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David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 10h
David M Willis! @damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 10h
NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! NEANDERTHAL FINGERPRINT! 🤯
www.theguardian.com/science/2025...
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“how about matching capes””NO”
“masks?”“AH SED NO”
But matching Joyce grin masks.
Tthey could get a theme song!
“And I could grow my hair out!”
“Then we’d look exactly aliak, bro!”
“Nah, I’d grow me a beard and a cool moustache!”
“Great then you’d be mah evil twin…”
“*shrug* Pretty much already am…”
HA Walky grow a beard and/or moustache
I too, am ready for Walky to start leathering up.
You misspelled “lathering.”
Some people just don’t know the proper use of the silent “e”, or when to use it.
The proper use of the silent e is to indicate drawn out eeeemphasis. Wheeeeen to use it is neeeever.
(Was I close?)
When you need to make a hug huge.
Or turn your pin into a pine.
Pour que no los dos?
Al mismo tiempo?
Matching pajama jeans and butt-taco shirts or bust.
They’ll compromise with leather jackets emblazoned with butt-tacos on the back.
I’ll do you on better.
Pajama top leather jackets, with pajama jeans, butt tacos all around.
And of course the butt-taco motorcycle helmets.
Does Joyce like bacon? I mean theory says yes, but it’s Joyce…
You don’t have yo mix it with anything to make it, just meat and frying oil
Don’t even need oil, bacon cooks perfectly well in its own fat.
Can’t get more Joyce-approved than a single ingredient!
Sure, Joyce likes bacon. AS A BREAKFAST FOOD, AND NOT SPRINKLED ON DINNER
I don’t think leather is really his style.
Leather pajamas?
i mean, that’s not what they’re usually called, but you do you i guess
Being able to laugh in the face of danger is in it of itself heroic, why do you think Spider-Man is always quipping.
007 too.
007 usually delivers his quips AFTER the action is over, though.
Peter started that because he was scared spitless, and it helped hide that from the bad guys. After a while, it became a habit. Now, if he’s quiet, it’s the bad guys who are terrified.
As they should be.
I remember in one issue, Daredevil listens while Spider-Man is reading a list of fat jokes to Kingpin. Daredevilcould barely hear the jokes because all he could hear was how hard Spidey’s heart was pounding the whole time.
It was not heroic! Sal is being so generous with him right now!
Maybe Sal got mixed up and meant to say gutless
Yeeeaahhh I agree with you here. Still, I think Sal being supportive is good for both of them and I can respect it.
On one hand it is good but on the other it could be argued its enabling Walkys behavior and thus keeping him from some much needed personal growth and maturity
This is a really weird thread because Walky got kidnapped and traumatized and he managed to keep his cool and keep joking around and I don’t understand why we hate Walky so much.
Just being honest here for me, I’ve said how much I hate Walky multiple times *it might even be a little irrational on my part* so him cracking not very funny jokes that didn’t distract anyone doesn’t really impress me. I’m more confused why everyone gives him so much credit for doing so little. But that’s just me. I feel like Sal’s being nice because Walky defended her. Not sure if everyone else in this thread has beef with Walky though.
Walky reacts, in the last storyline, like a pretty average person would when faced with incredible danger. I don’t dock him points for behaving like an average person.
Multiple other people besides me have also pointed out that things like his not standing up to Linda to this point – or in general, since she has actively discouraged that tendency, though also not when HE WAS BEING PHYSICALLY THREATENED as a roughly six-year-old – are the result of Linda’s active emotional abuse of both her children. (Being the golden boy with the crushing expectations and the waiting threat if he disappoints her? Still a form of abuse, though a distinctly different one from Sal’s.) I afford Walky (and Sal, though she tends to have her emotional shit a bit more together) the same sympathy and hope for growth I do for Joyce, Amber, Ruth, Becky, and most likely Ethan as kids who are coming out of their shells after years of abuse from a parent. Walky’s the least far along on this path, except again maybe Ethan – who’s doing a lot of the casual sex specifically because he’s terrified of Naomi’s response if he has a boyfriend, but casual sex can be hidden – but Joyce is only now starting to grasp the fullness of How Fucked Up Carol Is, and she’s actively avoiding that conversation. (I do not blame her at all, granted, but she’s also in the very early stages of ‘Man my childhood was deeply fucked up and my mom’s kind of evil’ and as we just saw, her view on things like divorce is still very sheltered and messed up in anxiety.)
I probably cut Walky a bit more slack on the whole than I might otherwise BECAUSE I see a lot of the points where he gets shit for being a pretty normal 18-year-old or is clearly freaking out because he was abused, and go ‘… wait, seriously?’ I have some degree of sympathy for most of the cast (I don’t like Raidah as a whole but think the Seduce Jacob plan of Joyce and Sarah’s was actively wrong, and it’s clear Rachel went through some shit to prompt the Redemption Is A Myth speech but she went WAY farther than I can condone saying to someone you know is JUST out of the hospital for suicidal ideation and didn’t recognize she had splash damage as she was saying it, Jason is just an Objectively Terrible TA on every level,) which means I’m gonna come to Walky or Malaya’s defense if I see a lot of criticism for them being pretty normal teens. I find this is a pretty well-rounded comic with well-rounded, believable characters, and that means in a lot of these situations where things are complicated I’m going ‘oh god, you fuckup, I get why you’re doing this but you fuckup.’ If everyone’s focusing on the fuckup part, I will go to ‘I get why you’re doing this.’
(I also am very much in the sympathy corner for Walky with regards to grades, because dear God I see EXACTLY myself in junior year of college there. Avoidance spiral? Check. Undermanaged disability impacting your ability to do things? Check – it’s been pretty heavily implied Walky’s storyline there is heading towards ‘yeah, he has ADHD and the methods Dorothy was using COULDN’T work on him, much less Jason’s.’ Never learned to study because you had years of being a Gifted Student and learning the material was easy so even if teachers tried to teach you, you didn’t see the point of this overly-complicated setup? Hoo boy, check. Honestly he’s handling it better than I did, though mine only reached its peak in the last couple weeks of class. By all accounts he IS turning in his assignments, that puts him ahead. College while Neurodivergent is NOT an easy thing.)
(Yes I have a beef with Walky)
Exactly this. Wheres the praise the for Dina, Joyce, Dorothy or Sarah (did I miss anyone?) or actually tried?
Nope its for Walky getting praise for doing nothing, if you want an example of a culture of mediocrity then this is a pretty good one
(Goddamn work keyboard)
Wheres the praise for Dina, Joyce, Dorothy or Sarah (did I miss anyone?) all who actually tried?
Well the praise here is partly for standing up to Linda, which doesn’t apply to the others and partly in response to trashing Walky in response to Sal’s comment.
Praising others right now would be kind of out of the blue. They got their share when they actually did the things – and it’ll probably come up again in the comic refers to it.
Too much twinning, Walky. Dial it back.
It’s sweet seeing them support each other though.
he’s, y’know, coping
Leather, yes. Matching—that’s a hard no.
I agree with Sal on both counts- it was very heroic, and NO. Lol
I detect them both getting some matching Upper Lip Shading, which I am down for.
This is off topic, but I sure wish there was a way to stop Trump ads from showing up on here. There is one that doesn’t even have an “x” in the corner to get rid of it.
Yeah, given what Willis said (yesterday? Two strips ago? *shrug*) about them lying to cheat the system that is both unsurprising and So Much Suck. God, fuck that dude.
This nonsense is why I adblock everything.
I don’t hate you for adblocking, but when pages that give me something I value for no cost are supported to some degree by ads, I feel a moral obligation not to block them as long as they don’t actually block the content I’m there for. And I kind of feel that others should feel that obligation as well.
Why yes, I fast forward through the TV commercials; why do you ask?
I try not to use adblock unless I know the site in question has ads that are INCREDIBLY intrusive and/or seem like they could have malware. (Autoplay videos with sound? Incredibly intrusive. Completely takes over the page? Same. Horribly disturbing jump scare? Fortunately haven’t seen one of those in ages but if they did show up again, that’s an issue. Animated banner ad but no sound? Eh, totally doable.)
Dumbing of Age has occasional Extremely Intrusive ads but they usually last, at most, a few days before Hiveworks removes them and all’s well.
(That said, while I’ll gladly watch through short Youtube and other video site ads, anything longer than about two minutes is a no. I’ve gotten one or two on Crunchyroll that promised to be ten minutes or more. NO ONE is gonna sit through that one.)
Two-minute ads? He’ll, you’re way more generous than I am with that shit. I figure if you can’t sell me your product in 45 seconds or less, you deserve the Skip button.
I’ve never seen any that long on Crunchy to my memory, but I haven’t watched without access to a paid account in years now. Sometimes, however, YouTube will randomly give me an ad that, when I check it’s run time, is actually a full hour long infomercial. The best of those instances was five minutes into a ten minute SciShow video
I just bought all the books. I feel no guilt about blocking the ads.
Sorry, Walky. Sal is Priss. You’re closer to being Daley Wong, and not very close at that.
Thinking about it Walky is actually Mackie, minus the mechanical skills.
Carla approves of this plan. All three of them can wear Rutten jackets.
Now, see– I LIKE Walky.
I don’t want him all Peter Parkerin’ it up all the time.
That would be BAD!
It’s not his schtick… YET.
Let’s avoid that, shall we?
Yay siblings! n_n
And thus was born the dynamic duo.
Lmao Willis nails the sibling dynamic
I imagine Walky “leathering up” would be similar to when Tobias Funke “leathered up”.
If you can laugh in the face of Danger, that’s true courage.
Or a defense mechanism.
I think I could make a case that courage is a defense mechanism. It’s not a common one, and maybe not even a natural one, needing to be learned, but it can be a useful one, letting you accomplish things you otherwise couldn’t. The drawback is that sometimes it’s fatal.
Sometimes what gets called courage is just the “fight” part of a fight or flight mechanism.
Sometimes it’s more complicated though.
Not so fast, Walky!
This story ALREADY has a “Robin”!
Alright, this is just the definition of wholesome content.
This is cute and I like it.
Having them have matching outfits would be a dream come true
They’re already kind of matching
I’ve said this before but I suspect it’s sort of a subconscious thing for twins!
Awww!
Yeah, being able to (or at least attempting to) keep people’s moods up as much as possible in that situation so they don’t completely freak out – and hell, managing to stay somewhat together in the middle of a terrifying situation instead of completely falling apart – is in fact pretty impressive! Especially given this was Walky’s first real experience with life-threatening terror (Dorothy got shoved inside during the knife incident pretty quick but she still had reason to be frightened as hell, Sarah being onscene with Ryan meant she also experienced the ‘oh shit my roommate’s been roofied’ which isn’t fear for herself but is still worth freaking out over, the rest are self-explanatory.)
He did fall apart though, he may have been using humour but its was still Walky freaking out
Oh, yeah – EVERYONE did at some point. But it was enough to keep him moving instead of frozen up for most of that time, and that’s still something.
I disagree. Whether he moved or froze he still contributed nothing in a situation where something, anything was required.
Dina tried, Joyce tried but Walky left them to it and I don’t think that applying positive motives to Walkys actions helps anyone, least of all Walky himself.
Everyone has different levels of capability. Freaking out when you’re tied up and the dude who threatened one of your classmates with a shotgun is standing over you is understandable. Freaking out when you’ve just watched that dude get his head caved in with a hammer is also understandable.
And he did offer to shield Sarah. She didn’t need it, but he offered. Also offered to stab a dude with forks. Amazi-Girl didn’t need it, but he offered. Yes, he was following others’ leads in both situations, but like…following a lead is still something; it’s not like he was just standing off to one side and cracking jokes the whole time.
Also: If he freezes downstairs, he’s still a hostage. A hostage in the basement where a dude is being murdered and the murderer was just contemplating killing all the witnesses. Moving was in fact something in this situation!
He got captured again after Faz ambushed him, but the moment Dina gave him an opening, he took it and ran. And seriously I do think Walky was right that Faz was hiding in a cupboard or something, add in the fact that AMBER can’t catch up with Faz and Walky didn’t stand a chance reacting before it became 2-on-1. Offering the help he could and knowing when to get the fuck out of the way is a totally reasonable trait. Not everyone in that situation was a combatant, and even the ones who knew a bit how to fight were out of their league when it came down to Blaine.
Thats the thing though, if he had followed others like Dina or Joyce then the preceding kidnapping might not have happened
Had Walky frozen then at least Blaine might have tripped over him which would have been something
But no hes getting praise for cracking wise which (hopefully won’t) reinforce the self-belief that hes good for nothing and can’t be relied on for anything
*I’m not blaming Walky for being alone with Blaine, thats on everyone, especially the idea of splitting up before the police arrived
I think Sal being impressed with him will do a little for his belief that he’s useless. But I’m not sure him freezing would have been better, in terms of his self-belief that he’s useless – that would also reinforce that belief, even if Blaine did trip over him (“I did nothing!” “Hey, you tripped him, didn’t you?” “Oh, yeah, I was a SPEEDBUMP. GO ME. Real helpful, yeah. /s”) Getting praise for staying calm enough to find the funny seems reasonable enough to me! He’s going to downplay it, because he doesn’t know how to be proud of himself. But he would downplay it even if he suddenly sprang into action back there, because he doesn’t know how to be proud of himself.
Someone else telling him he can be proud of the actions he took, however small, seems like a decent place to start. That’s my thinking, at least.
Also…your assessment seems to be based on a negative comparison against what might have hypothetically happened? Which seems fair, except we don’t know what would have happened. As it is, “if he just did This Instead, then Bad Thing might not have happened to him” just sounds victim-blamey. I do absolutely get where you’re coming from, though – if he did something Definitely Useful/Helpful it would be way easier for him to be able to look back on it and agree that he should feel proud.
You make some valid points
Actually they might have all been better off in that scene if Joyce hadn’t tried: Dina jumped Blaine and distracted him long enough for Walky to get free. At that point, Blaine doesn’t have a hostage.
Joyce jumps him and the next scene is him dragging her outside. We don’t know exactly how that played out, but it’s plausible that wouldn’t have happened if she’d stayed back.
Point being, sometimes “trying” isn’t really helpful. If you’re not good at it, you may be more of a hindrance than a help. Getting clear might have been the best move in that situation.
If Walky wants a motorcycle jacket, he needs to talk to Carla. I’m certain she’s still got spare Ruttech jackets to give away.
I mean, Walky’s not a cute girl though, and he was VERY dickish in his hatred of Ultra-Car even as Carla bared her soul and described her deep, personal relationship to the show and character.
Buuut if it’d make Sal happy, maybe.
But immediately after that, Dorothy said that she didn’t want to get dragged into an argument over something so stupid, and Walky and Carla declared a truce and chased after Dorothy. I think they’re on okay terms now.
That and I think the idea of twins matching would appeal to Carla.
This is true. You can’t beat cute twin matching with leather jackets.
Pretty sure Carla could quickly arrange for an Ultra-Car leather jacket to be made, and then force him to wear it.
Is it just me or is Walky startin’ to adopt Sal’s accent?
Nah, he’s just talkin’ Hoosier. (Of course, Indiana is a southern state in most senses other than the purely geographic.)
He’s always talked a bit like that, hasn’t he? Except in his case, it’s not an accent but the fact he speaks as lazily as he does everything else.
This will not make aything easier for Danny.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/03-the-butterflies-fly-away/tall/
Next up…
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/03-up-all-night-to-get-vengeance/assimilation/
ask Carla for one. She got spares.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-9-comic/02-but-the-sun-still-shines/narcissistic/
Bagge, you are a public servant.
Now fetch me my tea.
Well, if nothing else good comes of all of this, I think the normalisation of Walky and Sal’s relationship is a welcome thing. Those two’s fraternal chemistry is wonderful and it’s good to see them escaping the shadow of their parents’ attempt to play them off against each other.
Sal, don’t you read the comments? Walky’s joking behavior is a sign of violent cowardice and deep moral failure. He’s going to Hell for it and there’s no recompense.
/s >:(
Pffffff
So I guess the Walky hate train is the big one running these days
Though in fairness it’s not as large and impressive as some other hate trains, notably the Danny one. Danny’s main crime was the fact he was limited. But it’s not as if the comic hasn’t explored a lot of limits. Joyce is limited by her upbringing. Diana is limited by the way her mind works, while simultaneously her mind is extraordinary in other respects. Amber is extraordinary in most respects, but is severely limited by her emotions that have to be channeled to make her somewhat safe for herself and others. Even Dorothy, who is comparatively unlimited, deals with the fact, and possibly the tragedy, that her limits exceed her grasp.
And sometimes the train is a feature, not a bug in understanding the comic. If Mike doesn’t have a hate train, he isn’t doing his job.
Lucy, on the other hand, should be executed for the crime of excessive morning cheerfulness.
I find that interesting because I never understood why Danny got so much hate and yet the hate seemed to dissipate as soon as Danny came out as Bi…coincidence I’m sure
To me theres no comparison between Dannys and Walkys actions in that Walkys actions (rather inaction) helped a kidnapping happen yet Danny got more hate for being, well, basically gormless
Lucy is lovely and is currently the nicest person in the strip
My theory was and still is that most of the Danny hate was because he reminded a lot of people of how they were at that age. And they hate that guy, because he was an idiot.
Its not a bad, probably more accurate than most people (including myself) would like
A lot of it was carry over from Walkyverse too, where Danny was pretty bad – and not treated as such by the narrative, which is always annoying.
Plus his intro being broken up with by Dorothy didn’t set a good tone.
I’m curious how Walky would look in a leather jacket. I don’t remember if I’ve seen him in one before, in DoA or the other universe.
Erase Sal’s hair and boobs in photoshop and you got your amswer
“Dammit, bro, I only just broke Joyce of the habit of wanting to be me. Don’t you start.”
Actually, that could be a way to play with Linda’s head. Have ‘dress up as twins’ days. One day, Walky does ‘biker boy’ and the next, Sal does ‘preppy girl’. Act as if they don’t understand why everyone else is reacting so strongly.
Walky does slob rather than preppy, and her parents have already ignored her dressing to try to please them once…
What an amusing back’n’forth between siblings, both undermining their own qualities to build each other up.
I actually can see Walky wearing a leather jacket with pride. But not a black one. Blue or red.
Brown faux-fur trimmed with the ‘Amazi-Guy’ logo on the back. As personally approved by Amazi-Girl and her in-head sister.
Like a bomber jacket with a huge logo emblazoned on the back?
As long as he doesn’t have a 1% patch or a bottom rocker, he shouldn’t get in too much trouble with that.
I don’t know what either of those are, on account of being old.
Now tell me you don’t know about Master Sergeants.
If 1%er biker groups catch you dressing up like them, they’ll mock you at best or beat the shit out of you at worst.
“1%” is a reaction to the statement that “99% of motorcyclists are law-abiding citizens.” You don’t mess with someone wearing that patch.
Leather up ! leather up !
It was your ineptitude that got Joyce into that mess in the first place, Walky… But I’ll refrain from mentioning that to Sal. You’re welcome.
No, it wasn’t.
There’s no way he could have foreseen getting ambushed by Faz, and until Amazi-Ber and Joyce came upstairs he was facing a 2-vs-1 scuffle.
I don’t blame Walky for ‘letting’ Blaine get free. There should have been two people watching him.
Agreed. There were a LOT of people subdued there and only one, very much a non-combat person on watch duty. Faz is scary fast, and if Faz is set up to hide then Walky wouldn’t have had more than a brief chance to react before things started up again. I get why Dorothy was in Handle The Police mode, why Dina was waiting for Becky, why Ethan wanted to go check on Mike, and that Sarah was fucking exhausted. It would still have been a good idea to put Sarah with Walky.
It is partially the fault of whoever put Walky in charge of watch duty, I agree. (I personally would have chosen Sarah, with her bat.
Two people to watch would have been even better, as Regalli suggests.) Still, I find it hard to believe that Faz could have overwhelmed Walky all on his own (remember that Walky was SITTING on Blaine) and somehow Walky didn’t manage to at least yell out a warning. The blame does partially rest with him.
I don’t think anybody really put anyone in charge of anything. People just sort of did stuff. No one was in charge giving orders.
That is the least charitable read of that situation I can even think of. No, it wasn’t.
Sal is so nice. Her mom can only hope to be like her.
There’s our confirmation; this is the day immediately following Kidnapping Day.
We’ve always been told immediately when we timeskipped over a day or more in the past, so that’s what I’ve been assuming. Still nice to have confirmation, though.
Agreed. It’s what I thought, but I wasn’t 100% sure.
RE: the poll about worst parent – seems like the only way a question like that can have interesting results is if it excludes the 2 we’ve seen embarking on criminal rampages to try to exert control over their daughters.
Seriously – the top 2 spots in the DoA Worst Parent awards are just undisputably taken – all the action is for 3rd place (but boy, is there competition for that bronze!)
Well, there’s always the possibility of a 3rd criminal rampage.
Am I the only one that’s getting an ad for Klarna covering up part of the comic?
Worst parent poll my ranked choice
1. Blaine needs no explanation but he’s willing to do just as bad things as Ross while actually knowing he’s doing it to hurt Amber.
2. Ross actually threatened the life of Becky to get his way.
3. Joyce’s mom, she’s always been bad but then she blatently sided with the guy who pointed a gun at her daughter. This wasn’t Christian charity trying to forgive horrible people for the sake of forgiveness but actually supporting his decision, this wasn’t theoretical siding but putting her family in financial jeopardy in order to increase his ability to point guns at her daughter again. If you are to take her at her word while she fundraised for Ross’ bail she actually feels she should have a right to point guns at her children and that imagined right should be defended.
4. Clint
5. Sal’s mom, she constantly takes a bullies side over her daughter, and she stole money from her daughter not because she needed money in that situation I would suggest a upfront tax, still not ideal but your not teaching your kids that a candy bar is a great investment, but because she disapproved of her choice in friends. I can get holding onto a child’s stuff as discapline but unless they are buying drugs not their money. Stop giving them money sure. I can see after warning kids about the consequences of misusing their property permamently taking their stuff, but in no world is giving a decent person needed medical treatment misuse of property.
6/7 Dannies parents
8 Fazz mom
9 Sals dad
10 Billies dad
11. Billies mom
12 Niome
13/14 Sarah’s parents
15 Niome’s husband
16 Dickard
17. Joe’s mom
I’m missing someone or something I just know it but I feel like I have the right order for the bottom five
Also they are mostly good but insisting your child let someone into their home they are not comfortable with is not a cool move.
Why are Sarah’s parents on the list?
We also know – Carol mentioned at church, talking about squirrels or groundhogs in the backyard or something, “I keep telling [Hank] he needs to buy a gun.”
Which.
Yikes.
Sarah’s Joyce’s roommate right. Her envy of Dina’s family implies something to me at least in this comic.