Yeah, my reaction wasn’t to making that comment, but this being the third place I pounced on one of those yesterday. I was in some sort of mood, usually I aim more witty in my repartee.
That didn’t stop several commenters from freaking out, insisting she was kicking him like a soccer ball. The only comic iguana who gets that treatment is Quincy!
The thing is, it’s not just the animal itself. You’ve got potential allergies(yes, even to reptiles), urine and feces, smell, the food, things like space and medical needs, not to mention the liability problems. It’s really just not worth the trouble for the school or for your roommates.
Oh, sure, there’s all sorts of legit reasons for the rules in question. But that’s not what’s being discussed here, and likewise, complaining about the foot-scooch and calling it a ‘kick’ is both missing the point of the character and the arc. In many ways, Malaya IS what Sal pretends to be–an outsider and loner, who actively rejects social norms to the point of being abrasive just to keep others out. Sal does it to keep from being hurt, whereas Malaya, thus far, seems to do it instinctively. So she regards Sal as a poseur.
Note: These traits make Malaya a pretty awful person to try to be friends with. I suspect Marcie is overlooking a LOT to get a view of Malaya’s ass. And I doubt I’d be able to spend ten minutes in her company without sniping at her, because she operates on that level. But that doesn’t mean she’s wrong about Sal, and it doesn’t mean she’s actively harmful to her beloved pet, which is important to her in a way that people aren’t.
This is such a good analysis and it puts a lot into perspective.
I can’t tell if I’m more of a Sal or a Malaya. Like Sal I actively cultivate an outward image to feel safe from being hurt and lift my self esteem, when really I’m lonely and very emotionally vulnerable. Like Sal I come from a place of parental neglect and abuse. But like Malaya I genuinely resent rules and authority, and I’m extremely stubborn and obstinate by nature. I hate being told what to do and I’ll break the law (like not wearing a shirt in public) because I’m just pissed that it seems unfair to me.
I guess it depends on where Malaya is coming from and what makes her like she is. I’d relate to her a lot less if she came from a pretty stable life without much to be idignant over.
From Malaya’s admittedly skewed point of view, she’s not doing it sincerely–she doesn’t actually WANT to be alone. Rather, she wants people to think she’s too cool to be approached. So she and Malaya share similar appearances, but Malaya’s anti-social behavior is genuine–she dislikes most other human beings, period. So to her, Sal is just fronting.
“Malaya IS what Sal pretends to be–an outsider and loner, who actively rejects social norms to the point of being abrasive just to keep others out.”
I’m pretty much of the opposite opinion: That Malaya is the biggest pretender of the two. By far. Like, she really wants nothing more than to be seen as cool and edgy and an outsider… Except of course, her actual behaviour just betrays her as mainly acting like an immature spoiled brat most of the time. There is no “outsider” or “loner” about her, just someone who wants to have those tags apply to her without having to work for it.
So she’s acting all abrasive pretty much all the time… And because of that, nobody’s impressed with it. It just annoys them. And so her reputation isn’t that of being a rebel or a loner, but simply that of a jerkface.
Naturally, Malaya would hate pretty much everyone who gets to have the rebel/loner image when she thinks (so far without much justification) she deserves it more.
This actually is a VERY well-reasoned explanation for Malaya’s big issue with Sal, actually. Beyond Sal not liking her either, Malaya does seem to harp on the “poser” and “flimsy act” and “boring” thing a lot, despite the fact that being caustic doesn’t really make you UNBORING, it just makes you an asshole.
No idea. Is Bullwinkle still on the air anywhere? Maybe Cartoon Network? The adventures of Moose & Squirrel should be required viewing for all citizens! (perhaps a *requirement* for citizenship?) 😀
The best part of this is how several strips ago, one of Billie’s new dorm mates said “I mean we’ll miss fuckface….” when Billie asked if they’d miss Malaya at all.
She looks a bit closer to her SP! appearance pre-Girthday now, at least to my eye. Getting her ass thrown by Amazi-Girl must’ve inspired her to hit the campus gym and it’s finally paying dividends 💪🏽💪🏽
So I’m guessing Lucy also knew the whole time (because how could she not?) but just didn’t say anything because she either was too nice to cause a kerfluffle or didn’t think much of that particular rule. Either way, good to know.
And I have a feeling that the dorm will be unamused with both of them, and unlike other cases where she breaks rules (like for drinking or Becky) she has no reason to want to stick her neck out for Malaya.
But if iguanas were omnivores though, I’d think they’d need something a little bit bigger than a cricket? I mean, even bearded dragons eat ‘pinkies’, so I think an even bigger lizard would need something of that size or bigger.
You’d be surprised! I was sure I was making a mistake when I got fish while already owning cats, and made sure to get as cat-proof a tank as possible…
Only for my cats to pay absolutely zero attention to the fish forever.
While our poor iguana friend knows not the rules he breaks, Sal probably actually cares that people would probably fear his food if it escapes or him and that his presence may cause anxiety among people that aren’t fond of reptiles?
I’ve never had iguanas, I thought they ate insects until after I had already commented and by then it was too late to correct it. They may think he eats insects as well though because Dumbing of Age, not Research Before You Freak Out of Age.
SAL RESISTED THE IGUANA ON HEAD ATTACK, reality is unraveling, soggies will rule, nobody can resist the iguana, the chronoflux capricitator is overloading, all is lost
Panel 3: There are VALID REASONS why pets are banned. Malaya, I get why you’re doing this, but the first time you let crickets loose in the room Sal gets to drop you out the window. If they escape into the rest of the dorm, every other girl on the floor gets to do the same as soon as you get back.
Not that this is the only reason the iguana would be an issue but, they’re herbivores. My roomie in college had one and always fed it leafy greens, no crickets.
They DO stink like crazy sometimes though. If he gave his greens that had just started to turn then oh my god did that thing’s poop smell bad. Ughhh.
You haven’t seen the horrible Emoji ad for women’s razors recently.
It actually implies that the hair that naturally grows on women’s legs is a “disaster.” No, it’s a natural process. Some people just like to shave it off.
(Also, apparently my Walkysona is a redhead. Who knew?)
This brings back bad memories. I had a 30-gallon aquarium in my dorm room. One weekend when I was visiting my parents (i.e., doing laundry), the bottom broke out catastrophically. Man, did I have to buy a buttload of beer for my roommate and the two guys on first floor beneath our room!
A smart character in the comic would take this into account and paint the arrow the other way so that things being moved were less likely to be damaged.
Dorothy? Dorothy is all those things. I mean maybe not savvy to the genre of this comic in particular, but, like, she does watch a lot of cartoons. She is also smart and probably wants her shit carried upright. Presidents don’t carry their shit upside down, probably.
My husband got really irritated with me for labelling which way something was supposed to go with an arrow pointing up (or rather, towards the side that was supposed to go up). Apparently, without a printed “THIS SIDE UP” alongside of it, that arrow could mean, just, like, anything.
Never mind that international postal standards are that an arrow on the side of a container indicate which side is supposed to go up. I mean, he’s only dealt with boxes labelled with arrows pointing up on practically a daily basis for, like, decades; how on earth is the poor guy supposed to know what this arrow means?!
Yeah, my mental response was, “How can someone so smart be so dumb? *eyeroll*”
It’s pretty clear he belongs to the species Iguana cartooniensis.
For starters, he has no visible dewlap. (Which, from what I understand, makes him to a large degree mute among iguanas, making him an appropriate counterpart to Marcie.)
Also, he has been able to thrive despite being kept in a terrarium smaller than his snout-to-tail length (not to mention that almost half of the terrarium’s volume seems to be taken up by some kind of bonsai tree.)
Though just for the record, when an iguana is being submissive they pull it in the dewlap, often enough it wouldn’t show up in a sketch like this. Young iguanas usually look like they don’t have any.
It’s hard to imagine FF is actually trying to signal a low rank here, but if you imagine he’s somehow so indifferent he doesn’t care to show it, it fits pretty well with the characters.
All, and none, for he is the Ur-iguana, spoken of in hushed tones by his reptilian kin, the greatest of their race, destined to lead them to great destiny, when they will end the reign of the tyrannical mammalians with a fury of blood and fire, and only those marked for their kindness, such as Malaya, shall be spared to live a life of benign servitude in the New Eden. Also, there will be an endless supply of crickets. So it is written, so shall it be.
I thought not. It’s not a story that Sal would tell you. It’s a shortpacked! legend. Darth Fuckface the wise was a sith lord so powerful and so wise he could use the Force to influence the Willis to give absolute power to the one whose head he sat on.
He taught everything he knew to his apprentice, Robo-Vac, who of course killed him. Ironic, really. He could save the ones he loved from DamnYouWillis, but he couldn’t save himself.
Unless Malaya brought Marcie here under false pretences, or neglected to inform her Sal would be present, it’s likely her agency in this is intact, and the peace offering is an opportunity to communicate where that privilege had previously been withdrawn, rather than her person…
Adding to ‘Did Malaya tell Marcie’, is there any way Marcie would already put the.pieces together about Sal being Malaya’s new roomie without being told?
Setting up the tank somewhere that lets the light from the window reach half the tank will probably be fine? Usually you also add a light above the tank on one side so they get light for 12ish hours of the day.
They can’t ingest vitamin D3 in the way that humans can, so they need a reasonable amount of UV light to help them manufacture it themselves. They also need heat, but not too much (nor too little).
Iguanas are really well adapted to their natural environment, which is really unlike the natural environment of, say, Bloomington, Indiana. It is totally possible to keep them happy and healthy in a dorm room in Bloomington, Indiana, but it does require understanding, effort, and proper resource allocation.
If there is one being on earth that Malaya cares about, it is Fuckface, I have no doubt that Malaya is properly caring for him.
That depends on how the rules are written. “Kicking out” rarely happens at non-religious schools (remember, the students/parents are the ones footing the administration’s salaries). More likely, they’d just force Malaya to send Fuckface home.
I want to say Marcie was originally mad at Sal for picking fights with Malaya and then the later fight with Amazigirl at Robin’s rally really pushed it over the edge.
I think it’s because Sal + AG got into a fight at the Robin DeSanto rally, which Marcie was working security at. Essentially, Sal made Marcie’s job harder, and may have even put it in jeopardy.
I think both “evil” and “genius” is a bit too much.
But she is a bit of a jerk who manage to stay one step ahead of Sal at every turn, which doesn’t say anything TOO flattering about Sal’s level of geniusness.
Sal did the stupidity of not reading the papers on her new roommate, so she didn’t have time to plan ahead. Malaya did, and seems to,have spent a lot of time planning.
You know when a friend’s rightfully mad at me to the point they’re not talking to me I would just let them be mad at me and give them space to the point they’re ready to be on speaking terms again no madder how long it would take…is that the right way to deal with that issue or is that not taking initiative ?
In my experience it’s best to ask them whether they want to be left alone, along with a conciliatory/apologetic gesture. If they say yes, leave it alone, if they say no, pay attention to what their needs are and be respectful of those while attempting to continue or repair your friendship.
I’ve got the most horrible feeling from Marcie’s expression that there is literally nothing about her relationship with Malaya that hasn’t turned out to be abusive in some way.
I just…wow. It’s so condescending of Malaya to keep going “oh clearly you are purposefully rebelling, and clearly you are failing at it because you’re not ‘rebelling’ in the exact way I would approve of.” Maybe it’s just hitting home for me because like Sal I’m outside mainstream society in several ways, and none of them is just because I want to “piss people off” or “rebel.” I’m either trying to be my authentic self and live my life, or I’m acting this way to deal with trauma and shit. So yeah. No rebellion here, sorry. Not sure if I’m just projecting on Sal, but I feel for her.
On the bright side, it’s good to see Marcie again. I hope she’ll be able to forgive Sal.
And yeah, Fuckface is cute sitting on top of her head. Welcome to the Dumbiverse Fuckface. Enjoy your stay.
Yeah, this. Insulting Sal by claiming that she is trying to be something she has never claimed to be, and then holding up her perception that she has failed in Malaya’s eyes is mean and stupid.
Sal is less of a rebel than people think. She’s never claimed to be one; everyone else just makes the assumption from her behaviour and social isolation. However, they’re wrong and, frankly, she’s less easy-going about breaking the rules than people think. She’s seen the consequences of being a rule-breaker up close and she doesn’t want anyone else to suffer the consequences the way she has.
Being of an extremely independent and self-contained nature is not the same as being a rebel. Sal does not need to flip a finger to authority to be cool; she manages it anyway.
So, yeah, she feels no burden to ‘stick it to the man’ in any way and, if she was satisfied that Malaya was a serious problem, she wouldn’t hesitate to report her to the authorities.
That’s not completely true – she’s 100% down to rebel against what she sees as silly or oppressive rules and she is a rebel in that sense, but she’s not a ‘all rules are evil’ type rebel. I doubt she has problems with, like, rules against murder.
Sal knows some rules don’t make sense and ignores them as such. She has an “innate desire to rebel.against any and all authority”, and often does so when it’s a ‘screw the rules I’m doing what’s right’ moment.
Is it okay of Malaya to treat Marcie, Marcie’s presence, or Marcie’s time and attention as a gift that she can give, to use marcie as a bargaining chip in her negotiations with Sal?
On the other hand, if she was the one who talked Marcie into reaching out to Sal, then it says things about Malaya that would need us all to reconsider what we think we know about her character.
*face palm* Malaya being a rebel doesn’t mean you mindlessly break every single rule there is. It means you live by your own rules. Sometimes those will will match up with establishment rules. One of my personal rules “Don’t get kicked out of places I live” Kind of willing to bet that Sal’s got the same rule.
I swear sometimes the only things I like about Malaya are Fuckface and that Marcie and Carla like her. Though it makes me question Marcie and Carla’s tastes in people that they like her.
I think part of why Sal gets so annoyed with Malaya is that she was Malaya when she was like like 11. That was when she was a rebel just to be a rebel. Now, she’s herself. She understands that you don’t shit where you eat and you don’t break every rule just because it is a rule. Some of those rules exist so that we can all still have nice things – like places to sleep.
Also, I am in agreement with those of you who have pointed out that Malaya is a poseur and angry because she recognizes that Sal is an actual outsider. But, also, Sal was never really trying to be one. That is who she has always been because she is Linda Walkerton’s little girl who just doesn’t look white enough and never could be the daughter she wanted. She’s an outsider because Billie is the unofficial third Walkerton twin. And, like almost all outsiders, it’s not a choice. It just is.
Like on the surface, she’s kinda awful a lot. Hard to please, frequent to complain, ready to fight with folks. In real life she’d be the sort of person it is very difficult to be friends with. But that feels like it’s selling her short to stop there.
Like, on the flip-side, she’s loyal and tries hard for folks she feels are showing her respect despite her Malaya-ness and more interestingly, she seems to be the rare sort of person who really doesn’t care what others think of her.
Like, she acknowledges it and lets it color how she interacts both positively and negatively, but so often she seems to operate in her own world and people thinking negatively of her seem to just get added to her list of “fuckers” and not really worried about beyond that point.
And that’s kinda unique in a character. Like, we see characters who want to be that. Both Sal and Carla have longed to be “beyond caring” about the feelings of others thanks to their histories of abuse and suffering bigotry, but we also see how things deeply affect them. A nasty comment, someone loathing them affects them as much as they wished it didn’t.
But Malaya seems to operate on a level where she’s able to intellectualize that as someone else’s shit and more or less operate on her own level seemingly unaffected by it and that’s… powerful and intriguing. Especially for me who is much more in the Carla camp than the Malaya camp on this.
And it creates this sort of novel sort of way of interacting with folks. Like, she’s definitely holding on to a grudge with Sal and not at all planning on making this easy for her, but it also feels like if Sal loathed her for all her days, that Malaya wouldn’t really be bent out of shape about it. And the whole dynamic becomes something novel and intriguing.
Panel 1: And we see that here. Malaya has just been physically accosted… again, by the person she will be sharing space with. For anyone else, this would be a major worrying thing. Certainly the idea of sharing space with Malaya is awful for Sal and affects her deeply. That’s the context.
And here Malaya is off in her own world as if that didn’t even happen. She has her iguana. She likes her iguana. Her iguana is on her head. So she expresses that happiness as if that context wasn’t even a thing, because it feels like that context doesn’t really get through beyond the point of “this person has a problem with me, that’s a problem with them, whatever.”
And I think it explains a lot about her conflict with Sal and her interpretation of Sal as a poser. Like, Sal in a lot of ways is very much a rebel loner with an anti-authoritarian streak. But Malaya isn’t viewing her under that lens. She’s viewing her by the cultural idea of the rebel loner, the one who doesn’t even care what people think and does her own thing.
And by that common depiction, Sal is not that. She cares deeply what others think. She’s haunted by it at times. It drives her alienation from others. But to Malaya, all she sees is Sal doesn’t live up to this cultural idea of “loner” that she finds so easy to fulfill herself.
And so to Malaya, Sal is “posing” at loner-dom by being what so often leads folks to live anti-authoritarian loner lives rather than the cultural depiction.
We’re quick to judge when we have strong preconceived ideas. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We need a lot of preconceived ideas to get anything done in an efficient manner. But Malaya applies her preconceived ideas of what people should be and what their motives are far too readily. She instantly judges people on an individual basis based on her ideas of what people as groups should be, and that’s more than surface awfulness. That Malaya happens to be on the right side of political history doesn’t save her from this awfulness much deeper than a veneer.
But yes, the general demeanor of not needing someone to be okay yourself is a powerful form of psychological attractiveness. Most people can pull if off as an act when needed, but this trait seems inherent to Malaya’s outlook. It shows in both her personal psychological health (perhaps only Jacob is more stable than her, and I have a feeling there’s more to Jacob than we’ve seen so far). It also shows in how inconsiderate she is and how she’s fine with the consequences of her inconsiderateness.
Interestingly I see Sal as starting to shake off her self-imposed role as rebel loner and is beginning to maybe want to fit in a bit more, not sure why but maybe the grades shes receiving is starting to change how she views herself
Panel 2: And you get the feel that this was a huge part of the desire to move. That that location was unhealthy for her lizard that she finds it a lot easier to relate to than people.
And I wonder if this is part of what lead her to so loathe the cinnamon roll that is Lucy. That Lucy’s inquisitiveness and tendency to be a bit more of a rule-follower meant Lucy made an initial comment about Fuckface that birthed the weird one-sided feud they ended up having.
Panel 3: As I noted before, Malaya seems to view “rebeldom” as its cultural depiction rather than its actual reality, because to her that cultural depiction is a natural state she finds it very easy to occupy and she’s never really been able to internalize other people’s attitudes towards her enough to understand the reality other marginalized people occupy.
And this really hammers that home. To Malaya, “rebeldom” is fighting against all rules for the sake of them being rules that hamper her natural flow.
To Sal and others, “rebeldom” is recognizing the oppression inherent in some “laws” and “natural orders” and fighting those because they are oppressive and hurt folks, not because of a weird anti-rule fetish.
And so of course she feels that Sal is “betraying” “rebeldom” by caring about a rule. Because she fundamentally misunderstands Sal’s relationship with rules in the first place.
Panel 5: This moment is so sad. This is the first time Sal and Marcie have been face to face since the big fight and Marcie demanding space and you see in their body language their current states.
Marcie is still upset, her face set like “I really don’t want to deal with this” while Sal’s whole upper body flags, her shoulders drooping in nervousness surrounding this encounter.
Which makes sense. Sal hurt Marcie their last interactions and feels intensely bad about that and wants to fix that new rift with her most important friend and Marcie still feels hurt that Sal treated a job that was very important to her survival very dismissively and put her in a more rough economic situation.
And I really hope these two can talk it out and repair things.
“I don’t like you at all for good reason. Your pet is an inconvenient burden, and I’ll get in trouble for helping you conceal it. My rebel act is self-serving, and you are not me, stop trying to manipulate my branding. Ttyn, SAL.”
Previews of future chapter titles in the archive are pretty common. Occasionally, the title is changed for some reason (I think the last example was It All Returns, which to my memory was originally billed in the archive as “Returns to Nothing” before being changed a little prior to the chapter release).
This Is one of the very few comics featuring Malaya this chapter in which the camera doesn’t give a butt angle. But doesn’t Marcie’s positioning in the last panel means she’s been taking in the view?
Hey, just heard about Vegas, hope everyone here and everyone you love is safe.
In related news, your Republicans are trying to pass a bill that would make gun laws laxer, so time to call your representatives again, I guess? At this point, they should be on speed dial.
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I love how the layout of this makes it look like Marcie has been standing there the whole time, and Sal didn’t notice until Malaya gestured to her.
Maybe Marcie has been learning from Dina?
My preferred interpretation ia that Marcie was also in the box
She’d like to be, anyway.
Oh God, I’ve become one of THOSE commenters.
Thank you for jumping on that primed double entendre. Your sacrifice will be remembered.
Yeah, my reaction wasn’t to making that comment, but this being the third place I pounced on one of those yesterday. I was in some sort of mood, usually I aim more witty in my repartee.
Sometimes simple can be fun and satisfying.
One of us! One of us!
more of this! more of this!
As the caption text notes, the box is Walkyverse’s best character.
Yeah, that was my interpretation.
Damn, Malaya is smarter than she looks
Between the exotic pet and the impeccably timed planning, she just might have supervillain potential.
Which is why her team-up with Carla has implications for the whole world.
Carla’s a brilliant engineer, Malaya is a mastermind, between the two of them the earth may be doomed.
Doomed to at least a few decades of sick pranks.
A few decades in our time…so *maybe* a semester in-comic?
*holds up two hands like balancing scales*
Carla/Malaya.
Current escalating geopolitical situation.
…yeah. I’m cool with being doomed. Not actually losing anything.
shush
oh, nm. you meant the world.
In fairness that’s a pretty good peace offering.
literally kicking Fuckface around, Malaya?
also, ours allowed shit like fish, they just don’t want things that’ll run loose and destroy anything
Oh come on, the sound effect literally says foot-scootch. She was pushing it with her foot, not kicking it.
Well, to be fair, it initally said, “Kick-scooch,” sooo…
English crucially lacks a good word for “shove with a foot”.
That didn’t stop several commenters from freaking out, insisting she was kicking him like a soccer ball. The only comic iguana who gets that treatment is Quincy!
I suggest “to thisissparta”.
The thing is, it’s not just the animal itself. You’ve got potential allergies(yes, even to reptiles), urine and feces, smell, the food, things like space and medical needs, not to mention the liability problems. It’s really just not worth the trouble for the school or for your roommates.
Oh, sure, there’s all sorts of legit reasons for the rules in question. But that’s not what’s being discussed here, and likewise, complaining about the foot-scooch and calling it a ‘kick’ is both missing the point of the character and the arc. In many ways, Malaya IS what Sal pretends to be–an outsider and loner, who actively rejects social norms to the point of being abrasive just to keep others out. Sal does it to keep from being hurt, whereas Malaya, thus far, seems to do it instinctively. So she regards Sal as a poseur.
Note: These traits make Malaya a pretty awful person to try to be friends with. I suspect Marcie is overlooking a LOT to get a view of Malaya’s ass. And I doubt I’d be able to spend ten minutes in her company without sniping at her, because she operates on that level. But that doesn’t mean she’s wrong about Sal, and it doesn’t mean she’s actively harmful to her beloved pet, which is important to her in a way that people aren’t.
This is such a good analysis and it puts a lot into perspective.
I can’t tell if I’m more of a Sal or a Malaya. Like Sal I actively cultivate an outward image to feel safe from being hurt and lift my self esteem, when really I’m lonely and very emotionally vulnerable. Like Sal I come from a place of parental neglect and abuse. But like Malaya I genuinely resent rules and authority, and I’m extremely stubborn and obstinate by nature. I hate being told what to do and I’ll break the law (like not wearing a shirt in public) because I’m just pissed that it seems unfair to me.
I guess it depends on where Malaya is coming from and what makes her like she is. I’d relate to her a lot less if she came from a pretty stable life without much to be idignant over.
The analysis of Sal’s behaviour and her reasons for it makes sense, but I don’t really see how that would make her a poser.
From Malaya’s admittedly skewed point of view, she’s not doing it sincerely–she doesn’t actually WANT to be alone. Rather, she wants people to think she’s too cool to be approached. So she and Malaya share similar appearances, but Malaya’s anti-social behavior is genuine–she dislikes most other human beings, period. So to her, Sal is just fronting.
“Malaya IS what Sal pretends to be–an outsider and loner, who actively rejects social norms to the point of being abrasive just to keep others out.”
I’m pretty much of the opposite opinion: That Malaya is the biggest pretender of the two. By far. Like, she really wants nothing more than to be seen as cool and edgy and an outsider… Except of course, her actual behaviour just betrays her as mainly acting like an immature spoiled brat most of the time. There is no “outsider” or “loner” about her, just someone who wants to have those tags apply to her without having to work for it.
So she’s acting all abrasive pretty much all the time… And because of that, nobody’s impressed with it. It just annoys them. And so her reputation isn’t that of being a rebel or a loner, but simply that of a jerkface.
Naturally, Malaya would hate pretty much everyone who gets to have the rebel/loner image when she thinks (so far without much justification) she deserves it more.
Your Majesty’s interpretation is, as always, on point.
Hey, show some respect! The proper term of address is “Your Imperial Majesty”. ‘Cos he’s an Emperor, see?
😉
We are an informal emperor. Dusk Rain’s show of respect is acceptable to Us.
Showing some respect is exactly what I was trying to do? I don’t call address people as terms of nobility just for fun, you know. 😉
Just so, my lord.
Damn! Hehehehe
This actually is a VERY well-reasoned explanation for Malaya’s big issue with Sal, actually. Beyond Sal not liking her either, Malaya does seem to harp on the “poser” and “flimsy act” and “boring” thing a lot, despite the fact that being caustic doesn’t really make you UNBORING, it just makes you an asshole.
Hilariously, that means Marcie may see part of Sal in Malaya.
hey presto, it’s a Marcie
“Hey Sal, watch me pull a Marcie outta my hat!”
“Aww, that trick never works.”
*Pulls Amazi-Girl out of the hat*
“Oh, not again!”
I got to get a new hat.
How many of the youngsters you think know that whole sequence?
No idea. Is Bullwinkle still on the air anywhere? Maybe Cartoon Network? The adventures of Moose & Squirrel should be required viewing for all citizens! (perhaps a *requirement* for citizenship?) 😀
Moose and Squirrel? I watch Supernatural all the time.
You’ve raised my hopes and dashed them most expertly, sir! Kudos!
*Bows.*
Are you kidding. I think it is in the Canadian constitution that CBC has to play it until the heat death of the universe.
“Now here’s something we hope you’ll REALLY like…”
Wait, I thought Marcie was Amazi-Girl!
The real reason she doesn’t speak? So no one realizes her speech bubbles are blue.
A Wild Marcie Appears!
throws Quick Ball
Malaya and Sal blocked the ball!
Don’t be a thief!
Fuckface! 😀
Of the Indianapolis Von Clownsticks, thank you.
I love that she has a pet whose name is a swear. It just *screams* “I’m out of my parents’ house; time to do shit they wouldn’t like.”
Malaya is to herself true. Whether or not that’s an entirely good thing is up to the individual.
The best part of this is how several strips ago, one of Billie’s new dorm mates said “I mean we’ll miss fuckface….” when Billie asked if they’d miss Malaya at all.
Yep. At the time, it could still be seen as pure sarcasm. But now it’s clear they’ll miss the iguana.
…and DYW’s all-caps font hid that this was a name. Clever!
and their RA was insisting weirdly on the “no pet” thing, too, so she knew.
Did Marcie lose weight or it’s that I haven’t seen her in a while?
She looks a bit closer to her SP! appearance pre-Girthday now, at least to my eye. Getting her ass thrown by Amazi-Girl must’ve inspired her to hit the campus gym and it’s finally paying dividends 💪🏽💪🏽
It was Malaya who got thrown by Amazi-Girl though, not Marcie.
SHIT I misread that initial comment, DISREGARD
So I’m guessing Lucy also knew the whole time (because how could she not?) but just didn’t say anything because she either was too nice to cause a kerfluffle or didn’t think much of that particular rule. Either way, good to know.
Judging by the “we’ll miss fuckface” comment and the emphasis on no pets, I’d say everyone knew.
You’re right alt-text. Fuckface is indeed the best character.
SAL! How could you even think of ratting out Fuckface!?
Because the crickets he’s fed have a decent chance of escaping into the dorm, that’s why.
And I have a feeling that the dorm will be unamused with both of them, and unlike other cases where she breaks rules (like for drinking or Becky) she has no reason to want to stick her neck out for Malaya.
Yeah, quite the opposite in fact.
I suspect nearly everyone in the dorm will like Fuckface better than Malaya.
Unfortunately, I don’t think you can get someone thrown out of the dorm for having a pet and keep the pet.
I don’t think iguanas eat crickets? My room mate in college had one and always fed it leafy greens. They’re herbivores.
I dunno, I’ve only ever had cats and frogs.
Yeah, iguanas are herbivores. No crickets at all.
But if iguanas were omnivores though, I’d think they’d need something a little bit bigger than a cricket? I mean, even bearded dragons eat ‘pinkies’, so I think an even bigger lizard would need something of that size or bigger.
I am guessing not at the same time; at least, not for long.
Yeah, Jazz the frog was after Sebastian but before Calvin and Hobbes.
You’d be surprised! I was sure I was making a mistake when I got fish while already owning cats, and made sure to get as cat-proof a tank as possible…
Only for my cats to pay absolutely zero attention to the fish forever.
While our poor iguana friend knows not the rules he breaks, Sal probably actually cares that people would probably fear his food if it escapes or him and that his presence may cause anxiety among people that aren’t fond of reptiles?
People fear plants?
I’ve never had iguanas, I thought they ate insects until after I had already commented and by then it was too late to correct it. They may think he eats insects as well though because Dumbing of Age, not Research Before You Freak Out of Age.
Judging by the number of comments that mention this, you’re not the only one.
Just the Krinoid from Dr. Who.
Huzzah, the upside-down arrow tradition lives!
SAL RESISTED THE IGUANA ON HEAD ATTACK, reality is unraveling, soggies will rule, nobody can resist the iguana, the chronoflux capricitator is overloading, all is lost
I’m just making shit up now.
Things fall apart, the centre will not hold. Time to reverse the polarity of the neutron flux and re-insert the drama tag!!!
That never works.
Soggies will rule?
The HELL they will, this is AMERICA!
Panel 3: There are VALID REASONS why pets are banned. Malaya, I get why you’re doing this, but the first time you let crickets loose in the room Sal gets to drop you out the window. If they escape into the rest of the dorm, every other girl on the floor gets to do the same as soon as you get back.
Not that this is the only reason the iguana would be an issue but, they’re herbivores. My roomie in college had one and always fed it leafy greens, no crickets.
They DO stink like crazy sometimes though. If he gave his greens that had just started to turn then oh my god did that thing’s poop smell bad. Ughhh.
A small iguana will eat crickets if they find them, but a mature green iguana will not, no.
people today really investing in short shorts, that’s three so far and they’re all in the roller derby gang
If you dare wear short shorts…
Crap, I just now really dated myself, didn’t I?
Not too badly, there was a depilliator creme commercial that used the song.
I recall ads running a safety razor(?) along legs that CLEARLY did not need depiliating… or shaving…
Let me finish that….
Nair for short shorts.
Rhyming dare and Nair. Only 1987. thought it was older. Sexist and stupid enough to be older. https://youtu.be/Ve04-BcEP94
You haven’t seen the horrible Emoji ad for women’s razors recently.
It actually implies that the hair that naturally grows on women’s legs is a “disaster.” No, it’s a natural process. Some people just like to shave it off.
(Also, apparently my Walkysona is a redhead. Who knew?)
hot pants, back in the day.
This brings back bad memories. I had a 30-gallon aquarium in my dorm room. One weekend when I was visiting my parents (i.e., doing laundry), the bottom broke out catastrophically. Man, did I have to buy a buttload of beer for my roommate and the two guys on first floor beneath our room!
So, like, everyone in this comic carries EVERY box upside-down on purpose?
I can’t recall if there’s ever been a case where the arrow faces up….
It is a running joke, so yes it is deliberate.
A smart character in the comic would take this into account and paint the arrow the other way so that things being moved were less likely to be damaged.
That implies that someone exists in this comic that is savvy to the genre, and anticipates the arrows, that would give half a shit.
I’ll wait.
Dorothy? Dorothy is all those things. I mean maybe not savvy to the genre of this comic in particular, but, like, she does watch a lot of cartoons. She is also smart and probably wants her shit carried upright. Presidents don’t carry their shit upside down, probably.
Maybe in the Dumbiverse boxes are labeled “this side down” and that’s what the arrow denotes.
My husband got really irritated with me for labelling which way something was supposed to go with an arrow pointing up (or rather, towards the side that was supposed to go up). Apparently, without a printed “THIS SIDE UP” alongside of it, that arrow could mean, just, like, anything.
Never mind that international postal standards are that an arrow on the side of a container indicate which side is supposed to go up. I mean, he’s only dealt with boxes labelled with arrows pointing up on practically a daily basis for, like, decades; how on earth is the poor guy supposed to know what this arrow means?!
Yeah, my mental response was, “How can someone so smart be so dumb? *eyeroll*”
He’s so majestic…
Yaaay! Begin the making up process!
Well played, Malaya.
Well Maplayaed.
*eyes gravatar*
…. actually, I really want to see Sarah and Malaya meet now.
That would be pretty interesting. Sarah probably wouldn’t take her shit. I’d like to see that.
Yeah, same.
Me too. If Sarah “gruff, scarred, with a heart of gold” Clinton thinks Malaya is okay, that’d be one thing, but I really wonder how it would happen.
Oh boy, that would be fun.
But *where*? In the half-bath? In Sarah/Joyce’s room? Hallway showdown? At the showers?
Alas, Monty Hall is dead, so there is no Door #2. Sal has to like it or lump it.
There’s still a Door #2, it just has a tasteful casket behind it.
What, really? Since when? *checks* Saturday?! Wow.
Maybe now he can host an hour-long special with Gene Rayburn.
There’s still Door Number Three.
I am very happy that Fuckface gets his own tag
Also, the tag is retroactive!
But this is very important
what species of iguana is Fuckface
It’s pretty clear he belongs to the species Iguana cartooniensis.
For starters, he has no visible dewlap. (Which, from what I understand, makes him to a large degree mute among iguanas, making him an appropriate counterpart to Marcie.)
Also, he has been able to thrive despite being kept in a terrarium smaller than his snout-to-tail length (not to mention that almost half of the terrarium’s volume seems to be taken up by some kind of bonsai tree.)
Iguana cartooniensis, I’m calling it now.
Though just for the record, when an iguana is being submissive they pull it in the dewlap, often enough it wouldn’t show up in a sketch like this. Young iguanas usually look like they don’t have any.
It’s hard to imagine FF is actually trying to signal a low rank here, but if you imagine he’s somehow so indifferent he doesn’t care to show it, it fits pretty well with the characters.
All, and none, for he is the Ur-iguana, spoken of in hushed tones by his reptilian kin, the greatest of their race, destined to lead them to great destiny, when they will end the reign of the tyrannical mammalians with a fury of blood and fire, and only those marked for their kindness, such as Malaya, shall be spared to live a life of benign servitude in the New Eden. Also, there will be an endless supply of crickets. So it is written, so shall it be.
There shall be a second Frackface, as has been written in the Tome of the Ages.
It will be interesting to see how loud Joyce screams when she first sees him.
She might just think he’s cute.
Then it’ll be interesting to see how loud she squees.
It’s too late to convince her not to rat you out, though, considering what she was just yelling.
My contempt for Malaya grows.
” you don’t conform to my definition of rebellion, therefore you must not be a rebel.”
Good, good. Let the contempt flow through you.
The power of the shade side is growing.
Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Fuckface the wise?
I never heard the tragedy of Darth Fuckface the wise.
What was the tragedy of Darth Fuckface the wise?
I thought not. It’s not a story that Sal would tell you. It’s a shortpacked! legend. Darth Fuckface the wise was a sith lord so powerful and so wise he could use the Force to influence the Willis to give absolute power to the one whose head he sat on.
He taught everything he knew to his apprentice, Robo-Vac, who of course killed him. Ironic, really. He could save the ones he loved from DamnYouWillis, but he couldn’t save himself.
Well then.
I hope this means we’re finally gonna find out if the Marcie/Malaya ship has sailed or sunk.
Ahem.
Marcie owns herself; she is no one else’s to offer or give, in return for peace or anything else.
Marcie’s face doesn’t look particularly peaceful anyway…
Unless Malaya brought Marcie here under false pretences, or neglected to inform her Sal would be present, it’s likely her agency in this is intact, and the peace offering is an opportunity to communicate where that privilege had previously been withdrawn, rather than her person…
Adding to ‘Did Malaya tell Marcie’, is there any way Marcie would already put the.pieces together about Sal being Malaya’s new roomie without being told?
(^_^) I have been waiting for Fuckface to show up since Malaya appeared in the Dumbiverse.
I thought we might not see him in the dorms at all because even though iguanas are quiet, reptile tanks SMELL, but hey, it’s a comic.
[Channeling Waldorf and Statler]
Yeah, a comic that stinks! WAAAHahahahaha!
The alt text, of course, refers to Marcie.
No it doesn’t ;P
Im sorry, I see nobody else it could possibly refer to. Malaya and Sal have been here the whole time this scene, and Marcie’s clearly the greatest. 😛
Willis’ alt-text is intentionally unclear about the matter. So, maybe!
Oh hey Marcie
Malaya: *Mic drop*
Sal: “Rat Malaya out, or reconnect with my best friend? Alas, I am helpless in the grasp of the Magic of Friendship!”
Either that, or the box opens up to reveal Sal’s parents begging for her forgiveness.
I call my ex-boyfriend Fuckface so this is gonna get really weird for me.
Call him Arseface instead, and never start reading Preacher.
Too late.
Buttf— no, that was ruined twenty years ago.
Vomitface? do you have any connotations to that?
Poopface! Old-school, kindergarten style.
I’m also wondering how they plan to get away with this without killing it. Don’t iguanas need constant sunlight?
Setting up the tank somewhere that lets the light from the window reach half the tank will probably be fine? Usually you also add a light above the tank on one side so they get light for 12ish hours of the day.
They can’t ingest vitamin D3 in the way that humans can, so they need a reasonable amount of UV light to help them manufacture it themselves. They also need heat, but not too much (nor too little).
Iguanas are really well adapted to their natural environment, which is really unlike the natural environment of, say, Bloomington, Indiana. It is totally possible to keep them happy and healthy in a dorm room in Bloomington, Indiana, but it does require understanding, effort, and proper resource allocation.
If there is one being on earth that Malaya cares about, it is Fuckface, I have no doubt that Malaya is properly caring for him.
Which I assume means that she has read the Green Iguana Society’s Habitat Basics section.
You can just pop a UV light in the cage.
Source: used to have an iguana.
Okay, but “used to”.
Yes, on an unrelated note they don’t make very good paratroopers.
Source: used to have an iguana.
Also, they can’t play baseball, they don’t wear sweaters, they’re not good dancers, and they don’t play drums.
Source: my older brother had an iguana. (Neither the iguana nor my brother were named Barnes.)
… I’m sorry, but I’d still rat her out. Marcie or not, knowing about Malaya having a pet and not saying anything about it could get her kicked out.
I’d feel sorry for Fuckface. But just him.
That depends on how the rules are written. “Kicking out” rarely happens at non-religious schools (remember, the students/parents are the ones footing the administration’s salaries). More likely, they’d just force Malaya to send Fuckface home.
Sent down from IU? My god the ignominy!
I play my trap card: EMOTIONAL BLACKMAIL!
Next: I play: DARK MAGICIAN!!
no wait…
I summon Marcie The Forbidden One!
Fuckface: WORSHIP ME MORTAL
Marcie: kiss up to me now mortal
Malaya: I am both of their good sides, so I win
Remind me again, why is Marcie mad at Sal?
I want to say Marcie was originally mad at Sal for picking fights with Malaya and then the later fight with Amazigirl at Robin’s rally really pushed it over the edge.
Fighting with AG against dudes at Marcie’s job as security despite Marcie not wanting her to fight.
I think it’s because Sal + AG got into a fight at the Robin DeSanto rally, which Marcie was working security at. Essentially, Sal made Marcie’s job harder, and may have even put it in jeopardy.
Strips: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/beef/ + http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/snap/ + http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/waitin/
That’s not a very good iguana cage, Malaya
yes, finally, He Has Arrived
Oh, I’m Joyce now! When did we shuffle?
Best friend for a roommate.
Decent buffer.
But I’m sure she’ll get tired of mediating real fast.
Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay
That is all.
Fuckface is back on Malaya’s head. All is right with the world.
Also Malaya’s genuine smile when she’s talking about Fuckface in panel one is kind of adorable.
Don’t let Malaya find out I called her adorableI entirely agree about the smile.
Malaya is an evil genius.
Or at least knows about leverage.
I think both “evil” and “genius” is a bit too much.
But she is a bit of a jerk who manage to stay one step ahead of Sal at every turn, which doesn’t say anything TOO flattering about Sal’s level of geniusness.
Sal did the stupidity of not reading the papers on her new roommate, so she didn’t have time to plan ahead. Malaya did, and seems to,have spent a lot of time planning.
So the lack of AC in Read turns out to be a plus point.
Well done, Malaya.
I wouldn’t be surprised if this was part of the reason Malaya wanted to switch.
Decently competent asshole, is how I’d put it, if I had to pay Malaya a compliment for some reason. Sarah is the evil genius on this floor anyway.
Malaya kinda sucks at peace talks, but her offering is high quality.
And of course, she has the coolest Iguana ever!
Yes, the best character has finally arrived, 7 years in — HOLY CRAP, has it really been 7 years?!?
Does that mean we can expect Singularikitty in about 2024?
Or perhaps Snkrs?
Snkrs the Svntnth, by then.
Snkrs! Having read SP, I understand his/her/their importance and…fluffness now!
Since when can any character top Blowjob Cat?
Since Fudgeface.
It’s Okay, Leon. It’s part of a name, so it’s safe to say.
Say it with me now: FUCKface.
FUCK
FACE
Aw yiss, Fuckface.
So did Mary overheard Sal yell about the Iguana? Because Mary has no reason not to rat Malaya out.
If she did, she’ll probably keep it under her hat for a special occasion.
Gotta be a top hat or something if she’s keeping an iguana under it.
I hope Fudgeface poops on Marys’ head.
There are a few different heads I hope he poops on.
What’s the odds there’s another reptile in box #2….?
We should ask Marilyn Vos Savant about that.
Nah, if we learned anything from the late Monty Hall it’s that we should turn down that box and take whatever’s in box #3!
it’s probably food and/or the sunlight/temperature regulation top of the vivarium
If he’s fuckface Where’s Chewy ?
You know when a friend’s rightfully mad at me to the point they’re not talking to me I would just let them be mad at me and give them space to the point they’re ready to be on speaking terms again no madder how long it would take…is that the right way to deal with that issue or is that not taking initiative ?
In my experience it’s best to ask them whether they want to be left alone, along with a conciliatory/apologetic gesture. If they say yes, leave it alone, if they say no, pay attention to what their needs are and be respectful of those while attempting to continue or repair your friendship.
Thanks for the advice now I got to make some calls.
Already I am considering the possibilities for Fuckface/Quincy crossover iguanafic.
I’ve got the most horrible feeling from Marcie’s expression that there is literally nothing about her relationship with Malaya that hasn’t turned out to be abusive in some way.
That’s.. quite a leap.
I don’t like Malaya either but I think Marcie’s expression has more to do with being angry at Sal.
From what we’ve seen Marcie is like the only person Malaya isn’t a toxic asshole towards.
Wow Malaya, those are some Short Shorts…
Marcie: …
Shit, I didn’t think this gag through at all. What’s the ASL for ‘Hold my beer’…?
More importantly, how does one transliterate ASL without resorting to ASCII art?
I just…wow. It’s so condescending of Malaya to keep going “oh clearly you are purposefully rebelling, and clearly you are failing at it because you’re not ‘rebelling’ in the exact way I would approve of.” Maybe it’s just hitting home for me because like Sal I’m outside mainstream society in several ways, and none of them is just because I want to “piss people off” or “rebel.” I’m either trying to be my authentic self and live my life, or I’m acting this way to deal with trauma and shit. So yeah. No rebellion here, sorry. Not sure if I’m just projecting on Sal, but I feel for her.
On the bright side, it’s good to see Marcie again. I hope she’ll be able to forgive Sal.
And yeah, Fuckface is cute sitting on top of her head. Welcome to the Dumbiverse Fuckface. Enjoy your stay.
She sounds somewhat like the principal of Moperville North ranting about rebel without a cause…
I can’t believe I had to look up what Moperville is from. I love EGS.
Yeah, this. Insulting Sal by claiming that she is trying to be something she has never claimed to be, and then holding up her perception that she has failed in Malaya’s eyes is mean and stupid.
Fuckface is indeed adorable.
YES. Sal never claimed to be a rebel or be the super cool motorcycle chick and in fact gets annoyed when other people force their narratives on her.
eagerly awaiting the moment fuckface is added to the random avatar pool
The day after that, it’ll just be iguanas all the way down.
Personally, I’m stunned no one has simply claimed Fuckface as their Gravatar yet. I’m personally attached to my waffle, but it’s not hard to do.
Done, and done.
id still rat malaya out
So I’m guessing the day anyone in this comic carries a box with the arrow pointing up will be the day the world ends.
Somehow even mentioning to rat out on someone seems out-of-character for Sal.
Sal is less of a rebel than people think. She’s never claimed to be one; everyone else just makes the assumption from her behaviour and social isolation. However, they’re wrong and, frankly, she’s less easy-going about breaking the rules than people think. She’s seen the consequences of being a rule-breaker up close and she doesn’t want anyone else to suffer the consequences the way she has.
Being of an extremely independent and self-contained nature is not the same as being a rebel. Sal does not need to flip a finger to authority to be cool; she manages it anyway.
So, yeah, she feels no burden to ‘stick it to the man’ in any way and, if she was satisfied that Malaya was a serious problem, she wouldn’t hesitate to report her to the authorities.
Sal is cool by herself while Malaya feels the need to prove her cool to others.
That’s not completely true – she’s 100% down to rebel against what she sees as silly or oppressive rules and she is a rebel in that sense, but she’s not a ‘all rules are evil’ type rebel. I doubt she has problems with, like, rules against murder.
Sal knows some rules don’t make sense and ignores them as such. She has an “innate desire to rebel.against any and all authority”, and often does so when it’s a ‘screw the rules I’m doing what’s right’ moment.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/04-walking-with-dina/nextdoor/
Exactly! Case in point, when she let Becky move in or for underage drinking.
What I mean is: her experience with authority is that they give you shit. She wouldn’t involve authorities if it can be helped any other way.
She’s said that she doesn’t believe in them but I think that she believes in people putting themselves in danger even less.
And Malaya is instantly proved smarter than Mary.
The bar’s pretty low
You’ve got to start somewhere and take baby steps
Is it okay of Malaya to treat Marcie, Marcie’s presence, or Marcie’s time and attention as a gift that she can give, to use marcie as a bargaining chip in her negotiations with Sal?
No, it isn’t.
On the other hand, if she was the one who talked Marcie into reaching out to Sal, then it says things about Malaya that would need us all to reconsider what we think we know about her character.
It feels a bit like “So I talked her out of being angry at your stupid ass, you owe me.”
Which seems like a shitty thing to bargain.
*face palm* Malaya being a rebel doesn’t mean you mindlessly break every single rule there is. It means you live by your own rules. Sometimes those will will match up with establishment rules. One of my personal rules “Don’t get kicked out of places I live” Kind of willing to bet that Sal’s got the same rule.
I swear sometimes the only things I like about Malaya are Fuckface and that Marcie and Carla like her. Though it makes me question Marcie and Carla’s tastes in people that they like her.
I think part of why Sal gets so annoyed with Malaya is that she was Malaya when she was like like 11. That was when she was a rebel just to be a rebel. Now, she’s herself. She understands that you don’t shit where you eat and you don’t break every rule just because it is a rule. Some of those rules exist so that we can all still have nice things – like places to sleep.
Also, I am in agreement with those of you who have pointed out that Malaya is a poseur and angry because she recognizes that Sal is an actual outsider. But, also, Sal was never really trying to be one. That is who she has always been because she is Linda Walkerton’s little girl who just doesn’t look white enough and never could be the daughter she wanted. She’s an outsider because Billie is the unofficial third Walkerton twin. And, like almost all outsiders, it’s not a choice. It just is.
Comic Reactions:
Malaya kinda fascinates me.
Like on the surface, she’s kinda awful a lot. Hard to please, frequent to complain, ready to fight with folks. In real life she’d be the sort of person it is very difficult to be friends with. But that feels like it’s selling her short to stop there.
Like, on the flip-side, she’s loyal and tries hard for folks she feels are showing her respect despite her Malaya-ness and more interestingly, she seems to be the rare sort of person who really doesn’t care what others think of her.
Like, she acknowledges it and lets it color how she interacts both positively and negatively, but so often she seems to operate in her own world and people thinking negatively of her seem to just get added to her list of “fuckers” and not really worried about beyond that point.
And that’s kinda unique in a character. Like, we see characters who want to be that. Both Sal and Carla have longed to be “beyond caring” about the feelings of others thanks to their histories of abuse and suffering bigotry, but we also see how things deeply affect them. A nasty comment, someone loathing them affects them as much as they wished it didn’t.
But Malaya seems to operate on a level where she’s able to intellectualize that as someone else’s shit and more or less operate on her own level seemingly unaffected by it and that’s… powerful and intriguing. Especially for me who is much more in the Carla camp than the Malaya camp on this.
And it creates this sort of novel sort of way of interacting with folks. Like, she’s definitely holding on to a grudge with Sal and not at all planning on making this easy for her, but it also feels like if Sal loathed her for all her days, that Malaya wouldn’t really be bent out of shape about it. And the whole dynamic becomes something novel and intriguing.
Panel 1: And we see that here. Malaya has just been physically accosted… again, by the person she will be sharing space with. For anyone else, this would be a major worrying thing. Certainly the idea of sharing space with Malaya is awful for Sal and affects her deeply. That’s the context.
And here Malaya is off in her own world as if that didn’t even happen. She has her iguana. She likes her iguana. Her iguana is on her head. So she expresses that happiness as if that context wasn’t even a thing, because it feels like that context doesn’t really get through beyond the point of “this person has a problem with me, that’s a problem with them, whatever.”
And I think it explains a lot about her conflict with Sal and her interpretation of Sal as a poser. Like, Sal in a lot of ways is very much a rebel loner with an anti-authoritarian streak. But Malaya isn’t viewing her under that lens. She’s viewing her by the cultural idea of the rebel loner, the one who doesn’t even care what people think and does her own thing.
And by that common depiction, Sal is not that. She cares deeply what others think. She’s haunted by it at times. It drives her alienation from others. But to Malaya, all she sees is Sal doesn’t live up to this cultural idea of “loner” that she finds so easy to fulfill herself.
And so to Malaya, Sal is “posing” at loner-dom by being what so often leads folks to live anti-authoritarian loner lives rather than the cultural depiction.
We’re quick to judge when we have strong preconceived ideas. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. We need a lot of preconceived ideas to get anything done in an efficient manner. But Malaya applies her preconceived ideas of what people should be and what their motives are far too readily. She instantly judges people on an individual basis based on her ideas of what people as groups should be, and that’s more than surface awfulness. That Malaya happens to be on the right side of political history doesn’t save her from this awfulness much deeper than a veneer.
But yes, the general demeanor of not needing someone to be okay yourself is a powerful form of psychological attractiveness. Most people can pull if off as an act when needed, but this trait seems inherent to Malaya’s outlook. It shows in both her personal psychological health (perhaps only Jacob is more stable than her, and I have a feeling there’s more to Jacob than we’ve seen so far). It also shows in how inconsiderate she is and how she’s fine with the consequences of her inconsiderateness.
Interestingly I see Sal as starting to shake off her self-imposed role as rebel loner and is beginning to maybe want to fit in a bit more, not sure why but maybe the grades shes receiving is starting to change how she views herself
Hm. I wonder if Carla has similar view of Malaya. She likes her well enough, perhaps not despite but because of her Malayaness.
Malaya sounds almost like a psychopath.
Panel 2: And you get the feel that this was a huge part of the desire to move. That that location was unhealthy for her lizard that she finds it a lot easier to relate to than people.
And I wonder if this is part of what lead her to so loathe the cinnamon roll that is Lucy. That Lucy’s inquisitiveness and tendency to be a bit more of a rule-follower meant Lucy made an initial comment about Fuckface that birthed the weird one-sided feud they ended up having.
Panel 3: As I noted before, Malaya seems to view “rebeldom” as its cultural depiction rather than its actual reality, because to her that cultural depiction is a natural state she finds it very easy to occupy and she’s never really been able to internalize other people’s attitudes towards her enough to understand the reality other marginalized people occupy.
And this really hammers that home. To Malaya, “rebeldom” is fighting against all rules for the sake of them being rules that hamper her natural flow.
To Sal and others, “rebeldom” is recognizing the oppression inherent in some “laws” and “natural orders” and fighting those because they are oppressive and hurt folks, not because of a weird anti-rule fetish.
And so of course she feels that Sal is “betraying” “rebeldom” by caring about a rule. Because she fundamentally misunderstands Sal’s relationship with rules in the first place.
Panel 5: This moment is so sad. This is the first time Sal and Marcie have been face to face since the big fight and Marcie demanding space and you see in their body language their current states.
Marcie is still upset, her face set like “I really don’t want to deal with this” while Sal’s whole upper body flags, her shoulders drooping in nervousness surrounding this encounter.
Which makes sense. Sal hurt Marcie their last interactions and feels intensely bad about that and wants to fix that new rift with her most important friend and Marcie still feels hurt that Sal treated a job that was very important to her survival very dismissively and put her in a more rough economic situation.
And I really hope these two can talk it out and repair things.
Considering how Malaya feels about Sal, but isn’t even hinting at regret for the move, it sure seems like Malaya hated Lucy instantly.
I now want to see Malaya wearing Dina’s hat.
And Dina wearing Fuckface.
That would be 2 nifty gravatars!
“I don’t like you at all for good reason. Your pet is an inconvenient burden, and I’ll get in trouble for helping you conceal it. My rebel act is self-serving, and you are not me, stop trying to manipulate my branding. Ttyn, SAL.”
Is it wrong that Malaya’s been pretty much my favorite character since she was introduced in _Shortpacked!_?
Smiley Malaya is best Malaya.
Poor Marcie. She’s clearly the dogged nice girl. 🙁
Dammit did Yotomoe die of shock again
Nah, there isn’t any prominent Malaya-butt in today’s strip.
So did anyone else notice that the next chapter already exists in the drop-down menu?
Previews of future chapter titles in the archive are pretty common. Occasionally, the title is changed for some reason (I think the last example was It All Returns, which to my memory was originally billed in the archive as “Returns to Nothing” before being changed a little prior to the chapter release).
Given that the next chapter is named after a song by a gay singer, I’m guessing Ethan and Danny hook up.
Finally.
This Is one of the very few comics featuring Malaya this chapter in which the camera doesn’t give a butt angle. But doesn’t Marcie’s positioning in the last panel means she’s been taking in the view?
Hey, favourite people, stay safe out there.
Marcie, dear, that box is the wrong way up.
Hey, just heard about Vegas, hope everyone here and everyone you love is safe.
In related news, your Republicans are trying to pass a bill that would make gun laws laxer, so time to call your representatives again, I guess? At this point, they should be on speed dial.
Malaya the Lizard Queen!