– those who understand binary
– those who understand ternary
– those who understand quartal
– those who understand quintal
– those who understand sextal
– those who understand septal
– those who understand octal
…
Yes, she could. That’s literally what Ruth was talking about a couple strips ago. Ruth’s covered for them both, but it was a one-time thing. However, Amber looks like she’s having a panic attack, so she’s not exactly thinking things through right now.
Sal is invading Aqmber’s personal space and she could make a serious case she’s in fear for her life. In that situation, threats are not illegal. What SAL is doing (disobeying a direct order from an RA, seeking out opponent in a fight…) It seems awful to suggest Amber, who is A), having a panic attack, B), having her expectation of privacy and safety in her dorm room strongly violated is exhibiting White Privelige. You might claim Sal has a right to be there since Dina let her in, but that exactly mirrors the situation with Blaine!
First of all, ‘in fear for her life’ is often a seriously BS standard that is used particularly to excuse violence against PoC, especially black and Hispanic people (and, in Canada, Indigenous people). Lethal force being used against you or a third party justifies using lethal force in defence, but this vaguely defined ‘Oh, they SCARED me’ schtick is bullshit. It’s one of the things I hate most about the American criminal justice system.
The white privilege isn’t in the reason Amber’s freaking out Sal’s there, it’s in the fact that Amber is more likely to get away with threatening to hurt Sal than Sal would be vice versa.
I’d also say invaded is a deal strong here. Sure, Dina should have asked if Amber wanted Sal to come in, but she did let her in. And while they’re both people Amber wouldn’t want in her room that Dina let in, that’s as far as the similarities between Sal and Blaine go.
Theoretically, absent everything else.
In practice, if anyone tries to expel her for this, the fight comes out and they both get booted. (And then Amazi-Girl gets revealed and Amber likely winds up in jail.)
You can’t treat the threat in isolation, because it’s all tied together. Amber doesn’t routinely threaten people with stabbing.
^^^ like, my first impulse is to say, “obviously, there’s more at play here” but that’s just kinda…like…fucked up to say. I really am uncomfortable with how much Amber just seems completely unaware of the racial dynamics that are being acted out here as a white girl, her own trauma being legitimate or no.
She is aware of the racial dynamic, which is what got her to back off when they had their encounter at a rally. Amazi-Girl got very uncomfortable with the crowd’s desire for her to beat up the “thug’ Sal.
I don’t think it’s even remotely relevant in this encounter, though, to be frank. Sal was told to leave Amber be, and Amber doesn’t *know* Sal is here in peace because she’s not afforded the view the readers get. For all she knows, Sal’s here to finish the job.
Race isn’t relevant to this threat, their fight is.
Sal’s demeanor here really doesn’t scream ‘coming to finish you off’. She seems so… I’m not sure what’s the right word. Weary? Unguarded? Maybe even vulnerable? Of course, Amber would have to be in a rational state of mind to notice that, which I’m guessing she’s not.
The point here isn’t ‘Amber is mad at Sal because Sal’s black’. The point here is ‘Amber would be more likely to get away with stabbing Sal than vice versa and thus this is an example of white privilege, albeit an ignorant one (in the ‘lacking awareness’ sense)’.
Black people are more likely to be convicted than white people for the same crime and black victims are less likely to get their attackers brought to justice than white victims.
Yeah I can’t imagine Sal getting away with threatening to stab someone :/ What Amber just did there is a huge no-no. All I had was a dude yell “I’m going to murder you!” and the cops got involved.
I think Amber is on a power trip, as she has been this whole comic really. She likes feeling in control and powerful, and she has a deathly fear of Sal because she’s the one person who makes her not feel in control.
She’s not on a power trip or at least I wouldn’t call it that. Nep is correct. Amber is falling apart and embracing the worst parts of herself. Trying to be her dad!
Not really my takeaway. The times she has been like Blaine have been more along the lines of her terrifying behavior towards Danny before their breakup, and her recognizing she was talking to him the same way Blaine talked about her mom.
Blaine isn’t even remotely self-destructive, at least not in the sense of inviting consequences. He just smugly things he’s above it all.
I mean like Blaine in that he is clearly a man who prefers to solve things through violence. She thinks she’s just like him and has given in to that as evidenced by this off putting strip that has hard confirmed Blaine has force powers of projection!
I don’t think this is a power trip. She JUST lost a pretty vicious fight with Sal only minutes ago, and suddenly Sal showed up at her room. Just look at Amber’s face in panel 4. She’s afraid Sal came to finish what they’d started and she’s panicking
She’s cornered, and she’s too exhausted to fight back or to run if Sal attacks her again, so she’s desperate and trying to scare Sal away or at least scare her into backing down.
It’s still shitty to threaten her like that of course, but if she was on a power trip I’d expect her to be stammering a bit less
Exactly. And even her threat is a warning to not come closer, not anything more aggressive. She’s not saying she’s going to stab Sal or that she wants to. She’s not demanding anything except that Sal not come close enough to be more of a threat.
Sal might get away with it if Amber literally barged into her room mere minutes after a vicious fight. Both Sal and Amber have a right to expectation of privacy and safety in their dorm rooms, and by violating that after being explicitly ordered not to, it would be difficult to argue the invader was in the right. We might suspect Sal has realized that, but Amber is a traumatized wreck with no such knowledge.
It was definitely a factor in how Amber DIDN’T face major legal repercussions or at minimum mandated therapy for stabbing Sal.
Now… that would require Sal reporting it, and I doubt Ruth’ll be thrilled to hear Sal went to talk with Amber more after that fight. They really shouldn’t be together unsupervised (and Dina is neither an experienced mediator nor someone who could physically step in and stop a fight should it reignite.)
In general Amber has a lot of things that, if discovered, would probably get her expelled. (AG and changing Walky’s grades chief among them.) What’s really keeping her going there is luck and authorial guiding hand.
There were a lot of factors: Amber is a minor, Amber was a victim of a crime, and it might have been a condition for letting Sal off the hook with her parents making a deal.
Amber isn’t thinking straight at all. White privilege is based on an assumption that the actor thinks they can get away with what they’re doing. Amber doesn’t care. She’s still seeing Sal as the robber she’s used as a mental crutch for years.
“White privilege doesn’t need to be conscious to benefit a person…”
Very much so. It’s not particularly relevant to the current comic, but I recently had that specific fact driven home to me when a coworker and friend gave me a ride home from work. I invited him in, and he declined citing concerns of being stopped for DWB if he left after dark (it was then sunset), which has apparently previously happened to him in my neighborhood when visiting other friends in the area. That was a concern I had never had cause to even stop and consider happening here for a lot of reasons.
As BBCC suggests, part of white privilege is the fact that you don’t have to think about certain things. Example: when you come across a crime, you don’t have to decide between calling the police or not getting involved. White privilege is in that lack of decision: you call the police without even realizing that a black person might get blamed.
So yeah, Amber has white privilege. Because she’s white. That’s the entire calculus. Whether or not it’s relevant is a whole other thing, and I’d agree that it really isn’t. It doesn’t get relevant until you factor in some third party who’d differentiate them based on race.
Well, the OP is based on the idea Amber’d have an easier time getting away with stabbing Sal (or at least getting a lighter sentence) than vice versa. Presumably whoever’s in charge of that decision would be the third party there.
I actually would think twice before calling the police, as a white person. Getting involved is a hassle, and could escalate the situation. It does depend on the specifics though.
The point being, generalisations like that are risky, because all it takes is one white person who does / would / is whatever example to disprove the argument. It doesn’t disprove privilege, but some people will act like it does.
Yeah but your reason wouldn’t be “But will they shoot/arrest me when they get here” because white people just don’t face that kind of profiling. And also no, an anecdotal outlier does not disprove a general rule. An albino crow doesn’t disprove the fact that crows are generally black.
As someone who’s had that kind of problem with PTSD before, definitely not thinking straight, but I wouldn’t presume the presence or lack of consequences are relevant to her right now? Like, the actual lack of consequences are white privilege, but she may be feeling threatened enough that she’d do it even if she knew it meant Go Directly To Jail.
Then again, Sal might be right and she might just be talking shit.
Amber maybe could get expelled for this?
They could certainly both be expelled for the fight, so I’m not sure how much white privilege really plays into this.
And let’s be fair here, Sal was choking her a few strips back, the RA cut them a break and told them to stay away from each other. Now here Sal is, barging in on Amber. Is it any wonder Amber thinks she’s coming back to start up again?
We know she isn’t, but Amber doesn’t know anything about the revelations Sal’s had.
Yes, but not really in the way that sounds.
A bluff because she’s panicking and doesn’t have the energy for another fight. An empty threat because she wouldn’t actually do it, even if she could. And Sal knows that.
While I could see that, the lyrical meaning of the song is after all somewhat fitting of Amber’s & AG’s relationship(s) with Sal from their POV, Closer is, for me, only really fitting to use in a scene involving a romantic/sexual relationship with those types of elements which they certainly don’t have at this point.
Whoa whoa Sal had her natural history museum t-shirt in her flashbacks. I believe Sal genuinely likes dinosaurs. She even said it in italics, which is why Dina let her in. She could hear it.
I think it is a good way for checking if the person is going to be respectful though!
And to top it off, she chose a less famous one that is tough to not respect the choice of due to its uniqueness. It’d one thing to say “tyrannosaurus rex” or “velociraptor” or even “triceratops” but she chose that one.
That’s someone who knows a few dinosaurs, that’s someone who paid attention in school or at the museum.
I’m sure if someone chose that one she wouldn’t have a problem with it, but one of the more famous ones or one of the pterosaurs she would…Ethan already got on the wrong side of her for picking a pterosaur and not a dinosaur
That’s a very good question… Dina seems to be fascinated with the ancient examples of dinosaur, but Aves is within Dinosauria, so would she readily accept the answer or further clarify to “non-avian dinosaur”?
Dina told her, just now. What’s surprising is that Sal knew enough about dinosaurs off the top of her head to have a non-standard favorite. Or maybe it isn’t, it’s already been established that Sal has some hidden depths.
There is only one correct answer for favorite dinosaur, and that is the *chicken*. Its flesh and eggs provide humans valuable nutrients and proteins and is so very very delicious.
Counterpoint: Common raven. Non-avian dinosaurs are cool and all, but having one we can actually study the behavior and intelligence of, and having it be arguably the most intelligent non-primate on the planet? Definite winner.
Sal is making the first provocation here though. Barging into Amber’s room maybe hours after the fight and after the RA sent them to their rooms. It’s not real surprising Amber feels threatened.
And while Sal isn’t actually being aggressive, other than coming there in the first place, she’s not actually being conciliatory either. Which she really needs to be under the circumstances, since she doesn’t want another confrontation.
Barging feels a bit strong when Dina let her in the room. Other than that, I agree. Her being around at all is a bad idea right now and that threat of stabbing, while not okay, should reaaaallly be a ‘not now’ indicator. And yeah, opening with a snarky comment about how close you two live to each other and how she’s now dating your brother was not the best move either.
Like I said, I’d LIKE this to go well, but under the circumstances, I’ll settle for ‘no stabby’.
Perhaps a little strong, but when she’s here to talk to Amber “Your roommate said it was okay” isn’t really the best approach.
And the threat of stabbing isn’t okay, but isn’t even a “not now”, it’s tied to a “don’t get any closer” and is clearly because she feels threatened. Partly because she’s irrationally triggered by Sal and partly because Sal was choking her not long ago.
I mean Amber was being JUST as violent to Sal if not more so. Yes IRL choke holds are a dangerous and not great way of ending a fight, but many of the things Amber did to Sal could also have killed her.
Also Sal still didn’t barge in. She knocked and was granted access after basically giving a password, it’s not her fault that Dina answered the door instead of Amber, and she couldn’t have known Amber wasn’t okay with her being let in until she was close enough to Amber to get a reaction — which Sal has responded to by de-escalating.
Your phrasing continues to be notably unfair to Sal, partly in a way that’s just…… endemic to reading a story the way we all are.
Going strip by strip and hyperanalyzing every single line of dialogue is inherently unforgiving of even a milisecond’s bad judgment, or rudeness, and I can’t help but wonder how different all of us would feel about this comic if we were reading a month’s worth of strips at a time instead of this.
And yet so many are doing the same thing to Amber. I do think Sal’s trying to do a good thing here, but I think she’s not doing so great on the execution.
I’m just emphasizing that Amber’s not being that unreasonable here.
The fight was not at all one-sided as you say, but again, from Amber’s point of view …
Sal should absolutely know Amber’s not going to be happy to see her. They just got out of a serious fight. Not a good time to drop in unexpectedly and not even start by explaining why you’re there and make sure it’s clear you’re not here to start trouble up again.
She’s probably going to do that in the next five seconds, is my point. This is what I mean by hyperanalyzing every line of dialogue. You are repeatedly lambasting Sal for not immediately waving a big white flag over her head, for instead starting this conversation in a flawed, human way, because of her own baggage.
(Also “Amber’s not going to be happy to see her” is not actually mutually exclusive with my comment hat Sal had no way of knowing Amber wasn’t okay with her being let in. Sal is also not happy to see Amber, but is ready to try and talk. I’d argue that you and I don’t know how much time has passed here, either — Sal could have spent a while ruminating over what Amber said before coming to the conclusion that she did. This isn’t necessarily immediately after the fight: it’s the same evening, but could be hours later.)
Anyway, I’m not anti-Amber. I’m on both girls’ sides. But I don’t see Sal’s approach as being an order of magnitude worse than Amber’s reception; I don’t see Amber as a victim of Sal’s aggression here. I see Sal doing her best under the circumstances, and Amber reacting badly so far, and Sal refusing to let that bad reaction make this into a bad situation. I expect in the next strip that Amber will relax a little, and I will give tem both props for that.
But nothing about Sal’s approach here… disappoints me. Yes, in a perfect universe, where Sal doesn’t have her own emotional baggage from the fight, she could have picked a better opener with Amber. And yes, in that perfect universe, Sal would probably have given it a week or more before coming back. But I’m not ready to criticize her for being less than perfect, especially in — again — a five-second increment.
I don’t think it’s hyperanalyzing every line to criticize the opening of an encounter like this. Setting the tone for this kind of conversation is crucial . Screwing that up makes everything after it harder. It’s also the part you’ve got time to think about before you even knock on the door. Everything after is more improvised and harder to get right.
(Now if you were to accuse me of hyperanalyzing some of the lines in the fight, I could cop to that.)_
I don’t really see it as “Amber as a victim of Sal’s aggression”, but I can easily see how Amber sees this as threatening. Even a hypothetical Amber who didn’t have barely controlled traumatic reactions to Sal would be justified to feel threatened here. And that’s at least partly because Sal isn’t doing anything to defuse that – yet. Hopefully she will, but it’s going to be a lot harder than if she opened with something other than snarky jabs about keeping enemies close.
And yeah, this is in character for Sal, even without the immediate emotional baggage. She’s bad at this. Witness her trying to “befriend” Malaya and calling her a cumstain when she’s moments late. It’s a known character flaw. Manifesting at a really bad time.
a.) I’m not “accusing” you of hyperanalyzing every line. I said we all do that, and it’s just a natural part of reading this comic one strip at a time.
b.) I strongly disagree that Sal isn’t doing anything to defuse this. I think “No, you won’t” is very much an effort at defusing, as is not rising to Amber’s anxious bait.
c.) I don’t think Sal wasn’t actually trying to befriend Malaya. She was doing the absolute bare minimum in an effort to repair things with Marcie. Here, Sal is making an actual effort.
d.) I’d imagine Sal didn’t really rehearse this at all because I don’t see her as being someone who rehearses things like this even when she cares about them? But if she had, whatever opener she had intended would have been derailed by Dina being the one to answer the door and demanding a favorite dinosaur. What we get instead is… deadpan.
I can get how Amber would interpret this as threatening but I disagree that it’s a reasonable response to the stimuli. (Which I think is implied when you say that a hypothetical Amber without preexisting trauma would be justified in feeling threatened right now.)
To me barging in sounds like she forced her way into the room uninvited, rather than being let in by her roommate. Yeah, Dina shouldn’t have let her in since she was there to see Amber, not without asking Amber first, but I still feel ‘barged in’ is a strong way to put it.
And yeah, the fact she’s still this riled up because of the fight should have been SAL’S indicator this is not a good time is what I meant, not that Amber’s trying to convey ‘not now’.
What David has done is lure unsuspecting childless individuals into the dark, evil world of PinkFong. I was only a babysitter, and I knew of the trap. Beware the trap, especially the baby shark! Doo-doo-doo-do-do-do!
I am cautiously optimistic for how this talk is going to play out.
I guess Sal’s craved someone showing her understanding, like how she had that talk with Danny, so maybe the key here will be her having developed a greater understanding for Amber and where she’s coming from, maybe that’s what Sal’s talking about in the final panel, and with her flashbacks.
I am unwaveringly optimistic! Sal is definitely here to broker peace due to guilt and/or coming to understand Amber better! And there’s no way it’ll backfire, either! Uh, right? No, wait, I mean, definitely!
I hope this doesn’t end in another fight, but it seems this is going to be a big painful emotional arguing where both parties have to come clean. Honesty can be more painful than a fist to the face.
So I’m still really tense about what’s going to happen with these two (please talk things out with her, Amber, I know it’s like standing on a trigger the size of a landmine but Sal is a good person, TALK)…….. but also, just had to say, Dina is wonderful. I love her expressions in this one.
Ethan is specifically connected to her history with Sal. Dina is not. So while I don’t think it’s anywhere near a guarantee, I think the two of them wouldn’t necessarily have the same impact when it comes to Amber’s interactions with Sal.
Listen to the human being who was choking her a few strips back and who’s now barging into her room still talking about living too close and about you smooching her brother.
I mean, she should, but Sal isn’t exactly going out of her way to make it easy. Not that she’d have an obligation too, but she’s the one forcing the confrontation now, so if she wants it too work …
Fine. It’s perfectly fine and normal for Sal to come into the room of the person she just had a serious fight with. She has the roommate’s permission, so there’s no issue, no reason at all for Amber to be concerned. She’s allowed to be there, since Dina let her in, so Amber has to deal.
Hell, even without the fight, if you’re there to see one person, that’s the person you should ask, not the roommate. Basic rules of sharing space.
There’s a difference between ‘Sal didn’t barge in’ and ‘Amber has to suck it up and deal because Dina let her in even though Amber does not want her here’. That’s completely over the top and not what anyone’s actually said.
Sixth panel isn’t a threat, it’s a warning. Remember Amber think she’s a monster. And Sal in the seventh panel is telling her she isn’t. This is an all-round great strip.
Yup. The avatar algorithm is case sensitive, but the approval system isn’t. If you use a different email address, you’ll have to wait for your comment to be approved for it to show up. If you capitalize a letter, it will pass right away because your address is already whitelisted.
I’m HOPING this will end well but I will accept not stabbing anyone.
Sal, honey, you know I love you, but maybe that’s a good indication this is NOT A GOOD TIME.
I like that Sal doesn’t think Amber will stab her but this is a POOR TIME to call someone’s bluff.
That said – Dina is absolutely ADORABLE here. And I love seeing stuff Sal knows about so that’s nice touch.
On that note, your fun Sal fact of the day – she’s thus far the only person to pass Dina’s door test without being coached. Ethan didn’t get in (because T-rex is boring and pterodactyl’s aren’t dinosaurs), Becky’s been being taught by Dina about dinosaurs since she got here, and Amber fed Walky answers.
Yeah, this was probably a ‘Ruth supervises their first interaction post-fight with the understanding you can maybe Talk About Some Things Best Not Talked About Near Authority Figures once you’ve established a loaded conversation or two that went safely first’ situation.
Anyone wonder just how Sal knew about that particular dino? Its not a commonly known dino (not like the more well known T Rex, Raptor, Triceratops, etc.). We don’t know if she is taking any biology courses (or courses where she would come across dinosaur names.) And since she hasn’t interacted much with Dina you wouldn’t expect her to look up possible dinosaurs before she went to their room.
Maybe she likes dinosaurs too. If not, maybe she just saw The Lost World: Jurassic Park (in which it was prominently featured) and thought it was kinda cool.
I must say, though, I like the first option better. 🙂
If you only know your dinosaurs from a handful of cartoons and movies, you might not know Pachycephalosaurus. But if you were ever at all interested enough to read up on them, as many children and some adults are, it’s one you are sure to run into.
So I think the answer is just that Sal knows a lot more than she cares to let on. Not because she plays dumb, mind you, but because she doesn’t let on much.
Yeah, Sal generally doesn’t share her interests with the class, but as she told Jason, just because she has a hard time with math and picked up a southern drawl doesn’t make her stupid. I suspect she knows more on a few things than she might generally speak about (between this, her previously unshared interest in music that hanging out with Danny’s brought up and knowing more than the average person about psychology – that last one could be her therapists, but if they’re as useless as Sal described, I’d not put money on that).
They don’t actually need to get along to fill Walky in. And frankly, Walky’s going to hear about this soon whether they get along or not. They just got in a massive fight on the stairs. Someone’s going to fill Walky in.
A little more cooling off time. Neutral ground. A little bit of warning. A less confrontational approach.
She could, for example open with reassuring Amber she’s not here for another fight
On the one hand, yes. Ruth is going to catch them and go all “I said stay in your OWN room, young lady! No cookies!”
On the other hand, Amber clearly didn’t tell Dina to not admit anyone. We’ve seen before that Dina is quite amenable to not letting people/unleashing the raptor if Amber really doesn’t want to be disturbed. So really, if she doesn’t want this conversation, Amber’s only got herself to blame.
There is never ever going to be a good time with Amber because she’s an extremely avoidant trainwreck of a human being. She is never going to be ready for this conversation of her own volition.
This is probably fair. Amber would feel less threatened and panicky if she weren’t too exhausted to defend herself, but she’d also be able to flee and/or force Sal out of the room. It’d also be pretty reasonable for Sal to be worried that Amber might start something, so if she’s gonna talk to her, this would likely be the only chance to try. Especially since there’s multiple sensitive subjects that she may intend to discuss that would rule out having this conversion out in the hallway or with a neutral party supervising it
If I was her, I would have probably started by telling Amber I wasn’t there for a fight before saying anything else, but I’m not gonna blame Sal for not being all gentle and diplomatic here
Actually, I am. If Sal actually wants to talk to Amber for some reason other than a fight, she needs to approach it all gentle and diplomatic. She’s the one pushing the contact here. I assume it’s for a good reason, but whatever that reason is, it’s not going to happen if she pushes too hard. She wanted to do this. She’s had time to prepare herself and get ready for a difficult conversation. Amber’s surprised with no idea what Sal wants out of it.
Amber has had much longer than Sal to prepare for this. Sal literally had this dropped in her lap less than an hour ago and Amber’s known Sal was around for weeks if not months. Considering the shit Amber has put her through the speed with which Sal has managed to pull together this much diplomacy and gentleness is downright impressive.
Time to prepare for this particular bit of conversation.
Yes, Amber’s had more time in general and hasn’t used it well (understatement.)
But right now, Sal decided to go talk to Amber. Despite the fight hours ago at most. Despite both of them being sent to their rooms. Since she’s the one making the move here, she’s had time to psyche herself up to do it and hopefully has some idea what she wants to say and do.
As of a minute or so ago, Amber was sitting in her room trying to decompress or process what had just happened or whatever she was doing. Now she’s suddenly confronted with Sal again with no warning.
That’s what I meant by time to prepare. Not weeks to process the general idea, but just the immediate run up to this particular encounter.
As much as I sympathize with Amber’s panicked reaction, she’ll survive a conversation, even if it ends up being difficult and confrontational.
Sal totally could have been more courteous, but considering all the crappy things Amber has done to her, it feels kinda gross to insist that Sal is at all obligated to be gentle about the feelings of her former stalker just to talk some things out
Maybe she’ll survive. (I mean, of course she’ll survive. Willis isn’t going to kill either of them. ) But she doesn’t know it’s a conversation. She’s not panicking because she’s afraid of a difficult conversation. She’s panicking because it could be another fight. One she knows she’s not up for.
And no, Sal isn’t obligated to be anything, but as a purely practical matter, if Sal actually wants anything other than threats and possibly another fight, then she needs to be. Otherwise, she should just have stayed away. If she’s not prepared to actually deescalate, then what’s she doing here?
You don’t always need to be gentle about the other person’s feelings to de-escalate. De-escalating in this situation can be as simple as saying ‘forget it, this isn’t a good time, I’m leaving’.
That’s absolutely true. But Sal came here for a reason. If she wants to accomplish that, then she’s got to stay and deescalate. And that’s going to require a gentle touch.
I’d argue even staying doesn’t require particular gentleness. Saying ‘Oh, settle down, ah just need to talk to you.’ isn’t particularly gentle, but it’d get the same point across.
It’s mostly on Sal because Sal’s the one who started this. She came to talk to Amber. Amber was sitting quietly in her room, not provoking another confrontation.
If Amber had gone seeking Sal out, then it would be largely on her to keep things calm. The situation would be reversed. Though Sal might not react so badly 🙂
And calling someone’s bluff isn’t deescalating. Luckily Sal isn’t really doing that here, as we see in the next strip. Calling her bluff would be moving closer, since that’s what Amber was warning her about.
Amber escalated to threats. Especially violent threats of something she’d done to Sal before.
Sal’s refusal to rise to it or even get upset by it IS deescalation. As in she’s not letting Amber escalate.
She’s also deescalating further by staying where she is, even though she’s clearly not worried that Amber would stab her if she didn’t. She’s showing Amber she didn’t need to use threats, and could’ve just asked Sal to stay back.
Funny thing is if they did start another fight it wouldn’t last long because Dina would destroy them both! For unlike Sal and Amber who chose the tragic backstory in their character select screen, Dina opted for a happier childhood which gave her plenty of free time away from robbery and stabbing to learn why Rice Krispies are the only cereal that talk back with a SNAP, CRACKLE, and POP! This is valuable knowledge that offers insight neither of these two losers could even fathom. They’re basically forced to talk things out, less Dina open a clinic in humbleness for the two of them!
“Because after our fight ah’ve come ta understand you better, and so ah have decided to join Wonderbread and, er, ‘Ethan’ in offering you unfalterin’ emotional support in the hope that some day your self-loathing might be somewhat lessened.”
In all seriousness, I really hope Sal doesn’t offer unfaltering friendship because Amber still did a lot of shitty things to her and she doesn’t owe her that. But I suspect she’ll have a more accurate understanding of Amber’s psyche than anyone else has so far, and I hope that she’ll tell Amber that she’s not a monster.
Oh yeah, a complete 180 like that isn’t going to happen. I’m not sure Sal even does unfaltering/unconditional friendship like that, but definitely not with Amber given their history. And definitely not any time soon.
I find it more likely that they’re going to come to some degree of an understanding and, at best, establish a truce. Pave the way for actual friendliness later.
Is it really a matter of owing her friendship or is it just wanting for herself? I don’t see Amber excepting it anyway because she would probably think she didn’t deserve it because of all the bad stuff that’s happened between them. but it doesn’t matter because I don’t think that’s what happening now.
Mine’s Brachiosaurus, because I’m about Dina’s height so to me being able to look up high is the best superpower. Or Styracosaurus, because of the spikes. Or Protoceratops, for the awww factor.
Parasaurolophus is another good hadrosaur, but I wouldn’t use it in front of Dina because I’m not sure how to pronounce it.
My top pick is Ankylosaurs, followed by Velociraptors (the real ones, the small turkey-size feathered death machines of blood and violence and the fluffiest deadly hugs) and Triceratops, which are just great.
I like pretty much all dinosaurs so it’s hard for me to pick just one favorite. My top ones are probably stegosaurus and apatosaurus, though I like several others a lot as well.
I like you for knowing there’s such a creature as Apatosaurus. I would definitely let you in for that. People who can’t name any dinosaur except Brontosaurus need not apply.
Mine is the Ankylosaurus. A heavily armoured loner who’s perfectly content to spend its existence munching on plants, but sometimes those large theropods get funny ideas in their head and you just got to hunker down and smash some femurs.
On a note, OF COURSE Sal’s favourite dinosaur is the Pachy – a hard-headed bastard that LITERALLY butts heads with its competition.
I got the reference, no worries. And it’s not too much of a big deal – my doctor told me that using sugar as a short term pick me up was okay but to eat a ton of protein (which I have to do anyways for different health issues) so it’s not too bad.
Not at all. She needs Twinkies. Unfortunately, needing Twinkies is what set all of this off in the first place, so offering them probably wouldn’t be that great an idea. But hey, Amber, have you considered refocusing all your anger at Sal on Twinkies instead?
Did Sal do a search for “thick-headed dinosaur that looks like it would be good at butting heads, but has some structural issues that would make actual head-butting a really bad idea”? If Willis knew about the arguments against this dinosaur being able to butt heads, then very well played Willis.
Okay, I like that sal can answer the dinosaur – question without hesitation. She most likely didn’t know how dina decides who to let in, so she didn’t prepare an answer.
I also like that she immediately acts when she sees the need to act. This is not easy for her and I think she doesn’t really want to talk to amber. I’d have liked it more if she did so on the stairs.
I didn’t expect amber to learn something from the fight, that would require her to think about it (instead of just dwelling on how bad everything – and particularly sal – is). Still, it’s kind of disappointing.
Amber has already learned plenty, as evidenced by yesterday’s strip. I think Sal recognized that Amber is trying to circumvent her rage but is prone to lapse.
That’s nothing she recently learned, that is how she tried to deal with her trauma from the very beginning – increasingly unsuccessful. She’s not lapsing, her barely working coping mechanism is breaking apart.
OTOH, Amber has no idea that Sal’s had any kind of epiphany. All of her own issues aside, she’s got no reason to think Sal’s not coming back to pick up the fight again.
I do think Amber made some progress during that fight, but we haven’t focused on her enough to be sure, unlike with Sal.
Why should Sal randomly know that Amber requires fully digest phrases to comprehend people aren’t out to punch her?
This is a circular argument.
Also, she should think that because Sal stopped hitting her. On her own. When Ruth got there Sal was straddling her, yes, but had stopped punching. Not only this Amazigirl has talked to Sal. She is fully aware of how to push her buttons and of how Sal is entirely capable of conversation.
Because any time you walk in one someone you were just beating the crap out of (and vice versa) and you don’t want to start up again, you should probably start by making that clear rather than snarking about the same things you were fighting about.
That’s not “people aren’t out to punch her”, that’s “the person I was just in a big fight with, who has justifiable reasons to want to punch me, might still be out to punch me.”
She’s halfway dressed for going to bed. So either she was on her way in her bed and then decided “no, let’s beat someone up instead” or she’s not here to fight. Her body language and facial expression are calm, not aggressive, a bit sad. She even dropped her usual “I don’t care about anything” – attitude.
Still, amber is absolutely sure that she’s in danger.
“This person who just beat me in a fight 5 minutes ago has unexpectedly shown up in my room, what if she’s here to fight me some more??”
Sorry, but that’s not actually all that bizarre of a reaction. She panicked a bit because she knows she’s vulnerable but I’m pretty sure a sizable percentage of people would be at least worried Sal was there to fight no matter how calm she seems
ESPECIALLY if the adrenaline from the fight isn’t all out of her system yet. That can make anyone a bit jumpy
Yes. Also, a sizeable percentage of people won’t reflect about what happened or about the adversary the way sal did. And Amber is part of that percentage.
Being traumatised doesn’t make it easier. You tend to see the persons responsible for it as one-dimensional villain. It’s difficult – but possible – to get past that. It seems like Amber hasn’t. She’s not defensive or careful, she’s flat-out aggressive. According to her internal dialogue, she’s aware of it and she thinks it’s the appropriate reaction.
I read that as panicked and defensive, not aggressive. Despite the threat.
“Y-you get any closer and I-I’ll stab you again.” Without actually having a knife or anything stabby, of course. That’s a bluff to keep her away, not aggression.
Nor am I really sure what you’re reading into her internal dialogue.
It’s still crappy, don’t get wrong, but I really don’t see it like that.
Fight or flight are both reactions to an immediate danger. Those are the two reactions she considers appropriate for this situation. Which means, in her mind, sal is a threat. She skipped the “is this dangerous?” – part and went straight for “how should I react to this danger?”. She sees herself as cornered, this eliminates flight, leaving fight as the only appropriate reaction.
It’s both a bluff and aggressive. She’s threatening to use a weapon to tear through flesh. Something she definitely is capable of. I think that counts as aggressive.
Amber is doing the only thing she has the physical strength to do at the moment: bluffing.
She’s unmistakably panicking in panel 4, then using BOTH hands to steady herself as she stands up (probably because her legs feel like jelly from the adrenaline crash), and she’s stammering as she issues the threat while trying to make a scary face
She’s puffing herself up to look big and seem like too much trouble to take on. LOOKING aggressive is the whole point. You can’t scare somebody off with a defensive stance, especially not when they already know they can beat you in a fight.
People don’t generally learn meaningful life lessons from fist fights. Both of them already knew what punches felt like, so I don’t know what you expected EITHER of them to learn besides which of them would win
I expected both of them to learn nothing. Sal learned something, though. That’s why she’s in Ambers room. And it kind of highlights the difference between them.
I wonder how that’ll go over with Marcie. I mean, she de-escalated…after getting into a fist fight that left bruises on her face. So unless Marcie doesn’t keep in touch with goings on on campus (we know she does) and unless she just…doesn’t see Sal until they’re healed (unlikely, she wants to visit Malaya) then, well. We’ll see.
Yeah, it might work out okay if Amber and Sal have worked something out (even if it’s just ‘we stay away from each other’) and Marcie at least asks ‘what happened to your face?’ it might not be too bad.
Sal’s forcing this encounter. Amber was sitting in her room.
But it’s all always Amber’s fault. Sal couldn’t possibly be doing anything wrong.
Mind you, I think Sal’s trying to do a good thing here. I think her working through her revelation during and after the fight is leading her here to work things out. I’m worried her lack of deescalation skills is going to wreck that.
There’s room to criticize Sal for opening with snark and also point out Amber’s escalating to the threats here, but damn, you’re sure not finding it tonight.
Yes it is Amber’s fault that she threatened to stab Sal that is how the words coming out of your mouth work. Sal didn’t use ventriloquism to put them in her mouth.
Last week is my last week as well, and my assignment is technically due Wednesday, but I’d like to try to finish it up early. Thank you though! Good luck to you too.
The problem is that she kind of is a bad person but instead of doing anything to change that she just self-flagellates and pretends it’s out of her control because she’s “a monster” and not just kind of a self-absorbed dickhead with anger issues.
The fact is that, like Amber, she’s just too tired and is hurting too bad to keep fighting or keep running away. The truth is that neither of those options have done either of them any good and so it’s time to try something new.
Yeah, she’s not really doing a great job at it. I mean, she’s not actually being threatening, but she’s not doing anything to reassure her either.
Like even saying she’s not here to fight.
It seems significant that Amazi-girl has not resurfaced (compared the first confrontation with Blaine*, when Amber rushed down the stairs to put on her mask).
I’m not quite sure what it means, but I’m just a tiny bit optimistic.
Significant, but of the longer term change in their relationship. Amber doesn’t rely on Amazi-Girl any longer.
Compare also the scene where Sal found her and Walky on the roof and Amber rushed down the stairs, trying not to let AG surface. Where she threw away the mask. This time we don’t even see that kind of struggle.
Or when she broke up with Danny. Then AG just took over as soon as she saw Sal. If that was still the relationship, AG would have been in control as soon as Sal approached Ethan and her.
I just want to thank Willis for continuing this story arc for as long as it’s gone rather than switching to other characters, because I don’t think I could handle the anticipation if we ended where Ruth left them.
Of course, now that I’ve said that, tomorrow’s strip will probably start a weeks-long story arc about Galasso or something.
Guys, I have a confession. Not only have I no favourite dinosaur, but I also do not care about them at all. Reading this strip over the years has taught me that I am the only such person in the entire world. I feel . . . so lonely.
I feel like she would probably appreciate your honesty and awareness, which indicates some degree of knowledge of what is and is not a dinosaur. What Dina does not appreciate is people who wrongly claim things that are Not Dinosaurs to be dinosaurs, such as pterosaurs, plesiosaurs, or Dimetrodon (the last one is also a pet peeve of mine since it’s actually more closely related to mammals than to dinosaurs).
Honorable Mentions (not actual dinosaurs)
Pterodactyl
Archaeopteryx (not sure if it counts as a dinosaure or a bird, unless all birds are dinos, in which case I need to reevaluate the first list…)
Plesiosaurus
Dimetrodon
(That said, whether archaeopteryx is a bird or not depends just how loose you want to get with the definition of bird. If you define it as ‘MCR of modern birds and descendants’, no. But there are perfectly valid definitions that do include it.)
I was actually reading up on this a bit earlier! 😀
We haven’t actually seen anyone give Dina an answer that’s an avialan and/or bird (as you mentioned, depending on definition for the latter), so we don’t know for sure how she would respond.
Yeah this chapter has made Amber look awful hasn’t it? Unlike the fight there’s no justification for threatening to stab Sal here, even if Amber doesn’t mean it.
It’s over the top, but: the person she was just fighting is invading her space, she’s too worn down to fight or run and she’s scared. It’s a threat yes, but it’s tied to “You get any closer…”
She’s just trying to get her to stop.
What’s she supposed to say? “Oh hi Sal. Come on in. Nice to see you. Wanna choke me again?”
You’re being intentionally obtuse. Maybe she could have tried “Don’t come any closer.” You know, instead of threatening a repeat performance of the horrible act of violence she already subjected this woman to.
At no point in her encounters with Sal has Amber shown any ability to be rational, so I don’t know why we should expect the emotionally and mentally unstable woman operating in fight or flight mode to say something reasonable here. She’s scared out of her mind, irrationally, yes, but still scared, so she lashes out to protect herself with the one defense she still sees herself as having left.
You keep bringing up this choking thing and I get it, but you keep making it sound like it wasn’t preceded by Amber kicking Sal down the stairs and then in the face among other things. This wasn’t Sal springing out of the shadows to ambush Amber. As unhealthy as it was for both of them it was a fight, not just some attack.
But right now Amber’s justifiably afraid it’s going to start up again and she’s threatening mayhem in hopes of stopping it. Which is a bad approach, but so is confronting her without even trying to say you’re not looking for another fight.
Except Amber automatically assumed Sal was there to fight after Sal has said exactly one word. The name of a dinosaur.
Also has she completely forgotten the fight that JUST happened?! Y’know where it seemed she was asking Sal to kill her or however you choose to interpret the words “end it” and Sal spared her! Amber was there! That just happened! She knows Sal doesn’t want to fight! Sal said it right next to her! Amber is being purposefully confrontational and my only question is….isn’t she tired of this yet?! She knows Sal isn’t the villian here if there really even is one. Don’t threaten to stab a person just for walking into your room!
Like if Sal still wanted to fight she would have kept kicking her ass while she had the upper hand not stopped the fight and then left after saying she was quitting the punching game.
I don’t agree with this. Sal’s been through the same fight Amber has and is acting calm and rational. They should both be held to the same standard. If Amber can’t think clearly here that shows just how much she is truly in need of professional help.
You can’t just swap them in place and ignore context. They’re not each in the exact same situation right now.
Sal knows why Sal came here. Amber doesn’t.
If she’d gone back to her room and Amber showed up there like this, Sal probably would’ve expected Amber was there for another fight too, even if she might not have panicked so easily
If it was the other way around, where Amber had kicked Sal’s ass, then showed up at her room instead while Sal was too beat up to fight back?
Could you really blame her if her initial assumption was that Amber was there for another fight, or if she panicked a bit about not being able to stop her if that’s what she was there for?
Because life likes to provide everyone a chance to royally screw things up.
I’m reminded of the FBI agent who accidentally caused a misfired on a dance floor.
Realistically the guy was a rookie or a subpar officer who was in the process of getting himself fired through poor performance. I think he achieved the firing.
On the other hand everyone can have a massive moment of stupidity.
Might want to consider a different way of vetting people, preferably a way that can’t be circumvented by an esoteric knowledge of dinosaurs or made up ones either
Just saying thats two entries now that Amber probably didn’t want turning up
Yes, deescalate, Sal! I’m glad to see she’s not getting into another fight because neither of them knows when to back down. Realistically, Amber has no way of knowing Sal is there to try to talk things out and is probably feeling cornered. I like the details of their body language bearing this out/reflecting this, Sal’s nonconfrontational, Amber practically hiding behind the furniture.
I enjoy both Sal and Amber as characters, and I don’t think it’s necessary to form camps. They’ve both been dealt tough hands, they’re both admirable in different ways, and they’ve both made mistakes and are deeply wounded. Cheering for one over the other at the moment misses the point: they need to work together to overcome a traumatic incident in their past if either is to move beyond it.
Race is relevant in this arc inasmuch that it’s relevant in any conflict between a black person and a white person. Beyond that, I don’t think it’s on either character’s mind, nor dramatically central to Amber and Sal’s relationship (unlike Sal and Walky’s). The actions of police years ago or in the present are plot nitpicks: the relevant themes are cycles of violence, victimhood, and parental abuse (as strictly regards Amber and Sal).
People are getting hung up on Amber’s threat. Again, that’s not the point of this strip. The point is that Sal took the first step towards reconciliation, saw through the bluff, and is about to have her first real conversation with Amber, not Amazi-Girl. It’s the last panel, not the one before it, that’s important.
There is no way to divorce the issue of race from a white person subjecting a totally innocent black person to a vigilante witch hunt, and Willis hasn’t tried to do so as shown when Amazi-girl confronted Sal at the political rally. Not to mention, part of the reason Sal is especially raw is that while she was ripped away from her life and shipped across the country Amber seems to have faced no legal ramifications for stabbing her and she likely (and probably correctly) attributes this to white privilege.
The issue is there but only as a circumstance of coincidence. Even though you can say white privilege is the reason on why Amber was let go after attacking Sal in a hysterical fit of rage but that’s all that to it and all that it amounts to is headcannon about one portion of this entire conflict. As far as what the ramifications were you can say Amber didn’t suffer any legal consequences for it, but it would be pretty inaccurate just to say there wasn’t any serious Fallout because of what happened.
As for the stalking yeah that was a horrible action to take where she was pretty much just waiting around for a reason to jump her, but she soon saw that she was wrong about Sal after she jumped in to back her up the first time they teamed up, even despite everything. She realised she was wrong and apologized for it, maybe it wasn’t a good enough one and maybe she needs to apologize again to make it clear this time probably as Amber. But still she did apologize for the stalking and then stopped. Then things were sort of good between them up until this chapter where Amber got into a fight with Sal that she did not start.
Matter of fact I remember people in the comment section saying that Amber has been horrible to Sal the past arc, though I find that confusing since the two of them we’re cool with each other up until that one fight. I find myself defending Amber mostly through out this because it seems like others only want to villainize her. Say what you want about the stabbing, uncalled for as it was but the Fate the two of them faced for the hole gas station incident was out of their control but despite not facing legal issues probably because police officers sweeping it under the rug our the Walkington parents not pressing charges, Amber made it her lives mission to hate herself for what she did which is obvious considering she’s not really proud of her stabbing record. Also even though you can bring up the stalking to list the number of offenses Amber has against Sal, it’s still unreasonable to hold that against her because they reconciled on that; why would they team up more than ones that they didn’t. And makes no sense to act like the recent fight was a one sided attack from Amber when she wasn’t the one who went looking for Sal nor was she attending to start anything.
There is a major flaw in this in that Amber and Amazi-girl are two distinct personalities. I’m still having trouble deciding where the line is if there even is one, but Amazi-girl stalked Sal and apologized for it, not Amber.
Amber has done nothing but run from Sal and play her in Mario Kart before this fight. Sal was cool with Amazi-girl under false pretense not knowing she was actually the girl who stabbed her’s alternate identity. Sal was indifferent to Amber until she recognized who she was. Amber immediately profiled Sal as a threat much like she’s doing right now with even less provocation than the what initiated the fight.
Amber technically did not start the fight. That is correct and Sal is at fault. You could even argue she deserves all the fallout for it if it comes to that.
Still I hold after everything that happened mere minutes ago that Amber is being unfairly defensive and scared here. Completely out of line to threaten Sal here especially with stabbing just to add salt to that literal wound.
But Amber is also kind of crazy. That’s not at all a justification but it does add some context to her actions here.
Respectfully, I totally disagree with your take on the story.
Like I said, the issue of race will always be there in any conflict between a black person and a white person. But to claim it’s a theme between Sal and Amber is, in my opinion, way off base. Certainly, racial discrimination is a theme between Sal and Walky, Sal and her parents, and Sal and society (which is where the rally scene fits in), but I really don’t think it applies between Sal and Amber.
We also have different opinions on what constitutes “totally innocent.” Both parties are culpable. Both parties have justifications, and both are trapped in a cycle of violence. And more than anything, this arc represents the dam breaking, the boiling over of tension that’s been there since the beginning–hopefully, it also represents the start of a healing process. If not, we’re left endlessly debating what’s worse: parents who send you away, or a parent who terrorizes you. Getting stabbed, or being mugged. They’re pointless questions, honestly, and not relevant to the moral of story.
But I get it: you’ve made 18 posts today, 16 of which have attacked Amber in some form or other. You’re on Team Sal. Far be it from me to try to change your mind, but I think your interpretation, as newllend put it, is mostly headcanon that misses the mark.
I’d argue white privilege is a theme in Amber and Sal’s story in that people tend to assume better of Amber or side with her (for example – she wasn’t charged during the robbery, the rally siding with her, the total ignorance AG has about how a vigilante stalking a black woman who hasn’t done anything to warrant it at the time – heck, it’s been pointed out, Sal would be less likely to get away with threatening Amber than vice versa) and that does matter in how they interact and their perceptions of each other. As for ‘totally innocent’ I believe Emily is referring to the instances where AG was stalking Sal. The second time she hadn’t done anything and the first time, while she was drinking underage, it was such a petty thing that it wasn’t anywhere close to warranting AG’s behaviour as opposed to Emily saying Sal hadn’t done anything wrong at all.
I definitely see where you’re coming from and appreciate your arguments, BBCC. However, I feel as though the points you provided either tie into separate arcs (the rally scene being an example of Sal vs. society, rather than Sal vs. Amber/Amazi-Girl, for instance), or they’re things that we’re inclined to read into as the audience that wouldn’t necessarily change based on the race of the characters (Amazi-Girl stalking Sal).
White privilege is going to be a part of any social interaction between a white person and a black person, period, friendly or not. But I think it’s role as a driving force here is severely undermined by the fact that Amber has, indeed, suffered in comparable yet different ways to Sal, and that Sal and Amber have each had a role in enabling the other’s bad behavior. Compare this to Walky, who had a charmed upbringing and was largely oblivious of Sal’s resentment until college. When you’ve got such a clear example of a theme as this already, I feel it’s unlikely to pop up again in such a weaker form intentionally.
Just my thoughts, though, and I can understand how others might disagree. Incidentally, apologies to Emily if I misconstrued their post!
That’s not the way things work though. AG, whether she likes it or not, is acting as a law enforcement person and harassing a black person who was not doing anything wrong (or, if you want to be really technical about the drinking, something so mild it’s absolutely making a mountain out of a molehill to be harassing her over). That feeds into white supremacist structures whether AG intends it or not. The impact of actions matters as well as intentions. Cops of colour enforce those structures too even as they also suffer from white supremacy. AG not doing so intentionally doesn’t change it happening.
As you said, white privilege is part of their interactions whether they become friendly or not. That theme’s going to come up with Sal in different areas and in different intensities because it’s part of the background radiation of her life, and that absolutely includes her interactions with AG. If AG’s actions weren’t connected with white privilege at all, there’s no reason for her to make the connection at the rally. That wasn’t just AG watching a random crowd spewing racially charged dogwhistles at Sal, they were doing so WHILE CHEERING AG, A WHITE GIRL PRESENTING HERSELF AS LAW ENFORCEMENT, on, with absolutely no context whatsoever. That’s part of what sparks her realization Sal hadn’t actually done anything wrong that night. Playing that as just Sal vs society ignores AG’s own very important role in that situation. Besides, the points of literary themes isn’t that they only pop up in one situation ever. They pop up throughout a character’s arc and the plot structure, again to varying intensities and strengths.
White privilege also doesn’t mean Amber can’t have suffered in comparable ways or that they can’t feed into each other’s issues. What it does mean is, for example, Amber’s less likely to be punished for threatening Sal than Sal would be if she threatened Amber. It means societal structures and bystanders are more likely to support Amber. And yeah, it means AG can get away with things Sal should be wary of (because a black woman with a record would, on general average, have a much rougher time of it with cops than a white lady would).
I have a few comments on your lower comment as well, but I’m going to address those here if that’s okay because they are related.
1) Yes, we do know Amber wasn’t charged and didn’t face legal sanction. Ethan mentioned that those who knew her wanted her in therapy, but her dad refused and opted for self defence classes. That was around the time the divorce finalized and Stacey seems to have filed not long after Blaine hit her. We also know Amber doesn’t have a record. Sal does though (“Ah’m way too smart to be the black kid with a record caught in some school shooting car chase deal”). We also know that she was given a choice between the boarding school or juvie, which suggests the court had some involvement in that decision. My current guess (and it is purely a guess) is that the Walkerton’s leveraged the police officer’s incompetence into some sort of deal – we don’t sue the police department for letting a clearly traumatized girl grab the knife and permanently disable our daughter, and our daughter gets the option of boarding school instead of automatic juvie (which is both more serious on a record and more embarrassing to her parents – talk about ‘making us look like bad parents’, eh, Linda?)
Amber does indeed knock down the presumption that she was some sheltered, over adored child, but she can’t refute Sal’s actual point – that Amber actually DID do the thing Sal threatened to do but was not sanctioned (legally or parentally – although, yes, Blaine took out the smack to his ego on her mother). Amber being white is almost certainly part of that because I can almost guarantee had she been black or hispanic that she would have been arrested. No, it’s probably not conscious and there were in fact some serious circumstances to think of, but it is true that if all else were the same except Amber’s race, her odds of getting arrested go up dramatically. That’s not something Amber can refute and it’s what Sal was essentially saying.
BBCC, you provide some interesting points to consider. Thank you for refreshing my mind on some of plot details–I honestly couldn’t remember! (Also apologies for my janky post layout.)
It’s a bit too late for me to hash out a long reply, but I can certainly appreciate where you’re coming from. Race would, of course, always be a background issue for Sal, no matter the situation. And Willis is too good a storyteller to let things happen by accident.
I’m still not sure if the rally scene represents Amazi-Girl confronting white privilege or whether it’s simply a moment that instills some empathy in her for Sal, as she sees how the world treats and has shaped her “villain.” Witnessing what Sal experiences daily helps her to get past that single memory of her.
I think to truly be convinced that race were a major theme between the two characters, it would have to be demonstrated that if you changed Amber and Sal’s races, it would have a tangible impact on what HAPPENS in the story. For instance, there’s no religious tension between Sarah and Raidah, despite the fact the two hate each other’s guts. But if Sarah were Mary? Without changing a single text bubble, the natural inclination would be to read Islamaphobia into it, even though it’s not conveyed by what the characters say or do (bad example, since fundamentalism is a choice, but it’s late, so, eh). Point is, racial discrimination will ALWAYS be there for Sal, but honestly? It feels a bit reductive here. (Same goes for her relationship with Jason for that matter. Sure, you could read colonialism into it, his being a white British man of authority, but if you think that FOR her, without her first bringing it up, doesn’t it strip her of some agency?)
That’s all for tonight! Thank you for the conversation!
I wouldn’t say the rally is AG confronting white privilege so much as her noticing it and realizing that the crowd does indeed automatically side towards her. It’s also her realizing her own role in it. I still feel that AG merely noticing how other people treat Sal minimizes her own role in it. She’s not some passive uninvolved observer there. She’s actively participating as the law enforcement targeting a specific black person who hasn’t done anything at that point. That’s what I mean about impact mattering. AG’s intent is to settle a score specifically with Sal, but her action’s impact furthers white supremacy, and with it white privilege. Law enforcement specifically targeting people of colour and particularly black, hispanic, and indigenous people always does this. It doesn’t matter if the officer is themselves black, hispanic or indigenous because their impact still furthers the systematic aspects that target PoC over white people, which furthers systemic racism.
I’d also say that, just because it is a theme in Sal’s arc, it would almost certainly come up with Amber, because Amber (and AG) are a major part of her arc. That doesn’t necessarily mean it will be a MAJOR theme between them, but it does mean it’s there.
And changing the character does change the context. Sarah is a poor black woman who, while not having any obvious religious bent, has never been particularly hateful towards anybody being religious (other than approaching with her general snark when Joyce says or does something messed up). Mary, on the other hand, is a white, fundamentalist Christian (which has plenty of messed up history towards Muslims) and a particularly nasty, bigoted one at that. Those aspects of the characters colour and inform their interactions with each other. So yeah, when they’re interacting with Raidah, a well off south Asian Muslim, it’d be more likely to read in islamophobia from Mary than Sarah, because Mary’s the one coming from the privileged and likely islamophobic background.
Also, if we want to talk about characters and how things would be different if they swapped, Mary would almost CERTAINLY go straight for the cutthroat islamophobic stuff because that’s who Mary is. She goes for below the belt and tries to control people that way (and with blackmail). She wouldn’t have reported Dana for drug use because, despite her claiming to be a stickler for rules and morality, Mary always goes for blackmail and control over rules. She’d have used Dana’s drug problem to try to get her to do what she wanted and probably caused Dana to spiral further until she NEEDED to be removed from the school for her own health (moreso than in original timeline). Raidah would be absolutely right about Mary not having Dana’s interests at heart and Mary would immediately go on the blame game – You knew Dana was grieving and using drugs. Why didn’t you help her? Why did you leave her alone? Her breakdown’s YOUR fault, Raidah. And if Raidah tried to bully Mary the way she did Sarah, Mary’d fight fire with fire. The point is, Mary and Raidah’s feud would be a lot more ugly and Mary’d be a lot more active in it than Sarah.
As for Sal and Amber – well, for one, if Amber were the black girl, again, I guarantee that she would’ve been arrested for stabbing Sal, robbery or no. That’s assuming the robbery even happens, though, which it may not have because if Sal were white, Linda would be much less of a shithead to her. Even if she still takes the money and the robbery still happens, the store operator doesn’t tell her, basically, ‘Oh, kid, RUN. Those cops aren’t going to see YOU as a kid.’ So maybe Sal postures more and doesn’t take Ethan hostage immediately to make herself seem a bigger threat. The robbery goes down differently. And a black AG is an AG that’s far likelier to be branded ‘dangerous vigilante’ over ‘cool superhero’. The police are looking for her much sooner and she has a very good chance of being threatened by them when she gets involved in the Toedad incident. Assuming she makes it to the rally, AG’s probably seen as a threat for harassing white Sal and the police are probably called immediately. And sure, fine, a lot of this is speculation, but as you’ve said, Willis is a good enough and aware enough writer to know that if Amber were black, things would be very different for her dealing with the robbery and fallout. Hell, even if Amber and Sal were both black, that still wouldn’t change her enforcing white supremacist structures because she’s still (presenting as) law enforcement selectively enforcing on Sal, another black woman, which reinforces white privilege at the same time.
And while the characters are great, they’re not omnipotent. We can notice crappy things before characters do or even things they don’t notice. For instance, several of us were pointing out Joyce’s boundary issues long before it was first brought to Joyce’s attention. Plenty of us smelled a rat with John before Joyce snapped at him. Danny hasn’t noticed how crappy his parents treat him, but many of the readers have. Heck, some readers called the Walkertons racism long before Sal screamed it in Walky’s face. I don’t think Sal needs to call things out for us to notice them.
Also,it’s funny you bring up Jason – nobody brought up colonialism, but he did spew several racial dogwhistles at Sal during her tutoring session, mostly in his suggestions of her sex life (saying she could find herself ‘thugs and hoodlums’ – oh, hey, kinda like what the guys at the rally were saying, or suggesting she was having sex with gang members.) And yeah, I doubt that’s conscious on Jason’s part and a lot of that is the association of ‘bikers = gangs’ (and lord knows society’s idea of what a gang is is loaded with racist ideas all over the place) but again, impact matters as well as intention.
Also, do we know anything about the police actually handled the stabbing? I feel like their presence was mostly a plot necessity–are we sure Amber wasn’t slapped with mandatory therapy sessions or that Sal’s banishment wasn’t entirely her parents’ doing?
Finally, I feel like, during the fistfight, the comic itself may have rejected the idea of race motivating the characters. Read the strip from the 19th–Sal comes very close to accusing Amber using everything BUT the words “white privilege.” The following strip, on the 20th, Amber spends the entire time knocking Sal’s presumptions down, both physically and figuratively.
I might even go so far as to say that learning about each other’s childhoods (that Sal was banished by a bigoted mother, that Amber was tormented by a sadistic father, and that neither is the neatly-compartmentalized cutout the other believed them to be) might be a major factor in the two finding a middle ground.
I know this is responding late, but I’ve been having thoughts on the way the legal fallout from the convienience store incident played out for both of them for much of this storyline, so I hope it’s all right for me to jump in and elaborate a bit here.
In my understanding of the situation, after the incident, there was some push to get Amber into therapy as a result (whether this was Stacy, the court system, other sources, or some combination of the above is not completely clear), but any legal force behind it was weak enough to be overruled by Blaine in favour of self-defence classes. There is no evidence to indicate Amber faced charges for stabbing Sal, much less was convicted.
Sal, on the other hand, was taken into custody and did face charges, likely for both that incident and the previous robbery, since both are mentioned when Sal’s past comes up in earlier strips (I’m thinking specifically of a time when Walky and Billie are discussing Sal in Book 1), and some more recent comments of Sal’s seem to hint at the main perpetrators of the first robbery as having pinned more of the blame on her. Amber/Amazigirl* mentions Sal having a record (and there is nothing that I believe contradicts this, though I do not consider Amber’s knowledge necessarily accurate) in their interaction immediately after the car chase, which would indicate a conviction of some sort. There is no evidence that she spent time in an official state-run juvenile corrections facility; her being sent to the boarding school is the main consequence mentioned in-comic. (I don’t doubt that the boarding school likely markets itself to ‘parents struggling with ‘rebellious teens’’ and may in fact be considered an approved diversion program(? unsure of correct term) by the courts.). She likely also was placed in some sort of court mandated therapy, though her statements indicating a history of forced therapy experiences could hypothetically come from elsewhere (such as her parents deciding unilaterally to place her in therapy after Marcie’s injury).
My personal theory is that a deal was struck involving both of their cases. The likely result is that Sal plead guilty to substantially reduced charges with the sentence essentially removed or boarding school as the court-sanctioned placement (in the first case, boarding school would have been entirely a move by her parents). No trial also eliminates the potential need for Amber to take the stand (her mental state at that point is in no way healthy enough for it and her attack on Sal would likely be used against her testimony by the defense – and I suspect the Walkertons would have got Sal a high-powered lawyer …more as a matter of family honour than any care towards Sal). In return the charges against Amber are dropped entirely. I even think the initial deal may have involved court-ordered therapy for Amber, but Blaine pulled strings to get the self-defence classes he wanted approved as a substitution after it was agreed to.
The legal outcomes here are still pretty massively disproportionate, which is probably in large part, if not wholly, due to race.
Loading ...
“NOW who’s hard-headed geddit Pachycephalosaurus yuk yuk”
now I have emo girl from Elf Only Inn in my head
“STAB STAB STAB!”
I miss that comic.
Damn you for reminding me of that comic. Now I’m sad.
gosh dangit
“Ah mean, there’s a lot o’ prehistoric BUGS ah lahk, but pachycephalosaurus is the best DINOSAUR. Ah lahk ‘is helmet.”
Wow! Way to go from 11 to 100 in less than a second Ambs!!!!!!
In her defense, she has no idea *why* Sal’s here. Hoping the last panel will make it clear that Sal comes in peace.
I don’t think Sal has any idea why she’s here either. Gotta poke that bear? (The bear being their intertwined tragic backstories, not Amber.)
Honestly though, very angry, brown hair, presumed love of honey and berries. Amber’s pretty much a bear.
no, she know Amber won’t stab her because she always played “fair”. Probably there to make some sort of peace ?
Or: Sal’s not restrained. No authority figures present. Sal figures Amber’s not likely to attack.
Interpreted as binary numbers, that’s only adding 1!
You know what they say.
There are 10 kinds of people:
– those who understand binary
– those who understand ternary
– those who understand quartal
– those who understand quintal
– those who understand sextal
– those who understand septal
– those who understand octal
…
Sal’s actually trying to calm down a big mess by just talking it out rationally.
I don’t just want more of this in DoA, or in webcomics, but in all media in general
This is… Minutes after she was choking her out.
Gasp! She’s DISOBEYING Ruth!
Sal? Disobeying an authority figure? Say it isn’t so!
It must be a day that ends in “y”
She could be approaching it from a “now that we got that out of our systems…” mindset.
Yeah, That’s basically what I’ve been suggesting this might play out like…
(Sigh… I Love Sal!) 🙂
Or just in life. I’d settle for that in life.
Sal’s also out of fight and flight
Yeah, but in a different way. She decided it. Amber is just exhausted.
Sal wants to apologise
That’s my reading. So probably not true. 🙁
I am a PALEONTOLOGIST
That’s who I am, that’s who I am, that’s who I am…
I like diggin in the dirt with just a pick and brush
And seive, don’t forget the seive!
Couldn’t Amber literally get expelled for this
NGL I’m getting strong white privilege vibes off her right now
Yes, she could. That’s literally what Ruth was talking about a couple strips ago. Ruth’s covered for them both, but it was a one-time thing. However, Amber looks like she’s having a panic attack, so she’s not exactly thinking things through right now.
I meant expelled for threatening to stab a fellow student, not for getting in a fight with her
Sal is invading Aqmber’s personal space and she could make a serious case she’s in fear for her life. In that situation, threats are not illegal. What SAL is doing (disobeying a direct order from an RA, seeking out opponent in a fight…) It seems awful to suggest Amber, who is A), having a panic attack, B), having her expectation of privacy and safety in her dorm room strongly violated is exhibiting White Privelige. You might claim Sal has a right to be there since Dina let her in, but that exactly mirrors the situation with Blaine!
First of all, ‘in fear for her life’ is often a seriously BS standard that is used particularly to excuse violence against PoC, especially black and Hispanic people (and, in Canada, Indigenous people). Lethal force being used against you or a third party justifies using lethal force in defence, but this vaguely defined ‘Oh, they SCARED me’ schtick is bullshit. It’s one of the things I hate most about the American criminal justice system.
The white privilege isn’t in the reason Amber’s freaking out Sal’s there, it’s in the fact that Amber is more likely to get away with threatening to hurt Sal than Sal would be vice versa.
I’d also say invaded is a deal strong here. Sure, Dina should have asked if Amber wanted Sal to come in, but she did let her in. And while they’re both people Amber wouldn’t want in her room that Dina let in, that’s as far as the similarities between Sal and Blaine go.
Theoretically, absent everything else.
In practice, if anyone tries to expel her for this, the fight comes out and they both get booted. (And then Amazi-Girl gets revealed and Amber likely winds up in jail.)
You can’t treat the threat in isolation, because it’s all tied together. Amber doesn’t routinely threaten people with stabbing.
^^^ like, my first impulse is to say, “obviously, there’s more at play here” but that’s just kinda…like…fucked up to say. I really am uncomfortable with how much Amber just seems completely unaware of the racial dynamics that are being acted out here as a white girl, her own trauma being legitimate or no.
She is aware of the racial dynamic, which is what got her to back off when they had their encounter at a rally. Amazi-Girl got very uncomfortable with the crowd’s desire for her to beat up the “thug’ Sal.
I don’t think it’s even remotely relevant in this encounter, though, to be frank. Sal was told to leave Amber be, and Amber doesn’t *know* Sal is here in peace because she’s not afforded the view the readers get. For all she knows, Sal’s here to finish the job.
Race isn’t relevant to this threat, their fight is.
Sal’s demeanor here really doesn’t scream ‘coming to finish you off’. She seems so… I’m not sure what’s the right word. Weary? Unguarded? Maybe even vulnerable? Of course, Amber would have to be in a rational state of mind to notice that, which I’m guessing she’s not.
The point here isn’t ‘Amber is mad at Sal because Sal’s black’. The point here is ‘Amber would be more likely to get away with stabbing Sal than vice versa and thus this is an example of white privilege, albeit an ignorant one (in the ‘lacking awareness’ sense)’.
Black people are more likely to be convicted than white people for the same crime and black victims are less likely to get their attackers brought to justice than white victims.
The thing about being black in America is that race is kinda always relevant.
yeah
I would agree with you, except I think she’s trying to self-destruct.
Not to say that Amber hasn’t been saved a lot in her life so far by white privilege.
Yeah I can’t imagine Sal getting away with threatening to stab someone :/ What Amber just did there is a huge no-no. All I had was a dude yell “I’m going to murder you!” and the cops got involved.
I think Amber is on a power trip, as she has been this whole comic really. She likes feeling in control and powerful, and she has a deathly fear of Sal because she’s the one person who makes her not feel in control.
She’s not on a power trip or at least I wouldn’t call it that. Nep is correct. Amber is falling apart and embracing the worst parts of herself. Trying to be her dad!
Not really my takeaway. The times she has been like Blaine have been more along the lines of her terrifying behavior towards Danny before their breakup, and her recognizing she was talking to him the same way Blaine talked about her mom.
Blaine isn’t even remotely self-destructive, at least not in the sense of inviting consequences. He just smugly things he’s above it all.
I mean like Blaine in that he is clearly a man who prefers to solve things through violence. She thinks she’s just like him and has given in to that as evidenced by this off putting strip that has hard confirmed Blaine has force powers of projection!
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/04-the-do-list/proved/
The self destruction is just a side effect.
I don’t think this is a power trip. She JUST lost a pretty vicious fight with Sal only minutes ago, and suddenly Sal showed up at her room. Just look at Amber’s face in panel 4. She’s afraid Sal came to finish what they’d started and she’s panicking
She’s cornered, and she’s too exhausted to fight back or to run if Sal attacks her again, so she’s desperate and trying to scare Sal away or at least scare her into backing down.
It’s still shitty to threaten her like that of course, but if she was on a power trip I’d expect her to be stammering a bit less
Exactly. And even her threat is a warning to not come closer, not anything more aggressive. She’s not saying she’s going to stab Sal or that she wants to. She’s not demanding anything except that Sal not come close enough to be more of a threat.
Sal might get away with it if Amber literally barged into her room mere minutes after a vicious fight. Both Sal and Amber have a right to expectation of privacy and safety in their dorm rooms, and by violating that after being explicitly ordered not to, it would be difficult to argue the invader was in the right. We might suspect Sal has realized that, but Amber is a traumatized wreck with no such knowledge.
This whole Thing between them has given me that vibe
It was definitely a factor in how Amber DIDN’T face major legal repercussions or at minimum mandated therapy for stabbing Sal.
Now… that would require Sal reporting it, and I doubt Ruth’ll be thrilled to hear Sal went to talk with Amber more after that fight. They really shouldn’t be together unsupervised (and Dina is neither an experienced mediator nor someone who could physically step in and stop a fight should it reignite.)
In general Amber has a lot of things that, if discovered, would probably get her expelled. (AG and changing Walky’s grades chief among them.) What’s really keeping her going there is luck and authorial guiding hand.
There were a lot of factors: Amber is a minor, Amber was a victim of a crime, and it might have been a condition for letting Sal off the hook with her parents making a deal.
This storyline especially has got me wondering if there was some double deal done involving both of them.
Amber isn’t thinking straight at all. White privilege is based on an assumption that the actor thinks they can get away with what they’re doing. Amber doesn’t care. She’s still seeing Sal as the robber she’s used as a mental crutch for years.
White privilege doesn’t need to be conscious to benefit a person, though I agree Amber’s not thinking in terms of ‘I’m white, I can get away with it’.
“White privilege doesn’t need to be conscious to benefit a person…”
Very much so. It’s not particularly relevant to the current comic, but I recently had that specific fact driven home to me when a coworker and friend gave me a ride home from work. I invited him in, and he declined citing concerns of being stopped for DWB if he left after dark (it was then sunset), which has apparently previously happened to him in my neighborhood when visiting other friends in the area. That was a concern I had never had cause to even stop and consider happening here for a lot of reasons.
As BBCC suggests, part of white privilege is the fact that you don’t have to think about certain things. Example: when you come across a crime, you don’t have to decide between calling the police or not getting involved. White privilege is in that lack of decision: you call the police without even realizing that a black person might get blamed.
So yeah, Amber has white privilege. Because she’s white. That’s the entire calculus. Whether or not it’s relevant is a whole other thing, and I’d agree that it really isn’t. It doesn’t get relevant until you factor in some third party who’d differentiate them based on race.
Well, the OP is based on the idea Amber’d have an easier time getting away with stabbing Sal (or at least getting a lighter sentence) than vice versa. Presumably whoever’s in charge of that decision would be the third party there.
I actually would think twice before calling the police, as a white person. Getting involved is a hassle, and could escalate the situation. It does depend on the specifics though.
The point being, generalisations like that are risky, because all it takes is one white person who does / would / is whatever example to disprove the argument. It doesn’t disprove privilege, but some people will act like it does.
Yeah but your reason wouldn’t be “But will they shoot/arrest me when they get here” because white people just don’t face that kind of profiling. And also no, an anecdotal outlier does not disprove a general rule. An albino crow doesn’t disprove the fact that crows are generally black.
As someone who’s had that kind of problem with PTSD before, definitely not thinking straight, but I wouldn’t presume the presence or lack of consequences are relevant to her right now? Like, the actual lack of consequences are white privilege, but she may be feeling threatened enough that she’d do it even if she knew it meant Go Directly To Jail.
Then again, Sal might be right and she might just be talking shit.
Amber maybe could get expelled for this?
They could certainly both be expelled for the fight, so I’m not sure how much white privilege really plays into this.
And let’s be fair here, Sal was choking her a few strips back, the RA cut them a break and told them to stay away from each other. Now here Sal is, barging in on Amber. Is it any wonder Amber thinks she’s coming back to start up again?
We know she isn’t, but Amber doesn’t know anything about the revelations Sal’s had.
A bluff in an empty threat and she called that out immediately.
Yes, but not really in the way that sounds.
A bluff because she’s panicking and doesn’t have the energy for another fight. An empty threat because she wouldn’t actually do it, even if she could. And Sal knows that.
All we are saying
Is Give Peace a Chance!…
I would have gone with NIN “Closer”, but, OK.
While I could see that, the lyrical meaning of the song is after all somewhat fitting of Amber’s & AG’s relationship(s) with Sal from their POV, Closer is, for me, only really fitting to use in a scene involving a romantic/sexual relationship with those types of elements which they certainly don’t have at this point.
A solid choice of dino. I approve, Sal.
Hard heads respect hard heads.
Jokes aside, Sal’s definitely getting more wise.
Thick-head jokes aside, this is a poor choice of security model on Dina’s part. Easily exploitable, as Walky and Sal have already discovered.
Really the only one it might actually keep out on a consistent basis is Joyce.
Maybe that was the plan all along.
Also Mary, who no doubt thinks about dinosaurs the same way as Joyce did (or still does?)
I dunno, it worked with Ethan.
Whoa whoa Sal had her natural history museum t-shirt in her flashbacks. I believe Sal genuinely likes dinosaurs. She even said it in italics, which is why Dina let her in. She could hear it.
I think it is a good way for checking if the person is going to be respectful though!
And to top it off, she chose a less famous one that is tough to not respect the choice of due to its uniqueness. It’d one thing to say “tyrannosaurus rex” or “velociraptor” or even “triceratops” but she chose that one.
That’s someone who knows a few dinosaurs, that’s someone who paid attention in school or at the museum.
Dina would never let me in–I’d default answer to one of the Dinobots.
I’d say “Podargus strigoides‘, and then we’d have an argument about cladistics.
Aside from not naming a dinosaur, is there a wrong answer? Does Dina consider people who answer with, say, “allosaurus” to be untrustworthy?
I’m sure if someone chose that one she wouldn’t have a problem with it, but one of the more famous ones or one of the pterosaurs she would…Ethan already got on the wrong side of her for picking a pterosaur and not a dinosaur
I still want to know how she’d react to someone naming a bird.
That’s a very good question… Dina seems to be fascinated with the ancient examples of dinosaur, but Aves is within Dinosauria, so would she readily accept the answer or further clarify to “non-avian dinosaur”?
Dina becomes impatient with people who only know the dinosaurs that were mentioned in Jurassic Park.
They have matching nightcaps! o/
Sal knows this because she is like Doomsday. She got stabbed once before, so now she’s immune to it.
It’s likely she’s never weathered a velociraptor attack though, so Amber’s got an ace in the hole.
These girls should focus on their studies
Of what?
Well, even with Danny’s help, Sal’s math scores could use some work.
Hey, maybe she could ask Amber for some help with that!
Anatomy.
JOURNALISM.
Theater…
… okay, I looked at the first panel and I honestly did thought that Fuckface started talking, just as I predicted…
I’m sure Fuckface and Dina would get along
…just as you predicted ? *raises an eyebrow*
Two strips before this one 🙂
Pachycephalosaurus is a good one. The lizardfolk in the Pathfinder game I’m running use pachys for pack animals. Pach animals.
I mostly remembered the one that headbutted a jeep in Jurrasic Park 2. Good times
I was surprised Sal knew the trick to deal with Dina. Did her bro hint her in ?
Dina told her, just now. What’s surprising is that Sal knew enough about dinosaurs off the top of her head to have a non-standard favorite. Or maybe it isn’t, it’s already been established that Sal has some hidden depths.
There is only one correct answer for favorite dinosaur, and that is the *chicken*. Its flesh and eggs provide humans valuable nutrients and proteins and is so very very delicious.
Counterpoint: Common raven. Non-avian dinosaurs are cool and all, but having one we can actually study the behavior and intelligence of, and having it be arguably the most intelligent non-primate on the planet? Definite winner.
Sal is just going to ignore all threats and provocations. Because, Amber’s “nature” is to get the other one to start the fight.
And it’s Sal’s nature to start them. If she doesn’t start the circle of violence once again, it won’t come back to bite her
Exactly.
Sal is making the first provocation here though. Barging into Amber’s room maybe hours after the fight and after the RA sent them to their rooms. It’s not real surprising Amber feels threatened.
And while Sal isn’t actually being aggressive, other than coming there in the first place, she’s not actually being conciliatory either. Which she really needs to be under the circumstances, since she doesn’t want another confrontation.
Barging feels a bit strong when Dina let her in the room. Other than that, I agree. Her being around at all is a bad idea right now and that threat of stabbing, while not okay, should reaaaallly be a ‘not now’ indicator. And yeah, opening with a snarky comment about how close you two live to each other and how she’s now dating your brother was not the best move either.
Like I said, I’d LIKE this to go well, but under the circumstances, I’ll settle for ‘no stabby’.
Perhaps a little strong, but when she’s here to talk to Amber “Your roommate said it was okay” isn’t really the best approach.
And the threat of stabbing isn’t okay, but isn’t even a “not now”, it’s tied to a “don’t get any closer” and is clearly because she feels threatened. Partly because she’s irrationally triggered by Sal and partly because Sal was choking her not long ago.
I mean Amber was being JUST as violent to Sal if not more so. Yes IRL choke holds are a dangerous and not great way of ending a fight, but many of the things Amber did to Sal could also have killed her.
Also Sal still didn’t barge in. She knocked and was granted access after basically giving a password, it’s not her fault that Dina answered the door instead of Amber, and she couldn’t have known Amber wasn’t okay with her being let in until she was close enough to Amber to get a reaction — which Sal has responded to by de-escalating.
Your phrasing continues to be notably unfair to Sal, partly in a way that’s just…… endemic to reading a story the way we all are.
Going strip by strip and hyperanalyzing every single line of dialogue is inherently unforgiving of even a milisecond’s bad judgment, or rudeness, and I can’t help but wonder how different all of us would feel about this comic if we were reading a month’s worth of strips at a time instead of this.
And yet so many are doing the same thing to Amber. I do think Sal’s trying to do a good thing here, but I think she’s not doing so great on the execution.
I’m just emphasizing that Amber’s not being that unreasonable here.
The fight was not at all one-sided as you say, but again, from Amber’s point of view …
Sal should absolutely know Amber’s not going to be happy to see her. They just got out of a serious fight. Not a good time to drop in unexpectedly and not even start by explaining why you’re there and make sure it’s clear you’re not here to start trouble up again.
She’s probably going to do that in the next five seconds, is my point. This is what I mean by hyperanalyzing every line of dialogue. You are repeatedly lambasting Sal for not immediately waving a big white flag over her head, for instead starting this conversation in a flawed, human way, because of her own baggage.
(Also “Amber’s not going to be happy to see her” is not actually mutually exclusive with my comment hat Sal had no way of knowing Amber wasn’t okay with her being let in. Sal is also not happy to see Amber, but is ready to try and talk. I’d argue that you and I don’t know how much time has passed here, either — Sal could have spent a while ruminating over what Amber said before coming to the conclusion that she did. This isn’t necessarily immediately after the fight: it’s the same evening, but could be hours later.)
Anyway, I’m not anti-Amber. I’m on both girls’ sides. But I don’t see Sal’s approach as being an order of magnitude worse than Amber’s reception; I don’t see Amber as a victim of Sal’s aggression here. I see Sal doing her best under the circumstances, and Amber reacting badly so far, and Sal refusing to let that bad reaction make this into a bad situation. I expect in the next strip that Amber will relax a little, and I will give tem both props for that.
But nothing about Sal’s approach here… disappoints me. Yes, in a perfect universe, where Sal doesn’t have her own emotional baggage from the fight, she could have picked a better opener with Amber. And yes, in that perfect universe, Sal would probably have given it a week or more before coming back. But I’m not ready to criticize her for being less than perfect, especially in — again — a five-second increment.
I don’t think it’s hyperanalyzing every line to criticize the opening of an encounter like this. Setting the tone for this kind of conversation is crucial . Screwing that up makes everything after it harder. It’s also the part you’ve got time to think about before you even knock on the door. Everything after is more improvised and harder to get right.
(Now if you were to accuse me of hyperanalyzing some of the lines in the fight, I could cop to that.)_
I don’t really see it as “Amber as a victim of Sal’s aggression”, but I can easily see how Amber sees this as threatening. Even a hypothetical Amber who didn’t have barely controlled traumatic reactions to Sal would be justified to feel threatened here. And that’s at least partly because Sal isn’t doing anything to defuse that – yet. Hopefully she will, but it’s going to be a lot harder than if she opened with something other than snarky jabs about keeping enemies close.
And yeah, this is in character for Sal, even without the immediate emotional baggage. She’s bad at this. Witness her trying to “befriend” Malaya and calling her a cumstain when she’s moments late. It’s a known character flaw. Manifesting at a really bad time.
a.) I’m not “accusing” you of hyperanalyzing every line. I said we all do that, and it’s just a natural part of reading this comic one strip at a time.
b.) I strongly disagree that Sal isn’t doing anything to defuse this. I think “No, you won’t” is very much an effort at defusing, as is not rising to Amber’s anxious bait.
c.) I don’t think Sal wasn’t actually trying to befriend Malaya. She was doing the absolute bare minimum in an effort to repair things with Marcie. Here, Sal is making an actual effort.
d.) I’d imagine Sal didn’t really rehearse this at all because I don’t see her as being someone who rehearses things like this even when she cares about them? But if she had, whatever opener she had intended would have been derailed by Dina being the one to answer the door and demanding a favorite dinosaur. What we get instead is… deadpan.
I can get how Amber would interpret this as threatening but I disagree that it’s a reasonable response to the stimuli. (Which I think is implied when you say that a hypothetical Amber without preexisting trauma would be justified in feeling threatened right now.)
To me barging in sounds like she forced her way into the room uninvited, rather than being let in by her roommate. Yeah, Dina shouldn’t have let her in since she was there to see Amber, not without asking Amber first, but I still feel ‘barged in’ is a strong way to put it.
And yeah, the fact she’s still this riled up because of the fight should have been SAL’S indicator this is not a good time is what I meant, not that Amber’s trying to convey ‘not now’.
It’s intentionally strong. Maybe too much so.
It may even be a good time, but a bad approach. Back off, don’t come closer, tell her you’re not here for a fight
What exactly do you think she’s doing?
Intruding on Amber’s space. Making snarky jabs. Hopefully not coming any closer after Amber’s last line. (Can’t really tell in the close-ups.)
It’s more what she’s not doing. Which is using her words to tell Amber that she’s not looking for a fight.
I’d say that’s definitely too strong. Amber definitely doesn’t want her here, but that’s not the same as Sal barging in.
What David has done is lure unsuspecting childless individuals into the dark, evil world of PinkFong. I was only a babysitter, and I knew of the trap. Beware the trap, especially the baby shark! Doo-doo-doo-do-do-do!
What?
I love Sal, that is all.
I love Amber. So much.
I like them both. Even when they’re being idiots.
And, soon, the makeup Slipshine, where they love each other.
“Thick-headed lizard”. Well played, Sal, well played.
Sal looks worn out.
After the day she’s had, I’m betting that’s EXACTLY how she feels.
I am cautiously optimistic for how this talk is going to play out.
I guess Sal’s craved someone showing her understanding, like how she had that talk with Danny, so maybe the key here will be her having developed a greater understanding for Amber and where she’s coming from, maybe that’s what Sal’s talking about in the final panel, and with her flashbacks.
I am unwaveringly optimistic! Sal is definitely here to broker peace due to guilt and/or coming to understand Amber better! And there’s no way it’ll backfire, either! Uh, right? No, wait, I mean, definitely!
I hope this doesn’t end in another fight, but it seems this is going to be a big painful emotional arguing where both parties have to come clean. Honesty can be more painful than a fist to the face.
ROUND 2!
Dorothy will be so proud when she learns of them actually talking to each other.
So I’m still really tense about what’s going to happen with these two (please talk things out with her, Amber, I know it’s like standing on a trigger the size of a landmine but Sal is a good person, TALK)…….. but also, just had to say, Dina is wonderful. I love her expressions in this one.
If they were both agitated then I’d be worried, but Amber isn’t going to do anything if Sal isn’t.
I imagine Dina’s presence will also probably help things not escalate. Amber’s not likely going to want to subject Dina to that if given the choice.
Good point! Amber may be kind of broken right now, but she (hopefully) won’t do anything with Dina there.
Like she wouldn’t want to do anything with Ethan there?
Ethan is specifically connected to her history with Sal. Dina is not. So while I don’t think it’s anywhere near a guarantee, I think the two of them wouldn’t necessarily have the same impact when it comes to Amber’s interactions with Sal.
Ok, point taken. However, I think Amber somehow thought she was defending him. I’m not trying to defend her, I’m rather angry with her at the moment.
Amber needs to listen to Sal the human being, and ignore Sal the evil supervillan in her mental comic book narrative.
Listen to the human being who was choking her a few strips back and who’s now barging into her room still talking about living too close and about you smooching her brother.
I mean, she should, but Sal isn’t exactly going out of her way to make it easy. Not that she’d have an obligation too, but she’s the one forcing the confrontation now, so if she wants it too work …
Well not just in this confrontation, but in general.
You don’t know what “barging” means do you?
Fine. It’s perfectly fine and normal for Sal to come into the room of the person she just had a serious fight with. She has the roommate’s permission, so there’s no issue, no reason at all for Amber to be concerned. She’s allowed to be there, since Dina let her in, so Amber has to deal.
Hell, even without the fight, if you’re there to see one person, that’s the person you should ask, not the roommate. Basic rules of sharing space.
There’s a difference between ‘Sal didn’t barge in’ and ‘Amber has to suck it up and deal because Dina let her in even though Amber does not want her here’. That’s completely over the top and not what anyone’s actually said.
Sixth panel isn’t a threat, it’s a warning. Remember Amber think she’s a monster. And Sal in the seventh panel is telling her she isn’t. This is an all-round great strip.
I agree!
I do think Amber may have still meant it as a threat, but I think Sal recognized that it’s not a fully-intended one.
(side note, I really wish my avatar wasn’t Amazi-Girl right now)
You can use a different email address but the same name. I did that on accident once and the other “TheKelliestKelly” is Sydney Yus
If you change the capitalizations on the email address, it will also change your avatar.
I’m pretty sure it response to capitalizations
Yup. The avatar algorithm is case sensitive, but the approval system isn’t. If you use a different email address, you’ll have to wait for your comment to be approved for it to show up. If you capitalize a letter, it will pass right away because your address is already whitelisted.
Unless you do enough comments fast enough that the spam-bot eats you, in which case you’ll need a new address *and* name to escape, afaik.
pleaseendwellpleaseendwellpleaseendwell
I’m HOPING this will end well but I will accept not stabbing anyone.
Sal, honey, you know I love you, but maybe that’s a good indication this is NOT A GOOD TIME.
I like that Sal doesn’t think Amber will stab her but this is a POOR TIME to call someone’s bluff.
That said – Dina is absolutely ADORABLE here. And I love seeing stuff Sal knows about so that’s nice touch.
On that note, your fun Sal fact of the day – she’s thus far the only person to pass Dina’s door test without being coached. Ethan didn’t get in (because T-rex is boring and pterodactyl’s aren’t dinosaurs), Becky’s been being taught by Dina about dinosaurs since she got here, and Amber fed Walky answers.
Yeah, this was probably a ‘Ruth supervises their first interaction post-fight with the understanding you can maybe Talk About Some Things Best Not Talked About Near Authority Figures once you’ve established a loaded conversation or two that went safely first’ situation.
Coulda, shoulda, woulda. Too late now.
Anyone wonder just how Sal knew about that particular dino? Its not a commonly known dino (not like the more well known T Rex, Raptor, Triceratops, etc.). We don’t know if she is taking any biology courses (or courses where she would come across dinosaur names.) And since she hasn’t interacted much with Dina you wouldn’t expect her to look up possible dinosaurs before she went to their room.
Maybe she picked it up at the natural history museum. She was wearing a t-shirt for one when Marcie got hurt, so she’s presumably been there before.
As badgermole pointed out below, said flashback t-shirt also had a picture of said dino on it, so this is one Sal’s liked for a while.
Maybe she likes dinosaurs too. If not, maybe she just saw The Lost World: Jurassic Park (in which it was prominently featured) and thought it was kinda cool.
I must say, though, I like the first option better. 🙂
If you only know your dinosaurs from a handful of cartoons and movies, you might not know Pachycephalosaurus. But if you were ever at all interested enough to read up on them, as many children and some adults are, it’s one you are sure to run into.
So I think the answer is just that Sal knows a lot more than she cares to let on. Not because she plays dumb, mind you, but because she doesn’t let on much.
Yeah, Sal generally doesn’t share her interests with the class, but as she told Jason, just because she has a hard time with math and picked up a southern drawl doesn’t make her stupid. I suspect she knows more on a few things than she might generally speak about (between this, her previously unshared interest in music that hanging out with Danny’s brought up and knowing more than the average person about psychology – that last one could be her therapists, but if they’re as useless as Sal described, I’d not put money on that).
Yeah, lots of kids go through a dinosaur phase. Even if she’s not so interested any more, she could easily have done so and remember enough.
If now isn’t a good time, when is? They need to square with each other before they tell Walky, and Amber has resolved to do that the next day.
They don’t actually need to get along to fill Walky in. And frankly, Walky’s going to hear about this soon whether they get along or not. They just got in a massive fight on the stairs. Someone’s going to fill Walky in.
A little more cooling off time. Neutral ground. A little bit of warning. A less confrontational approach.
She could, for example open with reassuring Amber she’s not here for another fight
On the one hand, yes. Ruth is going to catch them and go all “I said stay in your OWN room, young lady! No cookies!”
On the other hand, Amber clearly didn’t tell Dina to not admit anyone. We’ve seen before that Dina is quite amenable to not letting people/unleashing the raptor if Amber really doesn’t want to be disturbed. So really, if she doesn’t want this conversation, Amber’s only got herself to blame.
There is never ever going to be a good time with Amber because she’s an extremely avoidant trainwreck of a human being. She is never going to be ready for this conversation of her own volition.
This is probably fair. Amber would feel less threatened and panicky if she weren’t too exhausted to defend herself, but she’d also be able to flee and/or force Sal out of the room. It’d also be pretty reasonable for Sal to be worried that Amber might start something, so if she’s gonna talk to her, this would likely be the only chance to try. Especially since there’s multiple sensitive subjects that she may intend to discuss that would rule out having this conversion out in the hallway or with a neutral party supervising it
If I was her, I would have probably started by telling Amber I wasn’t there for a fight before saying anything else, but I’m not gonna blame Sal for not being all gentle and diplomatic here
Actually, I am. If Sal actually wants to talk to Amber for some reason other than a fight, she needs to approach it all gentle and diplomatic. She’s the one pushing the contact here. I assume it’s for a good reason, but whatever that reason is, it’s not going to happen if she pushes too hard. She wanted to do this. She’s had time to prepare herself and get ready for a difficult conversation. Amber’s surprised with no idea what Sal wants out of it.
Amber has had much longer than Sal to prepare for this. Sal literally had this dropped in her lap less than an hour ago and Amber’s known Sal was around for weeks if not months. Considering the shit Amber has put her through the speed with which Sal has managed to pull together this much diplomacy and gentleness is downright impressive.
Time to prepare for this particular bit of conversation.
Yes, Amber’s had more time in general and hasn’t used it well (understatement.)
But right now, Sal decided to go talk to Amber. Despite the fight hours ago at most. Despite both of them being sent to their rooms. Since she’s the one making the move here, she’s had time to psyche herself up to do it and hopefully has some idea what she wants to say and do.
As of a minute or so ago, Amber was sitting in her room trying to decompress or process what had just happened or whatever she was doing. Now she’s suddenly confronted with Sal again with no warning.
That’s what I meant by time to prepare. Not weeks to process the general idea, but just the immediate run up to this particular encounter.
As much as I sympathize with Amber’s panicked reaction, she’ll survive a conversation, even if it ends up being difficult and confrontational.
Sal totally could have been more courteous, but considering all the crappy things Amber has done to her, it feels kinda gross to insist that Sal is at all obligated to be gentle about the feelings of her former stalker just to talk some things out
Maybe she’ll survive. (I mean, of course she’ll survive. Willis isn’t going to kill either of them. ) But she doesn’t know it’s a conversation. She’s not panicking because she’s afraid of a difficult conversation. She’s panicking because it could be another fight. One she knows she’s not up for.
And no, Sal isn’t obligated to be anything, but as a purely practical matter, if Sal actually wants anything other than threats and possibly another fight, then she needs to be. Otherwise, she should just have stayed away. If she’s not prepared to actually deescalate, then what’s she doing here?
You don’t always need to be gentle about the other person’s feelings to de-escalate. De-escalating in this situation can be as simple as saying ‘forget it, this isn’t a good time, I’m leaving’.
That’s absolutely true. But Sal came here for a reason. If she wants to accomplish that, then she’s got to stay and deescalate. And that’s going to require a gentle touch.
I’d argue even staying doesn’t require particular gentleness. Saying ‘Oh, settle down, ah just need to talk to you.’ isn’t particularly gentle, but it’d get the same point across.
Dude. Amber is the one who is resorting to threats. Putting de-escalating all on Sal is shit.
Amber’s panic being understandable doesn’t make it okay to threaten Sal and it sure as hell doesn’t make it Sal’s responsibility to manage it.
Hell, by just ignoring Amber’s threat and calling her bluff, Sal is de-escalating. Just not in the way Amber intended.
It’s mostly on Sal because Sal’s the one who started this. She came to talk to Amber. Amber was sitting quietly in her room, not provoking another confrontation.
If Amber had gone seeking Sal out, then it would be largely on her to keep things calm. The situation would be reversed. Though Sal might not react so badly 🙂
And calling someone’s bluff isn’t deescalating. Luckily Sal isn’t really doing that here, as we see in the next strip. Calling her bluff would be moving closer, since that’s what Amber was warning her about.
Amber escalated to threats. Especially violent threats of something she’d done to Sal before.
Sal’s refusal to rise to it or even get upset by it IS deescalation. As in she’s not letting Amber escalate.
She’s also deescalating further by staying where she is, even though she’s clearly not worried that Amber would stab her if she didn’t. She’s showing Amber she didn’t need to use threats, and could’ve just asked Sal to stay back.
Funny thing is if they did start another fight it wouldn’t last long because Dina would destroy them both! For unlike Sal and Amber who chose the tragic backstory in their character select screen, Dina opted for a happier childhood which gave her plenty of free time away from robbery and stabbing to learn why Rice Krispies are the only cereal that talk back with a SNAP, CRACKLE, and POP! This is valuable knowledge that offers insight neither of these two losers could even fathom. They’re basically forced to talk things out, less Dina open a clinic in humbleness for the two of them!
Wow, Sal in the last panel just looks so tired and sad.
Yeeess! Talk it out! End this whole sad cycle of loathing and self-doubt!
“Because after our fight ah’ve come ta understand you better, and so ah have decided to join Wonderbread and, er, ‘Ethan’ in offering you unfalterin’ emotional support in the hope that some day your self-loathing might be somewhat lessened.”
“GODDAMMIT, NOT ANOTHER ONE!”
In all seriousness, I really hope Sal doesn’t offer unfaltering friendship because Amber still did a lot of shitty things to her and she doesn’t owe her that. But I suspect she’ll have a more accurate understanding of Amber’s psyche than anyone else has so far, and I hope that she’ll tell Amber that she’s not a monster.
Oh yeah, a complete 180 like that isn’t going to happen. I’m not sure Sal even does unfaltering/unconditional friendship like that, but definitely not with Amber given their history. And definitely not any time soon.
I find it more likely that they’re going to come to some degree of an understanding and, at best, establish a truce. Pave the way for actual friendliness later.
Is it really a matter of owing her friendship or is it just wanting for herself? I don’t see Amber excepting it anyway because she would probably think she didn’t deserve it because of all the bad stuff that’s happened between them. but it doesn’t matter because I don’t think that’s what happening now.
“WHY WON’T ANYONE VALIDATE MY SELF-HATRED?!”
While I understand that Sal is most likely trying to do the right thing, doing it this SOON is prettymuch just Poking The Bear.
Amber can’t stab Sal – she only has a phone, not a knife. 😉
Becky needs to visit Dina so I’m not the only one who wants to awkwardly add “and then they kiss.”
Sal looks like Dina’s mom
Wow, the look on Sal’s face 😮
Dina’s eyes in panel 3 give me life but also, maybe this is why this is a bad security measure.
Mine’s Brachiosaurus, because I’m about Dina’s height so to me being able to look up high is the best superpower. Or Styracosaurus, because of the spikes. Or Protoceratops, for the awww factor.
Parasaurolophus is another good hadrosaur, but I wouldn’t use it in front of Dina because I’m not sure how to pronounce it.
Mine is a triceratops. You can thank Cera from Land Before Time for that. Yes, I know she’s not 100% accurate, but shhhh.
I think by now people are ok with pronouncing it different ways.
Dina would probably relate hard (not necessarily about the same species) if you said ‘I’ve never gotten to hear it aloud’
Brachiosaurus is a great pick!
My top pick is Ankylosaurs, followed by Velociraptors (the real ones, the small turkey-size feathered death machines of blood and violence and the fluffiest deadly hugs) and Triceratops, which are just great.
Can’t to go wrong with Triceratops.
Unless you’re Thag Simmons.
I’m pretty sure ol’ Thag fell prey to a Stegosaurus, not a Triceratops
Yeah, the Thagomizer was the back end, not the front.
I like pretty much all dinosaurs so it’s hard for me to pick just one favorite. My top ones are probably stegosaurus and apatosaurus, though I like several others a lot as well.
I like you for knowing there’s such a creature as Apatosaurus. I would definitely let you in for that. People who can’t name any dinosaur except Brontosaurus need not apply.
Mine is the Ankylosaurus. A heavily armoured loner who’s perfectly content to spend its existence munching on plants, but sometimes those large theropods get funny ideas in their head and you just got to hunker down and smash some femurs.
On a note, OF COURSE Sal’s favourite dinosaur is the Pachy – a hard-headed bastard that LITERALLY butts heads with its competition.
Mine is the hypacrosaurus, because one was found about 600 metres from my house a few years ago.
This is awesome and I envy you.
Protoceratops! Now I’m having Dinotopia feels.
wow Amber, wow. Threatening to stab Sal is putting you pretty low in my books
How about we don’t threaten to stab anyone? Like, let’s take it down several notches.
Amber needs a Snickers. She’s not herself when she’s hungry and that fight must have burned a lot of energy.
Low blood sugar is the root of all problems!
I have low blood sugar. It is, in fact, the pits.
Sorry to hear that, I was referring to Stacy’s diagnosis of Amber’s mental health issues (if it wasn’t clear!).
I got the reference, no worries. And it’s not too much of a big deal – my doctor told me that using sugar as a short term pick me up was okay but to eat a ton of protein (which I have to do anyways for different health issues) so it’s not too bad.
Not at all. She needs Twinkies. Unfortunately, needing Twinkies is what set all of this off in the first place, so offering them probably wouldn’t be that great an idea. But hey, Amber, have you considered refocusing all your anger at Sal on Twinkies instead?
At this point Amber probably needs an involuntary hospitalization.
Did Sal do a search for “thick-headed dinosaur that looks like it would be good at butting heads, but has some structural issues that would make actual head-butting a really bad idea”? If Willis knew about the arguments against this dinosaur being able to butt heads, then very well played Willis.
Okay, I like that sal can answer the dinosaur – question without hesitation. She most likely didn’t know how dina decides who to let in, so she didn’t prepare an answer.
I also like that she immediately acts when she sees the need to act. This is not easy for her and I think she doesn’t really want to talk to amber. I’d have liked it more if she did so on the stairs.
I didn’t expect amber to learn something from the fight, that would require her to think about it (instead of just dwelling on how bad everything – and particularly sal – is). Still, it’s kind of disappointing.
Amber has already learned plenty, as evidenced by yesterday’s strip. I think Sal recognized that Amber is trying to circumvent her rage but is prone to lapse.
That’s nothing she recently learned, that is how she tried to deal with her trauma from the very beginning – increasingly unsuccessful. She’s not lapsing, her barely working coping mechanism is breaking apart.
OTOH, Amber has no idea that Sal’s had any kind of epiphany. All of her own issues aside, she’s got no reason to think Sal’s not coming back to pick up the fight again.
I do think Amber made some progress during that fight, but we haven’t focused on her enough to be sure, unlike with Sal.
Well, she doesn’t even consider the option that sal isn’t here to fight. That doesn’t bode well.
Sal could make it clear in her first words, rather than snarking about how close she lives and how close she is to her brother.
Why should she think Sal’s here for anything else?
Why should Sal randomly know that Amber requires fully digest phrases to comprehend people aren’t out to punch her?
This is a circular argument.
Also, she should think that because Sal stopped hitting her. On her own. When Ruth got there Sal was straddling her, yes, but had stopped punching. Not only this Amazigirl has talked to Sal. She is fully aware of how to push her buttons and of how Sal is entirely capable of conversation.
Because any time you walk in one someone you were just beating the crap out of (and vice versa) and you don’t want to start up again, you should probably start by making that clear rather than snarking about the same things you were fighting about.
That’s not “people aren’t out to punch her”, that’s “the person I was just in a big fight with, who has justifiable reasons to want to punch me, might still be out to punch me.”
She’s halfway dressed for going to bed. So either she was on her way in her bed and then decided “no, let’s beat someone up instead” or she’s not here to fight. Her body language and facial expression are calm, not aggressive, a bit sad. She even dropped her usual “I don’t care about anything” – attitude.
Still, amber is absolutely sure that she’s in danger.
Yeah, Amber feeling excessively threatened is a function of her delusions about Sal not anything Sal is actually doing.
“This person who just beat me in a fight 5 minutes ago has unexpectedly shown up in my room, what if she’s here to fight me some more??”
Sorry, but that’s not actually all that bizarre of a reaction. She panicked a bit because she knows she’s vulnerable but I’m pretty sure a sizable percentage of people would be at least worried Sal was there to fight no matter how calm she seems
ESPECIALLY if the adrenaline from the fight isn’t all out of her system yet. That can make anyone a bit jumpy
Yes. Also, a sizeable percentage of people won’t reflect about what happened or about the adversary the way sal did. And Amber is part of that percentage.
Being traumatised doesn’t make it easier. You tend to see the persons responsible for it as one-dimensional villain. It’s difficult – but possible – to get past that. It seems like Amber hasn’t. She’s not defensive or careful, she’s flat-out aggressive. According to her internal dialogue, she’s aware of it and she thinks it’s the appropriate reaction.
I read that as panicked and defensive, not aggressive. Despite the threat.
“Y-you get any closer and I-I’ll stab you again.” Without actually having a knife or anything stabby, of course. That’s a bluff to keep her away, not aggression.
Nor am I really sure what you’re reading into her internal dialogue.
It’s still crappy, don’t get wrong, but I really don’t see it like that.
Fight or flight are both reactions to an immediate danger. Those are the two reactions she considers appropriate for this situation. Which means, in her mind, sal is a threat. She skipped the “is this dangerous?” – part and went straight for “how should I react to this danger?”. She sees herself as cornered, this eliminates flight, leaving fight as the only appropriate reaction.
It’s both a bluff and aggressive. She’s threatening to use a weapon to tear through flesh. Something she definitely is capable of. I think that counts as aggressive.
@Alanari:
Amber is doing the only thing she has the physical strength to do at the moment: bluffing.
She’s unmistakably panicking in panel 4, then using BOTH hands to steady herself as she stands up (probably because her legs feel like jelly from the adrenaline crash), and she’s stammering as she issues the threat while trying to make a scary face
She’s puffing herself up to look big and seem like too much trouble to take on. LOOKING aggressive is the whole point. You can’t scare somebody off with a defensive stance, especially not when they already know they can beat you in a fight.
Does nobody start with “Hi!” any more?
People don’t generally learn meaningful life lessons from fist fights. Both of them already knew what punches felt like, so I don’t know what you expected EITHER of them to learn besides which of them would win
In fiction? It’s not uncommon.
But I think they did both learn from it.
I expected both of them to learn nothing. Sal learned something, though. That’s why she’s in Ambers room. And it kind of highlights the difference between them.
Callback to baby Sal’s interests as indicated by her clothing here: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-9-comic/01-flyin-to-the-red/cowgirl/ Well played, Willis.
OMG that is actually a pachycephalosaurus there. Nice catch! I remembered the natural history shirt but couldn’t make out the picture at the time.
Also, because it’s obligatory from me at this point – FUCK Charles in that strip.
Fanfics, BBCC. Channel it into the fanfics.
Good call. Weekend plans – Finish my last school assignment of the semester and then make it RAIN fanfic hell for those two.
Sal is trying to deescalate! Yay!
Better late than never? *nervous shrugs*
I wonder how that’ll go over with Marcie. I mean, she de-escalated…after getting into a fist fight that left bruises on her face. So unless Marcie doesn’t keep in touch with goings on on campus (we know she does) and unless she just…doesn’t see Sal until they’re healed (unlikely, she wants to visit Malaya) then, well. We’ll see.
If they can actually work something out and if Marcie gives her time to explain, rather than just reacting to the bruises, it might be okay.
Yeah, it might work out okay if Amber and Sal have worked something out (even if it’s just ‘we stay away from each other’) and Marcie at least asks ‘what happened to your face?’ it might not be too bad.
She’s not very good at it, is she.
I know her intentions are good, but she could at least mention to Amber that she’s not here for a fight.
Amber just threatened to stab her but sure, Sal is the one failing to deescalate. That’s reasonable.
Sal’s forcing this encounter. Amber was sitting in her room.
But it’s all always Amber’s fault. Sal couldn’t possibly be doing anything wrong.
Mind you, I think Sal’s trying to do a good thing here. I think her working through her revelation during and after the fight is leading her here to work things out. I’m worried her lack of deescalation skills is going to wreck that.
There’s room to criticize Sal for opening with snark and also point out Amber’s escalating to the threats here, but damn, you’re sure not finding it tonight.
Yes it is Amber’s fault that she threatened to stab Sal that is how the words coming out of your mouth work. Sal didn’t use ventriloquism to put them in her mouth.
So.
I am going to openly weep at the next few strips, huh?
Semester doesn’t end for me till next week but yeah same — good luck, power through.
Er damn, was supposed to be an answer to BBCC, gonna slink away now
Last week is my last week as well, and my assignment is technically due Wednesday, but I’d like to try to finish it up early. Thank you though! Good luck to you too.
I can’t help but feel that while Sal is trying really hard here, Amber won’t listen to reason and go deeper into whatever she’s doing.
*comes to comment section to make “hard head” or “thick skull” joke*
*realizes everyone made the same joke*
….
I hate you all.
GOD DAMMIT JUST SAY YOU’RE SORRY
I think that’s why she’s here. Be patient.
Good choice of dino. Im more of a Parasaurolophus fan myself but Pachy’s are cool too. As are Protoceratopsians….
Another choice for Sal could have been Iguanadon (misunderstood, look of it has changed often, ect)
So, I’m thinking that Sal at least believes that she’s finally figured everything out. It will be interesting to see if she’s right!
Additionally, it’s kind of intuitive that Sal would like the headbutt dinosaur!
Silly Amber, the time for stabbing is passed. It’s hatchet burying time!
Shit, does Amber have access to a hatchet?!
I said yesterday that I thought the next time Sal and Amber met was gonna be really awkward, but I didn’t expect it to happen this soon.
Damn it, now I have an insatiable urge to ride a Triceratops.
Testing, why wasn’t that comment in italics?
You used two ending tags in the earlier comment. 🙂
…Ah. Thanks for pointing that out. I’ll be better about doublechecking that in the future.
Damn it, now I have an insatiable urge to ride a Triceratops
Is what I meant to say, not sure what went wrong with the formating the first time.
Creationist Museum is the place for you then although Dina would be very disappointed in you. https://images.huffingtonpost.com/2014-07-14-CreationMuseumTriceritops-thumb.jpg
Either that, or APersonAmI should apply to become one of General Tarquin’s underlings.
Great dino choice, it was almost my dino tattoo, but my love for triceratops won in the end (rubs my dino tattoo)
“The problem isn’t that you think I’m a bad person. The problem is that you think *you’re* a bad person.”
Precisely.
The problem is that she kind of is a bad person but instead of doing anything to change that she just self-flagellates and pretends it’s out of her control because she’s “a monster” and not just kind of a self-absorbed dickhead with anger issues.
Oh shit she even passed the Dina test
Pachycephalosaurus is my favorite dinosaur too. I’m glad Dina approves.
I’m accepting of the fact that I’m the only one here who never heard of pachycephalosaurus before now. Including several fictional characters.
Someone hasn’t watched their Jurassic Park…
Nah, it’s not really my taste.
(Don’t tall Dina.)
I like Sals new insight that peace and dialogue is the only way for them both to move past this. Shes keeping her manner calm and non threatening.
Hope they finish this without interruptions
The fact is that, like Amber, she’s just too tired and is hurting too bad to keep fighting or keep running away. The truth is that neither of those options have done either of them any good and so it’s time to try something new.
Hopefully yes.
I can guarantee that Dinas system for allowing entry will be revised though.
It is not good of Amber to impose on Dina the burden of being her gatekeeper.
Good job continuing to be the worst Amber.
Not surprising though, is it?
She’s been through enough bs in her life to only expect the worst from people.
It’s not surprising because Amber is kind of awful and self-absorbed.
Hell yeah, pachycephalosaurus is the shit
Pachysephalosaurus was mentioned in Jurassic Park! Ask for another dinosaur, Dina!
Don’t gatekeep favourite dinos!
But it’s literally Dina’s (volunteered) job to gatekeep people from entering their room…
Yeah, she’s gatekeeping the door not what dinosaur you’re allowed to like most.
Except for T. rex. That’s a boring answer.
Let people like boring dinosaurs!
You got some nerve calling someone’s favourite dinosaur boring, Miss TRICERATOPS! ;p
I’m quoting Dina. I think T.rex are cool. 😛
See? I think T.rex are cool. Dina apparently disagrees with me: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/security/
I do hope that Sal is careful, though. She needs to get Amber to be a lot less frightened as a first step.
Yeah, she’s not really doing a great job at it. I mean, she’s not actually being threatening, but she’s not doing anything to reassure her either.
Like even saying she’s not here to fight.
Or “Hi.”
Did Amber warn Dina about any of this?
Dina has been stopping people from ‘just dropping in’ ever since Amber eviscerated Ryan; I don’t think she’s told her anything specific, no.
“and their brothers…”
Oh no, is Faz around?
It seems significant that Amazi-girl has not resurfaced (compared the first confrontation with Blaine*, when Amber rushed down the stairs to put on her mask).
I’m not quite sure what it means, but I’m just a tiny bit optimistic.
*) FUDGE YOU, BLAINE!
Significant, but of the longer term change in their relationship. Amber doesn’t rely on Amazi-Girl any longer.
Compare also the scene where Sal found her and Walky on the roof and Amber rushed down the stairs, trying not to let AG surface. Where she threw away the mask. This time we don’t even see that kind of struggle.
Or when she broke up with Danny. Then AG just took over as soon as she saw Sal. If that was still the relationship, AG would have been in control as soon as Sal approached Ethan and her.
Very good points.
I just want to thank Willis for continuing this story arc for as long as it’s gone rather than switching to other characters, because I don’t think I could handle the anticipation if we ended where Ruth left them.
Of course, now that I’ve said that, tomorrow’s strip will probably start a weeks-long story arc about Galasso or something.
Agreed
And later today the analysts at Google are scratching their heads wondering why the sudden rise in searches for ‘pachycephalosaurus’.
You assume the Google analylists have heads, or even a carbon basis.
Amber: “W-WHY DID YOU LET HER IN??”
Dina: “Sorry, her answer was a valid and respectabble one. She has earned entry.”
Dina’s expression from panel 1 to 3 is proof.
WHY DOES EVERY STRIP END WITH A CLIFFHANGER?! DANMIT!
Is this your first Willis strip? He’s been doing this since Roomies.
The same reason every chapter of a novel ends with a cliffhanger; to make you want to keep reading.
Guys, I have a confession. Not only have I no favourite dinosaur, but I also do not care about them at all. Reading this strip over the years has taught me that I am the only such person in the entire world. I feel . . . so lonely.
I would enjoy confounding Dina by saying: “My favourite Mesozoic reptile is not one of the Dinosaurs. Does that count?”
I feel like she would probably appreciate your honesty and awareness, which indicates some degree of knowledge of what is and is not a dinosaur. What Dina does not appreciate is people who wrongly claim things that are Not Dinosaurs to be dinosaurs, such as pterosaurs, plesiosaurs, or Dimetrodon (the last one is also a pet peeve of mine since it’s actually more closely related to mammals than to dinosaurs).
You’re not alone, bud ✊
@kilgaen idk how commenting works
Top Five Dinos:
Triceratops
Stegosaurus
Oviraptor
Protoceratops
Anklyosaurus
Honorable Mentions (not actual dinosaurs)
Pterodactyl
Archaeopteryx (not sure if it counts as a dinosaure or a bird, unless all birds are dinos, in which case I need to reevaluate the first list…)
Plesiosaurus
Dimetrodon
If you wanted a non-avialan dino with likely similar flight capabilities to Archaeopteryx, you could also mention Microraptor!
All birds are, in fact, dinosaurs, just like all canids are mammals. ‘Bird’ is a subgroup of ‘dinosaur’.
(That said, whether archaeopteryx is a bird or not depends just how loose you want to get with the definition of bird. If you define it as ‘MCR of modern birds and descendants’, no. But there are perfectly valid definitions that do include it.)
*MRCA…not sure how I botched that acronym. >_<
I was actually reading up on this a bit earlier! 😀
We haven’t actually seen anyone give Dina an answer that’s an avialan and/or bird (as you mentioned, depending on definition for the latter), so we don’t know for sure how she would respond.
Yeah, I definitely want to see someone try that.
Favourite dinosaur: the swan.
This BS right here is why i dislike Amber.
The fall from that horse is gonna be real long eh?
Yeah this chapter has made Amber look awful hasn’t it? Unlike the fight there’s no justification for threatening to stab Sal here, even if Amber doesn’t mean it.
It’s over the top, but: the person she was just fighting is invading her space, she’s too worn down to fight or run and she’s scared. It’s a threat yes, but it’s tied to “You get any closer…”
She’s just trying to get her to stop.
What’s she supposed to say? “Oh hi Sal. Come on in. Nice to see you. Wanna choke me again?”
You’re being intentionally obtuse. Maybe she could have tried “Don’t come any closer.” You know, instead of threatening a repeat performance of the horrible act of violence she already subjected this woman to.
At no point in her encounters with Sal has Amber shown any ability to be rational, so I don’t know why we should expect the emotionally and mentally unstable woman operating in fight or flight mode to say something reasonable here. She’s scared out of her mind, irrationally, yes, but still scared, so she lashes out to protect herself with the one defense she still sees herself as having left.
You keep bringing up this choking thing and I get it, but you keep making it sound like it wasn’t preceded by Amber kicking Sal down the stairs and then in the face among other things. This wasn’t Sal springing out of the shadows to ambush Amber. As unhealthy as it was for both of them it was a fight, not just some attack.
No, you’re right. It wasn’t.
But right now Amber’s justifiably afraid it’s going to start up again and she’s threatening mayhem in hopes of stopping it. Which is a bad approach, but so is confronting her without even trying to say you’re not looking for another fight.
Except Amber automatically assumed Sal was there to fight after Sal has said exactly one word. The name of a dinosaur.
Also has she completely forgotten the fight that JUST happened?! Y’know where it seemed she was asking Sal to kill her or however you choose to interpret the words “end it” and Sal spared her! Amber was there! That just happened! She knows Sal doesn’t want to fight! Sal said it right next to her! Amber is being purposefully confrontational and my only question is….isn’t she tired of this yet?! She knows Sal isn’t the villian here if there really even is one. Don’t threaten to stab a person just for walking into your room!
Like if Sal still wanted to fight she would have kept kicking her ass while she had the upper hand not stopped the fight and then left after saying she was quitting the punching game.
Amber is not in a rational state of mind. Expecting her to view Sal’s presence here with logic is doomed to failure.
I don’t agree with this. Sal’s been through the same fight Amber has and is acting calm and rational. They should both be held to the same standard. If Amber can’t think clearly here that shows just how much she is truly in need of professional help.
You can’t just swap them in place and ignore context. They’re not each in the exact same situation right now.
Sal knows why Sal came here. Amber doesn’t.
If she’d gone back to her room and Amber showed up there like this, Sal probably would’ve expected Amber was there for another fight too, even if she might not have panicked so easily
If it was the other way around, where Amber had kicked Sal’s ass, then showed up at her room instead while Sal was too beat up to fight back?
Could you really blame her if her initial assumption was that Amber was there for another fight, or if she panicked a bit about not being able to stop her if that’s what she was there for?
She’s a deeply damaged person. They usually look pretty bad if you look closely at the damage.
Most trauma victims aren’t in fact violently unstable dangers to the people around them.
She won’t stab her. Bringing a knife to a fist fight is unfair.
Earlier Sal had a knife and ended up stabbed.
Actually, the cop had the knife.
Which reminds me – why the FUCK had it not been bagged already as evidence?
Because life likes to provide everyone a chance to royally screw things up.
I’m reminded of the FBI agent who accidentally caused a misfired on a dance floor.
Realistically the guy was a rookie or a subpar officer who was in the process of getting himself fired through poor performance. I think he achieved the firing.
On the other hand everyone can have a massive moment of stupidity.
Might want to consider a different way of vetting people, preferably a way that can’t be circumvented by an esoteric knowledge of dinosaurs or made up ones either
Just saying thats two entries now that Amber probably didn’t want turning up
Wonder what Blaine’s favorite dino is?
Himself
Yes, deescalate, Sal! I’m glad to see she’s not getting into another fight because neither of them knows when to back down. Realistically, Amber has no way of knowing Sal is there to try to talk things out and is probably feeling cornered. I like the details of their body language bearing this out/reflecting this, Sal’s nonconfrontational, Amber practically hiding behind the furniture.
I hope this goes well.
A few thoughts based on various comments here:
I enjoy both Sal and Amber as characters, and I don’t think it’s necessary to form camps. They’ve both been dealt tough hands, they’re both admirable in different ways, and they’ve both made mistakes and are deeply wounded. Cheering for one over the other at the moment misses the point: they need to work together to overcome a traumatic incident in their past if either is to move beyond it.
Race is relevant in this arc inasmuch that it’s relevant in any conflict between a black person and a white person. Beyond that, I don’t think it’s on either character’s mind, nor dramatically central to Amber and Sal’s relationship (unlike Sal and Walky’s). The actions of police years ago or in the present are plot nitpicks: the relevant themes are cycles of violence, victimhood, and parental abuse (as strictly regards Amber and Sal).
People are getting hung up on Amber’s threat. Again, that’s not the point of this strip. The point is that Sal took the first step towards reconciliation, saw through the bluff, and is about to have her first real conversation with Amber, not Amazi-Girl. It’s the last panel, not the one before it, that’s important.
There is no way to divorce the issue of race from a white person subjecting a totally innocent black person to a vigilante witch hunt, and Willis hasn’t tried to do so as shown when Amazi-girl confronted Sal at the political rally. Not to mention, part of the reason Sal is especially raw is that while she was ripped away from her life and shipped across the country Amber seems to have faced no legal ramifications for stabbing her and she likely (and probably correctly) attributes this to white privilege.
The issue is there but only as a circumstance of coincidence. Even though you can say white privilege is the reason on why Amber was let go after attacking Sal in a hysterical fit of rage but that’s all that to it and all that it amounts to is headcannon about one portion of this entire conflict. As far as what the ramifications were you can say Amber didn’t suffer any legal consequences for it, but it would be pretty inaccurate just to say there wasn’t any serious Fallout because of what happened.
As for the stalking yeah that was a horrible action to take where she was pretty much just waiting around for a reason to jump her, but she soon saw that she was wrong about Sal after she jumped in to back her up the first time they teamed up, even despite everything. She realised she was wrong and apologized for it, maybe it wasn’t a good enough one and maybe she needs to apologize again to make it clear this time probably as Amber. But still she did apologize for the stalking and then stopped. Then things were sort of good between them up until this chapter where Amber got into a fight with Sal that she did not start.
Matter of fact I remember people in the comment section saying that Amber has been horrible to Sal the past arc, though I find that confusing since the two of them we’re cool with each other up until that one fight. I find myself defending Amber mostly through out this because it seems like others only want to villainize her. Say what you want about the stabbing, uncalled for as it was but the Fate the two of them faced for the hole gas station incident was out of their control but despite not facing legal issues probably because police officers sweeping it under the rug our the Walkington parents not pressing charges, Amber made it her lives mission to hate herself for what she did which is obvious considering she’s not really proud of her stabbing record. Also even though you can bring up the stalking to list the number of offenses Amber has against Sal, it’s still unreasonable to hold that against her because they reconciled on that; why would they team up more than ones that they didn’t. And makes no sense to act like the recent fight was a one sided attack from Amber when she wasn’t the one who went looking for Sal nor was she attending to start anything.
There is a major flaw in this in that Amber and Amazi-girl are two distinct personalities. I’m still having trouble deciding where the line is if there even is one, but Amazi-girl stalked Sal and apologized for it, not Amber.
Amber has done nothing but run from Sal and play her in Mario Kart before this fight. Sal was cool with Amazi-girl under false pretense not knowing she was actually the girl who stabbed her’s alternate identity. Sal was indifferent to Amber until she recognized who she was. Amber immediately profiled Sal as a threat much like she’s doing right now with even less provocation than the what initiated the fight.
Amber technically did not start the fight. That is correct and Sal is at fault. You could even argue she deserves all the fallout for it if it comes to that.
Still I hold after everything that happened mere minutes ago that Amber is being unfairly defensive and scared here. Completely out of line to threaten Sal here especially with stabbing just to add salt to that literal wound.
But Amber is also kind of crazy. That’s not at all a justification but it does add some context to her actions here.
Respectfully, I totally disagree with your take on the story.
Like I said, the issue of race will always be there in any conflict between a black person and a white person. But to claim it’s a theme between Sal and Amber is, in my opinion, way off base. Certainly, racial discrimination is a theme between Sal and Walky, Sal and her parents, and Sal and society (which is where the rally scene fits in), but I really don’t think it applies between Sal and Amber.
We also have different opinions on what constitutes “totally innocent.” Both parties are culpable. Both parties have justifications, and both are trapped in a cycle of violence. And more than anything, this arc represents the dam breaking, the boiling over of tension that’s been there since the beginning–hopefully, it also represents the start of a healing process. If not, we’re left endlessly debating what’s worse: parents who send you away, or a parent who terrorizes you. Getting stabbed, or being mugged. They’re pointless questions, honestly, and not relevant to the moral of story.
But I get it: you’ve made 18 posts today, 16 of which have attacked Amber in some form or other. You’re on Team Sal. Far be it from me to try to change your mind, but I think your interpretation, as newllend put it, is mostly headcanon that misses the mark.
Above comment was meant to respond to Emily, by the way.
I’d argue white privilege is a theme in Amber and Sal’s story in that people tend to assume better of Amber or side with her (for example – she wasn’t charged during the robbery, the rally siding with her, the total ignorance AG has about how a vigilante stalking a black woman who hasn’t done anything to warrant it at the time – heck, it’s been pointed out, Sal would be less likely to get away with threatening Amber than vice versa) and that does matter in how they interact and their perceptions of each other. As for ‘totally innocent’ I believe Emily is referring to the instances where AG was stalking Sal. The second time she hadn’t done anything and the first time, while she was drinking underage, it was such a petty thing that it wasn’t anywhere close to warranting AG’s behaviour as opposed to Emily saying Sal hadn’t done anything wrong at all.
I definitely see where you’re coming from and appreciate your arguments, BBCC. However, I feel as though the points you provided either tie into separate arcs (the rally scene being an example of Sal vs. society, rather than Sal vs. Amber/Amazi-Girl, for instance), or they’re things that we’re inclined to read into as the audience that wouldn’t necessarily change based on the race of the characters (Amazi-Girl stalking Sal).
White privilege is going to be a part of any social interaction between a white person and a black person, period, friendly or not. But I think it’s role as a driving force here is severely undermined by the fact that Amber has, indeed, suffered in comparable yet different ways to Sal, and that Sal and Amber have each had a role in enabling the other’s bad behavior. Compare this to Walky, who had a charmed upbringing and was largely oblivious of Sal’s resentment until college. When you’ve got such a clear example of a theme as this already, I feel it’s unlikely to pop up again in such a weaker form intentionally.
Just my thoughts, though, and I can understand how others might disagree. Incidentally, apologies to Emily if I misconstrued their post!
That’s not the way things work though. AG, whether she likes it or not, is acting as a law enforcement person and harassing a black person who was not doing anything wrong (or, if you want to be really technical about the drinking, something so mild it’s absolutely making a mountain out of a molehill to be harassing her over). That feeds into white supremacist structures whether AG intends it or not. The impact of actions matters as well as intentions. Cops of colour enforce those structures too even as they also suffer from white supremacy. AG not doing so intentionally doesn’t change it happening.
As you said, white privilege is part of their interactions whether they become friendly or not. That theme’s going to come up with Sal in different areas and in different intensities because it’s part of the background radiation of her life, and that absolutely includes her interactions with AG. If AG’s actions weren’t connected with white privilege at all, there’s no reason for her to make the connection at the rally. That wasn’t just AG watching a random crowd spewing racially charged dogwhistles at Sal, they were doing so WHILE CHEERING AG, A WHITE GIRL PRESENTING HERSELF AS LAW ENFORCEMENT, on, with absolutely no context whatsoever. That’s part of what sparks her realization Sal hadn’t actually done anything wrong that night. Playing that as just Sal vs society ignores AG’s own very important role in that situation. Besides, the points of literary themes isn’t that they only pop up in one situation ever. They pop up throughout a character’s arc and the plot structure, again to varying intensities and strengths.
White privilege also doesn’t mean Amber can’t have suffered in comparable ways or that they can’t feed into each other’s issues. What it does mean is, for example, Amber’s less likely to be punished for threatening Sal than Sal would be if she threatened Amber. It means societal structures and bystanders are more likely to support Amber. And yeah, it means AG can get away with things Sal should be wary of (because a black woman with a record would, on general average, have a much rougher time of it with cops than a white lady would).
I have a few comments on your lower comment as well, but I’m going to address those here if that’s okay because they are related.
1) Yes, we do know Amber wasn’t charged and didn’t face legal sanction. Ethan mentioned that those who knew her wanted her in therapy, but her dad refused and opted for self defence classes. That was around the time the divorce finalized and Stacey seems to have filed not long after Blaine hit her. We also know Amber doesn’t have a record. Sal does though (“Ah’m way too smart to be the black kid with a record caught in some school shooting car chase deal”). We also know that she was given a choice between the boarding school or juvie, which suggests the court had some involvement in that decision. My current guess (and it is purely a guess) is that the Walkerton’s leveraged the police officer’s incompetence into some sort of deal – we don’t sue the police department for letting a clearly traumatized girl grab the knife and permanently disable our daughter, and our daughter gets the option of boarding school instead of automatic juvie (which is both more serious on a record and more embarrassing to her parents – talk about ‘making us look like bad parents’, eh, Linda?)
Amber does indeed knock down the presumption that she was some sheltered, over adored child, but she can’t refute Sal’s actual point – that Amber actually DID do the thing Sal threatened to do but was not sanctioned (legally or parentally – although, yes, Blaine took out the smack to his ego on her mother). Amber being white is almost certainly part of that because I can almost guarantee had she been black or hispanic that she would have been arrested. No, it’s probably not conscious and there were in fact some serious circumstances to think of, but it is true that if all else were the same except Amber’s race, her odds of getting arrested go up dramatically. That’s not something Amber can refute and it’s what Sal was essentially saying.
BBCC, you provide some interesting points to consider. Thank you for refreshing my mind on some of plot details–I honestly couldn’t remember! (Also apologies for my janky post layout.)
It’s a bit too late for me to hash out a long reply, but I can certainly appreciate where you’re coming from. Race would, of course, always be a background issue for Sal, no matter the situation. And Willis is too good a storyteller to let things happen by accident.
I’m still not sure if the rally scene represents Amazi-Girl confronting white privilege or whether it’s simply a moment that instills some empathy in her for Sal, as she sees how the world treats and has shaped her “villain.” Witnessing what Sal experiences daily helps her to get past that single memory of her.
I think to truly be convinced that race were a major theme between the two characters, it would have to be demonstrated that if you changed Amber and Sal’s races, it would have a tangible impact on what HAPPENS in the story. For instance, there’s no religious tension between Sarah and Raidah, despite the fact the two hate each other’s guts. But if Sarah were Mary? Without changing a single text bubble, the natural inclination would be to read Islamaphobia into it, even though it’s not conveyed by what the characters say or do (bad example, since fundamentalism is a choice, but it’s late, so, eh). Point is, racial discrimination will ALWAYS be there for Sal, but honestly? It feels a bit reductive here. (Same goes for her relationship with Jason for that matter. Sure, you could read colonialism into it, his being a white British man of authority, but if you think that FOR her, without her first bringing it up, doesn’t it strip her of some agency?)
That’s all for tonight! Thank you for the conversation!
I wouldn’t say the rally is AG confronting white privilege so much as her noticing it and realizing that the crowd does indeed automatically side towards her. It’s also her realizing her own role in it. I still feel that AG merely noticing how other people treat Sal minimizes her own role in it. She’s not some passive uninvolved observer there. She’s actively participating as the law enforcement targeting a specific black person who hasn’t done anything at that point. That’s what I mean about impact mattering. AG’s intent is to settle a score specifically with Sal, but her action’s impact furthers white supremacy, and with it white privilege. Law enforcement specifically targeting people of colour and particularly black, hispanic, and indigenous people always does this. It doesn’t matter if the officer is themselves black, hispanic or indigenous because their impact still furthers the systematic aspects that target PoC over white people, which furthers systemic racism.
I’d also say that, just because it is a theme in Sal’s arc, it would almost certainly come up with Amber, because Amber (and AG) are a major part of her arc. That doesn’t necessarily mean it will be a MAJOR theme between them, but it does mean it’s there.
And changing the character does change the context. Sarah is a poor black woman who, while not having any obvious religious bent, has never been particularly hateful towards anybody being religious (other than approaching with her general snark when Joyce says or does something messed up). Mary, on the other hand, is a white, fundamentalist Christian (which has plenty of messed up history towards Muslims) and a particularly nasty, bigoted one at that. Those aspects of the characters colour and inform their interactions with each other. So yeah, when they’re interacting with Raidah, a well off south Asian Muslim, it’d be more likely to read in islamophobia from Mary than Sarah, because Mary’s the one coming from the privileged and likely islamophobic background.
Also, if we want to talk about characters and how things would be different if they swapped, Mary would almost CERTAINLY go straight for the cutthroat islamophobic stuff because that’s who Mary is. She goes for below the belt and tries to control people that way (and with blackmail). She wouldn’t have reported Dana for drug use because, despite her claiming to be a stickler for rules and morality, Mary always goes for blackmail and control over rules. She’d have used Dana’s drug problem to try to get her to do what she wanted and probably caused Dana to spiral further until she NEEDED to be removed from the school for her own health (moreso than in original timeline). Raidah would be absolutely right about Mary not having Dana’s interests at heart and Mary would immediately go on the blame game – You knew Dana was grieving and using drugs. Why didn’t you help her? Why did you leave her alone? Her breakdown’s YOUR fault, Raidah. And if Raidah tried to bully Mary the way she did Sarah, Mary’d fight fire with fire. The point is, Mary and Raidah’s feud would be a lot more ugly and Mary’d be a lot more active in it than Sarah.
As for Sal and Amber – well, for one, if Amber were the black girl, again, I guarantee that she would’ve been arrested for stabbing Sal, robbery or no. That’s assuming the robbery even happens, though, which it may not have because if Sal were white, Linda would be much less of a shithead to her. Even if she still takes the money and the robbery still happens, the store operator doesn’t tell her, basically, ‘Oh, kid, RUN. Those cops aren’t going to see YOU as a kid.’ So maybe Sal postures more and doesn’t take Ethan hostage immediately to make herself seem a bigger threat. The robbery goes down differently. And a black AG is an AG that’s far likelier to be branded ‘dangerous vigilante’ over ‘cool superhero’. The police are looking for her much sooner and she has a very good chance of being threatened by them when she gets involved in the Toedad incident. Assuming she makes it to the rally, AG’s probably seen as a threat for harassing white Sal and the police are probably called immediately. And sure, fine, a lot of this is speculation, but as you’ve said, Willis is a good enough and aware enough writer to know that if Amber were black, things would be very different for her dealing with the robbery and fallout. Hell, even if Amber and Sal were both black, that still wouldn’t change her enforcing white supremacist structures because she’s still (presenting as) law enforcement selectively enforcing on Sal, another black woman, which reinforces white privilege at the same time.
And while the characters are great, they’re not omnipotent. We can notice crappy things before characters do or even things they don’t notice. For instance, several of us were pointing out Joyce’s boundary issues long before it was first brought to Joyce’s attention. Plenty of us smelled a rat with John before Joyce snapped at him. Danny hasn’t noticed how crappy his parents treat him, but many of the readers have. Heck, some readers called the Walkertons racism long before Sal screamed it in Walky’s face. I don’t think Sal needs to call things out for us to notice them.
Also,it’s funny you bring up Jason – nobody brought up colonialism, but he did spew several racial dogwhistles at Sal during her tutoring session, mostly in his suggestions of her sex life (saying she could find herself ‘thugs and hoodlums’ – oh, hey, kinda like what the guys at the rally were saying, or suggesting she was having sex with gang members.) And yeah, I doubt that’s conscious on Jason’s part and a lot of that is the association of ‘bikers = gangs’ (and lord knows society’s idea of what a gang is is loaded with racist ideas all over the place) but again, impact matters as well as intention.
Also, do we know anything about the police actually handled the stabbing? I feel like their presence was mostly a plot necessity–are we sure Amber wasn’t slapped with mandatory therapy sessions or that Sal’s banishment wasn’t entirely her parents’ doing?
Finally, I feel like, during the fistfight, the comic itself may have rejected the idea of race motivating the characters. Read the strip from the 19th–Sal comes very close to accusing Amber using everything BUT the words “white privilege.” The following strip, on the 20th, Amber spends the entire time knocking Sal’s presumptions down, both physically and figuratively.
I might even go so far as to say that learning about each other’s childhoods (that Sal was banished by a bigoted mother, that Amber was tormented by a sadistic father, and that neither is the neatly-compartmentalized cutout the other believed them to be) might be a major factor in the two finding a middle ground.
I know this is responding late, but I’ve been having thoughts on the way the legal fallout from the convienience store incident played out for both of them for much of this storyline, so I hope it’s all right for me to jump in and elaborate a bit here.
In my understanding of the situation, after the incident, there was some push to get Amber into therapy as a result (whether this was Stacy, the court system, other sources, or some combination of the above is not completely clear), but any legal force behind it was weak enough to be overruled by Blaine in favour of self-defence classes. There is no evidence to indicate Amber faced charges for stabbing Sal, much less was convicted.
Sal, on the other hand, was taken into custody and did face charges, likely for both that incident and the previous robbery, since both are mentioned when Sal’s past comes up in earlier strips (I’m thinking specifically of a time when Walky and Billie are discussing Sal in Book 1), and some more recent comments of Sal’s seem to hint at the main perpetrators of the first robbery as having pinned more of the blame on her. Amber/Amazigirl* mentions Sal having a record (and there is nothing that I believe contradicts this, though I do not consider Amber’s knowledge necessarily accurate) in their interaction immediately after the car chase, which would indicate a conviction of some sort. There is no evidence that she spent time in an official state-run juvenile corrections facility; her being sent to the boarding school is the main consequence mentioned in-comic. (I don’t doubt that the boarding school likely markets itself to ‘parents struggling with ‘rebellious teens’’ and may in fact be considered an approved diversion program(? unsure of correct term) by the courts.). She likely also was placed in some sort of court mandated therapy, though her statements indicating a history of forced therapy experiences could hypothetically come from elsewhere (such as her parents deciding unilaterally to place her in therapy after Marcie’s injury).
My personal theory is that a deal was struck involving both of their cases. The likely result is that Sal plead guilty to substantially reduced charges with the sentence essentially removed or boarding school as the court-sanctioned placement (in the first case, boarding school would have been entirely a move by her parents). No trial also eliminates the potential need for Amber to take the stand (her mental state at that point is in no way healthy enough for it and her attack on Sal would likely be used against her testimony by the defense – and I suspect the Walkertons would have got Sal a high-powered lawyer …more as a matter of family honour than any care towards Sal). In return the charges against Amber are dropped entirely. I even think the initial deal may have involved court-ordered therapy for Amber, but Blaine pulled strings to get the self-defence classes he wanted approved as a substitution after it was agreed to.
The legal outcomes here are still pretty massively disproportionate, which is probably in large part, if not wholly, due to race.
Sal and I share a favorite dinosaur! I’m so proud.
Above post was a follow-up to my post from 12:24. Sorry–not very good at formatting my posts, apparently!
Just realized not everyone’s in my time zone. 😛
And that I’m not using the reply button correctly! I’ll get it eventually. *grumble*