162

Former
Posted on January 22, 2021 by David M Willis

162 thoughts on “Former”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    too late, mood killed just like Mike

    1. Ana Chronistic

      wait I thought that was Mike’s poster

      1. He Who Abides

        Walky might’ve kept it around, because he actually misses Mike.

        Gods only know why.

        1. JBento

          Stockholm Syndrom

        2. Cholma

          Walky:”As in, Stockholm, Sweden.”
          Booster. “Finland.”

        3. Lieutenant Dan

          “Eat it, Harvey!”

        4. Lieutenant Dan

          Oh! Gravatar roulette was kind to me.

        5. Sam

          It is very likely not Stockholm Syndrome. Both because I don’t believe in Stockholm Syndrome (due to how it is currently proposed and the circumstances of the first ‘case’ essentially being a fake diagnosis to explain away why a woman didn’t appreciate being told the police’s plan might get them killed while the captors didn’t intend to kill them and its usage to dismiss and ignore actual reasons why people would act that way which is usually trauma + being lied to) and because it more likely is just attachment to him being around.

          It is likely a mix of comfort of the old routine (even if it was a BAD routine, we like predictability and find comfort in it) + ADHD (can cause difficulty with things being ‘gone’ permanently) + he was used to Mike being around by the time he died. Where like, he still fully believes Mike was awful a lot of the time but he was also part of his every day life so it is weird to be without him. It will eventually fade from memory, but when something is routine, your brain kind of just, expects the routine to continue. And can take time to accept that it isn’t going to. That that routine is over.

        6. CC

          It’s also worth noting Stockholm Syndrome was coined by the specific psychiatrist (Nils Bejerot) that the first case (Kristin Enmark) didn’t trust.

        7. CC

          (well, okay, technically he called it Norrmalmstorg syndrome, after the bank, but he was the first person to label it as a thing)

          also hey cool, new avatars

        8. thejeff

          My guess is that he feels guilty for not missing Mike.

      2. Doctor_Who

        Probably was, but I guess his parents didn’t take it. Maybe Walky keeps it around as a memento.

      3. Hinoron

        Probably was Mike’s poster.
        Were you expecting him to swing buy and reclaim it?

        1. anonymousethatscurriesinthedarkness

          Maaaaaayyybeeee

        2. Diane

          I mean, everything else way gone, since mom and dad probably took their child’s belongs to create a shrine in his old room.

  2. Sol

    Aww, Walky ):

  3. Chris

    “You made me feel things. I can’t play games when I feel things.”

    1. Reltzik

      But games can make you stop feeling things if they’re sufficiently soporific.

      1. Thag Simmons

        learned a new word today

        1. Agemegos

          Was is “thagomizer”?

        2. Clif

          Hyperframus?

        3. RANdom

          What’s “hyperframus”?

        4. Kaidah

          Made up, according to google. But who believes the internet anyway?

        5. Felix

          Aren’t all words made up tho? Isn’t language just a human construct?

        6. Reltzik

          @Felix Onomatopoeiae aren’t made-up, are they?

        7. Demoted Oblivious

          @Reltzik Yes even onomatopoeic words are made up. They only partially sound like what sound the word describes. Beep, honk and buzz all are approximations.

          Aside from someone in the background literally saying, “background noises,” to _be_ the background noises that are being made, i’m feeling uncreative and want to cast wide the challenge. Other internetians, what onomatopoeia /actually/ sound exactly like the sound they are meant to remind us of?

        8. Reltzik

          @Demoted Obvious Yes, they’re approximations, but that’s different from saying they’re made up. If I get out some canvas and oils and paint the scene of a park near my home, I didn’t make up what I just painted. It’s not a perfect representation, but it’s also not original.

        9. thejeff

          If they did sound exactly the same, they’d be the same in different languages. At least in cases where both use onomatopoeia for that concept.

        10. Thag Simmons

          No I’m quite familiar with that one

  4. BBCC

    Awwww, this is sweet. Sad, but sweet.

  5. plasticwrap

    I don’t like serious Walky.

    1. Sirksome

      It’s all fun and Nintendo games until a Walky gets serious!

    2. TemporalShrew

      But people already dislike not-serious Walky – soon he won’t have any options left!

      1. Amias

        Oh no, he might have to learn how to be sincere and honest about something!

        1. Council

          He Did just apologize for saying something hurtful.

          Is that progress or are we just seeing Walky at his “best” when it comes to being earnest?

        2. thejeff

          You mean like he’s doing right now. And in the last strip.

    3. Keulen

      Serious Walky is weirding me out. I much prefer him when he’s being a goofball.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        Having been That Friend in every single social group since childhood, that sucks a little bit.

    4. Deanatay

      Walky doesn’t like Serious Walky, either.

      I can hear Panel 4 Walky whining, “But I don WAAAAAAAANNA!!”

  6. Sirksome

    When will Booster just rip the mask off and reveal they’re Mike? This is the longsst con ever!

    1. Doctor_Who

      But Scoob and the gang haven’t figured out how this will allow him to smuggle Spanish doubloons yet!

      1. Thag Simmons

        Scoob doesn’t do a whole lot of deduction. Generally that’s Velma’s job

        1. Name redacted. Sandwich instead.

          He deducts food from suspicious dilapidated houses.

          This was meant as a throwaway 1 line joke but….

          …Now that I’m an adult and I think about what I just wrote…
          Scooby and Shaggy routinely steal large quantities of food from houses
          that are so not looked after, that the floors sometimes have holes, and the people living there think the best way to solve their problems is to dress up as supernatural entities to achieve goals.

          That food they’re eating. Those sandwiches that are as tall as they are.
          They probably should not be eating that food.

        2. Needfuldoer

          Somebody go get Dorothy and Norville, they’ll get to the bottom of this in no time.

    2. Reltzik

      This longest con ever has been going on for 48 hours at most.

  7. Suet

    Something weighing you down, alt? (what?)

    1. Huehuetotl

      It’s Dirty Work.

  8. Proto_Eevee

    Walky stopped hating booster before most readers did

    1. Rectilinear Propagation

      Did Walky ever hate Booster?

      1. Blindness

        Walky doesn’t hate anyone…except those who trash Monkey Master, then they’re instant hate magnets who deserve utter destruction!

      2. Demoted Oblivious

        12 frames before the apology. Walky hated Booster for 12 frames before apologizing. He held hate in his heart for fewer frames than Thanos’ snap.

    2. Name redacted. Booster instead.

      …I liked booster from their first introduction. They miked, but they did it funny (to me) and they did it only slightly. Not out of intent to be a bad person, but out of the hope that their actions / words might make the recipient introspective. But in a good way. And not in a “Think about it if you want, I don’t really care. Also I said it to hurt you as well” way.

      Also their scene in the diner with Dan and Joe where they threw Joe’s shtick back at them. Unlike the majority of the comments on that comic, I thought it was both entirely justified and also hilarious.

      Booster hasn’t been around long but they’re quickly shooting up the ranks. They’re probably already in my top 5 favorite characters so far.

      1. Tunasammich

        I agree–Joe totally deserved it

    3. Jake'm

      I figured he was apologizing for his wildly swinging emotions from two strips ago.

  9. Nono

    This… may be Booster’s most likable strip to date?

    1. King Daniel

      Yeah, was going to say that it crossed my mind that if this was the first-day impression of Booster we got instead of those unsolicited “analyses”, I’d probably have gotten a much more favorable first impression of them.

      1. Needfuldoer

        Yeah, Booster’s introduction was very “I don’t remember asking you a goddamn thing”.

        Foisting unsolicited psychoanalysis upon strangers isn’t exactly a great way to make friends.

    2. Blindness

      Yes…or at least since his initial strip. He might have needed someone to smack him with reality of psychology hitting people that he knows hard to get him to stop being a jerk

      1. Regalli

        Their

        1. zee

          Blindness does this consistently…
          I wonder if they just forgot and don’t check replies to their comments

        2. TheKelliestKelly

          I read your comment before I read Blindness’s name and thought you were talking about the visual disability

        3. Blindness

          Well excuse me for forgetting a character is binary. Heaven forbid something that was only mentioned once weeks ago and hasn’t been a part of the plot is forgotten.

          It’s a mistake. I’m sorry that you feel offended by my forgetting that, but that’s your problem. I’m not intentionally gendering Booster, so get off my ass about it

        4. Yumi

          Woooooow, way to overreact.

        5. zee

          Lmao you’re mad. You forgot a lot, people are reminding you. Relax bro

        6. Blindness

          There’s reminding and there’s sniping.

        7. Pedantic Jerkass

          There’s forgetting and there’s being an asshole.

        8. Regalli

          It’s been a pretty significant thing about the character since their first introduction – a lot of queer and nonbinary readers guessed it even before their pronouns appeared on page, because their very deliberately androgynous appearance and ‘My previous roommates refusal to adhere to (using my name) is why I have a new roommate’ line were dropping heavy and immediate hints.

          And then there was a lot of complaining in the comments about those design aspects (a lot about their lips, and I think at least one comment about their nonbinary-ness being designed by committee or something? A LOT of comparisons to Poochie before they’d even had a chance to do ANYTHING as a character.) There’s been at least one commenter who deliberately misgendered Booster after the hall meeting because they ‘didn’t deserve’ having their pronouns acknowledged and respected. All of which kind of ties into nasty transphobia and refusal to acknowledge nonbinary genders outside of this particular comic character and misgendering as a transphobic/nonbinaryphobic (is that the word?) action, so you know. We’re a bit on edge at the moment here.

        9. Blindness

          Excuse me for forgetting something that was mentioned just once before and hasn’t come up again. Some of us lack photographic memories of every every of every character.

      2. Jhon

        You will know that I am liking Booster when I award Booster any pronouns at all.

  10. James

    Walky’s expression in panel 4 suggests that “sad” is not the emotion he’s feeling.

    1. Amias

      I dunno. This whole strip reads of emotional suppression to me. He’s feeling a lot of things, but pushing them all down.

      1. Regalli

        Yeah, I think there might be some grief but it’s mixed up in a whole bunch of other complicated emotions, some of which are… maybe not socially acceptable to someone you’ve known like, a day and a half given the unpacking they’d require. And then the guilt for being glad this guy’s dead, especially when he was your maybe-sorta-love interest’s friend. (I don’t think Walky saw him interacting with Amber and Ethan enough to get the same view as Danny did on those relationships, but I also suspect Danny had some serious crawling into a shame-hole after Mike Actually Died because oh god he said that outside the guy’s hospital room to someone who cared about him.)

        1. Regalli

          Addendum: I don’t even think Danny changed his mind on ‘Mike was terrible to you both and you deserved better’ and ‘that one good deed doesn’t putweigh the shit he did before that (something Mike himself realized).’ But I suspect Danny wanted Mike away from the people who he was hurting without, y’know, literally dying, much the same way I wanted him to wake up and choose to be less terrible. As Hank, Joyce and Becky were discussing just before the timeskip, death cuts off any potential. A traumatic death like this also leaves nasty scars on everyone else who’d known him (especially if they knew him well enough to recognize he was terrible to them and are therefore having mixed emotions.)

        2. thejeff

          Yeah, that’s my take on Danny as well.

          He just wanted Mike not harassing Ethan for awhile.

        3. Regalli

          Yeah. Unfortunately, he was not at all thinking about the subtext (and Ethan definitely didn’t say what a fair chunk of us commenters were, which is that ‘might not wake up for a while’ with a coma that had lasted over 48 hours caused by a serious head and spinal injury was not a good sign,) and so. Almost certainly some shame hole digging when he realized Mike dying had actually been a very real possibility when he said it.

        4. thejeff

          Which to be fair, Danny might well not have known. Even Ethan might not have known it yet.

        5. Regalli

          Oh, yeah. Danny almost certainly didn’t – he’s enough of a comics nerd I suspect he has the media sense of How Serious Unconsciousness And Comas Are, and enough of a good egg he probably wouldn’t say something that could be construed as ‘I hope your friend dies’ if he realized there was a serious risk. I think Ethan had to be at least a little concerned about Mike’s mortality – between the active threats from Blaine and just how damn TERRIBLE he looked in that hospital room, and it’s clear from how pissed off he was about Amber not telling (and then the reasonable concern that Amber hasn’t been sharing memories with AG and no one knew) that leaving Mike alone in the hospital sat badly with him – but I wouldn’t be surprised if he thought Amber’s anxieties were more an out of proportion guilt thing, especially since she was focused on threats of mobsters and not the coma aspect. I could see it being a much, much smaller concern when Danny said it than it would have become however many days later.

          (Still think that sequence could have been helped with something as simple as a mention of the Warners talking with the doctors about options when Ethan left – some quiet but clear indication to the readers from someone other than Amber in full on Anxiety Mode that things were in fact VERY BAD.)

      2. Daniel M Ball

        Feeling your feelings is bad, mmkayyy? It’s better to push it down until it goes away…or maybe not, but it’s not an uncommon attitude among a specific demographic, with predictable results:
        https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/suicide.shtml

      3. Needfuldoer

        Swallow sadness! (Like a boss)
        Send some faxes! (Like a boss)

        1. Demoted Oblivious

          I don’t swallow my sadness. I THROW IT ON THE GROUND.

  11. DailyBrad

    I’m warming to Booster.

    1. Thag Simmons

      I don’t really have a read on them yet. Not really sure how they to fit into the cast

      1. Rose by Any Other Name

        My current (and ever changing) take is this:
        DoA has evolved greatly from its original source material. The characters are richer, the stories more nuanced.

        Mike’s nuance peaked over in Shortpacked!. That comic was the “do over” for Mike that DoA was for everyone else – so, unlike everyone else, Mike had nowhere to go and spent most of the comic marking time.
        There are very few good reasons to kill off a character. However, one of them is because the character no longer works in the story.

        Booster is indeed a replacement goldfish, but they serve to fulfil the narrative function of Mike while fitting the tone and style that DoA has developed over the years. To me, Booster is a far better fit for the cast than Mike was. As much as people have complained, Booster’s presence has mostly felt natural while also providing a similar functionality to Mike.

        Do I like Booster as a person/character yet? Not sure. But, while I had a fondness for Mike, he often felt jarring to the tone of DoA. To me, Booster doesn’t.

        Will I change my mind in the future? Will I take back everything I just said??? No clue. **shrug** That’s where I’m at now, based on what I’ve read so far.

        And I am clearly rambling. Goodnight everybody.

        1. Liliet

          It was a good analysis!

        2. acher4

          I think I agree in this. Things could change in the future ofc, but good “rambling” 😉

        3. Blindness

          The same could be said about Dina in IW! Ruth, Billie, Mary, Joe, and Danny in Roomies! Why should they continue on when Mike peaked in SP!?

          The problem with Mike is that he’s known for one thing and one joke that he does to everyone: being a jerk and cracking jokes about sleeping with your mom for a nickel.

          Due to the strip being about a lot of other characters he didn’t have the time to devote to being improved upon but he did have a lot of positive involvement that brought others alone. He could easily continue on as a secondary character who worked with them at time kicking them into doing what should be done and taking the blame as he always does. He’s not a fool, he knows that they see him as a jerk and there’s little reason to not continue on and help them without them knowing that he is helping them.

          The real issue is Willis seems to have not bothered to develop characters beyond a couple of storylines. Amber’s about to fall victim the same way that Mike did, same with Ethan and Danny. There’s little more to do that wouldn’t rehash what was done and unless he’s going to go into a mental health crisis for Amber and a bad falling-out with the guys those three are stuck in limbo fading away.

        4. thejeff

          The real problem with Mike is that people keep reading him as a force for good – like you just did. He couldn’t continue on like that because he never was really helping people. Even if he’d fooled himself into thinking he was in some cases.
          This was made explicit in the fight with Blaine, where he sees the parallels between Blaine’s excuses for abusing Amber and his own. Just before Mike’s redemptive death scene.

        5. BBCC

          Seriously, a lot of Mike’s narrative functions got eaten by characters closer to Joyce. Tough home truths work better coming from your friend like Sarah, Becky or even Dorothy than they do ‘that asshole from the other wing’. They have Carla or even Walky for pranksters and for ‘aloof but sometimes good to hang out with’ jerks they have Sal and Billie. Mike brought nothing to the table except going mega asshole and Willis has said that wasn’t fun for him to write.

        6. David M Willis

          this

        7. Regalli

          Yeah, Mike’s schtick worked better in the more cartoonish setting of Shortpacked (where setting a superpowered misanthrope to repeatedly beat the shit out of Faz when he continually sexually harassed Amber was left as a perfectly reasonable punchline that did Faz no lasting harm.) Crucially for his eventual development, his longterm love interest there HADN’T been a childhood friend who Mike had been fucking with for years, either – Shortpacked Amber was in a way better place on the whole, and could give as good as she got in the psychological fuckery department. (In Shortpacked, the romantic relationship started with Amber blackmailing Mike – later revealed to be something Mike allowed her to do – and Mike proposed by recording her mom having sex with the neighbor and arranging the sounds into ‘Amber will you marry me’. Deeply fucked up for like, twenty different reasons. This was their relationship in a nutshell.)

          By contrast, DoA Mike being childhood friends with Ethan and Amber put all their relationships in trouble, especially as a romantic arc with Ethan started coming into play. We’d already seen him do some serious harm to both characters onscreen – even if Mike justified things like ‘yeah go back in the closet’ or ‘if you’re destined to reenact your parents’ relationship and you keep dating nice guys, who does that make you’ to himself by saying he didn’t think they’d take it seriously, they shouldn’t have taken it seriously (as some commenters proposed he meant in the ‘asshole sage’ thesis,) the point remains that THEY DID. And the harm it caused Amber in particular was significant. In Mike’s final real scene, we saw him say that he LIKED messing with Amber because ‘she’s multiple time bombs’. Very shortly afterwards, he realizes how much like Blaine he’d been. Reckoning with that would have required a TOTAL change in Mike’s character and a ton more time as a central one – realizing he’d been abusive to Amber, Ethan, and Walky meant any real change for the better was kind of dependent on him not being terrible to them anymore, which cut off his three most frequent character interactions for the ‘comical asshole’ role since, well, it wasn’t. And his romantic arc with Ethan was undercut by the fact that Ethan himself assumed Mike sleeping with him was to further some kind of terrible mind game – which was in fact true, even if Mike realized afterwards that he did ACTUALLY have some feelings about it. The years of undermining Ethan and Amber’s psyches (‘but that remaining one time in ten, I’ll say we’re friends to keep hope alive’) meant that any romantic relationship between them would be unbalanced, because he’d already been so abusive and manipulative to them the last five years or so. The antagonistic push and pull of Shortpacked Mike and Amber wasn’t possible. Hell, them ever trusting his change wasn’t just a long con may not have been possible anymore, since they assumed malevolence from his every action, something he had encouraged.

          By contrast, Willis started saying even fairly early in Amber’s arc (think ‘Freshman Family Weekend’ early) that Dumbing of Age Amber had already become the version they thought rang truer, even if they loved her final exchange with Blaine(‘s corpse) in Shortpacked as much as I do. Even from that early point, ‘Amber has serious compartmentalization and issues causing the existence of Amazi-Girl’ (as she was written at the time – AmbG being plural was a slow-building retcon) was a thing. Amber is a main character, and the exploration of her and AG cooperating is a central arc. They continue to develop, even if that is unfortunately in ways that are making their lives worse right now. Willis is still very much invested in Amber’s arc (and Walky’s, and Joyce’s, and Dorothy’s, and every other character who was formerly a major role in the Walkyverse and is a main character now. Hell, I think Ethan’s still got an arc waiting to start back up, even if he’s on the supporting cast right now.) Mike had been a supporting character the whole run of the strip, and even as he started getting more time in the spotlight it was hard to actually get a read on him. I genuinely thought he knew about AG right up until the strip where it showed he definitely had not. Mike had been written into a corner, and getting him out would be a lot of effort Willis didn’t want to invest in this asshole supporting character. Unfortunately, that apparently meant the only way for Mike to get some ‘telling the audience directly What I Did Was Not Okay’ was a redemption equals death, and one where AG couldn’t possibly recognize that for once his altruism was justified. So the mind games continue.

          Incidentally, speaking of rules Willis laid down that turned out to be mutable, originally he’d said Amazi-Girl wouldn’t appear unmasked. (Justified for a while as ‘well we’re not going to see CONFIRMATION that’s Amber,’ and by now long since abandoned on every conceivable level, having seen AG in control of their body while unmasked and Amber in control in costume on multiple occasions.)

    2. Avian Maria

      I feel like Booster’s biggest sins (in the eyes of the audience) have been to be unbelievably perceptive and overly honest in a cast of largely naive and insecure or damaged characters.

      But I’ve always believed Booster is just really smart and well-adjusted. To wit, Booster has never been cruel or deceptive, and even chiding Joe was in pretty good taste and humor. I’m fine for more strips like this one; there’s no need to be gluttons for punishment.

      1. Regalli

        Also to be nonbinary, and not be Mike.

        I think Booster definitely crossed a line in the psychoanalysis sequence, but then that hall meeting was already going pear-shaped and they are a college student. It’s the kind of dumbass move I could see a psych major doing, and while it’s a phenomenon I don’t like in psych majors, them being a character means they’re likely to grow out of it. But hate for Booster had already started well before that, basically for the crime of being Walky’s new roommate and Walky not being appropriately sad Mike was dead (and I don’t even think that was a joke, I read it as blunt.) And comments about their nonbinary-coded traits (‘creepy’ lips, their name,) and calling them DoA’s Poochie on strip two or three after appearing. It was immediate, it was before we got a chance to know anything about the kid, and it was A LOT.

  12. Stephen Bierce

    Heaven Knows–what kind of fool am I
    Heaven Knows–why you take an eye for an eye
    Heaven Knows–what comes over me
    You were pumping iron as I was pumping irony…    –Robert Plant

  13. Bagge

    Saying sorry is good.

    1. Khyrin

      I’m hoping what he ‘needs to do’ is go apologise to Joyce… and then offer to watch some episodes of Dexter and Monkey Master together before shooting Jennifer an ‘I’m sorry for getting in your space. I will miss you. contact me again if/when YOU feel like it.’ text.

  14. bcb

    “Not lifting weights! That’s something I only do in the Walkyverse where it doesn’t require me to work hard due to me being superhuman.”

  15. Regalli

    Can you say ‘complicated feelings because he was an abusive ass, but also your first experience with death and the fact that people your age aren’t immortal and also it feels weird being glad he’s dead when he was murdered by people who then kidnapped you’?

    (I mean, granted, the evil dads both died before Mike actually died, but he didn’t really know them beyond ‘literal fucking supervillain’ and ‘tried to kidnap and degay his daughter twice.’)

    And for those of you upset that Mike’s death has kind of been brushed over… hey, look at that. Unresolved trauma clearly bubbling under the surface. Almost like Walky’s jokes are a coping mechanism. (We also haven’t focused on Amber for more than a couple strips at a time since timeskip, and she’s VERY clearly traumatized by it. Who wants to bet we see more of her, too?)

    1. Casi

      I have a feeling Amber and Walky are about to meet on Garbage Roof. IIRC garbage roof has not been visited yet this semester.

    2. Miri

      It’s still murder. If thugs beat somebody comatose and they’re charged with GBH and attempted murder and the person then dies from their injuries, the charges will be upgraded accordingly.

      1. Regalli

        Oh, yeah, no, wasn’t disputing Mike was murdered in that aside, slight nitpicking on him being Walky’s first experience with death since he also saw Blaine starting the lethal fight with Ross. But it’s all one big mess of trauma and, again, Walky didn’t have even the terrible-but-still-roommates relationship he has with Mike for the dead terrible dads.

    3. Rectilinear Propagation

      it feels weird being glad he’s dead

      Wait, when did Walky say that?

      1. thejeff

        He didn’t. It’s implicit.

        How could he could he at least not feel relief to not have to wonder every time he came back to the room what new devilry Mike was going to spring on him. And then guilt for feeling that way.

        1. Regalli

          Yep. We haven’t seen Walky say ANYTHING about Mike’s death except the blunt ‘he is dead’, but those expressions and his refusal to stick around and maybe talk about it suggest to me that it is a LOT more complicated than mere sadness… and because of how awful Mike was to Walky, I suspect that includes relief, followed by guilt that his death is a relief.

          (The familial Blaine died in November, of COVID. The rest of the household has gotten a lot of experience both with my mom’s complicated feelings of grief and our own complicated feelings of ‘we’re sorry you’re sad and that you had to lose two fathers in one year and that the pandemic means even the awkward and incomplete closure you had long braced yourself for has been denied to you, but like, we’re not sorry he’s DEAD, just that his timing is terrible.’ Fortunately no guilt or expectation we should actually grieve the man, since Mom was very intentional in keeping him away from us as kids, but as you can guess there’s still a lot of weirdness there.)

  16. P!enapple

    Bittersweet strip. I wanna hug walky, and i like booster’s concern, care, and effort. And walky’s catchingmeI in the feels

    1. Littleslinky.

      Same.

  17. Mel

    ..okay but what was the last game their sister was playing? /s

    1. Regalli

      Breath of the Wild.

      In photo mode, specifically.

      1. Fist_of_Life

        And here I was hoping it was Link’s Awakening.

  18. Granfalloon

    Pretty sure this was my first comment, and I’m making it to give a shout-out to that sweet Dirty Work reference in the Alt-Text.

  19. Matty

    I like this Booster better.

  20. Sirksome

    Walky’s got stuff he’s gotta do
    Growing up he’s gotta do
    His old roommates dead, so Booster, who are you?
    Major psychoanalysist
    With a camera and a Switch
    Left the entire wing pissed
    But can’t replace the man they missed
    Sad and broken from him croaking
    But it’s been spoken by the choking tears of Amber whose revoken
    The masked vigil that was her token respite from the rage her father had awoken
    So Walky’s taken up the mantle cause she left him high and dry
    A Nightguy flying by,, silhouette against the sky
    Saving Lucy from the douches that prey upon a woman’s cry.
    But it doesn’t fill the void because Walky can’t process his feelings
    His sister said her name was Jenny and that really left him reeling
    Only two days into this semester and it’s felt like it’s forever.
    And we’re still not nearly through
    Walky’s got a lot of stuff to do.

    1. LiterallyJustSomeGuy

      Bravo! Bravo!!! *Claps hands frantically like a sea lion on speed*

    2. PB

      What is this a reference to if anything because it is EXCELLENT

  21. LiterallyJustSomeGuy

    Walky is declining playing video games and is claiming intent to do things that need doing? *gasp!* It’s worse than I thought! This isn’t a playful slacker with attention issues at ALL!

  22. Slartibeast Button, BIA

    I am not reading that way at all.

    “Walky, I’m not here to prank you.”

    Yeah.

    Right.

    Of Course.

    (Booster is up to something, but I don’t know what. Better bail.)

  23. Switchchris

    Walky is either about to go on a “Im Sorry” streak, or he is about to go don his Night Guy costume and try to find some crime to fight.

    1. Needfuldoer

      It’s Morning Guy’s shift now, and Walky probably isn’t a morning person.

  24. Switchchris

    People should realize by now that Booster is exactly the character most of the cast needs right now. People seem to be hating that they tell the blunt truth that people need to hear, as if thats a bad thing. Sure the timing can be a bit bad, but its still 100% the truth they need to hear.
    Mike is gone, they need to take the time to grieve and be sad so they dont suppress it or allow it to hold their lives hostage.
    Joyce needs to accept the good changes in her life and not try to find the bad in everything in order to excuse her distaste for said change.

    1. Jay

      They’re just hating on booster for the exact same reason they hated on Mike.

      People don’t like blunt people.

      1. King Daniel

        People don’t like blunt rude people.

        Booster’s had their moments (like today’s strip for instance), but unsolicited rudeness – especially as essentially our first impression of a newly-introduced character’s, well, character – tends to turn people off, big surprise.

      2. Rectilinear Propagation

        Rude people, but Booster hasn’t been in enough strips to hate them.

        (Also, Mike was manipulative too which so far hasn’t been true of Booster.)

        1. Rectilinear Propagation

          I just looked at yesterdays comments and it turns out a whole bunch of people do in fact hate Booster…and photography for some reason.

        2. Diane

          Yeah, I didn’t get that. Like…sure, I hate my picture taken, but I appreciate photographers cause that’s the best way to recall memories for me, especially since my memory has kinda been shot. If someone thinks a moment is important, let them capture it, as long as it’s not “let me film this person dying instead of helping them”.

        3. Jhon

          Black box steal soul.

    2. Sirksome

      The problem isn’t Booster telling the blunt truth. The problem is Booster volunteering it to people who don’t ask for it. Which is what they did at that floor meeting even at the risk some of them might not respond well to it especially to people they’ve never met before. Especially since some of them have serious psychological trauma. We’re lucky Booster never got to Amber because offering your untrained year 1 psyche major hot take to the girl that disassociates would’ve been a pretty big yikes! Or is it okay to tell strangers the blunt truth you think you know about them, that you decided they needed to hear? What Booster did hear is much better since it’s a more intimate conversation Walky initiated. I think Booster’s an somewhat okay person so far but they still deserve any criticism they get.

      1. Needfuldoer

        [Michael Scott slamming the table gif] Thank you!

    3. Lorien Inksong

      :/ Gravitar friend I have to disagree with you. Forcing people to confront trauma ‘for their own good’ means you’re deciding for them when to confront the trauma. And as a PTSD patient I can promise you that’s the exact opposite of how you heal from/address trauma. Taking away agency and establishing an environment where the survivor has no control over tends to be triggering for lots of sufferers. You cannot heal on a physical level if triggered.
      And this isn’t just how I feel. Its seriously the science behind effective therapy for trauma and PTSD. I would go into depth but I don’t have the time or energy for a 2-3 page essay on how PTSD impacts the brain on a physical level and the mechanisms that drive it vs the mechanisms that can heal it.
      Anyway no therapy/emotional labor without consent from all involved parties please and thank.

  25. Lorien Inksong

    Its nice to see some of Booster’s gentler side. While I appreciate their honesty unsolicited reads on stranger is one of those rude ‘weird flex but okay’ things I can see a 19 year old doing but its going to take me a bit to warm up to them. I don’t think blunt force trauma is a good way to approach psychology in general tbh. XD

    1. Regalli

      Agreed. It definitely feels like something a kid their age would do, but it’s a terrible way to interact with other people, especially ones you don’t know. Glad to see them have non-‘psychoanalyzing strangers’ hobbies and be kind to someone who is pretty clearly still messed up by a traumatic event.

  26. JessWitt

    I have a hunch Walky’s gonna channel his grief via his comic.

    1. Jhon

      NightGuy will beat up a crook who looks a lot like Mike?

  27. Beau Kirin Maysey

    I’m not even completely sure what progress I’m expecting from Boomer, but I hope they find it, because I think they can

  28. PB

    This was needed. And Booster earned their spot as my gravatar now.

  29. BenRG

    Yeah, Walky has stuff to do. Such as figure out why he’s missing Mike, a guy who (in life) Walky despised. We humans are weird when things that we’re used to, good or bad, suddenly vanish.

    1. Zaxares

      Nostalgia can do funny things to your memories. Sometimes I’ll find myself thinking back on my days in the Army, remembering the camaraderie and the trials we all shared together… And I have to forcefully remind myself that I HATED my time in the Army. True, I learned and got to do things in there that I never would have got to experience otherwise, but on the whole I resented having to serve, and there were lots of unpleasant memories. It’s just that my brain is conveniently remembering only the good parts.

    2. Sam

      Probably a mix of reasons with routine and predictability being up there. There is a weird comfort in knowing how someone will try to mess with you… and a sadness in losing it, even if you HATED the thing itself.

  30. acher4

    I really like Booster in this strip.

  31. Keulen

    I’d like Booster if they were like this more often.

  32. Queezle

    Some positive characterization for Booster. I like that. I hope we see more of that side of them, because right now I am not sure if I like them.

  33. Arianod

    That boy does have some weight to lift.

  34. Throwatron

    I’m legit still terrified that Booster is secretly Mike, despite how radically improbable that would be at this point.

  35. Sombrero

    Is this the origin story for “NIGHTGUY, the comic strip”? Will a Booster-like character be the hero’s sidekick or a villain? I guess we will know soon…

    1. Jhon

      Both!

  36. Clell65619

    Wow. Mike is really committed to this new con.

  37. Rabisch

    No, it’s not Ok miss Mike. He was an orribile roommate. If you miss someone like him, feel weird for it It’s more than normal. It’s Walky a masochistic or just more good than he wants to be?

    1. zee

      …or people naturally feel a bit upset when someone in their life does, especially someone very young, regardless of the relationship?
      God what a weird take

      1. thejeff

        Especially when they die heroically, but they were still an abusive asshole. And you feel relief that he’s not there and guilt that you feel the relief and it’s all twisted up inside.

        I don’t think Walky actually misses Mike though, or even that he’s really sad about it. That’s part of the problem.

    2. Sol

      Grief is a weird thing, and often doesn’t make sense. Someone can be very awful to you, but you will still feel bad at their passing, and sometimes even miss them (I see this often from people from abusive households, their abuser passing gives them a lot of mixed emotions). Humans are social creatures, and people we have a connection to, positive or not, can illicit sadness and other emotions at their passing.

      It’s okay to not miss Mike now that he’s dead. It’s also okay to miss him, despite everything.

    3. TheKelliestKelly

      No emotion is bad. One might do questionable things in response to their emotions but it’s definitely fine if Walky is missing Mike or has complicated feelings about his former roommate.

      Do you ever feel guilt about your emotions? They’re just thoughts. Feeling a particular way never inherently makes onr a bad person

      1. thejeff

        Guilt itself is just an emotion, not under your conscious control. So yes, I do sometimes feel guilt over my emotions, even when I don’t think I should.

        Just like I sometimes feel sad or angry or even happy, when I don’t think I should.

  38. Hazel

    I wonder how they learned at such a young age to try and manage the negative emotions of everyone around them. I also wonder when they’re gonna turn that discerning eye on their own coping mechanisms, and what negative emotions they’re distancing from.

  39. DarkoNeko

    the facade crumbles

  40. hof1991

    Booster was harassed first semester and built defenses. They then deployed those defenses against a group of people who hadn’t done anything to deserve it. Time for them to calm down and settle into a merely sassy niche.

    Walky has been comforted and shielded his whole life. Time for him to pay back some of that.

    1. Slartibeast Button, BIA

      I’ve often reflected that that is one of the dilemmas of life. Learning to defend yourself against mistreatment by others gives you most of the skill set you need to mistreat people. Getting to the right balance so you can defend yourself from jerks without becoming a jerk yourself is complicated.

    2. thejeff

      Walky hasn’t really been comforted and shielded his whole life. He’s been the golden child in an abusive family, which isn’t quite the same. His behaviors are adaptions to that. To knowing on a deep down level that the comfort is conditional and can vanish at any moment, since it relies on you staying the “good kid”.

      1. Regalli

        Seriously. Walky was not exempt from the abuse, and you can tell it fucked him up by how terrified he is at the prospect of disappointing Linda.

  41. misanthropope

    walky’s about to make the worlds most awkward booty call.

  42. Procne

    to be fair to walky, i think half us readers are ALSO expecting mike to suddenly emerge from a closet with a cool eyepatch or something

    1. PB

      “Booster. I’m here to talk to you about the Asshole Initiative.”

  43. Ashley

    I read the alt and now I want Walky to be one of those geeks that get ripped to cosplay their faves.

  44. Meagan

    Really digging Walky’s haircut in panel 6.

  45. Dracke

    Im Mix on Boster, sometimes they are an interesting character sometimes they are just a worst version of Micke ..as in a less interesting version, as we already had that
    So the fact they are the replacement in many ways makes them a hard sell, they are the snaky judge of chacter…and the fact they been called out for it instory doesnt help
    I know if They were a real person it wouldnt be his fault but They are not

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