I still don’t get the whole not-ginger thing. While the Doctor’s never been vibrantly, gloriously ginge to Turlough*, Mel, Donna, or Amy levels, I’d argue Eight’s hair has a substantial reddish component (at least the movie wig does). More on par with the level of red in Tegan’s s19 ‘do. (Oddly enough while her hair is notably less red in s20 save for the Enlightenment wig, it gets hints of red again in s21.)
*asterisk due to the fact that Strickson’s hair was dyed for the role while the others are to my knowledge natural
“It was the weirdest thing, captain. The suspect got out of our handcuffs somehow, then tripped and fell down a sealed elevator shaft. Onto some bullets. We’re calling it an accident.”
unfortunately it’s the only language the bully understands, mostly because the teacher’s/parents don’t make them learn diplomacy or kindness, so their victims are forced to learn Ass-whoop and then suddenly their the bad guy for being multi-cultural.
this one person stopped when i kicked him between the legs and another when i basically maced him with cologne. a few years apart in this case. one middle school and one high school
The real issue is that this is teaching Sal that language. A lot of people on here are rooting for Sal beating up Leland, while disregarding the fact that there is a direct line from this to the convenience store robbery that created Amazigirl. This is NOT a good thing that’s happening.
Not really. Sal robbed the convenience stores out of a desperation for her parents’ acknowledgement. She’s kicking Leland’s ass here because he hurt her best friend and not only faced no consequences for it, but Marcie’s been barred from the premises.
I don’t really think the convenience store robbery had anything to do with Sal’s problems with authority, it was her problems with her parents’ neglect.
This event is not teaching Sal the language of violence – frankly, US culture does a good enough job of that on its own.
What it’s teaching Sal is the languages of injustice and oppression – which are what eventually give her the driving anger to rob the stores.
Injustice – Sal being treated as the problem when Leland was the aggressor, and Leland getting off scott-free for hurting her friend. Oppression is going to come – I have no doubt that school administration is going to come down on the black girl much more harshly than they ever did on the white boy.
I think the people rooting for Sal to beat up Leland here are mostly expressing that frustration with the fact that she has so thoroughly been failed by every step of society that is supposed to help her and prevent this kind of thing. and that is an experience many people have in common with her.
Yeah, the only problem is Sal is serving her revenge dish piping hot, thus allowing Leland to benefit from the role of the victim. Even if Leland refuses to admit this happened (due to embarrassment from being whooped by a girl) everyone else will penalize Sal for him, leading him to forget his lesson about what goes around….
“unfortunately it’s the only language the bully understands, mostly because the teacher’s/parents don’t make them learn diplomacy or kindness, so their victims are forced to learn Ass-whoop and then suddenly their the bad guy for being multi-cultural.” I actually have to agree with you. It won’t be a popular opinion but that’s ok…the only way to deal with a bully is to stand up to them. It’s the only language they understand and they typically do not expect it. When it happens it shocks them and they think twice about doing it again.
They were going to eitherway. White student with good grades. A “poster boy” if you will. The fact they were willing to turn a blind eye to witnesses… Well now we see one reason Sal didn’t get to stay in school. She punished the guilty. Didn’t know Marcie hadn’t always been deaf.
Yes,, if you ever need to choke someone, try to put their larynx in the crook of your arm. Putting pressure on the blood vessels works much faster to make them loose consciousness anyway.
CJ, I think that largely depends on your goal.. Obviously, if making them lose consciousness is your primary concern you’d be absolutely right, but if you just want to hurt and/or make things very unpleasant for them….
Even without taking morality into account: Larynx chokes are a bit foolish because they give your opponent a surge of instinctual, fight-or-flight panic, and I am pretty sure I can fight harder scared than most other people can fight angry.
From the angle, she might be using the bone of her forearm against his windpipe. Seeing as this saws the windpipe up, I wonder if he’s gonna die in the next strip, from a rookie mistake?
i can understand the reasoning. i mean heck it came up in the comic too. you see sign language you think deaf, but still the fact it was in a comic bluntly i would think would cut down in it more, but at the same time people can only remember so much about anything even if it is a comic they really enjoy.
I work with a deaf girl and talk to her with few problems. She reads lips really well. So while in this case it isn’t applicable, I don’t think that people who make that assumption are being willfully ignorant; almost all the deaf folks I’ve interacted with read lips moderately to supremely well.
One of the few few people who was less than nice to me (bully-ish, although I’m don’t want to call it outright bullying because it was absolutely nothing compared to most people here) in elementary school found himself suspended a month later…. subtlety definitely has it’s satisfaction too.
Depend. Are we talking hard bar soap, possibly with moisturizer, used as a bludgeon? Or are we talking a poorly-sealed ziplock bag full of body wash left on his chair that will leave his but stinking of super-strength lilac for a week minimum?
I can’t be out here telling everybody vengence is fine! I mean, Deadpool is an Avenger! Not a very good one… but it’s like this avatar now comes with some sort of… responsibility?
Also, punching a bully in the mouth is a horrible tactic if you have to jump to do it. Speaking from experience. She’s closer to the same height here. Helps with the intimidation factor.
i was shorter than my bullies till the summer i was 15 then i hit a big growth spurt and was 6 feet tall started skating and plowed the guy who would slam my head into my locker the year before in his dink w/ my board
Mine is perfectly normal. I mean doesn’t everybody get hit by a truck and total out the truck with nothing more than a few broken bones and some missing skin? 3 times? Walked away with bruises the first two times. Needed an ambulance the 3rd time.
The first two were running the red light while I crossed with the “walk” signal, and the third was the idiot that tried to kill me because I was riding a bicycle in the street on the correct side of the street going the opposite direction. He died about 2 years after trying to kill me.
And I became… an unkillable badass. According to @damnyouwillis
I get that my reply was to a kinda insulting comment, but I wasn’t calling him lazy at all. Dude’s got enough character designs to keep tabs on already, and besides, if I have my chronology right, that haircut was popular when these events occurred. So two white males of a different have the same haircut, it’s not like it doesn’t happen in real life already. Ya know?
i stay up every fucking night until 6am drawing free comics for you, working off the two drops of energy i have left after a full day of parenting two 9-month-old children
so for some reason being called “lazy” makes me super fucking angry, i don’t know why, it’s fucking odd
I’m hoping in good faith that he was surely joking and is in fact fully aware of how much work you put into your comic(s). I for one am completely blown away by your prolificness. Okay, that’s only a slightly odd word choice for this, but the point remains the same.
this seems like a comment where being able to hear the tone it was meant to be said in would let me know how to feel about it, but as just text it is not as easy to figure out.
Well i was diagnosed as being someone who has a hard time understanding people so without tone it is harder for me than usual. or course I was diagnosed as weird even though it was labeled “idiosyncratic behavior” thats what it meant.
I was gonna say this. I mean, there’s only so many ways to draw Generic Whitebread Boy and there’s already one in the main cast, what do they even want?
Won’t let me reply to ety for some reason, so I’m putting it here. The following is my take on Danny/Ryan/Leland’s looks (clearly we all have different opinions).
Danny and Leland do look similar, but not as similar as Leland and Ryan. Danny has different eyes, a pointed chin, his face is longer, and his hair looks longer too. Leland and Ryan have the same chin, but the noses are a lot different. They also have similar facial proportions and about the same amount of hair, although Ryan’s is neater/has more of a rounded edge to it. Danny and Ryan have similar noses, but Ryan’s looks noticeably bigger.
two of them? wow that alone would be exhausting to most people. also i have yet to see you miss a comic. not sure if you make them as you go or make a log that you can chip away at when having a hard time but either way it seems you have a good system for your life and comic creation.
I think that is how the dilbert guy does things. he creates it well ahead of time and just keeps it in que. I think it is a good system personally.
although if that is lazy you i would fear the going all out you being mad at me. after all lazy you seems more determined than current I do. I’m more stubborn in my life workings than capable etc
Um, he’s been that way for a while. And yes, he thinks his personal safety is at risk, so he ‘endorsed’ Clinton, on the grounds that this would protect him from her assassins. While still really endorsing Trump, in the most obvious way possible. I’m quite sure he think he’s being clever too.
And in light of his libertarianism, and the fact that he is himself a PHB, Durandal, the easiest explanation is just “In a real meritocracy, I’d be doing way better than I am now.”
For one thing, with subjects like you around, it never gets boring. I have to find ways to keep you from spreading your disloyalty to me without making it too obvious what I’m doing, so that my schemes don’t end up backfiring on me and creating even more disloyalty.
And that is just one of the issues I face every day as emperor. Overall, it is a dance. On top of Mount Everest. Wearing rollerskates.
I assume all my subjects are disloyal. In fact, I demand it! If for no other reason than the way this makes for quite the conundrum. “I’m loyal to my emperor!” “But he told us to be disloyal.” “Ehhh….”
(And anyone who says that I somehow had a major brain fart and mixed you and Disloyal Subject shall be thrown in my imperial dungeons.
I really need to have my imperial dungeons installed one day.)
That’s actually how all cartoonists do it. It’s just that a lot of published cartoons are bad. Syndicates do NOT want to hear ‘I overslept, I got nothing’ and thetn have to rush to figure something out. Webcomics are the weird one here. And I mean, that’s fine, overall I like webcomics better. But the buffer is not a willis invention.
And yeah, Willis’ is enormous even by syndicated cartoon standards. I imagine because he loves the work.
you also do a pretty alright job of modding the comments like theres stills some shit her but considering other comment sections you do a pretty damn good fuckin job
Even the bad comments that don’t delete tends to end up either getting completely shut down by other commenters, or turning out to be a teachable moment where somebody ends up shedding some ignorance.
Considering that the only real barrier to posting is that your first post(s) before you get approved can’t be red flags, that’s damn impressive.
I was mostly jut referencing the “birthday problem.” Where dozens is at least 24 and you’re already above 50% odds of two of them having the same birthday.
Well, if there are 365 days in a year, then you would need 183 people to be above a 50% chance of two of them having the same exact birthday. With 24, you’re above a 50% chance of two of them having the same day of them month, because there are 30/31 days in most months.
Not true. I realize it doesn’t seem logical, but 23 people are enough to hit 50% even with 365 days in the year (Assuming that each day is equally probable, that is).
You want the probability of at least two people having the same birthday. The reverse of which is the odds that no two people have the same birthday or in other words: everyone has a different birthday.
Let’s look at the probability that everyone has a different birthday which for just 2 people would be 364/365 (if their birthday is on any day other than the first person they are different). For 3 people this is 364/365 * 363/365 etc, etc.
If you do this for 23 people you end up with just under 50% chances that all 23 people have unique birthdays. You can flip that around and say that there is just over a 50% chance of two people having the same birthday. The Wikipedia article goes into a much more involved explanation.
True, “bad temper” is the far worse offending comment here. You’d be very odd to not be in a bad mood after the way everything was just handled by the adults who are supposed to be the fair and just authority figures who make things right.
Accusing Sal of having a bad temper in this situation, when she’s justifably pissed at someone who hurt her best friend, reeks of Angry Black Woman (or girl, in this case) stereotype.
(Lemme just see if I can’t fit a few more clauses in that sentence up there)
I mean, that seems a lot like shoehorning in a racially-charged stereotype to me, no offence intended in saying so. Looks more to me like a case of connecting two dots in an arguable but to my mind demonstrably false manner. Shallow connections and observations can be made without necessarily invoking prejudice.
Besides, I’m pretty sure OP was commenting more on the violent outburst than the anger. I don’t agree, per se, but most people – even children – don’t take the “eye for an eye” approach when a violent transgression is made upon a friend.
Admittedly, I don’t think the OP explicitly meant it that way, but it absolutely reeks of unconscious bias. Would they have reacted the same way if it were Mike?
Sure, we know that Sal develops a violent streak and a short temper, but this is the start of it.
And I’ll have you know that if someone had done that to my best friend, at that age, Leland would be lucky if his head was still attached to his shoulders afterwards. Even if he’d been a foot taller than me I would have tried to claw one of his damned eyes out.
The school brought this on themselves when they failed to enforce discipline. Sal’s just doing something that, if they’re in anyway fair (HA) would be just as okay for her to do to Leland as it was for him to do to Marcie. But that double standard will no doubt be laid bare.
I think my point was that the Author, Willis, is drawing her to be violent and aggressive. I noticed the potential bias in this strip and it bothered me as well.
If Leland was walking past Sal and she stuck her foot out and tripped him, that would be an eye-for-an-eye. But she is practically strangling him and has a smile on her face while doing it.
Some others might seek revenge in less impulsive, more thought out ways. But Sal goes straight for the attack. She doesn’t think it out, she doesn’t consider her actions, she just does it. Pure aggressive impulse.
Note that Amber is also Violent and Aggressive, but she’s handling it differently. Still, what Sal is doing here to Leland bares some similarity to what Amber does to her later on, only here Sal is smiling, but at the convenience store Amber was in tears.
The acting on impulse, without considering her actions, and that smile on her face in the last panel are what bother me.
Same behavior, different driving emotions. Amber, before she stabbed Sal, had probably never done anything violent before, even if she had a build up of hostility relating to her father. She reacted in a violent outburst of anger and lashed out.
Sal, on a slightly different note, is also angry, but as we saw yesterday, her impulse is to lash out. She also has parent issues, like Amber, but while Amber was keeping it bottled in, Sal appears to lash out more often, and started at a younger age.
As I said, this wouldn’t be so bad except for the final panel. It is clear that Sal is smiling. She is getting her revenge and enjoying it to a degree. That is the difference. Compare this last panel with one that shows Amber stabbing Sal.
And don’t forget that the second time she fought her dad, Danny had to pull her off him to stop her from killing him. For all we know, he is still in the hospital.
Or the first time when she punched her dad, and later revealed the smile on her face that even disturbed her
most people know the phrase about having a short fuse. I remember being more along the lines of having an exceptionally long fuse with beyond typical potency.
that being said…… now im not sure how i handle anger since when i get stressed I just start to laugh.
“There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle Sal.” — with apologies to Patrick Rothfuss
Nah. Violent streak implies a habit. She’s angry because what just happened to her friend and the rationalization for it was bullshit. That being said, she’s also a child. Yes, there are children who are more physical than others due to personality. BUT, also remember that children feel emotions pretty intensely in general. It’s why you have to actually teach them not to ACT ON violent, or vengeful, or vindictive impulses and thoughts. Some are blessed with laid back personalities, but all children can be all of these things on their own (because they are human), until they are taught better. If you spend time around especially younger children, you will see situations like this a lot actually. Two kids fighting, one “getting back at the other”, etc.
Example: Leland seems the type of child who doesn’t see discipline that often. Result: He learns that as long as he does well in school, he can give into whatever negative impulses he has, which he does as established. Nobody had the right mind to tell him no, you can’t just go around punching kids.
Sal is reacting to her situation, I think like a lot children her age would. They get angry, they don’t know yet how to cope with intense emotions and intense situations like these – she knows Leland speaks fist, so that’s how she communicates her feelings to him as well.
However because Sal is a girl, and especially because she’s a black girl, people are going to come down on her much harder than they ever will on Leland. Cuz this is set in the real world, and that’s how it works.
Yes, I quite understand. It’s sad, but it was true for me as a little black girl and as a woman people still have a hard time understanding that I don’t exist to accommodate them and make them feel better about their petty problems 24/7.
I mean, you’re not exactly wrong about Sal having a tendency towards violence. She had a hair trigger when it came to Malaya and she implied that she frequently gets into fights and needs Marcie to stop her.
It’s just that, in this case, Sal is a kid going on off another kid who grievously wronged someone she loves and got away with it because he’s too white to face consequences. Sal’s angry and lashing out because she’s realizing the inherent unfairness she’ll be putting up with for the rest of her life.
Also? Leland really has it coming. And, yeah, echoing the sentiment that “bad temper” might not be the best descriptor for Sal right now.
I mean, not really. She basically went full Amazi-Girl there.
Like I get Malaya’s a jerk but that doesn’t entitle Sal to slam her against a wall and threaten to beat the shit out of her, and then actually try to do it.
Yeah, but that’s literally the ONLY time Sal’s done anything violent outside of the flashbacks of the robbery, and the time when Amazi-Girl was clearly the aggressor (or at least the stalker and probably would-be aggressor).
Slightly strangling Joyce and Becky when they woke her up doesn’t really count, because that is a completely natural response to being woken up by unreasonably cheery morning people.
I was mostly making a joke about Malaya being infuriating, but the actual instances of violence by Sal are fewer than I’d expected.
Honestly, aside from Malaya, Sal has not threatened to hit someone who does not conventionally deserve it. Before that, it was Ruth, who was at the time terrorizing Billy, and Amazi-girl, who by all rights, engaged first (By threatening her with physical harm and moving to make good on that threat).
Now, ‘conventionally’ is not the same as ‘actually’, and Sal’s still a bit more likely to hit someone than most. But not really unacceptably to society. Except she’s, you know, a black girl. I mean the comment thread was started by the one who wanted to believe Amazi-girl didn’t care about Sal at all, and was after Ryan. It’s not like her actual problem here is Sal’s violence.
Eh, Amber pretty much had it coming in the parking lot. She’s lucky she only got kneed in the gut.
Like even now where I think Sal ended up making a mistake by striking Amber first, she’s still been putting up with creepy racist stalker chick for a while now.
See, I wouldn’t say Amber (Or I suppose, Amazi-girl) deserved to be hit. She needed to be fought to a degree, to prevent her from being a further threat, but she did not deserve to be struck, it’s just that the other four girls don’t deserve to be either, and shouldn’t suffer because of her.
Actually, it looks like Sal has a sense of justice and a respect for authority – first, she trusted the grown ups to deal with it, but when they failed she recognized she could not rely on them. Granted, this is not the best way to deal, but this is a child taking responsibility for the failures of adults.
I’d call that mature thinking with too-young coping skills. Too bad about those grown ups, huh?
I feel like Marcie will probably be blamed as the cause of this as well…(Sal will obviously get in trouble, though. I mostly mean Sal’s parents will likely blame this on Marcie.) Even though if she’d been on the playground itself I think she’d have probably stopped Sal outright.
I know (and she’d probably teach ’em all calculus while she was there if she managed to keep anyone from saying it was impossible) but you gotta specify with these things.
So. Leland was described as being a good student with a promising future, in a way that implied this was different from Sal. Sal might’ve damaged her own future, but taking out a few of his brain cells ensured he was dragged down with her. Sure, his parents have bribe money, but ivy league schools have standards enough that you’d need both grades and your parents’ money to get in. Okay, maybe they can be bribed too, but no parent with Ivy League-level bribe money is gonna send their kid to public school.
His is a future filled with phrases like “Such a shame . . .” while Sal’s teachers likely never expected better of her.
Well, fingers crossed he decides to go backpacking in Europe to “find himself” or something only to learn too late that you can only make a problem go away completely if your parents move fast with the bribe money. He gets out of jail soon enough, but has enough of a record for his grades to be scrutinized at enrollment. As he was never enough of a team player to excel at sports, he doesn’t even have that edge, and fails to get in.
… well believe me, that if he finds himself backpacking in Europe, and keeps his lovely behaviour, he might as well come back missing a few teeth, as well as his confidence. We have short temper around such people here, and I know about a few such “backpackers”, that (thanks to their idiotic “I own it all here” actions) only went from being beaten by some guys, whom they crossed, to being beaten by our police, which was not amused.
I know that Sal choking him ends up making stuff worse for her, probably doesn’t actually adjust Leland’s behaviour, and doesn’t fix the discriminatory imbalances that are at the root of all this to begin with.
But Sal was crying and getting her choke on made her smile and that’s good enough for me. Trachea, wouldn’t wanna be ya!
The fact that a leland megapost is on willis tumblr makes me wonder if this flashback will end tomorrow, and we will all have to just figure that Sal murdered a kid.
So here’s a theory, maybe the reason Sal robbed that store wasn’t because she was trying to spite her parents but because she wanted to help Marcie after she had a Serious accident and she couldn’t pay the medical bills.
I believe that, especially with the little comment Marcie makes here about how her dad said they were lucky because she didn’t have to go to the doctor. Which implies that if something bad did happen, her family wouldn’t have been able to afford the medical bills.
So which one of them is going to punch Leland first? Will they punch him together? Will they fight over who gets to keep punching him? Or will they merely nod at each other in mutual understanding that they have a common enemy and punch him together?
Oh god was I glad I discovered this comic after that. Also the entire “When Somebody Loved Me” storyline, really. Having to deal with Becky running out crying and being sad for DAYS AT A TIME? My coworkers would’ve been asking if someone in my family had died.
That’s what happened to me. I started reading from the beginning, it took a couple days and then get to last strip with F*cking Ross swinging a gun around campus.
Then i started to read Shortpacked so i wouldn’t suffer imagining what Ross could do with a F*cking gun on campus.
I’m torn between the sarcastic comments “But he was just trying to study” and “Hey that Leland guy looks”, nope can’t even finish that one.
Guy who tried to RAPE Joyce is NOT Leland. Period. Lealand appears to just be an asshole. And oh my god, Willis drew two characters that look kinda alike. He hasn’t missed an update in, what, over a decade, if even that? Provided for free? And he still finds time to self-moderate the comment section, even with a full life outside of here? I have an easier time conceptualizing hatred than trolling, and I don’t get hatred.
yup. plus they say that everyone has something like 7 dopplegangers or something like that.
I dont get the hatred. some people are similar in terms of looks or how they act or what they like to do. While everyone being the same would be boring if nobody was the same there would be no movies or shows or anything since everyone would want something different period.
willis does good work and i dont get why you would complain about something so stupidly minor. its not like suddenly every girl in the dorm looks like joyce except with different names somehow. this is a very stupid thing to complain about and im to lazy to care if two people who are both bad for different reasons look a little alike.
I mean fred and george weasely looked a lot alike and people loved them…… meh i dont know if thats a god half joke but still. willis does great and if two similar looking characters is your worst complaint about something you enjoy then its pretty great.
Just to make sure, I wasn’t complaining about them looking similar. I never even considered it. But for the past few days I’ve seen that comment pop up multiple times. I didn’t find it funny after the tenth time, let alone the first, I doubt Willis liked it then.
yeah i know you werent but so many people seem to have. its like even if they do which honestly i wouldn’t mix them up, why complain. real life people look alike too. sometimes more than the real person since from what i have heard some famous people lose at look alike contests for them as in wait they look like me more than i do?
I’m surprised it’s come up at all. A lot of the girls and even some guys have similar bangs. I just thought it was Willis’ style.
Kudos to working and raising ya twins. You don’t know how many comics I’ve read that stalled or disappeared completely when the artist had a baby. Granted, they were all women but I’m assuming Willis stays at home with his two. Not knocking the lady artists either, I’m sure parenting and working in general is tough, so again, kudos to everyone who does. It’ll definitely get tougher when they’re toddling around.
Something I’ve just thought about, have we ever gotten any indication about how Sal feels about the kid who stabbed her in the hand?
Sal’s doing this, right here, for Marcie’s sake, and possibly her own gratification in seeing justice dispensed on someone who violently wronged somebody she loved. Is it outlandish to suggest Sal might feel the same way about being stabbed by Amber? That it’s something she “had coming” because she violently harmed somebody that Amber loved?
Course, main difference between herself and Leland is that Sal actually faced consequences in being arrested by the police, so it’s not exactly airtight.
Nope. She’s never talked about that, or the scar itself.
Considering how persistently she hides the scar, its either really ugly or she really doesn’t like being reminded of it, and/or the events that led to it.
If she sees it as yet another way she’s never allowed to forget her mistakes or that she’s “not good enough”, then she definitely will not be happy to learn that the white girl who’s been stalking her is the one that gave it to her.
Eesh, that’s a good point. I always figured it was just about its physical presence but I’ve never once considered that Sal might actually feel some form of embarrassment over it.
And, yeah, when Sal finds out the caped white girl power trip is the kid who got away with knifing her in the hand, that’s gonna get ugly.
I dunno if “embarrassment” is quite the right word. I could also just be that she feels people would see it and use it as one more reason to judge her unfairly and/or assume she’s “trouble”.
Though she might also just not want people to ask how she got it, and force her to think about a time she’s not proud of, whether she tells them the truth or not.
I’m leaning more towards the former. Sal doesn’t seem like she would be so consciously ashamed about a mistake she’d already atoned for.
This set of comics makes it seem like Sal would maybe understand why Amber stabbed her. She would’ve been angry about the whole thing for sure, but I imagine she probably blames the cops more than the friend of a boy she threatened. Especially if she ever found out that Amber didn’t seem to face any legal repercussions for it.
Of course that is all conjecture. She could also be holding a grudge about it, but Sal has a certain chilliness that just makes me feel that way.
That is sorta what I was thinking, but I also wouldn’t blame Sal if she didn’t react well when the truth comes out.
Like for all the awful shit Sal did that night, she was still detained and no threat to anybody at that point. I guess you could make a parallel to putting Leland in a headlock after he got away with hurting Marcie, but then that’s still a fairly different circumstance because Leland avoided punishment.
As for Amber facing repercussions, my theory is that Blaine cut a deal with the Walkertons so that Amber wouldn’t get charged for stabbing Sal, while Sal wouldn’t get charged for taking Ethan hostage. It makes sense to me because Sal only ever has “you robbed those convenience stores” brought up against her, and not the hostage taking. This way Amber avoids facing consequences (and thus, court mandated therapy), and Sal avoids being charged with a major crime and just gets stuck with holding up a convenience store. Being sent to a boarding school has been framed as something her parents did rather than have it be a part of her legal punishment, so I think it fits.
I realize odds are the resemblance is just a coincidence, but I really hope Leland is just Ryan going by a different name and we’re going to see Sal and Amazi-Girl team up to deliver epic JUSTICE! on him.
I had the same thought that maybe Leland is the guy who tried to rape Joyce, but I see in the comments section that they are not the same characters. That said, I want to throw in that I definitely don’t think Willis is lazy because I thought the characters looked alike. I was just thinking, “Whoa, what a plot twist!” Nope! Not the twist I was looking for.
Side note: Definitely would never call Willis lazy. This comic is free, and updates on schedule always. EVERY DAY. I have no other comics that I read currently that update daily, and of the ones I read, a lot of them are not even consistent with their schedules. And /their/ authors/artists aren’t raising twin babies. I’ve raised two babies (not twins) and I know it’s not easy! So ignore the haters, if you can. The rest of us (which is almost all of your followers) know better and love your work.
Okay what the hell. People are saying “Leland looks like Ryan” but I just checked and unless the kid got a nose job, THEY DON’T EVEN LOOK THAT MUCH ALIKE!
Not sure how I feel about that one. I’ve never been on the receiving end of it as a compliment. “Articulate” on the other hand, is what I was talking about.
If it wasn’t for the fact that he’s a villain, I’d say that he delivered such an epic retaliation that Marcie was ‘dumbfounded’ to the point of never having words for anything, and until she can find the words to describe it, shall never say a word.
Other commenters are saying that her disability may have been caused by the injuries she got from Leland (as in, an infection or something.) I guess we’ll find out sooner or later.
I mean, I’m inclined to think there’s a Traumatic Rollerskating Accident involved somewhere in the vicinity too, but her going for his neck like that suggests… bad things to me. Very bad things. Oh dear oh dear.
I doubt the tragic tale of Marcie and Sal will have just one villain. Or two, if you’re already counting the school and everyone who works for it, like I am.
called it, Sal attacks Leland in retaliation for Marcie getting kicked into a ditch full of exposed rebar, my second prediction is that she’ll get in massive trouble for it
now the question is: will her punishment be disproportionate? will she get expelled for this? suspended?
something tells me she won’t just get a talking to
Yup, I guarantee the principal’s reaction will not be nearly as forgiving to Sal as it was for Leland. And I’m willing to bet money that in her dressing down, there will be some reference to how she’s “inherently” a trouble-maker or connecting it with “bringing non-students on campus” or some little dig about her “nature” that implies she’s more likely to be violent because she’s black.
Ok, I just gotta point this out…
Saying Leland looks like Ryan (AKA Gashface, AKA Scarface, AKA Attempted Rapist of our Favorite Fundamentalist) means you haven’t really compared them.
They’re both white. I’ll give you that.
We only see Leland’s hair in flashback blue, but presumably it’s light brown or whatever like Ryan’s. I’ll give you that.
But the similarities end there.
Leland has a rounded (and somewhat obnoxious) nose. Ryan has a rather nondescript angular nose.
Ryan’s hair is smooth and he has dark sideburns. Leland’s is messy- which could be something he grew out of, but it’s also lacking those dark sideburns.
Ryan has a rounder jaw, whereas Leland’s is more angular.
This probably sounds rather pedantic, but it is important. Just compare the two characters and you’ll see right away that they don’t look much alike at all.
Character design, even for the least important characters in a (visually expressed) story, is a big process.
As an aspiring author myself, (and a fanboy, that definitely contributes) it annoys me to the extreme when people call Willis lazy or unimaginative when they can’t even take the time to make sure they’re right about it.
Imma take “intelligent” and “quick-witted”. Most of those other ones would strain my willing suspension of disbelief.
#SelfConfidenceBoostedThanksBro
#WhoAmIKiddingIDon’tUseTwitter
Personally speaking, I am not religious, but if I were god and gave humans free will, I would let Sal into heaven for beating up little shits like Leland.
I for one am glad they’re not the same person. Helps to remember that a systemic problem is very different from one recurring villain. Amazi-Girl is a superhero but DOA is not a superhero comic. No nemesis for you. Just the crushing weight of social convention and broken laws.
(Long ass and traumatic rant alert) Incidentally, going off what I said yesterday of being stalked in high school and nobody doing anything because he was a “good kid”, something like this also happened, except the guy who defended me wasn’t my friend. We ate lunch together because we had mutual friends at the time, but I kinda found him to be a bit obnoxious so we didn’t interact much. I don’t even remember his last name, but that’s more because high school was such a stressful blur that I don’t remember a lot of details rather than his unimportance in my life.
Anyway, so one day I’m sitting at the edge of the table talking quietly to one of my stalker’s other ex girlfriend victims that I had just met, one he has gone so far as physical abuse with. Dustin immediately takes notice despite having been ignoring us at that point, and asks if someone had hurt us. She said yes, I said no, but I’d been stalked and been threatened with being stabbed many time. (Did I mention golden boy could openly carry a box cutter in school and still get away with this shit?) Dustin demands to know who the jackass is and as “luck” would have it, stalker shared my luck would have it, stalker shares my lunch because I’m just the apple of the gods’ eyes. I point him out, Dustin shoots up from his seat without another word and makes a direct beeline to where stalker sat, and just utterly freaking trashes him. Dustin was a huge, beefy guy and stalker mostly used psychological abuse and box cutter threats because most of his able bodied victims probably could have fought him if he hadn’t eroded all of their confidence and cut then off from every emotional resource, so he got knocked the hell out. Naturally, Dustin got suspended for weeks, nothing happened to stalker even as I found more victims to come forward, and I basically lived in hell until he graduated and moved on to abusing fellow college kids. But stalker was out of school for a few days, which gave me and the others some much needed relief, even if it didn’t last.
Anyway, I bring up all this depressing crap for a reason and I swear it’s relevant. Dustin and I weren’t friends. I didn’t know much about him, and vice versa. Outside of lunch we didn’t have much to do with each other even in the classes we shared, and he probably doesn’t even remember my name or even this incident as much as I do. But he became an important figure in my story for this one part of it, because he was the first person in my life–the only person, up until about a year ago–who EVER stood up for me. Not my parents, who made a lot of noise about how they would never let me come to harm (they did), not my school, who said they would protect their students (they didn’t), not my older siblings, who society tried to constantly tell me always had my back (they really didn’t), not my friends who probably couldn’t have done anything anyway but never even made the attempt. But some guy I didn’t know very well, whom I didn’t particularly like and wasn’t particularly liked by, a practical stranger who was willing to put his academic career at risk, willing to risk legal troubles and jeopardize scholarships, because he found out some asshole was abusing a bunch of girls who were too scared (and, in my case, too physically sick and weak) to stand up for ourselves. And it was awesome. When he came back to school, Dustin refused to make a big deal out of it and even seemed embarrassed by the admiration I showed him, and things between us quickly went on as normal. Also, I think stalker was transferred to a different lunch period so he didn’t have to see Dustin, which is fucking hilarious in a “I-want-to-punch-something-way”.
So maybe someone like Marcie would be too worried for what something like this would mean for Sal, but anyone who spits out “violence doesn’t solve violence” platitudes here can shove it, because Marcie has literally just been told she’s worth fighting for, probably something she’s never been led to believe before.
He sounds like a good guy. Sorry to hear more people didn’t have your back.
More people need to step up and actually do something when they see or hear about someone else being mistreated, even if its only openly voicing their disgust. And it really should be the teachers and parents that set the example for this. Kids shouldn’t have to make take these things into their own hands.
Yeah. Wonder whatever happened to him, we lost touch after sophomore year or so. But if ever adopt a kid who doesn’t already have a name, “Dustin” is in the running just for the sweet, sweet memory of him knocking stalker to the floor in one punch.
I have never identified with Sal more than this moment.
In school, I had a lovely friend who was very sweet and eager to make friends. In that class we also had a jackass who realized she was an easy target. I’m not going to list everything he did to her.
But I have a clear memory of sitting in the cafeteria with my friend and he sits down at our table and, as she opened her mouth to talk, he yelled:
“Shut up and make me a sandwich, bongo!”
She started tearing up. And I picked up my fork and stabbed it right in his hand as hard as I could.
That’s it, that’s the story. I mean, there’s a bigger story around it, I just wanted to share a happy memory.
No I agree that sal has a bad temper and violent tendencies. That doesn’t mean her anger is unjustified. She’s pissed rightfully so she was slighted and her friend was hurt. But she does not have to react to that anger violently. She doesn’t have to attack him she has a perfectly good reason to want to but she certainly has a temper and is quick to act violently. It’s no more gross than saying her brother is cowardly or that Leland is a bully it’s a fact of her personality.
When someone says “bad temper” you think along the lines of a child who has “temper tantrums” or an adult who lashes out and abuses those around them. Sal is upset and angry for entirely justified and valid reasons here and she isn’t overly or exaggeratedly angry either. The violent action she takes as a result of that might be unnecessary and a poor choice, but it’s also perfectly understandable for a child.
I’ve not seen much of her supposed anger management issues since she’s been to college.
Uncontrollable anger is what it says it is: anger at any little thing blown out of all proportion. A book placed the wrong way, tooth-paste squeezed the wrong way. (My anger-management course was very thorough on trigger-points.) None of that applies here. She’s angry because her friend was beat-up, and the person doing the beating got away with it, like he always does.
I think one thing (among many) that we fail to give children is any sense of how to healthily process injustice. So often, we either deny it entirely in order to “protect” them from the knowledge of our broken world or we give terrible advice like “just ignore it” or so on.
And part of it is probably that we know we render kids powerless in a lot of ways. But still, I feel a lot of kids see the injustice around them, see how the adults fail to even recognize it, see how they blame the more marginalized, and that anger just sits in the pit of their stomach until it’s internalized.
It’s extremely hard to diagnose kids (up to college age) for a whole lot of things because their brains haven’t finished growing in yet and they don’t have the same experience, cognition, ability to form connections, etc etc.
This is also true I just think a bad temper or perhaps a short fuse is an accurate description because even as an adult Sal’s first impulse is to resort to violence. Sometimes it is justified sometimes not. It is the same way her brother first impulse when confronted is to fold and back down. And her impulse control is only slightly improved as an adult. I just think it’s sad she didn’t get help to find healthier ways to deal with anger and that she had to learn this as a kid
The thing is, you have the cause and effect backwards. Yes, she has a short fuse as an adult, but what we’re seeing here is why.
I think its sad she didn’t get help from her parents or her school in dealing with shit like this this asshole Leland so she wouldn’t have anger problems in the first place.
Yeah, she’s spent her whole life dealing with injustices for being a girl, for being black, for being friends with someone who is poor and latina. And she’s watched as the adults in her life have turned her back on her, failed to see the obvious, have made pathetic victim-blaming excuses for the offenders, and that justice will never be served for the likes of her.
It’s “there’s no justice, there’s just us” to put it simply. And so Sal tried to take what little she could into her own hands, because she just couldn’t stomach doing nothing. And that’s more complicated than just a short fuse and a bad temper. It’s a kid who has no expectation that anyone will ever come to her aid and who refuses to let herself or those close to her get beat down and that has fueled an anger pit that leads her to more impulsively violent actions when she feels hurt and attacked.
It’s a similar feeling to AG, really, vigilantism as coping strategy for suffered injustice, defending those who can’t fight back for themselves (Marcie for Sal, Amber for Amazi-girl), and occasionally drifting too far (AG’s stalking of Sal, Sal’s thrashing of Malaya). Sal was not wrong when she diagnosed that AG was being fueled by the same feeling that drove her on so many years ago.
I think it’s potentially an accurate description of her as an adult. Here, as a child, I think it’s misplaced largely for the reasons Fart Captor mentions above.
Based on what we saw in the previous strip, I’m guessing the school isn’t going to see this as Sal getting even with a bully. Instead she’s going to get the punishment that Leland deserved, or worse. Damn this is depressing.
Walkypedia needs new editors. Given the appearance of new characters in Dumbing of Age, the internet’s 2nd most popular reference to the webcomics work of David Willis (behind TVTropes) needs more coverage. Your help in creating a stronger community would be greatly appreciated. The link is in my name.
I was once offhandedly complemented by a teacher in high school for my “adult attitude of cynicism.” I really couldn’t tell if she meant that as a genuine compliment of if she was being sarcastic as all hell…
Well yeah, RM’s keep an eye on “potential troublemakers”. What? No, there’s nothing racist there. Clearly Sal is a “troublemaker”, look how she’s giving unprovoked violence to a “good student” from a “good family”. The RM was right to keep an eye on her for totally not racist reasons.
For the record, I hate Marcie’s mother approach to things. Things don’t balance out unless someone MAKES them balance out. The world is not fair. Karma and all forms of “cosmic justice” are fairy-tales concocted by the assholes to keep people who they asshole at from complaining too much about redress.
Hate it too, but what else are you going to tell a little kid when there’s nothing you can actually do?
“Sorry Marcie, he’s white and rich and we’re brown and poor (and illegal?) and that means he can pretty much do anything he wants to you and we can’t protect you.”
Honestly, I wish that was the response more often. Like, too often with karma arguments or “just ignore the bullying, they’ll go away” advice, it just turns into internalizing everything.
The victim ends up going, clearly I deserve this if it’s happening to me and my bully is going unpunished. If everything balances, then I must have done something wrong to have earned this. If they’re not going away, I must be doing something wrong to “encourage them”.
Like, telling them the dark heart of racism and classism will be depressing, yes, but it’s more accurate to the world. It shows them what is unfair (something they already intrinsically feel, because kids are not stupid, they know when things aren’t fair) and where the problem lies. And gives them something to strive to fix or call out as they grow older.
And that arguably does more good than just selling them comforting lies because they are easier for the adults.
That would actually be BETTER than the karma answer, if for no other reason (Cerberus has already pointed a few) that if they think the universe will take care of it, then they won’t. And, in fact, nobody will. Which measn that things will just keep on sucking. I’m not saying they’ll just be able to fix it, but it sure as hell won’t fix itself. Jackasses who jackass with no consequence will continue to be jackasses.
He hurt her daughter, she had to have flames in her eyes and a wish to smack the white out of that boy. Yes, it is a saying that feels very empty, but it doesn’t always come from a place of “the world is unfair and you have to deal with it.” Not necessarily karma, but some things work out when the bad ones don’t learn how to treat people and they mess with the wrong person or they show their true colors to someone they wanted to fool. It bites them back hard. But I also agree with sal. Some bullies go on to think of their asshole years as glory days and their victims are stuck with insecurities they didn’t have before, tons of bitterness, and a hurt ability to trust people. I think her mom was trying to say stave off the urge for violence or vengeance even if it comes from righteous anger.
We knew this already. Also, she is currently mute. This has been confirmed in comic a couple times. (Sal mentions that they -had- to learn sign language together, for one.)
Panel 1: Based on the timeline, this would be pre-Obamacare, back when our health care system was even more broken than it is now and it was frequently common for folks to be uninsured (things are still pretty awful and a lot of folks are just insured in name only, so not ignoring that, just noting that this is back when that was even worse).
So, yeah, no wonder Marcie’s dad feels they were lucky. Her going to the doctor could have bankrupted the family and what little stability they are clinging on to for dear life. And it gives a horrifying look into the future, where Marcie does get hurt or sick enough to need a doctor and her family is unable to afford it.
Many have speculated that Sal’s robbing of the convenience stores is related to Marcie losing her voice, that it was out of panic to pay her medical costs or help out in some way and I feel this is one more hint in that direction. Certainly, it supports the fact that Sal feels fiercely protective of Marcie, and unlike her, has a harder time just internalizing injustice or hurt feelings and de-escalating.
Rest of comic: And we see Marcie’s role echoed, her begging her to knock it off, to not fight for her. And Sal’s keen awareness of injustice. Even as an elementary school kid, she feels it. She knows the deck is stacked in favor of certain kids with certain traits. That their violence and harm comes to nothing. That they are allowed to hurt with impunity (let us not forget that it’s implied Walky has been bullied before by this kid, so Marcie getting hurt may have just been the last straw of what bullshit Sal was willing to swallow).
And she hates it. And she doesn’t trust the adults in her life to do anything about it, because they are too busy acting like they don’t even see it. Staying mute, politely nodding along as victim-blaming tripe is spewed at them. Sal is feeling the rage that comes from knowing that there’s no justice for those like her, there’s just us. On the ground, internalizing all that anger and sadness and pain.
Someone noted that Sal has a very Amazi-girl smile in the last panel and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. Sal was right about a similar sort of anger at injustice fueling her as fueled her younger self. And the dangers of that anger channeled that way. In many ways, AG is something Sal was always blocked from becoming, because the official response to a black vigilante is considerably different than a white one.
There’s no doubt this story ends with the book being thrown at her, with her being labeled a “troublemaker”, a “bad student”, “dangerous”, “violent”, a “thug”. With that same principal throwing everything at her and demanding a full suspension for hurting a “star pupil” “completely out of the blue” after already floating school rules “letting a non-student trespass” causing “all that trouble” before.
And we know her parents will fail to appreciate the why of what she did, merely focusing on punishing her for not acting “proper”.
And this will just fuel how she bristles at injustice, at dogwhistles and codes, at the way things just ain’t fair. Why she won’t back down against AG even though the whole crowd is against her. Because she’s used to fighting the whole damn system, being alone, being outcast. And like Carla, she’s tried to make her peace with that and craft her armor as best she can.
Also, I can’t help but notice that Sal is crying in front of Marcie. Marcie has always been the person Sal can open up to, show her emotions in front of. Marcie is safe in a way her family, her school, her brother, Billie aren’t. So it is no wonder that she hesitates to open up to new friends.
She doesn’t want to have her feelings ignored or hand-waved away. And she doesn’t want to have to add the injustices they face and the anger that comes with them to her already full plate (this feels especially applicable to the “at arm’s length” relationship she’s developing with Joyce).
Exactly. A poster above said that Sal has improved her own stuff so much since what we’re seeing now. I pretty seriously don’t understand why people keep saying that she’s this habitually violent person, when she’s actually really mature compared to the rest of the cast (I’m looking at you, Walky and Danny), especially in the beginning of the comic.
I agree- this background is establishing why injustice is such a hot button for her, and why she gets upset about this particular situation, racism in general, etc. She has a temper, but mostly as it relates to being attacked by people, whether for her appearance or AG stalking and harassing her.
That’s not weird to be angry about those things, and personally I’m sick of the double standard where it’s inappropriate for someone who looks like Sal to be angry about a justified thing, because being angry and black at the same time makes a lot of people uncomfortable and meanwhile AG/Amber was being cheered on for the longest time, and she actually was beating the crap out of people and having violent tendencies.
This is what relates the last few strips together, about the race and violence. People start tripping all over a POC having negative feelings because that, in their eyes, automatically makes them threatening and irredeemable. AND, in the same breath, like with Leland here, or even Amber, bend over backwards to accommodate and defend the hurtful mediocrity of a white person, particularly when a POC reacts to them.
Sal and Marcie are “troublemakers”, Sal is a “criminal with violent tendencies” – OK, wouldn’t you think it’s the other way around – Leland has a bully streak and needs to be taught better, and Sal is reacting to that the way most kids her age (and her personality) would?
But no – Leland is a “good student who can beat other people up, but doesn’t deserve to get into trouble for it because won’t that hurt his feelings and stunt his *bright future*”
“So much potential” – we’ve been hearing that phrase a lot in the news these days.
And how betrayed she must feel by her parents. She knows the truth, they know it, and they’re letting her take the fall anyway because they don’t want to upset the wealthy white families that go there too. I personally don’t think fighting to keep your black children at a school like that, forcing them to take experiences like that without supporting them at all is really gonna benefit them too much. As we saw with Sal. And Walky, for that matter.
Sal is indeed more mature than a lot of the class, and is actually fighting to get an education.
I don’t see any temper about her – a willingness to walk on the wild side, maybe, and a deep passion about injustice. But that’s all I see in this and the more grown-up Sal.
Oh, she’s shown the temper a few times. And commented on it more.
Talked about having Marcie to hold her back, in particular. I see her in the present as having the temper and struggling to control it. We see her here developing it.
While she has a temper, I haven’t seen it truly be unjustified (at least not in my memory, point me to the strips if I’m wrong) and she’s become much better at controlling it for sure.
She had issues with Malaya that were understandable, but not justified.
Understandable in that she’s super-protective of Marcie because (as we have seen in the last few strips) nobody else would even try to protect her. And Marcie even moved nearby just to be close to Sal, even though Marcie’s not in college; I think it is safe to assume that she’s done some protecting or Sal in turn. It undoubtedly became a habit that’s been hard to break, even more so for Sal.
Unjustified in that as an adult, Marcie is and should be allowed her own friends, and Sal does not have a monopoly on that. Heck, it was only solved by Marcie saying she wanted a sexual and possibly romantic relationship with Malaya. Sal stopped escalating because she stopped feeling threatened for Marcie’s friendship, -not- because she realised she was attempting to “own” Marcie’s friendship, and that this was a bad thing.
I don’t see her anger at Malaya stemming from the “taking away Marcie” thing. Sal is definitely upset about spending less time with Marcie and sees Malaya as the cause of that, but Sal’s anger stems from Malaya acting like a POS (not that Malaya doesn’t have understandable reasons for that either, given Sal’s less than ideal attitude even when trying to make friends with her) and that I think is reasonable even if it is not justified.
I disagree. And I think it was the fact that Sal stopped being angry at Malaya the very second as it was made clear that Malaya was no longer a threat to Marcie’s friendship… I mean, she did such an 180 in attitude that one could almost get a whiplash seeing her. “Marcie is yours for the night” indeed.
I think that comment in itself is betraying -a lot- of Sal’s real emotions. Sal sees Marcie as -her- friend. Maybe not quite in terms of having ownership of Marcie; but nevertheless, Marcie is someone that should have Sal as an exclusive friend. Sal is there for Marcie, Marcie is there for Sal, everyone else can fuck off. It’s been like that for years.
And Sal does not like Malaya a single bit more the next time they interact, and Malaya is not a single bit less of a jerk herself the next time they interact. Yet Sal is not showing anywhere near the same amount of anger towards Malaya’s jerkiness as last time. Some, yes, but nothing worse than what most of us would have done if we were being rudely woken up. My own grumpy-meter would go from 0-100 before I even actually wake up in such a moment. -That- is I call fully reasonable anger.
But then, in the very next strip, when Malaya heavily implies that Sal’s losing Marcie as her friend, Sal’s simply “Ah’m pretty sure we each give her… differ’nt things.” Because it’s clear she no longer feels threatened by Malaya taking up Marcie time. If Sal hadn’t known about Marcie’s carnal desires at that point, I am 99.999% confident that she would have attacked Malaya instead.
Alright, fair enough. I’d buy that their next encounter is more indicative of her “no longer fearing Marcie’s friendship will be stolen away.”
But, I’m still inclined to interpret it as her being more willing to put up with Malaya for the sake of Marcie’s feelings and also from Marcie’s prior reassurance that they were no less friends than they had ever been (“I’m not losing Marcie” as opposed to “Marcie can’t have other friends”). Sal and Marcie obviously have a very deep bond due to events in the past and it is mutual.
Let me be just a little more explicit, since I don’t think I say it often enough. I think you are right and I’m inclined to agree, but I’m also an optimistic SOB when it comes to interpreting this in the way that I, personally, find most redeeming of her character.
Have you heard of the 1970 documentary “Eye of the Storm?” It was a 25-minute TV special on ABC where a teacher – Jane Elliot – gives her all-white, elementary-school class a taste of the bias facing POC by playing a game where all the blue-eyed kids wear collars and are treated as “lesser than” the kids with no collars. It was talked about in this Zootopia documentary (at 20:16), and it seems pretty relevant to what Sal is currently feeling:
Unless she kills or cripples Leland, I don’t think he’s going to stop being a bully. And I also don’t think this will bring down any punishment from above… at least not on him.
Violence can solve most problems, but usually creates more and bigger problems in the process.
(…. yes, violence CAN solve the problem of violence. Nuke the entire world to glass, and we’d have peace on Earth. Problem solved.)
Sal is a strong girl with fucking principles, who uses her strength to stand up for others who are oppressed. She has an actual moral compass most adults could learn from, and rejects society’s patriarchal, white-privilege bullshit.
Leland pushes a girl into a hole.
Leland is the one with a bad temper.
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have a nice FALL Leland
don’t get all CHOKED up Leland
Poor Leland. Sal is quite breathtaking.
She’s got a stranglehold on his heart.
last time I checked you were supposed to wait until the third date.
It really chokes you up, right?
Sal should give him some space. She’s suffocating him.
Maybe necks time he’ll think before messing with her and Marcie.
Have a nice TRIP Leland*
*Sphincter Clench*
(Though in this case it’s the esophageal sphincter)
And from this day forth he shall excrete Ecto Cooler from his nether regions.
Man, if they found a way to make Ecto Cooler glow, I would drink nothing else.
Also I would probably die. But I’d leave a pleasantly luminescent corpse.
for about five seconds then you just regenerate into not ginger.
and not female…
I still don’t get the whole not-ginger thing. While the Doctor’s never been vibrantly, gloriously ginge to Turlough*, Mel, Donna, or Amy levels, I’d argue Eight’s hair has a substantial reddish component (at least the movie wig does). More on par with the level of red in Tegan’s s19 ‘do. (Oddly enough while her hair is notably less red in s20 save for the Enlightenment wig, it gets hints of red again in s21.)
*asterisk due to the fact that Strickson’s hair was dyed for the role while the others are to my knowledge natural
And you won’t neef to buy batteries for your flashlight.
just make sure you have tea ready.
He fell! …on a rake! 😉
More rakes needed.
“Oh silly Leland you tripped right into my cold and unrelenting hands, WHAT A BUTTERFINGERS”
“It was the weirdest thing, captain. The suspect got out of our handcuffs somehow, then tripped and fell down a sealed elevator shaft. Onto some bullets. We’re calling it an accident.”
Been there done that. I’m not joking by the way.
I believe you, been in a similar situation myself.
Thou the person I had the altercation and I actually got around to burying the hatchet recently (about a decade or two latter).
Was the hatchet in his head and the burial out in the desert?
Neither.
unfortunately it’s the only language the bully understands, mostly because the teacher’s/parents don’t make them learn diplomacy or kindness, so their victims are forced to learn Ass-whoop and then suddenly their the bad guy for being multi-cultural.
Wouldn’t it be multi-lingual or is Ass-whoop a language and culture all in one?
this one person stopped when i kicked him between the legs and another when i basically maced him with cologne. a few years apart in this case. one middle school and one high school
The real issue is that this is teaching Sal that language. A lot of people on here are rooting for Sal beating up Leland, while disregarding the fact that there is a direct line from this to the convenience store robbery that created Amazigirl. This is NOT a good thing that’s happening.
Not really. Sal robbed the convenience stores out of a desperation for her parents’ acknowledgement. She’s kicking Leland’s ass here because he hurt her best friend and not only faced no consequences for it, but Marcie’s been barred from the premises.
Yeah, but she learned she can’t trust authority or her parents, thus leading to the convenience store robbery. Jargon has a point.
I don’t really think the convenience store robbery had anything to do with Sal’s problems with authority, it was her problems with her parents’ neglect.
This event is not teaching Sal the language of violence – frankly, US culture does a good enough job of that on its own.
What it’s teaching Sal is the languages of injustice and oppression – which are what eventually give her the driving anger to rob the stores.
Injustice – Sal being treated as the problem when Leland was the aggressor, and Leland getting off scott-free for hurting her friend. Oppression is going to come – I have no doubt that school administration is going to come down on the black girl much more harshly than they ever did on the white boy.
I think the people rooting for Sal to beat up Leland here are mostly expressing that frustration with the fact that she has so thoroughly been failed by every step of society that is supposed to help her and prevent this kind of thing. and that is an experience many people have in common with her.
I totally messed up the i and b tags…
should have been…
she has so thoroughly been failed by every step of society that is supposed to help her and prevent this kind of thing.
Yeah, the only problem is Sal is serving her revenge dish piping hot, thus allowing Leland to benefit from the role of the victim. Even if Leland refuses to admit this happened (due to embarrassment from being whooped by a girl) everyone else will penalize Sal for him, leading him to forget his lesson about what goes around….
“unfortunately it’s the only language the bully understands, mostly because the teacher’s/parents don’t make them learn diplomacy or kindness, so their victims are forced to learn Ass-whoop and then suddenly their the bad guy for being multi-cultural.” I actually have to agree with you. It won’t be a popular opinion but that’s ok…the only way to deal with a bully is to stand up to them. It’s the only language they understand and they typically do not expect it. When it happens it shocks them and they think twice about doing it again.
Looks like the choke’s on him.
You win.
good
Yet the teacher will take his side.
They were going to eitherway. White student with good grades. A “poster boy” if you will. The fact they were willing to turn a blind eye to witnesses… Well now we see one reason Sal didn’t get to stay in school. She punished the guilty. Didn’t know Marcie hadn’t always been deaf.
Marcie aint deaf just mute, people talk to her.
I’m puttin’ money on Sal’s attack, right here, being the reason Marcie is mute.
I can definitely see Leland deciding Sal’s little friend makes a much easier target for payback.
nah i dont think thatd be caused by somethin like this well probably learn why in a year or 2
It’s the fact that this is a choke that’s making bells ring for me. If Sal had just decked him, I’d be much less sure of it.
Yes,, if you ever need to choke someone, try to put their larynx in the crook of your arm. Putting pressure on the blood vessels works much faster to make them loose consciousness anyway.
CJ, I think that largely depends on your goal.. Obviously, if making them lose consciousness is your primary concern you’d be absolutely right, but if you just want to hurt and/or make things very unpleasant for them….
Ups, my morals are showing.
Even without taking morality into account: Larynx chokes are a bit foolish because they give your opponent a surge of instinctual, fight-or-flight panic, and I am pretty sure I can fight harder scared than most other people can fight angry.
From the angle, she might be using the bone of her forearm against his windpipe. Seeing as this saws the windpipe up, I wonder if he’s gonna die in the next strip, from a rookie mistake?
i can understand the reasoning. i mean heck it came up in the comic too. you see sign language you think deaf, but still the fact it was in a comic bluntly i would think would cut down in it more, but at the same time people can only remember so much about anything even if it is a comic they really enjoy.
Came up here, for example.
Sal was talking to her all last week, too.
I work with a deaf girl and talk to her with few problems. She reads lips really well. So while in this case it isn’t applicable, I don’t think that people who make that assumption are being willfully ignorant; almost all the deaf folks I’ve interacted with read lips moderately to supremely well.
Willis does, deliberately, draw instances where Sal is talking to Marcie while Marcie is looking away from her, though.
Pretty much all of last week had them carrying on a conversation while Marcie kept watch on the crowd instead of looking at Sal.
basically, she’s more like batman beyond
It’s just a friendly hug. Around the neck. Really tightly.
Child murder! See what happens when you don’t stop her!
She’s innocent until proven guilty in court of LAW.
DUNTDUNT!
your avatar/comment pairing is flawless
I’ll assume that alt text is canonical until shown otherwise.
http://www.shortpacked.com/index.php?id=1182
its sorta canon!
Yeah, but I mean for the Dumbingverse.
*laughs hysterically*
That would explain some things… in an alternate timeline. http://www.shortpacked.com/index.php?id=1182
who stands and pees in the dark? i mean sure the pee is glow in the dark there but what about before that?
Maybe the power went out?
If he pees his pants, we’ll be able to know for sure…
Well we’d need a Geiger counter first.
No, Sal. No.
SUBTLETY. You need to get revenge with SUBTLETY or it just makes things worse.
Subtlety is a big word for a little kid.
I dunno, looks pretty damn satisfying to me.
One of the few few people who was less than nice to me (bully-ish, although I’m don’t want to call it outright bullying because it was absolutely nothing compared to most people here) in elementary school found himself suspended a month later…. subtlety definitely has it’s satisfaction too.
well, my brain jumped trains of thought mid-sentence there…should have been “I’m loath to call it”
Satisfaction tends to trump subtlety.
“Trump” and “Subtlety” do not belong in the same sentence.
…. but yes, you’re right.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Do both, then buy a Donald trump piñata from Amazon.com.
Because those are totally a thing.
Something like this??: https://www.amazon.com/Unique-66318-Parody-Pinata/dp/B01FSHKSI8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1472972572&sr=8-1&keywords=donald+trump+pinata
I would definitely buy that for a good get together of friends. It’s hilarious. But I’d feel wrong without owning the full set: https://www.amazon.com/Aztec-Imports-Inc-Hillary-Clinton/dp/B01F7Q2ESW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1473030526&sr=8-1&keywords=hillary+clinton+pinata GOTTA CATCH EM ALL 🙂
Great, now all my ads are for piñatas…
Sal and subtlety go together like sound and a vacuum.
Does a bag full of soap as a weapon count as subtle?
Depend. Are we talking hard bar soap, possibly with moisturizer, used as a bludgeon? Or are we talking a poorly-sealed ziplock bag full of body wash left on his chair that will leave his but stinking of super-strength lilac for a week minimum?
*butt.
I misspelled butt. I am shame.
Yes garroting him with a shoestring would be preferable, but she was just a kid back then.
Well, Leland’s neck IS getting subtler…
Justice is a lie, vengence is real.
(Vengence also has consequences, often worse than that thing you wanted revenge for.)
Wade being philosophical and recognizing the value of consequences?
I can’t be out here telling everybody vengence is fine! I mean, Deadpool is an Avenger! Not a very good one… but it’s like this avatar now comes with some sort of… responsibility?
Also, Deadpool gets paid by people wanting vengeance.
If everybody starts doing it themselves, mercenaries everywhere will be out of work.
Shhh!
The satisfaction is worth any ramifications.
Everything balances out, if Sal has anything to do with it.
Something tells me they won’t be as accommodating to Sal as they were to Leland here.
This might be the start of the journey to convenience store robbery and being shipped off to private school.
I feel like Sal had to deal with her anger and the consequences of it at a far earlier age than Amber.
I wonder why.
An, a variation of the Nomi Malone method of social field leveling.
I meant, “Ah, a variation of the Nomi Malone method of social field leveling.”
I look at this and recognize the greatest risk in revenge against a bully: becoming that odious thing you face against.
Speaking as a victim of bullying, with some psychological aftershocks that still haunt.
Also, punching a bully in the mouth is a horrible tactic if you have to jump to do it. Speaking from experience. She’s closer to the same height here. Helps with the intimidation factor.
i was shorter than my bullies till the summer i was 15 then i hit a big growth spurt and was 6 feet tall started skating and plowed the guy who would slam my head into my locker the year before in his dink w/ my board
most of the bullying stopped after that… at least from guys who werent huge but shrug what are ya gonna do?
“Vengeance is mine; I shall repay,” saith the Lord.
“Chill out, Lord; I got this,” saith Sal.
Huzzah!
Radioactive pee, a pretty weird superpower.
I have one thing to say to Leland: Urine trouble now, boy!
Is there a superpower that is not weird?
Mine is perfectly normal. I mean doesn’t everybody get hit by a truck and total out the truck with nothing more than a few broken bones and some missing skin? 3 times? Walked away with bruises the first two times. Needed an ambulance the 3rd time.
Oh? So I’m not the only one with an encounter with a semi and only receive a few cuts and one broken clavicle it seems.
…you really ougta look before crossing the road.
The first two were running the red light while I crossed with the “walk” signal, and the third was the idiot that tried to kill me because I was riding a bicycle in the street on the correct side of the street going the opposite direction. He died about 2 years after trying to kill me.
And I became… an unkillable badass. According to @damnyouwillis
You know, they made webcomics and books with less than that.
I just realized, he looks a lot like “Scarface”, who attacked Joyce.
Different person, willis is just lazy.
EFFICIENT. Willis is EFFICIENT.
the less a character matters beyond a few moments the less unique they deserve to be? i dunno
I get that my reply was to a kinda insulting comment, but I wasn’t calling him lazy at all. Dude’s got enough character designs to keep tabs on already, and besides, if I have my chronology right, that haircut was popular when these events occurred. So two white males of a different have the same haircut, it’s not like it doesn’t happen in real life already. Ya know?
Willis does an absolutely fantastic fucking job.
i stay up every fucking night until 6am drawing free comics for you, working off the two drops of energy i have left after a full day of parenting two 9-month-old children
so for some reason being called “lazy” makes me super fucking angry, i don’t know why, it’s fucking odd
*gives Willis a cookie and some tea* Haters gonna hate.
I’m hoping in good faith that he was surely joking and is in fact fully aware of how much work you put into your comic(s). I for one am completely blown away by your prolificness. Okay, that’s only a slightly odd word choice for this, but the point remains the same.
second goddamn day in a row they’ve called me lazy
well, you could be doing 2 comics a day…but you aren’t are you?
this seems like a comment where being able to hear the tone it was meant to be said in would let me know how to feel about it, but as just text it is not as easy to figure out.
sarcasm
sarcasm
Willis could be doing five comics a day while hand animating the first three DoA books into a webcartoon! But he’s not…SARCASM!
Well i was diagnosed as being someone who has a hard time understanding people so without tone it is harder for me than usual. or course I was diagnosed as weird even though it was labeled “idiosyncratic behavior” thats what it meant.
I got one of those weird diagnoses as well.
Sarcasm and the Galasso avatar helps quite a bit to get the tone… I guess.
I was gonna say this. I mean, there’s only so many ways to draw Generic Whitebread Boy and there’s already one in the main cast, what do they even want?
Technically doesnt danny fit that description too though?
Leland does look an awful lot like Danny doesn’t he?
Won’t let me reply to ety for some reason, so I’m putting it here. The following is my take on Danny/Ryan/Leland’s looks (clearly we all have different opinions).
Danny and Leland do look similar, but not as similar as Leland and Ryan. Danny has different eyes, a pointed chin, his face is longer, and his hair looks longer too. Leland and Ryan have the same chin, but the noses are a lot different. They also have similar facial proportions and about the same amount of hair, although Ryan’s is neater/has more of a rounded edge to it. Danny and Ryan have similar noses, but Ryan’s looks noticeably bigger.
I was just joking in reference/response to all the “Ryan/Leland” comments.
Leland does look an awful lot like Danny doesn’t he?
I wouldn’t go so far as suggesting that Leland could be Danny’s stunt double in Slipshines.Not really. Same hair color and eyes, that’s about it.All new characters have to be white men by default. Otherwise, you get accused of “shoving diversity down our throats.”
I for another am completely blown away by your prolificness. And that is now a word.
It wasn’t before?
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prolific
….or am I missing something? I feel like something went way over my head here….
two of them? wow that alone would be exhausting to most people. also i have yet to see you miss a comic. not sure if you make them as you go or make a log that you can chip away at when having a hard time but either way it seems you have a good system for your life and comic creation.
approving nod.
i am three months ahead on comics while raising twin infants, that is how fucking lazy i am
I think that is how the dilbert guy does things. he creates it well ahead of time and just keeps it in que. I think it is a good system personally.
although if that is lazy you i would fear the going all out you being mad at me. after all lazy you seems more determined than current I do. I’m more stubborn in my life workings than capable etc
…. didn’t the Dilbert guy go insane and/or libertarian?
Is there a difference? (I’m joking? right? joking?)
well he still makes his comics and recently endorsed hillary clinton for his personal safety.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/jun/7/scott-adams-dilbert-creator-endorses-hillary-clint/
He’s nuts, but he’s got good work planning skills. 😛
The thing about him being libertarian is… how does that reconcile with pretty much any comic he writes that features the CEO?
I mean, http://dilbert.com/strip/2015-09-09
or: http://dilbert.com/strip/2015-09-24
or: http://dilbert.com/strip/2015-09-25
Um, he’s been that way for a while. And yes, he thinks his personal safety is at risk, so he ‘endorsed’ Clinton, on the grounds that this would protect him from her assassins. While still really endorsing Trump, in the most obvious way possible. I’m quite sure he think he’s being clever too.
And in light of his libertarianism, and the fact that he is himself a PHB, Durandal, the easiest explanation is just “In a real meritocracy, I’d be doing way better than I am now.”
Libertarians aren’t insane just really selfish and stupid.
Ruling the world is boring.
So I’ve been told.
Emperor?
I never said that!
For one thing, with subjects like you around, it never gets boring. I have to find ways to keep you from spreading your disloyalty to me without making it too obvious what I’m doing, so that my schemes don’t end up backfiring on me and creating even more disloyalty.
And that is just one of the issues I face every day as emperor. Overall, it is a dance. On top of Mount Everest. Wearing rollerskates.
It was more ‘Your opinion on ruling the world’ and less ‘You said it was boring’.
Also, I’m disloyal?
I assume all my subjects are disloyal. In fact, I demand it! If for no other reason than the way this makes for quite the conundrum. “I’m loyal to my emperor!” “But he told us to be disloyal.” “Ehhh….”
(And anyone who says that I somehow had a major brain fart and mixed you and Disloyal Subject shall be thrown in my imperial dungeons.
I really need to have my imperial dungeons installed one day.)
That’s actually how all cartoonists do it. It’s just that a lot of published cartoons are bad. Syndicates do NOT want to hear ‘I overslept, I got nothing’ and thetn have to rush to figure something out. Webcomics are the weird one here. And I mean, that’s fine, overall I like webcomics better. But the buffer is not a willis invention.
And yeah, Willis’ is enormous even by syndicated cartoon standards. I imagine because he loves the work.
I’m blown away by how you still have a 3-month buffer. Even if those are some super-chill babies I cannot imagine how you have time to sleep.
dedication and or skill is probably a good base. plus baby nap time is a good parent nap time from what i understand.
He must have be a robot or have a couple of clones.
Still? He has that buffer AGAIN. It dropped to around a month not long after the kids were born.
That and you monitor comments. Who even bothers with that? Awesome, crazy busy people.
I did webcomics for about 5 years and had two kids afterward. How the cheese did you keep a buffer? That’s bananas. I’m super impressed.
what comics?
And the Patreon strips. And the Slipshine strips. And publishing the books.
And! You also hunt down new toys by driving to multiple stores instead of just ordering them online! Would a lazy person go to that trouble?! Hell no!
you also do a pretty alright job of modding the comments like theres stills some shit her but considering other comment sections you do a pretty damn good fuckin job
Even the bad comments that don’t delete tends to end up either getting completely shut down by other commenters, or turning out to be a teachable moment where somebody ends up shedding some ignorance.
Considering that the only real barrier to posting is that your first post(s) before you get approved can’t be red flags, that’s damn impressive.
Agreed.
Eh. You create enough characters, sooner or later you’ll accidentally create one that looks very similar to a pre-existing one.
coincidences happen. I mean there was one winter olympics where two different countries discovered they had the same national flag.
Wait, what?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liechtenstein_at_the_1936_Summer_Olympics
liechtenstein found out they had the same flag as haiti. so they added a crown the next year to their flag.
Whoops.
oh wait it was a summer not winter. my mistake.
And yet he hasn’t done that
Seriously, compare Ryan and Leland they look nothing alike
It’s only the trolls’ perception of them.
Ryan and Leland are the new Amber and Dorothy.
…weren’t those two meant to look alike? Remember this?
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/05-media-rumble/dude/
Supposed to, but as the comic went on they ended up looking very different.
Does it even have to be an accident? Having a couple people look vaguely similar in a cast with dozens of folks is realistic.
Yeah, like, several of them also need to have the same birthday.
What, there are 7 billion people on the earth? How, in a year that only has 365 days, can people share birthdays?? /sarcasm
I was mostly jut referencing the “birthday problem.” Where dozens is at least 24 and you’re already above 50% odds of two of them having the same birthday.
By “same birthday,” do you mean same day of the month? Like March 3rd and October 3rd?
By same birthday I mean same day AND same month
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem
and quite frankly, if it’s a group of college freshman straight out of high school, SAME YEAR is not all that unlikely either.
Well, if there are 365 days in a year, then you would need 183 people to be above a 50% chance of two of them having the same exact birthday. With 24, you’re above a 50% chance of two of them having the same day of them month, because there are 30/31 days in most months.
Not true. I realize it doesn’t seem logical, but 23 people are enough to hit 50% even with 365 days in the year (Assuming that each day is equally probable, that is).
You want the probability of at least two people having the same birthday. The reverse of which is the odds that no two people have the same birthday or in other words: everyone has a different birthday.
Let’s look at the probability that everyone has a different birthday which for just 2 people would be 364/365 (if their birthday is on any day other than the first person they are different). For 3 people this is 364/365 * 363/365 etc, etc.
If you do this for 23 people you end up with just under 50% chances that all 23 people have unique birthdays. You can flip that around and say that there is just over a 50% chance of two people having the same birthday. The Wikipedia article goes into a much more involved explanation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birthday_problem
To be fair, even in real life, white dudes do look pretty similar. (sort of joking)
It’s the 90s bowl cut. It was everywhere, and seemed especially common on delinquent kids (at least in my area).
Now, everything the teacher said in yesterday’s comic applies to this incident, too. Right?
well except i am guessing that both parties involved this time are actually students.
Looks like Sal really does have a violent streak and bad temper. Leland may have had something coming to him, but not like that.
That’s sorta true, but she’s not yet being any more violent to him than he was to Marcie, apparently randomly.
Its not a “bad temper” when you have every reason to be pissed off.
Yeah, I’m not really seeing either the “bad temper” or “violent streak” here…
Kinda hard to have streak already when this is the earliest incident we know about. Probably the first.
Just the phrase “bad temper” feels gross in this context.
True, “bad temper” is the far worse offending comment here. You’d be very odd to not be in a bad mood after the way everything was just handled by the adults who are supposed to be the fair and just authority figures who make things right.
Accusing Sal of having a bad temper in this situation, when she’s justifably pissed at someone who hurt her best friend, reeks of Angry Black Woman (or girl, in this case) stereotype.
(Lemme just see if I can’t fit a few more clauses in that sentence up there)
I mean, that seems a lot like shoehorning in a racially-charged stereotype to me, no offence intended in saying so. Looks more to me like a case of connecting two dots in an arguable but to my mind demonstrably false manner. Shallow connections and observations can be made without necessarily invoking prejudice.
Besides, I’m pretty sure OP was commenting more on the violent outburst than the anger. I don’t agree, per se, but most people – even children – don’t take the “eye for an eye” approach when a violent transgression is made upon a friend.
Admittedly, I don’t think the OP explicitly meant it that way, but it absolutely reeks of unconscious bias. Would they have reacted the same way if it were Mike?
Sure, we know that Sal develops a violent streak and a short temper, but this is the start of it.
And I’ll have you know that if someone had done that to my best friend, at that age, Leland would be lucky if his head was still attached to his shoulders afterwards. Even if he’d been a foot taller than me I would have tried to claw one of his damned eyes out.
The school brought this on themselves when they failed to enforce discipline. Sal’s just doing something that, if they’re in anyway fair (HA) would be just as okay for her to do to Leland as it was for him to do to Marcie. But that double standard will no doubt be laid bare.
I think my point was that the Author, Willis, is drawing her to be violent and aggressive. I noticed the potential bias in this strip and it bothered me as well.
If Leland was walking past Sal and she stuck her foot out and tripped him, that would be an eye-for-an-eye. But she is practically strangling him and has a smile on her face while doing it.
Some others might seek revenge in less impulsive, more thought out ways. But Sal goes straight for the attack. She doesn’t think it out, she doesn’t consider her actions, she just does it. Pure aggressive impulse.
Note that Amber is also Violent and Aggressive, but she’s handling it differently. Still, what Sal is doing here to Leland bares some similarity to what Amber does to her later on, only here Sal is smiling, but at the convenience store Amber was in tears.
The acting on impulse, without considering her actions, and that smile on her face in the last panel are what bother me.
The fact that you think what Amber does is all that different is what bothers me. It really isn’t.
Same behavior, different driving emotions. Amber, before she stabbed Sal, had probably never done anything violent before, even if she had a build up of hostility relating to her father. She reacted in a violent outburst of anger and lashed out.
Sal, on a slightly different note, is also angry, but as we saw yesterday, her impulse is to lash out. She also has parent issues, like Amber, but while Amber was keeping it bottled in, Sal appears to lash out more often, and started at a younger age.
As I said, this wouldn’t be so bad except for the final panel. It is clear that Sal is smiling. She is getting her revenge and enjoying it to a degree. That is the difference. Compare this last panel with one that shows Amber stabbing Sal.
Or how about compare it to when Amazi-Girl tries to provoke Sal — unsuccessfully — into attacking her. She’s basically goading Sal by claiming to be racist and she is enjoying it
And don’t forget that the second time she fought her dad, Danny had to pull her off him to stop her from killing him. For all we know, he is still in the hospital.
Or the first time when she punched her dad, and later revealed the smile on her face that even disturbed her
most people know the phrase about having a short fuse. I remember being more along the lines of having an exceptionally long fuse with beyond typical potency.
that being said…… now im not sure how i handle anger since when i get stressed I just start to laugh.
I have a short fuse when something is my fault, but a long one when it’s someone else’s.
“There are three things all wise men fear: the sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle Sal.” — with apologies to Patrick Rothfuss
this reaction is fine and good… kill cops
You’re right, he deserved much worse.
I can’t really be mad at her here. If he’s not getting consequences for his actions one way, he may as well get them another.
Nah. Violent streak implies a habit. She’s angry because what just happened to her friend and the rationalization for it was bullshit. That being said, she’s also a child. Yes, there are children who are more physical than others due to personality. BUT, also remember that children feel emotions pretty intensely in general. It’s why you have to actually teach them not to ACT ON violent, or vengeful, or vindictive impulses and thoughts. Some are blessed with laid back personalities, but all children can be all of these things on their own (because they are human), until they are taught better. If you spend time around especially younger children, you will see situations like this a lot actually. Two kids fighting, one “getting back at the other”, etc.
Example: Leland seems the type of child who doesn’t see discipline that often. Result: He learns that as long as he does well in school, he can give into whatever negative impulses he has, which he does as established. Nobody had the right mind to tell him no, you can’t just go around punching kids.
Sal is reacting to her situation, I think like a lot children her age would. They get angry, they don’t know yet how to cope with intense emotions and intense situations like these – she knows Leland speaks fist, so that’s how she communicates her feelings to him as well.
Truth.
However because Sal is a girl, and especially because she’s a black girl, people are going to come down on her much harder than they ever will on Leland. Cuz this is set in the real world, and that’s how it works.
Yes, I quite understand. It’s sad, but it was true for me as a little black girl and as a woman people still have a hard time understanding that I don’t exist to accommodate them and make them feel better about their petty problems 24/7.
I mean, you’re not exactly wrong about Sal having a tendency towards violence. She had a hair trigger when it came to Malaya and she implied that she frequently gets into fights and needs Marcie to stop her.
It’s just that, in this case, Sal is a kid going on off another kid who grievously wronged someone she loves and got away with it because he’s too white to face consequences. Sal’s angry and lashing out because she’s realizing the inherent unfairness she’ll be putting up with for the rest of her life.
Also? Leland really has it coming. And, yeah, echoing the sentiment that “bad temper” might not be the best descriptor for Sal right now.
Although in my own case, calling it a “tendency towards violence” also makes me sound like a stupid asshole.
So, uh, yay me I guess.
Using Sal’s reaction to Malaya as an example is also pretty unfair.
I mean, not really. She basically went full Amazi-Girl there.
Like I get Malaya’s a jerk but that doesn’t entitle Sal to slam her against a wall and threaten to beat the shit out of her, and then actually try to do it.
You know, I was looking back at that encounter for reference and I discovered that I really like the last panel of this strip: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/radiometric/
Yeah, but that’s literally the ONLY time Sal’s done anything violent outside of the flashbacks of the robbery, and the time when Amazi-Girl was clearly the aggressor (or at least the stalker and probably would-be aggressor).
Slightly strangling Joyce and Becky when they woke her up doesn’t really count, because that is a completely natural response to being woken up by unreasonably cheery morning people.
I was mostly making a joke about Malaya being infuriating, but the actual instances of violence by Sal are fewer than I’d expected.
There’s a lot of evidence for her having grown an incredible amount as a person actually.
Honestly, aside from Malaya, Sal has not threatened to hit someone who does not conventionally deserve it. Before that, it was Ruth, who was at the time terrorizing Billy, and Amazi-girl, who by all rights, engaged first (By threatening her with physical harm and moving to make good on that threat).
Now, ‘conventionally’ is not the same as ‘actually’, and Sal’s still a bit more likely to hit someone than most. But not really unacceptably to society. Except she’s, you know, a black girl. I mean the comment thread was started by the one who wanted to believe Amazi-girl didn’t care about Sal at all, and was after Ryan. It’s not like her actual problem here is Sal’s violence.
Eh, Amber pretty much had it coming in the parking lot. She’s lucky she only got kneed in the gut.
Like even now where I think Sal ended up making a mistake by striking Amber first, she’s still been putting up with creepy racist stalker chick for a while now.
See, I wouldn’t say Amber (Or I suppose, Amazi-girl) deserved to be hit. She needed to be fought to a degree, to prevent her from being a further threat, but she did not deserve to be struck, it’s just that the other four girls don’t deserve to be either, and shouldn’t suffer because of her.
It isn’t like she knifed him, jeez. Or stalked him. Or attacked him in a parking lot while he was with his friends.
Actually, it looks like Sal has a sense of justice and a respect for authority – first, she trusted the grown ups to deal with it, but when they failed she recognized she could not rely on them. Granted, this is not the best way to deal, but this is a child taking responsibility for the failures of adults.
I’d call that mature thinking with too-young coping skills. Too bad about those grown ups, huh?
Hope she made him eat dirt
I feel like Marcie will probably be blamed as the cause of this as well…(Sal will obviously get in trouble, though. I mostly mean Sal’s parents will likely blame this on Marcie.) Even though if she’d been on the playground itself I think she’d have probably stopped Sal outright.
That Marcie, always stopping Sal from fighting. Hey, that’s what she’s doing in the present, too!
Anyone else wondering if Marcie’s parents are wrong, and she gets an infection that leads to the loss of her ability to speak?
im guessing cthulu
Yeah, how much you wanna bet when Sal does it they don’t pull out all the rhetoric about her promising future.
great job adults now you made sal mad and leland an almost dead kid
I did suggest having Miss Susan Sto-Helit handle the situation.
Well, looks like either she or her grandfather will resolve things . . .
Except I meant in her role as a TEACHER not back up DEATH.
I know (and she’d probably teach ’em all calculus while she was there if she managed to keep anyone from saying it was impossible) but you gotta specify with these things.
The poker is for monsters anyway.
Strangely, both her ability to not be seen and the voice are things any bullying victim could use.
“Then he ran into my knife.
He ran into my knife ten times.”
No no no. This is the SCHOOL BLOCK TANGO, so it’s more like:
“He ran into my fist.
He ran into my fist ten times.”
He had it coming
He had it coming
He only had himself to blame
If you’d have been there
If you’d have seen it
I betcha you would have done the same!
In a row?
“He seems to be very clumsy”
So. Leland was described as being a good student with a promising future, in a way that implied this was different from Sal. Sal might’ve damaged her own future, but taking out a few of his brain cells ensured he was dragged down with her. Sure, his parents have bribe money, but ivy league schools have standards enough that you’d need both grades and your parents’ money to get in. Okay, maybe they can be bribed too, but no parent with Ivy League-level bribe money is gonna send their kid to public school.
His is a future filled with phrases like “Such a shame . . .” while Sal’s teachers likely never expected better of her.
If the parents are alumni their offspring already has a spot reserved.
Well, fingers crossed he decides to go backpacking in Europe to “find himself” or something only to learn too late that you can only make a problem go away completely if your parents move fast with the bribe money. He gets out of jail soon enough, but has enough of a record for his grades to be scrutinized at enrollment. As he was never enough of a team player to excel at sports, he doesn’t even have that edge, and fails to get in.
… well believe me, that if he finds himself backpacking in Europe, and keeps his lovely behaviour, he might as well come back missing a few teeth, as well as his confidence. We have short temper around such people here, and I know about a few such “backpackers”, that (thanks to their idiotic “I own it all here” actions) only went from being beaten by some guys, whom they crossed, to being beaten by our police, which was not amused.
Yeah, Leland went on to swim at Stanford (aside from one three-month issue)…
Sal justice at it finest 🙂
No, Sal, violence isn’t the answer!
…is what I would say, but I really hate people like Leland.
No, you are completely right. Violence with witnesses is bad. Never leave witnesses Sal
“Whelp, sorry Unnamed-Kid-in-the-Background, I hope you had a good run…”
“I’m only __ years old!”
And that was the last time the Unnamed-Kid was heard of.
“And two days until retirement!”
The karmic wheel still turns
Well on the one hand, that was cathartic.
I don’t think that phrase really works if you only mention one hand.
the other hand is busy being used in a choke hold.
I don’t know about you, but I usually need two hands for a choke hold.
i was trying to make a joke but alas it seems i failed.
No, no, I think we both had the same goal…
I guess there was a bad goalie than. neither of us got the goal.
Wait doesn’t that mean the goalie was good?
Now, I don’t know much about sports but I’m pretty sure the goalie is supposed to PREVENT goals
not after taking my money to take a dive.
Ah! You mean he was taking bribes!? I should have thought to do that too..
I know that Sal choking him ends up making stuff worse for her, probably doesn’t actually adjust Leland’s behaviour, and doesn’t fix the discriminatory imbalances that are at the root of all this to begin with.
But Sal was crying and getting her choke on made her smile and that’s good enough for me. Trachea, wouldn’t wanna be ya!
The fact that a leland megapost is on willis tumblr makes me wonder if this flashback will end tomorrow, and we will all have to just figure that Sal murdered a kid.
*shakes magic eightball* Signs point to yes. Sal murded a kid and got away with it. She’s a monster who must be stopped.
But the alt text!
<–To be continued–
Yeah, but then the megapost for “Better” left out the best strip–the end of the previous book. So he might show up again.
So here’s a theory, maybe the reason Sal robbed that store wasn’t because she was trying to spite her parents but because she wanted to help Marcie after she had a Serious accident and she couldn’t pay the medical bills.
That thought has been floating around in my head as a possibility for some time now.
I think it’s been floating around for awhile now for a few commenters.
It sounds logical, I’m just piecing together what I know.
I believe that, especially with the little comment Marcie makes here about how her dad said they were lucky because she didn’t have to go to the doctor. Which implies that if something bad did happen, her family wouldn’t have been able to afford the medical bills.
Which also implies they’re ignoring any possible side effects from a head injury. Nothing obvious that needs urgent care? No doctor.
Yup, the doctor ends up being for the worst case scenario. Are you able to walk? Then you’re probably fine.
So which one of them is going to punch Leland first? Will they punch him together? Will they fight over who gets to keep punching him? Or will they merely nod at each other in mutual understanding that they have a common enemy and punch him together?
We both hit him
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=D60ns0Qi_yE
thats my purse.
kick
Crap, guy in present time is *not* the same as the guy in the flashback. SORRY!
Read all of DoA in like a week, so I finally caught up! Wait, oh no, I caught up. Now what?
Be glad you didn’t binge-end in the middle of ‘Ross McEntyre has a gun’ storyline?
Oh god was I glad I discovered this comic after that. Also the entire “When Somebody Loved Me” storyline, really. Having to deal with Becky running out crying and being sad for DAYS AT A TIME? My coworkers would’ve been asking if someone in my family had died.
I’m very concerned that whatever happens to Marcie to make her mute (assuming it’s actually shown in the comic) will make me cry.
If that happens, at least we already have this:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/erase/
I intend to refer to that last panel repeatedly if (when) sad things happen to either of them.
I really can’t help but smile a big goofy grin at that last panel.
last “couple” of panels
Thank you for linking that, I needed some happy stuff
I’d like to very much second that appreciation, just in case that wasn’t already clear from my prior comment.
That’s what happened to me. I started reading from the beginning, it took a couple days and then get to last strip with F*cking Ross swinging a gun around campus.
Then i started to read Shortpacked so i wouldn’t suffer imagining what Ross could do with a F*cking gun on campus.
Want to read more stories about (pretty much) the same characters, by the same author, but with some science fiction thrown in? GREAT NEWS!
I’m torn between the sarcastic comments “But he was just trying to study” and “Hey that Leland guy looks”, nope can’t even finish that one.
Guy who tried to RAPE Joyce is NOT Leland. Period. Lealand appears to just be an asshole. And oh my god, Willis drew two characters that look kinda alike. He hasn’t missed an update in, what, over a decade, if even that? Provided for free? And he still finds time to self-moderate the comment section, even with a full life outside of here? I have an easier time conceptualizing hatred than trolling, and I don’t get hatred.
yup. plus they say that everyone has something like 7 dopplegangers or something like that.
I dont get the hatred. some people are similar in terms of looks or how they act or what they like to do. While everyone being the same would be boring if nobody was the same there would be no movies or shows or anything since everyone would want something different period.
willis does good work and i dont get why you would complain about something so stupidly minor. its not like suddenly every girl in the dorm looks like joyce except with different names somehow. this is a very stupid thing to complain about and im to lazy to care if two people who are both bad for different reasons look a little alike.
I mean fred and george weasely looked a lot alike and people loved them…… meh i dont know if thats a god half joke but still. willis does great and if two similar looking characters is your worst complaint about something you enjoy then its pretty great.
Just to make sure, I wasn’t complaining about them looking similar. I never even considered it. But for the past few days I’ve seen that comment pop up multiple times. I didn’t find it funny after the tenth time, let alone the first, I doubt Willis liked it then.
yeah i know you werent but so many people seem to have. its like even if they do which honestly i wouldn’t mix them up, why complain. real life people look alike too. sometimes more than the real person since from what i have heard some famous people lose at look alike contests for them as in wait they look like me more than i do?
I recall a story, unsure of validity, of RDJ taking second in a Iron Man/Tony Stark look-alike. He said first was great.
There’s also the story of Charlie Chaplin doing the same thing and coming in third. That would be such a weird feeling, wouldn’t it?
i would be a bit teasing about it and pull out my drivers license and ask the winner to check who i am.
I’m surprised it’s come up at all. A lot of the girls and even some guys have similar bangs. I just thought it was Willis’ style.
Kudos to working and raising ya twins. You don’t know how many comics I’ve read that stalled or disappeared completely when the artist had a baby. Granted, they were all women but I’m assuming Willis stays at home with his two. Not knocking the lady artists either, I’m sure parenting and working in general is tough, so again, kudos to everyone who does. It’ll definitely get tougher when they’re toddling around.
Something I’ve just thought about, have we ever gotten any indication about how Sal feels about the kid who stabbed her in the hand?
Sal’s doing this, right here, for Marcie’s sake, and possibly her own gratification in seeing justice dispensed on someone who violently wronged somebody she loved. Is it outlandish to suggest Sal might feel the same way about being stabbed by Amber? That it’s something she “had coming” because she violently harmed somebody that Amber loved?
Course, main difference between herself and Leland is that Sal actually faced consequences in being arrested by the police, so it’s not exactly airtight.
Nope. She’s never talked about that, or the scar itself.
Considering how persistently she hides the scar, its either really ugly or she really doesn’t like being reminded of it, and/or the events that led to it.
If she sees it as yet another way she’s never allowed to forget her mistakes or that she’s “not good enough”, then she definitely will not be happy to learn that the white girl who’s been stalking her is the one that gave it to her.
Eesh, that’s a good point. I always figured it was just about its physical presence but I’ve never once considered that Sal might actually feel some form of embarrassment over it.
And, yeah, when Sal finds out the caped white girl power trip is the kid who got away with knifing her in the hand, that’s gonna get ugly.
I dunno if “embarrassment” is quite the right word. I could also just be that she feels people would see it and use it as one more reason to judge her unfairly and/or assume she’s “trouble”.
Though she might also just not want people to ask how she got it, and force her to think about a time she’s not proud of, whether she tells them the truth or not.
I’m leaning more towards the former. Sal doesn’t seem like she would be so consciously ashamed about a mistake she’d already atoned for.
This set of comics makes it seem like Sal would maybe understand why Amber stabbed her. She would’ve been angry about the whole thing for sure, but I imagine she probably blames the cops more than the friend of a boy she threatened. Especially if she ever found out that Amber didn’t seem to face any legal repercussions for it.
Of course that is all conjecture. She could also be holding a grudge about it, but Sal has a certain chilliness that just makes me feel that way.
That is sorta what I was thinking, but I also wouldn’t blame Sal if she didn’t react well when the truth comes out.
Like for all the awful shit Sal did that night, she was still detained and no threat to anybody at that point. I guess you could make a parallel to putting Leland in a headlock after he got away with hurting Marcie, but then that’s still a fairly different circumstance because Leland avoided punishment.
As for Amber facing repercussions, my theory is that Blaine cut a deal with the Walkertons so that Amber wouldn’t get charged for stabbing Sal, while Sal wouldn’t get charged for taking Ethan hostage. It makes sense to me because Sal only ever has “you robbed those convenience stores” brought up against her, and not the hostage taking. This way Amber avoids facing consequences (and thus, court mandated therapy), and Sal avoids being charged with a major crime and just gets stuck with holding up a convenience store. Being sent to a boarding school has been framed as something her parents did rather than have it be a part of her legal punishment, so I think it fits.
And thus Sal’s supervillain (anti-hero?) origin story kicks into high gear.
I realize odds are the resemblance is just a coincidence, but I really hope Leland is just Ryan going by a different name and we’re going to see Sal and Amazi-Girl team up to deliver epic JUSTICE! on him.
…don’t squelch my dreams.
willis said point blank they are not the same person.
And he may be developing a twitch at the sight of that theory.
or debating about a mini ban hammer until leland is out of sight?
A filter where ‘Ryan’ is replaced with ‘My Penis’?
I don’t think we want to see a bunch of comments reading “My Penis tried to rape Joyce”.
Well, I know I don’t.
Very true, though, “Leland looks like My Penis” or “My Penis looks like Leland” might not be so bad.
Nevermind… that’d still be bad.
Don’t forget lots of “I hope My Penis rots in hell”
i’m so glad joyce got to slice up my penis.
am i doing it right?
what about changing the tags to douche face and scar face?
miados, apparently the goalie simply misinterpreted which dive he was supposed to take for you.
You are, and I don’t think that’s going to get topped
Really, that was perfect.
it seems i am capable at times even if i am not very often in this way.
I had the same thought that maybe Leland is the guy who tried to rape Joyce, but I see in the comments section that they are not the same characters. That said, I want to throw in that I definitely don’t think Willis is lazy because I thought the characters looked alike. I was just thinking, “Whoa, what a plot twist!” Nope! Not the twist I was looking for.
Side note: Definitely would never call Willis lazy. This comic is free, and updates on schedule always. EVERY DAY. I have no other comics that I read currently that update daily, and of the ones I read, a lot of them are not even consistent with their schedules. And /their/ authors/artists aren’t raising twin babies. I’ve raised two babies (not twins) and I know it’s not easy! So ignore the haters, if you can. The rest of us (which is almost all of your followers) know better and love your work.
Okay what the hell. People are saying “Leland looks like Ryan” but I just checked and unless the kid got a nose job, THEY DON’T EVEN LOOK THAT MUCH ALIKE!
Bleh.
After Sal breaks his nose, he might get a nose job! Still, it wouldn’t make him change his name…
Lol, me and you both buddy. Just posted a big thing about their differences xD
Yes, but you’re articulate. Me? Imagine me saying it like Jim Carrey in Liar Liar. The scene with the water drinking.
Is it sad that “articulate” is the best compliment I’ve received today?
Well that’s not a bad compliment, and only for today? Now if it was a decade…
If you really mean “just today” I’d say you’re doing pretty damn well.
I felt that saying “this month” would be a little too dramatic…
In my defense, that was the first word that came to mind because I am not a native English speaker. XD
Could have been worse, you could have said she was ‘Royal Blue’.
I am of the opinion that that is a fantastic compliment.
‘Royal Blue’?
Not sure how I feel about that one. I’ve never been on the receiving end of it as a compliment. “Articulate” on the other hand, is what I was talking about.
I foresee Leland retaliating in a way which renders Marcie mute.
If it wasn’t for the fact that he’s a villain, I’d say that he delivered such an epic retaliation that Marcie was ‘dumbfounded’ to the point of never having words for anything, and until she can find the words to describe it, shall never say a word.
Other commenters are saying that her disability may have been caused by the injuries she got from Leland (as in, an infection or something.) I guess we’ll find out sooner or later.
I mean, I’m inclined to think there’s a Traumatic Rollerskating Accident involved somewhere in the vicinity too, but her going for his neck like that suggests… bad things to me. Very bad things. Oh dear oh dear.
I doubt the tragic tale of Marcie and Sal will have just one villain. Or two, if you’re already counting the school and everyone who works for it, like I am.
That would make a good song, “The Ballad of Marcie and Sal.”
called it, Sal attacks Leland in retaliation for Marcie getting kicked into a ditch full of exposed rebar, my second prediction is that she’ll get in massive trouble for it
now the question is: will her punishment be disproportionate? will she get expelled for this? suspended?
something tells me she won’t just get a talking to
Yup, I guarantee the principal’s reaction will not be nearly as forgiving to Sal as it was for Leland. And I’m willing to bet money that in her dressing down, there will be some reference to how she’s “inherently” a trouble-maker or connecting it with “bringing non-students on campus” or some little dig about her “nature” that implies she’s more likely to be violent because she’s black.
Ok, I just gotta point this out…
Saying Leland looks like Ryan (AKA Gashface, AKA Scarface, AKA Attempted Rapist of our Favorite Fundamentalist) means you haven’t really compared them.
They’re both white. I’ll give you that.
We only see Leland’s hair in flashback blue, but presumably it’s light brown or whatever like Ryan’s. I’ll give you that.
But the similarities end there.
Leland has a rounded (and somewhat obnoxious) nose. Ryan has a rather nondescript angular nose.
Ryan’s hair is smooth and he has dark sideburns. Leland’s is messy- which could be something he grew out of, but it’s also lacking those dark sideburns.
Ryan has a rounder jaw, whereas Leland’s is more angular.
This probably sounds rather pedantic, but it is important. Just compare the two characters and you’ll see right away that they don’t look much alike at all.
Character design, even for the least important characters in a (visually expressed) story, is a big process.
As an aspiring author myself, (and a fanboy, that definitely contributes) it annoys me to the extreme when people call Willis lazy or unimaginative when they can’t even take the time to make sure they’re right about it.
Agreed, Articulate. Though I’m not the proper judge for it.
Also I will follow this with a series of complimentary adjectives. Please take at least two (but leave some for the others):
Beautiful
Pretty
Handsome
Cute
Charming
Curvy
Whovian
Intelligent
Strong
Fast
Beguiling
Arm-bar
Quick-Witted
Wise
Dexterous
DeeDeeous
Nimble
Sexy
Mindful
Courageous
Brave
Loving
This works best if read like Dave Ryder’s nicknames.
Beautiful Pretty
Handsome Cute
Beguiling Arm Bar
Chuck Johnson
Can Articulate be my new, official name?
Imma take “intelligent” and “quick-witted”. Most of those other ones would strain my willing suspension of disbelief.
#SelfConfidenceBoostedThanksBro
#WhoAmIKiddingIDon’tUseTwitter
I’d be willing to proffer forward “eloquent” for your enjoyment as an additional compliment.
Okay… next time I’ll find something that isn’t a synonym… that wasn’t intentional.
Hey, if the best things people can say about me are tangentially related to my dream job, that’s probably a good sign!
Can I get you to write for me? I have stuff that needs to be written. 😛
Although, I suppose it’s actually stuff I want to write….
Ah, the age-old problem of “I want to write, but like…”
I know it well.
Too well.
Me and that problem go to dinner on weekends.
At least I’m actually doing something about this time…. slowly…. but still actually doing something.
What a clumsy guy!
Huh. There’s that anger Sal will have worked through by the time of college. This won’t turn out good.
bad sal! not in broad daylight!
I would wait till he has enough bruising , or starts to retaliate.
Then I would act High and mighty *SHOCKED* that Sal would do such a thing , and have her publicly apologize. Because adults have to.
Then I would bring her inside , Give her a Hug, and buy her a sundae. With lots of extra hot fudge and whip cream.
Three guesses what happens in response to this, and the first two don’t count.
Ice cream? I’m guessing ice cream.
A pat on the head followed by “good girl”?
\Slowly…
no
\Quickly…
no
\Runs for the hills
Personally speaking, I am not religious, but if I were god and gave humans free will, I would let Sal into heaven for beating up little shits like Leland.
I for one am glad they’re not the same person. Helps to remember that a systemic problem is very different from one recurring villain. Amazi-Girl is a superhero but DOA is not a superhero comic. No nemesis for you. Just the crushing weight of social convention and broken laws.
(Long ass and traumatic rant alert) Incidentally, going off what I said yesterday of being stalked in high school and nobody doing anything because he was a “good kid”, something like this also happened, except the guy who defended me wasn’t my friend. We ate lunch together because we had mutual friends at the time, but I kinda found him to be a bit obnoxious so we didn’t interact much. I don’t even remember his last name, but that’s more because high school was such a stressful blur that I don’t remember a lot of details rather than his unimportance in my life.
Anyway, so one day I’m sitting at the edge of the table talking quietly to one of my stalker’s other ex girlfriend victims that I had just met, one he has gone so far as physical abuse with. Dustin immediately takes notice despite having been ignoring us at that point, and asks if someone had hurt us. She said yes, I said no, but I’d been stalked and been threatened with being stabbed many time. (Did I mention golden boy could openly carry a box cutter in school and still get away with this shit?) Dustin demands to know who the jackass is and as “luck” would have it, stalker shared my luck would have it, stalker shares my lunch because I’m just the apple of the gods’ eyes. I point him out, Dustin shoots up from his seat without another word and makes a direct beeline to where stalker sat, and just utterly freaking trashes him. Dustin was a huge, beefy guy and stalker mostly used psychological abuse and box cutter threats because most of his able bodied victims probably could have fought him if he hadn’t eroded all of their confidence and cut then off from every emotional resource, so he got knocked the hell out. Naturally, Dustin got suspended for weeks, nothing happened to stalker even as I found more victims to come forward, and I basically lived in hell until he graduated and moved on to abusing fellow college kids. But stalker was out of school for a few days, which gave me and the others some much needed relief, even if it didn’t last.
Anyway, I bring up all this depressing crap for a reason and I swear it’s relevant. Dustin and I weren’t friends. I didn’t know much about him, and vice versa. Outside of lunch we didn’t have much to do with each other even in the classes we shared, and he probably doesn’t even remember my name or even this incident as much as I do. But he became an important figure in my story for this one part of it, because he was the first person in my life–the only person, up until about a year ago–who EVER stood up for me. Not my parents, who made a lot of noise about how they would never let me come to harm (they did), not my school, who said they would protect their students (they didn’t), not my older siblings, who society tried to constantly tell me always had my back (they really didn’t), not my friends who probably couldn’t have done anything anyway but never even made the attempt. But some guy I didn’t know very well, whom I didn’t particularly like and wasn’t particularly liked by, a practical stranger who was willing to put his academic career at risk, willing to risk legal troubles and jeopardize scholarships, because he found out some asshole was abusing a bunch of girls who were too scared (and, in my case, too physically sick and weak) to stand up for ourselves. And it was awesome. When he came back to school, Dustin refused to make a big deal out of it and even seemed embarrassed by the admiration I showed him, and things between us quickly went on as normal. Also, I think stalker was transferred to a different lunch period so he didn’t have to see Dustin, which is fucking hilarious in a “I-want-to-punch-something-way”.
So maybe someone like Marcie would be too worried for what something like this would mean for Sal, but anyone who spits out “violence doesn’t solve violence” platitudes here can shove it, because Marcie has literally just been told she’s worth fighting for, probably something she’s never been led to believe before.
He sounds like a good guy. Sorry to hear more people didn’t have your back.
More people need to step up and actually do something when they see or hear about someone else being mistreated, even if its only openly voicing their disgust. And it really should be the teachers and parents that set the example for this. Kids shouldn’t have to make take these things into their own hands.
Yeah. Wonder whatever happened to him, we lost touch after sophomore year or so. But if ever adopt a kid who doesn’t already have a name, “Dustin” is in the running just for the sweet, sweet memory of him knocking stalker to the floor in one punch.
I’m sorry that the situation came to a point where violence was an answer.
That said, I get the feeling – sometimes having even one person stand up for you helps more than words can say.
Yeah, knowing someone cares. And that someone cares beyond just platitudes and well-wishing can make a lot of difference.
It’s so frustrating when all I can offer someone are platitudes and well-wishing.
If anyone wonders why Marcie would choose to move near IU even though she’s not studying herself… ischemgeek’s comment says it all.
Whoa, Sal, whoa.
I have never identified with Sal more than this moment.
In school, I had a lovely friend who was very sweet and eager to make friends. In that class we also had a jackass who realized she was an easy target. I’m not going to list everything he did to her.
But I have a clear memory of sitting in the cafeteria with my friend and he sits down at our table and, as she opened her mouth to talk, he yelled:
“Shut up and make me a sandwich, bongo!”
She started tearing up. And I picked up my fork and stabbed it right in his hand as hard as I could.
That’s it, that’s the story. I mean, there’s a bigger story around it, I just wanted to share a happy memory.
Now I’m just imagining that scene from TNG between Guinan, Q, and the ten chocolate sundaes.
You may have guessed my inspiration for using a fork at the time. Star Trek is a bad influence on kids 🙁
Seems like a good use of fork to me.
I’m picturing the fork sticking out the other side of his hand, and I fully support this mental image.
I’m guessing he never messed with your friend again after that?
Now, let’s not judge to quickly. Sally is a of a good family. Very promising future. No need to shine a light.
Really, Leland’s the SOURCE of the problem, isn’t he? His neck wasn’t supposed to be under her arm like that.
There’s a lot to consider, really. There’s a lot at risk.
Frankly, we feel the best solution is to dissuade Leland’s neck from being at the same level as Sally’s arm. He’s kind of the source of all this.
I agree, Willis is LAZY
Largely Awesome Zany Some compliment in the form of a noun that means person that begins with Y
Yeoman….idk, english was not my subject, i liked math.
huh, something to do with royalty, yeah lets go with Yeoman.
Largely Awesome Zany Yeoman.
meant the above as a joke no you are not lazy Willis you are a saint
No I agree that sal has a bad temper and violent tendencies. That doesn’t mean her anger is unjustified. She’s pissed rightfully so she was slighted and her friend was hurt. But she does not have to react to that anger violently. She doesn’t have to attack him she has a perfectly good reason to want to but she certainly has a temper and is quick to act violently. It’s no more gross than saying her brother is cowardly or that Leland is a bully it’s a fact of her personality.
When someone says “bad temper” you think along the lines of a child who has “temper tantrums” or an adult who lashes out and abuses those around them. Sal is upset and angry for entirely justified and valid reasons here and she isn’t overly or exaggeratedly angry either. The violent action she takes as a result of that might be unnecessary and a poor choice, but it’s also perfectly understandable for a child.
I’ve not seen much of her supposed anger management issues since she’s been to college.
Uncontrollable anger is what it says it is: anger at any little thing blown out of all proportion. A book placed the wrong way, tooth-paste squeezed the wrong way. (My anger-management course was very thorough on trigger-points.) None of that applies here. She’s angry because her friend was beat-up, and the person doing the beating got away with it, like he always does.
I agree with etsy. Sal is justifiably pissed off.
That should read, “the anger management course I attended”
I think one thing (among many) that we fail to give children is any sense of how to healthily process injustice. So often, we either deny it entirely in order to “protect” them from the knowledge of our broken world or we give terrible advice like “just ignore it” or so on.
And part of it is probably that we know we render kids powerless in a lot of ways. But still, I feel a lot of kids see the injustice around them, see how the adults fail to even recognize it, see how they blame the more marginalized, and that anger just sits in the pit of their stomach until it’s internalized.
This marks the first time I’ve ever been called “etsy” for the use of this username.
Poor impulse control and violent tendencies; oddly enough, this isn’t too unusual for children as far as I can tell.
It’s extremely hard to diagnose kids (up to college age) for a whole lot of things because their brains haven’t finished growing in yet and they don’t have the same experience, cognition, ability to form connections, etc etc.
This is also true I just think a bad temper or perhaps a short fuse is an accurate description because even as an adult Sal’s first impulse is to resort to violence. Sometimes it is justified sometimes not. It is the same way her brother first impulse when confronted is to fold and back down. And her impulse control is only slightly improved as an adult. I just think it’s sad she didn’t get help to find healthier ways to deal with anger and that she had to learn this as a kid
The thing is, you have the cause and effect backwards. Yes, she has a short fuse as an adult, but what we’re seeing here is why.
I think its sad she didn’t get help from her parents or her school in dealing with shit like this this asshole Leland so she wouldn’t have anger problems in the first place.
Origin story!
Yeah, she’s spent her whole life dealing with injustices for being a girl, for being black, for being friends with someone who is poor and latina. And she’s watched as the adults in her life have turned her back on her, failed to see the obvious, have made pathetic victim-blaming excuses for the offenders, and that justice will never be served for the likes of her.
It’s “there’s no justice, there’s just us” to put it simply. And so Sal tried to take what little she could into her own hands, because she just couldn’t stomach doing nothing. And that’s more complicated than just a short fuse and a bad temper. It’s a kid who has no expectation that anyone will ever come to her aid and who refuses to let herself or those close to her get beat down and that has fueled an anger pit that leads her to more impulsively violent actions when she feels hurt and attacked.
It’s a similar feeling to AG, really, vigilantism as coping strategy for suffered injustice, defending those who can’t fight back for themselves (Marcie for Sal, Amber for Amazi-girl), and occasionally drifting too far (AG’s stalking of Sal, Sal’s thrashing of Malaya). Sal was not wrong when she diagnosed that AG was being fueled by the same feeling that drove her on so many years ago.
I think it’s potentially an accurate description of her as an adult. Here, as a child, I think it’s misplaced largely for the reasons Fart Captor mentions above.
JUSTICE!
Ok, I’ve changed my mind. I’m actually enjoying these flashbacks. Is this entire chapter going to be comprised of flashbacks?
Based on what we saw in the previous strip, I’m guessing the school isn’t going to see this as Sal getting even with a bully. Instead she’s going to get the punishment that Leland deserved, or worse. Damn this is depressing.
…is it registering to anyone else that Marcie used to be able to talk. I don’t think this story ended on a good note.
Marcie’s previous ability to speak has come up before.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/evilspacestation/
And thus Leyland became RADIOACTIVE PEE MAN!
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Sorry about the Wikia ads.
Little shits like Leland get made PM in the UK. Not feeling a whole lot of sympathy for Leland.
It will rebound on Sal, this is DoA after all.
The scales of justice are a perpetual motion machine of imbalance.
Marcie is adorably optimistic about “balance.”
I love her all the more for that.
Yes. Beneath my hard-bitten cynical exterior I too love Marcie for that bit of optimism in the world.
I was once offhandedly complemented by a teacher in high school for my “adult attitude of cynicism.” I really couldn’t tell if she meant that as a genuine compliment of if she was being sarcastic as all hell…
Balance is important for skateboarding.
Which is sadly reflective of our world. 🙁
Tomorrow’s gonna be the scene where, somehow, a teacher will’ve seen EVERYTHING. Because of course they did.
Well yeah, RM’s keep an eye on “potential troublemakers”. What? No, there’s nothing racist there. Clearly Sal is a “troublemaker”, look how she’s giving unprovoked violence to a “good student” from a “good family”. The RM was right to keep an eye on her for totally not racist reasons.
Will Sal get expelled for this? Tune in tomorrow!
Sal Walkerton…..TOXIC AVENGER!
For the record, I hate Marcie’s mother approach to things. Things don’t balance out unless someone MAKES them balance out. The world is not fair. Karma and all forms of “cosmic justice” are fairy-tales concocted by the assholes to keep people who they asshole at from complaining too much about redress.
Hate it too, but what else are you going to tell a little kid when there’s nothing you can actually do?
“Sorry Marcie, he’s white and rich and we’re brown and poor (and illegal?) and that means he can pretty much do anything he wants to you and we can’t protect you.”
Honestly, I wish that was the response more often. Like, too often with karma arguments or “just ignore the bullying, they’ll go away” advice, it just turns into internalizing everything.
The victim ends up going, clearly I deserve this if it’s happening to me and my bully is going unpunished. If everything balances, then I must have done something wrong to have earned this. If they’re not going away, I must be doing something wrong to “encourage them”.
Like, telling them the dark heart of racism and classism will be depressing, yes, but it’s more accurate to the world. It shows them what is unfair (something they already intrinsically feel, because kids are not stupid, they know when things aren’t fair) and where the problem lies. And gives them something to strive to fix or call out as they grow older.
And that arguably does more good than just selling them comforting lies because they are easier for the adults.
That would actually be BETTER than the karma answer, if for no other reason (Cerberus has already pointed a few) that if they think the universe will take care of it, then they won’t. And, in fact, nobody will. Which measn that things will just keep on sucking. I’m not saying they’ll just be able to fix it, but it sure as hell won’t fix itself. Jackasses who jackass with no consequence will continue to be jackasses.
He hurt her daughter, she had to have flames in her eyes and a wish to smack the white out of that boy. Yes, it is a saying that feels very empty, but it doesn’t always come from a place of “the world is unfair and you have to deal with it.” Not necessarily karma, but some things work out when the bad ones don’t learn how to treat people and they mess with the wrong person or they show their true colors to someone they wanted to fool. It bites them back hard. But I also agree with sal. Some bullies go on to think of their asshole years as glory days and their victims are stuck with insecurities they didn’t have before, tons of bitterness, and a hurt ability to trust people. I think her mom was trying to say stave off the urge for violence or vengeance even if it comes from righteous anger.
Seeing as how this Leland is the same one from Shortplacked I’m not optimistic that he stopped being an asshole after grade school.
White privilege! save me!
The problem is, it will
Oh, this arc is absolutely heartbreaking and makes so much sense for DoA Sal’s backstory! Keep bringing on the pain, Willis!
I can’t say I wouldn’t have been inclined to do the same thing.
And that’s how Sal became an Avenger.
(“I don’t like bullies. Don’t care where they’re from.”)
Marcie could talk? Now I’m wondering if she can actually talk but chooses not to, or if she was in an accident of some kind.
We knew this already. Also, she is currently mute. This has been confirmed in comic a couple times. (Sal mentions that they -had- to learn sign language together, for one.)
I didn’t know that. I must have missed/forgot about those comics.
That could have been bad. Good thing Sal was there to catch him.
Sal really saved his neck there. Good thing she was able to get a good grip.
FINISH HIM
Comic Reactions:
Panel 1: Based on the timeline, this would be pre-Obamacare, back when our health care system was even more broken than it is now and it was frequently common for folks to be uninsured (things are still pretty awful and a lot of folks are just insured in name only, so not ignoring that, just noting that this is back when that was even worse).
So, yeah, no wonder Marcie’s dad feels they were lucky. Her going to the doctor could have bankrupted the family and what little stability they are clinging on to for dear life. And it gives a horrifying look into the future, where Marcie does get hurt or sick enough to need a doctor and her family is unable to afford it.
Many have speculated that Sal’s robbing of the convenience stores is related to Marcie losing her voice, that it was out of panic to pay her medical costs or help out in some way and I feel this is one more hint in that direction. Certainly, it supports the fact that Sal feels fiercely protective of Marcie, and unlike her, has a harder time just internalizing injustice or hurt feelings and de-escalating.
Rest of comic: And we see Marcie’s role echoed, her begging her to knock it off, to not fight for her. And Sal’s keen awareness of injustice. Even as an elementary school kid, she feels it. She knows the deck is stacked in favor of certain kids with certain traits. That their violence and harm comes to nothing. That they are allowed to hurt with impunity (let us not forget that it’s implied Walky has been bullied before by this kid, so Marcie getting hurt may have just been the last straw of what bullshit Sal was willing to swallow).
And she hates it. And she doesn’t trust the adults in her life to do anything about it, because they are too busy acting like they don’t even see it. Staying mute, politely nodding along as victim-blaming tripe is spewed at them. Sal is feeling the rage that comes from knowing that there’s no justice for those like her, there’s just us. On the ground, internalizing all that anger and sadness and pain.
Someone noted that Sal has a very Amazi-girl smile in the last panel and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. Sal was right about a similar sort of anger at injustice fueling her as fueled her younger self. And the dangers of that anger channeled that way. In many ways, AG is something Sal was always blocked from becoming, because the official response to a black vigilante is considerably different than a white one.
There’s no doubt this story ends with the book being thrown at her, with her being labeled a “troublemaker”, a “bad student”, “dangerous”, “violent”, a “thug”. With that same principal throwing everything at her and demanding a full suspension for hurting a “star pupil” “completely out of the blue” after already floating school rules “letting a non-student trespass” causing “all that trouble” before.
And we know her parents will fail to appreciate the why of what she did, merely focusing on punishing her for not acting “proper”.
And this will just fuel how she bristles at injustice, at dogwhistles and codes, at the way things just ain’t fair. Why she won’t back down against AG even though the whole crowd is against her. Because she’s used to fighting the whole damn system, being alone, being outcast. And like Carla, she’s tried to make her peace with that and craft her armor as best she can.
Also, I can’t help but notice that Sal is crying in front of Marcie. Marcie has always been the person Sal can open up to, show her emotions in front of. Marcie is safe in a way her family, her school, her brother, Billie aren’t. So it is no wonder that she hesitates to open up to new friends.
She doesn’t want to have her feelings ignored or hand-waved away. And she doesn’t want to have to add the injustices they face and the anger that comes with them to her already full plate (this feels especially applicable to the “at arm’s length” relationship she’s developing with Joyce).
Exactly. A poster above said that Sal has improved her own stuff so much since what we’re seeing now. I pretty seriously don’t understand why people keep saying that she’s this habitually violent person, when she’s actually really mature compared to the rest of the cast (I’m looking at you, Walky and Danny), especially in the beginning of the comic.
I agree- this background is establishing why injustice is such a hot button for her, and why she gets upset about this particular situation, racism in general, etc. She has a temper, but mostly as it relates to being attacked by people, whether for her appearance or AG stalking and harassing her.
That’s not weird to be angry about those things, and personally I’m sick of the double standard where it’s inappropriate for someone who looks like Sal to be angry about a justified thing, because being angry and black at the same time makes a lot of people uncomfortable and meanwhile AG/Amber was being cheered on for the longest time, and she actually was beating the crap out of people and having violent tendencies.
This is what relates the last few strips together, about the race and violence. People start tripping all over a POC having negative feelings because that, in their eyes, automatically makes them threatening and irredeemable. AND, in the same breath, like with Leland here, or even Amber, bend over backwards to accommodate and defend the hurtful mediocrity of a white person, particularly when a POC reacts to them.
Sal and Marcie are “troublemakers”, Sal is a “criminal with violent tendencies” – OK, wouldn’t you think it’s the other way around – Leland has a bully streak and needs to be taught better, and Sal is reacting to that the way most kids her age (and her personality) would?
But no – Leland is a “good student who can beat other people up, but doesn’t deserve to get into trouble for it because won’t that hurt his feelings and stunt his *bright future*”
“So much potential” – we’ve been hearing that phrase a lot in the news these days.
And how betrayed she must feel by her parents. She knows the truth, they know it, and they’re letting her take the fall anyway because they don’t want to upset the wealthy white families that go there too. I personally don’t think fighting to keep your black children at a school like that, forcing them to take experiences like that without supporting them at all is really gonna benefit them too much. As we saw with Sal. And Walky, for that matter.
Sal is indeed more mature than a lot of the class, and is actually fighting to get an education.
I don’t see any temper about her – a willingness to walk on the wild side, maybe, and a deep passion about injustice. But that’s all I see in this and the more grown-up Sal.
Oh, she’s shown the temper a few times. And commented on it more.
Talked about having Marcie to hold her back, in particular. I see her in the present as having the temper and struggling to control it. We see her here developing it.
While she has a temper, I haven’t seen it truly be unjustified (at least not in my memory, point me to the strips if I’m wrong) and she’s become much better at controlling it for sure.
Yeah, I think Sal does have some fire in her, but she’s about as good as dealing with it as everyone else.
Except with Malaya :V
She had issues with Malaya that were understandable, but not justified.
Understandable in that she’s super-protective of Marcie because (as we have seen in the last few strips) nobody else would even try to protect her. And Marcie even moved nearby just to be close to Sal, even though Marcie’s not in college; I think it is safe to assume that she’s done some protecting or Sal in turn. It undoubtedly became a habit that’s been hard to break, even more so for Sal.
Unjustified in that as an adult, Marcie is and should be allowed her own friends, and Sal does not have a monopoly on that. Heck, it was only solved by Marcie saying she wanted a sexual and possibly romantic relationship with Malaya. Sal stopped escalating because she stopped feeling threatened for Marcie’s friendship, -not- because she realised she was attempting to “own” Marcie’s friendship, and that this was a bad thing.
I don’t see her anger at Malaya stemming from the “taking away Marcie” thing. Sal is definitely upset about spending less time with Marcie and sees Malaya as the cause of that, but Sal’s anger stems from Malaya acting like a POS (not that Malaya doesn’t have understandable reasons for that either, given Sal’s less than ideal attitude even when trying to make friends with her) and that I think is reasonable even if it is not justified.
I disagree. And I think it was the fact that Sal stopped being angry at Malaya the very second as it was made clear that Malaya was no longer a threat to Marcie’s friendship… I mean, she did such an 180 in attitude that one could almost get a whiplash seeing her. “Marcie is yours for the night” indeed.
I think that comment in itself is betraying -a lot- of Sal’s real emotions. Sal sees Marcie as -her- friend. Maybe not quite in terms of having ownership of Marcie; but nevertheless, Marcie is someone that should have Sal as an exclusive friend. Sal is there for Marcie, Marcie is there for Sal, everyone else can fuck off. It’s been like that for years.
And Sal does not like Malaya a single bit more the next time they interact, and Malaya is not a single bit less of a jerk herself the next time they interact. Yet Sal is not showing anywhere near the same amount of anger towards Malaya’s jerkiness as last time. Some, yes, but nothing worse than what most of us would have done if we were being rudely woken up. My own grumpy-meter would go from 0-100 before I even actually wake up in such a moment. -That- is I call fully reasonable anger.
But then, in the very next strip, when Malaya heavily implies that Sal’s losing Marcie as her friend, Sal’s simply “Ah’m pretty sure we each give her… differ’nt things.” Because it’s clear she no longer feels threatened by Malaya taking up Marcie time. If Sal hadn’t known about Marcie’s carnal desires at that point, I am 99.999% confident that she would have attacked Malaya instead.
Alright, fair enough. I’d buy that their next encounter is more indicative of her “no longer fearing Marcie’s friendship will be stolen away.”
But, I’m still inclined to interpret it as her being more willing to put up with Malaya for the sake of Marcie’s feelings and also from Marcie’s prior reassurance that they were no less friends than they had ever been (“I’m not losing Marcie” as opposed to “Marcie can’t have other friends”). Sal and Marcie obviously have a very deep bond due to events in the past and it is mutual.
Let me be just a little more explicit, since I don’t think I say it often enough. I think you are right and I’m inclined to agree, but I’m also an optimistic SOB when it comes to interpreting this in the way that I, personally, find most redeeming of her character.
See now I know I’m right about that.
Because the Emperor of San Fransisco would never be wrong.
Then we must disagree.
The definition of temper:
You say temper, I say passion. Temper I regard as a belittling term.
Have you heard of the 1970 documentary “Eye of the Storm?” It was a 25-minute TV special on ABC where a teacher – Jane Elliot – gives her all-white, elementary-school class a taste of the bias facing POC by playing a game where all the blue-eyed kids wear collars and are treated as “lesser than” the kids with no collars. It was talked about in this Zootopia documentary (at 20:16), and it seems pretty relevant to what Sal is currently feeling:
https://youtu.be/D3pF9owYlRI?t=1216
This is liable to go bad places but at the same time, go Sal. He hurt your friend, he could’ve hurt her bad, and it’s not fair he got away with it.
Nooo! Wait until there are no witnesses!
And for Marcie not to be there, because they will totally blame her 🙁
I’m impressed with the headings – all have dual meanings in law, finance and affairs of the heart.
I did not even begin to consider that I should have been spotting that. Well done, Willoughby!
aaaaand, he is dead, right?
Right?
No.
1) Willis promised no deaths.
2) If Sal had killed a classmate like this, she would have been in Catholic school or worse for that, rather than for the convenience store.
But he tripped 😛
People like to say that violence doesn’t solve anything but the reality is that sometimes it does and sometimes its the only solution
Mind you Sals going to get in a lot of trouble for this, unfairly of course
Unless she kills or cripples Leland, I don’t think he’s going to stop being a bully. And I also don’t think this will bring down any punishment from above… at least not on him.
Violence can solve most problems, but usually creates more and bigger problems in the process.
(…. yes, violence CAN solve the problem of violence. Nuke the entire world to glass, and we’d have peace on Earth. Problem solved.)
No it won’t but I’ll bet he’s less likely to bully Walky or Marcie after this, he’ll probably move onto someone else but its still a small victory
That or he’s MORE likely to as a way to get revenge or shore up the insecurities that being beaten up by Sal instilled in him.
“Don’t be afraid to be the first to resort to violence.”
There are times when…
I just realized Marcie is Mexican
Well, some flavor of Hispanic, most likely. And not Puerto Rican.
If I may ask, What’s the hint that she isn’t Puerto Rican?
If she were from Puerto Rico, she would be a citizen of the US, and would not need to immigrate at all to move to Indiana.
Wow, what the fuck is wrong with people.
Sal is a strong girl with fucking principles, who uses her strength to stand up for others who are oppressed. She has an actual moral compass most adults could learn from, and rejects society’s patriarchal, white-privilege bullshit.
Leland pushes a girl into a hole.
Leland is the one with a bad temper.
Flipping THANK YOU
Aw, Sal, no. You’re smarter than that.
There are witnesses right there.
I wish I’d had a friend like Sal when I was a kid.