After being bitten by a radioactive squirrel, Amazi-girl encountered the one thing that would nullify her superpowers: a diet of Twinkies, resulting in so much lard she could no longer perform death-defying acrobatics.
I don’t know the difference either, but I’m going to take a guess before anyone answers the question and then give myself a pat on the back if I guess right (and a smack to the forehead if i guess wrong).
I’m guessing a hook gets repeated while a riff is like a very short solo or freestyle.
It’s almost exactly the opposite!
A riff is typically repeated throughout the song, whereas a hook is something to draw you into a song (though it is sometimes also repeated– it’s a pretty general phrase. Basically a hook is anything catchy)
My experience is that the meaning of “hook” changed during my lifetime; in the sixties, we thought the hook was the part of the song we wanted to hear again and again, and it could either be particular lyrics or a particular musical phrase. As I learned songwriting, I came to know the hook as the lyrical center of the song, the words and idea that everything, lyrics, music, arrangement, production and presentation, pointed to. It was usually the title of the song and that title was usually the first or last line of the chorus, if there was a chorus. Later, one meaning of “hook” was the sung part of a rap song, usually sung by someone other than the rapper.
A riff is a musical motif, a short musical phrase which is repeated during the song, but it also lays some groundwork for the song, and may be restated in similar but not exactly the same way during the entirety of the song.
They both have a point – Amber should be allowed to tell Walky at her own timetable and talk to Sal at her own timetable (although I agree she needs to hurry up) and Ethan shouldn’t have to refrain from talking to Sal because Amber isn’t ready yet.
Amber is spending time with the twin brother of Sal, and her best friend is now in dialogue with Sal.. There is a natural timetable here beyond Amber’s own desires and needs.
Yep, you’re right. The next few strips will be a trip, I’m sure.
Sure, but neither of those things mean she needs to talk to Sal one on one herself. Or, if she is in a situation where she has to, where she has to talk to her about the robbery.
Amber will be confronted one way or the other. And have to deal with that confrontation. Even if this time it is only having Sal figure out who Amazi Girl is and have no idea the effect she has on Amber.
No one has to do anything, but somehow we always do.
On the other hand, if Sal hadn’t seen her and Ethan talking just now, Amber probably wouldn’t have to talk to her about the robbery specifically right now.
That said that’s not the card Willis dealt, for he is a wrathful and fickle god.
Yeah, if Amber realized her life was in fact controlled by a cruel god who thrives on drama, it might impact her actions more. (Or not, desperate hope that ignoring will work is a powerful thing.)
I mean, she probably should have been making some plans to talk with Sal about it because you really can’t avoid the sibling of someone you’re dating while you and the sibling live across the hall from each other and they know you’re dating, that just seems inevitable. But there’s ‘I should do this’ and ‘the narrative will guarantee this confrontation will come before I feel prepared, so seizing control of how I do it is the best option I have.’ One is a normal human response. The other is what I wish she knew but know she can’t because she’s not Gwenpool.
Yeah, I’ll be surprised if Amber’s next move isn’t to immediately bolt back out the door. I’m wondering if Amber’s gonna lose the chance to tell Walky herself because Sal figures it out and tells him.
That was why I was hoping they wouldn’t kiss until after things had sorted. And why after she found out they were siblings, I think ‘maybe we should wait a few days and see where this takes us then, *some excuse that maybe alludes to Backstory and Amber needing to process things*’ would have been a good idea. If you aren’t comfortable dating the brother of someone you stabbed and the mention of his sister makes your anxiety act up, that’s a sign you should probably go the ‘Figure things out before smooching’ route and not the ‘Ignore it and it will somehow never impact your life’ one.
‘Ignore it and it will somehow never impact your life’ is a very seductive route, and it is pretty much always wrong. But then we take it anyway. *Sighs and retreats to the Pillow Fort of Fallout, which is by now just McAwesome’s ball pit but the edges contain a pillow camp.*
Amber had tried to start telling him once already, she just lost the nerve before she could explain. She KNEW she couldn’t ignore it forever. It’s just difficult
I support having the gas station clerk join the conversation.
They were a better person (and are probably a better character) than several of the cast.
Honestly, as she seems to be one of the most sane characters in the comic strip, that wouldn’t entirely surprise me.
Don’t think the timeline works, though. She’s probably at least a sophomore, as she was already working in the dorm on move-in day (I had that job, we moved in a couple days before everyone else and were all at least 2nd year), but the gas station happened several years ago, and you need to be 21 for that job because you sell cigs and beer.
*a translucent Plexiglass cube crashes into the room, thuds down beside them*
*From a speaker grill on the side of the cube*: *scchrch* I really think it’s time the two of you talked about what happened.
Amber: Oh, NOT you, too! You stay out of this!!
Plexiglass Cube: *sctch* Also, I know you like Twinkies.
Amber: NUUUUUUUUUU
You know, if it didn’t always end with someone crying, seeing Amber’s self-constructed mythos implode in the face of Sal’s indifference would be the funniest running gag in the strip…
Sal doesn’t know what was up with Amber. All she knows is that she was trying to rob that store and Amber defended herself.
A LOT of things can go through someone’s mind after an event like this happens. I’m not sure if Sal would be angry at the stab wound, but I’m sure it made her rethink a lot of things about her life.
Amber stabbing Sal was in no way self defence. Sal had already been disarmed and detained by the police. Amber stabbed her because she snapped after Blaine berated her for not attacking her to defend Ethan. I have a lot of sympathy for Amber in that situation, but it was not self defence.
No big deal. Those strips were ages ago, and the main gist was that Amber stabbed her. Plus it’s not like Sal was privy to that conversation so it wouldn’t have been in her flashback.
I’m guessing that Sal does not figure it out, and that will somehow anger Amber that Sal didn’t figure it out.
Like something so important to her HAS to be important to the other person.
And we’ll come to find out that it is really important to Sal as well, but not until after Amber’s anger makes things worse.
Yeah, she has no clue. Most confirmed at the end of last storyline, when she saw Amber and Walky making out while looking for AG and was like ‘who is this and why are you suddenly kissing her?’ Amber’s a complete nonentity to Sal.
1) Weird girl she helped with laundry that one time.
2) Weird girl who hogs privacy chairs.
3) Weird girl who communicates primarily through 3DS.
4) Weird girl who hooked up with Walky the day he broke up with Dorothy.
5) Weird girl who is now hanging out with Ethan and who has the same body-type and appearance as the girl who was with Ethan when Sal took him hostage…. wait a minute….
i went with dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnnn initially. for years we’d been seeing the robbery through amber’s perspective and its a reminder that ethan was also affected by what sal did.
I think it’s because it’s Ethan pointing out that he went through the robbery too and while it’s still scary for Amber, he’s allowed to want to do some processing with Sal.
You can’t really compare trauma, but if anything Ethan got the lion’s share of it being the one held hostage and everything so you could say he has more right to find closure. If Amber wants to get all upset about it. Your secrets not worth Ethan’s mental health Amber.
@Kris+BBCC: Yeah, that’s it! Ethan shouldn’t have to wait to move on just because Amber isn’t ready yet. That’s tricky, but important.
It’s interesting (and for Amber, kind of sad) how differently the same event went for each of them. Ethan was the one that was actually held hostage, but thanks to Blaine’s awful influence the whole thing escalated into a much worse event for Amber, and in a whole different way. : (
It’s a great line because it’s a reminder that Amber has a tendency to make everything about her. Often with good reason, but still – we saw it back in the day when Ethan was dating Joyce, for instance; a lot of her anger was not just “Going back into the closet is a bad thing” but “How dare you do this to me”. Amber’s built up this all-encompassing worldview on the basis of the robbery, which has created some huge tensions even for her relationship with her best friend, but it’s all about what it did to her. Ethan has no real role in the Amazi-Girl tragic backstory; it’s more than legitimate for him to point out to Amber that she doesn’t own the incident.
It’a actually a form of self deprecation and maybe even depression. Some people feel like they’re living their life just waiting for the next domino to fall, for something else bad to happen to them. Like the world is against them. Amber has this in spades. So when something happens she doesn’t like or someone does something she doesn’t approve of it feels like a personal attack. I’m not a psychologist or anything I’ve just witnessed this a lot in my own life. Feel free to correct me if I’m off base here.
Yeah, Amber’s got a ton of trauma and anxiety besides the dissociation, and her self-loathing is a black hole from which no hope can escape. I can see her getting wrapped up in the ‘my suffering is the worst’ brain spiral.
At this point I recommend a really big vacuum cleaner. Treat it like a particularly nasty ghost. Or like, cognitive behavioral therapy and maybe some SSRIs. You can get CBT workbooks pretty easily actually.
Because Amber tends to making things about her. She doesn’t want to, but she can be incredibly selfish. She only sees her own pain and often overlooks the pain of others.
In a way, Ethan just stood up to this. Called her on that. He was the one with the knife at his throat, he was the one afraid of dying. And if his way to healing involves talking to sal, go for it.
I think ethan is wrong about his proposal to talk to sal though. It helped him because he dealt way better with all this. I’m afraid Amber can’t handle talking king to Sal.
It’s generally a thing people who suffer immensely often do, at least in my experience. If your own pain is too big to look past it, you overlook other people’s pain.
It’s still selfish though. Plus, she is pushy. Like, really pushy.
She was a little condescending about how fast Walky moved on from Dorothy, but other than that I don’t think Amber heard anything else. Not that the rest was particularly RUDE anyway.
Yeah, I’ve never been quite sure what people want her to apologize for: everything she said was directed at Walky, Amber was completely irrelevant to the conversation (as in it could have been anyone).
She could apologize for that, I suppose, but otherwise any apologies seem to be owed to her brother, rather that Amber.
Yeah, Sal literally has no clue who Amber is whatsoever, beyond ‘probably lives on my floor, or at least in my hall.’ It was all based in Walky being in Smoochville the day after a breakup, maybe twelve hours since she saw him and he was horribly mopey.
The consensus seems to be that Sal will recognize Amber, and then horrors of some kind ensue. The other route, that Sal still doesn’t recognize Amber seems more likely to me, since anything that prolongs Amber not having a conversation with Sal about the events of long ago always seems to happen. However, being wrong would be quite nice.
Infuriating. Let’s try this again. If it doesn’t work this time, I give up.
I see a mistake. Drat.
The consensus seems to be that Sal will recognize Amber, and then horrors of some kind ensue. The other route, that Sal still doesn’t recognize Amber, seems more likely to me, since anything that prolongs Amber not having a conversation with Sal about the events of long ago always seems to happen. However, being wrong would be quite nice.
Amber…jesus. She stabbed someone who was no danger to her or others! Ethan was a hostage with a knife to his throat! Her making this about herself, prioritising her own comfort over Ethan’s closure is a big jerk move!
Sal owes Amber an apology but dammit, Amber owes her one too! Her Dad being abusive does not absolve her of abusing others. Move forward! Take responsibility for your actions while acknowledging the circumstances you will in! Get therapy!
I really have to wonder the degree to which Amber realizes ‘I stabbed someone in their hand, full of important tendons and bones, very very hard.’ Like, she appears to have been in a dissociative haze or something when it happened, but she still clearly remembers it and fears letting herself be violent in that way again, and she told Walky it would probably change how he thought of her forever… But at the same time yesterday she said her ideal way to tell Walky was ‘as he’s asleep so he subconsciously knows, I never have to talk about it again or at all in any detail really but he gives me cupcakes afterwards.’ (Because of how traumatic the experience was for her.)
Which suggests to me she’s never realized quite the degree of damage she did to Sal (permanently limited function in that hand as confirmed previously; almost certainly a nasty scar; likely required surgery and physical therapy to get it back to the level of use she has.) Like, she knows that Stabbing People Is Bad, but I think maybe being raised on pop culture means she doesn’t really get how lasting most injuries really are. (See also the AG strips back at the start of this storyline and ‘let’s hang them from the streetlight!’) In fairness, most people don’t unless they’re medical or combat personnel, writers with extensive research, or have experienced a similar major injury.
… oh god that’s how we’re going to see that hand without the glove isn’t it.
I actually have the theory that her trauma mostly involves the stabbing. Her red panels often center around that. Most of what she does is because she wants to control her own violence. She once told Sal that she’s wearing the mask to protect sal. And stabbing gashface retraumatized her severely instead of being a new trauma on top.
She rarely references the hostage situation, but there are a lot of references to herself being dangerous.
Yeah, I can agree with that. It’s most often ‘Amber with knife raised’, ‘Sal in pain after the knife’s gone’, or ‘Amber frozen in terror’ – the last of which is a reaction to the hostage situation, but the focus implies she’s thinking about her inability to respond rather than the situation on its own. What I’m not sure of is if she’s traumatized by the stabbing because she seriously injured and disabled someone, or because SHE did this and was capable of this violent act against someone restrained.
(Her reactions with the second stabbing seem to lean more towards ‘horror she tried to kill him’ than ‘this guy may never eat solid food again because of her’ or whatever the precise injuries are, but then he is in fact a rapist, so. Likewise her red panels of smiling while punching Blaine – the red is because she enjoyed it and not that she hurt him, but like. Blaine. So I don’t feel like either of them are conclusive evidence that she is always more traumatized by her general proclivity for violence than what she actually does to said people.)
I’m not sure I see that the distinction you’re drawing here is that significant. I mean, she may not realize the full extent of the physical damage, but she’s already traumatized by having done it.
If she was diminishing the actual damage as much as you suggest, I don’t think she’d be as horrified by her doing it as she is.
I think, with the stabbing/hostage situation, she mainly feels terror over who she could become (who she was reminded of) rather than guilt over what she did to another person. Maybe not a huge distinction, she does really feel bad about the event! But is more focused on how it affected her.
I feel her centering on herself has in part to do with her being in flight or fight (or freeze) mode a lot of the time. Hard to emotionally unpack things when the remembering makes you panic. She still needs to do it, for others but for herself most importantly.
Yeah, that’s what I’m trying to get at exactly. It’s not that I think Amber doesn’t care about how she hurt people, but given what she red panels versus what she doesn’t seem to focus on, I think what scares her more is the violence itself and she may not have put that much thought into what happened to Sal after the act. (Like, Blaine’s red panel pretty clearly didn’t cause any lasting damage to Blaine – it’s the first lone punch and not the beat down later, which I don’t think we’ve ever seen red paneled since. One of these was way more violent and lasting, but the one that traumatizes her is the one she enjoyed for its own sake* rather than the one she can justify as protecting Danny. And I just checked the tags to confirm, she was Amber by the point where she was wailing on him.)
* That said, punching Blaine in the fucking face to draw his attention completely and make him shut the fuck up for a second, then GET THE FUCK AWAY while telling everyone in the crowded hall he’s entering what he’s done? Was a really smart plan. Yeah the punch escalated things, but there’s no realistic deescalation with Blaine to begin with.
Specifically the “I’m sorry. For lots of things. / For more than you know” bit. It’s possible that she may not have really thought about it before the rally because until then she wasn’t viewing Sal as a real person, but it seems clear she was thinking about how she had hurt she had caused her.
I’d go with the second one. Amber seems to have horror not only to her tendency toward violence, but deriving satisfaction from it in the moment, as we’ve seen around the time she beat the stuffing out of her father.
Sal should have to be super dense to not connect the dots. Who am I kidding? She is too dense to understand situations, social cues, and when she is being a jerk.
This better not end with Sal having another stabbing like Nicolas Angel. On the other hand Sal would have two scars and can get her shirt over her head and ask for toilet paper while screaming “I am the great Cornholio!”.
Agreed but, given both Sal and Amber’s ability to deflect, avoid and deny, I don’t think that there was ever any other seriously likely way for it to happen.
I don’t think that’s very fair to Sal who has actively been seeking Ethan out to confront this situation head on. At no point has she tried to deflect, avoid, and deny this whole mess or her role in it. The reason this is likely the only way for this to go down is entirely down to Amber.
Yeah. Sal hasn’t once deflected or avoided this situation. She’s only ever deflected when: 1) it relates to her family, for obvious reasons and 2) it’s related to Marcie. Never anything to do with the robbery.
I’m expecting Sal, after a few moments of paralysed recognition to collapse onto her knees, clutching at the hand Amber stabbed in a way that’s suggesting she’s having a pretty strong flashback herself. Neither Amber nor Amazi-Girl will be entirely sure what to do.
Honestly it would be darkly hilarious if both Sal and Amber went into Flshback breakdown, screaming and all while Ethan just stands there, not sure what to do.
I mean, the injury is shit and all, but at least it wasn’t as bad as my parents deciding they didn’t want me anymore and shipping me off to another state. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I can’t really see that for either. Neither seems to have a cower reflex. More likely they’d both be apologizing. More likely yet is Amber running away – to keep from attacking Sal again.
Okay, seriously. There’s been a band-aid on this thing all these years, but it never stopped bleeding, and now it’s just a big, scabby mess. Rip that sucker off.
Am I a bad person if my first thought upon seeing today’s strip was “Dis gonna be good”? XD
But seriously, I think it’s high time that Amber confront the root cause of her trauma. (Well, aside from Blaine) Everything she’s done since then has basically been a coping mechanism, and as we’ve seen play out, it isn’t exactly the healthiest solution.
Sal doesn’t recognize her from the robbery, but suddenly realizes from her stance that Amber is Amazigirl. Sal says, “I just realized who you are.” Amber assumes she is talking about the robbery. Hilarity ensues. ((Sorry. I just like the word ensues. ))
Geez Ethan, you’d think with all the cartoons you’ve watched you’d know that uttering a line like “[X] will never happen!” pretty much guarantees [X] happening in the next 5 minutes.
Soap opera rules too. Nothing can stop us now – cut to the thing that will stop them. Our love will last forever. – followed by the appearance of their pregnant former lover. Ethan should know better but characters never do.
I’m gonna be honest, Ethan is entirely right in panel 3, and as such I’m not really very compelled by Amber’s distress. I wish she’d found a better way to healthier outlets than this stuff kind of happening around her, outside of her control, but it’s all gone on long enough and Ethan is allowed to do things to help himself heal too.
We have been waiting for a moment like this for so long whether it’s connecting Amber to AmaziGirl or the robbery or BOTH. Definitely feeling like something or someone is going to combust into a glorious pile of flames and hoping that Willis doesn’t syke us out and then we have to wait another year for a real confrontation. Also hoping that Walky and/or Dorothy happen to walk out to add gasoline to the fire since they’re literally on the other side of that door.
I know they’re turning red because of Amber’s red panels, but I really want all of them to just be baked as fuck like Tai and Claire are over on QC. ^^;
ok, so sal has known about amber for some time, or adjusts easily to the information. the drollery will revolve around sal never penetrating the clark kent field (TM) surrounding amazi-girl, who after all isnt on speaking terms with amber anymore. sal finds out about AG (kinda) knifing her when they are tied up in some villain’s deathtrap.
Oh Amber, Dearie. The sooner you face those demons inside you and deal with them, the sooner you heal. The more you put off doing that and the more you run from them, the more harm it causes you. I know this first hand. I relate to Amber the most out of all these characters. Rage destroys from the inside out.
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“OH HEY”
“hey?”
“yer standin’ nexta mah hostage”
“oh… I guess I am…”
“yep”
“…”
“so, laik, how’s tricks–”
*Amber breaks out the mindwiper* “nooooo my dramatic tension”
“HEY, you, the hostage?”
*Amber and Ethan points at selves*
“OBVIOUSLY not you.”
*Amber and Ethan points at other*
*Epic Sal eye-roll*
Hey!! I got that reference!
Eight friggin’ years seems like a little too much build up four “Surprise!
‘It’s Roomies!’ but everyone’s romantic entanglements are scrambled. “
That’s why it’s perfect.
Long awkward pause, and then Sal just silently walks away and hangs out with Malaya and Marcie.
I mean, there’s drama, and then there’s crazy drama.
“Tell you what, friends are overrated. Wanna be my frenemy, Malaya?”
“As long as you remember that I’M the cool one.”
“Goddammit, Malaya!”
This calls for the return of …
DRAMA HAMSTER …
Aww, Ethannnn, way to jinx it! 🙂
Dumbing of Age Book 9: It’ll Be Cathartic
Book 9 has already had a dizzying number of really good potential titles, but this is now one of my favorites.
It’s so concise!
Dumbing of Age Book 9: I’m Allowed!
That one’s got my vote. The “It’ll Be Cathartic” one, I mean. (Not that my vote matters, since I never buy these books anyways.)
Amber you paranoid child
It’s not exactly paranoid if she’s right, though.
that or it’s both.
Amber may well have cause to be worried that Sal holds a grudge for having her hand stabbed.
…. also possibly trace quantities of PTSD anxiety.
“She’ll figure it out! She’ll KNOW… that I like twinkies!!”
Sal asking about the twinkies would probably just kill Amber on the spot.
Twinkies are now Amber’s Kryptonite.
After being bitten by a radioactive squirrel, Amazi-girl encountered the one thing that would nullify her superpowers: a diet of Twinkies, resulting in so much lard she could no longer perform death-defying acrobatics.
*guitar riff from “Day Tripper”*
I don’t know the difference between a riff and a hook.
I don’t know the difference either, but I’m going to take a guess before anyone answers the question and then give myself a pat on the back if I guess right (and a smack to the forehead if i guess wrong).
I’m guessing a hook gets repeated while a riff is like a very short solo or freestyle.
It’s almost exactly the opposite!
A riff is typically repeated throughout the song, whereas a hook is something to draw you into a song (though it is sometimes also repeated– it’s a pretty general phrase. Basically a hook is anything catchy)
The thing you hear at the beginning of “Day Tripper” is actually both!
https://youtu.be/dVjQm4CVOpQ
+1 head smack
My experience is that the meaning of “hook” changed during my lifetime; in the sixties, we thought the hook was the part of the song we wanted to hear again and again, and it could either be particular lyrics or a particular musical phrase. As I learned songwriting, I came to know the hook as the lyrical center of the song, the words and idea that everything, lyrics, music, arrangement, production and presentation, pointed to. It was usually the title of the song and that title was usually the first or last line of the chorus, if there was a chorus. Later, one meaning of “hook” was the sung part of a rap song, usually sung by someone other than the rapper.
A riff is a musical motif, a short musical phrase which is repeated during the song, but it also lays some groundwork for the song, and may be restated in similar but not exactly the same way during the entirety of the song.
That’s the way I’ve understood these terms.
The hook brings you back.
One you play on a guitar, the other you hang the guitar from.
Really? Cuz I’m hearing the Seinfeld theme in that last panel.
They both have a point – Amber should be allowed to tell Walky at her own timetable and talk to Sal at her own timetable (although I agree she needs to hurry up) and Ethan shouldn’t have to refrain from talking to Sal because Amber isn’t ready yet.
That said…shit, this is gonna be fun.
Amber is spending time with the twin brother of Sal, and her best friend is now in dialogue with Sal.. There is a natural timetable here beyond Amber’s own desires and needs.
Yep, you’re right. The next few strips will be a trip, I’m sure.
Sure, but neither of those things mean she needs to talk to Sal one on one herself. Or, if she is in a situation where she has to, where she has to talk to her about the robbery.
Amber will be confronted one way or the other. And have to deal with that confrontation. Even if this time it is only having Sal figure out who Amazi Girl is and have no idea the effect she has on Amber.
No one has to do anything, but somehow we always do.
On the other hand, if Sal hadn’t seen her and Ethan talking just now, Amber probably wouldn’t have to talk to her about the robbery specifically right now.
That said that’s not the card Willis dealt, for he is a wrathful and fickle god.
Yeah, if Amber realized her life was in fact controlled by a cruel god who thrives on drama, it might impact her actions more. (Or not, desperate hope that ignoring will work is a powerful thing.)
I mean, she probably should have been making some plans to talk with Sal about it because you really can’t avoid the sibling of someone you’re dating while you and the sibling live across the hall from each other and they know you’re dating, that just seems inevitable. But there’s ‘I should do this’ and ‘the narrative will guarantee this confrontation will come before I feel prepared, so seizing control of how I do it is the best option I have.’ One is a normal human response. The other is what I wish she knew but know she can’t because she’s not Gwenpool.
Nah! 10,000 monopoly bucks Amber finds a way to squirrel out of this. It’s what she’s done everytime so far one way or another.
I mean, the front door IS right behind her.
Wait, she’s Squirrel Girl too? Man, how does she juggle classes with all this?
Hacks her grades, I guess.
We’re still not at midterms yet and the only class we’ve seen her in is so easy she can use it to do other homework for.
She’s also a witch, obviously. She just uses her time turner.
More like Amazi-Squirrel.
No, Ultracar is Squirrel Girl. C’mon, y’all, try to keep up.
Yeah, I’ll be surprised if Amber’s next move isn’t to immediately bolt back out the door. I’m wondering if Amber’s gonna lose the chance to tell Walky herself because Sal figures it out and tells him.
I agree, but Amber sped up the timetable by dating Walky. She already knows interaction s with Ssl would be inevitable .
That was why I was hoping they wouldn’t kiss until after things had sorted. And why after she found out they were siblings, I think ‘maybe we should wait a few days and see where this takes us then, *some excuse that maybe alludes to Backstory and Amber needing to process things*’ would have been a good idea. If you aren’t comfortable dating the brother of someone you stabbed and the mention of his sister makes your anxiety act up, that’s a sign you should probably go the ‘Figure things out before smooching’ route and not the ‘Ignore it and it will somehow never impact your life’ one.
‘Ignore it and it will somehow never impact your life’ is a very seductive route, and it is pretty much always wrong. But then we take it anyway. *Sighs and retreats to the Pillow Fort of Fallout, which is by now just McAwesome’s ball pit but the edges contain a pillow camp.*
Amber had tried to start telling him once already, she just lost the nerve before she could explain. She KNEW she couldn’t ignore it forever. It’s just difficult
And he gave her an out or she would likely have tried harder, maybe even succeeded.
I support having the gas station clerk join the conversation.
They were a better person (and are probably a better character) than several of the cast.
No-one has realised it yet, but Asma is the gas station clerk.
I know she would’ve been, like, 14 at the time, but now I really want that to happen.
I was ready to happily accept this as canon, until I remembered that the gas station clerk addressed Sal as “young lady.”
When I was seventeen, I went through a phase where I would address fully grown men as “son,” just saying.
Honestly, as she seems to be one of the most sane characters in the comic strip, that wouldn’t entirely surprise me.
Don’t think the timeline works, though. She’s probably at least a sophomore, as she was already working in the dorm on move-in day (I had that job, we moved in a couple days before everyone else and were all at least 2nd year), but the gas station happened several years ago, and you need to be 21 for that job because you sell cigs and beer.
You need to LEGALLY be a certain age, but illegal things happen all the time.
Ridiculous headcanons are my favorite.
Asma’s parent, then?
Do gas stations in Indiana sell beer? That varies from state to state, I think.
I know I worked a gas station/convenience store job one summer in college. After 18, but before 21.
Timeline still really doesn’t work. Though I suppose if she’d just turned 16 then, she’d be 21 now and a plausible senior?
Sadly, Asma’s only 19 and therefore probably wasn’t old enough. I like the idea it’s her parent though.
“How old are you?”
“19.”
“How long have you been 19?”
“Since my first appearance in 2010.”
*a translucent Plexiglass cube crashes into the room, thuds down beside them*
*From a speaker grill on the side of the cube*: *scchrch* I really think it’s time the two of you talked about what happened.
Amber: Oh, NOT you, too! You stay out of this!!
Plexiglass Cube: *sctch* Also, I know you like Twinkies.
Amber: NUUUUUUUUUU
I don’t expect this to happen, but I’m guessing SAL is going to be the one that runs away.
I want that truly I do.
Possibly with some red panels of her own.
Blue pages, bring me more blue pages. I need blue pages.
Sirrusly, no red pages. Although why is lost to the Mysts of time.
Hopefully this doesn’t end up with any relationships Riven.
You know, if it didn’t always end with someone crying, seeing Amber’s self-constructed mythos implode in the face of Sal’s indifference would be the funniest running gag in the strip…
I don’t think Sal is going to be indifferent towards Amber.
Considering how things went with Ethan, Sal might apologize to Amber. Maybe even explain why those things happened.
Except for the: Amber stabbed Sal in the hand part.
Yeah, I’ll be pretty irked if Sal is the one apologizing. Or at least if she’s the first one.
Sal doesn’t know what was up with Amber. All she knows is that she was trying to rob that store and Amber defended herself.
A LOT of things can go through someone’s mind after an event like this happens. I’m not sure if Sal would be angry at the stab wound, but I’m sure it made her rethink a lot of things about her life.
Amber stabbing Sal was in no way self defence. Sal had already been disarmed and detained by the police. Amber stabbed her because she snapped after Blaine berated her for not attacking her to defend Ethan. I have a lot of sympathy for Amber in that situation, but it was not self defence.
Ah, my apologies. I thought she stabbed Sal because she felt threatened.
No big deal. Those strips were ages ago, and the main gist was that Amber stabbed her. Plus it’s not like Sal was privy to that conversation so it wouldn’t have been in her flashback.
Wonder if Sal’ll wind up being the person who reacts to Amber with the terror she thought everyone would have after she stabbed that fucker.
I don’t think she would in front of Amber, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we get to see some interesting nightmares later.
And then Amber literally exploded!
I’m guessing that Sal does not figure it out, and that will somehow anger Amber that Sal didn’t figure it out.
Like something so important to her HAS to be important to the other person.
And we’ll come to find out that it is really important to Sal as well, but not until after Amber’s anger makes things worse.
-uck you with walky’s help, I know how your slashfic brain works but think about how weird that would be for them
Welp…
I am guessing that is Sal’s figurin’ it out face.
Red panels, ahoy!
You get a red panel! And you get a red panel!! Everybody gets a red panel!!!
i think that’s just the sunset
You get a red-tinted panel! And you get a red-tinted panel!!! Everybody gets a red-tinted panel!!!
Hey, maybe Willis is just running out of red. … Even though the comic is digitally produced.
BEES!!!
Not the bees! NOT THE BEES! AHhhh they’re in my eyes! My eyes!
Bees are comiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!
Bees. My god.
that is the sound of shit hitting the fan
I’m not sure if I’m oblivious to clues or forgot it being outright stated, but I don’t it occurred to me Sal didn’t know who Amber was.
Yeah, she has no clue. Most confirmed at the end of last storyline, when she saw Amber and Walky making out while looking for AG and was like ‘who is this and why are you suddenly kissing her?’ Amber’s a complete nonentity to Sal.
To Sal, Amber is:
1) Weird girl she helped with laundry that one time.
2) Weird girl who hogs privacy chairs.
3) Weird girl who communicates primarily through 3DS.
4) Weird girl who hooked up with Walky the day he broke up with Dorothy.
5) Weird girl who is now hanging out with Ethan and who has the same body-type and appearance as the girl who was with Ethan when Sal took him hostage…. wait a minute….
Anybody else hear that house of cards collapse?
Also, I can’t quite phrase why but I really appreciate Ethan’s “That robbery happened to me too, you know!”
i went with dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnnn initially. for years we’d been seeing the robbery through amber’s perspective and its a reminder that ethan was also affected by what sal did.
I think it’s because it’s Ethan pointing out that he went through the robbery too and while it’s still scary for Amber, he’s allowed to want to do some processing with Sal.
You can’t really compare trauma, but if anything Ethan got the lion’s share of it being the one held hostage and everything so you could say he has more right to find closure. If Amber wants to get all upset about it. Your secrets not worth Ethan’s mental health Amber.
@Kris+BBCC: Yeah, that’s it! Ethan shouldn’t have to wait to move on just because Amber isn’t ready yet. That’s tricky, but important.
It’s interesting (and for Amber, kind of sad) how differently the same event went for each of them. Ethan was the one that was actually held hostage, but thanks to Blaine’s awful influence the whole thing escalated into a much worse event for Amber, and in a whole different way. : (
Yup, that stabbing especially has been haunting her. It was one of the first times she really and truly SNAPPED.
+1 for appreciating Ethan’s line!
Because it was actually Ethan who was the victim, Ethan who was attacked, Ethan who had knife to his throat.
Its Ethan who has the right to forgive, and Amber doesn’t have a right to prevent him healing and reconciling.
What Happened to Amber was more traumatizing, but it was by proxy and also partly a result of her social anxiety combined with Blaines abuse.
What seemed to traumatize Amber the most was her sense of powerl esness combined with her becoming a Blaine like perpetrator.
It’s a great line because it’s a reminder that Amber has a tendency to make everything about her. Often with good reason, but still – we saw it back in the day when Ethan was dating Joyce, for instance; a lot of her anger was not just “Going back into the closet is a bad thing” but “How dare you do this to me”. Amber’s built up this all-encompassing worldview on the basis of the robbery, which has created some huge tensions even for her relationship with her best friend, but it’s all about what it did to her. Ethan has no real role in the Amazi-Girl tragic backstory; it’s more than legitimate for him to point out to Amber that she doesn’t own the incident.
It’a actually a form of self deprecation and maybe even depression. Some people feel like they’re living their life just waiting for the next domino to fall, for something else bad to happen to them. Like the world is against them. Amber has this in spades. So when something happens she doesn’t like or someone does something she doesn’t approve of it feels like a personal attack. I’m not a psychologist or anything I’ve just witnessed this a lot in my own life. Feel free to correct me if I’m off base here.
Yeah, Amber’s got a ton of trauma and anxiety besides the dissociation, and her self-loathing is a black hole from which no hope can escape. I can see her getting wrapped up in the ‘my suffering is the worst’ brain spiral.
At this point I recommend a really big vacuum cleaner. Treat it like a particularly nasty ghost. Or like, cognitive behavioral therapy and maybe some SSRIs. You can get CBT workbooks pretty easily actually.
So…Amber goes emo/goth. “My life is a dark pit of darkness, from which no light may intrude.” Walky starts wearing eyeliner…
Eat Arby’s.
Because Amber tends to making things about her. She doesn’t want to, but she can be incredibly selfish. She only sees her own pain and often overlooks the pain of others.
In a way, Ethan just stood up to this. Called her on that. He was the one with the knife at his throat, he was the one afraid of dying. And if his way to healing involves talking to sal, go for it.
I think ethan is wrong about his proposal to talk to sal though. It helped him because he dealt way better with all this. I’m afraid Amber can’t handle talking king to Sal.
It’s an OCD/anxiety thing. Those with those issues can’t understand that everyone else doesn’t fell “That Way” about stuff.
It’s generally a thing people who suffer immensely often do, at least in my experience. If your own pain is too big to look past it, you overlook other people’s pain.
It’s still selfish though. Plus, she is pushy. Like, really pushy.
Bonus comic: gas station attendant is visiting relative at campus, sees them through window and either doesn’t recognize or doesn’t care.
She’s not going to what, Ethan?
Prediction: Sal figures it out, they fight and retreat, then later Sal goes to the one person she can vent her anger to: Amazi-Girl!
AG: “Yeah, that Amber girl sounds like such a bongo!”
We need a math gif but with Sal now.
https://media.giphy.com/media/ohdY5OaQmUmVW/giphy.gif
Sal,
Please apologize to Amber for what you said when she was with Walky.
what should she apologize for, exactly?
She was a little condescending about how fast Walky moved on from Dorothy, but other than that I don’t think Amber heard anything else. Not that the rest was particularly RUDE anyway.
Yeah, I’ve never been quite sure what people want her to apologize for: everything she said was directed at Walky, Amber was completely irrelevant to the conversation (as in it could have been anyone).
She could apologize for that, I suppose, but otherwise any apologies seem to be owed to her brother, rather that Amber.
Yeah, Sal literally has no clue who Amber is whatsoever, beyond ‘probably lives on my floor, or at least in my hall.’ It was all based in Walky being in Smoochville the day after a breakup, maybe twelve hours since she saw him and he was horribly mopey.
ermagod is this happening?
And then they ate cupcakes.
Cue the Kill Bill sirens
Her motorcycle jacket is the wrong colour.
Sometimes reading DoA feels like that ten seconds when you notice two cars are going to crash and there’s nothing you can do to stop them.
And then they don’t crash, raising the tension level for next time.
I feel happy for noticing Claire and Clif are having a conversation and then I feel less happy because of Bill Cosby.
“Away with you, nerd I don’t recognize. I need to talk to my hostage.”
Utterly gorgeous coloring in this one Willis. The late day light is just beautiful
The Gas Station Clerk is standing just to the right of this shot. He’s studying Criminal Justice.
The consensus seems to be that Sal will recognize Amber, and then horrors of some kind ensue. The other route, that Sal still doesn’t recognize Amber seems more likely to me, since anything that prolongs Amber not having a conversation with Sal about the events of long ago always seems to happen. However, being wrong would be quite nice.
I see a mistake. Drat.
It does seem to be the pattern of Amber building up a bunch of drama in her head only for reality to do the exact opposite.
This strips needs a chipmunk turning around in a dramatic fashion.
Infuriating. Let’s try this again. If it doesn’t work this time, I give up.
I see a mistake. Drat.
Fixed it, I hope.
… Sigh … Better luck next time.
There will always be a next time 🙂
Next time.
Welp, looks like she is going to Amber this up. Make sure to hide the knives!
Amber…jesus. She stabbed someone who was no danger to her or others! Ethan was a hostage with a knife to his throat! Her making this about herself, prioritising her own comfort over Ethan’s closure is a big jerk move!
Sal owes Amber an apology but dammit, Amber owes her one too! Her Dad being abusive does not absolve her of abusing others. Move forward! Take responsibility for your actions while acknowledging the circumstances you will in! Get therapy!
I really have to wonder the degree to which Amber realizes ‘I stabbed someone in their hand, full of important tendons and bones, very very hard.’ Like, she appears to have been in a dissociative haze or something when it happened, but she still clearly remembers it and fears letting herself be violent in that way again, and she told Walky it would probably change how he thought of her forever… But at the same time yesterday she said her ideal way to tell Walky was ‘as he’s asleep so he subconsciously knows, I never have to talk about it again or at all in any detail really but he gives me cupcakes afterwards.’ (Because of how traumatic the experience was for her.)
Which suggests to me she’s never realized quite the degree of damage she did to Sal (permanently limited function in that hand as confirmed previously; almost certainly a nasty scar; likely required surgery and physical therapy to get it back to the level of use she has.) Like, she knows that Stabbing People Is Bad, but I think maybe being raised on pop culture means she doesn’t really get how lasting most injuries really are. (See also the AG strips back at the start of this storyline and ‘let’s hang them from the streetlight!’) In fairness, most people don’t unless they’re medical or combat personnel, writers with extensive research, or have experienced a similar major injury.
… oh god that’s how we’re going to see that hand without the glove isn’t it.
I actually have the theory that her trauma mostly involves the stabbing. Her red panels often center around that. Most of what she does is because she wants to control her own violence. She once told Sal that she’s wearing the mask to protect sal. And stabbing gashface retraumatized her severely instead of being a new trauma on top.
She rarely references the hostage situation, but there are a lot of references to herself being dangerous.
Yeah, I can agree with that. It’s most often ‘Amber with knife raised’, ‘Sal in pain after the knife’s gone’, or ‘Amber frozen in terror’ – the last of which is a reaction to the hostage situation, but the focus implies she’s thinking about her inability to respond rather than the situation on its own. What I’m not sure of is if she’s traumatized by the stabbing because she seriously injured and disabled someone, or because SHE did this and was capable of this violent act against someone restrained.
(Her reactions with the second stabbing seem to lean more towards ‘horror she tried to kill him’ than ‘this guy may never eat solid food again because of her’ or whatever the precise injuries are, but then he is in fact a rapist, so. Likewise her red panels of smiling while punching Blaine – the red is because she enjoyed it and not that she hurt him, but like. Blaine. So I don’t feel like either of them are conclusive evidence that she is always more traumatized by her general proclivity for violence than what she actually does to said people.)
I’m not sure I see that the distinction you’re drawing here is that significant. I mean, she may not realize the full extent of the physical damage, but she’s already traumatized by having done it.
If she was diminishing the actual damage as much as you suggest, I don’t think she’d be as horrified by her doing it as she is.
I think, with the stabbing/hostage situation, she mainly feels terror over who she could become (who she was reminded of) rather than guilt over what she did to another person. Maybe not a huge distinction, she does really feel bad about the event! But is more focused on how it affected her.
I feel her centering on herself has in part to do with her being in flight or fight (or freeze) mode a lot of the time. Hard to emotionally unpack things when the remembering makes you panic. She still needs to do it, for others but for herself most importantly.
Yeah, that’s what I’m trying to get at exactly. It’s not that I think Amber doesn’t care about how she hurt people, but given what she red panels versus what she doesn’t seem to focus on, I think what scares her more is the violence itself and she may not have put that much thought into what happened to Sal after the act. (Like, Blaine’s red panel pretty clearly didn’t cause any lasting damage to Blaine – it’s the first lone punch and not the beat down later, which I don’t think we’ve ever seen red paneled since. One of these was way more violent and lasting, but the one that traumatizes her is the one she enjoyed for its own sake* rather than the one she can justify as protecting Danny. And I just checked the tags to confirm, she was Amber by the point where she was wailing on him.)
* That said, punching Blaine in the fucking face to draw his attention completely and make him shut the fuck up for a second, then GET THE FUCK AWAY while telling everyone in the crowded hall he’s entering what he’s done? Was a really smart plan. Yeah the punch escalated things, but there’s no realistic deescalation with Blaine to begin with.
There IS this, though:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-7/01-glower-vacuum/underoos/
Specifically the “I’m sorry. For lots of things. / For more than you know” bit. It’s possible that she may not have really thought about it before the rally because until then she wasn’t viewing Sal as a real person, but it seems clear she was thinking about how she had hurt she had caused her.
I’d go with the second one. Amber seems to have horror not only to her tendency toward violence, but deriving satisfaction from it in the moment, as we’ve seen around the time she beat the stuffing out of her father.
This whole comic has a pink tint. This is going to go poorly.
*glass plate shatters on the floor*
Sal should have to be super dense to not connect the dots. Who am I kidding? She is too dense to understand situations, social cues, and when she is being a jerk.
This better not end with Sal having another stabbing like Nicolas Angel. On the other hand Sal would have two scars and can get her shirt over her head and ask for toilet paper while screaming “I am the great Cornholio!”.
Core meltdown in T-minus 12… 11… 10…
Who else read that in Majel Barrett’s voice without thinking?
*Buzzer* Warning. Warp core breach in ninety seconds.
At some point, Amber had to experience this moment. Otherwise, she’ll never be able to even start moving on.
Yeah, but like.
No good can come from this way being the way to do it
Agreed but, given both Sal and Amber’s ability to deflect, avoid and deny, I don’t think that there was ever any other seriously likely way for it to happen.
I don’t think that’s very fair to Sal who has actively been seeking Ethan out to confront this situation head on. At no point has she tried to deflect, avoid, and deny this whole mess or her role in it. The reason this is likely the only way for this to go down is entirely down to Amber.
Yeah. Sal hasn’t once deflected or avoided this situation. She’s only ever deflected when: 1) it relates to her family, for obvious reasons and 2) it’s related to Marcie. Never anything to do with the robbery.
I think you just mean Amber. Sal didn’t avoid or deflect anything, she just genuinely didn’t realize those kids were here.
pls pls pls SAL REACT GOOD come on SAL TELL HER THANK YOU OR SOMETHING BE GOOD HELP AMBER THIS COULD BE SUCH A GREAT MOMENT OF GROWTH
I’m expecting Sal, after a few moments of paralysed recognition to collapse onto her knees, clutching at the hand Amber stabbed in a way that’s suggesting she’s having a pretty strong flashback herself. Neither Amber nor Amazi-Girl will be entirely sure what to do.
Honestly it would be darkly hilarious if both Sal and Amber went into Flshback breakdown, screaming and all while Ethan just stands there, not sure what to do.
Thank you for brutally stabbing me and forever damaging my ability to use my hand.
I mean, the injury is shit and all, but at least it wasn’t as bad as my parents deciding they didn’t want me anymore and shipping me off to another state. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Seconds to Disaster
Oooooooooh nooooooooooooooo.
Even Ethan’s face after show’s he’s fucking worried. Like, panel two.
The meltdown was already coming, this is going to be fucking brutal
I may be suppressing violent stomach behaviour trying to not flip shit not having access to the next strip.
This is going to sit ill in my stomach all day
Well. Shit.
Yeah. No shit, well shit.
I mean. YIKES.
Oh great. Time for Amber to lose her mind and do a load of stupid shit again.
I have a horrible mental image of Amber and Sal both cowering on the floor, begging the other not to hurt them.
I can’t really see that for either. Neither seems to have a cower reflex. More likely they’d both be apologizing. More likely yet is Amber running away – to keep from attacking Sal again.
Okay, seriously. There’s been a band-aid on this thing all these years, but it never stopped bleeding, and now it’s just a big, scabby mess. Rip that sucker off.
Let the gangrene ensue.
Or clean it up, properly tend to the wound, and treat it properly this time so it can heal, albeit with a scar.
Am I a bad person if my first thought upon seeing today’s strip was “Dis gonna be good”? XD
But seriously, I think it’s high time that Amber confront the root cause of her trauma. (Well, aside from Blaine) Everything she’s done since then has basically been a coping mechanism, and as we’ve seen play out, it isn’t exactly the healthiest solution.
Sal doesn’t recognize her from the robbery, but suddenly realizes from her stance that Amber is Amazigirl. Sal says, “I just realized who you are.” Amber assumes she is talking about the robbery. Hilarity ensues. ((Sorry. I just like the word ensues. ))
OH GOODNESS, LIFE IS BECOMING A RED PANEL
DAMN YOU, WILLIS!
Cue the sirens!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6uXGV6d36_I
Geez Ethan, you’d think with all the cartoons you’ve watched you’d know that uttering a line like “[X] will never happen!” pretty much guarantees [X] happening in the next 5 minutes.
Soap opera rules too. Nothing can stop us now – cut to the thing that will stop them. Our love will last forever. – followed by the appearance of their pregnant former lover. Ethan should know better but characters never do.
I’m gonna be honest, Ethan is entirely right in panel 3, and as such I’m not really very compelled by Amber’s distress. I wish she’d found a better way to healthier outlets than this stuff kind of happening around her, outside of her control, but it’s all gone on long enough and Ethan is allowed to do things to help himself heal too.
Agree 100%
Sal’s day just keep getting better
Yeah I was expecting this.
Sal’s in for a figurative headsplosion now. Doubly so if she ever catches on to Amber as AmaziGirl.
We have been waiting for a moment like this for so long whether it’s connecting Amber to AmaziGirl or the robbery or BOTH. Definitely feeling like something or someone is going to combust into a glorious pile of flames and hoping that Willis doesn’t syke us out and then we have to wait another year for a real confrontation. Also hoping that Walky and/or Dorothy happen to walk out to add gasoline to the fire since they’re literally on the other side of that door.
Not worried about Sal. She will flashback and be in distress but Amber is in full scale fight or flight panic.
Ah, a reunion. Time to fly to the red.
I know they’re turning red because of Amber’s red panels, but I really want all of them to just be baked as fuck like Tai and Claire are over on QC. ^^;
ok, so sal has known about amber for some time, or adjusts easily to the information. the drollery will revolve around sal never penetrating the clark kent field (TM) surrounding amazi-girl, who after all isnt on speaking terms with amber anymore. sal finds out about AG (kinda) knifing her when they are tied up in some villain’s deathtrap.
just my guess
now that dirty laundry can FINALLY be aired out…
dun, Dun, DUNNN!
And it is only Wednesday, I am afraid to see what Friday is going to bring.
Heh, I have no idea which day of the week these are going up when I write them. I remember that once being a thing.
All together now!
♫Frickity-frack! (snap snap)
Frickity-frack! (snap snap)
Frickity-frack!
Frickity-frack!
Frickity-frack! (snap snap)♪
Well, I’m sure she HEARD you with you screaming at Ethan…
“They CAN learn a great deal from each other. Will they, though? That depends on a large number of things. Mostly related to trust.”
Or some words to that effect that I said back when we first learned of Sal’s and Amber’s history. We’re getting closer. . .
Amber, breath. You’re making the whole room glow red.
Will Sal finally figure it out?
Oh Amber, Dearie. The sooner you face those demons inside you and deal with them, the sooner you heal. The more you put off doing that and the more you run from them, the more harm it causes you. I know this first hand. I relate to Amber the most out of all these characters. Rage destroys from the inside out.