….
and this, boys and girls, is what happens when you play at being a superhero vigilante to disassociate your inner turmoil.
and danny… tough bro… get where ya comin from but… easy up on the sal yah?
^ This. I mean, poor Sal. She can’t catch a fucking break right through here. [ . . . thought processes . . . ] Whoa… Does anyone see her ending up friends (or more) with Jason, almost by process of elimination??
I always associate what people say in this comment with their Gravatars. So the “BECAUSE I AM!!!!” Joyce and your laugh are really messing with my head right now.
Poor Sal, my ass. She helped create Amazi-Girl, and now she’s ambling around like it’s no big thing to have been holding up stores and terrorising innocents. “Eh, it was just a phase.”
The resolution of this story has to lie with her taking her glove off and realising the link between her scar, her actions and Amber/Amazi-Girl, and taking responsibility for that.
No, uh-uh. Sal is absolutely responsible for the crimes she’s committed in the past, but she doesn’t have to live the rest of her life in self-loathing to pay for it.
Also, Sal is responsible for the trauma she caused Amber – however, what she is NOT responsible for is the piss-poor way Amber is dealing with that trauma. It’s AMBER’S responsibility to get help and get better, and no one else’s.
“no I WON’T let you know, you and your somehow mere existence making my not-really-girlfriend dump me for reasons I didn’t even think to question because I’m Danny”
[I’m late tonight because my beau likes to wait to do things that require leaving the house until just before midnightI missed the wormhole]
Except his reactions to things and attempts to do the right thing are probably the most ‘realistic’ out of the majority of the cast membership who wouldn’t just say “Fuck this shit, I got better things to worry about”.
But I guess him continuing to be an enabler to a NOT superhero is better because it means more slipshines with Amber/Amazi vag, right?
I think she’s getting some ideas. If she talks to Walky and finds out Amazi-Girl was talking about stabbing someone “again”, she’ll definitely have it figured out.
There’s no way she doesn’t. That look in the penultimate panel combined with her ridiculously on-the-nose statement in the last couldn’t possibly indicate anything else.
Honestly if I were in his situation I would do the same thing. It sucks that he’s alienating Sal in the process, but he’s probably angry enough that he doesn’t want to talk to ANYBODY.
It’s not clear if Sal has figured out yet that Amber is Amazi-Girl, and if she doesn’t, she wouldn’t know Amber was even dating Danny in the first place. Still, Danny’s frustration is understandable.
Man, you could read this so differently based on whether Sal has figured it out or not. There’s a lot going on in this strip.
If Sal doesn’t know, she’s just making badly timed small talk and not knowing when to quit.
If she does know, which I’m thinking she does, I feel for her so much after we just got the pretext of her feeling like everyone walks away from her eventually. And if she does know she’s clever as hell.
“Ah kinda spaced out….” [I saw everything but only “saw” what you decide you’re ok to tell me]
“Didn’t know you knew her. Ah think she lives on my floor? Small world!” [I’ve totally figured it out in case you need someone to talk to]
“Lemme know if you talk to Amazi-Girl, all right?” [Let me know if you need someone to talk to about Amazi-Girl, all right?]
She offered subtle support allowing Danny to reveal only what he’s comfortable with, got shut down, and still left the door open for support if he changed his mind. Dang girl. That is a ninja level of friendship there.
Given that “How could X not have figured it out by now” is a running theme in the comments, and in the comic X usually has no friggin clue, I figuring that it’s entirely possible she somehow hasn’t figured it out.
Especially if that whole showdown in front of her got muted out by a SEP field.
I dunno, her conversation with Walky just prior looks like it got her into her own head. Maybe she was just being socially considerate with the “Ah spaced out” to respect Danny/Amber’s privacy. Or she really could have been spacing out in her thoughts on lonerdom. I WANT TO KNOWWW
“I am extremely tired due to having been suddenly startled awake from being passed out on a table, have a lot on my mind including but not limited to my best friend’s new romantic pursuit, the latest shot in my utterly terrible and damaging relationship with my parents, my brother’s clumsy newfound understanding of said parental relationship, the general interpersonal relationship issues said brother is dredging up, empathizing with and worrying for Amazi-Girl, possibly worry about Carla, Becky, and/or Joyce… So being that I’m not interested in trying to eavesdrop, I genuinely let my mind wander until I noticed yelling, at which point I saw you flailing and your friend storming away. If you want to catch me up, I am willing to offer support. … Oookay, you are extremely angry at me and I don’t know why. I am going to leave as requested. But don’t forget the Amazi-Girl thing; it’s important.”
Meh, this is just him asking a friend for space and then doing it a bit more forcefully since she didn’t pick it up the first time. I doubt Sal will read more in to it than “Whoops, I seem to have stepped in some private beeswax”
That’s generally my feeling (along with that Sal shouldn’t have been rubbing salt in this in the first place). Sal doesn’t seem like one to take things too personally.
I think you’re mistaken. I think Sal takes everything personally, and desperately tries to pretend she doesn’t because it hurts every time. Look at…her entire life story so far.
I don’t think she knows why Danny’s mad at her. And she just finished reflecting on the fact that she might be losing her only friend. Now her new almost-friend-person is yelling at her and she doesn’t know why.
Him being an enabler was “Dannying it up”. Him trying to do the right thing and tell a self-harmer that he wants them to stop hurting themselves is growing a backbone.
I take it as an indication that for some reason that Danny is one of the few people that Sal is interested in at some level (not necessarily romantically, though taking up with Danny might become the worst thing she did to Amber without even knowing it).
Isn’t it more like she took a 1, rather than rolled. “Whatever is transpiring over there is irrelevant to me, so I am not curious about it and make no real effort to notice.”
Yes, that whole ‘giving badly needed advice that he had been ignoring for some time’ bit was a true transgression, worthy of retaliation. And it was completely obvious she knew exactly what she was doing and was deliberately provoking him.
Strangely it’s a sign that subconsciously he trusts Sal more than he did Amber. She lashed out at him multiple times and he still didn’t raise his voice to her or lash out. Sal-who also has a rep of an ass-kicker-she makes one likely unintended misstep and BAM
I also got the feeling that those two instinctively trust each other quite much for some reason. It’s an unlikely but very heartwarming friendship in the bud, I think.
And this isn’t the first time. When he was defending Amazi-Girl’s actions to Sal in the laundry room he went all angry-face and raised voice. I wonder how much time the two have spent together with tutoring & mariokart — that’s a fair amount of familiarity they seem to have.
Ehh, I dunno that there’s any reason for him to be mad at Sal in particular. It’s actually a good thing she was respecting his privacy by not paying attention to the conversation (even if that wasn’t her reason for doing so.) And she did give him good advice about Amazi-girl.
However, I’d say he does have every right to be angry — at no one in particular, and I don’t think anybody could fault him for taking it out on Sal right this moment.
I think Danny and Amber are the ones who hear what they want to hear. Confronting Amber about her behavior not only makes Danny uncomfortable, but it (very predictably) went south for Danny, and he’s sort of placing his anger on Sal, who no doesn’t really deserve it. She said what needed to be said and what would have been horribly apparent later (really, what is horribly apparent as it’s already gotten out of control), is all. I think we’ve all been there – we get past a bad stage in our lives, and we think of all the folks who warned us but we didn’t listen to till it blew up in our faces.
Danny’s upset now, but in my opinion that’s mostly because he seems pretty co-dependent and thinks that he needs Amber and Amber needs him, which is not the case (I mean, how long have they been dating really? Like 3 weeks?). And he seems used to placating other people and not making waves. He’s “happy” as long as Amber is not mad at him.
To be totally honest, just today I overheard what probably was a woman being pissed at her boyfriend over the phone (it kinda seemed like he’d cheated on her??) and telling him to fuck off. I deliberately stopped paying attention (1) because it’s rude to butt in and ask a total stranger about her personal life problems and (2) no one is really entitled to me coddling them emotionally. I’ve been there before with people I knew, and it’s an unfair expectation and it’s draining. So why should Sal have been diligently listening to the conversation? I would hate to have a difficult conversation in public in general. I still don’t get the hate Sal gets..
i was just thinking that too, to the comment above – I read that and I was like, “Oh, NOW he’s got something tough to say” – obviously because he’s mad and Sal wouldn’t react badly like Amazigirl/Amber would.
Or, you know, he just got dumped and is reasonably upset about it, and it wouldn’t have happened (right then at least)if Sal wasn’t standing there. And he told Sal “not now,” clearly indicating he wasn’t actually blaming her for anything but needed a moment, and she kept on, so he got a bit more forceful.
I don’t see why Danny needs to be codependent to be upset that his girlfriend dumped him, or that someone he cares about is clearly going down a bad path.
I don’t understand jumping to psychoanalysis when regular analysis will do.
Oh, I totally understand that he’s upset about being dumped. Say inadvertently triggered it, but the relationship definitely would have gone south regardless. He does have a right to be upset , but when I said he was placing his anger on Sal, I meant it in the sense that he snapped at her. If I meant blame, I would have said blame.
I should backtrack and say that I think Danny has tendencies since the beginning of the comic to forgo his own needs and cling to whomever he’s dating, even if they don’t treat him very well, which smells like Co-dependent *tendencies*. To me. I’m not saying he has to be codependent to be upset , I’m just thinking, all things considered.
I was just responding to the first comment, which made it seem like it Sal was supposed to know what was going on and respond appropriately ,which I think is untrue. She continued because she didn’t hear about specifically what was said, and he told her to buzz off. We’ve all had that happen to us. To make this short I was pointing out this is not about her, it’s about Danny and his feelings about Amber .
“If I had a nickel for every time I’ve been dumped on these steps…I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s kind of weird it’s happened twice.”
Yea, I think she was genuinely starting to think maybe they could be friends. Now he’s just another person pushing her away when she does try to open up and reach out…
I think the worst part, for her, is that he used a much more personalized pushaway. Just telling someone to fuck off doesn’t take much effort, but that took at least a few brain processing cycles, so there was more impact behind it
This is pretty ridiculous. She’s shown affection for Joyce, and she *unquestionably* cares about being friends with Marci. She’s eating shit regularly from a girl who she would’ve come to blows with because her closest friend likes her.
But…somehow she doesn’t care or something? Anyway. She’s far from perfect but for pete’s sake, there’s criticism and then there’s fanfic level bashing.
Yup. Literally minutes prior she was talking to herself about how nobody cares for long before tossing her aside. Then someone she’s actually had the tiniest chance to grow close to tells her to fuck off and it confirms exactly the idea she was just musing on.
Sal’s resilient as all get out and smart enough to see that she’s not the one Danny’s mad at. I doubt this is the end of their acquaintanceship. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt when something like this happens, no matter how skilled you are at poker face-ing.
The dialogue did seem very contrived to me, which is very uncharacteristic of this comic. Unless, of course, you read it as “Ah know things, but ah dunno if ya WANT me to know things, so ah’ll let you fill me in as much as ya feel necessary.”
Wow, poor Sal… she was really reaching outside of her comfort zone to help, and socialize outside of her circle, there, and Danny just stamped her down…
It’s true she didn’t, but man, I can’t imagine how FRUSTRATED that question must’ve made him, because he can’t answer it without outing Amazi-Girl, and I imagine he’s in no mood to make something up right about now.
Sal didn’t deserve it but she did keep pressing when Danny told her first, “Not now.” He was terse but not hostile. Honest mistake on Sal’s part to keep musing on it, but yeah he did try to be civil before telling her to buzz off.
I just want to give all of them hugs right now. </3
Yeah, I don’t think Danny’s a monster. The same way the timing is terrible for him, it’s terrible for Sal, who was already feeling really lonely and vulnerable in that moment.
They hurt each other just about as bad as possible right there, in all innocence.
Yes. Give in to the rage young one. Let it consume you. And then, once you have drunk deeply of the power of the dark side take your place as an apprentice to a Darth.
(‘Schwester’ is ‘sister’ in German. ‘Vader’ is thought to be a mangling of the German ‘vater’, or ‘father’. So, if Darth Vader was the ‘dark father’, Sal can be the ‘dark sister’? Also, because, she’s the ‘darker’ sibling.)
It’s more likely to be from Dutch than German, since “vader” translates as “father” in Dutch. (although the pronunciation is rather different than the one used in star wars, so it might still be coincidence)
The real hurdle to them happening is that they might not want to step on Amber’s toes, and really that’s a pretty legitimate reason not to pursue a relationship. It’s not like Danny is the only other Queer dude in the entire universe. At least not until my constant pestering for more Sayid pays off, anyway.
But, yeah, I think it is going to at the very least be heavily explored, because there really is no other valid love interest for either character now and if Danny and Amber ever reconciled that would take a long time and it probably would be bad for Danny to jump right back in with her. If Amber found out that they wanted to date she’d probably force herself to be okay with it, because after the dust settles from this I’m pretty sure she’s going to double down on “Amber is worthless shit and Danny deserves better.”
On the flip side, plenty of people hate Amber now. Her getting in the way of dudes banging? I think someone might actually will themselves into the comic to kick her in the face.
Note that Sal was at least a good ten, twenty feet away from that conversation and that she was only semi-even looking in their direction. In what’s probably a fairly busy, noisy area. I don’t think Sal’s ever given Amber a really good look.
Probably not, no. But then reading people’s emotions can be sincerely hard to tell (hi, autistic person! Not saying Sal’s necessarily got any neurodivergence going on herself but just saying, it’s kind of annoying when a trait you can’t control is seen as a character flaw, super fun all the time,) and she CLEARLY wasn’t listening to the conversation and isn’t even looking at Danny for most of the comic. She comes into it saying she was spaced out, it’s possible she hasn’t totally kicked it back into gear when she starts talking.
Yeah, we’ll see how she reacts next time she sees him/her next interactions with Billie or someone, ’cause it could be hurt or it could be guilt or both.
There are just so many different variances. Being able to adjust and guess meaning for unseen ones can be tricky. Norms got it easy there, or at least easier.
I’m terrible at reading people. It’s not on purpose. And Sal came up to him from behind. I don’t necessarily look someone in the eyes every time I start a conversation, especially if I know them already. I don’t know, I just don’t see how she’s at fault here.
I don’t think she needs to read people. She just needs to realize that “Not now, Sal” really means “Not now, Sal.” As in, “leave me alone, I’ll talk to you later.”
And I personally think she did realize it with the second comment. If she were horribly hurt, I don’t think she would have responded like she did in the last panel. That’s way too understanding.
I’ve never heard that either! Maybe it’s like saying “go jump in a river”, or he’s making fun of her hobby of skating, or maybe he’s sarcastically making fun of her badass reputation
I love how many commenters think that because Danny said something slightly mean to Sal in an emotionally upset moment, they can never be friends again.
It is not that they can *never* be friends again, but that Sal might withdraw and make it difficult to reestablish. Because this fits with her pattern of ‘people are only interested for so long’. And a lot of people can relate to that and feel worried about it because it would be easy for Sal to withdraw and for Danny to not do anything about it which would let it disintegrate and just be further proof that Marcie is the only one she can rely on.
^This. For Sal, this was a potential friendship beginning in a time she needed one, and we know from her character that she will assume rejection when none exists. The more she needed the support, the more she’s going to ASSUME it will be withdrawn. For Danny, this was a casual acquaintance who was cool, but who he never really got close to. He may not *pursue* the friendship if she closes off, especially if by trying to befriend Sal he thinks he’s hurting Amber. I still think it’s possible they’ll be friends, but this was a fragile point in a fledgling friendship that just snapped.
I have little sympathy for Sal here. She refuses to address Danny with his actual name instead of a derogatory insult, even after he’s expressly asked her to do so. Be a jerk, expect to get treated like one.
Well… yeah. Not letting people close is exactly her problem, she said so herself a few strips ago when Walky was out of earshot. She is not proud of it, but that is her defense mechanism.
it’s kind of her defense mechanism. she acknowledges that someone she developed a bit of an affinity for is hurt by her quips, so she distances herself to make sure she doesn’t hurt more than she has to. she’s not the most socially adept, and furthermore she’s not the best at knowing what people’s boundaries are. it’s not surprising that she’d try to make small-talk to diffuse what she understands to be a ‘situation’ regardless of not knowing if it’s appropriate or not. it doesn’t help she doesn’t know she’s inadvertently a reason behind the breakup.
her recent developments show that she really is hard pressed for people around her that she feels she can trust not to leave her in the dust, so yeah, this is a pretty understandable reaction, even if not the best one.
i don’t have sympathy or pity for her, i just understand.
When did Danny “expressly asked her to do so” (not adressing him as Wonderbread)?
That never happened!
It was Sal who protested against being called Sally, but in all the strips tagged as danny+sal, you’ll find lots of “wonderbreads”, but no objection from Danny.
Danny’s getting angry. Is he going to make this dark, evil looking suit, start robbing banks and stuff, and then taunting Amazi-Girl on video while cackling?
Naw Ambers gonna go full on knight templar, leading Danny to try to stop her. They have a final bat to bat battle on top of the rooftops, that begins with Sarah tossing her bat to Danny.
For me, in the sixth panel, Sal looks like she’s about to cry. Trying to open up to a possible new friend, and being yelled at. Though in the last panel (again for me) it seems like he saw that he’s in a bad mood and doesn’t want to talk, and decided to give him the space she assumes he needs.
Someone needs to start giving out free hugs or something to the main cast. Except Mary. Until Willis finds a way to make her sympathetic.
Welcome to webcomics fandom. It seems that if a story is doled out in episodes of about a minute’s reading time each, rather than presented as a done-in-one novel or film, some people assign rather more significance to a given line of dialogue, or facial expression, than is warranted. So every disagreement is somehow an “Oh no, enemies forever” fight, every moderately curt word or disapproving look evidence that a character is The Worst Human Being Ever, every shared smile proof that two characters are an OTP and should make with the sexings like yesterday.
It’s so easy when reading something you love like we love Willis’ work, to get really invested in the little moments each day. I don’t blame anyone for it, and I fall victim to it regularly too. All we can do is try not to let it get out of hand, and laugh at ourselves when it does.
feeling actively bad for Sal right here.. she’s not trying to be too cool for school, she’s just a product of it’s bullshit. I think she kinda hoped Danny would be cool about all this bullshit…
but he’s Danny.. and for all the longtime followers of this comic..
Sadness. I get where they’re both coming from here, and kinda rooting for both of them. But this was an inevitability.
I hope they can patch things up later, because Danny needs some good friends. And at least be friends with Sal will mean he won’t run the risk of running into Amber.
Of course, I’m still kinda rooting for Danber. But, only if this showdown gets Amber in the right headspace to realize that the impulses that lead to AmaziGirl are getting out of control, and gets her started on fixing them.
Man, poor Panel 2 Danny. He’s looking down, thinking “Dammit Willis. Did you have to put the Slipshine link with the shot of Amber licking my abs *right there* just in time for this strip?”
Very skillfully drawn. When she looks up in the second to last panel, it’s with sheer astonishment that Danny tells her to get lost, because, well she knows as good as we do that this isn’t like Danny.
We don’t see Sal’s face in the last panel, so we can only speculate what she feel or thinks about what she saw in his face.
Before, she acted like ‘This unimportant little girl from my floor was having a fit at Danny, I vaguely wonder what’s it about’.
It doesn’t at all look like she picked up on an danger of physical expressions of rage – or maybe in her mind Amber’s just so weak it out of imagination.
But I cannot imagine that she ‘knows it all’ and choose to act like this. I’d rather imagine her asking him ‘that didn’t go well’ or some such.
So once again Willis keeps us guessing and riveted.
It’s strips like this that remind us just what a massive comic books nerd Willis really is. Just like the characters in superhero comics, most people seem to be selectively blind and deaf even when Amber does and says things that should make it abundantly clear to everyone that she and Amazi-Girl are one and the same.
This, oddly enough, gives me hope. Unless Willis is planning a deconstruction, this suggests strongly that Amber’s secret is never going to be known outside her small intimate circle (basically, Ethan and Danny) and that it is possible that her problems, if not solved, will at least be addressed and tackled without a massive public ‘coming out’.
Walky’s spent a fair amount of time around Amazi-Girl now, but he doesn’t really know Amber. I’m not sure he even knows her name. They were both at Joyce’s dorm party, but Walky was drunk and Amber was doing her usual wallflower act, and that’s the only time they’ve seen each other more than just in passing.
And, y’know, I wouldn’t put it past Walky to have figured it out but just not felt the need to say anything about it, like with Ethan’s orientation. He’s way more observant than he lets on.
It’s actually starting to irritate me, ’cause it’s being used to draw out plots rather than bring them toward closure, to keep conversations from being had which need to be, and stands in contrast to other matters which are being handled much more realistically (IMO).
For a minute I really liked assertive, angry Danny, and the fact that original Danny was obsessed with Sal really launched a ship. I mean, assertive Danny plus Sal? He was definitely getting it from behind.
A lot of commenters are reading panel five as Sal being hurt, which is definitely a valid – and probably correct – reading. I read it more as shock and concern, though. Sal’s not AS tough as she puts on, sure, but she does have a somewhat thick skin, and if she’s able to think about how the exchange went, she’ll realize she should have stopped pushing the topic when Danny said “not now.”
As SundaesChild said, a lot of people are reading 6 as Sal being hurt and going off of it that “she just lost another friend.”
I think that’s kind of reaching there. Considering she leaves him be in the following panel and tells him to keep her informed regarding his situation (although its hard to tell if that’s her being hurt or not since the fricken border is covering it and it’s a comic), I think she realizes that he’s in an emotional state and should be left alone.
I find it funny that Sal pulled a Walky here. No, Sal, when someone says “Not now” when you try to talk to them, it’s not a good idea to make idle chit-chat about the thing that probably upset them.
Even if she wasn’t listening, surely she could know that he’s upset about that “glasses girl” and so talking about her would be a bad idea.
This comic would have been a lot better on both of them if your remove the fifth and sixth panels.
Also, where’s triangle guy? We could use some smiles right now…
Danny, I am proud that you have manned up and told Amber what she needs to hear (well she ran off before you can fully do that but still I applaud your attempt). The break up is good for you.
I went back and re-read this scene starting with “Eagles” from April 22. It really put today’s comic in perspective. Her budding friendship with Danny was way outside her comfort zone. She must have really liked him for it to have lasted as long as it did. Danny’s anger at Sal is arguably a bigger deal than AG’s dumping of Danny.
Sal’s actually good at complex thinking, assuming she has the DATA for that thinking, which she doesn’t here. AG could switch her nemesis for a brick wall and retain the same level of nemesis-awareness, though, much like Becky and Dorothy.
Years later with his spouse and kids, Danny will drop his oldest off at this spot. He will recall to his child of the time his first girlfriend dumped him on those steps and how his second girlfriend also dumped him on those steps, but it doesn’t matter cause he benefited at the end.
That is when his significant other suddenly asks him for a divorce.
I just noticed: Sal says “didn’t know you knew her”, so apparently she forgot about how her first encounter with Danny ended… or maybe she hadn’t memorized Amber’s face yet, back then.
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Fuckin’ Hell, I think Danny’s finally had enough of his shit luck.
So he’s decided to start … making his own shit luck?
Why screw things up by accident when he can screw things up on purpose?
….
and this, boys and girls, is what happens when you play at being a superhero vigilante to disassociate your inner turmoil.
and danny… tough bro… get where ya comin from but… easy up on the sal yah?
^ This. I mean, poor Sal. She can’t catch a fucking break right through here. [ . . . thought processes . . . ] Whoa… Does anyone see her ending up friends (or more) with Jason, almost by process of elimination??
Nope. Danny.
By the end of the strip she’ll be friends with Ethan somehow.
Haha!!
I always associate what people say in this comment with their Gravatars. So the “BECAUSE I AM!!!!” Joyce and your laugh are really messing with my head right now.
Poor Sal, my ass. She helped create Amazi-Girl, and now she’s ambling around like it’s no big thing to have been holding up stores and terrorising innocents. “Eh, it was just a phase.”
The resolution of this story has to lie with her taking her glove off and realising the link between her scar, her actions and Amber/Amazi-Girl, and taking responsibility for that.
No, uh-uh. Sal is absolutely responsible for the crimes she’s committed in the past, but she doesn’t have to live the rest of her life in self-loathing to pay for it.
Also, Sal is responsible for the trauma she caused Amber – however, what she is NOT responsible for is the piss-poor way Amber is dealing with that trauma. It’s AMBER’S responsibility to get help and get better, and no one else’s.
I think my sympathy’s with Danny on this one. He was too harsh, but but Sal should recognize that Danny boy is not in the mood for flippancy.
He could always have pot luck.
Well said Danny. I don’t totally agree but you made a good insult.
“no I WON’T let you know, you and your somehow mere existence making my not-really-girlfriend dump me for reasons I didn’t even think to question because I’m Danny”
[I’m late tonight because
my beau likes to wait to do things that require leaving the house until just before midnightI missed the wormhole]You are being unreasonably critical of the kid all things considered.
No level of criticism of Danny is unreasonable.
And I’m not speaking of this situation. This is a universal rule.
Except his reactions to things and attempts to do the right thing are probably the most ‘realistic’ out of the majority of the cast membership who wouldn’t just say “Fuck this shit, I got better things to worry about”.
But I guess him continuing to be an enabler to a NOT superhero is better because it means more slipshines with Amber/Amazi vag, right?
I don’t get the jump some stairs insult pls explain 🙁
Here you go.
It’s the equivalent of the military term of “Go kick rocks”.
Which is the equivalent of telling someone “Go the fuck away”.
And Sal works it out at last, I suspect.
Nah.
I think Sal’s used to people being jerks to her for no reason.
…. Does SAL not see it?
I feel like she just didn’t get a good enough look
Or care enough to.
I think she’s getting some ideas. If she talks to Walky and finds out Amazi-Girl was talking about stabbing someone “again”, she’ll definitely have it figured out.
I’m not quite sure about that.
I dont think it will be that quick.
There’s no way she doesn’t. That look in the penultimate panel combined with her ridiculously on-the-nose statement in the last couldn’t possibly indicate anything else.
I agree.
That look in the penultimate panel is her reacting to Danny suddenly apparently turning on her.
See also: the penultimate panel of http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/pissybaby/
The final panel is just continuing their conversation from earlier and obliviously driving the nail further into Danny’s wounded heart
For one thing, AG doesn’t need glasses.
I like this backbone on Danny!
It’s refreshing!
RIGHT?!? Yay Danny.
Aaaaaaand back to dannying it up. He had a good run, at least
Honestly if I were in his situation I would do the same thing. It sucks that he’s alienating Sal in the process, but he’s probably angry enough that he doesn’t want to talk to ANYBODY.
How’s he the one Danning it up anyway? Making fun of someone who just went through a breakup a few minutes ago is… not a nice thing to do.
It’s not clear if Sal has figured out yet that Amber is Amazi-Girl, and if she doesn’t, she wouldn’t know Amber was even dating Danny in the first place. Still, Danny’s frustration is understandable.
Man, you could read this so differently based on whether Sal has figured it out or not. There’s a lot going on in this strip.
If Sal doesn’t know, she’s just making badly timed small talk and not knowing when to quit.
If she does know, which I’m thinking she does, I feel for her so much after we just got the pretext of her feeling like everyone walks away from her eventually. And if she does know she’s clever as hell.
“Ah kinda spaced out….” [I saw everything but only “saw” what you decide you’re ok to tell me]
“Didn’t know you knew her. Ah think she lives on my floor? Small world!” [I’ve totally figured it out in case you need someone to talk to]
“Lemme know if you talk to Amazi-Girl, all right?” [Let me know if you need someone to talk to about Amazi-Girl, all right?]
She offered subtle support allowing Danny to reveal only what he’s comfortable with, got shut down, and still left the door open for support if he changed his mind. Dang girl. That is a ninja level of friendship there.
How could she possibly not have figured it out by now?
Given that “How could X not have figured it out by now” is a running theme in the comments, and in the comic X usually has no friggin clue, I figuring that it’s entirely possible she somehow hasn’t figured it out.
Especially if that whole showdown in front of her got muted out by a SEP field.
That’s the most annoyingly convenient part of how she “spaced out” while all of that was going down.
I dunno, her conversation with Walky just prior looks like it got her into her own head. Maybe she was just being socially considerate with the “Ah spaced out” to respect Danny/Amber’s privacy. Or she really could have been spacing out in her thoughts on lonerdom. I WANT TO KNOWWW
Probably because it’s even odds that Sal has ever even looked directly at Amber, and also has her own stuff going on.
Alternatively:
“I am extremely tired due to having been suddenly startled awake from being passed out on a table, have a lot on my mind including but not limited to my best friend’s new romantic pursuit, the latest shot in my utterly terrible and damaging relationship with my parents, my brother’s clumsy newfound understanding of said parental relationship, the general interpersonal relationship issues said brother is dredging up, empathizing with and worrying for Amazi-Girl, possibly worry about Carla, Becky, and/or Joyce… So being that I’m not interested in trying to eavesdrop, I genuinely let my mind wander until I noticed yelling, at which point I saw you flailing and your friend storming away. If you want to catch me up, I am willing to offer support. … Oookay, you are extremely angry at me and I don’t know why. I am going to leave as requested. But don’t forget the Amazi-Girl thing; it’s important.”
That’s my interpretation, at least.
+1
And a positive response at the end, despite how obviously hurt she was.
A good friend.
Good one, I can totally see that too. WhatIsTheTruth.gif
It’s not like Sal is gonna turn her in or anything. The more important question is when will Sal recognize the person who stabbed her.
She wasn’t really making fun of him – after all, she doesn’t know what happened.
Meh, this is just him asking a friend for space and then doing it a bit more forcefully since she didn’t pick it up the first time. I doubt Sal will read more in to it than “Whoops, I seem to have stepped in some private beeswax”
That’s generally my feeling (along with that Sal shouldn’t have been rubbing salt in this in the first place). Sal doesn’t seem like one to take things too personally.
I think you’re mistaken. I think Sal takes everything personally, and desperately tries to pretend she doesn’t because it hurts every time. Look at…her entire life story so far.
I don’t think she knows why Danny’s mad at her. And she just finished reflecting on the fact that she might be losing her only friend. Now her new almost-friend-person is yelling at her and she doesn’t know why.
I think feels that pretty deep right now.
Yep, totally what you said, imo.
Him being an enabler was “Dannying it up”. Him trying to do the right thing and tell a self-harmer that he wants them to stop hurting themselves is growing a backbone.
I really want to give Danny a hug right now, both to comfort him and also to convey how proud of him I am.
That’ll teach him to listen to Sal instead of following his own instincts.
Sal looks so hurt in the 5th panel…. I want to hug her but I want to keep my testicles intact at the same time.
Save your testicles! Hug Danny instead!
I take it as an indication that for some reason that Danny is one of the few people that Sal is interested in at some level (not necessarily romantically, though taking up with Danny might become the worst thing she did to Amber without even knowing it).
And Sal blows her Intelligence roll…
Did she blow the roll, or deliberately relent to the challenge without rolling.
I’d say more wisdom than intelligence.
It’s a Wisdom check, mate. Sense Motive and Perception, not Knowledge.
She def rolled a 1 on her perception roll there. “Oops, I spaced out, let me tell you exactly what you don’t want to hear with the best intentions.”
Isn’t it more like she took a 1, rather than rolled. “Whatever is transpiring over there is irrelevant to me, so I am not curious about it and make no real effort to notice.”
Sal knows when to desist.
Sal doesn’t see anything she doesn’t want to see. If she had been paying attention she might have guessed.
Anyway, Danny you have every right to be angry at Sal.
Yes, that whole ‘giving badly needed advice that he had been ignoring for some time’ bit was a true transgression, worthy of retaliation. And it was completely obvious she knew exactly what she was doing and was deliberately provoking him.
Strangely it’s a sign that subconsciously he trusts Sal more than he did Amber. She lashed out at him multiple times and he still didn’t raise his voice to her or lash out. Sal-who also has a rep of an ass-kicker-she makes one likely unintended misstep and BAM
I also got the feeling that those two instinctively trust each other quite much for some reason. It’s an unlikely but very heartwarming friendship in the bud, I think.
And this isn’t the first time. When he was defending Amazi-Girl’s actions to Sal in the laundry room he went all angry-face and raised voice. I wonder how much time the two have spent together with tutoring & mariokart — that’s a fair amount of familiarity they seem to have.
Ehh, I dunno that there’s any reason for him to be mad at Sal in particular. It’s actually a good thing she was respecting his privacy by not paying attention to the conversation (even if that wasn’t her reason for doing so.) And she did give him good advice about Amazi-girl.
However, I’d say he does have every right to be angry — at no one in particular, and I don’t think anybody could fault him for taking it out on Sal right this moment.
P.S. I love your avatar 😀
I think Danny and Amber are the ones who hear what they want to hear. Confronting Amber about her behavior not only makes Danny uncomfortable, but it (very predictably) went south for Danny, and he’s sort of placing his anger on Sal, who no doesn’t really deserve it. She said what needed to be said and what would have been horribly apparent later (really, what is horribly apparent as it’s already gotten out of control), is all. I think we’ve all been there – we get past a bad stage in our lives, and we think of all the folks who warned us but we didn’t listen to till it blew up in our faces.
Danny’s upset now, but in my opinion that’s mostly because he seems pretty co-dependent and thinks that he needs Amber and Amber needs him, which is not the case (I mean, how long have they been dating really? Like 3 weeks?). And he seems used to placating other people and not making waves. He’s “happy” as long as Amber is not mad at him.
To be totally honest, just today I overheard what probably was a woman being pissed at her boyfriend over the phone (it kinda seemed like he’d cheated on her??) and telling him to fuck off. I deliberately stopped paying attention (1) because it’s rude to butt in and ask a total stranger about her personal life problems and (2) no one is really entitled to me coddling them emotionally. I’ve been there before with people I knew, and it’s an unfair expectation and it’s draining. So why should Sal have been diligently listening to the conversation? I would hate to have a difficult conversation in public in general. I still don’t get the hate Sal gets..
i was just thinking that too, to the comment above – I read that and I was like, “Oh, NOW he’s got something tough to say” – obviously because he’s mad and Sal wouldn’t react badly like Amazigirl/Amber would.
Or, you know, he just got dumped and is reasonably upset about it, and it wouldn’t have happened (right then at least)if Sal wasn’t standing there. And he told Sal “not now,” clearly indicating he wasn’t actually blaming her for anything but needed a moment, and she kept on, so he got a bit more forceful.
I don’t see why Danny needs to be codependent to be upset that his girlfriend dumped him, or that someone he cares about is clearly going down a bad path.
I don’t understand jumping to psychoanalysis when regular analysis will do.
Oh, I totally understand that he’s upset about being dumped. Say inadvertently triggered it, but the relationship definitely would have gone south regardless. He does have a right to be upset , but when I said he was placing his anger on Sal, I meant it in the sense that he snapped at her. If I meant blame, I would have said blame.
I should backtrack and say that I think Danny has tendencies since the beginning of the comic to forgo his own needs and cling to whomever he’s dating, even if they don’t treat him very well, which smells like Co-dependent *tendencies*. To me. I’m not saying he has to be codependent to be upset , I’m just thinking, all things considered.
I was just responding to the first comment, which made it seem like it Sal was supposed to know what was going on and respond appropriately ,which I think is untrue. She continued because she didn’t hear about specifically what was said, and he told her to buzz off. We’ve all had that happen to us. To make this short I was pointing out this is not about her, it’s about Danny and his feelings about Amber .
“If I had a nickel for every time I’ve been dumped on these steps…I’d have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s kind of weird it’s happened twice.”
Doom for you too, yes.
EVERY DIME
Once is an occurrence, twice is a habit!
He’s just been at college for a few weeks. Give him time…
you’d be able to afford a very lovely couple of evenings with mike for your mother
This has always been my favorite quote to come from that show.
To lose one girlfriend, Mr. Wilcox, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness.
Does he get another nickel for dumping on someone else immediately after being dumped? Because, if so, BAM! Fifteen cents.
And Mike would have an offer for a threesome that you could afford. :V
lol, that face said “Poor guy. Let me save his life too by leaving”
I think Danny actually hurt Sal’s feelings.
Yea, I think she was genuinely starting to think maybe they could be friends. Now he’s just another person pushing her away when she does try to open up and reach out…
I think the worst part, for her, is that he used a much more personalized pushaway. Just telling someone to fuck off doesn’t take much effort, but that took at least a few brain processing cycles, so there was more impact behind it
Poor Sal. 🙁
I don’t think she gives a damn about being friends with anyone, especially not Danny.
This is pretty ridiculous. She’s shown affection for Joyce, and she *unquestionably* cares about being friends with Marci. She’s eating shit regularly from a girl who she would’ve come to blows with because her closest friend likes her.
But…somehow she doesn’t care or something? Anyway. She’s far from perfect but for pete’s sake, there’s criticism and then there’s fanfic level bashing.
Yea, I agree, that’s rediculous. She just recently said she had trouble opening up because no one cared for long anyway, except Marcie
Which would be the comic where she said she didn’t see the point in trying to make friends.
Which is not at all the same thing as wanting friends, or wishing they could be made. In any event she is already being good friends with Marci.
Yup. Literally minutes prior she was talking to herself about how nobody cares for long before tossing her aside. Then someone she’s actually had the tiniest chance to grow close to tells her to fuck off and it confirms exactly the idea she was just musing on.
Sal’s resilient as all get out and smart enough to see that she’s not the one Danny’s mad at. I doubt this is the end of their acquaintanceship. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt when something like this happens, no matter how skilled you are at poker face-ing.
I don’t think we’re reading the same comic.
zis place is cursed
do a barrel roll sal
Well, shoots down the theory that Sal had figured out who Amazing Girl is.
But does it though? Could she be pretending? Am I reaching here?
The dialogue did seem very contrived to me, which is very uncharacteristic of this comic. Unless, of course, you read it as “Ah know things, but ah dunno if ya WANT me to know things, so ah’ll let you fill me in as much as ya feel necessary.”
On that note, I thought Sal knew that it was Ambers clothes she helped Danny pick up off the hall floor?
Covering a character’s face with the panel border: more effective and less overt than the Cliche Anime Face Shadow(TM)
Wow, poor Sal… she was really reaching outside of her comfort zone to help, and socialize outside of her circle, there, and Danny just stamped her down…
Poor Sal. Danny must feel like shit right now, so his reaction makes sense, but Sal didn’t deserve that.
It’s true she didn’t, but man, I can’t imagine how FRUSTRATED that question must’ve made him, because he can’t answer it without outing Amazi-Girl, and I imagine he’s in no mood to make something up right about now.
Sal didn’t deserve it but she did keep pressing when Danny told her first, “Not now.” He was terse but not hostile. Honest mistake on Sal’s part to keep musing on it, but yeah he did try to be civil before telling her to buzz off.
I just want to give all of them hugs right now. </3
Yeah, I don’t think Danny’s a monster. The same way the timing is terrible for him, it’s terrible for Sal, who was already feeling really lonely and vulnerable in that moment.
They hurt each other just about as bad as possible right there, in all innocence.
Yes. This.
Agreed to all of the above.
Yes. Give in to the rage young one. Let it consume you. And then, once you have drunk deeply of the power of the dark side take your place as an apprentice to a Darth.
Darth Schwester?
(‘Schwester’ is ‘sister’ in German. ‘Vader’ is thought to be a mangling of the German ‘vater’, or ‘father’. So, if Darth Vader was the ‘dark father’, Sal can be the ‘dark sister’? Also, because, she’s the ‘darker’ sibling.)
Oh, dear.
I just realized, that if Sal is ‘Darth Schwester’, then her brother naturally becomes ‘Walk Skyluker’.
Also, Sal already has a helmet that obscures her appearance and voice.
It’s more likely to be from Dutch than German, since “vader” translates as “father” in Dutch. (although the pronunciation is rather different than the one used in star wars, so it might still be coincidence)
Hey what do you know I guessed the title of today’s strip
Oh, so now both Danny and Ethan are single… that’s… just… a shame…
It really is. There’s no way they’d make it happen wi that common baggage tho.
Here on The Good Ship Problematic
The real hurdle to them happening is that they might not want to step on Amber’s toes, and really that’s a pretty legitimate reason not to pursue a relationship. It’s not like Danny is the only other Queer dude in the entire universe. At least not until my constant pestering for more Sayid pays off, anyway.
But, yeah, I think it is going to at the very least be heavily explored, because there really is no other valid love interest for either character now and if Danny and Amber ever reconciled that would take a long time and it probably would be bad for Danny to jump right back in with her. If Amber found out that they wanted to date she’d probably force herself to be okay with it, because after the dust settles from this I’m pretty sure she’s going to double down on “Amber is worthless shit and Danny deserves better.”
On the flip side, plenty of people hate Amber now. Her getting in the way of dudes banging? I think someone might actually will themselves into the comic to kick her in the face.
The sixth panel makes me think of the little tachometer thing from the Scott Pilgrim movie.
Must be the Clark Kent effect… the glasses make most people unable to put 2 and 2 together.
he arranges he hair differnetly too !
Daaamn, out of all the people for Danny to be the one to talk down to Sal like that without getting harmed, it’s quite interesting.
I’m sure she’ll like cut his throat in his sleep or something, cold blooded monster that she is, right?
Naw. She’ll buy Danny an ice cream cone so she can then smack it out of his hand and onto the ground. That is truly monstrous >.>
Yeah, wasting ice cream!
Sal probably finds it refreshing,
Woo! Someone else I can develop a real friendship with that extends beyond them praising me all the time.
And maths lessons
Note that Sal was at least a good ten, twenty feet away from that conversation and that she was only semi-even looking in their direction. In what’s probably a fairly busy, noisy area. I don’t think Sal’s ever given Amber a really good look.
I can’t fault Sal for that, however I can fault her for being really terrible at reading people.
Please note: When people are sitting on steps, looking like they’re about to cry, they probably do not want casual conversation.
Probably not, no. But then reading people’s emotions can be sincerely hard to tell (hi, autistic person! Not saying Sal’s necessarily got any neurodivergence going on herself but just saying, it’s kind of annoying when a trait you can’t control is seen as a character flaw, super fun all the time,) and she CLEARLY wasn’t listening to the conversation and isn’t even looking at Danny for most of the comic. She comes into it saying she was spaced out, it’s possible she hasn’t totally kicked it back into gear when she starts talking.
It is entirely possible the 6th panel was showing guilt.
Sal’s thoughts: Oh shit, thats what his face looks like, well now I feel kinda crappy.
Yeah, we’ll see how she reacts next time she sees him/her next interactions with Billie or someone, ’cause it could be hurt or it could be guilt or both.
There are just so many different variances. Being able to adjust and guess meaning for unseen ones can be tricky. Norms got it easy there, or at least easier.
I’m terrible at reading people. It’s not on purpose. And Sal came up to him from behind. I don’t necessarily look someone in the eyes every time I start a conversation, especially if I know them already. I don’t know, I just don’t see how she’s at fault here.
I don’t think she needs to read people. She just needs to realize that “Not now, Sal” really means “Not now, Sal.” As in, “leave me alone, I’ll talk to you later.”
And I personally think she did realize it with the second comment. If she were horribly hurt, I don’t think she would have responded like she did in the last panel. That’s way too understanding.
Sal: “Maybe I should ask Superman or his friend Clark Kent to look for her.”
Yes, Danny. Let the hate flow through you. Let it consume you. With every whine you come ever closer to the dork side.
Danny, dear, now is the time to talk to Ethan. NOT about hooking up, but about helping Amber.
Wow, Sal actually looks hurt.
She actually considered Danny a friend. Dammit. 🙁
Sorry Danny, but you’re just going to have to get dumped on those stairs over and over again until Willis feels like drawing more backgrounds. 🙂
“Jump some stairs?”?
Is this some Indiana Colloquialism ? or did he see her her skate?
I’ve never heard that either! Maybe it’s like saying “go jump in a river”, or he’s making fun of her hobby of skating, or maybe he’s sarcastically making fun of her badass reputation
Callback to earlier strips, where he asked if she should be doing just that on her bike, and where (I think) she actually did.
That was itself a callback to an even earlier strip: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/03-when-god-closes-the-door/kindness-4/
I love how many commenters think that because Danny said something slightly mean to Sal in an emotionally upset moment, they can never be friends again.
I know right? Like neither of them have demonstrated any resilience or forgiving or understanding in the past so why should they now.
It is not that they can *never* be friends again, but that Sal might withdraw and make it difficult to reestablish. Because this fits with her pattern of ‘people are only interested for so long’. And a lot of people can relate to that and feel worried about it because it would be easy for Sal to withdraw and for Danny to not do anything about it which would let it disintegrate and just be further proof that Marcie is the only one she can rely on.
^This. For Sal, this was a potential friendship beginning in a time she needed one, and we know from her character that she will assume rejection when none exists. The more she needed the support, the more she’s going to ASSUME it will be withdrawn. For Danny, this was a casual acquaintance who was cool, but who he never really got close to. He may not *pursue* the friendship if she closes off, especially if by trying to befriend Sal he thinks he’s hurting Amber. I still think it’s possible they’ll be friends, but this was a fragile point in a fledgling friendship that just snapped.
Yeesh, Danny’s pissing EVERYBODY off, today.
… Except Danny’s the only one in this strip pissed off.
2nd to last panel. Did Sal just display emotion? Visibly? Egads!
Danny’s friends are not the best at being supportive At those stairs either.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2010/comic/book-1/01-move-in-day/prediction/
I have little sympathy for Sal here. She refuses to address Danny with his actual name instead of a derogatory insult, even after he’s expressly asked her to do so. Be a jerk, expect to get treated like one.
Well… yeah. Not letting people close is exactly her problem, she said so herself a few strips ago when Walky was out of earshot. She is not proud of it, but that is her defense mechanism.
More worthy of pity than scorn, in my opinion.
I took it as a term of endearment. Guess I missed or forgot him asking her to stop using it.
it’s kind of her defense mechanism. she acknowledges that someone she developed a bit of an affinity for is hurt by her quips, so she distances herself to make sure she doesn’t hurt more than she has to. she’s not the most socially adept, and furthermore she’s not the best at knowing what people’s boundaries are. it’s not surprising that she’d try to make small-talk to diffuse what she understands to be a ‘situation’ regardless of not knowing if it’s appropriate or not. it doesn’t help she doesn’t know she’s inadvertently a reason behind the breakup.
her recent developments show that she really is hard pressed for people around her that she feels she can trust not to leave her in the dust, so yeah, this is a pretty understandable reaction, even if not the best one.
i don’t have sympathy or pity for her, i just understand.
He’s just told her to go jump down some stairs.
When did Danny “expressly asked her to do so” (not adressing him as Wonderbread)?
That never happened!
It was Sal who protested against being called Sally, but in all the strips tagged as danny+sal, you’ll find lots of “wonderbreads”, but no objection from Danny.
Aw displacement! : ( Poor Sal. Also, did she mean “round glasses” or “round girl” ? haha
Good catch. It makes me wonder if Amber’s real disguise is her figure. No one expects the short, fat girl to be a good athlete.
Danny’s getting angry. Is he going to make this dark, evil looking suit, start robbing banks and stuff, and then taunting Amazi-Girl on video while cackling?
Naw Ambers gonna go full on knight templar, leading Danny to try to stop her. They have a final bat to bat battle on top of the rooftops, that begins with Sarah tossing her bat to Danny.
And in that time people will grab their snacks and enjoy the show.
For me, in the sixth panel, Sal looks like she’s about to cry. Trying to open up to a possible new friend, and being yelled at. Though in the last panel (again for me) it seems like he saw that he’s in a bad mood and doesn’t want to talk, and decided to give him the space she assumes he needs.
Someone needs to start giving out free hugs or something to the main cast. Except Mary. Until Willis finds a way to make her sympathetic.
But who prays for Satan? Who in eighteen centuries, has had the common humanity to pray for the one sinner that needed it most?
Good point. Probably should get around to reading “Lucifer” under the Vertigo label. Fan of the show, and I hear it’s crap compared to the comics.
danny is upset and dordnt want to be talked to? danny is evil!!!
I feel like a bunch of the commentators always need someone to blame or attack, we can’t have a strip without a villain!
Welcome to webcomics fandom. It seems that if a story is doled out in episodes of about a minute’s reading time each, rather than presented as a done-in-one novel or film, some people assign rather more significance to a given line of dialogue, or facial expression, than is warranted. So every disagreement is somehow an “Oh no, enemies forever” fight, every moderately curt word or disapproving look evidence that a character is The Worst Human Being Ever, every shared smile proof that two characters are an OTP and should make with the sexings like yesterday.
It’s so easy when reading something you love like we love Willis’ work, to get really invested in the little moments each day. I don’t blame anyone for it, and I fall victim to it regularly too. All we can do is try not to let it get out of hand, and laugh at ourselves when it does.
It’s not often it happens, but Sal never looks more like her brother than when she’s completely oblivious to a situation.
This is some evangelion levels of people digging chasms between each other
You can (not) communicate effectively.
you just summed up both series
Thank goodness that horrible relationship is over, but damn… Sal wasn’t expecting to get shit on.
Cutest avi evah!
i think people are angry at danny and acting as if hes doing something wrong just cause they ship him with sal and wanted them to make out
AW SAL I STILL LOVE U
I kind of want Danny and Sal to hook up now, just to fuck with all the Danny/Ethan shippers.
Danny/Sal? psh thats ridiculous when could that ever happen
feeling actively bad for Sal right here.. she’s not trying to be too cool for school, she’s just a product of it’s bullshit. I think she kinda hoped Danny would be cool about all this bullshit…
but he’s Danny.. and for all the longtime followers of this comic..
enough said
Ok, sad shit aside, the fact that Sal doesn’t know her secret identity and the way we are finding that out are both hilarious
Sly Sirs Redux?
I think that was the most Sal way of saying
“I heard all of that, wanna talk about it?”
Except she apparently didn’t, because if there was actual communication, this plot would fall apart.
The plot of everything everywhere would fall apart if people talked.
As far as ways of brushing people off go, implying that they should go be cool doing cool shit instead isn’t that bad.
Go victory strut while an explosion goes off behind you, Sal.
Go do a cool midair motorcycle resc-oh wait.
Sadness. I get where they’re both coming from here, and kinda rooting for both of them. But this was an inevitability.
I hope they can patch things up later, because Danny needs some good friends. And at least be friends with Sal will mean he won’t run the risk of running into Amber.
Of course, I’m still kinda rooting for Danber. But, only if this showdown gets Amber in the right headspace to realize that the impulses that lead to AmaziGirl are getting out of control, and gets her started on fixing them.
Thanks for being worried about Danny, Sal. Honestly, I would love to see the two of you as friends. Let Amber go blow off steam somewhere else.
You know it’s to bad really him and Sal actually have somethings in common, like the fact that they’re both treated poorly by their parents.
Danny shows a bit of spine for once. It’s a pity Sal’s the target though.
Developing the Danny-Sal relationship (not necessarily in a sexual direction; maybe partners-in-crime or something) would be interesting.
Man, poor Panel 2 Danny. He’s looking down, thinking “Dammit Willis. Did you have to put the Slipshine link with the shot of Amber licking my abs *right there* just in time for this strip?”
+1 internet
Another small step to sausages, bet it wont be long now.
Very skillfully drawn. When she looks up in the second to last panel, it’s with sheer astonishment that Danny tells her to get lost, because, well she knows as good as we do that this isn’t like Danny.
We don’t see Sal’s face in the last panel, so we can only speculate what she feel or thinks about what she saw in his face.
Before, she acted like ‘This unimportant little girl from my floor was having a fit at Danny, I vaguely wonder what’s it about’.
It doesn’t at all look like she picked up on an danger of physical expressions of rage – or maybe in her mind Amber’s just so weak it out of imagination.
But I cannot imagine that she ‘knows it all’ and choose to act like this. I’d rather imagine her asking him ‘that didn’t go well’ or some such.
So once again Willis keeps us guessing and riveted.
It’s strips like this that remind us just what a massive comic books nerd Willis really is. Just like the characters in superhero comics, most people seem to be selectively blind and deaf even when Amber does and says things that should make it abundantly clear to everyone that she and Amazi-Girl are one and the same.
This, oddly enough, gives me hope. Unless Willis is planning a deconstruction, this suggests strongly that Amber’s secret is never going to be known outside her small intimate circle (basically, Ethan and Danny) and that it is possible that her problems, if not solved, will at least be addressed and tackled without a massive public ‘coming out’.
That small circle also include Dorothy and Dina and this means the circle is growing.
Also Walky had close conversations with her – only a matter of time until he registers the similarity.
Walky’s spent a fair amount of time around Amazi-Girl now, but he doesn’t really know Amber. I’m not sure he even knows her name. They were both at Joyce’s dorm party, but Walky was drunk and Amber was doing her usual wallflower act, and that’s the only time they’ve seen each other more than just in passing.
And, y’know, I wouldn’t put it past Walky to have figured it out but just not felt the need to say anything about it, like with Ethan’s orientation. He’s way more observant than he lets on.
Obfuscating Stupidity. Could end up like Daredevil, with the worst kept secret identity of a super that keeps one.
It’s actually starting to irritate me, ’cause it’s being used to draw out plots rather than bring them toward closure, to keep conversations from being had which need to be, and stands in contrast to other matters which are being handled much more realistically (IMO).
Sal knows when she’s not wanted/needed at a given time.
Aww, I really wanna hug Danny right now.
A couple of years ago I would have enjoyed seeing Danny kicked while he was down. He’s undergone some tremendous character development in DoA!
There’s still Mary.
GodDAMN are these two kawaii
Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurgh
Danny x Sal x Ethan orgy nooooooooooooooooow
Well, Sal did tell Ethan, at Joyce’s party, that she likes tall, as she looked up at him smiling. But Ethan does not seem inclined to a bi-triangle.
For a minute I really liked assertive, angry Danny, and the fact that original Danny was obsessed with Sal really launched a ship. I mean, assertive Danny plus Sal? He was definitely getting it from behind.
A lot of commenters are reading panel five as Sal being hurt, which is definitely a valid – and probably correct – reading. I read it more as shock and concern, though. Sal’s not AS tough as she puts on, sure, but she does have a somewhat thick skin, and if she’s able to think about how the exchange went, she’ll realize she should have stopped pushing the topic when Danny said “not now.”
As SundaesChild said, a lot of people are reading 6 as Sal being hurt and going off of it that “she just lost another friend.”
I think that’s kind of reaching there. Considering she leaves him be in the following panel and tells him to keep her informed regarding his situation (although its hard to tell if that’s her being hurt or not since the fricken border is covering it and it’s a comic), I think she realizes that he’s in an emotional state and should be left alone.
I find it funny that Sal pulled a Walky here. No, Sal, when someone says “Not now” when you try to talk to them, it’s not a good idea to make idle chit-chat about the thing that probably upset them.
Even if she wasn’t listening, surely she could know that he’s upset about that “glasses girl” and so talking about her would be a bad idea.
This comic would have been a lot better on both of them if your remove the fifth and sixth panels.
Also, where’s triangle guy? We could use some smiles right now…
Danny, I am proud that you have manned up and told Amber what she needs to hear (well she ran off before you can fully do that but still I applaud your attempt). The break up is good for you.
I went back and re-read this scene starting with “Eagles” from April 22. It really put today’s comic in perspective. Her budding friendship with Danny was way outside her comfort zone. She must have really liked him for it to have lasted as long as it did. Danny’s anger at Sal is arguably a bigger deal than AG’s dumping of Danny.
The good news is that Amazigirl could switch her Nemesis for a brick wall and retain the same basic level of complex thinking.
No pun intended.
Sal’s actually good at complex thinking, assuming she has the DATA for that thinking, which she doesn’t here. AG could switch her nemesis for a brick wall and retain the same level of nemesis-awareness, though, much like Becky and Dorothy.
The brick wall’s internal screaming are just pure magic.
Sal. You just don’t know, Sal.
Awww, poor Sal. I just want her to join Sarah and Dina and become the socially-awkward girls squad and be happy.
And they all need to give Joyce an honorary membership and some hugs.
Now Ethan, salve his soul.
Why does everyone think that Sal is hurt? That’s more a look of worry than anything.
We all see what we feel?
Aww, she worries.
Also, those stairs brought you closer to your boyfriend.
They are telling you to be with him.
GO, MY CHILD.
Years later with his spouse and kids, Danny will drop his oldest off at this spot. He will recall to his child of the time his first girlfriend dumped him on those steps and how his second girlfriend also dumped him on those steps, but it doesn’t matter cause he benefited at the end.
That is when his significant other suddenly asks him for a divorce.
jk?
God, Danny and Amber belong together. Leave now Sal; you’re fucking awesome.
They are some damn fine steps though, prime hangout spot
Daww Sal cares
I just noticed: Sal says “didn’t know you knew her”, so apparently she forgot about how her first encounter with Danny ended… or maybe she hadn’t memorized Amber’s face yet, back then.