factoid actualy just statistical error. average person ships carla/sal. Superficial Georg, who lives in cave & doesn’t realize the objective hotness of carla and why it doesn’t matter anyway, is an outlier adn should not have been counted
Even if Carla was the ugliest person in the world instead of the gorgeous girl that she is, ships should be based on compatibility more than adherence to societal beauty standards.
Eh, from what I’ve observed, DoA shippers ship based on the proximity of two characters in the same panel. I mean, seriously, are there two characters that have appeared together in the strip that haven’t been shipped at least once in the comments?
Two fictional characters have interacted, therefore, they are destined to be together forever, as passionate soul mates. This is especially true if their interaction was confrontational.
“Thank you based (x)” (usually thank you based god) is a meme that’s been going around for the last couple of years. I’ve used the phrase before, to refer to the advantage that being a patreon subscriber gives for making early comments. In this case, I just took things one step further.
For what it’s worth, that’s not how it works. That’s good connected tissue that they can invert.
Depending on the doctor, they either use the shaft of the penis to create the neo-vagina, and the scrotum to create the labia, or (more common in Thailand) they use the scrotum to create the neo-vagina and the penis to create the labia.
Well, the trans people I know are generally open to questions as long as you’re polite about it. I’m a post-op Trans woman myself, and have done educational talks at local colleges, so my experience may be biased. Either way, Applejam and SilentRain are right about the tissue, and how they sometimes use colon tissue for lubrication. Additionally, they can take skin grafts from the bag of leg/thigh if there is not enough tissue to use for the Vagina. I was lucky and didn’t need anything from my leg or colon, but I was told both might happen during the surgery and had to sign consent forms for both. It’s quite the complicated procedure, with plenty of room for things to go wrong. For myself, I ended up losing a lot of blood, and needed seven blood transfusions. Anywho, I digress. I just wanted to mention I was here, and if anyone had questions I’d be happy to answer them.
Thanks for the explanation of the explanation of the colon and skin grafts, my knowledge of the procedure was limited to the use of reproductive organ tissue.
It’s my default backup avatar whenever one of my experiments in creating avatars goes wrong. A few days ago I tried to make one that was half Ivan Ooze, half Philip Shooter from Hot Fuzz (both played by Paul Freeman) using stills of both with their hands up. It just looked awful in low res, at least to me.
a Boom mic is just a directional microphone that people attach to a stick. Since the stick is a seperate part of the contraption, one could simply hold the microphone part in your hand like it was a normal mic, it just wouldn’t work quite the same.
That is the difference between them, isn’t it?
Sal has to work hard for everything, while everything just comes easy for her brother, almost as if he was a … No I can’t say it.
Didn’t even register that Carla was smoking weed until this strip. Then again I just discovered that I have been smelling the “weed smell” for years in college without ever being conscious of it… I’m kind of like Danny in that way
It wasn’t till I thought I smelled a skunk in Tempe, AZ, an area to which skunks are not native yet many weed smokers are, that I realized two things–that’s what weed smells like, and that’s why “skunk” is one of the many slang words for it.
Uhhhhhh no. If it’s good quality stuff it will smell like when you drive past a run over skunk on the side of the road. Sounds negative but funny thing about smells is your perception of them changes with what you associate them with. I used to gag at the smell of a roadkill skunk as a small child…but now I rather enjoy the smell and it reminds me of all the dank I’ve come to know and enjoy.
I was referring to Kernanator’s perception of that particular scent jokingly, although I am wondering if you’re referring specifically to indica. I haven’t been around it to my knowledge, it’s just that Joe Rogan has a habit of changing subject to indica vs sativa on his podcast.
I can’t really say I know what either one smells like. Never been direct sprayed by a skunk (that I imagine I would smell). I have been in a cloud of mj smoke, but it is just generally smokey to me. Kinda like wood smoke.
What the hell ever. All her “flaws” are specifically intended for the reader to identify and sympathize with., rendering them hardly flaws in the least. “Struggles with math!? Oh noes!!” Nice way to freak the fuck out when anyone has anything even mildly critical to say. Totally not weird at all.
Okay, 1. Sal isn’t a Mary Sue. I’ve never gotten the impression I was “supposed” to like her or think she was awesome. She’s good at certain things, many of which I felt like were originally meant to be more a foil for Billie’s insecurities early on than anything. She slept with a teacher and expected a better grade as a result. She robbed a convience store and held people hostage. These are not small flaws or endearing character traits. These are things that indicate that Sal is a badass in some regards and deeply fucked up in others. 2. I feel like you freaked out way way way more than GC did there, man. You said something that was frankly silly, he pointed out that it was frankly silly, and you went off on him. Shrug. Maybe I’m wrong. Just seems like you are really the one getting pissed over mild criticism here…
The convienence store and the sex are given great narrative pains to explain in a way that makes them as understandable/rationalized as possible. And I was fine with that, but this is a bit of a cherry on top that’s a bit much to swallow for the character as an archetypal badass. I expressed a sentiment in isolation and got insulted as a result – you’re entitled to your perspective on who “went off”, which is the same defensive perspective as the rest of the (frankly silly) fandom, so of course you’d feel the same way. Why would anyone expect anything different here? What a diverse community tolerant of various opinions this is!
I checked to be sure, and I couldn’t see where anyone actually insulted you. Different people did criticize your position, called silly, or terminology, called sexist.
In other words, people expressed sentiments about those things different from yours. That’s where discussions come from. Is that too much for you to tolerate without taking it as a personal attack?
Anyway, Sal is a character with lots of flaws, and they don’t seem more obviously sympathetic than any other character’s. But she is a kind of stereotypical awesome loner rebel, if Willis wanted to lampshade that somewhere in the archives.
” I expressed a sentiment in isolation and got insulted as a result – you’re entitled to your perspective on who “went off”, which is the same defensive perspective as the rest of the (frankly silly) fandom, so of course you’d feel the same way. Why would anyone expect anything different here? What a diverse community tolerant of various opinions this is!”
…If you didn’t want people to agree or disagree with the opinions you expressed, why did you post them in the comments section, which is generally a place where people discuss opinions and offer arguments one way or another?
That’s not really a term though, that’s a sentence or explanation of a term…. Can’t find the expression you are talking about in the thread, but based on the explanation I guess it’s Mary Sue ? That’s not a sexist insult either, if that was the word, but it *is* a personal attack on a fan fic writer, insulting her writing skills.
If it’s the term I’m thinking of, Willis probably considers it sexist because it seems to be thrown around at female characters a lot– a lot more than male characters with similar characteristics, at least–and used to dismiss said characters and female characters in general, even when they really don’t have said qualities. I have yet to see a female character that hasn’t been accused of being one at least at some point.
I’m just bothered that he’s using it incorrectly. The mark of a true Mary Sue isn’t the lack of flaws, but the author’s apparent lack of ability to notice them. Early Walkyverse Danny is a good example of a Marty Stu.
If you want a good Mary Sue/Gary Stu, read Marry Me. The author of the webcomic actually has to devote a page to baldface convince his readers that his main character isn’t one… and fails.
Nail, head, bang! And of course the really bad ones tell you that the character is kind and caring and a good leader and awesome like that, but show you a cruel, manipulative, self-absorbed ass. Because the author just can’t friggin’ see it. In the right mood they’re hilarious, though.
Anyway, awesome takedown of a smirking know-it-all. She had me at *thunk* *thunk* *thunk*
Which kind of makes me wonder… can Mary Amethyst Star Enoby Aiko Archer Picard Janeway Sue REALLY be a Mary Sue when she is clearly written as one ? From the webcomic “Ensign Sue Must Die” (which raises some interesting questions around the whole Sue/Stue phenomenom (Wesley is regarded as a Stue in that universe) : http://www.interrobangstudios.com/comics-display.php?strip_id=989
I think that crosses the line into trope subversion. Although in order to subvert the Stue/Sue it usually requires having at least one component character dislike and disrespect, which bends the trope. For even a S(t)ue’s enemies respect them. :-/
Subverting the S(t)ue without directly violating its form… now that would be tricky. I think only something like the Kool-Aid Man would work. He gets away with ruinous amounts of property damage and “everyone” still loves him.
To see why Willis associates the term with sexism, read the Wikipedia entry on iit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue#Criticism. Apparently some sexist/mysogynist people use it to attack perfectly good female characters.
But after reading that and the TV Tropes page, I don’t see the origin as sexist, and I see a lot of non-sexist modern usages as well.
And I certainly don’t think “woman who is good at multiple things” conveys even a fraction of the intended meaning. Let’s try it: “Sal isn’t a woman who is good at multiple things.” Nope, all meaning lost. Try again, Willis.
I never thought that the term was particularly sexist, although thinking about it that, fact that most people feel the need to use a different term for male Mary Sues is perhaps a sign that there is more sexim involved than i thought.
“I liked it better when I thought she couldn’t skate”. Those are your exact words. Juxtaposed with the previous sentences, “Boo. Mary Sue territory”, that implies that being able to skate is what made Sal a Mary Sue.
So this is “a bit of a cherry on top that’s a bit much to swallow” but “this is where you draw the line” is putting words in your mouth?
Calling a character a Mary Sue is reeeally dismissive, hence all the pushback. I also think it’s so weird that in a narrative which moves at a speed of thirty seconds a day people feel comfortable making sweeping declarations based on one or two strips. (Like, maaaybe Sal has an interesting reason for not wanting to skate besides not being able to? Maaaybe cool your jets on dismissing her forever and ever amen?)
He’s not being dismissive. He was hoping there would finally be something realistically less cool about Sal that would make her less of a Mary Sue. He didn’t dismiss her as one, just said she’s in the territory which was already the case.
Whatever you say fella. Big difference between “dismissing her forever” and saying she’s getting to be in the territory of an idolized character though.
The linked definition of the MS character doesn’t fit my understanding. Batman has always been the central character of his book. If a secondary character was injected into the Justice League that repeatedly saved the helpless league and everyone in the league just loved like crazy, even when that reaction (love, adoration, instant respect) was out of character for the for the one’s “feeling” it. That would seem much more of a MS to me.
So I can’t agree with the automatic dismissal of the term as sexist. It certainly can be used in a sexist manner. It can be applied incorrectly. It can be a way of demeaning female characters. But that’s not the same thing as the term or concept itself being sexist.
That said, Sal is not the above. Sal being awesome is what makes Sal awesome. Don’t ever change that.
Are we playing “guess the word”? I have a dictionary I could test against the filter…
BTW, is there a word for badly written main characters whose supposed relevance utterly depends on instant excession of other people’s developed characters? I need a pithy term to decribe Nathan Christopher Charles Summers Askani’son Cable of the Chosen Clan (he’s a tragic half-cyborg, half-mutant time-traveller who can teleport and read everybody’s mind on Earth simultaneously), for a forthcoming treatise on how Rule 63 only applies to genuinely interesting characters.
I usually like you Willis, but then you do weird things like this. You read some article once arguing that M.S. is a sexist phrase, and now anyone who disagrees is doing such a horrible awful thing that you’re literally banning people from using it.
Read enough fanfiction and you’ll see that it is, undeniably, a real archetype. Yes, people use it incorrectly all the time, especially against female characters. No, Batman is not a counter-example; but male versions do exist.
See, I agree with some of that article but not all of it. I always thought it just meant that a character (male or female) is perfect to the point of being annoying. I fucking hate superman for this reason. Can’t we just start calling that something else since that’s how that phrase started to begin with?
I’m really answering the comment below yours, but there is no “reply” button there for some reason. Anyway, that article is a very flawed description of what a MS is, first it starts with listing the traits of a very know Gary Stu, and then tries to make it like it would be suprising that it described Batman, like the sex of the character had anything to do with the term. Except that what the article describes isn’t really a Sue/Stue at all, so again, I don’t get it. Not everything that sound feminine is offensive, that could quickly become offensive in itself. And this “Mary Sue is considered the worst insult to throw at a character as it renders them worthless.” is definitively not true either, it’s not “the worst insult” , it’s not always an insult even, it’s simply a qualifier. I could agree with disliking the term because it’s a very personal term, taken from the original fan-fic, and if it is indeed the name of the original author it might not be what she wanted associated with her name for eternity.
Thanks for the link Willis, I had never thought about the term before, and it was an eye opener… Come to think of it I remember thinking of batman the first time a friend defined the term for me, and then forgetting all about it when reading TV tropes
I’ll just inject here that, isn’t it interesting how the term for a character that’s so good at things that readers feel the need to criticize it is a woman’s name? I know male versions have popped up (though no one seems to agree on just one), and people will sometimes point out male characters that fall into the same category, but still interesting how that works.
(Also, even if the term isn’t inherently sexist, it gets thrown at female characters that have pretty obvious flaws/weaknesses/whatever, it’s started to lose its meaning and become a go-to word for those that say things that are inherently sexist).
I read the link, and it makes some very good points.
I had a conversation with my cousin a couple of years ago. She was a big fan of Twilight, and I was not, and we argued about whether or not Bella was a…to avoid using a gender specific term, let’s call her “Weakly Written”.
My cousin actually claimed that a character I vastly preferred was the Weakly Written one: Buffy Summers. Both were teenage girls surrounded by supernatural monsters, both had some of the monsters hate her and others love her, both were pretty and popular and smart, and both were special just because they were born that way.
Yet, my cousin claimed, Bella had more “flaws” than Buffy; she was clumsy where Buffy was naturally athletic, helpless when Buffy was as dangerous as the creatures the faced, and overwhelmed and frightened where Buffy would just crack wise and kick ass. Thus Bella was more “complex”, while Buffy was just awesome, and thus a Weakly Written character.
I disagreed; Buffy coolness and power were what made her a great character. She was brave, and heroic, and noble, and tough, while Bella was simpering and useless. Both are wish fulfillment characters, but Buffy fulfills the wish to be capable and in control of your life; Bella fulfills the wish to have pretty boys take care of all your problems for you.
And yet she did make me consider something: if you had to explain the term I’m replacing here to a space alien who had just discovered human fiction, they would probably think it applied to Buffy because she was more “perfect”. Explaining why this isn’t so would require describing how Bella’s “flaws” never really impact the story, how it’s wrong for a character to get what they want without really working for it, how Buffy represents a step forward for representation of female characters and Bella a step backward, how Buffy certainly was a flawed character, just in ways that were more subtle and revealed naturally as the story continued, etc.
In short, you’d have to explain how Buffy was just better written than Bella. And being well or poorly written ultimately has nothing to do with how idealized a character is. Whether they are weak or strong, smart or dumb, loved by all or universally loathed, it’s all about the execution.
And the terminology in question assumes that female character possessing certain traits is going to be inherently badly written, regardless of the execution. It’s sexist, it’s a double standard, it ignores all context and nuance, and it’s ultimately worthless in predicting the quality of a work.
Well, how about because the term is used so much that it’s effectively pointless? It basically means any character with positive and/or interesting traits. It’s shorthand for ‘I have no actual argument.’
They don’t even need to be sympathetic, because people whine about villains who aren’t bumbling incompetents being… that term I can’t say, which makes it harder to complain about it. They only characters who don’t qualify are non-speaking background extras. And some of them might be too visually distinct.
@AgentKeen: The name comes from a parody published in a Star Treak print zine back when there were two venues for fanfic, print zines and the notebook you kept under your bed and never showed to anybody. Ensign Mary Sue had all of the main ST:TOS cast so in love with her that they forgot about their mission, was super duper competent at every cool-sounding duty station on the ship, could sing beautifully, and IIRC Spock cried at her funeral. So a Parody Sue ended up being the trope namer for this type of fic.
Well don’t forget that there’s at least one student (Amber) who hates and fears Sal with a great passion. And Amber’s not being cast as the villain who’s an idiot for hating this Mary Sue-esque person. Also there’s the iffy relationships with her brother, and also Jason, and also she can’t math but this isn’t presented as a positive trait.
Basically there’s more to being a Mary Sue than “she’s really really cool”. You’ll notice there are people like that in real life too.
Bloody hell, if you’re going to whine about this, at least call her a ‘Wesley’ or something, ‘Mary Sue’ is supposed to refer to an original character in a fanfic.
You….know that Cattleprod and GC are presumably not the same person, right? That comment really pushed some buttons, huh? Might I suggest you walk away from the computer and calm down a bit?
If you don’t pick a gravatar… ikea is chosen for you at random. Here’s a helpful life hint though, while I’m already typing: if everyone who is responding to you (in any situation) is essentially saying that you need to calm down, maybe you should give that some thought… what make more sense in the abstract- one person having their temper flare up and lash out at others because of this, or a few dozen adults deciding that they would all pick on one person for really no reason at all? Seriously, just actually think about that for a second… especially if this is not the first time you have been in this kind of situation.
Ok, somehow the word “one” got auto-corrected to “ikea…” that is weird. Sorry about that. Though that is kinda funny in retrospect. If you do not choose a gravatar, an ikea will be chosen for you instead. Ha!
Are there terms for characters who, OTOH, think they are right and everybody else is wrong, including in telling them that they need to chill, and OTOH, ARE totally right, including in their sarky ranting at everyone around them?
Sal has been leaping through windows, head-butting aliens, blowing up space-ships, and single-handedly almost-destroying the world with her anger since the 90s, but -now- she’s a Marry Sue?
Somehow?
Because being able to skate makes everyone in the cast love her and now the entire plotline revolves around making her happy and giving her everything she wants?
“everyone in the cast love her and now the entire plotline revolves around making her happy and giving her everything she wants?” This! This is a so much better description of what a MS is, at least better than the link Willis gave earlier. And it also shows how clearly Sal is not one. Not that it’s always a bad thing to be one either, it all depends on how the author handles it. Such a character is more difficult to write well, but it is not impossible either.
Telltale diagnostic IMO: The plot is supposed to be about something worldshaking, like chucking a doomsday device into the only facility that can destroy it before the bad guys get it. But when this character shows up, she (usually she, not always) becomes the center of the canon characters’ world. What Doomsday Device?
When I first encountered the concept of MS in the mid-late 90s, that was how I understood it. It wasnt that the character was The Best At Everything, it was that regardless of what they were like, everyone loved them regardless, and everything centered around them, and the plot twisted itself into knots to make sure they got everything they wanted with a minimum of fuss, regardless of how much canon and logic had to be ignored.
Not sure when/how it became “Is Good At Stuff”. Nearly every main character, especially in SF, is Good At Stuff. That’s the point.
This is Willis’s world. Play by his rules or exit. Want to do otherwise, feel free to start your own site and write what you like. Don’t come into a space that is being provided to you free and take a crap and then complain when people point it out.
DYW has more patience than me. I would have just blocked and banned crap I didn’t want to see on the board attached to my life’s work. Is there a whole, very good site called the MS? Doesn’t matter. Word of god has spoken. Being polite to your host isn’t a terrible burden, but part of being a decent human (or robot).
Did you just like, pop in randomly on this one strip? how long have you even been reading Dumbing Of Age? Sal is shown to have multiple flaws and weaknesses, and is also shown to NOT be adored by everyone (one of the main defining characteristic of a MS, to be perfect and perfectly loved).
I really shouldn’t be doing your homework for you, but here, you’re apparently too dumb to realize that her imperfections are:
-She isn’t very intelligent in terms of school (Bad at math, for example)
-She has aggression issues (like, she robbed a store with a knife and held a knife to Ethan)
-She is disliked by Amber, with perfectly good reason, and by Walky, her own brother. Neither of these are viewed as being wrong in not liking her. In fact, Amber is completely justified.
-Not every guy is head over heels interested in her. Danny only liked her because he thought she was Amber. In fact, pretty sure the only person shown to REALLY like her is Dorothy. Oddly enough, both you and Dorothy refuse to see her flaws.
She has other little annoyances too, but she’s far from an MS. You’re just upset because you called her one, turned out to be wrong and now just keep getting your feathers all fluffed.
When Walky said Sal is Batman, he meant that she has trained her self to perfection in everything, except math. Math is her kryptonite. And, maybe clueless nerdy dudes. Nah, the’re just her guilty pleasure, except she doesn’t feel guilty about anything.
She had to get her own skates, because an artist works best with their own tools.
If Sal is Batman, kryptonite wouldn’t have much of an effect on her unless she were a genderbent AU Batman where Cal El’s adoptive parents were gunned down in front of her and she decided to devote herself to a life of crimefighting and angst.
By kryptonite, I mean her comic book weakness. If she were a Kryptonion, then kryptonite would be her kryptonite. Batman’s kryptonite is the daughter or Ra’s al Ghu, Talia.
Arguably, Sal isn’t really Batman, but rather Batgirl (Cassandra Cain). And that makes Amber the Spoiler (Stephanie Brown), which totally works, except that makes Danny Robin (Tim Drake), and he isn’t that cool.
And, she clearly can’t be Batgirl (Barbara Gordon), because it would make the British-dude-who’s-name-I-can’t-remember Batman. Then again, they are talking to each other like divorcees fighting over visitation rights, just like in the comics…
It has. If you can come up with an idea involving Batman or Superman an Imaginary Story or Elseworld has been done (or at the very least, pitched) on the idea.
I was hoping we’d see some weakness here from Sal and maybe have Carla be a half decent person and try to help out before some how acting like an ass afterwards anyway.
Instead Sal is awesome again. I really liked Sal but unless this chapter really gives her some development, I’m tossing her in the bland pile. There’s potential for her but I want to see more of what she is hoping for from school, if nothing else.
Sal is awesome at the actual skating part, but there was still a reason she was uncomfortable with not skating. She’s seriously burying some stuff. Plus, she could have just let this go, but she seems to *care* that Carla thought she couldn’t skate, which is in itself a chink in her coolness.
So no.. this isn’t totally Sal being awesome. It’s Sal looking awesome while having buttloads of internal issues.
Of course it does. DYW is dropping another clue here. Marcie’s muteness has to do with skating, with a challenge and with skating with Sal. You guys don’t read enough mysteries.
I think you’re over-reading that. I don’t know, for instance, if you can wear gloves while derbying; if not, then Sal may have a very good reason for not doing that. (Although I wonder if Amber did, in fact, stab Sal. @damnyouwillis, does that flashback reflect reality, or is just Amber’s reaction to her rage?)
I think Sal knows how to skate because of hanging out with Marcie for years. Skating is not something you just pick up instantly. It takes all kinds of balance and coordination. Her being good at it is probably more of a plot line for this story arc if what we’ve scene so far has any relevancy. It really does make sense if you think about it.
My thoughts exactly. I don’t understand this backlash about Sal’s skating ability at all. If the whole thing was just “Sal can’t skate”, that, to me, would be boring. It would be the kind of irrelevant weakness that doesn’t affect her life, and, to me, it would seem like failed attempt to give her a weakness. This shows real weaknesses, weaknesses that affect her charecter as a whole–she’s worried about what Carla thinks, despite stating the contrary. Obviously it bothered her to have Carla think she couldn’t if she came back out to show off. And second, it hints at some personal issue that made her not want to skate, which sets up a mystery. Personal problems like that are the type I want to read about, not “Oh, she can’t skate.”
Basically, I think it’s silly to judge a character based on what she/he can or can’t do. Especially in an interpersonal drama where skills aren’t particularly important to the plot.
I’ll never understand the idea that a character has to be riddled with flaws or oozing weakness to be “interesting”.
(Never mind that Sal has issues that “Why is she so perfect?” crowd is ignoring — she tried to get a good mathematics grade by sleeping with the professor, she’s unable to be honest with her parents about who she is, etc, so on, and so forth.)
You know, Sal not knowing how to skate is the simplest possible answer to why she doesn’t do it. It pretty much either means that story develops into her practicing skating, or closes it off.
Sal knowing how to skate means there are other reasons, which we don’t know yet, with other possible resolutions. Heck, it even allows the possibility that she might someday join them in Roller Derby, with whatever other stories that brings up.
This strip on its own doesn’t develop Sal, but if you want to get to that, it’s the best road to it. In a chapter that’s already hinting there will be a lot. Your mileage may vary, but I trust the author on this.
Y’all knew that Sal was eventually gonna totally pwn Carla — but even I never expected it to be quite this good.
And then the ultimate diss — copping Carla’s ‘J’.
This strip is getting hate? Dang. I love it. I love Sal. Frankly, it really means a lot to me to see a girl character who is both this well rounded and this awesome. <3 Thanks, Willis.
I thoght this was a really silly choice of a strip for anyone to hate on as well. I guess I could see not thinking it’s the bee’s knees or what have you, but it essentially boils down a “you got served” joke. Ot the best single strip ever created but certin entertaining. It servess a purpose in the over storyline as well, by breking up ome of the drm with aa little humor, it ressolves the lst scene while making a nice segue into the next scene. Overall i’d say pretty well done.
I don’t think anyone is really hating the strip specifically. From what I read it was just one person who was disapointed that this is yet another thing Sal is super good at and the rest (myself included) were arguing about the term that was used. I still don’t think it’s sexist, just a poorly defined phrase.
Even if the term wasn’t sexist originally, since then it has been used to dis female writers and picked that up as a second definition which may be totally displacing its other meaning. IF you want to fight to preserve its not sexist use you’re free to, but the fact that you’re having to fight so hard here and are not convincing people suggests that you are losing.
Indeed — sadly, the term has pretty much come to be used online as “female character who doesn’t display enough weakness(es), and thus I find her unrealistic”. Blah. It’s where unspoken sexism and someone’s Lit 101 reading of the idea that flaws make a character interesting overlap, and we get a stupid meme.
Worse than that – it’s come to mean ‘female character I don’t like – and any weaknesses she has are just proof how suey she is’. (Taking the concept of informed flaws and ‘flaws that aren’t’ from the classic definition, and misapplying it to actual flaws.)
The almost-but-not-quite male equivalent of the banned phrase would probably be “boy scout.”
This strip itself seemed fine to me. Someone had a reaction to it, but you’re never going to please everyone.
The problem here is tangential, and touches on all sorts of buttons. Sexism, censorship, acting the “White Knight.” It’s a bunch of people reacting and over-reacting.
I think I need to quit reading the comments, and just enjoy the strip.
I agree with you! Let’s make a female character admiration society and just keep adding (let’s face it, every female character in DoA) to it as they do awesome things!
When I look at the 2nd panel, going down stairs on skates while keeping your arms folded and your legs together without ending up on your ass would actually be harder than the other stuff she does in the later panels.
I thought it was something like that, but for some reason my brain didn’t want to parse it. I blame living abroad and having to work in different languages.
See, I forgot the previous strip was her worrying about Billie at first, so would’ve agreed. But this isn’t just about showing someone up, it’s also a distraction for Sal.
I don’t think so? I mean, no difference in color which is usually used to convey flashbacks (at least at the start), and I don’t know if Marcie had been doing roller derby the night of the parking lot. It sounded like this might have been the first night she played.
This comments section teaches me that we dehumanize people we identify as cool / badass. Y’know, this might be why Batman has to constantly retread the whole “MY PARENTS ARE DEAD” because without that constant reminder of his pain, people would just stop relating to him.
My guess: Sal doesn’t Roller Derby because she prone to violence and has trouble controlling herself. She isn’t Batman, she’s the Hulk, trying constantly to stay calm.
I wonder if that’s why people feel Superman is just too good, but are cool with Batman. Superman almost never brings up his parents dying. If it’s brought up, it’s a general ‘Krypton exploded’ (which is harder to wrap your head around and sympathize with even if it’s more horrible) and it’s used as an explanation for some plot point, not as characterization for Superman directly.
As far as Sal, the particular moves she makes remind me of figure skating, so I wonder if this is going to be another thing Linda pushed on Sal and she bucks against it because of that.
Figure skating (on a blade) and roller skating (on four wheels) are, to say the least, “different”. Because roller skates are generally far heavier than figure skates, and you can actually carve into the ice with a bladed skate to set a solid edge prior to performing jumps, lots of things that you can do on a bladed skate are nigh on to impossible on roller skates.
Having said that, however, there is a discipline known as “artistic roller skating”, which combines elements of figure skating and skate dancing. Sal might have picked up a little bit of that.
Either that or she just took to roller skates as a girl and then her rebel tendencies started to make her look for ways to start showin’ off. Isn’t that the way that skateboarding, snowboarding, and jet-skiing went from just a way to get around to the hot-dogging sports that they are now?
Maybe a nicer way to put it is that people identify with underdogs. When a person wins easily ever time, cheering for them starts to be like cheering for a law of physics, until you start to feel bad for their opponents.
He may be trying to kill someone, but Wile E. Coyote just needs you as a fan that much more than the roadrunner.
Notice what’s sitting next to Carla on the ledge. Sal put her own skates on.
This isn’t about Sal craving appreciation, or caring what Carla thinks. It’s about putting a jerk who uses being “different” as an excuse to be a jerk in her place, and shutting her up.
(My college years exposed me to many people who acted as if “being different” were a license to be a arse.)
Agreed. Sal’s objective here is not to impress Carla but to show her that she’s wrong and to rub Carla’s face in her stupidity and flawed assumptions as forcefully as possible.
It says a lot about Carla that when looking for an explanation for Sal’s behaviour she automatically went for the one that gave her an excuse to feel superior.
Yeah, more clearly, Carla’s an asshole because she’s an asshole. See: Other universe. It’s got nothing to do with being trans, even indirectly. Fer Chrissakes. But you know, keep assuming that’s it. That doesn’t make you look like an asshole yourself.
More than anything that “thunk thunk thunk” looks like a good way to die. Seriously she looks like she should be going right over backwards (headfirst on the concrete steps). Is that even possible?
IRL, yes, the trick is possible, but not if you’re leaning back. It’s just like skiing — you must lean forward to keep your center of mass ahead of the skates so your feet don’t go out from under you.
You must also take the impact with your knees.
Now, riddle me this: is there any reason Willis should actually obey physics?
Maybe she wasn’t rolling, but hopped instead? A bit like balancing a bike on the back tire. Could also have been upright for the first two thunks and leaned back in the transition toward the landing, then kicked the bottom stair with her left foot to provide the centripetal motion necessary to not end up busting her tailbone on the concrete.
You know, a bunch of people are fawning over Sal and her badassery. But what was she doing just before?
Contemplating on whether to check up on Billie.
I have a feeling that this is more than a sick stunt. It’s a distraction. And whether or not Sal’s choice was the right one, her brain’s probably still worrying.
I think that she was going to head to bed before. She is now riding around on her skates, probably to see if she can find Billie. The awesome is just a cherry on the top.
I agree with your analysis. Probably couldn’t sleep, brain was distracted by Billie and then how incorrect Carla was. And so she decided to do SOMETHING, especially if that involved showing someone up.
I was gonna ask what type of cig that is but oh okay then.
Also I don’t understand these skates. Those quad skates are considered utterly lame here, only used by 3 year olds, what is going on over there in the americas? Why would adult people wear these? Why not just get normal skates?
What are “normal skates”? The skates I know of are a) ice, b) quad skates, c) roller blades. Quad skates are often for kids in the US, more often females. However, roller derby uses the quad skates and there’s a bit of a cult usage of them in adults. At skating rinks, the quad skates are what are available to rent. Adults (especially adult males) are slightly more like likely to use roller blades. However, skating is not the most popular activity in the US in any case.
I think quad skates are used by roller derby bc they need the extra stability bc they’re already beating each other up and trying to destabilize each other.
Quad skates, as you call them, predate the in-line skates (Rollerblades®) by something like a hundred years — the 4-wheel design was patented in 1863 — and when roller skating on a track similar to the cycling events of the time emerged as a sport around the turn of the 20th century they used what they had available. This in turn spawned the rock-’em-sock-’em sport we now know as Roller Derby, again with the 1-wheel-at-each-corner skates, so I suppose it is a combination of existing rules along with a strong tie to tradition.
I loved the James Dean Rebel Without A Cause archetype when I was a kid. But because I wasn’t a little boy, the media of the time made it abundantly clear that it was off limits for me. Thank you for Sal.
So if Batman– sorry, Sal, brought her skates to college, this means she was planning on skating, yes? So it’s not the skating she’s opposed to, just organizations. Joy. And I’m glad the story is going this direction, because although the “she can’t skate” thing could potentially cause some tension with Carla, this seems like a much more interesting direction. Also, it’s just generally awesome and I love it so much!
On the whole Parody Sue debate, I always have seen it used to refer to a wish-fulfillment authorial-insertion in fan fiction, where said character is amazing at everything and beloved by everyone for shaky reasons (if any), especially if it is badly-written fan fiction. It doesn’t really surprise me that the term has become a sexist “female character who isn’t weak enough,” though, because people are horrible. Either way, Sal isn’t one.
The way I’ve understood the term, it specifically denotes fan-created characters, meaning that neither Sal nor any other DoA character could possibly ever be a M/G*** S**, no matter how they’re written, because they were created by the original author. That definition would also exclude Bella Swan and Batman from being S**s.
The way I’ve heard the M-Sue term defined, it refers to characters who are perfect in a way that breaks the universe, either by warping the character and behavior of those around them, or by flat-out breaking the laws of physics. The traditional expression of this is for the character to be lauded over and above what would be merited, typically by established main characters who shouldn’t be able to pick the Sue out of a lineup and certainly shouldn’t care about them either way. By this definition Batman would not be a Sue (at least not in general), and Bella Swan definitely is one.
I’m aware that Sues are often female, and often OCs in fanfiction, and often self-inserts, but as best I can tell none of those properties are required. Plus, there are convenient terms for all of those, whereas a “they’re too special” definition gives the term a useful meaning that isn’t replicated by any other convenient term.
And anybody who assumes that the term is synonymous with “strong female character” is a complete asshole. Personally I prefer to go the other way and use it as a completely gender-neutral term.
I frankly don’t care about the dreaded “M-S” term – I’m just ready for Sal to be a part of an interesting storyline. We already know Sal’s cool. I don’t need weaknesses, strengths, or interesting facts — I want to see Sal in a new situation and hopefully “worried about Billy” leads to that.
If anything to do with the Walkterons’ ability to hold their liquor applies in this universe, Sal is probably going to be high as shit in a few minutes
And here I was, thinking we had discovered one of Sal’s weaknesses… but if it isn’t such, why didn’t she want to skate? What is she hiding? Has it something to do with her backstory? Maybe with Marcie’s as well? Thank you for keeping us hooked to your story and characters, Mr. Willis.
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bikers gonna skate
wait
Haters never wait
but gators gotta gait
Who’s Mater’s Mate? :/
Potatoes gonna potate.
Channing Tatum’s gonna Tate
masters gonna bait
Casts gonna rate.
Iterators gotta reiterate the great grate.
Daters gonna procreate.
Sal and UC, the ship is off, what you gonna do this late?
Cats gonna rat
Gophers gonna goph.
Patreons gonna donate.
More.
if that’s from what i think it is thumbs up to you
though you probably just made it up
WINNER!
(on Potatoes)
Haters gonna hate hate hate hate hate. But Sal’s gonna shake it off. My admiration for Sal keeps increasing. Mr. Willis is such a good artist!! <3
Okay. I ship it now.
The position of Carla’s midsection and legs made me think for a sec, “Wait, when did Sal have the time to get down to just her panties?”
I ship it with you, captain.
**opens mouth**
**closes mouth**
… yeah, me too.
Was it something like this?
But- hm, well, I guess Carla isn’t aro, if UC is anything to go by, so I guess it can be done.
Shippers, no shipping! Carla is not hot enough for Sal.
factoid actualy just statistical error. average person ships carla/sal. Superficial Georg, who lives in cave & doesn’t realize the objective hotness of carla and why it doesn’t matter anyway, is an outlier adn should not have been counted
Even if Carla was the ugliest person in the world instead of the gorgeous girl that she is, ships should be based on compatibility more than adherence to societal beauty standards.
Eh, from what I’ve observed, DoA shippers ship based on the proximity of two characters in the same panel. I mean, seriously, are there two characters that have appeared together in the strip that haven’t been shipped at least once in the comments?
“…are there two characters that have appeared together in the strip that haven’t been shipped at least once in the comments?”
Amber and Blaine come to mind.
how about dina and joyce?
dina and joyce have definitely been done by yotomoe, but I don’t know where the picture is
probably somewhere in one of the old news posts
Please tell me no one shipped Faz with… anyone.
Faz has already shipped Fazself with all the lovely ladies.
yotomoe is captain of the s.s. fazina
Two fictional characters have interacted, therefore, they are destined to be together forever, as passionate soul mates. This is especially true if their interaction was confrontational.
/sarcasm
At the risk of exposing my age, what does ‘based’ mean in that hovertext?
Well, it started with this rapper.
Which led to people saying “Based [Whatever].”
“Thank you based (x)” (usually thank you based god) is a meme that’s been going around for the last couple of years. I’ve used the phrase before, to refer to the advantage that being a patreon subscriber gives for making early comments. In this case, I just took things one step further.
Pwnt
Not ’til she gets a pie to the face.
It’s a cream pie in the slipshine. 😀
…Set myself up for that one, didn’t I?
Yes you certainly did. 😀
Sploosh.
This is never gonna stop being a thing, is it?
INDIRECT KISS!
I…I love you.
YUP. I’d say “let the shipping commence” but it already did and I already commented on it.
Surgically removed or not, Carla just got a boner.
Assuming Carla’s post-op, she seems to be the kind of gal who would keep her willy in a jar of formaldehyde.
For what it’s worth, that’s not how it works. That’s good connected tissue that they can invert.
Depending on the doctor, they either use the shaft of the penis to create the neo-vagina, and the scrotum to create the labia, or (more common in Thailand) they use the scrotum to create the neo-vagina and the penis to create the labia.
Hope you enjoyed that tidbit. (:
I did, actually! I always wondered what happened to nerve endings and such but I never thought it polite to ask.
Well, the trans people I know are generally open to questions as long as you’re polite about it. I’m a post-op Trans woman myself, and have done educational talks at local colleges, so my experience may be biased. Either way, Applejam and SilentRain are right about the tissue, and how they sometimes use colon tissue for lubrication. Additionally, they can take skin grafts from the bag of leg/thigh if there is not enough tissue to use for the Vagina. I was lucky and didn’t need anything from my leg or colon, but I was told both might happen during the surgery and had to sign consent forms for both. It’s quite the complicated procedure, with plenty of room for things to go wrong. For myself, I ended up losing a lot of blood, and needed seven blood transfusions. Anywho, I digress. I just wanted to mention I was here, and if anyone had questions I’d be happy to answer them.
Thanks for the explanation of the explanation of the colon and skin grafts, my knowledge of the procedure was limited to the use of reproductive organ tissue.
They also sometimes take a section of your colon to make it deeper
Why?
there’s not always enough tissue
it also allows you to self lubricate so you won’t need artificial lubricants every time
but it takes longer to heal
Ah. Thanks!
Somehow that felt…anticlimactic.
By “anticlimactic” I suppose you mean “perfect” ^^
Indeed
Well shit.
Boomshakalaka!
Boom! Shakalaka!
You. I like you.
*blushes*
Who said the figure skating childhood thing the other day? Step up and take your prize!
Aww, shucks. It was nothing.
Okay, I love Sal now and forever.
I’ve had an unhealthy obsession with her since the early days of It’s Walky!.
This isn’t helping to cure me.
You ain’t the only one.
Sal was awesome enough to turn Joyce gay.
Everyone is gay for Sal. You, Me, EVERYBODY.
but I’m a man.
Am I gay for Sal too?
Especially you.
EVERYBODY.
Salvador is a man’s name.
Salvador!
Yes you are.
Yes.
So she’s the Bridget of DoA?
Actually Carla might be slightly closer to being the Bridget than Sal, Sal is more like Big Boss from Metal Gear meme wise.
That was a squash match bigger than Cena vs. Lesnar.
“Who is Champ?”
Which match? Cena got crushed twice.
Summerslam
Now Sal’s gonna get super high and forget why she came back outside.
Why is the ground moving? I’m on an invisible conveyer belt!
I wish I could skate like that while high…wait a minute I don’t, I wish I could play Piano like a master while high
Dropped on her.
Yoink!
Damn, this avatar looks terrible at low res.
Is that the deer from Nichijou that the principal fights?
Indeed it is.
It’s my default backup avatar whenever one of my experiments in creating avatars goes wrong. A few days ago I tried to make one that was half Ivan Ooze, half Philip Shooter from Hot Fuzz (both played by Paul Freeman) using stills of both with their hands up. It just looked awful in low res, at least to me.
10! 10! Fucking 10!
I’ve still got wood.
10!
You thinkin’ ’bout callin’ some dinosaurs, BillyBob?
Ya got served!
What? No double middle finger?!
She’s so awesome she’s doin’ it with her brain.
She’s going to exhale clouds of smoke that form hands with just the middle fingers up.
….I would pay to see that….
*plays Suicidal Tendencies’ “Possessed To Skate” on the Muzak*
Unreal Announcer: HOLY SHIT! Dominated!
Humiliation!
Sal.
Locking cool.
At everything.
BOOM! Drop the mic.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zIdUlp3QAsk
I never understood the point of dropping expensive recording equipment.
(And how do you drop a boom mike anyway?)
You let it drop into the scene like in many TV bloopers?
a Boom mic is just a directional microphone that people attach to a stick. Since the stick is a seperate part of the contraption, one could simply hold the microphone part in your hand like it was a normal mic, it just wouldn’t work quite the same.
It’s being attached to the stick that makes it a boom mike. The stick is called a boom.
Carla’s face in the last panel SELLS IT.
Served.
She is good at everything I win my pool!…except math.
T-T-T-Triple KILL!!
Owned.
What if that’s Walky?
Honestly I can’t give Walky enough credit to do that. Skating isn’t easy and I don’t think he’d dedicate himself to something like that.
That is the difference between them, isn’t it?
Sal has to work hard for everything, while everything just comes easy for her brother, almost as if he was a … No I can’t say it.
They’re like the opposite of Azula & Zuko.
“They say (s)he was born lucky. They say I was lucky to be born.”
Dude
Yes
Awesome
Here I am, Doing everything I can, Holding on to what I am, Pretending I’m a Superman
Given my mental connection with this track to the original Tony Hawk, I feel like it’s the wrong type of skating
The second panel just made my day. There’s “like a boss,” and then there’s Sal.
Like a Sal?
Didn’t even register that Carla was smoking weed until this strip. Then again I just discovered that I have been smelling the “weed smell” for years in college without ever being conscious of it… I’m kind of like Danny in that way
I have confused weed-smell for skunk-smell multiple times.
Oh god, they do smell similar? I feel just a tiny bit less crazy now, thank you.
I learn such wonderful things here
It wasn’t till I thought I smelled a skunk in Tempe, AZ, an area to which skunks are not native yet many weed smokers are, that I realized two things–that’s what weed smells like, and that’s why “skunk” is one of the many slang words for it.
Well, skunk weed is a term for a reason, but it’s not very good quality stuff.
Does that mean a lit joint or bowl makes you think of a burning skunk?
Uhhhhhh no. If it’s good quality stuff it will smell like when you drive past a run over skunk on the side of the road. Sounds negative but funny thing about smells is your perception of them changes with what you associate them with. I used to gag at the smell of a roadkill skunk as a small child…but now I rather enjoy the smell and it reminds me of all the dank I’ve come to know and enjoy.
I was referring to Kernanator’s perception of that particular scent jokingly, although I am wondering if you’re referring specifically to indica. I haven’t been around it to my knowledge, it’s just that Joe Rogan has a habit of changing subject to indica vs sativa on his podcast.
I can’t really say I know what either one smells like. Never been direct sprayed by a skunk (that I imagine I would smell). I have been in a cloud of mj smoke, but it is just generally smokey to me. Kinda like wood smoke.
It’s not really the smoke that smells skunky, it’s the raw weed.
Game, Set, and DAAAAAAAMN.
REKT
What son ! What !
Hmmm…maybe she doesn’t trust herself to get physically violent. Or she doesn’t like organized sports. I can dig that.
Or would a background check be involved in these things? That could be it, she’s trying to bury that record.
AWW SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTTTTTT
Signed, served, delivered. Yours truly, Sal.
…I didn’t think she could get hotter.
I was wrong.
(Also, so confirmed as a joint? K cool)
We’ll played, Schooly McCool. Well played.
*Slow clap*
*Roaring applause*
Hey! Sal totally stole her skates!
Nah. Carla’s skate wheels are red, Sal’s are blue.
I just realized that I really need to lay off the TF2 when I automatically tried to type RED and BLU instead.
They’re totally right there on the ledge….(facepalm)..derp.
Between this and Jeph Jerkface, it appears to be the week of ‘redheads making cute faces in the last panel’.
And I, for one, welcome our adorable redhead overlords.
For posterity:
http://jephjacques.com/post/98928768545/i-did-a-drawing
Complete awesomeness re-established.
Aww yiss. The Willis giveth.
I called it.
Hehe I love that, never said it before last night.
Total cool about being cool even.
yes yes yes yes yes
Sal
Ah dunno if you’re the marryin’ type
But
Marry me
Boo. Mary Sue territory. I liked it better when I thought she couldn’t skate.
Oh yeah, there’s NOTHING seriously flawed about Sal at all. (Not that flaws are necessary in a good character anyway – freaking TV Tropes zombies.)
What the hell ever. All her “flaws” are specifically intended for the reader to identify and sympathize with., rendering them hardly flaws in the least. “Struggles with math!? Oh noes!!” Nice way to freak the fuck out when anyone has anything even mildly critical to say. Totally not weird at all.
Oh yeah, I can totally relate to needing attention so much that I robbed a convenience store
Ummm… why is having sympathetic flaws a bad thing?
Wouldn’t it be worse if her flaws were unrealistic and not-identifiable?
It’s not a “bad” thing. It’s just not as interesting. See original comment.
And “unrealistic and not-identifiable” is not the only alternative to “sympathetic.” That’s a false dichotomy.
“Interesting” to you…
Okay, 1. Sal isn’t a Mary Sue. I’ve never gotten the impression I was “supposed” to like her or think she was awesome. She’s good at certain things, many of which I felt like were originally meant to be more a foil for Billie’s insecurities early on than anything. She slept with a teacher and expected a better grade as a result. She robbed a convience store and held people hostage. These are not small flaws or endearing character traits. These are things that indicate that Sal is a badass in some regards and deeply fucked up in others. 2. I feel like you freaked out way way way more than GC did there, man. You said something that was frankly silly, he pointed out that it was frankly silly, and you went off on him. Shrug. Maybe I’m wrong. Just seems like you are really the one getting pissed over mild criticism here…
The convienence store and the sex are given great narrative pains to explain in a way that makes them as understandable/rationalized as possible. And I was fine with that, but this is a bit of a cherry on top that’s a bit much to swallow for the character as an archetypal badass. I expressed a sentiment in isolation and got insulted as a result – you’re entitled to your perspective on who “went off”, which is the same defensive perspective as the rest of the (frankly silly) fandom, so of course you’d feel the same way. Why would anyone expect anything different here? What a diverse community tolerant of various opinions this is!
No, you are pretty clearly the only person freaking out in this comment thread.
I checked to be sure, and I couldn’t see where anyone actually insulted you. Different people did criticize your position, called silly, or terminology, called sexist.
In other words, people expressed sentiments about those things different from yours. That’s where discussions come from. Is that too much for you to tolerate without taking it as a personal attack?
Anyway, Sal is a character with lots of flaws, and they don’t seem more obviously sympathetic than any other character’s. But she is a kind of stereotypical awesome loner rebel, if Willis wanted to lampshade that somewhere in the archives.
” I expressed a sentiment in isolation and got insulted as a result – you’re entitled to your perspective on who “went off”, which is the same defensive perspective as the rest of the (frankly silly) fandom, so of course you’d feel the same way. Why would anyone expect anything different here? What a diverse community tolerant of various opinions this is!”
…If you didn’t want people to agree or disagree with the opinions you expressed, why did you post them in the comments section, which is generally a place where people discuss opinions and offer arguments one way or another?
Right, she’s no “Ace” Rimmer!
What a guy!
Flaws are totally necessary in a good character.
Basically Batman trained hard to be best at everything.
(But seriously, I agree. For what’s a hero’s journey without flaws to overcome?)
Hey, Ace Rimmer is flawless and he’s an awesome character–What a guy!
please don’t use that sexist terminology
Wait. Mary Sue is sexist now? What’s the preferred term then?
“woman who is good at multiple things”
What a fantastic strawman! Enjoy that.
you are just full of buzzwords tonight arentcha
I know, right? Usually they aren’t called for!
…and they aren’t in this situation, either.
OH MY GOD
“You keep using that word… i don’t think it means what you think it means…”
That’s not really a term though, that’s a sentence or explanation of a term…. Can’t find the expression you are talking about in the thread, but based on the explanation I guess it’s Mary Sue ? That’s not a sexist insult either, if that was the word, but it *is* a personal attack on a fan fic writer, insulting her writing skills.
If it’s the term I’m thinking of, Willis probably considers it sexist because it seems to be thrown around at female characters a lot– a lot more than male characters with similar characteristics, at least–and used to dismiss said characters and female characters in general, even when they really don’t have said qualities. I have yet to see a female character that hasn’t been accused of being one at least at some point.
Which if I read further down first I would have seen that already explained.
I’m just bothered that he’s using it incorrectly. The mark of a true Mary Sue isn’t the lack of flaws, but the author’s apparent lack of ability to notice them. Early Walkyverse Danny is a good example of a Marty Stu.
If you want a good Mary Sue/Gary Stu, read Marry Me. The author of the webcomic actually has to devote a page to baldface convince his readers that his main character isn’t one… and fails.
Nail, head, bang! And of course the really bad ones tell you that the character is kind and caring and a good leader and awesome like that, but show you a cruel, manipulative, self-absorbed ass. Because the author just can’t friggin’ see it. In the right mood they’re hilarious, though.
Anyway, awesome takedown of a smirking know-it-all. She had me at *thunk* *thunk* *thunk*
Which kind of makes me wonder… can Mary Amethyst Star Enoby Aiko Archer Picard Janeway Sue REALLY be a Mary Sue when she is clearly written as one ? From the webcomic “Ensign Sue Must Die” (which raises some interesting questions around the whole Sue/Stue phenomenom (Wesley is regarded as a Stue in that universe) : http://www.interrobangstudios.com/comics-display.php?strip_id=989
Nice example of a Parody Sue.
I think that crosses the line into trope subversion. Although in order to subvert the Stue/Sue it usually requires having at least one component character dislike and disrespect, which bends the trope. For even a S(t)ue’s enemies respect them. :-/
Subverting the S(t)ue without directly violating its form… now that would be tricky. I think only something like the Kool-Aid Man would work. He gets away with ruinous amounts of property damage and “everyone” still loves him.
I love your gravitar! It fits everything you say.
(I also like your comics!)
For real? That’s where you’re going with that? Deflection successful, then, I guess. No point in attempting anything further.
Not one sexist thing about it.
To see why Willis associates the term with sexism, read the Wikipedia entry on iit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue#Criticism. Apparently some sexist/mysogynist people use it to attack perfectly good female characters.
But after reading that and the TV Tropes page, I don’t see the origin as sexist, and I see a lot of non-sexist modern usages as well.
And I certainly don’t think “woman who is good at multiple things” conveys even a fraction of the intended meaning. Let’s try it: “Sal isn’t a woman who is good at multiple things.” Nope, all meaning lost. Try again, Willis.
Yeah Willis is just lashing out tonight it seems. He should just turn his computer off.
I don’t think Willis is lashing out. The word itself is not sexist, but the way it was being used was.
I never thought that the term was particularly sexist, although thinking about it that, fact that most people feel the need to use a different term for male Mary Sues is perhaps a sign that there is more sexim involved than i thought.
So everything else was perfectly acceptable, but being able to skate is where you draw the line?
No, but way to put words in my mouth, though.
“I liked it better when I thought she couldn’t skate”. Those are your exact words. Juxtaposed with the previous sentences, “Boo. Mary Sue territory”, that implies that being able to skate is what made Sal a Mary Sue.
So this is “a bit of a cherry on top that’s a bit much to swallow” but “this is where you draw the line” is putting words in your mouth?
Calling a character a Mary Sue is reeeally dismissive, hence all the pushback. I also think it’s so weird that in a narrative which moves at a speed of thirty seconds a day people feel comfortable making sweeping declarations based on one or two strips. (Like, maaaybe Sal has an interesting reason for not wanting to skate besides not being able to? Maaaybe cool your jets on dismissing her forever and ever amen?)
He’s not being dismissive. He was hoping there would finally be something realistically less cool about Sal that would make her less of a Mary Sue. He didn’t dismiss her as one, just said she’s in the territory which was already the case.
“Mary Sue” is an inherently dismissive term (you can argue it’s not but uh have fun), which makes what you said not really make sense to me?
Whatever you say fella. Big difference between “dismissing her forever” and saying she’s getting to be in the territory of an idolized character though.
idealized*
You were right the first time.
i think a good exercise going forward would be to discuss this somehow without using that awful, loaded phrase which means terrible things
*adds phrase to content filter*
oh look i’ve made it easier
now use your words
The linked definition of the MS character doesn’t fit my understanding. Batman has always been the central character of his book. If a secondary character was injected into the Justice League that repeatedly saved the helpless league and everyone in the league just loved like crazy, even when that reaction (love, adoration, instant respect) was out of character for the for the one’s “feeling” it. That would seem much more of a MS to me.
So I can’t agree with the automatic dismissal of the term as sexist. It certainly can be used in a sexist manner. It can be applied incorrectly. It can be a way of demeaning female characters. But that’s not the same thing as the term or concept itself being sexist.
That said, Sal is not the above. Sal being awesome is what makes Sal awesome. Don’t ever change that.
Hi, what’s going on in this thread?
Are we playing “guess the word”? I have a dictionary I could test against the filter…
BTW, is there a word for badly written main characters whose supposed relevance utterly depends on instant excession of other people’s developed characters? I need a pithy term to decribe Nathan Christopher Charles Summers Askani’son Cable of the Chosen Clan (he’s a tragic half-cyborg, half-mutant time-traveller who can teleport and read everybody’s mind on Earth simultaneously), for a forthcoming treatise on how Rule 63 only applies to genuinely interesting characters.
I usually like you Willis, but then you do weird things like this. You read some article once arguing that M.S. is a sexist phrase, and now anyone who disagrees is doing such a horrible awful thing that you’re literally banning people from using it.
Read enough fanfiction and you’ll see that it is, undeniably, a real archetype. Yes, people use it incorrectly all the time, especially against female characters. No, Batman is not a counter-example; but male versions do exist.
Hate to think of what might happen if we start referring to Joyce as a “Pollyanna”.
How is calling someone an idealized character an awful, loaded and somehow also sexist phrase? Maybe you should stop using YOUR words.
http://ladyloveandjustice.tumblr.com/post/13913540194/mary-sue-what-are-you-or-why-the-concept-of-sue-is <---
See, I agree with some of that article but not all of it. I always thought it just meant that a character (male or female) is perfect to the point of being annoying. I fucking hate superman for this reason. Can’t we just start calling that something else since that’s how that phrase started to begin with?
I’m really answering the comment below yours, but there is no “reply” button there for some reason. Anyway, that article is a very flawed description of what a MS is, first it starts with listing the traits of a very know Gary Stu, and then tries to make it like it would be suprising that it described Batman, like the sex of the character had anything to do with the term. Except that what the article describes isn’t really a Sue/Stue at all, so again, I don’t get it. Not everything that sound feminine is offensive, that could quickly become offensive in itself. And this “Mary Sue is considered the worst insult to throw at a character as it renders them worthless.” is definitively not true either, it’s not “the worst insult” , it’s not always an insult even, it’s simply a qualifier. I could agree with disliking the term because it’s a very personal term, taken from the original fan-fic, and if it is indeed the name of the original author it might not be what she wanted associated with her name for eternity.
Thanks for the link Willis, I had never thought about the term before, and it was an eye opener… Come to think of it I remember thinking of batman the first time a friend defined the term for me, and then forgetting all about it when reading TV tropes
I’ll just inject here that, isn’t it interesting how the term for a character that’s so good at things that readers feel the need to criticize it is a woman’s name? I know male versions have popped up (though no one seems to agree on just one), and people will sometimes point out male characters that fall into the same category, but still interesting how that works.
(Also, even if the term isn’t inherently sexist, it gets thrown at female characters that have pretty obvious flaws/weaknesses/whatever, it’s started to lose its meaning and become a go-to word for those that say things that are inherently sexist).
I read the link, and it makes some very good points.
I had a conversation with my cousin a couple of years ago. She was a big fan of Twilight, and I was not, and we argued about whether or not Bella was a…to avoid using a gender specific term, let’s call her “Weakly Written”.
My cousin actually claimed that a character I vastly preferred was the Weakly Written one: Buffy Summers. Both were teenage girls surrounded by supernatural monsters, both had some of the monsters hate her and others love her, both were pretty and popular and smart, and both were special just because they were born that way.
Yet, my cousin claimed, Bella had more “flaws” than Buffy; she was clumsy where Buffy was naturally athletic, helpless when Buffy was as dangerous as the creatures the faced, and overwhelmed and frightened where Buffy would just crack wise and kick ass. Thus Bella was more “complex”, while Buffy was just awesome, and thus a Weakly Written character.
I disagreed; Buffy coolness and power were what made her a great character. She was brave, and heroic, and noble, and tough, while Bella was simpering and useless. Both are wish fulfillment characters, but Buffy fulfills the wish to be capable and in control of your life; Bella fulfills the wish to have pretty boys take care of all your problems for you.
And yet she did make me consider something: if you had to explain the term I’m replacing here to a space alien who had just discovered human fiction, they would probably think it applied to Buffy because she was more “perfect”. Explaining why this isn’t so would require describing how Bella’s “flaws” never really impact the story, how it’s wrong for a character to get what they want without really working for it, how Buffy represents a step forward for representation of female characters and Bella a step backward, how Buffy certainly was a flawed character, just in ways that were more subtle and revealed naturally as the story continued, etc.
In short, you’d have to explain how Buffy was just better written than Bella. And being well or poorly written ultimately has nothing to do with how idealized a character is. Whether they are weak or strong, smart or dumb, loved by all or universally loathed, it’s all about the execution.
And the terminology in question assumes that female character possessing certain traits is going to be inherently badly written, regardless of the execution. It’s sexist, it’s a double standard, it ignores all context and nuance, and it’s ultimately worthless in predicting the quality of a work.
Well, how about because the term is used so much that it’s effectively pointless? It basically means any character with positive and/or interesting traits. It’s shorthand for ‘I have no actual argument.’
They don’t even need to be sympathetic, because people whine about villains who aren’t bumbling incompetents being… that term I can’t say, which makes it harder to complain about it. They only characters who don’t qualify are non-speaking background extras. And some of them might be too visually distinct.
@AgentKeen: The name comes from a parody published in a Star Treak print zine back when there were two venues for fanfic, print zines and the notebook you kept under your bed and never showed to anybody. Ensign Mary Sue had all of the main ST:TOS cast so in love with her that they forgot about their mission, was super duper competent at every cool-sounding duty station on the ship, could sing beautifully, and IIRC Spock cried at her funeral. So a Parody Sue ended up being the trope namer for this type of fic.
Oh for CRYING OUT LOUD. Ensign-way Ary-may Ue-say. It was her actual literal name, OK?
“realistically less cool”? ALL cool people can skate like that!
Well don’t forget that there’s at least one student (Amber) who hates and fears Sal with a great passion. And Amber’s not being cast as the villain who’s an idiot for hating this Mary Sue-esque person. Also there’s the iffy relationships with her brother, and also Jason, and also she can’t math but this isn’t presented as a positive trait.
Basically there’s more to being a Mary Sue than “she’s really really cool”. You’ll notice there are people like that in real life too.
Bloody hell, if you’re going to whine about this, at least call her a ‘Wesley’ or something, ‘Mary Sue’ is supposed to refer to an original character in a fanfic.
Now who’s the TV tropes zombie?
You….know that Cattleprod and GC are presumably not the same person, right? That comment really pushed some buttons, huh? Might I suggest you walk away from the computer and calm down a bit?
Point taken that two posters with the exact same gravatar are different posters. And yet….nothing is really diffferent, is it? Funny how that works.
I really hope you’re not the same guy that freaked out about Danny being bi a some time back. Chill for a while, man
If you don’t pick a gravatar… ikea is chosen for you at random. Here’s a helpful life hint though, while I’m already typing: if everyone who is responding to you (in any situation) is essentially saying that you need to calm down, maybe you should give that some thought… what make more sense in the abstract- one person having their temper flare up and lash out at others because of this, or a few dozen adults deciding that they would all pick on one person for really no reason at all? Seriously, just actually think about that for a second… especially if this is not the first time you have been in this kind of situation.
Ok, somehow the word “one” got auto-corrected to “ikea…” that is weird. Sorry about that. Though that is kinda funny in retrospect. If you do not choose a gravatar, an ikea will be chosen for you instead. Ha!
I liked Ikea. Somehow it made sense to me.
Are there terms for characters who, OTOH, think they are right and everybody else is wrong, including in telling them that they need to chill, and OTOH, ARE totally right, including in their sarky ranting at everyone around them?
No one called you a TV trope zombie though….
“Uuuuuhh… TROOOOOOOOOPES”
Sal has been leaping through windows, head-butting aliens, blowing up space-ships, and single-handedly almost-destroying the world with her anger since the 90s, but -now- she’s a Marry Sue?
Somehow?
Because being able to skate makes everyone in the cast love her and now the entire plotline revolves around making her happy and giving her everything she wants?
“everyone in the cast love her and now the entire plotline revolves around making her happy and giving her everything she wants?” This! This is a so much better description of what a MS is, at least better than the link Willis gave earlier. And it also shows how clearly Sal is not one. Not that it’s always a bad thing to be one either, it all depends on how the author handles it. Such a character is more difficult to write well, but it is not impossible either.
Ruth dislikes Sal, and vice versa. MS claim thwarted!
Also Amber.
Sort of Amber. At this point, I think Amber just feels really guilty around Sal (and angry at herself).
Here’s another better post, from a professional publisher even. The description she used before she came across the term M— S– is perfectly pithy IMO.
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/004188.html
Telltale diagnostic IMO: The plot is supposed to be about something worldshaking, like chucking a doomsday device into the only facility that can destroy it before the bad guys get it. But when this character shows up, she (usually she, not always) becomes the center of the canon characters’ world. What Doomsday Device?
When I first encountered the concept of MS in the mid-late 90s, that was how I understood it. It wasnt that the character was The Best At Everything, it was that regardless of what they were like, everyone loved them regardless, and everything centered around them, and the plot twisted itself into knots to make sure they got everything they wanted with a minimum of fuss, regardless of how much canon and logic had to be ignored.
Not sure when/how it became “Is Good At Stuff”. Nearly every main character, especially in SF, is Good At Stuff. That’s the point.
This is Willis’s world. Play by his rules or exit. Want to do otherwise, feel free to start your own site and write what you like. Don’t come into a space that is being provided to you free and take a crap and then complain when people point it out.
DYW has more patience than me. I would have just blocked and banned crap I didn’t want to see on the board attached to my life’s work. Is there a whole, very good site called the MS? Doesn’t matter. Word of god has spoken. Being polite to your host isn’t a terrible burden, but part of being a decent human (or robot).
Or maybe they were speaking in the context of this comic alone…?
Did you just like, pop in randomly on this one strip? how long have you even been reading Dumbing Of Age? Sal is shown to have multiple flaws and weaknesses, and is also shown to NOT be adored by everyone (one of the main defining characteristic of a MS, to be perfect and perfectly loved).
I really shouldn’t be doing your homework for you, but here, you’re apparently too dumb to realize that her imperfections are:
-She isn’t very intelligent in terms of school (Bad at math, for example)
-She has aggression issues (like, she robbed a store with a knife and held a knife to Ethan)
-She is disliked by Amber, with perfectly good reason, and by Walky, her own brother. Neither of these are viewed as being wrong in not liking her. In fact, Amber is completely justified.
-Not every guy is head over heels interested in her. Danny only liked her because he thought she was Amber. In fact, pretty sure the only person shown to REALLY like her is Dorothy. Oddly enough, both you and Dorothy refuse to see her flaws.
She has other little annoyances too, but she’s far from an MS. You’re just upset because you called her one, turned out to be wrong and now just keep getting your feathers all fluffed.
Dorothy or Joyce?
Oops, meant Joyce. Thanks for catching that.
Had a chance to drop the mic,but this works.
God DAMN I missed you Sal. This was awesome.
All this needs is some dubstep and this is the comic strip equivalent of those YouTube MLG Montages.
I love Sal in DOA
Aaaaaannnnd….scene
If Sal had a mike, I feel like she would have just dropped it.
Fortunately he’s asleep right now and it’d be awkward to wake him up just for that.
I think he’d be willing. It sounded like he’s into that kind of stuff.
Yeah, but would he get the same affect from Amazigirl’s Joe Chill as from Amazigirl herself?
Sal should totally drop the Mike.
When Walky said Sal is Batman, he meant that she has trained her self to perfection in everything, except math. Math is her kryptonite. And, maybe clueless nerdy dudes. Nah, the’re just her guilty pleasure, except she doesn’t feel guilty about anything.
She had to get her own skates, because an artist works best with their own tools.
If Sal is Batman, kryptonite wouldn’t have much of an effect on her unless she were a genderbent AU Batman where Cal El’s adoptive parents were gunned down in front of her and she decided to devote herself to a life of crimefighting and angst.
By kryptonite, I mean her comic book weakness. If she were a Kryptonion, then kryptonite would be her kryptonite. Batman’s kryptonite is the daughter or Ra’s al Ghu, Talia.
Arguably, Sal isn’t really Batman, but rather Batgirl (Cassandra Cain). And that makes Amber the Spoiler (Stephanie Brown), which totally works, except that makes Danny Robin (Tim Drake), and he isn’t that cool.
And, she clearly can’t be Batgirl (Barbara Gordon), because it would make the British-dude-who’s-name-I-can’t-remember Batman. Then again, they are talking to each other like divorcees fighting over visitation rights, just like in the comics…
You know, now that I think of it, Batman’s kryptonite is that he can’t keep it in his Batpants.
If only if he were as prepared as Amazi-Girl.
I’d read that.
I think that Elseworlds actually has been done, minus the gender-bending part.
It has. If you can come up with an idea involving Batman or Superman an Imaginary Story or Elseworld has been done (or at the very least, pitched) on the idea.
BADASS!!!!!
I’m bored… “Sal is awesome” has been played out.
I was hoping we’d see some weakness here from Sal and maybe have Carla be a half decent person and try to help out before some how acting like an ass afterwards anyway.
Instead Sal is awesome again. I really liked Sal but unless this chapter really gives her some development, I’m tossing her in the bland pile. There’s potential for her but I want to see more of what she is hoping for from school, if nothing else.
Sal is awesome at the actual skating part, but there was still a reason she was uncomfortable with not skating. She’s seriously burying some stuff. Plus, she could have just let this go, but she seems to *care* that Carla thought she couldn’t skate, which is in itself a chink in her coolness.
So no.. this isn’t totally Sal being awesome. It’s Sal looking awesome while having buttloads of internal issues.
Something to do with Marcie’ s muteness?
Of course it does. DYW is dropping another clue here. Marcie’s muteness has to do with skating, with a challenge and with skating with Sal. You guys don’t read enough mysteries.
I think you’re over-reading that. I don’t know, for instance, if you can wear gloves while derbying; if not, then Sal may have a very good reason for not doing that. (Although I wonder if Amber did, in fact, stab Sal. @damnyouwillis, does that flashback reflect reality, or is just Amber’s reaction to her rage?)
I think Sal knows how to skate because of hanging out with Marcie for years. Skating is not something you just pick up instantly. It takes all kinds of balance and coordination. Her being good at it is probably more of a plot line for this story arc if what we’ve scene so far has any relevancy. It really does make sense if you think about it.
My thoughts exactly. I don’t understand this backlash about Sal’s skating ability at all. If the whole thing was just “Sal can’t skate”, that, to me, would be boring. It would be the kind of irrelevant weakness that doesn’t affect her life, and, to me, it would seem like failed attempt to give her a weakness. This shows real weaknesses, weaknesses that affect her charecter as a whole–she’s worried about what Carla thinks, despite stating the contrary. Obviously it bothered her to have Carla think she couldn’t if she came back out to show off. And second, it hints at some personal issue that made her not want to skate, which sets up a mystery. Personal problems like that are the type I want to read about, not “Oh, she can’t skate.”
Basically, I think it’s silly to judge a character based on what she/he can or can’t do. Especially in an interpersonal drama where skills aren’t particularly important to the plot.
I’ll never understand the idea that a character has to be riddled with flaws or oozing weakness to be “interesting”.
(Never mind that Sal has issues that “Why is she so perfect?” crowd is ignoring — she tried to get a good mathematics grade by sleeping with the professor, she’s unable to be honest with her parents about who she is, etc, so on, and so forth.)
<nitpick> The TA, not the prof. </nitpick>
You know, Sal not knowing how to skate is the simplest possible answer to why she doesn’t do it. It pretty much either means that story develops into her practicing skating, or closes it off.
Sal knowing how to skate means there are other reasons, which we don’t know yet, with other possible resolutions. Heck, it even allows the possibility that she might someday join them in Roller Derby, with whatever other stories that brings up.
This strip on its own doesn’t develop Sal, but if you want to get to that, it’s the best road to it. In a chapter that’s already hinting there will be a lot. Your mileage may vary, but I trust the author on this.
I stand by my ship. HMS Salcar underway 🙂
We’re calling it Skatewinning now. Want in?
That was rad.
Told
She walked to her room, put on skates, came back and the joint is still not burnt down at all… Wonka at work.
She could’ve rolled another one in the mean time
On a related note: Anyone got a lighter? Or matches?
I called it. Batman trained to be the best at EVERYTHING.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-5/01-when-somebody-loved-me/calledit/#comment-300571
but if it wasn’t for her face, it would kinda look like she was falling.
Y’all knew that Sal was eventually gonna totally pwn Carla — but even I never expected it to be quite this good.
And then the ultimate diss — copping Carla’s ‘J’.
Hey Carla, want some ointment to go on that BUUUUURN!
*GASP!*
Is that… A Marijuana?
Marijuana’s for beginners, that’s angel dust.
It could be sherm stick.
“That’s beautiful, man.”
Also: she’s gonna look for Billie, you think?
Might as well also be awesome doin’ it. :3
You ain’t fat!
You ain’t nothing!
…
Hoooooooo!
Yo’ butt is wide, well mine is, too *nah*
Jus’ watch yo’ mouth, or I’ll sit on you *nah*
This strip is getting hate? Dang. I love it. I love Sal. Frankly, it really means a lot to me to see a girl character who is both this well rounded and this awesome. <3 Thanks, Willis.
<3
I thoght this was a really silly choice of a strip for anyone to hate on as well. I guess I could see not thinking it’s the bee’s knees or what have you, but it essentially boils down a “you got served” joke. Ot the best single strip ever created but certin entertaining. It servess a purpose in the over storyline as well, by breking up ome of the drm with aa little humor, it ressolves the lst scene while making a nice segue into the next scene. Overall i’d say pretty well done.
Christ I cannot type tonight. Sorry about that mess
I don’t think anyone is really hating the strip specifically. From what I read it was just one person who was disapointed that this is yet another thing Sal is super good at and the rest (myself included) were arguing about the term that was used. I still don’t think it’s sexist, just a poorly defined phrase.
Even if the term wasn’t sexist originally, since then it has been used to dis female writers and picked that up as a second definition which may be totally displacing its other meaning. IF you want to fight to preserve its not sexist use you’re free to, but the fact that you’re having to fight so hard here and are not convincing people suggests that you are losing.
Indeed — sadly, the term has pretty much come to be used online as “female character who doesn’t display enough weakness(es), and thus I find her unrealistic”. Blah. It’s where unspoken sexism and someone’s Lit 101 reading of the idea that flaws make a character interesting overlap, and we get a stupid meme.
Worse than that – it’s come to mean ‘female character I don’t like – and any weaknesses she has are just proof how suey she is’. (Taking the concept of informed flaws and ‘flaws that aren’t’ from the classic definition, and misapplying it to actual flaws.)
The almost-but-not-quite male equivalent of the banned phrase would probably be “boy scout.”
This strip itself seemed fine to me. Someone had a reaction to it, but you’re never going to please everyone.
The problem here is tangential, and touches on all sorts of buttons. Sexism, censorship, acting the “White Knight.” It’s a bunch of people reacting and over-reacting.
I think I need to quit reading the comments, and just enjoy the strip.
I was thinking more along the lines of making a new less lame sounding term.
I agree with you! Let’s make a female character admiration society and just keep adding (let’s face it, every female character in DoA) to it as they do awesome things!
Actually this is hilariously satisfying.
Game. Set. Match. Sal Walkerton! 😀
So. Sal really does crave appreciation, doesn’t she.
When I look at the 2nd panel, going down stairs on skates while keeping your arms folded and your legs together without ending up on your ass would actually be harder than the other stuff she does in the later panels.
Which at first I thought was her flailing about. But no, it’s cool. No falling, pure style.
Can someone explain the alt-text? What’s a “done thing?” Thanks!
A thing which is done. By people.
I thought it was something like that, but for some reason my brain didn’t want to parse it. I blame living abroad and having to work in different languages.
Thinking of Samus Aran when I look at Sal’s epically-standing-up-straight-with-flowing-hair hero pose (the last one of the montage). I like.
This made me incredibly happy. Sal being bad-ass will do it every time!
Well, now I have nothing in common with Sal. *sadface*
STOP – Sally Time.
I feel like people misreading Sal is quickly becoming a reoccurring theme.
Huh. Apparently Sal _does_ care what Carla thinks of her. Looks like Carla has made a friend. And got pwnd, but sometimes friends do that.
See, I forgot the previous strip was her worrying about Billie at first, so would’ve agreed. But this isn’t just about showing someone up, it’s also a distraction for Sal.
Isn’t this some kind of flashback? I mean, it really really seems to be taking place before Carla and Sal were hanging out and fighting Amazi-Girl.
I don’t think so? I mean, no difference in color which is usually used to convey flashbacks (at least at the start), and I don’t know if Marcie had been doing roller derby the night of the parking lot. It sounded like this might have been the first night she played.
le definition of BADASS
Amazi-girl may be the superhero Iowa deserves, but Sal is the one the world needs.
Iowa?? Methinks you meant “Indiana”.
Nah, they meant Iowa. They’re direly in need of a superhero over there. Unfortunately, the only one currently on duty is in Indiana.
Sal must’ve taken lessons from Hal (of Malcom in the Middle). I shall be making that my headcannon.
I dig this.
This comments section teaches me that we dehumanize people we identify as cool / badass. Y’know, this might be why Batman has to constantly retread the whole “MY PARENTS ARE DEAD” because without that constant reminder of his pain, people would just stop relating to him.
My guess: Sal doesn’t Roller Derby because she prone to violence and has trouble controlling herself. She isn’t Batman, she’s the Hulk, trying constantly to stay calm.
I wonder if that’s why people feel Superman is just too good, but are cool with Batman. Superman almost never brings up his parents dying. If it’s brought up, it’s a general ‘Krypton exploded’ (which is harder to wrap your head around and sympathize with even if it’s more horrible) and it’s used as an explanation for some plot point, not as characterization for Superman directly.
As far as Sal, the particular moves she makes remind me of figure skating, so I wonder if this is going to be another thing Linda pushed on Sal and she bucks against it because of that.
Figure skating (on a blade) and roller skating (on four wheels) are, to say the least, “different”. Because roller skates are generally far heavier than figure skates, and you can actually carve into the ice with a bladed skate to set a solid edge prior to performing jumps, lots of things that you can do on a bladed skate are nigh on to impossible on roller skates.
Having said that, however, there is a discipline known as “artistic roller skating”, which combines elements of figure skating and skate dancing. Sal might have picked up a little bit of that.
Either that or she just took to roller skates as a girl and then her rebel tendencies started to make her look for ways to start showin’ off. Isn’t that the way that skateboarding, snowboarding, and jet-skiing went from just a way to get around to the hot-dogging sports that they are now?
Maybe a nicer way to put it is that people identify with underdogs. When a person wins easily ever time, cheering for them starts to be like cheering for a law of physics, until you start to feel bad for their opponents.
He may be trying to kill someone, but Wile E. Coyote just needs you as a fan that much more than the roadrunner.
Notice what’s sitting next to Carla on the ledge. Sal put her own skates on.
This isn’t about Sal craving appreciation, or caring what Carla thinks. It’s about putting a jerk who uses being “different” as an excuse to be a jerk in her place, and shutting her up.
(My college years exposed me to many people who acted as if “being different” were a license to be a arse.)
Agreed. Sal’s objective here is not to impress Carla but to show her that she’s wrong and to rub Carla’s face in her stupidity and flawed assumptions as forcefully as possible.
It says a lot about Carla that when looking for an explanation for Sal’s behaviour she automatically went for the one that gave her an excuse to feel superior.
For folks complaining about other people’s assumptions, y’all kinda have some of your own why Carla’s a jerk, don’tcha.
*yawn*
Yeah, more clearly, Carla’s an asshole because she’s an asshole. See: Other universe. It’s got nothing to do with being trans, even indirectly. Fer Chrissakes. But you know, keep assuming that’s it. That doesn’t make you look like an asshole yourself.
No one said he’s a jerk because she’s trans.
I said that she comes across as using “being different” as an *excuse* for being a jerk.
Also, I think Sal was being honest when she said she’s not into organized activities — she doesn’t like being told what to do.
Welp.
That’s not skating. That’s falling with style.
they see her rollin
More than anything that “thunk thunk thunk” looks like a good way to die. Seriously she looks like she should be going right over backwards (headfirst on the concrete steps). Is that even possible?
If she balances herself right, then sure.
She’s leaning back! Pretty far, too!
IRL, yes, the trick is possible, but not if you’re leaning back. It’s just like skiing — you must lean forward to keep your center of mass ahead of the skates so your feet don’t go out from under you.
You must also take the impact with your knees.
Now, riddle me this: is there any reason Willis should actually obey physics?
Maybe she wasn’t rolling, but hopped instead? A bit like balancing a bike on the back tire. Could also have been upright for the first two thunks and leaned back in the transition toward the landing, then kicked the bottom stair with her left foot to provide the centripetal motion necessary to not end up busting her tailbone on the concrete.
…or it could just be that she’s Just That Good™.
And that’s why it’s so badass. Most likely even Carla or Malaya couldn’t do that.
Am I the only one getting Air Gear flashbacks?
You know, a bunch of people are fawning over Sal and her badassery. But what was she doing just before?
Contemplating on whether to check up on Billie.
I have a feeling that this is more than a sick stunt. It’s a distraction. And whether or not Sal’s choice was the right one, her brain’s probably still worrying.
I think that she was going to head to bed before. She is now riding around on her skates, probably to see if she can find Billie. The awesome is just a cherry on the top.
I agree with your analysis. Probably couldn’t sleep, brain was distracted by Billie and then how incorrect Carla was. And so she decided to do SOMETHING, especially if that involved showing someone up.
Witness as Carla gets the most awkward asexual ladycrush on Sal
I was gonna ask what type of cig that is but oh okay then.
Also I don’t understand these skates. Those quad skates are considered utterly lame here, only used by 3 year olds, what is going on over there in the americas? Why would adult people wear these? Why not just get normal skates?
What are “normal skates”? The skates I know of are a) ice, b) quad skates, c) roller blades. Quad skates are often for kids in the US, more often females. However, roller derby uses the quad skates and there’s a bit of a cult usage of them in adults. At skating rinks, the quad skates are what are available to rent. Adults (especially adult males) are slightly more like likely to use roller blades. However, skating is not the most popular activity in the US in any case.
I think quad skates are used by roller derby bc they need the extra stability bc they’re already beating each other up and trying to destabilize each other.
Quad skates, as you call them, predate the in-line skates (Rollerblades®) by something like a hundred years — the 4-wheel design was patented in 1863 — and when roller skating on a track similar to the cycling events of the time emerged as a sport around the turn of the 20th century they used what they had available. This in turn spawned the rock-’em-sock-’em sport we now know as Roller Derby, again with the 1-wheel-at-each-corner skates, so I suppose it is a combination of existing rules along with a strong tie to tradition.
I was under the impression that Roller Derby leagues require the “4 corner” skates in part because of tradition.
It may also be to level the playing field. Like how you’re not allowed to use a snowmobile in a skiing competition.
I have such a crush on Sal. I’m getting to Joyce levels of stars-in-eyes for her.
I think Carla agrees! :3
another something on sal’s long list of awesome.
Y’all do realize that that’s Walky in a wig covering for his sister don’t ya?
I loved the James Dean Rebel Without A Cause archetype when I was a kid. But because I wasn’t a little boy, the media of the time made it abundantly clear that it was off limits for me. Thank you for Sal.
Sal NSFW comic with sex happening while roller skating at the same time when?
Did or did they not warn you she was Batman.
Only yourself’s to blame.
Am I the only one who imagined Spitfire’s ( Air Gear) opening trick with Sal instead?
So if Batman– sorry, Sal, brought her skates to college, this means she was planning on skating, yes? So it’s not the skating she’s opposed to, just organizations. Joy. And I’m glad the story is going this direction, because although the “she can’t skate” thing could potentially cause some tension with Carla, this seems like a much more interesting direction. Also, it’s just generally awesome and I love it so much!
On the whole Parody Sue debate, I always have seen it used to refer to a wish-fulfillment authorial-insertion in fan fiction, where said character is amazing at everything and beloved by everyone for shaky reasons (if any), especially if it is badly-written fan fiction. It doesn’t really surprise me that the term has become a sexist “female character who isn’t weak enough,” though, because people are horrible. Either way, Sal isn’t one.
The way I’ve understood the term, it specifically denotes fan-created characters, meaning that neither Sal nor any other DoA character could possibly ever be a M/G*** S**, no matter how they’re written, because they were created by the original author. That definition would also exclude Bella Swan and Batman from being S**s.
The way I’ve heard the M-Sue term defined, it refers to characters who are perfect in a way that breaks the universe, either by warping the character and behavior of those around them, or by flat-out breaking the laws of physics. The traditional expression of this is for the character to be lauded over and above what would be merited, typically by established main characters who shouldn’t be able to pick the Sue out of a lineup and certainly shouldn’t care about them either way. By this definition Batman would not be a Sue (at least not in general), and Bella Swan definitely is one.
I’m aware that Sues are often female, and often OCs in fanfiction, and often self-inserts, but as best I can tell none of those properties are required. Plus, there are convenient terms for all of those, whereas a “they’re too special” definition gives the term a useful meaning that isn’t replicated by any other convenient term.
And anybody who assumes that the term is synonymous with “strong female character” is a complete asshole. Personally I prefer to go the other way and use it as a completely gender-neutral term.
A couple of people have mentioned that the moves Sal throws down look a lot like ice-skating moves, and I can see what they’re referring to.
This is pure speculation, which I’m generally not so good at, but… I wonder if there’s a clue there as to what happened to Marcie’s voice…
I frankly don’t care about the dreaded “M-S” term – I’m just ready for Sal to be a part of an interesting storyline. We already know Sal’s cool. I don’t need weaknesses, strengths, or interesting facts — I want to see Sal in a new situation and hopefully “worried about Billy” leads to that.
“My sister’s in trouble!” *Puts on skates* *rushes off* *realizes she has no idea where she’s going*
You have just been OWNED
That good enough for you?
Also this will lead to shipping with some folks ahha
If anything to do with the Walkterons’ ability to hold their liquor applies in this universe, Sal is probably going to be high as shit in a few minutes
Holy fuck Sal is so awesome. You’re the man, Mr. Willis.
And here I was, thinking we had discovered one of Sal’s weaknesses… but if it isn’t such, why didn’t she want to skate? What is she hiding? Has it something to do with her backstory? Maybe with Marcie’s as well? Thank you for keeping us hooked to your story and characters, Mr. Willis.
Ahaa, so it WAS weed.