Given what people know about Ruth and Billie (for the most part) I honestly dont think that context would make them feel comforted either. Most public scenes involving ruth and billie were less than pleasant.
I have arguments with my brain all the time, or rather, different parts of my brain have arguments with with each other.
…It’s a wonder we’ve lasted this long as a species. “Hey. Hey, other half of my brain. Stop playing that song, I hate it. Hey. We just ate dinner, we do not require waffles. How is it you can remember the plot of cartoons you last saw 20 years ago, but not whether or not you already showered today? You suck.”
This story of estranged childhood friends and siblings coming together and worrying about each other is hitting some really personal feelings for me at this time of year. I’ve been really touched by DoA before but I think this is the first time I’ve literally cried. I really want Sal and Walky and Billy to like each other again.
Caring about someone is not the same as liking someone. You can care about someone and not be able to be in the same room as them, or understand them, or make them feel better.
I’m sorry but I spent an hour watching a guy ride a bicycle in a circle earlier this month to set a record for most distance in an hour riding a bicycle, the twitter feed on the attempt had the hashtag #shutuplegs which was this guy’s catch phrase for when he was racing up mountains. So my mind went immediately to #shutupbrain.
Good thing too, she sucked at it.
And its good to see her worrying over her friend, and I hope her spider sense isn’t tingling over some real concern at present.
I don’t think the dry kind of erase marker would work. For the case of serious worry/anxiety, to be truly effective, dangerously high levels of alcahol must be involved.
Interesting factoid: our brains can only track about seven different topics at once. So what you do is just start thinking of other different things (you only need to touch on each one) and by the time you get to eight or nine, you don’t remember what the first one was.
It helps if you think about <abbr title="Like, 'I could call the cops, I guess, and file a missing persons report; except she hasn't really been missing for 24 hours yet… Or I could go wake up Walky and see what he knows, except it's like 4 AM and it will probably wait a few hours; she's probably not passed out and hypothermic in a ditch somewhere…’ –This isn’t really helping though, is it?”>what you actually could do right at that moment, though, to actually be able to say “No, there actually isn’t anything I could do right now,” and then form a follow-up plan, like “But as soon as it hits 7 AM I am going to go knock on Ruthless’s door and have her track Billie down.” That way your brain stops trying to get you to remember about what it is that you want to (temporarily) forget about.
Darn it, missed a closing tag somewhere. Could have sworn I put it in…
It helps if you think about what you actually could do right at that moment, though, to actually be able to say “No, there actually isn’t anything I could do right now,” and then form a follow-up plan, like “But as soon as it hits 7 AM I am going to go knock on Ruthless’s door and have her track Billie down.” That way your brain stops trying to get you to remember about what it is that you want to (temporarily) forget about.
It helps if you think about what you actually could do right at that moment, though, to actually be able to say “No, there actually isn’t anything I could do right now,” and then form a follow-up plan, like “But as soon as it hits 7 AM I am going to go knock on Ruthless’s door and have her track Billie down.” That way your brain stops trying to get you to remember about what it is that you want to (temporarily) forget about.
The best way to forget something is to want to remember it, but going to check out just one more article/joke/post on the internet …
… half hour later, you remember you wanted to remember something, but not what.
Hmm. I’m trying to remember, how often, if ever, have we seen Sal on her own before, and therefore able to vaguely soliloquise and suggest that she has an inner nature?
I have no strips to back it up, but I feel like: not often. There was the pep talk to herself before she went to see her parents. There was her looking in the mirror after she got her hair done and telling herself that she looked right.
Beyond that, we usually see her interacting with others or through other people’s eyes. If she’s by herself, it is so others can comment on her. Obviously, she has an inner nature and insecurities, but she’s been as slow to open up to the audience as she has herself and others.
In the DOA-verse, D&MM seems to be one of the ‘bedrock’ cartoons of this generation, like The Smurfs (for my generation) or Dexter’s Laboratory (for the one after) or MLP:FIM (for the most recent).
Sal ‘hasn’t come a long way from robbing…” imo. She didn’t do that as a power trip or a gang initiation (that we know of anyway): she did it out of desperation.
She wants to be noticed, cared about and loved by her parents who can’t see her past her brother, Walky. Not his fault, but it he did play it.
Yeah, she cares. She just doesn’t go around advertising it. She’s cool.
My take anyway.
Hey Sal, you should probably go knock on Ruth’s door and tell her that your roommate is missing. She is your floor RA after all. Make sure to take a good long look around her room too while you’re at it.
From the twins I’ve known, it only happens with identical twins–sometimes (knew two guys who did that as their primary form of communication). Fraternal twins, on the other hand, are just regular siblings who were born at the same time and therefore no closer genetically than regular siblings and hence unlikely to be telepathic or unusually sensitive with each other.
Actually, fraternal twins are likely to be closer to each other genetically than just normal siblings – not ‘shares 99% of the same DNA’ close – but still a bit closer than normal siblings. Tis just because they gestate at the same time though, causing some more commonalities to arise than would normally – if they were born at completely separate times instead they would be just like average siblings.
If she’s just thinking to herself, those should be thought bubbles. If she’s actually talking aloud, then she’s doing more talking while alone then she ever does voluntarily with other people, which seems a little out of character. Also, it means she’s mastered the art of talking without moving her lips.
A closed mouth can be used instead because what we are seeing is happening right before she speaks and it would be a waste of comic strip to draw people opening and closing their mouths all the time. Plus, the facial expression is easier to make clear with a closed mouth.
And this is not at all out of character – we have seen her talking to herself multiple times while Billie went on rants and she talked to herself after she got her hair done and before seeing her parents. It is basic human nature to talk things over with yourself, regardless of whether it is in your head or out loud.
lightsabermario, webcomics are the latest evolution of cartoons, comic strips, and comic books. In those media, faces are not drawn for anatomical accuracy but rather to be expressive. They are not so much faces as the signifiers of faces. the presence, or shape, of a mouth is one of the ways to differentiate characters’ overall personalities.
There is a laboratory over at Big Mountain that can help you with those pesky brain problems… and other squishy origins. Side effects include wanted Malaya attention.
I have actually had full blown conversations with my brain. Mostly me telling it to shut up whenever it’s reminding me about stuff I really wish I could forget…
Sal, you need to give your brain something else to focus on. Something like Mario Cart. Go knock on Danny’s door and make him play the game with you till you get tired. When you do, Danny’s bed is right there handy to sleep in. Joe won’t mind. He’ll just figure that you’re Amazi-girl.
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It’s okay Sal, Billie’s in good hands.
And bed
And bottle.
Wait, maybe not that one.
She’s in Ruthless hands.
That actually wouldn’t sound very comforting if we didn’t have context.
Honestly, it still isn’t very comforting.
Given what people know about Ruth and Billie (for the most part) I honestly dont think that context would make them feel comforted either. Most public scenes involving ruth and billie were less than pleasant.
Your hovertext is wonderful…
I always forget about the hovertext until someone mentions it in the comments, thanks!
As time passes, I find myself liking Sal more and more.
Eh she’s cool.
DARN IT! WE NEED A LIKE BUTTON!
Yeh, brain, don’ wanna lis’en.
Sal’s clearly in a crazy dream–she went through a DOOR
Obviously she’s in Girard’s fortress.
Hell of a place to build a dorm.
Glad I’m not the only one who noticed this
She promised Billie!
I relate with Sal’s brain.
Sal book?
Brains never do what you want them to.
oh sal, you do care
Aw, she really does care.
so does sal ship billie and walkie?
maybe joyce is a lot more like sal than they both realize
No, no they’re complete opposites like night and day.
two sides of a coin. life and death. one cannot exist without the other. They are duality. They are… JOYCE AND SAL…. most awkward slipshine
XD THEY MUST BOTH BE IN COSTUME THE DING DONG BANDIT AND WHOEVER THE HELL SAL WOULD BE
The Convenience Store Stabbee.
LESBIAN PSUEDO VILLAIN SLIPSHINE
…wait, but gay people are NORMAL. …Joyce isn’t normal…
Okay, I NEED to know how she does her hair. That thing is more luscious than Roman Reigns’s.
Hm not the only luscious thing about her.
Khaner, kudos for recognizing Roman’s mane as luscious.
Apparently, all he uses is coconut oil.
It must be magical or some shit.
Coconut oil is a gift from gods, good for sexiness and sexy times.
I have arguments with my brain all the time, or rather, different parts of my brain have arguments with with each other.
…It’s a wonder we’ve lasted this long as a species. “Hey. Hey, other half of my brain. Stop playing that song, I hate it. Hey. We just ate dinner, we do not require waffles. How is it you can remember the plot of cartoons you last saw 20 years ago, but not whether or not you already showered today? You suck.”
Cartoons are eternally awesome, bathing is but occasionally optional.
Do you hear that? … The sound of drums
Can I get a “Vote Saxon”?
Don’t listen to yer brain, it gets real echoey.
wait, is her brain growing a conseince?
Conscience, and maybe, yes.
Think morality => ‘against science’ => ‘con’-‘science’.
That’s horrible, and it’s even more horrible that it works.
It doesn’t, though. “Con-” means “with”. “Against” would be “contra-“.
This story of estranged childhood friends and siblings coming together and worrying about each other is hitting some really personal feelings for me at this time of year. I’ve been really touched by DoA before but I think this is the first time I’ve literally cried. I really want Sal and Walky and Billy to like each other again.
If it helps, Walky is definitely making some big strides with the two of them.
I don’t think they’ve ever stopped caring about each other – they just argue a lot, and forget to express their feelings. That happens. A lot.
Caring about someone is not the same as liking someone. You can care about someone and not be able to be in the same room as them, or understand them, or make them feel better.
I’m sorry but I spent an hour watching a guy ride a bicycle in a circle earlier this month to set a record for most distance in an hour riding a bicycle, the twitter feed on the attempt had the hashtag #shutuplegs which was this guy’s catch phrase for when he was racing up mountains. So my mind went immediately to #shutupbrain.
Jens Voigt!
Aye-uh.
But I (mistakenly) thought that Jens was a little to esoteric for this crowd, so I left off his name.
Nothing is too esoteric for us. Someone will recognize it, whatever it is.
Sal’s come a long way from robbing convenience stores.
Good thing too, she sucked at it.
And its good to see her worrying over her friend, and I hope her spider sense isn’t tingling over some real concern at present.
If Sal actually gets that to work, I want to know her secret.
Secret to what ?
Making her brain shut up, she could be the greatest meditation teacher of all time.
There are always drugs.
Unconscious is not the same as meditating.
Brains are notoriously hard of hearing in times of worry.
I heard you can get rid of worry/anxiety by drawing over the top of it with dry erase marker and then erasing them both.
I don’t think the dry kind of erase marker would work. For the case of serious worry/anxiety, to be truly effective, dangerously high levels of alcahol must be involved.
Interesting factoid: our brains can only track about seven different topics at once. So what you do is just start thinking of other different things (you only need to touch on each one) and by the time you get to eight or nine, you don’t remember what the first one was.
It helps if you think about <abbr title="Like, 'I could call the cops, I guess, and file a missing persons report; except she hasn't really been missing for 24 hours yet… Or I could go wake up Walky and see what he knows, except it's like 4 AM and it will probably wait a few hours; she's probably not passed out and hypothermic in a ditch somewhere…’ –This isn’t really helping though, is it?”>what you actually could do right at that moment, though, to actually be able to say “No, there actually isn’t anything I could do right now,” and then form a follow-up plan, like “But as soon as it hits 7 AM I am going to go knock on Ruthless’s door and have her track Billie down.” That way your brain stops trying to get you to remember about what it is that you want to (temporarily) forget about.
Darn it, missed a closing tag somewhere. Could have sworn I put it in…
It helps if you think about what you actually could do right at that moment, though, to actually be able to say “No, there actually isn’t anything I could do right now,” and then form a follow-up plan, like “But as soon as it hits 7 AM I am going to go knock on Ruthless’s door and have her track Billie down.” That way your brain stops trying to get you to remember about what it is that you want to (temporarily) forget about.
Oh give me a break! ><
Third attempt:
It helps if you think about what you actually could do right at that moment, though, to actually be able to say “No, there actually isn’t anything I could do right now,” and then form a follow-up plan, like “But as soon as it hits 7 AM I am going to go knock on Ruthless’s door and have her track Billie down.” That way your brain stops trying to get you to remember about what it is that you want to (temporarily) forget about.
I give up.
The best way to forget something is to want to remember it, but going to check out just one more article/joke/post on the internet …
… half hour later, you remember you wanted to remember something, but not what.
I didn’t realize until now that Sal worried about people.
The feels she’s been bottling up is starting to overflow.
*plays Dan Fogelberg’s “Heart Hotels” on the Muzak*
Too late, you worried for a split-second. Now that worry will never go away. Ever.
Hard alcohol is always an option.
And hey, look, she’s standing in Billie’s room. There’s bound to be some around here somewhere.
I guess Sal considers Billie a bit like a sister, too. Which I imagine contributes to how icky it was when Billie tried to drunkenly mack on her.
I dunno. I’ve never seen Sal consider Billie “a bit like a sister” before. Which makes this side of Sal kind of interesting to see right now…
Hmm. I’m trying to remember, how often, if ever, have we seen Sal on her own before, and therefore able to vaguely soliloquise and suggest that she has an inner nature?
I have no strips to back it up, but I feel like: not often. There was the pep talk to herself before she went to see her parents. There was her looking in the mirror after she got her hair done and telling herself that she looked right.
Beyond that, we usually see her interacting with others or through other people’s eyes. If she’s by herself, it is so others can comment on her. Obviously, she has an inner nature and insecurities, but she’s been as slow to open up to the audience as she has herself and others.
Since she has two eyes made out of coal, I assumed she was a snowman. Er, Snowoman. Snowperson.
BRAIN: I don’t listen to you; you listen to me!
Only now do I notice the exclamation mark on Sal’s spider tattoo.
I thought it was a lobster tattoo.
It’s a Tarantugun (it’s from It’s Walky!) You can see the full design here. David posted it on Tumblr a few days ago.
She looks exactly like that anime character.
Captain Harlock?
Huh. I guess Walky wasn’t the only Walkerton to watch Dexter and Monkey Master.
In the DOA-verse, D&MM seems to be one of the ‘bedrock’ cartoons of this generation, like The Smurfs (for my generation) or Dexter’s Laboratory (for the one after) or MLP:FIM (for the most recent).
awwwwwwwwwwww
Sal ‘hasn’t come a long way from robbing…” imo. She didn’t do that as a power trip or a gang initiation (that we know of anyway): she did it out of desperation.
She wants to be noticed, cared about and loved by her parents who can’t see her past her brother, Walky. Not his fault, but it he did play it.
Yeah, she cares. She just doesn’t go around advertising it. She’s cool.
My take anyway.
I agree with you 100%.
Aw, look at Sal, all concerned and showing cracks in her cool indifferent exterior. So adorable.
…But that tattoo? Is there always an exclamation mark involved with that…thing? I’m trying to figure out if I’m looking at a lobster.
That’s a .
Tarantugun.
Why are people acting like this is the first time we’ve seen it? For example http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/03-up-all-night-to-get-vengeance/procedural/ .
Here is the full tat
http://itswalky.tumblr.com/post/98293895862/i-want-to-ask-something-cool-but-cant-think-of
…Wow, I only just noticed, different jacket than normal.
Huh, that is how I end most of my internal monologues as well.
If only that worked…
That last panel is my everyday.
Brain: “Ah don’t care what you said. Ah say we worry.”
Sal: “Why brain?”
Brain: “Because ah don’t always do what you want me to do.”
Hey Sal, you should probably go knock on Ruth’s door and tell her that your roommate is missing. She is your floor RA after all. Make sure to take a good long look around her room too while you’re at it.
Haha. I love her caring moments.
They say twins have a kind of mental connection. So they are both maturing simultaneously. And wow, Sal’s waist.. Ah could kill for that.
Myth busted!
From the twins I’ve known, it only happens with identical twins–sometimes (knew two guys who did that as their primary form of communication). Fraternal twins, on the other hand, are just regular siblings who were born at the same time and therefore no closer genetically than regular siblings and hence unlikely to be telepathic or unusually sensitive with each other.
As per, yes, Sal and Walky.
Actually, fraternal twins are likely to be closer to each other genetically than just normal siblings – not ‘shares 99% of the same DNA’ close – but still a bit closer than normal siblings. Tis just because they gestate at the same time though, causing some more commonalities to arise than would normally – if they were born at completely separate times instead they would be just like average siblings.
Wow! Awesome!!
If she’s just thinking to herself, those should be thought bubbles. If she’s actually talking aloud, then she’s doing more talking while alone then she ever does voluntarily with other people, which seems a little out of character. Also, it means she’s mastered the art of talking without moving her lips.
How is that out of character? It seems eminently likely to me.
A closed mouth can be used instead because what we are seeing is happening right before she speaks and it would be a waste of comic strip to draw people opening and closing their mouths all the time. Plus, the facial expression is easier to make clear with a closed mouth.
And this is not at all out of character – we have seen her talking to herself multiple times while Billie went on rants and she talked to herself after she got her hair done and before seeing her parents. It is basic human nature to talk things over with yourself, regardless of whether it is in your head or out loud.
lightsabermario, webcomics are the latest evolution of cartoons, comic strips, and comic books. In those media, faces are not drawn for anatomical accuracy but rather to be expressive. They are not so much faces as the signifiers of faces. the presence, or shape, of a mouth is one of the ways to differentiate characters’ overall personalities.
Yeah, you just keep tryin’ to tell it that.
There is a laboratory over at Big Mountain that can help you with those pesky brain problems… and other squishy origins. Side effects include wanted Malaya attention.
*unwanted Malaya attention.
Cursed brain, stop building Ships of idle whimsy.
I have actually had full blown conversations with my brain. Mostly me telling it to shut up whenever it’s reminding me about stuff I really wish I could forget…
Wow, big reveal! I can’t believe it. This is cause for concern. Sal used the door! … Oh, right, and Billy still hasn’t returned to the room. *shrug*
Didn’t Billie put using the door in the room-mate agreement?
I am so here for more Sal character development!
As long as her brain doesn’t get multiple thought balloons to reply with. That’s Dead pool tterritory.
She should check with her bro and they could bond over worrying together.
Ceribus did it better.
Don’t bother Sal it won’t listen.
Sal your Walky’s showing again.
(Well done Willis, haven’t seen sibling representation this good since Sokka/Katara. (And no I haven’t seen Korra yet guys))
Sal, you need to give your brain something else to focus on. Something like Mario Cart. Go knock on Danny’s door and make him play the game with you till you get tired. When you do, Danny’s bed is right there handy to sleep in. Joe won’t mind. He’ll just figure that you’re Amazi-girl.
Stupid Carla.
Sal is so worried, she used the door instead of the window.
D’awww . . . is Billie gonna find out people actually care about her?
Hey Brain, what are we going to do tonight??
The same thing we do every night Pinky
WORRY