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LorennaCleary.bsky.social @lorennacleary.bsky.social ⋅ 19h
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(Jim Lee Era)
⚧️Coming Out
Now if Asher just got a stray, IRRESISTIBLE
(I’m surprised her exclamation mark is by the 1 on her phone, mine takes special effort to mistype)
FUCK THAT TRAUMA
Fuck the trauma away!
it’s not a typo !!1!1!
TBH I’ve used the !!1!! for so long I do it on purpose for SPECIAL emphasis. Amber might be the same :’33
Yep. I’m not sure ANYone still does “by accident”. OH NOES!!1!! (although I often go crazy and do something like — !!!!!1111!
Some will even type out “one” or “eleven”.
eleventyeleven
121?
Guilty!!!!111oneeleven
Add that to the library hold list
Amber probably programmed it as a typing shortcut on her phone.
Kind of with Pratchett on this…
That being the idea that a person’s sanity is inversely proportional to the number of exclamation marks they use…
You mean Hevelock Vetinari.
Priorities.
Just like my cousin used to say,
🥲
“Life gives you lemons, chuck em at people.”
And to add a (slight mis)quote from the late great Phil Hartman, “when life gives you lemons, throw them in the face of life until it gives you the oranges you originally asked for.”
“When life gives you lemons, don’t make lemonade! Make life take the lemons back! Get mad! You don’t want their damn lemons! What are you supposed to do with those? Demand to see life’s manager!
Make life rue the day it thought it could give you lemons! Do you know who you are?! You’re the person who is gonna burn your house down – with the lemons”
When life gives you lemons…
“Hey, look! Lemons!”
You’re going to have your engineers invent a combustible lemon that’ll burn life’s house down!
…WITH LEMONS!
I KNEW IT!!!1! sdlgjsdlgs
This might be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. For them. I need Ether to fuck ♥
Not to kink-shame, but…ether is a bit finicky for play purposes. >_>
(I assume that’s actually a damnyouautocorrect for Ethan, but…)
Or, wait…Ethan/Amber shipname, maybe? (Not something I’d ship, personally, given their history, but…)
Ethan/Asher ship name lol. Personally I’d go with Ashthan.
How about “Ashen”? It might only have one letter of Ethan, but it does convey Ethan’s current complexion…
Oh goodness, NO. Ethan and Asher :’DD Those other two are NOT it, and it’s not only because Ethan isn’t into women.
Ah, got it. That makes WAY more sense. Not sure why my brain refused to click.
I got it right away, but the other interpretation seemed more fun so I went with that instead. Glad to see I’m not the only one who noticed it.
I despise shipnames, not least because knowledge of them is an ingroup/outgroup marker.
(Also because I grew up in an era where you simply had the actual names, separated by some form of punctuation. Much easier to parse, IMO; but again, a certain sort want them to be obscure.)
That is such hard anti-gatekeeping you’ve circled right back around to saying people can’t have shipnames because it’s not what YOU want in a community, my dude.
All you have to do is ask. If the community won’t tell you, then their dicks. Otherwise in no way, shape or form is having a special way to refer to anything in a fandom gatekeeping, the same way there are a shit ton of terms you have to learn just to really get into speedrunning.
um
um amber
WHAT THE FUCK
Lol this is 100% completely within character for her
really, truly is
also amber’s uncontrollably horniness face is always hilarious
I know but
STILLLLLLLL.
yeah and it sucks
I presume that’s the plan.
Ethan’s gonna fuck that trauma out.
“Fuck the Pain Away,” advanced edition
Love the reference
It works in fanfic!
Amber absolutely cannot pass up this enemies to lovers opportunity.
Garbage roof has spread to the entire campus.
Whatever makes you think it stopped there?
Horniness > trauma I guess in Amber’s case
To defend her slightly, horny is generally more fun than trauma. With horny, you can just simply find pictures of Urbosa or something, whereas trauma requires
a shopping addictionlong-term solutions like therapy and murder.Ethan can fuck his trauma now too https://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-9-comic/01-flyin-to-the-red/urges/
Tho it’d be unknowing in this cause
Her real people shipping instincts override her PTSD
Oh, I was worried for a minute there. Thank god Amber’s issues stopped her from gaining new issues!
this raises the question of… well, Amber obviously recognized the name, so wouldn’t Ethan too ?
No, Amber and Walky learned about it while they were together, but I don’t think Amber ever told Ethan.
Walky told Amber about Asher, that’s it.
She learned about his involvement from him, right before Walky punched him.
Anybody else see this being something else Ethan ends up blaming Amber for not mentioning to him?
Amber only learned this from talking with Walky and Sal, who Ethan’s only had a handful of brief interactions with.
I can’t see this ending well, but Ethan might still be attracted to him even if he was part of the Sal thing.
Ignoring all that, anyone else excited by the possibility of an Asher×Ethan slipshine?
Ethan forgave Sal, who was the actual person who did the stabbing. So I wouldn’t be that worried. The one “but” I have is, he did that forgiving back when he was, uh. Not this wildly depressed.
(And yes, I’m excited for it :’DD)
Sal didn’t stab. Amber stabbed.
sdgksj I had a lapsus, you’re absolutely right :’3 Today’s a brain fog day. But yeah, Sal held him up with a knife and all, and he accepted the apology ^^
We haven’t had a M/M slipshine since Ethan/Mike so… yes.
Imagine if the deal breaker isn’t the convenience store, but Ethan just really hates the taste of cigarette smoke.
Ethan’s currently too depressed to care about the taste of cigarette smoke. And Asher was eilling to quit anyway.
nothing some chewin gum can’t fix
Ecchhh no, cigarette smell hangs out on your clothes and in your hair, the smell gets everywhere. I don’t know why all those commercials for teens not to smoke were like “smoking will hurt your lungs” when they could’ve been about “smoking will make you stinky, and then some people you like won’t want to kiss you”.
Screw my trauma I have slash fiction to write.
Due to him calling the cops escalating things, I guess? Shitty thing of him to do, but it’s not like he had any inkling that was going to happen.
To be honest, I forget who all knows what, so while I know Amber knows he called the cops, I also don’t think Ethan knows much of anything about that, does he? Given Ethan has no qualm with Sal, though, I don’t really know if he’d give any shits about Asher’s, especially in his current attitude.
Wait. “Called the cops”? What do you mean? Oh, are you talking about Sal’s teenage robbery attempt? I thought you meant the kidnapping, and I was all “uh, no, Asher arranged it!”
I don’t think anyone in the current cast knows Asher was involved in the kidnapping but him and maybe Faz.
and probably Lester Bradford
Yeah, and we do not really know a lot about his involvement past Blaine leaning on him to coerce a favor, and that Asher seemingly let the right people know Blaine was a full-blown liability, who then killed him. So, Amber definitely is excused for not holding that against him, even she has no reason to know about any of that.
Blaine arranged it. Asher was a small, reluctant part of the arrangements.
Asher did also call a cop on Blaine. That did happen
I’m in this one and I don’t like it lol. I love Amber and Booster’s dynamic so much.
The side of Booster that loves interpersonal drama, and the side of Amber who does because she can get off to it can def be besties
Honestly starting to wonder if Amster is going to be a thing.
Or Boober.
These ship names are great, I think they should bang just for the ship name.
Asher and Booster would be Asster.
Oh, that one is INSPIRED
Becky knew from the beginning Ambster is a thing.
Does Ethan know that? Why does Amber know who Asher is but not Ethan?
I believe Walky and Amber met Asher together and learned about the robbery. I don’t think she ever told Ethan.
Oh, yeah. Back when Walky punched Asher in the face. I’d say Ethan probably deserves to know that before they start making out, but Asher is actually responsible for much worse. I wonder if Amber would still ship it if she knew the full truth?
I feel like she would have a difficult time not going full Amazi-girl on Asher. So it is probably for the best.
Amber met him when she and Walky checked up on him to give Sal a read on whether he’d changed over the years, and Sal later filled Amazi-Girl in on his ties to the mob.
Booster really is the perfect enabler for Amber, aren’t they.
…I’m trying to decide whether that sentence is grammatically correct or not.
Booster is the Mike Amber needs, but doesnt; deserve right now.
Or deserves right now… Whatever.
Batman.
Singular They is not always ideal, but sometimes it’s the best English has got, assuming you don’t feel like figuring out neo-pronouns.
(For the record, it sounds right to me; it’s probably fine. Grammar is bs anyway.)
Grammar is the thing that makes language function.
Sure, but it be highly malleable. When the message are got across everything go well.
Perhaps. But if you were taught the same grammar as your listener, it’s rude to make him work harder than necessary to do you the favor of understanding you.
+1
Aren’t they? Isn’t they? Ow, my brain.
I’ve 100% always heard and used “aren’t they”.
If you like, you can imagine using ‘they/them’ to mean ‘person whose gender I don’t know’. Like, “oh, looks like somebody left their phone here. But they’re coming back for it, aren’t they?”
Another way to practice: imagine that Booster secretly has a mouse in their pocket, and refer to Booster and the mouse together. “Booster [and Booster’s pocket-mouse] are totally gonna ship Asher/Ethan, aren’t they.”
(Invented by a wholesome dad of a nonbinary kid. Adorable!)
I don’t have an issue with it myself, but that is IMO a very good teaching tool, props to the dad.
Singular “they” is like singular “you”, both still uses “are” in standard English. If a dialect uses singular “you is”, then I expect it also uses “they is”.
Yep, you said it correctly.
(And by ‘correctly’, I mean that’s the current typical way of saying this.)
I’d say the singular they uses the same grammatical structure as the singular you – you are->they are, yourself->themself, etc. Where names use the same grammatical structure as he/she/it he/she/it is->[Name] is.
So it’s a bit weird when you use name followed by pronoun in the same sentence if the person in question uses ‘they’, since both follow different paradigms, but it is grammatically consistent, IMO.
They really need to make some more Schoolhouse Rock episodes for these situations. Maybe there’s a third Sarsaparilla sibling.
This time trying it without the link to the OED, but:
Roses are red,
Violets are blue.
Singular “they”
Predates singular “you”.
It’s missing a question mark.
See, narrative? Booster and Amber are on our side.
She enjoys problematic ships.
Figured she’d have a new perspective on that after being part of one.
“… or I’ll brick your phone from here!”
And trust me, Amber has mad skillz and could do it, too.
Is this like when you get the right answer in a math problem, but your working is entirely, completely, tragically wrong? I feel like it is.
I feel like it’s more, “Well, we completely botched the compound we were trying to synthesize, but we might’ve created a brand-new explosive.”
“Well, this medication does nothing for your allegies, but you’ll orgasm every time you sneeze.”
That sounds horrible. Especially for people with allergies or nose hair.
Medically terrible, very cool recreationally?
I knew somebody who claimed (but it may have been apocryphal) to know somebody who had to stop riding bikes after she got a certain piercing because that was a problem.
Not allergies. Stimulatory pressure.
Garfunkel and Oates wrote a song about having a similar problem while go-kart racing.
Ethan, you knew stuff like this would happen, you’re part of a superhero backstory.
I will now contemplate my life as part of a superhero backstory.
Unexpected but not surprising she’s probably already writing the fanfic on her phone while texting Booster.
Amber’s face is SO silly in that last panel, it’s very cute :3}}}
Amber wants them to touch penises.
“Let them snog! What’s the worst that could happen?”
That was 5 whole years ago. In our reality, that’s like 38 years. Shirley they wouldn’t even recognize each other!
And I thought she wanted to fix her friendship with ethan.. This might be something that he’ll hold against both of them if he finds out.
Ha…happy Pride Month to these FOUR specifically?? …sure let’s go with that.
Well, that’s straight, bi, gay, and… I don’t know what umbrella Booster falls under. We know they’re attracted to women at least.
being non binary kinda automatically falls under the lgbt umbrella even if booster isn’t interested in romance (and asexuality too, though )
Bisexual Enby. They’ve made comments about Ethan’s hotness, but also other dude members of the cast (including Joe and/or Danny??)
They just called Asher “smoking hot”! Pansexual most likely.
It’s too late; she’s already writing fanfic of them.
As Asher is ex-mafia, Amber is the leader of the love cartel.
I’ll give the Park & Ride two weeks before something blows over. Standard prediction.
two weeks comic time or IRL?
Comic time.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA so cathartic to see these in-universe real-life shippers
Also this friendship between Amber and Booster is SO FUN to look at
I’m having such fun reading this webcomic recently, thanks Willis for gracing us with daily strips week-ends included.
How do you think Jennifer would react to Asher hooking up with or dating Ethan. Considering her recent behaviour.
At this point, until she stops being deliberately and knowingly terrible to everyone she lays eyes on, her opinions are pretty much worthless. The closest she’s been to kind lately was when she got fed up with everyone else pussyfooting around Joyce’s medical anxiety and wanted to get it over with.
Ex-mafia. Right. Ok. You go believe that, Amber.
I know, right? He’s probably ex-yakuza, or whatever the word is for the Korean-specific gangs that probably isn’t Seoulpa Rings no matter how much Shadowrun I’ve played.
He’s trying very hard for it to be an ex-affiliation. Hard to say how much Blaine’s blackmailing him actually got him back into the business. All we know for certain is that he was kept abreast of their Blaine clean-up efforts, though it’s unclear whether he “ordered” the hit or just informed the people in charge that “hey there’s a loose thread here you might want to take care of before it all goes to shit”. If, indeed, there’s a meaningful difference between those two lines of action.
I think there’s absolutely a difference between “Hey, this guy’s causing a shitload of problems for no reason, maybe deal with him” and “Hey Grandad, would ya ever just kill the bastard”.
Yeah, I don’t think Asher was ever very far in — he might be able to get out. He surely seems to me like someone who wants out.
I feel like Booster and Amber are both making a HUGE assumption, here. Hopefully either they’re correct or Ethan isn’t making the same assumption, because I’m not sure he’s really in a headspace for this to be a mistake.
… OK, if they are correct, that will probably make Jennifer want him again, so…uh…I guess big conflict incoming, either way.
Amber’s got her priorities in order and I respect that
is Amber back to using her friends as dolls for her sexual fantasies? because that is by far the creepiest, worst thing she’s ever done. I really can’t tell if Willis means for this to be funny or endearing, but I hope not because it’s disgusting.
honestly Amber has become such a two dimensional caricature since the time skip. There’s nothing to her character anymore. She’s just creepily horny or feeling bad about stuff she shouldn’t feel bad about
When did she do that in the first place? The only time I can vaguely recall is when she hallucinated Danny and Mike making out, and nobody else saw it.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-12/02-ill-leave-you-a-phantom/everybodyknows/
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2021/comic/book-12/02-ill-leave-you-a-phantom/sexpuppets/
This is the conversation that comes to mind for me. Wasn’t a great look for Amber.
Holy moly, that was like a year and a half ago already? Eesh, I still had “Delicious” in my screen name. What a time to exist.
I wonder if anyone forgot about Danny explicitly calling her out in-strip. It’d be pretty embarrassing to make a comment thinking her weird pervy behavior was being endorsed
She didn’t orchestrate the situation, she just finds it hot. It’s objectification but I don’t know about worst thing she’s ever done. It was insensitive to obsess over Ethan/Danny after they’d had a falling out, but that’s because she was doing it in front of Ethan who was already having a hard time.
Thank you!!!! I also feel so squicked out by her response. Like…it’s one thing to be like “I think you two are a fantastic couple/would be a fantastic couple and I’m rooting for you” or “Yas bestie! I support you in having a steamy hot hookup!” It’s a whole other thing to be like “I want you my friend to make out or have sex with this person not because you want to and I support your decisions but because it personally turns me on.”
There’s a very good chance that if Ethan knew about his prior connection to Asher he might not have any sexual or romantic interest in him and Amber wanting to let this play out for her own gratification rather than making sure her childhood best friend has all the facts to make an informed decision is really gross.
*further added thought
If I came out as gay to my opposite gender best friend and they responded to me potentially being interested in different girls they know by acting like they were barely refraining from sticking their hands down their pants or running to the computer to write fanfiction inspired by me I would be so uncomfortable and disgusted by them.
It’s almost like both Ethan and Amber have taken the death of their only other childhood friend besides each other very poorly (understandably so!), but only one of these characters has extensive practice in compartmentalizing their negative emotions AND hiding that compartmentalization from all but a select few.
Ethan’s reaction is loud, public, and displaying traits that had not previously been ascribed to him. Amber’s reaction is quiet, kept under wraps as best she could until Booster popped up as a willing enabler, and is her regressing to her worst traits. You know, the traits that she would be harassed about by Mike, in his Mikey way of “making people better” through social abuse. Traits that the literal Mike replacement is so far down for enabling (ugh Booster is such a fascinating character from a meta-textual stand point).
This all seems like unsubtle but solid character arc building to me. But it’s going to take ten years of real time to get this new triad of relationships to an even stable place.
Did she ever stop?
To quote myself from two days ago on Amber and Booster’s behalf: “This is a terrible ship. I am instantly onboard.”
In case anyone needed a refresher on what the fuck Amber is even talking about:
When Sal went to the convenience store 5 years back, Asher was in the truck too (idk/idc if he was driving or not), and he let her keep the knife he/someone else gave her. Yes, that knife. Amber and Ethan were there that night, having a nervous breakdown about Twinkies and managing a friend who was having a nervous breakdown about Twinkies, respectively.
Asher, being a rowdy little dickhead, dimed on Sal and got the cops on her ass, which I’m sure had nothing to do with keeping his own ass un-copped. He never actually entered the store, so neither Amber nor Ethan had ever seen his face or even knew about him, until later on.
Now, Amber knows his name and face and backstory because she was with Walky when he went to check Asher out.
Far as I can tell, this is the first time Ethan has ever met Asher in-person.
If I have any of these details slightly wrong, tough shit. My router’s connection is dogfuck terrible this week and the light is flashing from red to blue faster than a cop car’s, so I don’t have a reasonable way to check the backlogs past Book 10. And physical books don’t have clickable tags yet.
your router’s light if flashing because you got it wrong!!!1!
Asher, Sal, and two other guys robbed a convenience store and Sal was the lookout. They dropped her off at/near another store, with the knife and the idea that she could get a thousand dollars on her own. He wasn’t near the second robbery probably. I’d guess far enough away and somewhere with a camera that had timestamps.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/lookout-2/
https://www.dumbingofage.com/trail/
That’s not me getting it wrong, that’s you adding extra details. The links are very helpful, thank you.
how can a teenager be ex mafia ……. the few mentions of him after the sal thing is his grandfather was her dad’s boss and her dad blackmailed him into pulling the fire alarm but then he apparently passed along the order for the hit on her dad
id say he was “gang related/affiliated ” maybe ……
Born into mafia style family where the expectation is you grow up and continue to stay in the Family Business (which I can’t not hear in my head in The Simpson’s Italian Mafia boss guy’s voice…
Despite us talking about Korean mafia here) so e.g. Faz being involved in the kidnapping attempts etc probably was one of the least shocking part of the happenings for his mother, assuming the “mafia daughter” theories are accurate… So the 14 yr old Asher was holding up convenience stores with knives supplied by the mafia, getaway vehicles supplied by the mafia, driven by older associates supplied by the mafia… And let Sal, desperate for money, in on it, gave her the knife, then called the cops on her and basically dumped the blame on her… To divert all attention away from the other knifepoint robberies by teenage hoodlums which were actually mafia fundraising activities (and more effective because they didn’t feature a freaking out Sal on her own with a knife until she managed to grab Ethan to gain some temporary traction…)
And at some point between then and starring college apparently decided that he kinda didn’t want to make friends to use as pawns later, didn’t want a life of violence etc, and started trying to distance himself from it but safely coz he TOTALLY knows too much and can’t afford to upset people on his way out… Or ever… And even now when he considers himself “ex-mafia”… He pulled the fire alarm allowing most of the main characters in the comic to be kidnapped, and was involved in orchestrating the hit on Liability Blaine.
But yeah, kid’s totally too sunshine and roses for Jennifer. No depth or darkness or danger to him *at all*
I remember Stacy once saying Blaine “shacked up with one of their blankity-blank daughters”, but I can’t find it in the archives so it may have been in Shortpacked!.
It was in Shortpacked. Her being the daughter of someone in the mob is a theory, based on that.
Jennifer is very much focused on how dangerous Asher appears, but either hasn’t pried or hasn’t gotten any solid information on Asher’s past.
Now I’m imagining Asher saying to Jennifer, “Maybe I don’t wanna be dangerous anymore! Want to know why?” He tells her.
Now I cannot decide whether Jennifer is thinking, “that is so hot!” or “OMG I’m in waaay over my head….”
This particular instance of organized crime, in the Walkyverse, might not be limited to one ethnicity. Perhaps it is the Woke Mob we’ve been hearing so much about.
The horniness outweighed the trauma.
when OTPing is life lmao
Now is this a smoking hot guy, or a smoking, hot guy. Because Asher was smoking when he ran into Ethan.
AMBER NO
B: Are you biting your lip in anticipation?
A: Mmmmaybe.
….. _and_ Felix is out of the satchel.
The Professor is eyeballing that satchel, just in case.
These two have a good dynamic
3-way with Jennifer? . . .
HAHA, NAA-AAH…
“LET ETHAN GET A BRIMFUL OF ASHER ON HIS 45!”
“I … don’t know what that means.”
“Neither do I, but it sounds hot.”
Amber is the “Sickos” meme right now, isn’t she.
. . . Amber no
It’s fine, she has a doctor’s note.
Not sure this fetishizing of others sexuality is cool.
This is pretty mild, compared to her open public masturbation last time it came up.
Actually, that’s not a very high bar to clear, is it?
I would be just fine with a Jennifer/Asher/Ethan throuple. Give me that psychological/emotional hot mess!
These two dorks affect my heart a little bit.
First appearance of Booster’s pfp, I believe. I know what’s important.
Seems we’re fast approaching another DYW moment.
Ex? Didn’t he call a hit a few weeks ago?
We know that, they don’t.
And it’d be months, not weeks. About three months to be exact, I think.
I appreciate that literally everyone in the comments yesterday called Amber’s reaction out perfectly
Amber can resist a narrative so neat, delicious and aesthetically HOT
Amber probably could brick his phone at a distance
*their, sorry!