who tries to push their way into her life and be more involved than she is comfortable with.

  30. pienapp1e

    i like that it’s raining in a comic- both the fact of and the simplicity that doesn’t interfere with the characters while still getting point across. nice artwork, beyond your usual good job 🙂

  31. pienapp1e

    i like that it’s raining, something rare in comics. nicely done- simple and non-interfering but evident 🙂

  32. Deanatay

    Joyce is surrounded by antisocial introverts.

    She could learn a great deal from them.

    She refuses to.

  33. Deanatay

    *pulls out pie*

    *eats pie*

    AWL BUH MUH SEWF

  34. abysswatcher1993

    Sometimes you have to break those boundaries when a person is being a reclusive anti social jerk. Someone needs to talk to Amber and say “You aren’t like Blaine. You two are violent, but he is violent for his selfish desires and you are violent because you care for other people’s lives. Screw passive pacifism and fight for what you believe!”
    As for Sarah, that girl has trust issues and it’s good that she has Joyce in her life. It is true that people have hurt Sarah before, but she can’t apply her skepticism to everyone she meets.

    1. BBCC

      No. No you do not. You do not get to decide what is best for other people unless you are their caregiver. Joyce is neither Amber’s nor Sarah’s. If they told her to go away, she needs to go away. Breaking boundaries is probably going to make them more reclusive and anti social because whoops, you’ve shown them that what they want does not matter to you and you are definitely a person to be avoided.

      1. Eldritch Gentleman

        Problem is Amber’s caregiver doesn’t know how thoroughly mentally ill she is and is giving her way too much space. If they did what you are saying Ruth might have been dead by now. Who knows what Amber’s illness and self-loathing might drive her to. She already almost died when saving Becky. A noble and praise-worthy act but still she almost got herself killed.

        1. BBCC

          A) Amber doesn’t currently have a caregiver. She’s an adult and not one who’s been ruled incompetent to care for themselves.

          B) Ruth never asked Billie to leave except once when she was saying she wasn’t good for Billie. Billie said she didn’t care whether Ruth was good for her and they could be ‘poison together’. Ruth accepted those terms. She also didn’t ask Carla to leave her alone when Carla came to check in on her.

          Something definitely needs to give with Amber, but saying ‘we don’t always get what we want’ when she says she doesn’t want to be part of Joyce’s family is almost assuredly not the way to go about it.

      2. JepMZ

        Is amber suicidal? I can agree with this if she’s suicidal

        I don’t think Joyce is gonna become a problem solver but there’s nothing wrong with somebody wanting to become a friend.

        1. thejeff

          No signs of. More signs of homicidal, honestly, though I don’t that’s actually likely. “Danger to others” more than “danger to self” though.

          Nothing wrong with Joyce wanting to make friends, but there is something wrong if she continues to ignore Amber’s clear rejection of the idea.

        2. Fart Captor

          Despite what Amber thinks, she’s not a “danger to others”, much less fucking h homicidal. She’s defended herself and her friends. She WANTED to kill Ryan, but she didn’t. Nobody stopped her except HER.

          It could be argued that Amazi-Girl is a danger to others, though even that violence has been restrained and/or limited to people committing acts of violence. She needs healthier, less violent and less dangerous outlets, but it’s not as if it’s dangerous to be around her

      3. abysswatcher1993

        If a person you love is in constant pain and is using that pain as justification to indirectly cause harm to others, you have to do whatever it takes to make them feel better. Just because Joyce is naive doesn’t mean that she can’t be nice, and just because Amber is angry doesn’t mean she can be rude to Joyce.

        1. BBCC

          A) Joyce has no idea that Amber’s ‘in constant pain’.

          B) No, no Joyce is not justified doing whatever she feels necessary to make her feel better. It depends entirely what Joyce plans to do.

          C) Again, Joyce has the right to continue loving Amber. She does not have the right to continue forcing her company on Amber though.

    2. thejeff

      Someone may need to, but that someone isn’t Joyce. Joyce doesn’t know anything about Blaine and damn near nothing about Amber. People like that trying to play amateur therapist are likely to do more harm than good.
      Joyce doesn’t have the first clue about Amber’s anger and self-loathing issues, much less the DID. She couldn’t even begin to make that little speech to her, because she doesn’t know enough to start it.

      And Joyce is rather overwhelming, which isn’t always the best approach even with recluse’s whose issues don’t run as deep as Amber’s do.

      1. abysswatcher1993

        Joyce do have issues! She was almost raped, roofied and told to not tell the police (*sarcasm mode* thank you, Sal)! She was threatened with a shotgun! She was roofied! Her worldview shattered! She realized about the bigotry in her family and had to stand up for her lesbian friend and her atheist friend! She was roofied! She had to break up with her gay boyfriend because of realizing how much of a jerk she was! She willingly rode a motorcycle to save her lesbian friend! She WAS ROOFIED!

        1. thejeff

          I don’t believe I said anything about Joyce’s issues. I said she didn’t know anything about Amber’s.

  35. Kelli217

    Amber beats herself up — and sadly, continues to do so — in ways that are even more insidious than the ways Blaine used to beat her up.

  36. Sir_Naff

    In other news and hopefully I can keep this one shorter – Joyce is apparently entirely unaware of the irony in denying Amber a choice about being part of a “family you can choose.”

    1. Sir_Naff

      Also can we get a “like” button because seriously “thejeff” is on point. Even if they spell their name wrong #GeoffisBetter

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*

*

*

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.