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NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! 🤯
www.theguardian.com/science/2025...
Patrick Willems @patrickhwillems.bsky.social ⋅ 1m
The Verge @theverge.com ⋅ 2d
Transformers Wiki @tfwiki.net ⋅ 2d
Josiah Hawthorne @josiahhawthorne.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
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️𝓝𝓪𝓷𝓲 
“look, some people LIKE vanilla!”
“castoreum vanilla?”
“um”
Castoreum is incredibly expensive — insanely low supply, insanely high demand — that no matter what the Food Charlatan says, you are not eating beaver butt unless your ice cream costs hundreds of dollars per pint.
But if you’re wearing really expensive perfume, it’s possible that you’re wearing beaver butt.
Just because something’s rare and expensive, doesn’t mean it’s good.
I’d get a bucket of rocky road or moose tracks rather than a tea spoon of any ice cream that cost the same.
It’s not technically beaver butt
It’s FROM the butt…ish area
Ah, but you’re never going to become a big-league, highly paid charlatan if you’re going to let a little thing like accuracy get in the way of clever marketing.
Yup, the famous Canadian beaver trade which helped create the country wasn’t about the furs, it was about the butts.
Does molasses come from mole asses?
Shhh, don’t let the secret out.
I learn something new
I wish I never knew.
Sounds like a lost Dr. Seuss book.
I’ve seen that episode of Darkwing Duck. This explains so much!
It iz, admittedly, a nize hat.
Cheese cutters are always a good choice if you’re not sure what to wear
Ho, yez!
Dot sum qvality habadazery dere!
Yay, fellow Jager fans.
Iz millinery!
But he didn’t git it de proper vay. Plucked from off de head a vorthy enemy.
Vun who happen to gots hyu same head size.
Dot’s only if hyu iz a Jägermonster, hy tink. If hyu chust ride vit de Jägers like Old Man Death, hy dunno if hyu steel needs to vin it in a fight.
Now, protecting hyu hat in a fight, on de odder hand…
Also, hy chust remembered dot Meester Gil had a verra nize hat (vere did dot get off to, anyvay?), und he deed not vin it in a fight – de Jägers gave it to him.
Sal and Danny time is a good time.
With enough music lessons he’ll jamming out “Run D.M.C” songs in no time: https://youtu.be/uYjkmQ0jNeg
Romantic or platonic, it’s really good to see her making friends with other people
They both really needed a friend. I know Danny has Ethan as a friend, and Joe, but obviously, it really doesn’t hurt for him to be spreading his wings more.
Sal has… uhh… boy, that’s sad. Kinda just Danny right now, not counting brief interactions with the others.
I’d say Danny and Dorothy are friends, too, and his relationship with Amber is… complicated, but they do care about each other. So yeah, as you said this is good for Danny too, but mostly I’m happy for Sal. I think Marcie’s great, but y’know, “learning who you are without other people” and all.
Danny and the hat have each other. They are stronger together than they could ever be apart. You just don’t understand, Mike.
If this comic ends with Danny singing “Stronger Than You” from Steven Universe only it’s about him and his hat and he’s playing on the ukulele, this whole journey will have been worth it.
I know you want to make me jealous,
But I think you’re just mad that you’re hatless.
That reminds me that I somehow still haven’t gotten around the watching Steven Universe. One of these days, I will understand that reference!
The season one finale – where that song comes from – is honestly brilliant, and so much of it’s that song and the sequence of comes with. I can not recommend it enough. (I started falling behind on the show around the point the schedule got REALLY erratic, after Bismuth, but the first season is fantastically paced and executed.)
Not parasitism, not even commensalism, but true symbiosis.
Hat + Danny => Synergy
I knew it, that’s not a hat, it’s a head crab.
Can we get an Ethan/Danny/Sal team of ‘let’s look out for Amber’?
Please. Pretty please. Ethan and Danny for emotional support, Sal for trying to get her self-preservation back. (If Sal and Amber or AG ever have a long Discussion about the past I could see Sal feeling genuinely bad for Amber – she has some experience with abusive parents and it would explain a lot to know AG was That Girl and Amber still has serious mental scars and actively began dissociating after that – but I can also totally see Sal being really angry at her as well, and I’m not sure I think they’ll ever really be friends. Certainly doubt they could get there without Amber clearing the air.)
Yeah, really looking forward to Amber and Sal getting to unpack everything around the convenience store incident.
Just kind of looking forward to Amber being able to be a little bit healthier in general, though.
More healthy relationships in DoA, that’s the dream!
I figure he’ll start selling slots for our favorite characters in supportive environments talking about things and getting help when the twins start looking at colleges. Like Slipshine, only not porn.
Yeah, I… would absolutely pay for that. It would take a while to explain exactly why I want to see more of that so badly, but… yes.
+++++
I, too, would like to register my interest in such a thing.
It’s a kind of porn.
Justice porn?
Happy endings?
For once I agree with Mike, the hat definitely has Danny. And I’m so glad to see that Sal is helping him get better at playing his ukelele.
Sal wants to play his Ukelele all right.
She really doesn’t, and it makes for a better dynamic that way.
An old hand injury might make it difficult. She should still be able to play a guitar or bass with a pick, though, as long as she makes chords with her left hand.
Or did you not mean that literally?
Is that what the kids are calling it these days?
I’m surprised the title of the strip isn’t named, “The hat has him.”
I’m thinking “The hat has him” should be the title of the next DoA book.
That would make an ominous progression from the title of book 7. A little disjointed, but ominous.
why would i make the punchline of the strip the first thing you read when you click through to here on twitter
Damn your right, To think I have the nerve to regard myself as a novice comedian.
to spoil our day and generally Ruin Everything – #BeLikeMike
… Seriously, Ethan, childhood crush or no, you can do better man. You have options.
He has a dorm wing full of options, as well as their friends and their friends’ friends.
The problem is his self-doubt of his ability to talk about anything other than Transformers.
Mike and Danny are the only ones he can have a conversation with that’s semi-related to his interests.
Right right. Love requires some intersection in interests, of which Ethan has few and limited.
Nah. He could find plenty of guys who’d share enough to be interested – it’s not like Danny is a perfect match for his “few and limited” interests, but they’ve made a connection. Or see him chatting up Jocelyn when they first met.
He’s just bad at getting started. It’s the self-doubt, not his limited interests.
And of course Mike makes it easy. Mike comes on to him, so he doesn’t have to do any of the work.
We just saw him unable to even talk with two guys from his dorm, guys who invited him to join a conversation.
Um…no he doesn’t. Being a gay man greatly limits his options. Specifically, he doesn’t have the luxury of assuming a guy he’s attracted to is a man who is also attracted to men. And noone can assume that the attraction is mutual. Mike makes it safe in that that guess work is taken out even if he is a D-bag.
There was an entire bit in Walking With Dina where he attended a student LGBT meetup in the dorm. I’m well aware of the hazards of attraction and dating while gay, but he knows there’s options where he would be in a safe space to get to know guys in a potentially-dating context. And on a campus this big, it is guaranteed there are multiple single dudes who might be interested in Ethan if they got to know him who aren’t even cast members. The bigger deal’s probably his social anxiety.
Of course he has options. One of them has a cool hat.
it controls him
Partially, but it also obeys his commands.
He’s more hat than man, now.
Danny: Ethan… help me… take… this hat off…
Ethan: But, you’ll die!
Danny: Nothing… can stop that now… Just once… let me.. look on you with… my own eyes…
*Ethan removes Danny’s hat – to reveal Dina’s hat, staring back at him*
Hmm, I know Mike said he was seducing Ethan only to turn Danny into a jealous wreck, or something to that effect. But I wonder if he wasn’t being honest about that, it seems more like he’s feeling a bit jealous rather. I could be wrong about it entirely, either way it will be interesting to see how this plays out
I am reading this as jealousy on Mike’s part also but im not entirely sure if it based in romance…
I never know what’s going on in Mike’s head which puts me on high alert because I’m usually not unsure about what a persons plans and motive are for so long. For all we know we could write it off as jealousy or it could actually just secretly be “I have a elaborate scheme set out right now I don’t need you complicating it.”
It definitely reads as jealousy to me too, though it’s possible it’s meant to read as jealousy to Ethan. I doubt Danny is a complication for the scheme, given that the scheme was to mess him up by seducing Ethan.
That fourth panel is… weirdly self-aware though? Like. Mike is an incredible asshole, but that fourth panel pretty solidly conveys that he knows he’s an imposition on the people around him and feels kind of bitter to me? Not that I’m always the best reader of people, and Mike definitely tries to cultivate an asshole persona too, so there’s no reason not to be self-aware, but… I dunno. It feels bitter to me. It’s definitely a big part of why this page reads as genuine jealousy.
Could be, but when he said that line he was talking to no one in particular. Why would he lie?
Because he’s lying, perhaps by omission in that one instance, to himself?
“I am Edgy McEdgelord who has no friends and needs no friends and who takes pleasure in cruelly manipulating people and making them feel bad by exploiting their emotional weaknesses, of which I have none myself! It cannot possibly be the case that I have any sort of need or desire for genuine emotional interaction with another human being!”
It’s this kind of thinking that lets assholes like Mike keep winning. When the edgelord tells you why he’s abusing you, believe him. Don’t make up excuses about how he’s really just reaching out.
That’s just opening yourself up for him to hurt.
I’m not making excuses; I’m pointing out that Mike is more complex than it seems.
The fact that abusers have their own complex inner lives does not make them one whit less of an abuser.
To expand a bit . . . Mike does, in the flashbacks, seem to demonstrate actual altruistic impulses. He stood nothing to gain from confronting Amber’s teacher over her grades, or from going to Amber’s very small party. Maybe there’s some hidden agenda going on, but that just doesn’t seem likely. So he did, at that point in time, have a desire to have friendly interpersonal interactions.
Mike in the present seems to not have that desire anymore, but my guess is that people don’t change that much in just a few years, barring some personality-changing brain injury.
Knowing that doesn’t mean that it’s easy, or even possible, to get Mike to stop indulging his sadistic/manipulative impulses, but it might be a place to start.
I’d be more convinced if he showed anything in present day that might make him seem anything other than manipulative asshole. So far he’s done nothing of the sort, so I’m more inclined to think that he’s not that complex, simply because he hasn’t shown anything otherwise in present day.
Everyone has some kind of complex inner life. Blaine and Ross and Clint and even Ryan all have their complexities and personal motivations.
That’s a long way from Mike’s explicitly stated plan to mess with the closest thing he has to a friend being somehow a plea for emotional contact. Or pointing out Danny being a sign of jealousy, when it likely just fits in with his stated plan.
Also are they in Mike’s dorm room btw? Because if they went in there to make out…. maybe mike is just annoyed that ethan is staring at “him again” …. which again just sounds like jealousy
At that point it isn’t even jealousy it’s failure to respect common courtesy on Ethan’s part
If he is jealous them being poly is less in the cards!
mike talking so casually about a “get out of mike’s bullshit free card” seems pretty interesting. number one, pretty candid, number two… maybe like such a thing exists?
course i’m on team interpret-mike-favorably, ymmv
Ethan already asked Mike, if he was Ethan’s friend, not to mess with Danny. Which Mike agreed to – before revealing to us that he was going to mess with Ethan to make Danny jealous instead.
The “get out of mike’s bullshit free card” seems a clear reference to that.
He’s new and improved, like Malibu Stacy.
Just… every time I see Sal and Danny together it looks inherently adorable.
I want them to meet each other’s parents and each be really supportive of the other and talk about how much they’ve grown and how hard they’re trying. And then after all that stress they have a nice evening, with pizza and video games and music. Maybe watch a movie with friends. (Is the terrible Super Mario Bros movie on any streaming service? Also, do college kids routinely have access to family Netflix accounts or something these days? My laptop doesn’t even have a CD drive anymore.)
Knowing their respective parents I really don’t see that happening.
I don’t see it ending well, which is why the kids have pizza and game night. (I probably should have made it clear the parents were excluded in that.) But I think them knowing the other is looking out for them and willing to stand up for them would be appreciated.
I mean Sal’s parents might actually be thrilled she met an inoffensive white boy.
For about 5 seconds until they went back to focusing on Walky having lost Dorothy.
This. So much this. Just be good friends and exactly what they need to counter their BS parents.
It’s always nice to see Danny and Sal interacting.
Ethan could do a better job of defending Danny. I almost wonder if that’s what Mike’s testing.
Sal and Danny are going along nicely. As friends ?
Honestly Sal’s a better catch
W lol yeah, but Ethan’s gay.
If you mean for Danny, I could see either dynamic working out for him romantically or as friends, and I think either way he’s in a good place finding himself right now and it’ll be a while before he’s ready to date again. (And I hope Amber’s gotten to a better spot then too, both options have baggage for her and she’s not in a headspace where finding out would go well.)
If you mean for Mike, she deserves better.
It’s like Dorothy said, if you like each other, you should also be able to be friends.
Sal and Danny remain the most adorable thing ever, and Mike’s jealous whining will not taint that.
Seriously Ethan. Dump Mike. Take up the harmonica, or bongos or something. Form a band. Amber can learn the other instrument. Go viral on the internet playing Mario themes.
We make our own band with blackjack and bongos.
Jealous whining or trying to get Ethan to actually admit he likes him? That seems to be the point of this whole thing, the boys want to pretend they’re cool just being friends so Mike seduces one of them to make the other jealous. Question is, what’s the endgame? Drama? Forcing a shift in the dynamics of their social circle? Getting Ethan a boyfriend so he’ll stop with the whining? getting Ethan a boyfriend so he can tell Ethan’s mom? Something only tangently related that will be affected by this somehow? Too many possibilities.
It’s the ‘HIM still?’ that’s coming off as jealous whining to me.
To that’s just Mike’s way of saying ‘so why so invested in him, he’s just a friend, right?”
on’t get me wrong, I see your position very easily, it’s just if Mike had wanted Ethan he could have easily had him at any point so I’m less inclined to believe Mike is personally interested.
It can be both needling Ethan and jealous whining. Or at least him acting like its jealous whining so he can further his plan of reducing Danny to a whimpering jealous mess (which I forgot about). It still seems like a tiny note of jealousy – he’s trying to seduce Ethan and Ethan’s still hung up on the ‘boring milquetoast nobody’.
It kind of comes off as Mike being a little disgusted at Ethan’s percieved lack of taste… which could simply be a ploy to make Ethan react. Said reaction then gives Mike more information — and ammunition to use in whatever game he’s actually playing with Ethan.
Or Mike could genuinely be disgusted with Ethan’s (in Mike’s opinion) lack of taste.
All part of the plan.
Mike’s endgame is the same as it has ever been: make the people around him suffer.
every time i see sal and danny together i’m reminded of roomies
sal’s going to take danny’s hat one day and see that photo of her has transcended universes to settle in that magnificent headgear
The hats will have everyone. Soon, the little hats.
https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=2189
YESSSS, THE HAAATS.
YESSSS, WE SEE
THE HAAAATS
*Dons a little hat*
…
Nothing? Nothing at all?
I think I’m over it now.
It was just so cute…the little haaaats…yessss…
How do you guys remember that, it was what, 6 years ago?
Dunno about Jess, but I just followed the link. (Also I think Jeph quoted it on Twitter just a couple months ago for some reason?)
It’s one of those QC gags I enjoyed.
Mike is jealous.
Exactly, which is interesting. This is the first hint that Mike has given that this may be genuine on his part.
I hope his poisonous little heart gets completely obliterated. It’s literally the least he deserves.
Mike is a friend.
Not a good friend…
but a friend.
A “friend”.
Ethan’s like 50% certain of it.
It’s nice to see Sal help Danny gain a new level in Bard.
Wait did I miss something? When has Ethan demonstrated a real interest in Danny beyond their anime-esque Meet Cute?
Here, maybe?
Also here.http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-8/01-face-the-strange/eef/
And also here, which leads into the thing Ethan’s referring to in the third panel.
Let’s face it. With a hat like that, Danny NEEDS a get out of bullshit free card.
fair
Oi! Nowt wrong wit’ flat cap.
Ethan is gay. Mike has sex with men as a symbolic middle finger to society.
Mike may be right on that last part
Yeah, that hat and Danny go together now! The question is who wears who!
And this is why Mike has the most punchable face in the comic.
Ugh, i’ve got the HMS Sanny all manned and ready for sail but Willis is probably gonna torpedo it in the harbour.
I suspect, though I can’t be sure, this AU is going to set up relationships the characters weren’t in in previous incarnations.Since Sal and Danny started out in Roomies as bf/gf I don’t have a lot of hope for it a second time.
It’s not a hard-and-fast rule (Billie and Ruth were an item in the Walkyverse as well, off the top of my head), but yeah, I recall Willis saying somewhere that he tends to stray away from treading the same ground as in the Walkyverse.
Yeah, I think the reason why Ruth/Billie returned was because it wasn’t explored much on-panel. Add in the dynamics changing drastically and it’s a completely different relationship.
Which, honestly, by this point Sal and Danny look nothing like their Walkyverse counterparts when they were together. Sal vaguely resembles her former self during IW! during the later Stuff with Danny, but her relationship to him would be unrecognizable (and probably healthier by this point. But then DOA Sal is also worlds healthier than IW Sal in general.) No guarantee he ever would go there, and it probably looks a bit more like original Sanny was intended to end up, but the end result relationship dynamic would be fresh.
Hmm… That wasn’t Mike’s usual standard of snark and manipulation but was instead just pure overt vitriol. This is the first indication that Mike gave that he’s genuinely jealous of Ethan’s attraction to Danny.
Meanwhile, Danny and Sal just keep getting cuter!
The hat has him? What, like a Darkwing Duck aliens kind of thing?
is it fair to call danny “anti-mike”?
I shouldn’t read these right after waking up, I misread “Eh, the hat” as “Eat the hat,”
I mean, that sounds like something Mike would say anyways…
The hat is Danny’s source of power. Eating is is the most devastating thing you could do to him
You are what you eat.
Ergo, eat the hat and you become Danny’s source of power.
Actin’ even more Holden Caulfield than usual here, Mike.
I’m actually with Ethan on this one, Mike. You stay away from Danny. Your “tough love” stance has some use when directed against scumbags, but it has no place with people as open and honest as Danny.
It might, if the current Mike ever actually directed it against scumbags.
He tried, with Blaine. It just backfired horribly.
Young Mike, right?
College age Mike didn’t interact with Blaine at all, I think. Or any of our villains.
Fuck off you garbage monster Danny is a delight you just suck.
Danny and Dina, sitting in a tree,
having a cool hat pa-ar-ty!
Is it weird that they talk about “Mike’s Bullshit” so casually and that Ethan is not exempt from it and that Ethan stays friends with Mike?
It is weird. It’s one of the stranger things about Mike that he’s very open about what he does.
It’s not so weird that Ethan stays friends with him, given Ethan’s general lack of self-esteem. Even Amber’s mostly pushed Mike away.
I guess when you’re up front about it, you technically never act in bad faith. Kind of rare really.
Well, he’s not always honest about what he’s actually doing, so he’s not quite that up front.
Is that a reflection that is somehow behind Ethan in panel two? (and 3 and 5). Not really a big deal, but my brain stumbled on that image.
If you’re referring to what I think you’re referring to, that’s not a reflection, that’s the bunk beds.
Loft beds, but yeah.
These kids have lofts? No wonder millenials are entitled! *shakes fist*
(adds /s tag jusssssst in case)
While I made an A in my strings method class, we did not discuss fretted instruments at ALL.
Would sliding your fingers higher up the feet cause tuning problems? It makes sense that you should revoice chords to minimize finger motion, though.
Danny has been the punching bag of his parents and Willis’ narrative for years, Mike. You already have Walky to terrorize, so cut the poor guy some slack.
Frankly, I think Mike is the boring one. Every time he shows, he’s usually talking about other people or other people’s business. He remains a flat-mouthed, beady-eyed nobody. All I know about him is that he’s gay and plays video games. Big deal.
Technically he’s bi/pan, since in the other ‘verse he slept with Dina and eventually married Amber.
Mike’s sexuality is too complex for us mere mortals to comprehend
Not really. He just doesn’t care and just bangs anything that gives consent and is legal.
Yes I know, “I’m whatever you don’t want me to be” and all. ’twas but a joke
Any actual evidence of that?
He mostly seems to bang people to further some plot to hurt someone – possibly them, possibly a third party.
In fact, the only person we actually know this Mike has banged was a random floor mate (Erik?). Mostly to plant the seed of his plot in Ethan’s mind. Probably with a side benefit of messing up Erik’s relationship with his girlfriend, IIRC.
His sexuality was described in SP! as “Whatever you don’t want it to be” and that seems pretty accurate – at least before he actually fell for Amber.
There is no one alive who can comprehend his sexual preference? I might have some suspensions regarding his identity…
He DOES hate everyone equally…
He really does represent one of the most boring types of people you meet at university and he hasn’t really brought much to this comic either.
Sal will teach Danny all the tricks of the fretboard. When I learned (painfully self taught) I got all the easy moves first, somehow, like what she’s showing him now.
Sal looking even hotter than usual in frame 1.
Wait– “IF” he got a Get Out Of Mike’s Bullshit Free card?!!
Is Ethan a prisoner? Does he need an adult?!
Or, is it being said that Mike’s lovin’ is Just That Good?!
Sexual Stockholm Syndrome?
I am both traumatized and insanely curious about the social goings-on that those of us without a Slipshine subscription are missing out on!
Mike’s sexuality aside (and I really don’t care), I notice that you folks haven’t denied the other non-aspects of his character that I’ve mentioned. He’s nothing and nobody but a blank page with other people’s character scribbled on it. Does anybody ever think or talk about Mike when he’s not on the scene? Other characters inspire commentary, interest and intervention. Even Miss Mary Sunshine Joyce gets people to care about her. Other than the sexual release Mike may provide, who gives a rat’s bone about him?