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Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg @theradr.bsky.social ⋅ 20d
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(he/him)
⚧
New game! BOLTED 
key fop
Key flop.
“I don’t want FOP–damn it! I’m a DAPPER DAN man!”
(FOOTNOTE: Seven years ago in Shortpacked! was the deservedly apt THE LIE WE TELL OURSELVES strip, also featuring Amber and Mike.)
And that episode seems even more relevant today than it was seven years ago.
Which was the apotheosis of Mike’s Mike-ness: Mike became Mike so that he could perfom that PSA.
LMAOOOO
How very Back to the Future…
God that is the most satisfying KRUMP ever.
Or was it a key flop?
Thanks, dad.
Don’t say he never gave you anything…
Very satisfying, how this works
Oooo. How poetic that Ross scoops up the very hammer that will be his doom and approaches.
Live by the hammer, die by the hammer.
But this isn’t a sword. It isn’t even a bladed weapon. That verse clearly doesn’t apply.
Would you have preferred “Play bongo games, win bongo prizes?”
IF ONLY THERE WAS A BOOK HE LIKED THAT WARNED HIM OF THAT SPECIFIC SCENARIO OR SOMETHING!
Blaine ex machina
I was thinking “anus ex machina.”
Or Deus ex anus.
Ghost in the butt.
That’s not what “ex” means.
But(t) it marks the spot.
Douche ex machina
[CinemaSins ding]
This makes me worried about the security of push to start cars.
The key fob has to be in close range to enable startup, and I believe they shut off if they get out of fob range.
No, they’ll alert you that the key is out of range, but they won’t shut down, for safety reasons.
…now, if you turn it off, it won’t start back up without the key…
This is also the reason that all my cars have had automatic transmission. I know how to drive a stick, but I’m also a cyclist and a realist. I used to travel to other places to take part in organized cycling events, and there was no guarantee that in the case of emergency — I’d get hurt and someone else would have to drive my car to get me home or to a hospital, for example — anyone else would.
If I took someone to the hospital, I don’t think it would have occurred to me to use anyone’s car other than my own (barring the injury happening next to the victim’s car). I doubt I would think it through this far in an emergency, but if I use your car, I have to figure out how to get back to mine in a way that doesn’t involve me stealing your car.
Perhaps we were carpooling in my car to somewhere where I got hurt and so you had to drive?
I agree it wouldn’t make much sense if we both had cars available.
yeah, I had a manual car until last year, and whenever I carpooled (to a hike or whatever), I always felt so much added pressure because if anything happened, no one else could drive the car
You should absolutely worry about the security of keyfobs, one can easily buy a range extender that will allow one to go around opening and driving off in locked cars.
https://www.wired.com/2016/03/study-finds-24-car-models-open-unlocking-ignition-hack/
They’re actually significantly better than keys.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNA5PW3x0d0
I’ve picked car door locks with a paperclip and a small screwdriver when friends have locked themselves out.
Modern keys at least have security chips in them, so even if you just hotwire the ignition switch or use a universal key, the car won’t start. (Unless it’s that 80s/90s GM system that just used a simple resistor as a “security chip”…)
Generally cars with wireless fobs and keyless ignition won’t let you lock the fob inside the car. (I’ve tried, with the second fob out of range.)
*blinks in European*
Your icon is cute
My car knows the difference between the key being inside vs outside. Putting the key on the outside of the windshield allows you to unlock the car, but not start it (yes, I tested it after seeing this strip).
…So that’s why he was having trouble breathing.
when in doubt, use a blaine
This doesn’t seem right, but I don’t know enough about cars to dispute it.
The fob has to be within a few feet of the ignition. It doesn’t technically have to be inside the car.
As long as she can keep him balanced on the hood most of the way to the hospital she should be good.
Nnnnno, cars don’t turn off if you get out of range of the key fob when they’re already on. I’m imagining a key breaking or falling out of the window and the thing just turning off at highway speeds… Not a good idea.
With most cars it DOES have to be inside the car. Drop the fob on the hood and my car will not turn on. It’s pretty sensitive, even a few inches outside the door and the car can tell.
Well, technically, it’s not *on* the hood.
Cars can mostly detect if the fob is inside when you try to lock the door, and will refuse to lock (to prevent people from locking themselves out).
However I have no idea if the sensors for that are symmetric. Would they be able to tell the difference between keys sitting inside on the dashboard, and keys sitting on the windshield? I couldn’t say.
Push to start cars are relatively new, where you don’t need to insert a key to start the car, just push a button so long with the key in range. Reminds me of a teenager who was online bragging about how he got around his parent’s confiscating his keys. They locked it is a small safe, but the safe wasn’t nailed down or anything, so he just put the safe with the key fob inside in the passenger seat and drove off.
Man, this is already way more enjoyable to read without the suspense hanging at the end.
This shit’s why I spoil movies for myself too.
I truly thought I was the only one who spoils movies for that reason!
Yes! If I may ask, are you any flavor of neurodivergent? I’m told that it’s common among autistic people, of which one I is.
I do that, and I’m ADHD! Possibly autistic as well; the more I learn about autism the more I’m like “oh, it me.” But yeah, I love spoilers and intentionally seek them out all the time.
I‘m spoiling books.
And sometimes TV shows (when I think I should see it because… and then find I’m either not into the visual or get too wound up by watching and still want to know how the story plays out).
I spoil things I’m not that into by reading the plot synopses on Wikipedia. They usually read like TL;DR novelizations.
I get that with books sometimes: generally ones where I’m more interested in the basic plot (or maybe the backstory mystery or something) than in the writings or the characters.
Even when I don’t seek them out, I’m not usually bothered by spoilers. Probably comes from a childhood of voracious reading of comics and sf/fantasy often without ever finding more than one book in a series or random newstand comics.
Wait a second. Wasn’t Ross driving that car last time we saw it?
that was before he pursued mike up the staircase (followed by Blaine and AG)
What’s the chain of custody on that key fob? Who gave it to who, and when?
oh you mean re the key. maybe Ross had a key key and Blaine has his fob
okay now (the next day) I realize that Ross is also getting closer
Oh, hey, he IS useful for something!
Easily the best thing Blaine has ever done! Plus, he got injured doing it.
Yay.
So Ross is threatening Mike and Amber instead of getting blaine back onto safe ground? They are both not exactly good at this being allies thing.
I know the alliance was doomed from the start because Ross was a pawn but wasn’t good enough at following Blaine’s orders to even be a particularly GOOD pawn, but seriously. Damn, Ross. It was a shorter walk to where he was hanging onto the rope.
*Shrugs* With the benefit of foresight/narrative arrangement, I guess he deserves this moment of Toedad Priorities. You let your co-conspirator fall multiple stories onto a car, Ross. You break his ribs or whatever by inaction. It’s probably what buys you a couple extra minutes of life tomorrow, which in turn buys characters we actually care about more escape time.
I get the feeling that this was at Blaine’s instruction. Blaine is at this point highly invested in making sure Mike does not survive, and he strikes me as overconfident enough to believe he had his situation under control. I don’t think Ross has enough interest in Mike or Amazi-Girl to ignore Blaine if he wanted assistance, which he surely would have demanded if he thought he needed it.
It looks like Ross deserved Blaine.
How is Blaine not in a fucking coma too!?!?
The car hood has a bit more give than the street.
This. Mike’s fall came to an abrupt stop, so he took all of the impact force in an instant. The car hood buckling and the suspension travel spread Blaine’s impact out over a longer period of time.
That’s probably when he started struggling to take deep breaths, though.
This is true, having bounced off of more than one vehicle hood in my life, and a few streets and sidewalks. Unless you’re unlucky enough to hit a major support member sheetmetal is fairly soft and forgiving.
He was wearing body armor.
No, that’s not how it works IRL.
This is just getting creepy. I keep wondering how I posted without remembering it.
My boyfriend used to be able to respond to my texts while asleep from pure muscle memory and possibly from if his eyes were open at the time. Im assuming you can see of you aren’t technically conscious so long as eyes are open. Anyway hed wake up and not even remember we talked.
Well, you could be a member of Dina Army….
One of us… One of us… One of us…
We are to assume that Mike landed on the pavement and struck his head (note the blood on the right side of his faaaace). Blaine landed on the hood which broke his fall and, in crumpling like it did, absorbed enough of the impact that he was not immediately rendered hors combat.
And, a new enough car that it has keyless ignition is likely one designed to European pedestrian safety regulations, which have specific requirements that the hood have enough clearance over the engine to crumple so that pedestrian impacts are survivable.
But they both fell from the same stair right? So why didn’t they land in the same spot? Or did the car move..
Same reason they didn’t land at the same time, Blaine catching the rope changed his trajectory and probably also slowed him down.
Blaine held on long enough for Mike and Amazi-Girl to have this exchange after she scrambled down off the fire escape:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2020/comic/book-10/03-when-it-crumbles/ninest/
Either Ross couldn’t pull Blaine back up, or he immediately followed her down and left him hanging.
His head is about as thick as Ross’s.
What I’m wondering is how he’s incompetent enough to be the only one up there, and still get tossed off the landing. But, then again, we’ve seen how incompetent he can be elsewhere.
Likely he was still hanging from the rope and dropped because he ran out of arm strength.
Let’s see…
He landed on the car’s hood, which is marginally more flexible than the ground.
Also, the car’s hood reduced the fall distance by about two feet.
ALSO, he was hanging from a rope below the fire escape, while Mike fell from above the rail. That could have reduced the fall distance by maybe as much as a dozen feet.
Grabbing the rope at the awkward angle he did could have caused arm or shoulder injuries, and we know he was having trouble breathing without pain after this.
He could have also lowered himself further down the rope?
No brain to get damaged.
Evidence in earlier strips seems to confirm this.
Wait, so Amber drove him to the hospital, not Amazigirl?
That’s Amazi-Girl, even if she isn’t doing the voice.
Nope, it is AG, check the tags. And no blushies. The voice isn’t something AG has to do. It’s done for disguise purposes mostly. Amber can also do the voice since she decided AG should use it for disguise reasons. So the voice isn’t the best indicator but when in doubt, blushies and tags do not lie.
I hope he fell on his keys.
Let’s throw all evil parents to cars. Maybe Carol?
“Hey Sarah, can you come with us when Joyce and Becky go home?
Yeah, just wait in the car, in the driver’s seat. We’ll let you know when we need you.”
So, Mike May suffer permanent brain damage. Wouldn’t it be weird if it made him polite?
Turn into Drunk Mike without requiring alcohol? That’s quite the idea.
You mean Like if he was demonically possessed? Like those books about higher level beings using our bodies? “Aliens Among Us,”or something, wasn’t it?
Actually it makes ( in story logic ) sense, if he requires seizure medication
Anti-seizure meds just made me stupid, not polite.
(I was hit by a car just before finals in summer quarter, it was bad, but I generally recover pretty quickly. I was able to wean off them as fall quarter started, which was a good thing since yeah. Stupid.)
Granted, but everyone is different.
If that doesn’t do it, the epiphany he had on the fire escape landing might.
Yeah I’ve been hoping he gets a slight personality change when he wakes up.
That sounds like wanting it to be Mike without really being Mike.
I’m holding out for him becoming a social worker who has to drink in order to do his job.
I had to go back in the archives to re-orient myself. Strip “Dead” was right before this. So Blaine grabs the rope of the grappling hook while falling; Mike hits the ground after his fall; Amazi-girl makes it down and drags Mike to the car and gets him in; Ross is ignoring Blaine, grabs his hammer and is going towards the car but it looks like he’s already very close; Blaine ducking falls on the hood of the car.
Many points to elaborate on here but first of all, Blaine doesn’t cut Ross loose for this (pun intended)? Will be interesting to see how that develops from here to how they were at the kidnapping.
As did I.
Honestly, it’s kind of a wonder they lasted three days before Actual Murder Happened. Well, two and a half days, more like. Tops.
Recruiting goons may have taken some time and focus out of other feuds.
I b’lieve .This. is the point at which Blaine started his downfall.
heh
Technically, this is the point at which he stopped his downfall. Rather abruptly, I might add.
Thanks, asshole.
Dude’s gotta be good for AT LEAST something, am I right?
Well, letting your teenage kid drive your car is part of father hood.
….
*flees for dear punning life*
But then he managed to fob that off too.
Pursues, pitchfork in hand.
Yeah, getting in his daughter’s way somehow.
Oh hey, a strip which would have made absolutely no sense in the days when cars still required actual keys.
And which will probably again make no sense in another twenty years, which is to say, spring term.
I know it’s a dream but… you’d think a guy connected to organized crime would know not to trust wireless tech.
You’d also think he’d know not to be the one bailing out a future co-conspirator, or use his credit card for a dockless scooter chase, or leave his financial documents that clearly show there’s something rotten where a thirteen-year-old can find them.
So y’know. That’s consistent. Oh, Blaine. You suck.
To be fair, that thirteen-year-old was Mike. But yeah he is an idiot.
You would think that, but criminals often are not very smart and tend to get complacent after time as well.
did anyone else think that was Ultra-Car ?
Nah. It’s a Mitsubishi Galant-ish sedan, not a Toyota Yaris-esque hatchback.
Um… Okay, who flung Blaine?
He’d caught onto Amazi-Girl’s rope (while Mike didn’t, having deliberately flung himself off the fire escape), and had been dangling above this whole time. He just fell at an opportune moment.
I wonder whose dream this is. Amber/AG or Mike?
I think this is a flashback to what actually happened that night.
No, this is definitely a dream sequence. Ross wielding Blaine’s hammer? AG trying to start a car while a friend dies in the back seat? These are the kind of frustrations and random mixups that occur in dreams.
I predict she’ll get the car moving towards the hospital, only to be swarmed by zombie Ryans carrying cell phones.
Counterpoint: The alt-text.
Several other chapters have also started with blue flashbacks, and they weren’t overt dream sequences.
Counterpoint 2, the Rich Mullins dream.
I hope that link works…
The dream sequence, which has a different color scheme than the flashbacks which have started chapters. Definitely a dream sequence.
What happened to the not? Definitely NOT a dream sequence.
Won’t the car shut down if she gets too far from Blaine?
Not once it’s started. Most keyless cars won’t start with the fob on the hood though.
What about through the hood?
Somebody at work once left their personal car running in the parking lot while they took a company truck 40 miles away. I had to shut it off. The key fob was in their pocket the whole time.
I choose to believe the car started because Ross got close enough, since he drove it there, and Blaine landing on it was a happy coincidence.
So we’re now in the epilogue of DoA Season 1 and I can’t stop thinking what will be different in DoA Season 2. Everybody wearing masks? Characters interacting only by Zoom? Evil Dads not respecting social distancing measures? Mike awakening, believing he is Dexter and trying to recruit Ethan-in-Dinobot-T-shirt as Monkey Master?
Given that they’re coming up on Halloween, I’m going to guess masks.
Oooooo. Flashback. Nice♡.
Nope.
So Amber/Amazigirl and Mike have already gotten a car when Blaine hits the ground?
How does that work? Did Blaine find something to hang onto a while or does he just fall slower than others?
I’m confuzzled.
He grabbed onto a rope of AG’s previously, that’s why he didn’t fall on his head but Mike did. This is likely him losing his grip from hanging on said rope since Ross apparently decided to not pull him up.
Looks like he held onto Amazi-Girl’s grappling hook rope, which held on long enough for AG to haul Mike into the car. The rope’s still in his hand, so it probably broke or a knot let go or something.
I’m confused.
The tag says “Amazi-Girl”, and we know Amber has no recollection of the events so it must be, but those are not Amazi-Girl speech bubbles.
The voice is a disguise/cool-factor thing either of them can deliberately use at will. Amazi-Girl’s natural speaking voice is the same as Amber’s, because they share a larynx.
The cheek blushes and comic tags are the only definitive tells of who’s driving at any given time. In today’s comic, that’s Amazi-Girl (figuratively and literally).
AG doesn’t do the voice all the time and Amber can do the voice. It’s not an accurate indicator. AG doesn’t speak very differently from Amber naturally but it has become more a part of her character for disguising purposes.
Wait, you’re calling this story “Is a Song Forever”?
Ominous.
I’m just wondering where other people are in this scenario. Like, Mike was just yelling about two guys chasing him, then a big scuffle on a building, and now two guys have completely fallen off the side of said building. Wouldn’t this have woken up a bunch of people?
Percussive Maintenance: It Gets The Plot Rolling!
This isn’t percussive maintenance, it’s Blaine conveniently falling into a position where the key fob he possesses is now in range for the car to start.
that maks more sence
you know the thing that bugs me about this last week or so is just how everyone walked home …as someone whos been involved in something similar is you don’t get to leave for hours and hours between a hospital check out and questioning its at least 12 to 18 hours before you’re officially released and the n there’s followups for days ……… court hearings …..oh and dont plan much socially for the next 18 months or so either ……..
I made a similar comment a few pages back.
I kind of assumed they spent the rest of the day dealing with all that and by the time the story closed on Sarah and Joyce going to bed it was nighttime. We just skipped over it because it would have been mostly recap.
Probably still unrealistically fast, but not completely ridiculous.
wow the comic we actually wanted to read months…who know how many months ago….shesh…the world was not as 2020 back then…as its today
Wait, the title of this chapter is “Is a Song Forever?” Like, a Roomies reference?!?
Yep. That was the title of Roomies!‘ epilogue.