the candy bars I eat seem to have the same return on investment as lottery tickets
(which is to say I’ve somehow reached a stage where they’re all gross and the only joy I get is giving my hubby a Snickers that says “DENIED” on it for some weird-ass marketing reason)
Pleased to meat ya. I’ve played the lottery often enough to have won more than a couple of bucks and rarely enough to actually be slightly ahead. The only thing I’ve won from a candy bar has been excess pounds, but I’ve won a lot of those.
Um… Those huge bags of tiny candy bars are for the trick-or-treaters. Yes, even the 300 Dum-Dum pops. YES the white chocolate fun size Kit-Kats too NO I AM NOT EATING THEM ALL MYSELF SHUT UP.
Those are the bane of my existence, because I love Kit-Kats, but the white chocolate ones still have just enough regular chocolate in them to trigger a migraine (or rather, worsen the one I’ve had for…ever).
Sadly, $250. of lottery tickets have a greater chance of making any kind of of impact on Marcy’s problems than $250 does. With a highly non-linear utility function, gambling at bad odds can be rational.
That always make me think of all those cop shows that spout off about one in a million would be a match – I always ask – Take the population of the city and divide by a million which gives you anywhere from 4 in LA to 9 in NY. That doesn’t even include the greater metropolitan areas.
Oh and over 7500 worldwide that are suspects due to air travel availability.
Oh god yeah. Not getting math is getting dangerous.
Even very low probability false positives with huge data sets are a serious problem.
Now, if you’re using something like a 1 in a million match as an additional check on someone you already suspect for other reasons, it’s perfectly reasonable. If you’re trolling through millions of people hoping for a match, that’s a problem.
Using facial recognition software at big events to watch for known terrorists is a classic example. Just due to the error rate, you’ll get hundreds of false positives for any real match (assuming there is one.)
Geiger Counter – an art installation of the most disturbing juxtapositions of stainless steel and assorted bits and pieces of Osseus assembled into the form of a stylized establishment for the distribution and consumption of bitters and ales just off of Piccadilly Circus.
You know, Sal, I’m sure spending a dollar or two on a chocolate bar would cheer Marcie up. I’m pretty sure that counts as helping?
Oh, who am I kidding? Every dime that child finds is going straight into her fundraiser.
And dear god, you can just SEE her parents in the way she’s dressed. No wonder she just meets them in her school uniform. While it might not have helped, her normal clothes will most certainly hurt.
It’s more general. It includes chocolate bars, but it also includes stuff which is nothing at all like chocolate like a peanuts-and-caramel bar or a bar of white chocolate.
I am so damn pissed at the Walkertons on her behalf. Even giving her a raise on her allowance and putting a hundred bucks towards the bills so Sal could at least feel she contributed and didn’t have to deliberate on money for a while could have alleviated the guilt. (And THIS is why Charles going ‘I’m sure there’s a surgery to fix it’ and telling Sal how much the ambulance bill was is a bad thing. If he wasn’t willing to actually, substantially HELP, then telling her the Diazes are financially burdened and by how much when she’s blaming herself means she’d put the burden on herself to fix it. And 12-year-olds just can’t raise that kind of money on their own, not on the time frame these debts are on.)
And the clothes, augh. Everything about her appearance screams ‘Sal trying to be the daughter her parents wanted’ and the fact that she never will be because they want a fundamentally different child… FUCK Linda and Charles for that.
Alright then – how about because it doesn’t make much sense to not just give it to her parents, where it won’t have to deal with whatever processing fees gofundme has?
Or that, if they were inclined to give money, Sal probably would have said that to Marcie in the hospital?
Or I could be really blunt and just say ‘we have no reason to assume they did other than wishful thinking’ and the fact it’d be inconsistent with what we know of them makes it seem less likely than not?
As I said in another comment, there’s an idea that people will be more likely to chip in for something if they see someone else already has. So in that way, it does make sense. And if they do get to keep that money from the go fund me, then the money can be given to Marcie’s family when Sal decides to give up on it.
And regarding the probability of Sal saying something to Marcie if her parents would have given money, we have no idea how much time passed between the accident and Sal telling Marcie she’ll pay for it. We don’t even know if the bill has been calculated yet at that time.
And I don’t assume they paid into the go fund me. I don’t have a head canon about that one way or another. But I would argue that we don’t have enough information to say giving money or not would be inconsistent. We don’t have any data on how they handle money and there is a difference between not wanting Marcie to hang with Sal vs not helping even a little bit with something Sal feels passionate and guilty about (and might actually be right to feel guilty for all we know).
I don’t believe fundraisers generally let donors keep the money if the payment goes through. And why such a specific amount of money? It wasn’t even a round number, it was $245.07.
She looked like she was in the same clothes, so it was probably the same day, and at the very least she knew how much the ambulance cost. If the Walkertons were inclined to help, I’d think it would have come up at that point.
We’ve never had any inklings they give a damn about what Sal wants or cares about versus a LOT of hints if not outright stating they pretty much ignore Sal when she’s not forcing them to pay attention by acting out. And again, Linda does not seem like the kind of person to give money to someone she does not like and Charles generally seems to go along with Linda. The information we do have does not point towards people who would give money and the information we do have also tells us that if they really cared, there’s a lot more they could have done.
There are people suing over kickstarters that didn’t deliver on their promises and that hasn’t been settled. This go fund me, on the other hand is to pay medical bills. there is absolutely no reason why the donors would be upset unless they knew the money didn’t go towards that. And I sincerely doubt the company is going to say “Well, you didn’t reach 65k, guess we’ll just give all that money back to the donors now without them asking for it.”
An ambulance ride is not 65k. And finding out the bill is higher than you thought can encourage people to contribute because they realize how daunting it is vs thinking it can be handled by Marcie’s parents.
There are fundraising sites that don’t actually send the money over until they’re funded – again, probably to avoid dealing with cancellations and such. And if it didn’t actually manage to fund, I see no reason why the pledges wouldn’t just be cancelled and the money sent back to the donors. They probably wouldn’t let a 12 year old girl keep it.
It was 2K. That’s why I said they knew how much the ambulance was, at the very least. And Charles, at least, knew the Diazes would have trouble affording medical care. If he didn’t say anything to help with a smaller bill that he knew they couldn’t afford, why should I believe he’d offer help with a substantially larger one.
I’m not sure about what I’m about to say here, but I have this vague idea that each transaction would cost cents on the dollar, so voluntarily sending all the money back would cost the company money if that’s the case vs keeping it or sending it to Sal in one transaction.
There’s also the possibility that, like a bank, they can play with the money in the stock market while it’s in their systems. But again, I can’t even pretend to be sure about that.
That’s partially why they don’t fully complete the transaction until the thing’s funded, and why those processing fees often get charged to donors. It seems less likely to me that they’d send money for an unfunded campaign to a 12 year old.
The product/project development-centric crowdfunding sites have that requirement (except Indiegogo, where you can run a “flexible funding” campaign which doesn’t require meeting the goal – there’s usually two kinds of projects that run flexible funding: scams that never come to fruition; or established projects that are already done, and are just using Indiegogo as a storefront for preorders).
Fair enough then, although I just checked and Sal’s not legally old enough to set up a gofundme (you have to be 18) so it’s probably been set up by the Diazes.
$245.07 would be kind of an odd amount to have come from one source? Also it would be kind of weird for them to have pledged the money into the GoFundMe rather than giving it directly to her parents or something.
It doesn’t ALL have to have come from Sal’s parents. We can’t see how many donors there have been, only the amount raised
Though even if they DID donate, $200 seems like the largest probable amount, which is nice of them, but still rather cheap of them when you remember that the Walkertons are pretty well off. It no doubt seems like a huge amount to Sal, but I doubt she knows how much of a non-sacrifice it is for her parents
Because it’s the most nonsensical mixture of contributions made and contributions not-made. I went into this yesterday with BBCC and Regalli and a few others. Short version: With Linda’s contacts, she could have gotten a fundraiser organized and gotten literally a hundreds of times what’s currently in the account without pitching in more than that sum of her own money. Even IF she did put in $200, that’s… pathetic. Not because the money’s a small amount, but because the EFFORT is a small amount.
I’m not asking about whether they could pay more.
I was asking if there was anything that said they didn’t pay “the bare minimum” or “the least they could do”.
Maybe a strip I forgot about or something said on twitter. Something concrete.
And it looks like there’s nothing like that, that it is indeed just head canon.
It’s reasonable head canon, it may in fact be right, but it’s still head canon, at least for the moment.
Fair enough, I suppose. But it’d be a pretty irrational strategy for them to contribute 250 and offer/do nothing more, and the characters in this comic are all far more sensible than that.
There’s nothing so far indicating they did or ANYTHING, but we know Charles told Sal how much the ambulance cost and that Sal told Marcie she’d pay it back rather than some kind of ‘we’, and that the only money Sal had to offer was allowance with a vague ‘I’ll get more’.
Coupled with no response from Linda whatsoever and Sal feeling all the pressure herself, plus the general dynamic between Sal and the Walkerton parents? The absence of a ‘we’ or ‘my parents said they’ll help’ is in fact evidence of absence here.
After a couple hours thinking about it, I think we’ve been communicating at a cross-purposes here, cbwroses. Some of your comments sounded a lot like people I’ve seen make posts in bad faith to be pedantic/condescending/derail in-universe analysis (usually about character motivation) which generally requires some amount of extrapolating or putting things we know in larger context based on canon information. I think part of that was using the word ‘head canon’ which I generally associate with things without canon basis or in direct opposition to canon. That probably made me impatient and short tempered and for that I do apologize. No, there’s nothing that straight up says they haven’t donated, but we haven’t seen anything indicating they have and based on what we know they’re like, I find it very unlikely.
Ah. I see. I do have a knack for accidentally choosing words that end up bothering people.
No, I was acting in good faith. It is not my desire to work people up or derail the conversation. But apparently, I just seem to come off that way a lot. Not just online, either.
My father once told me it took him 23 years to realize that I wasn’t trying to disrespect him or anger him the times he felt I did growing up.
Well that’s nice of you. I appreciate it.
Honestly, the head canon is probably right, but I personally think acknowledging it is head canon is important, or at the very least shouldn’t be a big deal to do.
If we can’t do that, then we may be taking the situation too seriously.
Cursing the various parents of this strip is basically my constant background noise.
(Except Sierra’s parents, who are absolutely perfect much like Sierra. I also think well of the Keeners, Saruyamas, and Stacey, and am cautiously optimistic about Hank and hopeful the Ruttens are Fuck Realism Comic Book Billionaires a la Bruce Wayne who somehow have massive amounts of money while being excellent employers.)
(Remember that episode of BTAS where Batman gets amnesia investigating the disappearance of Gotham’s homeless population, gets taken to a labor camp in the Nearby Gotham Desert run by some Generic Oil Baron-type villain, and after saving the day makes sure they have long term lodging and offers jobs at Waynetech? Wasn’t a particularly great episode all told, but Bruce Wayne actively using his status as Bruce Wayne to help people without beating monsters and the mentally ill up is always a thing I like emphasized in my Batman.)
One of my favourite pages in a Batman comic (I can’t remember the issue, sadly) is when Batman meets someone from the mailroom, asks how their child (I want to say their son?) is doing. They tell him they’re preparing for college and Bruce asks if they’ve considered the Wayne Foundation scholarships – it’s a full ride. His employee gets excited and asks how you qualify. Bruce just says ‘You, uh…work for me.’
Normally I’d say that paying generously for everybody’s kid’s education is probably the single best thing Bruce Wayne can do to lower the crime rate… but then I remember how many of his villains hold advanced degrees.
Clearly, something has gone terribly wrong in Gotham’s education system.
Two Face (Law)
Hugo Strange (Psychology)
Harley Quinn (Psychology)*
Mr Freeze (Cryonics)
Poison Ivy (Chemistry and/or Botany)*
Scarecrow (Psychology)
Arkham!Black Mask (Psychology)
Man-Bat (Chemistry and/or Mammalian Biology)*
Prof. Milo (Chemistry)
Certainly others, but we’re getting to the point of one or two appearances…
It is a pretty impressive list…though kind of a drop in the bucket, both for Batman villains and for major educated types in the DCU.
But clearly if someone plans to practice psychology in Gotham, they bear watching.
* Currently mostly on the ‘face’ side of the face/heel turn.
Comic idea: Batfamily members investigating every psychologist in Gotham as civilians under the guise of ‘trying to find one I click with’ and quietly looking for signs they might be evil. I mean, Cass and Damien can’t talk about their real sources of trauma, but everyone else can fill an hour easy without bringing up anything suggesting they’re vigilantes. (Steph would probably have to be careful, but the fact that her father’s a low rent super villain is public record. There’s also Jason… but if he were onboard with this his pre-Robin history is fraught enough to leave the Red Hood stuff off the table. Is it ever addressed how one of Bruce Wayne’s kids was considered legally dead, came back, and is still publicly acknowledged as his kid? That seems complicated to explain without bringing up superheroics.)
Well, in the pre-reboot era, nobody ever publicly acknowledged him as Jason Todd. He was in Arkham as a John Doe and then was moved to a regular prison known only as ‘the Red Hood’ so Batman never had to deal with that.
He was also said to have been killed in a terrorist attack while he was in Africa for charity work.
I’m pretty sure I remember the first arc of New 52 Scott Snyder Batman Jason was sitting with the other Robins and Bruce for a family portrait. I have no idea how that worked with RHATO, but hahaha cohesive continuity in the first months of the New 52.
Barring that, getting to bring her back into mainline DC continuity while rewriting her origin so it isn’t The Killing Joke and all that editorial bullshit would be great. (Even if you want the Joker responsible for it, making Barbara a primary target and not get sexually assaulted would go a long way towards removing the grossness with it. Also going into the story with the explicit outlook of ‘We love Barbara Gordon, but as Oracle she represented so much to disabled readers that removing her from that role left a void in our comics and that was wrong, so we’re doing this respectfully because Barbara and Oracle MATTER’ would help.)
I would also accept them bringing Oracle from the pre-New 52 timeline over but then, y’know, she’d have to be in the reboot verse and I can’t wish that on one of my faves.
Probably most likely, given the continued popularity of New Barbara. I just want SOMETHING. The fact that the 2000s era Batgirl books had this whole thread of a disabled woman being the mentor to two other disabled women (first Cass, then Wendy) and founder of this legacy role, and now that whole relationship is gone… I don’t like it. I don’t like that we lost one of the few disabled heroes who was actually kind of attainable – someone with language acquisition issues probably isn’t going to be a master of body language and martial arts as some cosmic compensation, radar sense and telepathy aren’t real, but a really tech- and information-savvy person could do a lot of great things with those skills and it’s conceivable that someone in Barbara’s position with her contacts COULD become the most powerful member of the Justice League through skills a normal human has, disabled or no. (Lian Harper was right.)
(Hawkeye is probably also pretty attainable, but then he’s also kind of the butt of jokes for his lack of powers.)
I haven’t bought much of the new 52 entirely because Oracle’s gone, you don’t need to sell me on it. I think I have a few issues of RHATO because I love Jason and that’s about it.
And yeah, Babs was great, and it annoys me she’s been reduced back to Batgirl when I would bet money they were never going to make Dick Robin again or something equivalent.
As for Hawkeye…yeah, fair enough. Especially since the movies erased his deafness and there’s no sign of the depression or chronic pain he’s been hinted as having in the comics (“I feel like crap.” “Well, everyone has days like that.” “I ALWAYS feel like crap. This job is like being in the NFL year round.”)
I think so. At first I thought it was a movie theater ticket office but I thinks it’s actually one of those convenience stores with the entire counter surrounded with bulletproof glass.
It might also just be an outdoor convenience store, we have them here in my area where the junk food/sodas are outside during the day and there is a small booth like we see. At night you have to go to the store it is part of normally to buy anything, generally a grocery store.
I thought it was a movie theater ticket office too, because I’ve never seen a convenience store counter like that in my life. What part of the U.S. has those?
Any part that has a high amount of robberies per capita.
…which actually doesn’t make sense given that we’ve previously established that the Walkertons are pretty well-off. Places with enough robberies to justify this level of protection for the cashiers usually have a high poverty rate. Wealthier places *could* box up their registers like this, but rich people don’t like shopping in places that look like that.
Does Sal routinely walk well out of her way to go to the convenience store? Or is this maybe located near Marcie’s hospital?
It’s a gas station, and the outdoor counter – you can see the air pump to the right of the window. Not sure if it’s a kiosk (it kind of seems to be) or a window on a bigger building (the one near here has that).
So does Sal seriously considering buying a candybar make her as bad as Walky possibly joking about getting 4 dollars for a slurpee, or no?
If no, why? Because it’s her money, even though it’s the exact same money that could be going to help Marcie? Or some other reason?
If yes, why? Because as a kid she should somehow have the ability to resist temptation even though literally millions of adults have problems with temptation? Or some other reason?
I’m personally of the idea that neither one is terrible, but i’m interested in seeing the responses and if there are reasonable reasons for the same or different attitudes towards them.
I’m expecting most people not to view Sal as negatively as Walky, but it’s the reasoning behind it, if they give any, that I really hope gets shared.
I think it has more to do with her rationalizing the idea that any money she saves for Marcie is better spent for her rather than spent for herself. So she won’t buy the candy bar not because it makes her terrible, but because she’s worried about saving money for Marcie. Even if in the long run, a candy bar and her allowance will barely make a dent in the funds needed.
Considering this is Sal, and she’s constantly punishing herself for things she feels bad happened (or feels guilty for), I’d bet she WOULD think she’d be awful for spending that money.
Yeah, it’s not so hard to resist temptation when you feel really, really guilty over it. Fuck knows that’s how a lot of people interact with good-tasting food.
Never said it was hard or easy to resist temptation, only that many people have issues with it.
I’m asking about the comment section’s response to two very similar actions by the twins.
But I’m not talking about how Sal would see herself.
I’m talking about how the comment section reacts to her in this scene.
To me, asking about getting money for a slurpee and thinking about buying yourself a candy bar aren’t that different.
But the comment section’s response so far has been significantly different. I’m not surprised at the difference, but I’m not seeing a strong reason WHY there’s a difference.
A) Sal decides fairly quickly not to spend the money.
B) Even if Walky was joking, it’s an incredibly callous way to treat money earmarked to help someone he knows who got hurt. We already know Sal cares about this and has been working to get money together (as well as giving her own money to Marcie directly).
C) Walky was asking about money in the fundraiser. Sal’s holding what looks like two dollar bills here. I’m not super familiar with American currency, but I seriously doubt it’d add up to $250 and I doubt fundraisers would allow her to take money out before the fundraiser is over (because pledges can and do get cancelled or declined) and after it was over, it was probably set up to go to the Diazes or was given to them not long after. My guess is this is probably allowance money.
Yeah even if that money ended up in paper form (not often with crowdfunding,) pretty much no one carries hundred dollar bills on them. Once you pass $20 notes some stores won’t accept higher denominations and will check them for counterfeit anyway. (They also do that for the $2, which exists but is so rarely seen that a non-zero number of people, cashiers included, just assume they must be fakes.) If Sal somehow had the fundraising money in cash, it would almost certainly have been cashed as smaller denominations at whatever bank they withdrew from.
A. Since Walky never got the money to spend, he never gets a chance to decide not to spend it. So while Sal deserves props for that, it’s an added variable that doesn’t even get to apply to Walky. And that’s assuming Walky was legit asking for money.
B. Why is Walky asking for money callous while Sal literally having money out to spend it not callous? This is a distinction I don’t understand. If you said it was the way he did it, I could see that, but that he did it in the first place just isn’t any better or worse than Sal wanting a kitkat bar here to me.
C. Walky asked about how the fundraiser worked. Then he mentioned what that money could be spent on if it didn’t go to Marcie.
But I sincerely doubt he was asking for four dollars out of the 250.
He was not asking for four dollars from the fundraiser as it would be ridiculous to think she could pull out four dollars from it right that second to give him. So clearly he was was asking about four dollars she might have had on her.
Now, we can see from this strip that she’s been resisting buying herself stuff with her own allowance so that could also go to Marcie, but that is not the same as the money in the go fund me (I believe it’s reasonable to assume that money is allowance and not the cashed out go fund me). So we can say Walky asking for that is still messed up since he should know she was saving it.
But then we have her considering spending it, so we come full circle to them doing two similar thing and getting two significantly different reactions.
A. And? Sal still decides not to spend it, and fairly quickly too. She was distracted in panel one when the salesperson asks her what she wants, at which point she says it’s not worth it.
B. Asking ‘Hey, can I have some of the money earmarked for helping someone I know so I can spend it on soda when I’ve contributed nothing to the fundraiser myself?’ strikes me as callous, yes.
C. Asking for four dollars immediately after suggesting they blow the $250 on snacks if they get to keep it strikes me as him asking for money from that $250 (or rather ‘hey, if we get to keep the money, can I borrow four dollars?’). Especially since in last strip, he already had the thing he wanted $4 for. He didn’t need the $4 for soda right then.
And, again, as your said, she’s resisting buying stuff and decides against it here. Do you really think if she gave him $4 he’d decide Marcie was more important?
A. And it is being put up as part of the reason to support Sal while rag on Walky. It’s like supporting Sal for running into a burning building to save someone while at the same time dogging Walky for not doing it, when he was in fact not even around to do it. It doesn’t take anything away from Sal, but in a comparison to Walky, it’s an unfair variable.
It’s not that he failed to shine in that regard, but that he didn’t even get the chance to shine in that regard. Now you can feel he’d wouldn’t have made the same decision, but that’s not the same as knowing he wouldn’t.
B. You don’t know if Walky contributed or not anymore than you know if Linda and/or Charles contributed or not. That’s head canon bias. Again, you might be right. Hell, you’re probably right, but unless i missed something, you’re still assuming that he didn’t and then viewing him negatively because of your assumption.
C. It seems to me he was clearly asking for four dollars immediately. Otherwise, there’s even less of a reason for Sal to get mad. “Can I get four dollars in the future whenever you give up on this go fund me, but only if you don’t manage to get the 65k you were asking for?” doesn’t really make much sense to me. But I guess we”ll just disagree on that one.
As for would Walky decide to spend the money on Marcie instead? Probably not, but I acknowledge the possibility that he might surprise us.
I don’t like speaking in absolutes and definites, generally speaking, but I’ve seen a lot of that the last day or so, which made me curious about whether those absolutes and definites would change or not after today’s strip and why.
A) Walky did have the chance. He had money for soda/soft drinks/whatever he was drinking yesterday. He could have decided ‘Nah, it’s not worth it’ and given the money to the gofundme instead.
B) We have absolutely no evidence the Walkertons, aside from Sal, have done anything at all for this fundraiser. Since we’ve not gotten any information to the contrary, I’m going with what we’ve seen thus far and we’ve not seen them give anything. So fine, to satisfy your pedantry, ‘not contributed anything so far as we know’.
C) That doesn’t make sense to me. He had the thing he intended to spend money on the moment. He didn’t need to spend another $4 at the time. He also brought it up right after he asked if they could spend the money on snacks if the fundraiser failed, which suggests to me the two are linked. And I’d think that would make Sal angry for several reasons – A) It’s suggesting her fundraiser won’t work (and, subsequently, Marcie won’t get the money she needs), B) He’s asking for fundraiser money, and C) He’s not even thinking about Marcie when he asks.
For me personally, I find that Walky is being callous in that he’s bugging his sister about soda and whatnots when she’s obviously upset.
It doesn’t even have anything to do with what she does afterwards; he’s just in “me me me” mode and can’t be bothered to care for her, comfort her, help out or even, goshdarnit, *notice* her distress.
Absolutely. It’s pretty obvious she’s upset, and while ‘do we know what will happen if it doesn’t fund all the way?’ is a reasonable question (albeit painful for Sal,) following it up with ‘that money could buy a lot of snacks’ is just completely failing to think of her emotions. And he has to at least sort of know Marcie, given how long she and Sal have been friends by this point, so him blowing off the whole thing is doubly callous.
To me, the issue with Walky’s joke/honestly I actually read it as him sincerely asking her for money was that Sal was clearly concerned at the time. Note here that Sal DOESN’T buy it because she feels so guilty (and probably feels guilty about thinking of spending money on Frivolous Things when Marcie Needs Her, which is its own brand of ‘kiddo NO.’)
Walky wasn’t displaying any concern for Marcie at all – hell, he came off as asking ‘if you only get $250 can we spend it on snacks since it won’t cover the bills anyway?’ Walky never mentions Marcie at all. That’s pretty insensitive given she’s Sal’s best friend. Not surprising given Walky and their supremely fucked sibling relationship, but still insensitive as hell.
That said, while Walky was being pretty bratty, the people I really blame for this are the elder Walkertons, for all the reasons outlined yesterday and upthread. This burden should never have fallen on the 12-year-old. The Walkertons have extremely influential contacts who could be convinced to raise this money with a very small amount of PR spin. The Walkertons could help contribute to the ambulance bill and it would almost certainly strain their finances less than it would the Diazes. The Walkertons could, at the very least, spearhead a town fundraiser on Marcie’s behalf and almost certainly raise more than $250 in the process. They are not. And if they aren’t willing to help, then Charles telling Sal exactly how much the ambulance costs contributes nothing to the situation except piling on more guilt for Sal.
If the Diazes had told Sal that information, it wouldn’t be great (again, way more than any 12-year-old can do anything about or emotionally handle,) but at least they would be doing so because their daughter is hurt, they can’t pay for her expenses, and people do not always react well under that stress. (The GoFundMe amount probably did come from them, but without knowing anything about Marcie’s parents but a lot about Sal, my guess is Sal was insisting on helping raise the money and they agreed to the crowdfunding because it can’t hurt and might help the clearly traumatized kid feel less powerless. We also don’t know who set the page up, for that matter – the way Walky phrased things last strip made me think Sal, but it’s at least as likely to be the Diazes and Sal just latched onto it. In which case, being frank about what they need on the page is totally the right call and they’re NOT expecting Sal to shoulder all this.)
But the Walkertons are supposed to be on their daughter’s side. They’re supposed to be looking out for Sal. And part of that is not letting a kid take so much on her shoulders, and keeping her from blaming herself, and telling her the best thing she can do for Marcie isn’t to worry about money or medical treatments, it’s to be there and be her friend and do nice things for each other while she’s going through something tough. They did not do any of this. Charles actively made the situation worse. So yeah, they suck.
All of this, as well, with a small caveat that I think Walky was old enough to know better (although that’s also partially his parents fault for babying him).
He certainly should be. Again, Sal is concerned and guilty about money. Walky doesn’t care whatsoever and almost certainly didn’t put any of his allowance in the fund. I’m pretty sure that even if Sal didn’t blame herself for Marcie’s accident, if it were something completely unrelated, Sal would still worry and want to help and probably go through this exact strip. But she wouldn’t be as desperate and she might not be AS pissed at Walky when he didn’t care.
Since when does Sal actually have to be responsible for her to punish herself with guilt? (Although, in this case, we don’t know how warranted her guilt is).
That is Sal 101. My current theory is that whatever happened, Sal has about as much responsibility for it as the possible Mike with good intentions* had in Amber’s trauma – just enough that as a socially astute person they recognized they contributed, but not enough that their friend would actually blame them, with extra trauma heaped on Sal because she definitely witnessed whatever happened. Frankly though it could be something like ‘they were skating, some jerks bullied them over their skating, Sal fought back and they retaliated on Marcie which they were probably planning anyway.’
But I was thinking something like ‘Marcie has a major, long term illness’ would make it pretty hard for Sal to sustain guilt, and she would still have empathy and concern, so if Sal at her age can worry about whether money should go to a sick friend then Walky should know better too.
* I’m pretty much through ascribing good intentions to Mike, but at the same time… if he really did pressure Blaine to drive hoping they’d hurt each other, that takes him from ‘Thoroughly Awful Person’ in my mind to the same tier of evil as the worst parents. He went to look for dirt on Blaine on a hunch, so if he was calculating enough to think they’d ‘make each other miserable’ he could figure out who had the power there. That’s so awful even Ethan and Amber would dump his toxic ass if they knew he did that, and so I really don’t want it to be true because if it is, Ethan having the fling with Mike goes from ‘Ethan knows he’s terrible and probably has ulterior motives’ to ‘Ethan might not have had sex with him had he known.’ (Though depending on how much Quarterback Friend knew about the scheme with the awful teacher before agreeing to the favor, that’s another fucked up sexual situation Mike had a hand in and… euuuuugh.)
The whole informed consent thing is also why I really hope Amber comes clean before she and Walky sleep together. ‘I stabbed your sister and consider her my nemesis’ is one of those things that should be understood as a potential automatic dealbreaker. So is ‘I ignored your explicit wishes and did something that could get you expelled’ and ‘I can’t guarantee a vigilante won’t wake up in my body with you nearby and I don’t know how she’ll react, but violence is a possibility.’
If it had been something like illness, Sal’d probably still feel guilty about the fact she could still talk when her friend couldn’t. No that’s not rational, but again, since when does Sal actually need to be responsible for the sad thing to feel guilty?
And yeah, with Mike, the mantra ‘hope for the best, prepare for the worst’ is the truest it’s ever been.
See, now this is what i’m talking about, Regalli.
You’re issue isn’t with action so much as Walky’s lack of empathy.
You know Sal has empathy for the situation, so you don’t view her action negatively despite the similarity to Walky’s action.
That I can get behind.
Also, just for my own point of clarification, I never said Walky was joking, only that it’s a possibility most people either didn’t consider or didn’t mention amongst all the negativity on yesterday’s strip. I’m not sure either way.
(Also I feel it’s a little unfair to penalize Walky in comparison to Sal when you include her not buying the candy since he never got an opportunity to do the same, but that’s simply the result of what we’ve seen in the two strips.)
He had money yesterday – he blew it on soda (which is what he wanted Sal’s money for). He knew the fundraiser was going on, he could’ve decided not to spend it then.
If Sal has an allowance, we know Walky gets the same amount. (If he got more then it would be much harder for him to believe they were treated equally. Though I could see him getting bonuses for grades that Sal doesn’t or something.) He just spent it all already, which would be in line with the twins’ established spending habits. (And hey, as the sibling who doesn’t save easily, I can understand that. But it means he doesn’t get to hit her up when she’s stressing over this stuff unless she offers first.)
Setting things up so the favorite can “win” and the unfavored is set up to fail is totally a parental favoritism tactic. So when I was a kid, my folks would give cash to my sister when she won at eventing competitions or if she did chores I had to do for free.
I would not be at all surprised at the Walkertons for tying allowance at least partially to grades.
Yeah, I’m guessing Sal has a regular baseline but Walky has ways of getting extra, but we also don’t know what Sal’s grades were actually like. (Or are, math aside.) It’s clear she tries, but Walky has the effortless Gifted Kid thing going on. (Though I’m betting despite Walky being pegged as the Smart One, Sal’s grades now will end up being as good as or better than Walky’s across the board.)
I would argue that we saw him with a slurpee/soda, one that’s clearly not home-made, during the previous strip. He obviously bought it/asked the parents for it. Which, fair is fair, he had all the right to do and I really can’t blame him for not thinking about Marcie all the time.
To me, he already had the opportunity to buy candy (in his case, a slurpee/soda) and he took it.
And he doesn’t show any sign of guilt for buying it when he sees Sal’s despair. He actually doubles down and ask her money to buy some more.
Nobody is “penalizing” Walky. Feeling that Walky was being a little shit doesn’t even require one to believe Walky is/was a bad person.
He was being selfish and unempathetic, seeking money that was NOT his to use for his own petty short term desires. Not merely “not his”, but specifically intended for someone else who has a critical NEED for every penny she can get
Sal is not doing the same thing here, but the opposite. She was just about to spend HER money, but feels too guilty spending money on herself that COULD go to help Marcy
The two actions are only superficially similar. Even if Walky wouldn’t have “really” gone through with it, he’s ALREADY acted selfishly simply by asking. Walky was demonstrably putting himself first in an inappropriate situation, while Sal put Marcie first in a situation where it would’ve been totally okay NOT to
In a comparison between two things, to have a variable that applies only to one is not in and of itself an issue.
To have said variable be a pro for that side isn’t necessarily an issue, either.
But, to have it be a pro for one side while at the same time considering it a con for the other side is an issue because it’s an unfair comparison. That would be penalizing the other side for a variable that doesn’t apply to it.
That said, I will agree that him choosing to buy a slurpee could be considered as him not making the same choice Sal does here.
This isn’t a scientific experiment, and given that “how moral / ethical / good / bad is this decision?” isn’t even something that can be objectively quantified, treating the question as if an answer must stand up to scientific rigor is detrimental.
The fact that the two actions we see aren’t EXACTLY the same does not make it unfair to compare them. Nor does not knowing whether Walky would “really” have taken the money and spent it on himself.
Walky asking for the money at all was insensitive, and demonstrated that his reaction to the thought of the fundraiser potentially failing to reach it’s goal to meet Marcie’s very real, important need was not “oh no that’d be terrible for Marcie”, but “oh hey what if that benefited ME”
Sal’s reaction was to start second-guessing decisions to spend HER OWN MONEY on herself, because she no longer even sees it as HERS now. It’s all “money that Marcie needs but doesn’t have yet” to her now.
There ARE factors that differences that should be considered when examining the difference in their responses, such as the fact that Marcie is Sal’s best friend, not Walky’s, and we know Sal feels personally responsible for Marcie getting hurt.
…but those still don’t mean we can’t compare. Those aren’t enough to justify Walky’s behavior, or make Sal’s less admirable.
And to be totally clear, I don’t think Walky is a monster for that. I *like* Walky. But he was being a shit there. It’s not even that his first thought was self-centered (not everyone is naturally selfless and that’s fine) but that he had to act on that selfish impulse either without considering Sal’s feelings or without even examining the thought are all. Thankfully present-day Walky has made an effort to do better on that front, or I probably wouldn’t like him at all
Fart Captor, it’s not that serious.
Tone is sometimes misread in text, especially by me, but it seems like you’re getting heated up and that’s not my intention.
I was merely explaining why I said Walky was being penalized in comparison to Sal.
On top of that I then essentially retracted the idea because I felt the point being made by several people, that Walky already buying a slurpee is a valid comparison to Sal NOT buying the candy, when before I had not looked at it that way.
While you could have been more clear that you were explaining the reasoning behind your earlier comment rather than continuing to argue for it, and I probably have been a more bit irritable lately, I honestly did not intend to sound angry or hostile at all.
I’ll admit that referring to Walky as being “penalized” here did irk me a bit since it sounds like you’re painting him as the victim because he’s being criticized for his behavior towards someone else, but I took that to just be a strange choice of words. If I’d been mad, I would’ve assumed the worse explanation was right instead of simply highlighting how the word didn’t fit well with what you were describing
All I was trying to do was more explain in greater detail why I disagreed with your basis for thinking the comparison was unfair, because your reply made it sound like you completely missed my point.
“He was being selfish and unempathetic, seeking money that was NOT his to use for his own petty short term desires”
this. There’s a big difference between thinking about how to spend your *own* money, and trying to get someone else to just *give* you *their* money. I do not understand how these things look similar to cbwroses.
Of course sal wants candy. Most kids want candy, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s what you *do* with those desires that matters.
Also, even if sal had bought herself a candy bar for once, that still wouldn’t be anything like what walky did. Sal does not have to be a perfect saint who puts every single penny towards Marcie. She can be pissed off at walky’s insensitivity and still ask people to contribute to the fundraiser and still have a frigging candy bar once in a while and that’s okay. Just like it’s okay for someone short on money to have the occasional candy bar or flowers or whatever…. I know I’ve read a good article on the subject, but I’m having trouble finding it right now :/
My first thought is stuff specifically about self care and such for the really broke. Funneling all your money into *Endless, expensive thing you’ll never actually be able to pay off* and living off the bare minimum otherwise will leave you completely drained. Hell, if Sal bought that candy and split it with Marcie, it would probably make her feel way better than that tiny amount of money going to those immense bills. It’s great that Sal is helping all she can, but she can’t pay off $65,000 herself. She can’t fundraise that on her own. But she could be the friend making sure Marcie can do fun stuff while her family’s so strapped for money. (And the Walkertons could be saying ‘don’t worry about the money, we will help you here, you just worry about Marcie.’)
I feel like they both need the candy and a nice afternoon doing something fun and not worrying about the financial angle of things for an hour or two. (I hope Marcie’s parents are keeping their financial anxiety out of Marcie’s awareness as much as they can, but it’s a pretty safe bet that luxuries are getting cut down on with a $65,000 bill regardless.)
Oh. . .Aw. . .Poor Sal. This is going to end up breaking my heart in slow mo ain’t it? Driven by desperation to try and help her friend to try and fix what she sees as her fault in the most futile of ways. It’s going to be hard to watch/read ain’t it?
Oh Sal, this is both sweet and heart-breaking at the same time. It’s also frustrating knowing that her mother has no idea how wonderful Sal really is. Desperation, anger and fear make monsters out of the best people, and I suspect that is exactly what will happen with Sal soon. I wonder if we will ever see her mom(whose name I have forgotten) realize she was wrong about Sal?
Linda Walkerton, prefix ‘fuck’ or ‘fuck you’. I make sure to remember her name in case I need to tag trawl when people ask whether she’s REALLY that terrible. (Though I don’t bother with the Wilcoxen. Too minor appearances, both pretty much equal in their belittling of their good egg. Charles and Linda and Naomi and Saul – Ethan’s parents – both have different approaches in their awful parenting fails so I can actually keep them distinct as characters in my head.)
And then maybe we could just link it whenever this conversation comes up. I get annoyed seeing the Keeners compared to Linda with ‘believing in their child too much’ when the Keeners are supporting a dream Dorothy came to independently and Linda’s emotionally abusive and trying to pressure her children into holes they don’t fit.
I didn’t get the Waldorf part, right off, ….
No, you timed that with precision. It wasn’t until I was half-way through Statler’s comment that it hit me. I almost *note-almost* spewed coffee. I didn’t because you know,… Coffee, the precious. Yesssssss.
Like, the only good thing I can say about them is that they basically adopted Billie. That’s great, Billie needs people who are present in her life.
Buuuut it then becomes ‘Billie is the white-passing daughter they wanted who gets cookies while Sal gets the gift card of apathy’ and I go back to fuck you mode.
That got me wondering. ARE there any depictions of positive parents in DoA? I mean, technically Mike’s parents are nice, but they ended up with MIKE, sooooo…
The other thing that comes up all the time. Short answer, yes, but they get less screen time since there’s no conflict.
Dorothy’s parents are nice and supportive. Stacy is positive, if traumatized herself and out of her depth with Amber’s problems. Dina’s parents are great, from their few appearances. Sierra’s dad stepped in to confront Blaine, so he gets points. The Rutten’s haven’t appeared on panel, but we’ve heard a bunch about them being incredibly supportive of Carla.
Hank gets an award for Most Improved.
I prefer to live in a world where Hank isn’t improved. That is, he’s always been a good dad, trying to raise his kids happy. Then Joyce showed the Zeal he sees in himself, and changed course so he could continue being a supportive father. (“Never let anyone shame you for this. [Joyce’s Wrist Brace] They are cowards. Lashing out. Afraid of what this injury proves about themselves. They’re more scared than you.”)
I think he always has been a good dad in that sense. For that matter, Carol’s been a good mom, in that sense.
It’s just that their sense of how to raise their kids to be happy is so screwed up.
I think Hank is like Joyce in most ways. His instincts are right, but they’re personal. He’s got good empathy with people once he connects with them, but can’t abstract that out to “the other” he’s been taught to fear. He’s Joyce, if she had never connected with atheists and homosexuals and the other scary, but nice people at college.
Unlike Carol, he’s willing to listen to his daughter and try to change, but he’s still coming from a bad place. He was still the “You know who else was maybe partly Jewish? Hitler!” guy at the start of the comic.
I also tend to think well of Sierra’s parents in general since their daughter is so secure in herself and they apparently supported her in things like her going barefoot since eighth grade. That says a lot about them and all of it is great. Sierra’s distinct lack of drama about being bi and polyamorous suggests she’s known for a while and her parents are on her side, which is fantastic! But means there is absolutely zero drama to be had in them.
Sierra’s, Dina’s, Dorothy’s, Carla’s, off the top of my head. According to Willis, Mary’s parents are apparently also great folks, though that runs up against your “ended up with MIKE” clause, only worse, so.
BBCC can give you an actual list, I think she made one.
Copy-pasted for your viewing pleasure! (and because I don’t want to archive dive for the damn thing every time I need it so I think periodically posting the list when its relevant is helpful)
Top tier – Ruttens and Snowes’ (Carla and Sierra’s parents)
Good tier – Keener’s and Saruyama’s (Dina and Dorothy’s parents)
Good people and good to kid but raised a monster – Warner’s and Bradford’s (Mary and Mike’s)
Good to kids, but not seen much – Roz’s mom and stepdad
Heart in the right place, could use some work – Stacey and Hank (Joyce’s dad and Amber’s mom)
Good but no longer present – Bonnie (Becky’s mom), Ruth’s parents (Note: Clint says Ruth’s dad was a cheater, but I trust him as far as I can spit him – Ruth and Howard both seemed to like him)
Yet to be determined – Clintons, Williams, Diazes, Eugenios, Glenns and Rasheeds (In order: Sarah, Jacob, Marcie, Malaya, Lucy, and Raidah)
Messed kid up, not sure where they’ll go from here: Rosenthals (Joe’s parents)
Bad tier – Billingsworth’s (Billie), Roz’s bio dad (apparently she has no relationship with him anymore, so I’d not be shocked if he’s completely dropped out of her life)
Worse tier – Wilcox’s (Danny), Yuri (Faz’s mom – Faz says she’s not nice to him and she’s definitely planning something against her stepdaughter, though I’ll note we’re not sure how much of this is poisoned info from Blaine or a result of his abuse/grooming)
DEAR GOD WHO LET THEM HAVE KIDS tier – Ross, Clint, Blaine (Becky’s dad, Ruth’s (former) legal guardian, and Amber’s dad)
So that’s 9 good dads, 10 good moms, 9 bad dads, 7 bad moms and at least 14 other parents who have yet to be determined (though one of those yet to be determined’s has already messed their kid up).
If we’re taking all parents/guardians together, here’s the numbers.
6 sets have 2 good parents (Mary, Mike, Carla, Dina, Dorothy, Sierra)
5 sets have a mix of good and bad parents (Roz, Joyce, Becky, Ruth, and Amber)
5 sets have 2 bad parents (Walky and Sal, Billie, Danny, Ethan, and Leslie)
7 sets have yet to be determined, although one’s already messed him up even if they aren’t abusive (Joe, Sarah, Jacob, Marcie, Malaya, Lucy, and Raidah).
The only thing I’d quibble with is that I don’t think we know anything about Joe’s mom. Do we even know her name? While we know plenty bad about Richard, so spreading the blame evenly there seems wrong. I’d drop Richard into the bad tier and leave his mom in “Yet to be determined”.
Yeah, I can see the possibility that Joe’s parents did not handle the divorce well and both tried to play him against each other, (that seemed to be what happened in the Walkyverse,) but with his mom as a complete non-entity so far we have no way to tell. (Similar thing with Billie’s mom – it’s entirely possible she’s either indifferent to this whole parenting thing or not capable of having custody somehow, I’m not entirely certain she’s actually still alive, but I could also see Billingsworth Sr. being absolutely terrible and getting full custody with no visitation rights to screw Billie’s mom over. No evidence for this whatsoever, but my expectations for Billingsworth Sr. are in fact that fucking low.)
She was still alive and had custody during Freshman Family Weekend. She’s, to use Billie’s words, occupied ‘doing business on every man known to her’ – i.e. she’s having a ton of affairs and neglects Billie for them. So odds are she’s not great.
Dorothy and Dina’s parents. Also Sierra’s. Mike’s are. Word of Willis is that Mary’s parents are normal, Mary just warped their lessons on her own accord. In a lot of other couples it is one or the other or they haven’t made an appearance but have implications e.g. Carla’s parents are implied to be good.
Joe’s Dad is hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng. Because he is trying to do better but he clearly has a history of being a bad parent as Joe is often very resentful towards him.
Given the effects on Joe and the trauma that cheating and divorces cause, I’d definitely put under bad parenting. It’s not directly abusive to Joe, but it sure as hell isn’t good.
And “trying to do better” is a lot farther then I’d go with Richard. Currently has a crush and no need to “try” since he doesn’t feel like cheating right now, more like it.
And currently in wishful thinking mode that this woman is his salvation and he’ll never have the urge to cheat on her rather than taking any steps to address why monogamy is hard for him or at least tell her up front ‘hey if we want to be serious, you should know I have issues with monogamy, so if that’s a dealbreaker let’s reassess what we are.’ It’s not actually trying to be better when you’re doing the same damn thing without addressing how and why you screwed up or taking any steps to prevent it.
Damn you, capitalism! You are the reason kids starve and decide to take the “easy” path! Also, damn you, racism! You are the reason Marcie got beaten up many times!
Only if the utility function is concave, which implies increasing marginal utility.
If people were rational, and if the utility of gambling and insurance depended solely on the outcomes and not at all on the process, then people with increasing marginal utility (particularly, at consumption levels above current) would gamble and people with diminishing marginal utility (particularly at consumption levels below current) would insure.
You might object to my assuming cardinal utility here, and protest that cardinal utility is not observable. If you did, I would reply that even though they don’t teach this to undergrads or to specialists in fields where it is not relevant, decision-making under uncertainly does reveal cardinal utility defined up to an affine transform. Interpersonal comparisons are still not defensible, but the cardinality of individual utility is equivalent to the consistency or ordinal preference in arbitrary individual units and with an arbitrary individual baseline.
Now, increasing marginal utility has rather nasty distributional implications, so it is fortunate that gambling behaviour is better explained by a combination of misperception of risk and consumption of gambling processes as a valuable entertainment service.
Estimation from insuring behaviours of the rate at which marginal utility declines with consumption is indirect and uncertain, but for what its worth the indications to hand are that individual marginal utility is inversely proportional to consumption and that therefore utility is proportional to the logarithm of consumption. Unfortunately the constants of proportionality are individual, at least as far as we can define them now.
Sooo I was thinking. Sal knows who Ethan is. And she knows that amazigirl has some kind of “hearing you in my nightmares” issue with her. And she probably remembers that ethan wasn’t alone in that shop.
She might be able to put two and two together. Which could make her next meeting with amazigirl really interesting.
The dramatic tension posited in your comment conflicts with Sarah’s world weary image in the icon. Icon-roulette icon is paradoxical. What can one say but, “Oh Fortuna!”
Hopefully, now that she’s had that bit of a revelation, she’ll actually talk to Ethan before seeing Amazi-girl again. OTOH, she’s got no idea there’s a connection between Ethan and Amazi-girl, so it’s still a pretty big leap to make.
Tbh the worst thing about this all is that I expect someone like Linda to have an inkling that if you call a hospital about your bills because they’re too high for you to pay, they’ll be willing to reduce them (especially because they are usually marked up ridiculously high anyway). Which might not fully resolve the problem, but could certainly reduce the size of it by a hell of a lot but she’s instead perfectly willing to let Sal freak out over $65000 she can’t individually raise.
I’d actually expect she probably wouldn’t. She’s likely always had good insurance and has never had to consider the options for what to do if you don’t.
Even if she’s always had good insurance, she likely knows there has to be *something* in place for people that don’t besides literally just dying. If she doesn’t personally know, then she entirely has the ability to look into it or call and ask. She has the ability to do *something* to try to ease her daughter’s worries other than vaguely existing nearby.
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the candy bars I eat seem to have the same return on investment as lottery tickets
(which is to say I’ve somehow reached a stage where they’re all gross and the only joy I get is giving my hubby a Snickers that says “DENIED” on it for some weird-ass marketing reason)
LOOK Alt-Text, I’m a MEAT lady!
Pleased to meat ya. I’ve played the lottery often enough to have won more than a couple of bucks and rarely enough to actually be slightly ahead. The only thing I’ve won from a candy bar has been excess pounds, but I’ve won a lot of those.
You should move to Britain you can put those pounds to work! I hear the exchange rate is weighted in your favor.
Sadly in the US while we use pounds avoirdupois, we primarily accumulate the pounds adipose …
Aha. Ahaha.
(Sheepishly pushes wrappers away with foot)
I, on the other hand, still have half a bag of Fun-Size Butterfingers that I bought for myself LAST Halloween.
Um… Those huge bags of tiny candy bars are for the trick-or-treaters. Yes, even the 300 Dum-Dum pops. YES the white chocolate fun size Kit-Kats too NO I AM NOT EATING THEM ALL MYSELF SHUT UP.
Those are the bane of my existence, because I love Kit-Kats, but the white chocolate ones still have just enough regular chocolate in them to trigger a migraine (or rather, worsen the one I’ve had for…ever).
Even if she could get the ticket and won, she wouldn’t be able to cash it out.
Guess she could give it to Marcie’s parents.
But yeah, not a practical plan in any case.
Sadly, $250. of lottery tickets have a greater chance of making any kind of of impact on Marcy’s problems than $250 does. With a highly non-linear utility function, gambling at bad odds can be rational.
True. Million-to-one odds sound bad until the alternative odds are worse.
That always make me think of all those cop shows that spout off about one in a million would be a match – I always ask – Take the population of the city and divide by a million which gives you anywhere from 4 in LA to 9 in NY. That doesn’t even include the greater metropolitan areas.
Oh and over 7500 worldwide that are suspects due to air travel availability.
Oh god yeah. Not getting math is getting dangerous.
Even very low probability false positives with huge data sets are a serious problem.
Now, if you’re using something like a 1 in a million match as an additional check on someone you already suspect for other reasons, it’s perfectly reasonable. If you’re trolling through millions of people hoping for a match, that’s a problem.
Using facial recognition software at big events to watch for known terrorists is a classic example. Just due to the error rate, you’ll get hundreds of false positives for any real match (assuming there is one.)
So cute, so innocent… 🙁
I feel called-out by the alt-text.
the moment i truly achieved Adulthood was the moment i realized that i both could and could not purchase candy bars all the time
Today was a co-worker’s birthday. I declined cake because I’m trying to eat healthier.
Somewhere inside of me, a ten year old roars with indignation.
Well maybe you shouldn’t have eaten that 10 year old in the first place.
Right? After that, cake is an unnecessary indulgence.
Can you blame him? The ten year old was probably sitting in the breakroom fridge with nobody’s name on the wrapper.
Eeewwwww mystery ten-year-old is the worst kind. Someone could’ve slobbered all over it when they wrapped it up! You don’t know, it might have Zika!
(Side note I’m pretty tired so my internal sense of rationality isn’t telling me if it’s too soon to make a Zika joke or not)
I hope he didn’t reheat it in the microwave, those things stink the whole break room up.
I’d rather eat leftover-from-meetings-yesterday, sitting-out-all-night local delivery pizza.
Always fun working in an office on Friday as a Catholic, eating my cold fish because i’m considerate. Until my co-workers start staring at me.
Zika? You mean the Magna Defender’s son from Power Rangers Lost Galaxy? How would you even eat him, he’s coveted in armor?
Yeah, the LEAST you could do is send that poor kid some cake!
All maturity is Shroedinger’s maturity. And also Shroedinger’s immaturity.
…. I don’t know what the Geiger counter is analogous to, but just roll with it.
Geiger Counter – an art installation of the most disturbing juxtapositions of stainless steel and assorted bits and pieces of Osseus assembled into the form of a stylized establishment for the distribution and consumption of bitters and ales just off of Piccadilly Circus.
Today I bought the household Halloween Fun Size bags. So I not-adulted.
*plays the Florida Lottery version of “Bingo (Was His Name-O)” on the hacked Muzak*
You know, Sal, I’m sure spending a dollar or two on a chocolate bar would cheer Marcie up. I’m pretty sure that counts as helping?
Oh, who am I kidding? Every dime that child finds is going straight into her fundraiser.
And dear god, you can just SEE her parents in the way she’s dressed. No wonder she just meets them in her school uniform. While it might not have helped, her normal clothes will most certainly hurt.
On a lighter note – candy bars = chocolate bars in Canadian, right?
for certain values of “chocolate”, perhaps.
It’s more general. It includes chocolate bars, but it also includes stuff which is nothing at all like chocolate like a peanuts-and-caramel bar or a bar of white chocolate.
Those non-chocolate confections like Eat-More, McIntosh, Turkish Taffy, Mary Jane, Tootsie Roll …. I know I missed some.
Seriously. Oh, Sal, honey…
I am so damn pissed at the Walkertons on her behalf. Even giving her a raise on her allowance and putting a hundred bucks towards the bills so Sal could at least feel she contributed and didn’t have to deliberate on money for a while could have alleviated the guilt. (And THIS is why Charles going ‘I’m sure there’s a surgery to fix it’ and telling Sal how much the ambulance bill was is a bad thing. If he wasn’t willing to actually, substantially HELP, then telling her the Diazes are financially burdened and by how much when she’s blaming herself means she’d put the burden on herself to fix it. And 12-year-olds just can’t raise that kind of money on their own, not on the time frame these debts are on.)
And the clothes, augh. Everything about her appearance screams ‘Sal trying to be the daughter her parents wanted’ and the fact that she never will be because they want a fundamentally different child… FUCK Linda and Charles for that.
While Sal’s parents are pretty bad, is there anything besides head canon that says the 250 already in the go fund me didn’t come from them?
The fact we know them and they really don’t seem like the kind of people who’d donate $250 to someone who, last we saw, Linda didn’t like?
Yeah, no. That’s just bias. Reasonable bias, but still bias.
Alright then – how about because it doesn’t make much sense to not just give it to her parents, where it won’t have to deal with whatever processing fees gofundme has?
Or that, if they were inclined to give money, Sal probably would have said that to Marcie in the hospital?
Or I could be really blunt and just say ‘we have no reason to assume they did other than wishful thinking’ and the fact it’d be inconsistent with what we know of them makes it seem less likely than not?
As I said in another comment, there’s an idea that people will be more likely to chip in for something if they see someone else already has. So in that way, it does make sense. And if they do get to keep that money from the go fund me, then the money can be given to Marcie’s family when Sal decides to give up on it.
And regarding the probability of Sal saying something to Marcie if her parents would have given money, we have no idea how much time passed between the accident and Sal telling Marcie she’ll pay for it. We don’t even know if the bill has been calculated yet at that time.
And I don’t assume they paid into the go fund me. I don’t have a head canon about that one way or another. But I would argue that we don’t have enough information to say giving money or not would be inconsistent. We don’t have any data on how they handle money and there is a difference between not wanting Marcie to hang with Sal vs not helping even a little bit with something Sal feels passionate and guilty about (and might actually be right to feel guilty for all we know).
I don’t believe fundraisers generally let donors keep the money if the payment goes through. And why such a specific amount of money? It wasn’t even a round number, it was $245.07.
She looked like she was in the same clothes, so it was probably the same day, and at the very least she knew how much the ambulance cost. If the Walkertons were inclined to help, I’d think it would have come up at that point.
We’ve never had any inklings they give a damn about what Sal wants or cares about versus a LOT of hints if not outright stating they pretty much ignore Sal when she’s not forcing them to pay attention by acting out. And again, Linda does not seem like the kind of person to give money to someone she does not like and Charles generally seems to go along with Linda. The information we do have does not point towards people who would give money and the information we do have also tells us that if they really cared, there’s a lot more they could have done.
There are people suing over kickstarters that didn’t deliver on their promises and that hasn’t been settled. This go fund me, on the other hand is to pay medical bills. there is absolutely no reason why the donors would be upset unless they knew the money didn’t go towards that. And I sincerely doubt the company is going to say “Well, you didn’t reach 65k, guess we’ll just give all that money back to the donors now without them asking for it.”
An ambulance ride is not 65k. And finding out the bill is higher than you thought can encourage people to contribute because they realize how daunting it is vs thinking it can be handled by Marcie’s parents.
There are fundraising sites that don’t actually send the money over until they’re funded – again, probably to avoid dealing with cancellations and such. And if it didn’t actually manage to fund, I see no reason why the pledges wouldn’t just be cancelled and the money sent back to the donors. They probably wouldn’t let a 12 year old girl keep it.
It was 2K. That’s why I said they knew how much the ambulance was, at the very least. And Charles, at least, knew the Diazes would have trouble affording medical care. If he didn’t say anything to help with a smaller bill that he knew they couldn’t afford, why should I believe he’d offer help with a substantially larger one.
I’m not sure about what I’m about to say here, but I have this vague idea that each transaction would cost cents on the dollar, so voluntarily sending all the money back would cost the company money if that’s the case vs keeping it or sending it to Sal in one transaction.
There’s also the possibility that, like a bank, they can play with the money in the stock market while it’s in their systems. But again, I can’t even pretend to be sure about that.
That’s partially why they don’t fully complete the transaction until the thing’s funded, and why those processing fees often get charged to donors. It seems less likely to me that they’d send money for an unfunded campaign to a 12 year old.
GoFundMe does not require reaching your goal to make donations available: https://www.gofundme.com/questions
The product/project development-centric crowdfunding sites have that requirement (except Indiegogo, where you can run a “flexible funding” campaign which doesn’t require meeting the goal – there’s usually two kinds of projects that run flexible funding: scams that never come to fruition; or established projects that are already done, and are just using Indiegogo as a storefront for preorders).
Fair enough then, although I just checked and Sal’s not legally old enough to set up a gofundme (you have to be 18) so it’s probably been set up by the Diazes.
$245.07 would be kind of an odd amount to have come from one source? Also it would be kind of weird for them to have pledged the money into the GoFundMe rather than giving it directly to her parents or something.
There’s an idea that people will be more likely to chip into something when they see someone else already has.
That’s still an oddly specific amount though.
It doesn’t ALL have to have come from Sal’s parents. We can’t see how many donors there have been, only the amount raised
Though even if they DID donate, $200 seems like the largest probable amount, which is nice of them, but still rather cheap of them when you remember that the Walkertons are pretty well off. It no doubt seems like a huge amount to Sal, but I doubt she knows how much of a non-sacrifice it is for her parents
That’s true, although based on what we know about the Walkertons, I still find it unlikely they’d donate (or at least donate that much).
Because it’s the most nonsensical mixture of contributions made and contributions not-made. I went into this yesterday with BBCC and Regalli and a few others. Short version: With Linda’s contacts, she could have gotten a fundraiser organized and gotten literally a hundreds of times what’s currently in the account without pitching in more than that sum of her own money. Even IF she did put in $200, that’s… pathetic. Not because the money’s a small amount, but because the EFFORT is a small amount.
I’m not asking about whether they could pay more.
I was asking if there was anything that said they didn’t pay “the bare minimum” or “the least they could do”.
Maybe a strip I forgot about or something said on twitter. Something concrete.
And it looks like there’s nothing like that, that it is indeed just head canon.
It’s reasonable head canon, it may in fact be right, but it’s still head canon, at least for the moment.
It’s also no more than head canon to suggest they did, only suggesting they didn’t has far more support based on what we know about them.
Fair enough, I suppose. But it’d be a pretty irrational strategy for them to contribute 250 and offer/do nothing more, and the characters in this comic are all far more sensible than that.
There’s nothing so far indicating they did or ANYTHING, but we know Charles told Sal how much the ambulance cost and that Sal told Marcie she’d pay it back rather than some kind of ‘we’, and that the only money Sal had to offer was allowance with a vague ‘I’ll get more’.
Coupled with no response from Linda whatsoever and Sal feeling all the pressure herself, plus the general dynamic between Sal and the Walkerton parents? The absence of a ‘we’ or ‘my parents said they’ll help’ is in fact evidence of absence here.
After a couple hours thinking about it, I think we’ve been communicating at a cross-purposes here, cbwroses. Some of your comments sounded a lot like people I’ve seen make posts in bad faith to be pedantic/condescending/derail in-universe analysis (usually about character motivation) which generally requires some amount of extrapolating or putting things we know in larger context based on canon information. I think part of that was using the word ‘head canon’ which I generally associate with things without canon basis or in direct opposition to canon. That probably made me impatient and short tempered and for that I do apologize. No, there’s nothing that straight up says they haven’t donated, but we haven’t seen anything indicating they have and based on what we know they’re like, I find it very unlikely.
Ah. I see. I do have a knack for accidentally choosing words that end up bothering people.
No, I was acting in good faith. It is not my desire to work people up or derail the conversation. But apparently, I just seem to come off that way a lot. Not just online, either.
My father once told me it took him 23 years to realize that I wasn’t trying to disrespect him or anger him the times he felt I did growing up.
It’s not your fault. I’ve just seen waaaaaay too much fandom drama lately.
Just wanted to say, thank you for the distinction here. It’s nice to see a side-by-side on given data vs. headcanon.
I’m not knocking speculation. Most fan-related activities involve speculation of some kind. But this was refreshing to read.
Well that’s nice of you. I appreciate it.
Honestly, the head canon is probably right, but I personally think acknowledging it is head canon is important, or at the very least shouldn’t be a big deal to do.
If we can’t do that, then we may be taking the situation too seriously.
Indeed, it’s an important distinction. Headcannons can be dangerous.
In my world, it is ALWAYS “Fuck the Walkerton Parents”O’Clock.
Cursing the various parents of this strip is basically my constant background noise.
(Except Sierra’s parents, who are absolutely perfect much like Sierra. I also think well of the Keeners, Saruyamas, and Stacey, and am cautiously optimistic about Hank and hopeful the Ruttens are Fuck Realism Comic Book Billionaires a la Bruce Wayne who somehow have massive amounts of money while being excellent employers.)
(Remember that episode of BTAS where Batman gets amnesia investigating the disappearance of Gotham’s homeless population, gets taken to a labor camp in the Nearby Gotham Desert run by some Generic Oil Baron-type villain, and after saving the day makes sure they have long term lodging and offers jobs at Waynetech? Wasn’t a particularly great episode all told, but Bruce Wayne actively using his status as Bruce Wayne to help people without beating monsters and the mentally ill up is always a thing I like emphasized in my Batman.)
One of my favourite pages in a Batman comic (I can’t remember the issue, sadly) is when Batman meets someone from the mailroom, asks how their child (I want to say their son?) is doing. They tell him they’re preparing for college and Bruce asks if they’ve considered the Wayne Foundation scholarships – it’s a full ride. His employee gets excited and asks how you qualify. Bruce just says ‘You, uh…work for me.’
I like this Bruce so much more than Darkness No Parents Goddamn Batman.
Seriously the part where he grimly beats up a guy in clown makeup is the least important part of the Batman mythos to me.
Normally I’d say that paying generously for everybody’s kid’s education is probably the single best thing Bruce Wayne can do to lower the crime rate… but then I remember how many of his villains hold advanced degrees.
Clearly, something has gone terribly wrong in Gotham’s education system.
You’d think grad schools would do a better job weeding them out.
Hmm…
Two Face (Law)
Hugo Strange (Psychology)
Harley Quinn (Psychology)*
Mr Freeze (Cryonics)
Poison Ivy (Chemistry and/or Botany)*
Scarecrow (Psychology)
Arkham!Black Mask (Psychology)
Man-Bat (Chemistry and/or Mammalian Biology)*
Prof. Milo (Chemistry)
Certainly others, but we’re getting to the point of one or two appearances…
It is a pretty impressive list…though kind of a drop in the bucket, both for Batman villains and for major educated types in the DCU.
But clearly if someone plans to practice psychology in Gotham, they bear watching.
* Currently mostly on the ‘face’ side of the face/heel turn.
Comic idea: Batfamily members investigating every psychologist in Gotham as civilians under the guise of ‘trying to find one I click with’ and quietly looking for signs they might be evil. I mean, Cass and Damien can’t talk about their real sources of trauma, but everyone else can fill an hour easy without bringing up anything suggesting they’re vigilantes. (Steph would probably have to be careful, but the fact that her father’s a low rent super villain is public record. There’s also Jason… but if he were onboard with this his pre-Robin history is fraught enough to leave the Red Hood stuff off the table. Is it ever addressed how one of Bruce Wayne’s kids was considered legally dead, came back, and is still publicly acknowledged as his kid? That seems complicated to explain without bringing up superheroics.)
Well, in the pre-reboot era, nobody ever publicly acknowledged him as Jason Todd. He was in Arkham as a John Doe and then was moved to a regular prison known only as ‘the Red Hood’ so Batman never had to deal with that.
He was also said to have been killed in a terrorist attack while he was in Africa for charity work.
No idea how they explained it in the new 52.
I’m pretty sure I remember the first arc of New 52 Scott Snyder Batman Jason was sitting with the other Robins and Bruce for a family portrait. I have no idea how that worked with RHATO, but hahaha cohesive continuity in the first months of the New 52.
I’d ask how this conversation got to be about Batman, but really, isn’t every conversation about Batman?
Nah, they’re all about Oracle, we just haven’t been talking long enough.
I thought they were all about Carla.
Carla also thinks so.
I want to grow up to be Oracle.
Barring that, getting to bring her back into mainline DC continuity while rewriting her origin so it isn’t The Killing Joke and all that editorial bullshit would be great. (Even if you want the Joker responsible for it, making Barbara a primary target and not get sexually assaulted would go a long way towards removing the grossness with it. Also going into the story with the explicit outlook of ‘We love Barbara Gordon, but as Oracle she represented so much to disabled readers that removing her from that role left a void in our comics and that was wrong, so we’re doing this respectfully because Barbara and Oracle MATTER’ would help.)
I would also accept them bringing Oracle from the pre-New 52 timeline over but then, y’know, she’d have to be in the reboot verse and I can’t wish that on one of my faves.
Probably most likely, given the continued popularity of New Barbara. I just want SOMETHING. The fact that the 2000s era Batgirl books had this whole thread of a disabled woman being the mentor to two other disabled women (first Cass, then Wendy) and founder of this legacy role, and now that whole relationship is gone… I don’t like it. I don’t like that we lost one of the few disabled heroes who was actually kind of attainable – someone with language acquisition issues probably isn’t going to be a master of body language and martial arts as some cosmic compensation, radar sense and telepathy aren’t real, but a really tech- and information-savvy person could do a lot of great things with those skills and it’s conceivable that someone in Barbara’s position with her contacts COULD become the most powerful member of the Justice League through skills a normal human has, disabled or no. (Lian Harper was right.)
(Hawkeye is probably also pretty attainable, but then he’s also kind of the butt of jokes for his lack of powers.)
I haven’t bought much of the new 52 entirely because Oracle’s gone, you don’t need to sell me on it. I think I have a few issues of RHATO because I love Jason and that’s about it.
And yeah, Babs was great, and it annoys me she’s been reduced back to Batgirl when I would bet money they were never going to make Dick Robin again or something equivalent.
As for Hawkeye…yeah, fair enough. Especially since the movies erased his deafness and there’s no sign of the depression or chronic pain he’s been hinted as having in the comics (“I feel like crap.” “Well, everyone has days like that.” “I ALWAYS feel like crap. This job is like being in the NFL year round.”)
That’s a damn lie. About all we adults eat is in candy bar form cuz we got no time for a real meal.
Is this a convenience store? I can’t tell.
I think so. At first I thought it was a movie theater ticket office but I thinks it’s actually one of those convenience stores with the entire counter surrounded with bulletproof glass.
Hmm ok. We don’t have that here in my country. But I googled it so now i know what it looks like.
It might also just be an outdoor convenience store, we have them here in my area where the junk food/sodas are outside during the day and there is a small booth like we see. At night you have to go to the store it is part of normally to buy anything, generally a grocery store.
I thought it was a movie theater ticket office too, because I’ve never seen a convenience store counter like that in my life. What part of the U.S. has those?
Any part that has a high amount of robberies per capita.
…which actually doesn’t make sense given that we’ve previously established that the Walkertons are pretty well-off. Places with enough robberies to justify this level of protection for the cashiers usually have a high poverty rate. Wealthier places *could* box up their registers like this, but rich people don’t like shopping in places that look like that.
Does Sal routinely walk well out of her way to go to the convenience store? Or is this maybe located near Marcie’s hospital?
Might be closer to where Marcie lives? Evansville’s a big place. Shot in the dark they probably have places that are rougher than others.
Or some other type of store that is like a convenience store?
It’s definitely a convenience store, but is it the convenience store?
It’s a gas station, and the outdoor counter – you can see the air pump to the right of the window. Not sure if it’s a kiosk (it kind of seems to be) or a window on a bigger building (the one near here has that).
That’s not an air pump. That’s an ATM.
This is the store from the robbery. Or at least the same layout.
Man, and Sal was still so innocent at the time too. The last panel almost seems like it could come from Peanuts or Nancy.
Ok, now we have Adorable Sal.
I don’t think I can handle this.
🙁
So does Sal seriously considering buying a candybar make her as bad as Walky possibly joking about getting 4 dollars for a slurpee, or no?
If no, why? Because it’s her money, even though it’s the exact same money that could be going to help Marcie? Or some other reason?
If yes, why? Because as a kid she should somehow have the ability to resist temptation even though literally millions of adults have problems with temptation? Or some other reason?
I’m personally of the idea that neither one is terrible, but i’m interested in seeing the responses and if there are reasonable reasons for the same or different attitudes towards them.
I’m expecting most people not to view Sal as negatively as Walky, but it’s the reasoning behind it, if they give any, that I really hope gets shared.
I think it has more to do with her rationalizing the idea that any money she saves for Marcie is better spent for her rather than spent for herself. So she won’t buy the candy bar not because it makes her terrible, but because she’s worried about saving money for Marcie. Even if in the long run, a candy bar and her allowance will barely make a dent in the funds needed.
Considering this is Sal, and she’s constantly punishing herself for things she feels bad happened (or feels guilty for), I’d bet she WOULD think she’d be awful for spending that money.
That’s a fair point, and considering she feels responsible for all of this even if it isn’t her fault, she would be more likely to blame herself.
Yeah, it’s not so hard to resist temptation when you feel really, really guilty over it. Fuck knows that’s how a lot of people interact with good-tasting food.
Never said it was hard or easy to resist temptation, only that many people have issues with it.
I’m asking about the comment section’s response to two very similar actions by the twins.
But I’m not talking about how Sal would see herself.
I’m talking about how the comment section reacts to her in this scene.
To me, asking about getting money for a slurpee and thinking about buying yourself a candy bar aren’t that different.
But the comment section’s response so far has been significantly different. I’m not surprised at the difference, but I’m not seeing a strong reason WHY there’s a difference.
Fair enough. Misread your first question.
In this case, I think it’s a few things.
A) Sal decides fairly quickly not to spend the money.
B) Even if Walky was joking, it’s an incredibly callous way to treat money earmarked to help someone he knows who got hurt. We already know Sal cares about this and has been working to get money together (as well as giving her own money to Marcie directly).
C) Walky was asking about money in the fundraiser. Sal’s holding what looks like two dollar bills here. I’m not super familiar with American currency, but I seriously doubt it’d add up to $250 and I doubt fundraisers would allow her to take money out before the fundraiser is over (because pledges can and do get cancelled or declined) and after it was over, it was probably set up to go to the Diazes or was given to them not long after. My guess is this is probably allowance money.
Yeah even if that money ended up in paper form (not often with crowdfunding,) pretty much no one carries hundred dollar bills on them. Once you pass $20 notes some stores won’t accept higher denominations and will check them for counterfeit anyway. (They also do that for the $2, which exists but is so rarely seen that a non-zero number of people, cashiers included, just assume they must be fakes.) If Sal somehow had the fundraising money in cash, it would almost certainly have been cashed as smaller denominations at whatever bank they withdrew from.
Thanks for answering. Please allow me to respond.
A. Since Walky never got the money to spend, he never gets a chance to decide not to spend it. So while Sal deserves props for that, it’s an added variable that doesn’t even get to apply to Walky. And that’s assuming Walky was legit asking for money.
B. Why is Walky asking for money callous while Sal literally having money out to spend it not callous? This is a distinction I don’t understand. If you said it was the way he did it, I could see that, but that he did it in the first place just isn’t any better or worse than Sal wanting a kitkat bar here to me.
C. Walky asked about how the fundraiser worked. Then he mentioned what that money could be spent on if it didn’t go to Marcie.
But I sincerely doubt he was asking for four dollars out of the 250.
He was not asking for four dollars from the fundraiser as it would be ridiculous to think she could pull out four dollars from it right that second to give him. So clearly he was was asking about four dollars she might have had on her.
Now, we can see from this strip that she’s been resisting buying herself stuff with her own allowance so that could also go to Marcie, but that is not the same as the money in the go fund me (I believe it’s reasonable to assume that money is allowance and not the cashed out go fund me). So we can say Walky asking for that is still messed up since he should know she was saving it.
But then we have her considering spending it, so we come full circle to them doing two similar thing and getting two significantly different reactions.
A. And? Sal still decides not to spend it, and fairly quickly too. She was distracted in panel one when the salesperson asks her what she wants, at which point she says it’s not worth it.
B. Asking ‘Hey, can I have some of the money earmarked for helping someone I know so I can spend it on soda when I’ve contributed nothing to the fundraiser myself?’ strikes me as callous, yes.
C. Asking for four dollars immediately after suggesting they blow the $250 on snacks if they get to keep it strikes me as him asking for money from that $250 (or rather ‘hey, if we get to keep the money, can I borrow four dollars?’). Especially since in last strip, he already had the thing he wanted $4 for. He didn’t need the $4 for soda right then.
And, again, as your said, she’s resisting buying stuff and decides against it here. Do you really think if she gave him $4 he’d decide Marcie was more important?
A. And it is being put up as part of the reason to support Sal while rag on Walky. It’s like supporting Sal for running into a burning building to save someone while at the same time dogging Walky for not doing it, when he was in fact not even around to do it. It doesn’t take anything away from Sal, but in a comparison to Walky, it’s an unfair variable.
It’s not that he failed to shine in that regard, but that he didn’t even get the chance to shine in that regard. Now you can feel he’d wouldn’t have made the same decision, but that’s not the same as knowing he wouldn’t.
B. You don’t know if Walky contributed or not anymore than you know if Linda and/or Charles contributed or not. That’s head canon bias. Again, you might be right. Hell, you’re probably right, but unless i missed something, you’re still assuming that he didn’t and then viewing him negatively because of your assumption.
C. It seems to me he was clearly asking for four dollars immediately. Otherwise, there’s even less of a reason for Sal to get mad. “Can I get four dollars in the future whenever you give up on this go fund me, but only if you don’t manage to get the 65k you were asking for?” doesn’t really make much sense to me. But I guess we”ll just disagree on that one.
As for would Walky decide to spend the money on Marcie instead? Probably not, but I acknowledge the possibility that he might surprise us.
I don’t like speaking in absolutes and definites, generally speaking, but I’ve seen a lot of that the last day or so, which made me curious about whether those absolutes and definites would change or not after today’s strip and why.
A) Walky did have the chance. He had money for soda/soft drinks/whatever he was drinking yesterday. He could have decided ‘Nah, it’s not worth it’ and given the money to the gofundme instead.
B) We have absolutely no evidence the Walkertons, aside from Sal, have done anything at all for this fundraiser. Since we’ve not gotten any information to the contrary, I’m going with what we’ve seen thus far and we’ve not seen them give anything. So fine, to satisfy your pedantry, ‘not contributed anything so far as we know’.
C) That doesn’t make sense to me. He had the thing he intended to spend money on the moment. He didn’t need to spend another $4 at the time. He also brought it up right after he asked if they could spend the money on snacks if the fundraiser failed, which suggests to me the two are linked. And I’d think that would make Sal angry for several reasons – A) It’s suggesting her fundraiser won’t work (and, subsequently, Marcie won’t get the money she needs), B) He’s asking for fundraiser money, and C) He’s not even thinking about Marcie when he asks.
For me personally, I find that Walky is being callous in that he’s bugging his sister about soda and whatnots when she’s obviously upset.
It doesn’t even have anything to do with what she does afterwards; he’s just in “me me me” mode and can’t be bothered to care for her, comfort her, help out or even, goshdarnit, *notice* her distress.
Absolutely. It’s pretty obvious she’s upset, and while ‘do we know what will happen if it doesn’t fund all the way?’ is a reasonable question (albeit painful for Sal,) following it up with ‘that money could buy a lot of snacks’ is just completely failing to think of her emotions. And he has to at least sort of know Marcie, given how long she and Sal have been friends by this point, so him blowing off the whole thing is doubly callous.
To me, the issue with Walky’s joke/honestly I actually read it as him sincerely asking her for money was that Sal was clearly concerned at the time. Note here that Sal DOESN’T buy it because she feels so guilty (and probably feels guilty about thinking of spending money on Frivolous Things when Marcie Needs Her, which is its own brand of ‘kiddo NO.’)
Walky wasn’t displaying any concern for Marcie at all – hell, he came off as asking ‘if you only get $250 can we spend it on snacks since it won’t cover the bills anyway?’ Walky never mentions Marcie at all. That’s pretty insensitive given she’s Sal’s best friend. Not surprising given Walky and their supremely fucked sibling relationship, but still insensitive as hell.
That said, while Walky was being pretty bratty, the people I really blame for this are the elder Walkertons, for all the reasons outlined yesterday and upthread. This burden should never have fallen on the 12-year-old. The Walkertons have extremely influential contacts who could be convinced to raise this money with a very small amount of PR spin. The Walkertons could help contribute to the ambulance bill and it would almost certainly strain their finances less than it would the Diazes. The Walkertons could, at the very least, spearhead a town fundraiser on Marcie’s behalf and almost certainly raise more than $250 in the process. They are not. And if they aren’t willing to help, then Charles telling Sal exactly how much the ambulance costs contributes nothing to the situation except piling on more guilt for Sal.
If the Diazes had told Sal that information, it wouldn’t be great (again, way more than any 12-year-old can do anything about or emotionally handle,) but at least they would be doing so because their daughter is hurt, they can’t pay for her expenses, and people do not always react well under that stress. (The GoFundMe amount probably did come from them, but without knowing anything about Marcie’s parents but a lot about Sal, my guess is Sal was insisting on helping raise the money and they agreed to the crowdfunding because it can’t hurt and might help the clearly traumatized kid feel less powerless. We also don’t know who set the page up, for that matter – the way Walky phrased things last strip made me think Sal, but it’s at least as likely to be the Diazes and Sal just latched onto it. In which case, being frank about what they need on the page is totally the right call and they’re NOT expecting Sal to shoulder all this.)
But the Walkertons are supposed to be on their daughter’s side. They’re supposed to be looking out for Sal. And part of that is not letting a kid take so much on her shoulders, and keeping her from blaming herself, and telling her the best thing she can do for Marcie isn’t to worry about money or medical treatments, it’s to be there and be her friend and do nice things for each other while she’s going through something tough. They did not do any of this. Charles actively made the situation worse. So yeah, they suck.
All of this, as well, with a small caveat that I think Walky was old enough to know better (although that’s also partially his parents fault for babying him).
He certainly should be. Again, Sal is concerned and guilty about money. Walky doesn’t care whatsoever and almost certainly didn’t put any of his allowance in the fund. I’m pretty sure that even if Sal didn’t blame herself for Marcie’s accident, if it were something completely unrelated, Sal would still worry and want to help and probably go through this exact strip. But she wouldn’t be as desperate and she might not be AS pissed at Walky when he didn’t care.
Since when does Sal actually have to be responsible for her to punish herself with guilt? (Although, in this case, we don’t know how warranted her guilt is).
That is Sal 101. My current theory is that whatever happened, Sal has about as much responsibility for it as the possible Mike with good intentions* had in Amber’s trauma – just enough that as a socially astute person they recognized they contributed, but not enough that their friend would actually blame them, with extra trauma heaped on Sal because she definitely witnessed whatever happened. Frankly though it could be something like ‘they were skating, some jerks bullied them over their skating, Sal fought back and they retaliated on Marcie which they were probably planning anyway.’
But I was thinking something like ‘Marcie has a major, long term illness’ would make it pretty hard for Sal to sustain guilt, and she would still have empathy and concern, so if Sal at her age can worry about whether money should go to a sick friend then Walky should know better too.
* I’m pretty much through ascribing good intentions to Mike, but at the same time… if he really did pressure Blaine to drive hoping they’d hurt each other, that takes him from ‘Thoroughly Awful Person’ in my mind to the same tier of evil as the worst parents. He went to look for dirt on Blaine on a hunch, so if he was calculating enough to think they’d ‘make each other miserable’ he could figure out who had the power there. That’s so awful even Ethan and Amber would dump his toxic ass if they knew he did that, and so I really don’t want it to be true because if it is, Ethan having the fling with Mike goes from ‘Ethan knows he’s terrible and probably has ulterior motives’ to ‘Ethan might not have had sex with him had he known.’ (Though depending on how much Quarterback Friend knew about the scheme with the awful teacher before agreeing to the favor, that’s another fucked up sexual situation Mike had a hand in and… euuuuugh.)
The whole informed consent thing is also why I really hope Amber comes clean before she and Walky sleep together. ‘I stabbed your sister and consider her my nemesis’ is one of those things that should be understood as a potential automatic dealbreaker. So is ‘I ignored your explicit wishes and did something that could get you expelled’ and ‘I can’t guarantee a vigilante won’t wake up in my body with you nearby and I don’t know how she’ll react, but violence is a possibility.’
If it had been something like illness, Sal’d probably still feel guilty about the fact she could still talk when her friend couldn’t. No that’s not rational, but again, since when does Sal actually need to be responsible for the sad thing to feel guilty?
And yeah, with Mike, the mantra ‘hope for the best, prepare for the worst’ is the truest it’s ever been.
Oh yeah. Just harder for it to specifically be ‘my fault, my fault’ kind of guilt.
See, now this is what i’m talking about, Regalli.
You’re issue isn’t with action so much as Walky’s lack of empathy.
You know Sal has empathy for the situation, so you don’t view her action negatively despite the similarity to Walky’s action.
That I can get behind.
Also, just for my own point of clarification, I never said Walky was joking, only that it’s a possibility most people either didn’t consider or didn’t mention amongst all the negativity on yesterday’s strip. I’m not sure either way.
(Also I feel it’s a little unfair to penalize Walky in comparison to Sal when you include her not buying the candy since he never got an opportunity to do the same, but that’s simply the result of what we’ve seen in the two strips.)
He had money yesterday – he blew it on soda (which is what he wanted Sal’s money for). He knew the fundraiser was going on, he could’ve decided not to spend it then.
If Sal has an allowance, we know Walky gets the same amount. (If he got more then it would be much harder for him to believe they were treated equally. Though I could see him getting bonuses for grades that Sal doesn’t or something.) He just spent it all already, which would be in line with the twins’ established spending habits. (And hey, as the sibling who doesn’t save easily, I can understand that. But it means he doesn’t get to hit her up when she’s stressing over this stuff unless she offers first.)
Setting things up so the favorite can “win” and the unfavored is set up to fail is totally a parental favoritism tactic. So when I was a kid, my folks would give cash to my sister when she won at eventing competitions or if she did chores I had to do for free.
I would not be at all surprised at the Walkertons for tying allowance at least partially to grades.
Yeah, I’m guessing Sal has a regular baseline but Walky has ways of getting extra, but we also don’t know what Sal’s grades were actually like. (Or are, math aside.) It’s clear she tries, but Walky has the effortless Gifted Kid thing going on. (Though I’m betting despite Walky being pegged as the Smart One, Sal’s grades now will end up being as good as or better than Walky’s across the board.)
We know Sal has an allowance – she gave it to Marcie at the hospital, but this is a different day, so she may be using another week’s allowance.
I would argue that we saw him with a slurpee/soda, one that’s clearly not home-made, during the previous strip. He obviously bought it/asked the parents for it. Which, fair is fair, he had all the right to do and I really can’t blame him for not thinking about Marcie all the time.
To me, he already had the opportunity to buy candy (in his case, a slurpee/soda) and he took it.
And he doesn’t show any sign of guilt for buying it when he sees Sal’s despair. He actually doubles down and ask her money to buy some more.
Nobody is “penalizing” Walky. Feeling that Walky was being a little shit doesn’t even require one to believe Walky is/was a bad person.
He was being selfish and unempathetic, seeking money that was NOT his to use for his own petty short term desires. Not merely “not his”, but specifically intended for someone else who has a critical NEED for every penny she can get
Sal is not doing the same thing here, but the opposite. She was just about to spend HER money, but feels too guilty spending money on herself that COULD go to help Marcy
The two actions are only superficially similar. Even if Walky wouldn’t have “really” gone through with it, he’s ALREADY acted selfishly simply by asking. Walky was demonstrably putting himself first in an inappropriate situation, while Sal put Marcie first in a situation where it would’ve been totally okay NOT to
In a comparison between two things, to have a variable that applies only to one is not in and of itself an issue.
To have said variable be a pro for that side isn’t necessarily an issue, either.
But, to have it be a pro for one side while at the same time considering it a con for the other side is an issue because it’s an unfair comparison. That would be penalizing the other side for a variable that doesn’t apply to it.
That said, I will agree that him choosing to buy a slurpee could be considered as him not making the same choice Sal does here.
This is absurd nitpicking.
This isn’t a scientific experiment, and given that “how moral / ethical / good / bad is this decision?” isn’t even something that can be objectively quantified, treating the question as if an answer must stand up to scientific rigor is detrimental.
The fact that the two actions we see aren’t EXACTLY the same does not make it unfair to compare them. Nor does not knowing whether Walky would “really” have taken the money and spent it on himself.
Walky asking for the money at all was insensitive, and demonstrated that his reaction to the thought of the fundraiser potentially failing to reach it’s goal to meet Marcie’s very real, important need was not “oh no that’d be terrible for Marcie”, but “oh hey what if that benefited ME”
Sal’s reaction was to start second-guessing decisions to spend HER OWN MONEY on herself, because she no longer even sees it as HERS now. It’s all “money that Marcie needs but doesn’t have yet” to her now.
There ARE factors that differences that should be considered when examining the difference in their responses, such as the fact that Marcie is Sal’s best friend, not Walky’s, and we know Sal feels personally responsible for Marcie getting hurt.
…but those still don’t mean we can’t compare. Those aren’t enough to justify Walky’s behavior, or make Sal’s less admirable.
And to be totally clear, I don’t think Walky is a monster for that. I *like* Walky. But he was being a shit there. It’s not even that his first thought was self-centered (not everyone is naturally selfless and that’s fine) but that he had to act on that selfish impulse either without considering Sal’s feelings or without even examining the thought are all. Thankfully present-day Walky has made an effort to do better on that front, or I probably wouldn’t like him at all
Fart Captor, it’s not that serious.
Tone is sometimes misread in text, especially by me, but it seems like you’re getting heated up and that’s not my intention.
I was merely explaining why I said Walky was being penalized in comparison to Sal.
On top of that I then essentially retracted the idea because I felt the point being made by several people, that Walky already buying a slurpee is a valid comparison to Sal NOT buying the candy, when before I had not looked at it that way.
While you could have been more clear that you were explaining the reasoning behind your earlier comment rather than continuing to argue for it, and I probably have been a more bit irritable lately, I honestly did not intend to sound angry or hostile at all.
I’ll admit that referring to Walky as being “penalized” here did irk me a bit since it sounds like you’re painting him as the victim because he’s being criticized for his behavior towards someone else, but I took that to just be a strange choice of words. If I’d been mad, I would’ve assumed the worse explanation was right instead of simply highlighting how the word didn’t fit well with what you were describing
All I was trying to do was more explain in greater detail why I disagreed with your basis for thinking the comparison was unfair, because your reply made it sound like you completely missed my point.
“He was being selfish and unempathetic, seeking money that was NOT his to use for his own petty short term desires”
this. There’s a big difference between thinking about how to spend your *own* money, and trying to get someone else to just *give* you *their* money. I do not understand how these things look similar to cbwroses.
Of course sal wants candy. Most kids want candy, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s what you *do* with those desires that matters.
Also, even if sal had bought herself a candy bar for once, that still wouldn’t be anything like what walky did. Sal does not have to be a perfect saint who puts every single penny towards Marcie. She can be pissed off at walky’s insensitivity and still ask people to contribute to the fundraiser and still have a frigging candy bar once in a while and that’s okay. Just like it’s okay for someone short on money to have the occasional candy bar or flowers or whatever…. I know I’ve read a good article on the subject, but I’m having trouble finding it right now :/
My first thought is stuff specifically about self care and such for the really broke. Funneling all your money into *Endless, expensive thing you’ll never actually be able to pay off* and living off the bare minimum otherwise will leave you completely drained. Hell, if Sal bought that candy and split it with Marcie, it would probably make her feel way better than that tiny amount of money going to those immense bills. It’s great that Sal is helping all she can, but she can’t pay off $65,000 herself. She can’t fundraise that on her own. But she could be the friend making sure Marcie can do fun stuff while her family’s so strapped for money. (And the Walkertons could be saying ‘don’t worry about the money, we will help you here, you just worry about Marcie.’)
Honestly, with how guilty she feels, I wouldn’t be shocked if even if she bought the chocolate bar, she ended up giving it to Marcie anyways.
I feel like they both need the candy and a nice afternoon doing something fun and not worrying about the financial angle of things for an hour or two. (I hope Marcie’s parents are keeping their financial anxiety out of Marcie’s awareness as much as they can, but it’s a pretty safe bet that luxuries are getting cut down on with a $65,000 bill regardless.)
Are you an English teacher? You sound like an English teacher. Or psychology I guess
Who me? Not a teacher.
I do have a degree in English though, but I haven’t done anything significant with it, yet.
Maybe if I ever finish my novel.
Dang, it hurt seeing where this is going
i work at a convenience store and i do panel 3 every fucking day
I know this feeling! The department store I work at has a not-inconsiderable candy department. Stupid temptation, every dang day.
Oh. . .Aw. . .Poor Sal. This is going to end up breaking my heart in slow mo ain’t it? Driven by desperation to try and help her friend to try and fix what she sees as her fault in the most futile of ways. It’s going to be hard to watch/read ain’t it?
I don’t know, alt text. Seems like iron clad reasoning to me.
The only thing keeping me from going “POOR LIL’ SAL” every day for the rest of this flashback sequence is a desire not to be repetitive/annoying.
… Poor lil’ Sal >.>
Oh Sal, this is both sweet and heart-breaking at the same time. It’s also frustrating knowing that her mother has no idea how wonderful Sal really is. Desperation, anger and fear make monsters out of the best people, and I suspect that is exactly what will happen with Sal soon. I wonder if we will ever see her mom(whose name I have forgotten) realize she was wrong about Sal?
Linda Walkerton, prefix ‘fuck’ or ‘fuck you’. I make sure to remember her name in case I need to tag trawl when people ask whether she’s REALLY that terrible. (Though I don’t bother with the Wilcoxen. Too minor appearances, both pretty much equal in their belittling of their good egg. Charles and Linda and Naomi and Saul – Ethan’s parents – both have different approaches in their awful parenting fails so I can actually keep them distinct as characters in my head.)
That reminds me that someday I should write a comprehensive post about how shitty the Walkertons are.
You should do that, I would be more than happy to read a detailed description of how and why they are such awful parents, and people in general.
And god knows there’s plenty of reasons.
And then maybe we could just link it whenever this conversation comes up. I get annoyed seeing the Keeners compared to Linda with ‘believing in their child too much’ when the Keeners are supporting a dream Dorothy came to independently and Linda’s emotionally abusive and trying to pressure her children into holes they don’t fit.
I swear, nothing makes me see red in the comments like when people defend the Walkertons as ‘not that bad’.
Waldorf: Hey, they ARE not that bad.
Statler: No, they’re WORSE.
Both: OHOHOHOHOHOHOHOH.
I didn’t get the Waldorf part, right off, ….
No, you timed that with precision. It wasn’t until I was half-way through Statler’s comment that it hit me. I almost *note-almost* spewed coffee. I didn’t because you know,… Coffee, the precious. Yesssssss.
Like, the only good thing I can say about them is that they basically adopted Billie. That’s great, Billie needs people who are present in her life.
Buuuut it then becomes ‘Billie is the white-passing daughter they wanted who gets cookies while Sal gets the gift card of apathy’ and I go back to fuck you mode.
Exactly! Event he objectively good shit they do is tainted!
That got me wondering. ARE there any depictions of positive parents in DoA? I mean, technically Mike’s parents are nice, but they ended up with MIKE, sooooo…
The other thing that comes up all the time. Short answer, yes, but they get less screen time since there’s no conflict.
Dorothy’s parents are nice and supportive. Stacy is positive, if traumatized herself and out of her depth with Amber’s problems. Dina’s parents are great, from their few appearances. Sierra’s dad stepped in to confront Blaine, so he gets points. The Rutten’s haven’t appeared on panel, but we’ve heard a bunch about them being incredibly supportive of Carla.
Hank gets an award for Most Improved.
I prefer to live in a world where Hank isn’t improved. That is, he’s always been a good dad, trying to raise his kids happy. Then Joyce showed the Zeal he sees in himself, and changed course so he could continue being a supportive father. (“Never let anyone shame you for this. [Joyce’s Wrist Brace] They are cowards. Lashing out. Afraid of what this injury proves about themselves. They’re more scared than you.”)
I think he always has been a good dad in that sense. For that matter, Carol’s been a good mom, in that sense.
It’s just that their sense of how to raise their kids to be happy is so screwed up.
I think Hank is like Joyce in most ways. His instincts are right, but they’re personal. He’s got good empathy with people once he connects with them, but can’t abstract that out to “the other” he’s been taught to fear. He’s Joyce, if she had never connected with atheists and homosexuals and the other scary, but nice people at college.
Unlike Carol, he’s willing to listen to his daughter and try to change, but he’s still coming from a bad place. He was still the “You know who else was maybe partly Jewish? Hitler!” guy at the start of the comic.
I also tend to think well of Sierra’s parents in general since their daughter is so secure in herself and they apparently supported her in things like her going barefoot since eighth grade. That says a lot about them and all of it is great. Sierra’s distinct lack of drama about being bi and polyamorous suggests she’s known for a while and her parents are on her side, which is fantastic! But means there is absolutely zero drama to be had in them.
Sierra’s, Dina’s, Dorothy’s, Carla’s, off the top of my head. According to Willis, Mary’s parents are apparently also great folks, though that runs up against your “ended up with MIKE” clause, only worse, so.
BBCC can give you an actual list, I think she made one.
Copy-pasted for your viewing pleasure! (and because I don’t want to archive dive for the damn thing every time I need it so I think periodically posting the list when its relevant is helpful)
Top tier – Ruttens and Snowes’ (Carla and Sierra’s parents)
Good tier – Keener’s and Saruyama’s (Dina and Dorothy’s parents)
Good people and good to kid but raised a monster – Warner’s and Bradford’s (Mary and Mike’s)
Good to kids, but not seen much – Roz’s mom and stepdad
Heart in the right place, could use some work – Stacey and Hank (Joyce’s dad and Amber’s mom)
Good but no longer present – Bonnie (Becky’s mom), Ruth’s parents (Note: Clint says Ruth’s dad was a cheater, but I trust him as far as I can spit him – Ruth and Howard both seemed to like him)
Yet to be determined – Clintons, Williams, Diazes, Eugenios, Glenns and Rasheeds (In order: Sarah, Jacob, Marcie, Malaya, Lucy, and Raidah)
Messed kid up, not sure where they’ll go from here: Rosenthals (Joe’s parents)
Bad tier – Billingsworth’s (Billie), Roz’s bio dad (apparently she has no relationship with him anymore, so I’d not be shocked if he’s completely dropped out of her life)
Worse tier – Wilcox’s (Danny), Yuri (Faz’s mom – Faz says she’s not nice to him and she’s definitely planning something against her stepdaughter, though I’ll note we’re not sure how much of this is poisoned info from Blaine or a result of his abuse/grooming)
Toxic tier – Carol, Walkertons, Siegals, Beans (Joyce’s mom, Walky and Sal’s parents, Ethan’s parents, Leslie’s parents)
DEAR GOD WHO LET THEM HAVE KIDS tier – Ross, Clint, Blaine (Becky’s dad, Ruth’s (former) legal guardian, and Amber’s dad)
So that’s 9 good dads, 10 good moms, 9 bad dads, 7 bad moms and at least 14 other parents who have yet to be determined (though one of those yet to be determined’s has already messed their kid up).
If we’re taking all parents/guardians together, here’s the numbers.
6 sets have 2 good parents (Mary, Mike, Carla, Dina, Dorothy, Sierra)
5 sets have a mix of good and bad parents (Roz, Joyce, Becky, Ruth, and Amber)
5 sets have 2 bad parents (Walky and Sal, Billie, Danny, Ethan, and Leslie)
7 sets have yet to be determined, although one’s already messed him up even if they aren’t abusive (Joe, Sarah, Jacob, Marcie, Malaya, Lucy, and Raidah).
The only thing I’d quibble with is that I don’t think we know anything about Joe’s mom. Do we even know her name? While we know plenty bad about Richard, so spreading the blame evenly there seems wrong. I’d drop Richard into the bad tier and leave his mom in “Yet to be determined”.
Some of the things Joe’s said struck me as both his parents messing him up, but that’s probably fair. I’ll fix that next time this post comes up.
Yeah, I can see the possibility that Joe’s parents did not handle the divorce well and both tried to play him against each other, (that seemed to be what happened in the Walkyverse,) but with his mom as a complete non-entity so far we have no way to tell. (Similar thing with Billie’s mom – it’s entirely possible she’s either indifferent to this whole parenting thing or not capable of having custody somehow, I’m not entirely certain she’s actually still alive, but I could also see Billingsworth Sr. being absolutely terrible and getting full custody with no visitation rights to screw Billie’s mom over. No evidence for this whatsoever, but my expectations for Billingsworth Sr. are in fact that fucking low.)
She was still alive and had custody during Freshman Family Weekend. She’s, to use Billie’s words, occupied ‘doing business on every man known to her’ – i.e. she’s having a ton of affairs and neglects Billie for them. So odds are she’s not great.
I completely forget so much of Freshman Family Weekend between the biggest drama bombs.
Understandable, it was a long storyline and a lot went on, and we never actually met Mama Billingsworth.
Just confirms to me I really need to chunk out that time and do a full reread.
Dorothy and Dina’s parents. Also Sierra’s. Mike’s are. Word of Willis is that Mary’s parents are normal, Mary just warped their lessons on her own accord. In a lot of other couples it is one or the other or they haven’t made an appearance but have implications e.g. Carla’s parents are implied to be good.
Joe’s Dad is hnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng. Because he is trying to do better but he clearly has a history of being a bad parent as Joe is often very resentful towards him.
I’m not sure if Joe’s resentment of his father has to do with bad parenting or with cheating (which is not bad parenting but bad partnering).
Given the effects on Joe and the trauma that cheating and divorces cause, I’d definitely put under bad parenting. It’s not directly abusive to Joe, but it sure as hell isn’t good.
And “trying to do better” is a lot farther then I’d go with Richard. Currently has a crush and no need to “try” since he doesn’t feel like cheating right now, more like it.
And currently in wishful thinking mode that this woman is his salvation and he’ll never have the urge to cheat on her rather than taking any steps to address why monogamy is hard for him or at least tell her up front ‘hey if we want to be serious, you should know I have issues with monogamy, so if that’s a dealbreaker let’s reassess what we are.’ It’s not actually trying to be better when you’re doing the same damn thing without addressing how and why you screwed up or taking any steps to prevent it.
T-minus how long until the robbery? She looks a bit younger here and her hair is ironed
No more than a year. She was 12 when Marcie hurt her voice and 13 during the robberies.
Gonna have to really dive into how Sal gets her accent sometime. Feels wierd to read ber without it.
I just figured it came from her living in a Catholic school in Tennessee with folks from all over the south.
Sal’s essentially said as much to Becky: http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-6/01-to-those-whod-ground-me/juvie/
Damn you, capitalism! You are the reason kids starve and decide to take the “easy” path! Also, damn you, racism! You are the reason Marcie got beaten up many times!
I just realized, Marcie’s parents are immigrants, but where are they from? Or has Willis said where they are from yet?
Not yet, all we know is they’re probably not Puerto Rican.
Do we even know Marcie’s last name? I don’t recall.
It’s Diaz.
Poor Sal.
Stop calling me childish, Sal.
…. I mean, yes, I am childish, but it’s rude to point out in that manner.
I know right?
I’m getting called out by a damn 12 year old, I need to get my life together.
Just because some people are technically adults doesn’t mean they’re good at adulting.
Only if the utility function is concave, which implies increasing marginal utility.
If people were rational, and if the utility of gambling and insurance depended solely on the outcomes and not at all on the process, then people with increasing marginal utility (particularly, at consumption levels above current) would gamble and people with diminishing marginal utility (particularly at consumption levels below current) would insure.
You might object to my assuming cardinal utility here, and protest that cardinal utility is not observable. If you did, I would reply that even though they don’t teach this to undergrads or to specialists in fields where it is not relevant, decision-making under uncertainly does reveal cardinal utility defined up to an affine transform. Interpersonal comparisons are still not defensible, but the cardinality of individual utility is equivalent to the consistency or ordinal preference in arbitrary individual units and with an arbitrary individual baseline.
Now, increasing marginal utility has rather nasty distributional implications, so it is fortunate that gambling behaviour is better explained by a combination of misperception of risk and consumption of gambling processes as a valuable entertainment service.
Estimation from insuring behaviours of the rate at which marginal utility declines with consumption is indirect and uncertain, but for what its worth the indications to hand are that individual marginal utility is inversely proportional to consumption and that therefore utility is proportional to the logarithm of consumption. Unfortunately the constants of proportionality are individual, at least as far as we can define them now.
This was supposed to be a replay to Clif.
Dunno about Clif, but I’d need to replay that a few times.
I dunno, Sal. I know adults who subsist on candy and cream-filled confections!
So, I’m guessing what we’re following her is how Sal started on her life of crime?
One person’s crime is another person’s…uh, way to pay for healthcare?
Help me out here, I’m not good at one liners
Oh god, I finally figured out where this is going and the tragedy of it all is just too much.
Sooo I was thinking. Sal knows who Ethan is. And she knows that amazigirl has some kind of “hearing you in my nightmares” issue with her. And she probably remembers that ethan wasn’t alone in that shop.
She might be able to put two and two together. Which could make her next meeting with amazigirl really interesting.
The dramatic tension posited in your comment conflicts with Sarah’s world weary image in the icon. Icon-roulette icon is paradoxical. What can one say but, “Oh Fortuna!”
I’m actually more of a dina person, but I’m kind of scared to switch avatars until I get dina..
Hopefully, now that she’s had that bit of a revelation, she’ll actually talk to Ethan before seeing Amazi-girl again. OTOH, she’s got no idea there’s a connection between Ethan and Amazi-girl, so it’s still a pretty big leap to make.
Tbh the worst thing about this all is that I expect someone like Linda to have an inkling that if you call a hospital about your bills because they’re too high for you to pay, they’ll be willing to reduce them (especially because they are usually marked up ridiculously high anyway). Which might not fully resolve the problem, but could certainly reduce the size of it by a hell of a lot but she’s instead perfectly willing to let Sal freak out over $65000 she can’t individually raise.
I’d actually expect she probably wouldn’t. She’s likely always had good insurance and has never had to consider the options for what to do if you don’t.
Even if she’s always had good insurance, she likely knows there has to be *something* in place for people that don’t besides literally just dying. If she doesn’t personally know, then she entirely has the ability to look into it or call and ask. She has the ability to do *something* to try to ease her daughter’s worries other than vaguely existing nearby.
That would require her to put in the effort to actually *be* a loving mother and not just the effort to *look* like one.
..when money for people you care about starts being so important… i’ve been Sal there..
Aside from everything else…
Young Sal is friggin’ ADORABLE. That’s such a Calvin-in-Calvin-and-Hobbes-face in the last panel.
I know!!! It makes the strips even more upsetting. How DARE she be so cute who gave her the right
And how DARE the world be so cruel to someone so cute?
#NotEntirelyUnproblematicStatementButThereWeGo
Oh Sal…
Oh hey! The spambot spat me out! Amazing.
Willis you’re such a dick sometimes, dude. Really going to gut wrench this arc out of us, huh?
Are you a sadist, mister Willis? Are you?