After a case of mistaken identity, will awkward Daisuke find help from excitable Mamo, or will his love life be thrown completely off track?
Dumbing of Age
David M Willis
Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
Solstoria
Angelica Maria
After her brother goes missing, Samantha vows to become a Knight and help those around her in the Kingdom of St. Helena.
Empowered
Adam Warren
A sexy superhero comedy (except when it isn't) about the never-ending struggles of a plucky but very unlucky young superheroine.
Cyanide & Happiness
Explosm
Satire, dark humor and surreal humor.
The Witch Door
Anni K.
Katariina Lehto discovers her neighbor is a witch called Jousia Muotka. Jousia introduces Katariina to the strange people and places beyond the witch door...
Patrik the Vampire
Bree Paulsen
Patrik loves to knit, bake, and help his friends while dealing with his own demons... like his thirst for blood because, oh yeah--he's a vampire.
[un]Divine
Ayme
A highschool senior thought giving up his soul for a demon was a good idea. It wasn't.
Between Failures
Jackie Wohlenhaus
The low stakes adventures of an assorted group of 20 somethings trapped in the declining years of American retail. They are naughty and say lots of swears.
KISMET
Jaki King
As interplanetary war threatens the Perseid system, a scientist ventures to the far reaches of space in her search for the truth: is humanity the master of its own fate, or is destiny truly inescapable?
Goblins
Ellipsis
A fantasy RPG as told through the eyes of the low-level monsters.
Clockwork
Chikuto
Cog Kleinschmidt is a diligent, quiet worker at the Mercia Fortress, the world power's leading stronghold. His orderly life is thrown into chaos when an enemy kingdom sends a diplomat for peace talks. This diplomat needs something from Cog - whether he agrees to their terms or not!
Wilde Life
Pascalle Lepas
Oscar decided to rent an old haunted house, and that's when things got weird...
Wychwood
Varethane
When Tiara's pyrokinesis is finally noticed, she is captured by a magical research organization for study. If she cooperates, she could be helping to save humanity from a dire threat - but can she trust them?
Spinnerette
Krazy Krow, Rocio Zucchi, Pablo Rey
When a lab accident gives Heather Brown spider powers and six arms, she does what any midwest comic geek would do: Become Ohio's #3 superhero!
El Goonish Shive
Dan Shive
WARNING: This comic often ignores the Laws of Physics
Heart of Gold
Eliot Baum, Viv Tanner
A pianist with failing eyesight seeks out a priest with a miraculous healing touch, drawing him deeper into a world of miracles and curses.
The Lonely Vincent Bellingham
Diana Huh
Vincent is an unkind man looking to disappear, and finds himself in the care of a vampire and her two wicked children.
Parallax
Fightbeast
When meek teenager Lomax Torchstone wished for his life to change, becoming a magical warrior tasked with fending off creepy monsters really wasn't what he had in mind.
Come Hell or High Water
Jenny/Star, Mori
Prince Gladimir was never meant to fall for a pirate. Swearing off love for duty, the threat of war propels him back into the Captain’s world of high seas and high stakes. Their relationship could be the thing to save the kingdom of Yvoire - or destroy it.
Anacrine Complex
Sae Cotton
A superhuman heist involving probably too many pigeons than entirely necessary.
Star Trip
Gisele Weaver
Jas is a human taken from her home planet on a trip across the galaxy she will never forget.
Hazy London
Scotty
A story about messy relationships. From friendly foes to crazy families. Nothing is black and white, just full of color. But, all colors can get a little hazy...
Whomp!
Ronnie
A depressed, portly, hirsute anime fan stumbles through life in the ever-pursuit of chicken nuggets and other life-shortening indulgences.
Monster Pulse
Magnolia Porter Siddell
Four kids run afoul of a creepy secret organization's experiments, which turn their body parts into fighting monsters. Part sentimental coming-of-age story, part monster-training shonen manga, with just a bit of sci-fi body horror.
Sam & Fuzzy
Sam Logan
Troubled by gangster rodents, lovesick vampire stalkers, or confused ninja assassins? Don't panic! Sam and Fuzzy are here to help. (For a reasonable fee.)
Atomic Robo
Brian Clevinger, Scott Wegener
The robot punches monsters and bad robots and one time he was a cowboy.
Lighter Than Heir
Melissa Albino
A young Volant woman joins the military in an effort to upstage her war-hero father.
Tove
Severin
The end of the world is coming, and Tove doesn't want to be a hero, but SOMEONE has to look after her little brother.
Nerf Now!!
Josué Pereira
A cute webcomic about fanservice, video games, and... love. Mostly video games, though.
Drugs & Wires
Mary Safro, Io Black
Dan used to be a VR operator until his brain got fried by malware. Now he's stuck delivering packages in a post-Soviet hellhole all while trying to adjust to his new life and find some answers.
Lunar Blight
Studio CARTRIDGE, Laura Lee
Lunar Blight is a gothic horror story about an elite knight serving a moon cult who must choose between upholding his honoured duty or condemning everything he’s grown to know.
Knights Errant
J.R. Doyle
Wilfrid's humble quest for revenge becomes bigger and bloodier by the day.
Countdown to Countdown
Velinxi
Iris Black is a self-proclaimed inventor with the curious ability to bring his drawings to life, and yearns to find a space where he can use his powers freely.
Go Get a Roomie
Clover
Experience the queer journey of an upbeat hippie and the friendships she makes along the way! A tale of self-discovery and love of many forms.
Fairmeadow
Kendra P. / KP
A wayward soldier finds herself in a pacifist commune deep in the wilderness of a war-weary land. Living in isolation brings her closer to those she was sworn to kill than she could ever imagine - but also threatens to tear the place apart.
How to be a Werewolf
Shawn Lenore
Malaya Walters was bitten by a werewolf as a child. After being raised by her human family, she faces the chance to learn what being a werewolf is really like as an adult.
Guilded Age
T Campbell, John Waltrip, Florence Machina
Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
Demon's Mirror
Harry Bogosian
Based loosely off of "The Snow Queen", a story by Hans Christian Andersen, we see things take a different turn as the demons become central characters, and the side characters stick around. Yup, that's the only differences. Enjoy!
Tiger, Tiger
Petra Nordlund
A young noble lady steals her brother's identity and his ship to find love and adventure, and to write a book about the fascinating life cycle of sea sponges!
MASKLESS
kickingshoes
In a world where people can wield the magic of elemental Masks, all Ashe wants to do is help. Maskless and useless, with dreams of fire and smoke on the back of his tongue, he finds himself on a strange, dangerous path to uncovering the secrets of these incredible objects, and the source of the monsters plaguing his home.
The Otherknown
Lorian Merriman
Chandra is a 12-year-old accidental time traveler with a reluctant new dad, who happens to be a member of a feared galactic crime syndicate.
Sunshine Boy
Moosopp
New-kid Kelly is sweet but naive. Luckily, he's got his outgoing neighbor Grey in his corner.
Real Science Adventures
Brian Clevinger
Spin off stories and other adventures from the world of Atomic Robo!
Killjoys
Flatw00ds
When two disgraced ex-feds fall backwards into trouble with the clown mafia, getting out in one piece is gonna be no joke!
No End
Erli, Kromi
A queer romance about people attempting to build lives in a cold, post-apocalyptic world ravaged by hordes of undead.
Far to the North
Allison Shaw
Kelu turns to the monsters of her remote mountain home when her family is held hostage by outsiders.
Folklore
Adam Ma, Colin Tan Wei
A superhuman horror story focused on a small band of survivors trying to navigate a war-torn world in the aftermath of the Federation’s collapse.
Shaderunners
Alex Assan, Lin Darrow
A ragtag band of bootleggers open a speakeasy for bottled colour in the greyscale city of Ironwell.
Awaken
Koti Saavedra/Flipfloppery
Superpowers, monsters and conspiracies. Piras, the spoiled Dameschi heir, fights to recover his identity after becoming a terrorist!
Girl Genius
Phil Foglio, Kaja Foglio
In a time when the Industrial Revolution has become an all-out war, Mad Science rules the World...with mixed success.
Paint the Town Red
Windy, Winter Jay Kiakas
Winona runs a werewolf shelter with partner in crime, Odile in the Gothic city of Merlot. One day they take in an injured vampire, and soon unravels many of the dark secrets of Merlot.
Obelisk
Ashley McCammon
In 1908 New York, a young woman struggles to put her life back together in the wake of her father's death - until she discovers a vampire in the shambles of her inheritance.
Demon Studies
Miyuli
Four students summon and study potentially dangerous demons within the walls of the mysterious Summerland University.
BOOKMARK Click "Tag Page" to bookmark a page. When you return to the site, click "Goto Tag" to continue where you left off.
BUFFER WATCH
Comics are currently drawn and uploaded through:
Sal’s only interacted with Dina, personally, twice. The first when she noticed Dina got caught up in the group going to the lake and confirming, yeah, they’re at the lake, and the second was when she snapped at Becky and Dina to stop tooling around on her bike and asked if Dina wasn’t supposed to be on Ross Watch.
The “Riker Maneuver” was the name informally given by Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge to a tactic used by Commander William T. Riker, in acting command of the USS Enterprise-E, to combat two Son’a battle cruisers in 2375. Following La Forge’s suggestion that history would assign that name to the maneuver, Riker replied, “If it works…”
Attempting to elude the ships in the area of space known as “the Briar Patch,” Riker ordered the Enterprise’s ramscoops utilized to collect highly-unstable metreon gas. Upon filling the storage cells to maximum capacity, Riker activated the ship’s manual steering column to perform precision maneuvering, and ordered the ramscoops released.
Riker then piloted the Enterprise in close proximity to the Son’a ships, leaving a cloud of metreon gas between them and the Enterprise. Subsequent to one of the pursuing vessels firing at the Enterprise, the gas ignited, destroying one of the ships and severely damaging and disabling the other. (Star Trek: Insurrection)
wha
Fans have given this name to the unusual way Riker sits down in chairs by throwing one leg over the back.
I used to laugh so hard at the way he sat down in chairs, but then I learned it was because Jonathan Frakes had a back injury that made standing for long periods of time or bending to sit quite painful. Thankfully, he’s tall, so he can just step over chairs to sit on them or put a leg against a surface to lean.
It would have been better if you said “Chixuclub”, because that’s where the asteroid in question fell. (and yes, I know all about Darmok and Jalad. wiiiiiink.)
You’re a better person than I BBCC. While the addition of Dina’s always a plus there’s been a little too much Walky for my tastes. Dina can’t salvage that even though she’s working overtime on these two.
Sal is my favourite character. Marcie’s my second. I love Carla. Joyce got snapped at for her boundary issues (even though it didn’t take). I got SO MANY things I wanted (the top ones being Sal putting the pieces together regarding Amber and the other being her talking to Ethan and it went SO WELL). I got backstory. I got character building. I got Danny and Sal hanging out and being friends. I got Carla here. I think Walky and Amber are adorable (but doomed). Plus now Dina. I got angst and well written drama. Again. I love everyone in this bar.
Don’t worry. It will all go to hell in a bit, when Sal starts referencing conversations she’s had with Amazi-Girl and Amber freaks out. (This is known as having faith in Willis.)
I’m a long-time lurker, rare post-er. Posting now because I’m working with a charter-school student who needs a survey question answered (to do JH statistical analysis), but doesn’t have a lot of points of contact due to special needs.
If you can spare 30 seconds to help, please <a href= "https://goo.gl/forms/tYGpBxwzHjdTLQ0i1
check out this Google form – it’s a single, multiple-choice question: Which (of these) is your favorite Disneyland ride?!
Thanks!
(Actual DoA comment: I love how Dina is excellently, yet [probably? maybe not?] unwittingly supporting Sal’s subtext re: Amber so beautifully)
I’d be delighted to answer but…uhh…
I’ve never been to disney. I don’t know the rides.
I may never go to disney, since it is on a different hemisphere and my socioeconomic situation would never allow an off-country vacation.
I haven’t been to Disneyland in so long; I feel like what was my favorite ride when I was 8 was different than my favorite ride when I was 15, which is different than what my favorite ride would be now. But I picked one.
I didn’t get to disneyland until I was 21 or so, and still my main remaining memory is that the rides have really long lines. also the stores have terrible security – I walked out with a box of chocolates by accident, and nobody noticed, even when I walked back in and put it back.
I still wanted to see things over and over when I was eight (hell, I still do now), and had the same experience with Small World. My mom loves it, however, so she didn’t mind going on it a bunch with me.
When I was 15, I liked rides like Space Mountain and the Matterhorn more, but I still appreciated Small World. Also, my dad and I got stuck in the Haunted Mansion, which adds to my fondness for the ride, though on a more personal level.
Space Mountain. Only thrill ride that’s continued to make me laugh uncontrollably while riding ever since I was a little kid. If I could afford it I’d go every weekend and just ride it over and over…..
Re: Alt Text. Sal wants a million dollars? Is it so she can buy a little tiny fridge for her dorm room, and fill it with those little pre-wrapped sausages and things?
Yeah, that’s my guess for the moment, that Sal’s seeing common ground with Amber, and that’d be why she’s dropped by, either to talk it out or to confirm this feeling of familiarity.
I don’t feel that it does apply to Amber. Amber’s main characteristics to those who don’t know her are that she’s shy and short. This is why they don’t suspect her of being Amazi-Girl.
I guess Rage!Amber is a bit different, actions-wise, but she’s still got the same physical appearance. It doesn’t really fit the metaphor.
For those saying Sal isn’t respecting boundaries: At this point, Amber has proven to be an actual danger to her, stalking, threatening and, y’know, fighting her. Sal has some license in this case to suspend the, “If they want you to leave, leave” rule, as long as she believes Amber is not actually going to re-escalate the situation.
It is sensible to insist on a resolution, and Amber has no real right to say, “Never talk to me again.” A reminder that though Sal threw the first punch, Amazi-Girl/Amber have been, overall, the aggressors in their relationship.
If Amber makes a more reasonable offer, such as, “Let’s talk about this later,” then Sal should consider giving her space. But right now, Sal has a right to be a little bit stubborn about things.
This isn’t a, “Amber is bad” post, to be clear. This is just about whether or not Sal is obligated, socially and morally, to honor Amber’s “leave me alone” request.
I mean, Sal really should listen to Amber’s boundaries in this case, as it’s not an emergency and ‘get out of my room’ isn’t really related to the stalking. If Amber was telling Sal to not speak about it or something, that’d be less reasonable. If for no other reason, she should to lower the chance of being stabbed. Again.
Although I guess that’s a little complicated when Dina just asked if Sal could stay to talk dinosaurs before she kicked her out. It’s one of the thornier parts of sharing a bedroom.
Amber *is* saying, “I never want to hear from you again.”
My point is more that Sal has some right here to push Amber to address what she’s been doing to Sal. Amber doesn’t get to demand Sal respect her wish to be left alone when Amber hasn’t been respecting Sal’s wish to be left alone.
Yes, that’s true. I was focusing only on the ‘get out’ part. Yeah, I’d say Sal has a right to want to talk about this whole mess, especially with regards to AG. That said, though, Amber also has the right to not want to talk about it, even if I believe it could be good for both of them.
That said, this is a story and Amber probably isn’t gonna get what she wants.
Unless I missed something, Amber hasn’t clearly told Sal to leave, though the tone certainly suggests it. The closest was when Dina asked and Amber said “Maybe. For her own safety.”
Still, I think you’re misreading what Sal’s here for. The flashbacks during the fight and the thoughts before she came over didn’t seem worried about Amber as a threat to her, but were more about her own role in this and the parallels between them. I’m actually a lot less supportive of Sal intruding here, if she’s here to push Amber to address what she’s been doing.
Sal might have the right to do that, in some abstract sense, but it’s not likely to work. Not now, not like this. It’ll just lead to more conflict, not resolution.
If she’s here to “push Amber to address what she’s been doing to Sal” as you suggested she has the right to be, I don’t think it’s going to work. If she can present it as more of a mutual thing, then there’s a chance.
I am apparently blind. Or so overwhelmed by metaphorical dinosaur trivia I completely missed the first panel today. I even went back and checked the last couple of days to see what Amber had said.
I think Amber was more or less being stubborn in order to hold on to the shreds of what she thinks Sal is that are slowly deteriorating as this conversation continues and she learns that Sal is an actual human being. I’m happy Sal is here even if it comes off disrespectful. If Amber actually has any intention of stabbing Sal in this situation there’s no saving her.
Also, Ruth is going to find out, and then, femurs.
Then again, Ruth’s next steps were probably going to be talking to each of them separately to figure out what the hell is going on, and not impossibly (at least, this is what I suspect her training would suggest, which is not to say that it would be the right thing to do or that Ruth would necessarily follow it) to then get them to sit down and talk things out while she stood guard to make things didn’t get violent. Sal is just being her usual anti-authoritarian self and getting to that stage on her own, cause she don’t need no dang RA to make her work things out.
What’s Marcie going to do that Sal doesn’t feel like she’s done already, namely abandon her for good and all? We know that Marcie can stop fights, but her instincts do seem to be to stop them, not join them in any way, let alone start them. So, threat levels:
Ruth: Femurs
Marcie: Disappointed face
Which would undoubtedly be more crushing to Sal than the femurs (except maybe on the literal level), but she’s already half-prepared for it.
Current favorite clusterfuck prediction: Amber finds out about Amazi-Girl and freaks out badly enough that Dina kicks Sal out; Sal goes back to her room, completely discombobulated because she’s realizing that Amber’s genuinely not well in the head, to find Marcie visiting Malaya, which makes her pissy enough she doesn’t even remember all the bruises on her face; Marcie, seeing them, loses it, while Malaya makes snide comments; and Ruth walks in on Sal seeming to be about to start another fight, while there’s a possibly unauthorized person in the room (not sure what the rules on non-students guests are).
And then she sees Fuckface.
It is entirely possible that she will then march over to Dorothy’s room, grab her, drag her to Sal’s, and say “Here. You got me into this, you fucking fix it.” At which point Sal will start ranting about Amber fucking Walky. The universe may implode at this point.
That said, you’ve already hit the nail on the head – Marcie being angrier or more upset/disappointed and it being harder to make up would upset Sal waaaaaay more than anything Ruth can do to her.
The other step in the clusterfuck that needs to fit in there somewhere is for Sal to meet up with Amazi-Girl again, knowing she’s Amber, but not knowing about the disassociation and with Amazi-Girl having no idea anything went down.
The chairs seem to be part of the standard university furniture, yet these two are different. In-universe, it seems reasonable enough that they may have switched over to a slightly different chair model that they replace broken chairs with on an as-needed basis, and as such now have a mix of the two types that they distribute throughout the dorms.
However, I choose to believe that the first chair KNEW how Sal was planning to sit and got rid of it’s armrests itself to make it less awkward to do so.
Late last night, while Dina is sleeping and AG is out punching, the armrests just pop off of the one chair and scoot under a bed or something. They knew who was coming.
I spent about 15 minutes on Google Images looking at dorm room chairs in Read Hall. I could not find one that was armless (apart from rolling chairs that were probably not university property).
But I did find public-area chairs of similar style that were armless. The chair that Sal’s sitting in could have been liberated from the public areas; maybe Dina finds armless chairs more comfortable.
Or perhaps your belief is in fact the true answer. Let’s go with that, because why not?
Sal is trying to build bridges and genuinely trying to approach Amber on a level she understands and might be able to connect with; but Amber can’t see that. I mostly feel bad for Sal here, I hope she’s not wasting her time
Maybe she wants to apologize? For, you know, holding her friend hostage with a knife. And for attacking her in front of the dorm room. Apologies are a good way to start the emotional healing process. Maybe they can cry and hug after? That would be we nice. Doubt it though haha
i’m serious i just want strips of Sal and Dina hanging out and talking about dinosaurs. No Amber no bullshit no Amber bullshit, just the real raw energy of two cool dudes being friends and bonding over a shared interest.
P much. Tbh in my personal usage of words I’ve stripped the gender from a lot of male skewed words when referring to friends (dude, bro, man, guy, boy)
I love the unexpected Sal and Dina meetup, I love Dinosaur Metaphors, and I love that Amber is lowering her defenses enough to give Sal a chance here. I kind of feel like I should elaborate but also that’s basically it-I just really like what’s going on here!
How do you mean? I’ve read the series and know who you’re talking about, I’m just missing the similarities between Sal and Kyoko in this mom—
Oooooh! Distant and verbally abusive parents, biker delinquent behaviour as a shell to hide internal pain, and the realization that maybe said biker delinquent behavior may be harmful and destructive, leading to attempts to become gentler and kinder.
Ok. I have to ask.
Why are there two diff kind of chairs?
its dorms.. they’re bought in bulk. it is so bizarre to have two separate types. When they have uneven amounts they usually stick them in the common room instead..
Did…. one of them steal a chair I wonder?
Precisely because they buy in bulk. When they furnished the dorms, they used the cheapest chair they could find. Sometime later, they purchased a new batch of chairs to be used as replacements. Clearly, one of the original chairs broke or was stolen and so it was replaced from the new batch with no concern as to whether or not it matched.
Also, chairs tend to, shall we say, wander around. As long as they don’t leave the building, no one in authority cares all that much, unless specialized chairs in showcase areas start to wander.
Could just be that there are two types of chair: an armless type for desks, and a type with arms for visitors. The desk behind Amber’s head does not have an associated chair at the moment, so that could be the chair Sal grabbed.
Looking back through the preceding strips set in Amber and Dina’s room, Sal does indeed grab her chair from near the desk, and Amber is first seen with her chair away from the under-loft areas, where a visitor might be expected to sit.
We just bought a couple hundred chairs for our college. The same style is available in both arm and armless, and since different people prefer one or the other, we bought some of each. They wander around and find their own destiny. Couple times a year we inventory and relocate them.
The last storyline involved a Walkerton twin defusing Amber with a burrito, now the other Walkerton twin is defusing her with a philosophical discussion about an obscure dinosaur. Love it!
This is going considerably well for these two considering that the conflict between them is even way more serious than we made it out to be and we took this entire thing pretty fucking seriously.
It’s quite a blessing that they found themselves able to talk this out so soon.
Plenty of animals bang their heads against their enemies as a matter of course. Is there something fragile about Pachycephalosaurus’ bone structure that would prevent it from doing what deers do?
I heard that it’s head is too domed so it wouldn’t be able to actually be used for headbutting safely because the dome makes the contact point too small and liable to cause slips.
The fact that it IS part of the skull is a huge part of it. Ram’s horns and dear antlers are pretty good shock absorbers, so the brain doesn’t get shaken up nearly so much, and they’re not permanent parts of the skull, so if they take a hit bad and break the horn/antler…they haven’t broken their skull.
(That said, the best guess is that pachy did use its head for intraspecific fighting, but that it wasn’t like rams or dear, smashing headlong into each other, but smacking at each others flanks, and probably not straight on hits, at that, so the hit didn’t shake their brains up.)
I think Dina has started asking people who come to the room the dinosaur question, not as a way of keeping people out, but as a way initiating a conversation about dinosaurs, giving her an opportunaty to show off her models and delve more deeply into the wonders of dinosaurs. She has discovered that many people are also knowledgable about dinosaurs. Normally, only Becky would be expected to come to the room, but the Amber related drama has been pulling other people in, giving her opportunaties that she doesn’t want to pass up. When a conversation about dinosaurs doesn’t happen, as it did with Walky (http://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-9-comic/01-flyin-to-the-red/terrorturkey/), she is quite disappointed. (Also, I just realised that in that comic, Dina is wearing a T-shirt from “Questionable Content”.)
Willis is very good at little foreshadowing/hints like that.
My personal favourite is Amber describing Walky as cute waaaaaaaay back in Walking with Dina.
Although another one is back in Yesterday Was Thursday when Amber saw Billie and Sal walking down the hall and got uncomfortable but just couldn’t place why.
What do we want?
Sheep freedom!
When do we want it?
BaAaAaAa!
(Sorry, alt-text reminded me of that goofy bit my family sometimes does. Also, I caught a respectable herd of Mareep (My son) earlier, so it just seemed to fit.)
Man, Sal, you could be slightly less invasive about it, but if this helps Amber chill her ass out, I’m down.
Are you hitting the link that says “reply” at the end of the thread? If so, don’t do that. Just scroll to the bottom and start typing in the box without clicking anything.
Sal wants to talk out their issues with Amber, but Amber is scared and so is reacting with hostility and bluster to save face and drive her away. She doesn’t want to engage with Sal or stop thinking of her as a monster. Sal responds with calm and non-aggressive body language, and her conversation with Dina, where she meets Dina respectfully and seriously, shows Amber that Sal is more than just anger and violence. Sal talks to Dina about how people assume that the pachycephalosaurus was an aggressive dinosaur because of the way it appears but that it probably wasn’t. This is to tell Amber that her assumptions about Sal might be wrong too. Since Sal has de-escalated the situation and Dina doesn’t want to throw Sal out, Amber decides to listen to what Sal has to say.
Are you saying that Sal is deliberately using the dinosaur as a metaphor to talk to Amber? Honestly, that seems way above the level of communication or planning skills Sal’s shown.
It’s definitely the sub-text, but I think it just was Sal’s favorite dinosaur, back when she was a kid and she’s just now putting the pieces together about why.
It’s working that way, but it wasn’t a deliberate ploy on Sal’s part.
At least in my opinion. If it was, it seems a bit much for someone whose choice of words talking to Amber in this scene haven’t been exactly well chosen to de-escalate. The body language, particularly today, has, but if anyone gets the credit for de-escalating, it’s Dina.
Except Amber looks like a vision impaired stuffed animal but is prone to pretty frequent displays of violence so she’s like the opposite of that metaphor.
So, did Sal research Pachycephalosaurus so she could make this metaphor and connect to Amber through Dina, or is she just a closeted dino-nerd? Also which option is more adorable?
I’ve been anticipating/dreading this point in the story arc.
Sal has multiple active internal motivations to change, but Amber doesn’t (or has been actively resisting them). Sal came to Amber, but how was Amber to accept Sal?
Enter Dina. Then Sal spinning her Pachycephalosaurus interest into a metaphor for Amber. And Amber hearing it.
Dina’s directness and literalness are inherently non-threatening. (Heck, even intentional threats from Dina are non-threatening, unless they involve dinosaurs.) It’s awesome that Amber is still open enough to hear such messages, even when they are manipulated by Sal.
It just goes to show that even webcomic authors afflicted with a severe case of Butts Disease can still craft a great arc. (And Dina’s T-shirt connects to another such victim.)
1. Incredible ruling! An Ohio appeals court has ruled that trans care is healthcare, strikes down youth trans care ban!
It made the ruling using the Republican-passed "health care freedom amendment" meant to overturn Obamacare!
Subscribe to support my journalism.
You'll want to read this one.
One of the oldest arguments against giving any rights or process to the people we accuse is — one constantly “rediscovered” by the shallow and the dim — is “well they didn’t give their victims any rights or process.”
That’s fatuous.
/1
✪ Jonathan H. Gray says: “Beware the Tide Pods of March” ✪@jongraywb.bsky.social ⋅ 8h
Darth Vader and Jar Jar Binks were besties who hung out with each other and had ice creams and rode on tandem bikes and went to the park to play on the swing-set and also probably explored each other bodies while Padme watched b/c she thought the noises were neat and we don’t talk about that enough.
So now that apparently we’re doing the whole is autism caused by vaccines scare mongering again (I’m Wakefield’s number two hater), I’m reposting my nib comic about autism and vaccines
thenib.com/how-anti-vax...
TRANSFORMERS: THE BASICS on PRIMA is now available early to Patreon supporters! The Age of the Primes is upon us, so join me for a delve into the mythology of Cybertron, and a look at the story of the first Transformer ever created - the orginal Prime!
WATCH NOW: www.patreon.com/posts/124649...
They're called public records for a reason. Starting today, WIRED will *stop paywalling* articles that are primarily based on public records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, becoming the first publication to partner with @freedom.press to offer this for our new coverage.
when i was young, on Sundays, my dad would get bagels, cream cheese, and lox ends and pieces from Snider's Grocery and when we got back from the near-useless Sunday School at temple, that was lunch and I'd read the comics while eating and during those moments I knew I'd become a bagel
David M Willis!@damnyouwillis.bsky.social ⋅ 1d
I respect "what inspired you to become a cartoonist" followed by a panel exemplifying the worst example of cartooning, just a solid block of unillustrated text, as a bit
I respect "what inspired you to become a cartoonist" followed by a panel exemplifying the worst example of cartooning, just a solid block of unillustrated text, as a bit
Seriously, I'm getting kinda pissed off that "sassy biting comment" is so far the only form of punishment these judges will ever give these utter bastards
Joshua J. Friedman@joshuajfriedman.com ⋅ 1d
Boasberg: OK, so I will hear from you from noon tomorrow—and I will memorialize this in a written order, since my oral orders apparently don't carry much weight
I guess we do know what their names are: Light Long (giraffe), Hydrophant (elephant), Captain Volca (T-rex), Leafback (triceratops)
takaratomymall.jp/shop/c/cTFwi...
Dina reconfirms why she is a fan favorite.
As if it was necessary.
It wasn’t necessary, but it means we get to see more of Dina.
and it shows that the other characters now recognize her worth at times, especially when trying to break the ice and offer help
Sal’s only interacted with Dina, personally, twice. The first when she noticed Dina got caught up in the group going to the lake and confirming, yeah, they’re at the lake, and the second was when she snapped at Becky and Dina to stop tooling around on her bike and asked if Dina wasn’t supposed to be on Ross Watch.
This is good. This is non-violent problem solving.
It can’t last….
I think Sal is in a good place to make it work, Amber on the other hand still has some stuff she needs to work through.
I’m here to make peace and speak in dinosaur metaphors, and I’m all out of dinosaur metaphors
(note: may not actually be out of dinosaur metaphors)
+1 there are so many good dinosaur metaphors!
if Amber does not employ the Riker Maneuver in the next strip i will be moderately disappointed
Hmm, let’s google what that is…
The “Riker Maneuver” was the name informally given by Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge to a tactic used by Commander William T. Riker, in acting command of the USS Enterprise-E, to combat two Son’a battle cruisers in 2375. Following La Forge’s suggestion that history would assign that name to the maneuver, Riker replied, “If it works…”
Attempting to elude the ships in the area of space known as “the Briar Patch,” Riker ordered the Enterprise’s ramscoops utilized to collect highly-unstable metreon gas. Upon filling the storage cells to maximum capacity, Riker activated the ship’s manual steering column to perform precision maneuvering, and ordered the ramscoops released.
Riker then piloted the Enterprise in close proximity to the Son’a ships, leaving a cloud of metreon gas between them and the Enterprise. Subsequent to one of the pursuing vessels firing at the Enterprise, the gas ignited, destroying one of the ships and severely damaging and disabling the other. (Star Trek: Insurrection)
wha
Fans have given this name to the unusual way Riker sits down in chairs by throwing one leg over the back.
Ohhhhh
i mean either one would work
I just hope it’s the latter and not the former…I don’t think Dina would appreciate the sudden release of explosive gas
She’d better get used to it if Amber continues dating Walky.
+1 Internet
JF has a back condition, so he can’t just sit down like a normal person. So…
Alternate Riker Maneuver: The reason he can’t KEEP all those girlfriends.
The Picard Maneuver is how our dear Jean-Luc straightens his shirt, fyi.
I used to laugh so hard at the way he sat down in chairs, but then I learned it was because Jonathan Frakes had a back injury that made standing for long periods of time or bending to sit quite painful. Thankfully, he’s tall, so he can just step over chairs to sit on them or put a leg against a surface to lean.
Well, I did mentioned it yesterday, because that’s how Sal could have sitted.
Amber’s not gonna do it, cause that chair doesn’t reaaaly allow it.
Neither of those chairs support the Riker Maneuver. It needs a low back and no arms.
Did they design the sets for the Enterprise around that?
Dina now understands Sal perfectly, because Sal speaks her language
Dina’s gonna rush up to Sal and start talking dinosaurs every time she sees her from now on.
I look forward to it.
Dina and Joyce are going to fight now.
Nah, Dina will grab Sal and yell ‘NO. AWAY WITH YOU. I AM TALKING *SCIENCE* WITH HER.’
It’s like that episode of ST:TNG, but with dinosaur stuff.
Cretaceous when the asteroid fell
…at Tanagra.
It would have been better if you said “Chixuclub”, because that’s where the asteroid in question fell. (and yes, I know all about Darmok and Jalad. wiiiiiink.)
Dina and Sal at Indiana.
When the fists fell.
[X] & [Y] @ IU
Billie & Ruth @ IU
Becky & Dina @ IU
….
Are there 100 or more of those, or only dozens.
someone should do a table.
*is conflicted as to play Spice Girls or Def Leppard. Twisted Sister is already spoken for*
Twisted Sister is the clear and obvious correct choice but if it is already taken I vote Def Leppard for second choice.
…w-wait… you’ve been keeping track of all of these???
Dunno about you but that alt text is begging for this song:
https://youtu.be/B4L3ls_6UYg
I just realized that’s Canadian Dollars. So, like, a couple thousand or so here in the US.
What, no “Bang Your Head”?
Did she just get through to Amber talking about dinosaurs?!?
I love Sal. I love Dina. I love Amber. I love this whole arc.
I LOVE EVERYONE IN THIS BAR!
Yeah! *high fives*
You’re a better person than I BBCC. While the addition of Dina’s always a plus there’s been a little too much Walky for my tastes. Dina can’t salvage that even though she’s working overtime on these two.
Sal is my favourite character. Marcie’s my second. I love Carla. Joyce got snapped at for her boundary issues (even though it didn’t take). I got SO MANY things I wanted (the top ones being Sal putting the pieces together regarding Amber and the other being her talking to Ethan and it went SO WELL). I got backstory. I got character building. I got Danny and Sal hanging out and being friends. I got Carla here. I think Walky and Amber are adorable (but doomed). Plus now Dina. I got angst and well written drama. Again. I love everyone in this bar.
Don’t worry. It will all go to hell in a bit, when Sal starts referencing conversations she’s had with Amazi-Girl and Amber freaks out. (This is known as having faith in Willis.)
I hope so! I want more drama.
Soon enough Amber and AG will actively start fighting for control and deciding if people live or die by the flip of a coin!
Nah, doesn’t have the face duality to pull it off.
Maybe she’ll start having the blush on only one of her cheeks :b
That’ll work!
Will there be a junkyard involved? Perhaps with tires and a car crusher?
Hello All!
I’m a long-time lurker, rare post-er. Posting now because I’m working with a charter-school student who needs a survey question answered (to do JH statistical analysis), but doesn’t have a lot of points of contact due to special needs.
If you can spare 30 seconds to help, please <a href= "https://goo.gl/forms/tYGpBxwzHjdTLQ0i1
check out this Google form – it’s a single, multiple-choice question: Which (of these) is your favorite Disneyland ride?!
Thanks!
(Actual DoA comment: I love how Dina is excellently, yet [probably? maybe not?] unwittingly supporting Sal’s subtext re: Amber so beautifully)
Drat drat drat drat drat. I even practiced!
(Take two:)
If you can spare 30 seconds to help, please
check out this Google form
Woo! I can internet!
I’d be delighted to answer but…uhh…
I’ve never been to disney. I don’t know the rides.
I may never go to disney, since it is on a different hemisphere and my socioeconomic situation would never allow an off-country vacation.
Exactly my predicament. I understand you..
Aw. I super appreciate the sentiment, nonetheless. Thanks.
I haven’t been to Disneyland in so long; I feel like what was my favorite ride when I was 8 was different than my favorite ride when I was 15, which is different than what my favorite ride would be now. But I picked one.
I didn’t get to disneyland until I was 21 or so, and still my main remaining memory is that the rides have really long lines. also the stores have terrible security – I walked out with a box of chocolates by accident, and nobody noticed, even when I walked back in and put it back.
I am almost tempted to ask for a show of hands for those who are old enough to remember the thrill of the E-ticket rides.
I have only been back once since that era. I got to watch my niece and nephew discover the horror that is Small World.
I was four, and at the phase where kids want to see things over and over again, and I completely fell in love with Small World. Sorry, parents!
I still wanted to see things over and over when I was eight (hell, I still do now), and had the same experience with Small World. My mom loves it, however, so she didn’t mind going on it a bunch with me.
When I was 15, I liked rides like Space Mountain and the Matterhorn more, but I still appreciated Small World. Also, my dad and I got stuck in the Haunted Mansion, which adds to my fondness for the ride, though on a more personal level.
Done. Was just recently there, again!
Man this is so haaard
Space Mountain. Only thrill ride that’s continued to make me laugh uncontrollably while riding ever since I was a little kid. If I could afford it I’d go every weekend and just ride it over and over…..
Pretty sure she’s just here to personally torment you forever Ambs! Getting in good with Dina is the first step.
Dina sure does move fast to get between Indiana and Smith.
Thought it was Smif.
Well that was disheartening
Yay, they’re communicating! My gravatar is woefully unprepared for the optimism I feel for a change, but oh well!
I wasn’t expecting the dinosaur choice to be all symbolic, but I SHOULD have been.
A recent DYW Patreon promotion tweet refers to the t-shirt seen here as “chekhov’s pachy shirt.”
I really should look more at the t-shorts Willis has his characters wear …
t-shirts
Well, Pachycephalosaurus _literally_ means “thick-headed lizard”. I am not even sure the Willis has not made it up but am too lazy to check.
He did not make it up!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfWMBxuA_Jw
It’s a real dino, and my childhood favourite.
I wonder if I damaged myself by head-butting things. Oh well, too late now!
Re: Alt Text. Sal wants a million dollars? Is it so she can buy a little tiny fridge for her dorm room, and fill it with those little pre-wrapped sausages and things?
One million dollars. Next she’ll want sharks with friggin’ lasers attached to their heads…
And shouldn’t the text have been, “One MEE-LION dollars”?
And some Kraft Dinner. With dijon ketchup.
Of course. Because she is FANCY.
But not real Kraft dinner. That’s cruel.
I knew someone would post that.
And, of course, John Merrick’s remains.
Ooh, all them crazy elephant bones!
And a green dress. But not a REAL green dress. Thats cruel.
Nah, she wants a K-car. Nice and reliant.
Is this a couched metaphor on Sal’s part about appearances? If not, maybe she’s just a little on the nose by happenstance.
Yeah, I don’t fully get the metaphor. Can someone explain it for me?
Looks aggressive, isn’t. Mistaken for a fighter; is in fact fragile, misunderstood, may never BE understood…
Ah, thanks!
The beauty of the metaphor is it applies to both Sal and Rage!Amber.
Yeah, that’s my guess for the moment, that Sal’s seeing common ground with Amber, and that’d be why she’s dropped by, either to talk it out or to confirm this feeling of familiarity.
I don’t feel that it does apply to Amber. Amber’s main characteristics to those who don’t know her are that she’s shy and short. This is why they don’t suspect her of being Amazi-Girl.
I guess Rage!Amber is a bit different, actions-wise, but she’s still got the same physical appearance. It doesn’t really fit the metaphor.
I think this is either about Sal’s or Amber’s view of Amber and not about the world at large.
QC tshirt crossover!! W00t!
For those saying Sal isn’t respecting boundaries: At this point, Amber has proven to be an actual danger to her, stalking, threatening and, y’know, fighting her. Sal has some license in this case to suspend the, “If they want you to leave, leave” rule, as long as she believes Amber is not actually going to re-escalate the situation.
It is sensible to insist on a resolution, and Amber has no real right to say, “Never talk to me again.” A reminder that though Sal threw the first punch, Amazi-Girl/Amber have been, overall, the aggressors in their relationship.
If Amber makes a more reasonable offer, such as, “Let’s talk about this later,” then Sal should consider giving her space. But right now, Sal has a right to be a little bit stubborn about things.
This isn’t a, “Amber is bad” post, to be clear. This is just about whether or not Sal is obligated, socially and morally, to honor Amber’s “leave me alone” request.
I mean, Sal really should listen to Amber’s boundaries in this case, as it’s not an emergency and ‘get out of my room’ isn’t really related to the stalking. If Amber was telling Sal to not speak about it or something, that’d be less reasonable. If for no other reason, she should to lower the chance of being stabbed. Again.
Although I guess that’s a little complicated when Dina just asked if Sal could stay to talk dinosaurs before she kicked her out. It’s one of the thornier parts of sharing a bedroom.
Amber *is* saying, “I never want to hear from you again.”
My point is more that Sal has some right here to push Amber to address what she’s been doing to Sal. Amber doesn’t get to demand Sal respect her wish to be left alone when Amber hasn’t been respecting Sal’s wish to be left alone.
Yes, that’s true. I was focusing only on the ‘get out’ part. Yeah, I’d say Sal has a right to want to talk about this whole mess, especially with regards to AG. That said, though, Amber also has the right to not want to talk about it, even if I believe it could be good for both of them.
That said, this is a story and Amber probably isn’t gonna get what she wants.
Which, y’know, it’s irrelevant because Amber asks to hear Sal out at the end so I’m basically babbling.
Unless I missed something, Amber hasn’t clearly told Sal to leave, though the tone certainly suggests it. The closest was when Dina asked and Amber said “Maybe. For her own safety.”
Still, I think you’re misreading what Sal’s here for. The flashbacks during the fight and the thoughts before she came over didn’t seem worried about Amber as a threat to her, but were more about her own role in this and the parallels between them. I’m actually a lot less supportive of Sal intruding here, if she’s here to push Amber to address what she’s been doing.
Sal might have the right to do that, in some abstract sense, but it’s not likely to work. Not now, not like this. It’ll just lead to more conflict, not resolution.
Sal’s here to deescalate.
I think so.
If she’s here to “push Amber to address what she’s been doing to Sal” as you suggested she has the right to be, I don’t think it’s going to work. If she can present it as more of a mutual thing, then there’s a chance.
I am apparently blind. Or so overwhelmed by metaphorical dinosaur trivia I completely missed the first panel today. I even went back and checked the last couple of days to see what Amber had said.
I think Amber was more or less being stubborn in order to hold on to the shreds of what she thinks Sal is that are slowly deteriorating as this conversation continues and she learns that Sal is an actual human being. I’m happy Sal is here even if it comes off disrespectful. If Amber actually has any intention of stabbing Sal in this situation there’s no saving her.
Also, Ruth is going to find out, and then, femurs.
Then again, Ruth’s next steps were probably going to be talking to each of them separately to figure out what the hell is going on, and not impossibly (at least, this is what I suspect her training would suggest, which is not to say that it would be the right thing to do or that Ruth would necessarily follow it) to then get them to sit down and talk things out while she stood guard to make things didn’t get violent. Sal is just being her usual anti-authoritarian self and getting to that stage on her own, cause she don’t need no dang RA to make her work things out.
Oh, forget Ruth, worry about when Marcie finds out about this fight. That’s only a matter of time.
What’s Marcie going to do that Sal doesn’t feel like she’s done already, namely abandon her for good and all? We know that Marcie can stop fights, but her instincts do seem to be to stop them, not join them in any way, let alone start them. So, threat levels:
Ruth: Femurs
Marcie: Disappointed face
Which would undoubtedly be more crushing to Sal than the femurs (except maybe on the literal level), but she’s already half-prepared for it.
Current favorite clusterfuck prediction: Amber finds out about Amazi-Girl and freaks out badly enough that Dina kicks Sal out; Sal goes back to her room, completely discombobulated because she’s realizing that Amber’s genuinely not well in the head, to find Marcie visiting Malaya, which makes her pissy enough she doesn’t even remember all the bruises on her face; Marcie, seeing them, loses it, while Malaya makes snide comments; and Ruth walks in on Sal seeming to be about to start another fight, while there’s a possibly unauthorized person in the room (not sure what the rules on non-students guests are).
And then she sees Fuckface.
It is entirely possible that she will then march over to Dorothy’s room, grab her, drag her to Sal’s, and say “Here. You got me into this, you fucking fix it.” At which point Sal will start ranting about Amber fucking Walky. The universe may implode at this point.
I love this clusterfuck and I kinda wanna see it.
That said, you’ve already hit the nail on the head – Marcie being angrier or more upset/disappointed and it being harder to make up would upset Sal waaaaaay more than anything Ruth can do to her.
The other step in the clusterfuck that needs to fit in there somewhere is for Sal to meet up with Amazi-Girl again, knowing she’s Amber, but not knowing about the disassociation and with Amazi-Girl having no idea anything went down.
The chairs seem to be part of the standard university furniture, yet these two are different. In-universe, it seems reasonable enough that they may have switched over to a slightly different chair model that they replace broken chairs with on an as-needed basis, and as such now have a mix of the two types that they distribute throughout the dorms.
However, I choose to believe that the first chair KNEW how Sal was planning to sit and got rid of it’s armrests itself to make it less awkward to do so.
Late last night, while Dina is sleeping and AG is out punching, the armrests just pop off of the one chair and scoot under a bed or something. They knew who was coming.
I spent about 15 minutes on Google Images looking at dorm room chairs in Read Hall. I could not find one that was armless (apart from rolling chairs that were probably not university property).
But I did find public-area chairs of similar style that were armless. The chair that Sal’s sitting in could have been liberated from the public areas; maybe Dina finds armless chairs more comfortable.
Or perhaps your belief is in fact the true answer. Let’s go with that, because why not?
I work in an academic building and I can tell you; chairs are migratory. Probably both African and European chairs, laden or unladen.
Yay! Monty Python reference!
The power of dinosaur facts has de-escalated the situation.
Being extinct gives dinosaurs a LOT of objectivity.
Sal is trying to build bridges and genuinely trying to approach Amber on a level she understands and might be able to connect with; but Amber can’t see that. I mostly feel bad for Sal here, I hope she’s not wasting her time
Preettty sure the last panel was literally about Amber seeing that.
Maybe she wants to apologize? For, you know, holding her friend hostage with a knife. And for attacking her in front of the dorm room. Apologies are a good way to start the emotional healing process. Maybe they can cry and hug after? That would be we nice. Doubt it though haha
And then Sal asks if she wants to go do the usual patrol, and Amber has another nervous breakdown.
I don’t think Sal will ask that. She made it pretty clear to Dorothy she’s done with punching after the fight.
i’m serious i just want strips of Sal and Dina hanging out and talking about dinosaurs. No Amber no bullshit no Amber bullshit, just the real raw energy of two cool dudes being friends and bonding over a shared interest.
Is “dudes” a fully gender-neutral word now?
Many use it gender neutrally, but it does still skew male to a degree.
It should be.
If Dudeism and Good Burger are anything to go by, then yes.
P much. Tbh in my personal usage of words I’ve stripped the gender from a lot of male skewed words when referring to friends (dude, bro, man, guy, boy)
I’d like to see Sal and Amber getting along, but if I can’t have that I’ll settle for Sal and Dina talking about dinosaurs.
I love the unexpected Sal and Dina meetup, I love Dinosaur Metaphors, and I love that Amber is lowering her defenses enough to give Sal a chance here. I kind of feel like I should elaborate but also that’s basically it-I just really like what’s going on here!
Fingers crossed!
Sal and Dina can keep talking about dinosaurs forever. Forget everything else: this is the highlight of this entire webcomic.
Sal is turning into Tohru’s mom from Fruit’s Basket, and it’s the best.
I’m crying already and I have no idea what’s going to happen here
I was just thinking about how much I liked her, and Uo.
And Hana-chan! Mustn’t neglect Hana-chan.
I love Hana (and her little brother, can’t remember his name but I loved their chapter), but I always related more to Uo
How do you mean? I’ve read the series and know who you’re talking about, I’m just missing the similarities between Sal and Kyoko in this mom—
Oooooh! Distant and verbally abusive parents, biker delinquent behaviour as a shell to hide internal pain, and the realization that maybe said biker delinquent behavior may be harmful and destructive, leading to attempts to become gentler and kinder.
Ok. I have to ask.
Why are there two diff kind of chairs?
its dorms.. they’re bought in bulk. it is so bizarre to have two separate types. When they have uneven amounts they usually stick them in the common room instead..
Did…. one of them steal a chair I wonder?
Precisely because they buy in bulk. When they furnished the dorms, they used the cheapest chair they could find. Sometime later, they purchased a new batch of chairs to be used as replacements. Clearly, one of the original chairs broke or was stolen and so it was replaced from the new batch with no concern as to whether or not it matched.
Also, chairs tend to, shall we say, wander around. As long as they don’t leave the building, no one in authority cares all that much, unless specialized chairs in showcase areas start to wander.
Could just be that there are two types of chair: an armless type for desks, and a type with arms for visitors. The desk behind Amber’s head does not have an associated chair at the moment, so that could be the chair Sal grabbed.
Looking back through the preceding strips set in Amber and Dina’s room, Sal does indeed grab her chair from near the desk, and Amber is first seen with her chair away from the under-loft areas, where a visitor might be expected to sit.
We just bought a couple hundred chairs for our college. The same style is available in both arm and armless, and since different people prefer one or the other, we bought some of each. They wander around and find their own destiny. Couple times a year we inventory and relocate them.
Pachycephalosaurus uses its thick head to get people millions of years after its extinction to sit down and talk, clearly
Now THAT’S an in-demand skill.
That’s… wow. The Pachy allegory works perfectly for Sal’s situation right now…good on her and Dina for coming up with it.
@ Amber’s question
I’d like – I’d like? I’d like a trip to Europe!
I like we are seeing Sal with the shields down.
The last storyline involved a Walkerton twin defusing Amber with a burrito, now the other Walkerton twin is defusing her with a philosophical discussion about an obscure dinosaur. Love it!
This is going considerably well for these two considering that the conflict between them is even way more serious than we made it out to be and we took this entire thing pretty fucking seriously.
It’s quite a blessing that they found themselves able to talk this out so soon.
Re: Alt-text – What Sal really wants is $65,000 five years ago.
…Thanks, Satan.
If Sal had not given her opinion on Pachysephalosaurus, I would have felt ripped off
A callback to what happened to the other matching chair in Amber and Dina’s room: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/02-i-was-a-teenage-churchmouse/holyshit/
Amber hurled the chair OUT OF EXISTENCE, that’s why we didn’t hear a crash!
“What do you want?”
“Pachy, I just wanna be friends.”
I think that the message was received and understood.
Heh, stupid as Dina’s defense system is – it works!
Plenty of animals bang their heads against their enemies as a matter of course. Is there something fragile about Pachycephalosaurus’ bone structure that would prevent it from doing what deers do?
The problem is with its neck, I understand: too curved.
There’s no such thing as “too curved”.
There is when you’re talking about spinal curvature.
I heard that it’s head is too domed so it wouldn’t be able to actually be used for headbutting safely because the dome makes the contact point too small and liable to cause slips.
The fact that it IS part of the skull is a huge part of it. Ram’s horns and dear antlers are pretty good shock absorbers, so the brain doesn’t get shaken up nearly so much, and they’re not permanent parts of the skull, so if they take a hit bad and break the horn/antler…they haven’t broken their skull.
(That said, the best guess is that pachy did use its head for intraspecific fighting, but that it wasn’t like rams or dear, smashing headlong into each other, but smacking at each others flanks, and probably not straight on hits, at that, so the hit didn’t shake their brains up.)
*deer. Frigging homophones.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-9-comic/01-flyin-to-the-red/cowgirl/ shows Sal wearing a t-shirt with a Pachycephalosaurus on it, presumably because when Sal was going through her dinosaur phase, she related to its alleged fighting behavior.
I think Dina has started asking people who come to the room the dinosaur question, not as a way of keeping people out, but as a way initiating a conversation about dinosaurs, giving her an opportunaty to show off her models and delve more deeply into the wonders of dinosaurs. She has discovered that many people are also knowledgable about dinosaurs. Normally, only Becky would be expected to come to the room, but the Amber related drama has been pulling other people in, giving her opportunaties that she doesn’t want to pass up. When a conversation about dinosaurs doesn’t happen, as it did with Walky (http://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-9-comic/01-flyin-to-the-red/terrorturkey/), she is quite disappointed. (Also, I just realised that in that comic, Dina is wearing a T-shirt from “Questionable Content”.)
I can absolutely see a young Sal being attracted to badass dinosaur Pachycephalosaurus.
Oh damn, I totally missed Sal’s shirt in that flashback! That’s awesome.
Willis is very good at little foreshadowing/hints like that.
My personal favourite is Amber describing Walky as cute waaaaaaaay back in Walking with Dina.
Although another one is back in Yesterday Was Thursday when Amber saw Billie and Sal walking down the hall and got uncomfortable but just couldn’t place why.
Willis is a goddamn maniac is what I’m saying.
What do we want?
Sheep freedom!
When do we want it?
BaAaAaAa!
(Sorry, alt-text reminded me of that goofy bit my family sometimes does. Also, I caught a respectable herd of Mareep (My son) earlier, so it just seemed to fit.)
Man, Sal, you could be slightly less invasive about it, but if this helps Amber chill her ass out, I’m down.
This strip gets better and better. As a writer myself, I have to say the characterization is brilliant. I’m taking lessons, here.
Why do my comments keep ending up as replies to other comments? I didn’t intend it as a reply.
Are you hitting the link that says “reply” at the end of the thread? If so, don’t do that. Just scroll to the bottom and start typing in the box without clicking anything.
Yeah, I typed in the box. They came out indented right, but now they’re justified left.
Huh. Now they’re aligned left.
Dinosaur-based conflict resolution? I’m in.
Never really commented before, but dang sal, dang.
As someone who barely reaches Dina’s level of social acumen, can someone explain the subtext(s) of the strips since Sal entered Dina & Amber’s room?
Sal wants to talk out their issues with Amber, but Amber is scared and so is reacting with hostility and bluster to save face and drive her away. She doesn’t want to engage with Sal or stop thinking of her as a monster. Sal responds with calm and non-aggressive body language, and her conversation with Dina, where she meets Dina respectfully and seriously, shows Amber that Sal is more than just anger and violence. Sal talks to Dina about how people assume that the pachycephalosaurus was an aggressive dinosaur because of the way it appears but that it probably wasn’t. This is to tell Amber that her assumptions about Sal might be wrong too. Since Sal has de-escalated the situation and Dina doesn’t want to throw Sal out, Amber decides to listen to what Sal has to say.
Are you saying that Sal is deliberately using the dinosaur as a metaphor to talk to Amber? Honestly, that seems way above the level of communication or planning skills Sal’s shown.
It’s definitely the sub-text, but I think it just was Sal’s favorite dinosaur, back when she was a kid and she’s just now putting the pieces together about why.
It’s working that way, but it wasn’t a deliberate ploy on Sal’s part.
At least in my opinion. If it was, it seems a bit much for someone whose choice of words talking to Amber in this scene haven’t been exactly well chosen to de-escalate. The body language, particularly today, has, but if anyone gets the credit for de-escalating, it’s Dina.
I think she’s talking about herself and Amber’s making connections.
In this strip, the thickheaded, assumed to be violent dinosaur that actually no one understands is a metaphor for both Amber and Sal.
Except Amber looks like a vision impaired stuffed animal but is prone to pretty frequent displays of violence so she’s like the opposite of that metaphor.
Amber views herself as a monster only capable of violence. Sal is challenging that notion. The statement applies to both of them.
*Asking as
Evolution’s bike helmet?
I see that coffee of doom shirt dina is wearing. I see it.
So, did Sal research Pachycephalosaurus so she could make this metaphor and connect to Amber through Dina, or is she just a closeted dino-nerd? Also which option is more adorable?
nvm I just saw this comic, which also answers my second question
Ooh! Good catch! I didn’t remember that.
I’ve been anticipating/dreading this point in the story arc.
Sal has multiple active internal motivations to change, but Amber doesn’t (or has been actively resisting them). Sal came to Amber, but how was Amber to accept Sal?
Enter Dina. Then Sal spinning her Pachycephalosaurus interest into a metaphor for Amber. And Amber hearing it.
Dina’s directness and literalness are inherently non-threatening. (Heck, even intentional threats from Dina are non-threatening, unless they involve dinosaurs.) It’s awesome that Amber is still open enough to hear such messages, even when they are manipulated by Sal.
It just goes to show that even webcomic authors afflicted with a severe case of Butts Disease can still craft a great arc. (And Dina’s T-shirt connects to another such victim.)
Sal really is one of the coolest people around, isn’t she?
Hg
Sal is about to offer a truly amazing insight about Pachycephalosaurus.
….. (wibble)