Rhea Snaketail returns from the dead, befriending a Demon who falls in love with an Angel. The afterlife ain't what it used to be!
Mac Hall
Matt Boyd
The legendary early-aughts webcomic that inspired a wave of webcomic creators.
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After a case of mistaken identity, will awkward Daisuke find help from excitable Mamo, or will his love life be thrown completely off track?
Fantomestein
Beka Duke
Desperate for companionship, Frankenstein's Monster pretends to be the Opera Ghost. A grave mistake.
Guilded Age
T Campbell, John Waltrip, Florence Machina
Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
The Otherknown
Lorian Merriman
Chandra is a 12-year-old accidental time traveler with a reluctant new dad, who happens to be a member of a feared galactic crime syndicate.
Paint the Town Red
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Winona runs a werewolf shelter with partner in crime, Odile in the Gothic city of Merlot. One day they take in an injured vampire, and soon unravels many of the dark secrets of Merlot.
Beeserker
TJ Cordes
This comic is about a robot powered by bees, but it's also about the kind of people who think filling a robot with bees is a good idea, and why they're wrong.
Namesake
Isa, Meg
There's ghosts at your heels and fairy tale worlds ahead. What do you do? Jump down the rabbit hole!
Countdown to Countdown
Velinxi
Iris Black is a self-proclaimed inventor with the curious ability to bring his drawings to life, and yearns to find a space where he can use his powers freely.
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
Blindsprings
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Tamaura, wrested into a world 300 years in the future, must find a way to save the magic fading from her country.
Dumbing of Age
David M Willis
Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
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No, see, I’m pretty sure Blaine would manipulate Toedad pretty quickly into being completely wrapped around his finger, and they’d both be pretty happy with the arrangement.
Well, they wouldn’t be happy, neither of them are ever happy. But, like, it’d work out for them.
Would be a good way to bring that one back – since the reveal that Amber had the knife we’ve tended to see Amber being dragged away and the moment of the stabbing more often.
Flashbacks in flashbacks…I wonder if Willis might ever let one of the characters experience a flashforward though?
Ahh, FlashForward…that was a good show, pity it got cancelled after only one season though, just as it was starting to really hit its stride. I bet they never saw that one coming… xD
Is the Red Panel our first hint of what actually happened to Marcie? We’ve seen the ambulance ride, but I don’t think any of the details have been brought up, yet.
I’m having some difficulty figuring out what’s happening in that panel. It’s obviously when Marcie lost her voice, there’s a flipped skateboard in the back, and the point of view is most likely Sal’s. But I’m not sure what the thing in the foreground, under Marcie’s hands, is supposed to be. Anorher skateboard?
I don’t think we’re supposed to know what’s going on beyond what you already said…the details have been left intentionally vague thus far, and I think we’re going to see more red panels that explore it further in the next few days, but yeah, I think it’s supposed to be more about Sal seeing red than the readers seeing what the hell’s going on.
Yeah, as I’ve said downthread this isn’t the first time we’ve had events in a traumatic flashback deliberately obscured, only to have them revealed in better detail later. (Both times I remember were from Amber’s recollection of this event – her terrified by what we later found out was Sal holding Ethan hostage, and the knife being raised which was originally implied through clever tagging to be Sal holding it instead of Amber.)
I think we’re going to go through the robbery from Sal’s perspective before seeing the Marcie red flashbacks, but I’m certain we’ll get more of that before the arc is through. Maybe after this we’ll have more time in the present where Sal figures out and goes back after Ethan or something. (I’m also going to be really interested as to when and if the holdup turns red for Sal.)
I was thinking Transplants – Tall Cans in The Air https://youtu.be/Ht1BrQIWBxA
But that’s “Nobody miss, nobody get hurt”
You may have heard this song in the film. Bulletproof Monk if you heard it anywhere.
Man babysitting really makes me dislike the word accident. Its used for everything,
I honestly couldn’t have forseen seen anything going wrong.
I know you told me not to do that thing five times but I didn’t actually want anything to go wrong so don’t make me give up my toy just because I broke my brothers.
I totally meant to hurt my brother but not that much.
I totally meant to do the thing but don’t want to be punished for it.
OMG, went back and looked at it again and the pigeon is a million times more funny. Not fitting the drama at all, but…
and it’s the “Godpigeon”, didn’t you watch Animanics?
Now I can’t unsee the pigeon in Mr. Peabody glasses, thanks.
But what is that in front of her? It kind of looks like a sweater, but that would be a really awkward angle and it looks like the accident was supposed to happen during the summer. I’m guessing she’s airborne and hit something, and the camera perspective is aiming at the ground? If she’s lying on the ground, that’s a huge pigeon tiny skateboard.
On first read, I thought that was a sweater she was wearing, now I am not sure what that is supposed to be. Didn’t see the pigeon in glasses until it was mentioned here.
Not now, but back in the 1990s and earlier it was commonplace. When I went to college back in the ’70s a couple of my instructors even permitted us to smoke in their lectures …. we did have to provide our own ashtray/butt receptacles, though.
Hell, right through most of the Eighties (and certainly in the first half) the staff rooms in our schools just fecking reeked of smoke. The teachers all hated to be interrupted in the staff room on their lunches, so you always knocked on the closed door with great trepidation and only for something serious. And when they answered the door, a great cloud of cigarette smoke would roll out…
Deeply unfortunate for the one poor teacher who didn’t smoke.
Hell, I remember when smoking in restaurants was usual too (and buses), before even smoking sections were a thing. As smoking became less ubiquitous, smokers argued that even shutting smokers away in separate, enclosed smoking areas (let alone forbidding smoking in restaurants entirely!) would cause smokers to abandon restaurants entirely, because they just could not possibly finish a meal without lighting up immediately at the table as a kind of dessert. Restaurants would go under, they argued, if they banned smokers.
Of course that didn’t happen, since they weren’t banning smokers, but rather smoking; and those of us who don’t smoke and prefer to eat our meals unflavoured by nicotine are forever grateful. As are, no doubt, the non-smoking teachers.
I can usually separate thoughtful libertarians from clueless glibertarians by asking how they feel about restrictions on public smoking. The Glibs always insist that this is a huge imposition on their liberty. Thoughtful Lib-ts usually comprehend that no, I should NOT have to choose between changing location or breathing your waste products, any more than you should have to choose between eating in a different restaurant or having me poop my meal down your throat.
I remember the byproduct of banning smoking in commercial spaces was that all the bars suddenly started smelling like spilled alcohol, instead of cigarette smoke. Not entirely sure that was an improvement.
When I went to university in the Dominican Republic in 2001 we could smoke in the classrooms as long as we had a seat next to the window and blew the smoke outside.
That, I think, is where there’s a degree of perspective and interpretation in the flashbacks. Amber and Sal both remember the same events from the same angling, Amber even remembers Sal’s voice wavered, but I don’t think she really paid that much attention to Sal’s expression whereas Sal is remembering exactly what she felt that day and was probably too caught up in nerves to pay much attention to the hostage and bystander. (Looking at it from this establishing shot, Ethan and Amber weren’t even in Sal’s field of vision before she started.)
Alternately, I’m not sure we got the wavery multiple eyeshines until after that arc, so it could be artstyle drift.
The lit cigarette I can’t explain, but my guess is Amber remembers it wrong because again, who smokes inside but in public? She had a cigarette in her mouth, it must have been lit, why else would it be there, with Amber’s trauma rewriting a little to make Sal scarier and more of a rule breaker.
Sal’s face is definitely different too. Compare Sal’s memory face in this flashback which looks panicky and desperate and sad to Amber’s memory of Sal’s face in this flashback, which just looks angry.
There’s a couple differences in eyebrow placement – subtle but significant.
Yeah, I’m standing by ‘Amber is filtering things through her terror where the actual details of Sal were less important than the overall image, while Sal remembers being scared more than anything else.’ Wondering how the Ethan and Amber stuff that’ll almost certainly be reused tomorrow will differ – Things are just different enough overall I’m pretty sure the panels were redrawn rather than plunked in and quickly edited. (Probably at least in part because it’s been so long since most of them.) I’m hoping we see what her line of vision for this was like, and if she really didn’t get a clear look at Amber.
It does, but I think that might just be the way it contrasts with the red flashback versus the blue.
Not something I’d want to hang elaborate theories off of. It’s not clear enough to me that it’s lit in the earlier scene to say “Amber is remembering it lit and Sal unlit” rather than it just being a not quite clear artistic detail.
It makes me kind of sad, really. From now on, Ambers psyche will deteriorate. And her last relatively sane moment was being afraid of buying a candy bar.
Sane? She never had a sane moment. Her dad was always abusive. So much of her reaction to this incident has to do with the way her dad reacted to her fear afterwards, too.
As someone with complex PTSD and DID myself, I can point this incident out as a trigger for her DID to become more pronounced maybe, but not like… “The cause”.
And her psyche isn’t “deteriorating”. It’s changed, yes, but it’s not… “Wrong”, not any more than it was before this. Hating herself? Alienating people? She’s always done that.
Sorry for the rant it’s just sometimes y’all (the comment section here in general) write things that are really problematic if you want to be an ally to those who have mental illnesses.
Amber was definitely struggling with anxiety before this. Not sure if it would have developed naturally in early childhood had Blaine dropped dead* a month or two before she was born (my guess is yes, but I mean, literally no way to tell.) I’m not sure the degree to which she hated herself before this incident, though, and even then she only got fully on the path of ‘Amber is a monster and AG is good and pure and protects us from Amber’ after Family Weekend and the Blaine beat down. At least as far as we can tell.
She’s definitely getting more pronounced and separate, and them not sharing memories is a Bad Sign (made all the worse when the memories not being shared are things like ‘committed academic fraud!’ and ‘new boyfriend who’s Sal’s twin!’ on one side and ‘running around in extremely dangerous situations!’ on the other. And we don’t know for sure if AG stopped sharing memories before or after the Gashface stabbing.)
There was probably a period in infancy before her brain had been shaped by abuse, but yeah, effectively her entire life has been a traumatic situation and Blaine was the real catalyst for her dissociation.
I do think it’s safe to say Amber is coping with things way worse since the comic started than she did at the beginning, but vigilante crime-fighting has never been a good coping mechanism and her exposure to traumatic and triggering situations has gotten exponentially higher in that time as well. (Playing video games and not leaving your room isn’t a particularly GOOD strategy, but at least it isn’t a panic attack or stalking someone.)
* As always, my desire for Blaine to have dropped dead at this time involves something that relies on his mob ties, which in this case ensures Stacey find out he was a mob stooge and probably cheating on her then. (Do we know that or have any real reason to believe that? No. But it’s Blaine we’re talking about here and he deserves no trust that he would respect a monogamous relationship for any length of time whatsoever.) End result, Amber wouldn’t grow up wondering if things would be easier or better with her dead father so a better chance at her being non-anxious if that were ever in the cards.
Thus relatively sane. This is related to her ptsd. And since we both have ptsd, I think we can agree that it makes life a lot harder and does a lot of damage to the mind. I don’t know much about did, I don’t think I’m qualified to say whether this contributed to her deterioration.
And yes, deteriorating. Her mind is getting worse. The whole comic so far happened within a few weeks, so things are getting worse fast.
You say it’s getting worse because you see more pronounced DID as worse but that’s not how it works. Fun fact, my DID got more pronounced because I’m finally ready to face everything I’ve had to suppress. I’m safer and I’m no longer experiencing my ongoing trauma. So the dissociation now has a different purpose. This (along with “new big event oh no”) is very common in DID.
And it sure looks like I’m getting worse. Because I’m suddenly aware of my dissociation. And that’s really hard to deal with. It affects my short-term memory and a lot of cognitive functioning and emotional regulation skills. But with the right support, as time passes, there’s more communication between my alters and me. More flashbacks, yes, more dissociative symptoms. But that’s because we’re processing our trauma and trying to still live day-to-day in the present.
And we’re uncovering things. We’re doing our best to process and put it behind us. It’s only been a few months but we’re making progress and it’s noticable. I’m getting better. Not deteriorating.
So her mind is not deteriorating. Her mind is trying to heal. She just needs a safe, supportive environment.
Don’t go saying DID is deterioration when you don’t know what DID is like.e
I don’t know what DID is like either, but that doesn’t sound like the direction Amber/AG are going in. They’re becoming more distinct and communicating less. At first they shared memories and even thoughts, switching back and forth pretty easily, not even needing to talk directly to each other. Eventually they got more antagonistic, but were still sharing and communicating, talking and arguing with each at this stage. Now they’re not sharing memories and Amber at least is trying to shut Amazi-Girl down and not let her out at all.
This doesn’t seem like healing to me.
She definitely does need a safe, supportive environment. Sadly she doesn’t have one. Worse, she doesn’t think she deserves one.
Like I said her mind is trying to heal… She needs a supportive environment which unfortunately she does not have.
Still this is not “mind deteriorating” even if it is worrying.
on that note, I’m actually mildly concerned at my *lack* of reaction to the last few strips. maybe it’s just the sleep deprivation, maybe my brain is just full right now… but I should probably set aside some time for checking on that.
but like thejeff said, Amber is going in the less-communication direction right now, which is concerning. your post was still good at explaining useful information, though
I dunno, Alanari, that’s pretty pessimistic, and Amber is pretty tough. I think, whether she has irreversibly developed DID or not, she has the potential to heal and lead an emotionally healthy life with a lot of happiness in it.
There’s a difference between being strong and being tough. Amber is really tough but doesn’t have much strength. Sadly, when dealing with ptsd, toughness often works against you. You can’t just power though it with sheer willpower, it’ll just get worse until you can’t bear it anymore. You have to deal with it. And to do that, you need the strength to admit your own helplessness. Amber currently does not possess it.
I read that as “last relatively sane moment” from flashback time to comic present, not a prediction that she’d never recover.
Though it’s also worth remembering that PTSD and disassociation aside, Amber had gotten a lot more functional between the flashbacks and the start of the comic. The debilitating social issues were at least being managed – probably helped greatly by Blaine being out of the picture.
Hm I don’t know actually. This ag-thing got worse, her reaction when meeting Sal hasn’t improved a bit and she still has anger management issues and a tendency to lock herself up.
I did mean “until comic present”, yes, but I have to admit, I have little hope for her in the foreseeable future. She’s nowhere near admitting that she needs help, and even if she does, stabilising a ptsd patient usually takes years without any guarantees for success. Not taking into account the ag thing that needs to be dealt with.
And there is the grades thing and the usb stick faz stole. Both have the potential to really screw her over. She most likely is still wanted for beating up her father, and I doubt he’d hesitate to call the police if the stick contains a hint to her identity as ag.
She’s definitely gotten worse from the start of the comic to the present, but compare the flashback Amber we’ve seen to the Amber at the start of the comic. She got a lot better, no longer cringing away in corners, hiding and unable to even buy a Twinkie.
The stresses of running into Sal again, the confrontation with Blaine and the general bad idea of crime-fighting have being doing more damage.
Gonna sound like a jerk here….. but the story actually makes me feel less sympathetic for Sal. Don’t get me wrong, her Mother is one of the worst and I did feel bad she tried a fundraiser and tried to do things the right way and failed.
That being said… after having that money taken from her, she should know how crappy it is when someone takes something that doesn’t belong to you and how crappy of a person you are for trying to do what her mother basically did to her. I know she was probably desperate, angry and all, but in the end, she made a choice. There was no gun to her head, no one forced her to be a look out for the previous robbery, nor did anyone force her to do what she is doing now, and the consequences of her choice are her fault and hers alone.
Again, her situations sucks more than most people her age should have to endure, but I still feel little sympathy for what is coming….
she wasn’t *forced* into it, but she was still in a shitty situation, and she was only 12-13. I can have sympathy for her and think it was a bad decision at the same time. and also be impressed that she didn’t just give up on marcie like her mother wanted.
That’s pretty sad, that that’s what you took away from this story of a desperate child so wracked with guilt that, after having basically her entire support structure turn against her, turns to trying to help her best friend in the only way she can think of.
yea you do
gas station employees aren’t responsible for protecting that money. Their situation in a stickup is not really comparable. And in any case, way to hold her to unreasonable standards- she’s some ind of infant. if highschool kids can apply basic empathy to their immediate friends and family, they are doing Well.
Sending her to boarding school is not an unreasonable response to this incident, but it does compound the parental neglect that majorly contributed, and pretending like Sal is an adult when she is not and is not permitted to be self-reliant or self-determining, that’s bull.
A mom taking something from a daughter is stealing, but it’s also bullying, and, for no purpose that Sal can understand. (We don’t even know whether Linda really plans to return the money.)
Linda is a powerful adult. Sal isn’t.
Linda has completely shown Sal that her previous attempts to do things lawfully were worthless, that going through proper methods will not work at all.
Vs., a desperate kid holding up a convenience store, in order to help a friend, who is unjustly in hospital debt and faces a dire lifelong disability if Sal doesn’t quickly find a way to help.
Sure, Sal and Linda were both stealing, but it’s just not the same at all.
Yeah. Stealing money from an injured kid’s medical fund is worse than stealing from a convenience store, IMO. But stealing from the convenience store is more likely to have legal or physical results (like getting arrested or stabbed), which makes it a much worse idea.
I don’t know what thirteen year olds you know, but all the ones I’ve met know that they could get arrested for committing crimes (although most are old enough to know about juvie and that 13 year olds aren’t gonna get thrown in real jail*).
*most of these kids are cishet/white so they also have no reason to believe cops will murder them
**quite young kids often think that they’ll really go to jail if they do something bad
Kids seem to usually fall under two categories: 1: They think even the slightest thing can get them in trouble. 2: They think they’re invincible and that nothing can ever happen to them so screw consequences.
I’m gonna say I agree with you that Sal is responsible for this. It’s a choice she made, you can see it in the first panel. She knows this is wrong, but the rational’s completely different. She’s stealing out of desperation, not to teach some warped lesson about making the right friends. I’d actually go so far as to say Sal’s not really thinking at all and the real question is what lead to her believing armed robbery was her only option.
Wait, you were more sympathetic when the robbery had only been discussed in terms of acting out against Sal’s parents, and we didn’t know it had an altruistic aspect? Weird.
I don’t really get the comparison you’re making here. The gas store employee doesn’t actually *own* the money, so it’s highly unlikely he’s going to be upset that it was taken from him. What he might be upset by is her attempt to intimidate him, but there’s not going to be a comparable sense of “taking what belongs to someone else.” Even on a large, corporation scale, this is more like someone stealing the loose change in your pocket when you have a couple thousand dollars in your wallet.
Also, it’s been implied before that this wasn’t an immediate jump from “Mom took the money last night, so tonight I’m robbing a store.”
Of course Linda should have taught Sal better. She could have taught her “stealing is bad because it makes people feel bad”, but instead she went for the “being a bigger jerk and having more muscles than the other person is how you get what you want no matter what they want and you don’t have to answer for it” lesson. Such a tragic and unpredictable accident that’s in no way Linda’s fault.
I don’t think thinking Sal is justified here in any way is a good thing. Marcie would be horrified at what Sal did, it destroys Amber’s life, and Ethan is almost killed as well (because robberies often go wrong when employing weapons).
There’s a big difference between being sympathetic towards Sal (the desperate middle-school abuse victim making bad decisions) and thinking she’s justified.
As well as: There’s a big difference between ‘blaming Linda’ (in a way that would absolve Sal) and acknowledging that Linda was the adult in her life who actively contributed to her dealing with her trauma in such a destructive manner.
For me, it’s the same way I feel about Amber stabbing Sal.
Both Amber and Sal made their own choices that hurt someone else, but their actions are both heavily influenced by abusive parents and other trauma (Amber and the robbery, Sal and Marcie’s accident). While that can’t justify their actions, legally or morally, the explanation leaves me sympathetic enough that I’m more sad about it than angry with them and absolutely furious with the shit adults in their lives.
Think ‘Oh, honey, no, this is not what you want to be doing’ vs ‘what the fuck is wrong with you’.
Absolutely. Amber stabbing Sal was her bad move, but it’s understandable (in that ‘I genuinely don’t think Amber was really thinking at all, just moving on trauma-induced impulse’ way) because, well, Amber has just been through a traumatic event and was being goaded by her abuser who she had been forced to spend much of her day in an enclosed space with.
Sal robbing the convenience store and taking a hostage are also bad moves, but understandable (in that ‘oh honey you genuinely don’t think there’s a single other option for you’ way) in that Sal’s consumed with guilt, anger at her abuser for violating her privacy and denying her agency, and desperation.
Everything involved is a terrible idea, but at the same time Sal would never have robbed anything if her parents had told her it’s not her fault, helped her fundraise when they saw how important it was to her, and assured her that even if Marcie never talked again, there are plenty of ways to communicate and they’ll still be friends and what Sal’s doing is helping a lot. Supporting Sal’s friendship with Marcie could have meant they were hanging out at Sal’s home more often, so Sal wouldn’t have to get into as many fights with assholes. And maybe if they weren’t hanging out by that convenience store as often they wouldn’t know Asher, who Sal doesn’t actually seem to like.
Similarly, Amber would never have stabbed someone if Blaine hadn’t derided her freeze response, the last in an incredibly long chain of abusing her, and would probably have much healthier ways to deal with her anger in general if the only things she was ever shown weren’t ‘abuse’ and ‘self-defense classes because Blaine vetoed therapy’. (Which I’ll note is still one of the WORST decisions made in this comic, ever, particularly as at least Stacey and possibly someone in law enforcement agreed to it. And it’s up against Sal trying to rob a convenience store alone with no plan or getaway and a knife she barely knows how to use. I’m not expecting a 13-year-old to make good life choices!)
Finally got to reading all of these responses and I gotta say, never more proud to be a jerk. But it doesn’t mean I am wrong. (also, kind of surprised that some people aren’t against me on this)
Let’s also imagine a lovely comic in which Linda Walkerton appreciated her daughter’s loyalty, generosity, and grit to help her friend.
She could’ve admired Sal’s good character and resolve, even if she felt she had to explain to Sal that she might be unable to succeed. She could help her process her rage and grief. She might have been able to help Sal raise money (even if it didn’t end up being enough for the whole operation, it sure would’ve helped).
What a wonderful opportunity it would have been.
GOOD JOB LINDA, you’re clearly living your best life.
You can shit on Linda for being a bad mom, but you have to give credit to Sal here too. This is 100% Sal’s decision despite all the circumstances that created it. Even without a supporting parent to help her, she should know not to do this. It’s kind of sad actually. A lot of people were saying this might have been inevitable even if Sal had the 700$.
Sure, Sal could’ve given up on helping Marcie. She didn’t, though.
I really can’t blame Sal for still wanting to help, and for now seeing no positive options.
Had Linda listened to Sal, and appreciated Sal’s positive qualities, Sal might have expressed that she wanted to steal the money, which would let her mom try and explain why it was a generous cause but a terrible idea.
And, if they were trying to raise money together, Sal could’ve had hope and support, she might not have resorted to this very impulsive and ill-conceived attempt at theft.
There are a lot of other potential options, though. Like mowing babysitting and mowing lawns for neighbors. It would be slow, but a lot less dangerous, and her parents might even think she was being a responsible person and treat her positively as a result.
Sure, okay. Say she takes up mowing lawns on the weekend. The going rate for that is what, $20 a lawn? Say she does…hm, let’s say 5 a weekend. She’s got what, $6500 to make? I could be wrong but I think that’s the number. That’s 325 lawns. 65 weeks. And by that time, her mother’s noticed she’s collecting the money and saving it again and puts two and two together and confiscates it again.
Much easier to stop off at Marcie’s on the way home and go “here is all this money, don’t worry how I got it” except Sal almost definitely hasn’t thought that far out anyway. This is a last ditch desperation move.
Robberies don’t usually end up providing thousands of dollars to the people involved. That’s why most crooks are poor. Also, you know, there’s the fact people get caught and spend years in jail.
I don’t think anyone has said it was a smart, rational plan. But from a desperate 13-year olds point of view, the first robbery got the whole group “thousands”. There’s nothing else she can do that can get her that money in any timeframe that makes sense to a kid.
Oh, I see! You’re referring to the money she wanted from the robbery.
I imagine the plan was to give that to Marcie’s family first (which would’ve been a TERRIBLE IDEA for so many reasons but regardless, Linda wouldn’t have had the chance to take it).
Yeah but it’s implied time is a factor. I don’t know if it’s been outright stated but for instance present Sal has a motorbike. I don’t know where she got the money for that as I doubt her parents gifted it to her but if she had that kinda cash and surgery was still an option for Marcie she’d be talking right now. So Sal was desperate for quick cash. Inevitable.
Most likely options:
1) There was no surgery. Even if they could afford it, Marcie’s specific condition is inoperable. Marcie hasn’t had the words, spoons, or lack of interruption to tell Sal the fundraising was for her existing medical bills. The only indication one exists was Charles’s offhand comment and Sal clinging to that slim hope.
2) After this, Marcie flat tells Sal she’s already losing her so don’t make things worse, she’d rather have her best friend than a slim chance of talking again.
3) If surgery were an option, the fact that Marcie was probably prepubescent or just on the edge complicates things somehow. Far as I could tell most of the similar things were more likely with older people, and it may be that a thirteen-year-old is particularly tricky.
Yeah, which is why I suspect some conversation like 2 happened regardless. But if she doesn’t need to raise $money before X date so Marcie can ever speak again, things get a bit less pressing? The bills will probably still not be paid off in full by present strip time, or maybe ever, but at least there’ll be options beyond ‘full thrust because Marcie needs money NOWNOWNOW.’
Er… where do you think she got the first $700? I’m pretty sure being responsible and saving money was what she was already doing and the failure of that was why she decided she’d just give up and be a criminal.
But yeah, with a supportive mom, she might have had the chance to raise the money. Or enough to make a difference, if not all of it. Or just had the support to help her cope with not being able to fix everything.
It’s not just that Linda took the $700, it’s everything Linda’s been doing. For years.
13 year olds make bad life choices. It’s up to their parents to be supportive anf guide them in making the best ones possible. If Linda had been in Sal’s corner and helped her raise money for her Gofundme, likely she never would have gotten to this point. This isn’t motivated solely by need for money, there’s also an aspect of desperation since Sal thinks she has no other options left.
I mean…we can also hope Blaine wasn’t such an abusive shit heel that his actions helped fracture his daughters mind, or like Clint wasn’t so controlling his granddaughter had to cope with suicidal, catatonic depression and alcoholism, or Ross…..nothing really to say there just Ross in general. But that’s not the world they live in and these tragic characters have to come to terms with that baggage and the choices they make bacause of it. To Sal’s credit she’s handling it better than most. She’s seems pretty well adjusted aside from the whole banging your T.A. for grades fiasco.
Oh! Well they all deserve that! Basically every member of the main cast is fucked up and some kind of certifiable. It’s like My Little Pony FiM except not like that at all because in that cartoon good things happen. Except Danny! That guy’s got it all figured out.
Danny clearly had his self-worth eroded by his parents (who made basically the same comments towards Danny the commentariat made, but in-universe and as his parents and therefore causing him to be Early Strip Danny.) He’s doing way better now but I’m betting it’s not all settled forever.)
But yes, the entire main cast is really overdue for therapy (even Dina, who has to deal with the ‘everyone treats me different, I am aware I am treated and act differently, why are my differences unacceptable to so many people when similar ones are not?’ that is ableist society. Carla’s pretty well-adjusted all things considered, but then I suspect her parents found a really good therapist to let them jump through the hoops to get Carla what she needed and that Carla’s knowledge she’s basically alone against the world was recognized, so she has periodic appointments.)
We all know this is only half about the money. Sal is angry and powerless. Everything she does here is futile, and she probably knows it. I mean, taking hostages, really.
God yes. People were talking in yesterday’s strip about how the rest of the robbers probably got caught on camera without masks (and only Asher making any attempt to hide his face that we saw). The SUCCESSFUL one was full of dumbassery because it was run by teens. Sal is doing this while her brain’s* been completely overridden by stress, anxiety, and guilt. Literally EVERY PART OF THIS PLAN is terrible – I’m not even sure she knows how to use that knife or if they didn’t just give it to her because whatever. (Was it before the robbery or after? Dunno! Wasn’t clear yesterday!)
* And that’s taking into account the part where teen brains are still growing and not fully functional yet. Particularly the prefrontal cortex, which is pretty important in considering consequences.
You may notice people often make bad decisions right after red panels! They represent psychological trauma that prevents people from making the most rational possible choices.
She’s desperate and scared for Marcie, and the people who SHOULD have been helping her handle those feelings instead opted for emotional abuse and to sabotage her legal attempts to help. She’s had no adults to turn to for guidance or support since then
Not sure what she’s supposed to do. Trying to prevent Marcie from spending time with Malaya would be pretty dickish. Even when she was fully on the jealousy train* she was mostly hanging back and pouting about it before she tried (very very badly and half heartedly) to make friends with Malaya.
* = She’s still jealous, just willing to tolerate it now since Marcie wants to bang Malaya.
Besides, Sal trying to force Marcie to choose between her or Malaya or anything remotely like that would be the exact same shit Linda pulled on her. Sal knows how that goes (they side with the person who DOESN’T give the ultimatum,) and she very much does not want to be her mother.
And this is where Sal continued the hate chain, and now Amber is continuing the hate chain as a crazy vigilante, and soon she will hurt an innocent bystander that will continue the hate chain unless they decide to stop it. I wouldn’t be surprised if Joyce gets in the crossfire of all this acts of revenge and unhealthy rebellious acts.
We are like this because the ones before use fucked up, and we are fucking up.
I remembered this and thought from amber’s point of view shes some crazy girl with a knife but in Sal’s mind she is really nervous about this but trying to be determined to get that money, but really unsure of herself.
. . . . So this may be a strange question but the hell happened to Marcy? Apparently there was some kind of accident that caused her to completely lose her voice but WHAT HAPPENED? I see a slate board, did it snap in half and slam into her voice box?
It’s particularly rough/painfully, painfully ironic because at that closeup it doesn’t look completely dissimilar to Amber’s face… probably tomorrow, but in the parts of her flashback where she’s hiding behind the shelves and screaming. Similar hands in front of their faces, same mouth, similar glasses shapes. (Amber’s weren’t askew, though, and her eyes were open, plus she’s behind the shelves from an angle.)
is she a lefty?.. she is holding the edge of the knife out, and the point down that’s a slashing style. wondering if she actually has some knife fight training. By the way, mr Roofer McRapist was holding his knife wrong when Amber unarmed him and kniffed him down (holding it right). Maybe i’m seeing to much in a drawing…
I think both times it’s also indicating that the person holding the knife has no idea how to do so. You know what they say about how a weapon you don’t know how to use belongs to your enemy.
I’m having a hard time visually parsing the Marcie panel. At first I thought she was on her back on the ground, but the size/perspective of her skateboard behind her seems to rule that out. And I have no idea what the object behind her hands, overlapping her chin a bit, is supposed to be… although it seems like that particular ambiguity might be intentional.
Yeah, my best guess is that whatever Marcie has, she put in front of her to try and leave something between her and her attacker. (I think it might be wood, or maybe her helmet? If the former, that might make a bit more sense of how she got injured – maybe something broke off?) I think she’s just cornered and whatever’s behind her that the skateboard’s falling towards, she can’t safely hit. (If they were skateboarding, maybe the edge of a half pipe or something? That would not be a pleasant fall.)
I think it’s deliberately so close and hard to parse because we’ll get it again later with context – that’s what happened with Amber terrified at the robbery (expanded several arcs later after that conversation with Danny to this flashback event) and Amber holding the knife (which was just her arm raised so that we had the fakeout believing the knife was aimed at Amber instead of wielded by her – A tiny corner of Sal’s hair was even included in those panels just to mask it so she would be in the tags.) Could be something in that moment we’ll later see is being cropped out by the close focus to preserve a reveal again.
Either way I’m sure we’re not supposed to get the situation from that panel beyond what’s immediately obvious (check the tags and it’s Marcie, context suggests it’s where she got injured.)
Previous flashbacks had suggested that Sal was far from in control of her actions that night but this is the first time it’s been suggested that she was in the middle of a traumatic flashback at the time and maybe even a psychotic episode.
That’s not how I read it. I think Sal enters the store but then pauses, thinking about how small she is and what might go wrong, trying to big herself up but mostly having doubts about her plan.
Then she thinks about her friend Marcie, remembering or imagining what Marcie has suffered, and thinks “Fuck the bullies of the world. That asshole and my mom are not going to keep Marcie or me from getting her the help she needs and deserves.” And she goes big.
I’m with Ben here. Doesn’t look to me like she entered the store hellbent on robbing it, but something triggered a flashback and she just lost it.
When we saw her before, she already looked stressed out, but this time, she also looks desperate and afraid.
I don’t know about “hellbent”, but that’s definitely why she’s here. Nervous and scared about doing it, trying to psyche herself up for it.
I mean, she was just in another robbery that went nice and smooth. She got the knife from them, saw how much they got and how small her cut was and asked them to drop her off at this store. That’s why she’s here.
I think she planned to rob the place from the start, she just doesn’t have the will to go through with it. She had to think about Marcie to work up the resolve to do it
This moment was bad enough when I just believed it to be an act born from a neglected teenage girl acting out in defiance of her emotionally neglectful and verbally abusive parents, one last violent scream for attention. Now it hurts all the more knowing that it was all for her best friend.
The fact that friendship is being threatened in the present day makes it worse. What will Sal do if Marcie completely breaks all ties and makes everything that Sal suffered and worked through for nothing?
In response to the Alt Text: Nachitos are Walky’s favourite snack. Ergo, kicking down the snack display is a proxy for kicking Walky in the face, something that Sal is fundamentally too nice to do.
and see how the last two panels are almost identical, but with a subtle difference in Sal’s expression. The change in colour also gives it a different feeling, the red made it scarier, obviously since it was more from Amber’s perspective, and the blue here makes it more sad.
I’m expecting at some point for two sets of red panels to merge into one (Amber stabbing Sal). The penultimate panel is back to the real world with Sal and Amber both on their knees in front of Clark Hall (possibly with others fussing over them). The last panel is Sal and Amber looking at each other.
*prepares to sacrifice a Walkerton Family Discourse post; consults the winds, puts out the entrails, draws the Seal in blood*
The thing people are seeing in the Walkertons that makes them different from previous abusers is that they, unlike most of the comic’s abusers, see Sal as a person.
It’s more, and different, from, say, Ross, who sees his daughter as his property and part of a dowry owed to God; different too from Blaine and Clint, who see Amber and Ruth as investments which don’t pay off—the difference in their attitude is just their portfolio. The Walkertons don’t deny Sal’s humanity, and I’m sure they’d be horrified at the actions of the above three. “How awful,” Linda would think, “to treat your own flesh and blood like that!!”
Yet this doesn’t make them any less abusers, and it almost makes their actions worse. They would never admit to racism—(how dare you, how could they be?! They’re a multi-racial couple for God’s sake!)—and yet implicitly they have a Kind of biracial child they want Sal *not* to be. She can’t be one of Those. She’s the good child of good, white-passing parents, not a thug or a gangster!
Which is why it’s so important she doesn’t hang out with an Undocumented. With a person who is criminal by nature, who will lead their good white-passing child into vice and sin and Thuggery. The parents don’t even speak English as they won’t look you in the eye.
That’s the thing, isn’t it? When Clint or Blaine abuse, they might get caught, they abuse involves their own. When Ross pops off he has his church behind him, but no one else.
When the Walkertons abuse, they have America and white supremacy backing them up all the way.
I’m not sure they see Sal as a person anymore than Ross did with Becky. It’s just that the Walkertons’ reasons for being controlling and harsh are secular instead of religious.
Becky was seen as a person (or at least could be rewarded with her dad’s approval, for how little that was worth) only as long as she followed the narrow path laid out for her. With Sal, the enforcement may not come at the point of an actual gun, but it’s not clear that her parents would ever actually treat her like a person even if she did everything they ever wanted and never got in trouble or screwed up.
They don’t want her to be friends with Marcie because her race and/or status makes them uncomfortable, and thus Sal’s interest in her is seen as yet another way she causes them trouble. She’s not the perfect, compliant child they see Walky as, so she’s already going to be blamed for anything she does that bothers them at all.
Also, another point – Billie’s already noted that she’s the ‘reasonably white passing daughter someone else’s mom really wanted’. Walky and Billie both ‘pass’ in ways Sal can’t (which, thus far, seems to be ‘won’t go along with anyone else’s bullshit injustice’ which gets read as ‘angry’, ‘loud’, and ‘disruptive’ – both traits a lot of racists will push on black kids) or cause her a lot of insecurity (like her hair)
I think you have Walky down pretty well, but I think some of Sal’s awesomeness is also in Billie. The difference if Billie had rich friends, girly interests, and could physically pass for white better. Also Billie wasn’t actually Linda’s daughter so Linda could take credit for everything good about Billie and blame Billie’s neglectful mother for her screwups.
Oh, definitely, but Linda doesn’t have to deal with the messy bits and it sounds like a lot of Billie’s ‘angry at injustice’ help was kept quiet because of secrecy issues or were otherwise roundly commendable (scoping parties for roofies, sneaking friends into abortion clinics, taking down abusive boyfriends, etc.) Billie also lacked stereotypical ‘bad kid’ marks like smoking and sneaking in late (which ties into your point about how Linda didn’t live with Billie and have to deal with it even if Billie ever DID sneak in late).
I suspect Billie, drunken partying cheerleader Billie, was sneaking in late all the time.
Except it wasn’t really sneaking, because her parents weren’t there or weren’t paying attention anyway.
And, as you well know, Linda’s opinions were firmly set long before Sal started smoking or sneaking in late.
Of course they were, but Linda seems like the kind to point at the smoking as evidence that her daughter was a hooligan, despite her best, most loving efforts. *eyeroll*
And yeah, Billie doesn’t really need to sneak in, though even if she did, Linda’s not the one who has to deal with that.
I think Charles might see Sal and Walky as people, but I’m pretty confident Linda’s abuse is the brand where ‘wanting what’s best’ for her child means in practical terms that said child must fit into the very narrow hole of what the parent can perceive for them as successful. Linda wants child-shaped accessories whose successes she enjoys vicariously as they reflect well on her, and gets angry when they turn out to be actual people with their own thoughts and desires.
I’d believe a whole lot more that Linda saw Sal as a person if we didn’t already have indication she doesn’t do so for Walky, and he’s the Good One. (‘I thought he was a telecommunications major?’ ‘That’s what he thinks right now, too.’)
Hm, yeah, I think you might be more on point—I wouldn’t say “accessories” so much as like…”pets, but with a human form and they can talk.” Linda is absolutely the White Mom Living Vicariously Through Her Kids in the woooorst possible toxic way, though!
Buuuut I do think it’s important to examine and to note of Linda—and Charles, too, trash dad that he definitely is—that they’re not the ones who “decided” that Sal’s hair looks worse when it’s not combed straight, that they’re down on Sal’s angry loudness probably because one or both of them knew some Angry Loud People of Color, and those people suffered for that trait, and this was internalized in their dialogue on race as “well, that won’t be our children, they’ll be raised right”—buying into the American bullshit myth of meritocracy. They’re not even the ones who decided Marcie is a toxic influence; and their judgment here doesn’t come from warped faith they bought into, it’s what *America* teaches everyone, or tries to. It’s from the background radiation of White American Supremacy.
Note that this does *not* excuse Linda’s abusive shit and she’s still a monster—getting your ideas from mainstream society doesn’t mean you don’t have a choice to try and be better that she’s totally blowing.
It just strikes me that Linda is someone any well-meaning American could become if they’re not careful.
On patreon there was some speculation that someone skateboarded over Marcie’s throat, but it didn’t work with her hand placement.
It DOES kind of look like a skateboard to me, though, so now I’m wondering if, while Marcie and Sal were skating, someone Sal got into a fight with (Leland maybe?) knocked Marcie off her board and she fell forward into Sal’s and hit her throat.
I dunno, maybe I’m seeing things. I just want an explanation dammit!
Also, speaking of explanations – Willis, you have a singular talent for showing me things I wanted to know and making me regret ever wanting to know. Speaking as a writer, kudos.
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that Nachitos stand was traumatized for life
(as was everybody else except I guess Blaine)
Then I will traumatize Blaine with electricity and 30 hours of watching cringe content in a video, and the leave him alone in the Mojave.
With Dark Mode turned on?
Nah, I say traumatize Blaine by locking him in a cell with ToeDad. The upside is that it also traumatizes ToeDad by locking him in a cell with Blaine.
No, see, I’m pretty sure Blaine would manipulate Toedad pretty quickly into being completely wrapped around his finger, and they’d both be pretty happy with the arrangement.
Well, they wouldn’t be happy, neither of them are ever happy. But, like, it’d work out for them.
I ship it
Not in the Mojave, please. That’s too close to home; I may have to finish him myself.
Well, this IS the second time that Nachitos stand has had its ass kicked like this, right? Poor Nachitos…
Oh, perfect! here’s the Red Panel!
Red panels for everyone. You get a red panel! You get a red panel, and you!
A red panel INSIDE a blue panel, even. Have we had that before?
Red panels and blue panels. I wonder if there’ll ever be a purple panel.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2012/comic/book-2/06-strange-beerfellows/thing/
Naturally, Sal’s red panel is the moment Marcie got hurt.
I wonder if her next one will be when she got stabbed, which we’ve seen before, but only Amber’s arm will be in-frame from her perspective?
Would be a good way to bring that one back – since the reveal that Amber had the knife we’ve tended to see Amber being dragged away and the moment of the stabbing more often.
Of course now that it’s been written in the comments, I’m sure Willis will go back and re-draw that strip before it goes live.
Crap.
Flashbacks in flashbacks…I wonder if Willis might ever let one of the characters experience a flashforward though?
Ahh, FlashForward…that was a good show, pity it got cancelled after only one season though, just as it was starting to really hit its stride. I bet they never saw that one coming… xD
Is the Red Panel our first hint of what actually happened to Marcie? We’ve seen the ambulance ride, but I don’t think any of the details have been brought up, yet.
I’m having some difficulty figuring out what’s happening in that panel. It’s obviously when Marcie lost her voice, there’s a flipped skateboard in the back, and the point of view is most likely Sal’s. But I’m not sure what the thing in the foreground, under Marcie’s hands, is supposed to be. Anorher skateboard?
I don’t think we’re supposed to know what’s going on beyond what you already said…the details have been left intentionally vague thus far, and I think we’re going to see more red panels that explore it further in the next few days, but yeah, I think it’s supposed to be more about Sal seeing red than the readers seeing what the hell’s going on.
Yeah, as I’ve said downthread this isn’t the first time we’ve had events in a traumatic flashback deliberately obscured, only to have them revealed in better detail later. (Both times I remember were from Amber’s recollection of this event – her terrified by what we later found out was Sal holding Ethan hostage, and the knife being raised which was originally implied through clever tagging to be Sal holding it instead of Amber.)
I think we’re going to go through the robbery from Sal’s perspective before seeing the Marcie red flashbacks, but I’m certain we’ll get more of that before the arc is through. Maybe after this we’ll have more time in the present where Sal figures out and goes back after Ethan or something. (I’m also going to be really interested as to when and if the holdup turns red for Sal.)
Whoa! We got a red flash back
That panel’s actually a flashback in a flashback!
obviously the nachitos board reminds her of her brother and her destroying it is symbolic of her resentment of him
i mean cmon… do you even read the comic
also X-TREEM MUG origin REVEALED
X-TREEM MUG SHOT
My thought exactly.
The circle closes
Also the cathartic joy of knocking over a display of your asshole sibling’s favorite snack
Somewhere, Walky feels a great disturbance in the force.
The orange fingers are strong with this one.
Nobody Move Nobody Get Hurt
Nobody Move Nobody Get Hurt
Nobody Move Nobody Get Hurt…
Maybe the most recent cut I’ve used so far? I’m so square.
It’s hip to be square, or so Huey Lewis says.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWOFtixfies
Everybody Hold Still
Nobody Gets Hurt
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qk5vK34rQk8
I was thinking Transplants – Tall Cans in The Air https://youtu.be/Ht1BrQIWBxA
But that’s “Nobody miss, nobody get hurt”
You may have heard this song in the film. Bulletproof Monk if you heard it anywhere.
Red panel is “the incident” and I’m putting my money with the rest of the commenters that the Boy with the bright Future Leland was involved
Yeah, people keep saying ‘Marcie’s accident’ but there’s no chance it was an accident.
Seemed to me people kept assuming fight, but this looks more like skateboard accident. Or, “accident”.
A skateboard intentional
Man babysitting really makes me dislike the word accident. Its used for everything,
I honestly couldn’t have forseen seen anything going wrong.
I know you told me not to do that thing five times but I didn’t actually want anything to go wrong so don’t make me give up my toy just because I broke my brothers.
I totally meant to hurt my brother but not that much.
I totally meant to do the thing but don’t want to be punished for it.
What is she remembering in the red panel?
Marcie’s accident that left her mute…
Marcie’s accident. Her skateboard is behind her.
I was wondering what that was – for some reason, my brain keeps parsing the skateboard as a pigeon wearing glasses.
oh thank god I’m not the only one who saw this strip and went ‘why is there a giant pigeon behind Marcie?’
City Face has a lot to answer for.
It’s now canon that pigeons pecked out Marcie’s vocal cords! Until otherwise shown that can’t be disputed.
You don’t mess with the Goodfeather.
OMG, went back and looked at it again and the pigeon is a million times more funny. Not fitting the drama at all, but…
and it’s the “Godpigeon”, didn’t you watch Animanics?
…I thought that at first as well, wtf
Now I can’t unsee the pigeon in Mr. Peabody glasses, thanks.
But what is that in front of her? It kind of looks like a sweater, but that would be a really awkward angle and it looks like the accident was supposed to happen during the summer. I’m guessing she’s airborne and hit something, and the camera perspective is aiming at the ground? If she’s lying on the ground, that’s a
huge pigeontiny skateboard.Looks like she’s falling forward and hitting her throat on a wooden fence or something.
I didn’t see the skateboard as a pigeon until people mentioned it and now I can’t unsee it.
On first read, I thought that was a sweater she was wearing, now I am not sure what that is supposed to be. Didn’t see the pigeon in glasses until it was mentioned here.
I’m in the same boat–didn’t see it at first, now I cannot unsee it.
And yeah, the perspective is being kinda wonky.
So, is this panel giving us a hint as to why Sal refuses to go skating with Marcie?
That cigarette isn’t even lit. Maybe she forgot, maybe it’s just for looks.
look you don’t smoke inside, that’s just being a jerk
Not now, but back in the 1990s and earlier it was commonplace. When I went to college back in the ’70s a couple of my instructors even permitted us to smoke in their lectures …. we did have to provide our own ashtray/butt receptacles, though.
and my lungs are so glad that’s changed (at least where I live). being able to breathe is nice.
Yeah, I enjoy not exposing my weak, asthmatic respiratory system to secondhand smoke. (I get annoyed and move when people do it near me outdoors.)
By the time I went to college in the 80s “butt receptacles” had been renamed “chairs.”
This is when she was 12-13, that’s like, 2012-13 (2018’s a nice year for figuring out 18 year olds), not the 90s. Also it was still jerky.
Hell, right through most of the Eighties (and certainly in the first half) the staff rooms in our schools just fecking reeked of smoke. The teachers all hated to be interrupted in the staff room on their lunches, so you always knocked on the closed door with great trepidation and only for something serious. And when they answered the door, a great cloud of cigarette smoke would roll out…
Deeply unfortunate for the one poor teacher who didn’t smoke.
Hell, I remember when smoking in restaurants was usual too (and buses), before even smoking sections were a thing. As smoking became less ubiquitous, smokers argued that even shutting smokers away in separate, enclosed smoking areas (let alone forbidding smoking in restaurants entirely!) would cause smokers to abandon restaurants entirely, because they just could not possibly finish a meal without lighting up immediately at the table as a kind of dessert. Restaurants would go under, they argued, if they banned smokers.
Of course that didn’t happen, since they weren’t banning smokers, but rather smoking; and those of us who don’t smoke and prefer to eat our meals unflavoured by nicotine are forever grateful. As are, no doubt, the non-smoking teachers.
I can usually separate thoughtful libertarians from clueless glibertarians by asking how they feel about restrictions on public smoking. The Glibs always insist that this is a huge imposition on their liberty. Thoughtful Lib-ts usually comprehend that no, I should NOT have to choose between changing location or breathing your waste products, any more than you should have to choose between eating in a different restaurant or having me poop my meal down your throat.
This kind of thing can easily be extended to basic environmental regulation: Can I pour waste into the stream on my property that runs into yours?
I remember the byproduct of banning smoking in commercial spaces was that all the bars suddenly started smelling like spilled alcohol, instead of cigarette smoke. Not entirely sure that was an improvement.
When I went to university in the Dominican Republic in 2001 we could smoke in the classrooms as long as we had a seat next to the window and blew the smoke outside.
…. while I don’t disagree, this is in the context of someone performing an armed robbery. I think jerkiness is on the menu here.
Well she just wants the money, not to hurt anyone.
It’s a metaphor. You put the killing thing between your teeth but you don’t give it the power to kill you
It’s interesting. It was lit in Amber’s flashback. Granted, Sal looked more angry than teary there too.
That, I think, is where there’s a degree of perspective and interpretation in the flashbacks. Amber and Sal both remember the same events from the same angling, Amber even remembers Sal’s voice wavered, but I don’t think she really paid that much attention to Sal’s expression whereas Sal is remembering exactly what she felt that day and was probably too caught up in nerves to pay much attention to the hostage and bystander. (Looking at it from this establishing shot, Ethan and Amber weren’t even in Sal’s field of vision before she started.)
Alternately, I’m not sure we got the wavery multiple eyeshines until after that arc, so it could be artstyle drift.
These are all very good points.
The lit cigarette I can’t explain, but my guess is Amber remembers it wrong because again, who smokes inside but in public? She had a cigarette in her mouth, it must have been lit, why else would it be there, with Amber’s trauma rewriting a little to make Sal scarier and more of a rule breaker.
Sal’s face is definitely different too. Compare Sal’s memory face in this flashback which looks panicky and desperate and sad to Amber’s memory of Sal’s face in this flashback, which just looks angry.
Nice touch.
I think it’s just the colors. Red hues feel angrier than blue ones.
There’s a couple differences in eyebrow placement – subtle but significant.
Yeah, I’m standing by ‘Amber is filtering things through her terror where the actual details of Sal were less important than the overall image, while Sal remembers being scared more than anything else.’ Wondering how the Ethan and Amber stuff that’ll almost certainly be reused tomorrow will differ – Things are just different enough overall I’m pretty sure the panels were redrawn rather than plunked in and quickly edited. (Probably at least in part because it’s been so long since most of them.) I’m hoping we see what her line of vision for this was like, and if she really didn’t get a clear look at Amber.
I’m not sure it is lit there. Just stands out differently in the red panel against her hair. No smoke from it in any of those shots.
The end of the cigarette looks lit.
It does, but I think that might just be the way it contrasts with the red flashback versus the blue.
Not something I’d want to hang elaborate theories off of. It’s not clear enough to me that it’s lit in the earlier scene to say “Amber is remembering it lit and Sal unlit” rather than it just being a not quite clear artistic detail.
I guess I figure it’s lit because it’s the same way present Sal’s cigarettes look when they’re lit.
It was lit the last time we saw this scene: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-4/01-the-only-dope-for-me-is-you/same/
On note of this strip, it’s interesting to see what Ethan was talking about.
there is an x-treem mug joke, a flashback, and a red panel in the same strip
I can’t even
Oh hey, there’s Amber and Ethan in panel 1.
It makes me kind of sad, really. From now on, Ambers psyche will deteriorate. And her last relatively sane moment was being afraid of buying a candy bar.
Sane? She never had a sane moment. Her dad was always abusive. So much of her reaction to this incident has to do with the way her dad reacted to her fear afterwards, too.
As someone with complex PTSD and DID myself, I can point this incident out as a trigger for her DID to become more pronounced maybe, but not like… “The cause”.
And her psyche isn’t “deteriorating”. It’s changed, yes, but it’s not… “Wrong”, not any more than it was before this. Hating herself? Alienating people? She’s always done that.
Sorry for the rant it’s just sometimes y’all (the comment section here in general) write things that are really problematic if you want to be an ally to those who have mental illnesses.
Amber was definitely struggling with anxiety before this. Not sure if it would have developed naturally in early childhood had Blaine dropped dead* a month or two before she was born (my guess is yes, but I mean, literally no way to tell.) I’m not sure the degree to which she hated herself before this incident, though, and even then she only got fully on the path of ‘Amber is a monster and AG is good and pure and protects us from Amber’ after Family Weekend and the Blaine beat down. At least as far as we can tell.
She’s definitely getting more pronounced and separate, and them not sharing memories is a Bad Sign (made all the worse when the memories not being shared are things like ‘committed academic fraud!’ and ‘new boyfriend who’s Sal’s twin!’ on one side and ‘running around in extremely dangerous situations!’ on the other. And we don’t know for sure if AG stopped sharing memories before or after the Gashface stabbing.)
There was probably a period in infancy before her brain had been shaped by abuse, but yeah, effectively her entire life has been a traumatic situation and Blaine was the real catalyst for her dissociation.
I do think it’s safe to say Amber is coping with things way worse since the comic started than she did at the beginning, but vigilante crime-fighting has never been a good coping mechanism and her exposure to traumatic and triggering situations has gotten exponentially higher in that time as well. (Playing video games and not leaving your room isn’t a particularly GOOD strategy, but at least it isn’t a panic attack or stalking someone.)
* As always, my desire for Blaine to have dropped dead at this time involves something that relies on his mob ties, which in this case ensures Stacey find out he was a mob stooge and probably cheating on her then. (Do we know that or have any real reason to believe that? No. But it’s Blaine we’re talking about here and he deserves no trust that he would respect a monogamous relationship for any length of time whatsoever.) End result, Amber wouldn’t grow up wondering if things would be easier or better with her dead father so a better chance at her being non-anxious if that were ever in the cards.
Thus relatively sane. This is related to her ptsd. And since we both have ptsd, I think we can agree that it makes life a lot harder and does a lot of damage to the mind. I don’t know much about did, I don’t think I’m qualified to say whether this contributed to her deterioration.
And yes, deteriorating. Her mind is getting worse. The whole comic so far happened within a few weeks, so things are getting worse fast.
You say it’s getting worse because you see more pronounced DID as worse but that’s not how it works. Fun fact, my DID got more pronounced because I’m finally ready to face everything I’ve had to suppress. I’m safer and I’m no longer experiencing my ongoing trauma. So the dissociation now has a different purpose. This (along with “new big event oh no”) is very common in DID.
And it sure looks like I’m getting worse. Because I’m suddenly aware of my dissociation. And that’s really hard to deal with. It affects my short-term memory and a lot of cognitive functioning and emotional regulation skills. But with the right support, as time passes, there’s more communication between my alters and me. More flashbacks, yes, more dissociative symptoms. But that’s because we’re processing our trauma and trying to still live day-to-day in the present.
And we’re uncovering things. We’re doing our best to process and put it behind us. It’s only been a few months but we’re making progress and it’s noticable. I’m getting better. Not deteriorating.
So her mind is not deteriorating. Her mind is trying to heal. She just needs a safe, supportive environment.
Don’t go saying DID is deterioration when you don’t know what DID is like.e
I don’t know what DID is like either, but that doesn’t sound like the direction Amber/AG are going in. They’re becoming more distinct and communicating less. At first they shared memories and even thoughts, switching back and forth pretty easily, not even needing to talk directly to each other. Eventually they got more antagonistic, but were still sharing and communicating, talking and arguing with each at this stage. Now they’re not sharing memories and Amber at least is trying to shut Amazi-Girl down and not let her out at all.
This doesn’t seem like healing to me.
She definitely does need a safe, supportive environment. Sadly she doesn’t have one. Worse, she doesn’t think she deserves one.
Like I said her mind is trying to heal… She needs a supportive environment which unfortunately she does not have.
Still this is not “mind deteriorating” even if it is worrying.
on that note, I’m actually mildly concerned at my *lack* of reaction to the last few strips. maybe it’s just the sleep deprivation, maybe my brain is just full right now… but I should probably set aside some time for checking on that.
but like thejeff said, Amber is going in the less-communication direction right now, which is concerning. your post was still good at explaining useful information, though
I dunno, Alanari, that’s pretty pessimistic, and Amber is pretty tough. I think, whether she has irreversibly developed DID or not, she has the potential to heal and lead an emotionally healthy life with a lot of happiness in it.
There’s a difference between being strong and being tough. Amber is really tough but doesn’t have much strength. Sadly, when dealing with ptsd, toughness often works against you. You can’t just power though it with sheer willpower, it’ll just get worse until you can’t bear it anymore. You have to deal with it. And to do that, you need the strength to admit your own helplessness. Amber currently does not possess it.
I read that as “last relatively sane moment” from flashback time to comic present, not a prediction that she’d never recover.
Though it’s also worth remembering that PTSD and disassociation aside, Amber had gotten a lot more functional between the flashbacks and the start of the comic. The debilitating social issues were at least being managed – probably helped greatly by Blaine being out of the picture.
Hm I don’t know actually. This ag-thing got worse, her reaction when meeting Sal hasn’t improved a bit and she still has anger management issues and a tendency to lock herself up.
I did mean “until comic present”, yes, but I have to admit, I have little hope for her in the foreseeable future. She’s nowhere near admitting that she needs help, and even if she does, stabilising a ptsd patient usually takes years without any guarantees for success. Not taking into account the ag thing that needs to be dealt with.
And there is the grades thing and the usb stick faz stole. Both have the potential to really screw her over. She most likely is still wanted for beating up her father, and I doubt he’d hesitate to call the police if the stick contains a hint to her identity as ag.
She’s definitely gotten worse from the start of the comic to the present, but compare the flashback Amber we’ve seen to the Amber at the start of the comic. She got a lot better, no longer cringing away in corners, hiding and unable to even buy a Twinkie.
The stresses of running into Sal again, the confrontation with Blaine and the general bad idea of crime-fighting have being doing more damage.
I wonder if there’s something about Ethan that sets her off. A need to go for someone to vent her anger against.
All those joke comments years ago about this being just a Tuesday for Sal have now been proven incorrect.
Gonna sound like a jerk here….. but the story actually makes me feel less sympathetic for Sal. Don’t get me wrong, her Mother is one of the worst and I did feel bad she tried a fundraiser and tried to do things the right way and failed.
That being said… after having that money taken from her, she should know how crappy it is when someone takes something that doesn’t belong to you and how crappy of a person you are for trying to do what her mother basically did to her. I know she was probably desperate, angry and all, but in the end, she made a choice. There was no gun to her head, no one forced her to be a look out for the previous robbery, nor did anyone force her to do what she is doing now, and the consequences of her choice are her fault and hers alone.
Again, her situations sucks more than most people her age should have to endure, but I still feel little sympathy for what is coming….
you’re right, you do sound like a jerk there.
she wasn’t *forced* into it, but she was still in a shitty situation, and she was only 12-13. I can have sympathy for her and think it was a bad decision at the same time. and also be impressed that she didn’t just give up on marcie like her mother wanted.
That’s pretty sad, that that’s what you took away from this story of a desperate child so wracked with guilt that, after having basically her entire support structure turn against her, turns to trying to help her best friend in the only way she can think of.
yea you do
gas station employees aren’t responsible for protecting that money. Their situation in a stickup is not really comparable. And in any case, way to hold her to unreasonable standards- she’s some ind of infant. if highschool kids can apply basic empathy to their immediate friends and family, they are doing Well.
Sending her to boarding school is not an unreasonable response to this incident, but it does compound the parental neglect that majorly contributed, and pretending like Sal is an adult when she is not and is not permitted to be self-reliant or self-determining, that’s bull.
Really?
A mom taking something from a daughter is stealing, but it’s also bullying, and, for no purpose that Sal can understand. (We don’t even know whether Linda really plans to return the money.)
Linda is a powerful adult. Sal isn’t.
Linda has completely shown Sal that her previous attempts to do things lawfully were worthless, that going through proper methods will not work at all.
Vs., a desperate kid holding up a convenience store, in order to help a friend, who is unjustly in hospital debt and faces a dire lifelong disability if Sal doesn’t quickly find a way to help.
Sure, Sal and Linda were both stealing, but it’s just not the same at all.
Yeah. Stealing money from an injured kid’s medical fund is worse than stealing from a convenience store, IMO. But stealing from the convenience store is more likely to have legal or physical results (like getting arrested or stabbed), which makes it a much worse idea.
Consequences that a 13 year old wouldn’t even be thinking about. Plus Sal is desperate for money to pay for Marcie’s operation.
I don’t know what thirteen year olds you know, but all the ones I’ve met know that they could get arrested for committing crimes (although most are old enough to know about juvie and that 13 year olds aren’t gonna get thrown in real jail*).
*most of these kids are cishet/white so they also have no reason to believe cops will murder them
**quite young kids often think that they’ll really go to jail if they do something bad
Kids seem to usually fall under two categories: 1: They think even the slightest thing can get them in trouble. 2: They think they’re invincible and that nothing can ever happen to them so screw consequences.
I’m gonna say I agree with you that Sal is responsible for this. It’s a choice she made, you can see it in the first panel. She knows this is wrong, but the rational’s completely different. She’s stealing out of desperation, not to teach some warped lesson about making the right friends. I’d actually go so far as to say Sal’s not really thinking at all and the real question is what lead to her believing armed robbery was her only option.
Wait, you were more sympathetic when the robbery had only been discussed in terms of acting out against Sal’s parents, and we didn’t know it had an altruistic aspect? Weird.
I don’t really get the comparison you’re making here. The gas store employee doesn’t actually *own* the money, so it’s highly unlikely he’s going to be upset that it was taken from him. What he might be upset by is her attempt to intimidate him, but there’s not going to be a comparable sense of “taking what belongs to someone else.” Even on a large, corporation scale, this is more like someone stealing the loose change in your pocket when you have a couple thousand dollars in your wallet.
Also, it’s been implied before that this wasn’t an immediate jump from “Mom took the money last night, so tonight I’m robbing a store.”
Of course Linda should have taught Sal better. She could have taught her “stealing is bad because it makes people feel bad”, but instead she went for the “being a bigger jerk and having more muscles than the other person is how you get what you want no matter what they want and you don’t have to answer for it” lesson. Such a tragic and unpredictable accident that’s in no way Linda’s fault.
That sarcasm at the end wasn’t directed at you, poster. I lost track of what I was talking about thinking about Linda.
You’re right. You sound like a jerk
I don’t think thinking Sal is justified here in any way is a good thing. Marcie would be horrified at what Sal did, it destroys Amber’s life, and Ethan is almost killed as well (because robberies often go wrong when employing weapons).
Blaming Sal for what happened to Amber is sort of like blaming a papercut for an infection from handling sewage.
There’s a big difference between being sympathetic towards Sal (the desperate middle-school abuse victim making bad decisions) and thinking she’s justified.
As well as: There’s a big difference between ‘blaming Linda’ (in a way that would absolve Sal) and acknowledging that Linda was the adult in her life who actively contributed to her dealing with her trauma in such a destructive manner.
For me, it’s the same way I feel about Amber stabbing Sal.
Both Amber and Sal made their own choices that hurt someone else, but their actions are both heavily influenced by abusive parents and other trauma (Amber and the robbery, Sal and Marcie’s accident). While that can’t justify their actions, legally or morally, the explanation leaves me sympathetic enough that I’m more sad about it than angry with them and absolutely furious with the shit adults in their lives.
Think ‘Oh, honey, no, this is not what you want to be doing’ vs ‘what the fuck is wrong with you’.
Absolutely. Amber stabbing Sal was her bad move, but it’s understandable (in that ‘I genuinely don’t think Amber was really thinking at all, just moving on trauma-induced impulse’ way) because, well, Amber has just been through a traumatic event and was being goaded by her abuser who she had been forced to spend much of her day in an enclosed space with.
Sal robbing the convenience store and taking a hostage are also bad moves, but understandable (in that ‘oh honey you genuinely don’t think there’s a single other option for you’ way) in that Sal’s consumed with guilt, anger at her abuser for violating her privacy and denying her agency, and desperation.
Everything involved is a terrible idea, but at the same time Sal would never have robbed anything if her parents had told her it’s not her fault, helped her fundraise when they saw how important it was to her, and assured her that even if Marcie never talked again, there are plenty of ways to communicate and they’ll still be friends and what Sal’s doing is helping a lot. Supporting Sal’s friendship with Marcie could have meant they were hanging out at Sal’s home more often, so Sal wouldn’t have to get into as many fights with assholes. And maybe if they weren’t hanging out by that convenience store as often they wouldn’t know Asher, who Sal doesn’t actually seem to like.
Similarly, Amber would never have stabbed someone if Blaine hadn’t derided her freeze response, the last in an incredibly long chain of abusing her, and would probably have much healthier ways to deal with her anger in general if the only things she was ever shown weren’t ‘abuse’ and ‘self-defense classes because Blaine vetoed therapy’. (Which I’ll note is still one of the WORST decisions made in this comic, ever, particularly as at least Stacey and possibly someone in law enforcement agreed to it. And it’s up against Sal trying to rob a convenience store alone with no plan or getaway and a knife she barely knows how to use. I’m not expecting a 13-year-old to make good life choices!)
Finally got to reading all of these responses and I gotta say, never more proud to be a jerk. But it doesn’t mean I am wrong. (also, kind of surprised that some people aren’t against me on this)
And here it is. The same shit that fueled Sal years ago. She had something to prove, and in the process someone got hurt.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/prove/
Let’s also imagine a lovely comic in which Linda Walkerton appreciated her daughter’s loyalty, generosity, and grit to help her friend.
She could’ve admired Sal’s good character and resolve, even if she felt she had to explain to Sal that she might be unable to succeed. She could help her process her rage and grief. She might have been able to help Sal raise money (even if it didn’t end up being enough for the whole operation, it sure would’ve helped).
What a wonderful opportunity it would have been.
GOOD JOB LINDA, you’re clearly living your best life.
You can shit on Linda for being a bad mom, but you have to give credit to Sal here too. This is 100% Sal’s decision despite all the circumstances that created it. Even without a supporting parent to help her, she should know not to do this. It’s kind of sad actually. A lot of people were saying this might have been inevitable even if Sal had the 700$.
It’s Amber’s decision to stab Sal later too, but we can still be sympathetic to her and angry with Blaine for the emotional abuse that led to it.
Sure, Sal could’ve given up on helping Marcie. She didn’t, though.
I really can’t blame Sal for still wanting to help, and for now seeing no positive options.
Had Linda listened to Sal, and appreciated Sal’s positive qualities, Sal might have expressed that she wanted to steal the money, which would let her mom try and explain why it was a generous cause but a terrible idea.
And, if they were trying to raise money together, Sal could’ve had hope and support, she might not have resorted to this very impulsive and ill-conceived attempt at theft.
There are a lot of other potential options, though. Like mowing babysitting and mowing lawns for neighbors. It would be slow, but a lot less dangerous, and her parents might even think she was being a responsible person and treat her positively as a result.
Sure, okay. Say she takes up mowing lawns on the weekend. The going rate for that is what, $20 a lawn? Say she does…hm, let’s say 5 a weekend. She’s got what, $6500 to make? I could be wrong but I think that’s the number. That’s 325 lawns. 65 weeks. And by that time, her mother’s noticed she’s collecting the money and saving it again and puts two and two together and confiscates it again.
But much less chance of being shot by the police.
Plus, you don’t seriously think Linda wouldn’t notice and also confiscate a mysterious pile of $10,000 that suddenly appeared in Sal’s room?
Much easier to stop off at Marcie’s on the way home and go “here is all this money, don’t worry how I got it” except Sal almost definitely hasn’t thought that far out anyway. This is a last ditch desperation move.
Add a 0 to that, IIRC. $65,000.
That’s a lot of lawn mowing.
Robberies don’t usually end up providing thousands of dollars to the people involved. That’s why most crooks are poor. Also, you know, there’s the fact people get caught and spend years in jail.
It’s a stupid stupid plan that gets people hurt.
I don’t think anyone has said it was a smart, rational plan. But from a desperate 13-year olds point of view, the first robbery got the whole group “thousands”. There’s nothing else she can do that can get her that money in any timeframe that makes sense to a kid.
And then Linda would just take that money away, too.
Sal saw no other choice. Now with those awful parents of hers.
Because Linda wouldn’t take away the conspicuous massive roll of 10,000 dollars?
Why not? She took away $700. Why on earth would she let Sal get MORE money for Marcie’s surgery?
Oh, I see! You’re referring to the money she wanted from the robbery.
I imagine the plan was to give that to Marcie’s family first (which would’ve been a TERRIBLE IDEA for so many reasons but regardless, Linda wouldn’t have had the chance to take it).
I think Sal knows better than to hide any more money in her parents’ house
Yeah but it’s implied time is a factor. I don’t know if it’s been outright stated but for instance present Sal has a motorbike. I don’t know where she got the money for that as I doubt her parents gifted it to her but if she had that kinda cash and surgery was still an option for Marcie she’d be talking right now. So Sal was desperate for quick cash. Inevitable.
Most likely options:
1) There was no surgery. Even if they could afford it, Marcie’s specific condition is inoperable. Marcie hasn’t had the words, spoons, or lack of interruption to tell Sal the fundraising was for her existing medical bills. The only indication one exists was Charles’s offhand comment and Sal clinging to that slim hope.
2) After this, Marcie flat tells Sal she’s already losing her so don’t make things worse, she’d rather have her best friend than a slim chance of talking again.
3) If surgery were an option, the fact that Marcie was probably prepubescent or just on the edge complicates things somehow. Far as I could tell most of the similar things were more likely with older people, and it may be that a thirteen-year-old is particularly tricky.
There may not be a surgery, but I think Marcie’s family still has outstanding medical bills for her.
Yeah, which is why I suspect some conversation like 2 happened regardless. But if she doesn’t need to raise $money before X date so Marcie can ever speak again, things get a bit less pressing? The bills will probably still not be paid off in full by present strip time, or maybe ever, but at least there’ll be options beyond ‘full thrust because Marcie needs money NOWNOWNOW.’
And the $2k for the ambulance.
Er… where do you think she got the first $700? I’m pretty sure being responsible and saving money was what she was already doing and the failure of that was why she decided she’d just give up and be a criminal.
But yeah, with a supportive mom, she might have had the chance to raise the money. Or enough to make a difference, if not all of it. Or just had the support to help her cope with not being able to fix everything.
It’s not just that Linda took the $700, it’s everything Linda’s been doing. For years.
13 year olds make bad life choices. It’s up to their parents to be supportive anf guide them in making the best ones possible. If Linda had been in Sal’s corner and helped her raise money for her Gofundme, likely she never would have gotten to this point. This isn’t motivated solely by need for money, there’s also an aspect of desperation since Sal thinks she has no other options left.
And, I think, more than a little bit of a desire to push back at her parents right now.
Probably that too
I mean…we can also hope Blaine wasn’t such an abusive shit heel that his actions helped fracture his daughters mind, or like Clint wasn’t so controlling his granddaughter had to cope with suicidal, catatonic depression and alcoholism, or Ross…..nothing really to say there just Ross in general. But that’s not the world they live in and these tragic characters have to come to terms with that baggage and the choices they make bacause of it. To Sal’s credit she’s handling it better than most. She’s seems pretty well adjusted aside from the whole banging your T.A. for grades fiasco.
Okay but I’m saying Sal needs and deserves sympathy and guidance, not “you should’ve known better”
Oh! Well they all deserve that! Basically every member of the main cast is fucked up and some kind of certifiable. It’s like My Little Pony FiM except not like that at all because in that cartoon good things happen. Except Danny! That guy’s got it all figured out.
Danny clearly had his self-worth eroded by his parents (who made basically the same comments towards Danny the commentariat made, but in-universe and as his parents and therefore causing him to be Early Strip Danny.) He’s doing way better now but I’m betting it’s not all settled forever.)
But yes, the entire main cast is really overdue for therapy (even Dina, who has to deal with the ‘everyone treats me different, I am aware I am treated and act differently, why are my differences unacceptable to so many people when similar ones are not?’ that is ableist society. Carla’s pretty well-adjusted all things considered, but then I suspect her parents found a really good therapist to let them jump through the hoops to get Carla what she needed and that Carla’s knowledge she’s basically alone against the world was recognized, so she has periodic appointments.)
We all know this is only half about the money. Sal is angry and powerless. Everything she does here is futile, and she probably knows it. I mean, taking hostages, really.
@Kris: Because the important thing to emphasize here is that the middle school abuse victims really have to bear the responsibility for their actions.
Well, at least Linda is raising the golden boy Walky free from any personal flaws.
… I start to think Linda and Charles are kinda shit at raising children.
Yeah uhhhh…thirteen year old Sal? You’re making bad choices.
Have you met many thirteen-year-olds? They’re not exactly famous for their wise long-term planning.
God yes. People were talking in yesterday’s strip about how the rest of the robbers probably got caught on camera without masks (and only Asher making any attempt to hide his face that we saw). The SUCCESSFUL one was full of dumbassery because it was run by teens. Sal is doing this while her brain’s* been completely overridden by stress, anxiety, and guilt. Literally EVERY PART OF THIS PLAN is terrible – I’m not even sure she knows how to use that knife or if they didn’t just give it to her because whatever. (Was it before the robbery or after? Dunno! Wasn’t clear yesterday!)
* And that’s taking into account the part where teen brains are still growing and not fully functional yet. Particularly the prefrontal cortex, which is pretty important in considering consequences.
You may notice people often make bad decisions right after red panels! They represent psychological trauma that prevents people from making the most rational possible choices.
Also this. Rational responses and trauma are pretty much counter-indicated.
She’s desperate and scared for Marcie, and the people who SHOULD have been helping her handle those feelings instead opted for emotional abuse and to sabotage her legal attempts to help. She’s had no adults to turn to for guidance or support since then
First red panel from Sal.
Go figure it’s not for something that happened to Sal herself, but Marcie’s accident.
I know they’re having problems right now, and I know that they are Sal’s fault but goddamn if Sal doesn’t love Marcie.
Too bad she doesn’t love Marcie enough to prevent her from sharing panel time with Malaya.
Not sure what she’s supposed to do. Trying to prevent Marcie from spending time with Malaya would be pretty dickish. Even when she was fully on the jealousy train* she was mostly hanging back and pouting about it before she tried (very very badly and half heartedly) to make friends with Malaya.
* = She’s still jealous, just willing to tolerate it now since Marcie wants to bang Malaya.
Besides, Sal trying to force Marcie to choose between her or Malaya or anything remotely like that would be the exact same shit Linda pulled on her. Sal knows how that goes (they side with the person who DOESN’T give the ultimatum,) and she very much does not want to be her mother.
It was a joke actually. Based on this strip
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/fuck/
Sal can’t offer the one thing Marcie’s interested in getting from Malaya. Haha!
Ahhh, I see. My bad for not getting the joke!
And this is where Sal continued the hate chain, and now Amber is continuing the hate chain as a crazy vigilante, and soon she will hurt an innocent bystander that will continue the hate chain unless they decide to stop it. I wouldn’t be surprised if Joyce gets in the crossfire of all this acts of revenge and unhealthy rebellious acts.
We are like this because the ones before use fucked up, and we are fucking up.
You’d almost think that Willis grew up in a family that believed in original sin.
Also, when we last saw this scene
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-4/01-the-only-dope-for-me-is-you/same/
I remembered this and thought from amber’s point of view shes some crazy girl with a knife but in Sal’s mind she is really nervous about this but trying to be determined to get that money, but really unsure of herself.
https://imgur.com/a/tUnbIF4
Like the Nier Automata change of perspective that makes you look at the point of view of the “villains”. That was messed up.
Hey, nice catch.
She definitely looks less angry and more scared/nervous in Sal’s memory of this event.
But Ethan read her correctly anyway.
It’s all in the eyes. One looks like a stone cold killer and the other looks like a scared kid. Awesome work DYW.
. . . . So this may be a strange question but the hell happened to Marcy? Apparently there was some kind of accident that caused her to completely lose her voice but WHAT HAPPENED? I see a slate board, did it snap in half and slam into her voice box?
I’m kinda hoping that there’ll be a flashback strip with that event at some point.
How much do we know about Marcie’s accident? I thought we didn’t know anything but people on this thread seem to know things
We don’t know specifics. All we know is 1) Throat injury and 2) Sal blames herself for fighting.
Apparently, judging by today, skateboard.
Yeeep. Wonder if this has something to do with why Sal doesn’t like to skate anymore?
For a second I thought it was Amber in panel three, and I was trying to figure out exactly why she was interrupting Sal’s flashback.
Then I remembered Marcie wears glasses too. And that she probably has regular old boring eyelashes underneath her glasses, like most people do.
Yep, it took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out it was Marcie.
Yeah, they look pretty similar before she switched to (presumably some sort of prescription) goggles 24/7.
It’s particularly rough/painfully, painfully ironic because at that closeup it doesn’t look completely dissimilar to Amber’s face… probably tomorrow, but in the parts of her flashback where she’s hiding behind the shelves and screaming. Similar hands in front of their faces, same mouth, similar glasses shapes. (Amber’s weren’t askew, though, and her eyes were open, plus she’s behind the shelves from an angle.)
is she a lefty?.. she is holding the edge of the knife out, and the point down that’s a slashing style. wondering if she actually has some knife fight training. By the way, mr Roofer McRapist was holding his knife wrong when Amber unarmed him and kniffed him down (holding it right). Maybe i’m seeing to much in a drawing…
Sal is indeed a southpaw.
I think both times it’s also indicating that the person holding the knife has no idea how to do so. You know what they say about how a weapon you don’t know how to use belongs to your enemy.
I’m having a hard time visually parsing the Marcie panel. At first I thought she was on her back on the ground, but the size/perspective of her skateboard behind her seems to rule that out. And I have no idea what the object behind her hands, overlapping her chin a bit, is supposed to be… although it seems like that particular ambiguity might be intentional.
Yeah, my best guess is that whatever Marcie has, she put in front of her to try and leave something between her and her attacker. (I think it might be wood, or maybe her helmet? If the former, that might make a bit more sense of how she got injured – maybe something broke off?) I think she’s just cornered and whatever’s behind her that the skateboard’s falling towards, she can’t safely hit. (If they were skateboarding, maybe the edge of a half pipe or something? That would not be a pleasant fall.)
I think it’s deliberately so close and hard to parse because we’ll get it again later with context – that’s what happened with Amber terrified at the robbery (expanded several arcs later after that conversation with Danny to this flashback event) and Amber holding the knife (which was just her arm raised so that we had the fakeout believing the knife was aimed at Amber instead of wielded by her – A tiny corner of Sal’s hair was even included in those panels just to mask it so she would be in the tags.) Could be something in that moment we’ll later see is being cropped out by the close focus to preserve a reveal again.
Either way I’m sure we’re not supposed to get the situation from that panel beyond what’s immediately obvious (check the tags and it’s Marcie, context suggests it’s where she got injured.)
I see as a shot from above, with her airborne and the skateboard flying away.
But yeah, I suspect we’ll get a better look at it later and it might well be misleading.
Could be her falling or something, yeah.
The single red panel guarantees to me we’ll actually see it before this arc is over.
(Wait. Shit. Flyin’ To The Red. Yeah that just might be it.)
A fateful encounter.
Mr. Willis you didn’t tag the important character X-TREEM MUG, just a heads up.
Wow, the x-treem mug is bigger now.
flashback in a flashback
Linda is responsible for Amazi-Girl.
(Okay, Blaine was, but Linda didn’t help)
Previous flashbacks had suggested that Sal was far from in control of her actions that night but this is the first time it’s been suggested that she was in the middle of a traumatic flashback at the time and maybe even a psychotic episode.
That’s not how I read it. I think Sal enters the store but then pauses, thinking about how small she is and what might go wrong, trying to big herself up but mostly having doubts about her plan.
Then she thinks about her friend Marcie, remembering or imagining what Marcie has suffered, and thinks “Fuck the bullies of the world. That asshole and my mom are not going to keep Marcie or me from getting her the help she needs and deserves.” And she goes big.
I’m with Ben here. Doesn’t look to me like she entered the store hellbent on robbing it, but something triggered a flashback and she just lost it.
When we saw her before, she already looked stressed out, but this time, she also looks desperate and afraid.
I don’t know about “hellbent”, but that’s definitely why she’s here. Nervous and scared about doing it, trying to psyche herself up for it.
I mean, she was just in another robbery that went nice and smooth. She got the knife from them, saw how much they got and how small her cut was and asked them to drop her off at this store. That’s why she’s here.
I think she planned to rob the place from the start, she just doesn’t have the will to go through with it. She had to think about Marcie to work up the resolve to do it
A flashback inside a flashback! *Deadpool voice* That’s like 16 walls!
This moment was bad enough when I just believed it to be an act born from a neglected teenage girl acting out in defiance of her emotionally neglectful and verbally abusive parents, one last violent scream for attention. Now it hurts all the more knowing that it was all for her best friend.
The fact that friendship is being threatened in the present day makes it worse. What will Sal do if Marcie completely breaks all ties and makes everything that Sal suffered and worked through for nothing?
YOU FLASH BACKED IN A FLASH BACK, WILLIS
ooooooooh but then the last panel is purple thats a neat trick
[Xzibit] Yo, Dawg. We heard you like to flashback, so we put a flashback in your flashback, so you can flashback while you flashback.[/Xzibit)
REALLY though
….. Nope, not even the return of the X-TREEEEEM mug can make this moment lighthearted.
he tried
Sal
That’s a remarkably ill-matching gravatar for that comment
Yeah, I noticed that when I posted. I want to inject some positive energy damnit
I have the same problem with my gravatar
You are two of my favorite people here and I wish to join your club.
Wow! Thank you.
I love how we have three very different kinds of smiles in our gravatars
No, Sal. Dang it. They’re called gas stations, not holdups. Get your terminology straight or don’t rob the place at all.
So you are proposing Sal should start her robbery with shouting:
“This is a gas station!”
(and maybe adding “and has mugs!” – if it works for Galasso’s, it may also work for gas stations).
In response to the Alt Text: Nachitos are Walky’s favourite snack. Ergo, kicking down the snack display is a proxy for kicking Walky in the face, something that Sal is fundamentally too nice to do.
It’s interesting to see how different flashbacks piece together the story of this one night. It’s really cool to go back to this strip:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-4/01-the-only-dope-for-me-is-you/same/
and see how the last two panels are almost identical, but with a subtle difference in Sal’s expression. The change in colour also gives it a different feeling, the red made it scarier, obviously since it was more from Amber’s perspective, and the blue here makes it more sad.
I’m expecting at some point for two sets of red panels to merge into one (Amber stabbing Sal). The penultimate panel is back to the real world with Sal and Amber both on their knees in front of Clark Hall (possibly with others fussing over them). The last panel is Sal and Amber looking at each other.
SAL: “So… It’s you?”
AMBER: “Yes, it’s me.”
Sal?
Do it.
She’s already done it, dude.
Blue, with a tinge of red
*prepares to sacrifice a Walkerton Family Discourse post; consults the winds, puts out the entrails, draws the Seal in blood*
The thing people are seeing in the Walkertons that makes them different from previous abusers is that they, unlike most of the comic’s abusers, see Sal as a person.
It’s more, and different, from, say, Ross, who sees his daughter as his property and part of a dowry owed to God; different too from Blaine and Clint, who see Amber and Ruth as investments which don’t pay off—the difference in their attitude is just their portfolio. The Walkertons don’t deny Sal’s humanity, and I’m sure they’d be horrified at the actions of the above three. “How awful,” Linda would think, “to treat your own flesh and blood like that!!”
Yet this doesn’t make them any less abusers, and it almost makes their actions worse. They would never admit to racism—(how dare you, how could they be?! They’re a multi-racial couple for God’s sake!)—and yet implicitly they have a Kind of biracial child they want Sal *not* to be. She can’t be one of Those. She’s the good child of good, white-passing parents, not a thug or a gangster!
Which is why it’s so important she doesn’t hang out with an Undocumented. With a person who is criminal by nature, who will lead their good white-passing child into vice and sin and Thuggery. The parents don’t even speak English as they won’t look you in the eye.
That’s the thing, isn’t it? When Clint or Blaine abuse, they might get caught, they abuse involves their own. When Ross pops off he has his church behind him, but no one else.
When the Walkertons abuse, they have America and white supremacy backing them up all the way.
I’m not sure they see Sal as a person anymore than Ross did with Becky. It’s just that the Walkertons’ reasons for being controlling and harsh are secular instead of religious.
Becky was seen as a person (or at least could be rewarded with her dad’s approval, for how little that was worth) only as long as she followed the narrow path laid out for her. With Sal, the enforcement may not come at the point of an actual gun, but it’s not clear that her parents would ever actually treat her like a person even if she did everything they ever wanted and never got in trouble or screwed up.
They don’t want her to be friends with Marcie because her race and/or status makes them uncomfortable, and thus Sal’s interest in her is seen as yet another way she causes them trouble. She’s not the perfect, compliant child they see Walky as, so she’s already going to be blamed for anything she does that bothers them at all.
Also, another point – Billie’s already noted that she’s the ‘reasonably white passing daughter someone else’s mom really wanted’. Walky and Billie both ‘pass’ in ways Sal can’t (which, thus far, seems to be ‘won’t go along with anyone else’s bullshit injustice’ which gets read as ‘angry’, ‘loud’, and ‘disruptive’ – both traits a lot of racists will push on black kids) or cause her a lot of insecurity (like her hair)
I think you have Walky down pretty well, but I think some of Sal’s awesomeness is also in Billie. The difference if Billie had rich friends, girly interests, and could physically pass for white better. Also Billie wasn’t actually Linda’s daughter so Linda could take credit for everything good about Billie and blame Billie’s neglectful mother for her screwups.
Oh, definitely, but Linda doesn’t have to deal with the messy bits and it sounds like a lot of Billie’s ‘angry at injustice’ help was kept quiet because of secrecy issues or were otherwise roundly commendable (scoping parties for roofies, sneaking friends into abortion clinics, taking down abusive boyfriends, etc.) Billie also lacked stereotypical ‘bad kid’ marks like smoking and sneaking in late (which ties into your point about how Linda didn’t live with Billie and have to deal with it even if Billie ever DID sneak in late).
I suspect Billie, drunken partying cheerleader Billie, was sneaking in late all the time.
Except it wasn’t really sneaking, because her parents weren’t there or weren’t paying attention anyway.
And, as you well know, Linda’s opinions were firmly set long before Sal started smoking or sneaking in late.
Of course they were, but Linda seems like the kind to point at the smoking as evidence that her daughter was a hooligan, despite her best, most loving efforts. *eyeroll*
And yeah, Billie doesn’t really need to sneak in, though even if she did, Linda’s not the one who has to deal with that.
I think Charles might see Sal and Walky as people, but I’m pretty confident Linda’s abuse is the brand where ‘wanting what’s best’ for her child means in practical terms that said child must fit into the very narrow hole of what the parent can perceive for them as successful. Linda wants child-shaped accessories whose successes she enjoys vicariously as they reflect well on her, and gets angry when they turn out to be actual people with their own thoughts and desires.
I’d believe a whole lot more that Linda saw Sal as a person if we didn’t already have indication she doesn’t do so for Walky, and he’s the Good One. (‘I thought he was a telecommunications major?’ ‘That’s what he thinks right now, too.’)
Hm, yeah, I think you might be more on point—I wouldn’t say “accessories” so much as like…”pets, but with a human form and they can talk.” Linda is absolutely the White Mom Living Vicariously Through Her Kids in the woooorst possible toxic way, though!
Buuuut I do think it’s important to examine and to note of Linda—and Charles, too, trash dad that he definitely is—that they’re not the ones who “decided” that Sal’s hair looks worse when it’s not combed straight, that they’re down on Sal’s angry loudness probably because one or both of them knew some Angry Loud People of Color, and those people suffered for that trait, and this was internalized in their dialogue on race as “well, that won’t be our children, they’ll be raised right”—buying into the American bullshit myth of meritocracy. They’re not even the ones who decided Marcie is a toxic influence; and their judgment here doesn’t come from warped faith they bought into, it’s what *America* teaches everyone, or tries to. It’s from the background radiation of White American Supremacy.
Note that this does *not* excuse Linda’s abusive shit and she’s still a monster—getting your ideas from mainstream society doesn’t mean you don’t have a choice to try and be better that she’s totally blowing.
It just strikes me that Linda is someone any well-meaning American could become if they’re not careful.
The event that led to Amazi-Girl’s creation.
…Hey, does that mean Sal is AG’s mother?
Red panel.
On patreon there was some speculation that someone skateboarded over Marcie’s throat, but it didn’t work with her hand placement.
It DOES kind of look like a skateboard to me, though, so now I’m wondering if, while Marcie and Sal were skating, someone Sal got into a fight with (Leland maybe?) knocked Marcie off her board and she fell forward into Sal’s and hit her throat.
I dunno, maybe I’m seeing things. I just want an explanation dammit!
Also, speaking of explanations – Willis, you have a singular talent for showing me things I wanted to know and making me regret ever wanting to know. Speaking as a writer, kudos.
oh Sal
The skateboard behind/under Marcie looks far away… is she falling toward it?